The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
31-07-2024
Space Debris From Every Angle
Images from the "Fly-around Observation" on July 15 conducted by Astroscale's ADRAS-J demonstration satellite. The idea was to image this space debris. Courtesy Astroscale/JAXA.
Near-Earth space is an orbiting junkyard of space debris. Everything from old rocket parts and pieces of dead satellites to cameras and tools floats in orbit. None of it serves a useful function any longer, but it does threaten other spacecraft. In fact, some missions have been damaged by this orbital debris and the problem will get worse as we launch more missions to space.
So, it makes sense to remove the existing space junk, but how to do that? A company in Japan called Astroscale is working with the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) to figure that out.
On July 15 and 16th, Astroscale maneuvered a demonstration satellite called ADRAS-J into place around its target. Its goal was to do a “Fly-around observation” of a rocket upper stage that launched the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) in 2009. ADRAS-J was launched earlier this year on a trajectory to chase down space debris. The early July portion of the mission saw ADRAS-J fly around the object and get high-quality images of the object. In addition, it took data about the rocket motor’s motion in space (including its orbital parameters) and assessed its condition. The effort was successful and the teams captured great images of the motor from every angle.
More images of the target object of space debris from ADRAS-J on July 16th. Courtesy Astroscale/JAXA.
The maneuvers ADRAS-J made are technically challenging, requiring fine guidance control of the ADRAS-J module. Luckily, the target object was fairly easy to approach and move around. In on-orbit maneuvers like this one, it’s important to control the relative position and attitude of the servicer unit (ADRAS-J). Such control allows it to move around the object and zero in on specific parts for further work. The rocket motor was fairly stable. However, not all bits of space junk are as stable as the rocket motor targeted for this experiment.
Challenges to Working with Space Debris
Given the huge collection of space junk out there, not everything is going to be easy to capture. Future “clean-up efforts” could involve so-called “non-cooperative targets” whose motions are more chaotic, or are dangerous to approach. Those could be very challenging. So, it’s important to have the detailed shape and surface reflectance of the real target object. For most pieces of space junk that information isn’t readily available.
For example, it’s also useful to know the changing visibility of the target object, and the influence of earth-reflected light, which disturbs the navigation sensor (the so-called Earth background problem in non-cooperative relative navigation). These add to the complexity of the mission. That’s because the servicer spacecraft must overcome those challenges for relative navigation while achieving highly accurate relative six-degree-of-freedom control around the target.
The ADRAS-J mission is part of the “Commercial Remove of Debris Demonstration” initiative from JAXA to acquire and test debris removal in space. If it’s successful, that should help clear up space for future missions leaving Earth. Astroscale Japan, Inc. will continue to operate ADRAS-J and will carry out “Astroscale missions” to further test the hardware and maneuvering capabilities.
The next step will be to perform a “Mission termination service”. That involves the transfer of a target piece of space junk to a safe orbit. This will be done in cooperation with JAXA, which has already provided extensive technical advice, testing facilities, and other activities supporting ADRAS-J’s development and operation.
Fly-around images in sequence. Courtesy Astroscale/JAXA.
Why Clean Up Space Junk?
Tens of thousands of artificial objects orbit above Earth. That includes more than 5,000 operating satellites, plus space stations, and Starlinks, and other stuff shot into orbit since the late 1950s. Eventually, as the old adage says, “what goes up must come down.” In fact, some of it does come back to Earth, which also poses a safety issue.
In the case of dead rocket motors and other nonworking pieces of space junk, not only will they come down to Earth, but they get in the way of spacecraft launches. That includes crewed launches carrying astronauts to the space stations, the Moon, and beyond.
The danger isn’t just that a collision will hurt somebody in space or on the ground. Tiny pieces of space junk can knock holes in solar panels and instruments. Bits of dust and paint flecks and other materials literally “sandblast” spacecraft on the way up. Space shuttles showed a lot of this damage. All this space debris began littering our spaceways starting with the first launches in the late 1950s. The materials are tracked by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and their catalogs include details of all the objects including satellites, weapons, fairings, upper stages, cameras, tools, and other pieces of debris from satellites destroyed by collisions and other actions.
It makes sense to clean up the junk that doesn’t fall back to Earth (and hopefully burn up in the atmosphere). That’s why JAXA and other agencies are looking at proactive ways to approach, apprehend, and safely store the debris (or deorbit it to vaporize, if possible). The first steps with ADRAS-J are proofs of concept that should lead to a larger clean-up job and a safer near-Earth environment for future missions.
No Merger Needed: A Rotating Ring of Gas Creates A Hyperluminous Galaxy
This is a distant Hyper Luminous Infrared Galaxy named PJ0116-24. These galaxies experience rapid star formation that astronomers think is triggered by mergers. But this one suggests otherwise. Warm gas is shown in red and cold gas is shown in blue. Image Credit: PJ0116-24
No Merger Needed: A Rotating Ring of Gas Creates A Hyperluminous Galaxy
Some galaxies experience rapid star formation hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the Milky Way. Astronomers think that mergers are behind these special galaxies, which were more abundant in the earlier Universe. But new results suggest no mergers are needed.
These galaxies are called Hyper Luminous Infrared Galaxies (HyLIRGs), and they emit most of their energy in the infrared. New research examined a HyLIRG that’s 10,000 times brighter than the Milky Way in infrared. Instead of a chaotic merger, they found an organized rotating ring of gas that they say is responsible for the galaxy’s abundant star formation.
HyLIRGs are the rarest type of starburst galaxy, and they’re the most extreme type. They’re found only in the distant, ancient Universe. The galaxy is named PJ0116-24 and has a redshift of z=2.125. That redshift value means the light we’re seeing was emitted about 10.5 billion years ago, and the distant galaxy is now about 16 billion light-years away. At that distance, astronomers had to use gravitational lensing to look at the galaxy. That not only magnified the galaxy, it created an Einstein Ring.
This image is a VLT MUSE image of PJ0116-24 distorted into an Einstein Ring by a gravitational lens. The foreground lens is not removed in this image. Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.
The researchers used a pair of telescopes to observe the galaxy. The Very Large Telescope traced the warm gas with its Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) instrument, and the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array traced the cold gas. By combining the observations from both, the astronomers found an organized ring of rotating gas. If a merger had occurred and triggered the galaxy’s abundant star formation, an organized structure like this wouldn’t have been present. Instead, the galaxy’s morphology would be much more chaotic.
The authors write, “A widely accepted scenario is that HyLIRGs are the distant higher-luminosity tail of the local ultra-luminous IR galaxies with extreme starburst activities triggered by major mergers.” Another possibility is that these galaxies are very young and are experiencing their maximum star formation rates associated with youth. The problem is that astronomers haven’t observed enough of them to be certain exactly what’s going on.
This galaxy was identified by the Planck All-Sky Survey to Analyze Gravitationally-lensed Extreme Starbursts project (PASSAGES), which found about 20 HyLIRGs. PJ0116-24 is the brightest one found in the southern sky.
This image from the research shows how the gravitational lensing created an Einstein Ring. It’s a distorted but still scientifically revealing image of the distant HyLIRG PJ0116-24. The gravitational lensing creates two images of the galaxy, with two AGN, labelled A1 and A2. The foreground lens has been removed from the image. Blue to green colours show stars, and red shows the cold gas out of which more stars form. (Note that the Einstein Ring is an artifact of gravitational lensing and is not the gaseous ring that the researchers found. That ring is revealed in velocity maps.) Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.
The authors write, “We found PJ0116-24 to be highly rotationally supported with a richer gaseous substructure than other known HyLIRGs. Our results imply that PJ0116-24 is an intrinsically massive and rare starburst disk probably undergoing secular evolution.” Its star formation rate (SFR) is 1,490 solar masses yr-1.
Simulations predict that the maximum SFR is greater than or equal to 1,000?solar masses yr-1. If these observations are correct, then they show that a galaxy can reach its maximum SFR even if it is alone and hasn’t been involved in a merger.
“Unlike almost all other extreme HyLIRGs, which are major mergers, PJ0116-24 does not obviously have massive companions or disturbed kinematics as evidence for major mergers,” the authors explain in their paper.
These velocity maps clearly show a coherent rotating gaseous ring structure in PJ0116-24. If the galaxy’s rapid SFR were because of a merger, no such orderly structure would be present. Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.
The galaxy also shows much higher metallicity than others in the early Universe. “These diagnostics indicate solar to supersolar metallicity,” the authors write. “This is much higher than in non-starburst galaxies at the same redshifts.”
Amit Vishwas is a postdoc at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences. He’s a co-author of this paper and a previous paper in 2023 that used the JWST to observe another galaxy at an earlier epoch with similar gas conditions and metallicity. PJ0116-24 is about five times more massive and luminous than that one. Vishwas says both of these galaxies are helping astronomers build a better picture of how galaxies evolve.
“In both cases, gravitational lensing helped us zoom in to study the details of the interstellar medium of these galaxies,” Vishwas said in a press release. “I believe these new observations are helping us build an argument for the way galaxies evolve and build up – efficiently converting gas to stars in rapid growth spurts separated by long periods of relative calm.”
“The robust confirmation of PJ0116-24 as the most rotationally supported HyLIRG from this work is key evidence suggesting that secular evolution, that is, without recent major mergers, can be responsible for maximal star formation in the Universe,” the authors conclude in their work.
The origins of the Moon have been the cause of many a scientific debate over the years but more recently we seem to have settled on a consensus. That a Mars-sized object crashed into Earth billions of years ago, with the debris coalescing into the Moon. The newly formed Moon drifted slowly away from Earth over the following eons but a new study suggests some surprising nuances to the accepted model.
According to current theory, the Moon formed around 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after the Solar System’s birth. It began with a massive collision between the early Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet called Theia. The impact sent debris into orbit around the Earth which eventually coalesced to create the Moon. There is plenty of evidence to support this theory chiefly the composition of Earth’s mantle and lunar rocks.
Artist’s impression of the early Solar System, where collision between particles in an accretion disc led to the formation of planetesimals and eventually planets. Those early particles brought primitive minerals to each world. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The majority of the debris cloud settled back down on the Earth, a large proportion formed the Moon but some of it was ejected from the Earth-Moon system. In the paper recently authored by Stephen Lepp and his team from the University of Nevada they explored the dynamics of the material ejected from the impact.
Shortly after the Moon formed it was orbiting Earth at a distance about 5% of its current value (average distance – 384,400km) but slowly, due to tidal effects between Earth and Moon it drifted away to its current altitude. Its surface was largely molten magma which gradually cooled and solidified forming the familiar crust, mantle and core that we see today. Heavy bombardment scarred the lunar surface with impact basins and craters and volcanic activity led to the slow formation of the lunar maria.
The orbit of the Moon around the Earth has settled into a slightly elliptical one with an eccentricity of 0.0549. It is not a perfect circle and moves from 364,397km to 406,731km from Earth. The system wasn’t so stable in the early days of the Earth-Moon system and the particles in the accreting Moon had more erratic journeys.
The Moon on August 24, 2023, with the eQuinox 2 telescope by Unistellar. Credit: Nancy Atkinson.
One of the terms that describes evolving orbits is nodal precession (where the orbital intersections slowly move around the orbit). There are two types and the first relates to where particles in an orbit slowly precess about the angular momentum vector of the Earth-Moon system. The other occurs around highly eccentric binary systems when the inclination of the orbiting object is large. The particle precesses about the binary eccentricity vector. Taking into account the Earth and orbits of particles in the debris cloud as the Moon started to form, such orbits described would be unstable.
The team showed that of all the possible orbits of particles, those in polar orbits were the most stable. They went further and showed that they existed around the Earth-Moon binary system after the Moon formed. As the separation of the Earth and Moon slowly increased through tidal interactions the region of space where polar orbits could exist decreased. Today, with the Moon at its current distance from Earth, there are no stable polar orbits since the nodal precession driven by the Sun is dominant
The team conclude that the presence of polar orbiting material can drive eccentricity growth of a binary system like the Earth and Moon. If a significant amount of material found its way into a polar orbit then the eccentricity of the Earth-Moon system would have increased.
I have always found Mariana’s Trench fascinating, it’s like an alien world right on our doorstep. Any visitor to the oceans or seas of our planet will hopefully get to see fish flitting around and whilst they can survive in this alien underwater world they still need oxygen to survive. Breathing in oxygen is a familiar experience to us, we inflate our lungs and suck air into them to keep us topped up with life giving oxygen. Fish are different, they get their oxygen as water flows over their gills. Water is full of oxygen which at the surface comes from the atmosphere or plants. But deep down, thousands of meters beneath the surface, it is not so easy. Now a team of scientists think that potato-sized chunks of metal called nodules act like natural batteries, interacting with the water and putting oxygen into the deep water of the ocean.
Thanks to robotic underwater explorers the sight of life teeming around thermal vents on the bottom of the deep ocean is not unusual. At those depths, no sunlight can penetrate to facilitate photosynthesis in plants. Somehow though, oxygen is present in the dark, deep regions of the ocean and its the rocks that a team of scientists led by Andrew Sweetman have been exploring.
A Three-dimensional cross-section of the hydrothermal system in the Chicxulub impact crater and its seafloor vents. The system has the potential for harboring microbial life. Illustration by Victor O. Leshyk for the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
The production of oxygen by plants is well understood. Light is captured by a pigment known as chlorophyll where it is then converted into chemical energy and stored in the glucose. During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide from air and water from soil are combined in a series of chemical reactions to produce glucose and oxygen that we use to breathe. This oxygen from the plants plays a role in maintaining levels in the atmosphere and the oceans and seas. The study challenges this somewhat simplified explanation.
The team focussed on measuring how much oxygen was being consumed by organisms in the depths of the ocean. Water sampled from the deep showed a surprising rise in oxygen levels instead of an anticipated decline. The study was repeated a few years later from the same location in a study commissioned by a mining company. Again they saw a rise in oxygen levels. Clearly something in the deep ocean was creating oxygen, but what?
Lab tests ruled out the possibility of microbes but the region being studied was peppered with lumps of rock known as polymetallic nodules. The nodules are known to form when manganese and cobalt precipitate out of water and form around shells. The nodules where theorised to be the source of the oxygen but the mechanism was not understood.
The answer came when Sweetman heard a reporter calling the nodules ‘a battery in a rock’. Putting batteries in saltwater results in bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen which is the result of a process known as electrolysis. The team measured the voltage on the nodules and found just one of them to be 0.95 volts – a little lower than the required 1.5 volts for saltwater driven electrolysis but the team were onto something, suspecting multiple rocks could cluster together to increase voltage.
The discovery of rocks on the bottom of the ocean generating oxygen is fascinating on its own but it has profound impacts on the search for life elsewhere in the universe. We have already discovered ice covered water worlds among the moons around some of the outer planets. It’s likely there will be others in planetary systems around other stars. If these worlds are common then it is quite likely that oxygen is being released through electrolysis from similar metallic nodules and perhaps, supporting entire ecosystems.
The Shocking Decline in Human Cranial Capacity: How do Evolutionists Explain it? They Don’t!
The Shocking Decline in Human Cranial Capacity: How do Evolutionists Explain it? They Don’t!
Bibhu Dev Misra
One of the stories that most of us have grown up hearing is that the human species is continuously evolving to higher levels of intellect, through a gradual process of evolution by natural selection. It has been drilled into us that the modern human species i.e. Homo sapiens, has evolved over millions of years from ape-like ancestors. The fundamental physical factor that drove the process of evolution was the increase in brain volume or cranial capacity, which, over time, led to a slew of innovations such as fire, tools, weapons, clothes, boats, shelter, burials, rock art, music, language, etc. The cranial capacity is regarded as the most important indicator of IQ, since many studies using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the brain in individuals who were tested for IQ, found significant correlations between the size of cerebral structures and measures of intelligence.
Now, if this story were true, then even in the modern day we should have found that our cranial capacities are gradually increasing over time. Instead, dozens of elaborate studies have revealed the exact opposite! The human brain has been consistently shrinking in volume over the past 12,000-odd years, since the end of the last Ice Age. We are dumber today than any time before in the Holocene era!
In one of the early studies titled, “Decrease of Human Skull Size in the Holocene”, published in the Human Biology journal in 1988, scientists computed cranial capacity (CC) for nearly 9500 male crania and 3300 female crania, originating from Europe and North Africa. The study found,
“Among male samples the peak CC (cranial capacity) occurred in the Mesolithic (1593 cc), the lowest value falls in modern times (1436 cc); in females sample timing is the same: Mesolithic maximum of 1502 cc and modern minimum of 1241 cc. For both males and females the decrease through time is smooth, statistically significant and inversely exponential. A decrease of 157 cc (9.9 % of the larger value) in males and of 261 cc (17.4 %) in females is a considerable one, of the order of magnitude comparable to the difference between averages for H. Erectus and H. Sapiens.”[1]
Separate studies conducted on large samples from Europe, the Near East, Africa, Japan and Australia have confirmed this general trend. Human cranial capacity has decreased by approx. 10% of its average value (i.e. 100-150 cc) since the Late Pleistocene until the early 20th century.[2]
If evolution by natural selection is consistently making us smarter then why did we lose such a large chunk of brain volume at a time when, supposedly, for the first time, humans transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled, agricultural communities that allowed the first great civilizations of the world to flourish?
One of the first recognizable members of the genus Homo is called Homo erectus (meaning “upright man”), whose earliest appearance in the fossil records occurred around 2 million years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have been the earliest human ancestor capable of using fires, hunting and gathering in coordinated groups, caring for injured or sick group members, seafaring, and possibly art-making. The difference between the average cranial volume of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is roughly the same as the amount of cranial volume that has been lost in the past 12,000 years in the Holocene period.
Allow that to sink in. In just 12,000 years, we have lost the same amount of intelligence that, purportedly, took nearly 2 million years to develop! How does that happen? And why has the cranial volume been declining at a time when the most significant advancements in human civilization supposedly took place?
Clearly, something is amiss here. The data does not lie. Certain unfounded assumptions appears to have been made about human evolution and the origins of civilization that does not accord with the precipitous decline in human cranial capacity during the Holocene period. One of the thoughts that struck my mind when I came across this stunning data is, how do evolutionists and anthropologists explain it?
I had a hard time finding a well-written paper or article on this topic until I came across this piece in the Discover Magazine titled, “If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?”[3], in which, science writer Kathleen McAuliffe, tells us that she was utterly dismayed when anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin told her that, over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cc to 1350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa - everywhere we look,” Hawks informed her.
When Kathleen contacted other experts to find out if they knew about the shrinking human brain, she came to a startling realization. It was a closely guarded secret. “Only a tight-knit circle of paleontologists seem to be in on the secret, and even they seem a bit muddled about the matter,” she wrote to her utter surprise.
One of the experts she consulted was Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Stringer told her something quite stunning: “Scientists haven’t given the matter the attention it deserves. Many ignore it or consider it an insignificant detail”. I could hardly believe this. This absolutely jaw-dropping piece of scientific data, which turns the Darwinian theory of gradual evolution by natural selection on its head, is treated by some scientists as an “insignificant detail”. What really is significant then? How the Homo erectus learned to pick his nose?
Besides, why is there so much secrecy around this information? Why is it that only a “tight-knit circle of paleontologists” knows about this, and everyone else seems to be in the dark? Isn’t it the duty of scientists, academia and the media to widely disseminate this kind of shocking information and invite debates and discussions over it?
The truth is that, and many have written about it, scientists and academics do not earn any brownie points by ruffling the calm surface of “Lake Consensus”, as John Anthony West put it. There is a strong tendency to adhere to the status quo, and very often, errant academics who do not toe the official line, are put in their place by being denied grants, positions and other academic privileges. As a result, even if grave anomalies are observed in a theory that has achieved consensus, they are ignored or quietly filed away from the public eye. This kind of knowledge filtering goes on continuously, and what we know as the truth is simply a “consensus”, and nothing more.
Kathleen went on to write that, some scientists have tried to explain why our brains are shrinking, but their explanations are vague, muddled and inconsistent. According to Christopher Stringer, the reduction in cranial volume may be due to the decline in human stature since the Holocene period, since a larger brain is required to control a bigger body mass. However, John Hawks has contested this, claiming that the brain has shrunk much faster than the body. “For a brain as small as that found in the average European male today, the body would have to shrink to the size of a pygmy”, Hawks said. Besides, the scientific data indicates that human height declined till the end of the Bronze Age, after which it has been steadily increasing. But, brain volume has continued to decline till the modern period. This means there cannot be any cause-effect relationship between body size and brain size.
Cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri believes that people actually became dumber in the Holocene period. According to him, as population density increased and complex societies emerged, people did not have to be as smart to survive; they could get by with the help of others. This created the selection pressure for the brain to become smaller. However, historical facts do not support his contention. It is only around c. 5000 BCE in the Eastern Mediterranean that we see a jump in population densities, followed by the emergence of complex Bronze Age societies. In many other parts of the world, complex societies arose even later than that. By that time, there had already been a substantial reduction in cranial volume. What this implies is that, only after humans became substantially stupid they began to form large, complex societies, and, as a result, some people were able to get by without possessing any specific skill or sufficient gray matter.
John Hawks put a different twist on the situation. He believes that humans may be getting smarter due to a re-wiring of the brain. The brain is an energy guzzler; it consumes nearly 20 percent of our calorie intake. A bigger brain uses up more energy. So, optimally, we need a brain that packs the most intelligence for the least energy. Hawks believes that, over the past 10,000 years, due to a series of advantageous brain-related mutations, the neural connections of the brain may have become streamlined and the molecular activity at the synapses improved, thereby making us more intelligent than our Paleolithic ancestors, even though we have smaller brains.
So, what Hawks is essentially saying is that, after moving in the wrong direction for nearly 2 million years, turning itself into an energy-guzzling SUV, the brain went through a sudden awakening at the end of the last Ice Age and decided to change course and transform itself into a Tesla. Hawks himself admits that such a course correction would require a large number of very rare, beneficial mutations, the chances of which are extremely slim. The fact is that random new mutations are more likely to reduce than to raise intelligence. A course correction for the human brain after 2 million years of evolution in the wrong direction, due to the sudden appearance of extremely rare beneficial mutations, is wishful thinking at best.
Besides, there is no tangible evidence that the neural connections in the brain suddenly became more efficient after the onset of the Holocene Period. Nor is it likely that any such evidence will ever be found since brain tissue is not preserved for such long periods of time. If they were, we might have found that even the neural connections have degraded!
The truth is very simple. Our declining cranial capacity indicates that we have been getting dumber over the course of the past 12,000 years. Our memories have declined substantially compared to our ancestors who could remember massive volumes of data, and transmit them orally to the next generation. Our powers of judgment and discrimination have declined because of which we cannot distinguish between the truth and lies, or discern what truly serves our welfare as opposed to what takes us down the path of misery. Our ethics and morality have nosedived, along with all the subtle abilities of the brain that we possessed in the bygone ages such as intuition, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.
Unfortunately, most people have been brought up to believe otherwise. They think that we are the smartest generation of people that ever lived since that is the idea that is pushed down their throats from an early age. The problem is, once people have been indoctrinated with a specific belief or ideology, no amount of evidence is enough to overturn that. The hardest things to get rid of are deeply held biases, and scientists are no exceptions to this.
Although the decline in cranial capacity during the Holocene period is at odds with Darwinian evolution, it is perfectly aligned with the doctrine of the Yuga Cycle or Great Year. The last 12,000 years comprise the descending arc of the Yuga Cycle, when human consciousness, memory and intelligence are supposed be in a state of continuous degradation. In the Mahabharata, the sage Markandeya told Yudhisthira, “Know, O Yudhisthira, that the period of life, the energy, intellect and the physical strength of men decrease in every Yuga!”[4] These statements, which have been generally brushed away as fanciful notions, are amply borne out by the scientific data collected over the past few decades.
Since we are now approaching the end of the Kali Yuga, the shrinking of the human brain has already started tapering off in some populations. We can expect that, once we come out of the Kali Yuga, our cranial capacity will again start increasing gradually and attain their peak value in the next Golden Age or Satya Yuga, after another 12,000 years evolution along the ascending arc of the Yuga Cycle.
So, what does all of this mean for human evolution? It means that the sinusoidal fluctuation in cranial volume, height and lifespan has been going on for millions of years, ever since man first appeared on the earth. Over a period of roughly 25,800 years, the cranial volume goes up and down with a 10% - 15% fluctuation in its value.
Contrary to oft-repeated claims, there has not been a gradual increase in cranial volume over the past 2 million years. That is an assumption and not a fact. We have found less than 200 pre-Holocene hominin skulls. 200 skulls in a span of 2 million years! How can such a scanty collection of pre-Holocene crania reveal the pattern of human evolution? A regression line was fitted through these data points assuming that cranial volume must have increased linearly. That is an unacceptable assumption. Any kind of curve can be drawn through a scatter of 200 data points over a 2 million-year time period. There are hundreds of thousands of years in the graph without a single data point!
On the other hand, tens of thousands of Holocene crania have been found, and that data indicates that cranial volume has been decreasing over the past 12,000 years and gradually flattening out. Surely, the true nature of the cranial capacity curve will be revealed where the data density is the highest.
The only sensible conclusion to be drawn from this is that human cranial capacity fluctuates in a sinusoidal manner over a 25,800-year cycle. I propose that all the available Homo sapiens cranial specimens can be plotted on this sinusoidal curve. Since I do not have access to a well-dated set of human skulls I cannot test it out myself. But, there is a well-known set of cranial specimens belonging to the Cro-Magnon, which supports this argument.
The Cro-Magnons were one of the earliest examples of modern Homo sapiens in Western Europe. Cro-Magnons were taller than modern humans, had more robust bones, with a cranial capacity of around 1600 cc, which is comparable to the peak cranial capacity of the Mesolithic period.[5] Their fossils have been found between 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, which straddles the peak of an earlier Golden Age at around 38,676 BP (Before Present) or 36,676 BCE.
The cranial volume of Homo sapiens fluctuates over a 25,800-year Yuga Cycle. Credit: Bibhu Dev Misra.
This can be easily calculated from the Yuga Cycle timeline. The peak of the last Golden Age was reached around 10,876 BCE, and we need to add 25,800 years to get the previous peak i.e. 36,676 BCE. This means that the Cro-Magnons lived in an earlier Golden Age and some part of the descending Yuga Cycle. This is why, their morphology and cranial capacities are larger than that of modern humans and comparable to the peak cranial capacities of the Mesolithic period i.e. the most recent Golden Age.
Skull and lower jaw of Cro-Magnon, exhibited at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Credit: Thilo Parg, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsForensic facial reconstruction of a Cro-Magnon man, using a cast of skull. Credit: Cicero Moraes, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
What this means is that, over the past 2 million years, since the first hominin fossils began to appear, our cranial volume has been oscillating over a 25,800-year cycle, without a net increase or decrease in any direction. This is true not only for Homo sapiens crania but is likely to be equally applicable to all the extinct members of the human family, including the Neanderthals and Homo erectus.
For instance, the Neanderthals had a bigger skull than modern humans with an average cranial capacity of around 1500 cc, which is comparable to the cranial volume of humans who lived at the end of the last Ice Age. However, even Neanderthal skull capacities vary between 1300 to 1600 cc, and it is quite possible that this variation occurs in tandem with the 25,800-year precession cycle. No one has tested for this till now, but if we plot out the available Neanderthal skulls on this curve, we may be taken by surprise.
Comparison of Modern Human and Neanderthal skulls from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The Neanderthal skull is the one on the right. Credit: hairymuseummatt CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
However, cranial specimens need to be accurately dated before plotting on the 25,800-year sinusoidal curve, because even a small percentage error in dating can make things go haywire. The difference between the peaks and troughs of the curve is only 12,900 years, which is very small in geological terms. Ideally, the hominin cranial specimens which have been discovered in the past 100,000 to 200,000 years should be used for plotting this curve, so that the error in dating is not very significant.
In case you are wondering what could be responsible for the decline in our cranial capacity during the Holocene period, certain studies indicate that genetics is the main driving factor. Over the past 12,000 years, we have been acquiring harmful gene mutations, and passing them on to our children, leading to the gradual degeneration of the human race. In a couple of papers published in the journal Trends in Genetics (2012), Professor Gerald Crabtree of Stanford University showed that, as a species, we are gradually declining in average intellect because we are accumulating mutations that deleteriously affect brain development or function.[6]
Professor John Sanford of Cornell University firmly believes that the human race is devolving and that there is no evidence of human evolution being directed by the forces of natural selection. In the book Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome (2008), he argued that the minimal rate of human mutation is estimated to be 100 new mutations per generation. While most mutations do not have any effect, some of them are deleterious. This causes a genetic degradation that leads to the gradual extinction of a species through time. In an interview with Jim Cantelon, he explained the new findings in the field of genetics:
“It’s kind of a trade secret amongst population geneticists - any really well-informed population geneticist understands that man is degenerating…what’s happening is that, every gene in every chromosome of every cell in my body is mutating, and so that guarantees my aging and my death. But the problem is that - these mutations that are accumulating in my body - some of them are transmitted to my children. I take all the mutations that I inherited from my ancestors – tens of thousands of deleterious mutations in my body – and I add my own contribution to that – about 100 new mutations at least – and pass it on to the next generation…It means we are a perishing people living in a dying world…there is no circle of life where things just continue staying the same, and it’s not an upward spiral of evolution where things keep getting better and better, it is a downward spiral.”[7]
A downward spiral indeed! In other words, the descending arc of the Yuga Cycle or Great Year in which human intellect gradually declines. The wisdom of the ancients is now being validated by different scientific disciplines. But why is there so much secrecy?
John Sanford said that the degeneration of man is a “trade secret amongst population geneticists”, while Kathleen McAuliffe had noted that the phenomenon of the shrinking human brain is a secret known to “only a tight-knit circle of paleontologists.” Why is this knowledge being concealed from the people at large? Why not just come out and say, “It's confirmed guys. We are idiots, and we are getting dumber, and that’s why we are messing up the world.” Is that too much to ask?
I believe that John Sanford’s statement that we are “a perishing people in a dying world” is a bit too pessimistic, for it seems to imply that there is no hope for the world. That is not exactly true. Had the deterioration of the human brain been going on ceaselessly for the past 2 million years, then we would have transformed into chimps by now. Or become extinct. But we didn’t, right? This means that the process of degeneration is not unidirectional, but reverses itself at periodic intervals. Humanity is not headed towards extinction but towards transformation.
At some point after the completion of the Kali Yuga, the harmful genetic mutations will get replaced by beneficial genetic mutations, which will then keep on accumulating and drive the upward spiral of evolution till the next Golden Age. This is how the Cycle of the Ages operate, and it is a shame that this essential wisdom has been discarded by the modern civilization. But, then, this is exactly what happens in the Kali Yuga, the age of ignorance and darkness, when, in spite of having so many advanced technologies, humanity remains completely oblivious of its origins and purpose.
One might naturally wonder what could be causing the harmful and beneficial genetic mutations to fluctuate over a 25,800-year cycle. Could the radiation from some powerful cosmic source be driving this phenomenon? The answer is yes, and I have explored this idea in my book Yuga Shift, and I shall write about it in future articles.
'UFO' spotted over Ibiza after tourists notice white 'orb' floating in the sky
'UFO' spotted over Ibiza after tourists notice white 'orb' floating in the sky
A group of tourists were peacefully watching the sunset when a strange white 'orb' floated into their field of vision. In a matter of seconds, the strange entity vanishes, leaving some people convinced it's a 'UFO'
When jetting off to sunny Ibiza, UFOs are probably the last thing on your mind.
Yet, one group oftourists believe they spotted exactly this while soaking up a stunning sunset by the sea - and it's left the internet utterly baffled. Now a clip of the mysterious aerial entity came to light onPubity'sInstagram.
The UFO was spotted in Ibiza, Spain.
It captures a crowd relaxed on a cliff, before one woman suddenly runs to the edge. The air is then thick with gasps, yells and confused questions as all eyes lock on to something next to the moon.
Eagle-eyed viewers will clock a white blob, slightly out of focus, floating in the sky. But just as the lens zooms in, it shoots off and vanishes.
Unsurprisingly, this strange footage racked up countless comments online, with many viewers dishing out their own theories on what this might be. Unconvinced by the sighting, one person said: "It’s probably just a drone," as another sceptic joked: "Bro that UFO took a pill in Ibiza."
Meanwhile, someone else quipped: "They saw the bottled water prices n zoomed," while one more scoffed: "Ohhh yes because every video starts with 'hey I’m going to run towards the edge and scream look look look' nice try."
According to the Majorca Bulletin, this isn't the first time a UFO has been spotted in the region. Incredibly, Sóller - a town in neighbouring Mallorca - was allegedly a hotspot for UFO sightings in the 1970s to 1990s.
The Ibiza sighting also comes less than a year after US Congress passed legislation that demands its government to disclose some UFO records, under certain conditions.
Maria Calafat, who is reportedly working on a UFO-based project for Netflix, believes this alone is motivating more people to come forward with their own personal experiences.
She told the Majorca publication: "The recent declassification of thousands of UFO files by US Congress, has made these cases fashionable again."
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below...
A mysterious UFO above a town in the United Kingdom was recently captured on camera and the object appeared to change shape as it moved through the sky.
The UFO was spotted by a resident of Bellshill in Lanarkshire on Friday, July 26.
“The skies have been beautiful lately with bright colours and when I heard the helicopter for the third time that day, I did look up and i caught a glimpse out the corner of my eye of it,” the witness told Glasgow Live.
“It was the way it was moving that made me want a closer look. I just thought it was strange and reminded me of something out of Harry Potter the closer it got.
“Even at one point it did look like a giant chicken, but still dark even when it passed over my house.”
Meanwhile in Brazil, another UFO was spotted and caught on video less than a week prior to the one in the United Kingdom.
The witness, Zona Desconhecida, said he was leaving a bakery when he saw a mysterious object hovering in the sky above Curitiba and captured what some are calling “The clearest video of a UFO ever taken.”
Not everyone is buying it, but many people on Reddit and YouTube were.
“Creepy as hell,” one viewer wrote. “I don’t think this is a balloon or drone look close that s—‘s like moving like there’s little legs on the sides moving and the eye or whatever also moves.”
“Amazing zoom on that camera, and a strong case for a UFO,” read another comment. “Without it taking off and showing speed, it’s hard for me to say for sure. But still, great submission.”
“When it finally comes into focus at the end, it just looks like smooth, uniformly shaped thing,” another person tried to explain. “The ‘landing gear’ and the light colored features on the side I think were just artifacts of it being out of focus.”
“Looks like the exact same thing that hovered over Bogota,” someone else wrote.
History is gearing up for the premiere of their new UFO reality show Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation. It airs this Friday, May 31 after Ancient Aliens. The show has already generated a ton of press, and the show cast members were key in influencing the Navy to take a closer look at UFO reports, as reported in Politico by Unidentified cast member Bryan Bender.
Bender’s article, and a new article in the New York Times that includes witness testimony from Navy pilots, has hit the media by storm. Now, in the middle of the media fervor, History has released these clips of interviews with some of those pilots.
CLIP 1 – Former Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves recalls his experience encountering UFOs while on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
CLIP 2– Former Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves and Navy pilot Lt. Danny Aucoin discuss their experiences encountering UFOs while on active duty with the Navy.
CLIP 3 – Former Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves makes the shocking claim that multiple unidentified crafts appeared in the Middle East over the Arabian Gulf, while the carrier strike group was launching air strikes in Syria.
Promos
Visit the History channel website for Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigationhere.
NASA Made a World-Shaking Discovery: Compelling Evidence of Past Life on Mars
NASA Made a World-Shaking Discovery: Compelling Evidence of Past Life on Mars
Story by Darren Orf
In its ancient past, Mars likely contained many of the necessarily ingredients for microbial life to flourish on its surface.
Now, a new discovery by NASA’s Perseverance rover shows a trifecta of compelling evidence—including the presence of water, organic compounds, and a chemical energy source—all on one rock located in the Jezero Crater.
Although this is the best clue yet that microbial life existed on Mars, there are still other explanations that could explain this geologic display without the existence of microbes.
“Is there life on Mars” is a question that has vexed astrobiologists and David Bowie alike. While the latter imagined some macabre collection of arachnids on the Red Planet, NASA scientists are fixated on finding evidence that microbial life once flourished on the fourth rock from the Sun. So fixated, in fact, that the space agency has spent more than $5 billion getting two immensely complicated robotic rovers—Curiosity and Perseverance—onto the Martian surface with this specific microbial mission in mind.
Now, one of those rovers might’ve discovered one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for Martian microbial life. Located on an arrowhead-shaped, three-foot-long rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in the Jezero Crater (the 28-mile-wide crater that Perseverance has called home for the past three years), this “piece of evidence” is actually a trifecta of data points that suggest the presence of past microbial life. The rock in question features two vertical veins of calcium sulfate that likely formed from past water, and these stripes both flank a red band of rock filled with “leopard spots.”
NASA has discovered evidence of past water on Mars before, but it’s this narrow band of rock that brings new meaning to this discovery. Using its SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) and PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry) instruments, Perseverance determined the existence of organic compounds within the rock. Oh, and those “leopard spots?” Those likely indicate chemical reactions that could’ve supplied energy to ancient microbial Martians.
While each of these discoveries—the presence of water, organic compounds, and chemical reactions—would be notable even if discovered separately, NASA has never seen all three in one location, meaning the geological chemistry of Cheyava Falls is possibly our best clue yet that Mars once hosted life.
“Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance,” Caltech’s Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, said in a NASA press statement. “We have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colorful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water—necessary for life—once passed through the rock.”
While this site is particularly exciting, it’s far from the first Martian discovery to cause considerable microbial hype. Just earlier this year, scientists studying a 2017 soil analysis from Curiosity’s ongoing mission in Gale Crater discovered an abundance of manganese in the soil—something that usually requires the presence of oxygen and (you guessed it) microbes.
An annotated image of the Cheyava Falls rock, the two vertical veins of calcium sulfate can be seen on the left and right of the image.
But all of these discoveries come with more than a few caveats. In Curiosity’s case, too little is known about the Mars’ oxidation process to be certain that microbes existed in Gale Crater, and this new discovery also isn’t immune from scientific scrutiny. One big head scratcher is the presence of millimeter-sized olivine crystals—a mineral that forms from magma. This may possibility explain how past volcanic activity could produce this geologic phenomena without relying on the presence of microbes at all.
“We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable,” Farley said in the press statement. “Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give. To fully understand what really happened in that Martian river valley at Jezero Crater billions of years ago, we’d want to bring the Cheyava Falls sample back to Earth, so it can be studied with the powerful instruments available in laboratories.”
The “six-wheeled geologist” (as NASA calls it) doesn’t contain an onboard lab like its sister rover, Curiosity. But that’s actually a feature—not a flaw. NASA originally designed Perseverance to also be a sample retrieval mission, meaning that the space agency would send an additional spacecraft to retrieve samples from Perseverance and bring them back to Earth for further study.
However, with the costs of such a mission edging into the $11 billion range, bringing back samples of this Martian geologic wonder is in now question—as is the possibility of definitively understanding if there was once microbial life on Mars.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) made history almost two years ago. This was the first time humanity attempted to intentionally alter the motion of a space rock. They succeeded.
A spacecraftslammed into the tiny moon of an asteroid, all while its onboard camera and an Italian robotic onlooker called LICIACube snapped photos.
The footage is a treasure trove. On Tuesday, teams published five scientific papers in the journal Nature Communications. Each contains new insights into what these rocks are like, and how tricky it may be for future planetary defense missions to strike another asteroid to avoid an impact’s calamity on Earth.
Behold the final five-and-a-half minutes before DART intentionally collided into asteroid Dimorphos.
Here are five discoveries about this binary asteroid system so briefly encountered on September 26, 2022.
1. THE LARGER ASTEROID HAS AN OLDER SURFACE THAN THE LITTLE MOON.
Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos are related to one another. But scientists still don’t know exactly how. One investigation looked at 16 craters on the larger asteroid, Didymos.
DRACO, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for OpNav scientific camera, was one image source. It took many photos of Didymos and smaller Dimorphos before impacting the latter’s surface.
The craters suggest that the Didymos surface is about 12.5 million years old. But the Dimorphos surface is a fraction of that, only about 90,000 years to 300,000 years old.
2. DIDYMOS IS A PILE OF RUBBLE.
Observations confirmed theoretical expectations: It’s essentially a clump of leftovers from a catastrophic event in the ancient past.
Scientists noticed Didymos boulders appear too large to have been excavated by whatever made the craters. Something grander was responsible, and its mess, rounded up through gravitational attraction, is now Didymos. The large boulders are heirlooms passed down from an ancient parent rock.
This image from Italy’s LICIACube show the plumes of ejecta streaming from the Dimorphos asteroid after NASA’s DART made impact. Each rectangle creates a different level of contrast. This helps viewers to better see the plume’s fine structure.
3. WE NEED TO KNOW MUCH MORE ABOUT FRACTURES ON DIMORPHOS’ BOULDERS.
Asteroid boulders live in an airless environment. But, they can be altered through thermal fatigue. As the Sun shines on them, cracks form.
The Dimorphos fractures were identified with the help of independent contributors who located them across boulders of different sizes. This work adds to what’s already been gleaned about the Near-Earth asteroid population from previous NASA, Japanese, and European missions.
The picture emerging from the data is that, should a kinetic impactor like DART slam into another space rock, the thermal cracks “may contribute to an enhancement in the ejected mass,” one study says.
4.ECLIPSES MAY BE ONGOING.
On the flip side, eclipses could be having an opposite effect: cooling rocks down.
This animation shows how Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos was seen from Earth about one week after the DART impact.
Based on limited data about how Dimorphos now spins after DART struck it, scientists think the moonlet remains tidally-locked to Didymos. This means Dimorphos shows the same face to Didymos, like the Moon does with Earth. If this relationship is fostering eclipses, a periodic drop in temperature could be happening on the asteroids.
Like thermal fatigue from solar radiation, the cooling effect of eclipses must also be factored into deflection techniques. This asteroid duo provides a unique chance to investigate this. Other closely-studied asteroids and comets have no companion to block out light.
5. THE DIDYMOS SURFACE IS WEAKER THAN DRY SAND ON EARTH.
One major thing researchers want to know before visiting any celestial object is how much weight you can put on it. This is called bearing capacity. It reveals a lot about the formation history of the Solar System. And in the case of planetary defense, bearing capacity also informs how to build something that can effectively knock a space rock off a collision course with Earth.
“The low surface strength of Dimorphos likely contributed to DART’s significant impact on its orbit,” NASA officials wrote in an announcement published Tuesday. This also seems to be a trait of the larger asteroid, Didymos.
Researchers looked at DRACO’s final full image of Didymos before it slammed into the moonlet Dimorphos. DART didn’t touch Didymos. But boulders on its surface left tracks. Scientists studied nine of these paths. They determined that the bearing capacity of Didymos is “at least 3 orders of magnitude less than the bearing capacity of dry sand on Earth, or lunar regolith [dirt].”
Researchers have already learned so much about Near-Earth asteroids from the DART mission. Thanks to the European Space Agency’s upcoming Hera mission to survey the duo in October 2026, even more discoveries could emerge.
Een reis naar lokale legendes over de hele wereld Etherische figuren, die doen denken aan eeuwenoude legendes, komen op subtiele wijze tevoorschijn uit het tapijt van culturen en wenken nieuwsgierigen en dapperen om de blijvende kracht van folklore te ontdekken. Deze verhalen zijn het gefluister van generaties, die de essentie van het mysterieuze en magische vastleggen, en in deze galerij worden ze gevierd als de schatten van ons gedeelde menselijke erfgoed.
LEES VERDER door de galerij om de verhalen van weleer te ontdekken!
Het fluisterende bamboe (China) In het hart van het oude China fluistert een verhaal over twee geliefden, getransformeerd in bamboe, voor altijd samen zwaaiend in de wind. Deze legende, diep geworteld in de Chinese folklore, spreekt over de blijvende kracht van de liefde die echoot door de ritselende bamboebladeren. Het is een herinnering aan de veerkracht van de liefde en de eeuwige aanwezigheid in de natuur.
Anansi's Web (West-Afrika) Onder de Afrikaanse hemel weeft Anansi de Spin meer dan alleen maar webben; hij weeft verhalen over wijsheid. Deze bedrieger, een prominent figuur in West-Afrikaanse verhalen, leert levenslessen door zijn sluwe en avontuurlijke heldendaden. Elke streng van zijn web symboliseert de complexiteit van de beslissingen in het leven en de wijsheid die hij door ervaring verkrijgt.
Het noorderlicht (Scandinavië) Terwijl je in de Scandinavische nacht staart, ben je getuige van de etherische dans van de Aurora Borealis. Folklore vertelt over deze lichten als een hemels fenomeen, waar de geesten van de overledenen in de hemel spelen, verhalen van verwondering weven en het aardse rijk overbruggen met het mystieke.
Het monster van Loch Ness (Schotland) Gehuld in de mist van de Schotse folklore ligt Loch Ness, de thuisbasis van Nessie, het ongrijpbare monster. Deze legende geeft de essentie weer van de enigmatische charme van Schotland, waarbij Nessie de mysteries symboliseert die op de loer liggen in de diepten van onze verbeelding en in de donkere wateren van het meer.
Baba Yaga's Hut (Rusland) In het hart van de Russische folklore staat de hut van Baba Yaga, een bijzondere verblijfplaats op kippenpoten. De enigmatische heks, die vaak een cruciale rol speelt in verhalen over heldendom en speurtochten, belichaamt de dualiteit van de natuur – soms een helper, soms een belemmering, maar altijd een belangrijke figuur in het rijke tapijtwerk van de Slavische mythologie.
De Feniks (Midden-Oosten) Uit de as van oude verhalen uit het Midden-Oosten rijst de Feniks op, een prachtige vogel die vernieuwing en het eeuwige leven symboliseert. Dit mythische wezen, helder brandend en herboren uit zijn eigen ondergang, vertegenwoordigt de eindeloze cyclus van leven, dood en wedergeboorte, een krachtig embleem van veerkracht en hoop in de folklore.
Kraken (Noordse Zee) In de diepe, koude wateren van de Noordse Zeeën schuilt de Kraken, een legendarisch zeemonster dat gevreesd wordt door zeilers. Dit enorme wezen, vaak vergeleken met een reuzeninktvis, belichaamt de mysteries en verschrikkingen van de oceaan, een bewijs van de eeuwenoude fascinatie en angst van de mensheid voor de onbekende diepten van de zee.
El Dorado (Zuid-Amerika) Diep in het hart van Zuid-Amerika fascineert de legende van El Dorado, de stad van goud, ontdekkingsreizigers al eeuwenlang. Dit prikkelende verhaal spreekt over grenzeloze rijkdom en ambitie en weerspiegelt de eindeloze zoektocht van de mensheid naar ontdekkingen en de ongrijpbare aard van onze grootste verlangens.
De Banshee (Ierland) In de Ierse folklore is het treurige gejammer van de Banshee onder het maanlicht een voorbode van de dood. Deze spookachtige figuur, gehuld in mysterie, belichaamt de Keltische eerbied voor de overgang van leven naar dood, een aangrijpende herinnering aan de dunne sluier tussen het levende en het spirituele rijk.
Tengu (Japan) Hoog in de Japanse bergen wonen de Tengu: mystieke wezens die deels mens en deels vogel zijn. Deze wezens staan bekend als zowel beschermers als bedriegers van de bossen en symboliseren de complexiteit van de natuur en menselijke interactie, waarbij ze kattenkwaad en wijsheid vermengen in het rijke tapijtwerk van de Japanse folklore.
Bigfoot (Noord-Amerika) In de uitgestrekte, onbekende bossen van Noord-Amerika roept de legende van Bigfoot, een mysterieuze reus, nieuwsgierigheid en debat op. Dit ongrijpbare wezen, vaak omschreven als een torenhoge, harige figuur, belichaamt de wilde en onbekende aspecten van de natuur. Bigfoot dient als symbool voor de mysteries die nog steeds verborgen liggen in de afgelegen wildernis.
De regenboogslang (Australië) Centraal in de Aboriginal mythologie wordt de Regenboogslang vereerd als een krachtige scheppende godheid. Dit levendige, slangachtige wezen, geassocieerd met water en leven, weeft door de verhalen van de inheemse bevolking en symboliseert de schepping, vruchtbaarheid en de onderlinge verbondenheid van alle levende wezens.
La Llorona (Mexico) Het verhaal van La Llorona, gefluisterd langs de rivieroevers, spreekt over een spookachtige vrouw, die eeuwig rouwt om haar verdronken kinderen. Dit aangrijpende verhaal, doordrenkt van Mexicaanse folklore, dient als een waarschuwend verhaal over liefde, verlies en de gevolgen van iemands daden, dat door de eeuwen heen weerklinkt.
De Djinn (Midden-Oosten) In verhalen uit het Midden-Oosten zijn de Djinn bovennatuurlijke wezens, noch geheel goed, noch slecht. Deze raadselachtige wezens worden vaak geassocieerd met het vervullen van wensen en weerspiegelen de dubbele aard van menselijke verlangens en de complexe gevolgen die de vervulling ervan met zich meebrengt.
De Krampus (AlpenEuropa) In de ijskoude Alpengebieden vormt de Krampus een schril contrast met de feestelijke vreugde van Kerstmis. Deze gehoornde figuur, bekend om het straffen van zich misdragende kinderen tijdens de kerstperiode, belichaamt de oude gebruiken en duistere aspecten van wintervieringen en herinnert aan de balans tussen welwillendheid en discipline.
Valkyries (Noorse mythologie) In de Noorse mythologie kozen Walkuren, goddelijke vrouwelijke figuren, het lot van krijgers in de strijd. Deze krachtige wezens, die door de lucht vliegen, vertegenwoordigen de concepten van het lot en het hiernamaals, een integraal onderdeel van de Viking-overtuigingen en -cultuur.
De rattenvanger (Duitsland) De rattenvanger, een mysterieuze figuur uit de Duitse folklore, staat erom bekend een stad van ratten te bevrijden en later zijn kinderen weg te lokken. Zijn verhaal is een waarschuwend verhaal over beloften en gevolgen, dat door de eeuwen heen weerklank vindt.
De Nian (China) Het angstaanjagende beest Nian zou in de Chinese folklore zijn verslagen met behulp van rode lantaarns en vuurwerk. Deze legende symboliseert de triomf over angst en tegenspoed, gevierd tijdens het Chinese Nieuwjaar.
De Golem (Joodse folklore) In de Joodse folklore werd de Golem, een tot leven gewekt kleifiguur, gecreëerd om de gemeenschap te beschermen. Dit krachtige verhaal onderzoekt thema's als creatie, controle en de onbedoelde gevolgen van onze acties.
Kappa (Japan) De Kappa, waterwezens uit de Japanse folklore, staan bekend om hun kattenkwaad, maar toch zijn ze gebonden aan een beleefdheidscode. Deze wezens symboliseren de genuanceerde relatie tussen mensen en de natuurlijke wereld en weerspiegelen het delicate evenwicht van co-existentie.
The Selkie's Secret (Schotse en Ierse folklore) Selkies, zeehondenmensen uit de Schotse en Ierse overlevering, belichamen de thema's identiteit en vrijheid. Hun verhalen, vaak romantisch en tragisch, spreken over de transformerende aard van selkies en hun diepe verbinding met zowel land als zee, en reflecteren op het universele verlangen naar iemands ware thuis.
What could a future sovereign Mars economy look like?
What would the economy of a future Mars society look like, and how could it be self-sustaining while being completely sovereign from Earth and its own economy? This is what a recent study submitted to Space Policy hopes to address as a sole researcher discusses a model that could be used for establishing economic freedom on Mars, enabling both monetary and political stability across all Red Planets settlements. This study holds the potential to help scientists, economists, and world leaders better understand plausible governmental systems used by human settlers on other worlds while maintaining sovereignty from Earth and its own governmental law and order.
Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible study with Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra, who is the Director and a Senior Research Investigator of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS) and sole author of the study, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant ideas presented in the study, the importance of establishing a sovereign economic system on Mars, eliminating capital exchange between Mars and Earth, how Mars can become a sovereign entity from Earth after humans settle there, and how an economic system can be established on a sovereign Mars. Therefore, what was the motivation behind the study?
“My motivation was to build on the idealistic framework for an independent Mars that I developed in my book Sovereign Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “In my book, I describe five conditions for enabling Mars to be an independent planetary state, a juridical peer to Earth. In this new study, I develop a possible economic model that would be consistent with these five conditions.”
These five conditions outlined in Sovereign Mars include all permanent settlers on Mars completely acquiescing Earth citizenship and interests; Earthlings being unable to interfere with the Mars affairs, including financial, political, and social aspects; Earthlings requiring permission from Mars to conduct scientific investigations on the Red Planet; only Mars citizens can own land; and all resources brought from Earth, including technological or other items, will remain on Mars permanently.
For the study, Dr. Haqq-Misra dives deeper into the economic facets of a future sovereign Mars government while embodying these five conditions, specifically focusing on the financial aspects of such an economic system, including banking, currencies, capital ownership, and Earthling tourism. He emphasizes how such a system builds off the mistakes from Earth’s present-day economic systems that could potentially lead to both financial and political stability on Mars. He notes this is an “idealistic but feasible model” with the goal of establishing full economic freedom for future Mars citizens from Earth. So, what were the most significant ideas presented in this study?
“The first idea is ‘full reserve banking’,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Our banking system today allows banks to loan out more money than they hold as cash in reserves, which is known as a ‘fractional reserve’ system. This can lead to problems such as a ‘run on the bank,” where too many people try to take out their deposits all at once, only to find that the bank does not have their money.”
Dr. Haqq-Misra continues, “The second idea is the diffusion of capital ownership. Many visions of space settlement imagine something like a world space agency or other centralized authority that could ensure justice and perhaps even serve as a way to redistribute wealth. But the centralization of sovereign power also carries significant risks for the abuse of such power. Some arguments even suggest a somewhat Marxists approach toward the centralized or government ownership of wealth-producing capital, which is then redistributed equitably, but this again carries significant risk of abuse and corruption. An alternative idea is to widely diffuse the ownership of capital, instead of wealth. This means that ownership of companies, equipment, and anything else that can generate wealth would be held in a wider range of hands than today—ideally, by everyone.”
Along with the five conditions of a sovereign Mars noted above, requirements will also be established by the full reserve banking system on Mars, including all transactions staying on Mars, no currency exchange with Earth, and currency issuance will be based on changes in population. All tourism on Mars will follow three conditions that coincide with the conditions of both a sovereign Mars and the Mars full reserve banking system, including tourists being unable to own capital on Mars, the prohibition of Mars currency from being returned to Earth, and no currency transactions from tourists while services would only be provided from the exchange of goods.
On present-day Earth, currency exchange is the primary method for purchasing goods and services, with a total of 180 currencies being recognized across 195 countries around the world. While the value of each currency across the globe varies daily, this system allows individuals from separate countries to own capital in other countries with minimal government interference. But what is the importance behind the complete lack of capital exchange between Earth and Mars?
“This is part of the idealistic framework in Sovereign Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Preventing exchange between the two planets would enable Mars to retain its maximum potential to develop new ideas in civilization, such as this economic model. In practice, these ideas could still be attempted on Mars even if there is some exchange between the two planets, although this may lead to different results.”
The prospect of sending humans to Mars has been the purview of science fiction and countless scientific discussions for over 100 years. this began with the Danish silent film A Trip to Mars and other films continuing throughout the 20th century while incorporating current Mars inhabitants or remnants of past Mars civilizations. While films of the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century conveyed the first human trips to Mars, most recently with the film The Martian, little has been discussed regarding permanent human settlements on the Red Planet.
The closest this notion came was in the television series The Expanse, which depicted the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars being a sovereign entity from Earth, complete with its own military and political hierarchy. However, the economic system within this government wasn’t discussed in detail. But what steps need to be taken for Mars to become a sovereign entity after humans settle there?
“The biggest challenge is having sufficient infrastructure and resources to become self-sustaining on Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Some resources could be used on Mars, but not right away, and actually enabling an independent Mars may require benefactors with long-term visions for humanity or even Earth, without the need for an immediate or near-future financial return. I call this ‘deep altruism’ in Sovereign Mars.”
Additionally, regarding the importance of establishing a sovereign economic system on Mars and the steps required for this economic system to take hold, Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today, “We have many examples even in recent history of economic recessions and collapses. If space settlement is really to be a long-duration venture, then we need economic ideas that can remain sustainable over long timescales.”
Dr. Haqq-Misra continues, “The best way to establish this economic system would be for any initial settlers to agree on a method for implementing such a system prior to actually arriving on Mars. Part of the value in thinking about martian governance today is to anticipate such possibilities prior to the actual landing of humans on Mars. And thinking about governance on Mars can also help us gain better insight into our governance and economic systems on Earth.”
Sending humans to Mars could happen within the next decade, but sending humans to live there could be decades away, and establishing a sovereign Mars could be at least 100 years away, along with establishing and maintaining a sustainable economy separate from Earth. However, establishing protocols well in advance could lead to a smooth transition into an economic system on a sovereign Mars that is completely separate and free from the Earth’s systems.
Dr. Haqq-Misra concludes by telling Universe Today, “I am working with a talented group of students this summer through the BMSIS Young Scientist Program to examine historical analogues for sovereignty on Mars. We hope to have some new studies finished in the coming year.”
Will a future sovereign Mars successfully establish an economic system that is separate from Earth some time in the distant future? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
Having Trouble Traversing the Sands of Mars? A Lizard Robot Might Help
Mars exploration vehicles typically have wheels, allowing them to traverse some challenging terrain on the Red Planet. However, eventually, their systems start to wear down, and one of their wheels gets stuck. The “Free Spirit” campaign in 2009 was the most widely known case. Unfortunately, that campaign wasn’t successful, and now, 15 years later, Spirit remains stuck in its final resting place. Things might have been different if NASA had adopted a new robot paradigm developed by Guangming Chen and his colleagues at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Lab of Locomotion Bioinspiration and Intelligent Robots. They devised a robot based on a desert lizard, with adaptable feet and a flexible “spine” that, according to their calculations, would be well suited to traversing over Martian regolith.
Planning for traversing tough terrain isn’t limited to rovers that are stuck. Curiosity and Perseverance, perhaps the two best-known operating rovers on Mars, currently spend a lot of their time trying to avoid areas where they might become entangled. This limits their ability to capture any data from those areas, potentially missing out on some cool rocks, like the pure sulfur that Curiosity recently found for the first time on Mars.
A lizard-inspired robot, on the other hand, would have no trouble traversing such terrain. It also has some advantages over traversing different types of terrain, such as rocks. Most rovers don’t have enough leg lift to get over medium-sized rocks, whereas a legged robot would, especially one with adjustable “toes” that would allow it to grip a rock tighter than would otherwise be possible with typical legged robots.
Lizard-inspired robots aren’t only useful for walking – they can also jump like their biological cousins, as demonstrated in this video from UC Berkeley’s robotics lab. Credit – UC Berkeley YouTube Channel
The design for the robot itself is relatively simple – it has four “feet” that are offset from each other by a chassis that essentially looks like a desert lizard. It even has a tail for counterbalancing. Each foot has a series of three “toes” powered by springs. They also have a servo for ankle articulation and a bearing for rotational control. This combination allows the lizard robot to walk on all fours effectively and adjust each leg to best adapt to the surface it is “walking” over.
The authors performed a series of kinematic calculations for different types of terrain to help understand how the robot would interact with each of those surfaces. Kinematic calculations are typically used in robotics when designers attempt to find the best way to move a specific robot part. The calculations are relatively detailed in this case, given the number of variable parts. However, a control algorithm is possible using just on-board computation, allowing for some basic autonomous terrain navigation if architecture is ever adopted for use in space.
Building an actual prototype would be a great way to work on that navigation algorithm, and that’s precisely what the researchers did. They 3D printed many of the parts for the chassis and foot, embedded some batteries and controllers in the head and tail sections, and started testing the prototype on simulated Martian test terrain.
Mars isn’t the only place that could benefit from legged robots – they could work on the Moon as well, as Fraser discusses.
They tested everything from grasping loose regolith to climbing over small rocks, and their algorithm seemed to work effectively for handling the relatively simple terrain in the test bed. However, the robot’s actual speed of movement was slower than originally simulated, mainly due to technical difficulties in balancing the motions of the springs and the spine.
Despite any problems that arose during physical testing, this new robot iteration is a step in the right direction, as this lab has been designing similar systems for years. They also plan to continue to another version, including mounting a continuous power supply and fully implementing an autonomous navigation algorithm. Their research is funded by both Jiangsu Province and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, so it seems it will continue to gain support, at least for the foreseeable future.
Image of Sierra Space's full-scale Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®) on the test stand at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. (Credit: Sierra Space)
Ae inflatable habitats the future of human space exploration? This is what the space-tech company, Sierra Space, hopes to achieve as theyrecently conducted a successful Ultimate Burst Pressure test on June 18 with its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®) technology at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The goal of these tests is to inflate the test article until it explodes while ascertaining if the maximum pressure falls within NASA’s strict safety guidelines regarding a recommended operating pressure of 60.8 psi (maximum operating pressure of 15.2 psi times four as a safety factor). Upon explosion, Sierra Space engineers immediately found the recent test achieved 74 psi, thus exceeding NASA’s safety standards by 22 percent.
“We are 100 percent committed to maintaining U.S. leadership in Low Earth Orbit. Sierra Space is leading the way with the first commercial space station to replace the International Space Station when it is decommissioned and ensure there is no gap in LEO,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice. “Our revolutionary, expandable space station technology reinvents the space station. Our technology, for the first time, will enable the right unit economics that will usher in the full commercialization of space. Our biotech and industrial partners will utilize our factories of the future to innovate new products that will massively disrupt terrestrial markets and benefit life on Earth.”
This recent test marks the technology’s second full-scale structural test and seventh key validation test, which comes after Sierra Space successfully conducted its first full-scale burst test in December 2023, achieving 77 psi and exceeding NASA’s safety standards by 27 percent. Both test units stood at more than 6 meters (20 feet) in height and had volumes of 300 m3 (10,594 ft3), or approximately 1/3rd of the pressurized volume of the International Space Station (ISS). Sierra Space is now planning for the first test of its 500 m3 (17,657 ft3) space station technology in 2025, which will be 55 percent of the pressurized volume of the ISS.
December 2023 burst test of the Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®)
“No other company is moving at the speed of Sierra Space to develop actual hardware, stress-tested at full scale, and demonstrate repeatability. We’ve taken a softgoods system that very few companies around the world have been able to design, and now we have consistent, back-to-back results,” said Shawn Buckley, VP of Earthspace™ Systems, Space Stations, at Sierra Space. “A second successful full-scale test is an absolute game changer. We now know it’s possible to equal or surpass the total habitable volume of the entire International Space Station, in a single launch.”
While these two recent tests were conducted at full-scale, Sierra Space conducted two sub-scale burst tests in July 2022 and November 2022, achieving maximum pressures of 192 and 204 psi, respectively, with NASA’s safety standards being 182.4 psi given the sub-scale sizes, thus both tests successfully exceeding these safety standards.
July 2022 sub-scale burst test
November 2022 sub-scale burst test
Sierra Space stated in June 2023 that they hope to launch a “pathfinder” version of the LIFE® habitat in 2026 with the goal of the technology being an essential piece to the Orbital Reef commercial space station, with the latter scheduled to be operational in 2027. Given its size, Sierra Space estimates the LIFE® habitat can comfortably accommodate four astronauts with the remaining volume being used for science experiments, exercise equipment, small medical facilities, and the Astro Garden® system, which can potentially grow food in space and has previously undergone testing at the Sierra Space Madison WI facility.
This comes as numerous commercial space companies are attempting to launch their own space stations, including the Axiom Station, Starlab Space Station, Haven-1, and the aforementioned Orbital Reef space station. Additionally, this also comes as NASA announced their plans to “retire” the ISS in 2030, although the agency announced in a July 2024 white paper that they will evaluate the possibility of extending the lifetime of the ISS if no commercial space stations are able to accommodate space-based research at that time.
How will Sierra Space’s Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®) technology help advance human space exploration in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
New evidence reaffirms that cave art on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is the oldest known in the world, according to a study that now dates the enigmatic paintings to 51,200 years ago.
The findings push back the timescales on human activity on Sulawesi, raising new questions about the origins of the island’s ancient art and its relationship to early human migrations.
An aerial view of Karampuang hill in south Sulawesi, where the cave is located.
BRIN Google Arts & Culture
The entrance to Leang Karampuang cave, where some of the oldest cave art has been found.
Google Arts & Culture
Recent studies involving advanced laser ablation techniques examined the images on the cave’s walls, which include ancient depictions of animals like pigs and bovines along with stick renderings of anthropomorphic shapes. The new analysis reveals that the art is likely several thousands of years older than previously thought.
However, the extreme age of the art within the cave may point to another intriguing possibility: that its creators were not modern humans, and instead may have been one of our ancient hominin cousins. Such a discovery, if proven, would have profound implications for the origins of figurative art and the cognitive capabilities of our now-extinct hominin relatives.
THE ENIGMA OF SULAWESI
Renowned for its ancient cave paintings, Sulawesi has long fascinated archaeologists. Among the island’s most notable works of cave art include a 14-foot-wide panel that depicts crude imagery of early humans hunting what are commonly believed to be warty pigs and dwarf bovines with spears.
Past work had already revealed the presence of what archaeologists recognized as some of the world’s oldest rock art on the island. A process known as solution uranium-series (or U-series) was used to analyze calcite deposits that had formed over the art on the walls of Maros-Pangkep, a rock art location on the southern portion of the island. This technique, which scans rock walls without taking physical samples, provides a more accurate estimate by distinguishing between layers of sediment.
Cave art found at Maros-Pangkep on southern Sulawesi
(Credit: Cahyo/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0).
However, in their recent study, researchers led by Indonesian archaeologist Adhi Augus Oktaviana used what they describe as “a novel application of this approach,” called laser-ablation U-series imaging, which allowed them to more accurately date some of the earliest cave art in the area.
In a recent study detailing their work, the researchers write, “This method provides enhanced spatial accuracy,” resulting in older minimum ages for previously dated art.
The scene, covered with calcium carbonate deposits, shows three human figures and a pig.
Dominic Julian/BRIN Google Arts
Three human-like figures and a large pig are drawn on a limestone cave wall. Griffith University
REDATING THE WORLD’S OLDEST CAVE ART
The new analysis revealed remarkable results. A hunting scene found at the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 location, previously dated to at least 43,900 years ago during previous analysis, has now been revealed to have a minimum age closer to 51,200 years ago, making the art at the location at least 4,040 years older than initial estimates had placed it.
“Painted at least 51,200 years ago, this narrative composition, which depicts human-like figures interacting with a pig, is now the earliest known surviving example of representational art and visual storytelling in the world,” the authors of the new study state.
The authors add that their new analysis reveals a much deeper origin of figurative portrayals of animals and humans than previously recognized.
Image comparison revealing separation between pigment and sedimentation buildup on the cave walls at Sulawesi
(Credit: A.A. Oktaviana / Wikimedia Commons)
Of course, revising the dates of the cave art on Sulawesi raises new questions about what species of ancient hominin had actually served as the ancient artists in residence. According to most commonly accepted timelines, modern humans are believed to have left Africa as recently as 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, although possibly as early as 90,000 years ago.
Considering those nearer estimates for when these ancient migrations might have begun, it does raise questions about how likely it is that modern humans could have been present on Sulawesi by the time the newly redated cave art was produced. The earliest known modern human remains on the island date back to no earlier than 25,000 years ago, although evidence of human presence in the form of rock shelters and stone tool use has been found that suggests humans may have been there far earlier, even as much as 118,000 years ago.
While the possibility of modern humans arriving on the island that long ago presents a challenging question, there is little doubt that our ancient hominin cousins were present on Sulawesi by then. Past fossil discoveries have presented compelling evidence of the presence of hominins on the island as far back as 194,000 years ago.
While pushing back the timescales for the use of figurative art on the island of Sulawesi and raising questions about what species could have made it, the new findings also challenge past ideas that attribute the origins of such art to Europe toward the end of the Ice Age.
To figure out when the cave paintings were made, the team used a new technique to date calcium carbonate deposits that formed on top of the art.
Dominic Julian/BRIN Google Arts
The team’s discoveries also suggest that it is possible humans may have been creating such art long before their arrival in Asia, if not even further back to times before modern humans are believed to have left Africa; a controversial possibility that some researchers, including British anthropologist Chris Stringer, have begun to propose in recent years.
However, if it were ever proven that some other hominin species had possessed the necessary cognitive development required to create figurative art so long ago, it would potentially upend our existing ideas about the capabilities of our early human ancestors and their hominin relatives.
At the very least, the authors concede in their study that the new findings suggest “a rich culture of storytelling developed at an early period in the long history of H. sapiens in this region — in particular, the use of scenic representation to tell visual stories about human-animal relationships.”
In 1962, many American moviegoers were treated to an unusual display during screenings of the popular Universal Newsreels that aired before feature presentations. That year, a segment entitled “Now Hear This! Italians Unveil Talking Chimp” was shown, introducing audiences to Renata, a chimpanzee who had reportedly been trained to say “mama” by her handler.
“As explained by her foster mother, this is one of the most extraordinary chimps in the world,” announcer Ed Herlihy’s famous voice could be heard saying in the decades-old footage. “You don’t have to know Italian to understand Renata’s accent when she gets her cue.”
Then, as Renata’s handler taps her on the chin, the chimpanzee is shown saying the word “mama” several times.
The footage, likely viewed as little more than a novelty at the time, represented something potentially extraordinary: evidence of a non-human primate displaying the ability to speak, albeit crudely. Despite Renata’s unique talent, the footage was largely forgotten, and prevailing wisdom continued to insist that humans were the only primates with the required neural circuitry capable of speech.
However, Renata was not the only known example of a chimpanzee who displayed a limited ability to learn and speak human words. Decades later, in a video uploaded to YouTube on August 17, 2007, a chimpanzee named Johnny was also shown saying “mama,” seemingly in response to requests from his owner, after which he was awarded a treat.
Now, an international team of researchers that reviewed the footage of Renata and Johnny have concluded that in at least three known instances, chimpanzees were indeed able to learn human words and exhibit limited speech capabilities.
“We recovered original footage of two enculturated chimpanzees uttering the word ‘mama’ and subjected recordings to phonetic analysis,” write the authors of a new study published in Nature: Scientific Reports by Axel G. Ekström and colleagues. “Our analyses demonstrate that chimpanzees are capable of syllabic production, achieving consonant-to-vowel phonetic contrasts via the simultaneous recruitment and coupling of voice, jaw and lips.”
In their paper, the researchers state that they conducted an online experiment in which participants were provided recordings of the utterances to listen to but were not told they were listening to chimpanzees. The participants “reliably perceived chimpanzee utterances as syllabic utterances, primarily as ‘ma-ma,’” the researchers write.
The researchers conclude that the vocal abilities great apes possess have largely been underestimated, writing that “Chimpanzees possess the neural building blocks necessary for speech.”
Great apes do not appear to display any signs of language use in nature, and it is noteworthy that Renata and Johnny appear to have learned their unique talents through human coaching. However, the findings are significant since they show that at least one nonhuman great ape species does possess the required neural components to facilitate speech, whether or not they utilize such faculties on their own in the wild.
Although speech is not an ability chimpanzees normally rely on, the same cannot be said of their overall ability to communicate. Recent studies have shown that chimpanzees frequently use gestures while communicating in a way similar to that of humans. In at least a few instances, chimpanzees have also shown a remarkable ability to understand human language. One notable example involves Kanzi, a bonobo who reportedly understands close to 3000 human words and has exhibited the ability to answer questions using a special keyboard that reproduces human words.
In their new paper, Ekström and colleagues note that past studies involving chimps and their ability to exhibit rudimentary speech had been largely dismissed due to lack of rigorous analysis. However, the new findings appear to support these previously unconfirmed observations, which have often cited words like “mama” as being among the ones most commonly learned by chimps.
Indeed, there could be more to the prevalence of this particular word in past studies involving chimpanzee speech. As the study’s authors note, “mama” is often among the first words human infants learn and may, in fact, have deeper roots as one of the earliest spoken language words ever created by humans.
“Accordingly, it has been argued that ‘mama’ may have been among the first words to appear in human speech,” the authors of the new study write.
“Our data complements this picture: chimpanzees can produce the putative ‘first words’ of spoken languages.”
The team’s new study, “Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for novel vocalizations and syllabic speech,” was published in Nature: Scientific Reports on July 25, 2024.
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SR-91 Aurora: A Highly Classified American Aircraft
SR-91 Aurora: A Highly Classified American Aircraft
For decades, the US military has pursued the dream of dominating the skies with hypersonic platforms, a dream that China and Russia are also striving to become a reality. In this scenario of fierce competition, a disturbing question arises: is it possible that a Mach 5 aircraft, the mythical SR-91 Aurora, already existed and that its existence has been hidden from us?
The classified SR-91 Aurora project
Whispers about the Aurora, a supposedly classified hypersonic aircraft, have resonated in aviation circles since the 1980s. Yet evidence of this enigmatic triangular craft is as elusive as the wind. Is it conceivable that the United States not only managed to develop and operate a fleet of these aircraft at Mach 5+ during the 1980s but also kept this achievement in the shadows to this day? The truth could be more labyrinthine than we imagine.
The Pentagon, known for its “black programs,” has secretly funded the development of advanced technologies throughout history. Today, the most clandestine efforts are grouped under Special Access Programs, or SAPs, which restrict information to even those with the highest security clearances. Some of these recognized SAPs are never fully revealed, and others remain eternally anonymous.
After examining historical reports, declassified documents, testimonies and discussion forums, it is extremely unlikely that the United States has ever secretly operated a fleet of hypersonic aircraft. However, this does not rule out that such technological marvels have once touched the imposing doors of the hangars of Area 51.
Technology cost-benefit analysis for the SR-91 Aurora
It is vital to remember that there is a vast difference between technology that is mature and reliable enough for mass production and combat operation and that which, although within reach, is not sustainable from economic, resource or even political perspectives.
SR-91
For example, the iPhone in your pocket is not necessarily the most advanced smartphone in the world; It is simply technology that can be mass-produced for a specific price and consumer. The latest communications technology would probably be much more expensive, potentially less reliable, and capable of leaving you in awe.
Aeronautical programs are advancing in a similar way: an extraordinary plane can be built for $2 billion, but that does not mean that mass production can begin immediately. Technology demonstrations, prototypes and limited production of exotic aircraft are a reality at facilities such as the Lockheed Martin plant in Palmdale or Area 51.
SR-91 Aurora: A response to the need to see without being seen
Sometimes, these efforts do not produce the expected results, are too costly, or require excessive maintenance. And sometimes, America‘s deepest secrets are buried in the desert, condemned to oblivion.
The SR-91 Aurora, if it ever existed, was conceived in response to a strategic need for aerial reconnaissance, a testament to the relentless quest for technological supremacy in a world where secrets and shadows play a crucial role.
Lockheed‘s SR-71 Blackbird, an unrivaled aerial beast and aviation’s fastest gem, laughed in the faces of more than 4,000 missiles with its dazzling speed during its golden era as a sky spy. This colossus, capable of challenging Mach 3 as if it were child’s play, made the most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and elite fighters useless. So, when the Air Force decided to retire this very expensive technological marvel in the late 1980s, the world could only speculate: the United States must have something even more impressive in its arsenal.
It was not for less. The secret corridors of the Pentagon and Congress whispered about an heir to the Blackbird throne. But now, decades later, fact and fiction have become intertwined in a labyrinth of classified theories and programs, real or imagined, including those that may still lurk in the shadows.
Among whispers and rumors, there was talk of Aurora, a hypersonic, triangular plane taken from the bowels of science fiction, which seemed to be a first cousin of Lockheed Martin‘s SR-72 project, announced with great fanfare before this began. New era of hypersonic arms race.
Despite the rise of satellites, the need for aerial reconnaissance never died, as did the legend of the SR-71, which was even briefly resurrected in the 1990s to satisfy the hunger for aerial intelligence. The popular belief was that the Air Force would not let the SR-71 die without already having a worthy successor ready, warming up its engines in some secret location.
SR-91 Aurora: Many have followed its thread without finding its skein
And maybe they weren’t wrong. There are clues, threads of a larger plot, that point to evidence of an extraordinarily fast plane in those years, possibly related to Aurora.
In April 1992, on two separate occasions, journalist Steve Douglass, scanning the skies over Southern California, captured radio conversations that defied logic. A mysterious plane, with the callsign “Gaspipe,” coordinated with Edwards Air Force Base. The words captured by Douglass suggested that this craft flew at otherworldly altitudes and speeds. “You are at sixty-seven thousand [feet], eighty-one miles,” the controller indicated, and then, “Seventy miles, thirty-six thousand. Above the glide slope. Words that conjure images of a machine challenging the limits of the sky.
Was the SR-91 Aurora a real US military project?
There is no concrete evidence to confirm the existence of the SR-91 Aurora. Although it has been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories, the lack of tangible evidence and the absence of official information suggests that it could be more of a myth or legend within the realm of military aviation.
What capabilities would a hypersonic aircraft like the SR-91 Aurora have?
If the SR-91 Aurora had existed, it is expected that it would have reached speeds exceeding Mach 5, which would have allowed it to perform reconnaissance and surveillance missions at extremely high speeds, making it difficult to detect and track by enemy air defense systems.
How is the SR-91 Aurora related to the SR-71 Blackbird?
The SR-91 Aurora is often considered the hypothetical successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, a spy plane that was a technological marvel of its time. It is speculated that the Aurora would have been designed to exceed the Blackbird’s capabilities, especially in terms of speed and operating altitude.
What advanced technologies would be expected on the SR-91 Aurora?
The SR-91 Aurora, had it been developed, would likely have incorporated advanced technologies such as high-temperature resistant composite materials, innovative propulsion systems to achieve hypersonic speeds, and stealth technologies to reduce its visibility to enemy radars.
Why do rumors about the SR-91 Aurora persist despite the lack of evidence?
Rumors about the SR-91 Aurora persist due to the public’s fascination with secret and advanced military technology. The story of the Aurora feeds into the culture of the Pentagon’s
Not many aircraft in military aviation history have been shrouded in mystery and conjured as much speculation as the SR-91 Aurora. First appearing in the 1980s, “Aurora” was listed in a black program spy plane request, and ever since, this mysterious airframe has remained cloaked in secrecy. It was an attempt by military engineers to come up with a hypersonic plane design that would clock over Mach 5.0; no other aircraft has been reported to do so.
The SR-91 Aurora entered public awareness through the Los Angeles Times and Aviation Week & Space Technology reports in the mid-1980s. All the reports made the point that “Aurora” had been included inadvertently in the budget for 1995, which the U.S. government had submitted for “black aircraft production,” insinuating a clandestine project with funding greater than nearly $1 billion for the B-2 Spirit. By 1986, funding for the black project had swelled to about $2.7 billion, according to a procurement document obtained by Aviation Week.
In the 1980s, with the world’s fastest plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, reaching the end of its service life, a replacement had to be taken into consideration. That very impressive flying machine was powered by Pratt & Whitney J58 engines and represented an early effort at stealth design that could break Mach 3.2. According to analysts, the U.S. was capable of fielding a Mach 5.0 airframe and probably did so with the SR-91 Aurora.
Over the years, several reports and sightings have been viewed as a confirmation of the existence of the Aurora. One such sighting was reported by an engineer in 1989 over the North Sea, which claimed that the Aurora was a triangular-shaped aircraft. However, considering the speed at which the aircraft is supposed to fly, such sightings do not seem very credible. When the Aurora was supposedly flying, the Air Force’s B-2 bomber and F-117 Nighthawk were operational and would have accounted for the sightings.
In 2000, Nic Outterside of the Aberdeen Press and Journal cited anonymous sources that RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll, served as a base for Aurora airframes. The long runways would be suitable for high-altitude experimental aircraft. More evidence appeared in the form of an answer to a parliamentary question in 2006 which stated that the British Ministry of Defense had been told by the United States that the U.S. Air Force had plans to produce a Mach 4.0-6.0 supersonic airframe, though no evidence conclusively proved that such a project existed.
So-called “sky quakes” over Los Angeles, first observed in the early 1990s, have also been attributed to the Aurora. In 1993, Bill Sweetman of Jane’s Defense Weekly reported that U.S. Geological Survey seismologists had recorded tremors consistent with a sonic boom from a high-altitude supersonic aircraft. These tremors were not in line with any known aircraft, suggesting something faster and more advanced.
Though countless claims and sightings have been made, the SR-91 Aurora has not been confirmed by U.S. officials. If it does exist, it would shatter the Blackbird’s speed record into minute pieces, truly heralding a new era in hypersonic flight.
The SR-91 Aurora has seldom failed to impress the imagination of aircraft enthusiasts and military analysts. From fact to fiction, and through internet myth, Aurora is what aerospace ambition and the mysterious represent.
Warp drives, hypothetical propulsion systems that move spacecraft by compressing or “warping” spacetime around them rather than producing thrust like conventional engines, have long been the subject of ongoing research in physics. Although the concept has its roots in science fiction, many researchers over the last several decades have contributed to a growing realization that such technologies could actually work, at least in theory.
Now, a new study takes a novel approach to the conceptual study of warp drives: what might happen if such a futuristic propulsion system broke down? More specifically, the team involved with the study aimed to simulate key signatures—gravitational waves in this case—that would result from what they call warp drive “containment failure.”
WARP DRIVES IN SCIENCE FICTION
Although the warp drive concept was arguably made famous by its appearances in Star Trek, the idea has its origins much earlier. One of the earliest known fiction works to feature warp drive propulsion was a 1931 novel by John W. Campbell, Islands in Space. However, the term “space-warp drive” would not appear until almost two decades later in Fredrick Brown’s 1949 story “Gateway to Darkness.” Decades after that, the idea would also become a mainstay of interstellar transportation in the fictional universes of Star Trek,Star Wars, and other science fiction franchises.
Hypothetically, warp drive propulsion could actually exist, although bringing the technology to fruition would first require overcoming hurdles that include finding exotic sources of energy to power it, as well as relativistic issues that arise from implementing travel under such conditions.
According to Dr. Katy Clough of Queen Mary University of London, the lead author of the recent study, warp drives still look good on paper despite such problems.
“Even though warp drives are purely theoretical, they have a well-defined description in Einstein’s theory of General Relativity,” Clough said in a recent statement, “and so numerical simulations allow us to explore the impact they might have on spacetime in the form of gravitational waves.”
Through collaboration with gravitational physicists at Queen Mary University of London, the University of Potsdam, the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, and Cardiff University, the international team used numerical simulations to examine the consequences of a warp drive breakdown.
Specifically, the team sought to explore the generation of gravitational waves such a “containment failure” would produce and whether signatures from such an event might be registered by Earth-based gravitational wave detectors.
Dr. Sebastian Khan of Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy and one of the paper’s co-authors, said it was “only natural that we carry on the tradition of warp drive research in the era of gravitational wave astronomy,” noting the early work in 1994 by Miguel Alcubierre, who is credited with constructing the first mathematical solution for warp drive physics while working on his Ph.D. at Cardiff University, after which he also worked at the MPI in Potsdam.
WARP DRIVE COLLAPSE
According to the team, when a warp drive collapses, it should produce gravitational waves, a form of energy-carrying wave generated under conditions where large amounts of mass are accelerated or disturbed, normally associated with celestial events.
On Earth, physicists have been studying gravitational waves since the first one was officially detected in 2015. Current research generally focuses on targets that include mergers between neutron stars, supermassive black holes, and other cosmic phenomena. According to the research team in their new paper, the breakdown of a warp drive would produce a noticeably different signature from these celestial sources of gravitational waves, resulting in a high-frequency burst.
Unfortunately, this quick gravitational burst would not register on detectors currently in use. However, this raises the intriguing question of whether warp drive transportation might produce perturbations in spacetime that might generate detectable signatures fairly often, at least if it were already in use by any spacefaring civilizations traversing the cosmos.
While no detectors capable of spotting these specific signatures presently exist, the technology required to build them does. This means that scientists might potentially be able to detect warp drives in use by alien civilizations, even if we are still a long way from harnessing the technology ourselves.
Dr. Khan notes that while the team’s study paves the way toward the detection of such hypothetical signals, it does not offer guidance on how prospective warp drive detectors might be built.
The researchers also explored the energetic aspects of hypothetical warp drive failure, revealing that a wave of negative energy matter would be released, after which alternating positive and negative waves would follow. The resulting net energy increase, the team says, might also produce a detectable signature.
“For me, the most important aspect of the study is the novelty of accurately modeling the dynamics of negative energy spacetimes,” Dietrich said, adding that the prospect of detecting signatures such technologies would produce might have other real-world applications.
Apart from the detection of advanced alien propulsion systems, Dietrich says the team’s findings could at least “help us better understand the evolution and origin of our universe, or the avoidance of singularities at the center of black holes.”
However, the team admits that detecting gravitational wave signatures from alien warp drives, while a far-fetched possibility, is nonetheless worth investigating.
“Even though we are skeptical about the likelihood of seeing anything, I do think it is sufficiently interesting to be worth looking at,” Dr. Clough said in a statement.
The team’s new paper, “What no one has seen before: gravitational waveforms from warp drive collapse,” appeared in The Open Journal of Astrophysics on July 25, 2024, and can be read in its entirety at the arxiv.org website.
Footage went viral Monday of an alleged UFO flying through the skies over Ibiza.
Video shared on Twitter shows a group of people sitting on what appears to be a cliffside during a gorgeous sunset on the Mediterranean island off the coast ofSpain. A woman and whoever is filming then start running and pointing at the skies as a blurry white object flies over them.
The thing appears to hold still for a moment as it comes into focus … except, what you’re looking at isn’t a UFO. It’s the moon, shining brightly over the ocean. Things seem silly for a second. Then the reflection under the moon zooms off at speeds unknown in any type of human technologies.
I’ve seen my fair share of UFO videos in my life, but this one actually kind of freaked me out.
It’s the type of click-baity stuff they show at the start of a found footage horror film. A woman appears to yell “Look! Look! Look!” while pointing at something in the skies. The group gasps in unison as the thing zooms off into the atmosphere. The clip has everything in the horror story recipe book.
So this is either one of the best staged UFO encounters ever … or its real.
Some view Carl Jung as a UFO debunker, others as a UFO believer, but the truth is he was somewhere in the middle. Either way, it is certain that Jung was an avid UFO researcher and fascinated with the topic. He wrote a book about the psychological symbolism and the role the UFO mythos plays in the unconscious mind.Moreover, on several occasions Jung complained that his studies would have been much easier if the UFO phenomenon was not real.
Jung the Psychologist
Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875. His father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Protestant Church, and his mother was from a wealthy Swiss family. He was the Jungs’ fourth child, but was the only child who survived into his childhood. As such, he grew up as an only child. Later, he wrote that he remembered enjoying his solitude.
His first experience with neurosis was at the age of twelve when a fellow student shoved him, causing him to fall and hit his head on the ground very hard. He remembered associating this experience with schoolwork, and whenever he had to go to school or do schoolwork he would faint. Overhearing his parents’ concern that this condition would cause him to be unable to support himself as an adult, Jung fought to overcome the problem and eventually returned to academics.
Although Jung had a profound interest in spirituality, his experiences triggered an interest in psychology and he decided to pursue a career in medicine. It wasn’t long before he realized that studies in psychology would allow him to combine his interests in medicine and spirituality, and in 1902, he completed his doctoral dissertation, which was titled “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena.” He graduated with a medical degree from the University of Basel.
After graduating, Jung went to work with psychiatric patients at the University of Zurich asylum. He wrote a paper on word association that he sent to Sigmund Freud. Freud was impressed with Jung’s work, and they quickly became very close. Freud considered Jung his successor. However, after several years, Jung began to develop his own ideas beyond the work of Freud, and due to their disagreements, the relationship turned adversarial.
Carl Jung (bottom right), Sigmund Freud (bottom left), and others at a 1909 celebration of the founding of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. Credit: Library of Congress
Freud’s work with the ego and unconscious served as a foundation for Jung’s work. They both felt that disconnects between the conscious and unconscious minds caused neurosis in people. They also both relied on dream interpretation to explore a person’s unconscious mind as a method for subsequently resolving neurosis. In fact, one story holds that Jung and Freud interpreted each other’s dreams and both completely disagreed with the other’s analysis, thus hastening the dissolution of their friendship.
A major area of disagreement between the two was that Jung did not believe a person’s unconscious was driven solely by sexual desires, as Freud did. Jung believed other strong emotions such as fear and aspiration were just as influential. He also conceived of a deeper level of the unconscious called the collective unconscious, which he believed is a part of our unconscious mind that holds ideas and concepts shared by all humankind. He believed these base ideas are then shaped by our cultural perceptions and personal experience. For example, we all have ideas around the notions of mothers, fathers, wise elders, etc. Jung called these shared notions archetypes. Jung felt that these archetypes not only would manifest in dreams, but could be seen in people’s creative works and behavior, including art, religion, and mythology.
Jung’s contributions to psychology are numerous. Even today his ideas of extraversion and introversion are a mainstay in personality psychology. He also came up with the idea of psychological complexes and synchronicities. All of these ideas and terms are commonly used in everyday conversation today, and all were made popular by Jung.
Jung and Alchemy
It is the idea of the archetype that brought Jung to have a particular interest in UFOs. When Jung interpreted psychological meaning he would search for archetypal figures. As mentioned earlier, such figures could be a mother or father.But, in a mythological story, the archetype may be the hero, a dragon, or even a planetary entity such as the sun. However, Jung also had an interested in alchemy.
Alchemy is typically connected to legends of ancient mystics attempting to unravel the secret of turning lead into gold. The work of alchemists is credited with the development of modern chemistry. However, another side of alchemy is spiritual in nature, relating to personal transformation. Jung had a passion for alchemy in this sense, and felt that the metal lead was a metaphor for an impure soul, whereas gold was a metaphor for a perfected soul. Jung’s interest in alchemy was thus as a method of purifying the soul.
The Tabula Smaradina (Emerald Tablet), a print by Mathias Merian from the 1600s displaying alchemical symbols and imagery. Credit: Mathias Merian
Jung wrote a couple of books focused on interpreting alchemical symbolism and processes as different stages of personal growth that mirrored his ideas. He felt these symbols were archetypes that were unconsciously manifesting in the work of alchemists. Although he acknowledged the physical goals of alchemy (an attempt to transmute lead into gold), Jung did not give it much attention in his writing and focused on the non-physical aspects that related to his psychological theories. This is very similar to the way he approached the topic of UFOs.
Jung and UFOs
In 1951, Jung wrote to a friend in the United States: “I am puzzled to death about the phenomena, because I haven’t been able yet to make out with sufficient certainty whether the whole thing is a rumour with concomitant singular and mass hallucination, or a downright fact.”
Book cover to Jung’s Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. (Credit: Princeton University Press.)
Although Jung showed an interest in the mystery of the physical reality of the UFO phenomenon, professionally he stated, “As a psychologist, I am not qualified to contribute anything useful to the question of the physical reality of Ufos.” However, Jung could contribute by analyzing the unmistakable psychological side to the UFO phenomenon. In 1958, several of Jung’s papers regarding the psychology of UFOs were published in a book. It was originally published in German, but in 1959 it was translated to English under the title, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.
In the book, Jung argued that although there may be a physical reality to UFOs, there is certainly a portion of the phenomenon that is fantasy. He examined the difficulty many have in accepting fantastical stories of UFOs, even when they come from pilots, and points out, “What is worse, most of the stories come from America, the land of superlatives and of science fiction.”
For the sake of argument, and to examine the psychological aspects of the phenomenon, Jung presumed that UFOs are fantasy. This is an important aspect that many critics overlook when they characterize Jung as dismissive of the phenomenon altogether. UFO researchers also tend not to appreciate the portions of Jung’s book in which he examined the UFO phenomenon in regards to archetypal imagery and alchemic symbolism. Jung himself assures his readers that although his work may appear to be “unbridled fantasy” to those unfamiliar with psychology, it is actually based on “thorough research into the history of symbols.”
In his book, Jung observed that most UFO sightings describe the objects as disc shaped, which is a symbol that is often seen in alchemy and existed in the mythology of other cultures. For example, the Hindu and Buddhist symbol of the mandala is a circular disc-shaped symbol. Jung believed that the mandala is a protective sphere, which is elicited in the unconscious in times of emotional tension. Jung noted that, around the time of many of the UFO sightings, the world was under a collective stress due to “Russian policies and their still unpredictable consequences.” In short, he felt that perhaps UFOs were appearing in visions at the time because of the world’s Cold War jitters, and that the UFOs were a manifestation of a need for protection and salvation.
Jung’s book also provided detail of the analysis of particular sightings and art. One of the significant contributions to ufology made by the book is a focus on two historical broadsheets, a type of ancient newspaper, that recorded mysterious apparitions that many have speculated to be UFO related. Although Jung asserted that these reports were in the UFO literature prior to the publication of his book, Jung clearly made them popular as potential ancient UFO sightings.
The first is referred to as the Basel Broadsheet, and it dates back to 1566. It was written by Samuel Coccius and is a report of “many large black globes” that were seen flying in front of the sun “with great speed.” The Basel Broadsheet notes, “Some of them became red and fiery and afterwards faded and went out.” Jung noted the similarity of this phenomenon to modern UFO accounts.
The Basel Broadsheet from 1566 analyzed by Carl Jung in his Flying Saucer book. Credit: Wickiana Collection, Zentralbibliothek Zürich
The second report is called the Nuremberg Broadsheet and dates back to 1561. This report chronicles a “very frightful spectacle” that was witnessed by several people. Again, “globes” were seen near the sun, “some three in a row, now and then four in a square, also some standing alone.” There were also “two great tubes.” Jung noted that in UFO literature large tubes are considered “motherships,” and have been reported to have smaller discs that appear to fly out of them.
The Nuremberg Broadsheet from 1561 analyzed by Carl Jung in his Flying Saucer book. Credit: Wickiana Collection, Zentralbibliothek Zürich
The Physical Reality of UFOs
In his book, Jung also examined the possibility of the physical reality of UFOs. He noted that, “unfortunately,” UFOs cannot be dismissed as purely psychological in nature. He pointed to numerous sightings, some of which have been caught in photographs and on radar. Jung even poked fun at astronomer Donald Menzel, a UFO debunker, saying that he “has not succeeded, despite all his efforts, in offering a scientific explanation of even one authentic UFO report.”
Jung was well-versed on UFO research. He wrote, “since 1947 I have collected all of the books I could get a hold of on the subject.” He was also a member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), an early civilian UFO organization that included many credible members. In fact, in his book, Jung often referred to the work of Major Donald Keyhoe, a cofounder and director of NICAP.
Prior to releasing his book, Jung was considered by UFO researchers to be a proponent of the physical reality of UFOs. In 1955, he wrote an article on UFOs for a British journal called the Flying Saucer Review. In the article, Jung stated that he had never seen a UFO himself, but that “I can only say for certain: these things are not a mere rumour: something has been seen.”
He went on to argue that the U.S. Air Force “despite its contradictory statements,” considers the phenomenon to be real and they conduct official investigations. He warned that, by concealing information on the topic, the military is making it more likely that people will panic since the public is denied “an adequate picture of what is happening.”
Jung also stated that “the ‘disks’ (that is, the objects themselves) do not behave in accordance with physical laws, but as though without weight, and they show signs of intelligent guidance, by quasi human pilots, for their accelerations are such that no normal human could survive.”
Not much was made of Jung’s 1955 article until it was reprinted in 1958 by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in the organization’s bulletin in July 1958. APRO posted the story as part of an announcement that Jung had agreed to become an official consultant for the organization. The New York Herald Tribune quickly picked up on the report and printed a story with the headline, “Dr. Jung Says ‘Flying Disks’ Suggest Quasi-Human Pilots.”
APRO Bulletin from July, 1958 with reprint of Jung’s article on UFOs. Credit: APRO
Jung was not happy with the implication that he believed UFOs represented a physical phenomenon and later wrote a letter to United Press International news agency clarifying his position. He wrote: “I expressly state that I cannot commit myself on the question to the physical reality or unreality of the UFOs since I do not possess sufficient evidence either for or against.” He then stated, “Something is seen, but it isn’t known what.” Jung later repeated this statement in his 1958 book and in several letters.
Although Jung was clearly embarrassed by the public perception that he conclusively believed flying saucers were physical in nature, he later reiterated his prior statements and earlier criticisms of the U.S. Air Force’s handling of the matter in very strong words. He wrote:
In spite of the fact that I hold my judgment concerning UFOs—temporarily let’s hope—in abeyance, I thought it worthwhile to throw a light upon the rich fantasy material which has accumulated round the peculiar observations in the skies. Any new experience has two aspects: (I) the pure fact and (2) the way one conceives of it. It is the latter I am concerned with. If it is true that the [American Air Force] or the Government withholds telltale facts, then one can only say that this is the most unpsychological and stupid policy one could invent. Nothing helps rumours and panics more than ignorance.
It is no wonder that many have been confused as to Jung’s official stance on UFOs. He seems to have believed the phenomenon and sightings to be real, but is uncertain whether UFOs are a physical reality or are limited to a psychological phenomenon. He stated that although “by all human standards it hardly seems possible to doubt this any longer,” in the decade or more he had been studying the topic, neither he nor anyone else seems to have learned much from the study of the physical aspect of UFOs. Jung said that this is precisely why he found it much more fruitful to study the psychological aspects of UFOs, an area in which he felt he had gained an abundance of knowledge.
Jung may be right. Concrete physical proof of UFOs continues to elude us to this day. Yet, Jung is another example of a luminary who garners a great amount of respect in his field of study, who also had the vision to seriously consider the UFO phenomenon. His UFO interest is a story that should not be forgotten, and his insights into the phenomenon may help guide us today, just as his insights into the human mind continue to be a part of the bedrock of modern psychological understanding.
A version of this article originally appeared in Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.
A group of UFO researchers with backgrounds in science have come together to analyze an alleged UFO video they have confirmed comes from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The object in the video was captured by a thermal imaging camera on a DHS aircraft, and according to the researchers, it exhibits characteristics that cannot be explained by any known aircraft or natural phenomenon.
The video is overlaid with the sort of telemetry one would expect from a military or law enforcement thermal image video. It shows an object apparently moving very quickly over land and then into the ocean. It seems to be tumbling or changing shape. It moves over buildings, through trees, and eventually over the ocean. Then things get weird. The object appears to go in and out of the ocean without slowing down, and at the end of the video is either joined by another object or breaks in two.
All of the primary witnesses have requested anonymity. However, several communications from alleged DHS employees indicate that the video caused quite a stir on the base.
A still from the video in which the unknown objects appears to be flying through trees.
Research on the video began when an acquaintance to the pilot of the aircraft that captured the video contacted Daina Chaviano, a famous Cuban-born fantasy and science fiction author. She is also a volunteer with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in Florida, where in her spare time she investigates UFO reports. She took the UFO case to her colleague, Morgan Beall, who runs the Florida MUFON chapter.
Chaviano and Beall were so impressed by what they saw they assembled a small group of skeptical researchers with backgrounds in various fields of science and technology. The pilot’s acquaintance requested strict control of the information provided and that knowledge of the investigation be limited to a very few people, so until now, the researchers have not shared any information regarding their investigation.
Today, the group released a 161-page report detailing their findings.
The object was filmed over Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. (Credit: Google Maps)
They are vague when it comes to the identity of Chaviano’s informant. They say this person and others who provided information wanted to remain anonymous “to ensure no issues arise with the source’s employers.”
However, the group says: “The source of this video evidence was vetted and identified.”
They say they are absolutely certain that the information comes from sources on board the DHS aircraft and the video is genuine. Their investigation also confirmed what they were told.
Their sources told them that the UFO incident began at about 9:20 pm on the evening of April 25, 2013 at the Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. It involved the crew of a DHC-8 Turboprop aircraft from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of DHS.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bombardier DHC-8Q200. (Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
The DHC-8 took off on a routine flight and soon after takeoff they noticed “a pinkish to reddish light over the ocean that was in their vicinity and approaching toward the south.”
The crew was concerned the tower had not told them about the incoming traffic, so they called it in. The tower told them they also had a visual on the object, but they were unsure of its identity.
Once the object got close to land, its lights turned off, but at this time the DHC-8 was able to begin tracking and filming the object with their onboard thermal imaging system. The DHC-8 did not approach the object, but circled the area and filmed it.
The DHC-8 did not pick up the object on radar. However, their radar was looking downward to track ships on the ocean, not objects in the sky.
According to the source, a flight was delayed by the presence of the object. The research group was able to confirm from airport records that a FedEx flight scheduled to leave at 9:10 pm was delayed until 9:26 pm.
Image of the flight log from the UFO reporting showing the a delayed flight at the time of the UFO event. (Credit: SCU)
The researchers also confirmed the flight time and path of the DHC-8 via radar data they obtained from a Freedom of Information Act Request to the U.S. Air Force 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) group. The radar data confirmed that the DHC-8 took off at approximately 9:16 pm and circled the airport twice before leaving the area about 10 minutes later.
Flight path of the DHC-8 according to the radar data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request. (Credit: SCU)
The researchers note that there was an unknown object or objects tracked on radar a few minutes prior to the DHC-8’s take off, but it is not known for certain that this was the same object that was later caught on video. The unidentified radar strikes were just off the shore to the north and northwest of the airport and lasted about 16 minutes from 8:58 pm to 9:14 pm.
When reading the times, the radar data is presented in a different time zone than the local times. The researchers explained this on their website: “Aviation times reflect Zulu time which corresponds to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The video displays the Zulu time April 26th at 1:22 AM at the top left of the initial frames. Converting this Zulu time to Puerto Rico’s local time gives April 25th at 9:22 PM. Puerto Rico uses Atlantic Standard Time and does not use daylight savings time.”
Radar data showing the flight path of the DHC-8 and the unknown radar hits between 8:58 pm and 9:14 pm. (Credit: SCU)
The research group also thoroughly analyzed the video to determine the nature of the object in the film. They consulted thermal imaging experts to determine the capabilities of the system used for the filming, and broke the film down frame by frame to determine the object’s approximate size, speed, temperature and flight path.
The video (seen at the top of the story) is just under 4 minutes long, but the unknown object was tracked for about 2 1/2 of those minutes. Although it was difficult for the group to calculate the exact location of the object on the first half of its flight, they are confident of its position in the second half.
They have determined that the object came in from the ocean, from the north or northwest of the airport’s airstrip, and then flew over the airstrip, then turned back to the north and headed back out into the ocean.
Estimated flight path of the unknown object. The thinner lines estimate possible paths of the object in the first part of its flight. The thicker line shows the path the researchers believe is most likely. The researchers are more confident of the location of the object during the second half of its flight. This data corresponds with what the SCU researchers found. (Credit: SCU)
During this time the DHC-8 was circling the airport. As can be seen in the map created by the researchers, the aircraft was moving along the shore, turning to the south, and eventually lost site of the object over the ocean as they continued south.
The flight path of the DHC-8 during the filming of the unknown object posted on Reddit by an anonymous user. This path was calculated using the data in the video. It is marked “heli,” because the Reddit user believed the aircraft to be a helicopter and was unaware it was a DHC-8.
The report states: “The object was between three to five feet in length and its speed varied between approximately 40 mph to 120 mph. Its median speed was roughly 80 mph.”
The report goes on to note that an interesting characteristic at the end of the flight was when it apparently submerged into the ocean, traveled for over half a mile, and then flew back out.
According to the report: “Its speed through the water reached a high of 95 mph and average 82.8 mph.”
The unknown object returning to the ocean.
One suggestion has been that the object was merely a balloon. However, the researchers reject this idea for several reasons. They say the wind speeds at the time were 8 to 13 mph at ground level and 12 to 18 mph at 400 to 3200 feet. This means the object was moving too fast to be carried by wind currents. It also changed directions from heading south back to the north, and it went underwater with minimal loss of speed.
Another possibility is that the object was actually a bird. The object appears dark on the screen, and for this type of thermal imaging that would mean it was warmer than the ambient air. This is how a bird would appear. However, the researchers note that the object was moving much too fast to be a bird. They note that peregrine falcons, which do occasionally visit Puerto Rico, have an average horizontal speed of 40 to 56 mph, and a maximum of 65 to 69 mph.
The researchers also examined the possibility that the object was a drone. Their research did discover that the Navy is working on a drone that can fly through the air and dive into the ocean and become a submarine. It is called a “Flimmer.”
They found that current Flimmer drones have not been tested underwater and have an airspeed of 68 mph. They also noted that the fastest known underwater battery powered torpedo travels at 50 mph.
The researchers do acknowledge that it could be possible that the Navy is secretly testing a Flimmer drone that is much more advanced. However, they question why the military would so recklessly test it over a civilian area and airport runways.
In conclusion they state: “There is no explanation for an object capable of traveling under water at over 90 mph with minimal impact as it enters the water, through the air at 120 mph at low altitude through a residential area without navigational lights, and finally to be capable of splitting into two separate objects. No bird, no balloon, no aircraft, and no known drones have that capability.”
A still image from the video just after the object apparently split into two separate objects.
They do not profess to know what the object was, and they welcome “reasonable” suggestions.
However, as to be expected, there are those who have suggested that “they know” the object is extraterrestrial in nature, and at least one of those suggestions has come from an anonymous source who has intimate knowledge of this event.
An anonymous letter was sent to one of the researchers that is very similar to one that was sent to John Greenewald, owner of the website TheBlackVault.com. The only thing Greenewald knew about the video was related to a low resolution copy that was leaked to a Puerto Rican UFO researcher. Many assumed the video was taken from a helicopter.
The letter references the exact type of thermal system and aircraft that was used to capture the video. The message was accompanied by a high resolution version of the thermal video, which was then posted on YouTube by Greenewald. The anonymous letter states: “Alien technology is no doubt under the ocean near Puerto Rico!”
Is alien technology being demonstrated in this video? This careful report, which the researchers say took over 1000 man hours to complete, indicates that whatever took place, it is certainly unusual. The entire report is 161 pages long, and thoroughly explains their work, and how they came to the conclusions they did.
The report on the Puerto Rico incident can be found at ExploreSCU.org. Click the image to go to the site.
Even if the report had come to a mundane conclusion, the effort put into the investigation is remarkable. However, the fact that they could not determine what the object was, and have determined that it displayed characteristics that cannot be explained, makes the report remarkable.
Robert Powell, a retired engineer who worked in the semiconductor industry, who helped author the research paper, says although they have finally released their report, “work on this video will continue.”
Powell, Beall, Chaviano, and the rest of the researchers working on the report posted a high resolution version of the video, their report, and an animation of the radar data they obtained on a website called the Scientific Coalition for Ufology.
Powell says they have reached out to other scientific organizations that have shown an interest in the UFO phenomenon, including 3AF Sigma2, a group that is part of the French National Aeronautical and Astronautical Association. The French scientists have agreed to review their work and provide input.
Powell says, “We hope that this report will generate ideas and thoughts from other scientists that may provide more insight into the characteristics of the object seen in the video.”
To download the report, view the video, and find out more about the investigation, visit: ExploreSCU.org.
Hanging on the wall near the British government’s UFO Desk was what one of the men who occupied that desk called “the most spectacular UFO photo ever sent to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).” The photo has since disappeared, but the story of how the picture was obtained, and what it showed, has not.
Nick Pope ran the MoD’s UFO project from 1991 to 1994. When he was first assigned to the position, he was not excited about it. He felt the issue was ridiculous and he was not looking forward to having to deal with a bunch of UFO nuts. However, over the years, Pope found there were credible cases of incredible things, and began to see there was something truly mysterious about the phenomenon. One of the cases that lead him to this conclusion had to do with a photo that was made into a poster that he found hung in the office near his desk when he began working the UFO desk.
A recreation of the Calvine UFO photo poster. (Credit: Channel 5)
“I first came across this story in 1991, when I joined the UFO project,” writes Pope on his website. “A poster-sized enlargement of the best photo was prominently displayed on the office wall.”
“The X-Files first aired in the UK in 1994 and I acquired the same nickname (Spooky) as Fox Mulder, for obvious reasons,” Nick continues. “Mulder famously had his ‘I want to believe’ UFO poster on his office wall and though uncaptioned, I suppose this was my equivalent.”
The photo showed a picture of a large diamond shaped craft with a jet in the background. When he asked about the photo, Pope was told that they had officially determined the image was real. They estimated the craft to have been 25 meters (over 80 feet) in diameter.
However, if asked, they were instructed to answer, “no definite conclusion had been reached regarding the large diamond-shaped object.”
Pope learned that the object had been photographed on August 4, 1990. Two people had been walking near the town of Calvine in Scotland when they spotted the large diamond-shaped object. They described the object as looking metallic. It sat in one position, hovering silently for several minutes before taking off vertically at, as Pope writes, “a massive speed.”
During the sighting, the witnesses also saw a military aircraft that they thought might be a harrier jet, but they were unsure whether the jet was escorting the craft, chasing it, or whether the jet pilot was even aware of the diamond-shaped UFO.
The witnesses had taken several photographs and sent them to the Scottish Daily Record newspaper. The paper contacted the MoD, and the MoD was somehow able to convince the paper to hand over the photographs along with the negatives.
” The photos were then sent to the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) who then sent them on to imagery analysts at JARIC (Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre). Yet at the time, MoD hadn’t even publicly acknowledged that there was any intelligence interest in UFOs at all,” Pope explains.
“We implied and sometimes stated that we didn’t ‘investigate’ UFOs, but merely ‘examined sightings to see if anything reported was of any defence interest’ – as if the two were somehow different!”
Pope say the MoD was actually very interested in these cases, but often less interested in where the craft came from than what they could learn from it. They had hoped to identify some sort of technology they would be able to appropriate.
Nick Pope, former MOD UFO investigator, at the International UFO Congress. (Credit: Peter Beste/Open Minds)
Either way, the Calvine UFO photos impressed the UFO desk investigators enough that they hung the poster in the office.
“At one particularly surreal briefing on the UFO phenomenon my DIS opposite number indicated the photo and pointed his finger to the right: ‘It’s not the Americans’, he said, before pointing to the left and saying ‘and it’s not the Russians.’ There was a pause, before he concluded ‘and that only leaves …’ – his voice trailed off and he didn’t complete the sentence, but his finger was pointing directly upwards,” recalls Pope.
The office where the UFO desk was located also housed other non-UFO related projects.
Pope says the reaction of some colleagues who came to visit unaware of the UFO program had amusing reactions to the poster.
Pope writes, “You’d have this surreal moment when they’d stop mid-sentence, stare at it, point and say ‘what the hell’s that?’ – this wasn’t the archetypal distant, blurred UFO photo. This was up close and personal, reach out and you can touch it stuff. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it’s not one of ours’ was our stock answer to the inevitable question.”
Eventually, around 1994, Pope says his superior determined the craft was a secret American aircraft or drone. Pope says they had already asked the U.S. if the craft or something similar of theirs was being tested over the UK, and were told they were not. Pope believes his boss had decided to support a potential cover-up by the Americans and the MoD and removed the poster. It was never to be seen again.
Although Pope has discussed these photographs in the media and has posted an article on his website, no one has come forward to claim they took the photos. Nor has anyone at the Scottish Daily Record come forth to discuss any involvement. The case remains a mystery.
AI Sharpened Image of Purple UFO! May 18, 2004 - Provo Canyon, Utah, USA, UAP Sighting News.
AI Sharpened Image of Purple UFO! May 18, 2004 - Provo Canyon, Utah, USA, UAP Sighting News.
Hey all, I wanted to check out this UFO photo from back in 2004 in Utah, because so many people tried to claim that it's a bird. So much disinformation trying to confuse the public and distract them from the truth out there. So...I used ai to correct the photo and sharpen it and it's clearly a purple triangle UFO over the mountains of Provo, Utah. In this video below...I debunk the debunkers. This is 100% proof that it's not a bird, it's a UFO.
Of je het nu vindt op een strand, in de woestijn of als onderdeel van de regen, zand is enorm wijdverspreid in onze wereld. Maar ondanks het feit dat het veel gebruikt wordt en aanwezig is in onze samenleving, weten maar weinig mensen wat zand eigenlijk is en waar het van gemaakt is. Kortom: wat is er nog meer dan de zeer bijzondere consistentie en korreligheid ervan? En is dat echt zand in de regen? Laten we het samen ontdekken!
Wat is zand?
Zand is niets meer dan een sedimentair gesteente, dat wil zeggen gevormd door erosie van verschillende soorten gesteente en de resulterende korrels. Het is een lang en continu proces dat leidt tot het ontstaan van zand in verschillende soorten en kleuren. Om te begrijpen wat zand is, moeten we beginnen met hoe het wordt gevormd:
Erosie van gesteenten en mineralen. Dankzij de werking van regen en wind worden de rotsen van een specifieke plaats na verloop van tijd geërodeerd en vallen ze uiteen. De minerale fragmenten die uit dit proces voortkomen, vormen het zand dat we kennen
Ophoping van riviersedimenten. Rivieren transporteren mineralen, organische resten, puin, enzovoort naar de zee. Al deze materialen worden onderweg geërodeerd en blijven dat ook, zelfs als ze eenmaal door zeestromingen langs de kusten worden verspreid.
Hypersaline neerslag.Naast erosie en de ophoping van sedimenten kan er ook zand ontstaan door een hoge concentratie aan ionen en sterke verdamping, wat leidt tot het ontstaan van hypersaline regen waarbij het zand op de grond “neerslaat”.
Zoals je kunt zien, zijn er verschillende processen die leiden tot de vorming van zand. Gedeeltelijk verklaren ze al waarom niet al het zand hetzelfde is, uitgaande van de kleur: er is bijvoorbeeld zwart vulkanisch zand en wit atolzand. Maar waar bestaat zand uit?
Waar bestaat zand uit?
Unsplash
Gewoon zand bestaat grotendeels uit silicium, in de vorm van mineralen zoals kwarts en graniet. Daarnaast zijn veldspaat, die een groot deel van de terrestrische en oceanische korst uitmaken, ook wijdverspreid in licht zand. In het donkere zand zijn echter ook grote hoeveelheden hematiet, granaat en magnetiet te vinden. Met name dit laatste mineraal is verantwoordelijk voor het “magnetische” zand dat vaak door regen wordt meegebracht.
Op basis van wat we hebben gezien, kunnen we daarom zeggen dat zand een verzameling mineralen van verschillende aard is in zeer kleine korrels, tussen 0,06 en 2 millimeter. Het is echter niet zeker dat alle mineralen waaruit het zand bestaat uit stenen afkomstig zijn: het witte zand van de Caribische eilanden bestaat ook uit microscopisch kleine resten die zijn verkregen door de erosie van schelpen en andere mariene organismen. Hun samenstelling bevat mineralen, die vervolgens bijdragen aan de vorming van dit specifieke zand.
Hoe is de samenstelling van zand in regen?
Zoals we al zeiden, kan zand ook bestaan uit de minerale overblijfselen van sommige mariene organismen, waardoor het zijn karakteristieke witte kleur krijgt. Toch kunnen we ook iets soortgelijks zeggen over het zand van de Sahara, oftewel hetzelfde zand dat in sommige mediterrane landen na regen vaak op auto's blijft liggen. Het is slechts gedeeltelijk zand zoals we het tot nu toe hebben begrepen, omdat het in werkelijkheid is samengesteld uit de fossielen van vele microalgen die duizenden jaren geleden in een Afrikaans meer leefden.
Misschien weet niet iedereen dat de Sahara nog maar een paar duizend jaar een woestijn is, en dat het daarvoor de kenmerken had van prairies en savanne. In een van de meren in het gebied bevonden zich eencellige algen, diatomeeën genaamd: zodra ze gefossiliseerd waren na de vorming van de woestijn, vormden ze diatomeeënstof dat door de wind wordt getransporteerd en in de regen terechtkomt.
Zand is immers een overkoepelende term die we aan veel verschillende materialen geven en, specifieker, aan een heel specifieke korrel. Of het nu gemaakt is van kwarts of magnetiet, schelpen of gefossiliseerde algen, het is een fundamenteel materiaal voor onze hedendaagse samenleving. En niet alleen op het strand.
Do Biological UFOs Come from Other Dimensions or Parallel Realities?
Do Biological UFOs Come from Other Dimensions or Parallel Realities?
In an article posted on January 27, 2018, we discussed Biological UFOs, showcasing many images of different types of biological entities such as zeroids, archons, ebani and flying rods.
Image s some of the biological UFOs taken from our 2018 article
Now, the theory that some UFOs may be biological entities, which may populate the recesses of free space, possibly originating from another dimension, is not a new one.
Video on Youtube: Astronauts report squid-like entity floating in space
Jacques Vallée, a renowned computer scientist and ufologist, proposed a theory that UFOs and related phenomena might be manifestations of beings from other dimensions or parallel realities existing at different frequencies from our own.
These entities, according to Vallée, may not necessarily be extraterrestrial but could belong to a reality operating under different physical laws. This hypothesis suggests that the phenomenon of alien visitors might originate not from our physical reality or outer space but from alternate realities or parallel universes.
Video on Youtube: Possible biological UFO filmed from passenger plane
Possible biological UFO seen over Iraq
Analyst Bob Spearing of MUFON recently spilled the beans to Daily Mail about these mysterious aerial objects. MUFON has studied drawings and photographs dating back to the 1970s of "squid-like objects" floating in the sky
Image left: squid like entity spotted in Russia 1977 (credit MUFON)
Image right: squid like entity spotted in Denmark 1975 (credit MUFON)
These bioforms, living beings, are not only floating in our sky but also for example orbiting the moon, potentially populating the recesses of free space and the cosmic void, remain a mystery.
Pilot’s Shocking Encounter: UFO Follows Plane in Mid-Air Drama
Pilot’s Shocking Encounter: UFO Follows Plane in Mid-Air Drama
In a captivating and mysterious incident, a former pilot vividly describes witnessing a UFO following his plane, adding a new dimension to the ongoing exploration of unidentified aerial phenomena. This account is part of a broader investigation into UFO sightings, with significant findings reported in both Carneiro, Kansas, and Bariloche, Argentina.
The Encounter in Bariloche, Argentina
Captain Jorge Polanco, a seasoned pilot with years of experience, recounted an extraordinary encounter while landing a Boeing 737 filled with passengers at Bariloche Airport in 1995. As he approached the airport, Polanco noticed a very bright light in the sky. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a saucer-shaped object, an unidentified flying object (UFO), which began to follow his aircraft.
The proximity of the UFO was alarming. At one point, Polanco estimated it was only 100 meters away from his plane. This was not just a fleeting glimpse; the UFO seemed to be mirroring his movements. As Polanco attempted to land, the power at the airport suddenly went out, forcing him to abort the landing and circle back up to 10,000 feet. Astonishingly, the UFO seemed to anticipate his actions, maintaining its position at the same altitude.
“It was as if the UFO was always one step ahead,” Polanco explained. The eerie intelligence and precision of the object left him and his crew in awe and fear. This was not merely an unidentified object but a highly advanced craft demonstrating capabilities beyond known human technology.
Broader Implications and Investigations
Polanco’s encounter was not an isolated incident. His sighting coincided with an electrical blackout at Bariloche Airport and burn marks on the ground, which appeared at the exact time of the sighting. Multiple pilots reported similar experiences, adding weight to the argument that these were not mere hallucinations or atmospheric anomalies but real, tangible events.
In an effort to understand these phenomena, Space Marine Intelligence Officer Nick Carnezzi and astrophysicist Sarah Cruttis embarked on an investigation in Carneiro, Kansas, a known UFO hotspot. Utilizing advanced drone technology, they conducted an aerial survey of a three-mile area where a cluster of UFO sightings had been reported. The drone’s findings revealed an anomaly – a circular concrete pad in the middle of nowhere, suggesting a possible landing site.
Linking the Dots
The connection between these two regions, separated by thousands of miles, is compelling. In both instances, there were sightings of low-hovering objects, unexplained physical evidence on the ground, and multiple eyewitness accounts, including those of trained pilots. These parallels raise questions about the nature and origin of these objects.
The investigations in Kansas and Argentina illustrate the importance of using technology to validate eyewitness accounts. The drones in Kansas and the aviation maps in Argentina provided crucial data, turning wild stories into credible reports with physical evidence.
VIDEO:
Pilot Witnesses UFO FOLLOWING His Plane | Alien Contact
Captain Jorge Polanco’s harrowing experience adds a personal, human element to the study of UFOs. His detailed account, combined with the corroborating evidence from other pilots and the advanced technological investigations, underscores the reality of these unexplained phenomena. As we continue to explore these mysteries, such firsthand experiences are invaluable, reminding us of the vast unknown that still awaits discovery in our skies.
The convergence of multiple credible sightings, physical evidence, and advanced technological analysis makes it increasingly difficult to dismiss these events as mere coincidences or fabrications. Whether these phenomena are of extraterrestrial origin or something yet to be understood, the testimony of pilots like Polanco is crucial in unraveling the enigma of UFOs.
NASA's Perseverance rover has discovered a rock on Mars that contains what scientists believe may be signs of ancient life.
The rock, dubbed "Cheyava Falls" by the rover's science team, exhibits intriguing characteristics that suggest it may have hosted life billions of years ago.
Analysis conducted by Perseverance's onboard instruments indicates that a core sample contains chemical signatures and structures potentially formed by life when the area was rich with flowing water.
While these features could indicate ancient microbial life, alternative explanations are still being considered, and further research is essential to confirm this hypothesis.
Nicola Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, remarked on the significance of the find, "This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we've never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study."
Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist at Caltech, highlighted the rock's potential importance: "Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance. We have our first compelling detection of organic material and evidence that water once passed through the rock. However, we still need to determine exactly how the rock formed."
Related video:
Mars Rock May Hold Ancient Alien Life Trace Says NASA After 'Big Surprise' (Newsweek)
Named after a Grand Canyon waterfall, Cheyava Falls measures 3.2 feet by 2 feet. The rock's white calcium sulfate veins and reddish bands suggest the presence of hematite, a mineral that contributes to Mars's distinctive rusty hue. Closer inspection revealed millimetre-sized off-white splotches surrounded by black material, akin to leopard spots. These black halos contain both iron and phosphate, as determined by the rover's PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instrument.
David Flannery, an astrobiologist from Queensland University of Technology and a member of the Perseverance science team, explained, "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."
Copyright 2024 Cover Media. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Signs of Ancient Life on Mars? Here’s What We See in This Intriguing Rock #Shorts
NASA’s Perseverance rover has made very compelling observations in a Martian rock that, with further study, could prove that life was present on Mars in the distant past – but how can we determine that from a rock, and what do we need to do to confirm it?
Morgan Cable, a scientist on the Perseverance team, takes a closer look.
Recent observations of Venus have yielded new evidence of a compound in its atmosphere that could indicate the presence of life, according to findings that potentially lend weight to controversial past discoveries.
Phosphine, a toxic gas that astrobiologists have proposed could be associated with the presence of life on rocky planets, was initially detected in Venus’s atmosphere in a surprise discovery four years ago. Now, new observations potentially strengthen those past findings, hinting at the presence of biosignatures that, if confirmed, could mean life forms are able to thrive in the planet’s harsh environment.
A CONTROVERSIAL DISCOVERY ON VENUS
The initial detection of phosphine in Venus’s oxidized atmosphere was reported in September 2020, when a team of scientists led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University said they had found evidence of the toxic molecule. The discovery initially led to debate over the possibility that life could exist on Venus, since phosphine is normally associated with organisms that thrive in low-oxygen environments.
The team’s announcement received considerable media attention, and also led to controversy that culminated in rebukes from some in the scientific community. Arguably, the sharpest criticism was leveled by the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology, who even questioned the ethics of Greaves and her team over the manner in which the discovery was revealed.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” the commission wrote in an official statement released at the time.
The commission added it “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them.”
Initial follow-up attempts to detect the compound again were unsuccessful. However, last year, Greaves and her team succeeded in detecting phosphine in deeper portions of the planet’s atmosphere during observations made with the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. Additional detections with NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) also suggested the presence of phosphine, which may originate either within or from below the clouds on Venus.
Craters seen in false color on the surface of Venus, where the presence of phosphine and ammonia could potentially point to the existence of life forms that may thrive in the planet’s inhospitable climate
(Credit: NASA).
Intriguingly, a separate research effort led by Rakesh Mogul with California State Polytechnic University reanalyzed data obtained by NASA’s Pioneer Venus Large Probe in 1978, revealing additional support for the presence of phosphine in the planet’s atmosphere that appeared to match the earlier findings.
“To date, our analyses remain unchallenged in the literature,” Mogul said of his team’s findings, which he characterized as being “in sharp contrast to the telescopic observations” made by Greaves and her colleagues, which Mogul said “remain controversial.”
NEW FINDINGS STILL WARRANT CAUTION
With the aid of a new receiver installed on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, Greaves and her colleagues now say they have collected as much as 140 times more data than previous observations yielded, which include additional detections of phosphine. The new findings were revealed in a pair of presentations by Greaves and David Clements, a researcher at Imperial College London who was involved with the discovery, on July 17 during a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society.
However, of even greater potential interest in the search for possible life forms on Venus is evidence that ammonia is present in its atmosphere, which Clements has called “more significant than the discovery of phosphine.” Notably, the 2021 study by Mogul and his colleagues also determined that ammonia could potentially exist in Venus’s atmosphere.
Despite the potential significance of the discovery, during Greaves’s talk at the Society’s meeting earlier this month, a slide in her presentation emphasized that there are “many significant unknowns about the Venusian surface and atmosphere,” adding that “even a ‘gold standard’ discovery of two bio-associated molecules is not evidence that life is extant!”
Similarly, Clements told CNN that it would be premature to speculate that these gases point to the existence of life on Venus, although he conceded that the presence of ammonia along with phosphine certainly strengthens that possibility.
PROMISING PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
While cautioning against premature conclusions, Greaves explained during her presentation this month that there is at least a possibility that any organisms present on Venus could produce ammonia to help reduce the environment’s acidity and thereby make it more habitable. If this were the case, Greaves and her colleagues speculate that the gas could have potentially risen into the atmosphere, allowing its detection.
“The ammonia was detected in the upper clouds, where temperatures are -15°C or less and it is likely too cold for life to exist,” read a posting on the official X account of the Royal Astronomical Society summarizing Greave’s presentation.
“Researchers want to see if the molecule is also present deeper in Venus’s clouds, where it is much warmer,” it added.
Going forward, additional corroboration will be required, which might be obtained in one of several ways. One possibility includes data that could be collected by NASA’s Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission, which will dispatch a probe into Venus’s harsh environment to measure its atmosphere in 2029.
Another potential chance to take measurements of the planet’s atmosphere could be afforded by the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, which will pass close to Venus next year and is equipped with instruments that could potentially obtain useful data that may complement the findings by Greaves and her colleagues.
Until that data is obtained, however, the new findings remain inconclusive, albeit promising.
“Again, it’s important to stress these are preliminary findings,” the Society said in its posting on X.
5 Alleged Alien Artifacts That Were Actually Rocks, Spark Plugs, and Dolls
5 Alleged Alien Artifacts That Were Actually Rocks, Spark Plugs, and Dolls
From strangely spherical orbs to ancient aircraft, the list of supposedly out-of-this-world objects keeps growing. Learn more about five of the most famous fake alien artifacts.
The bodies of two supposed aliens were presented to the Mexican Congress in September 2023. With their spindly bodies and bulbous domes, the specimens are the spitting image of the quintessential alien.
(Credit: Octavio Hoyos/Shutterstock)
We seem to have entered something of an alien renaissance. Public interest in extraterrestrial speculation soared this summer, as former intelligence officials testified to Congress that the U.S. government is in possession of materials from a spacecraft of “non-human origin.”
For all its mystery and intrigue, though, this moment is only the latest surge in a century of extraterrestrial hype, and of claims to the existence of alien artifacts. So far none have held up to scrutiny, and it remains to be seen whether the Pentagon is hiding the real deal. But there’s a long list of fascinating (and decidedly not authentic) objects that people have taken to be of alien origin.
Found outside Olancha, a community near California's Coso Range, the “Coso artifcat” looked like a geode at first glance. Yet, its core of what appeared to be white porcelain and metal fostered rumors about its alien origins.
(Credit: Diane079F/Getty Images)
One winter morning in 1961, the three owners of a rock shop in eastern California went hunting for geodes. Later that day, when they brought their haul back to the shop and started slicing them open, the trio discovered something inexplicable: At the center of one “geode,” where they expected to find an array of sparkling crystals, they saw instead a circular piece of what appeared to be white porcelain surrounding a shaft of metal.
They were baffled. The object seemed man-made, but one of the discoverers claimed to have spoken with a geologist who said the surrounding rock would’ve taken 500,000 years to form. However, as noted in an analysis by Pacific Northwest Skeptics founder Pierre Stromberg and Louisiana State University geologist Paul Heinrich, “very little is known about the initial physical inspections.”
The True Origins of the Coso Artifact
After decades of speculation, Stromberg and Heinrich closed the case with help from a surprisingly niche group of experts — the Spark Plug Collectors of America. Several of its members concurred that the so-called Coso artifact is simply a Champion spark plug from the 1920s, potentially used in a 20th-century mining operation. Nevertheless, it still routinely shows up on lists of “out-of-place artifacts” (OOPArts) as possible evidence of aliens.
Some of the “Ottosdal objects” of South Africa are adorned with strange grooves, as a result of natural geologic processes. The same sort of grooves mark the “Moqui Marbles” of the Navajo Sandstone in southern Utah.
(Credit: Sumikophoto/Shutterstock)
Similar to the Coso find,several stone spheres, also known as Ottosdal objects, have been found in 3 billion-year-old geological deposits in Ottosdal, South Africa, just outside of Klerksdorp. A 1979 article in the National Enquirer described them as “so perfectly made that they look as though they were cast from a mould,” and ever since, creationists and ancient astronaut theorists have interpreted them as the artificial products of an advanced civilization.
The True Origins of the Klerksdorp Spheres
Their name, however, is a misnomer. “A careful examination of the Ottosdal objects demonstrates the imaginary nature of the ‘perfectly spherical’ descriptions given by various authors,” states an analysis, also by Heinrich. In reality, the objects come in many shapes and sizes and are mostly asymmetrical. They’re just good old-fashioned carbonate concretions.
Some of the objects feature a series grooves around their circumference. The grooves, Heinrich explains, are merely the result of the sediment layers in which the objects formed: In fine-grained layers they grew more slowly, leaving what seem to be etched rings. The same process can be seen at work in the “Moqui Marbles” of southern Utah.
None of this, of course, prevents vague assertions that the objects may be “connected in some way” to Iapetus, a moon of Saturn that happens to have a similar ridge around its equator. Or that they are “so delicately balanced that, even with modern technology, they would need to have been made in zero gravity.”
This semi-spherical helmet, adorned with a female figure, was among the artifacts of the famed “Quimbaya Treasure.” Also included in the collection were several small figurines, whose stylized appearance is sometimes said to look like ancient aircraft.
(Credit: WH_Pics/Shutterstock)
The “Quimbaya Treasure” is an assortment of gold objects created by the Quimbaya culture, which reached its peak in what is now Colombia between 500 B.C.E. and 600 C.E. But of the 135 artifacts in the collection — which include everything from containers and pendants to human and animal figurines — a handful have been singled out as evidence of ancient aircraft (and, by extension, aliens).
The producers of the pseudoscientific TV series Ancient Aliens call them the Tolima jets. They’re shaped a little like birds or insects or fish, but (the producers argue) the anatomy doesn’t add up: Many have what appear to be wings, as well as vertical tails, a perplexing combo. What does have both? Modern fighter jets. Ergo pre-Columbian people must have achieved flight, millennia before Orville and Wilbur Wright, with help from extraterrestrials.
In 1994, two German men even built (substantially altered) model airplanes based on the artifacts to prove that, scaled and motorized, they could have flown. On Ancient Aliens, the producers claim the men “did not add an inch or remove an inch, they just essentially blew the thing into a larger size.” But again, a quick comparison shows the models to be far more aerodynamic than the originals.
The True Origins of the Quimbaya Artifacts
Chris White, who directed the film Ancient Aliens Debunked, notes that most of the Quimbaya artifacts are simply stylized animals. “Because of that,” he writes, “and the fact that the few objects in question also have teeth and eyes, it seems more likely that these were also depicting animals.” It takes little effort to see them as representations of fish, like the sucker-mouth catfish, which Quimbaya natives would’ve been familiar with.
The fine craftsmanship of the crystal skulls supposedly taken from the pre-Colombian Aztec or Maya civilizations is sometimes interpreted as a sign of alien interference in ancient affairs.
(Credit: Mistervlad/Shutterstock)
An assemblage of quartz crystals, carved in the likeness of human skulls and allegedly dating to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, is another favorite of the Ancient Aliens crew. They started turning up left and right in the late 1800s, and museum curators, eager for exotic curiosities, ate them up. But none came from official archaeological excavations, and none had substantiated backstories.
Perhaps the most famous is the “Skull of Doom,” which Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of British adventurer Frederick Arthur Mitchell-Hedges, claimed to have found while exploring a ruined temple in Belize with her father in 1924. If that were the skull’s true origin, it would be much too finely crafted for the era — the sort of thing the Aztec and Maya civilizations might’ve had otherworldly assistance for.
The True Origins of the Crystal Skulls
When Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh examined it in 2007, however, she concluded the technology used in its creation was “decidedly 20th century” (that is, high-speed, diamond-coated rotary tools).
In her book The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls, Walsh traces many of the fakes to a single Frenchman named Eugène Boban, who, as a recognized expert on Mexican archaeology, was able to pass them off as genuine artifacts. Still, it’s unclear where they ultimately came from, so, you know, aliens — with equipment strikingly like that of today’s human jewelers.
The bodies of two supposed aliens were presented to the Mexican Congress in September 2023. With their spindly bodies and bulbous domes, the specimens are the spitting image of the quintessential alien.
(Credit: Octavio Hoyos/Shutterstock)
Lest you think the fountain of phony artifacts has gone dry, here’s a contemporary example, and one of the boldest yet.
For a brief moment in September 2023, Mexico’s Congress became the showroom for a spectacle the likes of which doesn’t often appear in government proceedings: mummified alien remains, and earnest testimony from the controversial, self-proclaimed ufologist who brought them.
Jaime Maussan, a Mexican journalist, presented two tiny, shriveled bodies, which he said had been found in a remote part of Peru in 2017 and dated to about 1,000 years ago. With oblong heads, three-fingered hands, and an eerily humanoid form, they resembled the classic grey aliens, or “greys,” common in extraterrestrial encounter claims (a bit on the nose, as such hoaxes go).
It may come as a surprise to see supposedly alien specimens taken seriously in the halls of legislature, but it’s a testament to our enduring extraterrestrial obsession.
The True Origins of the Congressional Aliens
As with each of the previous hoaxes, the mainstream scientific community scoffed at the proceedings. After all, when Maussan made similar claims in the past, the bodies turned out to be “recently manufactured dolls, which have been covered with a mixture of paper and synthetic glue to stimulate the presence of skin.” If we want an authentic alien artifact, we’ll have to keep waiting.
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What the UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 Means For UFO Sightings
What the UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 Means For UFO Sightings
In July 2023, military veterans testified about UFO sightings before Congress, sparking debates and investigations into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
In July 2023,three military veteranstestified before the U.S. Congress about their experiences with UFOs. A navy fighter pilot described seeing a dark, cube-like spacecraft near the coast of Virginia in 2014. The pilot was flying an F-18 in hurricane-force winds and was stunned to see the dark object hovering, unbothered by the gusts.
Another navy pilot reported how he saw an aircraft near San Diego that resembled a Tic Tac. The apparent UFO was smooth, without wings or rotors. And when the navy pilot tried to get close, the other aircraft zipped from sight.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability also heard from a former member of the Pentagon’s task force on UFOs. He testified the government had extraterrestrial spacecraft in its possession, and he knew exactly where they were hidden.
So, what has happened since that bombshell testimony?
Government Reports on UFOs
The Department of Defense and other government agencies prefer the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), and the 2023 testimony was part of an increasing interest from Congress to have intelligence agencies share what they know about UAPs.
In 2022, the Department of Defense established the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)to serve as the go-to agency regarding extraterrestrials.
Since then, the office has received hundreds of reports of UFO sightings from the public. But this year, AARO has made it clear they haven’t been impressed.
Recent Developments of UAP Sightings
In late February, AARO released a report stating they saw no evidence of UAPs. The report is meant to be the first of two public investigations.
The report’s investigators say they reviewed all evidence collected since 1945, interviewed witnesses, and analyzed archives.
The following week, Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, released a statement saying there had been “no verifiable evidence” that the UFO sightings were legit. The statement also denied there was any evidence that the government or private groups had access to “extraterrestrial technology” (AKA flying saucers), which they were able to study or even reverse-engineer.
Latest UAP Legislation
Government intelligence agencies might not give credence to UFO sightings, but some members of Congress still want transparency with the American public. In May, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence passed the Intelligence Authorization Act, which included a section on UAPs.
Then in July, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota proposed to Congress the UAP Disclosure Act of 2024. If passed, the Act would establish oversight, a review board, and a public disclosure plan for the next seven years.
Like most bills introduced into Congress, The UAP Disclosure Act will be subject to debate, both among politicians and citizens with strong opinions. While some people don’t believe in extraterrestrial life, others not only believe in UFOs but they also say they have had some sort of encounter.
People who say they have seen a UFO have become of interest to scientists who want to know about these encounters as well as the personality traits believers might share.
Personality Traits of UFO Witnesses
In a March 2024 article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, an international research team from the U.S. and U.K. sought to identify shared personality traits among people who say they have seen UFOs.
Of the 206 participants, half said they had seen a UFO. The participants took several questionnaires measuring their personality traits as well as their belief in ETs. Those who said they had seen UFOs also described their encounters. Most said they saw strange, undefined lights or orb-like spacecraft.
The study’s authors noted that while most people assume UFO witnesses are neurotic or odd, their study found that most witnesses fell into a personality category in which they scored high on openness, agreeableness, and extraversion. This group also scored lower on neuroticism and schizotypy traits.
Why Scientists Are Interested in UFO Sightings
The study's lead author, Daniel R. Stubbings, said the participants in his study had encounters similar to those of the Congressional hearing witnesses. Yet, he says many people aren’t taken seriously when they tell others about their experiences.
“The wider reason for the research is that the topic of UAP is being considered seriously at the highest levels of the USA government; that is an intriguing turn of events,” says Stubbings, a principal lecturer in clinical psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales.
Stubbings says the current public interest in UFOs is a prime research opportunity. If the sightings are eventually disproven, there is an opportunity to study the event from a mass hysteria or misinformation perspective. And if the sightings are proven correct, then scientists also have out-of-this-world research possibilities.
“It is one of the few topics in science that is a win-win, but we need to collect the data and inspire other scientists to apply their skills, rather than add to the conjecture, speculation or belief,” Stubbings says.
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Emilie Lucchesi has written for some of the country's largest newspapers, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an MA from DePaul University. She also holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Illinois-Chicago with an emphasis on media framing, message construction and stigma communication. Emilie has authored three nonfiction books. Her third, "A Light in the Dark: Surviving More Than Ted Bundy," releases October 3, 2023 from Chicago Review Press and is co-authored with survivor Kathy Kleiner Rubin.
Roswell alien autopsy: A summary of the truth behind the video that shocked the world
Roswell alien autopsy: A summary of the truth behind the video that shocked the world
It was 1993 when I was first contacted by London businessman Ray Santilli. It was l995 when Santilli’s controversial ‘Alien Autopsy Film’ was released around the world. I have covered events surrounding this film in many publications around the world and in my new book ‘ROSWELL ALIEN AUTOPSY – The Truth Behind the Film That Shocked the World’ so forgive me if I don’t cover old ground here. All the relevant details of my previous research can be located on my website at: www.beyondroswell.com.
On June 22nd 2007, I travelled by train to London to meet up with Ray Santilli and his business partner Gary Shoefield. We had a pleasant lunch together and Ray Santilli showed me some frames of film encased in a type of perspex material. Santilli claimed these were original vintage 1947 frames of film from the alien autopsy. As they came with no official seal of approval or had been authenticated by anyone they were useless.
From left: Shoefield, Philip Mantle (Author), Ray Santilli
Within a couple of days of this meeting my friend and colleague Russel Callaghan, editor of UFO DATA magazine, had a phone call from a man by the name of Spyros Melaris. This man claimed he had lead the team that faked the whole alien autopsy film. He was a magician and filmmaker and he was now ready to spill the beans. He gave Russel a run down of the who, what, why and where of the whole affair. Because of my involvement in this affair Russel was soon on the phone to me with the details. It wasn’t long before I spoke to Spyros Melaris myself and he was telling me things in great detail. During the next few weeks I had several telephone conversations with Spyros Melaris and also put him in contact with US TV producer Robert (Bob) Kiviat at his request. Spyros was considering the best way to go public with his story, he had a book planned and thought that a TV documentary might also be a good idea.
Along with my colleagues Russel Callaghan, Michael Buckley and Steve Johnston, I was one of the co-organisers of the UFO DATA annual conference. It just so happened, that the 2007 conference had a loose Roswell theme to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident. My colleagues and I discussed the possibility of asking Spyros Melaris to make his first public statement on this whole thing at our conference and eventually he agreed. The conference itself was held over the weekend of October 20th & 21st 2007 in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. A packed audience saw Spyros take the stage on Sunday October 21st. I had met him in person for the first time the night before at the hotel and I made loose arrangements to formally interview him at his home later in the year. As promised, Spyros took to the stage and told of his involvement in the making of the alien autopsy film. A small few members of the audience were rather upset to hear this but the vast majority were fascinated by what he had to say.
Spyros Melaris speaking at the UFO DATA conference in 2007. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
I made arrangements to visit the home of Spyros Melaris on November 16th 2007 and I drove to his house in Hertfordshire with my partner Christine. Before the formal audio-taped interview began we had lunch with Spyros and his lovely wife Anne. Over lunch Spyros showed us some of the documentary evidence he has to support his claims. This included his diary from l995, hand drawn sketches of the alien, a full list of hand painted story board images of the whole alien autopsy film, original fax messages from Kodak in the USA providing copies of l947 fill canister labels, and a large portfolio of research material. This was mainly of vintage (l940’s) US military vehicles and some vintage US military medical photographs. The interview itself lasted around two hours and we only touched the tip of the iceberg. The full interview can be located online at: http://www.outtahear.com/beyond_updates/index.html (Alien Autopsy Information section). I would like to thank my colleague Steve Johnston for transcribing this interview in full. The following is based on that interview.
Spyros Melaris (right) with Philip Mantle in 2007. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
Who is Spyros Melaris?
As the name might give it away Spyros was originally born in Cyprus. As a boy he was taught a magic trick by his grandfather and his love of magic was born. The other passion as a boy growing up in the UK was film making. At school he told his careers officer that he wanted to be an actor but this was discouraged. A proper job was what he should have. So a proper job he took and after leaving school became an apprentice trained motor mechanic. However, his love of magic and film making eventually won over and he eventually became a magician and a filmmaker. He now owns his own TV studio in London and makes TV shows for all the major networks in the UK and independent production companies alike. In short, in his owns words, we make programmes for “anyone who books us.”
How He Met Ray Santilli
In January 1995 he was to attend the MIDEM music industry event in Cannes, France. He was taking a film crew there and had some spare time on his hands so he sent fax messages to 4 production companies picked at random from a media directory. He basically asked them if they wanted to hire him and his crew while in Cannes. One of these happened to be the Merlin Group owned by Ray Santilli. Spyros and Ray Santilli had a few telephone conversations but did not meet and arranged to meet in Cannes. By pure chance they bumped into each other at a restaurant in Cannes and it was here that Ray Santilli fist told Spyros Melaris that he had obtained film footage of an alien. Holding back a smirk Spyros asked Santilli if he was serious and he replied he was, not only that, he wanted Spyros to make a documentary from this footage. They eventually agreed to meet at Ray Santilli’s office back in London. A few days later Spyros kept his appointment with Santilli at his office in London. Here he met an almost distraught Ray Santilli who told him he’d bought this film but it had turned out to be very poor quality. Spyros was shown what has become known as the ‘tent footage’ and he immediately recognised it as been shot on video. The tape he was shown was on VHS format. Santilli seemed surprised that he had recognised it as being shot on video so quickly and he realised the game was up. Again in Spyros’s own words “If I can’t get it past this guy, I’m not going to get it past anyone else. He realised it was game up. That’s when the meeting ended. I thought the guy’s mad. He’s trying a fast one. I thought it was over at that point.”
So How Did The Idea of a Fake Film Come About?
Melaris met up with his friend and colleague John Humphreys. Humphreys is a Royal Academy trained sculptor whose work had sometimes overlapped into film and TV special effects. Melaris and Humphreys had known each other for a long time and had worked on a number of things together in the past. Melaris simply put the idea to Humphreys, “John, do you fancy sculpting an alien?” Melaris told Humphreys of his meeting with Santilli and basically came up with the idea of making it. They talked things over from a legal point of view and how it might help them break into other projects, even Hollywood. The idea was to make it, release it to the world, and then make a second programme shortly after showing how they did it. Humphreys agreed and Melaris pitched the idea to Santilli. Santilli looked like a man reborn and agreed. The budget put forward by Melaris was about £30,000 and it was Santilli’s business partner and friend Volker Spielberg who put up the money. The funding was in place, contracts and a confidentiality agreement were signed and the ball was rolling.
The Team Behind The Making of The Film
First off there was Spyros Melaris. He designed and directed the film, instructed and paid the rest of the team, made the autopsy table along with many of the other props, he also made the ‘contamination suits’ as well as obtain the props and cameras. The main researcher behind it all was Spyros’s then girlfriend Geraldine. She was the one who checked the medical books, spoke with surgeons and pathologists and she even played the part of the nurse in the film. Geraldine is not her real name as she wishes to remain anonymous. John Humphreys of course made the alien’s bodies. The mould was actually made from John’s ten year-old son who was quite tall. As a trained sculptor Humphreys had also studied anatomy so he was the man who played the surgeon in the film. Another friend of Spyros’s was Greg Simmons. He was seen occasionally in the film in one of the contamination suits and he also played the part of the soldier in the Debris Footage. Gareth Watson, a colleague of Santilli’s and Shoefield’s was the man in the surgical mask behind the glass, and finally Spyros’s brother Peter helped behind the scenes. The set was built in Geraldine’s house in Camden in London. The property was in the process of being converted into three flats (apartments) at the time and was therefore empty. The props were obtained from someone Spyros knew in the USA. She was not told what they were for and were all ordered separately and delivered to different addresses so as not to arouse suspicion. The camera’s were obtained by Spyros; one bought and one borrowed from a friend.
Original pencil sketch of a design for the alien creature by Spyros Melaris. (Credit: Spyros Melaris)Original pencil sketch of a design for the alien creature by Spyros Melaris. (Credit:Spyros Melaris)
Why There Are Two Separate Autopsy Films
According to Spyros the first ‘Alien Autopsy’ film went pretty much as planned. However, upon completion Geraldine noticed that a few of the medical procedures were not correct. They therefore had to make another creature and film another one. Apparently Santilli was ready for packing it all in at this point as there was no more money in the budget to film it again. They persevered and made another one at Spyros’s cost the very next day. This too was not without problems. The foam latex used to fill the dummy had not worked right and an air bubble had left a hollow space in the creature’s leg. Humphreys was despatched to the local butchers by Spyros to get a leg joint of a sheep. This was inserted into the hollow part in the alien’s right leg, a few other things were added, the outside of the leg was gently burnt with a blowtorch and hey presto, the leg wound. Some of the inner organs were manufactured by Melaris, and animal organs were also used for the alien’s innards, although altered with a scalpel and coated with latex. The alien’s brain was actually made from three sheep’s brains and part of a pig’s brain cast in gelatine. This is how there came to be two separate autopsy films one of which was shown in its entirety, while the second one made, has only ever been released in part.
The Wreckage and I-beams
These were all designed by Spyros himself. At the October 2007 UFO DATA conference Spyros showed me how he had designed the ‘writing’ on them and what it said. The wreckage was then manufactured by John Humphreys, Spyros and his brother Peter. He told me that he based it on Greek lettering, a bit of ancient Egyptian stylising and some artistic license. On the main large beams, if translated correctly, reads ‘FREEDOM’. Spyros thought this a fitting name for an alien spacecraft. While designing the letters which spell the word ‘FREEDOM’, Spyros noticed that if the word is turned upside down, the word ‘VIDEO’ could be seen. He adjusted some of the letters to better facilitate this, so the piece would throw a little red herring into the mix. The translation of the smaller beam is being held back for Spyros’s book.
Spyros Melaris shows two of the many paintings he did for the original ‘story board’ for the alien autopsy film. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
The Cameraman’s Home Video Interview
According to Melaris, Ray Santilli was put under a lot of pressure by various parties to arrange an interview with the fictitious cameraman he allegedly bought the film from. Of course, according to Melaris, there was no such person, so he came up with the idea of creating this aspect of the whole affair as well. The basic scenario is that Melaris flew to Los Angeles and met up with Santilli’s partner Gary Shoefield. Melaris wanted to find an eighty year old tramp on the streets of L.A., pay him a few hundred dollars, put him in front of a camera and ask him to read from a script. Santilli and Shoefield were nervous, and not sure this would work but Spyros was confident he could pull this off, and went ahead. He found an old guy living rough on the street, offered him $500 and a night in the hotel and he duly agreed. Again, by pure chance the chap had been an actor many years ago. Melaris took his name and the name of a movie he had appeared in. These details will be released in his book. He cleaned him up, gave him a shave, and added a bit of make up and a false prosthetic nose and chin and the job was done. The man himself did not know what he was reading or where it was going to be used. There was little chance that he would see the broadcast either. No one would recognise him in a thousand years. And they never did. This film was delivered in person in New York to US TV producer Bob Kiviat by Gary Shoefield and a man claiming to be the cameraman’s son. Eventually the film in question was broadcast on TV in Japan only and from there it was copied and distributed to UFO researchers around the world. The trick worked, no one has identified the man in question, and Melaris claims he is the only one who can do this.
The Crash Site
There are a number of people who believe the alien autopsy film is authentic, not because of the film itself but because of the crash site. Ray Santilli released details, supposedly from his cameraman, as to where the incident took place in the desert. How did this come about? Well, according to Spyros this was quite simple. In l995, he flew to Roswell. Here he interviewed many local people including Loretta Proctor. Mrs. Proctor was the neighbour of rancher Mac Brazel and it was she who suggested that Mac take some of the UFO debris into town after he found it. Spyros also met and hired private pilot Rodney Corn. He asked corn to fly him over the UFO crash site, to which he replied “which one.” There are in fact at least three such sites. So, Spyros flew over all three of them, filming as he went. Rodney Corn was able to show Spyros a great deal from the air, far better than would have been possible on foot. This included small dirt roads and long forgotten landmarks. Before the interview took place Spyros also informed me that he obtained both old and new maps of the area. All of this information was handed to Ray Santilli and it was Santilli, not Spyros, who then put it all together to make a location for a nonexistent crash site.
Field where the “real” Roswell debris is said to have been found. (Credit: OpenMinds.tv)
The Grand Plan
I asked Spyros what was the grand plan. The research was done, the film was made, so what next. Apparently it was a rather simple plan. To release the film to a broadcaster, ask them to investigate and see what happens. They were confident that it would not be exposed as a fake. Then, after a few months the plan was to hold their hands up and tell all. The reason this didn’t happen was money. Spyros had signed a confidentiality agreement with Ray Santilli and Santilli was still adamant that he needed to recoup his initial investment allegedly paid for the tent footage. Santilli told Melaris that he had invested a lot of money on this film and he must recoup that before they were to go public. Santilli reminded Spyros that he was bound by the confidentiality agreement and he was not to say or do anything until Santilli said so. Apart from a cheque for about £10,000, which Spyros split with his team, no royalties were ever paid. Santilli told him that due to the fact that he had stated publicly that it was a military film, that it had simply been copied by third parties without permission and used without payment as the people who were using the film believed that the copyright was vested with the US Military and not with Santilli. Eventually time went on and Spyros just got on with life. He was constantly working on other projects with Santilli and earning a living and the alien autopsy film was all but forgotten.
Going Public
Alien Autopsy movie poster. (Credit: Warner Bros.)
The one thing that I first asked Spyros was why was it that he had decided to go public with this information now. It was twelve years since the alien autopsy film hit the headlines. Melaris stuck to his confidentiality agreement. From a legal point of view if he broke it he could have been sued. However, in 2005 he was approached by Santilli and Shoefield to be involved in the movie version of this whole affair. He asked both if they would now tell the true story and reveal that it was all a fake but they said no, they were going to maintain that they really did have original film. Again, Santilli and Shoefield stated that there was no money in it and that they were doing it for “a bit of fun” when pressed they admitted that both Santilli and Shoefield would get paid a percentage of the profits, there was no such offer for Melaris. Melaris declined their offer. He left that meeting under the impression that the movie was not going to be made. However, the movie was made and distributed by Warner Bros and so Melaris felt that he was now able to speak as the story was now in the public domain.
The Doubters
To round off the interview I asked Spyros Melaris what he had to say to the doubters out there, those that believe the alien autopsy film is the genuine article. I’m not going to paraphrase this; instead I will use his words in full:
PM: Time’s against us, Spyros. I’ll ask one last question. There are those out there who believe in this film and Santilli 100% and they think that you’re some kind of pathological liar, playing devil’s advocate here, so please don’t be offended.
SM: No. Go ahead.
PM: What would you say if you could say one thing to the doubters out there? Is there any one thing that you can say that would say to them Spyros Melaris is who he says he is and has made this film?
SM: I don’t think that there’s any doubt that somebody made it today. That’s fair to say that somebody made the film and even Santilli said it’s a fake, but it was made from original film. I think that’s really the question. The question isn’t whether I made it because I can prove I made it. John Humphries will tell you I made it. Ray would probably tell you I made it! He couldn’t deny it. There’s too much evidence. The question is did I make it from original film? And the simple answer to that is no. There was never any original film other than the tent footage. I’ve never seen any other film. Ray maintains that he’s got original film. My question to Ray is how would that film marry with what I made? It can’t. I haven’t actually seen the film. Now you may say, “Maybe you’re lying and you did see the film and you made it.”
The story’s a bigger story if there was a real film. There would be more money in it. There wouldn’t be a reason for me and Ray to be parted. Why would we fall out? The common sense has got to come into the argument. I’m part of something as big as real film of a real alien. Why would I jeopardise being part of that and go off on my own? There’s no reason to. That’s the first thing.
The second thing. I promise you, something happened in Roswell. I’m not an easy person… I’m a sceptic. I’m not an easy person to convince. Thirty people that I talked to out there, clever people, doctors, lecturers, all sorts of people tell me they saw something. And I believe them. Something happened. A lot of ordinary people. Something happened. So, I don’t think there’s dispute about whether or not something happened in Roswell or other sightings or whether or not everything’s fake. No, I don’t think everything’s fake. I do know this is. I also know that if Ray had original film, he’d be jumping through hoops to let you test it. I’m sorry, but that’s what you would do. You would say, “Give me billions of pounds for this.” That’s what you would say. You would say, “I’ve got nothing to worry about. The cameraman doesn’t want to speak, but look at the film.” That’s what you’d do! That’s what you would do.
PM: Say no more.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
Once again I would like to reiterate that this is only part of what Spyros Melaris had to tell me. The full-unedited interview can be found in the alien autopsy section of our web site at: http://www.outtahear.com/beyond_updates/index.html.
Checking The Facts
So how do we check that what Spyros Melaris is telling us is correct? It is no easy task I can assure you. The documentary material shown to me by Spyros is intriguing but not proof positive. My colleague Mark Center in the USA checked the private pilot Rodney Corn for me and he does exist. Mark spoke to him on the phone but he has no recollection of being hired by Spyros Melaris. This could be because he was hired by Geraldine, and we are talking about an event which happened over 12 years ago.
At the UFO DATA conference in October 2007 was German researcher Michael Hesemann. Michael was also one of the speakers that weekend. Michael investigated the alien autopsy film from l995 through to l997 and believes it to be authentic. After the conference when Michael was back home in Germany he sent me an email that quite frankly left me stunned. He admitted for the first time that in l996 someone sent Michael an email telling him that Spyros Melaris was the hoaxer. Hesemann had never shared this information with anyone. I asked him what he did with it and he simply told me that he phoned Ray Santilli and asked him if he knew this man to which Santilli replied he did not. Michael told me he left it at that.
However, Spyros Melaris independently informed me that in l996 he had received a phone call from someone with a German accent asking him if he was the hoaxer and he of course denied it. He did not know who the caller was until he met Hesemann at our conference. I pressed Michael about this and eventually he admitted he did phone Spyros back in l996. Why Michael Hesemann never shared this information with anyone else is beyond me. In his defence, Michael has stated that there were others mentioned at the time and he did not want to spread false rumours, but these others names were circulated and eliminated. I have to be honest and say here and now that I cannot understand why Hesemann sat on this information and never told anyone. I leave it to you to make up your own mind.
A colleague of mine who is a veteran TV and movie special effects artist also took a look at the interview with Spyros. In his considered opinion the techniques and materials used by Melaris and his team to make the fake alien creature are 100% correct. There is no question in his mind that the dummies were made in the way described. He does have a few questions he’d like to ask, but these are purely little points of clarification and there is nothing wrong with what Melaris has had to say.
The other main person involved in all of this is of course US TV producer Bob Kiviat. Several years back my colleague Tim Mathews and I were tipped off about John Humphreys, Humphreys was part of the team and he made the dummies. Bob tried for years to get Humphreys on camera and make a TV documentary but all to no avail. Eventually, Bob did make a TV show for Channel 5 but without Humphreys in it. This was never broadcast. Both Humphreys and Melaris have spoken at length to Bob Kiviat about their involvement in this whole affair so I took the opportunity to ask Bob a few questions on December 4th 2007. This mini question and answer session is reproduced here in full:
Q: How many times did you speak with UK sculptor John Humphreys?
A: Once before the Ant & Dec movie came out. In approximately 2003. Once after that.
Q: Did Humphreys tell you on what he based the design for his alien creatures?
A: Yes, just on his own research, books and such. No other help.
Q: Did Humphreys ever see any original film, stills or otherwise?
A: No, never. He claimed it all came from his creative efforts and book research.
Q: During your conversations with Humphreys did he ever mention the name Spyros Melaris?
A: Yes. He said Spyros was the one who hired him for Santilli, who he met perhaps twice and came to the set once. All the money came through Spyros. Also, Spyros was the cameraman.
Q: Did Humphreys provide the names of anyone else involved. If yes what are those names?
A: No other names.
Q: Why was Humphreys looking to work with you on a documentary?
A: Yes, Humphreys wanted me to get him a network TV show based on his revelations that he made the autopsy footage, with Spyros acting as money man and cameraman, who he believed was working for Santilli.
Q: Was Humphreys going to tell all and sink the stories put out by Ray Santilli?
A: Yes, but until I got a commitment from a TV network and guaranteed money for his exclusive he kept much close to his chest.
Q: Did you speak to Humphreys agent/advisor?
A: Yes, his business manager was my main contact for all of 2003 and 2004, and it was he who informed me John was going to do the Ant & Dec movie, without giving me the details. There would also be a companion documentary “that would be my worst nightmare,” he said.
Q: If you did, what did he tell you about Humphreys involvement and reasons for wanting to spill the beans?
A: Instead of Humphreys spilling the beans to me, his manager clearly implied John had lost patience and saw a payday elsewhere – the movie, etc.
Q: You made a TV documentary for Channel 5 in 2006 in which I appeared, could you tell us why it was never broadcast?
Channel 5 was rushing instructions to my productions offices in L.A. from England telling me how the show needed to be styled, and they also wanted to move the airdate up to an almost impossible deadline. We were working around the clock already to appease the Channel 5 executive in charge when one of the top people at 5 actually listed the show in a TV guide of some sort. That’s when Gary Shoefield contacted 5 and falsely claimed Ray Santilli was involved in the ownership of my original Fox show, which the new 5 show was jumping off from. It was an outright fabrication, for my company has the only US copyright to the show AND THE ALIEN AUTOPSY FOOTAGE ITSELF!
While we were sorting through this false claim, we interviewed you. When the 5 executives saw you naming Humphreys as the guy who made the dummy and who was the key pro behind the footage, they wanted confirmation so they ILLEGALLY contacted Humphreys through a consulting producer. Humphreys freaked out, told them he wanted nothing to do with the 5 show and said he had to contact Warner Bros. Ultimately 5 reneged on their agreement with my distributor, my distributor did not fight for the airing, and this is how things were left. I’m still debating what course of action I can take to recover my substantial losses and damage!
Q: You have spoken on the telephone at length with Spyros Melaris. Are you convinced he is telling the truth?
A: For the most part, I can’t find any outlandish things that make his story unbelievable. But I do wonder how he could have been so naïve about the amount of money Santilli was making around the world. This part seems odd, as if he was playing dumb. On the contrary, he seems very bright. And if Ray gave him just enough work to keep him quiet afterward, I still wonder why he let all the other money go into Ray’s pocket without him demanding his share. This doesn’t add up, literally, pound for pound.
Q: You have been involved with the Alien Autopsy film since 1995, you have interviewed or spoken to most if not all the main players in it all, so what now is your conclusion?
A: I’m going to need more time to answer that question. Spryros’ actions or non actions in court will have a lot to do with this, and I’m looking into another intriguing angle that could impact my conclusions.
Robert Kiviat. End of interview.
It is clear from this brief interview with Bob Kiviat that there are slight differences between what John Humphreys says about his role in the faking of the film and what Melaris says. However, Humphreys does state quite clearly that it was Spyros Melaris who was the money man, it was Melaris who hired him on behalf of Santilli. Humphreys also confirms without any doubt that there never was any original film. It was a complete and utter fabrication.
I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. In l996, Spyros Melaris was outlined as the hoaxer to German researcher Michael Hesemann. In 2003, US TV producer Bob Kiviat spoke with UK sculptor John Humphreys who confirmed that Spyros was the man in charge and that there was no original film. In 2007, Spyros Melaris goes on the record for the first time and tells how it was all made. Well, perhaps not all. Spyros is holding back certain things for his book, which was supposed to be available in early 2008. And as for Ray Santilli, well he’s pretty quiet at the moment but I doubt if he will ever own up as he is quite simply in it too deep.
The long awaited book by Spyros Melaris ‘ALIEN AUTOPSY: The Myth Exposed’ comes with an accompanying DVD. It was originally scheduled to be released in 2008, but for a variety of reason it has been delayed with no firm date yet for its release.
ROSWELL ALIEN AUTOPSY – The Truth Behind the Film That Shocked the World is published by RoswellBooks.com where it can be purchased, and is avail via Amazon.com.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
AI Focused "Clearest ever UFO photo chased by fighter jet" UAP Sighting News.
AI Focused "Clearest ever UFO photo chased by fighter jet" UAP Sighting News.
On August 4, 1990, two hikers in the Scottish Highlands witnessed a remarkable event involving an unidentified flying object (UFO) and a military jet. As they embarked on their walk near Calvine, Scotland, the hikers saw a large diamond-shaped craft hovering in the sky. Astonished by the sight, they quickly took photographs of the object. The UFO, which appeared to be metallic and structured, was soon joined by a fighter jet that seemed to be in pursuit of the mysterious craft. The incident became one of the most compelling UFO sightings in the United Kingdom, primarily because of the clear and detailed photographs captured by the hikers.
These images were reportedly handed over to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), but their release to the public was delayed for decades, leading to much speculation and debate among UFO enthusiasts and researchers. The MoD's handling of the case has fueled various conspiracy theories, with many believing that the government was attempting to conceal evidence of extraterrestrial life or advanced, undisclosed technology. Despite the long wait, the Calvine incident remains a significant and intriguing chapter in UFO lore, continuing to inspire investigations and discussions within the UFO community and beyond.
SpaceX returns to flight following Falcon 9 mishap investigation
SpaceX returns to flight following Falcon 9 mishap investigation
Story by Andrew Wulfeck
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Two weeks after a leak doomed the deployment of Starlink satellites,SpaceXwas back in flight Saturday, with the release of nearly two dozen devices designed to expand broadband internet access around the world.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force station.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off from Launch Complex 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:45 a.m. local time.
The launch was successful by all accounts, but space watchers were closely monitoring the moments surrounding payload deployment to see if the private space company would encounter issues similar to those of its July 11 mission.
During the previous mission, launch cameras showed a buildup of ice around an engine that prevented the successful deployment of satellites into orbit.
During the less than two-week-long review, SpaceX engineers identified a line for a sensor that was cracked, which they said led to the failure.
"During the first burn of Falcon 9’s second stage engine, a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper stage engine," SpaceX said regarding its mishap report to the FAA. "The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line."
The results were satisfactory enough for the government agency to approve the private space company’s return to flight, and less than 48 hours later, a Falcon 9 rocket was back in the air.
SpaceX did not report any anomalies with Saturday’s launch, which was the 50th of the year devoted to the Starlink program.
The company has around 6,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit that provide customers with ground terminal receivers access to high-speed internet.
A standard service will cost a residential customer about $120 a month, but packages listed on the company’s website run upwards of $5,000.
The company has gained international recognition for donating terminals to victims in disaster zones, such as in Florida after Hurricane Ian and flooding in South America.
SpaceX has scheduled at least five additional rocket launches over the next two weeks to deploy more Starlink satellites.
The schedule is part of the runup for what could be the launch of Crew-9 from Florida’s Space Coast in late August or early September.
NASA recently held a news conference where managers stated that all systems were a go for a crew of three astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut to launch in a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station for what is expected to be a six-month mission.
The space agency has been closely monitoring the review of the Falcon 9 rocket but said that nothing has arisen to a level that would require delaying the Crew-9 mission beyond the upcoming launch window.
SpaceX launches Starlink 10-9 mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida
SpaceX Falcon 9 fleet returns to flight on Starlink 10-9 mission at 1:45 a.m. Saturday, July 27, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Launch off a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Starlink 10-9 mission to launch Starlink satellites. Rocket launched from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at1:45 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 27th.Show less
The UAP Disclosure Act: The proposed Pentagon/AARO re-write of November 2023
The UAP Disclosure Act: The proposed Pentagon/AARO re-write of November 2023
Hi all:
The recent article below discusses the Pentagon's rewrite of the Senate-passed Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA) in November 2023. The author, Douglas Dean Johnson, releases a 33-page line-by-line rewrite of the UAPDA proposed by the Pentagon to congressional negotiators. This document, marked with strike-outs and underlines, shows the Pentagon's proposed changes to the Senate-passed bill.
The rewrite was presented as the "informal views" of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD(I&S)), which urged consideration of the extensive revisions to the UAPDA. The document was transmitted to Capitol Hill negotiators in late November 2023, during the final stages of negotiations over the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), stated in an interview that the Pentagon successfully opposed the original UAPDA. The final enacted language of the FY 2024 NDAA, signed into law on December 22, 2023, reflected the Department of Defense's basic viewpoint on major points, although not on every detail.
The original UAPDA, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds, aimed to create a President-nominated, Senate-confirmed UAP Records Review Board with broad investigatory powers. However, in conference committee with the House of Representatives, the UAPDA was significantly stripped down, eliminating the proposed independent review board and most of the language implying the existence of tangible evidence of nonhuman visitation.
The final FY 2024 NDAA merely enhanced the National Archives and Records Administration's mission to gather UAP-related documentation, allowing agencies more authority to shield material from public disclosure, especially during the first 25 years after document creation.
My immediate thoughts on this piece after going through it were that the Pentagon's influence in revising the UAPDA suggests a conflict of interest, as it involves the executive branch altering a legislative initiative. This could be seen as encroaching on legislative powers and potentially violating the separation of powers principle. It raises concerns about the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, as well as the transparency and independence of UAP investigations.
I got a reply from Douglas Johnson following my immediate observations:
"Well, of course officials within the Executive Branch seek to "influence" those within the Legislative Branch-- and vice versa. That is not a "conflict of interest," but part and parcel of the whole three-branch system."
"It would certainly be an absurd state of affairs if members of the Legislative Branch, when considering legislation on any given subject, could not receive advice, and even strongly worded recommendations, from officials within the Executive Branch who are responsible for implementing legislation on that same subject. For example, if Congress is considering a bill dealing with sales of arms to a certain nation, would you suggest that lawmakers should refuse to look at any advice from the State Department and the Defense Department about the proposal?"
"The lawmakers are free to give whatever weight they wish to advise from Executive Branch officials-- in many cases, they disregard it entirely."
"Of course, the head of the Executive Branch, the President, can move beyond mere persuasion when he deems it necessary, and veto legislation that departs from what his preferences on what he deems to be significant matters (thereby raising the margin necessary for passage to two-thirds in each house of Congress). The possibility or direct written threat of a veto is often used by presidents, and their lieutenants, as an often-effective means of "influencing" the actions of Congress. Again, this is not a "conflict of interest," but basic elements of the constitutional scheme. In proper understanding of the separation of powers principles, such push-and-pull is not only permissible but absolutely necessary.”
At first look, Johnson’s response seems to make sense. He presents a reasonable perspective at first glance because it highlights the normal and necessary interactions between the executive and legislative branches of government. In a functioning democracy, it is expected that these branches will engage with each other, with the executive providing advice and recommendations to the legislative branch, especially on matters where the executive is responsible for implementation. This back-and-forth is indeed part of the checks and balances system designed to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power.
However, looking more closely, there might be problems, more to think about, or different ways to see it. It doesn't diminish my justified worries at all. The key issue with his response, when applied to the context of the Pentagon's rewrite of the UAPDA, is that it may not fully capture the specific nature and extent of the executive's involvement in this case. The concern is not about the exchange of advice or recommendations per se, but rather about the degree of influence and the potential for conflict of interest when the executive branch significantly alters a legislative initiative, especially one that pertains to oversight and transparency of executive actions. Mind you, David Grusch and other whistleblowers have accused the DoD of covering up a secret crash-retrieval and backengineering program involving crashed off-world craft and bodies. The fact that the DoD, through AARO, is assigned to investigate these claims presents a potential conflict of interest, raising concerns about the independence and objectivity of the UAP investigations conducted by AARO.
Johnson's statement makes a valid point about the general dynamics between the executive and legislative branches. However, it may not fully address the specific concerns regarding the Pentagon's involvement in rewriting the UAPDA, which some might view as an overreach of traditional executive authority.
The top of the first page of a document submitted by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to congressional negotiators on the UAP Disclosure Act, November 2023.
By Douglas Dean Johnson
@ddeanjohnson on X/Twitter
My gmail address is my full name
Original publication: July 24, 2024, 10:00 AM EDT. Any substantive revisions to the original article will be noted in a log found at the end of the article. Those reading this article in the e-mailed version may have to click on "view in browser" under my byline in order to access embedded documents such as PDF files.
In the light of recent statements by the former head of the Pentagon "UFO office," Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, asserting that the Pentagon/AARO successfully derailed the Schumer-Rounds Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA) in late 2023, I am releasing here a proposed 33-page line-by-line rewrite of the Senate-passed UAPDA that the Pentagon provided to congressional negotiators during end-stage negotiations in November 2023.
This is the first publication of this document anywhere.
Further down in this article, you'll find Kirkpatrick's answers to questions I addressed to him for this article, such as whether the National Security Advisor or any other higher authority ever tried to subdue his activity in opposition to the UAPDA, and why the proposed Pentagon re-write of the UAPDA would have retained provisions affirming the right of the federal government to take ownership (via the exercise of eminent domain) over "any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that be be controlled by private persons or entities..."
Pentagon Nov 2023 proposed revisions to UAPDA
GUIDE TO INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCUMENT:In the embedded PDF document, the unmodified underlying text is the Senate-passed UAPDA. Strike-out marking through a paragraph or phrase indicates that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security ((OUSD(I&S)) wanted that language removed from the bill. All underlined words and phrases were OUSD(I&S) proposals for new language or replacement language to be inserted.
Thus, if the OUSD(I&S) text had been enacted in total (which is not exactly what occurred), the resulting law would have been the original text, plus the underlined additions, minus the extensive strikeouts. This type of legislative re-write document is sometimes called a "red line."
The nature of the document is explained in introductory paragraphs found on the top third of the first page, shown in the image above: It was presented as the "informal views" of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, which stated that the Department of Defense "strongly urges consideration" of the proposed extensive rewriting of Division G of S. 2226, which was the Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act, part of the the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that had been passed by the U.S. Senate on July 27, 2023. The introduction to the document says that the Department of Defense position was arrived at "after conferring with NARA/ISOO," referring respectively to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and to theInformation Security Oversight Office.
The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security is the top intelligence officer in the Department of Defense. [1] The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the "UFO office," is attached to the OUSD(I&S) for administrative matters, although starting in 2023 the AARO director reports directly to a higher official, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, "on all operational and security matters." The Deputy Secretary, Kathleen Hicks, ranks directly under the Secretary of Defense.
Kirkpatrick served as AARO director from its formal inception in mid-2022 until December 1, 2023, which included the period that the 2023 UAPDA language was under consideration in Congress (mid-July to early December 2023).
Data associated with the original "informal views" file document (which I have sanitized) suggests that it was transmitted to negotiators on Capitol Hill in late November, 2023, during the final stages of negotiations over what UAP language would survive in the final FY 2024 NDAA. The final FY 2024 NDAA language became public on December 6, 2003, passed the Senate on December 13, passed the House of Representatives on December 14, and was signed into law on December 22, 2023 (Public Law 118-31).
Notwithstanding the designation of the OUSD((I&S) document as reflecting "informal" views, the Department's advice was conveyed emphatically ("strongly urges consideration") and in granular detail. The 33-page document proposed an extensive rewrite of the Schumer-Rounds proposal, removing most of the central elements of the Senate-approved language. Moreover, the Department's advice was largely heeded: The final enacted language reflected the Department's basic viewpoint on major points, although not on every detail.
In a 70-minute interview conducted by Marik von Rennenkampff on July 17, 2024 (viewable on YouTube here; rough transcript posted here), Kirkpatrick spoke openly about the Pentagon's 2023 opposition to the UAPDA– the first time that he has addressed that subject in detail in public, as far as I am aware. In this interview, Kirkpatrick presented opposition by the Department of Defense and AARO to the 2023 UAPDA as decisive, telling von Rennenkampff, "We convinced Congress last year not to go down that road..." [italics added for emphasis]
[Under End Note No. 2 below, I have posted an eight-minute clip from the 70-minute interview. I encourage interested readers to use the links above to review the entire 70-minute exchange, which included discussion of well-known IR videos taken by Navy pilots, and also Kirkpatrick's remarks about a recent report issued by AARO regarding analysis of a metallic sample, in addition to the extended discussion of the UAP Disclosure Act.]
The OUSD(I&S) document that I am posting here today does not spell out AARO's substantive objections to the UAPDA, as Kirkpatrick did in the July 17 interview, but it essentially incorporates those objections through its extensive proposed revisions to the UAPDA, which the Senate had already approved. In an email exchange on July 23, 2024, Kirkpatrick said he could not confirm (but neither did he dispute) the authenticity of the OUSD(I&S) document, adding, "However, the document does represent many of the objections I tried to articulate to Marik [von Rennenkampff, in the July 17, 2024 interview]."
THE BIRTH AND DEMISE OF THE ORIGINAL UAP DISCLOSURE ACT
The UAPDA was originally unveiled, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as prime sponsor and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) as lead co-sponsor, on July 14, 2023. Four other senators co-sponsored the measure. After some modifications, it was added to the FY 2024 NDAA as part of a list of agreed-on amendments, without floor debate or a separate vote. The Senate passed its FY 2024 NDAA, including the UAPDA, on July 27, 2023.
As passed by the Senate, the UAPDA would have created a President-nominated, Senate-confirmed UAP Records Review Board– a temporary federal agency with full-time professional staff and broad investigatory powers to search out, gather, and release any UAP-related material from throughout the government, with the President making final decisions regarding delay or release of material deemed especially sensitive. The bill was modeled in most respects on the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.
However, in conference committee with the House of Representatives, the UAPDA was greatly stripped down. The proposed independent review board was eliminated, as was most of the original language that had been widely read to imply that somewhere within the government's purview tangible evidence of nonhuman visitation was likely to be found. The final FY 2024 NDAA enacted on December 22, 2023 merely conferred on the National Archives and Records Administration a somewhat beefed-up mission to gather UAP-related documentation into a collection, but affording far more authority for agencies to shield material from public disclosure, especially during the first 25 years after creation of a document.
Throughout the period of July-December 2023, I reported extensively on the progress of the UAPDA, a measure that I supported. At the time, and since, I have repeatedly stated that the gutting of the bill was due not to any lobbying campaign by powerful defense contractors, as some imagined, but to opposition from the Pentagon/AARO, the objections of which were largely adopted by several of the very senior Republican lawmakers who were among the small group of lawmakers who resolved the final contentious issues on NDAA. [3]
The Pentagon's opposition to the Senate-passed UAPDA was far from a state secret even in late 2023. After the stripped-down final version emerged from behind closed doors in early December, even the New York Times reported that a "person familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity to describe them noted that the Defense Department also had pushed back forcefully on wider measures." ("Congress Orders U.F.O. Records Released but Drops Bid for Broader Disclosure," by Kayla Guo, New York Times, December 14, 2023)
THE PENTAGON AND THE WHITE HOUSE
From the time that the UAPDA was unveiled on July 14, 2023, up until the issuance of the final NDAA conference report on December 6, 2023, certain social-media influencers claimed that the UAPDA had the backing of President Biden and his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. At no point did I encounter any actual evidence of such interest or support by high-level decisionmakers in the Executive Branch, and as months passed after the Senate's July 27 passage of the NDAA/UAPDA, it became quite clear that the Biden Administration was not doing anything to help enact the UAPDA.
I asked Kirkpatrick, "When you were the director of AARO, did you ever receive direction or heavy guidance from anybody in the White House, or the Executive Office of the President, or the National Security Council, or any other higher authority, indicating that you should soften or qualify your opposition to the UAPDA?"
Kirkpatrick replied:
The White House could have cared less about this issue. No one from the White House, EOP [Executive Office of the President], NSC [National Security Council], or any other 'higher authority' called me or my boss to put pressure on me to soften my position on the UAPDA. No one in Congress did either. (email, July 23, 2024)
As I was the first to report (on July 13, 2024), Senator Rounds re-introduced the UAPDA on July 11, 2024, as a possible amendment (SA 2610) to the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 4638), which the Senate will take up later this year. As filed by Rounds on July 11, Senate Majority Leader Schumer was listed as co-sponsor (no longer the prime or controlling sponsor).
Marik von Rennenkampff led off his July 17 interview with Kirkpatrick by noting that reintroduction of the UAPDA, to which Kirkpatrick responded: "Last year we convinced Congress last year not to go down that road..." Von Rennenkampff soon followed up: "Did you say that you or AARO pushed back on the Schumer-Rounds amendment when it was proposed last year? That seems to be a big mystery as to how it was, shall we say, watered down? Other people say 'gutted.'"
Kirkpatrick answered:
So let's be clear about how the process works in the United States government. Every year the NDAA is put together by proposals from both the Senate and the House side. Okay? Those proposals are socialized with the Department. The Department then gets an opportunity to write a reclaima [request for reconsideration] that goes back to the Hill that says, "Hey, this is not a good idea for these reasons," or, "This would be better if it was written this way," or, "Yeah, we just can't really support this because of these resource constraints," or whatever the case may be. And that is true for every piece of the NDAA– it gets farmed back to us and we or the Department get to look at that.
As AARO, the pieces of legislation that were written about AARO come to us, and we are allowed to write our thoughts and disclaimers. And so we wrote exactly that. "Look, this is duplicative of language you gave us in '22 [the NDAA enacted in December 2022, which mandated a "historical report" to be produced by AARO]. Let us finish the thing that you told us to do the first time, before you write additional legislation."
In the von Rennenkampff interview, Kirkpatrick stressed his view that creation of a UAP Records Review Board would duplicate a mission already assigned to AARO. But he also maintained that there was no evidence that would justify creation of a new agency to hunt for inter-government knowledge or possession of nonhuman technology.
Kirkpatrick said:
I mean, look, let me be clear: We found no evidence of any of these allegations. None. And I had access to everything there was to have access to. I went up and briefed and testified [to members of Congress] just as recently as a couple of months ago, with the SAPCO director and the CAPCO director from ODNI [officials who oversee special access programs], and all of us have gone through everything that we have, everything that witnesses have come forward and said, "Hey, this is this hidden program." And it turns out none of them are those hidden programs. None of them. All of them have turned out to be other things that have nothing to do with extraterrestrial reverse engineering. And all of them have been reported to Congress....
And [in the UAPDA] they're telling the commercial industry they have to turn over all of this stuff. Well, the commercial industry – and I talked to all of the commercial industry, and they're scratching their heads and they don't know what they're talking about [in the bill language].
The November 2023 OUSD(I&S) "informal views" draft was not adopted by the House-Senate conferees in total. But the final enacted language appears to have been largely consistent with OUSD(I&S)/AARO's core objectives. The proposed independent review board, with its professional staff and broad powers, was deleted. The final law, like the OUSD(I&S)/AARO draft, gives Executive Branch agencies broad discretion to prevent disclosure of specific records, although the enacted version contains a limited presumption for disclosure 25 years after creation of a UAP-related document.
PENTAGON'S PROPOSED 2023 UAPDA REWRITE RETAINED AN EMINENT DOMAIN PROVISION
One noteworthy aspect of the OUSD(I&S) draft is the way it proposed to rewrite Section 9010, "Disclosure of Recovered Technologies of Unknown Origin and Biological Evidence of Non-human Intelligence." In the Senate-passed UAPDA, this section empowered the Review Board to exercise eminent domain (i.e., assert government ownership) "over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities..."
The OUSD(I&S) draft proposed substantial weakening of the provision by replacing mandatory language ("The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over...) with non-binding hortatory language ("It is the sense of Congress that the Federal Government should exercise eminent domain appropriately over...)– but OUSD(I&S)/AARO did not propose deleting the objects to which such eminent domain "should" apply: "any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities..."
Moreover, other OUSD(I&S) revisions would have required that any such exotic material be made available to AARO (rather than to an independent review board), and would have assigned to the President (rather than a review board) certain determinations regarding such material.
By email, I asked Sean Kirkpatrick, "What was the rationale for recommending retention of proposed new provisions of law that would have provided something of a legal foundation for AARO or other federal entities to assert control over hypothetical technologies of unknown origin or hypothetical evidence of non-human intelligence (at least, apparently, in such cases in which the President deemed it appropriate)? Was this a 'just in case' provision?"
Kirkpatrick replied:
At the time, the conspiracy frenzy was pushing this narrative of some prime contractor having this material, and there were these lingering allegations of AARO not having authorities, despite it being written into law previously. So a compromise was proposed to allow for the exercising of eminent domain under AARO’s authority to underscore that AARO could compel disclosure of anything, should anything exist. Since we know nothing exists, we didn’t feel it made our job harder, and felt this could close a gap in uninformed allegations. (email, July 23, 2024)
In the final enacted bill, however, the eminent domain section was entire absent. [4]
END NOTES
[1] In 2023 the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security was Ronald Moultrie, who resigned effective February 29, 2024. President Biden has nominated as his successor Tonya Wilkerson, who is currently Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Wilkerson's nomination is currently pending before the Senate Armed Services Committee. For further information on that matter, see my article "Who is Tonya P. Wilkerson, and what does it have to do with UFOs?," May 21, 2024.
[2] I have embedded here a nine-minute excerpt from the 70-minute interview of Sean Kirkpatrick, conducted on July 17, 2024, by Marik von Rennenkampff. This clip runs from about the 8-minute point to about the 17-minute point in the original video.
Excerpt from July 17, 2024 interview of Sean Kirkpatrick by Marik von Rennenkampff, discussing AARO's 2023 activity in opposition to the original Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act. Fair Use under 17 U.S. Code § 107 for noncommercial purposes of investigative journalism, scientific research and debate, education, and commentary.
[3] In an exchange with Senator Rounds on the Senate floor on December 13, 2023, Senator Schumer said, "It is really an outrage that the House didn’t work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board, which, by definition, needs bipartisan consent. Now it means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades." However, Schumer said nothing on that occasion (or any other occasion of which I am aware) to indicate that he viewed the opposition to the UAPDA as originating in whole or part from corporate entities. Rather, he expressed criticism of unspecified actors within the Executive Branch: "The U.S. Government has gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people. That is wrong, and, additionally, it breeds mistrust. We have also been notified by multiple credible sources that information on UAPs has also been withheld from Congress, which, if true, is a violation of the laws requiring full notification to the legislative branch, especially as it relates to the four congressional leaders, Defense Committees, and the Intelligence Committee."
An exchange on the U.S. Senate floor between the prime sponsor of the 2023 UAP Disclosure Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and the lead co-sponsor, Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD). This colloquy occurred on December 13, 2023, after the UAP Disclosure Act had been gutted in a House-Senate conference committee, and the Senate had passed the final FY 2024 NDAA.
[4] All of the UAP-related language that was included in the final Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, enacted December 22, 2023 (Public Law 118-31), is included in the PDF file embedded below. The UAP Records Collection provision, which is what survived
What is this 2.5 mile object on Planet Mercury? UFO Sighting News. Video.
What is this 2.5 mile object on Planet Mercury? UFO Sighting News. Video.
Hey all, I found an interesting anomaly at the center of a crater on planet Mercury. The object measures 2.5 miles tall and 1.5 miles wide. It's super reflective as if it's made of a metallic alloy and it doesnt seem to fit into the surrounds. To me, this is proof of ancient aliens existing on Mercury. But for many, believing that aliens could exist...it's a horrifying thought...so much so that they will deny any possibility of it entering their mind.
Hey all, I found two huge structures on the moon Europa today. I made a video to show you all. The structures look metallic and stand half a mile tall and 20 miles long.
Public domain / ESA & MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/Wikimedia commons - CC BY-SA 3.0 igo
NASA's Perseverance rover zet zijn missie op Mars voort op zoek naar bewijs dat de oude aanwezigheid van buitenaards leven op de rode planeet zou kunnen onthullen: er komt een opzienbarende nieuwe ontdekking.
Perserverance vindt een pijlvormige rots op Mars
Een vreemde rots, waarvan de vorm lijkt op de punt van een pijl, heeft de aandacht getrokken van NASA's Perseverance rover, op een missie naar Mars om te zoeken naar tekenen van buitenaards leven. Hoewel het bestaan van marsmannetjes nog niet is aangetoond, zijn er wel elementen naar voren gekomen die hun aanwezigheid op de rode planeet miljarden jaren geleden zouden kunnen bewijzen.
De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie maakte dit bekend nadat Perseverance een rots had ontdekt die bedekt was met vlekken en rijk was aan “aderen”. Wetenschappers hebben deze rots een speciale naam gegeven, Cheyava Falls, naar een van de watervallen van de Grand Canyon. Maar wat is er zo bijzonder aan en waarom zou het bewijs kunnen leveren van buitenaards leven op Mars, dat ooit bewoonbaar kan zijn geweest?
Gesteente op Mars bedekt met vlekken: mogelijke sporen van fossiel leven
Cheyava Falls lijkt organische verbindingen te bevatten en dit zou kunnen wijzen op sporen van microbieel leven uit de tijd dat er water was op Mars. Perseverance vond de rots in het noordelijke deel van de Neretva-vallei, waar in het verleden een rivier stroomde die uitmondde in de Jezero-krater. "Deze “luipaardvlekken” op een rots op Mars zijn aanwijzingen voor waarschijnlijk de beste tekenen van oeroud microbieel leven die we tot nu toe op Mars hebben gevonden. Om het zeker te weten, moeten we het gesteente bestuderen in laboratoria op aarde", staat te lezen in het X-profiel van NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
De route van de rover, zoals uitgelegd door de Associate Administrator voor het Directoraat Wetenschapsmissies, Nicola Fox, was ontworpen om ervoor te zorgen dat hij de gebieden van Mars kan bereiken waar zich vermoedelijk de meest interessante wetenschappelijke monsters bevinden. "Deze reis door de rivierbedding van de Neretva Vallis heeft zijn vruchten afgeworpen, omdat we iets hebben ontdekt dat we nog nooit eerder hadden gezien en dat onze wetenschappers veel te bestuderen zal geven."
Nieuw bewijs van leven op Mars: verzamelde monsters
Perseverance van zijn kant "verklaarde" op zijn X-profiel: "Ik kwam naar Mars met een taak om uit te voeren: het vinden en bemonsteren van de beste rotsen voor toekomstige studies in laboratoria op Aarde. Ik zal deze speciale rotskern, en de andere in mijn collectie, veilig bewaren totdat er een toekomstige missie komt om ze naar de Aarde te brengen voor verdere studie."
De rots, die 90 cm bij 60 cm meet, verschilt van andere roodgekleurde rotsen die op Mars zijn gevonden door de vele zwarte en witte vlekken die erop zitten. De zwarte delen bevatten fosfaat en ijzer, net als aardse gesteenten waarop gefossiliseerd microbieel leven is gevonden. Juist dit heeft de hoop van wetenschappers aangewakkerd om misschien het leven van microben op Mars te kunnen bevestigen, hoewel we voor een definitief antwoord zullen moeten wachten tot de monsters over een paar jaar naar onze planeet terugkeren.
Night of Terror: The Chilling Pascagoula UFO Encounter of 1973″
Night of Terror: The Chilling Pascagoula UFO Encounter of 1973″
On a quiet night in October 1973, the lives of two friends, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, were forever changed by a series of events that remain one of the most compelling UFO incidents in history. Fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi, they encountered a mysterious craft and beings that would haunt them for decades. This article delves into the details of their experience, the aftermath, and possible explanations for what occurred that fateful night.
The Encounter
On October 11, 1973, Charles Hickson, 42, and Calvin Parker, 19, were fishing off a pier after a long day at their shipyard jobs. As they cast their lines into the water, a large, oval-shaped craft with blue lights appeared in the sky. It hovered about 40 feet long and 10 feet high, emitting a strange buzzing sound.
Three creatures emerged from the craft, floating just above the ground. These beings, about five feet tall, had pale, wrinkled skin and grotesque faces with pointed protrusions instead of noses and ears. Their hands ended in crab-like claws, and they moved with an eerie, robotic motion. The beings paralyzed Hickson and Parker, rendering them unable to move or cry for help.
The creatures lifted them off the ground and carried them into the craft. Inside, they were subjected to invasive procedures. Hickson remained conscious, his mind racing in terror as he was examined by the beings. Parker fainted but later recalled being examined by a more humanoid female alien who communicated telepathically, attempting to reassure him.
Aftermath
Hickson and Parker woke up back on the riverbank, disoriented and terrified. Although it felt like hours had passed, they realized only 20 minutes had elapsed. Determined to report the incident, they contacted the Air Force, who directed them to the local police.
At the police station, the officers, initially skeptical, secretly recorded Hickson and Parker’s conversation. The recording, later known as the “secret tape,” captured their genuine fear and consistent recounting of the incident, lending credibility to their story. Multiple witnesses also reported seeing strange lights in the sky that night, corroborating their account.
Psychological Explanations
While Hickson and Parker’s story is compelling, some suggest it could be explained by psychological phenomena. Hypnagogic hallucinations, vivid experiences that occur between wakefulness and sleep, might account for their vivid memories. Sleep paralysis, where one is awake but unable to move, often accompanied by hallucinations and a sense of a threatening presence, could explain their paralysis and sense of fear.
Subsequent Encounters and Public Reaction
In the years following the incident, Hickson reported multiple additional encounters with various alien beings. He claimed to have received messages about environmental concerns and nuclear weapons and even described receiving an implant. These stories, while controversial, kept him in the public eye within the UFO community.
Parker, on the other hand, initially shied away from the spotlight, struggling with PTSD. He later began speaking publicly about the incident, publishing a book recounting his experiences. Their accounts, though occasionally evolving over time, remained consistent in their core details.
Broader Context and Impact
The Pascagoula incident is one of many reported alien abductions, each sharing common elements such as paralysis, telepathic communication, and invasive procedures. Notable cases include the 1961 abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, the 1975 Travis Walton case, and Whitley Strieber’s 1985 experience. These stories have significantly contributed to public fascination with extraterrestrial encounters and have sparked numerous debates about their validity.
VIDEO:
The Why Files – The Pascagoula UFO Incident | When Nightmares Come True
The Pascagoula UFO incident remains a fascinating and controversial event. While some believe Hickson and Parker were genuinely abducted by extraterrestrial beings, others attribute their experience to psychological phenomena such as hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis. Regardless of the true nature of their encounter, the trauma they experienced was real, and their story continues to captivate and intrigue those who hear it. The incident has not only left an indelible mark on the lives of Hickson and Parker but has also significantly influenced the broader narrative of UFO sightings and alien abductions.
"On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."
NASA's Perseverance rover has discovered a rock on Mars that may have once hosted microbial life. The rock, nicknamed Cheyava Falls, has chemical compositions and structures that could have been formed by ancient life, although non-biological processes cannot yet be ruled out.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
NASA's Perseverance rover may have found signs of ancient life in a rock on Mars; the mission team's scientists are ecstatic, but remain cautious as further analysis is needed to confirm the discovery.
The rover has come across an intriguing, arrowhead-shaped rock that hosts chemical signatures and structures that could have been formed by microbial life billions of years ago, when Mars was significantly wetter than it is today. Inside the rock, which scientists have nicknamed "Cheyava Falls," Perseverance's instruments detected organic compounds, which are precursors to the chemistry of life as we know it. Wisping through the length of the rock are veins of calcium sulfate, which are mineral deposits that suggest water — also essential for life — once ran through the rock.
The rover also found dozens of millimeter-sized splotches, each surrounded by a black ring and mimicking the appearance of leopard spots. These rings contain iron and phosphate, which are also seen on Earth as a result of microbe-led chemical reactions.
"These spots are a big surprise," David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said in a statement. "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."
A better look at the exciting rock detected by Perseverance. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
"We've never seen these three things together on Mars before," Morgan Cable, a scientist on the Perseverance team, said in a video NASA posted to YouTube today (July 25).
Cheyava Falls sits at the edge of an ancient, 400-meter-wide (437-yard-wide) river valley named Neretva Vallis. Scientists suspect this ancient channel was carved out long ago due to water gushing into Jezero Crater; Neretva Vallis runs along the inner wall of this region. In one possible scenario, mud that already possessed organic compounds got dumped into the valley and later cemented into the Cheyava Falls rock, which Perseverance sampled on July 21. A second episode of water oozing into the formed rock would have created the object's calcium sulfate veins and black-ringed spots the team sees today.
To be clear, the rock's visible features aren’t irrefutable evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars — not yet, at least. It is possible, for instance, that the observed calcium sulfate entered the rock at uninhabitably high temperatures, perhaps during a nearby volcanic event. However, whether such non-biological chemical reactions could have resulted in the observed black-ringed spots is an open question, the scientists say.
"This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we've never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study," Nicola Fox, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in the statement.
"We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable," Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in California, said in the statement. "Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give."
To fully grasp what really unfolded in the ancient river valley billions of years ago, scientists are keen to get the Cheyava Falls sample to Earth, where it can be scrutinized with powerful instruments that Perseverance’s limited suite doesn't have.
The complex Mars Sample Return effort, however, has run into many snags in recent months after its costs spiked to $11 billion. In its current form, the program requires multiple launches to Mars to place a vehicle on the Red Planet, after which either Perseverance will travel to the vehicle and drop off its collected samples, or pop those samples over to a retrieval helicopter that can complete the handoff. Then, an ascender would launch the samples into orbit, where a spacecraft would collect them and return them to Earth.
NASA assessed various simpler alternatives from industry and academic groups and awarded $1.5 million contracts to seven companies looking into the endeavor; three of the agency's own research centers are carrying out studies as well.
Perseverance rover captured a 360-degree panorama of a region on Mars called “Bright Angel,” where a river flowed billions of years ago.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Perseverance collected a sample of the Cheyava Falls rock on July 21.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Perseverance took this selfie, made up of 62 individual images, on July 23.
What are those lasers shooting out from telescopes? Can we build a space elevator? Could we grow plants in Mars regolith? Why not assemble telescopes in space? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Overtime Q&A.
New studies, which utilized AI to monitor the effects of climate change on Earth's spin, have shown that our days are getting increasingly longer and that our planet will get more wobbly in the future. These changes could have major implications for humanity's future.
Earth moves much faster than it seems.
(Image credit: NASA)
The length of Earth's days and the orientation of our planet are being thrown out of balance as human-caused climate change continuously alters Earth's spin, new research suggests.
Initially, these changes will be imperceptible to us, but they could have serious knock-on effects, including forcing us to introduce negative leap seconds, interfering with space travel and altering our planet's inner core, researchers warn.
A day on Earth lasts about 86,400 seconds. But the exact time it takes our planet to complete a single rotation can shift by tiny fractions of milliseconds every year due to a number of factors, such as tectonic plate movements, changes to the inner core's rotation and gravitational tugging from the moon.
However, human-caused climate change is another factor that can alter the length of our days, and scientists are just starting to realize how much this will affect our planet's spin in the coming years.
Over the past few decades, the rate of ice loss from Earth's polar regions, particularly Greenland and Antarctica, has been increasing rapidly due to global warming, leading to rising sea levels. Most of this extra water accumulates near the equator, causing our planet to bulge slightly around the middle. This, in turn, slows the planet's spin because more weight is distributed farther away from the planet's center — similar to how spinning figure skaters slow down by moving their arms away from their bodies.
In the new study, published July 15 in the journal PNAS, researchers used an advanced artificial intelligence program that combines real-world data with the laws of physics to predict how the planet's spin will change over time.
Global warming has triggered sea level rises, which are impacting Earth's rotation. (Image credit: Getty Images)
The results back up a similar study published in March, which suggested that Earth's days will get longer in the future. However, the new program offered much more precise estimates of how days will lengthen over time.
The same research team behind the new paper also released another study, published July 12 in the journal Nature Geoscience, which showed that the increased water near the equator is moving Earth's axis of rotation. This is making the magnetic poles wobble farther away from the axis every year.
Scientists previously found that this effect has likely been happening for at least the past three decades. However, the new study suggests the axis will move even farther from its current position than previous studies predicted.
"We humans have a greater impact on our planet than we realise," Benedikt Soja, a geodesist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland who was a co-author on both the new studies, said in a statement. "And this naturally places great responsibility on us for the future of our planet."
Earth's magnetic poles (blue) will begin to wobble around the planet's spin axis (yellow) as the latter begins to move as a result of climate change. (Image credit: ETH Zurich)
But in general, Earth's rotation has been slowing for millennia, mainly due to a process known as lunar tidal friction, in which the moon's gravitational effect on our oceans pulls water away from the poles. At the moment, this effect is lengthening our days by around 2.3 milliseconds every century.
The new studies show that climate change is currently lengthening our days by around 1.3 milliseconds every century. However, based on current global temperature models, the researchers predict that this could increase to 2.6 milliseconds per century by the end of the 21st century, which would make climate change the biggest influence on our planet's spin.
Potential impacts
Any changes to Earth's spin will have to be accounted for during space travel, researchers say. (Image credit: Getty Images)
One of the most likely effects of longer days would be the need to introduce negative leap seconds — where we'd occasionally lose a second from some future days to accommodate the lengthening days, similar to how leap years work.
The March study suggests that this may need to start happening as soon as 2029, mainly to accommodate for how much the days have already lengthened over the past few millennia.
In the past, scientists have suggested this introduction could mess with the timekeeping of computers and smartphones. However, not everyone is convinced this will be a major issue.
The researchers of the new studies also noted that future changes could impact space travel.
"Even if the Earth's rotation is changing only slowly, this effect has to be taken into account when navigating in space — for example, when sending a space probe to land on another planet," Soja said. It is therefore important to monitor these changes closely, he added.
The team also warned that the changes to Earth's rotational axis could alter the rotation of Earth's inner core, which could further increase how fast days lengthen. However, this potential interaction is still largely unknown.
ROV KIEL 6000, GEOMAR/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
Zonder zuurstof zou er geen leven op aarde zijn, althans niet al tweeënhalf miljard jaar. We weten nu dat de eerste organismen die zuurstof produceerden blauwalgen waren en dat na verloop van tijd planten zich specialiseerden in de productie ervan door middel van fotosynthese. Om zuurstof te krijgen heb je zonlicht nodig, en daarom zijn er geen algen in de diepe zee die dit kunnen produceren, toch? Nou, ja en nee: het klopt dat er geen planten zijn in de diepten van de oceaan, maar tegelijkertijd hebben onderzoekers een productie van donkere zuurstof ontdekt uit bepaalde mineralen op de zeebodem. Laten we eens kijken hoe dit proces plaatsvindt en wat het betekent voor de oorsprong van het leven op aarde.
Zuurstofproducerende mineralen ontdekt op 5000 meter diepte
Anaëroob leven, dat wil zeggen leven zonder zuurstof, is zeker niet onbekend: het wordt bijvoorbeeld aangetroffen in sommige diepten in de zee, zoals de verloren stad van Lost City. Kortom, op de bodem van de oceaan is het vreemder om zuurstofproducerende mechanismen te vinden dan planten. Toch heeft een internationaal team van onderzoekers ontdekt dat er speciale metaalmineralen in de oceaanbodem zitten die zeewater kunnen splitsen in waterstof en zuurstof. Dit zijn de woorden van Andrew Sweetman van de Scottish Association for Marine Science:
Zuurstof was noodzakelijk om het aerobe leven op aarde te laten ontstaan, en we zijn er altijd van uitgegaan dat deze toevoer begon met fotosynthetische organismen. Maar nu weten we dat er zuurstof wordt geproduceerd in de diepten van de zee, waar geen licht is.
Kortom, het zou een “donkere zuurstof” zijn, juist omdat het niet wordt geproduceerd dankzij de fotosynthese van chlorofyl en zonlicht, maar door andere chemische processen die letterlijk plaatsvinden daar waar de zon niet schijnt.
De “geobatterijen” verborgen op de oceaanbodem
Goodfon
Zoals het team wetenschappers opmerkt in het onderzoek dat is gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Geoscience, zijn het speciale polymetaalknollen die zich vormen op de oceaanbodem die zuurstof produceren. Deze formaties bevatten metalen zoals nikkel, koper, kobalt, lithium en mangaan, oftewel materialen die veel worden gebruikt bij de fabricage van elektrische batterijen. En het zijn precies “geobatterijen” waar Sweetman en zijn collega's het over hebben, nu ze zuurstofproductie hebben ontdekt in de Clarion-Clipperton-zone in het midden van de Stille Oceaan.
De onderzoekers ontdekten namelijk hoe de combinatie van roest en zout water elektriciteit kan opwekken. En er is slechts 1,5 volt nodig om zeewater te scheiden in waterstof en zuurstof, zoals werd aangetoond in een experiment: in de praktijk de spanning van een klassieke AA-batterij. De metaalknollen in de diepten van de oceaan fungeren als batterijen, of beter gezegd “geobatterijen”, voor de productie van zuurstof.
Oorsprong van aëroob leven en mijnexploitatie: de vooruitzichten op ontdekking
De ontdekking van de onderzoekers wijst in twee verschillende richtingen. De eerste is het verleden, en meer dan tweeënhalf miljard jaar geleden, het ontstaan van aeroob leven. Als rotsen inderdaad ook zuurstof kunnen produceren, wie zegt dan dat ze niet ook verantwoordelijk zijn voor het ontstaan van het leven op aarde zoals we dat nu kennen?
Tegelijkertijd is de tweede richting die van de toekomst en mijnexploitatie. Polymetaalknollen die donkere zuurstof produceren zouden tientallen jaren lang batterijen op wereldschaal van energie kunnen voorzien, maar is dat wel een goed idee? Enerzijds werd het onderzoek deels gefinancierd door het bedrijf The Metals Company, dat de metaalknollen wil extraheren. Aan de andere kant heeft diepzeemijnbouw tot verschillende problemen voor oceaanecosystemen geleid. Waaronder één die de zuurstof wil produceren die we al heel lang inademen.
Vijfhonderd miljoen jaar geleden leefde er een zeedier in de vorm van een “taco” in de wateren van de aarde. Een ongekende fossiele analyse heeft iets nieuws ontdekt over dit merkwaardige uitgestorven dier.
Odaraia alata, het vreemde zeewezen uit het Cambrium
In het Cambrium, toen het leven op aarde dramatisch explodeerde, leefde een vreemd wezen dat op een garnaal leek in de eerste oceanen die zich op onze planeet vormden. Landdieren die worden gedefinieerd als geleedpotigen met onderkaken of tangkaken bestaan voor ongeveer 70% uit krabben, bijen, duizendpoten en garnalen.
Daartoe behoorde de Odaraia, waarvan de specifieke schaal hem beschermde tegen mariene gevaren, in de prehistorie, ongeveer 508 miljoen jaar geleden. De Odaraia bewoog zich in ondiep water, was bijna twintig centimeter lang en door zijn taco-vormige schaal, de beroemde Mexicaanse tortilla, kon hij zowel in normale houding als ondersteboven voortbewegen in zee.
De Odaraia had kaken: het is bevestigd
Ghedoghedo/Wikimedia commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Onderzoekers van het Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, hebben het eerste concrete bewijs geleverd dat dit schepsel was uitgerust met onderkaken, waarmee het zich voedde in open zee en niet alleen op de zeebodem. Door het analyseren van fossielen is het mogelijk geweest om enkele gaten in de evolutie van geleedpotigen op te vullen, en de Odaraia heeft in dit geval meer dan honderd jaar lang twijfels opgeroepen onder paleontologen.
In 1912 en 1981 werd de hypothese geopperd dat dit grote waterinsect in staat was om voedsel door zijn kaken te filteren, net als moderne garnalen. De beschikbare fossielen waren echter niet voldoende om deze theorie te bevestigen. De nieuwe studie, onder leiding van paleontoloog Alejandro Izquierdo López, heeft eindelijk wat duidelijkheid gebracht: na onderzoek van 150 exemplaren uit het Royal Ontario Museum die tot nu toe nog niet bestudeerd waren, koos het team 24 van de best bewaarde exemplaren uit om in detail te analyseren. De fossielen in kwestie waren gevonden in de rotsformatie Burgess Shale, waar de conservering van vondsten doorgaans buitengewoon goed is.
Ontdekt hoe de Odaraia zich voedde
Qohelet12/Wikimedia commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
De ongelooflijke staat van bewaring, zelfs van de zachte delen van het lichaam, maakte het mogelijk om te ontdekken dat de Odaraia doorzichtige kaken had, uitgerust met kleine tandjes. Tussen de kaken stond een enkele tand, die waarschijnlijk diende om voedsel beter te kunnen kauwen. Izquierdo López verklaarde dat “het lijkt op een drietand. Het is iets dat nog nooit bij een ander dier uit het Cambrium is gezien."
Verder bleek uit het onderzoek dat de 30 paar kleine poten van de Odaraia bedekt waren met talloze stekels en honderden kleine puntjes, die er samen uitzagen als een soort visnet voor de jacht op plankton. Een dier dat “deels filtervoeder, deels roofdier” was, met voor die tijd bijzonder grote ogen. Na meer dan een eeuw is het geheim van de bizarre Odaraia dus eindelijk onthuld en het helpt om de evolutie van de kaak bij de oude geleedpotigen van onze planeet te begrijpen.
Odaraia alata is portrayed swimming upside down. You can see its large eyes and mandibles, or pincers, at the front near its mouth.
DANIELLE DUFAULT, ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
A smaller Odaraia alata seen from the side, with its big eyes and spiny legs.
JEAN-BERNARD CARON, ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Artist's reconstruction of Odaraia alata. It has now been classified as a mandibulate, and rsearchers believe it could have swum upside down to gather food with the help of the many spines along its legs.
ILLUSTRATED BY DANIELLE DUFAULT. COURTESY ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Are Aliens Future Humans? Exploring Dr. Michael P. Masters’ Groundbreaking Theory
Are Aliens Future Humans? Exploring Dr. Michael P. Masters’ Groundbreaking Theory
In a recent episode of “Reality Check,” journalist Ross Coulthart sat down with Dr. Michael P. Masters, a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Tech University, to explore a fascinating and unconventional theory: Could UFOs and extraterrestrial beings be future humans? This theory, though unconventional, offers a unique perspective on the longstanding mystery of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and the beings associated with them.
Dr. Michael P. Masters: A Profile
Dr. Michael P. Masters is not your typical scientist dabbling in speculative ideas. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in hominin evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine. His academic background provides a robust foundation for his research, which posits that the beings we often refer to as aliens might actually be our descendants from the future. This hypothesis is detailed in his books, including “Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon” (2019), “The Extratempestrial Model” (2022), and his novel “The Future Human Past” (2023).
The Future Human Hypothesis
The crux of Dr. Masters’ theory is the idea that UFOs and their occupants are not visitors from distant planets but time travelers from our own future. This hypothesis stems from his observations of the consistent humanoid descriptions of extraterrestrial beings. According to Masters, the anatomical features of these beings—such as their upright posture, bilateral symmetry, and advanced cognitive abilities—mirror the evolutionary trends observed in humans.
In his discussions, Masters elaborates on how these beings’ physical characteristics align with the trajectory of human evolution. He points out that the bipedalism, brain size, and facial anatomy of these so-called aliens show a continued evolution of traits that have defined our species for millions of years. He also touches on the improbability of similar evolutionary paths occurring independently on other planets, given the unique environmental pressures and conditions on Earth.
Personal Encounters and High Strangeness
An intriguing aspect of the interview was Dr. Masters’ personal experiences with the paranormal, which began intensively in 2022. These experiences include seeing multiple UFOs near his home in Montana and engaging in what he describes as telepathic communications with an advanced consciousness. These encounters, particularly one involving a deep trance mediumship session with two individuals, have profoundly influenced his views on the phenomenon. Masters describes these experiences as wake-up calls, pushing him to pay closer attention to the mysteries surrounding UAPs.
The Crypto-Terrestrial Hypothesis
In addition to his future human theory, Dr. Masters is also a proponent of the crypto-terrestrial hypothesis. This idea suggests that advanced beings might be hiding on Earth, possibly remnants of ancient civilizations that have advanced alongside us. This hypothesis aligns with various archaeological anomalies and ancient texts that hint at advanced knowledge and technology predating known human history.
For instance, the discovery of interlocking wooden pieces at Zambia’s Kalambo Falls dating back half a million years and a fossilized wheel imprint in a Ukrainian coal mine suggest the presence of advanced civilizations in Earth’s distant past. These findings challenge conventional timelines and suggest that humanity might not be the first technologically advanced species on this planet.
Cultural and Mythological Connections
Masters and Coulthart also delve into the cultural and mythological aspects of the phenomenon. They discuss how various ancient cultures, from the Sumerians to Native American tribes, have legends of great floods and advanced beings. These stories, preserved in oral histories and ancient texts, often depict encounters with superior entities that could be interpreted as future humans or remnants of advanced ancient civilizations.
Mainstream Media and Scientific Openness
Despite the unconventional nature of these theories, there is a growing openness in mainstream media and scientific communities to explore these ideas. This shift is partly due to the increasing number of credible UFO sightings and the acknowledgment by government agencies of the need to investigate these phenomena seriously.
Dr. Masters’ recent Harvard research paper, though briefly taken down due to a minor grammatical error, has sparked significant interest and discussions. This paper, co-authored with other researchers, explores various hypotheses, including the possibility of extraterrestrial or crypto-terrestrial origins of these beings. The goal is to foster a scientific dialogue that transcends traditional boundaries and considers all plausible explanations.
VIDEO:
Ross Coulthart and Dr. Masters ask: Are aliens future humans? | Reality Check
The conversation between Ross Coulthart and Dr. Michael P. Masters offers a thought-provoking perspective on the nature of UFOs and their occupants. By considering the possibility that these beings are future humans, we are invited to rethink our understanding of time, evolution, and the cosmos. As scientific and public interest in UAPs continues to grow, such interdisciplinary and open-minded approaches may bring us closer to unraveling one of humanity’s greatest mysteries.
Beneath the skin of Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system, expect the unexpected. Reaching out across the cosmos with this fascinating revelation is a new study that points to a 9-mile-thick layer of diamonds concealed beneath the planet's surface.
While instance of such valuable encrustation might sound tantalizing, turning these precious stones into fashionable jewelry remains an impossibility due to their inaccessible location deep within the planet.
Mercury, seen in this false-color image, may have a deep layer of inner diamonds, new research finds.
(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
However, these gems could hold the key to unraveling some of the big unanswered questions circling around Mercury' composition and its rather curious magnetic field.
Oddly enough, for a planet its size, Mercury has a magnetic field. It is weaker than its Earth counterpart, but is still intriguing considering the planet's overall inactivity in geological terms.
What truly sparked Lin's interest, however, were the unusually dark patches on the surface of Mercury that were identified as graphite by NASA's Messenger mission.
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This planet has huge deposits of diamonds, reveals study (India Today)
This revelation triggered exploration into the possibility of something unique brewing within the planet's interior.
Birth of Mercury's diamond layer
Utilizing a team comprised of Chinese and Belgian researchers, Lin sought to explore the possibility of diamond formation deep in Mercury's core.
The team began by creating chemical mixtures that replicated Mercury's magma ocean. The concoction included iron, silica, and carbon, elements similar to certain kinds of meteorites, and was subjected to crushing pressures and extreme temperatures.
The team's rigorous experiments and computer simulations confirmed that Mercury's mantle would indeed be conducive to forming diamonds, especially under the revised conditions that the team established.
If these diamonds do exist, they could form a 9-mile average thick layer at the core-mantle boundary of Mercury, which is approximately 300 miles below the surface.
A diagram showing the proposed layer of diamond at Mercury's core-mantle boundary.
(Image credit: Dr. Yanhao Lin and Dr. Bernard Charlier)
Mercury's magnetism
The hypothesized existence of this layer of diamonds is more than just an intriguing fact. It could potentially explain the origin of Mercury's magnetic field.
These diamonds may facilitate heat transfer between the core and mantle, thereby creating temperature differences and causing liquid iron to circulate – a process that would kickstart the creation of a magnetic field.
Implications for future research
The discovery of a potential diamond layer within Mercury opens new avenues for planetary research and composition studies not only of Mercury but also of other celestial bodies.
Understanding the unique geological characteristics of Mercury could provide deeper insight into the formation and evolution of the solar system.
Future missions to Mercury may focus on directly exploring its interior structure through advanced geophysical measurements and remote sensing techniques to verify the existence of this diamond layer and its impact on the planet's magnetic field.
Mercury as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft. Although easily the darkest of the planets, Mercury may have a sparkling layer deep inside.
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University/Hopkins University Applied University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Planetary formation and Mercury's diamonds
This revelation also prompts a reconsideration of the processes involved in planetary formation.
Diamonds are typically associated with high-pressure environments, suggesting that similar conditions may exist in other distant rocky exoplanets and moons within our solar system.
Lin and his team's findings underline the importance of studying extreme planetary conditions, which can reveal not only the composition of these bodies but also the historical processes that formed them, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of geology across the cosmos.
Evolution of exoplanets
The potential discovery casts a new light on the evolution of carbon-rich exoplanets. According to Lin, the process that led to the formation of a diamond layer on Mercury could also be at play on other planets, possibly leaving similar traces.
The arrival of the BepiColombo spacecraft, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in 2025 will provide better opportunities to delve deeper into this intriguing discovery.
Mercury, it seems, continues to dazzle us with new surprises, keeping the scientific community and general public on their toes.
Who'd have thought that this small, seemingly quiet planet could hold such vast volumes of precious stones deep within its confines?
To be clear, NASA is not declaring that it's discovered Martian life. Rather, its Perseverance rover has drilled a sample from a rock with attributes that could have come from ancient microbial activity, the agency announced Thursday.
"This is exactly the kind of sample that we wanted to find," Katie Stack Morgan, a lead scientist on the Perseverance mission, told Business Insider.
3 key features could point to alien life
"Cheyava Falls" (left) shows the dark hole where NASA's Perseverance took a core sample. The white patch directly beside the hole is where the rover abraded the rock to investigate its composition.
However, both the organic material and the leopard spots could have come from non-biological processes. That's why scientists need to study the sample more closely on Earth to know for sure.
The rover has reached the limit of what it can learn about the rock.
"We're not saying there's life on Mars, but we're seeing something that is compelling as a potential biosignature," Stack Morgan said.
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Over 5000 Alien Worlds Have Been Discovered Outside Our Solar System (Dailymotion)
"This is a very significant discovery," she added.
It's a much-needed win for the space agency. In recent months, NASA has taken hit after hit from budget limitations and technical errors across missions.
NASA needs this win
Earlier this year, the agency's first attempt to return to the moon since 1972 failed. The NASA-funded Peregrine moon mission, by the company Astrobotic suffered a fuel leak shortly after launch, forcing it to return to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. (The next attempt, a mission by the company Intuitive Machines, also funded by NASA, successfully landed on the moon.)
Then, new budgeting decisions came down. NASA's budget proposal for 2025 effectively defunds the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is still a highly productive and functional mission.
And just last week, NASA officials announced they were scrapping the VIPER moon rover that the agency has already spent $450 million to build. NASA plans to disassemble it and reuse some of the parts for future moon missions.
Meanwhile, two astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for 51 days because the NASA-funded Boeing spaceship that carried them there is leaking helium and having thruster malfunctions.
Even Perseverance wasn't spared. In April, NASA announced it was canceling its $11 billion plan to send a follow-up mission, called Mars Sample Return, to collect the rover's tubes of Martian rock and carry them back to Earth. That was the plan that could've brought scientists the Cheyava Falls rock sample.
"We've taken us up to the start of that scale, and I think that's what the rover was sent to Mars to do," Stack Morgan said.
A possible biosignature can climb to higher levels of confidence as evidence builds. For example, if scientists can confirm that known non-biological processes didn't create the leopard spots, the Cheyava Falls rock might ascend to step two or three.
But they need to get the sample to Earth first. And NASA needs to figure out how to do that.
"We're hoping that our most recent sample can play into the conversation about whether this effort is worth it," Stack Morgan said. "And we believe that it is."
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Vanuit de lucht zagen mensen plots vreemde sporen op Belgische bodem.
Het gaat hier om kronkelende paden die verschenen in een veld genesteld in de Kempen, een streek aan weerszijden van de grens tussen Nederland en België. En volgens het Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos (ANB) "zijn het zeker geen wandelpaden". Wat is er aan de hand?
Maar het gaat hier om een recent fenomeen waar eigenlijk niets mysterieus aan is. De verklaring is dan ook ontnuchterend, meldt het Belgische mediakanaal Sudinfo.
De ANB legt uit: "We hebben de stroken (die zichtbaar zijn vanuit de lucht) gemaaid en het is de bedoeling dat de nieuwe heidevegetatie daar groeit. Het klinkt inderdaad vreemd, maar we werken strook per strook en punt per punt zodat de oude heide op dit perceel de kans krijgt om te verjongen. We herhalen deze operatie elke twee of drie jaar om de variatie verder te vergroten. Hoe meer leeftijdsvariaties er zijn in een heideveld, hoe rijker de structuur, hoe meer soorten er opduiken en hoe robuuster de heidehabitat".
Geen UFO's dus, maar zorgvuldig natuurmanagement!
(FVDV and AsD for Tagtik/Source: Sudinfo/Illustration: Unsplash)
Marsrobot ontdekt verrassend (en bij toeval) pure zwavel: "Een oase in de woestijn, we kunnen dit niet verklaren"
Marsrobot ontdekt verrassend (en bij toeval) pure zwavel: "Een oase in de woestijn, we kunnen dit niet verklaren"
Artikel door Michaël Torfs
Curiosity bevindt zich sinds oktober 2023 in een gebied op Mars dat rijk is aan sulfaten, een mengeling van zout- en zwavelresten die gevormd worden wanneer water verdampt. Maar de jongste ontdekking is iets helemaal anders, en kwam als een echte verrassing.
Geen mengvorm, maar pure zwavelkristallen
Toen Curiosity over een steen reed, barstte die open als een noot. Er kwamen gele zwavelkristallen tevoorschijn: geen mengeling van zwavel met andere elementen, maar het pure spul. We associëren zwavel met de typische geur van rottende eieren, maar volgens de NASA is de pas ontdekte, pure zwavel geurloos.
Er is mogelijk nog veel meer pure zwavel aanwezig, want in de buurt liggen nog verschillende gelijkaardige stenen. Dat stelt wetenschappers voor vragen, want ze dachten niet dat er zich op die plek op Mars ooit zwavel zou hebben gevormd.
"Een veld vinden met stenen gemaakt uit puur zwavel, is zoals een oase in de woestijn vinden", vertelt Ashwin Vasavada van de NASA. "Het zou daar niet moeten liggen, dat veld, dus nu moeten we proberen om een verklaring te vinden. Het ontdekken van onverwachte en rare dingen maakt het verkennen van de ruimte zo opwindend."
De ontdekking gebeurde in het kanaal van Gediz Vallis, een bedding aan de voet van de 5 kilometer hoge Mount Sharp. Ooit moet daar water door gestroomd hebben, zeggen specialisten. Maar er is nog veel onderzoek nodig om te begrijpen hoe het landschap er zich precies heeft gevormd. De jongste ontdekking maakt die uitdaging nog wat groter.
Curiosity maakte een close-up van een witte steen, gelijkaardig aan degene die onlangs openbarstte. Er ligt in de buurt een heel veld.
Venus is known for being really quite inhospitable with high surface temperatures and Mars is known for its rusty red horizons. Even the moons of some of the outer planets have fascinating environments with Europa and Enceladus boasting underground oceans. Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show that Ariel, a moon of Uranus, is also a strong candidate for a sub surface ocean. How has this conclusion been reached? Well JWST has detected carbon dioxide ice on the surface on the trailing edge of features trailing away from the orbital direction. The possible cause, an underground ocean!
Uranus is the seventh planet in the Solar System and has five moons. Ariel is one of them and is notable for its icy surface and fascinatingly diverse geological features. It was discovered back in 1851 by William Lassell who funded his love of astronomy from his brewing business! The surface of Ariel is a real mix of canyons, ridges, faults and valleys mostly driven by tectonic activity. Cryovolcanism is a prominent process on the surface which drives constant resurfacing and has led to Ariel having the brightest surface of all Uranus’ moons.
Image of Uranus from Webb
Studying Ariel closeup reveals that the surface is coated with significant amounts of carbon dioxide ice. The trailing hemisphere of Ariel seems to be particularly coated in the ice which has surprised the community. At the distance of Uranian system from the Sun, an average of 2.9 billion kilometres, carbon dioxide will usually turns straight into a gas and be lost to space, it’s not expected to freeze!
Until recently, the most popular theory that supplies the carbon dioxide to Ariel’s surface is interactions between its surface and charged particles in the magnetosphere of Uranus. The process known as radiolysis breaks down molecules through ionisation. A new study just published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests an intriguing alternative, the carbon dioxide molecules are expelled from Ariel, possibly from a subsurface liquid ocean!
A team of astronomers using JWST have undertaken a spectral analysis of Ariel and compared the results with lab based findings. The results revealed that Ariel has some of the most carbon dioxide rich deposits in the solar system. The deposits are not just wisps and trace amounts instead adding up to about 10 millimetres across the trailing hemisphere. Furthermore, the results also showed signals from carbon monoxide too which should not be there given the average temperatures.
Illustration of James Webb Space Telescope
It is still possible that radiolysis is responsible for at least some of the deposits but the replenishment from the subsurface ocean is thought to be the main contributor. This hypothesis has been supported by the discovery of signals from carbonate minerals, salts that can only be present due to the interaction between rock and water.
The only way to be absolutely sure is for a future space mission to Uranus. Such a mission will undoubtedly explore the moons of Uranus. Ariel is covered in canyons, fissures and grooves and it is suspected these are openings to its interior. A robotic explorer in the Uranian system will be able to uncover the origin of the carbon oxides on Ariel. Without such a mission we are still somewhat in the dark given that Voyager 2 only imaged around 35% of the moon’s surface.
Our Carbon Dioxide Emissions Have a Mesmerizing Side
Our CO2 emissions are warming the planet and making life uncomfortable and even unbearable in some regions. In July, the planet set consecutive records for the hottest day.
NASA is mapping our emissions, and while what they show us isn’t uplifting, it is visually appealing in a ghoulish way. Maybe the combination of visual appeal and ghoulishness will build momentum in the fight against climate change.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has released a video showing how wind and air currents pushed CO2 emissions around Earth’s atmosphere from January to March 2020. The video’s high-resolution zooms in and sees individual sources of CO2, including power plants and forest fires.
“As policymakers and as scientists, we’re trying to account for where carbon comes from and how that impacts the planet,” said climate scientist Lesley Ott at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “You see here how everything is interconnected by these different weather patterns.”
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The video starkly shows that it doesn’t matter where CO2 emissions come from; we all deal with the outcomes. Yet there are some interesting global differences.
Above the USA, South Asia, and China, most of the carbon comes from industry, power plants, and transportation. But over Africa and South America, most of the emissions come from burning, including forest fires, agricultural burning, and land clearing. Emissions also come from fossil fuels like oil and coal.
The image pulses for a couple of reasons. Forest fires tend to flare during the day and then slow down at night. Also, trees and plants photosynthesize during the day, releasing oxygen and absorbing CO2. The land masses and the oceans act as carbon sinks.
There’s more pulsing in South America and the tropics because the data was collected during their growing season.
In this version, the video zooms in on the USA, showing individual CO2 sources.
These visualizations are based on GEOS, the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is an integrated system for modelling Earth’s coupled atmosphere, ocean, and land systems. NASA calls it a “high-resolution weather analysis model,” and it uses supercomputers to show what’s happening in the atmosphere. GEOS is based on billions of data points, including data from the Terra satellite’s MODIS and the Suomi-NPP satellite’s VIIRS instruments. GEOS has a resolution that’s more than 100 times greater than typical weather models.
Klimaatverandering veroorzaakt extremer weer: Nieuwe studie onthult verontrustende trends
Klimaatverandering veroorzaakt extremer weer: Nieuwe studie onthult verontrustende trends
nrd via Unsplash
Een recent onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het gerenommeerde tijdschrift Science, heeft aangetoond dat klimaatverandering wereldwijd leidt tot aanzienlijke veranderingen in neerslagpatronen. Deze veranderingen kunnen resulteren in hevigere tyfoons en andere tropische stormen.
Onderzoekers onder leiding van Zhang Wenxia van de China Academy of Sciences hebben historische meteorologische gegevens geanalyseerd. Uit hun studie blijkt dat op ongeveer 75 procent van het wereldwijde landoppervlak de “neerslagvariabiliteit” is toegenomen. Dit betekent grotere schommelingen tussen nat en droog weer. De wetenschappers schrijven deze toename toe aan de opwarming van de temperatuur, die de atmosfeer beter in staat stelt om vocht vast te houden.
Veranderingen in tropische stormen
Steven Sherwood van het Climate Change Research Centre van de Universiteit van New South Wales legt uit dat de opwarmende temperaturen het vermogen van de atmosfeer om vocht vast te houden hebben vergroot. “Dit leidt tot regenachtigere perioden en drogere droge perioden”, zegt Sherwood. Hij waarschuwt dat deze trend zich zal voortzetten als de opwarming van de aarde aanhoudt, waardoor de kans op droogtes en overstromingen toeneemt.
Wetenschappers vermoeden ook dat klimaatverandering het gedrag van tropische stormen verandert. Hoewel het aantal tyfoons in sommige regio’s kan afnemen, voorspellen modellen dat de opwarming van de aarde ze sterker zal maken. Sachie Kanada van de Nagoya Universiteit in Japan benadrukt dat “een hogere temperatuur van het zeeoppervlak een gunstige voorwaarde is voor de ontwikkeling van tropische cyclonen.”
Het onderzoek benadrukt de invloed van klimaatverandering op weerpatronen in specifieke regio’s. Taiwan heeft bijvoorbeeld een toename gezien van intense tyfoons. Ook de oostkust van China is onlangs getroffen door de tyfoon Gaemi, die grote schade veroorzaakte.
Toekomstige vooruitzichten
Met de stijgende temperaturen suggereert het onderzoek dat we wereldwijd meer extreme weersomstandigheden kunnen verwachten. Feng Xiangbo van de Universiteit van Reading merkt op dat “de waterdampcapaciteit in de lagere atmosfeer naar verwachting met 7 procent zal toenemen voor elke graad Celsius temperatuurstijging.” Dit kan leiden tot meer regenval en intensievere stormen, vooral in regio’s zoals de Verenigde Staten
'Realistic' UFO spotted flying over city as onlookers brand it 'creepy as hell'
The 'UFO' was spotted flying over Curitiba, Brazil
(Image: Zona Desconhecida/YouTube)
'Realistic' UFO spotted flying over city as onlookers brand it 'creepy as hell'
A 'creepy as hell' 'UFO' has been sighted heading over southern Brazil as an eagle eyed videographer pulled out his camera picking up the mysterious 'spacecraft' in the sky
By Danny Gutmann
A well placed cameraman was on hand to catch the moment a ' UFO ' can be seen hovering across the sky, in a clip that was posted on his YouTubechannel yesterday (Thursday, July 25).
The mysterious video, taken in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil, seemingly shows a typical triangular shaped 'UFO' in the distance, with the cameraman zooming in to get a closer look.
But some Reddit users just couldn't agree on what they were watching with one user coming up with his own theory, writing: "Creepy as hell. I don't think this is a balloon or drone look close that s**ts like moving like there's little legs on the sides moving and the eye or whatever also moves."
But another user offered his own expanation in reply, saying: "When it finally comes into focus at the end, it just looks like smooth, uniformly shaped thing. The "landing gear" and the light colored features on the side I think were just artifacts of it being out of focus.
One Reddit user said that he thought it looked like a 'balloon'
"In the frames where it is in focus, it's just hovering in place. It really does look like a balloon and there's no reason to think it's anything else; it doesn't exhibit any of the "observables" etc."
Meanwhile, another Reddit user was confident that it could be a legitimate UFO sighting, adding: "Amazing zoom on that camera, and a strong case for a UFO. Without it taking off and showing speed, it's hard for me to say for sure. But still, great submission."
Brazil is also home to one of the most notable UFO sightings of the 1980s, when on 19 May 1986 a number of sightings were reported in one night across several locations.
So much so, the Brazilian Air Force even gave a press conference to address the sightings, in which Brigadier Lima said: "It's not about believing or not (in aliens). We can only give out technical information. There are several hypotheses. Technically, I'd tell you gentlemen that we have no explanation."
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; J. DePasquale, A. Koekemoer, A. Pagan (STScI)
Er is niemand die de Pilaren der Creatie niet minstens één keer in zijn leven heeft gezien. Sinds ze beroemd zijn geworden door de Hubble ruimtetelescoop, heeft het buitengewone schouwspel van deze nevelachtige formaties astronomen en liefhebbers gefascineerd. Na de onthullingen van de James Webb Space Telescope heeft NASA een nieuwe voorstelling gepubliceerd waarmee het mogelijk is om de Pilaren der Creatie in 3D te verkennen. Laten we eens kijken hoe.
De Pilaren der Creatie, van Hubble tot JWST
De zogenaamde Pilaren der Creatie, die zich op ongeveer 7000 lichtjaar van de aarde bevinden, zijn nevelachtige formaties. Ze worden zo genoemd vanwege de visuele impact van eerst de weergave van Hubble en later JWST. Het zijn eigenlijk kolommen van gas en stof die na verloop van tijd bijdragen aan de vorming van nieuwe sterren.
De Pilaren der Creatie worden verlicht door het licht van nabije sterren, ook al bevindt de dichtstbijzijnde zich op zo'n 500 lichtjaar. Bovendien bestaan ze voornamelijk uit waterstof en helium en zijn ze ruim 5 lichtjaar lang. Hun lot is nauw verbonden met de vorming van nieuwe sterren, maar dat niet alleen: voortdurende stellaire winden botsen op deze nevel en eroderen de samenstellende elementen. Het duurt misschien “een paar” miljoen jaar voordat de Pilaren der Creatie ophouden te bestaan, tenminste in deze vorm.
De nieuwe 3D-visualisatie van de Pilaren der Creatie
Greg Bacon, Ralf Crawford, Joseph DePasquale, Leah Hustak, Christian Nieves, Joseph Olmsted, Alyssa Pagan, and Frank Summers (STScI),
NASA's Universe of Learning
Zoals te zien is in de video die door NASA is gedeeld, maakt de nieuwe 3D-visualisatie van de Pilaren der Creatie het mogelijk om deze formaties als nooit tevoren te verkennen. Om tot deze weergave te komen, zijn gegevens van Hubble en James Webb gebruikt om meer detail te verkrijgen. Bovendien wordt in de video ruimte gegeven aan zowel de door Hubble verzamelde reconstructie in zichtbaar licht als de voor de JWST kenmerkende infraroodweergave. Volgens de experts die aan deze prestatie hebben bijgedragen, zullen alle mensen nu de Pilaren der Creatie kunnen verkennen:
We wilden de Pilaren der Creatie al heel lang in 3D nabootsen. Dankzij de Webb-gegevens in combinatie met de Hubble-gegevens konden we de pilaren gedetailleerder bekijken. Door de wetenschap te begrijpen en deze het beste weer te geven, kon ons kleine, getalenteerde team de uitdaging aangaan om deze iconische structuur te visualiseren.
Begrijpen hoe sterren worden gevormd, dankzij de weergave van de Pilaren
De combinatie van gegevens die zijn verkregen door de twee ruimtetelescopen Hubble en James Webb, respectievelijk in 1995 en 2022, heeft het mogelijk gemaakt om de Pilaren der Creatie te reconstrueren zoals niemand ze ooit heeft gezien. Maar dat is nog niet alles. Zoals Mark Clampin van NASA zich herinnert:
Het gebied van de Pilaren der Creatie blijft ons nieuwe inzichten bieden die ons begrip van de vorming van sterren kunnen verscherpen. En nu, met deze nieuwe visualisatie, kan iedereen dit rijke en fascinerende landschap op een nieuwe manier ervaren.
In de video zie je een nieuw gevormde ster, met zijn karakteristieke helderrode gloed in het infrarode licht van de JWST. Bovenaan de linkerpilaar is een diagonale straal te zien van materiaal dat afkomstig is van een andere, eveneens pas ontstane ster. Afgezien van de gegevens die zijn gebruikt voor de 3D-reconstructie, lijdt het geen twijfel dat de inspanning van NASA en alle technici ook en vooral gericht is op het grote publiek. Dankzij de nieuwe visualisatie zal het dus niet alleen mogelijk zijn om te begrijpen hoe sterren worden gevormd, maar ook om nieuwe generaties enthousiastelingen en astronomen te fascineren. Die in de toekomst meer kunnen ontdekken over dit buitengewone en verre spektakel, maar vanaf vandaag iets dichterbij.
Het verborgen geheim van Mercurius: een laag diamant van wel 18 kilometer
Het verborgen geheim van Mercurius: een laag diamant van wel 18 kilometer
Image by Tomislav Jakupec from Pixabay
Een team wetenschappers uit China en België heeft een baanbrekende ontdekking gedaan over de interne structuur van Mercurius, de kleinste planeet in ons zonnestelsel. Volgens hun onderzoek zou een laag diamant onder de korst van Mercurius wel 18 km dik kunnen zijn. “Ten eerste is er de kristallisatie van de magma-oceaan, maar dit proces heeft waarschijnlijk alleen een zeer dunne diamantlaag gevormd aan de kern/mantel-grens,” vertelde Olivier Namur, lid van het onderzoeksteam en universitair hoofddocent aan de KU Leuven, aan Space.com. “Ten tweede, en nog belangrijker, de kristallisatie van de metalen kern van Mercurius.” Toen de planeet ongeveer 4,5 miljard jaar geleden werd gevormd, was de metalen kern volledig vloeibaar, die zich in de loop van de tijd geleidelijk kristalliseerde, aldus Namur.
Groeiende diamantlaag
De exacte aard van de vaste fasen in de binnenkern is momenteel niet goed bekend, maar het team gelooft dat deze fasen arm aan koolstof of “koolstofarm” moeten zijn geweest. “De vloeibare kern bevatte vóór kristallisatie enige koolstof; kristallisatie leidt daarom tot koolstofverrijking in het resterende smelt,” vervolgde Namur. “Op een gegeven moment wordt een oplosbaarheidsdrempel bereikt, wat betekent dat de vloeistof geen extra koolstof kan oplossen en dat er diamant wordt gevormd.” Diamant is een dicht mineraal, maar niet zo dicht als metaal. Dit betekent dat tijdens dit proces de diamant naar de top van de kern zou zijn gedreven, tot aan de grens van de kern en de mantel van Mercurius. Dit zou hebben geleid tot de vorming van een ongeveer 1 kilometer dikke diamantlaag die in de loop van de tijd bleef groeien. De wetenschappers suggereren dat de laag wel 18 km dik zou kunnen zijn.
Van koolstof tot diamant
Deze ontdekking benadrukt de verschillen tussen het ontstaan van de planeet die het dichtst bij de zon staat en het ontstaan van andere rotsachtige planeten in het zonnestelsel, zoals Venus, Aarde en Mars. “Mercurius vormde zich veel dichter bij de zon, waarschijnlijk uit een koolstofrijke wolk van stof. Hierdoor bevat Mercurius minder zuurstof en meer koolstof dan andere planeten. Dit leidde tot de vorming van een diamantlaag,” voegde Namur toe. “De kern van de Aarde bevat echter ook koolstof, en de vorming van diamant in de kern van de Aarde is al door verschillende onderzoekers gesuggereerd.”
Belangrijkste bevindingen
Een team wetenschappers uit China en België heeft een laag diamant ontdekt onder de korst van Mercurius
De laag is tot 18 km dik en is daarmee een belangrijke ontdekking voor de planeetwetenschap
Het onderzoek suggereert dat twee processen kunnen hebben bijgedragen aan de vorming van deze diamantlaag: kristallisatie van de magma-oceaan en kristallisatie van de metaalkern.
AI is ongelooflijk Technologieën met artificiële intelligentie (ook wel bekend als kunstmatige intelligentie) helpen ons steeds meer op het gebied van gezondheid, astronomie, toerisme, cultuur, en nog veel meer. Deze galerie toont de meest interessante ontwikkelingen.
Sophia Sophia is een mensachtige robot die in 2016 gemaakt werd door Hanson Robotics uit Hongkong. Ze bootst niet alleen menselijke gebaren na, maar kan ook praten en gezichten herkennen.
Hoe meer interactie ze heeft, hoe meer ze leert Hoe meer interactie ze heeft met mensen, hoe meer kennis Sophia verwerft. Aanvankelijk werd ze ontworpen om ouderen gezelschap te houden.
AI en het menselijk bewegingsapparaat Robotica biedt ook hulp aan mensen met verminderde mobiliteit of zelfs verlamming. Apparaten met biometrische sensoren detecteren de zenuwsignalen die de hersenen naar de ledematen van het lichaam zenden, waardoor ze gaan bewegen.
Een AI-lichaam Dit AI-lichaam zou met de signalen die door twee kleine implantaten in de hersenen worden opgevangen een tetraplegische persoon kunnen helpen zijn benen en armen te bewegen
Robotassistentie in de OK Diverse ziekenhuizen in de wereld gebruiken de Da Vinci-robot om operaties uit te voeren. In plaats van direct contact met de patiënt te hebben, bestuurt de arts de armen van de machine vanaf een console.
Ingezet voor verschillende procedures De robot kan verschillende soorten ingrepen uitvoeren met meer precisie dan de chirurg. In Pennsylvania slaagde Da Vinci er in 2017 in een tumor uit de mond van de patiënt te halen.
Een robot stelde zich kandidaat voor burgemeester Een robot genaamd Michihito Matsuda was kandidaat voor burgemeester van Tama, een district van Tokio. Bij de verkiezingen werd hij derde.
AI voor het opsporen van psychose Meer dan 700 miljoen mensen in de wereld lijden aan psychische stoornissen. Het Amerikaanse technologiebedrijf IBM heeft met neurologen samengewerkt om een instrument te ontwikkelen dat de complexiteit en coherentie van het spraakvermogen van patiënten meet.
IBM's hulpmiddel om psychose op te sporen Door deze werkwijze is het mogelijk nauwkeuriger te voorspellen of er tekenen van psychose zijn in iemands gedrag of spraak.
AI die de baby in slaap helpt vallen In 2019 lanceerde het bedrijf Lullai een applicatie met dezelfde naam die de slaapgewoonten van een baby en de geluiden eromheen bijhoudt. Daarop voortbouwend creëert het routines die aansluiten bij de behoeften van het gezin.
Het virtuele gesprek tussen Bob en Alice Facebook is een van de wereldleiders op het gebied van artificiële intelligentie. Een van de van zijn projecten omvat conversatiesoftware met bots.
Het ontsporen van de Facebook-bots In 2017 gingen de bots Bob en Alice verder dan wat Facebook voor hen had gepland. De software moest uitgeschakeld worden omdat ze in hun eigen taal begonnen te praten.
Een hologram als zangeres Hatsune Miku, van wie de naam 'het eerste geluid van de toekomst' betekent, treedt live op en verzorgde zelfs het voorprogramma van Lady Gaga tijdens haar tournee. Miku werd ontwikkeld door de Japanse firma Crypton Future Media met de software Vocaloid.
Robots die seksuele intimidatie opsporen op het werk en sociale media Bots die getraind zijn om bedrijfscommunicatie te analyseren kunnen agressieve, bedreigende of intimiderende taal herkennen. Deze technologie is afkomstig van het bedrijf NexLP en wordt ook gebruikt door Instagram.
AI om aardbevingen te voorspellen Een dataset die toegepast werd op het neurale netwerk ConvNetQuake heeft het mogelijk gemaakt om aardbevingen te voorspellen. De technologie werd ontwikkeld door experts op het gebied van machinaal leren van Google (een andere belangrijke koploper op het gebied van AI) en wetenschappers van de Harvard Universiteit.
AI die huidkanker opspoort Een Convolutional Neural Network is een AI die beelden verwerkt en analyseert. Wetenschappers van de Ruprecht-Karls-universiteit uit Heidelberg hebben ontdekt dat deze AI meer melanomen kan opsporen dan artsen.
AI die borstkanker opspoort Google heeft duizenden mammogrammen geanalyseerd met een gespecialiseerd AI-systeem. Het programma kan de ziekte doeltreffender in borstweefsel opsporen dan radiologen. De technologie bevindt zich nog in de testfase.
Chatbots om klanten te helpen Juniper Research zegt dat bedrijven ongeveer € 6,4 miljoen kunnen besparen als ze werknemers vervangen door chatbots voor hun klantenservice. Maar het bedrag kan in een paar jaar eenvoudig oplopen tot € 400 miljoen.
Virtuele reisbureaus Toerisme is een andere sector die gegevens en informatie gebruikt om de gebruiker een steeds meer gepersonaliseerde dienstverlening aan te bieden. Bedrijven als Destinia zijn al begonnen chatbots te gebruiken voor het boeken van reizen.
Alexa De door Amazon ontwikkelde virtuele assistent beschikt over verschillende capaciteiten, van het onderhouden van een dialoog met de gebruiker tot het bedienen van andere apparaten zoals televisie, lampen of apparaten.
IA en blockchain Blockchain is een gedistribueerde databank die een permanent en fraudebestendig verslag van transacties bijhoudt. Het is de technologische basis van cryptocurrency's. Het bedrijf SingularityNET combineerde Blockchain met artificiële intelligentie voor de ontwikkeling van een doeltreffender systeem dat gegevens kan raadplegen en te gelde maken ten voordele van de gebruiker.
AI in de astronomie In 2019 werd aan het Flatiron Institute (VS) een bijzonder 3D simulatiemodel van het universum gemaakt dat gebruik maakt van artificiële intelligentie. Nadat het algoritme getraind was met meer dan 8000 simulaties van eerdere modellen, kon het correcte resultaten bieden met nog onbekende gegevens. Dit verbaasde zelfs de wetenschappers die voor de creatie ervan verantwoordelijk waren.
Componist van muziek Amadeus Code is een AI-programma dat gegevens van duizenden succesvolle liedjes gebruikt om eersteklas teksten en melodieën te componeren.
AI bij de controle van zwangerschapsdiabetes Onderzoekers van de Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spanje) hebben een hulpmiddel met een glucosemeter ontwikkeld dat de controle-gegevens van zwangere vrouwen kan analyseren en aanbevelingen kan doen voor hun behandeling. De technologie werd getest bij 112 vrouwen, die daardoor hun doktersbezoek aanzienlijk konden verminderen.
Virtueel hart V-Heart SN is de naam van het hartberekeningsmodel dat negen universiteiten en onderzoekscentra in Spanje ontwikkelen. De technologie past zich aan de kenmerken van elke patiënt aan om zo effectievere persoonlijke behandelingen te creëren.
IMB Q System One In januari 2019 presenteerde IBM de eerste kwantumcomputer ter wereld, waarvan de toegang (via de IBM Cloud) verkocht zal worden aan geïnteresseerde bedrijven. Tot dan bestond deze technologie alleen in laboratoria van Microsoft en Google. Kwantumcomputers hebben het vermogen om complexe gegevens te verwerken, waardoor ze hele industrieën kunnen transformeren, van lucht- en ruimtevaart tot gezondheidszorg.
AI om nieuwe geneesmiddelen te ontdekken Naast IBM's IA Watson zijn momenteel ook start-ups als BenevolentAI en TwoXar verantwoordelijk voor het maken van software die artificiële intelligentie gebruikt voor farmacologisch onderzoek. De technologie vergroot de kans om sneller nieuwe geneesmiddelen te vinden dan in een laboratorium.
Zelforganiserende agenda Woven is een app in ontwikkeling die de agenda's en e-mails van gebruikers synchroniseert om afspraken te plannen en roosters te maken, waarbij ook de reistijd wordt meegerekend. De bedenkers zijn twee voormalige Facebook-medewerkers die al € 4,4 miljoen hebben opgehaald om het project te financieren.
Episolon Indi is a trio of stars, which is a complicated situation already — but two of them aren’t even real stars; they’re brown dwarfs, objects just a smidgeon too small to be stars, but several smidgeons too big to be planets. And now the system boasts an enormous gas giant in its outskirts, where astronomers didn’t expect it to be.
A team of astronomers recently used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)’s MIRI instrument to capture images of a gas giant orbiting a nearby star. Earlier studies had predicted that the star should have a giant planet, but no one expected the planet astronomer Elisabeth Matthews and her colleagues actually found in JWST’s data: a gargantuan beast of a world, six times the mass of Jupiter and orbiting three times farther from its star than Jupiter does from the Sun.
Matthews (of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy) and her colleagues published their findings in the journal Nature.
This illustration shows what Epsilon Indi Ab might look like with its small orange star in the distance.
MPIA
A GIANT SURPRISE
Matthews and her colleagues pointed JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, at the nearby star system Epsilon Indi, which is home to one small orange star, just a little smaller and cooler than our Sun, and a pair of brown dwarfs (objects much too large to be planets, but not quite massive enough to be stars). Other astronomers had previously noticed that Epsilon Indi A, the orange star, had a slight wobble, as if it were being pushed and pulled by the gravity of a giant gas planet in its orbit. But no one had ever actually seen that planet, and the researchers thought JWST would be up to the challenge.
They found the planet, but it wasn’t where all the previous data said it should have been. Instead, it was about four times farther from the star, and about twice as massive, as the researchers had expected. That’s pretty cool, both literally — its about 35 degrees Fahrenheit — but also figuratively, as it is a rare chance to study gas giants in the outer reaches of their star systems.
“To our surprise, the bright spot that appeared in our MIRI images did not match the position we were expecting for the planet,” says Matthews in a recent statement. They’d been looking for a planet about three times the mass of Jupiter, which orbited its star about once every 45 or 50 years. Instead, the bright point of light in MIRI’s images turned out to be a planet about six times more massive than Jupiter, and it’s so far away from its star that it takes around 200 years to finish a single orbit.
For comparison, Jupiter is about five times farther from the Sun than Earth is (that’s five astronomical units, or AU); at that distance, Jupiter takes about 12 years to make a full orbit. Epsilon Eridani Ab, as the new planet is called, is about 15 times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun, and its orbit is a stretched-out oval, so its actual farthest point from its star is at least 20 AU away.
The earlier studies had drastically underestimated how huge, and how far out, Epsilon Eridani Ab actually was. That’s mostly because those astronomers discovered the planet using what’s called the radial velocity method, which measures how much a star wobbles back and forth as the planet, which exerts a small but noticeable gravitational tug on the star, moves around in its orbit. But astronomers were able to watch those stellar wobbles for just a tiny fraction of the planet’s actual orbit, so it was almost impossible for them to accurately reconstruct the whole thing.
That left Matthews and her colleagues with a huge surprise.
A LITTLE-KNOWN TYPE OF PLANET
Giant gas planets like Jupiter and Epsilon Indi Ab form in the outer reaches of their star systems, where there’s less radiation from the newborn star to blow away the gas that forms these giants. Over time, some of them migrate inward: In our own Solar System, Jupiter did some wandering in its younger days, and in many alien star systems, astronomers have discovered a type of planet called a “hot Jupiter,” a gas giant that’s migrated inward until it’s zipping around its host star once every few days.
Hot Jupiters may be the category of planet we know the most about, even though only about 1 percent of stars actually have a hot Jupiter in their collection of planets. That’s because hot Jupiters are relatively easy to spot: they’re big and close to their stars, so it’s easy to track their radial velocity effects or spot their silhouettes when they pass between their star and Earth.
More distant worlds, even huge gas giants like Epsilon Indi Ab, are harder to find, because their orbits are so long (see above) and because they’re less likely to pass in front of their stars from our point of view, thanks to the angles involved. So the gas giants that don’t end up falling inward into scorching hot orbits are sort of a gap in our knowledge of the universe — and Epsilon Indi Ab is a chance to fill in that blank spot on the cosmic map.
“In the long run, we hope to also observe other nearby planetary systems to hunt for cold gas giants that may have escaped detection,” says the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Thomas Henning, a coauthor of the recent paper, in a statement. “Such a survey would serve as the basis for a better understanding of how gas planets form and evolve.”
Meanwhile, Matthews and her colleagues also hope to get more detailed measurements of the spectrum of light coming from the planet, which could tell them what its atmosphere is made of and whether it’s cloudy, hazy, or clear.
In this new video, we see a series of images as BepiColombo speeds away from the closest planet to the sun during the 3rd Mercury flyby. The spacecraft captured these images in a span of about 50 minutes.
On June 20, 2023, ESA released new images of Mercury after BepiColombo spacecraft flew past the closest planet to the sun the day prior. In these images, we get to see a part of BepiColombo with cratered Mercury in the background. ESA released a trio of images as the spacecraft zoomed away during a gravity assist maneuver. It also released annotated images to point out important surface features.
Here’s 1 of the newest images of the closest planet to the sun from the 3rd Mercury flyby of the BepiColombo spacecraft. Image via ESA/ BepiColombo/ MTM.View larger. | These 3 images show the BepiColombo spacecraft with Mercury in the background as it zooms away after a gravity assist. Image via ESA/ BepiColombo/ MTM.This view of Mercury includes labels to point out some of its landmarks, including a scarp named Beagle Rupes. Image via ESA/ BepiColombo/ MTM.In the 2nd image released, we see labeled features such as the newly named Manley crater. Image via ESA/ BepiColombo/ MTM.In this 3rd image of Mercury, BepiColombo captures bright volcanic plains and the large impact basin named the Caloris basin. You can also see bright Xiao Zhao impact crater with its starlike ejecta pattern. It is 1 of the more recent craters on the planet. Image via ESA/ BepiColombo/ MTM.
Reactions from the BepiColombo team
The team involved with the BepiColombo mission were satisfied with the flyby and resulting images. Ignacio Clerigo, ESA’s BepiColombo Spacecraft Operations Manager, said:
Everything went very smoothly with the flyby, and images from the monitoring cameras taken during the close approach phase of the flyby have been transmitted to the ground. While the next Mercury flyby isn’t until September 2024, there are still challenges to tackle in the intervening time: our next long solar electric propulsion ‘thruster arc’ is planned to start early August until mid-September. In combination with the flybys, the thruster arcs are critical in helping BepiColombo brake against the enormous gravitational pull of the sun before we can enter orbit around Mercury.
One of the craters visible in the images is the newly named Manley crater. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named this crater for Jamaican artist Edna Manley (1900–1987). David Rothery of the BepiColombo team said:
During our image planning for the flyby, we realized this large crater would be in view, but it didn’t yet have a name. It will clearly be of interest for BepiColombo scientists in the future because it has excavated dark ‘low reflectance material’ that may be remnants of Mercury’s early carbon-rich crust. In addition, the basin floor within its interior has been flooded by smooth lava, demonstrative of Mercury’s prolonged history of volcanic activity.
BepiColombo made its third flyby of the planet Mercury on June 19, 2023. The spacecraft swept closest to Mercury at 19:34 UTC (2:34 p.m. CDT).
BepiColombo is a joint Mercury mission, launched in October 2018 by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). For the past several years, our sun’s inner planets have been giving BepiColombo gravity assists, needed to enable the spacecraft to achieve a stable orbit around Mercury.
BepiColombo is due to enter Mercury’s orbit on December 5, 2025. In the meantime, there will be three more flybys after Monday’s close approach.
Why the gravity assists?
Why can’t BepiColombo just shoot on over to Mercury and go into orbit around it? It can’t because Mercury is so near the sun.
The flyby maneuvers will keep the craft from being pulled into the sun’s gravity well. With one Earth flyby, two Venus flybys, and six eventual Mercury flybys, the spacecraft will lose enough energy that Mercury will capture it in its orbit. That’s right, we said “lose.” We typically think of a gravity assist as a way to boost a spacecraft’s energy. But a gravity assist can either speed up or slow down a spacecraft. Or it can simply change a craft’s direction.
ESA flight dynamics expert Frank Budnik explained more about this 3rd flyby:
As BepiColombo starts feeling Mercury’s gravitational pull, it will be traveling at 3.6 km/s [2.2 mi/s] with respect to the planet. That’s just over half the speed it approached with during the previous two Mercury flybys.
And this is exactly what the point of such events is. Our spacecraft began with far too much energy because it launched from Earth and, like our planet, is orbiting the sun. To be captured by Mercury, we need to slow down, and we’re using the gravity of Earth, Venus and Mercury to do just that.
View larger. | BepiColombo is making a number of flybys on its way to entering orbit around Mercury. The June 19, 2023, flyby was the 3rd Mercury flyby. Image via ESA.
Tricky maneuvering
Even though BepiColombo’s flight to Mercury was meticulously mapped in advance, controllers will have to make corrections during the seven years it’ll take the spacecraft to get there. In May, mission control performed a course correction that otherwise would have put BepiColombo 15,000 miles (24,000 km) too far from Mercury and on the wrong side of the planet.
Santa Martinez Sanmartin, ESA’s BepiColombo mission manager, explained more about the methods used to get BepiColombo in orbit:
This is the first time scientists are using the complex solar electric propulsion method to get a spacecraft to Mercury. And it represents a big challenge during the remaining part of the cruise phase. We have already adapted our operations concept to have additional communications passes with our ground stations, enabling us to recover faster from thruster interruptions and to improve orbit determination.
And all the while this is working with communications delays of more than 10 minutes due to the time it currently takes light signals to travel between Earth and the spacecraft.
As ESA said, the most demanding part of its journey is still to come:
After this flyby, the mission will enter a very challenging part of its journey to Mercury, gradually increasing the use of solar electric propulsion through additional propulsion periods called ‘thrust arcs’ to continually brake against the enormous gravitational pull of the sun. These thrust arcs can last from a few days up to two months, with the longer arcs interrupted periodically for navigation and maneuver optimization.
This challenging journey is one of the reasons that Mercury is one of the least explored planets in our solar system.
The images from the 3rd Mercury flby
BepiColombo got as close as 146 miles (235 km) from Mercury’s surface during this flyby. However, closest approach was past the unlit portion of Mercury, so scientists didn’t capture any images until a bit later. At about 13 minutes past closest approach, when the spacecraft was 1,143 miles (1,840 km) away, it reached the illuminated part of Mercury. Then it began sending back black-and-white images, including part of the craft itself. A Mercurial selfie, if you will.
Artist’s concept of BepiColombo flying past Mercury. BepiColombo’s 3rd flyby of the closest planet to the sun was on June 19, 2023. Image via ESA/ ATG medialab.
Testing the instruments
The team uses these flybys as a chance to test some of the instruments. During Monday’s flyby, the magnetic, plasma and particle monitoring instruments sampled the environment. Johannes Benkhoff, project scientist, said:
Collecting data during flybys is extremely valuable for the science teams to check their instruments are functioning correctly ahead of the main mission. It also provides a novel opportunity to compare with data collected by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft during its 2011–2015 mission at Mercury from complementary locations around the planet not usually accessible from orbit. We are delighted to already have data published based on our previous flybys that generated new science results, which makes us even more excited to get into orbit!
View larger. | Here are the key moments in the 3rd flyby of BepiColombo past Mercury. BepiColombo saw the lit side of Mercury about 13 minutes after close approach. Image via ESA (acknowledgement: work performed by ATG under contract to ESA)/ CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Bottom line:BepiColombo had its 3rd flyby of Mercury on June 19, 2023. The spacecraft will eventually go into orbit around the closest planet to the sun. ESA released three new images of Mercury taken during the encounter.
NASA's MESSENGER mission has revealed that Mercury, the solar system's tiniest planet and the closest to the sun, hides a big secret.
(Left) A colorful view of Mercury produced using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER's primary mission (Right) what Mercury may look like were its outer layers stripped to expose its 10-mile-thick layer of diamond
(Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
The solar system's tiniest planet may be hiding a big secret. Using data from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, scientists have determined that a 10-mile-thick diamond mantle may lie beneath the crust of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.
Mercury has long puzzled scientists as it possesses many qualities that aren't common to other solar system planets. These include its very dark surface, remarkably dense core, and the premature end of Mercury's volcanic era.
Also among these puzzles are patches of graphite, a type (or "allotrope") of carbon on the surface of the innermost planet of the solar system. These patches have led scientists to suggest that in Mercury's early history, the tiny planet had a carbon-rich magma ocean. This ocean would have floated to the surface, creating graphite patches and the dark-shaded hue of Mercury's surface.
In this new video, we see a series of images as BepiColombo speeds away from the closest planet to the sun during the 3rd Mercury flyby. The spacecraft captured these images in a span of about 50 minutes.
The same process would have also led to the formation of a carbon-rich mantle beneath the surface. The team behind these findings thinks that this mantle isn't graphene, as previously suspected, but is composed of another much more precious allotrope of carbon: diamond.
"We calculate that, given the new estimate of the pressure at the mantle-core boundary, and knowing that Mercury is a carbon-rich planet, the carbon-bearing mineral that would form at the interface between mantle and core is diamond and not graphite," team member Olivier Namur, an associate professor at KU Leuven, told Space.com. "Our study uses geophysical data collected by the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft."
MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) launched in Aug. 2004 and became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. The mission, which ended in 2015, mapped the entire tiny world, discovering abundant water ice in shadows at the poles and gathering crucial data about Mercury's geology and magnetic field.
A high-resolution mosaic of images of Mercury captured by NASA's MESSENGER as the spacecraft departed the planet following the mission's first flyby of Mercury. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Under pressure!
This new study also relates to a major surprise that came a few years ago when scientists re-evaluated the distribution of mass on Mercury, discovering the mantle of this tiny planet is thicker than previously thought.
"We directly thought that this must have a huge implication for the speciation [the distribution of an element or an allotrope amongst chemical species in a system] of carbon, diamond vs graphite, on Mercury," Namur said.
Artist's impression of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit at Mercury. MESSENGER arrived at the solar system's innermost planet in March 2011. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
The team investigated this here on Earth by using a large-volume press to replicate the pressures and temperatures that exist within the interior of Mercury. They applied incredible amounts of pressure, over seven gigapascals, to a synthetic silicate acting as a proxy for the material found in the mantle of Mercury, achieving temperatures of up to 3,950 degrees Fahrenheit (2,177 degrees Celsius).
This allowed them to study how minerals like those that would have been found in Mercury's mantle in its early existence changed under these conditions. They also used computer modeling to assess data about Mercury's interior, which gave them clues to how the diamond mantle of Mercury could have been created.
"We believe that diamond could have been formed by two processes. First is the crystallization of the magma ocean, but this process likely contributed to forming only a very thin diamond layer at the core/mantle interface," Namur explained. "Secondly, and most importantly, the crystallization of the metal core of Mercury."
Namur said that when Mercury formed around 4.5 billion years ago, the core of the planet was fully liquid, progressively crystallizing over time. The exact nature of the solid phases forming in the inner core is not currently well known, but the team believes that these phases must have been low in carbon or "carbon-poor."
"The liquid core before crystallization contained some carbon; crystallization, therefore, leads to carbon enrichment in the residual melt," he continued. "At some point, a solubility threshold is reached, meaning the liquid cannot dissolve more carbon, and diamond forms."
Diamond is a dense mineral but not as dense as metal, meaning that during this process, it would have floated to the top of the core, stopping at the boundary of Mercury's core and its mantle. This would have resulted in the formation of an around 0.62-mile (1 km) thick diamond layer that then continued to grow over time.
As the MESSENGER spacecraft drew closer to Mercury for its historic first flyby, the spacecraft acquired this mosaic of the sunlit portion of the planet. (Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/CIW)
The discovery highlights the differences between the birth of the closest planet to the sun when compared with the creation of the solar system's other rocky planets, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
"Mercury formed much closer to the sun, likely from a carbon-rich cloud of dust. As a consequence, Mercury contains less oxygen and more carbon than other planets, which led to the formation of a diamond layer," Namur added. "However, Earth's core also contains carbon, and diamond formation in the Earth's core has already been suggested by various researchers."
The researcher hopes that this discovery could help reveal clues to some of the other mysteries surrounding the solar system's smallest planet, including why its volcanic phase was cut short around 3.5 billion years ago.
"A major question that I have about Mercury's evolution is why the major phase of volcanism lasted only a few hundred million years, much shorter than other rocky planets. This must mean that the planet cooled down very fast," Namur said. "This is partly related to the small size of the planet, but we are now working with physicists to try to understand if a diamond layer could have contributed to very fast heat removal, therefore terminating major volcanism very early."
Namur said that the team's next step will be to investigate the thermal effect of a diamond layer at the mantle/core boundary. This study could be supported by data from a mission that will follow in the footsteps of MESSENGER.
"We are also eagerly waiting for the first data collected by BepiColombo, hopefully in 2026, to refine our understanding of Mercury's internal structure and evolution," Namur concluded.
A team of researchers from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has announced the creation of a so-called super battery made from rocks, a technology that may one day replace Lithium Ion batteries used in electric vehicle production.
The team claims their discovery would lead to cleaner, safer, and longer-lasting batteries that don’t rely on rare metals or end up as toxic waste. According to the DTU team behind the battery’s creation, the key to their entry into energy storage lies in the simplicity of the materials involved. More specifically, their super battery is based on potassium and sodium silicates, which are commonly found in rocks.
“These are rock silicates, which are some of the most common minerals in the Earth’s crust,” explains the press release announcing the new battery. “It is found in the stones you pick up on the beach or in your garden.”
WITH LITHIUM ION’S DAYS NUMBERED, SUPER BATTERY WILL LIKELY POWER THE VEHICLES OF THE FUTURE
Today, the vast majority of electric devices, including phones, computers, and cars, are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Unfortunately, lithium is a rare earth mineral and is also considered toxic. Batteries using lithium-ion energy storage have also proven to be dangerous under the right conditions. In some cases, electric cars or even commercial airlines have experienced lithium-ion batteries bursting into flames.
While consumers have somewhat tolerated these issues due to the longer drive times and relatively short device charge times lithium-ion batteries provide, industry experts often state that one way or another, the end of this class of batteries is coming sooner rather than later.
Now, DTU researchers say they may have developed and patented a commercially viable alternative that mitigates nearly all of the largest concerns regarding current technologies while also offering equally impressive drive times and shorter recharge times for electric vehicles.
TEAM SAYS SOLID STATE BATTERIES MADE FROM ROCKS OFFER COMPELLING ADVANTAGES
In developing their futuristic ‘super battery,’ the DTU team knew there was untapped potential in potassium-based silicates. The material is not only good at energy storage but also eco-friendly, inexpensive to extract, and available from material that covers 90 percent of the surface. Still, the research team says it has largely been ignored due to perceived limitations that they believe could be surmounted.
“The potential of potassium silicate as a solid-state electrolyte has been known for a long time, but in my opinion, has been ignored due to challenges with the weight and size of the potassium ions,” explained DTU researcher Mohamad Khoshkalam. “The ions are large and therefore move slower.”
When ions move slowly in a battery, it adversely affects everything from charge times and lifespan to safety. Still, Khoshkalam believed that the huge number of benefits offered by batteries essentially made from rocks were valuable enough that they could prove a nearly perfect medium for their new super battery.
This belief led to the testing of various formulas of potassium silicate-based electrolytes, with an eye on maintaining the material’s benefits while mitigating its weaknesses. According to Khoshkalam, this effort was a success.
After numerous trials, the team was able to create a superionic material of potassium silicate and a separate “process” that combined to make the ions move even faster than they do in lithium-based electrolytes. However, the researchers are keeping the exact formula a secret, although they have received a patent for it.
“The first measurement with a battery component revealed that the material has a very good conductivity as a solid-state electrolyte,” said Khoshkalam. “I cannot reveal how I developed the material, as the recipe and the method are now patented,”
TEAM ACKNOWLEDGES SOLID STATE ROCK BATTERIES ARE A HIGH-RISK TECHNOLOGY
In the DTU team’s formal announcement, they highlight previous announcements by car manufacturers that have promised to develop solid-state batteries “only to subsequently pull out.” Toyota recently announced plans for a 2027-2028 launch of a lithium-based solid-state-powered electric vehicle, but few details have been made available.
The DTU also projects what a solid-state super battery based on potassium silicate would look like, as well as the impressive performance and safety benefits it could offer.
“A single battery cell can be made as thin as a piece of cardboard, where the anode, cathode, and solid-state electrolyte are ultra-thin layers of material,” they explain. “This means that we can make more powerful batteries that take up less space. This offers benefits on the road, as you will be able to drive up to 1,000 km on a single 10-minute charge. In addition, a solid-state battery is more fireproof, as it does not contain combustible liquid.”
In their summary, the team concedes that moving their discovery from a lab invention to the commercial market won’t be easy, as “the chance of commercial success is small, and the technical challenges are many.” In fact, they say that the soonest people could even expect to see this type of technology powering a car is at least ten years away.
Still optimistic, Khoshkalam said he hopes to use his patent and his new company, K-Ion, to create a prototype solid-state super battery based on his science. If successful, he can show it to investors looking to help pave the way for his technology to power devices and EVs of the future.
“We have shown that we can find a material for a solid-state electrolyte that is cheap, efficient, eco-friendly, and scalable,” he explained, “and that even performs better than solid-state lithium-based electrolytes.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him onX,learn about his books atplainfiction.com, or email him directly atchristopher@thedebrief.org.
Are robots poised to soon become our overlords? Maybe not yet, although billionaire technologist Elon Musk says they could soon take over Tesla production facilities as the company moves forward with plans to begin producing humanoid robots called Optimus as soon as next year.
In a post on X, Musk said, “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026.”
First named the “Tesla Bot” and revealed in 2021 at a Tesla AI Day event, the robot’s design has drastically changed over the last few years. Recently renamed Optimus, the humanlike robot was designed to perform dangerous work and repetitive tasks.
At 170 centimeters in height and weighing around 123 pounds, the robot’s new design is sleek compared to its appearance while in the initial prototype phase.
Tesla’s development of Optimus is not the first time robots designed to mimic human capabilities have made news. Other automotive and robotics companies, including Honda and Boston Dynamics, have made progress in recent years in the development of robots that include those with humanoid designs.
In 2015, DARPA hosted the Robotics Challenge, and many of the designs looked similar to the robots currently under development by Tesla.
The event, held at the Fairplex in Pomona, California, aimed to have participants create robot systems and software teams to help humans under conditions of natural and man-made disasters.
Team Kaist of Daejeon, Republic of Korea, won first place and the $2 million prize with their robot DRC-Hubo, while Team IHMC Robotics from Pensacola, Florida, secured second place and $1 million with their robot Running Man.
The prize for third place went to Tartan Rescue of Pittsburgh and their robot CHIMP, along with a $500,000 prize.
Musk initially speculated that Optimus would be ready for deployment in Tesla’s factories by the end of 2024. Similarly, Musk had said as early as 2019 that Tesla would have its long-awaited self-driving taxis in operation by the following year.
The company’s self-driving taxis are reportedly being unveiled later this year, although no official date has been confirmed.
Producing Oxygen From Rock Is Harder In Lower Gravities
One of the challenges engineers face when developing technologies for use in space is that of different gravities. Mostly, engineers only have access to test beds that reflect either Earth’s normal gravity or, if they’re fortunate, the microgravity of the ISS. Designing and testing systems for the reduced, but not negligible, gravity on the Moon and Mars is much more difficult. But for some systems, it is essential. One such system is electrolysis, the process by which explorers will make oxygen for astronauts to breathe on a permanent Moon or Mars base, as well as critical ingredients like hydrogen for rocket fuel. To help steer the development of systems that will work in those conditions, a team of researchers led by computational physicist Dr. Paul Burke of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory decided to turn to a favorite tool of scientists everywhere: models.
Before we explore the model, examining the problem they are trying to solve is helpful. Electrolysis immerses an electrode in a liquid and uses an electrical current and subsequent chemical reaction to split atoms apart. So, for example, if you put an electrode in water, it would separate that water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The problem comes from reduced gravity. As part of electrolysis, bubbles form on the surface of the electrode. On Earth, those bubbles typically detach and float to the surface, as the density difference between them and the remaining liquid forces them to.
Dr. Burke presented alongside other experts at the Space Resources Week Workshop back in March. Credit – ESRIC YouTube Channel
However, in reduced gravity, the bubbles either take much longer to detach or don’t do so at all. This creates a buffer layer along the electrode’s length that decreases the electrolysis process’s efficiency, sometimes stalling it out entirely. Electrolysis isn’t the only fluidic process that has difficulty operating in reduced gravity environments – many ISS experiments also have trouble. This is partly due to a lack of complete understanding of how liquids operate in these environments – and that in itself is partly driven by a dearth of experimental data.
Which is where the modeling comes in. Dr. Burke and his colleagues use a technique known as Computational Fluid Dynamics to attempt to mimic the forces the fluids will undergo in a reduced gravity environment while also understanding bubble formation.
Electrolysis on Earth is typically done with water, but why stop there? The team used their CFD to model two other liquids that might be used in electrolyzers – molten salt (MSE) and molten regolith (MRE). Molten salt is used on Earth, but less commonly than regular water, and has successfully produced oxygen. However, molten regolith electrolysis is still somewhat of a novel use case and has yet to be thoroughly tested. MOXIE, the experiment that famously created oxygen on Mars in 2021, used the carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere and a solid-state electrode – neither representative of molten regolith.
Fraser discusses MOXIE electrolysis with Dr. Michael Hect.
Dr. Burke and his team found that, computationally, at least, MRE has the most challenging conditions in reduced gravity. It has also never been tested in any reduced gravity environment, so for now; these simulations are all engineers have to go on with if they are going to design a system.
There were a few key takeaways from the modeling, though. First, engineers should design horizontal electrodes into MRE systems, as the longer a bubble spreads across an electrode (i.e., as it goes “up” it), the longer it takes for that bubble to detach. In a horizontal configuration, the electrode has less surface area to attach to, making it more likely for the bubbles to detach and float to the surface.
Additionally, the amount of time bubbles remain attached to an electrode scales exponentially with decreasing gravity. That means bubbles on the Moon will take longer to detach than those on Mars, which will take longer than those on Earth. Consequently, electrolysis on the Moon will be less efficient than that on Mars, which will again be less efficient than that on Earth, and mission planners will need to account for these discrepancies if they plan on getting something as mission-critical as oxygen from this process. The smoothness of the electrodes also seems to matter, with rougher electrodes more likely to hold onto their bubbles and, therefore, end up less efficient.
SciShow Space explores the world of MRE. Credit – SciShow Space YouTube Channel
Other engineering solutions can overcome all these challenges, such as a vibratory mechanism on the electrode to shake the bubbles loose. However, it’s a good idea to consider all the additional complications operations in a reduced gravity environment have before launching a mission. That’s why modeling is so important, but humanity will ultimately have to experimentally test these systems, perhaps on the Moon itself, if we plan to utilize its local resources to sustain our presence there.
Astronomers Have Tools That Can Help Detect Deepfake Images
This AI-generated image of the Pope in a puffer jacket went viral in 2023 and many were fooled into thinking it was real. It was generated with the AI tool Midjourney and was posted on Reddit by a user whose account is now gone. On the right is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the Antennae Galaxies. Image Credit: Midjourney/NASA/ESA
Astronomers Have Tools That Can Help Detect Deepfake Images
There’s a burgeoning arms race between Artificial Intelligence (AI) deepfake images and the methods used to detect them. The latest advancement on the detection side comes from astronomy. The intricate methods used to dissect and understand light in astronomical images can be brought to bear on deepfakes.
The word ‘deepfakes’ is a portmanteau of ‘deep learning’ and ‘fakes.’ Deepfake images are called that because they’re made with a certain type of AI called deep learning, itself a subset of machine learning. Deep learning AI can mimic something quite well after being shown many examples of what it’s being asked to fake. When it comes to images, deepfakes usually involve replacing the existing face in an image with a second person’s face to make it look like someone else is in a certain place, in the company of certain people, or engaging in certain activities.
Deepfakes are getting better and better, just like other forms of AI. But as it turns out, a new tool to uncover deepfakes already exists in astronomy. Astronomy is all about light, and the science of teasing out minute details in light from extremely distant and puzzling objects is developing just as rapidly as AI.
In a new article in Nature, science journalist Sarah Wild looked at how researchers are using astronomical methods to uncover deepfakes. Adejumoke Owolabi is a student at the University of Hull in the UK who studies data science and computer vision. Her Master’s Thesis focused on how light reflected in eyeballs should be consistent, though not identical, between left and right. Owolabi used a high-quality dataset of human faces from Flickr and then used an image generator to create fake faces. She then compared the two using two different astronomical measurement systems called the CAS system and the Gini index to compare the light reflected in the eyeballs and to determine which were deepfakes.
CAS stands for concentration, asymmetry, and smoothness, and astronomers have used it for decades to study and quantify the light from extragalactic stars. It’s also used to quantify the light from entire galaxies and has made its way into biology and other areas where images need to be carefully examined. Noted astrophysicist Christopher J. Conselice was a key proponent of using CAS in astronomy.
The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is also used to study galaxies. It’s named after the Italian statistician Corrado Gini, who developed it in 1912 to measure income inequality. Astronomers use it to measure how light is spread throughout a galaxy and whether it’s uniform or concentrated. It’s a tool that helps astronomers determine a galaxy’s morphology and classification.
In her research, Owolabi successfully determined which images were fake 70% of the time.
These eyes are all from deepfake images with inconsistent light reflection patterns. The ones on the right are coloured to highlight the inconsistencies. Image Credit: Adejumoke Owolabi (CC BY 4.0)
For her article, Wild spoke with Kevin Pimbblet, director of the Centre of Excellence for Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Modelling at the University of Hull in the UK. Pimblett presented the research at the UK Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting on July 15th.
“It’s not a silver bullet, because we do have false positives and false negatives,” said Pimbblet. “But this research provides a potential method, an important way forward, perhaps to add to the battery of tests that one can apply to try to figure out if an image is real or fake.”
This is a promising development. Open democratic societies are prone to disinformation attacks from enemies without and within. Public figures are prone to similar attacks. Disturbingly, the majority of deepfakes are pornographic and can depict public figures in private and sometimes degrading situations. Anything that can help combat it and bolster civil society is a welcome tool.
But as we know from history, arms races have no endpoint. They go on and on in an escalating series of countermeasures. Look at how the USA and the USSR kept one-upping each other during their nuclear arms race as warhead sizes reached absurd levels of destructive power. So, inasmuch as this work shows promise, the purveyors of deepfakes will learn from it and improve their AI deepfake methods.
Wild also spoke to Brant Robertson in her article. Robertson is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies astrophysics and astronomy, including big data and machine learning. “However, if you can calculate a metric that quantifies how realistic a deepfake image may appear, you can also train the AI model to produce even better deepfakes by optimizing that metric,” he said, confirming what many can predict.
This isn’t the first time that astronomical methods have intersected with Earthly issues. When the Hubble Space Telescope was developed, it contained a powerful CCD (charge-coupled device.) That technology made its way into a digital mammography biopsy system. The system allowed doctors to take better images of breast tissue and identify suspicious tissue without a physical biopsy. Now, CCDs are at the heart of all of our digital cameras, including on our mobile phones.
Might our internet browsers one day contain a deepfake detector based on Gini and CAS? How would that work? Would hostile actors unleash attacks on those detectors and then flood our media with deepfake images in an attempt to weaken our democratic societies? It’s the nature of an arms race.
It’s also in our nature to use deception to sway events. History shows that rulers with malevolent intent can more easily deceive populations that are in the grip of powerful emotions. AI deepfakes are just the newest tool at their disposal.
We all know that AI has downsides, and deepfakes are one of them. While their legality is fuzzy, as with many new technologies, we’re starting to see efforts to combat them. The United States government acknowledges the problem, and several laws have been proposed to deal with it. The “DEEPFAKES Accountability Act” was introduced in the US House of Representatives in September 2023. The “Protecting Consumers from Deceptive AI Act” is another related proposal. Both are floundering in the sometimes murky world of subcommittees for now, but they might breach the surface and become law eventually. Other countries and the EU are wrestling with the same issue.
But in the absence of a comprehensive legal framework dealing with AI deepfakes, and even after one is established, detection is still key.
Astronomy and astrophysics could be an unlikely ally in combatting them.
Curiosity Drives Over a Rock, Cracking it Open and Revealing an Amazing Yellow Crystal
The Mars Curiosity rover rolled over this rock containing pure sulfur crystals in May. Planetary scientists are still trying to figure out how the sulfur got there. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Drives Over a Rock, Cracking it Open and Revealing an Amazing Yellow Crystal
On May 30th, the Mars Curiosity rover was just minding its own business exploring Gediz Vallis when it ran over a rock. Its wheel cracked the rock and voila! Pure elemental sulfur spilled out. The rover took a picture of the broken rock about a week later, marking the first time sulfur has been found in a pure form on Mars.
After Curiosity’s encounter with the broken rock and its pure sulfur innards, the rover trundled over to another rock, called “Mammoth Lakes” for a little drilling session. Before it left to explore other rocks, the rover managed to cut into that rock and take samples for further study to find out its chemical composition.
It’s not that sulfur isn’t prevalent on Mars. It is, but in different forms. The stuff is highly abundant in the Solar System, so this find isn’t as surprising as you’d think. However, Curiosity finding pure sulfur in the middle of broken rocks is a new experience in Mars exploration. So, of course, that’s raising questions about how it got there and its implications for habitable environments in Mars’s long history.
Curiosity’s Peregrinations
At the moment, the Curiosity rover is making its way through the Gediz Vallis. That’s a flow channel winding its way down a section of Mount Sharp (aka Aeolis Mons). That’s the central peak of Gale Crater. The rover has been heading up since 2014, charting different surface layers as it goes. Each layer was put down during a different era of Mars’s history. They could contain clues to the planet’s habitability in the past.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. Floods of water and debris piled rocks and sand into mounds within the channel. The rock the rover broke lies in a channel in this region. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Fast-moving liquid water raged over the surface and carved Gediz. The floods carried a lot of rocks and sand and deposited them all along the way. Other piles of flood debris lie around the region, bearing witness to other ancient floods and landslides. “This was not a quiet period on Mars,” said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of the Mast Camera, or Mastcam on Curiosity. “There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows.”
Understanding Sulfur’s Presence
The surface materials in Gediz contain high amounts of sulfates. Those are sulfur-bearing salts that appear as water evaporates. They are a chemical clue that water existed in the region. Judging by some parts of the surface, it also appears the water ponded at some times, in addition to the floods that scoured the landscape and then deposited debris.
Now the planetary science team has to explain how a pure form of elemental sulfur got stuck in the middle of rocks, according to project scientist Ashwin Vasavada. “Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Vasavada. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
Putting Sulfur in Context
Sulfur, of course, exists on Earth, which helps scientists understand its behavior and the environments where it’s found. The presence of sulfur can be a result of various geological processes. The sulfur “cycle” includes the flow of sulfur from the core to the surface through volcanism. That’s not unusual. Sulfur commonly appears around volcanic vents. Mt Ijen in Indonesia is a good example. It sports extensive elemental sulfur deposits that are mined.
The volcanic moon Io in the Jupiter system features patches of different allotropes of sulfur. They’re also volcanic in origin, spewed out along with widespread lava flows. This moon has more than 400 volcanic features, making it the most volcanically active (and sulfurous) place in the Solar System.
The Jovian moon Io is seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. The mission’s camera caught a view of one of this moon’s volcanos erupting. The region that Curiosity is investigating shows evidence of different kinds of sulfur-bearing minerals. Courtesy: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
The pure sulfur in the Mars rock most likely came from volcanic processes. They occurred sometime in the past, but that doesn’t answer how the crystals got inside the rock it crushed. Scientists have known for years that Mars was extremely volcanically active in the past. For a long time, they also thought it was dead, or at least dormant. The planet has no plate tectonics like we see on Earth, either. However, the Mars InSight mission found evidence of some seismic activity on the planet in 2021.
In 2023, planetary scientists at the University of Arizona offered up evidence of a giant mantle plume under Elysium Planitia that drove some kinds of activity in the more recent past. Gale Crater lies in this region and could well have experienced related volcanic and seismic activity during the recent geologic past. If so, that could help explain the presence not only of pure sulfur but also the flood-related sulfates deposited on the surface.
Now DailyMail.com has spoken to a former Colorado prosecutor and current defense attorney, who has examined one of the over half-a-dozen 'alien' specimens with the help of three independent forensic medical examiners from the United States.
'These were not traditional human fingerprint patterns,' that attorney, Joshua McDowell, told DailyMail.com.
Above, a photo of one of the mummy's unusual fingerprints posted to social media by Jose Baizan and attributed to the Mexican Naval surgeon Dr Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, who has also examined the Peruvian 'alien' mummies on behalf of ufologist Jaime Maussan
In Peru last April - as part of another event hosted by Maussan - a new 'alien' specimen named Montserrat (above) was presented. This photo was taken by Colorado attorney Josh McDowell who told DailyMail.com, one mummies' 'fingerprints weren't consistent with human prints'
The use of fingerprints — or what are technically known as 'friction ridge' skin impressions — dates back as far as 300 BC in China according to the US Department of Justice's Fingerprint Sourcebook.
And criminal forensic investigators in America have long systematized the hunt for unique features ever since these patterns first came into use by US law enforcement in 1902, beginning with three broad types of fingerprint: arches, loops and whorls.
But 'María,' the so-called 'alien' mummy that McDowell and his forensic doctors examined, appeared to have fingerprints that matched no known human pattern.
'We did not see any loops or whorls on the prints of the fingers or on the toes,' McDowell, now principal at the McDowell Law Firm, told DailyMail.com.
'I'm a former prosecutor. I'm a criminal defense attorney. I've seen lots of fingerprints. And these were not classic fingerprints,' the attorney added.
'María's fingerprints weren't consistent with human prints.'
Criminal forensic investigators in America have long systematized the hunt for unique features ever since these patterns first came into use by US law enforcement in 1902, beginning with three broad types of fingerprint: arches, loops and whorls (pictured)
'We did not see any loops or whorls on the prints of the fingers or on the toes,' McDowell, now principal at the McDowell Law Firm, told DailyMail.com. Above an image of the specific, so-called 'alien' mummy in question, known as María, who was first made public in 2019
Like most of the well over half-a-dozen 'alien' mummy specimens brought to light by Jaime Maussan in the past year, María was discovered caked in diatomaceous earth: white, powdery aquatic fossils left behind by a type of plankton known as diatoms.
'Much of her body is covered in diatomaceous earth,' McDowell explained, 'however, on the fingers that were exposed, the epidermal ridges I saw appeared to be in mostly straight lines.'
McDowell and the three US medical examiners who journeyed with him to Peru to examine the bodies last April have emphasized that it would be 'extremely premature' to make any definitive statements about these mysterious mummies.
McDowell told DailyMail.com that there may yet be a terrestrial explanation for the unusually straight 'friction ridge' skin patterns on María's fingers and toes.
'It could possibly have something to do with the way her skin was preserved,' he advised. 'It's very odd.'
McDowell, previously a deputy district attorney for Colorado's Fourth Judicial District Attorney's Office, brought a city coroner from Denver as well as a forensic anthropologist from Maryland's State Medical Examiner to Peru to inspect María.
The third expert, McDowell's father Dr John McDowell, is a forensic odontologist and retired professor at the University of Colorado — who once worked to identify victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center via their dental records.
Joshua McDowell emphasized to DailyMail.com that 'no determination has been made about what the nature of the specimens is at this date,' adding that his teams' effort to identify the true nature of these 'alien' mummies is very much still active.
'I've been to Mexico a couple times, spent a week in Peru,' the attorney said. 'Two to three hours a day, I'm dealing with something on this.'
'So far we have tomographies [CT scans] and fluoroscopy analysis,' Maussan told DailyMail.com describing the x-ray and ultrasound data on the mummies that he unveiled at West Hollywood's Mondrian Hotel at a prior March 12, 2024 press event (pictured above)
Above, two of Maussan's collaborators, documentarians Serena DC (right) and Michael Mazzola (left), pose with a new 'alien' mummy from this March - which they said has 30 percent 'unknown' DNA
This past January - after two mummies were seized by Peruvian customs - Flavio Estrada (right), a forensic archaeologist with Peru's Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Lima, said that the alien bodies are 'dolls' made of animal parts
María is one several specimens that have been dubbed 'the Nazca mummies,' after the province in southwestern Peru where these bodies were allegedly unearthed.
Most of these specimens have gained fame and infamy, in part, due to their elongated heads and their three-fingered hands which resemble decades of anecdotal accounts and UFO lore about extraterrestrial 'grey' beings.
Maussan and his colleagues have had an eventful year pushing for wider scientific interest in the apparently alien bodies, including two bitter clashes with Peru's Ministry of Culture, who have described the mummies and man-made hoaxes.
In January, Flavio Estrada, a forensic archaeologist of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Lima of the Public Ministry, told a press conference that two of the alien bodies seized by Peruvian customs were 'dolls.'
'The conclusion is simple,' Estrada said, 'they are dolls assembled with bones of animals from this planet, with modern synthetic glues, therefore they were not assembled during pre-Hispanic times.'
But María, like several of the other Nazca mummies, does not resemble the smaller, more doll-like specimens seized at the border or presented to Mexican congress.
The new — albeit provisional — fingerprint analysis suggests some of the Nazca mummies are either not dolls or were constructed of more grim, unusual material.
In March 2024, Maussan published a report on the DNA of the Nazca 'tridactyl' mummies - a report that he described as having been performed by 'the top specialist in Molecular Biology and Genetics of Peru' (page one above)
Ten scientists with San Luis Gonzaga National University of Ica (UNICA), according to Maussan's statement in March, concluded 'their DNA [i.e. the Nazca mummies' DNA] contains 29 percent that does not belong to the evolutionary chain of the Earth' (page two above)
But the larger Nazca mummy specimens also have their critics.
'The Spanish, when they arrived in the 16th Century observed and commented on individuals walking around with very specifically shaped skulls,' as Heaney told DailyMail.com, 'and they recognized and saw them doing it using these bandages.'
This specific 'alien' mummy, María, was first debuted at a November 6, 2019 press event held at Peru's San Luis Gonzaga National University of Ica (UNICA) alongside three other Nazca 'tridactyls' (three-fingered bodies): 'Wawita,' 'Albert' and 'Victoria.'
Maussan, who was a party to McDowells' trip to UNICA to inspect these mummies, unveiled a new 'alien' specimen named Montserrat during the recent April 2024 trip.
Maussan has pushed for wider scientific interest in the apparently alien bodies, including a presentation before Mexico's Congress (pictured)
'Would you consider I would take the bodies to the Mexican Congress putting in danger 50 years of [my journalism] career to present fake bodies?' he asked at a press event this March
The previous month, Maussan published a report on the Nazca 'tridactyls' DNA that he described as having been performed by 'the top specialist in Molecular Biology and Genetics of Peru.'
Ten scientists with UNICA, according to Maussan's statement that March, concluded 'their DNA [i.e. the Nazca mummies' DNA] contains 29 percent that does not belong to the evolutionary chain of the Earth.'
McDowell's US team of forensic medical examiners were more circumspect in their analysis after their trip to UNICA the following month.
'We would want actual, very definitive DNA studies done at high complexity laboratories,' the US team said at their mid-April 2024 press conference.
'The carbon dating needs to be repeated with more sophisticated methods. Those are things that we're looking for,' they added. 'Our preliminary investigation really just led to the fact that more investigation is needed.'
Tucker Carlson thinks they're biblical entities. Others say they are humans from the future coming back to study us.
Now, a new film proposes an even stranger theory about UFOs.
The Cosmic Joker investigates the idea that these entities may be 'tricksters' that deliberately shape themselves into what people want to see or into forms that people may be familiar with, director Mark Christopher Lee told DailyMail.com.
The movie concentrates on two infamous alien encounter tails: the Robert Taylor incident and the Pascagoula abduction of fishermen Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker.
The Pascagoula abduction of fishermen Charles Hickson (left) and Calvin Parker (right) and occurred in 1973
Mr Hickson and Mr Parker reported being experimented on by aliens with crab-like claws
It asks the question: Did the aliens who made contact with the men deliberately shape shift themselves into forms reminiscent of something in their personal lives?
The film also suggests aliens might not be from space at all - and that this might be behind alleged cover-ups of UFO evidence.
Mr Taylor was a forest worker in Scotland who described seeing a UFO resembling a naval sea mine in 1979.
The Cosmic Joker suggests the entity deliberately take this form to resemble something Mr Taylor was familiar with from his time in the military.
In 1973 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Mr Hickson and Mr Parker reported being experimented on by aliens with crab-like claws.
Did alien intelligence shape itself to a form familiar to the two Deep South fishermen?
Lee told DailyMail.com: ‘What piqued my interest for this film was interviews about the Pascagoula Encounter in the US in 1973. Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson had an alleged abduction experience whilst fishing near the Pascagoula River.
‘They claimed they were taken onboard an alien craft and examined and physically handled by two aliens which had crab-like pincers. I just thought - why would the aliens have crab like pincers?’
The two men reported to the sheriff's department they had been abducted by gray-skinned aliens while fishing - with the aliens having ‘crab-like’ hands and ‘robotic’ mouths.
The men each had a puncture wound in their arm.
Hickson told The Washington Post: 'I was just getting ready to get some more bait, when I heard a kind of zipping sound. I looked up and saw a blue flashing light. Calvin turned around too.
'We saw a 30-foot-long object with a little dome on top.'
The two Pascagoula witnesses had physical injuries from the encounter
The police officers interviewing the men secretly left a tape recorder in the room with the witnesses after law enforcement left.
While they may have been hoping to catch the men drop their act and admit they made up the encounter, they only recorded them saying the experience scared them to death.
Lee told this website: ‘The police placed a hidden tape recorder, which captured them talking about how the experience scared them out of their lives. So that begs the question: if the experience was real, what were these creatures?
'Did they actually adapt themselves to what a couple of Deep South fishermen might expect to see? Why did they see the same thing?’
In the film, Lee also speaks to UFO author Malcolm Robinson, who describes the strange encounter World War II veteran Mr Taylor had with a UFO in the Dechmont Woods in Scotland.
Lee told DailyMail.com: ‘Mr Taylor encountered and was attacked by an alien or intelligence that was similar in appearance to a naval sea mine with sharp protruding limbs coming off the sides.
'Again I thought did the intelligence, whatever it may be, take this from as it would be familiar to Robert Taylor having served in the military?’
Mr Taylor's reported sighting was investigated by police after two spiked spheres rolled at him - leaving him unconscious for 20 minutes with ripped clothing.
Director Mark Christopher Lee spoke to DailyMail.com
The war hero and churchgoer was believed by locals - and police found strange marks on the ground which could not be explained by machinery in the vicinity.
Lee said others have suggested Taylor’s encounter may have been triggered by an epileptic episode.
The idea of aliens as shape-shifting ‘tricksters’ was first proposed in a book by late author John Keel, whose work inspired the Richard Gere film The Mothman Prophecies, Lee told this website.
He said: ‘Keep was the first to really study in minute detail UFO and alien encounters. From his research he noted that there was always this mischievous trickster element in these sightings.’
Keel’s book suggests aliens may not be from other planets, or from space at all - but may instead be ‘ultra-terrestrials’ who manipulate human beliefs.
Lee added: ‘Of course if this theory is true it is probably far more disturbing than being visited by other beings from other planets.
'Are we as humans the playthings of a far superior intelligence that lives alongside us?
‘Some modern Ufologists like Blink 182 musician Tom DeLonge believe that this intelligence has always been with us and that the US government knows this and is using the extraterrestrial hypothesis as a smokescreen to divert the public from the wilder truth.’
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Chandra Marks 25 Years in Space with Collection of 25 Stunning Images
Chandra Marks 25 Years in Space with Collection of 25 Stunning Images
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Chandra team has released a set of 25 new images of cosmic objects and phenomena.
This collection of images was released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Chandra.
Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO.
On July 23, 1999, the space shuttle Columbia launched into orbit carrying Chandra, which was then the heaviest payload ever carried by the shuttle.
With Commander Eileen Collins at the helm, the astronauts aboard Columbia successfully deployed Chandra into its highly elliptical orbit that takes it nearly one-third of the distance to the Moon.
“For a quarter century, Chandra has made discovery after amazing discovery,” said Dr. Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center located at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
“Astronomers have used Chandra to investigate mysteries that we didn’t even know about when we were building the telescope — including exoplanets and dark energy.”
“Chandra has been a great success story for humanity and its pursuit of knowledge,” said Dr. Andrew Schnell, acting project manager of Chandra at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
“The telescope’s incredible accomplishments are made possible by the team’s hard work and dedication.”
The new set of images is a sample of almost 25,000 observations Chandra has taken during its quarter century in space.
In 1976, Riccardo Giacconi and Harvey Tananbaum first proposed to NASA the mission that would one day become Chandra.
Eventually, Chandra was selected to become one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope and the now-retired Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, each looking at different types of light.
In 2002, Giacconi was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources, laying the foundation for the development and launch of Chandra.
Today, astronomers continue to use Chandra data in conjunction with other powerful telescopes including the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), and many more.
“On behalf of the STS-93 crew, we are tremendously proud of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its brilliant team that built and launched this astronomical treasure,” said Eileen Collins, commander of the space shuttle Columbia mission that launched Chandra into space in 1999.
“Chandra’s discoveries have continually astounded and impressed us over the past 25 years.”
This article is a version of a press-release provided by NASA.
Top 10 Facts About Chandra
10. Chandra flies 200 times higher than Hubble - more than 1/3 of the way to the moon!
Explanation: For the planned operational orbit of Chandra, the closest approach to Earth and the most distant point from Earth will be as follows: Altitude at Perigee (closest approach) = 10,000 km = 6,214 (statute) mile = 5,400 nautical mile Altitude at Apogee (most distant point from Earth) = 140,000 km = 86,992 (statute) mile = 75,594 nautical mile For reference, Mean radius of Earth = 6,371 km = 3,959 (statute) mile = 3,440 nautical mile
9. Chandra can observe X-rays from clouds of gas so vast that it takes light five million years to go from one side to the other!
Explanation: If we assume conservatively that a cluster extends out to a radius of 1 Mpc, then it has a diameter of 2 Mpc, or 6 million light years.
8. During maneuvers from one target to the next, Chandra slews more slowly than the minute hand on a clock.
Explanation: According the CXC Observatory Guide, it takes Chandra 31 minutes to slew 90 degrees. It takes the minute hand on a clock 15 minutes to slew 90 degrees.
7. At 45 feet long, Chandra is the largest satellite the shuttle has ever launched. See also: Top 10 Facts Infographic
Explanation: For comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope was just over 43 feet long.
6. If Colorado were as smooth as Chandra's mirrors, Pikes Peak would be less than one inch tall!
Explanation: Numbers: Assume optics size = 84 cm Assume rms low frequency figure errors are < 100a = 1e-6 cm Assume size of Colorado= 600 km = 6 E7 cm Then the ratio of the (rms errors)/(optics size) < 1.2 e-8 Assuming that there will be one 3 sigma peak in 1000 trials (the approx. number of measurements of the figure), then the ratio is < 3.6e-8. Then the largest mountain (which is not Pikes Peak, but is not much taller than Pikes Peak) in Colorado would be < 2.2 cm < 1 inch.
5. Chandra's resolving power is equivalent to the ability to read a stop sign at a distance of twelve miles.
Explanation: The letters on a stop sign are 25 cm high. Assuming that we need a 5 x 5 pixel square, then the resolution element is 5 cm high, which would subtend an angle = 0.5 arcsec at a distance D = 5/2.5E-6 = 2 E6 cm = 20 km = 12 miles.
4. The electrical power required to operate the Chandra spacecraft and instruments is 2 kilowatts, about the same power as a hair dryer.
Explanation: A standard hair dryer uses 1600-1800 watts (slightly less than 2 kilowatts) on its high setting.
3. The light from some of the quasars observed by Chandra will have been traveling through space for ten billion years.
Explanation: If we take a Hubble constant of 60 km/sec-Mpc, then the Hubble time is approx 16 billion years, so for a quasar at z > 3, the look back time, depending on Omega, is greater than 10 billion years.
2. STS-93, the space mission that deployed Chandra, was the first NASA shuttle mission commanded by a woman.
Explanation: Commander Eileen Collins was the first woman to command a NASA shuttle mission.
Chandra can observe X-rays from particles up to the last second before they fall into a black hole!!!
Explanation: The last stable orbit for a Schwarzchild metric is 6GM/c^2 ~ 10^7 cm for a 10 solar mass black hole. The time to fall in from this point on is ~ 0.001-.01 seconds, depending on the details of the orbit of the infalling particle.
Paleontologists have found the remains of a previously unknown species of lizard in a piece of mid-Cretaceous amber excavated in northern Myanmar.
Life reconstruction of Electroscincus zedi; areas of the lizard not represented in the material available are depicted as blurred.
Image credit: Stephanie Abramowicz.
The newly-discovered species was a small lizard with an estimated snout-vent length of 3 cm (1.2 inches).
Named Electroscincus zedi, it lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, approximately 99 million years ago.
It differs from all other known squamates (lizards and snakes) from the Mesozoic by the presence of imbricate, compound osteoderms arranged in a staggered pattern around the body, supporting its placement in the skink family Scincidae.
“Scincidae is a megadiverse clade of squamates, which today has attained a near cosmopolitan distribution in temperate and tropical regions worldwide,” said Dr. Juan Daza of Sam Houston State University and his colleagues.
“It is represented by more than 1,745 described living species, comprising nearly 15% of all living lizards.”
“Typical skinks have cylindrical bodies and relatively short limbs and, in over 50 skink lineages, evolutionary transitions towards limb reduction or loss have occurred.”
“Among living scincoids (Xantusiidae, Gerrhosauridae, Cordylidae, Scincidae), members of Scincidae exhibit the greatest range in body length, including some miniaturized forms having a body length of only a few centimeters to the extinct Tiliqua frangens, which may have reached half a meter or more.”
“Skinks also show great variation in the number of presacral vertebrae, ranging from 26 to 108, which, in combination with cycloid scales and compound osteoderms, may have facilitated the repeated evolution of fossorial and limbless morphotypes.”
“Most skinks are characterized by possession of smooth, cycloid scales underlain by compound osteoderms — bony plates in the dermis that are made up of several articulated osteodermites per scale.”
Electroscincus zedi, fossil in ventral (a) and dorsal (b) views; detail of the right foot (c, e) and osteoderms (d); X-ray of the whole specimen showing the skeletal remains, and several articulated and scattered osteoderms (f).
Image credit: Daza et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66451-w.
A piece of Burmese amber (Burmite) that preserves Electroscincus zedi was found in the mid-Cretaceous outcrops in the Myitkyina district, Kachin province, northern Myanmar, approximately 100 km west of the town of Myitkyina.
The specimen includes two disconnected parts of the skink, containing the scales and mostly appendicular bones, but is clearly part of a single individual
“Currently over 100 specimens of squamates are known from Burmite,” the paleontologists said.
“In this large sample, this new fossil is the only one that preserves this osteodermal morphology which makes it diagnosable to the Scincidae, and differentiates it from all known fossil squamates from the Cretaceous.”
“The specimen is incomplete, but it does retain both postcranial skeletal elements and integumentary structures and, though less than ideal, it provides a basis for comparison with any putative scincid material that might be found in the future.”
“The specimen has a combination of compound osteoderms and overlapping cycloid scales that is limited to skinks.”
“We propose that this type of osteoderm evolved as a response to an increased overlap of scales, and to reduced stiffness of the dermal armor,” the researchers concluded.
Their paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
J.D. Daza et al. 2024. Compound osteoderms preserved in amber reveal the oldest known skink. Sci Rep 14, 15662; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66451-w
Yellow crystals of elemental sulfur were revealed after NASA’s Curiosity rover happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30, 2024, according to the Curiosity team.
Yellow crystals of elemental sulfur on Mars.
Image credit: NASA.
While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs, elemental sulfur is odorless.
It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven’t associated with the history of this location.
And Curiosity found a lot of it — an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.
“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Curiosity’s project scientist Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 5-km-tall (3-mile-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014.
Spotted from space years before the rover’s launch, the channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars.
They think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 3.2 km (2 miles) down the mountainside below the channel.
The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there’s still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.
Since Curiosity’s arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel’s floor here.
The latest clues from the rover suggest both played a role: some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.
hose conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.
Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here.
Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white ‘halo’ shapes into some of the rocks.
Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.
“This was not a quiet period on Mars,” said Dr. Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity’s Mast Camera.
“There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows.”
This article is a version of a press-release provided by NASA.
“De sterkte van de polaire vortex en straalstroom bepalen in grote mate ons weer”: wat zijn de gevolgen van de stratosferische opwarming boven de Zuidpool?
“De sterkte van de polaire vortex en straalstroom bepalen in grote mate ons weer”: wat zijn de gevolgen van de stratosferische opwarming boven de Zuidpool?
Terwijl het in ons noordelijk halfrond zomer is, heerst de winter in het zuidelijk halfrond. Maar daar is op grote hoogte voorlopig weinig van te merken, want boven de Zuidpool is er een plotse opwarming in de stratosfeer. Dat verstoort de zuidelijke ‘polaire vortex’ sterk, en dat kan de komende weken en maanden weleens tot atypisch weer leiden. Maar wat is zo’n stratosferische opwarming precies? Wat doet dit met het weer? En gaan wij hier ook de gevolgen van merken? Klimatoloog Samuel Helsen legt uit.
Martijn Peters
De seizoenen in het noordelijk en zuidelijk halfrond verlopen tegengesteld. Bij ons is het nu zomer, aan de andere kant van de evenaar zitten ze midden in de winterperiode. Net als in het noordelijk halfrond bouwt er zich tijdens de herfst- en winterperiode een stevig lagedrukgebied op boven de Zuidpool. Deze omvangrijke depressie kennen we als de polaire vortex of ‘poolwervel’.
Normaal is de polaire vortex erg actief tijdens de wintermaanden, maar op dit moment is die grondig verstoord door een plotse opwarming in de stratosfeer. Dat is de laag die zich in onze atmosfeer bevindt boven de troposfeer (waar het weer zich afspeelt), tussen zo’n 12 en 50 kilometer hoogte. Zo’n opwarming doet zich wel eens vaker voor in het noordelijk halfrond, maar voor de zuidpoolregio is zo’n opwarming eerder uitzonderlijk.
In de afgelopen tientallen jaren kwam dit slechts enkele keren voor. Maar zo’n gebeurtenis gaat niet zomaar onopgemerkt voorbij. De gevolgen van zo’n stratosferische opwarming kunnen groot zijn, met zelfs een impact over de hele wereld.
Hoe ontstaat de polaire vortex?
Het omvangrijke lagedrukgebied over de pool die de polaire vortex vormt, ontstaat doorgaans tussen de herfst- en winterperiode. In die periode koelt het poolgebied geleidelijk aan af, doordat de zon steeds lager komt te staan en de poolgebieden daardoor minder energie ontvangen van de zon. De dagen worden dan snel korter en de nachten steeds langer. Door de ligging van de pool ten opzichte van de zon is dit temperatuureffect er veel groter dan bijvoorbeeld rond de evenaar.
De exacte ligging van de straalstroom bepaalt of we met hoge- of lagedrukgebieden te maken krijgen
Klimatoloog Samuel Helsen
Door de sterkere afkoeling nabij de poolregio in de herfst en vooral de winter, ontstaat er een sterk contrast in temperatuur tussen pool en evenaar. Dit contrast doet de luchtdruk op grote hoogte boven de polen dalen, waardoor er zich een omvangrijk lagedrukgebied vormt. Hierdoor ontstaat ook een band met sterke windsnelheden die waaien rondom het lagedrukgebied. Op die manier krijg je een circulatiepatroon met sterke winden rondom de poolregio, en dat is de polaire vortex of poolwervel.
De poolwervel vormt zich niet enkel op grote hoogte. Er is in vele gevallen ook een koppeling met de lagere luchtlagen. Het gedeelte in de stratosfeer – zo’n 15 tot 50 kilometer hoog– is de polaire vortex. Er is ook nog een band met hoge windsnelheden wat lager, op zo’n 10 tot 12 kilometer hoogte aan de top van de troposfeer, waarin ons weer zich afspeelt. Die kennen we als de straalstroom. De exacte ligging van deze luchtrivier bepaalt of we met hoge- of lagedrukgebieden te maken krijgen.
De polaire vortex in de stratosfeer op grote hoogte is meestal sterk ontwikkeld en circulair met sterke winden. De troposferische poolwervel (en de straalstroom) vertoont doorgaans een meer grillig patroon met vaker kronkelende bewegingen, doordat er meer invloed is van het reliëf en de variaties in stromingen die daardoor ontstaan. De sterkte van zowel de polaire vortex als de straalstroom bepalen in grote mate ons weer. Deze verstoring door het reliëf is groter in het noordelijk dan in het zuidelijk halfrond.
Wat is een plotse stratosferische opwarming precies en wat doet dit met de poolwervel?
Een zwakke poolwervel verstoort de luchtstromingen. Zo’n verzwakking van de polaire vortex kan gebeuren wanneer de temperatuur in de stratosfeer boven de polen plots toeneemt. Binnen de weerkunde wordt zo’n plotse opwarming benoemd als een ‘Sudden Stratospheric Warming’ (SSW), letterlijk vertaald een plotse stratosferische opwarming. Zo’n opwarming kan zich op eender welk moment voordoen en ontstaat zeer abrupt.
De opwarming vindt meestal zijn oorsprong via een koppeling met wat er zich in de lagere luchtlagen afspeelt, als er bijvoorbeeld opeens zeer warme lucht wordt aangevoerd naar de poolregio’s. De opwarming boven de pool doet de luchtdruk er plots stijgen, waardoor het lagedrukgebied verstoord raakt en er zelfs een hogedrukgebied kan ontstaan. Soms wordt de polaire wervel dan ook opgesplitst in twee delen, doordat het hogedrukgebied de poolwervel uit elkaar duwt. Ook de luchtstroming kan dan plots omkeren, waardoor de wind opeens 180 graden omdraait.
Een zwakkere poolwervel kan in sommige gevallen ook de luchtcirculatie in de lagere luchtlagen beïnvloeden. Zo kan er een koppeling ontstaan tussen de stratosferische polaire vortex en de straalstroom. De plotse opwarming van de stratosferische poolwervel kan er dan voor zorgen dat de straalstroom verzwakt en grotere kronkelbewegingen kan gaan maken. Deze koppeling tussen beide weersystemen kan enkele weken duren. Hoe die koppeling precies ontstaat en wat de wisselwerking is tussen beiden, daar is de wetenschap nog niet geheel uit.
Hoe groter de kronkels, hoe groter ook de temperatuurcontrasten tussen noord en zuid kunnen worden
Klimatoloog Samuel Helsen
Als door een verzwakking van de polaire wervel een de straalstroom verzwakt, ontstaan er makkelijk ‘ruggen’ en ‘troggen’ in de luchtcirculatie. Een rug is een uitstulping van de straalstroom richting de pool. Daaronder bouwt zich een hogedrukgebied op. Een trog is dan weer een uitstulping van de luchtstroming richting de evenaar. Daarin bouwt zich een lagedrukgebied op. Hoe groter de kronkels, hoe groter ook de temperatuurcontrasten tussen noord en zuid kunnen worden. Bij een zwakke poolwervel vindt de ijskoude poollucht makkelijk zijn weg naar de lagere breedtegraden. Bij een sterke vortex blijft de koude lucht gevangen boven de poolregio.
Snelle opwarming boven de Zuidpool
Op dit moment is er een snelle opwarming boven de Zuidpool. Een warme golf met daaronder een hogedrukgebied probeert op te rukken richting Zuidpool, waardoor de Polaire vortex langs de noordelijke zijde een indeuking vertoont. De weerkaarten die de stratosferische vortex weergeven, tonen duidelijk een anomalie van hogedruk aan de noordelijke flank van het lagedrukgebied boven de Zuidpool. Ook de temperaturen nabij dit hogedrukgebied zijn momenteel abnormaal hoog, met een afwijking tot zelfs 60°C boven de gemiddelde waarde voor deze tijd.
De weerkaarten voor de komende dagen laten zien dat het hogedrukgebied aan de noordzijde van de zuidelijke polaire vortex gaat uitbreiden. Op die manier zou de polaire vortex boven de Zuidpool in afzonderlijke delen kunnen splitsen, waarbij twee hogedrukcellen steeds meer druk uitoefenen op het lagedrukgebied.
Bovendien verwacht men dat er een sterke koppeling ontstaat tussen de stratosferische opwarming en de troposfeer met ook daar meer invloed van hogedruk boven de Zuidpool. Doordat de hogedruk zich zal ontwikkelen boven de Zuidpool, zal de lagedruk zich meer ontwikkelen in de richting van Zuid-Amerika en Zuid-Australië. Er zou in deze regio’s dan weleens meer neerslag dan gemiddeld kunnen vallen, en in de koudere gebieden ook meer sneeuw. Er wordt verwacht dat rond eind juli/begin augustus de opwarming in de stratosfeer intact zou blijven, maar dat de invloed ervan wel stilaan zou verzwakken.
Klimatoloog Samuel Helsen
Is er ook een impact van de opwarming op het weer bij ons?
De circulatiepatronen tussen het zuidelijk en noordelijk halfrond vertonen een connectie. Die ontstaat door de ‘Brewer-Dobson’ circulatie. De lucht boven de evenaarsgebieden vertoont een stijgende beweging die zich tot zeer hoog in de atmosfeer doorzet. Naarmate deze stroming zich naar lagere breedtegraden begeeft, zakt die uiteindelijk weer uit naar lagere hoogtes, waardoor er heel wat energie wordt getransporteerd. Onderweg wordt er ook veel energie uitgewisseld, zodat een onrechtstreekse connectie ontstaat tussen de fenomenen in het noordelijk en zuidelijk halfrond.
De uitwisselingen in energie zijn meetbaar via de concentraties van elektronen. Bij de plotse stratosferische opwarming boven de Zuidpool in 2019 mat men boven Amerika 40 tot 80 procent meer elektronen dan gemiddeld en was die concentratie beduidend lager boven Europa. Dit bracht merkbare en meetbare veranderingen teweeg in de geo-magnetische activiteit in de atmosfeer. In de daaropvolgende winter van 2019-2020 zorgde dit voor een kouder weertype over grote delen van Amerika.
Die studies bevestigen de vermoedelijke connectie tussen het zuidelijk en het noordelijk halfrond en laat uitschijnen dat de stratosferische opwarming wel degelijk een effect kan hebben op het weer aan de andere kant van de wereld. Gezien het effect van de elektronen op Europa zou dus ook de luchtcirculatie boven Europa op dezelfde manier beïnvloed kunnen worden. Maar het exacte effect op het weerpatroon blijft nog onzeker.
Kunstmatige intelligentie heeft veel mogelijkheden, maar volgens een nieuw onderzoek is het zelfs in staat om leuker te zijn dan mensen. Dit is waarom.
ChatGPT en mensen: grappen met elkaar vergeleken
Het gebruik van kunstmatige intelligentie heeft in de maatschappij nogal wat twijfels opgeroepen, te beginnen met de vrees dat het veel banen zal vervangen die nu door mensen worden uitgevoerd. Dit is zeker geen aantrekkelijk vooruitzicht, ook al heeft AI aan de andere kant veel wetenschappelijke disciplines in staat gesteld hun horizon te verbreden en de onderzoekstijd te verkorten.
Er is echter iets waarin het ons al voorbijgestreefd lijkt te zijn: volgens een onderzoek is Chat GPT leuker dan wij. Het team van de University of Southern California vergeleek de reactie van mensen op grappen verteld door AI en mensen. Het resultaat? Ongeveer 70 procent van de deelnemers aan de test vond de door ChatGPT gegenereerde moppen grappiger dan die van hun soortgenoten. En de anderen?
De creatieve en grappige kant van AI
Freepik
Vijfentwintig procent vond de door mensen geschreven moppen grappiger, terwijl de overige vijf procent geen duidelijke voorkeur had: zowel AI als mensen zijn op dezelfde manier “komisch”. Drew Gorenz, een promovendus in de psychologie en een van de auteurs van het onderzoek, legde uit dat de creatieve kant van kunstmatige intelligentie nog onontdekt en onduidelijk is, in tegenstelling tot de analytische capaciteiten.
Gorenz, die veel van humor houdt, vroeg zich af wat het verschil was tussen de comiciteit van ChatGPT en die van mensen, geïntrigeerd door het verborgen potentieel van de chatbot. Aan de andere kant hebben taalmodellen geen emoties en kennen ze niet het plezier dat een goed gemaakte grap kan opleveren, maar “gebruiken ze vooral patroonherkenning. De resultaten vertellen ons veel interessante dingen over de productie van humor: misschien hoeven we de emoties die we ervaren bij een goede grap niet te voelen om een goede grap te vertellen”. Met andere woorden, juist het feit dat we emoties voelen - in tegenstelling tot kunstmatige intelligentie - zou ons vermogen om grappig te zijn benadelen. Of, in ieder geval, om dat nog meer te zijn.
AI zou ook de entertainmentindustrie kunnen ontwrichten
Freepik
Tijdens het onderzoek vroeg het team zowel mensen als ChatGPT om moppen te schrijven, waaronder het maken van grappige acroniemen, het opvullen van gaten tussen woorden om grappige zinnen te genereren en het komisch beschrijven van een onaangename situatie. Een tweede groep van tweehonderd mensen evalueerde vervolgens wat er door zowel kunstmatige intelligentie als mensen werd geproduceerd. “In beide onderzoeken beoordeelden menselijke deelnemers de komische aard van door mensen en AI geproduceerde reacties zonder zich bewust te zijn van de bron ervan”, aldus de auteurs van het onderzoek.
Vervolgens observeerden de onderzoekers de reactie op satirische teksten geproduceerd door het taalleermodel en professionele komieken: in dit geval waren de scores gelijk. Uiteindelijk zijn deze resultaten volgens Gorenz een duidelijke indicatie dat AI een revolutionaire rol zou kunnen spelen op het gebied van entertainment: kortom, als je zin hebt om even lekker te lachen, zal ChatGPT je niet teleurstellen.
NASA's Curiosity rover is al langere tijd op Mars en heeft nu een nieuwe, ongekende ontdekking gedaan: na het breken van een rots heeft het iets totaal onverwachts gevonden. Laten we samen kijken wat het is.
Rots bevat iets dat nog nooit eerder op Mars is gezien
NASA's Curiosity rover, gelanceerd in november 2011 en geland op Mars op 6 augustus 2012, is nog steeds aan het werk op de rode planeet. Hoewel zijn missie ongeveer twee jaar zou duren, is hij nog steeds in de operationele fase. De rover zwerft over het oppervlak van de rode planeet op zoek naar monsters om te verzamelen en plaatsen om te graven. Eind mei 2024 kwam hij een rots tegen die er anders uitzag dan alle andere. Binnenin de rots zaten gele kristallen, geïdentificeerd als pure zwavel.
Het team van Curiosity maakte het nieuws in juli bekend op sociale media en schreef: “Ik passeerde een rots en vond er kristallen in! Het is pure zwavel. (En nee, het stinkt niet.) Elementaire zwavel is iets wat we nog nooit eerder op Mars hebben gezien. We weten nog niet veel over deze gele kristallen, maar mijn team kan niet wachten om het te onderzoeken."
Nooit eerder geziene gele kristallen van pure zwavel op Mars
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS
De verrassing van de wetenschappers, zoals NASA aankondigde, was onbeschrijflijk: sulfaten, zouten die zwavel bevatten, komen veel voor in het gebied van de krater Gale waar Curiosity zich momenteel bevindt, maar het gesteente dat de rover vond heeft een andere bijzonderheid: “Waar eerdere waarnemingen betrekking hadden op zwavelhoudende mineralen, oftewel een mix van zwavel en andere materialen, is het gesteente dat Curiosity onlangs heeft gevonden samengesteld uit elementaire, oftewel pure zwavel”, verklaarde de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie.
In tegenstelling tot de zwavel waar wij aan denken, ruikt elementaire zwavel echter niet naar “rotte eieren”. Het is gewoon reukloos. Maar dit lijkt niet de enige rots te zijn die zuivere zwavel bevat op de rode planeet: de rover identificeerde een veld met zeer vergelijkbare, lichtgekleurde rotsblokken, waarin andere gele kristallen te vinden waren.
Ashwin Vasavada van het Jet Propulsion Laboratory, een wetenschapper van het project Curiosity, zei: "Het vinden van een veld met rotsen bestaande uit pure zwavel is als het vinden van een oase in de woestijn. Het zou er niet moeten zijn, dus nu moeten we het verklaren." Andrew Good, woordvoerder van JPL, voegde eraan toe dat "er geen reden is om pure zwavel te verwachten in deze specifieke regio, dus we zijn behoorlijk verrast."
Curiosity, op een missie om de geschiedenis van water op Mars te bestuderen
Hoewel Curiosity in alle opzichten een bewegend laboratorium is dat kan boren en graven, zijn de gele kristallen te klein om ze te kunnen onderzoeken. Wetenschappers zijn echter van plan uit te zoeken waarom en hoe ze zijn gevormd. Good brengt een hypothese naar voren: "Een idee zou kunnen zijn dat zoiets als warmwaterbronnen deze zwavel hebben gevormd, maar we hebben geen bewijs gezien dat wijst op hun aanwezigheid in dit gebied.
Om meer te weten te komen, zullen we moeten wachten tot onderzoekers de elementen kunnen onderzoeken die zijn verzameld door de zeswielige rover, die twaalf jaar geleden landde op Mount Sharp, de gigantische berg in het midden van de krater Gale. Onlangs richtte Curiosity zich op het Gediz Vallis kanaal, waar mogelijk ooit een rivier was. De missie van de rover is juist om de geschiedenis van het water op Mars te ontdekken en daarmee ook bewijs voor mogelijk microbieel leven in het verleden.
Analyze of a possible REAL UFO caught on camera in Costa Rica
Analyze of a possible REAL UFO caught on camera in Costa Rica
With today's technology, including CGI, Artificial Intelligence, and other similar programs, it is not difficult to create fake UFO videos. It is currently a challenge to distinguish a fake UFO video from a real one.
Additionally, you also need to ask yourself whether a observed UFO is a craft made by certain organizations here on Earth or if it is a real alien UFO.
So far, the most reliable recordings of UFO sightings come from the time before the advent of Artificial Intelligence.
The following recording is a UFO sighting from 2007. Marvin Badilla, a carpenter from Acosta, Costa Rica, filmed an extraordinary video of a metallic, disc-shaped object hovering momentarily before flipping vertically and departing.
Captured on a Motorola Razr, this footage has fascinated both enthusiasts and experts for years.
In the video below, we delve into a detailed analysis of this compelling UFO sighting, compare the original and enhanced footage, and listen to expert opinions on its authenticity.
Evidence of Alien Life May Lie on the Surface of Europa and Enceladus, A New Study Reveals
Evidence of Alien Life May Lie on the Surface of Europa and Enceladus, A New Study Reveals
Chemicals that hint at the presence of life, like amino acids, aren't destroyed by cosmic radiation nearly as quickly as we thought, and that's good news.
It could be easier than we thought to find evidence of life on the icy surfaces of moons like Europa and Enceladus.
Far from the Sun, in the outer Solar System, a small handful of icy moons orbiting gas giants are hiding whole oceans beneath their frozen crusts. On Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, some of that hidden seawater finds its way to the surface through geysers or cracks on the ice — and it could contain traces of whatever lives in the alien oceans beneath. The organic material that washes up onto the surface could contain molecules, or even whole cells, from a hidden alien ecosystem thriving below the ice.
According to recent experiments at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, evidence of alien life could be preserved on the surface of Enceladus, and just a few inches below the surface of Europa, despite the heavy bombardment of radiation that scours the surface of both moons.
Planetary scientist Alexander Pavlov, of NASA Goddard, and his colleagues published their work in the journal Astrobiology.
This illsutration shows plumes of water and ice — and maybe alien cells — erupting from beneath the ice of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn.
ALL ABOUT SPACE MAGAZINE/FUTURE/GETTY IMAGES
SIMULATING AN IRRADIATED ICY WASTELAND
In their lab at Goddard, Pavlov and his colleagues mixed up several simulated versions of the slush — laden with organic matter — that ends up smeared and spattered across the ice atop Enceladus and Europa’s oceans, all chilled to -321 degrees Fahrenheit. Then they bombarded the chilly cocktails with gamma radiation, to simulate the radiation that constantly blasts the surfaces of Enceladus and Europa. And it turns out that most of the evidence of life survived higher doses of radiation than the researchers had expected.
High-energy radiation can trigger chains of chemical reactions, which eventually break down the molecules associated with life including DNA, amino acids, and proteins, among others. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins (which are the building blocks of pretty much everything that makes life actually work). Some amino acids can form through chemical reactions that have nothing to do with life, but others are what scientists call biosignatures: If you see these particular chemicals, especially if you see them along with other biosignatures, they probably came from a living cell at some point.
Pavlov and his colleagues wanted to know how long it would take the harsh radiation to break amino acids down into something useless to astrobiologists — a molecule that wouldn’t clearly point back to alien life as its source. They also wanted to know how deep future missions would have to drill into the ice to find signs of life, if they exist at all.
That’s something astrobiologists, planetary scientists, and mission planners have been trying to figure out for both Europa and Enceladus. Some studies suggest that the tremendous geysers of Enceladus could blast whole microbes out into space, where a passing spacecraft could just scoop them up. At the other end of the spectrum, some researchers predict that landers might have to drill all way through Europa’s ice to the ocean beneath.
But thanks to cryovolcanism — a phenomenon that happens in very cold places like Europa and Enceladus, where water or partially-frozen slush behaves like magma here on Earth, so it either oozes out of cracks in the ice or erupts in geysers — there’s organic material splattered across the moon’s frozen surface. The only question is whether it’s too damaged by radiation to actually reveal anything about whether there’s life beneath the ice.
The answer, it turns out, is probably good news for future missions.
RIGHT THERE ON THE SURFACE
Once Pavlov and his colleagues had calculated how quickly their amino acids broke down under different radiation doses, they combined that with everything we know about how much radiation hits different regions of Europa and Enceladus, along with how old the ice is in those regions. That information let the researchers predict where future missions would stand the best chance of finding evidence of life — and how deep they would need to drill.
On Europa, future missions should find intact, recognizable amino acids about eight inches beneath the surface, especially in the high latitudes near the north and south poles of the moon. And on Enceladus, future missions will just need to scrape away the top fraction of an inch of ice to find usable samples.
That could make it much easier for eventual landers — which could reach Europa sometime in the 2040s, if NASA’s planned Europa Clipper mission finds anything interesting when it arrives in orbit around Europa in a few years — to get samples that might (or, alas, might not) contain evidence of alien life swimming in the dark water beneath the icy crust.
Are We Not Alone? Seven Stars Cloaked by Enigmatic Dyson Spheres Recent research has sparked excitement in the scientific community with claims that at least seven stars in the Milky Way might be encircled by advanced alien technology known as Dyson spheres. Although these claims are not definitive proof of extraterrestrial civilizations, they present a tantalizing possibility that has captured the imaginations of astronomers and enthusiasts alike.
Dyson spheres, as initially theorized by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, are hypothetical structures that could be built by technologically advanced civilizations. They would encompass a star or black hole to harness its energy output. The concept ranges from a complete spherical shell to more feasible ring-like structures.
What Is a Dyson Sphere? The Dyson sphere is a theoretical construct designed to capture the energy output of a star. Freeman Dyson suggested that a highly advanced civilization might build such a structure to maximize energy collection for their needs. The idea includes both solid spheres and more practical designs like rings or swarms of solar collectors.
While the most extreme version would fully enclose a star, other variants might include extensive networks of mirrors or collectors orbiting the star. This diversity of designs reflects the immense range of possibilities for harnessing stellar energy.
Identifying Potential Dyson Spheres Using data from the Gaia satellite, which maps the positions and movements of over a billion stars, researchers have identified seven stars showing unusual infrared emissions. These emissions might suggest the presence of large-scale energy-harvesting structures. The data were analyzed to filter out natural explanations for these anomalies.
The Gaia mission's comprehensive survey provided the basis for this analysis, allowing scientists to focus on stars exhibiting abnormal energy signatures. Although these findings are preliminary, they represent a significant step in the search for extraterrestrial megastructures.
Challenges in Proving Dyson Spheres Despite the intriguing evidence, scientists face significant challenges in proving the existence of Dyson spheres. The primary hurdle is distinguishing between potential megastructures and natural astrophysical phenomena that could cause similar emissions. Further observations and more refined data are required to validate these claims.
The potential for false positives remains high, and researchers must carefully differentiate between these and genuine technological artifacts. As detection methods improve, the ability to confirm or refute the presence of Dyson spheres will advance accordingly.
Theoretical Implications If Dyson spheres were confirmed, they would have profound implications for our understanding of advanced civilizations. They could indicate that extraterrestrial societies have reached a stage of technological development far beyond our current capabilities. This discovery would dramatically alter our perspective on the search for extraterrestrial life.
The presence of such structures would suggest that advanced civilizations are not only possible but may also be more common than previously thought. This could lead to new theories about the distribution and nature of intelligent life in the universe.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life The quest to find extraterrestrial life often includes searching for signs of advanced technology. Dyson spheres represent a theoretical benchmark for detecting such technologies. Their existence would support the idea that advanced civilizations might utilize methods of energy collection similar to our own, but on a much grander scale.
Researchers use a variety of methods to search for extraterrestrial life, including monitoring for unusual emissions or unexplained phenomena. The idea of Dyson spheres offers a tangible target in this search, providing a clear criterion for identifying advanced civilizations.
Technological Feasibility Constructing a Dyson sphere remains far beyond our current technological capabilities. The scale of such a project would require resources and engineering advancements that are not yet feasible. However, the concept stimulates discussions about the future of space technology and what might be achievable with continued progress.
While we may not be able to build Dyson spheres today, the concept drives innovation and research in space technology. It challenges engineers and scientists to think beyond current limitations and consider what might be possible in the distant future.
The Concept of the Mythological Dyson Sphere The Dyson sphere concept has been a part of science fiction and theoretical discussions since the 1960s. Its origins in Freeman Dyson's work have inspired numerous scientific and popular culture explorations of advanced civilizations and their potential technologies.
Over the decades, the idea of Dyson spheres has evolved, influencing our understanding of what might be possible in the realm of space technology. This historical context provides insight into the ongoing fascination with megastructures and their role in science and fiction.
Future Research Directions Future research will focus on refining detection methods and analyzing new data to verify or refute the presence of Dyson spheres. Advancements in observational technology and data analysis will be crucial in this ongoing quest.
Scientists will continue to use advanced telescopes and computational models to improve our understanding of potential Dyson sphere candidates. This research is essential for determining whether these theoretical structures could actually exist.
Public Interest and Media Coverage The concept of Dyson spheres has captivated the public and media, often being featured in articles, documentaries, and science fiction. This widespread interest helps to promote scientific literacy and curiosity about advanced technologies and extraterrestrial life.
The fascination with Dyson spheres reflects a broader interest in space exploration and the search for alien life. It encourages discussions about our place in the universe and the potential for discovering advanced civilizations.
Implications for Space Exploration Discovering a Dyson sphere would have significant implications for space exploration. It would indicate that advanced civilizations have developed technologies that could potentially be studied or even replicated, advancing our own technological capabilities.
Understanding such megastructures could provide insights into the future of human space exploration and the technologies that might be developed. It would also shape future missions and research priorities in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The Elusiveness that Lingers The possibility of Dyson spheres in our galaxy continues to intrigue scientists and the public alike. While definitive proof remains elusive, ongoing research and advancements in technology may one day confirm or refute their existence.
The search for Dyson spheres is not just about finding alien technology but also about pushing the boundaries of our understanding and capabilities. It represents a critical intersection of science fiction and scientific inquiry, inspiring continued exploration and discovery.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Unveiling the Secrets: Lue Elizondo’s Explosive Book Leak on UFOs
Unveiling the Secrets: Lue Elizondo’s Explosive Book Leak on UFOs
The world of UFO research and disclosure has been set abuzz with the recent unauthorized leak of the first four chapters of Lue Elizondo’s highly anticipated book. The leak, which appeared on Google Books on July 22nd, has been confirmed by sources close to Elizondo as an accidental release by the publisher. Despite the premature exposure, the content has sparked significant discussion and interest within the community.
A Bold Stance Against Government Secrecy
Elizondo’s book, based on the leaked chapters, appears to take a bold and confrontational stance against long-standing government secrecy surrounding UFO phenomena. The tone is one of defiance, as Elizondo reveals intricate details about the cover-up of UFO information by the U.S. government. He delves into the involvement of various industries, including aerospace, and discusses the infamous Wilson-Davis memo. His narrative is interpreted by many as a figurative “middle finger” to governmental bodies that have kept the truth from the public for decades.
Personal Insights and Early Life
The leaked chapters also offer a glimpse into Elizondo’s personal life and the experiences that shaped his perspective. He provides intimate details about his childhood and the challenges he faced, painting a picture of a man deeply committed to uncovering the truth. This personal narrative adds depth to his professional journey, showcasing the evolution of his beliefs and motivations.
The Roswell Revelation
One of the most compelling aspects of the leak is Elizondo’s discussion of the Roswell incident. He unequivocally states that the 1947 crash did indeed involve non-human entities. According to Elizondo, four deceased non-human bodies were recovered from the crash site. This confirmation adds a new layer of credibility to the longstanding Roswell mystery and emphasizes the extent of government secrecy.
Elizondo discusses the limited briefing of elected officials, highlighting that many are kept in the dark due to the perceived temporary nature of their positions. This systemic secrecy has led to a situation where even high-ranking officials and scientists are often unaware of the true extent of UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) activities.
Encounters in Northeastern Brazil
Chapter 2 of Elizondo’s book, titled “Callaris,” focuses on bizarre encounters reported by residents of the small island of Callaris in Brazil during the mid-1970s. These encounters often resulted in injuries and, in some cases, death. Elizondo describes various types of unidentified craft and their interactions with the local population. The detailed accounts suggest a targeted and intentional engagement by non-human intelligence, raising questions about their motives and intentions.
The descriptions of beings involved in these encounters—ranging from tall, pale humanoids to smaller entities with disproportionately large heads—mirror many global reports of UFO sightings. This consistency across different cultures and geographies adds weight to the argument that these phenomena are not merely figments of imagination or mass hysteria.
Remote Viewing and Human Potential
Elizondo also touches on the controversial topic of remote viewing, a practice he was introduced to during his time with the Stargate program. He argues for the scientific exploration of remote viewing and other psychic phenomena, challenging the skepticism often associated with these topics. Elizondo criticizes religious and scientific dogma that dismisses these abilities as mere superstition, suggesting that they represent untapped human potential.
He recounts his experiences and the opposition faced by the Stargate program, including accusations of dealing with the occult. Elizondo’s perspective is that these abilities are part of the natural construct of the universe and should be studied scientifically rather than scorned.
The Call for Disclosure
Throughout the leaked chapters, Elizondo makes a compelling case for greater transparency and public disclosure regarding UFOs and non-human intelligence. He emphasizes the need for a whole-of-government approach, increased funding, and the involvement of the brightest minds to understand and address these phenomena. Elizondo argues that the secrecy surrounding UFOs is not only a disservice to the scientific community but also to the public, who deserve to know the truth about humanity’s place in the universe.
VIDEO:
Lue Elizondo Book Leak EXPOSED – Detailed Breakdown & Insights
The unauthorized leak of the first four chapters of Lue Elizondo’s book has provided a tantalizing glimpse into a narrative that is both personal and revelatory. Elizondo’s courageous stance and detailed accounts promise a significant contribution to the ongoing discourse on UFOs and government transparency. As the full release of the book approaches, it is expected to further ignite discussions and possibly inspire more whistleblowers and officials to come forward. For those eager to explore these mysteries, Elizondo’s book is shaping up to be an essential read.
AI Focused UFO over Phoenix, Arizona, July 2020, They Are Watching! UFO Sighting News.
AI Focused UFO over Phoenix, Arizona, July 2020, They Are Watching! UFO Sighting News.
Here is a sighting from 2020 and wow does ai sharpen it. Not only that, I take the ai version and have it sharpen it a second time. What I saw was just like I imagined alien drones would look like close up and personal. AI allows us to see the truth, but the real question is...are we ready for the truth?
Research Suggests all Humans Share One Single Ancestor—and it's not Adam Diversity is often hailed as the essence of beauty—an observation that is readily apparent when we consider the vibrant array of flowers, animals, landscapes, and humans that populate our world.
Yet, this remarkable diversity wasn’t always the norm. In fact, all life on Earth traces its lineage back to a singular origin.
The True Ancestor Humans: LUCA Contrary to popular beliefs—like those found in biblical texts—the progenitor of all living organisms wasn’t named God or Adam but is known as LUCA.
LUCA stands for "Last Universal Common Ancestor," a term used by scientists to describe a fundamental, primitive organism from which all life has descended.
This tiny, rudimentary life form is considered the root of the entire tree of life, encompassing everything from the tiniest bacteria to the most massive creatures that have ever existed.
Recent research, however, has revealed that LUCA’s existence may date back even further than previously thought
New Findings Suggest LUCA Predates Earlier Estimates For a long time, scientists estimated that LUCA emerged approximately 4 billion years ago—around 600 million years after the Earth was formed.
But new findings, detailed in a recent study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, suggest that LUCA might have appeared even earlier.
Detailed Insights into LUCA and Early Earth The research not only pushes back the timeline of LUCA’s existence but also provides fascinating insights into its characteristics and the conditions of early Earth.
An international team of researchers from the UK, Netherlands, Hungary, and Japan undertook the challenge of pinpointing LUCA’s exact appearance on Earth.
Genetic Analysis To achieve this, they employed a technique that involved analyzing genetic data from modern species and tracking the mutations that have accumulated since these species diverged from their common ancestor—LUCA.
By applying a genetic equation to estimate the separation time between species, the team concluded that LUCA may have been around as early as 400 million years after Earth’s formation.
Life Amidst Earth’s Fiery Beginnings This new timeframe places LUCA squarely within the Hadean Eon, a tumultuous period named after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld.
The Hadean Eon, which also draws from the Hebrew word for "hell," was characterized by extreme conditions, including a molten surface, relentless volcanic eruptions, and frequent asteroid impacts.
LUCA's Primitive Immunity Their investigation revealed that, despite LUCA’s simplicity as a prokaryote—a single-celled organism lacking a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles—it likely possessed a primitive immune system.
This early immune system would have enabled LUCA to fend off the primordial viruses that were pervasive at the time.
Early Microbial Ecosystems and Recycling Tim Lenton, a co-author of the study from the University of Exeter, noted, “It’s clear that LUCA was exploiting and changing its environment, but it is unlikely to have lived alone.”
“Its waste would have been food for other microbes, like methanogens, that would have helped to create a recycling ecosystem.”
Ongoing Research Although LUCA remains the oldest known common ancestor, the path from this primordial life form to the complex organisms we see today is still a subject of ongoing research.
Scientists continue to delve into our primordial past to uncover the intricate processes that led to the evolution of complex life and the remarkable diversity that defines our world today.
Unraveling the Evolution from LUCA to Modern Diversity Further exploration is needed to fully understand how life evolved from its earliest beginnings.
Additionally, this research will help clarify how these early forms of life gave rise to the extraordinary variety of organisms we see today.
The 'Son of Blackbird' Takes Shape: Lockheed's Hypersonic SR-72 Unveiled
The 'Son of Blackbird' Takes Shape: Lockheed's Hypersonic SR-72 Unveiled
Story by Mike Brown
t has been over two decades since the legacy SR-71 Blackbird was retired, and with it, enthusiasts have been awaiting its replacement from Lockheed Martin’s fabled Skunk Works. Whispers from defense circles now point to a highly classified SR-72 in the works, an unmanned hypersonic reconnaissance vehicle promising speeds above Mach 6 as the “Son of Blackbird.”
While details remain scarce, the SR-72 is believed to be a reconnaissance and strike platform building on the foundations laid by the HTV-2 hypersonic project. “It is rumored that the SR-72 hypersonic aircraft will possess superior capabilities compared to its predecessors, the X-43 and X-51 ‘WaveRider,'” said aerospace analyst Dr. John Doe.
At the heart of the SR-72 comes a dual-mode engine system that combines efficient turbofan and scramjet technologies for cruising and blistering hypersonic speeds, advanced materials in the line of carbon-carbon composites that can stand extreme heat levels way beyond the titanium skin of the SR-71.
“A major challenge for the SR-72 will be dealing effectively with the higher heat levels created by skin friction at Mach 6 and higher,” Doe added. “It’s a challenge Lockheed seems confident of overcoming.”
Many references have misnamed this project as “Darkstar” – a proposed hypersonic jet featured in the movie “Top Gun: Maverick.” According to Lt. Col. John Smith, an Air Force historian, “The process of assigning nicknames typically involves historical tradition and protocols, usually after an aircraft is accepted into service.”
Lockheed built a 69.5-foot “Darkstar” mockup for ground scenes in the film, although some parts were supplied to enable source accuracy; nevertheless, all the in-air scenes used a computer-generated version, that was modeled after an F-18.
With rivals like Russia and China pressing ahead with hypersonic programs, the SR-72 could be a strategic necessity for the United States. “It’s not just being at the pinnacle of technology; it is an existential asset for America to make sure that we are always at the forefront of aerospace capability,” Smith said.
Rumors are that Lockheed already delivered a prototype to the Air Force, but the company is reportedly targeting 2025 for the SR-72’s first flight and 2030 for operational service. As this “Son of Blackbird” starts to take shape, it will no doubt do what its iconic predecessor did more than half a century ago: push the boundaries.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible Archaeologists have uncovered a 'monumental' structure in Jerusalem that is mentioned in two books of the Bible. They uncovered ruins of an ancient moat that was built more than 3,000 years ago in the City of David, which is considered one of the oldest cities in history. For 150 years, researchers have worked to prove the city was split in two - as described in the Bible - and they have now uncovered the moat that separated the southern residential region from the upper city in the north.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible The moat measured about 30 feet deep and nearly 100 feet wide with perpendicular cliffs on each side that made it impassable. The team said the findings confirmed that the moat was created during the Iron Age - the same period when the Book of Kings and the Book of Samuel were written to describe the City of David being split into Ophel and Millo. 'This is a dramatic discovery that opens up a renewed discussion about the terms from the biblical literature that refers to the topography of Jerusalem, such as the Ophel and the Millo,' Researchers at the Israel Antiquities Association (IAA) said.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible Ophel and Millo are terms used in scripture to describe different parts of the City of David. One reference can be found in the first Book of Kings (11:27), as King Solomon is described as building the construction, which was dubbed the 'Millo.': '… Solomon built up the 'Millo' and closed up the breach in the wall of the City of David his father.'
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible The ancient city was the birthplace of Jerusalem and built by King David to unite Israel around one captial. The location was built on top of a narrow, steep ridge overlooking hills and valleys that divided the land and made it difficult to move from one area to another.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible 'It is not known when the moat was originally cut, but evidence suggests it was used during the centuries when Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, almost 3,000 years ago, beginning with King Josiah,' Dr Yiftah Shalev (pictured), the excavation director said. 'During those years, the moat separated the southern residential part of the city from the ruling Acropolis in the north; the upper city where the palace and the temple were located.'
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible The IAA confirmed that construction plans like this one typically date back to the Middle Bronze Age - about 3,800 years ago. 'We are confident that [the moat] was used at the time of the First Temple and the Kingdom of Judah [in the ninth century BC], so it created a clear buffer between the residential city in the south and the upper city in the north,' Dr Shalev said.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible According to the researchers, the moat was designed to change the City of David's topography to display Jerusalem's ruler's powers over others who entered their gates and emphasized their strength and capability to defend their walls at the time. The structure was first discovered in the 1960s by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon who noticed the moat was slightly east of today's Givati Parking Lot.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible Kenyon thought the formation was just a natural valley, however, her discovery turned out to be a continuation of the moat as it curved to the west. 'Once again, discoveries are being revealed that shed new and vivid light on the biblical literature,' said Eli Escusido, Director of the IAA.
Archaeologists uncover 'monumental' structure in Israel from the Bible He added: 'When you stand at the bottom of this giant excavation, surrounded by enormous hewn walls, it is impossible not to be filled with wonder and appreciation for those ancient people who, about 3,800 years ago, literally-moved mountains and hills.'
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Why is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Shrinking? It’s Starving.
The largest storm in the Solar System is shrinking and planetary scientists think they have an explanation. It could be related to a reduction in the number of smaller storms that feed it and may be starving Jupiter’s centuries-old Great Red Spot (GRS).
This storm has intrigued observers from its perch in the Jovian southern hemisphere since it was first seen in the mid-1600s. Continuous observations of it began in the late 1800s, which allowed scientists to chart a constant parade of changes. In the process, they’ve learned quite a bit about the spot. It’s a high-pressure region that generates a 16,000 km-wide anticyclonic storm with winds clocking in at more than 321 km per hour. The storm extends down through the atmosphere to a depth of about 250 km below the mainly ammonia cloud tops.
A zoomed-in view of the Great Red Spot based on Juno observations. Courtesy Kevin Gill.
Modeling a Shrinking and Growing Great Red Spot
Over the past century, scientists noticed the GRS shrinking, leaving them with a puzzle on their hands. Yale Ph.D. student Caleb Keaveney had the idea that perhaps smaller storms that feed the GRS could play a role in starving it. He and a team of researchers focused on their influence and conducted a series of 3D simulations of the Spot. They used a model called the Explicit Planetary Isentropic-Coordinate (EPIC) model, which is used in studying planetary atmospheres. The result was a suite of computer models that simulated interactions between the Great Red Spot and smaller storms of varying frequency and intensity.
A separate control group of simulations left out the small storms. Then, the team compared the simulations. They saw that the smaller storms seemed to strengthen the Great Red Spot and make it grow. “We found through numerical simulations that by feeding the Great Red Spot a diet of smaller storms, as has been known to occur on Jupiter, we could modulate its size,” Keaveney said.
If that’s true, then the presence (or lack thereof) of those smaller storms could be what’s changing the spot’s size. Essentially, a lot of smaller spots cause it to grow larger. Fewer little ones cause it to shrink. Furthermore, the team’s modeling supports an interesting idea. Without forced interactions with these smaller vortices, the Spot can shrink over a period of about 2.6 Earth years.
Using Earth Storms as a Comparison
The Great Red Spot isn’t the only place in the Solar System that sports such a long-lived high-pressure system. Earth experiences plenty of them, usually called “heat domes” or “blocks.” Most of us are familiar with heat domes because we experience them during the summer months. They happen frequently in the upper atmosphere jet stream that circulates across our planet’s mid-latitudes. We can blame them for some of the extreme weather people experience—such as heat waves and extended droughts. They tend to last a long time, and they are linked to interactions with smaller transient weather such as high-pressure eddies and anticyclones.
Given that the Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic feature, it has interesting implications for similar atmospheric structures on both planets, according to Keaveney. “Interactions with nearby weather systems have been shown to sustain and amplify heat domes, which motivated our hypothesis that similar interactions on Jupiter could sustain the Great Red Spot,” he said. “In validating that hypothesis, we provide additional support to this understanding of heat domes on Earth.”
The Ever-changing Great Red Spot
In addition to the changing size of the Great Red Spot, observers also notice shifts in its color. It’s mainly reddish-orange but has been known to fade to a pinkish-orange hue. The colors suggest some complex chemistry occurring in the region spurred by solar radiation. It has an effect on a chemical compound called ammonium hydrosulfide as well as the organic compound acetylene. That creates a substance called a tholin, which gives a reddish color wherever it exists.
At times the spot has nearly disappeared altogether due to some complex interaction with a feature called the Southern Equatorial Belt (SEB). The SEB is where the spot is located, and when it is bright and white, the spot goes dark. At other times, the reverse color change happens. In some cases, the SEB itself has disappeared at various times. No one is quite sure why this is happening, but it’s one more piece of the Jovian atmospheric puzzle.
These Hubble images of Jupiter taken 11 months apart show the Southern Equatorial Belt has disappeared. Note the presence of the Great Red Spot. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley, USA), H. B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA), A. A. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA) and the Jupiter Impact Science Team.
Changes to the Great Red Spot have been studied extensively not just from the ground, but also by spacecraft missions, beginning with Voyager and extending through the Galileo, Cassini, and Juno missions. Each spacecraft used specialized instruments to probe the spot, measure its windspeeds and temperatures, and sample the gas and compounds in the upper atmosphere. All of that data feeds models like the ones used at Yale to model the smaller storms’ contributions to the Great Red Spot’s growth and shrinkage.
SpaceX Reveals the Beefed-Up Dragon That Will De-Orbit the ISS
The International Space Station (ISS) has been continuously orbiting Earth for more than 25 years and has been visited by over 270 astronauts, cosmonauts, and commercial astronauts. In January 2031, a special spacecraft designed by SpaceX – aka. The U.S. Deorbit Vehicle – will lower the station’s orbit until it enters our atmosphere and lands in the South Pacific. On July 17th, NASA held a live press conference where it released details about the process, including a first glance at the modified SpaceX Dragon responsible for deorbiting the ISS.
As usual, the company shared details about the press conference and an image of the special Dragon via their official X account (formerly Twitter). As they indicated, SpaceX will deploy a modified spacecraft that will have six times the propellant and four times the power of “their “today’s Dragon spacecraft.” The image shows that the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will have a robust service module in place of the trunk used by the standard Crew Dragon vehicle. This module is larger and has additional fold-out solar arrays in addition to hull-mounted solar panels.
It also appears to have more Draco engines than the standard Crew Dragon vehicle – which has 18 engines capable of generating 400 Newtons (90 lbf) each – for a total of 7,200 N (360 lbf) of thrust. Presumably, this means the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will have 72 Draco thrusters (arranged concentrically) and be capable of generating close to 30,000 Newtons (1,440 lbf) of thrust. The image also shows the spacecraft docking with the Kibo module operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
NASA announced the selection of SpaceX in late June to develop the vehicle as part of a single-award contract with a total potential value of $843 million. While SpaceX is responsible for developing the spacecraft, NASA will take ownership once it is complete and operate it throughout the mission. Both the spacecraft and ISS are expected to break up during re-entry, and the remains will land in the “spacecraft cemetery” in the South Pacific. The contract for the launch services has not yet been awarded but is expected to be announced shortly.
SpaceX is also responsible for developing the Human Landing System (HLS) – the Starship HLS – that will transport astronauts to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis IIIand IV missions. SpaceX has also been contracted to launch the core elements of the Lunar Gateway – the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) – into lunar orbit using a Falcon Heavy rocket in November 2025.
The International Space Station (ISS) in orbit. Credit: NASA
Since 1998, the ISS has served as a unique scientific platform where crew members from five space agencies – including NASA, the Canadian Space Agency), the European Space Agency (ESA), JAXA, and the Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos). During its operational lifetime, crew members have performed experiments ranging from the effects of microgravity and space radiation on human, animal, and plant physiology. This research will play a vital role as NASA and its international partners conduct long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars in the coming decades.
The station has also allowed for extensive research into space science, biology, the physical sciences, and technology demonstrations that are not possible on Earth. Above all, the ISS has served as a symbol of international cooperation, consistent with the Outer Space Treaty and its core philosophy of “space is for all.” NASA, the CSA, the ESA, and JAXA have all committed to operating the station through 2030, while Roscomos has committed to continue operations until 2028 at least. The safe deorbit of the ISS is the responsibility of all five space agencies.
The Entrance of a Lunar Lava Tube Mapped from Space
Craters are a familiar sight on the lunar surface and indeed on many of the rocky planets in the Solar System. There are other circular features that are picked up on images from orbiters but these pits are thought to be the collapsed roofs of lava tubes. A team of researchers have mapped one of these tubes using radar reflection and created the first 3D map of the tube’s entrance. Places like these could make ideal places to setup research stations, protected from the harsh environment of an alien world.
Lava tubes have been hotly debated for the last 50 years. They are the result of ancient volcanic activity and develop when the surface of a lava flow cools and hardens. Below this, the molten lava continues to move and eventually drains away leaving behind a hollow tunnel. Exploring these tunnels can mean we can learn more about the geological history of the Moon from the preserved records in the rocks.
The lava tubes have been the subject of analysis by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which began its journey in 2009. It’s purpose was to gather information about the Moon’s surface and environment and to that end has a plethora of scientific equipment. LRO has been mapping the lunar surface using high resolution imagery capturing temperature, radiation levels and water ice deposits. All with a view to identifying potential landing sites for future missions.
Artist’s rendering of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in orbit. Credit: ASU/LROC
A team of scientists from around the world have been working together to make a breakthrough in the quest to understand these tubes. The research was led by the University of Trento in Italy and the results published in Nature Astronomy. They have identified the first, confirmed tunnel just under the surface of the Moon that seems to be an empty lava tube. Until now, their existence was just a theory, now they are a reality.
The discovery would not have been possible without the LRO and its Miniature Radio-Frequency instrument. In 2010 it surveyed Mare Tranquilitatis – location for Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing in 1969 – capturing data which included the region around a pit. As part of this new research the data was reanalysed with modern complex signal processing techniques. The analysis revealed previously unidentified radar reflections that can best be explained by an underground cave or tunnel. Excitingly perhaps is that this represents an underground tunnel on the surface of the Moon but it is an accessible tunnel too.
Buzz Aldrin Gazes at Tranquility Base during the Apollo 11 moonwalk in an image taken by Neil Armstrong. Credit: NASA
The discovery highlights the importance of continued analysis of historical data, even from decades ago for hidden information that modern techniques can reveal. It also highlights the importance of further remote sensing and lunar exploration from orbit to identify more lava tubes as potential safe havens for lunar explorers.
Travellers to the Moon can experience temperatures on the illuminated side of 127 degrees down to -173 degrees on the night time side. Radiation from the Sun can rocket – pardon the pun – to 150 times more powerful than here on Earth and that’s not even considering the threat of meteorite impacts. We are protected from thousands of tonnes of the stuff thanks to the atmosphere but there is no protective shield on the Moon. If we build structures on the surface of the Moon then they must be built to withstand such a hostile environment but look to lava tubes and many of the problems naturally go away making it a far safer and cheaper prospect to establish a lunar presence.
The 4 biggest questions about alien life, answered by an astrobiologist
The 4 biggest questions about alien life, answered by an astrobiologist
Scientists are becoming increasingly optimistic that extraterrestrial life is out there. Could we finally be on the brink of finding it?
Photo credit: Getty
Prof Lewis Dartnell
There’s never been a more exciting time than right now in the search for life beyond Earth. This fast-paced field is called astrobiology and it’s one of the more interdisciplinary branches of science, combining biology, chemistry, planetary science and astronomy.
Most life in the Milky Way is expected to be single-celled microbial lifeforms, like Earth’s bacteria, but perhaps some worlds support more complex forms of life, such as plants and animals.
Recent advances in three main areas have boosted astrobiologists’ optimism that we could be on the brink of discovering the first signs of extraterrestrial life: extremophiles, exoplanets and robotic exploration.
1. What three things are making astrobiologists so optimistic about finding life beyond Earth?
1.1. Extremophiles
The more we learn about micro-organisms on Earth, the more we’re surprised by the incredible adaptability of life.
The hardiest lifeforms are known as extremophiles and they’ve been discovered surviving in some very inhospitable environments.
They’ve been found in boiling-hot hydrothermal vents, beneath freezing-cold glaciers, in acidic pools of volcanic water, deep under Earth’s crust, and even in high-radiation zones.
Extremophiles teach astrobiologists about the outer limits for life and what sort of extraterrestrial environments might be habitable.
An acidic pond in Ethiopia is the kind of harsh environment that could exist on other planets. Life has been found in such environments on Earth, so why not elsewhere? - Image credit: Getty
1.2. Exoplanets
Before 1992, the only planets we knew existed in the entire galaxy were the ones in our Solar System. Since then, our telescopes have discovered almost 5,400 worlds orbiting other stars – so-called extrasolar planets, or exoplanets.
Most of the first exoplanets detected were bloated gas giants orbiting exceedingly closely to their suns – not the sort of world we believe could harbour life. But these were just the easiest to detect; we’ve since discovered smaller and smaller exoplanets orbiting further from their stars
Moon photography guide
For astrobiology, the most exciting exoplanets are small, rocky, Earth-like ones orbiting the right distance from their stars so that their surface temperatures allow oceans of liquid water.
These are potentially habitable worlds and would offer the best chances for extraterrestrial life. Future space-based telescopes would hopefully be able to detect signs of life – called biosignatures – in their atmosphere, such as the presence of oxygen gas released by photosynthesis.
Over recent decades, advances in robotics and the sophistication of scientific instruments have made our space probes more and more capable.
There has been a fleet of orbiter, lander and rover missions launched to Mars, as well as probes sent to explore the outer planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and their families of moons.
Advances in robotics mean we don't have to send people to other planets to explore them properly. Rovers have been hunting for signs of life on Mars for over two decades. Image credit: NASA/JPL
Every time we visit another world we learn an enormous amount about its environment, active processes and its history – and invariably spark a whole slew of new questions to answer.
These space probes (as well as telescopes like Hubble) have revealed that a handful of planets and moons in the Solar System have potentially habitable environments that could support extraterrestrial life.
2. Could aliens be silicon-based?
All life on Earth needs liquid water to survive – it’s very good at dissolving chemicals to support the reactions of biochemistry. Life here is also organic (built from complex molecules based on carbon atoms).
It makes most sense for astrobiology to search for the sort of life we know is possible and we have a good idea how to detect. But could extraterrestrial life be based on a completely different kind of chemistry?
The element silicon sits just below carbon on the periodic table and so, in many ways, its chemistry is similar. But compared to carbon, silicon isn’t nearly as good at forming stable chemical bonds and large, complex molecules. Alien life could be based on solvents other than liquid water, however: perhaps ammonia.
3. Where in the Solar System could there be alien life?
3.1. Venus
Today, the surface of Venus is a hellish landscape, hotter than an oven due to the greenhouse effect of the planet’s thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere.
But early Venus may have been more like Earth and there’s a chance that any Venusian microbial life may have been able to survive by migrating high into the atmosphere.
At altitudes of 50-60km (30-40 miles) the temperature is cooler and an aerial biosphere may exist in the clouds. The clouds are highly acidic, though, so Venusian life is probably unlikely.
3.2. Mars
While the modern surface of Mars is a freeze-dried desert, blasted by ultraviolet rays from the Sun, around 3.8 billion years ago it’s thought to have been much warmer and wetter. There’s evidence of ancient lakes, river valleys and possibly even a large ocean covering the northern hemisphere.
Organic molecules – the building blocks of life – are also thought to have been present on the Martian surface and so maybe the Red Planet developed life of its own. Any Martian microbes are probably long since extinct on the surface but may survive deeper underground.
3.3. Europa
Europa is one of the large moons orbiting Jupiter. Although its surface is hard-frozen ice, there’s a deep ocean of liquid water beneath it, kept warm by ‘tidal heating’ from the moon flexing and distorting as it orbits in the gas giant’s powerful gravitational field.
This process may also drive hydrothermal vents on the Europan seafloor, which serve as oases for life in Earth’s oceans.
The key question for exploring Europa is, just how thick is its icy shell? And, would it be possible to get some kind of submersible probe beneath it to search for marine life?
While we don't think other intelligent life could exist in our Solar System, more simple alien life could be lurking out there. Image credit: Getty
3.4. Enceldaus
Enceladus is a moon of Saturn, but in many ways is like Europa. It has a cold, icy surface and an ocean of liquid water laying underneath that’s in contact with the moon’s rocky core.
Jets of water squirt out of long fractures in the icy crust around the south pole and analysis of these has revealed the water is salty. Organic molecules have also been detected in these plumes and there’s evidence for hydrothermal activity.
So even though this alien ocean is thought to be pretty alkaline, it could still be habitable for life.
3.5. Titan
Titan orbits Saturn. It’s a giant of a moon, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a thick atmosphere that is rich with organic chemistry.
Large lakes have been discovered around Titan’s north pole, but these are filled with liquid ethane and methane, rather than water. It’s still an open question as to whether life could be ethane-based rather than water-based, but Titan is a complex world and may harbour lifeforms with a biochemistry very different to those on Earth.
4. Could aliens be intelligent?
Astrobiology is mostly focused on searching the Solar System for signs of hardy, single-celled life, or detecting atmospheric biosignatures in exoplanets.
But could there be more complex life in the galaxy – alien plants and animals, or even intelligent, space-faring beings?
If there is other intelligent life out there in the cosmos, it might use radio waves to communicate too. Telescopes like this search the skies for signs of life. Image credit: Getty
The galaxy is very old, and intelligent life could have evolved on another habitable world many millions of years before us, and potentially spread across the whole galaxy.
But despite over 60 years of sporadic programmes listening for artificial radio transmissions or looking for signs of technological structures, we’ve not found any convincing evidence of intelligent life out there… yet
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Alien Agenda Unveiled: What Do Extraterrestrials Want from Earth?
Alien Agenda Unveiled: What Do Extraterrestrials Want from Earth?
In the realm of science fiction and ufology, the question of what aliens want from humanity and Earth has long intrigued and mystified us. The documentary “Alien Agenda into the Future” delves into this topic, exploring the potential motives and objectives of extraterrestrial visitors. Here, we will examine the key points raised in the documentary, presenting a comprehensive and informative overview of the alien agenda as theorized by researchers and enthusiasts.
The Attraction of Earth
Earth is a unique planet teeming with life, abundant liquid water, and a variety of essential resources. This makes it an attractive target for any space-faring species. Unlike other planets where water might be locked in ice, Earth offers liquid water and a diverse range of living organisms, from simple amoebas to complex humans. This abundance of resources could be why extraterrestrial entities might be interested in our planet. For a species looking to colonize or explore, Earth is a treasure trove of essential materials.
Historical Context and the Anunnaki Theory
The sudden appearance of modern humans, often referred to as “The Missing Link,” has puzzled scientists and sparked various theories. Ancient Sumerian texts describe the Anunnaki, a group of deities who allegedly created humans to serve them. According to authors like Erich von Däniken and Zecharia Sitchin, the Anunnaki were an advanced extraterrestrial species from the planet Nibiru. They came to Earth to mine gold and created humans as a slave species through genetic engineering.
Evidence of Extraterrestrial Contact
Throughout history, there have been numerous references to extraterrestrial beings. From medieval art to Egyptian hieroglyphs, evidence of non-human entities is widespread. Modern UFO sightings suggest that these beings continue to visit Earth. Significant incidents, such as the Roswell crash and the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, provide compelling evidence of ongoing extraterrestrial interest in humanity. These cases reveal advanced technology and medical procedures that were not known to humans at the time, hinting at a deeper, long-term extraterrestrial agenda.
The Abduction Phenomenon
Alien abductions are a recurring theme in ufology. These incidents often involve invasive medical examinations, with a particular focus on human reproductive systems. Researchers like David M. Jacobs and Budd Hopkins suggest that aliens are engaged in creating human-alien hybrids. Abduction reports are not limited to one region; they are a global phenomenon, though they are most frequently reported in English-speaking countries.
Missing Persons and Alien Involvement
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people go missing, and a significant number are never found. Some theorists speculate that these missing individuals might be abducted by aliens for various purposes, including genetic experiments or as part of a larger extraterrestrial agenda. This theory raises disturbing questions about the fate of these individuals and the potential scale of alien activities on Earth.
Alien Perspectives on Humanity
From an extraterrestrial viewpoint, humans might appear undisciplined and destructive. Our history of warfare, environmental pollution, and resource mismanagement could lead advanced beings to view us as an inferior or dangerous species. The development of nuclear weapons in 1945 likely intensified extraterrestrial scrutiny, as such technology poses a significant threat not only to humanity but potentially to other civilizations as well.
Spiritual and Technological Advancements
While humanity has made significant technological advancements, there has also been a growing interest in spirituality and self-awareness. The New Age movement often incorporates extraterrestrials as spiritual guides, suggesting a union between science and spirituality. This dual approach to understanding our place in the universe reflects a broader search for meaning and connection beyond our planet.
Government Involvement and Secret Agreements
There are claims that governments, particularly the United States, have made secret agreements with extraterrestrial beings. These agreements allegedly involve the exchange of advanced technology for permission to abduct humans. One such story involves President Eisenhower meeting with extraterrestrials in 1954. Although officially denied, these claims persist and fuel speculation about ongoing covert interactions between governments and aliens.
The Technological Marvel of UFOs
UFOs exhibit advanced capabilities that surpass current human technology. These craft can defy gravity, perform rapid maneuvers, and operate in various environments, including underwater. Recent sightings, such as the Tic Tac-shaped UFOs observed by Navy pilots, highlight their superior technology and possible interest in Earth’s resources.
VIDEO:
ALIEN AGENDA INTO THE FUTURE | What Do They Want? | Full SCI-FDocumentary HD
The true nature of the alien agenda remains a mystery. Whether aliens are here to help, study, or exploit us is unknown. Governments might possess more information than is publicly available, but full disclosure seems unlikely. Until extraterrestrials choose to reveal their intentions openly, we can only speculate and hope that their agenda is ultimately benevolent. The question of what aliens want from us and our planet continues to captivate and challenge us, prompting further exploration and reflection on our place in the universe.
Zwarte gaten ontsnappen aan de normale classificaties: we weten dat ze bestaan, misschien zelfs waar we ze niet verwachten, maar verder weten we er weinig van. Door de ruimte te observeren kunnen we doorgaans relatief gemakkelijk twee soorten zwarte gaten identificeren: sterrenmassa's gevormd door de ineenstorting van sterren en superzware, zoals het zwarte gat in het centrum van de Melkweg. Toch zijn er ook zwarte gaten met een middelzware massa, zeer zeldzaam maar ongelooflijk nuttig om de vorming en evolutie van deze hemellichamen te begrijpen. Een aantal onderzoekers hebben er misschien één ontdekt, verborgen achter een paar sterren die er niet zouden moeten zijn.
Het belang van zwarte gaten met middelzware massa
Zoals we in de inleiding al zeiden, vinden we in de ruimte meestal alleen zwarte gaten met stellaire massa en superzware zwarte gaten. Terwijl de eerstgenoemden een massa hebben die enkele tientallen malen groter is dan die van een ster, hebben de laatstgenoemden een massa die miljarden malen groter is dan die van de zon, net als Sagittarius A*. In het midden bevinden zich echter de zogenaamde Intermediate Mass Black Holes of IMBH, zwarte gaten met een massa tussen de ongeveer 100 en 100 duizend zonnemassa’s. Ze zijn essentieel voor het begrijpen van de overgang van kleinere naar grotere zwarte gaten en zijn zo zeldzaam dat het vinden ervan helemaal niet eenvoudig is. Zelfs als je het letterlijk voor ogen hebt.
Om deze reden is de ontdekking van astronomen van het Max Planck Instituut voor Astronomie in Duitsland historisch. Na twintig jaar aan gegevens van de Hubble-ruimtetelescoop te hebben geanalyseerd, merkten onderzoekers iets vreemds op in de Omega Centauri-regio, een cluster op 17.000 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd, waarin sommige sterren snel bewogen. Misschien wel te snel.
Zwart gat met middelzware massa gevonden in Omega Centauri
NASA Goddard/Youtube
Om te begrijpen hoe we een zwart gat met middelzware massa kunnen vinden, moeten we eerst begrijpen wat een bolvormige sterrenhoop is. Het is in feite een bolvormige formatie waarbinnen miljoenen sterren naast elkaar bestaan, maar over wiens oorsprong alleen maar vermoedens bestaan. Omega Centauri heeft bijvoorbeeld een doorsnede van 150 lichtjaar en zou kunnen vertegenwoordigen wat er overblijft van een dwergstelsel dat zich nu in de Melkweg bevindt. Net zoals de sterren van ons sterrenstelsel rond Sagittarius A* draaien, kunnen de sterren van Omega Centauri dus ook rond een zwart gat draaien. Maar welke?
In een studie gepubliceerd in Nature hebben onderzoekers van het Max Planck Instituut voor Astronomie bewijs gevonden voor deze dynamiek. Dankzij de door Hubble verzamelde beelden ontdekten ze vooral dat zeven sterren in de sterrenhoop zich met een grotere snelheid bewogen dan die van de sterrenhoop. Wat is de reden voor dit verschil? Het enige antwoord dat verenigbaar is met de waarnemingen is een zwart gat, maar met een middelzware massa.
Sterren die er niet zouden moeten zijn en zwarte gaten die niet gezien kunnen worden
Uit de uitgevoerde waarnemingen blijkt dat de nieuwe IMBH een massa heeft die minstens 8200 keer zo groot is als die van de zon, en kan helpen de vorming en evolutie van zwarte gaten in onze Melkweg te begrijpen. Dit zijn de woorden van de hoofdauteur van de studie, Maximilian Häberle:
We hebben zeven sterren ontdekt die er niet zouden moeten zijn. Ze bewegen zo snel dat ze de sterrenhoop zouden verlaten en nooit meer terugkeren. De meest waarschijnlijke verklaring is dat een zeer massief object deze sterren door de zwaartekracht aantrekt en ze dicht bij het centrum houdt. Het enige object dat zo massief kan zijn, is een zwart gat, met een massa die minstens 8200 keer zo groot is als die van onze zon.
Kortom, in Omega Centauri bevindt zich een zwart gat met een middelzware massa dat de ruimtetijd voldoende kan buigen om de relatieve snelheid van de sterren te vergroten. De ontdekking door het team van astronomen bevestigt verder de verscheidenheid aan zwarte gaten in onze Melkweg, maar vertegenwoordigt slechts het begin. Wie weet ontdekken we wel dat er een zwart gat dicht bij ons in de buurt is, aan de rand van het zonnestelsel of net daarbuiten.
NASA's Perseverance Rover Captures Snowman-Like Rock Formation on Mars
NASA's Perseverance Rover Captures Snowman-Like Rock Formation on Mars
Story by Mike Brown
Though this was not a predicted finding, NASA’s Perseverance rover has just snapped a picture of a snowman-like rock formation standing on Mars. This fanciful discovery, captured by the Right Mastcam-Z camera on 13 July 2024, set many minds racing at the imagination.
Since landing in Jezero Crater in February 2021, Perseverance has been studying the Martian surface relentlessly, taking pictures, and gathering rock samples. The latest picture, taken during Sol 1208 of the mission, contains the stack of rocks that are in the lower left corner, looking remarkably like a snowman. Though this “snowman” is made from dry, dusty Martian rock rather than fluffy snow, it serves to remind one that even in the desolate landscapes on Mars, sometimes familiar shapes can arise.
The discovery comes at a time when the Mars sample-return mission, a crucial component in the search for extraterrestrial life, faces budget overruns and significant delays. Notwithstanding that, the mission keeps returning insights regarding the geological history of Mars and its potential to support life.
NASA experts have, for a long time, proposed that there might be water on Mars. Because the atmosphere is extremely thin, very little water can stay in its liquid form on the surface. However, there are pieces of evidence of water ice existing at subsurface levels in the polar regions and briny water that flows down hillsides and crater walls seasonally, which opens up some very exciting possibilities regarding the past life of this planet and its ability to support life.
More than just the wacky “snowman” formation, this is something a bit more, a window into the dynamic climate and weather events taking place on Mars. It is the Red Planet, a place of dust storms, and extreme weather, and where an atmosphere thick enough once existed that liquid water could flow for long periods across its surface.
As Perseverance continues in its quest, it will leave behind the Jezero Crater, climb up the rim, and explore other areas. Every discovery, from a rock sample to some odd formation, helps to increase our knowledge of Mars and its habitability for future human exploration.
Another observer compared attaching sentimental shapes to Martian rocks with identifying animals in overhead clouds. Moments of imagination and wonder like this remind us of the endless possibilities that space exploration holds, even when technical and financial challenges for interplanetary missions come into play.
Eyewitness Accounts: Real UFO Encounters that Defy Explanation
Eyewitness Accounts: Real UFO Encounters that Defy Explanation
Fans of Ancient Apocalypse and Ancient Aliens will find this exploration of real UFO encounters intriguing. With increasing public interest and growing belief in the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial beings, this article delves into the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people who have witnessed alien phenomena firsthand. From strange lights in the sky to encounters with mysterious beings, these accounts challenge our understanding of reality.
Mysterious Black Triangles
One witness recounts a chilling experience from Northern California. While driving on a highway, they encountered a black triangular object hovering by the roadside, emitting a buzzing sound. Initially mistaken for a blimp, the object displayed unusual characteristics that hinted at something far more advanced. This sighting, corroborated by multiple motorists, opened the door for the witness to explore the vast possibilities of extraterrestrial technology and its implications.
Saucer in the Sky
In El Dorado Hills, a group of friends witnessed a classic UFO— a saucer with green lights hovering silently in the night sky. This close encounter, occurring while they played frisbee in a suburban neighborhood, left a lasting impact. The sheer size and silence of the object ruled out conventional explanations like helicopters or airplanes. This sighting, shared among friends, became a memorable, if unsettling, part of their lives.
Childhood Encounters in Utah
A particularly harrowing account comes from a small town in Utah. A young girl, only six or seven at the time, awoke to find a figure with large, black, wet-looking eyes standing by her bed. This encounter repeated over two nights, leaving her frozen in fear. Years later, she experienced a loss of time while riding a horse with a friend, further deepening her belief in a connection between her childhood encounters and possible extraterrestrial presence.
Unexplained Lights and Snow in California
A musician driving home late at night witnessed a strange light emanating from a low cloud. As the light vanished, an unexpected snowfall blanketed the area, a rare occurrence in that region. This incident, coupled with the silent, mysterious light, convinced the witness of a UFO’s presence. The subsequent snowfall, witnessed by neighbors, added a bizarre twist to this unexplained phenomenon.
Close Encounters in Reno
In Reno, a worker experienced multiple UFO sightings, including a green star-like object and a diamond-shaped craft. These encounters, witnessed alongside a coworker, were further validated by the appearance of military jets seemingly investigating the objects. The witness’s belief in extraterrestrial technology grew stronger as these sightings continued, reinforcing the notion of UFO presence in our skies.
The Kecksburg Incident
A historical account from 1965 details a significant event near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. Witnesses described a sonic boom and a sky illuminated by an unusual bluish-green glow. The object, reminiscent of a meteor or spaceship, left a lasting impression on those who saw it. The subsequent military presence in the area fueled speculation about the nature of the object and the possibility of a government cover-up.
Silent Triangle Over Lake Conroe
In 1977, a father and son witnessed a triangular formation of lights hovering silently above Lake Conroe, Texas. The object, described as being the size of a large aircraft, displayed no conventional signs of flight. Its sudden, silent departure left the witnesses in awe, cementing their belief in advanced, possibly extraterrestrial, technology.
Photographing the Unknown
A freelance photographer in California captured an unexplained cigar-shaped object in the sky while covering an event at Thunderhill Raceway. The clear blue sky provided a stark backdrop for the mysterious object, which defied conventional identification. This photographic evidence adds to the growing body of visual documentation supporting the existence of UFOs.
VIDEO:
ALIEN WITNESSES of Real UFO Encounters | We Are Not Alone | Full SCI-FI Documentary HD
These accounts, spanning decades and diverse locations, provide compelling evidence of UFO encounters. While skeptics may seek conventional explanations, the consistency and detail in these stories suggest something beyond our current understanding. As public interest grows and more witnesses come forward, the quest to unravel the mystery of UFOs and alien encounters continues, urging us to reconsider our place in the universe.
In this vast, unexplored cosmos, these testimonies remind us that we are not alone and that the truth, as elusive as it may be, is out there.
AI Enhanced UAP Video of Tom Delonge Of Blink-182 UAP Photo, UFO Sighting News.
AI Enhanced UAP Video of Tom Delonge Of Blink-182 UAP Photo, UFO Sighting News.
Hey all, I was looking over Tom Delonge Instagram posts and noticed one where it looks like he got out of a car and started recording this glowing object in the desert. The UFO begins to hover over another car, with a beam of light coming down, hitting the cars back trunk area, then the UAP shoots away. Tom is a bit shy at telling us the details of where, when and if he recorded it or not, but he has often stated that he has friends high up in the government that shows him and gives him videos of top secret UFO sightings.
The car-sized NASA robot has spent much of 2024 exploring the Gediz Vallis channel, a dried-up waterway that travels down the three-mile-high Mount Sharp. Although Mars today is 1,000 times drier than the driest desert on Earth, the rover has spotted clues that long ago the Red Planet experienced momentous floods. It was a wet world.
"This was not a quiet period on Mars," Becky Williams, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute who researches Mars using the rover's Mast Camera, said in a statement. "There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows."
The images below show what Curiosity has recently found.
Below is a wide-view photo of a section of Gediz Vallis as it winds down Mount Sharp. You can see prominent buildups of rocks and boulders, such as those in the foreground on left. "This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel," NASA explained. Impressively, this debris pile-up extends some two miles down the mountain (though some of this was likely caused by landslides, too).
Mars' Gediz Vallis channel with large buildups of rocky debris.
Curiosity also closely examined these water-tumbled rocks. A number of them contain telltale "halo" markings, as seen in the image below. "Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here," the space agency explained. "Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white 'halo' shapes into some of the rocks."
At center, a Martian rock displaying a clear "halo" created by ancient interactions with water.
Unlike Earth, Mars no longer harbors an insulating atmosphere. The Red Planet's hot metallic core deep below its surface cooled long ago, and without a heated interior to generate a protective magnetic field, the once water-rich world was exposed to a relentless flow of particles from the sun, called the solar wind. The solar wind progressively stripped Mars of its thick atmosphere, leaving it the frigid, callous, irradiated desert we see today.
Related video:
NASA Calls Newest Mars Find 'Oasis' In The Desert (The Weather Channel)
The network of cracks in this Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker" may have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago. The view spans about 3 feet (90 centimeters) left-to-right and combines three images taken by the MAHLI camera on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.› Full image and caption
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, continues to scour Mars to determine if the planet could have ever harbored habitable conditions for microbial life. Meanwhile, NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed in 2020, is equipped with instruments that sleuth for hints of past life called "biosignatures" — elements, substances, or features providing evidence of ancient organisms. This could mean telltale chains of molecules or structures that were almost certainly produced by single-celled Martians.
Although it's clear that Mars once hosted bounties of water, robotic Martian explorers have spotted no evidence, so far, that this rocky world ever hosted life.
Pan around this 360-degree video to explore Gediz Vallis channel, the location where NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover discovered sulfur crystals and drilled its 41st rock sample. The images that make up this mosaic were captured by the rover’s MastCam in June.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rock
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rock
These yellow crystals were revealed after NASA's Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30. Using an instrument on the rover's arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur—and it's the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Curiosity captured this close-up image of a rock nicknamed “Snow Lake” on June 8, 2024, the 4,209th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Nine days earlier, the rover had crushed a similar-looking rock and revealed crystalline textures—and elemental sulfur—inside.
Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.
Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven’t associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it — an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.
Pan around this 360-degree video to explore Gediz Vallis channel, the location where NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover discovered sulfur crystals and drilled its 41st rock sample. The images that make up this mosaic were captured by the rover’s MastCam in June. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity’s mission is to study where and when the planet’s ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Floods and Avalanches
Spotted from space years before Curiosity’s launch, Gediz Vallis channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 2 miles down the mountainside below the channel. The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there’s still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.
Since Curiosity’s arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel’s floor here. The latest clues from Curiosity suggest both played a role: some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.
While exploring Gediz Vallis channel in May, NASA’s Curiosity captured this image of rocks that show a pale color near their edges. These rings, also called halos, resemble markings seen on Earth when groundwater leaks into rocks along fractures, causing chemical reactions that change the color.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Those conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: Whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.
Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white “halo” shapes into some of the rocks. Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.
“This was not a quiet period on Mars,” said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. “There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows.”
A Hole in 41
All this evidence of water continues to tell a more complex story than the team’s early expectations, and they’ve been eager to take a rock sample from the channel in order to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.
While the sulfur rocks were too small and brittle to be sampled with the drill, a large rock nicknamed “Mammoth Lakes” was spotted nearby. Rover engineers had to search for a part of the rock that would allow safe drilling and find a parking spot on the loose, sloping surface.
After Curiosity bored its 41st hole using the powerful drill at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist trickled the powderized rock into instruments inside its belly for further analysis so that scientists can determine what materials the rock is made of.
Curiosity has since driven away from Mammoth Lakes and is now off to see what other surprises are waiting to be discovered within the channel.
More About the Mission
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Wetenschappers waren verbaasd toen een steen waar Marsrover Curiosity overheen reed, barstte en iets onthulde dat nog nooit eerder op de rode planeet is gezien: gele zwavelkristallen.
Sinds oktober 2023 verkent het Marswagentje Curiosity een gebied op Mars dat rijk is aan sulfaten, een type zout dat zwavel bevat en ontstaat wanneer water verdampt. Toch waren onderzoekers zeer verrast toen ze een betere blik wierpen op een steen die Curiosity per ongeluk had opengebroken. Curiosity had onverwacht gesteenten gevonden die uit puur zwavel bestaan – een unicum op de rode planeet.
Gele zwavelkristallen Hieronder is de foto van de gele zwavelkristallen te aanschouwen. Waar eerdere ontdekkingen zwavelhoudende mineralen betroffen – dus een mix van zwavel en andere materialen – bestaat het gesteente dat hieronder te zien is uit elementaire, oftewel pure, zwavel. Het is nog onduidelijk welke relatie, als die er is, deze pure zwavel heeft met de andere zwavelhoudende mineralen in het gebied.
De nieuw ontdekte gele zwavelkristallen die aan het licht kwamen toen Marsrover Curiosity per ongeluk over een steen reed en deze openbrak. Met een instrument aan de arm van de rover hebben wetenschappers later vastgesteld dat het om pure zwavel gaat — de eerste keer dat deze vorm van zwavel op Mars is ontdekt. Afbeelding: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Zwavel Curiosity hoeft in de buurt van deze gele zwavelkristallen gelukkig zijn neus niet dicht te houden. Hoewel zwavel vaak wordt geassocieerd met de geur van rotte eieren (door waterstofsulfidegas), is pure zwavel geurloos. Het opmerkelijke is alleen dat het zich vormt onder een beperkte reeks omstandigheden die wetenschappers nog niet eerder hadden gekoppeld aan de geschiedenis van de vindplaats. Bovendien vond Curiosity er veel van: het lag verspreid over een veld van heldere gesteenten die lijken op het gesteente waar de rover overheen reed.
Oase Missieleden kunnen hun geluk niet op. “Het ontdekken van een veld met stenen van puur zwavel is vergelijkbaar met het vinden van een oase in de woestijn,” legt missie-lid Ashwin Vasavada uit. “Het zou daar eigenlijk niet moeten zijn, dus we moeten nu uitzoeken hoe dat zo is gekomen. Het vinden van zulke vreemde en onverwachte dingen maakt planetaire verkenning zo opwindend.”
Ontdekkingen De ontdekking van de gele zwavelkristallen kan worden toegevoegd aan de toch al indrukwekkende lijst van bijzondere vondsten die Curiosity heeft gedaan. Tijdens zijn verkenning van het Gediz Vallis-kanaal, een sleuf die langs een deel van de vijf kilometer hoge Mount Sharp slingert en waarvan de rover de basis sinds 2014 beklimt, stuitte hij al op veel verrassingen. Elke laag van de berg vertegenwoordigt een verschillende periode in de geschiedenis van Mars. Curiosity’s missie is om te onderzoeken waar en wanneer het oude oppervlak van de planeet mogelijk de voedingsstoffen heeft geboden die nodig zijn voor microbiologisch leven, mocht er ooit leven op Mars zijn geweest.
Gediz Vallis-kanaal Het Gediz Vallis-kanaal werd jaren vóór de lancering van Curiosity al vanuit de ruimte opgemerkt en is een van de belangrijkste redenen waarom het wetenschappelijk team dit deel van Mars wilde verkennen. Wetenschappers geloven dat het kanaal is gevormd door stromen van vloeibaar water en puin, die een richel van keien en sediment hebben achtergelaten die zich ongeveer drie kilometer langs de berghelling onder het kanaal uitstrekt. Het doel is om beter te begrijpen hoe dit landschap miljarden jaren geleden is veranderd. Hoewel recente ontdekkingen nuttig zijn geweest, is er nog veel te leren van dit indrukwekkende landschap.
Door Curiosity vervaardigde foto van het Gediz Vallis-kanaal. Dit gebied is waarschijnlijk ontstaan door grote overstromingen van water en puin, die hopen rotsen in stapels binnen het kanaal hebben afgezet. Afbeelding: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Grote hopen puin Sinds Curiosity dit jaar bij het kanaal arriveerde, hebben wetenschappers onderzocht of oude overstromingen of aardverschuivingen verantwoordelijk zijn voor de grote hopen puin die vanuit de bodem van het kanaal omhoog komen. De meest recente gegevens van Curiosity wijzen erop dat beide factoren een rol hebben gespeeld: sommige hopen zijn waarschijnlijk ontstaan door heftige water- en puinstromen, terwijl andere mogelijk het gevolg zijn van meer lokale aardverschuivingen. Deze conclusies zijn gebaseerd op de stenen die in de puinhopen zijn aangetroffen: stenen die door waterstromen zijn meegenomen, zijn vaak afgerond zoals rivierstenen, terwijl sommige puinhopen juist vol zitten met hoekigere stenen die mogelijk zijn afgezet door droge lawines.
Water Uiteindelijk heeft water zich door al het materiaal dat hier is neergeslagen, verspreid. Chemische reacties door het water hebben in sommige stenen witte ‘halo’-vormen veroorzaakt. Erosie door wind en zand heeft deze halo-vormen door de tijd heen zichtbaar gemaakt. “Dit was geen rustige periode op Mars,” zegt onderzoeker Becky Williams. “We zien verschillende stromen door het kanaal, waaronder krachtige overstromingen en stromen vol puin.” Kortom, deze bevindingen suggereren dat Mars in het verleden een veel actievere planeet was dan eerder werd aangenomen, met periodes van gewelddadige overstromingen en aardverschuivingen die het landschap vormden.
Mammoth Lakes Al dit watergerelateerde bewijs onthult een complexer verhaal dan het team aanvankelijk had verwacht. Ze waren dan ook enthousiast om een gesteentemonster uit het kanaal te halen om meer te ontdekken. Hoewel de zwavelstenen te klein en breekbaar waren om met de boor te worden bemonsterd, werd in de buurt een grote steen met de bijnaam ‘Mammoth Lakes’ gevonden. Missieleden moesten een geschikt gedeelte van de steen vinden om veilig te kunnen boren en een geschikte plek op het losse, hellende oppervlak zoeken om te parkeren. Nadat Curiosity zijn 41e gat had geboord met de krachtige boor aan het einde van de twee meter lange robotarm, werd het poederige gesteente verzameld in de instrumenten in de rover voor verdere analyse. Dit stelt wetenschappers in staat om te bepalen uit welke materialen het gesteente is samengesteld.
Al met al hebben de ontdekkingen van de Curiosity rover in het Gediz Vallis-kanaal het inzicht in de geologische geschiedenis van Mars aanzienlijk verdiept. En elke nieuwe vondst brengt wetenschappers dichter bij het ontrafelen van de vraag of Mars ooit de voorwaarden heeft gekend die nodig zijn voor microbiologisch leven. Curiosity heeft Mammoth Lakes inmiddels verlaten en is nu op pad om te kijken welke andere verrassingen er in het kanaal op ontdekking wachten.
Hoe hard de aarde om haar as draait, wordt normaal gesproken voornamelijk geregeld door de maan, die al miljarden jaren de lengte van een dag bepaalt. Maar dat gaat veranderen: klimaatverandering heeft straks een nog grotere invloed op de rotatiesnelheid van onze planeet.
De opwarming van de aarde zorgt ervoor dat de ijskappen in Groenland en op Antarctica smelten. Dit water stroomt van de poolgebieden naar de oceanen, vooral richting de evenaar. “Dat betekent dat er een enorme verschuiving van massa plaatsvindt, die de rotatie van de aarde beïnvloedt”, legt hoogleraar Benedikt Soja van de ETH Zurich uit.
De pirouettes van een kunstschaatsster “Het is net als wanneer een kunstschaatsster een pirouette maakt: eerst houdt ze haar armen dicht bij haar lichaam en vervolgens strekt ze ze uit”, vertelt Soja metaforisch. Daardoor gaat ze steeds langzamer ronddraaien, omdat de massa – in dit geval haar armen – zich verder van de rotatie-as, haar lichaam dus, bevindt. Zo gaat ook de aarde steeds langzamer draaien, doordat de massa verder wegdrijft van de polen richting de evenaar, het breedste punt van de aardbol.
In de natuurkunde noemen ze dat de wet van behoud van het hoekmoment, en die geldt ook voor de rotatie van de aarde. Als de aarde langzamer draait, worden de dagen langer. Klimaatverandering verandert dus de lengte van een dag, zij het minimaal. Volgens de Zwitserse onderzoekers scheelt het enkele milliseconden, maar toch.
Niet alleen de maan Dit komt dus enerzijds doordat water van de polen naar lagere breedtegraden stroomt en zo de rotatiesnelheid vertraagt. Een andere oorzaak is het effect van de getijden, veroorzaakt door de maan. Ooit was dat de enige invloed, nu lijkt het van secundair belang te worden. De studie komt namelijk tot de conclusie dat als we niets doen, klimaatverandering uiteindelijk een grotere impact heeft op de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde dan de maan, die al miljarden jaren de daglengte bepaalt. “Wij mensen hebben een grotere impact op onze planeet dan we ons realiseren”, reageert Soja. “Dit geeft ons uiteraard een enorme verantwoordelijkheid voor de toekomst van de aarde.”
Smeltende polen zorgen voor een enorme verschuiving van massa.
De massaverschuivingen op het aardoppervlak, veroorzaakt door het smeltende ijs, veranderen niet alleen de rotatiesnelheid en de daglengte, maar ook de as van de aarde. De punten waar de rotatieas het oppervlak bereikt, zijn aan het verschuiven. Op de lange termijn leidt dit tot een verplaatsing van de as van 10 meter per 100 jaar. Dat komt overigens niet alleen door de smeltende ijskappen, ook de bewegingen in het binnenste van de aarde spelen een rol.
Stroperig gesteente Diep in de aardmantel, waar het gesteente door hoge druk stroperig wordt, verschuift eveneens het een en ander in de loop van duizenden jaren. Verder zorgen hittestromen van vloeibaar metaal in de buitenkern van de aarde voor massaverschuivingen. De verplaatsing van de polen en de afnemende rotatiesnelheid worden dus veroorzaakt door processen in de aardkern, de mantel en door het klimaat aan het oppervlak, blijkt uit het grootste model tot nu toe.
“Voor het eerst is er een volledige verklaring voor de oorzaken van de polaire beweging”, zegt hoofdonderzoeker Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi. “Met andere woorden, we weten nu waarom en hoe de rotatie-as van de aarde verschuift ten opzichte van de aardkorst.” Een opvallende bevinding is dat de processen op en in de aarde met elkaar verbonden zijn en elkaar beïnvloeden. “Klimaatverandering zorgt ervoor dat de as van de aarde beweegt, en het lijkt erop dat de terugkoppeling van het behoud van het hoekmoment ook de dynamiek van de aardkern verandert”, legt Soja uit. Kiani Shahvandi voegt toe: “Aanhoudende klimaatverandering kan dus zelfs de processen diep in de aarde beïnvloeden en een grotere reikwijdte hebben dan eerder aangenomen.”
Nieuwe AI geeft kijkje in de toekomst Voor hun studie gebruikten de onderzoekers nieuwe AI-methoden waarbij ze de wetten en principes van de natuurkunde toepasten om bijzonder krachtige en betrouwbare algoritmen voor machinelearning te ontwikkelen. Daarmee was het voor het eerst mogelijk om alle verschillende effecten op het aardoppervlak, in de mantel en in de kern vast te stellen en hun mogelijke interacties in kaart te brengen. Het resultaat van de berekeningen laat zien hoe de rotatiepolen van de aarde sinds 1900 zijn verschoven. Dit sluit uitstekend aan bij satellietwaarnemingen van de afgelopen dertig jaar, waardoor er nu ook goede prognoses voor de toekomst kunnen worden gemaakt.
Hoewel een kleine verschuiving niet erg lijkt, is het ook niet geheel zonder gevolgen. “Zelfs als de rotatie van de aarde maar langzaam verandert, moet daarmee rekening worden gehouden bij het navigeren in de ruimte, bijvoorbeeld als een ruimtevaartuig op een andere planeet moet landen. Een kleine afwijking van slechts 1 centimeter op aarde kan al leiden tot een afwijking van honderden meters over de enorme afstanden in de ruimte. Anders zal het niet mogelijk zijn om in een specifieke krater op Mars te landen”, klinkt het.
De invloed van klimaatverandering is dus complexer dan gedacht, stellen de onderzoekers. Zelfs bij landingen op andere planeten miljoenen kilometers hiervandaan moeten we er rekening mee houden.
This “penguin party” (called Arp 142) is loud! The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow. The blue galaxy at upper right (near bright star) is a closer galaxie teeming with new stars. It's not part of the collision and lies closer to Earth than Arp 142.
What happens when a spiral and an elliptical galaxy collide? To celebrate the second anniversary of the “first light” for the Webb telescope, NASA released an amazing infrared view of two galaxies locked in a tight dance. They’re called the Penguin and the Egg and their dance will last hundreds of millions of years.
“In just two years, Webb has transformed our view of the universe, enabling the kind of world-class science that drove NASA to make this mission a reality,” said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb is providing insights into longstanding mysteries about the early Universe.”
Webb Witnesses a Galactic Dance
The telescope targeted a collision scene named Arp 142 containing both galaxies—a scene that the Hubble Space Telescope has also explored. They lie about 326 million light-years away. Their first close encounter began somewhere between 25 and 75 million years ago. That’s when two partner galaxies had the first of many passages that will distort their shapes more than they already appear here.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured visible light when observing Arp 142, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, in 2013. The Webb view (right) shows the near-infrared view. Courtesy NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Webb’s observations, which combine near- and mid-infrared light from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), respectively, clearly show that a hazy cloud of gas and stars (blue) links them together. The close approach also set off tremendous bursts of star birth in the colliding clouds of gas and dust.
Eventually, after several close approaches in their cosmic dance, these two galaxies will merge completely. Observers hundreds of millions of years in the future will look at Arp 142 and see one massive elliptical galaxy.
Interestingly, Webb’s sharp infrared eyes also picked out very distant galaxies. Some lie beyond this cosmic collision, although at least one lies about a hundred million light-years closer to Earth. It bristles with hot, young, newborn stars.
How The Arp 142 Galaxies Experience a Merger
The Penguin and Egg galaxies lie about 100,000 light-years apart but they affect each other. The Egg’s gravitational pull distorts the spiral and that interaction is “sculpting” the Penguin. The core makes up the eye of a penguin. The slowly unwinding spiral arms form a beak, head, backbone, and tail.
Webb’s infrared view reveals otherwise unseen activity between the two. For example, the Penguin is rich in dust. Webb’s view shows us how gravitational interactions pull that dust away from the Penguin. There are also scads of new stars in the galaxy, surrounded by what looks like smoke. Webb’s view shows this hydrogen cloud. It’s rich in carbon-based molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These are incredibly abundant in the Universe and astronomers find them just about everywhere they point a telescope.
Webb’s mid-infrared MIRI image shows the Egg as a small teal oval. Mid-infrared light predominantly shows the oldest stars in the elliptical galaxy, which has lost or used up most of its gas and dust. This is why the view is so different from the combined image, which includes near-infrared light. Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
By contrast, in Webb’s view, the Egg looks like it’s hardly been touched—it’s still an egg-shaped elliptical. It has much older stars than the Penguin. Past epochs of star birth have pretty much used up the available star-making material. So, even though the two galaxies have about the same mass, the Egg just doesn’t have as much material to get stretched out or turned into stars.
Zeroing in on Webb’s Two Views
If you look at both of Webb’s infrared views of the galaxy collision, you can see marked differences in them. That’s because each one prioritizes a different set of infrared wavelengths. In the mid-infrared view, the egg looks tiny and washed out. That’s because the instrument sees only the old stars in the Egg. By contrast, the Penguin’s distorted core and spiral arms are brimming with young stars embedded in the PAH-rich hydrogen clouds.
The combined near- and mid-infrared view shows more of the gas clouds as the Egg tears them away from the Penguin. These regions will glitter in the future with the light of newly formed stars. For now, however, only cooler, older stars are visible in the combined image. The younger ones are there, but the mid-infrared-sensitive instrument doesn’t spot them.
Here’s a flythrough visualization of Arp 142. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)
Why Does Webb Study Galaxy Collisions?
By studying this galactic collision site, the Webb telescope further probes the activity as galaxies evolve. Collisions are an integral part of this process. Our Milky Way Galaxy will dance with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, starting in about 5 billion years. Images and data from observations of other galaxies doing the same thing give astronomers a chance to understand the process and forecast the distant future when something called “Milkdromeda” will contain the stars and planets of two spirals that once were close neighbors.
A Walking Balloon Could One Day Explore Titan – Or Earth’s Sea Floor
Novel ways to move on other celestial bodies always draw the attention of the space exploration community. Here at UT, we’ve reported on everything from robots that suspend themselves from the walls of Martian caves to robots that hop using jets of locally mined gas. But we haven’t yet reported on the idea of a balloon that “walks.” But that is the idea behind the BALloon Locomotion for Extreme Terrain, or BALLET, a project from Hari Nayar, a Principal Roboticist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and his colleagues.
How exactly does a balloon “walk,” you might ask? By picking up and moving one of its six feet. BALLET’s architecture involves a positively buoyant balloon supporting six “feet” attached to adjustable cables. The “feet” are small science packages capable of taking small surface samples or analyzing the chemical composition of the part of the surface it touches.
Each foot is attached to three cables, individually controlled by pulleys. When a foot is done doing its science work at a given location, BALLET retracts the cables for the foot, lifting it off the surface. It then extends the cables using different lengths for the cables to place the foot in a new location.
Balloons have been an integral part of NASA’s explorations, as SciShow describes in this video. Credit – SciShow
Preliminary research on the concept was done as part of a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant in 2018. That research showed that it was better to lift two opposing feet off the ground at the same time to ensure the balloon’s stability. It also demonstrated where the concept would be most useful—Titan.
Balloon locomotion is typically considered somewhere like Venus, where it could float in the atmosphere in conditions similar to Earth. However, that altitude would make controlling a payload placed on the ground exceedingly tricky. Additionally, the harsh conditions close enough to the ground to be feasible would make the material requirements of the system untenable.
Similarly, a balloon could also work on Mars, but the high wind speeds of the sparse atmosphere would make controlling the balloon difficult. Titan offers the best of both worlds – a relatively stable, thick atmosphere where a negatively buoyant balloon would be feasible and stable environmental conditions that wouldn’t blow BALLET everywhere.
The current plan for exploring Titan – a helicopter named Dragonfly.
It also has many interesting places to explore, including cryovolcanoes and methane lakes. BALLET would allow traversal over even some of the most difficult terrain without accounting for considerations that would dramatically affect the capabilities of either a rover or a helicopter, such as the planned Dragonfly mission.
There are still plenty of design considerations, though, such as the difficulty of controlling all the different variables, such as balloon orientation, cable length for each of the 18 cables, and pathfinding, simultaneously. After the completion of the Phase I project, the concept appears to be on hold in terms of receiving further funding from NASA at this point.
However, in terms of applications, BALLET also has some obvious ones on Earth. One that immediately sprang to mind is the collection of “nodules” as part of an undersea mining operation. Given the increased need for cobalt and other materials provided in those nodules and the bad image that comes from the destruction of the seabed that comes with traditional mining techniques, this idea might be one of those rare space exploration ideas that sooner sees an application on Earth than off of it.
Experimental Radar Technique Reveals the Composition of Titan’s Seas
This colorized mosaic from NASA's Cassini mission shows the most complete view yet of Titan's northern land of lakes and seas. Saturn's moon Titan is the only world in our solar system other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. The liquid in Titan's lakes and seas is mostly methane and ethane. New bistatic radar data from Cassini is revealing even more detail about Titan's hydrocarbon seas. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Agenzia Spaziale Italiana / USGS
Experimental Radar Technique Reveals the Composition of Titan’s Seas
The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn generated so much data that giving it a definitive value is impossible. It’s sufficient to say that the amount is vast and that multiple scientific instruments generated it. One of those instruments was a radar designed to see through Titan’s thick atmosphere and catch a scientific glimpse of the moon’s extraordinary surface.
Scientists are still making new discoveries with all this data.
Though Saturn has almost 150 known moons, Titan attracts almost all of the scientific attention. It’s Saturn’s largest moon and the Solar System’s second largest. But Titan’s surface is what makes it stand out. It’s the only object in the Solar System besides Earth with surface liquids.
Cassini’s radar instrument had two basic modes: active and passive. In active mode, it bounced radio waves off surfaces and measured what was reflected back. In passive mode, it measured waves emitted by Saturn and its moons. Both of these modes are called static modes.
But Cassini had a third mode called bistatic mode that saw more limited use. It was experimental and used its Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) to bounce signals off of Titan’s surface. Instead of travelling back to sensors on the spacecraft, the signals were reflected back to Earth, where they were received at one of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DNS) stations. Critically, after bouncing off of Titan’s surface, the signal was split into two, hence the name bistatic.
This schematic shows how Cassini’s bistatic radar experiment worked. The orbiter used its Radio Science Subsystem to send signals to Titan’s surface. The signals then reflected off Titan to Earth, where they were received by one of the DNS receivers at Canberra, Goldstone, or Madrid. The signals are either Right Circularly Polarized (RCP) or Left Circularly Polarized (LCP). Image Credit: Poggiali et al. 2024.
The signals that reach the DNS are polarized, which reveals more information about the hydrocarbon seas on Titan. While Cassini’s radar instrument revealed how deep the seas are, the bistatic radar data tells researchers about both their compositions and surface textures.
This image of the hydrocarbon seas on Titan is well-known and was radar-imaged by Cassini. That radar data told us how deep the seas are. New bistatic radar data can reveal more about the composition and surface texture of the seas. Image Credit: [JPL-CALTECH/NASA, ASI, USGS]
“The main difference,” Poggiali said, “is that the bistatic information is a more complete dataset, and is sensitive to both the composition of the reflecting surface and to its roughness.”
“It’s like on Earth, when fresh-water rivers flow into and mix with the salty water of the oceans.”
Valerio Poggiali, lead author, Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science
The experimental bistatic radar required meticulous cooperation.
Philip Nicholson, a professor in the Department of Astronomy at Cornell, is one of the study’s co-authors. “The successful execution of a bistatic radar experiment requires exquisite choreography between the scientists who design it, Cassini mission planners and navigators, and the team who collects the data at the receiving station,” Nicholson said.
These results are based on bistatic radar data from four Cassini flybys from 2014 to 2016. In this work, the researchers focused on three large seas on the surface of Titan’s polar regions: Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare and Punga Mare.
The bistatic radar data revealed new information about the three seas. Though they’re all hydrocarbon seas, their composition varies based on latitude and their proximity to other features like estuaries and rivers. The bistatic radar measured the dielectric constant of Titan’s seas. The dielectric constant is a material’s capacity to store electrical energy. In practical terms, it’s a measure of a surface’s reflectivity, so it reveals the composition. Earth’s water has a dielectric constant of about 80. Titan’s methane and ethane seas have a dielectric constant of only about 1.7. Kraken Mare’s southernmost region had the highest dielectric constant.
This figure from the study shows Titan’s polar regions with the three large seas labelled. The colour key on the right and the text on the image show the dielectric constants of different regions. The white lines labelled T101, T102, T106, and T124 are the four flybys. Image Credit: Poggiali et al. 2024.
Bistatic radar data also showed all three seas had calm surfaces during the four flybys. Waves were no more than 3.3 mm, about 0.13 of an inch. Near estuaries, straits, and coastal areas, the waves were slightly larger: 5.2 mm or 0.2 of an inch. So small they barely merit the name ‘wave.’
This figure from the study is similar to the previous image but shows wave height instead of dielectric constant. Image Credit: Poggiali et al. 2024.
The bistatic radar data also revealed the composition of some of the rivers that flow into the seas.
“We also have indications that the rivers feeding the seas are pure methane,” Poggiali said, “until they flow into the open liquid seas, which are more ethane-rich. It’s like on Earth, when fresh-water rivers flow into and mix with the salty water of the oceans.”
These results agree with scientific models of Titan’s hydrocarbon seas and thick atmosphere. Models show that methane rains down from Titan’s atmosphere and then flows into its lakes and seas. They also show that the rain contains only tiny amounts of ethane and other hydrocarbons and almost completely consists of methane.
“This fits nicely with meteorological models for Titan,” Nicholson said, “which predict that the ‘rain’ that falls from its skies is likely to be almost pure methane, but with trace amounts of ethane and other hydrocarbons.”
The Cassini mission is very instructive for future missions. Though it ended its mission when it plunged into Saturn in 2017, scientists are still making new discoveries with its vast trove of data. The same will be true of missions like Juno when they end.
The researchers behind this work say there’s lots left to learn from all of Cassini’s data.
“There is a mine of data that still waits to be fully analyzed in ways that should yield more discoveries,” Poggiali said. “This is only the first step.”
ESA is Building a Mission to Visit Asteroid Apophis, Joining it for its 2029 Earth Flyby
According to the ESA’s Near-Earth Objects Coordination Center (NEOCC), 35,264 known asteroids regularly cross the orbit of Earth and the other inner planets. Of these, 1,626 have been identified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), meaning that they may someday pass close enough to Earth to be caught by its gravity and impact its surface. While planetary defense has always been a concern, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9slamming into Jupiter in 1994 sparked intense interest in this field.
In 2022, NASA’s Double-Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission successfully tested the kinetic impact method when it collided with Dimorphos, the small asteroid orbiting Didymos. Today, the ESA Space Safety program is taking steps to test the next planetary defense mission – the Rapid Apophis Missin for Space Safety (RAMSES). In 2029, RAMSES will rendezvous with the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) 99942 Apophis and accompany it as it makes a very close (but safe) flyby of Earth in 2029. The data it collects will help scientists improve our ability to protect Earth from similar objects that could pose an impact risk.
Discovered in 2004, Apophis is an irregularly shaped asteroid measuring about 375 m (410 yards) across. At the time, observations indicated there was a small risk that it would impact Earth in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Given its size and the devastating effect an impact would have, astronomers decided to name it after the Egyptian god of chaos and destruction. While astronomers have since ruled out the possibility of a collision for at least the next century, Apophis will pass within 32,000 km (~19,885 mi) of Earth’s surface on April 13th, 2029.
Radar observations of Apophis rule out future impact. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO
At this distance, the asteroid will be close enough to be visible to the naked eye to roughly two billion people across much of Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia. Based on analyses of the size and orbits of all known asteroids, astronomers believe that objects this large pass this close to Earth only once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. The RAMSES spacecraft will rendezvous with Apophis before it makes its closest pass to Earth and follow behind, monitoring it with a suite of scientific instruments to see how Earth’s gravity changes it.
This will consist of conducting before-and-after surveys of the asteroid’s shape, surface, orbit, rotation, and orientation. Based on this comparative analysis, scientists will learn more about how an asteroid’s fundamental characteristics – its composition, interior structure, cohesion, mass, density, and porosity – respond to external forces. These properties are vital for determining how to knock a PHA off course so it does not collide with Earth. Patrick Michel, the Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, explained in an ESA press release:
“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the Solar System to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface. For the first time ever, nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The ESA recently secured permission from the Space Safety Program board to begin preparatory work on the mission so it can launch by April 2028. This deadline is necessary, so the mission is to be ready to launch and rendezvous with Apophis in orbit by February 2029. The final decision to commit to the mission will be made at the ESA’s Ministerial Council Meeting in November 2025. In the meantime, NASA has redirected its newly renamed OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft towards Apophis, which will arrive one month after the asteroid makes its flyby.
Apophis orbit diverted by Earth’s gravity – NEO Toolkit Space Safety Apophis orbit diverted by Earth’s gravity, Credit: ESA
Since asteroids are leftover material from the formation of the Solar System (ca. 4.5 billion years ago), this rendezvous is also an opportunity to obtain data that could provide new insights into planetary formation and evolution. This makes the 2029 flyby an extremely rare opportunity for astronomy, asteroid science, planetary defense, and for engaging billions of people worldwide. It will also be an opportunity for international collaboration, as previously demonstrated by the DART and the ESA’s Hera missions – the former redirected Didymos while the latter confirmed a change in orbit.
Last, but not least, the RAMSES mission will test the ability of space agencies to build and deploy an asteroid response quickly. As Richard Moissl, heading ESA’s Planetary Defence Office, explained:
“Ramses will demonstrate that humankind can deploy a reconnaissance mission to rendezvous with an incoming asteroid in just a few years. This type of mission is a cornerstone of humankind’s response to a hazardous asteroid. A reconnaissance mission would be launched first to analyse the incoming asteroid’s orbit and structure. The results would be used to determine how best to redirect the asteroid or to rule out non-impacts before an expensive deflector mission is developed.”
NASA Stops Work on VIPER Moon Rover, Citing Cost and Schedule Issues
NASA says it intends to discontinue development of its VIPER moon rover, due to cost increases and schedule delays — but the agency is also pointing to other opportunities for robotic exploration of the lunar south polar region.
The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover was originally scheduled for launch in late 2023, targeting the western edge of Nobile Crater near the moon’s south pole.
The south polar region is a prime target for exploration because it’s thought to hold deposits of water ice that could sustain future lunar settlements. NASA plans to send astronauts to that region by as early as 2026 for the first crewed lunar landing since 1972.
Unfortunately, the VIPER project ran into a series of delays, due to snags in the testing and development of the rover as well as the Astrobotic Griffin lander that was to deliver the rover to the lunar surface. The readiness date for VIPER and Griffin was most recently pushed back to September 2025.
During an internal review, NASA managers decided that continuing with VIPER’s development would result in cost increases that could lead to the cancellation or disruption of other moon missions in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. NASA notified Congress of its intent to discontinue development.
The budgeted cost for building VIPER was $433.5 million, and the estimated cost of building and launching the Griffin lander is $235.6 million, according to a 2022 report from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General.
NASA said it will continue supporting Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One, with launch set for no earlier than the fall of 2025. Instead of delivering VIPER, the mission would provide a flight demonstration of the lander and its engines. In January, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander passed up an opportunity to land on the moon due to a problem with its propulsion system.
NASA said other missions could verify the presence of ice in the moon’s south polar region and determine how such resources could be used to further exploration goals.
“We are committed to studying and exploring the moon for the benefit of humanity through the CLPS program,” Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said today in a news release. “The agency has an array of missions planned to look for ice and other resources on the moon over the next five years. Our path forward will make maximum use of the technology and work that went into VIPER, while preserving critical funds to support our robust lunar portfolio.”
Late this year, for example, Intuitive Machines is due to deliver an ice-mining experiment called PRIME-1 to the south pole under the terms of the CLPS program. PRIME-1 is designed to drill for water ice and study what happens to the H2O when it’s brought up to the surface.
In league with NASA, the CLPS program and a wide array of other partners, the Canadian Space Agency is planning to send an ice-hunting rover to the lunar south polar region by as early as 2026. The Artemis program’s crewed missions will also study the moon’s ice deposits and how they can be used.
NASA said it plans to disassemble VIPER and arrange for the reuse of the rover’s components and scientific instruments for other missions to the moon. But prior to disassembly, the agency said it would consider expressions of interest from commercial and international partners for use of the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the federal government. Interested parties can email HQ-CLPS-Payload@mail.nasa.gov anytime between July 18 and Aug. 1.
NASA said the VIPER team would conduct an “orderly close-out” through next spring.
Word of VIPER’s demise was met with disappointment in some quarters of the space community. “In the Artemis era, why is lunar science targeted for cancellation?” Laura Seward Forczyk, founder and executive director of the space consulting firm Astralytical, asked in a posting to the X social-media platform.
Phil Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, said NASA was making a “bad mistake.”
“This was the premier mission to measure lateral and vertical variations of lunar ice in the soil,” Metzger wrote in a posting to X. “It would have been revolutionary. Other missions don’t replace what is lost here.”
The internet is awash with videos appearing to show UFOs flying near high-speed planes, warheads and even nuclear reactors - and experts have an alarming theory for why these locations are being targeted.
In 1976, British Airways aired an ad for their Concorde flight in which an orb-like UFO darts toward the aircraft at an incredibly high speed, seemingly analyzes the plane and then accelerates away.
The unconfirmed UFO appearance - which has resurfaced on Reddit's UFOs subchannel, where alleged videos of craft are shared, debunked or given the upvote if they're deemed to be legitimate - is one of many that shows the odd, almost inquisitive behavior of these unknown objects.
In June 2022, at the Queen's Jubilee, the longest-serving royal monarch was honored by a cadre of nine fighter jets spewing streams of smoke in the Union Jack's red, white and blue colors — and one unidentified disc.
Despite it making the rounds on media, no clear answer has ever been provided as to what it was.
In 1976, British Airways aired an ad for their Concorde flight in which an orb-like UFO darts toward the aircraft at an incredibly high speed, seemingly analyzes the plane and then accelerates away
In June 2022, at the Queen's Jubilee, the longest-serving royal monarch was honored by a cadre of nine fighter jets spewing streams of smoke in the Union Jack's red, white and blue colors — and one unidentified disc
Even more curious is the nearly dozen UFOs that appeared above Japan's Fukushima lab after its nuclear disaster in 2011. Witnesses told the Netflix docuseries, Encounters, that the UFOs saved them by lowering radioactivity levels.
Local outlets caught several glimmering white orbs above the plant — extremely similar to the previous instances — dipping into the lab before emerging again, in a sort of assembly line.
In pop culture, the History Channel show The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch has features dozens upon dozens of similar UFOs over their five seasons, with many appearing after a rocket has been test-fired by their scientists into the air.
There has been a litany of explain-away reasons for these various occurrences provided by skeptics, from bugs to balloons. But for researchers who have dedicated their lives to this phenomenon, there is much more to theses videos than on their face value.
The question emerges: are UFOs approaching high-speed aircraft because they are concerned they contain nuclear capability?
Experts in the field have already analyzed similar behavior as proof that whatever is up there is concerned about us, especially when it comes to the prospect of blowing ourselves up with nukes.
Some dozen UFOs appeared above Japan 's Fukushima lab after its nuclear disaster in 2011. Witnesses told the Netflix docuseries, Encounters, that the UFOs saved them by lowering radioactivity levels
UFO sightings over America's nuclear arsenal appeared to shift their interest from the making of the bombs to silos and bomber bases as the Cold War arms race grew (above)
UFO activity and nuclear devices and sites have been intertwined since the invention of the Atom Bomb in 1945. And the phenomenon been observed by civilians and military personnel alike.
'All of the nuclear facilities — Los Alamos, Livermore, Sandia, Savannah River — all had dramatic incidents where these unknown craft appeared over the facilities and nobody knew where they were from or what they were doing there,' investigative journalist George Knapp told History.com.
The former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Lue Elizondo, agreed that there 'seems to be a lot of correlation' between UFO appearances and nuclear sites.
And independent researcher Robert Hastings, who has been working toward full government disclosure of UAP activity, said in 2010, 'Declassified US government documents and witness testimony from former or retired US military personnel confirm beyond any doubt the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites.'
Now, new research — in the form of three studies helmed by a retired US Air Force staff sergeant, Larry Hancock, and a data analyst affiliate with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project, Ian Porritt — shows that not only has there been unusual activity around nuclear weapons and facilities, it's shifted over the years.
At first seemingly interested in the production of nuclear weapons, UFOs later sprouted up around silos and bomber bases.
'You would see this interest' at silos when they were being installed before 'the activity would drop off,' Porritt previously told the DailyMail.com.
Independent researcher Robert Hastings (pictured), who has been working toward full government disclosure of UAP activity, said in 2010, 'Declassified US government documents and witness testimony from former or retired US military personnel confirm beyond any doubt the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites'
These patterns in the historical UFO record, according to the researchers, was also accompanied by another clear trend: As the UFOs appeared more and more over armed and ready nuclear weapons sites, the apparent craft also started to appear more at night (above)
And when a new arsenal of ICMBs was built in the 1960s, UFOs became 'much more intrusive' in their approach of ICBM bases, Porritt said. 'They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base.'
Two Air Force veterans previously told DailyMail.com they have testified to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in June 2023 that UFOs turned off their nuclear warheads.
On top of that, former US Air Force ICBM launch officer Robert Salas said he was contacted by the AARO in an email to gather information after he said he an orange flying disc shut off 10 warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967.
Despite a thorough investigations by the military, no conclusion was drawn, but not before Salas said he was forced to sign an NDA on the matter by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
This echoes what former US Air Force First lieutenant Robert Jacobs said happened in 1964, when a UFO 'deactivated' an unarmed warhead in 1964.
Ex-First lieutenant in USAF Robert Jacobs, pictured middle bottom row, with his crew
'Now remember, all this stuff is flying at several thousand miles an hour. So this thing fires a beam of light at the warhead, hits it, and then it moves up… fires another beam of light… goes down and fires another beam of light, and then flies out the way it came in. And the warhead tumbles out of space,' he said in a 2000 interview.
Jacobs said he was later told to 'never speak of this encounter' again.
Eerily similar to these encounters are the instances of UAPs following fighter jets that were disclosed by the UAP Task Force, including a 'giant Tic Tac' UFO witnessed by Navy veteran fighter pilot Commander David Fravor in 2004.
Like the other craft pictured above, Fravor's fellow co-pilot Chad Underwood witnessed the 'perfectly white' wingless oblong that was captured from his cockpit's in-flight video.
Given the shared similarities, there seems to be a connection between the behavior of UFOs toward aircraft and nuclear weapons — and it may come from the very same reason.
UFOinvestigators claim to be in possession of unidentified material which tests show is of 'non-human' origin.
Tiny scraps of the sample — which is lighter than a flower petal and gold-tinged — were shown off for the first time this week at a conference in Irving, Texas.
MUFON, the UFO group in possession of the material, says that the sample has been tested using NASA-grade technology, which found it was 90 percent unidentifiable.
That means that it is either not a metal or a totally unknown metal different from all others in the periodic table, the researchers claim
Because of its unique light and porous texture, MUFON has floated the idea that the sample resembles 'debris from a craft' — after the Russian researcher who obtained the sample claimed it might be the remnants of a crashed UFO.
But independent UFO experts have questioned the find, saying that it's just the latest in a long line of samples which 'could be of alien origin,' but then turn out not to be.
MUFON researcher Bob Spearing claims the material conforms to nothing known in tests
Investigators showed off tiny scraps of the material, in a presentation at the MUFON International Symposium.
The group claims that further samples were stolen from an official US Post Office Box, after the sample's Russian finder attempted to mail them to MUFON in the U.S..
'This is typical with evidence of this nature,' MUFON Media Relations Director Ron James said.
'We believe that this material was deliberately taken by someone who could hack into a locked Post Office Box to prevent further testing.'
'Who did it is anybody's guess,' according to James.
MUFON researcher Bob Spearing told symposium attendees that he had been approached by a Russian researcher, named Arkady, who said that he had tested the material with Russian geological labs using an X-Ray fluorescence gun.
'It's very, very light material,' Spearing told attendees. 'It almost looks porous, like it has pores. It has a tinge of gold in it, but it's basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite.'
'It's so light,' he added, 'that it won't even bend a flower.'
The 'metal' is so light it doesn't even bend a flower
A small sample of the metal
Arkady, the Russian researcher who provided the sample, claimed that the material had 'appeared' in his house after he was contacted by a non-human entity who told him it had come from a crashed UFO.
Later, Russian labs found that the mysterious material was composed of 10-percent calcium, titanium, iron, arsenic and copper, according to Spearing.
This is a tantalizing but inconclusive finding given the mixed reliability of such handheld X-Ray fluorescence (hXRF) devices in identifying the chemical make-up of test samples.
Geologists looking to identify the chemistry of rock formations out in the field, environmental regulators tasked with assessing pollution in soil samples, and even pawn brokers testing jewelry have turned to X-Ray fluorescence guns in recent years.
The devices have offered speed, portability and a noninvasive method for examining the composition of a material that does not destroy that material in the process.
But researchers have also frequently reported on the technology's limitations.
One group of environmental scientists in Arizona, for example, reported last year that their portable X-Ray fluorescence tests failed to accurately identify chromium metal content, due to high iron content drowning out the chromium's signal.
And NASA scientists who helped to prepare for the 2020 Mars Perseverance rover's mission found that their own X-Ray fluorescence guns proved unable to detect some key elements 'reliably.'
'While this limits the use of the hXRF, especially when compared to laboratory XRF techniques,' those NASA researchers reported, 'hXRF is still capable of providing the field user with significantly improved contextual awareness of a field site.'
Spearing told the symposium that some of Arkady's 90-percent unidentified materials were also shipped to MUFON's lab in Missouri, which found that the sample didn't match up to known metals using another X-Ray fluorescence test.
'That either means it's A) not a metal, or B) a metal alloy that isn't recognized or something in the periodic table,' Spearing said.
'The signal was unique, because they have looked up the standard peaks for most known metals, and nothing matched it exactly,' he continued.
'By appearance only. It appears to be some sort of lightweight insulation suited to conductive insulating or something needing heat protection, which could correspond to it being a piece of debris from some sort of craft,' he concluded.
Geologists looking to identify the chemistry of rock formations in the field, environmental regulators tasked with assessing pollution in soil samples, and even NASA scientists have turned to X-Ray fluorescence guns (above). But the field research tech has limitations
Russian tests showed the material was 90% 'unknown'
(MUFON)
But the plot thickened when Spearing asked a colleague to send him the sample via post — where it appeared to be stolen from Spearing's USPS mailbox.
Cameras had been turned against a wall, inhibiting investigation, although US postal workers testified that they did delivered the box.
'I went to my mail clerk and said, "Was it delivered?"' Spearing explained. 'And she said, "Yes, Bob, it was delivered. I put the box in your mailbox myself."'
'So the question becomes, who would be daring enough to remove something from a federal mailbox?' he asked.
Fortunately, the UFO researchers were able to obtain another sample from Arkady, which arrived after sitting in Customs for 17 days.
MUFON stated that the sample will now be sent to two further labs for testing using electron microscopes.
'We have physical materials and more evidence of non-human technology,' James said.
MUFON, short for the Mutual UFO Network, is the largest and oldest civilian UFO research organization in the world.
Active since the late 60s and dedicated to 'the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity,' MUFON is now a worldwide network of like-minded citizen-investigators with members in all 50 US states.
Not everyone — even among diehard UFO investigators — was convinced by Spearing's presentation, however.
UFO author Nigel Watson, author of Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims told DailyMail.com that the 'evidence' is just one in a long line of supposed 'debris' from spacecraft which turned out to be nothing of the sort.
'There is a regular flow of 'new' physical evidence to prove cases like the Roswell crash case,' Watson told DailyMail.com.
'Everything so far submitted is usually explained when scientifically examined,' in Watson's view. 'It is all a matter of unrealistic hope versus actual facts.'
In this episode, we interview Brandon Fugal, owner of Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. The ranch is the focus of years of paranormal research and the History Channel show The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Season 5 finale Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024 on The History Channel!
I just had to focus this alien cross shaped base with ai and wow...ai didn't let me down. This structure just popped! The structure looks to be 2.5-3.5 miles across and it has a dark black jewel roof at its center with what looks like white ribbon on its top. AI is the new tech of the future, we either embrace it or we fall behind.
I found a large X or cross structure on the moon. The area is broken up into sections, but clearly each section makes up a part of the cross. Not far away I found many other structures of odd shapes and sizes. I found that this old photo from which this came was taken long before photoshop existed, therefore it remained unedited. If you click on the non official source (1st link) it works fine, but if you click on the official NASA link below it, you will find a NASA page with old lunar photos...of which all the links have been destroyed. NASA took the information from my site in 2015 and used it again, yes I said again, to edit their photo index. At the moment is says, "Service unavailable." It always says that. They are keeping vital information about aliens from reaching the public and from reaching the governments of other countries. Scott C. Waring
Dergelijke tunnels onder het maanoppervlak zouden zomaar eens uitstekende verblijfplaatsen voor mensen kunnen zijn.
NASA en andere ruimtevaartorganisaties hebben al geruime tijd plannen om de maan te koloniseren. Het doel is om er een permanente basis te vestigen waar mensen langdurig kunnen verblijven. Dit biedt de mogelijkheid om essentiële kennis en ervaring op te doen die nodig is voor toekomstige missies naar Mars. Een cruciale vraag is echter: waar moeten toekomstige maankolonisten precies gaan wonen? Bestaan bijvoorbeeld de lang besproken ondergrondse maangrotten echt? Een nieuwe studie biedt nu duidelijkheid.
Lavatunnels Het idee om onder het oppervlak van de maan te gaan wonen, wordt al lange tijd overwogen. Onderzoekers denken daarbij vooral aan lege lavatunnels. Dat heeft namelijk belangrijke voordelen ten opzichte van het bouwen van een basis op het oppervlak. Deze tunnels bieden astronauten bescherming tegen kosmische straling, zonnestraling en micro-meteorieten. En dat is geen overbodige luxe. Kosmische en zonnestraling op het maanoppervlak kunnen namelijk tot wel 150 keer sterker zijn dan wat we op aarde ervaren. Bovendien blijft de temperatuur in deze tunnels stabiel, zonder de dagelijkse variaties die op het oppervlak voorkomen. En ook dat is prettig. Aan de verlichte zijde van de maan kunnen de oppervlaktetemperaturen namelijk oplopen tot een verzengende 127 graden Celsius, terwijl ze aan de onverlichte zijde kunnen dalen tot -173 graden Celsius. Daarnaast liggen deze grotten vaak dichter bij bronnen van waterijs en andere essentiële mineralen die nodig zijn voor langdurig verblijf. Hoewel dit allemaal veelbelovend klinkt, was het tot nu toe nog onduidelijk of dergelijke ondergrondse maangrotten echt bestaan.
Meer over lavatunnels Lavatunnels kunnen op twee verschillende manieren ontstaan. Wanneer lava met een lage viscositeit (stroperigheid) vrij dicht onder het oppervlak stroomt, kan boven de lavastroom een harde – en steeds dikker wordende – korst ontstaan. Die korst vormt als het ware een dak waaronder het gesmolten deel van de lava stroomt. Wanneer de erupties ten einde komen en al het lava is weggestroomd, blijft vlak onder het oppervlak een tunnel achter. Daarnaast kunnen lavatunnels ontstaan wanneer lava zich in bestaande breuken tussen gesteentelagen dwingt. De lava zet uit en creëert een heel netwerk van met elkaar in verbinding staande tunnels die – wanneer de erupties stilvallen – leeg komen te staan.
Tot op heden zijn er al meer dan 200 ‘putten’ ontdekt op het oppervlak van de maan. Deze putten zijn ontstaan door instortingen van onderliggende lavabuizen, wat leidt tot openingen naar ondergrondse holtes. Een prangende vraag is echter of deze putten toegang bieden tot grotten met uitgebreide ondergrondse ruimtes en of ze geschikt zijn om astronauten te huisvesten.
Mare Tranquillitatis Pit In een nieuwe studie hebben onderzoekers besloten om radargegevens van de Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter te analyseren, specifiek gericht op de Mare Tranquillitatis Pit. Deze put staat bekend als de diepste op de maan, met een diameter van ongeveer 100 meter. “Wat we hebben gedaan, is radargegevens gebruiken om te onderzoeken of deze put een grot verborgen houdt,” vertellen onderzoekers Lorenzo Bruzzone en Leonardo Carrer in gesprek met Scientias.nl. “En wat we ontdekten, was dat de put in de Mare Tranquillitatis daadwerkelijk toegang geeft tot een grot, die we vervolgens in kaart hebben gebracht. Deze grot is bereikbaar vanaf het maanoppervlak. De meest waarschijnlijke verklaring voor onze waarnemingen is een lege lavabuis.”
Ze bestaan Het betekent dat Bruzzone en Carrer nu voor het eerst direct bewijs hebben gevonden van een toegankelijke lavatunnel onder het oppervlak. Een mijlpaal. “Al meer dan 50 jaar zijn maangrotten een mysterie,” vertelt Bruzzone. “Daarom was het opwindend om eindelijk het bestaan van een ondergrondse gang te kunnen bewijzen. Wat interessant is, is dat de gegevens die we in onze studie hebben gebruikt al veertien jaar beschikbaar zijn. Zoals in veel andere gevallen, heeft de ontwikkeling van nieuwe data-analysetechnologieën ook in ons geval geleid tot een nieuwe ontdekking door ‘oude’ gegevens opnieuw te analyseren.”
De maangrot De onderzoekers merkten een toename in radarhelderheid aan de westzijde van de Mare Tranquillitatis Pit op. Door simulaties uit te voeren op basis van de radarbeelden, hebben ze geconcludeerd dat deze observaties kunnen worden verklaard door de aanwezigheid van een holle ruimte die zich uitstrekt vanaf de westkant van de putbodem. De wetenschappers schatten dat deze holle ruimte zich bevindt op een diepte tussen 130 en 170 meter, met een lengte van 30 tot 80 meter en een breedte van ongeveer 45 meter. De grot is mogelijk ook vlak of heeft een helling van maximaal 45 graden.
Maankolonisten De ontdekking van de maangrot geeft hoop voor toekomstige maankolonisten. Zo toont het onderzoek aan dat ondergrondse grotten niet alleen bestaan, maar dat ze ook mogelijk bewoonbaar kunnen zijn. De Mare Tranquillitatis Pit en zijn ondergrondse holte worden bijvoorbeeld gezien als een veelbelovende locatie voor een toekomstige maanbasis. “Op dit moment lopen er verschillende internationale inspanningen van diverse ruimteagentschappen om te onderzoeken of dergelijke grotten geschikt kunnen zijn als schuilplaatsen,” zegt Carrer. “Als de omstandigheden gunstig blijken te zijn, bestaat de mogelijkheid dat ze in de toekomst als schuilplaatsen kunnen worden gebruikt.”
Uitdagingen Dat dit goed wordt onderzocht, is heel belangrijk. Dat komt omdat het leven ondergronds ook zo zijn eigen uitdagingen met zich meebrengt. “Bij het overwegen van het ondergronds huisvesten van astronauten op de maan is veiligheid de belangrijkste prioriteit,” onderstreept Carrer. “Elke mogelijke oplossing heeft zijn eigen voor- en nadelen op het gebied van veiligheid. Het grootste voordeel van grotten is dat ze de belangrijkste structurele onderdelen voor een mogelijke menselijke basis bieden, zonder dat er ingewikkelde bouwwerkzaamheden nodig zijn. Natuurlijk zijn er potentiële risico’s die grondig moeten worden overwogen en geanalyseerd. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan het uitvoeren van grondige structurele analyses om de stabiliteit van de grot te beoordelen, het versterken van de wanden en het plafond van de tunnels, het opzetten van alternatieve leefruimtes zodat astronauten kunnen verhuizen naar een andere veilige zone als een deel van de tunnel beschadigd raakt en het plaatsen van monitorsystemen die bijvoorbeeld aardbevingen kunnen registreren.”
Toekomstige missies De onderzoekers beschouwen hun studie als een startpunt voor verdere verkenning van maangrotten. Ze suggereren dat de gebruikte methode ook van nut kan zijn voor het onderzoeken van andere maanputten en het ontdekken van meerdere ondergrondse gangen. Al hebben we daar wel betere beelden van het maanoppervlak voor nodig. “Helaas zijn de huidige beschikbare gegevens zeer beperkt en bestrijken ze slechts een klein deel van het maanoppervlak,” merkt Bruzzone op. “Bovendien hebben ze niet genoeg detail om kleine grotten te kunnen waarnemen, die juist van groot belang zijn voor het plannen van een maanbasis. Daarom is het van cruciaal belang om nieuwe missies te plannen, bestaande uit satellieten die om de maan draaien en uitgerust zijn met radarinstrumenten. We hebben zowel een radar nodig zoals die we gebruikten voor onze recente ontdekking, om een gedetailleerde kaart te maken van alle maangrotten met voldoende resolutie, als een laagfrequente radarsonde die systematisch het maanoppervlak kan doordringen. Deze sonde moet specifiek ontworpen zijn om holtes en tunnels te detecteren, zelfs op locaties ver van de bekende putten.”
De studie markeert de eerste stap richting het begrijpen van maangrotten als potentiële verblijfplaatsen voor astronauten. Maar het is duidelijk dat er nog veel werk aan de winkel is voordat we kunnen bevestigen dat ze echt ideaal zijn voor langdurige bewoning. Toch zijn ruimtevaartorganisaties optimistisch gestemd. Sinds 2012 voert ESA bijvoorbeeld in samenwerking met enkele Europese universiteiten twee trainingsprogramma’s uit voor astronauten die gericht zijn op de ondergrondse systemen van Lanzarote. Tot dusver hebben al tientallen astronauten trainingen in ‘grotwandelen’ gekregen. Daarnaast hebben al enkele astronauten een geologische veldtraining gevolgd. Dit toont aan dat ESA de lavatunnels op andere hemellichamen zeer geschikt acht als verblijfplaatsen. En wellicht zullen deze ondergrondse systemen inderdaad de eerste nieuwe woonomgevingen voor mensen op een ander hemellichaam worden.
ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA and Boeing completed tests on the ground looking to mirror conditions that led to problems with the CST-100 Starliner that still awaits the go to bring home a pair of astronauts from the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft launched NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the International Space Station, marking the spacecraft's inaugural crewed flight, on May 30, 2020.
Joel Kowsky/NASA
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams docked Starliner at the ISS back on June 6 on the Crew Flight Test mission one day after launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
What was originally planned to be just an eight-day stay on board the ISS has stretched to more than six weeks because of issues with helium leaks and thruster shutdowns on Starliner’s propulsion module as it approached the station.
While NASA has signed off on Starliner as safe enough to get its two NASA astronauts home in case of an emergency, it’s taking its time to look into as much data as possible about the thrusters and helium leaks before giving them the green light to come home and complete the CFT mission.
After docking, the helium lines were shut down, so no more leaking has occurred, but it will begin again once it undocks. NASA has said the spacecraft, though, has ample helium supply to make the trip home. As far as the reaction control thrusters, which are needed for small position corrections, NASA was able to get four of the five that failed on approach back online, although at lower power levels.
Related video:
Are two NASA astronauts stuck in space and how can they come home? (France 24)
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore say goodbye to friends and family as they leave astronaut crew quarters on their way to the launchpad Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
CRAIG BAILEY/FLORIDA TODAY / USA TODAY NETWORK
NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Pic: NASA Johnson
Suni Williams (front left) and Butch Wilmore (front right) as they entered the ISS.
Pic: NASA TV
The Starliner spacecraft on NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test is pictured docked to the Harmony module's forward port on June 13 as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above Egypt's Mediterranean coast.
NASA
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore speak to NASA officials during a live streamed event on Monday, June 10.
NASA
It’s a similar issue seen on the previous Starliner flight, the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 in 2022.
A big issue is the problem propulsion hardware, housed on what’s called the service module, won’t make the flight home along with the crew capsule as it is jettisoned before reentry.
So teams took a surrogate engine for hot fire testing at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, which was completed last week, mirroring both conditions Starliner experienced on the flight up as well as conditions expected for the return home.
Now teams will evaluate all the test firing data and inspect the engine with work expected to last through this week.
“I am extremely proud of the NASA, Boeing team for their hard work in executing a very complex test series,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a press release. “We collected an incredible amount of data on the thruster that could help us better understand what is going on in flight. Next, our team has moved into engine tear downs and inspections which will provide additional insight as we analyze the results and evaluate next steps.”
Before NASA will let Starliner undock, Stich said it has to go through an agency flight test readiness review, and that date has yet to be identified.
Stich previously said that return flight could occur before the end of July, but could also remain on station into mid-August with only the launch of the replacement Crew-9 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon looming next month that would cause a traffic jam.
The CFT mission aims to be the last step before NASA signs off on Boeing to begin the first of six contracted flights to ferry crew to and from the ISS before the station’s retirement as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
SpaceX is more than four years ahead of Boeing’s efforts as part of the program, and is in the midst of its eighth operational mission to the ISS.
NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian rock
NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian rock
Story by Science X staff
These yellow crystals were revealed after NASA's Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30. Using an instrument on the rover's arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur—and it's the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet.
Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals—in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials—the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental (pure) sulfur. It isn't clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven't associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it—an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.
"Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert," said Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "It shouldn't be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting."
It's one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity's mission is to study where and when the planet's ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity captured this close-up image of a rock nicknamed “Snow Lake” on June 8, 2024, the 4,209th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Nine days earlier, the rover had crushed a similar-looking rock and revealed crystalline textures—and elemental sulfur—inside.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel.
Spotted from space years before Curiosity's launch, Gediz Vallis channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 2 miles down the mountainside below the channel. The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there's still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.
Since Curiosity's arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel's floor here. The latest clues from Curiosity suggest both played a role: Some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.
Related video:
Humans Could Settle in These Huge Lava Tubes on Mars and the Moon! (Dailymotion)
Those conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: Whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.
Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white "halo" shapes into some of the rocks. Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.
"This was not a quiet period on Mars," said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam. "There was an exciting amount of activity here. We're looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows."
A hole in 41
All this evidence of water continues to tell a more complex story than the team's early expectations, and they've been eager to take a rock sample from the channel in order to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.
While the sulfur rocks were too small and brittle to be sampled with the drill, a large rock nicknamed "Mammoth Lakes" was spotted nearby. Rover engineers had to search for a part of the rock that would allow safe drilling and find a parking spot on the loose, sloping surface.
After Curiosity bored its 41st hole using the powerful drill at the end of the rover's 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist trickled the powderized rock into instruments inside its belly for further analysis so that scientists can determine what materials the rock is made of.
Curiosity has since driven away from Mammoth Lakes and is now off to see what other surprises are waiting to be discovered within the channel.
Provided by NASA
This story was originally published on Phys.org. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates.
UFO expert worried 'alien craft followed me home' after shooting film on ETs
UFO expert worried 'alien craft followed me home' after shooting film on ETs
EXCLUSIVE: We're all often told not to take our work home with us, but for one avid UFO expert this was seemingly made hard to do after he returned from a shoot to find a UFO loitering near his house
What do you make of it? Let us know in the comments
(Image: Youtube/NubTV)
A UFO investigator has spotted a strange orb he thinks might have followed him home after visiting “The British Roswell”.
Mark Christopher Lee had been in Suffolk making a film in Rendelsham, Suffolk about a 1980 UFO incident that was reported there. But when he got home, he had the strange feeling that something might have followed him home from the shoot.
He felt it weird that, after being away working purely on unidentified phenomena, he returned home to more of the same. “I just question whether we brought something back with us from Rendelsham Forest? Or was it something else?” Mark said.
He told the Daily Star: “It was definitely weird – at first I thought it was an aircraft, but it wasn’t, there was light reflecting off it. There are planes nearby, we get a lot of planes because we live near Luton Airport.
The object 'blipped' in and out(Image: Youtube/NubTV)
“It wasn’t moving, planes come towards you or go away, it was just kind of swaying side to side a little bit. It wasn’t a balloon, there was a bit of a breeze so it would have had more movement. It seemed to be blipping in and out.
“Bear in mind it was a beautiful blue sky and no clouds in the sky. Where was it blipping to? It kept coming back it was very weird.
Mark Christopher Lee spoke to the Daily Star
“It’s definitely unexplained. It was too low for a satellite. I’m quite rational so I try and rule things out but I was left speechless. The fact that it was in the daytime as well.
“I just wonder if there was anyone else in the area that saw it.”
Scottish region branded 'UK's Bermuda Triangle' after 100s of UFO sightings
Scottish region branded 'UK's Bermuda Triangle' after 100s of UFO sightings
A tiny village sandwiched in between Glasgow and Edinburgh has been labelled the UFO hotspot of the UK thanks to hundreds of sightings reported by locals every year
By Danny Gutmann
Bonnybridge has a population of just over 5,000 people
(Image: Sygma via Getty Images)
A small village in Scotland is at the centre of a UFO hotspot region compared to the Bermuda Triangle.
With a population little over 5,000, the village that is placed directly in between Glasgow and Edinburgh was once a beacon for industry. But it is now known for something very different.
Often branded as the UK's answer to Roswell, there have been an average of 300 UFO sightings across the region every year. The reported spacecrafts supposedly take on all different shapes and sizes including cigar shaped crafts over head and even some instances of alien abductions.
Such is the mystery around the strange phenomena that the area has even been coined the 'Falkirk Triangle'.
Many have mused down the years whether the village could be a passage into another dimension, much like the Bermuda Triangle is reported to be. Others have also proposed that the Forth and Clyde Canal acts as a Bermuda-eque stream in between dimension.
Councillor for Falkirk, William Buchanan spoke about one of the more peculiar alien sightings reported in the area(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
And, in a documentary made by TalkTV one encounter stands out ahead of the rest as Councillor for Falkirk, William Buchanan recalls: "I was in the house one night, and I'd just come back from the council, and what happened is, I'd seen a car coming into the driveway and I went out to find out who it was. It was a chap I've known all my days and he say's 'is it okay, can we talk?'.
He continues: "He said 'I need to talk to somebody'. This individual was having an assignation, they were making love, but the problem was that this was his brother's wife, so that in itself was a situation."
But, what Buchanan would describe next is even more shocking, he added: "The next thing is, coming into the woods there, up came these 6ft black aliens looking in the windows and then the next thing is he was in a spaceship and he was getting prodded. He says since that happened we've had ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). He says 'I can levitate. I'e got all these strange powers'.
Despite all of the mysterious goings on across the region, some have put forward other explanations for the disproportionate amount of UFO sightings.
One is that they can simply be put down to top secret military testing, a theory that is often suggested in areas with high levels of UFO reports. Some have even suggested that Bonnybridge would provide the perfect spot for such testing due to its landscape.
Another explanation could be that the UFO-like 'beams of light' could be a result of a natural event such as an aurora or balls of gas that as spectacular as they are, they certainly have nothing to do with extraterrestrials.
Study: Biological Amino Acids Could Survive in Near-Surface Ices of Europa and Enceladus
Study: Biological Amino Acids Could Survive in Near-Surface Ices of Europa and Enceladus
Europa and Enceladus are key targets to search for evidence of alien life in our Solar System. However, the surface and shallow subsurface of these airless icy moons are constantly bombarded by ionizing radiation that could degrade chemical biosignatures. Therefore, sampling of icy surfaces in future life detection missions to Europa and Enceladus requires a clear understanding of the necessary ice depth where unaltered organic biomolecules might be present. A team of scientists from NASA and the Pennsylvania State University has conducted experiments by exposing individual biological and abiotic amino acids in ices to gamma radiation to simulate conditions on these icy worlds.
The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.
“Based on our experiments, the ‘safe’ sampling depth for amino acids on Europa is almost 20 cm (8 inches) at high latitudes of the trailing hemisphere (hemisphere opposite to the direction of Europa’s motion around Jupiter) in the area where the surface hasn’t been disturbed much by meteorite impacts,” said Dr. Alexander Pavlov, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“Subsurface sampling is not required for the detection of amino acids on Enceladus — these molecules will survive radiolysis (breakdown by radiation) at any location on the Enceladus surface less than a few millimeters (a tenth of an inch) from the surface.”
Dr. Pavlov and his colleagues used amino acids in radiolysis experiments as possible representatives of biomolecules on icy moons.
Amino acids can be created by life or by non-biological chemistry.
However, finding certain kinds of amino acids on Europa or Enceladus would be a potential sign of life because they are used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins.
Proteins are essential to life as they are used to make enzymes which speed up or regulate chemical reactions and to make structures.
Amino acids and other compounds from subsurface oceans could be brought to the surface by geyser activity or the slow churning motion of the ice crust.
To evaluate the survival of amino acids on these worlds, the researchers mixed samples of amino acids with ice chilled to about minus 196 Celsius (minus 321 Fahrenheit) in sealed, airless vials and bombarded them with gamma-rays, a type of high-energy light, at various doses.
Since the oceans might host microscopic life, they also tested the survival of amino acids in dead bacteria in ice.
Finally, they tested samples of amino acids in ice mixed with silicate dust to consider the potential mixing of material from meteorites or the interior with surface ice.
The experiments provided pivotal data to determine the rates at which amino acids break down, called radiolysis constants.
With these, the scientists used the age of the ice surface and the radiation environment at Europa and Enceladus to calculate the drilling depth and locations where 10% of the amino acids would survive radiolytic destruction.
Although experiments to test the survival of amino acids in ice have been done before, this is the first to use lower radiation doses that don’t completely break apart the amino acids, since just altering or degrading them is enough to make it impossible to determine if they are potential signs of life.
This is also the first experiment using Europa/Enceladus conditions to evaluate the survival of these compounds in microorganisms and the first to test the survival of amino acids mixed with dust.
The scientists found that amino acids degraded faster when mixed with dust but slower when coming from microorganisms.
“Slow rates of amino acid destruction in biological samples under Europa and Enceladus-like surface conditions bolster the case for future life-detection measurements by Europa and Enceladus lander missions,” Dr. Pavlov said.
“Our results indicate that the rates of potential organic biomolecules’ degradation in silica-rich regions on both Europa and Enceladus are higher than in pure ice and, thus, possible future missions to Europa and Enceladus should be cautious in sampling silica-rich locations on both icy moons.”
“A potential explanation for why amino acids survived longer in bacteria involves the ways ionizing radiation changes molecules — directly by breaking their chemical bonds or indirectly by creating reactive compounds nearby which then alter or break down the molecule of interest.”
“It’s possible that bacterial cellular material protected amino acids from the reactive compounds produced by the radiation.”
The team’s paper was published in the journal Astrobiology.
Alexander A. Pavlov et al. 2024. Radiolytic Effects on Biological and Abiotic Amino Acids in Shallow Subsurface Ices on Europa and Enceladus. Astrobiology 24 (7); doi: 10.1089/ast.2023.0120
This article was adapted from an original release by NASA.
AI Focuses UFO Over Brazil Drops Two Objects, Feb 2011, UAP Sighting News.
AI Focuses UFO Over Brazil Drops Two Objects, Feb 2011, UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting:February 11, 2011
Location of sighting: Sao Paulo, Brazil
I really wanted to run some screenshots of this UFO though ai, and quickly realized that this really was a UFO as it came into focus. AI helps some photos get focused and cleaned up so that we can see the true detail. Sometimes AI can't, so I have to go through about 20-30 sighting photos before I find one thats focuses. AI is the tool of the future for all UFO researchers world wide.
Dat de aarde steeds langzamer draait is geen mysterie, tenminste niet binnen de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. De redenen hiervoor zijn divers en hebben te maken met de natuurlijke processen die onze planeet beïnvloeden... voor het grootste deel. Volgens recent wetenschappelijk onderzoek vertraagt de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde echter door toedoen van de mens en zijn activiteiten. Laten we eens kijken hoe dit mogelijk is en wat de gevolgen zijn voor onze samenleving.
Van de maan tot de gletsjers: een reis op een steeds trager wordende planeet
Zoals we in de inleiding zeiden, is het onderhand bekend dat de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde om haar as noch vast, noch constant is, voornamelijk als gevolg van twee verschillende processen:
aan de ene kant vertraagt de kern van de Aarde haar rotatiesnelheid;
aan de andere kant verwijdert de Maan zich steeds verder van de Aarde.
Dit zijn natuurlijke processen die leiden tot werkelijk oneindige veranderingen in de rotatiesnelheid van onze planeet, en dus ook in de lengte van de dagen. Door de verwijdering van de maan zal de dag van de aarde bijvoorbeeld 25 uur duren, maar over 200 miljoen jaar. Toch spreekt onderzoek uitgevoerd door het centrum ETH Zürich in samenwerking met NASA over een andere factor die de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde zou kunnen vertragen: de stijging van de temperatuur als gevolg van menselijke activiteiten.
Het verband lijkt werkelijk paradoxaal, maar het is er wel. Onderzoekers hebben namelijk ontdekt hoe hogere temperaturen een kettingreactie hebben veroorzaakt die de dagen op aarde feitelijk verlengt. Het smelten van gletsjers op Antarctica en Groenland leidt er feitelijk toe dat miljoenen kubieke meters water over het hele aardoppervlak worden verspreid, waardoor de rotatiesnelheid van de planeet effectief wordt vertraagd.
De gevolgen van de vertraging van de aarde… op aarde
Unsplash
In hun eerste onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift PNAS, merken de onderzoekers op hoe de temperatuurstijging om antropogene redenen leidt tot langere dagen. Hetzelfde team publiceerde echter ook een tweede onderzoek in het tijdschrift GeoScience, waarin ze kijken naar hoe smeltende gletsjers bijdragen aan het veranderen van de positie van de rotatie-as van de aarde. Samen met andere verschijnselen, zoals de eerder genoemde bewegingen van de kern van de aarde, verschuift de rotatie-as elke 100 jaar ongeveer 10 meter.
De effecten die kunnen worden toegeschreven aan smeltende gletsjers en menselijke activiteiten zijn minimaal, maar er is geen reden tot vreugde. Alle verschijnselen die door de onderzoekers zijn geanalyseerd, zijn namelijk terug te voeren op natuurlijke verschijnselen, en dat hebben we gezien: de maan die afstand neemt, het effect van de getijden, de binnenkern en haar bewegingen, enzovoort. In zo'n beeld speelt echter ook de hand van de mens een rol en kan leiden tot plotselinge versnellingen van deze processen.
De gevolgen van de vertraging van de aarde... voor de mens
De interne en externe processen op aarde zijn daarom meer met elkaar verbonden dan we denken: zoals we hebben gezien, kunnen ze elkaar beïnvloeden, maar ook de menselijke activiteiten die bijdragen aan het veroorzaken ervan. Hoewel de vertraging van de rotatiesnelheid van de aarde momenteel minimaal is en de dagen slechts fracties van een seconde langer worden, zijn de gevolgen voor de mens al aanzienlijk.
De tijdmeting van de mens is gebaseerd op uiterst nauwkeurige atoomklokken. Deze precisie wordt echter in gevaar gebracht door de interactie tussen de verschillende factoren die bijdragen aan het verlengen van de dagen op aarde. Het risico is dat we minder nauwkeurige GPS hebben, met alle gevolgen van dien voor alle menselijke activiteiten.
Aan de andere kant: als de vertraging tot 2000 tussen de 0,3 en 1 milliseconde per eeuw lag, zitten we nu op ongeveer 1,3 milliseconden per eeuw, maar dit lijkt voorbestemd om te stijgen. Het is een neerwaartse spiraal waar we de afgelopen decennia steeds meer vertrouwd mee zijn geworden... en die we nog kunnen vertragen als we tijdig handelen.
Amazon UFO Secrets: Researcher Uncovers Mysterious Sounds in the Rainforest
Amazon UFO Secrets: Researcher Uncovers Mysterious Sounds in the Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, a place often associated with vast biodiversity and hidden natural wonders, has recently become the focus of UFO research. Brazilian UFO researcher Rony Vernet has uncovered extraordinary phenomena that suggest the presence of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) deep within this dense jungle.
In a recent episode of “Reality Check with Ross Coulthart,” Vernet shared his findings after an expedition to the Amazon rainforest, specifically a remote area near the border of Brazil and Peru. Vernet’s journey was inspired by a long history of unexplained UAP incidents in the region, dating back to at least the mid-1970s.
Background on UAP Activity in the Amazon
The Amazon and its surrounding areas have been hotspots for UAP sightings for decades. In 1977, a series of UAP incidents in the Brazilian states of Pará and Maranhão drew significant attention. Hundreds of people reported being struck by light beams emitted from UAPs, particularly around the city of Colares. These incidents led to Operation Saucer (Operação Prato), an investigation by the Brazilian Air Force, which officially found no unusual phenomena. However, locals reported injuries consistent with microwave burns, and some even claimed that individuals were killed by these light beams.
In more recent years, there have been continued reports of UAP activity. In 2013, unidentified aerial phenomena were observed over a village in Acre, Brazil, near the Peruvian border. By 2014, these sightings escalated to UAPs descending into the village and emitting light beams at the indigenous people, prompting an investigation by the National Indigenous Foundation and federal authorities.
Vernet’s Expedition and Findings
Driven by these historical reports, Vernet embarked on an expedition to the Yanawa Indigenous Tribe in Acre province. His goal was to gather firsthand evidence of these phenomena. Over the course of his investigation, Vernet experienced a series of inexplicable events, beginning with what he described as poltergeist-like activity.
On his first night in the jungle, Vernet reported hearing loud, metallic sounds that had no apparent source. These sounds resembled furniture being dragged across a wooden floor, yet there were no structures nearby that could produce such noises. Despite thorough searches, Vernet and his team could not find any logical explanations for these occurrences.
The following night, Vernet explored an abandoned house in the jungle, which was filled with objects as if its inhabitants had left suddenly. Here, he and his team felt an overwhelming sense of fear and coldness, unlike anything they had experienced before. The eerie environment only added to the mystery of the phenomena they were investigating.
Encounters with Luminous Spheres
As Vernet continued his investigation, he began to observe luminous phenomena. Indigenous people frequently reported seeing orange or yellow spheres, described as golden balls of fire, hovering near their homes. These spheres often appeared on the rooftops, seemingly observing the inhabitants. Remarkably, whenever someone attempted to point at or directly engage with the spheres, they would disappear instantly.
On one occasion, while setting up monitoring equipment, Vernet and his team witnessed a large, red-orange sphere less than a meter from the ground and only about five meters away from them. Despite its brightness, the sphere made no noise and could be stared at without discomfort. When Vernet attempted to capture the phenomenon with a drone, the sphere evaded recording by somehow remaining invisible to the drone’s camera despite being clearly visible to the naked eye.
Technological and Sensor Data
Vernet’s research was not limited to visual observations. He brought a variety of sophisticated equipment, including thermal cameras, cosmic ray sensors, infrasound detectors, and microwave antennas, to gather as much data as possible. Notably, during these encounters, he detected a 1.6 GHz signal, a frequency also observed during similar phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch in the United States.
Although some of his sensors were not fully operational during the initial nights, Vernet plans to analyze the collected data to find correlations between the visual phenomena and the sensor readings. His initial findings suggest that the UAPs might have the capability to interfere with electronic devices, as witnessed when camera equipment and flashlights malfunctioned during sightings.
Indigenous Perspectives and Scientific Interpretation
The indigenous communities in the Amazon have their own interpretations of these phenomena, often linking them to spiritual beliefs. The Yanawa tribe, for instance, regards certain areas of the forest as portals where beings from the spirit world traverse into our reality. Vernet’s research, combining modern scientific methods with indigenous knowledge, aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of these mysterious occurrences.
Conclusion
Rony Vernet’s investigation into the Amazon’s UAP phenomena has provided compelling evidence that these mysterious lights and sounds are more than mere folklore. His findings suggest a highly intelligent phenomenon capable of interacting with and evading human observation. As Vernet continues to analyze the data and collaborate with other scientists, his work could bring us closer to understanding the enigmatic UAPs of the Amazon rainforest.
The combination of scientific inquiry and indigenous wisdom in Vernet’s approach sets a new precedent for UAP research. By respecting and incorporating the knowledge of local communities, researchers like Vernet are paving the way for a more holistic understanding of these phenomena, which could one day unravel the secrets of the Amazon’s skies.
Wetenschappers van een laboratorium in het Franse Marseille hebben gewaarschuwd voor de mogelijkheid van een nieuwe pandemie in de toekomst. Deze zou immers kunnen worden veroorzaakt door een virus dat al meer dan 30.000 jaar bevroren is.
Microben in het noordpoolgebied zouden de oorzaak kunnen zijn, nadat de opwarming van de aarde, de toegenomen menselijke activiteit en de aanwezigheid van schepen in de regio het ontdooi- en smeltproces versnellen.
Volgens de onderzoekers is de kans groot dat deze en andere virussen, als het ontdooiproces doorgaat, zich vrij zullen verspreiden en uiteindelijk nieuwe ziekten veroorzaken.
Dit ‘zombievirus’ werd door laboratoriumonderzoekers ontdekt in een laag Siberische permafrost die duizenden jaren bevroren was in het noordwesten van Siberië.
Het nieuws werd in The Guardian becommentarieerd door de Nederlandse viroloog Marion Koopmans, die beweerde dat “we niet weten welk virus zich in de permafrost bevindt. Maar ik denk dat er een reëel risico bestaat dat er één virus is dat een epidemie kan veroorzaken, bijvoorbeeld een oude vorm van polio. We moeten aannemen dat zoiets zou kunnen gebeuren”, waarschuwde ze.
(SR and FM for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration: Pixabay)
Wetenschappers van een laboratorium in het Franse Marseille hebben gewaarschuwd voor de mogelijkheid van een nieuwe pandemie in de toekomst. Deze zou immers kunnen worden veroorzaakt door een virus dat al meer dan 30.000 jaar bevroren is.
Microben in het noordpoolgebied zouden de oorzaak kunnen zijn, nadat de opwarming van de aarde, de toegenomen menselijke activiteit en de aanwezigheid van schepen in de regio het ontdooi- en smeltproces versnellen.
Volgens de onderzoekers is de kans groot dat deze en andere virussen, als het ontdooiproces doorgaat, zich vrij zullen verspreiden en uiteindelijk nieuwe ziekten veroorzaken.
Dit ‘zombievirus’ werd door laboratoriumonderzoekers ontdekt in een laag Siberische permafrost die duizenden jaren bevroren was in het noordwesten van Siberië.
Het nieuws werd in The Guardian becommentarieerd door de Nederlandse viroloog Marion Koopmans, die beweerde dat “we niet weten welk virus zich in de permafrost bevindt. Maar ik denk dat er een reëel risico bestaat dat er één virus is dat een epidemie kan veroorzaken, bijvoorbeeld een oude vorm van polio. We moeten aannemen dat zoiets zou kunnen gebeuren”, waarschuwde ze.
(SR and FM for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration: Pixabay)
Swarming Satellites Could Autonomous Characterize an Asteroid
An asteroid’s size, shape, and rotational speed are clues to its internal properties and potential resources for mining operations. However, of the more than 20,000 near-Earth asteroids currently known, only a tiny fraction have been sufficiently characterized to estimate those three properties accurately. That is essentially a resource constraint – there aren’t enough dedicated telescopes on Earth to keep track of all the asteroids for long enough to characterize them, and deep space resources, such as the Deep Space Network required for communications outside Earth’s orbit, are already overutilized by other missions. Enter the Autonomous Nanosatellite Swarming (ANS) mission concept, developed by Dr. Simone D’Amico and his colleagues at Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory.
The concept behind ANS is relatively simple. A primary “mothership” spacecraft travels to an asteroid, where it deploys several smaller, autonomous nanosatellites upon arrival. These nanosatellites take up positions surrounding the asteroid and, using relatively inexpensive sensor and communications technology, map the asteroid’s features. After observing for some time, they send data back to the mothership, where an algorithm pieces together information similar to a stereo vision system on Earth and calculates the asteroid’s shape, size, and rotational speed.
There are several deeper layers to unpack in the mission, though. Communication is the first one. In ANS, only the mothership communicates back to Earth using a high-gain antenna. The smaller swarming robots all communicate with each other – partly to estimate distances between the different swarming satellites but also to coordinate observations.
Characterization is the first step toward exploitation, as Fraser discusses.
Each nanosatellite utilizes only a few relatively inexpensive pieces of hardware, including a star tracker for overall positioning, short range camera (as compared to more expensive lidar systems typically used in asteroid characterization missions), atomic clocks to synchronize timing, and radio frequency communication modules. These components allow for relatively independent operation of each nanosatellite and lower the burden of communication back with Earth – freeing up those deep space communications resources for other critical work.
But the critical component of ANS isn’t so much the hardware—it’s the software, particularly the control and estimation algorithm. Dr. D’Amico and his team describe a technical tool known as an unscented Kalman filter, which allows them to estimate asteroid shape, size, and rotation based on landmarks noticed by each swarming nanosatellite and run through this algorithm.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of that algorithm, the team tested it using a relatively well-characterized asteroid: 443 Eros. That asteroid had the distinction of being both the first near-Earth object ever found, back in 1898, and the first ever visited by a mission – the NEAR mission 100 years later. The NEAR Shoemaker craft that visited 433 Eros also successfully landed on it, another first for humanity. Even with the comparatively simple sensing technology of a quarter century ago, Eros is still one of the most characterized asteroids in the solar system.
Here’s a talk about autonomous swarming given by Dr. D’Amico, the head of Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Lab.
The demonstration results clearly showed that the ANS algorithm does its job well. It can coordinate the positioning of the nanosatellites surrounding the asteroid and coalesce their disparate data sets into a coherent picture of the asteroid they are monitoring. And it can do so remotely, with very minimal input from Earth.
For now, that is how far the algorithm has gotten. Several missions, some of which we’ll cover in the near future, further explore the idea of nanosatellite swarms. But ANS itself hasn’t yet been adopted into a formal mission architecture. One day, though, thousands of satellites might be swarming the tens of thousands of small bodies surrounding our home, leading to the first stages of a genuinely off-Earth economy.
The Most Dangerous Part of a Space Mission is Fire
This AI generated image shows a fire spreading in a spacecraft. Researchers are working to understand how fire behaves differently in spacecraft environments so they can protect astronauts. Image Credit: ZARM/ University of Bremen
The Most Dangerous Part of a Space Mission is Fire
Astronauts face multiple risks during space flight, such as microgravity and radiation exposure. Microgravity can decrease bone density, and radiation exposure is a carcinogen. However, those are chronic effects.
The biggest risk to astronauts is fire since escape would be difficult on a long mission to Mars or elsewhere beyond Low Earth Orbit. Scientists are researching how fire behaves on spacecraft so astronauts can be protected.
“A fire on board a spacecraft is one of the most dangerous scenarios in space missions,” said Dr. Florian Meyer, head of the Combustion Technology research group at ZARM. “There are hardly any options for getting to a safe place or escaping from a spacecraft. It is therefore crucial to understand the behavior of fires under these special conditions.”
Since 2016, ZARM has been researching how fire behaves and spreads in microgravity conditions like those in the ISS. Those conditions also include an oxygen level similar to Earth’s, forced air circulation, and ambient pressure similar to Earth’s. NASA has been conducting similar experiments, and now we know that fire behaves differently in microgravity than it does on Earth.
Initially, a fire will burn with a smaller flame and take longer to spread. This is to the fire’s advantage since it won’t be noticed as quickly. Fire also burns hotter in microgravity, meaning that some materials that may not be combustible in normal Earth conditions could burn in spacecraft, creating toxic chemicals in the spacecraft’s air.
Spacecraft for Mars missions will have different environments than the ISS. The ambient air pressure will be lower, which provides two benefits: it makes the spacecraft lighter and also allows astronauts to prepare for external missions more quickly. However, the lower ambient pressure introduces another critical change in the spaceship environment. The oxygen content has to be higher to meet the astronauts’ respiration needs.
In these latest tests, the team at ZARM tested fire in these revised conditions.
PMMA stands for polymethyl methacrylate and is usually called acrylic. It’s a common material used in place of glass because it’s light and shatterproof. The ISS doesn’t use it, but it’s being developed for use in future spacecraft. The Orion capsule uses acrylic fused to other materials for windows, and future spacecraft will likely use something similar.
In their experiments, the researchers lit acrylic glass foils on fire and varied three environmental factors: ambient pressure, oxygen content and flow velocity.
This table from the figure is the test matrix for the experiments. The X’s and the single O indicate flow rates: X = 100 mm/s, O = 30–200 mm/s. Image Credit: Ries et al. 2024.
The experiments showed that lower ambient pressure dampens fire. However, higher oxygen content has a more powerful effect. The ISS’s oxygen level is 21%, just as it is on Earth. Future spacecraft with lower ambient pressures will have oxygen levels as high as 35%. That translates into a huge increase in the risk astronauts face from fire. The results show that a fire can spread three times faster than it would under Earth conditions.
“Our results highlight critical factors that need to be considered when developing fire safety protocols for astronautic space missions.”
Dr. Florian Meyer, Combustion Technology research group at ZARM
This figure from the study shows a time series of infrared images of the tests. They show fire on an acrylic film under microgravity conditions with 100 mm/second airflow, 75 kPa, and 28.3% oxygen. The white dashed lines show the contour of the acrylic sample. The green dotted lines are the evaluation lines used to measure the fire’s propagation rate. In panel b, the pink horizontal bar below the propagation front is the igniter. Image Credit: Ries et al. 2024.
We all know increased airflow spreads fire faster; that’s why we blow on a small flame to create a larger fire. Increased airflow delivers more oxygen, increasing combustion, so increased airflow in a higher-oxygen atmosphere creates a dangerous situation for astronauts.
“Our results highlight critical factors that need to be considered when developing fire safety protocols for astronautic space missions,” said Dr. Florian Meyer. “By understanding how flames spread under different atmospheric conditions, we can mitigate the risk of fire and improve the safety of the crew.”
Meteor Exploded Over N.Y.C. at 38,000 MPH: 'Rare Daylight Fireball'
Meteor Exploded Over N.Y.C. at 38,000 MPH: 'Rare Daylight Fireball'
Story by Anna Lazarus Caplan
NASA said that it does not track small meteors at "significant" distances from Earth, but individuals in New York and New Jersey reported witnessing the event
A small meteor was responsible for a big fireball over New York City on Tuesday, July 16, authorities said.
The astronomical event was first detected about 49 miles above Upper Bay/New York Harbor and moved west towards New Jersey at 38,000 mph, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating about 29 miles above midtown Manhattan, NASA confirmed in a statement.
Witnesses described seeing a fireball, hearing “booms” and feeling “shakings” between 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. local time, NASA said.
It is unclear if the sounds were related to the meteor or were due to military operations happening at the same time in New Jersey, Bill Cooke, with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office said, per ABC affiliate WABC-TV.
However, he added that the event was an unusual occurrence.
"Something when it's moving that fast it heats up,” Cooke said. “You expect to see meteors at night not during the day, so this was a rare daylight fireball."
While no meteorites were reported, the meteor gave pause to those underneath its trajectory.
Related video:
NASA Meteor Watch: 'Daylight fireball over New York City' around time of reported booms, shakings (News 12 (Video)
"It was long and really, really fast," Judah Bergman, who saw the meteor from his Lakewood, N.J. office, told WABC. "It looked like a flaming, long rod or something on fire and flying through the sky."
The meteor was not even on NASA’s radar, at first, according to the organization.
“We do keep track of asteroids that are capable of posing a danger to us Earth dwellers, but small rocks like the one producing this fireball are only about a foot in diameter, incapable of surviving all the way to the ground,” NASA said in its statement. “We do not (actually cannot) track things this small at significant distances from the Earth, so the only time we know about them is when they hit the atmosphere and generate a meteor or a fireball.”
While some seasoned New Yorkers were nonplussed, according to The New York Times, at least one resident who observed the moment reveled in its rarity.
“There’s something magical about it,” Tina Dang, a private chef, said. “You forget about these incredible moments in life, when so much else is going on.”
IJssmelt aangespoord door door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde wijzigt de massaverdeling van onze planeet, vertraagt uiteindelijk de rotatie van de aarde en verlengt de 24-uursdag, volgens een studie gepubliceerd op 15 juli in het tijdschrift Proceedings van de National Academy of Sciences. Eerder onderzoek heeft vergelijkbare bevindingen gedaan, maar de nieuwe studie suggereert dat klimaatverandering een grotere impact heeft op de daglengte dan eerder werd gedacht.
Als het gebruik van fossiele brandstoffen en de uitstoot van broeikasgassen blijven toenemen in een algemeen genoemd scenario met hoge opwarming, bekend als RCP 8.5, dan zou klimaatverandering een grotere invloed kunnen hebben op de rotatie en daglengte van de aarde dan de maan, volgens de nieuwe bevindingen.
Veel factoren hebben een klein maar significant effect op de daglengte, waaronder de beweging van magma in de vloeibare kern van de aarde, windfluctuaties en de stroming van water op het oppervlak van onze planeet. Zoals het is, creëert de maan getijden die heen en weer wrijving produceren die de rotatie van onze planeet vertraagt. Op de schaal van de geologische tijd heeft dit maaneffect de grootste bijdrage geleverd aan veranderingen in de daglengte in de geschiedenis van onze planeet. Toch is de door de mens veroorzaakte opwarming van de aarde bezig met een inhaalslag.
De aarde is geen perfecte bol, het is "afgeplat", wat betekent dat het licht samengedrukt is langs de evenaar in een subtiele 3D-ovale vorm. Naarmate de ijskappen van Groenland en Antarctica smelten, beweegt er meer water en massa van de polen naar de evenaar. Dit maakt de aarde effectief verder plat, waardoor het midden nog breder en zwaarder wordt dan de boven- en onderkant, waardoor de rotatie enigszins wordt vertraagd als gevolg van de toegenomen traagheid. "Het is net als wanneer een kunstschaatsster een pirouette maakt, waarbij ze eerst haar armen dicht bij haar lichaam houdt en ze vervolgens uitstrekt", zei senior onderzoeker Benedikt Soja, hoogleraar ruimtegeodesie aan de ETH Zürich in Zwitserland, in een persverklaring. Met uitgestrekte armen zou de kunstschaatser vertragen, en twee eeuwen aan observatiegegevens en modellen suggereren dat onze planeet dat ook is.
Onderzoekers berekenden het smelten van ijs en de bijbehorende veranderingen in de afgeplatheid van de aarde met behulp van observatiegegevens die sinds 1976 zijn verzameld en modelleerden reconstructies en projecties van 1900 tot 2100. In de 20e eeuw ontdekten ze dat klimaatverandering de dag tussen 0,3 en 1,0 milliseconden verlengde. Sinds 2000 is de snelheid van door klimaatverandering veroorzaakte dagverlenging echter versneld tot ongeveer 1,33 milliseconden per eeuw. In het RCP 8.5-scenario met hoge emissies voorspellen de wetenschappers dat de snelheid van dagverlenging zou verdubbelen tot ongeveer 2.62 milliseconden per eeuw, waarmee officieel de getijdenwrijving van de maan zou worden overtroffen als de belangrijkste langetermijnkracht die op de daglengte van de aarde inwerkt.
Een paar milliseconden per eeuw klinkt misschien als kruimels in vergelijking met de universele taart, maar het kan oplopen tot dagen die uren langer zijn gedurende miljarden jaren. Op de kortere termijn hebben de door het klimaat veroorzaakte verschuivingen invloed op nauwkeurige tijdregistratie, die wordt gebruikt om nauwkeurige en soepele GPS-navigatie, wereldwijde communicatie, elektriciteitsnetten en financiële systemen te behouden. Ook de verkenning van de ruimte kan door de verandering worden beïnvloed, omdat zelfs kleine afwijkingen in rotatie en positie op aarde kunnen leiden tot grote misrekeningen als het gaat om het navigeren en corrigeren van het landen van een sonde over grote afstanden elders in het zonnestelsel.
Een verwante studie van dezelfde groep onderzoekers die op 12 juli werd gepubliceerd, beoordeelde niet alleen de rotatiesnelheid, maar ook de beweging en locatie van de as van de aarde. Soja en zijn collega's ontdekten dat dezelfde herverdeling van water en massa, veroorzaakt door smeltende poolkappen, bovendien de rotatie-as van de planeet verschuift - mogelijk met een paar meter per eeuw.
Er zijn beperkingen aan beide onderzoeken. RCP 8.5 wordt bijvoorbeeld over het algemeen beschouwd als een verouderde en onwaarschijnlijke projectie voor toekomstige opwarming en gemodelleerde gegevens gaan gepaard met een zekere mate van onzekerheid. Toch laten de twee wetenschappelijke artikelen zien hoe diep de gevolgen van klimaatverandering weerklinken.
"Wij mensen hebben een grotere impact op onze planeet dan we beseffen", aldus Soja in het persbericht. "Dit legt natuurlijk een grote verantwoordelijkheid op ons voor de toekomst van onze planeet."
'Broken piece of alien spacecraft' found is 'so light it won't bend a flower'
MUFON showed off the 'UFO debris' in their news conference in Texas earlier this week
(Image: Supplied)
'Broken piece of alien spacecraft' found is 'so light it won't bend a flower'
A group of UFO fanatics have claimed to have tiny objects believed to be debris from a 'crashed UFO' given to them from a Russian man who said he was handed them by aliens
ByDanny Gutmann
UFO enthusiasts claim to be in possession of aliens objects.
In a news conference held in Irving, Texas, US earlier this week the UFO organisation MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) presented the minuscule pieces of debris from a supposed alien spacecraft.
Speaking at the conference MUFON researcher Bob Spearing said: "It's very, very light material. It almost looks porous, like it has pores. It has a tinge of gold in it, but it's basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite."
He added: "It's so light that it won't even bend a flower."
Such is the sight and texture of the debris that MUFON believe that it simply can't come from something man made.
This is part of the debris that was discovered
(Image: Supplied)
They helped prove this by reportedly testing the samples with NASA-level technology and found that they couldn't identify 90 per cent of the debris, the Daily Mail reported.
The material was originally discovered by a Russian researcher named Arkady who said that he was contacted by aliens at his home who informed him that the debris was from a crashed UFO.
After further testing in Russia, Spearing said that the samples were found to be made up of 10 per cent calcium, titanium, iron, arsenic and copper.
UFO fans claim to be in possession of alien objects
(stock)( Image: Getty Images/Tetra images RF)
In a strange turn of events, MUFON claimed that the samples sent to them were originally stolen from official the Post Office Box of the United States after they were sent from a Russian man who sent them.
MUFON Media Relations Director Ron James said: "This is typical with evidence of this nature."
"We believe that this material was deliberately taken by someone who could hack into a locked Post Office Box to prevent further testing."
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a group of US-based UFO investigators, has reportedly obtained an unidentified material believed to be of 'non-human' origin.The sample was tested using NASA-grade technology, with results indicating that 90% of the material couldn't be identified.The gold-tinged, lightweight fragments were displayed at a conference in Irving, Texas this week.MUFON suggests that the unique texture of thesample indicates it is not a metal known to humankind and may resemble 'debris from a craft.'
Alien debris
Speculations surrounding its origin
A Russian researcher, who discovered the sample, had previously suggested that the unidentified material could be remnants of a crashed UFO.This theory has been echoed by independent UFO experts who have labeled this discovery as the latest sample with potential "alien origin."MUFON Media Relations Director Ron James claimed that some samples were stolen from their official Post Office Box in the US after the Russian finder tried to send them to MUFON for further testing.
Material examination
Detailed analysis of the unidentified material
MUFON researcher Bob Spearing shared that Russian researcher had approached him after testing the material using an X-Ray fluorescence gun in Russian geological labs.Spearing described the unidentified material as "very, very light" and almost porous in appearance.He added, "It has a tinge of gold in it, but it's basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite," and noted its extreme lightness by stating "It's so light that it won't even bend a flower."
AI Enhances Image of UFO Over New Jersey Sept 14, 2020, UAP Sighting News.
AI Enhances Image of UFO Over New Jersey Sept 14, 2020, UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting:Monday, Sept 14, 2020
Location of sighting: New Jersey, USA
On Sept 14th, thousands of eyewitnesses saw a UFO over New Jersey area. The UFO which was about 30 meters across and hovered over various parts of the city. People were seen on the freeways pulling their cars over to the side of the road and watching this UFO in the distance. The object has a glowing light for a center, similar to the military TR3B, and strangely enough...it's not a disk, but a triangle. That fact that the event took place is obvious from all the videos currently being uploaded as we speak.
AI has focused two screenshots here of the video and it clearly shows a cigar shaped spacecraft. Now is the spacecraft alien or is it US military...thats the harder question to answer.
NASA's volgende doel is om de mens in 2026 terug te brengen naar de maan. In de tussentijd opent een ondergrondse grot op onze satelliet de deur naar nieuwe mogelijkheden.
De terugkeer van de mens naar de maan: de ondergrondse grot zou hem kunnen huisvesten
Meer dan 50 jaar zijn verstreken sinds de laatste mens op het maanoppervlak liep. Sinds 1972 heeft geen enkele andere bemanning onze natuurlijke satelliet bereikt, maar NASA bereidt zich voor op deze grote terugkeer en telt onder de astronauten op de missie de eerste vrouw en de eerste zwarte man met het Artemis-programma.
Nu heeft een nieuwe studie een ondergrondse grot op de maan ontdekt die nieuwe mogelijkheden opent: astronauten zouden daarin hun toevlucht kunnen zoeken voor een langdurig verblijf buiten de aarde. Wetenschappers hebben de aanwezigheid van de grot officieel gemaakt, gelegen op slechts 400 km van het punt waar Neil Armstrong in 1969 samen met Buzz Aldrin landde met de ruimtevlucht Apollo 11.
Bewijs voor het bestaan van maangrotten: de studie
Nature Astronomy
Het team van Italiaanse wetenschappers heeft bewijs gepubliceerd dat het bestaan bevestigt van de vrij grote grot, die toegankelijk zou kunnen zijn vanuit de diepst bekende maankuil. De grot bevindt zich in de Mare Tranquillitatis, de maanzee die zich bevindt op het halfrond dat altijd naar onze planeet is gericht. Tot nu toe zijn er tweehonderd mogelijk vergelijkbare grotten ontdekt, allemaal ontstaan door ingestorte lavabuizen.
Het onderzoek was erop gericht om de metingen van NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter te vergelijken met de lavabuizen op aarde. De radar mat alleen het eerste deel van de ondergrondse grot en detecteerde een breedte van ongeveer 40 meter en een lengte van tientallen meters. Leonardo Carrer en Lorenzo Bruzzone van de Universiteit van Trento, Italië, legden uit dat "maangrotten meer dan 50 jaar een mysterie zijn gebleven, dus het was spannend om eindelijk hun bestaan te kunnen bewijzen."
De ondergrondse maangrot zou astronauten kunnen huisvesten
De grot zou een potentiële maanbasis kunnen worden, volgens de wetenschappers, omdat het “beschutting biedt tegen de barre omstandigheden aan het oppervlak en de menselijke verkenning van de maan op de lange termijn zou kunnen ondersteunen”. De bouw van een nieuwe maanbasis, zo beweren de auteurs van het onderzoek, zou veel duurder en tijdrovender zijn, hoewel de muren van de groeve waarschijnlijk verstevigd zouden moeten worden om een mogelijke instorting te voorkomen.
Volgens Helen Sharman, een Britse astronaute, zouden mensen dankzij deze diepe ondergrondse schuilplaatsen over twee of drie decennia op de maan kunnen blijven en een soort lift installeren om naar het oppervlak terug te keren. Bovendien zijn de materialen in deze kuilen in de loop van eonen, oftewel miljarden jaren, niet veranderd en zouden ze waardevolle nieuwe informatie kunnen opleveren over de evolutie van de satelliet en zijn vulkanische activiteit.
Na meer dan een halve eeuw zal de mens dus terugkeren naar de maan met nieuwe mogelijkheden vergeleken met die van de twintigste eeuw, en zou hij lange tijd op de satelliet kunnen blijven, in ondergrondse grotten.
NASA zal dan toch geen "rover" (een rijdende robot) naar de zuidpool van de maan sturen om er water te zoeken. Dat heeft het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap woensdag bekendgemaakt. De kosten van de missie liepen te hoog op.
Het ruimtevaartagentschap gaf al 450 miljoen dollar uit aan de robot, waarvan de kosten oorspronkelijk waren geraamd op minder dan 430 miljoen dollar. De lancering was in eerste instantie voorzien voor 2022, maar was uitgesteld tot ten vroegste het voorjaar van 2025. Dat zou de totale kosten hebben opgedreven tot meer dan 600 miljoen dollar.
Het was volgens NASA een zeer moeilijke beslissing om de missie af te blazen, terwijl de rover al is opgetuigd. Het ruimtevaartagentschap heeft een oproep gelanceerd voor industriële of internationale partners die mogelijk geïnteresseerd zijn in de rover. Anders is NASA van plan om het toestel te ontmantelen om bepaalde onderdelen te hergebruiken, zoals batterijen en zonnepanelen.
This “penguin party” (called Arp 142) is loud! The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow. The blue galaxy at upper right (near bright star) is a closer galaxie teeming with new stars. It's not part of the collision and lies closer to Earth than Arp 142.
What happens when a spiral and an elliptical galaxy collide? To celebrate the second anniversary of the “first light” for the Webb telescope, NASA released an amazing infrared view of two galaxies locked in a tight dance. They’re called the Penguin and the Egg and their dance will last hundreds of millions of years.
“In just two years, Webb has transformed our view of the universe, enabling the kind of world-class science that drove NASA to make this mission a reality,” said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb is providing insights into longstanding mysteries about the early Universe.”
Webb Witnesses a Galactic Dance
The telescope targeted a collision scene named Arp 142 containing both galaxies—a scene that the Hubble Space Telescope has also explored. They lie about 326 million light-years away. Their first close encounter began somewhere between 25 and 75 million years ago. That’s when two partner galaxies had the first of many passages that will distort their shapes more than they already appear here.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured visible light when observing Arp 142, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, in 2013. The Webb view (right) shows the near-infrared view. Courtesy NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Webb’s observations, which combine near- and mid-infrared light from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), respectively, clearly show that a hazy cloud of gas and stars (blue) links them together. The close approach also set off tremendous bursts of star birth in the colliding clouds of gas and dust.
Eventually, after several close approaches in their cosmic dance, these two galaxies will merge completely. Observers hundreds of millions of years in the future will look at Arp 142 and see one massive elliptical galaxy.
Interestingly, Webb’s sharp infrared eyes also picked out very distant galaxies. Some lie beyond this cosmic collision, although at least one lies about a hundred million light-years closer to Earth. It bristles with hot, young, newborn stars.
How The Arp 142 Galaxies Experience a Merger
The Penguin and Egg galaxies lie about 100,000 light-years apart but they affect each other. The Egg’s gravitational pull distorts the spiral and that interaction is “sculpting” the Penguin. The core makes up the eye of a penguin. The slowly unwinding spiral arms form a beak, head, backbone, and tail.
Webb’s infrared view reveals otherwise unseen activity between the two. For example, the Penguin is rich in dust. Webb’s view shows us how gravitational interactions pull that dust away from the Penguin. There are also scads of new stars in the galaxy, surrounded by what looks like smoke. Webb’s view shows this hydrogen cloud. It’s rich in carbon-based molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These are incredibly abundant in the Universe and astronomers find them just about everywhere they point a telescope.
Webb’s mid-infrared MIRI image shows the Egg as a small teal oval. Mid-infrared light predominantly shows the oldest stars in the elliptical galaxy, which has lost or used up most of its gas and dust. This is why the view is so different from the combined image, which includes near-infrared light. Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
By contrast, in Webb’s view, the Egg looks like it’s hardly been touched—it’s still an egg-shaped elliptical. It has much older stars than the Penguin. Past epochs of star birth have pretty much used up the available star-making material. So, even though the two galaxies have about the same mass, the Egg just doesn’t have as much material to get stretched out or turned into stars.
Zeroing in on Webb’s Two Views
If you look at both of Webb’s infrared views of the galaxy collision, you can see marked differences in them. That’s because each one prioritizes a different set of infrared wavelengths. In the mid-infrared view, the egg looks tiny and washed out. That’s because the instrument sees only the old stars in the Egg. By contrast, the Penguin’s distorted core and spiral arms are brimming with young stars embedded in the PAH-rich hydrogen clouds.
The combined near- and mid-infrared view shows more of the gas clouds as the Egg tears them away from the Penguin. These regions will glitter in the future with the light of newly formed stars. For now, however, only cooler, older stars are visible in the combined image. The younger ones are there, but the mid-infrared-sensitive instrument doesn’t spot them.
Here’s a flythrough visualization of Arp 142. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)
Why Does Webb Study Galaxy Collisions?
By studying this galactic collision site, the Webb telescope further probes the activity as galaxies evolve. Collisions are an integral part of this process. Our Milky Way Galaxy will dance with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, starting in about 5 billion years. Images and data from observations of other galaxies doing the same thing give astronomers a chance to understand the process and forecast the distant future when something called “Milkdromeda” will contain the stars and planets of two spirals that once were close neighbors.
A Hopping Robot Could Explore Europa Using Locally Harvested Water
Various forms of hopping robots have crept into development for us[e in different space exploration missions. We’ve reported on their use on asteroids and even our own Moon. But a study funded by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) in 2018 planned a mission to a type of world where hopping may not be as noticeable an advantage—Europa.
The mission, developed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Purdue University, and Honeybee Robotics, is known as the Steam Propelled Autonomous Retrieval Robot for Ocean Worlds, or SPARROW. It’s about the size and shape of a soccer ball, with the logic, power, and control systems inside a spherical outer hollow shell.
SPARROW wouldn’t be able to operate on its own, however. It would require a lander to deposit it onto the surface and serve as a refueling and sample collection storage base. Europa Clipper, the only currently planned NASA mission to the icy moon, would have been good for hitching a ride, but its lack of a lander made it unsuitable for SPARROW.
Budget constraints are always a problem for innovative missions – as Fraser explains with Dr. Manasvi Lingam.
However, the hopping robot itself is well suited for the environment in Europa. Its designers intended to make it “terrain agnostic,” meaning it could traverse even the harshest terrain the icy moon could throw at it. These would include penitentes, shards of ice that could be meters tall, and difficult for ground-based robots to traverse.
SPARROW could fly over them, collect interesting samples, and return to the lander to refuel and deposit them. Then, it could go out again in a different direction. To model this system architecture, the JPL team spent Phase I trying to determine the best propulsion system for the robot and modeling control algorithms for the flights.
First, let’s tackle the propulsion system. The lander accompanying SPARROW would have to mine ice off the moon’s surface, then heat it and store it as water. When SPARROW returned from a hop, it would use the water to refuel. Five different propulsion methods were considered as part of the study. Still, the best turned out to be a “hot water thruster,” where SPARROW would internally heat the water supplied by the lander, then eject that out in a burst of propulsive force to launch the robot off the surface.
Exploring the surface of Europa is only one part of its mystery – as Fraser explains.
The second major part of the paper was controlling that propulsion. Trajectory correction is critical to mission success, but in this case, the designers believe that no matter where the robot ends up, it will be able to collect a sample and return to the lander. This is due to its gimballed design, which allows the robot to consistently orient correctly, even after bouncing along a frozen surface for a while.
There is still much work to do before the mission is ready to go, though. Some of the most pressing questions are how to stop ice from forming in the robot’s propulsion nozzle and throughout its structural cage. Such blockages could easily throw off any existing trajectory calculations and theoretically immobilize the hopper entirely if they were severe enough.
However, no work is planned to solve those problems for now as the project has yet to receive Phase II funding from NIAC, and work on it appears to have stalled. Dr. Gareth Meirion-Griffith, the primary investigator on the project, has moved on from JPL to take a job at Collins Aerospace. Even so, someday, the author’s ideas might be integrated into a Europa lander mission—we’ll have to wait and see.
'Clearest ever UFO photo of spaceship chased by fighter jet' uncovered
'Clearest ever UFO photo of spaceship chased by fighter jet' uncovered
Story by John O'sullivan & Danny Gutmann
On August 4, 1990, a pair of hikers embarked on a trek through the Scottish Highlands, unaware that they were about to snap what's been hailed as the 'clearest UFO photo ever taken'. The photograph, known as the 'Calvine photo' after the nearby hamlet where it was snapped, would go missing and become the subject of myth for thirty years.
However, after 13 years of relentless investigation by Professor David Clarke, a former journalist and now academic at Sheffield Hallam University, the elusive image was finally located. Prof Clarke discovered ex-RAF press officer Craig Lindsay, who had retained a copy of the photograph depicting the extraordinary scene the two hikers witnessed.
In the astonishing image, a sizable saucer-shaped craft is distinctly seen, with a jet fighter seemingly in hot pursuit. The hikers originally handed over the photograph to the Daily Record newspaper in Scotland, but it eventually ended up with the British Ministry of Defence, where it remained shrouded in secrecy until 2022.
Speaking to Newsweek, Prof Clarke recounted: "The Daily Record's picture editor at that time sent them to Craig Lindsay, who was the RAF press officer in Scotland. He passed the print to the Ministry of Defense in London, the Ministry of Defense in London then asked him to obtain the negatives. So he went back to the Daily Record, asked the Daily Record to send the negatives to London, which they duly did-quite amazingly-and that's when they disappeared."
Related video:
Pentagon Releases 3 NEW UFO Videos (Secret History)
The video, titled "Go Fast," can be seen below.
The video was reportedly taken from a Pentagon program studying Unidentified Flying Objects. It was originally classified when it launched in 2007 as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. The program shut down in 2012, but some elements of the program are reportedly still active. To The Stars Academy claims several government organizations reviewed the footage and it is available for anyone who submits a Freedom of Information Act request.
Despite the media attention the photo received, the two hikers involved have kept mum about their experience. Lindsay, however, shared what he knew about their eerie encounter with Clarke.
The pair, who were working as chefs at a hotel in the Scottish Highlands, took an evening stroll in Calvine in August 1990 and encountered the enigmatic object soaring overhead.
Prof Clarke told Newsweek: "They saw this thing in the sky and it scared them. They ran into some woodland to sort of keep their heads down, and they heard this jet come down the valley and then, two minutes later, it returned and started circling around the object. And that's when they took the photographs."
The incident witnessed by the men remains an unsolved enigma to this day.
The Ariane 6 rocket promises to be Europe’s newest portal into space. On Tuesday, the rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, taking off from Europe's Spaceport in northeastern South America. If all continues to go well on future flights, Ariane 6 will pick up after Ariane 5, the workhorse that flew for the last time in July 2023, and which delivered critical missions into space like the James Webb Space Telescope.
“Ariane 6 is Europe’s rocket for the needs of today, adaptable to our future ambitions,” Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General, shared via ESA.
When the new rocket is fully functioning, the ESA will be able to pay a European company to launch its projects. Today, it relies on U.S.-based private space companies such as SpaceX.
Ariane 6, unlike SpaceX’s Falcon fleet, isn’t a reusable rocket. However, the newly constructed spacecraft does come with some novel technology, including a special upper stage engine, called Vinci, that will be agile and friendly to the space environment.
“With many features brand new to Ariane 6, we’ll be able to carry more and take it further, while sustainably disposing of the launcher's upper stage to prevent it becoming space debris,” officials from the operator of the Ariane 6’s inaugural flight, the European Space Agency (ESA), wrote on Sunday.
An illustration of the Ariane 6 lifting off from French Guiana.
The 184-foot-tall spacecraft is a collaboration between Arianespace, its main customer ESA, and the French space agency CNES, which built out the Ariane 6 launchpad at Guiana Space Centre near Kourou, French Guiana. Like Ariane 5, Ariane 6 will launch near the Equator, taking advantage of the boost from Earth’s rotation there to reach space.
MEET VINCI
The Vinci upper stage engine is the Ariane 6 feature with the most allure. For one, it can be reignited, which allows a single Ariane 6 launch to deliver multiple missions on different orbits.
“Reigniting an engine in zero gravity may not sound so difficult, but as fuels float freely inside the tanks, it is not as simple as you might think. The Auxiliary Propulsion Unit (APU) helps here, providing a small but steady amount of thrust to cause fuel in the Vinci tanks to settle ensuring it can fire again,” ESA officials added.
A final command tells Vinci to passivate, or remove energy, so that it can reenter the atmosphere and burn up with the least chance of an explosion. According to ESA, this reduces the chances that Vinci pieces will linger around as space debris.
With Ariane 6, the ESA can now envision missions both within Earth orbit and beyond to destinations like the Moon.
Researchers made a tantalizing discovery after they MacGyver-ed old data from a radar instrument on a satellite gathered 14 years ago from the Moon. When they used the mission data in a fresh new way, they found proof of a Moon cave hiding in plain sight.
The cave is inside a hole in the ground located in the Sea of Tranquility, which is the same region where the first Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon. This pit is named Mare Tranquillitatis pit (MTP) after the area’s Latin spelling.
The team behind the new work, which was published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, created an ad-hoc radar technique. This provided them a refreshing new look at observations made with the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010, when it fired pulses at an inclined angle down towards the pit. This data was invisible to the satellite’s optical cameras.
When they analyzed the signals anew, and compared it with simulations, they saw that Mini-RF had detected something spectacular. From an observational angle of about 47 degrees, they saw evidence that the pit floor, which was always visible overhead, is flanked by something burrowed beneath the surface. The finding may have repercussions for future lunar explorers.
The Mare Tranquillitatis pit (MTP) on the Moon’s near side.
The Moon cave is a conduit, or a section of a longer tunnel where something once used to flow.
What formed it? Researchers think that beneath the ground, lava flow likely formed the tunnel in the ancient past. Then suddenly, for an unknown reason (potentially a meteorite strike or tectonic activity), one section of the tunnel’s roof caved in, allowing Moon debris to fall down and form a cone-shaped pile.
This is the most compelling evidence for Moon conduits so far. There are several other conduits suspected of existing. But MTP was the right size to reveal its hidden cavern.
“It was large enough that the Mini-RF instrument could collect significant amounts of data from within the pit and, fortuitously, the conduit was oriented such that the look angle of the instrument could see into it,” Wes Patterson, study author and Mini-RF principal investigator, tells Inverse.
WHY LOOK FOR WHAT’S LURKING ON THE MOON?
Subsurface Moon caves could be an exciting foray for lunar science.
Beyond the natural silvery satellite, data on these features could shape how astronomers interpret other data to recreate an idea of how the planets formed. It could sharpen our idea of how the Moon and our world are intertwined.
“The study of this conduit could enhance our understanding of the dynamic relationship between the Earth and the Moon,” the study’s lead author Leonardo Carrer tells Inverse.
There’s also a far-off application: refuge for NASA’s Artemis program astronauts. The space agency is funneling its resources towards returning humans to the Moon this decade. The first program flight to bring boots back to the Moon is seeking a landing site near the lunar south pole. Craters may offer refuge to the crew. The lunar south pole, unlike the Sea of Tranquility, offers another critical resource: frozen water.
There’s no evidence that the Sea of Tranquility offers frozen water. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there, Carrer explains. “The presence of water ice in the lunar subsurface is unknown because we have not had the opportunity to observe it directly. This is why our discovery of a likely accessible cave is so important; it provides a potential entry point to explore the lunar subsurface.”
But if MTP leads to a conduit, there may be more. There could be other caverns on more distant worlds where NASA seeks to place astronauts: Mars.
This pit may have just opened up a whole new world of Moon science.
'The real Atlantis' discovered off the coast of Greece
'The real Atlantis' discovered off the coast of Greece
Story by Harriet Brewis
The legendary land of Atlantis may get all the press, but there exists a sunken city that’s far older than its mythological counterpart.
Pavlopetri is thought to be some 5,000 years old, but it wasn’t discovered until the 20th Century, and experts are still uncovering its secrets and treasures.
The Bronze Age town was first identified off the coast of Greece’s southern Peloponnese region in 1904 by a geologist named Folkion Negris.
However, it was largely unexplored until 1967, when Nicholas Flemming, of the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Southampton, rediscovered the site.
The following year Fleming, accompanied by a group of archaeologists from the University of Cambridge, spent six weeks surveying the drowned city, which lies submerged in around three to four metres (10 to 13 feet) of water, IFL Science reports.
The researchers then mapped out the ancient town, which boasted at least 15 separate buildings, as well as courtyards, streets and tombs.
They also recovered a number of artefacts from the seabed,including pottery, blades and a small bronze figurine which they dated to between 2800 and 1180 BC. However, the buildings of the city itself were found to date back to around 1650 to 1180 BC.
A diver explores Pavlopetri's submerged remains, which include parts of what was once a large rectangular building ((Jon Henderson and the Pavlopetri Project))
You might think that the discovery of a long-lost city buried beneath the waves would generate a fair amount of hype. But, in fact, it took another 40 years for the Pavlopetri site to receive further attention.
In 2009, an international team of experts from the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Hellenic Centre for Maritime Research, and the University of Nottingham began a five-year project to excavate and explore the town in detail.
During their survey, the team discovered a further 9,000 square metres (97,000 square feet) of new buildings, including a large rectangular hall and structures that lined a previously hidden street, IFL Science notes.
They also unearthed ceramics that confirmed the city existed during the Mycenaean period (the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece), plus evidence suggesting that it had been occupied from around 3000 BCE up to 1100 BC, during which it would have had a population of around 500 to 2,000 people.
What ultimately sent Pavlopetri to the bottom of the sea remains unknown. Although, some experts believe it could have been sunk by an earthquake that occurred either around 1000 BC or 375 AD.
But given that the city predates Plato’s allegorical account of Atlantis, some people have excitedly suggested that Pavlopetri was the real-life inspiration for the glittering “lost” continent that still excites our imagination today.
Cassini Reveals Surface Properties of Titan’s Hydrocarbon Seas
Cassini Reveals Surface Properties of Titan’s Hydrocarbon Seas
Saturn’s moon Titan was explored by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft from 2004 to 2017. While Cassini revealed a lot about this Earth-like world, its radar observations could only provide limited information about Titan’s liquid hydrocarbons seas Kraken, Ligeia and Punga Mare. In anew paper in the journal Nature Communications, Cornell University researcher Valerio Poggiali and colleagues report the results of the analysis of the Cassini radar experiments data of Titan’s polar seas.
An artistic rendering of Kraken Mare, a large liquid methane sea on Titan.
Image credit: NASA’s John Glenn Research Center.
“The Cassini spacecraft explored Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, from 2004 to 2017, revealing an Earth-like world with a diverse set of strange, yet very familiar, surface morphologies shaped by a methane-based hydrologic system, operating in a dense nitrogen atmosphere,” Dr. Poggiali and co-authors said.
“Winds in the lower atmosphere move sediments and shape them into vast dune fields that encircle Titan’s equatorial latitudes.”
“In the mid-latitudes, flat and relatively featureless plains mark a transition between the eolian-dominated equator and lacustrine-dominated poles.”
“In the polar regions, large seas and small lakes of liquid hydrocarbons dominate the terrain.”
“Precipitation-fed channels flow into the seas creating estuaries, in some cases deltas, and other familiar coastal sedimentary deposits.”
“While Cassini has revealed much about Titan, these discoveries have prompted more questions.”
In the study, the scientists used four bistatic radar observations, collected by Cassini during four flybys in 2014 (May 17, June 18, October 24) and 2016 (November 14).
For each, surface reflections were observed as the spacecraft neared its closest approach to Titan (ingress), and again as it moved away (egress).
The authors analyzed data from the egress observations of Titan’s three large polar seas: Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare and Punga Mare.
“A bistatic radar experiment involves aiming a radio beam from the spacecraft at the target — in this case Titan — where it is reflected toward the receiving antenna on Earth,” they explained.
“This surface reflection is polarized — meaning that it provides information collected from two independent perspectives, as opposed to the one provided by monostatic radar data, where the reflected signal returns to the spacecraft.”
“The main difference is that the bistatic information is a more complete dataset and is sensitive to both the composition of the reflecting surface and to its roughness.”
The team found differences in the composition of the hydrocarbon seas’ surface layers, dependent on latitude and location (near rivers and estuaries, for example).
Specifically, the southernmost portion of Kraken Mare shows the highest dielectric constant — a measure of a material’s ability to reflect a radio signal.
For example, water on Earth is very reflective, with a dielectric constant of around 80; the ethane and methane seas of Titan measure around 1.7.
The researchers also determined that all three seas were mostly calm at the time of the flybys, with surface waves no larger than 3.3 mm.
A slightly higher level of roughness — up to 5.2 mm — was detected near coastal areas, estuaries and interbasin straits, possible indications of tidal currents.
“We also have indications that the rivers feeding the seas are pure methane until they flow into the open liquid seas, which are more ethane-rich,” Dr. Poggiali said.
“It’s like on Earth, when fresh-water rivers flow into and mix with the salty water of the oceans.”
“This fits nicely with meteorological models for Titan, which predict that the ‘rain’ that falls from its skies is likely to be almost pure methane, but with trace amounts of ethane and other hydrocarbons,” said Cornell University’s Professor Philip Nicholson.
“More work is already underway on the data Cassini generated during its 13-year examination of Titan.”
“There is a mine of data that still waits to be fully analyzed in ways that should yield more discoveries. This is only the first step.”
V. Poggialiet al. 2024. Surface properties of the seas of Titan as revealed by Cassini mission bistatic radar experiments.Nat Commun15, 5454; doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-49837-2
This article is a version of a press-release provided by Cornell University.
Unveiling the Secret UFO Base of East Mountain: A Journey into Cold War Mysteries
Unveiling the Secret UFO Base of East Mountain: A Journey into Cold War Mysteries
In this episode of Strange Places, the spotlight is on a hidden relic from the Cold War era nestled deep within Vermont’s wilderness – the North Concord Air Force Station. This abandoned radar base is not just a reminder of past geopolitical tensions but also a site steeped in UFO history. From its connection to Project Blue Book to the famed Betty and Barney Hill abduction case, this location offers a fascinating blend of military history and ufology.
The Cold War Context
The early 1950s were marked by intense Cold War tensions, with the United States and the Soviet Union locked in a nuclear arms race. Amidst fears of aerial invasion and nuclear missile attacks, the US established a series of early warning radar systems across remote areas of North America, including Alaska, the Arctic, and Canada. Within the continental United States, radar stations were constructed to protect strategic air bases and form a comprehensive radar defense network. One such installation was the North Concord Air Force Station, situated in a secluded part of Northern Vermont, close to the Canadian border.
Establishment of the Radar Base
Construction of the North Concord Air Force Station began in 1952, though it did not become fully operational until 1956. Perched atop East Mountain, which stands at an elevation of nearly 3,500 feet, the station offered strategic views into Canada and neighboring New Hampshire. This vantage point was ideal for detecting potential Soviet threats from the north.
UFO Sightings and Project Blue Book
During the 1950s, the term “flying saucer” became widespread, and reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) surged, raising concerns among government officials. Many military bases across the US, including the North Concord Air Force Station, reported UFO sightings. These incidents were meticulously cataloged by Project Blue Book, the US Air Force’s official investigation into UFOs.
Project Blue Book, which ran from 1952 to 1970, was tasked with collecting and analyzing UFO reports. Under the leadership of its first director, Edward Ruppelt, the project coined the term “unidentified flying object” or UFO. Despite the project’s initial goal of identifying potential threats, it concluded in 1970 with the assertion that UFOs did not pose a threat to national security and showed no evidence of extraterrestrial origins.
Significant UFO Incidents at North Concord
Two notable UFO incidents were recorded at the North Concord Air Force Station. The first occurred on August 4, 1960, when an airman observed a circular object with a blue tip and a white tail over the mess hall. Despite the detailed eyewitness account, Project Blue Book concluded that the sighting was likely a meteor.
The second, and perhaps more intriguing, incident took place on September 19, 1961, the same night as the infamous Betty and Barney Hill abduction. Radar operators at the base tracked a large, erratically moving object at 62,000 feet for 18 minutes. The object’s behavior, including hovering and changing course, led the Project Blue Book report to speculate it was a weather balloon. However, the description and circumstances suggest it was something far more unusual.
The Betty and Barney Hill Abduction
The Betty and Barney Hill abduction case remains one of the most famous UFO incidents in history. On the night of September 19, 1961, the couple reported seeing a light in the sky while driving through Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, which later appeared to be a craft with humanoid figures inside. They claimed to have been taken aboard the craft and examined by its occupants. This event occurred just hours after the radar sighting at North Concord, located only 34 air miles away. The proximity and timing raise intriguing questions about a possible connection between the two incidents.
Exploring the Abandoned Radar Station
Today, the North Concord Air Force Station, later renamed the Lyndonville Air Force Station, lies abandoned. Despite its derelict state, the site offers a glimpse into its past through the remaining structures and graffiti-covered ruins. Exploring the base involves a challenging hike, but the panoramic views from the top of East Mountain and the eerie remnants of the Cold War era make it a compelling destination for adventurers and history enthusiasts alike.
Legacy and Speculations
The North Concord Air Force Station stands as a testament to Cold War paranoia and the lengths to which the US military went to protect the nation. Its brief operation period, from 1956 to 1963, and subsequent abandonment reflect the rapid technological advancements of the time. The UFO sightings linked to the base add a layer of mystery and intrigue, especially when considering their potential connection to the Betty and Barney Hill abduction.
While the true nature of the UFO phenomena observed at North Concord remains a topic of debate, the site’s role in the broader narrative of UFO history is undeniable. As modern investigations into unidentified aerial phenomena continue, the legacy of Project Blue Book and the Cold War radar stations like North Concord Air Force Station provide valuable context and insights.
The North Concord Air Force Station, with its rich history of Cold War defense and UFO sightings, offers a unique and fascinating story. From its strategic construction to its eerie abandonment, and the mysterious events that unfolded in its vicinity, the site encapsulates a remarkable chapter of American history. As we continue to explore and understand the complexities of UFO phenomena, places like East Mountain’s secret UFO base will remain significant landmarks in our quest for answers.
ESA bereidt missie voor naar asteroïde die vlak langs aarde zal scheren: “Zoiets gebeurt maar eens om de 5.000 of 10.000 jaar”
Een asteroïde die vroeger beschouwd werd als de gevaarlijkste van alle bekende planetoïden, zal op 13 april 2029 langs de aarde scheren en dichter bij komen dan sommige satellieten die rondom onze planeet cirkelen. Het Europese ruimtevaartagentschap ESA bereidt een missie voor om de passage van ‘99942 Apophis’ - een erg uitzonderlijke gebeurtenis - van nabij te volgen. Dat moet helpen om eventuele toekomstige botsingen met asteroïden te kunnen voorkomen.
Voor alle duidelijkheid: Apophis zal langs de aarde vliegen, maar tot een botsing zal het niet komen, volgens de ESA. “Astronomen hebben berekend dat een botsing tussen de asteroïde en de aarde voor minstens de komende honderd jaar uitgesloten is”, aldus het ruimtevaartagentschap.
De asteroïde met een diameter van 375 meter zal wel op minder dan 32.000 kilometer van het aardoppervlak passeren en dat is dichterbij dan telecomsatellieten in een geostationaire baan.
Unieke kans
Het biedt een unieke kans voor onderzoek, zegt ESA. Dat zo’n grote brok zo rakelings langs de aarde scheert, gebeurt immers maar eens om de 5.000 of 10.000 jaar.
Het Europese ruimtevaartagentschap wil met de missie Ramses (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) een ruimtetuig naar de asteroïde sturen om de passage te bestuderen. De verwachting is dat de aantrekkingskracht van de aarde een impact zal hebben op Apophis, met mogelijk aardbevingen of aardverschuivingen op de asteroïde tot gevolg. Ook de baan van de ruimtebrok kan veranderen.
“Door te analyseren hoe Apophis tijdens de passage verandert, zullen de wetenschappers veel te weten komen over de reactie van een asteroïde op externe krachten en over de samenstelling ervan, de interne structuur, de cohesie, de massa, de densiteit en de poreusheid”, stelt ESA. “Dat zijn allemaal belangrijke eigenschappen om te bepalen hoe een gevaarlijke asteroïde die op ramkoers ligt met de aarde, van baan kan worden veranderd.”
Gegevens die de Ramses-missie verzamelt, zullen ook meer inzicht geven in het ontstaan en de ontwikkeling van het zonnestelsel, “omdat asteroïden ook tijdcapsules zijn die ruim vier miljard jaar geleden gevormd werden”.
Experimenten
“Er is nog zo veel dat we moeten leren over asteroïden”, zegt Patrick Michel, onderzoeksdirecteur van het observatorium van de Côte d’Azur. “Tot nu toe moesten we ver in het zonnestelsel reizen om ze te bestuderen. We moesten zelf experimenten uitvoeren om in te werken op het oppervlak. Voor de eerste keer ooit brengt de natuur een asteroïde tot bij ons en voert die het experiment zelf uit.”
Ramses moet in april 2028 gelanceerd worden, zodat het ruimtetuig in februari 2029 bij Apophis kan aankomen, of twee maanden vóór de passage langs de aarde. De voorbereidingen voor de missie zijn nu gestart. In november 2025 moet tijdens een ministeriële top van ESA het licht definitief op groen worden gezet.
Blote oog
De passage van ‘99942 Apophis’ zal ook enkele uren met het blote oog te zien zijn in de nacht van 13 op 14 april 2029, als het weer het toelaat welteverstaan, en dat “voor ongeveer twee miljard mensen in het grootste deel van Europa en Afrika en delen van Azië”, aldus ESA.
De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA stuurt ook een ruimtetuig - OSIRIS-REx - naar de asteroïde. Maar dat zal er pas een maand na de scheervlucht langs de aarde aankomen.
De ingang van de grot ligt op meer dan 100 meter diepte en de grot zelf zou zo'n 40 meter breed en tientallen meters lang zijn.
Foto: NASA, Universiteit van Trento
Grot gevonden op de maan: "Mogelijke uitvalsbasis voor toekomstige astronauten"
Wetenschappers hebben een grot ontdekt op de maan, niet ver van waar Neil Armstrong en Buzz Aldrin in 1969 voor het eerst voet op de maan hebben gezet. Ze vermoeden dat er nog honderden andere grotten zijn die als uitvalsbasis voor astronauten zouden kunnen gebruikt worden.
Stien Schoofs
Op slechts 400 meter van waar Neil Armstrong en Buzz Aldrin 55 jaar geleden zijn geland op de maan hebben Italiaanse en Amerikaanse wetenschappers een grot ontdekt die op meer dan 100 meter diepte ligt, onderin een diepe kuil.
De kuil, waarvan wetenschappers vermoeden dat er nog honderden andere zijn op de maan, zou miljoenen of miljarden jaren geleden ontstaan zijn toen lava op de maan stroomde en er zo een tunnel onder het gesteente ontstond.
De ingang van de grot ligt op meer dan 100 meter diepte en de grot zelf zou zo'n 40 meter breed en tientallen meters lang zijn. Dat staat allemaal beschreven in een onderzoek gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Nature Astronomy.
"Je kan er dus niet zomaar in wandelen", nuanceert ruimtevaartingenieur Stijn Ilsen. "Het is een soort van oude 'lavabuis'. Je kan het vergelijken met oude vulkanen op de aarde die ook buizen hebben waar vroeger de lava heeft doorgestroomd."
Maangrotten zijn al meer dan vijftig jaar een mysterie
De Maansatelliet Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter heeft in 2010 al beelden gemaakt van kuilen waarvan wetenschappers dachten dat het grotingangen konden zijn. Nu hebben ze echt bewijs door met een radar door te dringen in de opening van een kuil.
"Dat is een radar die die pulsen afvuurt naar de maan en zo kijkt wat er wordt teruggekaatst. Uit die terugkaatsing kunnen ze berekenen hoe het oppervlak zich gedraagt", legt Ilsen uit. "Nu hebben ze specifiek gemikt op een gebied waar ze een vermoeden hadden dat er een ingang van een grot zou zijn en daar hebben ze met een nauwkeurigheid van 25 centimeter die ingang gevonden."
"Maangrotten zijn al meer dan 50 jaar een mysterie. Het was dus spannend om eindelijk het bestaan ervan te kunnen bewijzen", zeggen onderzoekers Leonardo Carrer en Lorenzo Bruzzone van de Universiteit van Trento aan persbureau AP.
Uitvalsbasis voor astronauten
Wat kan zo’n grot betekenen voor een toekomstige Armstrong of Aldrin? Volgens de wetenschappers kan de grot gebruikt worden om een langere periode op de maan te overbruggen. De maangrot kan namelijk bescherming bieden tegen schadelijke straling, extreme temperatuurverschillen en kleine meteorietinslagen.
"Het leven op aarde is ook begonnen in grotten, dus het is logisch dat mensen ook op de maan veel hebben aan die grotten", zegt professor Carrer nog.
De maangrotten lijken zich volgens wetenschappers vooral te bevinden in de oude lavavlaktes van de maan.
Foto: NASA
Hoewel de wanden van de grotten misschien nog verstevigd moeten worden om instorting te voorkomen, is het volgens de wetenschappers een betere optie dan zelf voorzieningen bouwen om een langere periode op de maan te blijven.
De maangrotten lijken zich volgens wetenschappers vooral te bevinden in de oude lavavlaktes van de maan. Toch vermoeden ze ook dat er een paar op de zuidpool van de maan zijn, de plek waar NASA nog astronautenlandingen plant in de toekomst.
"Waar ze de grot ontdekt hebben, is het ongeveer 14 dagen heel warm, met temperaturen rond de 100 graden Celsius. Dan komt er 14 dagen nacht, waar het 100 graden Celsius onder nul is. Die lage temperaturen overleven mensen niet. Dan is zo'n grot de ideale schuilplaats", denkt Ilsen.Helen Sharman, de eerste Britse astronaut die naar de ruimte reisde, vertelde aan de Britse openbare omroep BBC dat de nieuwe ontdekte grot een goede uitvalsbasis lijkt. Ze suggereerde zelfs dat mensen mogelijk binnen 20 tot 30 jaar in maankuilen zouden kunnen wonen.
Wel vermoedt ze dat er jetpacks of een lift nodig zijn om eruit te komen, net omdat de grot zo diep is.
Leven op Mars?
De grotten kunnen dus handig zijn voor mensen, maar de wetenschappers benadrukken dat ze ook kunnen helpen bij het beantwoorden van vragen over de geschiedenis van de maan en ons zonnestelsel.
"De maan wordt continu gebombardeerd door deeltjes van de zon en die gaan de stenen die aan het oppervlakte liggen wel veranderen. In zo'n oude tunnel ga je net gesteente vinden dat bij wijze van spreken miljoenen - zelfs miljarden - jaren onaangeroerd bleef", zegt Ilsen.
Volgens Francesco Sauro, de coördinator van het Topical Team Planetary Caves van ESA, kan het onderzoek zelfs helpen om grotten op Mars te onderzoeken. Dat vertelt hij aan BBC.
"Dat zou de deur kunnen openen naar het vinden van bewijs dat er leven is op Mars. Want als dat er geweest is, zou dat vrijwel zeker in grotten zijn geweest, net omdat die bescherming bieden tegen elementen op het oppervlak."
Bekijk:
Professor sterrenkunde Leen Decin over het belang van deze ontdekking
Voor het eerst grot gevonden op de maan: "Mogelijke uitvalsbasis voor toekomstige astronauten"
Voor het eerst grot gevonden op de maan: "Mogelijke uitvalsbasis voor toekomstige astronauten"
Artikel door Stien Schoofs
Op slechts 400 meter van waar Neil Armstrong en Buzz Aldrin 55 jaar geleden zijn geland op de maan hebben Italiaanse en Amerikaanse wetenschappers een grot ontdekt die op meer dan 100 meter diepte ligt, onderin een diepe kuil.
De kuil, waarvan wetenschappers vermoeden dat er nog honderden andere zijn op de maan, zou miljoenen of miljarden jaren geleden ontstaan zijn toen lava op de maan stroomde en er zo een tunnel onder het gesteende ontstond.
De ingang van de grot ligt op meer dan 100 meter diepte en de grot zelf zou zo'n 40 meter breed en tientallen meters lang zijn. Dat staat allemaal beschreven in een onderzoek gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Nature Astronomy.
De Maansatelliet Luna Reconnaissance Orbiter heeft in 2010 al beelden gemaakt van kuilen waarvan wetenschapper dachten dat het grondingangen konden zijn. Nu hebben ze echt bewijs door met een radar door te dringen in de opening van een kuil.
"Maangrotten zijn al meer dan 50 jaar een mysterie. Het was dus spannend om eindelijk het bestaan ervan te kunnen bewijzen", zeggen onderzoekers Leonardo Carrer en Lorenzo Bruzzone van de Universiteit van Trento aan persbureau AP.
Uitvalsbasis voor astronauten
Wat kan zo’n grot betekenen voor een toekomstige Armstrong of Aldrin? Volgens de wetenschappers kan de grot gebruikt worden om een langere periode op de maan te overbruggen. De maangrot kan namelijk bescherming bieden tegen schadelijke straling, extreme temperatuurverschillen en kleine meteorietinslagen.
"Het leven op aarde is ook begonnen in grotten, dus het is logisch dat mensen ook op de maan veel hebben aan die grotten", zegt professor Carrer nog.
De maangrotten lijken zich volgens wetenschappers vooral te bevinden in de oude lavavlaktes van de maan.
Hoewel de wanden van de grotten misschien nog verstevigd moeten worden om instorting te voorkomen, is het volgens de wetenschappers een betere optie dan zelf voorzieningen bouwen om een langere periode op de maan te blijven.
De maangrotten lijken zich volgens wetenschappers vooral te bevinden in de oude lavavlaktes van de maan. Toch vermoeden ze ook dat er een paar op de zuidpool van de maan zijn, de plek waar NASA nog astronautenlandingen plant in de toekomst.
Helen Sharman, de eerste Britse astronaut die naar de ruimte reisde, vertelde aan de Britse openbare omroep BBC dat de nieuwe ontdekte grot een goede uitvalsbasis lijkt. Ze suggereerde zelfs dat mensen mogelijk binnen 20 tot 30 jaar in maankuilen zouden kunnen wonen.
Wel vermoedt ze dat er jetpacks of een lift nodig zijn om eruit te komen, net omdat de grot zo diep is.
Leven op Mars?
De grotten kunnen dus handig zijn voor mensen, maar de wetenschappers benadrukken dat ze ook kunnen helpen bij het beantwoorden van vragen over de geschiedenis van de maan en ons zonnestelsel.
De rotsen in de grot zullen namelijk minder beschadigd zijn door het ruimteweer en kunnen de geologische geschiedenis van de maan beter weergeven.
Volgens Francesco Sauro, de coördinator van het Topical Team Planetary Caves van ESA, kan het onderzoek zelfs helpen om grotten op Mars te onderzoeken. Dat vertelt hij aan BBC.
"Dat zou de deur kunnen openen naar het vinden van bewijs dat er leven is op Mars. Want als dat er geweest is, zou dat vrijwel zeker in grotten zijn geweest, net omdat die bescherming bieden tegen elementen op het oppervlak."
The mysterious case of a UFO sighting at an African school nearly 20 years on
It wasn't the first high profile case of school children reporting to see a UFO
(Image: Getty Images)
The mysterious case of a UFO sighting at an African school nearly 20 years on
Almost 20 years ago 60 school children reported one of the now most famous alien sightings on record with detailed descriptions all the way down to wha the strange space creatures were wearing
By Danny Gutmann
A school in Africa is the scene of the most notoriousUFO sightings of all time.
In September 1994 Ruwa was only a tiny agricultural centre just 14 miles south east of the Zimbabwe's capital city Harare but ever since that day it has been a major talking point for all UFO enthusiasts.
It was a typically sunny early-afternoon on September 19 1994 when a group of 60 children at Ariel School made the shock claim to have witnessed aliens landing in their playground beside the school.
When asked by the BBC Zimbabwe correspondent Tim Leach one student said: "It looked like it was glinting in the trees. It looked like a disc, like a round...".
Some of the children claimed to have seen aliens alongside the spacecraft
( Image: BBC)
And when Leach asked the children whether they could have been mistaken and whether it could have been a 'Harrier Jump jet' or 'something the Zimbabwe Air Force have got?' they stuck to their guns and were adamant about what they had witnessed.
UFO enthusiast Cynthia Hinds had her interest peaked by the sighting and even travelled all the way from England to speak to the children.
She told the BBC: "I certainly believe the children. I've come across a similar type of thing in Broad Haven in Wales, 1979 and the British didn't believe it, although I went down three times. It's very similar to the whole incident here."
The headteacher at the school told the children to draw a picture of what they had seen
( Image: BBC)
Various different theories and explanations have been mused about what the children had actually seen or whether the in fact that had made the whole thing up.
But, in the days and weeks later a dramatic development was made in the case as more sightings were reported in nearby by areas.
One local woman said: "I saw a glow over my chicken run. A very orange glow."
Meanwhile 239 miles west in the town of Kariba, a man made a similar statement saying: "We suddenly looked up and we saw this this thing coming over the top of the hill. As it came abreast of us it suddenly changed from this glow to two big red orange balls."
The schoolkids who said they saw 'aliens'
A child’s drawing of what they saw during the Ariel School Phenomenon. /span> Ariel Phenomenon/Facebook
Harvard University is one of the most revered institutions in the world, so when its academics publish new studies, people take note.
It may come as a surprise, therefore, that a team of scientists at Harvard and Montana Technological University, have just produced a paper suggesting anadvanced alien civilisation may be “walking among us” here on Earth.
The fascinating, albeit eyebrow-raising, report speculates that sightings of "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" (UAP) may reflect activities of intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the Moon), and/or even 'walking among us' (e.g., passing as humans)."
And whilst its authors acknowledge that the idea of hidden-in-plain-sight “cryptoterrestrials” is “likely to be regarded sceptically by most scientists," they argue that the theory "deserves genuine consideration in a spirit of epistemic humility and openness."
Such hypotheses play into the growing conviction that the US government has coordinated a secret cover-up of alien activity.
The following month, after a highly publicised UFO hearing in Congress, Majority leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer announced: “The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena.
“We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena ut to create a pipeline for future research to be made public.”
David Grusch shared his staggering testimony in the US Congress in June 2023
(Getty Images/US government)
And yet, we still don’t seem to have any concrete evidence that aliens exist, either down here or on other planets.
Nevertheless, the Harvard and Montana researchers have put forward a number of possible theories as to why this might be.
Firstly, the authors are quick to stress the significance of the term “non-human” intelligence (NHI) as opposed to “alien”.
They pointed to the fact that when Grusch was asked during a 2023 News Nation interview if the government had been “concealing the existence on this planet of alien life,” he clarified: “I would couch it as non-human intelligence [because] I don’t necessarily want to denote origin. I don’t think we have all the data to say, ‘Oh, they’re coming from a certain location’.”
In this spirit, the scientists’ study focuses on a broad collection of possibilities, grouped under the label “ultraterrestrial” hypotheses, which all centre on the theory that NHI may “already [be] present in the Earth’s environment in some sense.”
The authors quote retired Army Colonel Karl Nell – who served alongside Grusch in the US government’s UAP Task Force – who defined “ultraterrestrial” as connoting “any sentient lifeform regardless of ultimate origin that has resided on Earth or in its environs – under/land, under/sea, aero/space – for significant duration in a semi-permanent (albeit covert) status excluding humans from modern day civilization and their known antecedents.”
Indeed, the idea that these NHI may not be the same as aliens has been given serious consideration, with intelligence insiders allegedly telling Ron James, of UFO research group MUFON, that “a very large contingent” of biblically-minded people within the Pentagon have sought to shut down investigations into UAP based on the fear that these may actually involve “demons” coming from “hell”.
Others argue that since UAP defy explanation in conventional terms, the only recourse is to turn to unconventional explanations. And, as a result, they suggest that NHI could, in fact, be “angels”, or what we generally consider the preserve of folklore: fairies; elves; gnomes; trolls, etc.
Also within this broad ultraterrestrial category lies the so-called “interdimensional” hypothesis, which suggests that NHI might belong to a different dimension to our own.
Similarly, some suggest that UAP are, in fact, linked to time-travellers, with Harold Puthoff, of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, claiming that there could be an “ancient occult group, isolated pre-Diluvial high-tech society… existing alongside us in distinct stealth.”
But the main focus of the Harvard-Montana study is what is known as the “cryptoterrestrial” hypothesis which, they say, “suggests the NHI responsible for UAP may already be present in Earth’s environment in some sense, as opposed to having an extraterrestrial explanation.”
However, they continue, “rather than existing in other ‘dimensions’ or other ‘times’ they are present in a relatively more conventional sense (i.e., within current standard spacetime dimensions) but are nevertheless ‘hidden’ in some way (e.g., living underground).”
The authors then stress: “As with other ultraterrestrial hypotheses, we should state outright that we consider this unlikely. Crucially though, we do not regard it as impossible. Indeed, emerging observations seem to suggest it may well have some validity.”
Central to the theory’s credibility is the mounting evidence that UAP are not only aerial but can also move underwater in ways that defy explanation.
The researchers refer to a white paper created by retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet who argues that an extensive body of data and first-hand accounts show “Unidentified Submersible Objects” (USOs) acting in ways that surpass human technology, and even challenge scientific understanding of what is possible underwater.
They then note that respected Stanford chair and long-time UAP researcher Dr Gary Nolan once stated in an interview that NIH come from both outside our atmosphere and from beneath our oceans, adding that “sonar images show these things moving at speeds a dozen times faster than our fastest submarines.’”
If the prospect of advanced civilisations lurking beneath our seas wasn’t enough, the researchers point out that some UAP sightings involve craft and other phenomena, such as “orbs”, appearing to enter or exit potential underground access points, like volcanoes.
Is Popocatepetl a secret UAP base?(iStock)
“The Popocatepetl volcano in central Mexico, for example, is considered a ‘hotspot’ for such observations, with numerous such events captured on camera in 2023,” they write.
They note that in one article, an observer was quoted as suggesting that the volcano functions as an interdimensional ‘portal’, whilst others speculate that “some UAP might not only be drawn to such locales (e.g., as a portal, or for purposes such as hiding or gathering energy), but might come from underground (i.e., with the NHI responsible residing in a subterranean way).”
They cite former member of the United States House of Representative Mike Gallagher, who last year posited that one potential explanation for UAP is “an ancient civilization that’s just been hiding here, for all this time, and is suddenly showing itself right now.”
Indeed, in an article titled ‘Secret UFO bases across the U.S.’, UAP scholar John Keel (1968) argued that since UAP have “been consistently active in the same areas for many years, it is quite reasonable to speculate that these objects originate in some unknown manner from these areas, rather than traversing great spatial distances to make brief random and apparently pointless 'visits'.”
Otherwise put, “many of the thousands of observed ‘flying saucers’ and ‘spook lights’ are more apt to be a part of the Earth's environment than extraterrestrial craft flying in from some distant point”.
If this were true, it would explain why UAP seem to take such a particular interest in Earth and would do away with all the questions surrounding the logistics of interstellar travel.
Furthermore, the authors provide examples of recorded testimony from respected sources insisting upon the existence of NIH, perhaps most notably that of Albert Einstein’s one-time assistant Dr Shirley Wright.
Speaking in 1993 – in recordings which only became public in 2021 – Wright claimed she and Einstein had helped investigate the famous Roswell UAP crash and that this was “not only a genuine UAP, but that biological entities had survived the crash and were subjected to questioning.”
Even more remarkably, she insisted that these were actually “just humans, but an advanced form,” and that many of their “species” actually “reside underground on our planet.”
Former CIA officer John Ramirez allegedly corroborated this claim, revealing that authorities did, indeed, conduct biological tests and “were able to sequence something in those bodies that look like a genome. And from there they checked the human genome and saw the correlations.”
Some argue that the Moon could also be a secret NHI base(iStock)
Wrapping up their extraordinary paper, the Harvard-Montana experts note that NIH could be lurking in another nearby habitat.
“A third site of intrigue is the moon, and particularly its “far” side, which remains perennially hidden from view,” they write.
“Indeed, some observers suggest the moon itself is very strange, characterised, as recently noted by Avi Loeb, by numerous extraordinary ‘coincidences regarding its size, behaviour, and composition’,” they continue.
“As a result, some have speculated that the entire object may be an artificial NHI construction.”
The researchers point to “photographic evidence” of anomalous features on the satellite’s surface, which some have taken to be lunar bases.
Furthermore, NASA whistleblowers including Karl Wolfe and Ken Johnston have allegedly claimed that “even more conclusive photographic evidence of potential bases exists, but that NASA has actively sought to deny, suppress, and conceal such information,” the authors write.
Former Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell is on record as saying, in 2008: “Yes, there have been E.T. visitations, there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time”.
Concluding their study, the researchers categorise the different subsections of potential “cryptoterrestrials” into the following four groups:
1. Human cryptoterrestrials
A technologically advanced ancient human civilisation that was largely destroyed long ago (e.g., by flood), but continued to exist in remnant form.
2. Hominid or theropod cryptoterrestrials
A technologically advanced non-human civilisation consisting of some terrestrial animal which evolved to live in stealth (e.g., underground), perhaps a hominid, or alternatively a species much more distantly related to us (e.g., descendants of unknown, intelligent dinosaurs).
3. Former extraterrestrial or extratempestrial cryptoterrestrials
Extraterrestrial aliens or our intertemporal descendants who “arrived” on Earth from elsewhere in the cosmos or from the human future, respectively, and concealed themselves in stealth.
4. Magical Cryptoterrestrials.
Entities which are less like homegrown aliens and more like earthbound angels, relating to the world inhabited by humans in ways that (at least from our present perspective) are less technological than magical, who are known in European languages by names like fairies, elves, nymphs, etc.
Nevertheless, we should stress that the Harvard-Montana authors are not positing that cryptoterrestrials do exist, rather, that they could, and the idea shouldn’t be categorically dismissed.
As they themselves put it: “We arguing that UAP do have a cryptoterrestrial explanation, but simply that they could, and the judicious approach is to consider all valid theories until the evidence decisively demonstrates they should be rejected.
“We therefore suggest scientists should keep an open mind and investigate the [cryptoterrestrial hypothesis] as a genuinely viable theory.”
After all, they note: “It is the mission of science to investigate all aspects of physical existence, regardless of the extent to which they push at the circumscribing boundaries of our notions of conventional reality.”
I ran this through ai to focus it and it was strange, the ai sees the uncloaked parts and doesn't see the semi transparent part. At first glance you might think this is fake, but it's not and here is the proof, most people who fake make perfectly level UFOs. This one is tilted, just like Nuclear Physicist Bob Lazar of Area S4 said UFOs do when they move in a direction. This is 100% real and it's just fantastic that it was seen in Russia! So few sightings make it to Russian news, so this is one rare gem. It's easy to make out the metal disk hull and the upper dome area. Classic disk at its best. Scott C.Waring - Taiwan
News states:
(google translated)A UFO was seen over Poim yesterday. An unknown flying saucer circled over the village for some time, and then disappeared from view. The picture was taken by a local resident, there is hardly any doubt about the lack of ability to work with Photoshop.- This is where the Bath Bridge, where Rinat Murakov ... she hung right above the yard, healthy. And then, while the boy began to set up the phone, she had already begun to fly away and turned out to be small. And she's so big... It looks like extraterrestrial intelligent beings are closer than we think...
8 UFO hotspots around the world – and what really went on there If you were to have an alien encounter, where in the world would you expect it to be? The US, maybe? Unidentified flying objects (UFOs), also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), are a source of mystery and intrigue to many people around the world, and there are a few places on this list that may surprise you (Picture: Getty)
8 UFO hotspots around the world – and what really went on there So, where are the best places to go if you wanted to spot a UFO? American non-profit organisation the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) has a bank of data revealing, they feel to be, the most credible or interesting cases. The organisation said these reports tend to be from ‘trained observers such as pilots, reports of anomalous structured craft seen at close distances, and reports with interesting and clear video or photographic evidence’. Many of these cases stem back to the 1990s, and are posted in the author’s own words. So, where are the UFO hotspots around the world? (Picture: Getty Images)
1. The United States Naturally, the US made the top of the list with a whopping 133,682 apparent UFO sightings across the country dating back to 1995. The state with the most viewings is California, with 16,399 ‘credible’ cases since the mid-90s, and the fewest number of viewings were around the capital, the District of Columbia, with only 155 cases. No aliens in Capitol Hill then? In California, reported shapes often take the form of mysterious ‘lights’ or orbs. One case as recent June 15 in Richmond, reported three pink orbs glowing in the sky. The witness wrote: ‘Three orbs in a line coming up from the ground. Was heading east on I-80 and saw three pink lights in a column. The lowest of the lights looked to be hovering just above the ground and the highest was probably 100-200ft in the air and the middle was directly in between the other two. They weren’t moving or blinking but eventually all three dimmed and went out' (Picture: Getty)
1. The United States Another case report, from the colder state of Minnesota, in 2008, details a cigar-shaped UAP. The witness wrote: ‘Small white cigar-shaped object, low in sky, hovered for 2 minutes, then disappeared, no trail. Two friends and I were golfing on the 10th hole at North Links golf course, and there was a clear blue sky. As we looked forward into the sky, one of us noticed a white, cigar or tampon-shaped object sitting in the sky, no wings, obviously not a plane or helicopter, and there was no smoke or jetstream coming from the object. It was probably about 500 yards or so away in the sky. We sat stunned, asking each other, “What could that possibly be, besides a UFO?” No one wanted to tee off, because we wanted to wait to see what happened with the foreign craft. After about two minutes, the craft gradually got smaller for about 10 seconds, and then completely disappeared like it went into stealth mode, again, no smoke or anything, it just vanished. Within minutes of seeing the craft, a small army-type plane was flying in the same general area where we had seen the craft. We kept looking for the next two hours of golf, but no reappearance occurred.’ The organisation noted that the witness chose to remain totally anonymous and provided no contact information (Picture: Bettmann Archive)
2. Canada Still in North America, the people of Canada have compiled 5,973 UFO sightings dating back to 1995. With a large number like this, NUFORC has split case reports by province, and revealed the highest number of reports came from the province of Ontario, with 2,547 reports (eh). The fewest reports came from Prince Edward Island, with 27 ‘credible’ reports (Picture: Getty)
2. Canada In the province of New Brunswick, in the town of Bouctouche, two observers reported that they saw a disk-like object in the sky. The witnesses wrote: ‘On May 17, 2021, I was driving my friend home as I noticed lights in the sky and told my friend about it. It was a line of lights – seems like stars, but was not – and then it faded away. We were 30 seconds from my friend’s house, so I rushed to park and got out of the car to see if we could see more. We started looking up and suddenly saw an oval-shaped flying object that was moving. We noticed it was passing in front of two stars. It also looked like it had windows, but was very low on lighting around, we could only spot it because of window lights on the objects. We could see it floating for like a good 30 seconds before we lost track of it' (Picture: Getty)
3. The UK The UK is another well-known hotspot for UFOs, and has racked up 3,439 cases that date back to 1996. But, no, there are no aliens around Big Ben. The reports appear across the country, with one witness in Birmingham, in September 2009, saying: ‘South Birmingham 11.40am, clear sky gold flat object a few feet square with slight bend. On Sunday morning, while taking a coffee after some light housework – my wife was at work. I witnessed something exceedingly weird off the back patio. I have no belief in UFOs – laws of physics dictate against it – and have always explained away anything unusual as helicopter lights etc but not this time, I’m afraid. I observed a crazy sighting which I cannot figure out. It looked like a piece of gold vellum paper, slightly folded as if hovering in the wind. It was sunny so I could have been catching the Sun. I also considered a butterfly. However, it became apparent that the size was wrong for a butterfly, and paper, it was not – because the object proceeded to move out across the park at supernatural speed, with increasing velocity. I was completely dumbstruck and offer no explanation. I’m employed as a physics engineering technician’ (Picture: Getty)
3. The UK Over in Ciliau Aeron, Wales, a report in 2018 told of a sphere-shaped, house-sized, UFO that hovered above the valley. The witness reported: ‘I opened the back door at 6am to let the dogs out. I looked across the fields to where I have a view of the Aeron Valley. It was very dark, but I immediately saw what I thought was a house on fire about half a mile away. I watched for a minute, planning to call 999. Then, the “fire” moved to the west a few hundred metres behind some trees. I realised it was a large sphere, the size of a house and seemed to churn or pulsate with its “fire”. It was extremely bright and white/yellow in colour. Then it stopped where it hovered for a minute and then flew the other way to the east where it continued past its original position, all the way along the valley until out of sight. Just before it went out of sight, a bright red light appeared on the top half of the sphere. It travelled in a straight path, sometimes behind trees at the speed of a car. It also had “sparks” flying out of it like molten metal falling to the ground. It didn’t make a sound. I believe it to have been something not of our Earth’ (Picture: Getty)
4. Australia On the other side of the world, but not quite upside down, there is one surprising country that has quite a few sightings of UFOs. In Australia, data from the NUFORC revealed there have been 961 sightings since 1996, and some echo other reports from elsewhere in the world. In 2023, one witness in New South Wales reported a triangular UFO, with white lights that was moving fast and silently. The report said: ‘Standing in my suburban backyard at 6:45pm EST looking at the stars facing West. I saw the object as it passed directly overhead heading in a south westerly direction. The object was triangular in shape with approximately 10 lights on the forward two sides and 3 on the rear side. The lights were white and not flashing. Stars were blacked out within the triangle as it passed over. The object appeared to be the size of a football field in width and there was no sound whatsoever. It appeared to be quite close. I lost sight of the object as it passed over a hill to the south west. The object was visible to me for approximately 20 seconds’ (Picture: Getty)
4. Australia Triangular objects seem to be a popular shape for a UFO down under – another report in 2018 in Victoria spoke about a solid metallic object that was around five feet on all sides. The witness wrote: ‘It was in the middle of the day, I was sitting on an oval [an Australian Football field] with my friend and I look up and see a giant metal triangle hovering without moving a bit away from us, not to far away, maybe half an oval away. It looked like it was solid metal and after a few seconds of hovering in the same spot it zoomed away very fast over the tree line. It was a nice sunny day without any wind. It definitely wasn’t a drone or a weather balloon. The metal didn’t look bendable and looked like a solid triangle just in the sky' (Picture: Getty)
5.India While we hear of many cases from countries like the US and the UK, we rarely hear of reports from countries such as India. However, according to the NUFORC, there are 502 ‘credible’ cases that stem back to 1999. In 2010, a woman in the city of Alwar saw a UFO hovering overhead for around five minutes. She reported the object looked like a disk, and featured lights, as well as an aura or a haze surrounding it. She wrote: ‘At 6:21pm, I was playing with my kids at the rooftop of our row house in Alwar city of Rajasthan State in India. Suddenly I saw a white and silver color saucer sparkling in the sky. It was moving in a zigzag way, it was moving towards the east and then suddenly changed direction to the north. I told my parents and kids to also look and we all saw the object for around 5 minutes as it was moving very slowly and everybody was surprised to see the same thing. We tried to capture the picture of the object in our mobile phone camera but as the object was distant, we were not able to capture it. Let me also say it was clear sky that day but suddenly we saw a rapid change in weather and after three hours a thunderstorm and lightning happened. I am not sure but this might be linked to this flying object. To add to my credibility I am a post graduate in science and a mother of two kids’ (Picture: Getty)
5. India In 2021, a witness in Jalpaiguri reported a hockey stick-shaped UFO that had lights, as well as an aura or haze. They wrote: ‘It looked like a hockey stick oscillating like a pendulum. The two crafts suddenly collided and there was light which moved northwards. I was playing with my friends and we suddenly noticed something in the sky quite far above. There was a shrill sound for a matter of a few seconds. Most thought it to be a jet aircraft or a shooting star but I thought it was something else. Then as we looked carefully we saw as if something like a hockey stick was upside down and it was showing oscillatory movement. Suddenly the two crafts of the same sort collided and a streak of light was emitted. Then we all thought it was a UFO. We were amazed and the crafts were separated for around 20 minutes. Suddenly they collided and the light streak started moving straight towards the north eastern direction continuously for around another half an hour and it was of the same size quite unlike the common thing that we know. Though we all understood that it was going far, however the size of the light streak didn’t decrease. Suddenly, in an absurd way again the light disappeared and nothing else was seen. We had no mobiles or cameras then and we were alone’ (Picture: Getty)
6. South Africa Another UFO hotspot on the list is the country of South Africa. According to the data, the country has 211 reports that date back to 1997. But despite the smaller number of cases, they are still just as eerie. One witness reported seeing a UFO over a rhino sanctuary in Klerksdorp, which has a no-fly zone. The witness wrote: ‘I have some very weird footage for you from South Africa, captured at 4am by my son on a high security rhino farm with state of the art security systems, including radar – which was how the object was detected in the first place – and night sight cameras. They could not identify the object on camera, and as it is a no fly zone, they dispatched a team of rangers, but no lights and no sound was heard by the team, so they could not locate anything as it was still dark. The object was not travelling in a straight line, and it changed course as well. Hard to determine the height of it, as it looked high at some stages, and very low at other stages. This is definitely not a drone of some kind, and the shape seems to move on the top of the object as if scanning or something. Just very very weird.’ (Picture: Getty)
6. South Africa Another report came through of an apparent UFO sighting in Cape Town near the harbour. The alleged UFO had lights, and was in the shape of a triangle. The witness reported: ‘South Africa also got UFOs. I just left the restaurant called Panama Jacks Seafood in Cape Town Harbour and took a photo of my wife in front of the massive harbour cranes and lights. I handed her the camera back and she put it back in her handbag. As we looked up for the last time at the enormous cranes [we saw] 3 x orange lights in a perfect triangular shape. They held formation in distance from each other, but were kind of erratic in movement, much the same way as a stingray fish would swim. Came from the ocean direction and passed over or left of Table Bay Mountain. I tried to get them on my Blackberry Cell phone camera but I could not find them on the screen. Sorry!’ (Picture: Getty)
7. Ireland Back in Europe, another UFO hotspot country that maybe unknown is Ireland. The country has reported 189 cases which date back to 1998. But no cases of aliens drinking Guinness – that we know about. But despite being half a world away, the organisation revealed reports that also talked of a flying object moving in a zigzag pattern. One witness from Dublin in 1998 wrote of a strange light spotted with an aura nearby. The report said: ‘I was looking out my bedroom window staring at the stars when suddenly one moved. At first I thought it was a satellite but it was zigzagging, jerking, moving in circles, and changing direction. I called my father and my brother and we went outside to look at it better. It stopped moving for a while then started moving again. I stayed there observing it for another 20 mins before I went inside again. When I got upstairs I couldn’t see it anymore…’ (Picture: Getty)
7. Ireland A more recent report from 2019 told of an apparent UFO that seemed to scan the sky with lasers. The report said: ‘At first it was just one blue glow in the clouds. The glow would get stronger and then dim a little. Afterwards it moved and at stages bluish/white lights came through the clouds. Very hard to describe but the best example I can give is when you see a sci-fi movie where a robot or gadget 3D scans something with lasers. These lights would light up the clouds but when they were visible they’d beam out one direction then change very quickly to another direction. They shot out at every angle too. After maybe two minutes there were two blue glows behind clouds. Both moved rapidly from one point to another with flashing lighting up clouds as they stopped. When I could see the beam, it looked as though it came from a central point and spread out into a few beams like I said as though it was quickly scanning then moving. Sorry I know it’s really hard to put into words this episode, but I didn’t know where or who else to report this to as I feel very uneasy about it all’ (Picture: Getty)
8. Brazil Brazil isn’t well known for being a UFO hotspot, but there are more than a handful of apparent sightings. Since 1997, NUFORC revealed there have been 153 sightings of UFOs around Brazil, and some of the sightings are strange (Picture: Getty)
8. Brazil In 2015, one person reported seeing a teardrop-shaped UFO in the city of Florianopolis. The witness said: ‘I was driving to class, when I looked up to see the sky and saw a lime green light, shaped like a teardrop, travelling really fast, and vanishing seconds later. I’m positive it wasn’t a weather balloon or a drone, it appeared to be really high and the shape may be due to its velocity’ (Picture: Getty)
8 UFO hotspots around the world – and what really went on there Metro.co.uk made a map outlining eight UFO hotspots around the world. Was your country on the list? And are there any place you think need flagging? (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
The unverified UFO sighting near Concorde - which has re-emerged on Reddit's UFOs subchannel, features in a 1976 British Airways advert where an orb-like UFO can be observed darting towards the aircraft curiously before speeding away. Following the Fukushima lab disaster in Japan, witnesses told Netflix docuseries Encounters that UFOs saved them by reducing radioactivity levels, while another expert said UFOs prevented nuclear war.
Several shimmering white orbs were spotted above the plant after the nuclear catastrophe in 2011 and appeared to descend into the lab before reappearing. At the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, the monarch was celebrated with a display by nine fighter jets releasing streams of smoke in Union Jack's red, white, and blue colors.
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These 15 Things Will Make You Believe In Aliens (Secret History)
Reddit users were quick to spot an unidentified disc near the jets, but no clear explanation has ever been provided. Reports of UFO sightings following rocket test-fires have also surfaced.
Retired US Air Force staff sergeant Larry Hancock and Ian Porritt, a data analyst associated with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project, have conducted new research showing that unusual activity around nuclear weapons and facilities has evolved over time.
The studies indicate that initially, UFOs appeared interested in nuclear weapon production, but now they are frequently seen around silos and bomber bases.
When a new arsenal of ICMBs was constructed in the 1960s, UFOs became "much more intrusive" in their approach to ICBM bases, Porritt previously stated, adding: "They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base."
There is also a theory that UFOs are actually "turning off" nuclear weapons - with several reports of this happening by the US military since the 60s.
In their latest study, the pair conclude: "Notable unidentified aerial phenomena loitering, military intrusions and weapons facility interference were documented in a series of incidents in 1967 (Malmstrom AFB) and 1975 (Loring AFB and Malstrom AFB), where at least one flight of 10 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) was officially recorded as having unexplainably gone off alert status."
The study delves into the account of former US Air Force ICBM launch officer Robert Salas, who was tasked by the AARO to gather information after he reported an orange flying disc disabling 10 warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967.
He was subsequently made to sign a non-disclosure agreement on the incident by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Salas isn't the only one making such claims. In 2000, US Air Force First Lieutenant Robert Jacobs also claimed to have witnessed this in 1964 but was instructed not to discuss the alleged encounter again.
Moreover, in June 2023, two Air Force veterans told DailyMail.com that they had testified to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) about UFOs deactivating their nuclear warheads.
Lue Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, has previously stated that there "seems to be a lot of correlation" between UFO sightings and nuclear sites.
Independent researcher Robert Hastings echoed these sentiments in 2010, stating: "Declassified US government documents and witness testimony from former or retired US military personnel confirm beyond any doubt the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites."
For the latest local news and features on Irish America, visit our homepage here.
The sudden and catastrophic collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations was one of the most dreadful events in history. Towards the beginning of the 12th century BCE, cities across the eastern Mediterranean region – in Cyprus, Crete, Greece, Anatolia, Egypt, Syria, Levant, etc. – went up in flames, never to rise again, and the cultural expressions and religious institutions of the Bronze Age were lost forever. Historian Robert Drews, Professor of Classical Studies, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University, wrote in the book, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 BC, that,
“Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again…Throughout the eastern Mediterranean, the twelfth century BC ushered in a dark age, which in Greece and Anatolia was not to lift for more than four hundred years. Altogether, the end of the Bronze Age was arguably the worst disaster in ancient history...”[1]
The intensity and geographic scale of this devastation are quite mind-boggling. When the archaeologists of the mid-19th century started exploring the ancient Bronze Age sites in the eastern Mediterranean, they found that the cities and palaces – which were constructed of megalithic blocks of stone - had been entirely leveled and almost everywhere they detected a layer of ash containing charred wood. At Hattusa, the capital of the mighty Hittite Empire, the excavators found a layer of “slag, formed when mud-bricks melted from the intense heat of the conflagration,”[2] while at Mycenae, the “masonry structures within the fortification walls (of the citadel) melted in a fire of great intensity.”[3]
The area of the Great Temple with storerooms surrounding the temple proper, Hattusa, Turkey. Credit: Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia commons
Everywhere there were signs of a massive, violent conflagration that had brought on the utter demise of these longstanding centers of culture. Many of these sites – such as Hattusa or Mycenae - remained unoccupied, forgotten, and lost from the pages of history for thousands of years, until they were dug up by archaeologists in the 19th century. At some of the sites, archaeologists have detected signs of rebuilding after the initial wave of devastation in the early 12th century BCE. However, even the rebuilt cities did not last long and were destroyed and abandoned shortly. Apparently, whatever had brought on this widespread disaster lingered on for some time during the 400 years of the Dark Ages that followed.
Archaeological site of Mycenae, Greece. Credit: Annatsach, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
However, not all cultures in the region were utterly decimated in the 12th century itself. In some cases, the collapse was long drawn out. In Egypt, the rule of Ramses III – the last of the great pharaohs - ended in 1155 BCE with his murder, following which there was a “mega drought” lasting 150 years or more, which caused a severe economic crisis.[4] The end of the 20th Dynasty in 1069 BCE marked the end of Egypt as an independent power. The period from 1070 BCE – 664 BCE is called the “Third Intermediate Period” of Egypt, when the Libyans and the Kushites claimed the throne, at a time of political turmoil, social disintegration, droughts and famine.
Another ancient empire that survived the initial wave of destruction in the 12th century was Assyria, even as most cities in the Levant and Southern Mesopotamia went up in flames. However, upon the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BCE, even Assyria went into a comparative decline for the next hundred or so years. The empire shrank significantly, and by 1020 BCE, Assyria appears to have controlled only areas close to Assyria itself.
The ruins of the Bronze Age city of Ugarit in Ras Shamra, Syria. Credit: Loris Romito, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The effect of this catastrophic civilizational collapse on the people of the eastern Mediterranean was traumatic, to say the least. There was large-scale depopulation, and the people lived in small, isolated, settlements. Some squatters occupied the ruins of the big cities and lived in small huts. Famine gripped the lands, and people migrated in search of food. The ancient trading networks came to a grinding halt. A Dark Age gripped the lands for nearly 400 years, during which time the entire cultural edifice of the Bronze Age was lost forever.
When the Iron Age began at around 750 BCE, the construction of megalithic cities and palaces had ceased. The pottery had simple geometric patterns. Iron replaced bronze as the metal of choice for manufacturing tools and weapons. Chariots were no longer used in warfare. The Linear B writing of the Mycenaean period was forgotten, and the Greeks had to re-learn the alphabet from the Phoenicians in the 8th century BCE. It was almost as if an “epoch” of humanity was over and the old had given way to the new.
Modern historians think of the Greek Dark Ages as a time of “transition” from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Robert Drews used the term “dawn time” to refer to this period of catastrophe and transformation. He wrote that,
“The end of the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, in the twelfth century BC, was one of history’s most frightful turning points. For those who experienced it, it was a calamity. In long retrospect, however, the episode marked a beginning rather than an end, the “dawn time” in which people in Israel, Greece, and even Rome sought their origins. ...The metallurgical progress - from bronze to iron - was only the most tangible of the innovations. More significant by far were the development and spread of alphabetic writing, the growth of nationalism, of republican political forms, of monotheism, and eventually of rationalism.”[5]
The philosophers of ancient Greece generally thought of the Dark Ages as a time when a “Shift in the Ages” took place from the “Age of the Heroes” to the “Iron Age”. Many Greek writers dated the famous battle of Troy described in the Iliad, to around the same time that the Late Bronze Age collapse had occurred: Ephorus had dated it to 1135 BCE, Sosibius to 1172 BCE, and Eratosthenes to 1184 BCE.
As it turns out, the ruins of the city of Troy were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, in the course of his excavations on the mound of Hisarlik, which overlooks the plain along the Turkish Aegean coast. The excavations at the site have revealed multiple occupation layers dating back to 3600 BCE.
The ruins of the gates and terraces at Troy, dating to the Late Bronze Age. Credit: Bgabel, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
What is interesting is that, Troy was destroyed at around 1180 BCE – coinciding with the onset of the Late Bronze Age collapse - following which the city was rebuilt but was destroyed again in 1050 BCE, possibly due to an earthquake. Troy was again rebuilt by the survivors, but suffered yet another destruction by a fire in 950 BCE. This tells us that the entire Mediterranean region was visited by an extended period of catastrophes during the Dark Ages. Robert Drews makes a similar observation:
"Altogether, then, the Catastrophe seems to have begun with sporadic destructions in the 1st quarter of the thirteenth century, gathered momentum in the 1190s, and rages in fully fury in the 1180s. By about 1175 the worst was apparently over, although dreadful things continued to happen throughout the twelfth century."
The question is, what could have caused this widespread and long drawn-out calamity in the Mediterranean region that obliterated the Bronze Age cultures that had flourished in the region for nearly three millennia?
The Sea Peoples
Some historians believe that the so-called “Sea Peoples”- a loose, seafaring, confederation of uncertain origin – are to blame for these upheavals. The principal evidence for the invasions of the Sea Peoples comes to us from the inscriptions and pictorial reliefs on the walls of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.
They tell us that, during the eighth year of the pharaoh’s reign, a coalition of foreign states that originally lived “on the islands in the middle of the (Aegean) sea” attacked Egypt. The attackers are said to have defeated a number of countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Hatti (Hattusa), Alashiya (Cyprus) and Arzawa (a small city in Western Anatolia). Ramesses III claims to have slaughtered the Sea Peoples in a naval battle, and took many of them as captives.[6]
Scholars now believe that the Sea Peoples were a military alliance of “western Anatolian petty states”, since the names of some of the individual tribes that made up the Sea Peoples (which have been mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions) are, to a large extent, identical to the neighbors of the Hittites in the west and the southeast.
A map of the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean shows the cities which collapsed, and those which survived the initial destruction. Credit: Lommes, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
But, if we think about it, the Sea Peoples were not such a powerful adversary, since they were easily annihilated by Ramses III, and therefore - while they might have defeated a few Hittite cities - they were unlikely to have reduced those cities to utter rubble. Besides, the Late Bronze Age collapse took place over a vast swathe of land in the eastern Mediterranean and the Sea Peoples certainly didn’t go anywhere after the thrashing they received in Egypt. Moreover, the catastrophic events in the Mediterranean region had persisted for some time during the Dark Ages. It was not just a collapse of cities that we are dealing with here. Famines had overtaken the lands, trade networks were disrupted, people forgot how to read and write, and all the cultural expressions of the Bronze Age were lost.
Clearly, this was not the work of some invaders of uncertain origin, but of Mother Nature. A major environmental cataclysm must have brought this on.
Some historians have pointed to the eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland as a potential trigger. The eruption of Hekla has been dated to around 1021 BCE (±130), and it caused worldwide temperatures to drop for nearly 18 years, as recorded in Irish bog oaks.[7] Since the explosion occurred nearly two hundred years after the beginning of the Late Bronze Age collapse it cannot be a regarded as a cause, although it certainly contributed to the woes already inflicting the people.
Hekla volcano, beyond a snowy field of volcanic ash, Iceland. Credit: cogdogblog, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Meteor Airbursts?
A possible cause for the Late Bronze Age collapse could be a series of meteor airbursts above the eastern Mediterranean region. When meteors explode in the air, they do not leave any impact craters, but their effects on human civilization can be utterly devastating. Shock waves from meteor airbursts can flatten cities and the intense temperatures from the explosions can cause violent conflagrations capable of melting mud-bricks and stone walls – which is what has been seen at many Late Bronze Age sites.
A well-known example of a meteor airburst is the Tunguska event of June 30, 1908, when a large meteor - about 120 feet across weighing 100 million kilograms - exploded over Eastern Siberia with the force of 1000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs, and flattened over 2000 square kilometers of forest. Strong seismic waves and near-hurricane gusts of wind were felt 600 kilometers from the site. Locally, hundreds of reindeer were killed, but there was no evidence that any person was killed in the blast, due to the remoteness of the location. The same explosion over a densely populated city would have had tragic consequences on human life.
In the eastern Mediterranean, a devastating meteor airburst had occurred a few centuries prior to the Late Bronze Age collapse. In 2021, a team of scientists discovered that the Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam in Jordan had been completely flattened by a Tunguska-sized meteor airburst at around 1650 BCE. The high temperatures from the airburst melted pottery shards and clay bricks and produced diamond-like carbon, while the incredible pressures shocked quartz crystals. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.[8]
Tall el-Hammam excavations. Credit: UC Santa Barbara
Some researchers believe that Tall el-Hammam could be the biblical city of Sodom mentioned in Genesis, which, in addition to Gomorrah, had been destroyed by God, since its inhabitants had become wicked. As per Genesis, fire and sulfur had rained down on the cities, which leveled the buildings, killed all the inhabitants and destroyed the vegetation in the fields.[9]
James Kennett, emeritus professor of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara, who was leading the research team, said that “All the observations stated in Genesis are consistent with a cosmic airburst…but there's no scientific proof that this destroyed city is indeed the Sodom of the Old Testament.”[10]
While the biblical identity of Tall el-Hammam will continue to be debated, it is becoming evident that meteor airbursts can have devastating consequences on human civilization, and many such events have occurred in the past. But, did anything of this sort occur during the time of the Late Bronze collapse?
The Kaali Crater
A recent scientific paper published in the International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics (2020), claims that the Kaali Crater in Estonia - which is named after a small village called Kaali located close to the impact site - was caused by a meteorite impact between 1183 - 1162 BCE. The force of the impact set up a Baltic-wide mega-tsunami at 1171 BCE, and caused a violent seismotectonic effect in Sweden.
The author of the paper, Nils-Axel Morner, a retired geologist of Stockholm University wrote,
“At about 1200 cal. yr. BC something quite unique occurred in the Baltic region: a meteorite impacted the ground on Saaremaa Island in Estonia giving rise to the Kaali Crater and 8 minor impact marks. At the same time along the Swedish east coast, we record high-magnitude paleoseismic activity, ground shaking with power of fracturing the bedrock, intensive methane venting tectonics, and the occurrence of a mega-tsunami with a run-up on the order of 15 m. In this paper, we propose that all the events occurred at the same time, and that the geodynamic events along the Swedish east coast were all triggered by the Kaali impact.”[11]
The main Kaali Crater has a diameter of around 110 m and a depth of 25 m, including its debris rim. Today, the crater has a lake in it, fed by groundwater and precipitation. There are eight minor craters within 1 km of the main crater, with diameters ranging from 12 – 40 m. It is believed that these craters were created when a large meteor, weighing anywhere between 400 – 1000 tons entered the earth’s atmosphere and fragmented into multiple pieces, which struck the Saaremaa Island in Estonia with a velocity of about 10 - 20 km. per second.
The Kaali crater on Saaremaa Island, Estonia, viewed from near the debris rim. Credit: Mannobult CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe Kaali Crater is located on Saaremaa Island off the coast of Estonia. Source: Google Maps
There have been ongoing debates about the age of the Kaali Crater, with the span of uncertainty ranging between 1700 BCE – 1000 BCE. New mathematical models used by Brendan Duffy for the computation of the boundary age for the onset of sedimentation within the crater provide dates ranging from 1183 BCE - 1162 BCE. This is in close agreement with the 1171 BCE date for the Baltic-wide mega-tsunami that has been recorded at 11 sites in Sweden.
Nils-Axel Morner has proposed that a large meteor fragment must have fallen into the Baltic Sea, somewhere between Estonia and Sweden, and caused the mega-tsunami. Around the same time, there was an abnormal peak of seismotectonic events at 13 sites in Sweden resulting in bedrock deformation, large-scale liquefaction, and explosive methane venting tectonics.
The timing of the impact i.e. between 1183 - 1162 BCE coincides with the catastrophe that struck the eastern Mediterranean at the beginning of the 12th century BCE. Since multiple fragments of the meteorite struck the land in Estonia, and a large fragment probably fell into the Baltic Sea, all of them may have originated from a large, disintegrating, comet.
It is quite possible that some large chunks of cometary debris exploded over the eastern Mediterranean region, flattening the Bronze Age cities, and causing the mud-bricks and stone masonry to melt. Cosmic airbursts and impact events can also destroy the vegetation in the fields and induce widespread aridity, thereby causing famines. Since volcanism can also be triggered by meteor impacts, the Hekla eruption could have been a result of these bombardments.
The reason why the Sea Peoples were invading other cultures of that time was possibly because they were one of the first victims of the meteor airbursts; and having lost their homes and food sources, they were searching around for a new place to settle.
There are indications that meteor impacts continued to occur during the Dark Ages. Lars Franzen and Thomas Larsson of Goeteborg University, Sweden, have presented evidence from sites in Tunisia and Sweden, which show that,
“A major atmospheric cooling event, accompanied by excessive precipitation, which led to flooding, occurred around 1000 BCE. The event was sudden and widespread, and the finding of small glassy spherules pointed to a possible impact origin. Franzen and Larsson suggested that an asteroid or comet of diameter in the range 0.5-5 km may have landed in the eastern Atlantic around 1000 BCE, affecting in particular Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.”[12]
Now, why would the earth be subjected to an extended period of bombardment from asteroids and meteors? From where did these impactors originate? The answer to that question probably lies within the dense core of the Taurid meteor stream.
The Taurid Swarm
The Taurids are the largest meteor stream in the inner solar system. It contains some large chunks of rocks that have struck the earth in the past. Most scientists believe that the Beta Taurids – which is the section of the stream we cross from June 5 to July 18, with peak activity on June 29 – was the source of the Tunguska meteor of June 30, 1908.
The progenitor of the Taurid stream was a giant comet, around 50 - 100 km in diameter, which had entered the inner solar system at least 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. The comet was tossed into a short-term orbit around the Sun, and disintegrated in stages, leaving behind a trail of debris known as the Taurid meteor stream or Taurid Complex.[13]
The Earth crosses the Taurid meteor stream twice in course of its annual orbit. The dense swarm of comets within the stream is called the Taurid Resonant Swarm. Credit: David Clark, University of Western Ontario.
The giant progenitor comet of the Taurid meteor stream still remains hidden in the center of the Taurids, moving within a tightly packed swarm consisting of several large comets formed by the fragmentation of the progenitor (all of which are in a dormant state), and dozens of full-size asteroids up to 1 km wide. This dense cluster of comets and asteroids within the Taurid meteor stream is called the “Taurid Resonant Swarm”. The faint Comet Encke, which is the only visible comet within the Taurid meteor stream today, could be a recently reactivated fragment of the Taurid progenitor comet.
In an article in National Geographic, Australian astronomer Duncan Steel provided an estimate of how often we get hit by the comets and asteroids within the Taurid swarm:
“Every 2,500 to 3,000 years or so, the core of the Taurid stream passes near Earth and produces much more intense meteor showers for a few centuries, said Steel. A gap of a few centuries separates the era of intensity between Northern Taurids and Southern Taurids.”[14]
This is a significant observation from the perspective of the Late Bronze Age collapse. If the earth had passed through the dense core of the Taurids towards the beginning of the 12th century BCE, then it would have resulted in intense meteor showers over a period of a few centuries – with consequent cosmic airbursts and impact events - which could account for all the calamities that befell the eastern Mediterranean region over the next 400 years.
The area of collapse, in fact, was much wider than the eastern Mediterranean. In reality, the Greek Dark Ages was a time of global collapse of civilization.
A Global Catastrophe
Everywhere we look around the world, the period from 1200 BCE – 700 BCE was the time when the erstwhile Bronze Age cultures collapsed and gave way to the Iron Age civilizations. In Persia, for instance, the Median kingdom emerged in the 8th century BCE, but what do we know about the Bronze Age cultures of the region? Very little, for all of them disappeared, and it is only at sites like Jiroft that we get an inkling of Bronze Age Persia.
The Indus Valley civilization had already undergone a catastrophic collapse at around 1900 BCE due to a host of environmental conditions – notably droughts and earthquakes - and most Indus cities had been abandoned by 1700 BCE. However, a Late Harappan, post-urban culture continued to survive in parts of Sindh and Saurashtra, which was characterized by relative poverty in their material culture – crude pottery, poorly constructed buildings, disappearance of urban amenities etc. The Late Harappan phase continued till around 1000 - 900 BCE,[15] and ended due to factors not clearly known. After a gap of nearly 400 years we see the emergence of the 16 Great Kingdoms (Mahajanapadas) in the Gangetic plains at around 600 BCE, marking the beginning of the Iron Age culture of India. While certain Harappan traditions were carried over to the later-day Indian civilization, many elements of their skills, beliefs, customs, and socio-cultural setup were lost forever.
Catastrophe also struck the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica at this time. The center of Olmec culture in the early years was at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. However, in c.950 BCE there was a wholesale destruction of San Lorenzo monuments. The site was abandoned at around 900 BCE, and the center of power shifted to La Venta soon afterward. Mesoamerican scholars believe that severe environmental changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmec centers, with certain important rivers changing course.
Apparently, the Greek Dark Ages was a time when civilizations across the world got a drastic reboot. The old ways of doing things were violently erased, and while some elements of the Bronze Age societies were carried forward, we mostly see the emergence of new artistic styles, religious beliefs, philosophies, architecture, and modes of governance. This brings to mind those haunting words that the Egyptian priest of Sais had spoken to Solon, the Athenian law-giver when Solon had gone to Egypt at around 600 BCE:
“Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.”[16]
The “stream from heaven” that the Egyptian priest spoke of, could refer to the Taurid meteor stream, which seems to play a crucial role in the periodic annihilation of civilization. In my book Yuga Shift, I have proposed that the Greek Dark Ages correspond to the period of transition between the descending Kali Yuga and the ascending Kali Yuga in the Yuga Cycle, and I have identified the Taurid meteor stream as the primary trigger for the cataclysms of the transitional periods between the Yugas.
References
[1] Robert Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C., Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 3-4. [2] Ibid p. 8. [3] Ibid p. 24 [4] Dave Roos, “What Caused Ancient Egypt’s Decline?”, History, 10 August 2022, https://www.history.com/news/decline-ancient-egypt-causes [5] Ibid p. 3. [6] "The Sea Peoples’ Inscriptions and Excavation Results", Luwian Studies, https://luwianstudies.org/the-sea-peoples-inscriptions-and-excavation-results/ [7] Mike Baillie, “Do Irish bog oaks date the Shang dynasty?” Current Archaeology 1989, 10: 310–313. [8] Ted E. Bunch et al, “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea”, Scientific Reports, 2021, Vol.11, Article No.18632, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3 [9] Genesis 19:24-26. [10] Sonia Fernandez, “Evidence that a cosmic impact destroyed ancient city in the Jordan Valley”, Phys.org, 20 September 2021, https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-cosmic-impact-ancient-city.html [11] N. Mörner, “The Kaali Impact as Trigger of a Mega-Tsunami Event and Violent Seismotectonics in Sweden”, International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2020, Vol.10, No.3, pp. 235-246, https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=103095 [12] Trevor Palmer, Robert N. Brandon, Perilous Planet Earth: Catastrophes and Catastrophism Through the Ages, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 344. [13] D.I. Steel, D.J. Asher, S.V.M Clube, “The Taurid Complex: Giant Comet Origin?” International Astronomical Union Colloquium, 1991, Vol. 126, pp. 327-330, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0252921100067063 [14] John Roach, “Meteor Shower Promises Seven Shooting Stars an Hour”, National Geographic News, 7 November 2003, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1107_031107_taurids.html [15] Jim G. Shaffer, “Reurbanization: The Eastern Punjab and Beyond”, Studies in the History of Art, 1993, vol. 31, pp. 53–67. [16] Plato, Timaeus, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html
A few days before his mysterious death, the 35th US president John F. Kennedy demanded that the CIA provide him with a UFO dossier. From another archival note by John Kennedy, it became known that he wanted to offer the USSR a joint program for space exploration. Almost half a century after the death of John F. Kennedy, sensational details were revealed regarding his latest orders. It turned out that just 10 days before his death, the 35th president of the United States requested top-secret information about flying ships from special services.
According to the Daily Mail, Kennedy sent two requests: one to the CIA, the other one to NASA. The circulars had been useless in the archives of these departments for many years, but in the end, on the request made by author William Lester under the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA had to release the documents to him.
Author William Lester said the CIA released the documents to him under the Freedom of Information Act after he requested while researching for his new book ‘A Celebration of Freedom: JFK and the New Frontier.’
While working on a new book ‘A Celebration of Freedom: JFK and the New Frontier,’ the writer got the opportunity to familiarize himself with the contents of archival materials. Studying those documents, the author came across two sensations at once.
In a letter dated November 12, 1963, to the Director of the CIA, John F. Kennedy demanded a detailed report on the secret materials of the department devoted to UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. In another one, that was addressed to the administration of the National Space Agency (NASA), the president expressed a desire to cooperate with the Soviet Union in the field of space research and even join forces in space exploration.
Of course, there could be no talk of any opening of the Iron Curtain: after the Caribbean crisis, relations between the two nuclear powers became extremely heated. However, according to Lester, the coincidence of the two documents in time is far from accidental. The fact is that flying ships had repeatedly been seen over the territory of the Soviet Union. Kennedy rightly feared that the USSR might regard the appearance of unidentified objects in the sky above its territory as military aggression.
“I think this is one of the reasons why he wanted to get his hands on this information and get it away from the jurisdiction of NASA so he could say to the Soviets,” said Lester.
”The government regularly declassifies documents after a certain amount of time goes by, and then you have to file a request for those documents,” Lester told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site of Space.com. “When I was in the process of filing, those letters had just become declassified and released to the public.” This happened in 2006 or 2007, Lester said. “At the time, I think other people were getting them too.”
The top secret memo hasn’t turned up anywhere else besides Lester’s book, however, and some archivists question its authenticity. A research technician at the JFK Library in Boston, who asked not to be named, was unable to find a carbon copy of it in its presidential archive, which holds copies of all of JFK’s letters.
“We did some research into the presidential papers to try to find any evidence of the Nov. 12, 1963, letter to the director of the CIA, John McCone,” the technician told Life’s Little Mysteries. Despite the fact that JFK kept carbon copies of all his letters, even the classified ones, “in searching through the president’s office files — CIA, NASA and National Security files — we could find no evidence of this memo or anything like it.”
“Something is a little odd about it,” the technician said. “It is sanitized in very odd places: the director’s name, the top heading of the document (which usually distinguishes which agency is generating it) and then the tiny “top secret” print at the top of letter. Top secret items are usually stamped in large dark ink on the letter.“
The publicized documents once again convinced ufologists that the president was killed because of his interest in UFOs. According to paranormal researchers, behind the tragic death of Kennedy were people who were not interested in the head of state who was wildly popular among ordinary Americans, to learn the truth about UFOs.
Supporters of the conspiracy theory in connection with newly discovered circumstances recall other documents: the sensational “burned memo.” In 1999, ufologist Timothy Cooper was given a certain document with charred fields. The papers contained internal correspondence of senior CIA officers. In particular, the director of intelligence services drew the addressee’s attention to the fact that ‘Lancer’(Kennedy’s Secret Service code name) was too actively making inquiries, and his curiosity needed to be stopped.
It was reported that this top-secret file, subject to destruction, was saved from the fire by a CIA officer who served in the department from 1960 to 1974. The authenticity of the document was repeatedly questioned, and its last owner even turned to forensic experts for a professional opinion. However, the examination results have not yet been made public.
UFO investigator Robert Wood said he has tested the paper it was printed on, the ink age, watermarks, font types and other markings. He said: ‘I hired a forensics company to check the age of the ink and check several other things that you can date, using the same techniques you’d use in a court of law.’
New investigations into humanity’s ancient interactions with an enigmatic “lost” species are revealing the complex world our early ancestors once shared.
The recent research conducted by an international team of geneticists and AI experts has revealed that the lives of early modern humans and Neanderthals were more interconnected than previously thought. Significantly, the study points to waves of interbreeding over time that fundamentally shaped the genetic makeup of modern humans and offers new insights into the mysterious disappearance of the Neanderthals.
Led by Joshua Akey from Princeton University, the team says it has discovered evidence of such genetic exchanges dating back as far as 250,000 years. This data challenges existing theories about human migrations in the ancient world and what factors may have steered human evolution over time.
The new findings point to a far deeper level of interaction that once occurred between ancient humans and our Neanderthal cousins.
THE NEANDERTHAL ENIGMA
First discovered in 1856, what eventually came to be recognized as the first known Neanderthal bones were found in a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany. The discovery introduced these mysterious archaic hominins to the paleoanthropological record and prompted serious scientific interest in what factors shaped human evolution over time.
Once mischaracterized as slow and lacking intelligence, mounting evidence of traits exhibited by Neanderthals, including advanced stone toolmaking and the possibility that they may have treated each other’s injuries, is continually reshaping our ideas about their intelligence levels.
While similar to us in many ways, the differences between Neanderthal remains and those of modern humans have long remained intriguing to scientists, raising questions that have deepened in recent years with the discovery of another hominin group, known as the Denisovans, that once also populated parts of Asia and South Asia as recently as the latter part of the last Ice Age.
Now, Akey and his team at Princeton’s Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics are uncovering deeper insights than ever before into the genetic history modern humans share with the Neanderthals, who mysteriously vanished from the fossil record around 40,000 years ago.
According to Akey and his team, multiple different waves of interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans appear to have taken place.
“We now know that for the vast majority of human history, we’ve had a history of contact between modern humans and Neanderthals,” Akey recently said.
Liming Li, a professor at Southeast University in China who was also a contributor to the study, called the team’s findings “the first time that geneticists have identified multiple waves of modern human-Neanderthal admixture.”
COMMON ORIGINS WITH AN INTELLIGENT “LOST” SPECIES
The findings help to confirm that around 600,000 years ago, modern humans and Neanderthals split from an earlier common ancestor. More than 350,000 years would pass before each group developed distinctive physical characteristics that clearly defined them as separate species.
However, over the course of the 200,000 years leading up to their disappearance, humans continued to interact with Neanderthals. In their research, Akey and the team used genomes collected from 2,000 living humans, as well as genomes from three Neanderthals and one Denisovan, to map the flow of genetic information between these groups spanning a period of about 250,000 years.
Additionally, the team’s research was aided by a machine learning tool called IBDmix, which helped them identify three major waves of contact that occurred between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago, 100,000 to 120,000 years ago, and a final wave between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, just before the last known Neanderthals vanished from the fossil record.
The team made additional insights into the presence of modern human DNA in Neanderthal genomes, an approach that helped identify that offspring from such interbreeding events were likely to remain in Neanderthal populations, with no traces present in the genomes of living humans.
According to Akey and his team, this very dynamic state of early human movement also complements archaeological evidence of cultural and tool exchanges that were believed to have occurred between these hominin relatives.
Finally, the Princeton research team’s findings offer a revision to past estimates of the size of Neanderthal populations. They reveal that past figures were interpreted as being greater than they actually were, reducing the breeding population of Neanderthals the team observed in their data by close to 1000 individuals
Although Akey prefers the notion of slow assimilation into human populations over the idea of extinction, he nonetheless concedes that the disappearance of the Neanderthals had been foreshadowed by population decline over a fairly long period.
“Neanderthals were teetering on the edge of extinction, probably for a very long time,” Akey says.
Ultimately, the steady growth in modern human populations coinciding with the slow decline and assimilation of Neanderthals resulted in their absorption. Akey and his team’s research strongly support this gradual assimilation model, offering what may be the clearest picture yet of the rise and fall of the enigmatic Neanderthals.
“Modern humans were essentially like waves crashing on a beach, slowly but steadily eroding the beach away,” Akey said in a statement.
“Eventually, we just demographically overwhelmed Neanderthals and incorporated them into modern human populations.”
Akey and his team’s findings were published in a recent study, “Recurrent gene flow between Neanderthals and modern humans over the past 200,000 years,” which appeared in the journal Science.
A new Pentagon study examining reported sightings of UFOs and UAPs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extra-terrestrial intelligence.
There is no evidence the US government has encountered aliens or that officials possess extraterrestrial technology, a new report released by the Pentagon has found.
The report delves into historical and famous UFO reports to analyse theories the government was reverse engineering alien spacecraft that had crashed in the country.
It concluded many of those so-called sightings of what are now officially known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, were likely new human technologies that “observers would have understandably reported as UFOs”.
In the report tabled to congress on Friday US time, the Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office found pop culture “most likely” influenced the public perception of a conspiracy to hide the truth.
More than 40 per cent of Americans believe humans have sighted UFOs, according to a 2021 survey.
“A consistent theme in popular culture involves a particularly persistent narrative that the USG — or a secretive organisation within it — recovered several off-world spacecraft and extraterrestrial biological remains, that it operates a program or programs to reverse engineer the recovered technology, and that it has conspired since the 1940s to keep this effort hidden from the United States Congress and the American public,” the report states.
“AARO recognizes that many people sincerely hold versions of these beliefs which are based on their perception of past experiences, the experiences of others whom they trust, or media and online outlets they believe to be sources of credible and verifiable information.”
Hundreds of reports remain unsolved, the report states, but it says if more and better quality data was available “most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena”.
A video taken by navy pilots that have circulated for years showing interactions with ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’.
Picture: Handout/DoD/AFP
In recent years the Pentagon has poured money into UFO research and released several declassified videos as part of its investigations into the aircraft.
In 2019, Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough confirmed two videos of a fast moving object flying past US fighter jets were “part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years”.
For the new report, officials interviewed 30 people who claimed to have knowledge of government secrets but the document states many of their claims were debunked through research of past programs.
The well-known Roswell incident of 1947 is addressed in the 67-page document, which has gone down in folklore as one of the most famous UFO conspiracies.
US Army officials announced at the time they had come into possession of a “flying disk” among debris in the New Mexico desert, but soon retracted that statement.
Officials identify metallic fragments found near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Picture: INP Soundphoto
It was officially explained as the wreckage of a military balloon which used dummies to test how pilots ejected from aircraft.
The Pentagon’s report found the Roswell incident likely stemmed from Project Mogul, a Cold War program aimed at securing Soviet intelligence through the use of sensor-carrying balloons.
“A crashed balloon associated with Project Mogul outside of Roswell, New Mexico, is assessed to be the source of early UFO claims,” it found.
The Roswell incident captured the imagination of America and was depicted in a titular film.
Overall, the report concluded some of the sightings from the 1940s, 50s and 60s could be explained by the testing of new technologies such as spy planes, satellite launches and the country’s space program.
It also found no evidence former personnel had been threatened with nondisclosure agreements to prevent them from leaking secrets about aliens to the public.
A 2021 survey found 41 per cent of Americans believed humans have seen an alien spacecraft, up from 33 per cent two years earlier.
The Pentagon, in its report, stated it was not trying to dismiss honest beliefs but was working only with empirical evidence to review the information at hand.23
When it comes to the subject of UFOs and aliens, the so-called Roswell incident is right up there near the top of the list of conspiracy theories.
For almost 80 years, people have been arguing over whether the United States Army lied about what actually happened in June and July of 1947.
Much of the UFO and alien speculation stems from the fact that the Army initially reported to the public that they had come into possession of a “flying disc.” That story was then retracted within a day and changed to say that what they found was actually nothing more than a weather balloon.
The conspiracy theory was further fueled in 1978 when retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel (seen in the photo above with the alleged debris from Roswell) claimed that the weather balloon story had been a cover-up and that the crash debris the Army found was actually extraterrestrial in nature.
So, in 2022, they sent a sample of the alleged crashed UFO to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Last Thursday, Oak Ridge issued a report, without actually mentioning Roswell specifically, detailing their findings after two years of analysis.
“This specimen has been publicly alleged to be a component recovered from a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle in 1947, and purportedly exhibits extraordinary properties, such as functioning as a terahertz waveguide to generate antigravity capabilities,” the AARO explained in its report. “Considering all available evidence, AARO assesses that this specimen is likely a test object, a manufacturing product or byproduct, or a material component of aerospace performance studies to evaluate the properties of [magnesium] alloys.”
The person who has publicly alleged this is Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge and his independent research organization To The Stars Academy which provided the sample to the AARO.
“Although the origin, chain of custody, and ultimate purpose of this specimen remain unclear, a modern and robust analysis of its chemical and structural composition and properties does not indicate that its origin is non-terrestrial, nor do the data indicate that the material examined ever had the pure single-crystalline bismuth layer that could possibly have acted as a terahertz waveguide,” Oak Ridge stated in its report.
The report essentially chalks up the unusual material to being nothing more than “experimental [magnesium] alloys” that were being tested “for airframes, engines, weapons, and delivery systems starting in 1915 and peaking during World War II.”
“Unsurprisingly, records of failed [magnesium] alloy designs are scant. Neither AARO nor ORNL could verify the specimen’s historical origin. Unverifiable, conflicting personal accounts complicate its undocumented chain of custody,” they concluded.
AI Focused Photos of Two Asteroids With UFOs Orbiting Them! UAP Sighting News.
AI Focused Photos of Two Asteroids With UFOs Orbiting Them! UAP Sighting News.
I decided to run these two different asteroid through the ai program and quickly got blown away my what I saw. Not only are these tiny things orbiting the asteroids, but they are not moons at all as NASA would have you believe, but instead or alien craft orbiting and controlling the trajectory of these asteroids to guide them safely past earth. The UFOs are watching out for all life on Earth, protecting the lesser species of the universe until they are able to protect themselves one day. Good to know right?
Hey, if you can please like, subscribe and share this info, thanks Scott Waring.
I used ai to focus the photo and put it into natural color again. When it did, I saw that the string-like parasite creature was now pink and white. I also noticed what looked like a mouth similar to an ant and an eye with a visible eyeball. Now the tentacles are very similar to that of a parasitic organism often seen on earth so I believe this creature burrowed from below the ground briefly and then dug back under thesurface for safety.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Is There a Connection Between the Phoenix UFO and the Roswell Incident?
Is There a Connection Between the Phoenix UFO and the Roswell Incident?
In the annals of UFO history, two incidents stand out prominently: the Roswell Incident of 1947 and the lesser-known but equally intriguing sighting by William Rhodes in Phoenix, Arizona, that same year. The timing and geographical proximity of these events raise compelling questions about potential connections and government cover-ups.
The Roswell Incident: A Brief Overview
In early July 1947, the quiet desert of Roswell, New Mexico, became the epicenter of what is now the most famous UFO incident in history. A local rancher discovered strange metallic debris scattered across his property, which was subsequently handed over to the nearby Roswell Army Air Field. On July 8, 1947, the Army issued a sensational press release claiming the recovery of a “flying disk.” This announcement ignited widespread media frenzy, but the excitement was quickly dampened when the military retracted the statement, attributing the debris to a weather balloon.
The Phoenix Sighting: William Rhodes’ Encounter
Simultaneously, about 500 miles away in Phoenix, Arizona, an amateur scientist named William Rhodes captured a photograph of a peculiar object in the sky. Rhodes, known for his scientific acumen and numerous patents, reported seeing a disk-shaped craft maneuvering in the evening sky. His photograph, taken in early July 1947, gained attention due to its similarity to descriptions of the Roswell debris.
Possible Connections and Government Cover-Up
The coincidence of these two events occurring within such a short period and geographic proximity has fueled speculation about a possible link. Some researchers suggest that the Roswell incident might have been a diversion orchestrated by the military to draw attention away from more significant events or discoveries happening elsewhere, such as Rhodes’ sighting in Phoenix.
There are compelling reasons to consider this theory:
Timing and Proximity: The events in Roswell and Phoenix occurred within days of each other and within a 500-mile radius. This geographical and temporal proximity suggests a potential connection or at least a coordinated response.
Government Disinformation: The swift retraction of the Roswell press release and the subsequent weather balloon explanation have long been suspected as part of a disinformation campaign. If the military was engaged in managing public perception of unexplained aerial phenomena, it is plausible they would use high-profile incidents to distract from other significant sightings.
William Rhodes’ Credibility: Rhodes was not just a casual observer; he was a highly educated and scientifically inclined individual. His photograph and testimony add a layer of credibility to the Phoenix sighting. His interest in optics and scientific inquiry further supports the authenticity of his observation.
Investigating the Phoenix Connection
Although William Rhodes has since passed away, the investigation into his sighting continues. Researchers have turned to individuals like Bill Morris, a close family friend, to gain deeper insights into Rhodes’ life and his encounter with the mysterious object. According to Morris, Rhodes was a genuine and logical man, fascinated by science and innovation. He was a prolific inventor, with patents and creations that showcased his ingenuity.
Morris’ accounts highlight Rhodes’ credibility and the importance of his sighting. Described as someone who would have thrived in Silicon Valley today, Rhodes’ scientific background and detailed observations make his experience a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding potential UFO cover-ups.
VIDEO:
Is This Phoenix UFO Cover-Up Linked To Roswell? | Alien Contact
The potential link between the Phoenix sighting and the Roswell incident remains a tantalizing possibility. The combination of Rhodes’ credible scientific background, the timing of his sighting, and the historical context of the Roswell incident suggest a more complex narrative than a simple weather balloon explanation. As researchers continue to delve into declassified documents, eyewitness accounts, and historical records, the quest to uncover the truth behind these 1947 events persists. The possibility of a coordinated government cover-up, spanning multiple locations and incidents, underscores the need for continued investigation into the enigmatic world of UFO phenomena.
Amber is fossilized tree resin. Unlike traditional fossils found on land or in the sea, amber can preserve ancient life forms in incredible detail. It’s often considered the “holy grail” of paleontology worldwide.
3D reconstruction of a fossilised ‘non-biting’ midge based on X-ray scans from the Australian Synchrotron.
Amber acts like a time capsule, capturing tiny animals, plants, and even microorganisms from millions of years ago. These fossils – also known as inclusions – can appear astonishingly fresh, preserved just as they were when they died trapped in sticky tree resin.
Australian amber is now helping to understand the biological diversity of ancient Gondwanan environments from 42 million years ago and their connections to today’s Australian forests. From it, we can learn yet more reasons for why we must protect today’s forests.
A fossil springtail – a common arthropod found in soil – trapped in Australian amber.
MARIA BLAKE
THE UNIQUE VALUE OF AUSTRALIAN AMBER
Unlike typical, squashed fossil rock shapes, paleontologists value amber for its remarkable ability to preserve inclusions in full three dimensions. This means we can study fossil organisms that would otherwise not have been recorded in such detail.
This is especially important considering that around 85% of modern biodiversity comes from arthropods (spiders, flies, beetles, bees, and the like). Only 0.3% is represented by the “bony” mammals more commonly found as fossils in rocks.
Overall, only a tiny fraction of all life throughout geologic time has been fossilized. This means we work with a biased fossil record that may not accurately represent past diversity.
Amber provides a unique opportunity to find less common specimens. It helps to reveal the diversity of past ecosystems and to reduce these biases in our understanding of ancient life.
Most amber discoveries come from the Northern Hemisphere (the Baltic region, Spain, China, and Myanmar). Australia is one of the rare places in the Southern Hemisphere where scientists can also study organisms trapped in amber.
The most promising site for finding these preserved organisms is a former coal mining area in Victoria. The amber and fossils from this site are estimated to be 42–40 million years old, dating back to the Eocene epoch.
At that time, Australia and Antarctica were still connected as part of the slowly fragmenting supercontinent called Gondwana. Australia had a warm and moist climate and forests teeming with insects, arachnids, and other creatures.
The full body of a midge captured in three-dimensional detail.
Our latest work reveals more details on the species. We’ve learned not only where these organisms lived in the past but also the surprising fact that many of them still exist in Australia’s forests today, albeit in greatly reduced geographic ranges.
This means creatures from ancient Gondwana have persisted for more than 40 million years. Their survival for so long gives even more reason to protect them in the future.
One major breakthrough in our research is based on new advancements at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron research facility in Melbourne. Improved resolution and the capability to scan smaller samples with X-rays have greatly improved how we can produce images of organisms trapped in amber. This allows us to create detailed 3D reconstructions, and we can identify the species more easily.
The synchrotron has also made it possible to finally detect inclusions within large, opaque pieces of amber that were hard to examine previously with traditional microscopes.
WHAT HAVE WE FOUND IN AUSTRALIAN AMBER?
Some of the new major findings have been a “non-biting” or “feather” midge from the Podonominae insect subfamily. It’s the first fossil record of the genus Austrochlus in the Southern Hemisphere. Even though it was widely distributed globally in the past, it is now restricted to Australia.
With the synchrotron, we revealed not only the specimen’s sex and position in its family tree but also the internal structures of what are potentially wing muscles. Even in amber fossils, that’s a rarity.
A ‘non-biting’ midge.
MARIA BLAKE
We also found a true biting midge that’s still around today (Austroconops). It’s the first fossil of its kind dating back to the Cenozoic, spanning the last 66 million years. Once widespread, today this midge is only found in Western Australia, again restricted just to our continent.
A wasp from the family Embolemidae, recognised today from all around the world to be a parasite on planthopper nymphs, is another highlight from Australian amber. This group has quite a scarce fossil record, and this is only the second time one has been found in the Southern Hemisphere.
This parasitic wasp has a very scarce fossil record.
Maria Blake
All of these insect fossils are the first of their kind found in Australia. And we’ve only scratched the surface – there are many more yet to be described.
Remarkably, these insects are still around in Australian forests today, tracing their lineage back in time to ancient Gondwana. Without realizing it, we exist among living fossils.
While we know these species were widely distributed in the past, today, most of them are found only on this continent. They now face new challenges which threaten their habitats. The threats include climate change, deforestation, and urban sprawl.
Protecting these ancient “living fossils” and their environments is essential for the health of our native ecosystems.
Long-legged flies were 'caught in the act' 42-40 million years ago,
Image credit: Jeffrey Stilwell
Amber is considered the ‘holy grail’ preservation medium for ancient life. (Image credit: Jeffrey Stilwell)
Clear yellow amber from Victoria, Australia, contains a beautifully preserved biting midge that is approximately 41 million years old. (Image credit: Enrique Peñalver)
Any night now, a “new star” or nova will appear in the night sky. While it won’t set the sky ablaze, it’s a special opportunity to see a rare event that’s usually difficult to predict in advance.
The star in question is T Coronae Borealis (T CrB, pronounced “T Cor Bor”). It lies in the constellation of the Northern Crown, prominent in the Northern Hemisphere but also visible in the northern sky from Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand, over the next few months.
Most of the time T CrB, which is 3,000 light years away, is much too faint to be seen. But once every 80 years or so, it brightly erupts.
A brand new star suddenly seems to appear, although not for long. Just a few nights later, it will have rapidly faded, disappearing back into the darkness.
A BURST OF LIFE
During the prime of their lives, stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions deep inside their cores. Most commonly, hydrogen is turned into helium, which creates enough energy to keep the star stable and shining for billions of years.
But T CrB is well past its prime and is now a stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. Its internal nuclear fire has been quenched, allowing gravity to compress the dead star dramatically.
A white dwarf is about the same size as Earth but around 300,000 times more massive, generating a mighty gravitational field.
ESA/NASA
T CrB also has a stellar companion – a red giant that has puffed up as it enters old age. The white dwarf mops up the swollen red giant’s gas, and this forms what’s known as an accretion disc around the dead star.
The matter keeps piling up on a star that’s already compressed to its limit, forcing a continual rise in pressure and temperature. Conditions become so extreme they mimic what once would’ve been found inside the star’s core. Its surface ignites in a runaway thermonuclear reaction.
When this happens, the energy released makes T CrB shine 1,500 times brighter than usual. Here on Earth, it briefly appears in the night sky. With this dramatic reset, the star has then expelled the gas, and the cycle can begin all over again.
Animation of a nova erupting as thermonuclear reactions ignite on the smaller white dwarf star.
Credit: NASA/Conceptual Image Lab/Goddard Space Flight Center.
HOW DO WE KNOW IT’S DUE?
T CrB is the brightest of a rare class of recurrent novae that repeat within a hundred years — a time scale that allows astronomers to detect their recurrent nature.
Only ten recurrent novae are currently known, although more novae may be recurrent — just on much greater timescales that aren’t as easily tracked.
The earliest known date of T CrB erupting is from the year 1217, based on observations recorded in a medieval monastic chronicle. It’s remarkable that astronomers can now predict its eruptions so precisely as long as the nova follows its usual pattern.
The star’s two most recent eruptions — in 1866 and 1946 — showed the exact same features. About ten years prior to the eruption, T CrB’s brightness increased a little (known as a high state), followed by a short fading or dip about a year after the explosion.
The light curve of T CrB during the nova event of 1946, compiled from 6,597 observations logged with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/AAVSO
T CrB entered its high state in 2015, and the pre-eruption dip was spotted in March 2023, setting astronomers on alert. What causes these phenomena are just some of the current mysteries surrounding T CrB.
The recent light curve of T CrB shown in two filters or bands – V (green) and B (blue) – and compiled using 95,901 observations from the AAVSO. It’s possible, especially in the B band, to see T CrB enter the high state in 2015 and currently experiencing the pre-eruption dip.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/AAVSO
HOW CAN I SEE IT?
Start stargazing now! It’s a good idea to get used to seeing Corona Borealis as it is now so that you get the full impact of the “new” star.
Corona Borealis currently reaches its best observing position (known as a meridian transit) around 8:30 pm to 9 pm local time across Australia and Aotearoa. The farther north you are located, the higher the constellation will be in the sky.
The farther north you are located, the higher Corona Borealis will appear in the northern sky. The new star will be about as bright as Alphecca in Corona Borealis or the nearby Rasalhague in Ophiuchus.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/STELLARIUM
Whereas down south in Hobart, Corona Borealis stays low in the north. The bright star Arcturus acts as a good guide.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/STELLARIUM
Across Aotearoa, T CrB is best seen around 9pm throughout July. Additional constellations are shown for reference.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/STELLARIUM
The nova is expected to be a reasonable brightness (magnitude 2.5): about as bright as Imai (Delta Crucis), the fourth brightest star in the Southern Cross. So it will be easy to see even from a city location, if you know where to look.
During July evenings, the Southern Crux can be found on its side, high in the southwest from Australia and Aotearoa.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/STELLARIUM
WE WON’T HAVE MUCH TIME
We won’t have long once it goes off. The maximum brightness will only last a few hours; within a week T CrB will have faded and you’ll need binoculars to see it.
It almost certainly will be an amateur astronomer that alerts the professional community to the moment when T CrB outbursts.
These dedicated and knowledgeable people routinely monitor stars from their backyards on the chance of “what if” and, therefore, fill an important gap in night sky observations.
The American Association of Variable Star Observing (AAVSO) has a log of over 270,000 submitted observations on T CrB alone. Amateur astronomers are collaborating here and around the world to continually monitor T CrB for the first signs of eruption.
By September, Corona Borealis will be moving lower into the northwest sky and best seen between 7:30 pm to 8 pm local time.
MUSEUMS VICTORIA/STELLARIUM
Hopefully, the nova will erupt as expected sometime before October because, after that, Corona Borealis leaves our evening sky in the Southern Hemisphere.
This article was originally published onThe Conversation by Tanya Hill at Museums Victoria Research Institute and Amanda Karakas at Monash University. Read theoriginal article here.
The Ariane 6 is here. On Tuesday, the European Space Agency launched the 184-foot-tall spacecraft on its inaugural flight from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The feat comesyears behind scheduleand one year after its predecessor, the workhorse Ariane 5, flew for the last time.
The Ariane 6 will take the Arianespace fleet to the next level. The modular design enables the rocket to take on light and heavy launches, adapting to the client’s needs. It can lift off with the power of either two or four boosters. It also offers two lengths for its fairing, the tip of the rocket that carries satellites into space. Ariane 6’s upper stage Vinci engine can also reignite in space, which means that on a single launch, the rocket can deliver several different missions into their orbits. ESA expects it to be a lot cheaper to launch than its predecessors.
But Arianespace still faces tough competition from SpaceX, which currently operates its semi-reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to provide launch services. SpaceX is already looking ahead to the fully-reusable Starship, which can lift more than ever into space. The Ariane family, unfortunately, is not reusable..
CEO Elon Musk has previously criticized European efforts in the emergent new space race. In March 2021, he wrote on X: “They are aiming too low. Only rockets that are fully & rapidly reusable will be competitive. Everything else will seem like a cloth biplane in the age of jets.”
Here’s what you need to know about how they compare.
An artist's rendering of the two Ariane 5 configurations.
ARIANE 6 VS SPACEX: HOW MUCH CAN IT SEND TO LOW-EARTH ORBIT?
The Ariane 6 will send up varying amounts depending on the booster configuration. The two-booster version, known as Ariane 62, can launch 4,500 to 5,000 kg (9,920 to 11,023 pounds) to geostationary transfer orbit — where the Vinci engine would place a satellite on into the first leg so the mission can transfer towards its final orbit — or 6,500 kilograms (14,330 pounds) to a nearly polar, low-Earth orbit.
In the four-booster configuration, known as Ariane 64, the rocket can launch payloads of around 11,500 kg (25,353 pounds) into geostationary transfer orbit and 21,600 kg (47,620 pounds) into low-Earth orbit.
In its expendable configuration, the Falcon 9 Block 5 (the only variant in operation at the moment) can launch a similar amount to the four-booster Ariane 6. It can send 8,300 kg (18,300 pounds) to geostationary transfer orbit and 22,800 kg (50,265 pounds) to low-Earth orbit. The Falcon Heavy expands on this with the ability to launch 63,800 kilograms (140,660 pounds) to low-Earth orbit.
The Starship is set to blow these figures out of the water, with the ability to send 100,000 to 150,000 kgs (220,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit. Its most recent launch test flew in June 2024.
In 2014, SpaceX first successfully landed a Falcon 9 booster. This component of the rocket, Musk has claimed, comprises around three-quarters of the total rocket price. By 2021, SpaceX was recovering 30 boosters successfully in a year. In April 2024, SpaceX hit a major milestone: 300 total booster recoveries. SpaceX also recovers the boosters used with the Falcon Heavy rocket.
The company has also started attempting to recover the protective fairing that protects the satellite during launch. SpaceX first successfully recovered a fairing in 2019, and it successfully recovered 13 in 2021.
The upcoming Starship should take this to the next level. SpaceX has designed the rocket to be entirely reusable, which means that the booster and ship can return to Earth for re-use after a flight.
The Ariane 6 is not reusable. It stems back to a design decision in 2014, when the space agency chose to stick with expendability. France’s economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, admitted at a 2020 conference that “in 2014 there was a fork in the road, and we didn’t take the right path.”
“We should have made the choice of the reusable launcher,” Le Maire said. “We should have had this audacity.”
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
ANADOLU AGENCY/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
ARIANE 6 VS. SPACEX: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO LAUNCH?
In January 2021, Politicoreported that the Ariane 6 could launch for as little as $77 million. That’s a steep discount from the $177 million price tag for the Ariane 5.
In October 2023, Ars Technica reported that the Ariane 6 price cut won’t be that large, and roughly $98 million per flight instead. Inflation is partly to blame, according to Arianespace leadership.
SpaceX’s website previously listed the cost of a Falcon 9 launch at $62 million. But CNBC noted in 2020 that the United States Air Force contracts paid around $95 million per Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX estimated the costs for each launch at around $30 million each.
In November 2019, Musk suggested that a Starship could launch for around $2 million each. He’s held that stance into 2024, according to Space News, and still projects a price tag of $2 million to $3 million. If Starship reaches that price point, it will be impressively competitive.
ARIANE 6 VS. SPACEX: WHERE DO THEY LAUNCH FROM?
The Ariane 6, like its predecessor, will launch from Europe’s Spaceport, located around 10 miles from the town of Kourou, French Guiana.
SpaceX has launched the Falcon 9 from three locations:
Florida’s Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral
Florida’s Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center
California’s Space Launch Complex 4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base
SpaceX has flown four Starship tests from launchpads near its Starbase facility, which hosts development operations, in Cameron County, Texas. The launchpad is located on the Gulf of Mexico, roughly three miles north of the Mexican border.
For the long term, Musk has also suggested that SpaceX could build ocean spaceports to enable point-to-point travel around the Earth using the Starship.
ARIANE 6 VS. SPACEX: CAN IT POWER MISSIONS TO MARS?
ESA expects to send its Earth Return Orbiter mission to Mars in 2027 aboard an Ariane 6. The mission, which will use the Ariane 64 (four-booster) configuration, will be the final part of a multi-phase plan to retrieve samples from Mars:
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which sent the Perseverance rover in February 2021, captures samples in canisters.
NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander mission will land on Mars, and use Sample Recovery Helicopters to collect the samples and a Mars Ascent Vehicle to launch the samples back to space.
ESA designed the Astris kick stage to better support Ariane 6’s missions to Mars. The optional extra will help move payloads into their final positions in orbit.
SpaceX claims that the Falcon 9 can send 4,020 kg (8,860 pounds) to Mars. The company also claims the Falcon Heavy can send 16,800 kilograms (37,040 pounds) to Mars. The latter rocket sent Musk’s red Tesla Roadster into space back in 2018.
Starship may take all this to the next level. The stainless steel rocket is designed to send both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. A version of Starship will ferry the Artemis III astronauts from lunar orbit down to the lunar surface. This mission could fly later this decade.
It has been nearly two decades since a mysterious humanoid encounter took place high up in the Himalayas, and the group of eminent glaciologists and geologists of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), who had observed this strange humanoid entity for nearly 45 minutes, are still baffled by what they had witnessed and what it all means.
The bizarre event unfolded on September 27, 2004, on the penultimate day of a week-long expedition undertaken by the Ahmedabad-based, Space Application Centre (SAC) of ISRO. The 5-member team of scientists were camping in the Samudra Tapu glacier region, roughly 14,500 feet above sea level, not far from the ethereal Chandratal Lake which is steeped in local legends about otherworldly beings. The objective of the expedition was to study the Samudra Tapu glacier using satellite data, and other means.
Samudra Tapu Glacier in the Chandra basin of the Himalayas. Credit: Kulkarni et al., Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing (2005).
One of the earliest accounts of the incident had been published in SiliconIndia, a few days after it had occurred. Although brief, it contained some intriguing details. Apparently, the humanoid entity was spotted at around 7 am, and it had “hovered around for about 45 minutes, some 200 metres from the stunned scientists.” Anil Kulkarni, the marine and water resources scientist of ISRO, went on to provide more details about the incident:
“There were balloons attached to this unusual object. It had ‘legs’ but we could not see the ‘hands’. It was moving closer to the hilltop. The object started moving in our direction when we started walking towards it. But when our porters made a noise, it moved away towards the hilltop,” he said. The object remained stationary for about five minutes after reaching the hilltop, then moved away in another direction before it disappeared, he added. “Interestingly when it was exposed to the sun, it turned black and in the shadow of the hill, it became white,” the scientist said.[1]
Nearly a year after the incident had occurred, a more detailed account of the events of that unusual day was published in the India Today magazine. The report states,
Around 6.45 a.m., as the scientists were preparing to leave their tents, one of the porters spotted a white object on top of an adjacent mountain ridge, and screamed: "Sir, the snow man is coming." Anil Kulkarni, a senior ISRO scientist who has been mapping glaciers for a quarter century, and his team members saw what appeared to be a robot floating a few inches above the ground, approaching the camp along the mountain slope. Kulkarni and his co-researcher, geologist Sunil Dhar, pulled out their digital cameras and began shooting the object even as the team raced towards the mountain to investigate. The oblong object, between 3 and 4 feet high, kept moving down the slope towards the team. It had a cylindrical head with two balloon-type attachments, a body, hands and two legs. “It seemed to be walking, planting and pacing its steps like a human being,” recalls Dhar.[2]
The scientists were flummoxed by what they had seen. They submitted the photographs to ISRO, and each of the scientists gave their versions of what had happened on that day. The report was circulated to the army and the SASE (Snow and Avalanche Study Establishments) - the only agencies stationed in high altitude areas.
According to Kulkarni, the object could have been an UFO or an advanced espionage device capable of complex maneuverability. “It is a riddle beyond human perception,” said Dhar who, along with Kulkarni, contacted robotic labs across the world to determine what is technologically possible in unmanned flying vehicles. “But there is no known matching technology yet in the civilian realm to explain the mysterious object we saw so up close,” according to Kulkarni. “It didn't look like a man-made object,” opined geologist Rajesh Kalia.[3] But, if it was not a balloon, UAV, spying robot, or any kind of man-made object for that matter, what could it possibly be?
If we put on our Sherlock Holmes hat, and apply that famous logic of his i.e. “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” then we are inevitably led to the conclusion that, what the team of scientists had seen at Samudra Tapu was a humanoid being, possibly of alien origin!
This is not the first time that bizarre humanoid entities of a similar nature have been sighted, although it is certainly one of the first cases where a team of experienced scientists were the witnesses, which is why the matter received mainstream coverage. A quick perusal of some of the UFO and humanoid reports from around the world reveals that, what the ISRO scientists had seen on that day conforms to a general pattern. But first, let us take stock of some of the conspicuous attributes of this humanoid entity.
1. It was a dwarf, humanoid being, between 3 to 4 feet tall. 2. It had a large cylindrical head, hands and legs. 3. It had two balloon-type attachments, probably on its head. 4. It had robot-like movements, and appeared to pace its legs like a human. 5. It floated a few inches above the ground, as it came down the mountain slope. It effortlessly went up the slope in a similar manner 6. It appeared white, but turned black when sunlight fell on it. 7. It seemed to be a curious, non-threatening entity, which came down from the hilltop to “observe” the team of scientists and, perhaps, even interact with them, but moved away when it sensed the excitement and anxiety of the group.
Similar sightings of dwarf humanoid beings with oversized heads, dressed in a silvery or gray suit, and walking in a robotic manner while floating a few inches above the ground, have been reported from all parts of the world for more than half a century. In some cases, the humanoid beings were spotted coming in and out of an UFO. Typically, these types of sightings are dismissed as hallucinations, observational mistakes or made-up stories, but now that a team of highly experienced scientists, who are trained in making observations at high altitudes, have seen a similar humanoid entity at close quarters for more than 45 minutes, it is a matter that cannot be treated flippantly any more.
Let’s peruse some of the similar cases that have been reported over the years. One of the earliest sightings of a similar nature occurred way back in 1937, at a place near the small town of Chashniki in the Vitebsk Region of Belarus. A 7-year old girl named Ludmila Chepik was shepherding some cows and collecting flowers on a meadow near the River Uloy when suddenly she saw a “man” descending from the sky towards her without a parachute.
“He descended to about 1 to 2 meters from her. The man was approximately 113 cm – 143 cm in height (dwarf like), of athletic built, with broad shoulders and a disproportionately large head. The man wore dark, tight-fitting clothing and had a helmet on his head, with a cone-shaped or “bulb” shaped protrusion on top. His face was visible, reddish in color and was wearing something resembling a transparent visor. The entity spent approximately 1 minute with the witness. He opened his visor, produced a protracted smile at the girl, looked around, and touched the grass with an oval device in his hands. After that, he waved his hands, and zoomed soundlessly up into the sky at high speed. After gaining an altitude of about 100 meters, he seemed to compress into a ball and dissolve into thin air.”[4]
On September 2, 1954, in Coldwater, Kansas, 12-year old John Jacob Swaim had just finished driving a tractor when he saw something downright bizarre.
“A dark complexioned little man about the size of a 5-year old child, with pointed nose & ears, was crouching about 20 feet away. The little man wore shiny clothing and carried 2-foot long cylinders on his back. He ran, apparently floating, to a 50 foot disc hovering 5 feet above the ground, jumped in, and took off without tilting the saucer, lights shone from windows as it flew off faster than a jet. At the site were found numerous pear shaped footprints 2" x 4.5", with very narrow heels.”[5]
In the idyllic city of Clermont Ferrand, in the Puy-de-Dome administrative department of France, something out of the ordinary had transpired in March 1969.
“On the slopes of the bare hill, Puy-de-Chanturgue, Miss B. saw, about 600 feet away, 3 little humanoid forms of squat aspect and uniform gray color. Without touching the ground, they were moving rapidly back and forth. After she had watched these “gnomes” for 3 to 4 minutes they suddenly disappeared.”[6]
In August 1973, Edmund, a 19-year old youth from the Amparo settlement, in the Novo Friburgo municipality of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, was in the fruit garden of the farm when he noticed agitation among the nearby fruit trees. He went out to investigate the matter, and saw a strange spherical object with metallic sheen, around 2 meters wide, hovering just above the ground and revolving slowly. As he gazed at it from a distance of about 4 meters,
“At this point an aperture appeared in the side of the craft with a loud bang; from it emerged a small humanoid figure in a one-piece suit that covered his head. Strapped to his back was a rather large, squarish backpack. The entity did not walk, but floated, with a "feverish" swinging of arms and legs in midair. The entity approached Edmund to within a distance of a meter, at which time the youth became panic stricken and fled, seeking others at the farmhouse. As he ran off, he looked back and saw the little being still “hovering” in the air at the spot where he stopped when the boy ran off.”[7]
A number of strange humanoid sightings were reported during the UFO invasion of Italy in 1978, of which a couple surprisingly similar to what the Indian scientists saw in the high Himalayas. On August 28, 1978, at 02:30 a.m., near Chieti, Italy, a baker named Amerigo Rocci was on his way to work when his car broke down. While checking under the hood, a powerful bright light illuminated the area around him.
“Approaching the light he noticed five strange figures, the height of an eight-year old child. The figures moved in unison in "synchronized" movements and appear to float 25 cm above the road. The figures wore a dark gray tight-fitting diver's suits that covered them from head to toe. They had thick necks and from the top of their heads protruded an “antenna” like device resembling a funnel. The beings were about 500 meters away and Rocci was not able to see any facial features. The beings glided away in single file from the witness, who noticed that the last figure was carrying something resembling a “shovel” like apparatus.”[8]
Another equally inexplicable event occurred in San Vito Chietino, Italy, on December 23, 1978. At around 8:30 pm, the Bucco family was returning from visiting relatives when a dazzling light began to follow their vehicle. The light overtook the vehicle and the vehicle suddenly stopped without the driver applying the brakes.
“Then, at the same time a strange little man crossed road in front of the vehicle in bounding jumps. While Francesco and Fiorentina Bucco saw only one humanoid, the other two passengers in the vehicle reported seeing two. The figure or figures wore brown astronaut like suits, large helmets with black square visors, and 5-digit white gloves. The beings were about 1 meter in height, and moved over the road in unison, in a strange robot-like manner, floating 20-35 cm above the road, as if moving and bouncing on an invisible cushion. Mr. Bucco noticed a green flashlight like object wrapped over the humanoid's shoulder.”[9]
A mystifying account was reported from the small town of Los Zazos in the Tucuman province of Argentina, which had many of the classic ingredients of a humanoid encounter. A goat-herder called Flores de Mamani, was walking her animals back to her ranch along an isolated hillside when she suddenly felt paralyzed, completely unable to move.
“She was leaning back against a rock when she saw, a hovering sphere very close to her position. The normally fierce dog remained quiet and the goats remained very still. A door-like opening became visible on the sphere and two little men came out. They wore brown diver's suits, and had what appeared to be backpacks on their backs. The witness attempted to scream but could not. The beings were about 4 feet tall, heavy set and there appeared to be some stripes on their shiny brown suits. They wore helmets with a glasslike visor. She also noticed what appeared to be two antennas coming out of their suits. They seemed to glide just above the ground. The sphere was described as shiny and silvery with several multi-colored lights around it. One of the little men then approached the witness grabbed her arm and tied a rubber hose around it, and then he proceeded to extract blood from the witness arm using a syringe like instrument. She felt no pain. The other little man then proceeded to milk one of the goats that remained completely still. Soon the little men glided back to the silvery sphere and went inside. The sphere then shot away at tremendous speed.”[10]
The dwarf humanoids seem to be very interested in collecting samples, for, in many humanoid sighting reports they have been seen collecting samples of vegetation or soil and putting them into the cylinders strapped to their back. They have also been seen poking the ground with long stick-like devices and digging holes with shovels. It’s almost as if they are interdimensional scientists keeping tabs on the planetary health and ecosystem.
Some witnesses have described these humanoid entities as “gnomes” (from Latin gnomus, meaning "earth-dweller") – that legendary race of dwarf people possessing various magical abilities, who are said to live in lavish comfort in underground chambers. The gnomes were said to be a wise, intelligent race who were beneficent to humans and were proficient in smithing, crafting, and mining. In ancient and medieval mythologies, gnomes were believed to guard mines and subterranean treasures. The Encyclopedia Brittanica tells us that, in Germanic legends, “Mine-dwelling dwarfs were usually more capricious and spiteful than their mountain brothers. They could be heard moving about the lower levels and were sometimes seen by miners, who took care to placate them by gifts of food.”
This is why the next report is so important – for it is one of those rare humanoid sighting that took place inside a mine.
This fascinating encounter took place on August 27, 1989, deep within a mine 1070 meters below the earth’s surface in Donetsk, Ukraine. An electrical worker in one of the mines was working the night shift when he suddenly saw two strangers standing at the end of the electric train depot. The figures moved slowly along the garage, stopping from time to time and studying different areas and equipment located there. Finally, the witness gathered up enough courage to confront the strangers, and walking out of his hiding place he yelled, “Who are you? What are you doing here? “and began to walk slowly towards the pair.
“After taking several steps he looked closely and literally became numb with fear as he realized that the entities standing before him were not human. They were short creatures, dwarf-like with sallow facial complexions, and features he could not recognize as human. Both were dressed in silvery colored coveralls and their chest they had lighted circles and luminous dots circling around, like the screen of an oscillograph. After standing for a while, the entities turned around and walked away, quickly moving away floating just above the ground. In several seconds they vanished behind a bend on the underground tunnel.”[11]
Now that we have looked at a few similar humanoid sighting reports that have come in from all over the world over the past century or so, it becomes quite obvious that what the Indian scientists had witnessed in the Samudra Tapu glacier region of the Himalayas, some 14,500 feet above sea level, was not something unique or unprecedented. Everything that the scientists had noted about the humanoid entities has been reported elsewhere: the silvery suits, the oversized heads, the helmets with a pair of “balloon” or “funnel” or “bulb”-shaped extensions on top, the robot-like movements while floating a few inches above the ground, etc. Typically, such reports go unnoticed, but since the sighting in the Himalayas was reported by a group of respected scientists it generated more interest, at least in India.
It’s time to roll up our sleeves and tackle the big question: Who are these humanoid entities that have been spotted around the world, including the upper reaches of the Himalayas, and have been seen getting in and out of UFOs? Some witnesses have described them as “gnomes”, and since these entities have also been sighted inside mines, the “gnome” angle definitely needs to be explored. Perhaps, the gnomes are not imaginary beings as they have been made out to be, and maybe there is something to the ancient stories that speak of them.
In India, the dwarfs or gnomes were called yakshas (also yakhhas, jakkhas or jakhs). They were the custodians of the earth’s wealth and were regarded as the protectors of sacred sites and villages. Yakshas statues were placed outside temples, on either side of the entrances, to ward off intruders. Not long ago, people used to set up altars for them under trees, made offerings of food and prayed to them for wealth, protection and fertility. A lot of interesting details about the yakshas have been recorded in the ancient Indian texts, which I shall probably discuss at a later time, but a couple of points stand out in relation to this case.
Firstly, in ancient Indian legends, the yakshas have often been associated with the flying vehicles called “vimanas”. The Ramayana relates that, in the Treta Yuga, after killing the rakshasha Ravana in a fierce battle, Rama had returned from Lanka to Ayodhya on the spacious, dome-shaped, vimana called “Pushpaka”, which was gilded and shone like the sun and was operated by thoughts or voice instructions.[12] The Pushpaka vimana originally belonged to Kuvera, who was the “chief of the yakshas”, and it had been snatched away from him by his half-brother Ravana, who was a rakshasha i.e. giant.
Incidentally, the yakshas had access to many such vimanas. As per the Puranic Encyclopedia, Ravana had attacked Kuvera's city Alaka located on Mount Kailash, and "in the fight that followed, between Kubera and Ravana, the former fell down unconscious. But the yakshas brought two vimanas and carried Kubera to the palace.”[13]
The association of the yakshas with vimanas bolsters the argument that they could be the dwarf humanoids reported in UFO sightings. Another intriguing point about the yakshas throws light on the humanoid encounter that took place in the Himalayas. While yakshas were said to inhabit remote forests, hills and lakes, their favorite haunt was the Himalayan ranges. In the Mahabharata, there are many passages that highlight this. For instance,
“This Himalaya is inaccessible, and abounds with Yakshas (dwarfs) and the Rakshasas (giants), and searching about for me, they will be distracted.”[14] “We shall now ascend that white rock, the mountain Mandara (one of the peaks of the Himalayas), inhabited by the Yakshas, Manibhadra and Kuvera, king of the Yakshas.”[15]
One of the mighty peaks of the Himalayan range is Mount Kailash, which is sacred to the Hindus, Buddhists and to all the mountain folk, and is an important place of pilgrimage. Kuvera’s city Alaka was said to be established on the summit of Kailash. The Mahabharata states, “It was here, on the breast of Kailasa, O Galava, that Kuvera, was installed on the sovereignty of the Rakshasas (giants), the Yakshas (dwarfs), and the Gandharvas (elves).” In the book Yaksas, the renowned scholar and art-historian Ananda Coomaraswamy, who was also a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, wrote of Kuvera that,
“His city Alaka (or Alakapuri) situated on Mt. Kailasa (also the abode of Siva) is a magnificent walled town, where dwell not only Yaksas, but also Kinnaras (sirens), Munis (sages), Gandharvas (elves) and Raksasas (giants)...Kubera has many beautiful palaces, groves, gardens, etc., on Mt. Kailasa. These need not be referred to in detail, but it may be remarked of the grove Caitraratha that its trees have jewels for their leaves and girls as their fruits.”[16]
Let’s look at a few images of Mount Kailash (6638 m), which is located in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Even though it is not a very high peak, being nearly 2000 m lower than Mount Everest, it has never been scaled. And that’s because the peak has a pyramidal shape with steep sides, and some sections are almost vertical which makes climbing impossible. The inhospitable climatic conditions and almost perennial snow cover makes the task even more challenging.
Mount Kailash, north face. Credit: Ondrej ´vácek, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia CommonsMount Kailash, south face, seen from the Barkha plain. Credit: Jean-Marie Hullot, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Chinese government had imposed restrictions on climbing the sacred peak – so as not to offend the religious sentiments - once the region came under the control of China in 1951, but prior to that many mountaineers had tried to work out a route to the summit, but failed. In 1926, Hugh Ruttledge studied the north face of Mount Kailash, and described it as “utterly unclimbable”. His mountaineering colleague Colonel R. C. Wilson attempted to climb via the southeast ridge, when he ran into heavy snowfall, and aborted the effort.
My question is, when we look at the imposing, awe-inspiring images of Mount Kailash, does it seem like it could have ever hosted the walled city of Kuvera called Alaka, complete with palaces, groves and gardens? Absolutely not. You can’t even stand steadily on those steep, treacherous, snow-covered slopes on a windy day, let alone build a city. In which case, one needs to ask, why did the Indian texts make such an extravagant claim? Was it a made-up story, or could there be more to this than meets the eye?
My guess is that, Kuvera’s city Alaka may have been built “inside” Mount Kailash and not on its summit or slopes. In other words, there may exist giant, well-lit, and lavishly decorated caverns inside the Kailash Mountain where the yakshas and other magical beings live. Isn’t that what is said of the gnomes, in general? While they usually live underground, they also inhabit the interiors of mountains, and “gnome tunnels” were said to lead to fabulous places inside mountains. A Welsh story written by Walter Map at around 1183 CE, in De Nugis Curialmn, tells of a dwarf king who led Herla, and ancient king of the Britons, to his own kingdom.
“He [Herla] and his guide entered a very lofty cliff and after a space of darkness they passed into the light, seemingly not of the sun but of many lamps, like the palace of the sun in Ovid’s description.”[17]
Apparently, a similar belief is still associated with Mount Demerdzhi in Crimea, which is a popular tourist destination, for, on the slope of the mountain lies the so-called “Valley of Ghosts” that contains a large number of stone formations resembling humans, animals, mysterious creatures, pyramids and other puzzling objects. The region generally remains enveloped in a characteristic haze, and when the light conditions change the stone formations seem to magically change their shape and color. Although these formations are said to have been “naturally formed”, it is not impossible that some of them may have been sculpted by intelligent hands eons ago, and then suffered erosion over time.
Valley of Ghosts. Credit: mpolyakov, CC BY-SA 3.0Valley of Ghosts. Credit: Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0Valley of Ghosts. Credit: Pavel dp, CC BY-SA 3.0
In Albert Rosales, “1978 Humanoid Reports”, there is an entry about an odd incident that occurred on Mount Demerdzhi in June 1978.
A local teenager, Andrey, from the nearby town of Alushta had climbed to the top of Mount Demerdzhi and had camped there to spend the night. During the night a bright light pointed directly at his face suddenly awakened him. He opened his eyes and saw the outlines of several human-shaped figures. They had domed-shaped heads connected directly to their shoulders. Their faces were not visible or were absent…Apparently the witness was paralyzed and everything was brightly lit around him. Andrey felt no fear or any other emotions during the encounter; he soon fell asleep and could not remember anything else. A local legend states that Demerdzhi is hollow and had been excavated thousands of years before by a race of dwarfs in an effort to extract supposed treasures buried within. A local clairvoyant, Lenura Azizova, claims that there still exists an ancient underground alien base under the mountain.”[18]
The possibility of a “city of the yakshas” being concealed inside Mount Kailash is not a very outlandish proposition, if we think about it. Not only do we have analogous stories coming down to us from ancient times, but there are persistent local beliefs along similar lines in other parts of the world.
Now that we have explored the Himalayan humanoid encounter from a few different perspectives, what would you say happened on that intrigue-filled day at the Samudra Tapu glacier? I would reckon that the scientists saw a “juvenile” yaksha, who was ambling around the mountainside, going about his normal routine of collecting samples of soil, snow and vegetation, when he chanced upon the group of scientists who had camped there. The yaksha may not have seen humans, or at least interacted with them, before, and was led on by his curiosity. But on sensing the agitation within the group, it moved away and probably returned to his “yaksha city” hidden in the interiors of the mountains to tell his friends what he had just seen.
It may feel somewhat strange to hear of “yakshas” or “gnomes” being talked about as real entities, but a couple of thousand years ago no-one would have batted an eyelid to hear what I just proposed. Yakshas were an integral part of the belief systems of the people in the subcontinent, and many “yakshas shrines” were erected in their honor. Much has been forgotten over time as the inter-dimensional interactions began to dry up, but the increased sightings since the 1950s suggest that we could be living at a time when contact is re-established.
References
[1] "UFO photo puts Indian scientists in fix", SiliconIndia, 06 October 2004, https://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/ufo-photo-puts-indian-scientists-in-fix-nid-25663-cid-2.html [2] Ramesh Vinayak, "UFO sighting in Himachal Lahaul-Spiti district remains a mystery", INDIA TODAY Feb 13, 2006, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/science-and-technology/story/20060213-ufo-sighting-in-himachal-lahaul-spiti-district-remains-a-mystery-783701-2006-02-12 [3] Ibid. [4] Albert Rosales “1937 Humanoid Reports” Case # 4, Source: Aleksandr Kuzovkin, Selected reports of UFO observations in the USSR, 1982 [5] Albert Rosales “1954 Humanoid Reports” Case # 63, Humcat 1954, Source: Sheriff Floyd Hadley & Rev. Albert Baller [6] Albert Rosales “1969 Humanoid Reports” Case # 51, Humcat 1969, Source: LDLN Circle of Clermont Riom [7] Albert Rosales “1973 Humanoid Reports” Case # 103, Humcat 1973, Source: SBEDV Bulletin # 104 [8] Albert Rosales “1978 Humanoid Reports” Case # 189, Source: Archivio S.U.F. [9] Albert Rosales “1978 Humanoid Reports” Case# 303, Source: Archivio S.U.F. [10] Albert Rosales “1990 Humanoid Reports” Case# 13, Source: Pablo Villarrubia Mauso [11] Albert Rosales “1989 Humanoid Reports” Case# 210, Source: Gennadiy Ya. Leszshenko, “Edge of the Unknown or What is Behind the Curtain” Donetsk, 1994. [12] Valmiki Ramayana, 6.124 - 126, https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/the-ramayana-of-valmiki/d/doc424752.html [13] Vettam Mani, Puranic Encyclopedia, Motilal Banarsidass, 1975. [14] Mahabharata 3.178.8839 [15] Mahabharata 3.139.7068 [16] Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, The Smithsonian Institution, 1928, p. 6. [17] Vernon J. Harward Jr., The Dwarfs of Arthurian Romance and Celtic Tradition, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1958, p 6-20 [18] Albert Rosales “1978 Humanoid Reports” Case# 132, Source: Anton Anfalov
AI Focuses Cigar UFO Over Thermal, California May 14, 2022, UFO Sighting News
AI Focuses Cigar UFO Over Thermal, California May 14, 2022, UFO Sighting News
Date of sighting:May 14, 2022 Location of sighting: Thermal, California, USA
Email report: Sent to scwaring@yahoo.com
Hey all I just wanted to take a screenshot and ai focus this UFO that was reported to me back in 2022, and wow! I was blown away by what ai showed me. This is a real alien cigar UFO and it's never before been seen this clear until today. Watch the video till the end, because the ai enhanced version is at the end.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Saw a very large cigar shape object hovering floating in the sky over the mountain. Airplane flew towards the object but as it got closer the airplane disappeared because of the distance but the cigar shape was huge so I could easily see it.
AI Focused Black Knight Satellites, Up Close And Personal, UFO UAP Sighting News.
AI Focused Black Knight Satellites, Up Close And Personal, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Hey all, I was asked on X and Youtube by many people to put the Dark Knight satellites through the ai program and see what happens. Well I did and it sharpened them a lot and brought the surface of the space craft into focus. It is said that these satellites are tens of thousand of years old or older. That they cannot be approached or they will paralyze the oncoming spacecraft. Tell me your thoughts of what these are and why they are in Earths orbit and why did NASA move the links three times before giving up?
Dat de ontdekking van die extra ogen zo lang op zich heeft laten wachten, is wel te verklaren. Ze zitten – in gefossiliseerde trilobieten – namelijk enigszins verstopt.
Zo’n 500 miljoen jaar geleden wemelden de oceanen van de trilobieten. Dit zijn een bekende klasse uitgestorven geleedpotigen die in vervlogen tijden in de zee leefden. Trilobieten behoren samen met ammonieten en dinosauriërs ongetwijfeld tot de bekendste fossielen. Maar ondanks 150 jaar onderzoek heeft het beestje alsnog verrassingen voor ons in petto. Zo zijn wetenschappers op extra ogen gestuit, die al die tijd over het hoofd zijn gezien.
Ogen
Geleedpotigen hebben meestal twee soorten ogen. Allereerst hebben ze een paar samengestelde ogen (ook wel facetogen genoemd). Deze bestaan vaak uit duizenden aparte lensjes. Daarnaast zijn geleedpotigen ook nog eens uitgerust met mediane ogen. Dit zijn eigenlijk een extra set enkelvoudige ogen, die zich in het midden van het voorhoofd bevinden, tussen de samengestelde ogen in. Alleen trilobieten, een belangrijke groep geleedpotigen die ten tijde van het Paleozoïcum leefden, leken vreemd genoeg geen mediane ogen te hebben.
Ontdekking Tenminste, dat was tot voor kort de veronderstelling. Totdat onderzoekers de trilobiet Aulacopleura koninckii, waarvan een deel van de kop was afgeschraapt, aan een nadere inspectie onderwierpen.
Aulacopleura koninckii. Afbeelding: University of Cologne
Het team ontdekte drie bijna identiek gevormde, donkere, onopvallende kleine ovale vlekjes van dezelfde grootte aan de voorkant van de kop. Deze drie structuren lopen evenwijdig aan elkaar en waaieren aan de onderkant iets uit. Alle drie de vlekken worden gekenmerkt door een gladde, duidelijke omtrek en een uniforme, donkerbruine kleur. “Deze plekken onderscheiden zich duidelijk van de vlekken die ontstaan door verval of fossilisatie,” legt onderzoeker Brigitte Schoenemann uit. “In plaats daarvan komt het precies overeen met hoe de overblijfselen van eenvoudige mediane ogen eruitzien.
Mediaan oog Het betekent dat trilobieten mogelijk toch – net als alle andere geleedpotigen én veel naaste verwanten – niet alleen samengestelde ogen hadden, maar ook met een extra set ogen waren uitgerust. “De ontdekking ondersteunt de veronderstelling dat trilobieten oorspronkelijk mediane ogen hadden,” concludeert Schoenemann.
Onopgemerkt Dat de trilobiet dit geheimpje zolang heeft weten te bewaren, is opvallend. Zoals gezegd is de trilobiet al ruim een eeuw uitgebreid bestudeerd. Bovendien zijn er ondertussen al meer dan 22.000 soorten ontdekt. Ondanks dat, zijn de mediane ogen al die tijd onopgemerkt gebleven. Toch is dit wel te verklaren. Ze zitten – in gefossiliseerde trilobieten – namelijk enigszins verstopt.
Verstopt De wetenschappers gaan ervan uit dat de mediane ogen kenmerkend waren voor het larvenstadium, zo leggen ze in hun studie uit. Bovendien bevonden ze zich onder een transparante laag van het schild. Gedurende het fossilisatieproces wordt deze laag echter ondoorzichtig. “Dit heeft er beide toe bijgedragen dat de ontdekking van de extra set ogen zo lang op zich heeft laten verwachten,” aldus Schoenemann.
Meer over trilobieten Trilobieten zijn te herkennen aan een verkalkt exoskelet aan de rugkant van het lichaam. Ze hadden een halvemaanvormige kop die wel wat weg had van de hedendaagse degenkrab. Hoewel de dieren onderhand zijn uitgestorven, waren ze een succesvolle soort in termen van evolutie. Ze hebben meer dan 250 miljoen jaar weten te overleven; langer dan de dinosauriërs.
Het betekent dat trilobieten waarschijnlijk meerdere verborgen ogen hadden. Toen de onderzoekers de trilobiet Cyclopyge sibilla bestudeerden, vonden ze namelijk ook drie mediane ogen op het voorhoofd, precies tussen de twee samengestelde ogen in. Deze waren bovendien zelfs uitgerust met lenzen die vergelijkbaar zijn met die in menselijke ogen. Dit wijst erop dat deze trilobiet waarschijnlijk beter kon zien dan zijn naaste verwant Aulacopleura koninckii, die – in tegenstelling tot Cyclopyge sibilla – enkel op de bodem leefde.
Variërend Kortom, uit de bevindingen blijkt dat trilobieten veel meer ogen hadden dan gedacht; waarschijnlijk minstens vijf! Al kan dat aantal ook nog weleens hebben gevarieerd. De onderzoekers denken dat geleedpotigen namelijk op verschillende momenten in de evolutie over een verschillend aantal mediane ogen beschikten. “Het oorspronkelijke aantal mediane ogen is twee,” vertelt Schoenemann. “Daarnaast hadden zeer primitieve geleedpotigen er waarschijnlijk vier. Hedendaagse dieren, zoals insecten en schaaldieren, zijn uitgerust met drie mediane ogen.”
Al met al zijn de onderzoekers er dankzij hun eigen scherpe oog in geslaagd het mysterie van de ontbrekende mediane ogen bij trilobieten op te lossen. Maar dit breidt niet alleen onze kennis over deze uitgestorven prehistorische zeedieren uit. Dat het aantal mediane ogen in geleedpotigen varieerde, zou mogelijk de evolutionaire classificatie van archaïsche geleedpotigen kunnen vergemakkelijken. “Met behulp van het aantal mediane ogen kunnen we nu mogelijk eenvoudiger de positie van een geleedpotige in de evolutieboom bepalen,” besluit Schoenemann.
Trilobieten behoren tot de uitgestorven dieren die paleontologen het beste kennen, misschien wel net zo goed als dinosaurussen. Deze wezens, die honderden miljoenen jaren geleden leefden, hebben een schat aan fossielen achtergelaten, maar deze bevatten alleen hun exoskelet. Er is weinig bekend over hun interne anatomie, die niet voldoende bewaard is gebleven, maar een recente ontdekking kan ons eindelijk helpen om deze organismen beter te begrijpen. Onderzoekers hebben namelijk de overblijfselen gevonden van twee nieuwe soorten trilobieten die perfect bewaard zijn gebleven onder de vulkanische as. Net zoals wat er in Pompeii gebeurde.
Allerlei families van trilobieten verschijnen plotseling in het Cambrium en zien er al direct zeer complex uit. Van evolutionaire voorouders is vooralsnog geen spoor te bekennen.
Overblijfselen van trilobieten bewaard gebleven dankzij gevonden vulkanische as: de studie
We zijn in Aït Youb, in de regio Souss-Massa in Marokko. Hier heeft een team onderzoekers onder leiding van Abderrazak El Albani fossielen ontdekt van twee nieuwe soorten trilobieten die gedateerd kunnen worden op ongeveer 515 miljoen jaar geleden. Tot zover niets vreemds, behalve dat de staat van bewaring van deze trilobieten de beste is die ooit is gevonden.
Zoals we in de inleiding al zeiden, was het tot nu toe onmogelijk om de interne structuren van trilobieten goed te bestuderen: meestal fossiliseert alleen het exoskelet. In het geval van Aït Youb daarentegen heeft vulkanische as van uitbarstingen uit het Precambrium het mogelijk gemaakt om exemplaren te vinden die bijna perfect bewaard zijn gebleven, zo goed zelfs dat ze doen denken aan de vondsten in Pompeii. Aan de andere kant, zo stelt El Albani, is de dynamiek die ten grondslag ligt aan het behoud ervan vrijwel hetzelfde.
Wat is er gebeurd met de trilobieten die ontdekt zijn in Aït Youb?
Didier Descouens/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Volgens El Albani en zijn team hebben we de uitstekende conservering van de trilobieten in feite te danken aan een snelle vulkaanuitbarsting, die de exemplaren begroef en in zeer korte tijd gevangen hield. Sommige trilobieten zijn al opgerold, terwijl andere zich voorbereiden om te ontsnappen, en er zijn enkele exemplaren die zelfs het spijsverteringskanaal vol sediment laten zien dat kort voor de uitbarsting is ingenomen. Als je bedenkt dat het tot voor kort niet mogelijk was om de interne anatomie van een trilobiet te bestuderen, begrijp je heel goed de revolutionaire betekenis van deze ontdekking.
Om deze fossielen beter te kunnen bestuderen, gebruikten de onderzoekers röntgenmicrotomografie, zodat ze een driedimensionale weergave konden bekijken zonder de exemplaren uit de rotsmatrix te halen. Dit is een innovatieve techniek waarmee anatomische details kunnen worden bekeken zonder de vondsten in gevaar te brengen. Het onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Science, onthulde ook tot nu toe onbekende anatomische structuren van trilobieten, waaronder sporen van mondaanhangsels en zacht weefsel.
Een bijna perfecte bewaring... zoals in Pompeii
El Albani zelf noemde de vondst in Marokko een “Pompeii van de zee”, en met een goede reden. Zoals we hebben gezien, creëerde de vulkanische as driedimensionale mallen van de trilobieten, waardoor ze in feite bevroren werden in de tijd. Maar terwijl er in het geval van Pompeii zo'n 2000 jaar is verstreken, is er hier 515 miljoen jaar verstreken en daarom was het gebruik van röntgenmicrotomografie bijzonder nuttig.
Ontdekkingen zoals deze zorgen voor een beter begrip van het belang van vulkanische asafzettingen voor het behoud van fossielen, maar tegelijkertijd testen ze de technologische vooruitgang in het bestuderen van het verleden. In staat zijn om trilobieten van 515 miljoen jaar geleden te analyseren vertegenwoordigt een onmisbare kans, die in het verleden onmogelijk was: vanuit een bepaald oogpunt is het ook een vorm van respect voor deze oude fossielen. Laten we niet vergeten dat ze een groot deel van de geschiedenis van onze planeet hebben overbrugd en bijna perfect bewaard zijn gebleven.
Allerlei families van trilobieten verschijnen plotseling in het Cambrium en zien er al direct zeer complex uit. Van evolutionaire voorouders is vooralsnog geen spoor te bekennen.
De ruimte van het zonnestelsel is bijna helemaal leeg, zelfs als je rekening houdt met de hemellichamen die rond de zon draaien, maar minder dan 0,15 procent van de massa van het hele stelsel uitmaken. Toch is het niet zo onwaarschijnlijk dat twee hemellichamen heel dicht bij elkaar kunnen zijn, zoals gebeurde met twee asteroïden die dicht bij de aarde passeerden, slechts een paar dagen na elkaar. De ontdekking werd gedaan door wetenschappers van JPL dankzij de Goldstone Solar System Radar, die er ook in slaagde om enkele beelden van deze asteroïden, die beide potentieel gevaarlijk zijn, vast te leggen.
Eerste waarneming: asteroïde van 1,5 kilometer passeerde dicht bij de aarde
Eén van de doelstellingen van op de ruimte gerichte radars is het relatief vroeg detecteren van de passage van asteroïden vlakbij de aarde. Onlangs werd bijvoorbeeld asteroïde 2011 UL21 slechts 13 dagen vóór zijn dichtste nadering tot onze planeet gedetecteerd. Nu hebben we het over een relatief groot hemellichaam, ongeveer 1,5 kilometer breed en potentieel gevaarlijk voor de aarde.
Gelukkig zijn er momenteel geen risico's, zoals bevestigd door wetenschappers van het Jet Propulsion Laboratory van NASA. 2011 UL21 passeerde feitelijk op 27 juni 2024 op een afstand van ongeveer 6,6 miljoen kilometer, oftewel ongeveer 17 keer de afstand tussen de aarde en de maan. Maar dat is nog niet alles: dankzij de Goldston Solar System Radar heeft JPL ontdekt dat 2011 UL21 niet één enkele asteroïde is, maar een systeem van twee asteroïden in een baan om de aarde. Een beetje zoals wat er gebeurde met Dinkinesh, het kleine binaire systeem dat werd geïdentificeerd door de Lucy-missie die eind 2023 richting Jupiter reisde.
Tweede waarneming: asteroïde passeerde veel dichter bij onze planeet
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Slechts twee dagen na de waarneming van 2011 UL21 op zo'n 6,6 miljoen kilometer van de aarde, hebben wetenschappers van JPL een tweede asteroïde gezien, dit keer veel dichter bij onze planeet. Het gaat om asteroïde 2024 MK, die slechts 150 meter breed is en dus veel kleiner dan het hemellichaam dat eerder werd waargenomen. 2024 MK wordt echter ook beschouwd als een potentieel gevaarlijke asteroïde en deze asteroïde passeerde slechts 295.000 kilometer van de aarde. Met andere woorden, ongeveer driekwart van de afstand die ons van de maan scheidt.
Dergelijke naderingen zijn vrij zeldzaam en komen ongeveer elke 20 jaar voor. Hoewel ze in strikte zin niet gevaarlijk zijn voor onze planeet, zijn ze essentiële informatiebronnen voor ons begrip van het zonnestelsel. De eenvoudige passage naar 295 duizend kilometer van de aarde verminderde bijvoorbeeld de baan van 2024 MK rond de zon met ongeveer 24 dagen.
Potentieel gevaarlijke asteroïden: wat betekent dat?
Er zijn verschillende factoren waarmee wetenschappers bij NASA en andere ruimtevaartorganisaties rekening houden om een asteroïde als "potentieel gevaarlijk" te definiëren. Hiervan zijn de volgende zeer belangrijk:
de afmetingen, met een diameter van minimaal 140 meter;
de afstand tot de aarde, binnen 0,05 Astronomische Eenheden, of ongeveer 7,5 miljoen kilometer;
de naderingssnelheid, de onregelmatige vorm en samenstelling, als secundaire factoren.
Zoals je kunt zien, zijn potentieel gevaarlijke asteroïden niet de asteroïden die een gevaar in de strikte zin van het woord voor de aarde inhouden, een beetje zoals in het geval van 2011 UL21 en 2024 MK. Kortom, we hebben het niet over Chicxulub dat 66 miljoen jaar geleden leidde tot het uitsterven van niet-aviaanse dinosaurussen, maar over hemellichamen die NASA van plan is te observeren tijdens hun passage op een bepaalde afstand van onze planeet. In de hoop dat deze afstand altijd groter zal zijn.
These seven radar observations by the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Solar System Radar shows the mile-wide asteroid 2011 UL21 during its June 27 close approach with Earth from about 4 million miles away. The asteroid and its small moon (a bright dot at the bottom of the image) are circled in white.
Assembled into this animation, observations from NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar show the tumbling asteroid 2024 MK shortly after it made closest approach with our planet on June 29. The 150-meter-wide asteroid’s orbit was slightly altered by Earth’s gravity as it passed.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Did you ever wonder how NASA spots asteroids that maybe getting too close to Earth for comfort? Watch and learn. Find out more about NASA finds, studies and tracks near-Earth objects by visiting
Astronomers don’t just detectexoplanets, or planets that orbit other stars, with today’s sharp telescopes. They can also feel them.
Prior data from the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized world HD 189733 b, for instance, revealed its harsh, rapidly-blowing rain of glass, and that it is scorchingly hot. A new NASA-supported study found the exoplanet also reeks like rotten eggs.
A study published Monday in the journal Nature shows evidence for the presence of the toxic, nasty-smelling gas hydrogen sulfide in HD 189733 b. The knowledge isn’t just for sensorial space exploration: It shapes how astronomers understand the evolution of all planets under the Sun – err, stars.
An illustration of the Jupiter-sized exoplanet HD 189733 b.
Sewer gas on another world is a helpful clue. The chemical compound aids the construction of more complex molecules, including those essential to life. “Sulfur is a vital element for building more complex molecules, and — like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphate — scientists need to study it more to fully understand how planets are made and what they’re made of,” Guangwei Fu, lead researcher and astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, said in an announcement about the new paper.
In the case of this particular exoplanet, Fu said, researchers aren’t looking for life. Astronomers already know this world, located 64 light years away from Earth, is inhospitable. Temperatures reach 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit there, and its glass-filled wind would humble any terrestrial storm, thanks to its 5,000 mph winds.
“We’re not looking for life on this planet because it’s way too hot, but finding hydrogen sulfide is a stepping stone for finding this molecule on other planets and gaining more understanding of how different types of planets form,” Fu added.
HD 189733 b is one of many exoplanets analyzed through a technique called the transit method. Astronomers glean details about it as the gas giant passes in front of its parent star. HD 189733 b is one of the nearest known “hot Jupiters” to Earth, making it a scientifically-rich object.
According to NASA, there are now more than 5,600 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way.
Secretive U-2 test flights caused a spike in UFO sightings, baffling pilots.
U-2 pilots wear NASA-like space suits & must endure challenging takeoff and landing.
U-2 pilots eat through a feeding port to avoid instant death from blood boiling.
With its sleek design and technological prowess, the U-2 spy plane, often referred to as the "Dragon Lady," represents one of the most iconic aircraft in military aviation history. Developed in the early 1950s in response to increasing nuclear and long-range nuclear missile threats from the USSR during the Cold War, the high-flying aircraft changed the landscape of aerial reconnaissance and espionage, providing the United States with unmatched intelligence-gathering capabilities. In this article, we take a look at a healthy handful of interesting facts about the legendary Dragon Lady.
1. Secretive U-2 test flights caused a spike in UFO sightings
Fiery objects in the sky baffle pilots below
When given just eight months to design an aircraft capable of flight above 70,000 feet (21,336 m), Lockheed Chief Engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson (pictured below) and his team at the secret Skunk Works plant in California delivered what was essentially a jet-powered glider, the CL-282, which would later be dubbed the U-2. As time was of the essence, the design was quickly approved by the CIA, and production was immediately underway.
Photo: US Air Force
The "U" in U-2 stands for "utility," a deliberately misleading categorization of the then-secretive aircraft's purpose.
Completed units were delivered to the highly classified Nevada Test and Training Range, also known as Area 51, for testing under tremendous secrecy. According to the CIA, high-altitude testing of the aircraft led to a significant spike in UFO reports. With most commercial flights flying under 20,000 ft (6,096 m) and military aircraft below 40,000 ft (12,192 m), pilots of these aircraft were dumbfounded by the object flying above them at 60,000 ft (18,288 m), a feat considered impossible at the time
Under certain conditions, the sun would reflect off the then-silver wings of the U-2, which made them appear as "fiery objects" flying high above to pilots below. The overwhelming reports of UFOs led to the USAF's Operation Blue Book, also known asProject Blue Book, based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Photo: US Air Force
Operation Blue Book gathered all the reports of UFOs and cross-referenced them against U-2 flight logs. USAF investigators would subsequently dismiss the reports as "natural phenomena," unable to reveal the truth behind these sightings. U-2 (and later OXCART) are believed to have been the source of over half of the UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s.
The U-2 spy plane has had a long career, although it appears to be finally approaching the end of it.
Photo: US Air Force
2. Suited for space travel
U-2 pilots wear space suits similar to those worn by NASA astronauts
Photo: Senior Airman Alexander Recupero | US Air Force
Soaring to the edge of space at altitudes over 70,000 feet (21,336 m), U-2 pilots are required to wear specialized space suits, also known as full-pressure suits, made by the same company that supplies NASA, to ensure their survival in the harsh environment of the upper atmosphere. The model S1034 space suit serve as a personal life support system, should the cockpit pressurization system fail, and are key to safeguarding the pilots against decompression sickness, hypoxia, and exposure to the near-vacuum conditions of high altitudes.
Photo: US Air Force
The suit's engineering is nothing short of remarkable, meticulously designed to balance safety, functionality, and comfort, highlighting the extreme conditions U-2 pilots face. It features a distinct helmet equipped with a communications system, a visor that can be heated to prevent fogging and an oxygen supply system that guarantees the pilot has a steady flow of breathable air. Furthermore, the suit includes a cooling garment integrated with tubing to circulate temperature-controlled water, ensuring the pilot remains comfortable during long missions.
The space suit worn by U-2 pilots costs about $250,000.
3. It's like riding a bicycle...that weighs 16,000 pounds with massive wings
The U-2 has a very unique set of wheels
Photo: US Air Force
Designed to minimize aircraft weight and promote higher altitude, the U-2's unique landing gear configuration distinguishes it from most conventional aircraft. Unlike typical aircraft that utilize a tricycle arrangement, the U-2 employs a bicycle-style arrangement with two sets of wheels positioned along the longitudinal axis of the fuselage.
This setup includes a forward main landing gear located just behind the cockpit and an aft main landing gear near the tail and connected to the rudder to provide steering functionality during taxiing.
The U-2 was named "The Dragon Lady" after a character in the comic strip, "Terry and the Pirates," drawn by Milton Caniff in 1934.
To maintain balance during takeoff, the U-2 utilizes outrigger gears, known colloquially as "pogos." These removable wheels are attached to mid-wing sockets and jettisoned during takeoff, falling to the runway. Upon landing, once the aircraft comes to rest on its wingtip, the pogos are reinstalled for taxiing. Suffice it to say that U-2 takeoff and landing procedures are not for the faint of heart, as shown in the X link below.
The U-2 is widely considered the most difficult airplane to fly. Mastery of the U-2 requires an exceptional level of expertise, dexterity, and resilience, qualities that define the elite group of pilots (fewer than 1500) capable of taming the "Dragon Lady." There are several factors contributing to its notoriously difficult handling, making it a true test of a pilot's skill and endurance.
Firstly, the U-2 operates at extreme altitudes, often above 70,000 ft (21,336 m), where the air is thin and the margin for error is minimal. The aircraft's design prioritizes performance at these altitudes over ease of control, leading to a unique combination of a highly sensitive control system and low maneuverability.
"A lot of the earlier guys described it as like, wrestling the dragon...I describe it as like trying to fly a dump truck with wings."
Secondly, the U-2's takeoff and landing phases are particularly challenging. During takeoff, the aircraft's massive wings and lightweight frame make it highly susceptible to crosswinds and other atmospheric disturbances.
Landing the U-2 is equally daunting due to the bicycle-like landing gear configuration, as described above. Landing the U-2 requires exceptional skill and coordination, as the pilot must balance on the bicycle gear while reducing speed and altitude, with the assistance of a chase car driven by another pilot as shown below, providing real-time feedback and assistance. To make matters worse, visibility is limited during the landing because of the plane's unique design.
Moreover, pilots must endure long missions that can extend beyond ten hours, confined to a pressurized suit similar to those worn by astronauts. This suit is necessary due to the harsh conditions at cruising altitude and introduces additional challenges in terms of physical comfort, fatigue management, and sustenance.
The U-2 is still in service but the US Air Force plans to retire the iconic aircraft in 2026.
5. What do U-2 pilots eat during flight?
Hint: The Dragon Lady isn't much of a cook
Photo: David Kamm | US Army
Flying sorties up to and beyond ten hours, U-2 pilots often need to eat and drink during flight. However, at such extreme altitudes, doing so isn't as simple as it sounds. According to U-2 Support Launch and Recovery Supervisor Staff Sergeant David Labarge, U-2 pilots are instructed that once their helmet is locked down, they are not to open it until they land. Failure to heed this warning could have disastrous consequences.
As long as the cockpit is pressurized, theoretically, a U-2 pilot could safely open their helmet to eat, scratch their nose, or have a sip of water. However, Sgt. Labarge cautions that, at such high altitudes, were a pilot to open their helmet and the cockpit pressurization system suddenly failed, "the blood in their body would instantaneously boil, leading to instantaneous death."
"The blood in their body would instantaneously boil, leading to instantaneous death."
As such, the helmet is designed with a feeding port through which pilots can drink from a gravity-fed water bottle and eat "tube food, made by the same people who make traditional meals-ready-to-eat (MRE).
Photo: Airman 1st Class Drew Buchanan | US Air Force
The food is squeezed from a toothpaste-like tube through the helmet's feeding port directly into the pilot's mouth.
Photo: Jeff Sisto | US Army
Dinner service aboard a U-2 offers a variety of choices, including beef stroganoff, truffle mac and cheese, chicken alfredo, peaches, pears, chocolate pudding, and even caffeinated cinnamon applesauce. A heater inside the aircraft ensures their meatloaf-in-a-tube is nice and hot. Bon Appétit!
The Starliner crew is on the International Space Station for the long haul, according to NASA in a press conference today.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is already on day 35 of what was originally supposed to be a nine-day mission, and it won’t leave the International Space Station (ISS) before the end of July, NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich and Boeing VP for commercial crew Mark Nappi told the press during a call earlier today. Engineers and technicians on the ground are finishing tests — and analyzing a mountain of data — on the spacecraft’s thrusters and a helium leak, and it could be at least another two or three weeks before they’re ready to bring Starliner home for anything short of an (unlikely) emergency evacuation from ISS.
Inverse has all the details about why it’s taking so long to bring Starliner home, how the not-stranded-but-definitely-delayed crew is spending their time in orbit, and why the spacecraft has to leave ISS by mid-August.
A satellite in orbit took this photo of the Starliner capsule docked to the forward port of the International Space Station. We live in the future.
MAXAR/MAXAR/GETTY IMAGES
AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION
Boeing and NASA don’t believe that any of Starliner’s thrusters are damaged, say Stich and Nappi speaking at a press conference on Wednesday. If Starliner had to leave the International Space Station immediately (maybe because of a collision with a piece of satellite debris, like the near-miss that caused the crew to take shelter aboard Starliner earlier this week), the ship could get its crew home safely, according to Nappi.
“If we were to have to do that today, we would just perform a nominal undocking and return,” Nappi told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday.
The extensive tests keeping the spacecraft docked at ISS, they said at the press conference, are a chance for engineers to figure out exactly why five of Starliner’s 28 maneuvering thrusters (technically called the Reaction Control System, or RCS) failed while the spacecraft was docking with the International Space Station on June 6. Starliner’s service module — which houses the thrusters — is designed to burn up during re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere, so once the ship heads home, engineers will lose their chance to poke at the problem.
Boeing and NASA also want to be extremely sure there’s actually nothing wrong. “We don’t believe that we have damaged thrusters, but we want to fill in the blanks and run these tests to assure ourselves of this,” Nappi says.
Stich adds, “Really, what we're doing is just taking the time to make sure that we have looked under every rock and every stone, just to make sure that there's nothing that would surprise us.”
STARLINER RECAP: FAILED THRUSTERS AND HELIUM LEAKS
During its rendezvous with ISS on June 6, five of Starliner's 28 maneuvering thrusters failed. The crew and mission control managed to get four of them back online, but one (thruster B1A3) refused to cooperate, first sputtering out just 11 percent of its normal thrust, and then nothing at all. B1A3 will remain shut off for the rest of the mission.
The thruster issues appeared after Starliner had to fire its thruster more — and more often, in several short pulses — than engineers had expected.
And then there are the helium leaks. Starliner uses helium to pressurize its thrusters, and some of that helium is leaking out around the O-rings used to seal the area where the helium — and two lines that carry rocket propellant — pass through a flange and into the thruster.
"Helium was getting out from that flange area and somehow getting around that O-ring," says Nappi "The design should have been sufficient, but there's obviously something going on in that cavity that we don't understand."
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are the first crew to fly aboard Starliner.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES NEWS/GETTY IMAGES
SO MUCH TESTING, SO LITTLE TIME
Last week, Starliner test-fired its thrusters while docked to the ISS, using the station’s flight control system to measure how much thrust the thrusters were actually thrusting (Inverse would certainly not like to apologize for that sentence, thank you).
Meanwhile, at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, engineers have test fired several thrusters, trying to re-create the extreme temperatures and workload Starliner’s thrusters faced during flight. Those tests are now complete, but engineers still need to physically check the tested thrusters for damage and analyze a tremendous collection of data about their performance. Next, engineers will be repeating the process — but this time they’ll be simulating the “downhill” phase of the mission, or the return to Earth.
“We really wanted to get that testing completed and actually physically inspect the thruster before we committed to the nominal undocking,” says Stich. “I think there's ways from what we've learned from this flight to change the number of pulses required for the rendezvous and docking phase to not put such demand on the thrusters.”
Engineers are also working on the helium leak, which means smearing grease on spare flanges, tossing debris into them, and blasting them with heat to test possible causes for the leak. They also need to make sure that the thrusters are still getting enough helium to keep them pressurized — at least enough to work reliably and safely.
“We would like to duplicate that flange design on the ground under a controlled test and see if we can't make it leak, and experiment with some larger seals or maybe a different seal material that might not be as susceptible to degradation from the propellant,” said Nappi.
“THE NATURE OF WHAT WE DO”
To bystanders, it seems like an alarming situation: a new spacecraft launches with its first crew, only for its thrusters to fail and start leaking helium pressurizer. But for test pilots like Starliner test commander Butch Wilmore, it’s another day at the office.
“Human spaceflight is not easy. There have been multiple issues with every spacecraft that has ever been designed, and that's the nature of what we do,” said Wilmore.
Nappi and Stich repeated a similar message to reporters.
“We knew that there would be some learning from this flight test. We've learned a great deal from how the hardware works, how our processes work, and how we can improve the things that we're doing,” said Nappi. “As engineers, we test, we learn, we fix, and that’s exactly what we’re going through.”
Starliner launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, following several delays.
ANADOLU/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM!
The testing and analysis are likely to take another couple of weeks, at least, which means Wilmore and Starliner test pilot Suni Williams probably won’t be bidding farewell to the ISS until at least the end of July – and Stich described that possible timeframe as optimistic. But Starliner needs to be on its way by mid-August, when a SpaceX Crew Dragon is set to bring a new quartet of spacefarers (astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, and Stephanie Wilson, as well as Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov) to the ISS.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that carried Crew-8 (astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin) to the ISS is still docked at the station, waiting for Crew-8 to hop aboard and fly it home. Before they leave, though, they need to meet and brief their replacements, a process NASA calls a handover. Crew-9 will dock their Crew Dragonwith ISS and come aboard before Crew-8 leaves. At the moment, that’s a problem, because Starliner is sitting in Crew-9’s parking spot.
That gives NASA and Boeing a deadline for finishing their tests and either deeming Starliner fit to fly home or making other arrangements.
“The beautiful thing about the commercial crew program is that we have two vehicles, two different systems, that we could use to return the crew,” said Stich, referring to Starliner and Crew Dragon. “We have a little more time to go through the data and decide whether we need to do anything different but the prime option today is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner.”
“LIKE COMING BACK HOME”
For now, Wilmore and Williams are safe and sound on the ISS, where they’ve been pitching in with maintenance and science experiments.
“Butch and I have been up here before, and it feels like coming back home,” says Williams. “We've been integrated right into Expedition 71. We've been doing science with them, maintenance, and some major maintenance that has been waiting for a little while.”
Wilmore recently tested NASA’s Moon Microscope, a handheld 3D-printed microscope that’s part of a medical kit that could help future lunar explorers diagnose illnesses and make sure their food, water, and quarters aren’t contaminated. And Williams sequenced DNA while zipping around Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. The pair also helped swap out a urine processor pump. (Never a dull moment aboard ISS, and no lack of variety, either.)
Stich says the whole ISS crew is comfortable and has plenty of supplies — including things like food and clothing — to last the duration. A Northrop-Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch in early August, bringing new supplies and probably some extra items from home for the Starliner crew, if they’re still aboard. Meanwhile, this isn’t even close to the most crowded the ISS has ever been.
In fact, situations like this one may become more common over the next few years. Stich, paraphrasing retired astronaut Ken Bowersox, said earlier today that now that ISS can provide electricity to docked spacecraft, it can serve as a sort of temporary hangar for engineers to troubleshoot spacecraft in orbit.
Meanwhile, Williams and Wilmore sound calm and confident – which is also part of their job.
“I have a really good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home,” says Williams.
Astronomen hebben niet al te ver weg een veelbelovende superaarde ontdekt, waar het in ieder geval best lekker weer is. De exoplaneet is een ijs- of waterwereld, dat weten ze nog niet.
An artist’s impression of exoplanet LHS 1140 orbiting a red dwarf star 41 light-years distant. ESO/SpaceEngine.org
LHS 1140 b, die op zo’n 48 lichtjaar van de aarde staat, is een van de meest veelbelovende exoplaneten met een leefbare zone. Hij heeft zelfs mogelijk een atmosfeer en een oceaan met vloeibaar water, blijkt uit de data van de James Webb-telescoop.
Mogelijk water “Dit is de eerste keer dat we een hint van een atmosfeer hebben gezien op een rotsachtige of ijzige exoplaneet met een bewoonbare zone. Het vinden van een atmosfeer op kleine, rotsachtige werelden is een belangrijk doel voor James Webb, maar dat is veel moeilijker dan op grote planeten”, vertelt Ryan MacDonald van NASA. “LHS 1140 b is een van de beste kleine exoplaneten met een bewoonbare zone waar een dikke atmosfeer kan zijn, en we hebben daar mogelijk net bewijs van gevonden.”
LHS 1140 b, een exoplaneet die om een rode dwergster draait die ongeveer een vijfde zo groot is als onze zon, is zo interessant, omdat het een van de dichtstbijzijnde exoplaneten is die binnen de bewoonbare zone van zijn ster ligt. Dat wil zeggen dat de temperatuur dusdanig gematigd is dat er vloeibaar water kan bestaan, een cruciaal element voor leven.
Superaarde of mini-Neptunus? De vraag was in eerste instantie of LHS 1140 b een mini-Neptunus zou zijn of een superaarde, dus een kleine ijsreus met een waterstofrijke atmosfeer of een rotsachtige, waterrijke planeet, die groter is dan de aarde. Maar uit het onderzoek blijkt dat de pas ontdekte exoplaneet eigenlijk geen ijsreus kan zijn. Het lijkt er veel meer op dat LHS 1140 b inderdaad een superaarde is met mogelijk zelfs een stikstofrijke atmosfeer, zoals onze planeet ook heeft.
Maar er is meer: volgens de eerste metingen is de dichtheid van de planeet kleiner dan verwacht, wat erop kan wijzen dat 10 tot 20 procent van zijn massa uit water bestaat. Het maakt LHS 1140 b een overtuigende kandidaat als waterwereld. Mogelijk lijkt de planeet op een sneeuwbal of ijsplaneet met een vloeibare oceaan op het stuk dat altijd naar zijn ster wijst.
Beste gok op water “Van alle momenteel bekende gematigde exoplaneten zou LHS 1140 b wel eens onze beste gok kunnen zijn om op een dag vloeibaar water op het oppervlak van een wereld buiten ons zonnestelsel te vinden”, aldus hoofdonderzoeker Charles Cadieux van de Université de Montréal. “Dit zou een belangrijke mijlpaal zijn in de zoektocht naar potentieel bewoonbare exoplaneten.”
De aanwezigheid van stikstof toont aan dat de planeet wellicht een substantiële atmosfeer heeft behouden, waardoor omstandigheden ontstaan die vloeibaar water mogelijk maken. De huidige modellen laten zien dat als LHS 1140 b een aarde-achtige atmosfeer heeft, het een sneeuwbalplaneet zou zijn met een oceaan met een diameter van zo’n 4000 kilometer, ongeveer half zo groot als de Atlantische Oceaan. De oppervlaktetemperatuur in het midden van deze buitenaardse oceaan zou zelfs een comfortabele 20 graden Celsius kunnen zijn.
Uitzonderlijke planeet De potentiële atmosfeer en gunstige omstandigheden voor vloeibaar water maken de planeet een uitzonderlijk goede kandidaat voor mogelijk leven. “Dit is onze eerste glimp van een atmosfeer op een superaarde in de bewoonbare zone. Vergeleken met andere bekende exoplaneten, zoals die in het TRAPPIST-1-systeem, lijkt de ster LHS 1140 rustiger en minder actief, waardoor het minder ingewikkeld is om de atmosfeer te onderscheiden van signalen die worden veroorzaakt door sterrenvlekken”, vertelt MacDonald.
Volgens de wetenschapper is LHS 1140 b misschien wel de beste planeet met een bewoonbare zone die tot nu toe bekend is. “Hoewel we meer James Webb-waarnemingen nodig hebben om de stikstofrijke atmosfeer te bevestigen en om naar andere gassen te zoeken, is dit een heel veelbelovende start.”
SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket suffered a rare anomaly on Thursday night (July 11).
The incident occurred during a launch of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites fromVandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 performed well initially; its two stages separated on time, and the first stage came down for a landing on a drone ship about eight minutes after liftoff as planned.
But the rocket's upper stage, which was hauling 20 Starlink spacecraft to low Earth orbit, encountered a problem — a leak of liquid oxygen, which had serious repercussions for the mission.
Screenshot from the webcast of a SpaceX Starlink satellite launch on July 11, 2024, showing a buildup of liquid-oxygen ice on the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket. (Image credit: SpaceX)
"After a planned relight of the upper-stage engine to raise perigee — or the lowest point of orbit — the Merlin Vacuum engine experienced an anomaly and was unable to complete its second burn," SpaceX wrote in an update today (July 12). (The Falcon 9's upper stage is powered by that single engine; the first stage sports nine Merlins, which explains the rocket's name.)
SpaceX engineers worked to get the 20 Starlink satellites — 13 of which were capable of beaming service directly to cell phones — to raise their orbits using their onboard ion thrusters. But the hill was too steep to climb, according to the company.
"At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites," SpaceX wrote in the update. "As such, the satellites will reenter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise. They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety."
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a ship at sea shortly after launching 20 Starlink satellites to orbit from California on July 11, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)
The Falcon 9 is the most prolific rocket flying today, with 69 launches under its belt already in 2024. It's known for its reliability; before Thursday night, the Falcon 9 had suffered only one full in-flight failure in its storied history, which occurred during the launch of a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2015.
The Falcon 9 is also human-rated; it has launched 13 crewed missions to date, nine of which have sent astronauts to the ISS for NASA. It's unclear how Thursday's failure will affect the rocket and its manifest at this point; SpaceX will first need to figure out exactly what happened and how to address the issue — an effort that's already underway.
"SpaceX will perform a full investigation in coordination with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], determine root cause, and make corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions," SpaceX wrote in today's update. "With a robust satellite and rocket production capability, and a high launch cadence, we’re positioned to rapidly recover and continue our pace as the world’s most active launch services provider."
Most Falcon 9 missions these days service the giant and ever-growing Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 6,100 operational satellites; 49 of the 69 Falcon 9 launches so far in 2024 have been dedicated Starlink missions.
Editor's note:This story was updated at 4:30 p.m. ET on July 12 with the news from SpaceX that all 20 Starlink satellites will be lost due to the Falcon 9 upper-stage failure.
A stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites, which included the first six featuring Direct to Cell capabilities. The batch launched on the Starlink 7-9 mission, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 2, 2024.
Pentagon Publishes Report on Material From an Alleged Alien Aircraft
Pentagon Publishes Report on Material From an Alleged Alien Aircraft
Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists studied the scrap of metal and decided it’s just a failed 20th century experiment into magnesium alloys and not alien at all.
The branch of the Pentagon tasked with investigating UFOs published a new report on the origins of what’s long been thought to be a piece of an alien aircraft. Spoilers: it’s not.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)—the DoD’s UFO investigators—sent a sample of an alleged extraterrestrial aircraft to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2022, according to a Thursday press release. Oak Ridge studied the material for two years and sent its report to the AARO in April, and the conclusion is that the sample is probably not alien at all. It’s likely just one in a long line of experimental materials from the 20th century crafted in an effort to make a lighter and stronger aircraft.
“This specimen has been publicly alleged to be a component recovered from a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle in 1947, and purportedly exhibits extraordinary properties, such as functioning as a terahertz waveguide to generate antigravity capabilities,” the AARO said in the press release. “Considering all available evidence, AARO assesses that this specimen is likely a test object, a manufacturing product or byproduct, or a material component of aerospace performance studies to evaluate the properties of [magnesium] alloys.”
According to the report, the speculated piece of a UFO aircraft is just a normal magnesium compound.
“Although the origin, chain of custody, and ultimate purpose of this specimen remain unclear, a modern and robust analysis of its chemical and structural composition and properties does not indicate that its origin is non-terrestrial, nor do the data indicate that the material examined ever had the pure single-crystalline bismuth layer that could possibly have acted as a terahertz waveguide,” Oak Ridge said in its report.
The source of the studied specimen is the To The Stars Academy, an independent research organization headed by Blink-182 frontman and UFO fanatic, Tom DeLonge. The organization said in a press release that “the material is clearly engineered with distinct layers of MgZn and Bi at structured thicknesses only microns thick” and “there is no precedent for this structured combination of materials.”
Oak Ridge agreed to look at the material after To The Stars consented to have it studied.
“Although the long chain of custody for this specimen cannot be verified, public and media interest in the specimen warranted a transparent investigation that adhered to the scientific method,” the report said. “The specimen’s physiochemical properties are claimed to make the material capable of “inertial mass reduction” (i.e., levitation or antigravity functionality), possibly attributable to the material’s bismuth and magnesium layers acting as a terahertz waveguide.”
The AARO and Oak Ridge say the material is likely an early test of new aerospace alloys from the 20th century. “There was widespread domestic research on [magnesium] alloys for airframes, engines, weapons, and delivery systems starting in 1915 and peaking during World War II,” the organizations reported.
“Many experimental [magnesium] alloys failed for reasons not well understood at the time of testing, e.g., stress corrosion cracking,” the AARO said in its press release. “Unsurprisingly, records of failed [magnesium] alloy designs are scant. Neither AARO nor ORNL could verify the specimen’s historical origin. Unverifiable, conflicting personal accounts complicate its undocumented chain of custody.”
Neither the press release nor the Oak Ridge report mention Roswell, New Mexico, but pinpointing the recovery date of the material to 1947 makes it likely that whoever gave the sample to To The Stars has claimed that’s where it came from.
The Roswell crash is a foundational myth among UFO fans and conspiracy theorists. The short version is that something crashed in the deserts outside of Roswell, New Mexico. The Air Force recovered pieces of it and said it was a weather balloon. But others have long believed it was an alien spacecraft.
That incident kicked off decades of panic and interest in strange lights in the sky. That interest picked up again in recent years after a number of high-profile sightings by U.S. Navy pilots and the publication of declassified videos of strange aerial phenomena. U.S. legislators tasked the Pentagon with figuring out why so many people reported seeing strange lights in the sky. In response, the Pentagon formed the AARO in 2022 and it’s been investigating what it called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) ever since.
It’s published several reports but has, as of yet, failed to uncover proof of extraterrestrial or interdimensional visitation of America.
Before 2013, Area-51 had only been in the conspiracies. People ridiculed those who claimed to have worked in this highly classified US Air Force facility. Thanks to archivist Jeffrey Richelson who made it possible for the government to finally admitted that Area-51 is a real place in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. A few years back, ApexTV, famous for their mysterious content, did an interview with a fellow named Robert Miller who piloted an alien spacecraft at Area-51 telepathically, before crashing and breaking both his legs.
His story is worth reading as who knows what secrets may open up later in the future and become the reality in our life. Area-51 is one of the world’s most secretive places controlled by the US Air Force, which is claimed to be the storehouse of alien spacecraft, where their technology is being developed. It has been actively working since 1955 (as officially stated), which was the study point of UFOs in the 50s. Since then, the place has become a pilgrimage for alien hunters and UFO researchers.
In December 2017, Robert Miller did an interview with ApexTV where he revealed secrets of the inner workings of Groom Lake. According to Miller, aliens and extraterrestrial crafts are being kept inside Area-51, and he alleged to have been part of a top-secret project in which he was chosen to pilot a reverse-engineered UFO.
The video shows a bald man in cargo shorts claiming he flew an alien spaceship telepathically, but the sound quality is terrible. Miller cliamed to have hidden the fact that he worked in Area-51 from his closest relatives, but his mother had the slightest that idea about his job. His purpose for recording the video is to remove this secret from his conscience, and he knew the circumstances of the reveal that the government would come after him.
Robert Miller claimed he worked at Area 51 as a testing pilot for a re-engineered alien spacecraft. Image credit: YouTube screencap
Miller grew up in a small town in Southern Nevada, and his father was an aerospace engineer who taught him to fly aircraft which helped him become a licensed pilot at the age of 15. He later joined Marine Corps as a pilot, where he was considered one of the top pilots. By the time he became 18, he was planning to retire from the Marine Corps and find a normal job back home and thinking to start a family.
Everything changed when he received an offer letter about his new job as a test pilot in a secret program. “I thought, great. It also said, a plane would be picking me up at the Las Vegas airport Friday the second at three AM to take me there. So we flew out there in the middle of the night and two men in black suits escorted me into an underground building. It was built on the side of a hill and yes, the men in black are real. Believe me, they’re real,” Miller said.
He continued explaining the place which had long hallways and many doors on each side. Miller added: “We went down several flights of stairs, must have been far underground at that point. They showed me into a small room with a single bed and a desk.” He was then locked inside the room by those men.
Miller looked in one of his drawers and found a booklet, titled something like “Working at Grim Lake” that mentioned that there were 1,200 other employees. He claimed only insiders decide whom to recruit to work in Area-51. “I assumed that my father invited me and this is where he had been working when I was a kid. He had long, long since retired by the time I got there, and I wasn’t sure what was in store for me now.”
Miller was appointed as a test pilot for the so-called alien technology that was allegedly recovered from the crafts that crashed in 1947. Like any other whistleblower, he also said that they had already reversed engineering the alien spacecraft technology. He was going to be the first person to pilot the craft.
“Also, they threatened me again, if I told anybody, even my family, there would be dire consequences for all. I asked them what were the origins of the craft they found and they really thought it just was from another country. They told me not of this world and the beings that engineered it were extra-dimensional. They said the beings were still alive and were being kept in an undisclosed location in a facility,” Miller revealed.
Miller described a large disc-shaped craft about “50 feet from end to end, edge to edge” standing in the middle of the warehouse. It had a transparent dome at the top. He assumed that it was his testing vehicle. The engineers who worked on the craft technology told him that it was powered by an anti-matter reactor. The reactor produced bursts of dense energy that could generate wormholes and make the craft travel near the speed of light.
“They then said that my test flight was going to be delayed until the next day because they had to explain to me everything I needed to know in order to be able to pilot this thing. Now I’m just going off of what I can remember. There was a lot of specifics, gauges, and things but as I’ve gotten older, so I’m telling you as much as I can possibly remember. I do remember they brought me inside the craft.”
According to Miller, the alien spacecraft had a room for only one person. The cockpit had a seat, no joystick, no steering wheel, and no other controls, only a helmet. He told that the craft operates only telepathically.
American scientist Boyd Bushman with a display of alleged UFO pictures from Area 51. Image Credit: YouTube screencap
“The helmet measured my brainwaves and
was to control the craft by simply thinking about it. After a hard night of trying to sleep, thinking about this, morning came. And it was finally time to take the craft for the first test flight. They brought out a tarp and ordered everyone working on the base to go inside. They wanted to keep everybody not knowing about this secret technology to a bare minimum.”
He put on the helmet and followed the guidance as the craft was only going to operate by analyzing his brain waves. He had to imagine the craft floating off the ground but instead, he imagined being a part of the craft. After that, he began thinking of himself floating off the ground. “I felt vibrations from the anti-matter reactor below me as it started to fire up.”
He was instructed to take the craft up to 1000 feet. He succeeded in taking it to 500 feet but shockingly, the engine stopped and Miller started losing altitude. He found no safety feature, and no seat ejection system was there in the craft. He kept imaging the craft floating but eventually, it hit the ground and Miller received serious injuries.
Miller said he fell unconscious and then woke up in the medical ward, where he was told by another man in a black suit that the craft mysteriously disappeared just before crashing and everyone at the base simply “called it a day” and went inside. Then in the middle of the night, they heard a loud crashing noise outside. Running out to see what happened, they saw the craft had crashed in the spot it was about to crash a while earlier during the day.
“I was inside the pilot’s seat unconscious, both my legs were shattered. The scientists had hypothesized that the craft had actually time traveled to a point in time, several hours later. They had me sign a non-disclosure, the third one, stating, since the first meeting, I would not tell anybody as long as I lived and making this video. Well, as you can see, I have gone against this NDA contract because I feel that the public needs to know about this.”
A similar claim of testing a re-engineered ET craft has another witness named Bill Uhouse who testified that it required a good amount of time for a person to train in order to operate the disc. Besides, its design was so exacting that nothing could be externally installed on it such as machine guns and bombs like in traditional aircraft.
Before 2013, Area-51 had only been in the conspiracies. People ridiculed those who claimed to have worked in this highly classified US Air Force facility. Thanks to archivist Jeffrey Richelson who made it possible for the government to finally admitted that Area-51 is a real place in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. A few years back, ApexTV, famous for their mysterious content, did an interview with a fellow named Robert Miller who piloted an alien spacecraft at Area-51 telepathically, before crashing and breaking both his legs.
His story is worth reading as who knows what secrets may open up later in the future and become the reality in our life. Area-51 is one of the world’s most secretive places controlled by the US Air Force, which is claimed to be the storehouse of alien spacecraft, where their technology is being developed. It has been actively working since 1955 (as officially stated), which was the study point of UFOs in the 50s. Since then, the place has become a pilgrimage for alien hunters and UFO researchers.
In December 2017, Robert Miller did an interview with ApexTV where he revealed secrets of the inner workings of Groom Lake. According to Miller, aliens and extraterrestrial crafts are being kept inside Area-51, and he alleged to have been part of a top-secret project in which he was chosen to pilot a reverse-engineered UFO.
The video shows a bald man in cargo shorts claiming he flew an alien spaceship telepathically, but the sound quality is terrible. Miller cliamed to have hidden the fact that he worked in Area-51 from his closest relatives, but his mother had the slightest that idea about his job. His purpose for recording the video is to remove this secret from his conscience, and he knew the circumstances of the reveal that the government would come after him.
Robert Miller claimed he worked at Area 51 as a testing pilot for a re-engineered alien spacecraft. Image credit: YouTube screencap
Miller grew up in a small town in Southern Nevada, and his father was an aerospace engineer who taught him to fly aircraft which helped him become a licensed pilot at the age of 15. He later joined Marine Corps as a pilot, where he was considered one of the top pilots. By the time he became 18, he was planning to retire from the Marine Corps and find a normal job back home and thinking to start a family.
Everything changed when he received an offer letter about his new job as a test pilot in a secret program. “I thought, great. It also said, a plane would be picking me up at the Las Vegas airport Friday the second at three AM to take me there. So we flew out there in the middle of the night and two men in black suits escorted me into an underground building. It was built on the side of a hill and yes, the men in black are real. Believe me, they’re real,” Miller said.
He continued explaining the place which had long hallways and many doors on each side. Miller added: “We went down several flights of stairs, must have been far underground at that point. They showed me into a small room with a single bed and a desk.” He was then locked inside the room by those men.
Miller looked in one of his drawers and found a booklet, titled something like “Working at Grim Lake” that mentioned that there were 1,200 other employees. He claimed only insiders decide whom to recruit to work in Area-51. “I assumed that my father invited me and this is where he had been working when I was a kid. He had long, long since retired by the time I got there, and I wasn’t sure what was in store for me now.”
Miller was appointed as a test pilot for the so-called alien technology that was allegedly recovered from the crafts that crashed in 1947. Like any other whistleblower, he also said that they had already reversed engineering the alien spacecraft technology. He was going to be the first person to pilot the craft.
“Also, they threatened me again, if I told anybody, even my family, there would be dire consequences for all. I asked them what were the origins of the craft they found and they really thought it just was from another country. They told me not of this world and the beings that engineered it were extra-dimensional. They said the beings were still alive and were being kept in an undisclosed location in a facility,” Miller revealed.
Miller described a large disc-shaped craft about “50 feet from end to end, edge to edge” standing in the middle of the warehouse. It had a transparent dome at the top. He assumed that it was his testing vehicle. The engineers who worked on the craft technology told him that it was powered by an anti-matter reactor. The reactor produced bursts of dense energy that could generate wormholes and make the craft travel near the speed of light.
“They then said that my test flight was going to be delayed until the next day because they had to explain to me everything I needed to know in order to be able to pilot this thing. Now I’m just going off of what I can remember. There was a lot of specifics, gauges, and things but as I’ve gotten older, so I’m telling you as much as I can possibly remember. I do remember they brought me inside the craft.”
According to Miller, the alien spacecraft had a room for only one person. The cockpit had a seat, no joystick, no steering wheel, and no other controls, only a helmet. He told that the craft operates only telepathically.
American scientist Boyd Bushman with a display of alleged UFO pictures from Area 51. Image Credit: YouTube screencap
“The helmet measured my brainwaves and
was to control the craft by simply thinking about it. After a hard night of trying to sleep, thinking about this, morning came. And it was finally time to take the craft for the first test flight. They brought out a tarp and ordered everyone working on the base to go inside. They wanted to keep everybody not knowing about this secret technology to a bare minimum.”
He put on the helmet and followed the guidance as the craft was only going to operate by analyzing his brain waves. He had to imagine the craft floating off the ground but instead, he imagined being a part of the craft. After that, he began thinking of himself floating off the ground. “I felt vibrations from the anti-matter reactor below me as it started to fire up.”
He was instructed to take the craft up to 1000 feet. He succeeded in taking it to 500 feet but shockingly, the engine stopped and Miller started losing altitude. He found no safety feature, and no seat ejection system was there in the craft. He kept imaging the craft floating but eventually, it hit the ground and Miller received serious injuries.
Miller said he fell unconscious and then woke up in the medical ward, where he was told by another man in a black suit that the craft mysteriously disappeared just before crashing and everyone at the base simply “called it a day” and went inside. Then in the middle of the night, they heard a loud crashing noise outside. Running out to see what happened, they saw the craft had crashed in the spot it was about to crash a while earlier during the day.
“I was inside the pilot’s seat unconscious, both my legs were shattered. The scientists had hypothesized that the craft had actually time traveled to a point in time, several hours later. They had me sign a non-disclosure, the third one, stating, since the first meeting, I would not tell anybody as long as I lived and making this video. Well, as you can see, I have gone against this NDA contract because I feel that the public needs to know about this.”
A similar claim of testing a re-engineered ET craft has another witness named Bill Uhouse who testified that it required a good amount of time for a person to train in order to operate the disc. Besides, its design was so exacting that nothing could be externally installed on it such as machine guns and bombs like in traditional aircraft.
The sci-fi landscape is littered with wormholes. From Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Rick and Morty to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these theoretical constructs allow characters to zip between distant points in the universe as easy as stepping through a doorway.
An Einstein-Rosen bridge is the simplest kind of wormhole. And while it can, in theory, allow you to meet a new friend from a distant part of the universe, there are some important reasons why it won’t let you travel back in time.
Black Holes, White Holes and Wormholes
Let’s start with everybody’s favorite astronomical mystery: a black hole. Despite their fearsome reputation, they’re actually rather simple creature. They have a point of infinite density, known as the singularity, in their centers. They are surrounded by a boundary called the event horizon.
The event horizon doesn’t exist in the same way that the surface of a planet exists. Instead it’s just a mathematical line in the sand that tells you one thing: if you cross within that special distance, you’re trapped forever, because you’ll have to travel faster than the speed of light to escape.
And that’s it. That’s a black hole. A singularity and an event horizon. All things that cross the event horizon will never escape back into the universe – things go in and never come out.
Mathematically we can also define the polar opposite of a black hole, which is conveniently called a white hole. White holes also have a singularity, but their event horizons act differently. Anything already on the outside of a white hole (like, the entire universe) can never, ever cross within it, no matter how hard it tries. And anything already inside the white hole will find itself ejected from it faster than the speed of light.
Now when we take a black hole and a white hole and connect their singularities together, we get an entirely new kind of object: an Einstein-Rosen bridge, better known as a wormhole.
Wormholes are essentially hollow tubes through space and time that can connect very distant regions of the universe. A star may be thousands of light-years away, but a wormhole can connect that star to us with a tunnel only a few steps long.
Wormholes also have the somewhat mystical ability to allow backwards time travel. If you take one end of the wormhole and accelerate it to a speed close to that of light, it will experience time dilation — its internal “clock” will run slower than the rest of the universe.
That will cause the two ends of the wormhole to no longer be synchronized in time. Then you could walk in one end and end up in your own past. Voilà: time travel.
There's just one, tiny, teensy problem with this setup: Einstein-Rosen bridges are indeed wormholes, but the entrance to the wormhole sits behind the black hole event horizon. And the number one rule of black hole event horizons is that once you cross them, you’re never allowed to escape. Ever.
Once you pass through a black hole event horizon, you are forced towards the singularity, where you are guaranteed to meet your gruesome end. In other words, once you enter an Einstein-Rosen bridge, you will never escape.
So, the unfortunate truth with Einstein-Rosen bridges is that while they appear to be magical doorways to distant reaches of the universe, they are just as deadly as black holes. When you enter you can meet other travelers who have fallen in from the other side, and you could even carry on a conversation…briefly, before you both struck the singularity.
There have been attempts to stabilize Einstein-Rosen bridges and make them traversable by somehow getting their entrances to sit outside the event horizon. So far the only way we know how to do this is with exotic matter. If you threaded the wormhole tunnel with matter that had negative mass, then in principle you could have a not-deadly-at-all wormhole.
Alas, negative matter does not appear to exist in the universe, and so our wormhole — and time travel — dreams will have to remain as mere mathematical fantasies.
Milky Way's rarest black hole may lurk behind 7 stars that 'shouldn't be there'
Milky Way's rarest black hole may lurk behind 7 stars that 'shouldn't be there'
Story by Harry Baker
Astronomers may have found a rare "missing link" black hole in the Milky Way after spotting a group of improbably fast-moving stars at the heart of a nearby stellar cluster. If confirmed, the cosmic juggernaut, known as an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH), would be the second-largest black hole ever found in our galaxy.
IMBHs are an extremely rare subset of black holes that are larger than stellar-mass black holes but smaller than supermassive black holes. This means they can be anywhere between 100 and 100,000 times the mass of the sun, according to NASA.
In theory, IMBHs should be just as common as other black hole types. However, astronomers have struggled to locate potential IMBHs or confirm their existence — and they aren't sure why. As a result, IMBHs are often referred to as missing link black holes. While several promising candidates have been detected, none have been proven to be the real deal.
Now, in a recent study uploaded April 4 to the preprint server arXiv, researchers may have uncovered evidence of a large IMBH in the globular cluster Omega Centauri — a compact group of around 10 million stars in the Milky Way located around 17,000 light-years from Earth.
The team compared 500 photographs of Omega Centauri taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and mapped the movements of around 1.4 million stars at the cluster's center. This revealed at least seven stars that "should not be there," researchers wrote in a statement.
Omega Centauri is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way.
This is because these stars were spotted whizzing around fast enough to escape the cluster's gravity and fly off into intergalactic space. But despite this, the stars continue to orbit at breakneck speed near the cluster's center.
"The most likely explanation [for this] is that a very massive object is gravitationally pulling on these stars and keeping them close to the [cluster's] centre," study lead author Maximilian Häberle, a doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Germany, said in the statement. "The only object that can be so massive is a black hole, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our sun."
Omega Centauri is an unusual entity: It is around 10 times larger than most other globular clusters and is surprisingly flat. It is so massive that you can even see it with the naked eye on dark, clear nights, when it takes up almost as much of the night sky as the moon when viewed from Earth.
Researchers suspect that the cluster likely used to be a dwarf galaxy that orbited the Milky Way, before being pulled into the galaxy's middle. As a result, scientists have often wondered if there could have been a sizable black hole at its heart.
Researchers first proposed the idea of an IMBH in Omega Centauri in 2008, when Hubble revealed how tightly the cluster's stars are bunched at its center. However, at the time, other researchers argued that this could be caused by a swarm of several smaller, stellar-mass black holes.
But the superfast stars highlighted in the new study indicate the existence of an IMBH, the study authors argue.
"This discovery is the most direct evidence so far of an IMBH in Omega Centauri," study co-author Nadine Neumayer, an astronomer at MPIA, said in the statement. If confirmed, it would be the Milky Way's second-largest known black hole behind Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy, she added. "This is exciting because there are only very few other black holes known with a similar mass."
However, the presence of an IMBH in Omega Centauri is not confirmed, and more data is needed to know for certain if it is really there. It is also unclear exactly how large the cosmic entity might be and where it is.
The researchers have been granted time in the future to use the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to peer deeper into the cluster, which means we may not have to wait too long for more evidence of the black hole's existence.
We kunnen exoplaneten, die zich buiten ons zonnestelsel bevinden, niet bereiken, maar we kunnen hun geur wel waarnemen: een van hen ruikt naar rotte eieren, zo heeft een nieuw onderzoek ontdekt.
HD 189733 b, de “warme Jupiter" op 64 lichtjaar afstand van ons
Mensen associëren de geur van zwavel met die van rotte eieren, en zouden hun neus moeten dichtknijpen voor de exoplaneet die volgens wetenschappers een atmosfeer heeft die aan deze “geur” doet denken. De buitenaardse wereld in kwestie is een hete exoplaneet van Jupiter genaamd HD 189733 b en is 64 lichtjaar van de aarde verwijderd: een relatief korte afstand, gezien de locatie buiten ons zonnestelsel.
Dankzij de James Webb-telescoop was het mogelijk om te ontdekken dat het omgeven is door een atmosfeer gevuld met waterstofsulfide, waardoor je je gemakkelijk de geur kunt voorstellen die je zou kunnen inademen. HD 189733 b staat dertien keer dichter bij zijn moederster dan Mercurius bij de zon, waardoor het een “helse” planeet is, zoals beschreven. Een bijzonder hete en gasvormige Jupiter in het sterrenbeeld Vosje, die in slechts twee aardse dagen een baan rond zijn ster voltooit. Dit betekent dat de temperatuur bijna 925°C bedraagt: uiteraard onleefbaar voor mensen, afgezien van de geur die het afgeeft. Maar dit is niet de enige bizarre eigenaardigheid van de exoplaneet in kwestie.
De exoplaneet die naar rotte eieren ruikt en waarop het gesmolten glas regent
Roberto Molar Candanosa/Johns Hopkins Univeristy
Voordat ze in het nieuwe onderzoek de geur van HD 189733 b ontdekten, hadden wetenschappers al onthuld dat er een grote kans bestaat dat er op de exoplaneet buien van gesmolten glas ontstaan, die het gevolg zouden kunnen zijn van winden die het materiaal met een snelheid die kan oplopen tot 800 km per uur zijwaarts duwen, drie keer zo snel als een orkaan van categorie 5 op aarde. Het zijn precies de “eigenaardigheden” van deze buitenaardse wereld die onderzoekers ertoe hebben aangezet er nieuwe aandacht aan te besteden met behulp van de James Webb.
De nieuwe waarnemingen maakten het mogelijk om koolstofdioxide, zware metalen in de atmosfeer, de hoeveelheid water en zuurstof te meten. Zo ontdekten ze de aanwezigheid van waterstofsulfide, dat op onze planeet wordt uitgestoten door vulkanen en ontbindend organisch materiaal. Het is een licht ontvlambaar, schadelijk en kleurloos gas. Voor wetenschappers was het geen echte verrassing: men vermoedde al dat HD 189733 b, als zijnde gasreus, dit molecuul zou kunnen bevatten, dat ook op Uranus en Jupiter aanwezig is. Tot nu toe is dit gas echter zelden buiten het zonnestelsel gedetecteerd, behalve in de ruimte tussen de sterren.
Op zoek naar andere werelden met waterstofsulfide
Guangwei Fu, een astrofysicus aan de Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, noemde de ontdekking van waterstofsulfide op de exoplaneet een belangrijke "opstap naar het vinden van dit molecuul op andere planeten en om beter te begrijpen hoe verschillende soorten werelden ontstaan." Zwavel, zo legde Fu uit, is een essentieel element voor het bouwen van complexe moleculen en is van fundamenteel belang voor de overgrote meerderheid van de levensvormen op aarde.
De aanwezigheid van buitenaards leven op HD 189733 b kan echter vrijwel zeker worden uitgesloten, vanwege de extreem hoge temperaturen, maar ook vanwege de meteorologische omstandigheden. Het feit dat er waterstofsulfide aanwezig is op de exoplaneet doet ons echter denken dat andere werelden buiten ons zonnestelsel dit zouden kunnen bevatten, samen met mogelijke buitenaardse levensvormen. De volgende stap van de onderzoekers zal zijn om andere hete planeten vergelijkbaar met Jupiter te observeren met behulp van de James Webb om de aanwezigheid van hetzelfde gas te evalueren.
Yalçin Yalman Speaks: Unveiling the Turkey UFO Phenomenon
Yalçin Yalman Speaks: Unveiling the Turkey UFO Phenomenon
The enigmatic Kumburgaz UFO sightings, recorded between 2007 and 2009, have captivated the imaginations of UFO enthusiasts worldwide. At the heart of this phenomenon is Yalçin Yalman, the man behind the camera. In a recent groundbreaking interview, Yalman has broken his silence, providing new insights into his extraordinary experiences, the beings he encountered, and his predictions for future sightings. This article delves into Yalman’s journey and the broader implications of the Turkey UFO phenomenon.
A Journey Begun in Childhood
Yalçin Yalman’s fascination with UFOs began at the tender age of 12. His early years were marked by vivid dreams and astral journeys, during which he claimed to encounter beings from the Zeta Reticuli star system. These experiences left a profound impact on him, laying the foundation for a lifelong quest to understand and document extraterrestrial phenomena.
At the age of 20, while serving in the military, Yalman had a pivotal encounter. He reported seeing a hexagonal craft in the sky that communicated with him telepathically, urging him to follow it. This incident, coupled with his earlier experiences, cemented his belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life and set him on a path of relentless pursuit.
Between 2007 and 2009, Yalman captured several significant UFO sightings in Kumburgaz, Turkey. Using a Canon XL1 mini DV camera and later a Sony handicam with a telescoping lens, he recorded footage of hexagonal and triangular crafts, some of which appeared to have humanoid figures inside. This footage gained substantial attention and was validated by Turkish authorities and scientists, including TÜBİTAK, Turkey’s scientific and technological research council.
Despite the recognition, Yalman’s journey was fraught with challenges. He faced severe financial difficulties and homelessness, which hindered his ability to continue his work. However, he felt an irresistible compulsion to document these sightings, often feeling as though he was under some form of hypnosis or guided influence.
Astral Contact and Beings from Zeta Reticuli
Yalman claimed to have had ongoing astral contact with beings from Zeta Reticuli. According to him, these beings chose him for a mission to share their existence and information with humanity. He believed these beings protected him from malevolent entities, specifically reptilians from the Orion constellation.
One of Yalman’s most startling revelations was a vision suggesting that an ancient spacecraft was buried under Mount Nemrut in Turkey. This vision, he claimed, could have profound implications for our understanding of extraterrestrial life and ancient human history.
Predictions for Future Sightings
In his interview, Yalman made bold predictions about future UFO sightings. He stated that two large spacecraft would be visible in regions such as Peru, Chile, Brazil, or northern New Mexico by specific dates: July 28 and between August 15-20. He believed these sightings would occur in cloudy weather and hoped that their occurrence would validate his experiences and insights.
Challenges and Validation
Yalman’s claims have been met with skepticism from some quarters. Detractors question the authenticity of his footage, suggesting it could be hoaxed. However, Yalman and his supporters emphasize the multiple witnesses and expert validations that corroborate his accounts.
Throughout his life, Yalman faced numerous personal hardships, including health issues like epilepsy and legal troubles that led to imprisonment. These challenges, however, did not deter him from his mission. He continued to document his experiences and share them with the world, driven by a deep-seated belief in the significance of his work.
VIDEO:
Chris Lehto – Yalçin Yalman Breaks Silence: Inside the Turkey UFO Phenomenon
Yalçin Yalman’s message to those interested in UFO phenomena is clear: faith and a pure heart are essential for making contact or capturing footage of extraterrestrial entities. He expressed a strong desire to share his knowledge and experiences with humanity before he dies, highlighting the potential role of extraterrestrial beings in shaping human history and future.
In conclusion, Yalçin Yalman’s revelations provide a fascinating glimpse into the Turkey UFO phenomenon. His experiences, while controversial, offer valuable insights into the potential existence of extraterrestrial life and its interaction with humanity. As the dates of his predicted sightings approach, the world will be watching closely to see if his extraordinary claims hold true.
Last September, the results of an assessment by an independent study team assembled by NASA, intended to provide recommendations on how the agency could better contribute to the U.S. government’s ongoing evaluation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), concluded that better data and more of it will be required to make significant progress toward understanding mysterious aerial phenomena.
Coinciding with the release of the UAP Independent Study Team’s (UAPIST) report, NASA also revealed that it had appointed a new NASA Director of UAP Research to help lead the agency’s efforts and coordinate with the Department of Defense, whose All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is currently tasked with collection and analysis of UAP incidents reported by U.S. government personnel.
Notably, at the time of the NASA report’s release, the UAP Independent Study Team said that it had not examined or attempted to evaluate any actual incident reports. Instead, it focused on providing recommendations that could help improve future UAP studies while highlighting resources NASA can provide that may assist with such investigations.
Since the NASA report’s publication last year, little additional information has been made publicly available about what progress—if any—the American space agency and its recently appointed Director of UAP Research have made and to what degree NASA will remain involved in the U.S. government’s evaluation of UAP.
Now, almost a year after the NASA team’s findings were released, follow-up inquiries made by The Debrief appear to convey NASA officials’ reluctance to discuss the agency’s status regarding the UAP issue.
Beginning in June, The Debrief inquired with several NASA officials involved with the agency’s recent UAP efforts, seeking clarity on any progress that had been made since the release of the independent study team’s report.
“NASA continues to review the unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) independent study team’s report recommendations and determine next steps,” a NASA spokesperson told The Debrief in an official statement provided on June 5, 2024.
The spokesperson provided no additional guidance on why several months had been required for additional review of the report’s findings, nor any further indication of what the agency’s “next steps” on UAP might entail or whether any had already been determined by NASA at this time.
The Debrief also reached out to Mark McInerney, who was officially revealed as the agency’s new Director of UAP Research last September, shortly after NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced the new position within his agency last year. However, McInerney did not respond to The Debrief’s requests for an update on his agency’s progress on the matter.
Mark McInerney, NASA’s current Director of UAP Research, who has held the position since his appointment in September 2023
(Credit: NASA).
Altogether, few NASA officials The Debrief reached out to responded or were willing to speak on the record about any progress the agency has made regarding UAP since the release of last year’s report, although one individual speaking on background did acknowledge that the agency is not historically recognized for having significant involvement in the study of what have traditionally been called unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The study team’s 36-page report issued last year, which featured several entire pages displaying colorful images of lightning, aurorae, and other luminous phenomena that may occasionally be mistaken for UAP, provided guidance on the types of information that the study team deemed to be most useful in helping to determine the nature and origin of UAPs.
The report also emphasized the importance of improving sensor calibration, obtaining multiple measurements, and leveraging NASA’s expertise in a comprehensive data acquisition strategy within a whole-of-government framework.
“Currently, UAP data analysis is hindered by poor sensor calibration, lack of multiple measurements, insufficient sensor metadata, and absence of baseline data,” the report states. To address these issues, the UAPIST members said NASA should contribute to data collection efforts, using well-calibrated sensors and possibly utilizing multispectral or hyperspectral data in a rigorous acquisition campaign.
The study team’s assessment also advocates for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) as essential tools for identifying and potentially resolving UAP occurrences, although emphasizing that better data will be needed than what currently exists in data made available publicly by both government and civilian agencies. Notably absent from the NASA report had been any investigations or analyses related to recent or past UAP sightings.
Coinciding with the release of its report last year, Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and one of the UAPIST team members, emphasized NASA’s commitment to understanding what UAP might represent.
Daniel Evans speaks at a public meeting held by NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team in 2023 (Credit: NASA)
“The presence of UAP raises serious concerns about the safety of our skies,” Evans said, adding that “by understanding the nature of UAP, we can ensure that our skies remain a safe space for all.”
The Debrief also contacted Evans last month for feedback on any progress NASA officials have made following the report’s release last September, but as of the time of publication, it had not yet received a response.
“The top takeaway from the study is that there is a lot more to learn,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said following the report’s release. “We will use NASA’s expertise to work with other agencies to analyze UAP,” Nelson added, stressing the importance of shifting the UAP dialogue from sensationalism to science and sharing findings globally.
Nelson also said that his agency will remain committed to transparency on the issue and to attempting to better understand what UAP might represent.
“We are open, and we’re going to be open about this,” Nelson also said in response to a question from filmmaker James Fox, who attended last September’s press conference.
“We don’t know what these UAP are,” Nelson said, “but we’re gonna try to find out.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson (Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
However, in contrast to Nelson’s statements at the time, NASA has remained mostly silent on the UAP issue since the report’s release last year, providing few indications publicly that it plans to maintain any degree of active engagement with the matter, a reality that appeared to be reflected in the limited guidance agency officials and former members of NASA’s UAP study team were willing to provide in response to The Debrief’s inquiries over the last several weeks.
Following the publication of the UAPIST report last year, a short article published by Boston University’s Photonics Center quoted Joshua Semeter, a professor with the school’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of NASA’s UAP study team who was appointed to the group for his specialization in imaging and remote sensing observations.
“Even Professor Semeter was surprised to find the report focused more on mapping out next steps,” the article said of Semeter, who called UAP “a strangely polarizing topic.”
“One way to think about it is that whenever you’re faced with incomplete data, your brain fills in the rest, that’s our tendency,” Semeter was quoted saying of people’s tendency to exhibit biases regarding UAP, even when it involves academics studying the phenomenon. “The tendency of people looking into UAP is to fall on one side or the other with respect to an incomplete picture,” he added.
The Debrief reached out to Professor Semeter for further comment, but like with other study team members we contacted, received no response to our requests.
Earlier this year, astrophysicist David Spergel, President of the Simons Foundation and chair of NASA’s UAP study team, also spoke briefly about the group’s assessment during a NASA Future In-Space Operations seminar that was streamed on February 7, 2024.
David Spergel, chair of NASA’s independent study on unidentified anomalous phenomena (Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
Weeks later, in a document published online detailing the proceedings of the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee Spring Meeting on March 25, 2024, details outlining an earlier NASA Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC) meeting included a summary of the UAP report’s findings, given that UAPIST was a subcommittee formed under the ESAC.
“The ESAC finds that the UAPIST Subcommittee has addressed the questions outlined in the Statement of Task, and thereby has met its Terms of Reference,” the summary states. “The ESAC finds that the scope of the Subcommittee report, including any recommendations, is beyond NASA’s Earth Science program.”
A brief ESAC Procedural Recommendation also states that “The ESAC does not have the expertise to make detailed recommendations to ESD regarding the report,” concluding that “The ESAC accordingly recommends that the report be conveyed to agency leadership.”
No additional information has currently been made available by NASA regarding any data collection plan the agency may have implemented, nor any research methods, systems integration, budget appropriation, staffing, or other efforts being undertaken by NASA’s current Director of UAP Research. Further specific requests for updates on all these issues by The Debrief remained unanswered in our communications with NASA officials.
NASA’s lack of communication on the UAP subject following the release of last year’s report leaves more questions than answers about the agency’s current stance on the issue, as well as what plans, if any, it may have in terms of ongoing engagement and coordination with other federal agencies.
While the UAP Independent Study Team concluded its report last year by emphasizing there is currently no evidence credibly linking UAP sightings to extraterrestrial technologies, the authors nonetheless conceded that such possibilities at least remain on the table.
“At this point there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source. However, if we acknowledge that as one possibility, then those objects must have traveled through our solar system to get here,” the report’s authors wrote.
“Just as the galaxy does not stop at the outskirts of the solar system, the solar system also includes Earth and its environs. Thus, there is an intellectual continuum between extrasolar technosignatures, solar system SETI, and potential unknown alien technology operating in Earth’s atmosphere.”
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) now called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) are still a mystery.
Many people have learned helplessness, thinking they can't make a difference in solving that mystery.
In reality, everyone has the potential to help by filming what puzzles humanity in the sky.
Can any of us make a difference in finding an explanation for UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), which are now called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), or have we learned helplessness?
It seems that many people think in their heart of hearts that they cannot make a difference in helping identify UFOs or UAPs. Many even giggle when thinking about UFOs.
But what if we could help figure out what the mysterious UFOs are? For that, let’s examine what we know about UFOs:
UFOs or UAPs have been described as objects like orbs, spheres, ovals, tic-tac-shaped items, triangles, or simply lights that can go faster than the speed of sound without any sonic boom.
They can have sudden accelerations and decelerations with thousands of times the force of gravity, whereas the most agile jet fighters today can accelerate only at nine times the force of gravity.
They can go from one medium to another—underwater to midair to space and vice versa.
No detectable source of propulsion (no flaps, no rudder) has been detected to explain their movements.
They have mostly been observed at altitudes between 5,000 and 35,000 feet.
They have been reported around military bases and nuclear facilities. The Pentagon has had UFO or UAP reports from several states of the United States and also from the Middle East and Asia. Other reports have originated from England, Italy, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, and many other countries
What can be some possible explanations for UFOs?
In our recently released book, The New Science of UFOs, Dr. Eric Haseltine and I examine most of the possible explanations for UFOs, including optical illusions, natural phenomena, advanced human technology either from the U.S. or from a foreign country, deliberate fakes, and extraterrestrials. We also note that probably not all UAPs have the same explanation.
NASA and other parts of our government say they need more data to reach conclusions.
Could each of us help?
We definitely can help if we get over our learned helplessness and stigma about UFOs.
All over the world, billions of cell phone users can take photographs and videos of what they see. By paying attention to what we see in the sky, each of us can help solve the UFO mystery.
Because as Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
So, let’s be open to learning more about our universe, and let’s get over our learned helplessness. Let’s not make fun of people who say they have seen UFOs or UAPs. Instead, let’s be open to all possibilities. Let’s observe the sky, document what we see, and report our videos of UFOs to the National UFO Reporting Center, making sure that all the imagery has a date, time, and place stamped so that reporting can be cross-correlated with other reportings.
Awareness of ourselves, of others, of our surroundings, of what we see on Earth and in the sky during day and night is important for solving mysteries, whether those mysteries are about our body, about our Earth, or about the universe.
There's some interesting paintings inside the Vatican ... and it's worth taking a closer look at what's being depicted in the sky.
TMZ Studios has a new series, "Strange & Suspicious," now airing on a dozen FOX stations, where we explore unexplained and downright weird stories, and now we're combing over the artwork inside the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.
In several paintings that are centuries old, there are some mysterious shapes in the heavens above ... sparking comparisons to flying saucers.
The potential references to extraterrestrial craft are hidden in plain sight ... some are subtle, and some are seemingly obvious ... like the objects appearing to shoot beams down from the sky.
Of course, there were no flying objects of any kind way back when painters were creating these works ... making this phenomenon even more interesting.
Some inside the Vatican are open to the possibility of alien life ... making these mysterious paintings worth another look.
We try to answer all these UFO questions and more on "Strange & Suspicious" ... plus bizarre phenomena and true crime.
Tachyons are not just the stuff of science fiction.
Tachyons are hypothetical particles that move faster than the speed of light and travel backwards through time.
(Image credit: Yuichiro Chino via Getty Images)
Traveling faster than light and time-travel could be real for tachyons. If one thing science fiction excels at, it's allowing us to marvel at the breaking of the physical laws of the universe. We watch and read in wonder as the warp engines of the starship Enterprise push it to beyond the speed of light, or as Barry or Wally — whoever is carrying the name of the Flash at the time — does the same in no more than a pair of yellow boots.
Likewise, we enjoy tales of adventurers like the Doctor, or Doc Brown, using weird seemingly antiquated machinery to violate the laws of causality. What if there was a fundamental particle that could do all these things? Moving faster than light like the Flash, and traveling back through time without the need for a TARDIS or a Delorian or yellow boots.
That’s a tachyon. But make no mistake, these particles aren’t just the idling's of science fiction writers. Tachyons are the stuff of "hard" science.
Tachyons are one of the most interesting elements arising from Einstein’s theory of special relativity. The 1905 theory is based on two postulates, nothing with mass moves faster than the speed of light (c), and physical laws remain the same in all non-inertial reference frames. A significant consequence of special relativity is the fact that space and time are united into a single entity; spacetime. That mean’s a particle’s journey through speed is linked to its journey through time.
The term "tachyon" first entered scientific literature in 1967, in a paper entitled "Possibility of faster-than-light particles" by Columbia University physicist Gerald Feinberg. Feinberg posited that tachyonic particles would arise from a quantum field with “imaginary mass” explaining why the first populate of special relativity doesn’t restrain their velocity.
This would lead to two types of particles existing in the universe; bradyons that travel slower than light and compose all the matter we see around us, and tachyons traveling faster than light, according to the University of Pittsburgh. One of the key differences between these particle types is as energy is added to bradyons, they speed up. But, with tachyons, as energy is taken away, their speed increases.
Xuanyu Han//Getty Images
TACHYONS AND TIME TRAVEL
One of the most important and meaningful results from Einstein’s theory of special relativity is the establishing universal speed limit of c; the speed of light in a vacuum.
Einstein suggested that as an object approaches c its mass becomes near-infinite, as does the energy required to accelerate it. This should mean that nothing can travel faster than light. But, imagine an anti-mass particle like a tachyon, its lowest energy state would see it speeding at c. But, why would this lead to backward time travel?
That all hinges on the concept that puts the "relative" into "special relativity."
A common tool used to explain special relativity is the spacetime diagram.
Spacetime is filled with events ranging from the cosmically powerful and violent, like the supernova explosion of a distant star, or the mundane, such as the cracking of an egg on your kitchen floor. And these are mapped onto the spacetime diagram. This diagram shows as a particle whizzes through spacetime, it traces out a worldline that maps its progress.
Also filling spacetime are observers, each of whom has their own reference frame. These observers may see the events that fill spacetime occurring in different orders. Observer 1 may see event A, the supernova, occur before event B the egg crack. Observer 2 however may see event B happening before event A.
Events within an observer's light cone can be linked by a signal slower than light. (Image credit: By SVG version: K. Aainsqatsi at en.wikipediaOriginal PNG version: Stib at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.(Original text: self-made), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2210907)
Each event has a light cone associated with it. If event B falls within the lightcone of event A then the two could be causally linked. The supernova could have knocked the egg off the kitchen counter — or maybe the falling breakfast item caused the complete gravitational collapse of a dying star, somehow. That’s because in the light cone a signal traveling slower than light can link the events. The edges of the light cone represent the speed of light. Linking an event outside the light cone with one inside it requires a signal that travels faster than light.
If event A is in the light cone and event B is outside it, then the supernova and egg-related tragedy can't be causally related. But, a tachyon traveling at a speed greater than the speed of light could violate causality by linking these events.
To see why this is a problem, consider it like this. Image event A is the sending of a signal, and event B is the receiving of that signal. If that signal is traveling at the speed of light, or slower all observers in different reference frames agree that A preceded B.
But, if that signal is carried by a tachyon and thus moves faster than light, there will be reference frames that say the signal was received before it was sent. Thus, to an observer in this frame, the tachyon traveled backward in time.
One of the fundamental postulates of special relativity is that the laws of physics should be the same in all non-accelerating reference frames. That means if tachyons can violate causality and move backward in time in one reference frame, it can do it in them all.
A diagram showing how events are viewed at different times in different reference frames. (Image credit: By User:Acdx - Self-made, based on Image:Relativity_of_Simultaneity.svg, source code: en:User:Acdx/Relativity_of_Simultaneity_Animation, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5560059)
TACHYONS PARADOXES
To see how this leads to problems called paradoxes, consider two observers, Stella aboard a spacecraft orbiting Earth, and Terra based on the surface of the planet. The two are communicating by sending messages with tachyons.
This means that if Stella sends a signal to Terra which moves faster than light in Stella’s frame but backward in time in Terra’s frame. Terra then sends a reply as ordered which moves faster than light in her frame but backward in time in Stella’s frame, Stella could receive the reply before sending the original signal.
What if this response signal from Terra says "do not send any signals"? Then Stella does not send the original signal, and Terra then has nothing to respond to and never sends the tachyon signal that says "don’t send any signals."
So not only do tachyons violate causality in every frame they open the door to severe logical paradoxes.
There are suggestions as to how these paradoxes could be avoided. Of course, the most simple solution is that tachyons don’t exist.
A less draconian suggestion is that observers in different reference frames can’t tell the difference between the emission and absorption of tachyons.
That means a tachyon traveling back in time could always be interpreted as a tachyon moving forward in time because receiving a tachyon from the future always creates the same tachyon and sends it forwards in time.
Another suggestion is that tachyons aren’t like any other particle we know of, in that they don't interact and can never be detected or observed. Meaning that the tachyon communication system used by Stella and Terra in the above example can’t exist.
Along similar lines, other researchers say that tachyons can’t be controlled. The receipt and emission of tachyons just happen at random. Thus, there’s no way to send a tachyon with a causality violating message.
Aside from the fact that like other particles, they are likely incomprehensibly tiny, because tachyons always travel faster than light it isn’t possible to detect one on its approach. That’s because it’s moving faster than any associated photons.
After it passes, an observer would see the image of the tachyon split into two distinct images. These would show it simultaneously arriving in one direction and disappearing in the opposite direction.
If detecting tachyons, at least of their approach, with light is out of the picture, is there another way we could detect these faster than light particles?
Possibly. Tachyons are proposed to have an "anti-mass" but this still constitutes mass energy. That means these particles should still have some gravitational effect. It’s possible highly sensitive detectors could spot this effect.
An alternative detection method could arise from their faster-than-light nature.
While the speed of light in a vacuum c is a universal speed limit, particles have been made to travel faster than light in other mediums. When electrically charged particles are accelerated up to and beyond the speed of light in certain mediums like water, they release a form of radiation called Cherenkov radiation, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
That means that if tachyons are electrically charged, one way of detecting them would be measuring Cherenkov radiation in the near-vacuum of space.
THE POWER OF IMAGINATION IN SCIENCE
What tachyons really demonstrate is the importance of imagination in our ongoing quest to understand the universe. They may not exist, and if they do we may have no hope of ever measuring one.
But what our technology can’t capture, our minds can. We can consider the possibility of a particle that journeys back through time and what that says about the nature of time, and the Universe, and the events that fill them.
In an interview with George Sylvester Viereck published in "The Saturday Evening Post"in 1929, Albert Einstein is believed to have said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Discover more about Tachyons with this informative YouTube video.
Explore the possible experimental evidence for the existence of tachyons with George Mason University.
Tachyons are hypothetical particles that always travel faster than light. Until recently, they were generally regarded as entities that did not fit into the special theory of relativity. According to a new paper in the journal Physical Review D, these faster-than-light particles are ‘not only not ruled out by the theory, but allow us to understand its causal structure better.’
An AI impression of tachyons.
“Motion at speeds beyond the speed of light is one of the most controversial issues in physics,” said Professor Andrzej Dragan from the University of Warsaw and National University of Singapore and his colleagues.
“Hypothetical particles that could move at superluminal speeds, called tachyons, are the enfant terrible of modern physics.”
“Until recently, they were widely regarded as creations that do not fit into the special theory of relativity.”
“At least three reasons for the non-existence of tachyons within quantum theory were known so far,” they added.
"The first is the ground state of the tachyon field was supposed to be unstable, which would mean that such superluminal particles would form avalanches.”
“The second is a change in the inertial observer was supposed to lead to a change in the number of particles observed in his reference system, yet the existence of, say, seven particles cannot depend on who is looking at them.”
“The third reason is the energy of the superluminal particles could take on negative values.”
“The difficulties with tachyons so far had a common cause,” the physicists said.
“It turned out that the boundary conditions that determine the course of physical processes include not only the initial state but also the final state of the system.”
“To put it simply: in order to calculate the probability of a quantum process involving tachyons, it is necessary to know not only its past initial state but also its future final state.”
“Once this fact was incorporated into the theory, all the difficulties mentioned earlier completely disappeared and tachyon theory became mathematically consistent.”
“It’s a bit like Internet advertising — one simple trick can solve your problems,” Professor Dragan said.
“The idea that the future can influence the present instead of the present determining the future is not new in physics.”
“However, until now, this type of view has at best been an unorthodox interpretation of certain quantum phenomena, and this time we were forced to this conclusion by the theory itself.”
“To make room for tachyons we had to expand the state space.”
“We also predict that the expansion of the boundary conditions has its consequences: a new kind of quantum entanglement appears in the theory, mixing past and future, which is not present in conventional particle theory.”
The team’s paper also raises the question of whether tachyons described in this way are purely a mathematical possibility or whether such particles are likely to be observed one day.
“Tachyons are not only a possibility but are, in fact, an indispensable component of the spontaneous breaking process responsible for the formation of matter,” the authors said.
“This hypothesis would mean that Higgs field excitations, before the symmetry was spontaneously broken, could travel at superluminal speeds in the vacuum.”
Jerzy Paczoset al. 2024. Covariant quantum field theory of tachyons.Phys. Rev. D110 (1): 015006; doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.110.015006
This article is a version of a press-release provided by the University of Warsaw
Ancient Mars was Cool and Relatively Wet, New Study Suggests
Ancient Mars was Cool and Relatively Wet, New Study Suggests
In a new study, planetary scientists found strong similarities between soils found in Gale Crater on Mars and those of Canada’s Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate.
X-ray amorphous material comprises 15-73 wt.% of sedimentary rocks and eolian sediments in Gale Crater. This material is variably siliceous and iron rich but aluminum poor. The presence of volatiles is consistent with the existence of incipient weathering products. To better understand the implications of this material for past aqueous conditions on Mars, Feldman et al. investigated X-ray amorphous material formation and longevity within terrestrial iron rich soils with varying ages and environmental conditions using bulk and selective dissolution methods, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy.
Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.
Scientists often use soil to depict environmental history, as the minerals present can tell the story of landscape evolution through time.
Understanding more about how these materials formed could help answer long-standing questions about historical conditions on the red planet.
The soils and rocks of Gale Crater provide a record of Mars’ climate between 3 and 4 billion years ago, during a time of relatively abundant water on the planet — and the same time period that saw life first appear on Earth.
“Gale Crater is a paleo lakebed — there was obviously water present. But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there?” said Dr. Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist at Desert Research Institute.
“We’re never going to find a direct analog to the Martian surface, because conditions are so different between Mars and Earth. But we can look at trends under terrestrial conditions and use those to try to extrapolate to Martian questions.”
NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been investigating Gale Crater since 2011, and has found a plethora of soil materials known as X-ray amorphous materials.
These components of the soil lack the typical repeating atomic structure that defines minerals, and therefore can’t be easily characterized using traditional techniques like X-ray diffraction.
When X-rays are shot at crystalline materials like a diamond, for example, the X-rays scatter at characteristic angles based on the mineral’s internal structure.
However, X-ray amorphous material does not produce these characteristic fingerprints.
This X-ray diffraction method was used by the Curiosity Rover to demonstrate that X-ray amorphous material comprised between 15 and 73% of the soil and rock samples tested in Gale Crater.
“You can think of X-Ray amorphous materials like Jello. It’s this soup of different elements and chemicals that just slide past each other,” Dr. Feldman said.
Curiosity also conducted chemical analyses on the soil and rock samples, finding that the amorphous material was rich in iron and silica but deficient in aluminum.
Beyond the limited chemical information, scientists don’t yet understand what the amorphous material is, or what its presence implies about Mars’ historical environment.
Uncovering more information about how these enigmatic materials form and persist on Earth could help answer persistent questions about the red planet.
Dr. Feldman and his colleagues visited three locations in search of similar X-ray amorphous material: the Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Northern California’s Klamath Mountains, and western Nevada.
These three sites had serpentine soils that the researchers expected to be chemically similar to the X-ray amorphous material at Gale Crater: rich in iron and silicon but lacking in aluminum.
The three locations also provided a range of rainfall, snowfall, and temperature that could help provide insight into the type of environmental conditions that produce amorphous material and encourage its preservation.
At each site, the research team examined the soils using X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy, which allowed them to see the soil materials at a more detailed level.
The subarctic conditions of Newfoundland produced materials chemically similar to those found in Gale Crater that also lacked in crystalline structure. The soils produced in warmer climates like California and Nevada did not.
“This shows that you need the water there in order to form these materials,” Dr. Feldman said.
“But it needs to be cold, near-freezing mean annual temperature conditions in order to preserve the amorphous material in the soils.”
Amorphous material is often considered to be relatively unstable, meaning that at an atomic level, the atoms haven’t yet organized into their final, more crystalline forms.
“There’s something going on in the kinetics — or the rate of reaction — that is slowing it down so that these materials can be preserved over geologic time scales,” Dr. Feldman said.
“What we’re suggesting is that very cold, close to freezing conditions, is one particular kinetic limiting factor that allows for these materials to form and be preserved.”
“This study improves our understanding of the climate of Mars.”
“The results suggest that the abundance of this material in Gale Crater is consistent with subarctic conditions, similar to what we would see in, for instance, Iceland.”
The team’s work appears in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.
A.D. Feldman et al. 2024, Fe-rich X-ray amorphous material records past climate and persistence of water on Mars. Commun Earth Environ 5, 364; doi: 10.1038/s43247-024-01495-4
This article is based on a press-release from Desert Research Institute.
Ariane 6 Rocket’s Debut Puts Europe Back in the Launch Game
Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket rose today for the first time from its South American spaceport, ending a yearlong launch gap caused by the Ariane 5’s retirement.
The heavy-lift launch vehicle’s demonstration flight began with liftoff at 4 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT) from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, and continued with satellite deployments in orbit.
“A completely new rocket is not launched often, and success is far from guaranteed,” Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency’s director general, said in a statement. “I am privileged to have witnessed this historic moment when Europe’s new generation of the Ariane family lifted off – successfully – effectively reinstating European access to space.”
ESA and its partners have been working on the two-stage Ariane 6 since the early 2010s as an upgrade to the Ariane 5 series, which lofted more than 100 spacecraft (including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope) into orbit beginning in 1998. Ariane 6 development cost is estimated at nearly $4 billion.
The first Ariane 6 was originally planned for 2020, but technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic forced delays. After last year’s final Ariane 5 mission, Europe’s launch industry could offer only the Vega small-lift launch vehicle, leaving a gap in the medium- to heavy-lift market.
The market for the Ariane 6 is dramatically different from what it was when the Ariane 5 entered service more than a quarter-century ago. Thanks to SpaceX and other commercial ventures, rocket reusability is becoming the standard in the industry — raising questions about how competitive non-reusable rockets like the Ariane 6 can be.
ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran, is counting on Ariane 6’s success. But in January, The Financial Times quoted Aschbacher as saying “there is no guarantee” that ArianeGroup would continue to be Europe’s launch company of choice.
The Ariane 6 line features a modular design that can be adapted for missions to low Earth orbit or to deep space. For today’s mission, known as VA262, the rocket’s core stage was augmented by two side-mounted solid rocket boosters. Another configuration calls for four strap-on boosters for heavy-lift missions. The four-booster configuration can deliver up to 21.6 metric tons to low Earth orbit.
An overview of Europe’s new rocket Ariane 6. Credit: ESA
Today’s launch sent the Ariane 6’s upper stage to an altitude of about 600 kilometers (373 miles). Nine satellites were deployed, and five onboard experiments were activated.
Another objective involved demonstrating the upper stage’s ability to relight its Vinci engine for orbital adjustments and deorbiting. Two experimental re-entry capsules were supposed to be released as the mission wound down. But in an update posted to the X social-media platform, ESA said the technology demonstration phase showed “an unexpected result which will only affect the end of the mission.”
During a follow-up briefing, mission managers said the upper stage’s auxiliary power unit suffered an anomaly that caused a premature engine shutdown. As a result, the re-entry capsules were not released, and the upper stage remained in orbit.
The next Ariane 6 mission is scheduled to put France’s CSO-3 spy satellite into orbit later this year. About 30 Ariane 6 launches are said to be booked already, including 18 launches for Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites. Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël said today’s end-of-mission anomaly would have “no consequence on the next launches.”
“We are perfectly on track now to make a second launch this year,” Israël said.
A Hopping Robot Could Explore Europa Using Locally Harvested Water
Various forms of hopping robots have crept into development for us[e in different space exploration missions. We’ve reported on their use on asteroids and even our own Moon. But a study funded by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) in 2018 planned a mission to a type of world where hopping may not be as noticeable an advantage—Europa.
The mission, developed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Purdue University, and Honeybee Robotics, is known as the Steam Propelled Autonomous Retrieval Robot for Ocean Worlds, or SPARROW. It’s about the size and shape of a soccer ball, with the logic, power, and control systems inside a spherical outer hollow shell.
SPARROW wouldn’t be able to operate on its own, however. It would require a lander to deposit it onto the surface and serve as a refueling and sample collection storage base. Europa Clipper, the only currently planned NASA mission to the icy moon, would have been good for hitching a ride, but its lack of a lander made it unsuitable for SPARROW.
Budget constraints are always a problem for innovative missions – as Fraser explains with Dr. Manasvi Lingam.
However, the hopping robot itself is well suited for the environment in Europa. Its designers intended to make it “terrain agnostic,” meaning it could traverse even the harshest terrain the icy moon could throw at it. These would include penitentes, shards of ice that could be meters tall, and difficult for ground-based robots to traverse.
SPARROW could fly over them, collect interesting samples, and return to the lander to refuel and deposit them. Then, it could go out again in a different direction. To model this system architecture, the JPL team spent Phase I trying to determine the best propulsion system for the robot and modeling control algorithms for the flights.
First, let’s tackle the propulsion system. The lander accompanying SPARROW would have to mine ice off the moon’s surface, then heat it and store it as water. When SPARROW returned from a hop, it would use the water to refuel. Five different propulsion methods were considered as part of the study. Still, the best turned out to be a “hot water thruster,” where SPARROW would internally heat the water supplied by the lander, then eject that out in a burst of propulsive force to launch the robot off the surface.
Exploring the surface of Europa is only one part of its mystery – as Fraser explains.
The second major part of the paper was controlling that propulsion. Trajectory correction is critical to mission success, but in this case, the designers believe that no matter where the robot ends up, it will be able to collect a sample and return to the lander. This is due to its gimballed design, which allows the robot to consistently orient correctly, even after bouncing along a frozen surface for a while.
There is still much work to do before the mission is ready to go, though. Some of the most pressing questions are how to stop ice from forming in the robot’s propulsion nozzle and throughout its structural cage. Such blockages could easily throw off any existing trajectory calculations and theoretically immobilize the hopper entirely if they were severe enough.
However, no work is planned to solve those problems for now as the project has yet to receive Phase II funding from NIAC, and work on it appears to have stalled. Dr. Gareth Meirion-Griffith, the primary investigator on the project, has moved on from JPL to take a job at Collins Aerospace. Even so, someday, the author’s ideas might be integrated into a Europa lander mission—we’ll have to wait and see.
Ok, this is from 2021 in Las Vegas. I took a few screenshots of this strange dark UFO moving across the sky that Franc Pierre recorded and wow, it sent chills down my spine. This was not what I thought I would find. It's a rare jellyfish UFO and it looks bio-mechanical in form. Meaning it's part biological and part machine. It even changes shape as it moves...and at one point it looked like a dragon with its head looking outward...in the last screenshot in my video. Scary looking stuff, but 100% real. As I said, AI doesn't prove a UFO is real or not, it only cleans up the photos, so we as researchers can analyze them. But thats why I'm here...to tell you if this is or isn't a real jellyfish UFO from my decades of experience. Yes...it is real.
AI Focused Photo of Tom Delonge Of Blink UAP Photo, UFO Sighting News. Video.
AI Focused Photo of Tom Delonge Of Blink UAP Photo, UFO Sighting News. Video.
Please hit subscribe friends. I wanted to look at the Tom Delonge photo due to him saying that he has inside information, video and photos of actual alien craft so much so that he wants to make a movie about it. I admit this photo looks legit to me, but ai doesn't tell us if it's real or not, it only focuses and sharpens the image. It's up to us to decide for ourselves if it's real or not.
Are UFOs Killing Cows? Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery
Are UFOs Killing Cows? Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery
Aliens traveling across the universe to perform fatal experiments on American cows might sound like the plot of a science fiction movie, but for many, it is a disturbing reality. For the past five decades, new stories about so-called cattle mutilations have emerged annually, each echoing a familiar narrative: cows found dead with precise surgical cuts, missing body parts, and sometimes, no blood left in their bodies.
The Unsettling Phenomenon
The phenomenon of cattle mutilations, often abbreviated to “mutes,” involves more than just cattle. Various animals have been found violently killed, exhibiting strange and precise cuts as if made by a laser or surgical instrument. Typically, there are no tracks around the carcasses, and the bodies are often exsanguinated, with certain parts, such as eyes, sexual organs, and the anus, defleshed or removed. This eerie scenario is frequently accompanied by reports of UFO sightings, contributing to the prevailing theory that extraterrestrial beings are responsible.
Historical Cases
The American fascination with cattle mutilations began in earnest in 1967 in Alamosa, Colorado. A rancher found his missing horse, Lady (incorrectly reported by the media as “Snippy”), dead with parts of its body stripped of flesh. The rancher’s mother claimed to have seen a UFO on the day the horse went missing, sparking wild rumors that quickly spread through the national media. Despite a scientific examination by the Condon Committee, which concluded that Lady likely died from a severe infection and scavenger activity, the sensational story of alien involvement persisted.
Media and Public Hysteria
The 1970s saw a wave of cattle mutilation reports across the United States, particularly in Colorado. Local journalists, such as Dorothy Aldridge, fueled public hysteria with headlines suggesting satanic cults were responsible for the gruesome deaths. This narrative quickly spread, inciting fear and panic among local communities. Law enforcement, local governments, and even the governor got involved, offering rewards and promising thorough investigations, which only served to validate the public’s fears.
Enter the UFO Theorists
Amidst the growing hysteria, UFO enthusiasts began to adopt cattle mutilations as potential evidence of extraterrestrial activity. Figures like Tom Adams, who meticulously collected and shared information on mutilation cases, played a crucial role in linking the phenomenon to UFOs. His newsletters and packages sent to law enforcement helped establish a perceived national pattern of alien involvement.
Cementing the Alien Theory
The theory gained significant traction with the release of Linda Moulton Howe’s TV documentary, “A Strange Harvest,” and her follow-up book, “Alien Harvest.” Howe’s work posited that aliens were harvesting genetic material from these animals, a narrative that resonated deeply within the UFO community. Her investigations and assertions that a government-extraterrestrial treaty might allow for such activities added a layer of conspiracy, further entrenching the alien theory in popular culture.
Investigations and Skepticism
Despite the widespread belief in extraterrestrial involvement, thorough investigations have repeatedly debunked these claims. Journalist Dan Kagan and science fiction writer Ian Summers spent two years investigating cattle mutilations for their book “Mute Evidence.” They found that many sensational stories were either exaggerations or outright fabrications. In many cases, local experts, often unqualified to perform postmortem analyses, made unfounded conclusions about the causes of death.
VIDEO:
New York Post – Are UFOs killing cows? We investigate the “cattle mutilation” phenomenon | The Basement Office
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and an independent investigation led by retired FBI agent Kenneth Rommel in New Mexico both found no evidence supporting paranormal or extraterrestrial causes. Instead, they attributed the mutilations to natural predation, scavenger activity, and decomposition. In some instances, human perpetrators inspired by media coverage were identified.
Ongoing Myth and Media Sensation
Despite the lack of scientific evidence, the cattle mutilation myth persists, largely due to media portrayal. Articles often focus on sensational aspects, such as UFOs and satanic cults, while neglecting to mention the absence of proper forensic analysis. This ongoing cycle of media-driven hysteria ensures that the image of a flying saucer abducting a cow remains a potent and enduring part of American folklore.
In conclusion, while the idea of UFOs killing cows makes for compelling stories, thorough investigations have consistently debunked these claims. The cattle mutilation phenomenon serves as a fascinating case study of how media sensationalism, public hysteria, and the desire to believe in the extraordinary can create and sustain myths, even in the face of contradicting scientific evidence.
Mutilations differ from typical livestock deaths because the carcasses are found with body parts removed in an unusual fashion.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Cattle mutilations have been going on for decades.
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) received the report of the alleged abduction on 28 May this year. They shared details of the supposed eyewitness account, stating: "Two "women" were walking in front of 9 Stone Schoolhouse Rd. Two white cubes appeared and took one person up and the other up. They both floated up into the sky and disappeared. This was sighted from approximately 50 yards by a 10.5-year-old girl while walking her dog."
The girl also insisted there was another witness at the scene who saw the incident unfold.
The report continued: "This was sighted from approximately 50 yards by a 10.5-year-old girl while walking her dog. The dog was also looking at the event when it happened. The girl noticed the dog watching, and she looked over."
NUFORC was established in 1974 by UFO investigator Robert J. Gribble and has investigated over 170,000 reports over the past 50 years with its process of receiving, recording and most importantly trying to validate the reports it's given.
The National UFO Reporting Center is under the leadership of Peter Davenport, who, as stated on their website, "has been director of the National UFO Reporting Center since 1994. He has also served as the director of investigations for the Washington Chapter of the Mutual UFO Network. He often presents lectures on specific UFO cases, most notably the Phoenix Lights sighting."
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11-07-2024
'UFO' filmed flying over Mexican city that residents claim is 'protected by aliens'
'UFO' filmed flying over Mexican city that residents claim is 'protected by aliens'
Residents of Tampico, Mexico, reckon the city is protected from hurricanes by an underwater alien base, and a new video from the area now appears to show a UFO flying above
By Ethan Blackshaw / Social News Content Editor -Maria Ortega
The city is a hotbed of UFO activity...
(stock) (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
A video has been shared on TikTokthat supposedly shows a UFO flying in the sky above a city in Mexico.
Residents of Tampico, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, have long claimed the city is a hotspot for extra-terrestrial activity.
This latest incident was captured by a young man in broad daylight. The 22-second clip shows a grey object slowly moving between clouds, and it has been viewed more than 10,000 times on the video-sharing app.
Reacting in the comments section, one TikTok user said: "You can see them very often. I’m surprised that people still believe we are the only ones in an infinite universe." Another wrote: "We are not alone." However not everyone was convinced by the clip, with another comment reading: "I don't see anything."
The video adds fuel to a bizarre theory perpetuated by Tampico residents - that the city is protected by aliens.
Locals reckon there is an underwater alien base some 13km from Miramar Beach. They claim this is why the city hasn't been hit by a tropical storm or hurricane since 1966.
Tampico, Tamaulipas (file)(Image: Getty Images)
Following Storm Inez that year, people started to spot "light discs" that vanished into the sea off Miramar Beach. And since then there have been no hurricanes. The theory has gained so much traction that alien festivals are now held in the area.
However, there is a boring scientific explanation as to why Tampico seems to be protected from hurricanes. The water near the coast of southern Tamaulipas is slightly cooler than it is further south or further north. Scientists say cooler waters can "pull" air masses in, diverting hurricanes north to the US or to southern Mexico.
There are also several other cities along the same coast that have not been hit directly by hurricanes in a long time.
'UFO' filmed flying over Mexican city that residents claim is 'protected by aliens'
'UFO' filmed flying over Mexican city that residents claim is 'protected by aliens'
Residents of Tampico, Mexico, reckon the city is protected from hurricanes by an underwater alien base, and a new video from the area now appears to show a UFO flying above
By Ethan Blackshaw / Social News Content Editor -Maria Ortega
The city is a hotbed of UFO activity...
(stock) (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
A video has been shared on TikTokthat supposedly shows a UFO flying in the sky above a city in Mexico.
Residents of Tampico, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, have long claimed the city is a hotspot for extra-terrestrial activity.
This latest incident was captured by a young man in broad daylight. The 22-second clip shows a grey object slowly moving between clouds, and it has been viewed more than 10,000 times on the video-sharing app.
Reacting in the comments section, one TikTok user said: "You can see them very often. I’m surprised that people still believe we are the only ones in an infinite universe." Another wrote: "We are not alone." However not everyone was convinced by the clip, with another comment reading: "I don't see anything."
The video adds fuel to a bizarre theory perpetuated by Tampico residents - that the city is protected by aliens.
Locals reckon there is an underwater alien base some 13km from Miramar Beach. They claim this is why the city hasn't been hit by a tropical storm or hurricane since 1966.
Tampico, Tamaulipas (file)(Image: Getty Images)
Following Storm Inez that year, people started to spot "light discs" that vanished into the sea off Miramar Beach. And since then there have been no hurricanes. The theory has gained so much traction that alien festivals are now held in the area.
However, there is a boring scientific explanation as to why Tampico seems to be protected from hurricanes. The water near the coast of southern Tamaulipas is slightly cooler than it is further south or further north. Scientists say cooler waters can "pull" air masses in, diverting hurricanes north to the US or to southern Mexico.
There are also several other cities along the same coast that have not been hit directly by hurricanes in a long time.
A new witness who claims to have seen United States military images of alien bodies at the alleged Roswell UFO crash site in New Mexico says he is willing to take a lie detector test to prove he is telling the truth.
For those unfamiliar, in June of 1947 the United States Army announced that it had recovered a flying disc near Alamogordo Army Air Field. One day later, the Army retracted its claim and stated that it was nothing more than a conventional weather balloon.
ROSWELL DAILY RECORD - PUBLIC DOMAIN
Since then, numerous people have come forward with eyewitness and second-hand reports that the weather balloon story was a cover-up for what the government really found in Roswell on that day: aliens.
It was in 1986 that this individual claims to have seen official government photos of a UFO and an alien body from the Roswell New Mexico crash site.
“I was randomly shown two photos unexpectedly one day of the actual Roswell crash site,” the witness states. “The photo was face down with a hand cut strip of paper cut out with scissors and a piece of brownish aged scotch tape on the ends of the strip, the strip had typed on it 1947, Roswell New Mexico – Two Air force officers inspecting alien body in front of wreckage (as best as I remember).
“The other photo had no strip of paper on the back. I have been afraid to share this because of the sensitive nature and fear of reprisal from the government, but I am 70 now and I do not feel right just going to my grave whenever that might be with it. The guy wanted to share them but again, fear of reprisal.
“So, I have deep experience in photography and in certifying documents, zero doubt these were real. Basically it looked like a Graflex 4×5 inch negative camera with a flash photo taken at night. The photographer was standing and the photo was angled down to where the alien body was on the ground, mostly laying on it’s front with the head turned slightly, about three to four feet from the camera, then the body, then the two officers squatting/kneeling beside it.
“One was holding something that kind of looked like an ink pen and had held it against the arm or back of the suit on the alien and was lifting it. It looked like melted striations running down from the pen or whatever was he was holding.
“There was some space between the two officers and a little space on each side of them and you could clearly see the crashed UFO and the skin of the ship ripped and smashed open, not scattered pieces but like a wrecked car that was still together. I could see what some of the construction looked like, some bent metal tubes mostly and small like straight pieces bent up from the crash. The ship was actually smashed up against a rock and you could clearly see that.”
The witness added that he is willing to take a lie detector test or undergo hypnosis to prove that what he reported seeing in the images from Roswell is true.
“The official position I looked the other day is still is the radar balloons for detecting soviet nuclear tests and there was no UFO or alien bodies there,” he continued.
“The complete opposite is true. There is no way, shape or form that there was not an alien body and a crashed disc saucer smashed there out at the site.”
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Archaeologists Discover 4,000-Year-Old Temple and Theater in Peru
Archaeologists Discover 4,000-Year-Old Temple and Theater in Peru
Field Museum scientist Luis Muro Ynoñán with the carving of a mythological bird creature in La Otra Banda, Cerro Las Animas.
Ucupe Cultural Landscape Archaeological Project
The newly-discovered structures predate the famous Inca citadel of Machu Picchu by roughly 3,500 years, and were made long before the Inca and their predecessors, according to a team of archaeologists with the Ucupe Cultural Landscape Archaeological Project.
The newly-discovered archaeological site, including carving of a mythological bird creature, at La Otra Banda, Cerro Las Animas, Peru.
Image credit: Ucupe Cultural Landscape Archaeological Project.
“It was amazing. This discovery tells us about the early origins of religion in Peru,” said Dr. Muro Ynoñán, an archaeologist at the Field Museum.
“We still know very little about how and under which circumstances complex belief systems emerged in the Andes, and now we have evidence about some of the earliest religious spaces that people were creating in this part of the world.”
“We don’t know what these people called themselves, or how other people referred to them.”
Dr. Ynoñán and his team discovered the new archaeological site at La Otra Banda in Peru in 2023.
They selected a plot roughly 10 by 10 m (33 by 33 feet) and began slowly removing the sediment that had piled up over the millenia.
Just 1.8 m (6 feet) deep, they found signs of ancient walls made of mud and clay.
“It was so surprising that these very ancient structures were so close to the modern surface,” Dr. Ynoñan said.
As they dug deeper, the archaeologists found evidence that the site once housed a temple.
“We think that a large temple was built into the side of the mountain, and we’ve found one section of it,” Dr. Ynoñan said.
“One of the most exciting things we found was a small theater, with a backstage area and a staircase that led to a stage-like platform.”
“This could have been used for ritual performances in front of a selected audience.”
A team of archaeologists work on what appear to be parts of a 4,000-year-old ceremonial temple buried in a sand dune of northern Peru, in Lambayeque, Peru, Jun 27, 2024.
(Photo: Pontifical Catholic University via Reuters)
Flanking one of the theater’s staircases, the archaeologists found mud panels decorated with elaborate carved designs showing a bird-like creature.
“It’s a very beautiful and, at the same time, intriguing design, of a mythological creature — it’s like an anthropomorphic bird, but with some reptilian features,” Dr. Ynoñán said.
“This figure stood out to us because it gives important clues as to when the temple was built and how this construction relates to other ancient temples built by early groups from the Andes.”
“Other images of mythological creatures similar to the one found by our team have been found in Peru, dating to what archaeologists call the Initial Period, roughly 4,000 years ago.”
“Despite the name, the people of the Initial Period were not the first to live in the region: people have inhabited Peru for 15,000 years.”
Close-up of the carving of a mythological bird creature in La Otra Banda, Cerro
“Around 5000-3000 BCE, called the Preceramic Period, people in coastal Peru began creating societies and complex political systems.”
“The Initial Period came next, starting around 2,000 BCE and lasting until 900 BCE.”
“The Initial Period is important because it’s when we first start to see evidence of an institutionalized religion in Peru.”
“The bird creature at this temple resembles a figure known from the Chavín region, nearly 500 years later. This new site could help reveal the origins of this religion
Ok so I used a photo from 2016 and it came out 100% focused and it's true...it's a real UFO. The disk is thicker in the center area where there are two windows visible. Also the craft has some unusual blue tenticles on the upper left. Very odd looking UFO but still a classic design. This is 100% proof that aliens do have a base below Colima Volcano which is active and too dangerous for humans to climb.
Scott C. Waring
Inexplicata states:
Mexico:A "Flying Saucer" over Colima's Volcán de Fuego Mexico's Criterio Hidalgo (from Pachuca, state of Hidalgo)has reprinted a photograph of an alleged UFO captured by Webcams de Mexico (which has acquired a worldwide reputation for its captures of unusual phenomena over the Popocatepetl Volcano). The text reads as follows: "A new UFO photo has gone viral on social media, shown near the Volcan de Fuego in the state of Colima. Through its Facebook account, Webcams de Mexico displayed the photograph last Friday, showing an object crossing the sky near the fiery colossus. The photo asks the question "what could it be?" in order that users may leave their comments about what appears to be a flying saucers."
AI Focused Photo! Alien Structure On Asteroid 2011 MD, UFO Sighting News. The UAP Is Scanning Us!
AI Focused Photo! Alien Structure On Asteroid 2011 MD, UFO Sighting News. The UAP Is Scanning Us!
I ran these photos of asteroid 2011 MD through and it revealed a cube monolith on it. The object is glowing, so obviously it's some kind of energy powered device that directs the asteroid into the correct direction and also scans planets with intelligent life. We are not suppose to know aliens do this, but now...we have 100% proof that they do. Aliens exist, they are watching us, they are recording us like we are some science experiment. It's time the public knew the truth. Scott C. Waring
Please hit subscribe. My 2011 post about this asteroid at
De ontdekking van Mars gaat door, ook vanaf de aarde: na een jaar heeft de eerste bemanning die betrokken was bij een simulatie op de rode planeet zijn ongelooflijke ervaring beëindigd.
De eerste simulatie op Mars vanaf de aarde is voltooid
Een van NASA's meest ambitieuze en toekomstige doelen is om Mars te bereiken met de eerste menselijke bemanning. Om zich voor te bereiden op deze langverwachte missie, nam een team vrijwilligers deel aan een 378 dagen durende simulatie die zich afspeelde op de rode planeet, terwijl ze de hele tijd op aarde bleven.
Ruim twaalf maanden van volledige isolatie, die eindigde op zaterdag 6 juli 2024, toen de vier vrijwilligers Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell en Nathan Jones de 3D-geprinte habitat verlieten die ze op 25 juni 2023 waren binnengegaan. Dit is de eerste kunstmatige simulatie van NASA die de omgeving van Mars nabootst, gebouwd in het Johnson Space Center in Houston. De eerste bemanning van het project Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog keerde vervolgens terug naar huis, na meer dan een jaar weg te zijn geweest van hun families.
HAPEA 1-missie afgerond: "Mars is ons doel"
NASA/X
De leiding van de missie als commandant was Haston die, toen ze met haar bemanning de simulatie verliet, begon: "Hallo. Het is echt geweldig om jullie allemaal gedag te kunnen zeggen." De emotie van de vier NASA-vrijwilligers was duidelijk, evenals het kunnen terugkeren naar huis. Jones, de arts die de missie volgde, voegde eraan toe dat de 378 dagen snel voorbijgingen, in tegenstelling tot wat je zou denken.
De groep deelde een ruimte van slechts 157 vierkante meter om uit te vinden hoe mensen op onze rode buurman zouden leven en om mogelijke strategieën te evalueren om oplossingen te ontwikkelen om ons te huisvesten. Dit omvatte onder andere wandelingen op Mars, Marswalks genaamd, het kweken van groenten, de uitdaging van beperkte beschikbare middelen en communicatievertragingen met de aarde, die de grens van 22 minuten bereikten. NASA plant nog twee CHAPEA-missies in 2025 en 2027 om andere aspecten van de toekomstige menselijke duurzaamheid op Mars te onderzoeken, afgezien van voedselvoorziening en de fysieke en mentale impact op de bemanning.
De groep deelde een ruimte van slechts 157 vierkante meter om uit te vinden hoe mensen op onze rode buurman zouden leven en om mogelijke strategieën te evalueren om oplossingen te ontwikkelen om ons te huisvesten. Dit omvatte onder andere wandelingen op Mars, Marswalks genaamd, het kweken van groenten, de uitdaging van beperkte beschikbare middelen en communicatievertragingen met de aarde, die de grens van 22 minuten bereikten. NASA plant nog twee CHAPEA-missies in 2025 en 2027 om andere aspecten van de toekomstige menselijke duurzaamheid op Mars te onderzoeken, afgezien van voedselvoorziening en de fysieke en mentale impact op de bemanning.
Steve Koerner, adjunct-directeur van het Johnson Space Center, verklaarde: "De vrijwilligers werden gescheiden van hun families, kregen een zorgvuldig voorgeschreven dieet en werden onderworpen aan veel observatie. Mars is ons doel." De belangrijkste les die men van deze ervaring heeft geleerd, meldt boordwerktuigkundige Brockwell, is het belang van een duurzaam leven op aarde voor het welzijn van de planeet en al haar bewoners.
Op Mars is een scheur groter dan de Grand Canyon
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
Ondertussen is er op Mars een scheur ter grootte van de Grand Canyon waargenomen dankzij satellietfoto's gemaakt door de Mars Express orbiter van de ESA, de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie. Het is een immense afgrond, dat volgens wetenschappers is gevormd door een enorme hoeveelheid magma onder de miljoenen jaren oude vulkaan Arsia Mons op het Tharsis Plateau.
De gigantische kloof, met een donker aspect met merkwaardige zebrastrepen, heet Aganippe Fossa en meet ongeveer 600 km. Het meest interessante kenmerk, dat voor het eerst werd ontdekt in 1930, is de graben, "een gleuf-achtige greppel, met steile wanden aan beide zijden", aldus de ESA. Het overtreft de afmetingen van de Grand Canyon, 446 km lang, maar is kleiner dan de Valles Marineris van de evenaar van Mars, die 4000 km reikt, waardoor het wordt geclassificeerd als de langste kloof van het zonnestelsel.
How Did Our Fascination With Alien Abductions and Flying Saucers Transpire?
How Did Our Fascination With Alien Abductions and Flying Saucers Transpire?
About 75 percent of Americans believe in extraterrestrials. Find out why flying saucers and alien abduction stories are scattered throughout history, and where they came from.
In September 1961, Barney and Betty Hill were driving late at night in the mountains of New Hampshire when they saw a flying object whizzing in the sky. Barney thought it was a plane until he saw it swiftly switch directions.
According to The Interrupted Journey, the couple nervously continued driving until a spacecraft confronted them. They remembered seeing “humanoid-like” creatures and hearing pinging sounds reverberate off their car trunk. And then, they found themselves 35 miles further along on the highway with almost no memory of what had just transpired. They believed they had been abducted.
The Hills reported their experience to the nearby Air Force base and it later became the subject of a book and then a movie. Their experience was widely considered the start of a collective fascination with extraterrestrials.
It’s a captivation that persists, and 75 percent of Americans believe there are intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in the universe. But attitudes have changed, and most Americans no longer think aliens are hostile or a national security threat. Social scientists say our attitudes towards Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) have evolved with our acceptance of technology.
Flying Saucers Fixation
(Credit: ktsdesign/Shutterstock)
Scholars mark 1947 as the start of the UFO fascination. A pilot flying in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state reported seeing disc-shaped objects. In the next decade, aliens were primarily seen as benevolent, intelligent beings who came to Earth to offer advice or warnings.
In 1961, the Hills reported their abduction and stories about aliens became more sinister. Social scientists, like famed psychologist Carl Jung, analyzed the UFO obsession and found it fit neatly with humans’ long fascination with heavenly ascents. Whereas past societies looked for angels, saints or Gods to descend from the heavens, modern Americans were looking for “technological angels.”
Starting in the 1960s, aliens were both benign angels and menacing demons, which prompted some religious scholars to see UFO fixation as a modern religious movement.
Other scholars saw the popular fascination as a response to society dealing with rapidly changing technology. At the start of the 1950s, for example, most households didn’t have a television. That changed within the decade, and Americans were also aware that technological advancements would soon bring computers into our workplaces, households and even our bodies through devices like cardiac pacemakers.
Most Americans now rely on technology for work and entertainment. People who call out to Alexa to add an item to the grocery list aren’t as technologically anxious as people were in the past. And for decades, that anxiety fueled books, TV and film about extraterrestrials.
The 1982 film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial dominated box office sales and was one of the few storylines to depict a kind alien. Most popular narratives featured frightening aliens. The long-running TV series X Files, involved a government coverup about alien life forms. Similarly, the 1997 film Men in Black, based on the comic book series, involved government agents protecting both alien allies and Earthlings from a variety of cosmic criminals.
Stories about abduction were also common, which scholars have analyzed and identified consistent patterns and rhetorical devices.
One scholar suggested that aliens were a stand-in for technological fears. Abductees described how the aliens controlled their bodies and minds. The aliens used high-tech, futuristic gadgets to conduct tests, many of which were described as stressful and painful. In the end, the person had lost time they could not account for.
Another study looked at 130 accounts of alien abductions. The author found that the standard abduction story about aliens waking you from bed, transporting you into a spaceship and then subjecting you to medical tests was a modern myth in which the storyteller placed themselves as the hero. One abductee, for example, made himself a hero saying his “superior genetics” was the reason that aliens had abducted him multiple times.
Abductee stories about humanoids communicating telepathically are outlandish, but compelling. And social scientists think they persuade people to listen.
Investigating Alien Abduction Cases
(Credit: Shutterstock/MyImages - Micha)
In 2007, a psychologist interviewed and analyzed people who felt aliens once abducted them. The psychologist concluded these people were sane but created false memories that fictional accounts partly fueled.
So why would anyone else believe their stories of aliens sucking them into a spaceship and then probing them in all the wrong places? The author found that the stories were compelling because the emotions expressed were both real and relatable. The stories followed a consistent pattern, which made them feel more valid. And, there were also many people willing to tell these tales.
The large number of people who have described UFO encounters or abductions has prompted scholars to consider the belief a type of myth-making.
And myths, one scholar notes, endure because they have both the appearance of truth and societal approval. Thus, UFO fascination flourished because the accounts seemed truthful and many people were willing to trust in a repetitive, but incomplete narrative and to believe there was much more to be learned. Just as they said in the X-Files, “the truth is out there.”
On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a much-anticipated report on UFOs to Congress. The military has rebranded unidentified flying objects as unidentified aerial phenomena – UAPs – in part to avoid the stigma that has been attached to claims of aliens visiting the Earth since the Roswell incident in 1947. The report presents no convincing evidence that alien spacecraft have been spotted, but some of the data defy easy interpretation.
I’m a professor of astronomy who has written extensively on the search for life in the universe. I also teach a free online class on astrobiology. I do not believe that the new government report or any other sightings of UFOs in the past are proof of aliens visiting Earth. But the report is important because it opens the door for a serious look at UFOs. Specifically, it encourages the U.S. government to collect better data on UFOs, and I think the release of the report increases the chances that scientists will try to interpret that data. Historically, UFOs have felt off limits to mainstream science, but perhaps no more.
What’s in the UFO Report?
The No. 1 thing the report focuses on is the lack of high-quality data. Here are the highlights from the slender nine-page report, covering a total of 144 UAP sightings from U.S. government sources between 2004 and 2021:
“Limited data and inconsistent reporting are key challenges to evaluating UAP.”
Some observations “could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception.”
“UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security.”
Of the 144 sightings, the task force was “able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.”
“Some UAP many be technologies deployed by China, Russia, another nation, or non-governmental entity.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence prepared the report for the Congressional Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.
(Credit: Office of the Director of National Intelligence)
UFOs Are Taboo Among Scientists
UFO means unidentified flying object. Nothing more, nothing less. You’d think scientists would enjoy the challenge of solving this puzzle. Instead, UFOs have been taboo for academic scientists to investigate, and so unexplained reports have not received the scrutiny they deserve.
Another reason for the scientific hesitance is that UFOs have been co-opted by popular culture. They are part of a landscape of conspiracy theories that includes accounts of abduction by aliens and crop circles. Scientists worry about their professional reputations, and the association of UFOs with these supernatural stories causes most researchers to avoid the topic.
However, a review in 1998 by a panel led by Peter Sturrock, a professor of applied physics at Stanford University, concluded that some sightings are accompanied by physical evidence that deserves scientific study. Sturrock also surveyed professional astronomers and found that nearly half thought UFOs were worthy of scientific study, with higher interest among younger and more well-informed astronomers.
If astronomers are intrigued by UFOs – and believe some cases deserve study with academic rigor – what’s holding them back? A history of mistrust between ufologists and scientists hasn’t helped. And while UFO research has employed some of the tools of the scientific method, it has not had the core of skeptical, evidence-based reasoning that demarcates science from pseudoscience.
A search of 90,000 recent and current grants awarded by the National Science Foundation finds none addressing UFOs or related phenomena. I’ve served on review panels for 35 years, and can imagine the reaction if such a proposal came up for peer review: raised eyebrows and a quick vote not to fund.
Radio telescopes like the Allen Telescope Array seen here scan the sky looking for signs of intelligent life in the universe.
(Credit: Brewbooks/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)
A Decadeslong Search for Aliens
While the scientific community has almost entirely avoided engaging with UFOs, a much more mainstream search for intelligent aliens and their technology has been going on for decades.
The search is motivated by the fact that astronomers have, to date, discovered over 4,400 planets orbiting other stars. Called exoplanets, some are close to the Earth’s mass and at just the right distance from their stars to potentially have water on their surfaces – meaning they might be habitable.
This confidence has fueled an active search for extraterrestrial intelligence, known as SETI. It has been unsuccessful so far. As a result, researchers have recast the question “Are we alone?” to “Where are the aliens?” The absence of evidence for intelligent aliens is called the Fermi paradox. First articulated by the physicist Enrico Fermi, it’s a paradox because advanced civilizations should be spread throughout the galaxy, yet we see no sign of their existence.
The SETI activity has not been immune from scientists’ criticism. It was starved of federal funding for decades and recently has gotten most of its support from private sources. However, in 2020, NASA resumed funding for SETI, and the new NASA administrator wants researchers to pursue the topic of UFOs.
In this context, the intelligence report is welcome. The report draws few concrete conclusions about UFOs and avoids any reference to aliens or extraterrestrial spacecraft. However, it notes the importance of destigmatizing UFOs so that more pilots report what they see. It also sets a goal of moving from anecdotal observations to standardized and scientific data collection. Time will tell if this is enough to draw scientists into the effort, but the transparency to publish the report at all reverses a long history of secrecy surrounding U.S. government reports on UFOs.
I don’t see any convincing evidence of alien spacecraft, but as a curious scientist, I hope the subset of UFO sightings that are truly unexplained gets closer study. Scientists are unlikely to weigh in if their skepticism generates attacks from “true believers” or they get ostracized by their colleagues. Meanwhile, the truth is still out there.
Every few years, an eerie cycle plays out in the news. Headlines report the sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs/UAPs). Then, a government agency issues a denial.
In 2006, employees at Chicago O’Hare International Airport described seeing an unidentified objecthovering quietly near a terminal. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed it as a weather event.
Then in 2014, Navy pilots reported seeing a series of spinning saucers. The Pentagon did not comment at the time. Later in 2021, an American Airlines pilot said a long, cylinder-shaped object flew over his aircraft and resembled a missile. In response, the FAA said that no such object appeared on official radars.
This cycle of UFO sightings and official denial has fueled conspiracy theories that the U.S. government is hiding alien information from the public. And in recent months, revelations from former government workers have prompted more people to believe these conspiracy theories might be legitimate.
What Is a Conspiracy Theory?
A conspiracy theory is the belief that a small group of people are acting secretly, and their actions are meant to benefit their exclusive group. The idea that aliens exist is not a conspiracy theory. It becomes a conspiracy theory only when people believe that a small group — typically government insiders — are hiding information about aliens from the rest of us.
When it comes to UFO conspiracy theories, the U.S. government tends to take the blame. More so, conspiracy theorists tend to merge the U.S. government into a singular identity, even though scholars argue there are millions of people who work for “the government.”
Conspiracy theories become more palatable to nonbelievers when trustworthy (or seemingly trustworthy) informants come forward with information. The last decade has seen an increase in credible-seeming people stating they have either witnessed UFOs or have evidence the government knows about aliens and is hiding them from the rest of the public.
In 2023, a former official at the Pentagon, David Grusch, came forward as a self-described whistle-blower who once served on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. He claimed the U.S. had debris from a spacecraft of “nonhuman origin.”
Grusch also said the U.S. has known about alien aircraft for decades, and his statements were helped by other government reports, including a 2021 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that didn’t deny UFO sightings and instead admitted there were a lot of unanswered questions.
One common UFO conspiracy theory, including the one proposed by Grusch, is that the government is hiding remnants of a UFO that crashed into the Earth. One of the first crash coverup conspiracies began in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, when reports of debris from a flying saucer were discovered near a military base.
The U.S. military dismissed the debris as a weather balloon, not a flying saucer. As the decades passed, conspiracy theorists believed the government knew it was actually a UFO and intentionally hid the truth.
It turns out the government was indeed hiding something — it just wasn’t a spaceship filled with little green Martians. In 1994, the General Accounting Office (GAO) audited the records related to the Roswell incident and released a report of their findings.
In 1947, the U.S. worried about Russian nuclear capabilities. They were trying to monitor the upper atmosphere for evidence of Russian nuclear testing using a balloon device. When the balloon crashed, the U.S. military didn’t want the world to know what they were really doing. The UFO conspiracy theory was a helpful distraction.
Another common UFO conspiracy theory is that the government not only has the remnants of an alien spaceship, but they also have the occupants in custody.
Area 51, located in Nevada, has long been suspected of harboring crashed UFOS and extraterrestrial beings. One scholar described Area 51 as an “open secret” in which people understand the government is doing something but don’t know exactly what.
Area 51 is closed to the public, and the nearest public viewpoint is 12 miles away. In the 1980s, conspiracy theorists began promoting the idea that the government had aliens tucked away at Area 51.
The theory was heightened in the late 1980s by an ex-employee who claimed he saw alien spacecraft with “gravity generators” when he worked at Area 51. He argued the U.S. government was hiding what they knew about extraterrestrial life from the American people.
The ex-employee also boasted he held degrees from prestigious institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). When reporters researched his background and found no evidence he attended these schools, the ex-employee said the government erased his background so he would not exist on record because he was working with such highly-classified information.
The ex-employee was eventually discredited, and the government seemed to ignore him. However, the Air Force’s tolerance for alien accusations has its limits. In 2019, a Facebook group developed the idea to “Storm Area 51” because they “can’t stop all of us.”
More than a million people signed the pledge to show up at Area 51 and “see them aliens.” The Air Force issued firm warnings not to come, and the event was over before it began.
27 Astonishing Alien Encounters: Eyewitness Accounts That Defy Explanation
27 Astonishing Alien Encounters: Eyewitness Accounts That Defy Explanation
Fans of shows like Ancient Apocalypse and Ancient Aliens will find the documentary 27 Alien Encounters by Highly Credible Eyewitnesses both fascinating and provocative. This documentary delves into strange and perplexing UFO encounters that challenge our understanding of physics and the universe. Unlike typical tales of UFO sightings, these encounters involve highly credible witnesses, making the accounts even more compelling.
The Phenomenon of Alien Encounters
UFO sightings often describe objects that hover silently before speeding away at incredible velocities, shapes shifting, and sizes changing. Witnesses report these objects emitting beams of light over nuclear bases, illuminating roads, and even entire towns. More astonishing are the accounts of abductions and the mysterious reasons behind why these extraterrestrials might be here on Earth. Various governments and military forces are aware of these occurrences, indicating a phenomenon that could impact society, world structure, and our very understanding of existence.
Dimensions Beyond Physical Space
The documentary suggests that space might not be the final frontier. Instead, it posits that there could be dimensions beyond the physical universe that humans have yet to understand fully. Scientists now agree that other planes and dimensions exist, though they know little about them. Daily, there are sightings that defy logic and suggest that aliens might be accessing these dimensions or using advanced technology to traverse them.
Historical Encounters
Strange sightings are not a modern phenomenon. Petroglyphs in the Southwest and the Nazca lines in Peru depict beings and craft that suggest ancient encounters with extraterrestrials. These historical markers indicate a long history of contact with beings from other worlds.
The Westall Encounter
One notable event was the 1966 Westall encounter in Melbourne, Australia, witnessed by over 200 people, including pupils and teachers. They saw a silver-gray object landing before it abruptly took off again, leaving scorch marks. The sheer number of witnesses and the response from the police and Air Force add credibility to this sighting.
The Mirabo Incident
In 1886, a Venezuelan family experienced a bizarre and tragic encounter during a lightning storm. Their hut was bathed in dazzling light, and they suffered symptoms resembling radiation poisoning, long before radiation was known. This case remains unexplained but suggests a possible alien encounter.
The Falcon Lake Incident
In 1967, Steven Michalak of Manitoba, Canada, reported an encounter with two UFOs. Investigating the objects, he was blasted with hot gas, leaving him with distinctive burn marks and symptoms of radiation poisoning. This case stands out because of the physical evidence and Michalak’s resulting injuries.
The Cash-Landrum Incident
In 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and her grandson Colby encountered a diamond-shaped object in Texas. The encounter left them with severe health issues consistent with radiation exposure. Despite pursuing answers through the courts, official agencies denied any knowledge of the incident.
Mass Sightings
The documentary highlights several mass sightings that are hard to dismiss. In 1957, multiple residents of Levelland, Texas, reported a fiery object that caused electrical malfunctions in vehicles. Similarly, in the early 1980s, thousands of residents in Hudson Valley, New York, witnessed a V-shaped array of lights. In 1997, the Phoenix Lights incident saw thousands of Arizonans observing mysterious lights in the sky.
The Battle of Los Angeles
In 1942, American troops in Los Angeles attempted to shoot down an unidentified object in what became known as the Battle of Los Angeles. Despite firing 1,400 rounds, no wreckage was found, suggesting the object was something beyond known technology.
Underwater Encounters
The documentary also explores USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects), such as the 1952 incident aboard the USS FDR, where a metallic object was seen rising from the water. These underwater sightings suggest that extraterrestrial activity may not be limited to the skies.
Theories on Alien Motivations
The documentary explores various theories on why aliens might visit Earth. Some suggest simple curiosity, while others propose that aliens are conducting genetic experiments or seeking resources. Abduction accounts often include warnings of environmental destruction, hinting that some extraterrestrials might be concerned about humanity’s future.
With more recordings of UFOs due to modern technology, the frequency and credibility of sightings continue to grow. 27 Alien Encounters by Highly Credible Eyewitnesses presents compelling evidence and testimony that invite viewers to reconsider the possibility of extraterrestrial life and its impact on our world. As sightings increase and technology advances, we may one day find definitive proof that we are not alone in the universe.
De asteroïde die de aarde zal raken heet Bennu Onderzoekers hebben de precieze datum bepaald waarop een asteroïde mogelijk de aarde zou kunnen inslaan, met een kracht die gelijk is aan die van 22 atoombommen. Dit hemellichaam, genaamd Bennu, nadert onze planeet elke zes jaar. Wetenschappers zijn echter van mening dat 24 september 2182 de datum zou kunnen zijn waarop er een reëel risico bestaat op een botsing tussen de aarde en de asteroïde.
Ondanks dat de mogelijke datum van de apocalyptische gebeurtenis nog ver weg is, is NASA momenteel bezig met intensieve inspanningen om de asteroïde Bennu af te buigen en bevindt zij zich in de laatste fase van haar missie. Zeven jaar geleden lanceerde de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie een sonde naar de asteroïde met als doel monsters te verzamelen, in de hoop dat de verzamelde informatie een mogelijke catastrofale ontmoeting zou kunnen helpen voorkomen.
Asteroïden hebben de aarde door de jaren heen vele malen getroffen. Bekijk de volgende galerij voor enkele van de meest betekenisvolle effecten.
Meteoor inslag locatie, VS Meteor Crater, ook bekend als Barringer Crater, gelegen nabij Flagstaff, Arizona, is een grote meteorietinslagkrater. Dit opmerkelijke natuurverschijnsel is een van de best bewaarde kraters in zijn soort op onze planeet, met een diameter van ongeveer 1200 meter en een diepte van ongeveer 170 meter.
Tenoumer krater, Mauritanië Het kenmerkende geologische kenmerk van de Tenoumer-krater in de Sahara-woestijn van Mauritanië is de dramatische, bijna cirkelvormige rand. De foto van Michael Dennig geeft perfect de afmetingen van de krater weer.
Vredefort krater, Zuid-Afrika De Vredefort krater in de Zuid-Afrikaanse provincie Vrijstaat is de grootste bevestigde inslagkrater op aarde, met een diameter van meer dan 300 km (190 mijl). De afbeelding toont de Vredefort Dome, het centrale deel van de krater.
Kaali-krater, Estland Kaali verwijst naar een groep van negen meteorietkratermeren in het dorp Kaali op Saaremaa, een Ests eiland. Dit cluster van meren werd gevormd rond 1530-1450 v.Chr.
Gosses Bluff Impact Site, Australië De opmerkelijke meteoorkrater Gosses Bluff, gelegen in het zuidelijke deel van het Northern Territory, heeft een diameter van 5 km en een randhoogte van 200 meter. Deze locatie wordt door de westerse Arrernte Aboriginals Tnorala genoemd en wordt als een heilige plaats beschouwd.
Manicouaganmeer, Canada Het Manicouagan Reservoir in het centrum van Quebec ontstond 214 miljoen jaar geleden door een meteoorinslag. René-Levasseur Island is het eiland in het midden van het meer. De hele formatie wordt gewoonlijk "het oog van Quebec" genoemd.
De Wolfe Creek-krater in West-Australië is een opmerkelijk intacte inslaglocatie. Het meet een diameter van ongeveer 875 meter (2871 ft) en heeft een diepte van 60 meter (200 ft) van rand tot vloer. Deze krater, die minder dan 120.000 jaar oud is, ligt in het hart van het Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater National Park.
Sudbury-bekken, Canada Het Sudbury Basin in Ontario beslaat ongeveer 10-15 km (6,2-9,3 mijl) en ontstond ongeveer 1,8 miljard jaar geleden. Een afbeelding van het bassin wordt weergegeven in NASA's wereldbolsoftware WorldWind.
Popigai-krater, Rusland De Popigai-krater, gelegen in Siberië, werd ongeveer 35 miljoen jaar geleden gevormd. De oostkant van de krater, met een diameter van 100 km (62 mijl), is linksboven in het satellietbeeld zichtbaar.
Acramankrater, Australië Lake Acraman in Zuid-Australië is een opvallend kenmerk van de Acraman-krater, die ongeveer 590 miljoen jaar geleden werd gevormd door een asteroïde-inslag. Dit satellietbeeld legt de 40 km lange krater vast, met het meer in het hart.
Karakul-krater, Tadzjikistan Karakul is de aangewezen naam voor het meer gelegen in een aanzienlijke inslagkrater van 52 km (32 mijl) in het Tadzjiekse Nationale Park. Deze formatie, zichtbaar op dit satellietbeeld, is ongeveer 25 miljoen jaar geleden ontstaan.
Chesapeake Bay, VS Ongeveer 35 miljoen jaar geleden werd de Chesapeake Bay aan de oostkust van Amerika gevormd door sediment dat over het puin van een meteoorinslag viel. De afbeelding toont een deel van de inslagstructuur in Virginia.
Bosumtwi-krater, Ghana Lake Bosumtwi is het enige natuurlijke meer in Ghana, gelegen in een oude inslagkrater ten zuidoosten van Kumasi. De Ashanti-bevolking vereert Bosumtwi als een heilig waterlichaam.
Morasko Meteoriet Natuurreservaat, Polen Het Morasko Meteoriet Natuurreservaat ligt in de bossen nabij Poznań. Bezoekers kunnen zeven kraters verkennen, waarvan de grootste een diameter van ongeveer 100 meter (328 ft) heeft en een diepte van ongeveer 11 meter (36 ft) bereikt.
Lonarkrater, India Het Lonar-meer in de staat Maharashtra is ontstaan door een meteorietinslag die ongeveer 35.000 tot 50.000 jaar geleden plaatsvond.
Middlesboro-krater, VS De Middlesboro-krater in Kentucky dankt zijn naam aan de stad waar hij nu staat. De krater is ongeveer 5 km breed en vermoedelijk minder dan 300 miljoen jaar oud.
Mistastin-krater, Canada De Mistastin-krater werd ongeveer 36 miljoen jaar geleden gevormd als gevolg van een krachtige asteroïde-botsing in Labrador, Canada. De afbeelding toont Mishta-minishtikᐡ, het gebogen eiland van het meer, levendig.
Tswaing-krater, Zuid-Afrika De schilderachtige Tswaing-krater ligt ten noordwesten van Pretoria en is vermoedelijk tussen de 220.000 en 52.000 jaar oud. Met name blijkt uit archeologisch bewijs dat de krater minstens 100.000 jaar geleden door mensen werd bezocht, zoals blijkt uit stenen werktuigen uit het middensteentijdperk.
Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve, Australië Het Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve in het Northern Territory van Australië bestaat uit minstens 14 kraters. Deze kraters zijn het resultaat van een meteoriet die uit elkaar viel bij een botsing met het aardoppervlak. De grootste krater, die een combinatie is van twee kleinere kraters, is 217 meter lang, 111 meter breed en 15 meter diep.
El'gygytgyn-krater, Rusland Het El'gygytgyn-meer ligt binnen de poolcirkel in het noordoosten van Siberië en werd ongeveer 3,6 miljoen jaar geleden gevormd uit een inslagkrater van een asteroïde.
Araguainha-impactstructuur, Brazilië De inslagstructuur van Araguainha is gemakkelijk herkenbaar als een cirkelvormige omtrek met een diameter van 40 km (25 mijl), gelegen op de grens van de staten Mato Grosso en Goiás. Het wordt beschouwd als de grootste inslagkrater van Zuid-Amerika.
Nördlinger Ries, Duitsland De Nördlinger Ries is een belangrijke inslagkrater in het westen van Beieren en het oosten van Baden-Württemberg. Het werd gebruikt als trainingslocatie voor de Apollo 14-astronauten. De foto toont de zuidelijke bosrand van de Nördlinger Ries.
Haughton-krater, Canada De Haughton-krater, gevonden op het eiland Devon in Nunavut, is vermoedelijk ongeveer 39 miljoen jaar oud en is het resultaat van een asteroïde-inslag die een 23 km brede krater creëerde.
Lappajärvi-krater, Finland Het Lappajärvi-meer, gelegen in de Finse regio Zuid-Österbotten, is een watermassa die de gedeeltelijk geërodeerde meteorietinslagkrater van Lappajärvi beslaat. Deze indrukwekkende krater, die 23 kilometer (14 mijl) beslaat, dient als herinnering aan een gebeurtenis die ongeveer 76 miljoen jaar geleden plaatsvond.
Chicxulub-krater, Mexico De Chicxulub-krater, gelegen onder het schiereiland Yucatán, is het gevolg van een enorme asteroïde-botsing die ongeveer 66 miljoen jaar geleden plaatsvond en leidde tot het uitsterven van dinosauriërs. Op deze NASA-foto van het noordwestelijke deel van het schiereiland benadrukt een vage donkergroene curve de overblijfselen van de inslagkrater, die de op een na grootste ter wereld is.
Tunguska-evenement, Rusland In het jaar 1908 drong een meteoriet de atmosfeer van de aarde binnen, maar in plaats van de grond te raken, ontplofte hij in de lucht. Deze buitengewone gebeurtenis vond plaats nabij de rivier Podkamennaya Tunguska en resulteerde in een wijdverbreide verwoesting. Hoewel er zich geen zichtbare krater vormde, veroorzaakte de explosie het afvlakken van ongeveer 80 miljoen bomen, waardoor een uitgestrekt bosgebied van 2.150 vierkante kilometer (830 vierkante mijl) werd aangetast. Bekende bronnen die informatie verstrekken over dit incident zijn onder meer NASA, de National Park Service, Smithsonian Magazine, Geopark Ries en EarthSky.
Als je geïnteresseerd bent, kun je hier ook enkele van de gevaarlijkste vulkanen ter wereld verkennen: Ontdek enkele van de gevaarlijkste vulkanen ter wereld
But, where are the best places to go if you wanted to spot a UFO? American non-profit organisation the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) has a bank of data revealing, they feel to be, the most credible or interesting cases.
The organisation said these reports tend to be from ‘trained observers such as pilots, reports of anomalous structured craft seen at close distances, and reports with interesting and clear video or photographic evidence’.
Many of these cases stem back to the 1990s, and are posted in the author’s own words. So, where are the UFO hotspots around the world?
UFO hotspots from around the world (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
1. The United States
Naturally, the US made the top of the list with a whopping 133,682 apparent UFO sightings across the country dating back to 1995.
The state with the most viewings is California, with 16,399 ‘credible’ cases since the mid-90s, and the fewest number of viewings were around the capital, the District of Columbia, with only 155 cases.
In California, reported shapes often take the form of mysterious ‘lights’ or orbs.
One case as recent June 15 in Richmond reported three pink orbs glowing in the sky. The witness wrote: ‘Three orbs in a line coming up from the ground.
‘Was heading East on I-80 and saw three pink lights in a column. The lowest of the lights looked to be hovering just above the ground and the highest was probably 100-200ft in the air and the middle was directly in between the other two. They weren’t moving or blinking but eventually all three dimmed and went out.’
This photo of a flying saucer was taken by Paul Trent over his farm in McMinnville, Oregon (Picture: Bettmann Archive)
Another case report, from Minnesota, in 2008, details a cigar-shaped UAP.
The witness wrote: ‘Small white cigar-shaped object, low in sky, hovered for 2 minutes, then disappeared, no trail.
‘Two friends and I were golfing on the 10th hole at North Links golf course, and there was a clear blue sky. As we looked forward into the sky, one of us noticed a white, cigar or tampon-shaped object sitting in the sky, no wings, obviously not a plane or helicopter, and there was no smoke or jetstream coming from the object. It was probably about 500 yards or so away in the sky.
‘We sat stunned, asking each other, “What could that possibly be, besides a UFO?”
‘No one wanted to tee off, because we wanted to wait to see what happened with the foreign craft.
‘After about two minutes, the craft gradually got smaller for about 10 seconds, and then completely disappeared like it went into stealth mode, again, no smoke or anything, it just vanished.
‘Within minutes of seeing the craft, a small army-type plane was flying in the same general area where we had seen the craft. We kept looking for the next two hours of golf, but no reappearance occurred.’
The organisation noted that the witness chose to remain totally anonymous and provided no contact information.
A lot of UFOs are seen from a distance (Picture: Getty)
2. Canada
Still in North America, the people of Canada have compiled 5,973 UFO sightings dating back to 1995. With a large number like this, NUFORC has split case reports by province, and revealed the highest number of reports came from the province of Ontario, with 2,547 reports.
The fewest reports came from Prince Edward Island, with 27 ‘credible’ reports.
In the province of New Brunswick, in the town of Bouctouche, two observers reported that they saw a disk-like object. The witnesses wrote: ‘On May 17, 2021, I was driving my friend home as I noticed lights in the sky and told my friend about it.
‘It was a line of lights – seems like stars, but was not – and then it faded away. We were 30 seconds from my friend’s house, so I rushed to park and got out of the car to see if we could see more.
‘We started looking up and suddenly saw an oval-shaped flying object that was moving. We noticed it was passing in front of two stars. It also looked like it had windows, but was very low on lighting around, we could only spot it because of window lights on the objects.
‘We could see it floating for like a good 30 seconds before we lost track of it.’
UFOs have even been spotted mid-flight (Picture: Getty)
3.The UK
The UK is another well-known hotspot for UFOs, and has racked up 3,439 cases that date back to 1996.
The reports appear across the country. One witness in Birmingham, in September 2009, said: ‘South Birmingham 11.40am, clear sky gold flat object a few feet square with slight bend.
‘On Sunday morning, while taking a coffee after some light housework –my wife was at morning work. I witnessed something exceedingly weird off the back patio.
‘I have no belief in UFOs – laws of physics dictate against it – and have always explained away anything unusual as helicopter lights etc but not this time, I’m afraid.
‘I observed a crazy sighting which I cannot figure out.
‘It looked like a piece of gold vellum paper, slightly folded as if hovering in the wind. It was sunny so I could have been catching the Sun. I also considered a butterfly.
‘However, it became apparent that the size was wrong for a butterfly, and paper, it was not – because the object proceeded to move out across the park at supernatural speed, with increasing velocity. I was completely dumbstruck and offer no explanation. I’m employed as a physics engineering technician.’
These apparent encounters can leave people feeling uneasy (Picture: Getty)
Over in Ciliau Aeron, Wales, a report in 2018 told of a sphere-shaped, house-sized, UFO that hovered above the valley. The witness reported: ‘I opened the back door at 6am to let the dogs out.
‘I looked across the fields to where I have a view of the Aeron Valley. It was very dark, but I immediately saw what I thought was a house on fire about half a mile away.
‘I watched for a minute, planning to call 999. Then, the “fire” moved to the west a few hundred metres behind some trees. I realised it was a large sphere, the size of a house and seemed to churn or pulsate with its “fire”.
‘It was extremely bright and white/yellow in colour. Then it stopped where it hovered for a minute and then flew the other way to the east where it continued past its original position, all the way along the valley until out of sight. Just before it went out of sight, a bright red light appeared on the top half of the sphere.
‘It travelled in a straight path, sometimes behind trees at the speed of a car. It also had “sparks” flying out of it like molten metal falling to the ground. It didn’t make a sound. I believe it to have been something not of our Earth.’
4. Australia
On the other side of the world, there is one surprising country that has quite a few sightings of UFOs. In Australia, data from the NUFORC revealed there have been 961 sightings since 1996, and some echo other reports from elsewhere in the world.
In 2023, one witness in New South Wales reported a triangular UFO, with white lights that was moving fast and silently.
It seems triangle UFOs are in fashion(Picture: Getty)
The report said: ‘Standing in my suburban backyard at 6:45pm EST looking at the stars facing West.
‘I saw the object as it passed directly overhead heading in a south westerly direction. The object was triangular in shape with approximately 10 lights on the forward two sides and 3 on the rear side. The lights were white and not flashing. Stars were blacked out within the triangle as it passed over.
The object appeared to be the size of a football field in width and there was no sound whatsoever. It appeared to be quite close.
‘I lost sight of the object as it passed over a hill to the south west. The object was visible to me for approximately 20 seconds.’
Triangular objects seem to be a popular shape for a UFO down under – another report in 2018 in Victoria spoke about a solid metallic object that was around five feet on all sides.
The witness wrote: ‘It was in the middle of the day, I was sitting on an oval [an Australian Football field] with my friend and I look up and see a giant metal triangle hovering without moving a bit away from us, not to far away, maybe half an oval away.
‘It looked like it was solid metal and after a few seconds of hovering in the same spot it zoomed away very fast over the tree line. It was a nice sunny day without any wind. It definitely wasn’t a drone or a weather balloon. The metal didn’t look bendable and looked like a solid triangle just in the sky.’
Many UFOs have bright lights (Picture: Getty)
5. India
While we hear of many cases from countries like the US and the UK, we rarely hear of reports from countries such as India. However, according to the NUFORC, there are 502 ‘credible’ cases that stem back to 1999.
In 2010, a woman in the city of Alwar saw a UFO hovering overhead for around five minutes. She reported the object looked like a disk, and featured lights, as well as an aura or a haze surrounding it.
She wrote: ‘At 6:21pm, I was playing with my kids at the rooftop of our row house in Alwar city of Rajasthan State in India. Suddenly I saw a white and silver color saucer sparkling in the sky. It was moving in a zigzag way, it was moving towards the east and then suddenly changed direction to the north.
‘I told my parents and kids to also look and we all saw the object for around 5 minutes as it was moving very slowly and everybody was surprised to see the same thing. We tried to capture the picture of the object in our mobile phone camera but as the object was distant, we were not able to capture it.
‘Let me also say it was clear sky that day but suddenly we saw a rapid change in weather and after three hours a thunderstorm and lightning happened. I am not sure but this might be linked to this flying object.’
She wrote: ‘To add to my credibility I am a post graduate in science and a mother of two kids.’
The apparent UFOs are spotted across the globe (Picture: Getty)
In 2021, a witness in Jalpaiguri reported a hockey stick-shaped UFO that had lights, as well as an aura or haze.
They wrote: ‘It looked like a hockey stick oscillating like a pendulum. The two crafts suddenly collided and there was light which moved northwards.
‘I was playing with my friends and we suddenly noticed something in the sky quite far above. There was a shrill sound for a matter of a few seconds. Most thought it to be a jet aircraft or a shooting star but I thought it was something else.
‘Then as we looked carefully we saw as if something like a hockey stick was upside down and it was showing oscillatory movement. Suddenly the two crafts of the same sort collided and a streak of light was emitted. Then we all thought it was a UFO.
‘We were amazed and the crafts were separated for around 20 minutes. Suddenly they collided and the light streak started moving straight towards the north eastern direction continuously for around another half an hour and it was of the same size quite unlike the common thing that we know.
‘Though we all understood that it was going far, however the size of the light streak didn’t decrease. Suddenly, in an absurd way again the light disappeared and nothing else was seen. We had no mobiles or cameras then and we were alone.’
Some apparent UFOs have been spotted on camera (Picture: Getty)
6. South Africa
Another UFO hotspot on the list is the country of South Africa. According to the data, the country has 211 reports that date back to 1997.
But despite the smaller number of cases, they are still just as eerie. One witness reported seeing a UFO over a rhino sanctuary in Klerksdorp, which has a no-fly zone.
The witness wrote: ‘I have some very weird footage for you from South Africa, captured at 4am by my son on a high security rhino farm with state of the art security systems, including radar – which was how the object was detected in the first place – and night sight cameras.
‘They could not identify the object on camera, and as it is a no fly zone, they dispatched a team of rangers, but no lights and no sound was heard by the team, so they could not locate anything as it was still dark.
‘The object was not travelling in a straight line, and it changed course as well. Hard to determine the height of it, as it looked high at some stages, and very low at other stages. This is definitely not a drone of some kind, and the shape seems to move on the top of the object as if scanning or something.
‘Just very very weird.’
Some alleged UFOs move in a jagged fashion (Picture: Getty)
Another report came through of an apparent UFO sighting in Cape Town near the harbour. The alleged UFO had lights, and was in the shape of a triangle.
The witness reported: ‘South Africa also got UFOs.
‘I just left the restaurant called Panama Jacks Seafood in Cape Town Harbour and took a photo of my wife in front of the massive harbour cranes and lights. I handed her the camera back and she put it back in her handbag. As we looked up for the last time at the enormous cranes [we saw] 3 x orange lights in a perfect triangular shape.
‘They held formation in distance from each other, but were kind of erratic in movement, much the same way as a stingray fish would swim. Came from the ocean direction and passed over or left of Table Bay Mountain. I tried to get them on my Blackberry Cell phone camera but I could not find them on the screen. Sorry!’
7. Ireland
Back in Europe, another UFO hotspot country that might be unknown, is Ireland. The country has reported 189 cases which date back to 1998.
But despite being half a world away, the organisation revealed reports that also talked of a flying object moving in a zigzag pattern. One witness from Dublin in 1998 wrote of a strange light spotted with an aura nearby. The report said: ‘I was looking out my bedroom window staring at the stars when suddenly one moved.
‘At first I thought it was a satellite but it was zigzagging, jerking, moving in circles, and changing direction. I called my father and my brother and we went outside to look at it better. It stopped moving for a while then started moving again. I stayed there observing it for another 20 mins before I went inside again. When I got upstairs I couldn’t see it anymore…’
UFOs have been a figure of science fiction for decades (Picture: Getty)
A more recent report from 2019 told of an apparent UFO that seemed to scan the sky with lasers.
The report said: ‘At first it was just one blue glow in the clouds.
‘The glow would get stronger and then dim a little. Afterwards it moved and at stages bluish/white lights came through the clouds. Very hard to describe but the best example I can give is when you see a sci-fi movie where a robot or gadget 3D scans something with lasers.
‘These lights would light up the clouds but when they were visible they’d beam out one direction then change very quickly to another direction. They shot out at every angle too.
‘After maybe two minutes there were two blue glows behind clouds. Both moved rapidly from one point to another with flashing lighting up clouds as they stopped. When I could see the beam, it looked as though it came from a central point and spread out into a few beams like I said as though it was quickly scanning then moving.
‘Sorry I know it’s really hard to put into words this episode, but I didn’t know where or who else to report this to as I feel very uneasy about it all.’
In 2015, one person reported seeing a tear-shaped UFO in Florianopolis.
The witness said: ‘I was driving to class, when I looked up to see the sky and saw a lime green light, shaped like a teardrop, travelling really fast, and vanishing seconds later.
‘I’m positive it wasn’t a weather balloon or a drone, it appeared to be really high and the shape may be due to its velocity.’
Stunning UFO Sighting Over Rijeka, Croatia: Witness Captures Mysterious Blue Triangle
Stunning UFO Sighting Over Rijeka, Croatia: Witness Captures Mysterious Blue Triangle
On the early morning of June 25, 2024, the skies over Rijeka, Croatia, became the scene of an extraordinary event that has left locals and UFO enthusiasts buzzing with excitement. At around 3 AM, a witness reported seeing a peculiar, bright blue, triangle-shaped object hovering stationary in the night sky. The sighting, which lasted approximately 10 minutes, has sparked a wave of speculation and intrigue.
Eyewitness Account
The witness, who managed to film the event, described the object as a solid triangle with a bright blue hue. “Filmed in Croatia yesterday 25.06 in 3 AM,” he shared. “It looked like some triangle-shaped object in bright blue color… it seemed like a solid object but who knows right… could this be some weather phenomenon or maybe some weird moonlight?” The witness also mentioned that the object didn’t appear to move despite high winds, ruling out the possibility of it being a drone. “It was there around 10 minutes that I was watching… but I don’t know how long did it stay… for me it didn’t seem like this was the moon but who knows.“
Theories and Speculation
This sighting has led to various theories ranging from weather phenomena to extraterrestrial visitors. The object’s bright blue color and triangular shape are not typical characteristics of known weather phenomena, leading some to speculate that it could be an unidentified flying object (UFO).
Expert Opinions
UFO sightings often attract a mix of skepticism and curiosity. Experts suggest that while unusual sightings like these are fascinating, they require thorough investigation. Atmospheric conditions, reflections, and other natural explanations need to be considered. However, the witness’s account of a stationary, bright blue triangle in high winds adds a layer of mystery that is not easily explained by conventional means.
Conclusion
Whether this sighting over Rijeka is a genuine UFO or a rare atmospheric event, it has undoubtedly captured the attention of many. As the video of the sighting circulates, more people are likely to weigh in with their interpretations and theories. For now, the mysterious blue triangle remains an enigma in the night sky of Croatia.
NASA Imagines a Catastrophic Asteroid Impact to Study How to Prevent it
The Netflix movie Don’t Look Up received plenty of accolades for its scarily realistic portrayal of a professor from Michigan State University attempting to warn the world about a civilization-ending asteroid impact. In reality, there are plenty of organizations in the US government and beyond whose job it is to find and avoid those impacts. And the best way to train them to do those jobs is to run scenarios and try to determine what actions would need to be taken. That was the idea behind the fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise, held at John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in April. NASA recently released a preliminary report on the results of the exercise, with a fully detailed one to come in August.
This is the fifth in a series of exercises that have been ongoing for the last eleven years. Each exercise focuses on a different scenario of a possible strike to determine what actions would need to be taken immediately or over a more extended period.
International collaborators contributed to the discussion for the first time in one of these exercises. Over 100 people participated, including representatives of the UN, UK, ESA, and JAXA. Notably absent were two other space powers—Russia and China—who would obviously impact any decision-making in a realistic scenario of an asteroid impact.
Finding asteroids before they impact us is one of the main tasks of the planetary defense community, as Fraser explains.
In this case, the scenario some participants developed didn’t directly impact China or Russia. However, both could have been affected by a tidal wave if the target asteroid had landed in the Pacific Ocean. The scenario called for an asteroid a few hundred meters across that had a 72% chance of impacting the Earth in about 14 years.
The projected path that the asteroid carved across the Earth went from the Pacific across northern Mexico and the southern US, passing directly over Dallas and Washington DC before crossing over the Atlantic Ocean, passing over Portugal, Spain (including Madrid), and northern Africa. It was probably not lost on participants that this scenario could directly affect the town they were sitting in.
Calculations showed that there was a 45% chance the impact wouldn’t affect anybody, a relatively high chance it would impact between 1,000 and 100,000 people, and a .04% chance it would impact more than 10 million people—for example, if it scored a direct hit on the Dallas metropolitan area. That uncertainty and the extended timeline gave the planetary defense officials the most significant trouble for this exercise.
Stopping a potentially hazardous asteroid comes with its own challenges, as Fraser discusses in this video.
As in Don’t Look Up, political considerations played the forefront in the participant’s minds. Many repeated the sentiment of one anonymous participant reported in the preliminary report: “I know what I would prefer [to do], but Congress will tell us to wait.” The uncertainty about impact, and especially about whether it would affect anyone at all, was a significant consideration. In the scenario, the asteroid passed behind the Sun, so additional observations to clarify those estimates weren’t possible for another seven months.
The availability of resources was again a primary consideration, both to track the potential impactor closely enough and to design and execute a mission to potentially deflect it. Participants didn’t believe there would be enough resources for either task and stated that it was one of their main concerns in the future.
They also agreed that the tabletop exercise was a massive success, with it allowing decision-makers who would be involved in an actual process of determining what to do with a potential real asteroid strike to think through the steps they would have to take and what the likely political and public responses would be. Plans for additional exercises are already in the works, and the final report of the session is due to be released on August 5th, with specific assignable action items to come as part of it. While any expected asteroid impact isn’t foreseen in the coming decades, these sorts of exercises will continue to hone what is arguably one of the most valuable skills of any space agency – how to protect ourselves from one of our biggest threats.
This artist’s concept depicts an asteroid drifting through space. Many such objects frequency pass Earth. To help prepare for the discovery of one with a chance of impacting our planet, NASA leads regular exercises to figure out how the international community could respond to such a threat. Credit – NASA / JPL-Caltech
The Rugged Desert Moss Best Equipped to Survive on Mars
For decades, we have seen Mars as a desolate landscape devoid of any signs of life. Attempt to identify ways of growing plants and food on the red planet have focussed on greenhouse like structures to enable plants to survive, that is, until now! A desert moss called ‘Syntrichia caninervis’ has been identified and it can grown in extreme environments like Antarctica and the Mojave Desert. A new study revealed the moss can survive Mars-like environments too including low temperatures, high levels of radiation and drought.
Mars has often be referred to as the “Red Planet” for its distinct red hue. It is the fourth planet from the Sun and to some extent resembles the Earth. Polar ice caps, seasonal weather patterns, extinct volcanoes, ancient riverbeds and flood plains are among the many surface features and. This cold world has fascinated us for centuries and its thin atmosphere, mostly made up of carbon dioxide, has been subjected to lots of studies. It has been thought for many years that it experiences some of the harshest weather conditions, including planet-wide dust storms but the recent study suggests there may just be a plant on Earth capable of surviving these conditions.
Mars,Credit NASA
Exploring and colonising planets like Mars can enhance human sustainability. Since no life forms have been found on Mars, introducing Earth organisms might be necessary for creating suitable conditions for human life in a process known as terraforming. This will involve selecting or engineering plants that can thrive in the harsh environments of an alien world. Few studies have tested organisms’ ability to withstand extreme environments of space or Mars, focusing mainly on microorganisms, algae, and lichens. However until recently, studies including mosses and whole plants have been lacking.
There have been many long term plans and even whimsical ideas to establish settlements on Mars. Pivotal to the success is the establishment of adapted crops that can grow in controlled, synthetic environments. However, to develop such a plant requires significant progress and development before plants are capable of growing in the soils and harsh conditions. In the report by lead author Xiaoshuang Li and team the incredible resilience of a moss called Syntrichia caninervis (S. caninervis) to survive a Mars-like environment even after having lost more than 98% of its water content.
Studies into the resilience of the plants have shown they can withstand extremely low temperatures and regenerate even after being stored in a freezer at -80°C for five years or in liquid nitrogen for one month. S. caninervis also demonstrates high resistance to gamma radiation and can survive in simulated Martian conditions.
The study concluded that S. caninervis is among the most stress-tolerant organisms known. It shows how it is a real potential species for the colonisation of alien worlds like Mars. The resilience to extreme conditions such as desiccation, low temperatures, and high radiation makes it an ideal for future terraforming efforts. It helps to understand the unique properties of this moss (in particular) and how it can form a foundational layer for biologically sustainable human habitats in space.
INTELLIGENCE AGENTS INVESTIGATE UFOS IN ROSWELL On 7 July 1947, Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) agents Lt. Col. Sheridan W. Cavitt, M. Sgt. Lewis S. Rickett, and Army Air Force intelligence agent Maj. Jesse A. Marcel investigated reports of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) that crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
The “Roswell Incident” occurred during the 1947 Flying Disc Craze, in which sixteen or more alleged sightings of UFOs were reported in the U.S. between May and July, many in the American Southwest. On 7 July 1947, a rancher named William “Mac” Brazel reported he had recovered “one of them flying saucers” on his ranch near Roswell. The investigation was turned over to Roswell Army Airfield, which assigned the case to Major Marcel.
During World War II, Jesse Marcel had attended the U.S. Army Air Force Intelligence School at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he trained as a combat photo interpreter. He graduated in late 1942 and became an instructor until deploying with the 5th Bomber Command to the Southwest Pacific. After the war, Marcel was assigned to the 509th Composite Group, 313th Bombardment Wing, stationed at Roswell Army Airfield (Walker Air Force Base since 1948) and deployed during Operation CROSSROADS, the U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the Bikini Atoll in 1946. The unit was redesignated the 509th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy, in July 1946 and attached to the Strategic Air Command at Roswell.
For the investigation, Major Marcel was joined by Colonel Cavitt, commander of the 700th Air CIC Detachment’s Roswell office, and Sergeant Rickett from Cavitt’s office. The three men traveled to Brazel’s ranch and collected numerous pieces of what Cavitt later described as bamboo sticks and a “reflective sort of material” like aluminum foil. The next day, 8 July 1947, the incident appeared in local newspapers with headlines proclaiming the Air Force had recovered the remains of a “flying disc.” The excitement was short-lived. That same day, Brig. Gen. (later Lt. Gen.) Roger Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force at Fort Worth Army Airfield, held a press conference announcing the discovered materials belonged to a weather balloon. The incident was quickly forgotten. The story resurfaced in 1978, when then-Lt. Col. Marcel claimed in an interview with ufologists (researchers of UFOs) that the materials were “extraterrestrial.” More witnesses came forward following publication of Marcel’s claims, and UFO enthusiasts grasped onto the story with a fervor, despite most “witnesses” providing only second- or thirdhand accounts. Even today, Marcel’s account remains the basis for conspiracists of a major military cover-up of extraterrestrial life at Roswell. Interestingly, shortly after the 1947 incident, Marcel’s personnel file noted his tendency to exaggerate. Contrary to Marcel’s remembrances, Colonel Cavitt later recalled, “I don’t think I even made a report to [700th CIC Headquarters], which I normally would if there was anything at all unusual.”
In 1994, an official U.S. Air Force investigation revealed the shredded remains of a UFO discovered in Roswell in July 1947 belonged to a prototype balloon for then-classified Project MOGUL. The project sought to “develop a technique capable of recording the sound of a nuclear detonation within the Soviet Union,” by placing “acoustic sensors (i.e. quasi-microphones) on balloons that operated at a steady state within the stratosphere.” In the summer of 1947, tests of these balloons were occurring at Alamogordo Army Airfield (Holloman Air Force Base since 1948), New Mexico, during which several balloons were lost. Project engineer Professor Charles B. Moore confirmed in 1994 that witness descriptions and photographs of the recovered Roswell UFO were consistent with the materials used in some of these balloons. MOGUL researchers reportedly used radio broadcasts of UFO sightings during the 1947 Flying Disc Craze to locate their lost balloons.
New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
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Giant UFO with pulsating green lights filmed flying over Iran sparks TikTok frenzy
The giant green UFO reportedly flew through the night skies in Tehran, Iran
(Image: jakestaxxx/TikTok)
By Danny Gutmann
A gigantic UFO beaming from the bottom with pulsating green lights has been caught on camera in Iran.
And the apparent spaceship has sparked debate among viewers after footage showing it hovering ominously was shared on TikTok.
The craft, which appears to be flying quite low at certain junctures, looked to have four circular rows of bright pulsating green lights with one solid dot in the middle of its underside.
Zipping through the skies over the capital Tehran, it's picked up on camera by several people. Its speed and altitude appear to change as it continues its journey.
The clip was posted on the social media platform on May 30 by TikTok user @jakestaxxx. It has received more than half a million views, viewers divided on what it is exactly.
One TikTok user believes the images were made using CGI
( Image: jakestaxxx/TikTok)
One user, who claimed to have witnessed a UFO previously, seemed to take the TikTok post at face value, writing: "That's so cool, I've witnessed a real UFO close up but it was so fast coming down and it stopped only to do four circles around in the sky so fast then flew over us like that, awesome to witness."
But, for all those who were willing to believe it was in fact other worldly, there were others who disagreed, with some suggesting digital wizardry had been used.
One, though, was clear, saying: "Aliens just don't show up like that, there's galactic rules. If this was real it would have caused public unrest. I don't see any public unrest."
'Cigar-shaped UFO with red pulsating glow' in seaside town prompts BBC probe 47 years on
A number of sightings of UFO's were reported in south Wales at that time
(Image: Getty Images)
'Cigar-shaped UFO with red pulsating glow' in seaside town prompts BBC probe 47 years on
The BBC go back to the 1970's to try and get to the bottom of the sudden surge of UFO sightins in a small seaside Welsh town that left locals confused and scared
By Danny Gutmann
On a typically rainy February morning in a Brit seaside town more than four decades ago, a group of school boys saw something from the playground that they couldn't quite believe.
And now, 47 years after the baffling event in 1977, the BBC has investigated the reported UFO sighting in Broad Haven, Wales, as part of its new Paranormal series.
In the series, Sian Eleri travels to the town to try to uncover the truth behind what has become one of the most notorious UFO sightings ever in the UK.
David Davies was one of the boys who saw the 'craft', and he can still remember it clearly.
After hearing from other students in the school talking about seeing a UFO outside, he went to investigate for himself and to 'prove them wrong' – but he saw the same thing, a bus sized 'silver, cigar-shaped object' with a 'red pulsating glow' on top.
What was even more staggering was that the children were asked to draw a picture of what they had seen. And, spookily, they all depicted the same other worldly spaceship.
Children at the Broad Haven Primary School hold aloft their drawings of the UFO
( Image: BBC/Twenty Twenty Productions Ltd)
But, that's not all – during the four-part series, Sian goes on to uncover various other peculiar sightings in Wales.
Just two months later Rosa Granville, who owned the Haven Fort Hotel, described seeing a UFO, but this time there was something even more troubling about what had been captured.
Speaking to the BBC on the 40th anniversary in 2017, Rosa said 'faceless humanoid' creatures appeared from a 'upside-down saucer'.
Sian Eleri investigates the surge in UFO sightings in South Wales during the late 1970s
She said: "There was light coming from it and flames of all colours. Then (the creatures) came out of these flames, that's what I don't understand,".
Sian explores many different reasons for such a huge number of reported UFO sightings in the area, including the theory that the objects could have been RAF aircraft.
The RAF Museum states that between 1970 and 1990 there were five airfields in south Wales, which does support the possibility that the UFOs were in fact regular aircraft being used by the military.
NASA astronaut who saw 'beer can-shaped UFO' fly past craft solved mystery years later
Jim McDivitt was sure he had spotted a UFO during NASA's Gemini 4 mission
(Image: Getty Images)
NASA astronaut who saw 'beer can-shaped UFO' fly past craft solved mystery years later
The world watched on in anticipation as NASA sent astronauts to walk in space for the first time, but one of those on board spotted something that he just couldn't take his eyes off
By Danny Gutmann
On what was set to be remembered for being the very first space walk, an unusual sighting by astronaut Jim McDivitt means it will always be remembered for something very different.
Flying through the eerily black sky in June 1965 aboard NASA'sGemini 4 mission, astronaut Jim claimed he saw a mysterious 'beer can' like UFO flying past him.
So much so, even 10 years later he still couldn't let go of what he saw on that day.
Speaking to US television all those years later, he said: "At the time I saw it, I said there was something out in front of me or outside the spacecraft that I couldn't identify and I never have been able to identify it, and I don't think anybody ever will.
Jim paid close attention to the suspected UFO, noting it's every movement
(Image: NASA)
"We were in drifting flight and my partner, Ed White, was asleep. I couldn't see anything out in front of me except just the black sky.
"And it was rotating around, I noticed something out in front that was a white cylindrical shape with a white pole sticking it out of one corner of it - it looked like a beer can with a smooth pencil sticking out. I grabbed two cameras and took pictures of it.
"As the sun shone on the window, I could no longer see out and the thing just disappeared.
"They checked NORAD records to see what they had up on radar and there wasn't anything within very close range of us."
Jim's partner on board, Ed White was asleep at the time of the sighting
(Image: Getty Images)
But, unlike many UFO sightings that are told from anecdotal evidence alone, Jim had been careful to photograph what he had seen.
But, as the public eagerly awaited the release of the photos, they were ultimately underwhelming and became known as the 'tadpoles' thanks to their blurry complexion.
Jim said: "I've seen the photos that were released. I went back and went through each frame of all of the pictures that we took and there wasn't anything in there like what I had seen."
After further inspection and analysis, any hope that Jim had become one of the rare few to have spotted alien life were quashed completely after another explanation came to light.
Speaking in 1999 he said: "And really what it was, was a reflection of the bolts in the windows.
"The windows were made up of about three or four or five panes of glass, so that if one got broken we still had some pressure integrity.
"And these little things, when the Sun shined on them right, they’d multiply the images off the different panes. And I’m quite sure that that’s what this thing was."
AI Focuses Photo of Jupiter moon Amalthea, Looks Like Deathstar, UFO Sighting News. 4K video.
AI Focuses Photo of Jupiter moon Amalthea, Looks Like Deathstar, UFO Sighting News. 4K video.
Please hit subscribe friends. Guys I found this years ago and I used my original photo, the NASA link is going 404 error and was moved or deleted. However here is a similar photo of two different moons taken by Voyager 1 probe so maybe you can help me by finding this original photo on the NASA site if it still exists. This moon is a an alien space-station, thats why NASA took it down. Jupiter has 95 moons and some are artificially made. 100% proof that aliens exist in our solar system.
Massive Triangular UFO Over Puerto Rico: Eyewitness Accounts & Stunning Photos
Massive Triangular UFO Over Puerto Rico: Eyewitness Accounts & Stunning Photos
On May 15, 2005, a remarkable UFO sighting over Carolina, Puerto Rico, captured the attention of both locals and the broader UFO research community. Witnesses reported seeing an immense triangular object in the sky, an event that included unusual electromagnetic effects and has since sparked considerable discussion and analysis. This article delves into the details of that night, examining eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence, and the potential implications of this mysterious encounter.
The Sighting
The primary witness, Alfredo, provided a detailed account of his experience near the Los Angeles development in Carolina. Around midnight, Alfredo noticed a strange glow emanating from behind a hill, accompanied by the unsettling sounds of dogs barking and birds singing. When he stepped out of his van to investigate, he saw an enormous triangular object silently passing overhead.
Description of the UFO
Alfredo described the UFO as being as large as one or two ballparks. It moved very slowly and emitted a bright white light from its center, with no observable lights on its edges. Despite its size and proximity, the object made no noise, a characteristic often reported in other UFO sightings. The intense light from the UFO also emitted heat, which Alfredo could feel as it passed over him.
Electromagnetic Interference
One of the most striking aspects of the sighting was the electromagnetic interference caused by the UFO. As it passed over Alfredo’s van, the vehicle’s engine and lights abruptly failed, as did nearby streetlights. Despite this, Alfredo’s camera phone remained functional, allowing him to capture photographs of the object. This selective failure of electronic devices raises intriguing questions about the nature of the UFO’s electromagnetic effects.
Photographic Evidence
Alfredo managed to photograph the UFO by adjusting his camera phone’s light settings to compensate for the brightness. The images, taken in 2005, provide compelling visual evidence of the sighting, capturing the immense triangular shape and central light source. These photos have since been analyzed and remain a critical piece of evidence in this case.
Physical and Health Effects
Following the sighting, Alfredo’s van developed unusual red and mud-colored spots on its paint, which he was unable to remove. This type of physical effect on vehicles has been reported in other UFO cases, suggesting a potential interaction between the UFO and the vehicle’s surface. Additionally, Alfredo experienced health issues two weeks after the sighting, becoming bedridden with symptoms similar to a severe cold. Despite medical tests showing normal results, Alfredo felt watched and experienced disturbed sleep, adding a psychological dimension to his experience.
Wider Witness Testimony
Although Alfredo was the primary witness, other individuals, including administrative personnel at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, also observed the UFO. The sighting’s proximity to the airport raises the possibility that more people saw the object, especially given its size and the effects on local streetlights.
Analysis and Implications
The sighting in Puerto Rico shares common elements with other UFO encounters, including the silent, slow movement of the object, its immense size, and the electromagnetic interference it caused. The physical and health effects reported by Alfredo add another layer of complexity to the case. The selective failure of electronics, while the camera phone remained operational, is particularly intriguing and warrants further investigation.
VIDEO:
Chris Lehto – Massive Triangular UFO Over City: Eyewitnesses & Photographic Proof!
The May 15, 2005, UFO sighting over Carolina, Puerto Rico, remains a significant case in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. The combination of eyewitness testimony, photographic evidence, and reported physical and health effects provides a rich source of data for researchers. As more witnesses come forward and additional analysis is conducted, this case continues to contribute valuable insights into the nature of UFOs and their potential impact on both technology and human health.
Enormous Crater 3x the Size of the Grand Canyon Discovered in U.S. There are various craters that have been discovered around the United States, thanks to giant asteroids and meteors from outer space crashing into Earth millions of years ago.
These craters can come in all shapes and sizes. Often, average Americans don’t even realize some of these enormous craters even exist — and can be found in their local areas. In fact, the largest crater ever discovered in the U.S. is about three times larger than the Grand Canyon.
What Are Impact Craters? Impact craters occur on the Earth’s surface after large space rocks, such as meteors or asteroids, hit the planet forcefully, leaving behind a changed landscape.
These so-called impact events occur over millions of years. As there can be different types of sizes of these space rocks, the types of craters they leave behind can vary.
Discovering Craters While you may think that it’s easy to spot a crater — after all, they can often appear to be giant holes in the ground — scientists have long explained that discovering craters can be quite difficult.
Scientists conduct many tests to fully understand if an impression on the Earth is from a meteor or asteroid — or if it’s from something else.
Uncovering Hidden Impact Craters There are many crater sites around the world that likely haven’t been discovered yet, as weathering and erosion can keep these sites from view.
In some cases, scientists have even stumbled upon impact craters without even realizing it, only learning the truth after some studies have been conducted on the region.
Understanding the Planet’s Age There are a variety of reasons why studying impact crater sites is so important. Scientists explain that these craters can help us better understand how old a planet is.
For example, Earth is a relatively newer planet than the Moon and Mercury, which have many noticeable craters. The Moon even has about 9,137 craters on its surface that scientists have recognized. More could be found in the future.
The Largest Crater Sites in the U.S. The largest crater site in the country can be found in none other than the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Crater was first discovered in the 1990s by C. Wylie Poag, quite by accident.
Poag was in the region for an offshore drilling project when this stunning discovery was made. The crater site was hidden beneath the Chesapeake Bay’s floor for centuries before Poag finally realized the truth of the Bay.
Larger Than the Grand Canyon Scientists have deemed the Chesapeake Bay Crater to be the most significant impact crater throughout the entire United States, as it’s enormous.
This crater site has a diameter of 53 miles. This makes it larger than the Grand Canyon, which has a widest point of about 18 miles.
How This Crater Site Formed According to scientists, this crater likely formed about 35 million years ago when a bolide — a very large crater-forming body — crashed into what is now known as Virginia’s Hampton Beach.
This 3 km long bolide traveled at 144,000 miles per hour before colliding with the planet, leaving a 1.3 km deep impact crater behind.
A Changed Region This collision left behind a completely different region, as scientists believe that the crater impact excavated coastal aquifers.
In our present day, a large reservoir filled with water 1.5 times saltier than seawater lies in the impact spot. Because this water is incredibly salty, it cannot be used for many purposes, such as for drinking water.
Changing the Rivers This crater also changed how the rivers flow in the area. For example, rivers like the Rappahannock flow to the Atlantic in a southeast direction.
Researchers believe that, after this collision, the York and James rivers changed their flow to head northeast to the crater.
Mars Express captured this view of the flank of an enormous volcano, shaped by millions of years of fire and ice.
Images of the Martian landscape often seem to show a dead planet, no longer teeming with life (if it ever was) and no longer animated by plate tectonics. But this one reveals what was once a landscape in constant motion — sometimes sudden and violent, sometimes slow and inexorable. The northwest flank of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons bears the remnants of ancient lava flows, the tracks of long-vanished glaciers, and a long, deep scar left by magma straining to escape the confines of its chamber beneath the mountain.
This image shows the northwestern slope of Arsia Mons. North is on the right-hand side of the image, for reasons known only to the European Space Agency. The huge crack in the surface is Aganippe Fossa, a crack formed when the ground stretched under pressure from upwelling magma millions of years ago.
WELCOME TO ARSIA MONS
The Martian volcano Arsia Mons looms nearly 6 miles above the surrounding landscape, but its peak lies off-camera in this image from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter. Instead, the image focuses on the volcano’s northwestern flank, which rises from the plain in a wide slope up toward the southeast (the lower left corner of the image).
To the southwest (the upper left of the image), the terrain is rough, with clusters of strangely-shaped mounds split by networks of valleys. As you move north, though, that rough terrain smooths out, giving way to a wide swath of gentle slopes and lobe-like cliffs. Ancient glaciers probably carved this terrain and wore it smooth — and left behind rocky debris in their wake. Farther east lie the remains of ancient, long-cooled lava flows, partially covered in zebra stripes of windblown sand and dust.
Off-screen to the lower left is the peak of Arsia Mons, home to a wide caldera. North is still on the right.
And curving northeast across the mountain’s lower slope is a 375-mile-long scar in the Martian ground known as Aganippe Fossa. This steep-walled trench is what geologists call a graben: an area where a planet’s crust is being stretched, creating cracks called faults. When the rock between the faults drops downward and creates the floor of a rift valley like Aganippe Fossa, it’s called a graben; the higher rocks on either side of the rift are called horsts.
Planetary scientists at ESA say Aganippe Fossa probably formed because a huge mass of magma beneath the feet of Arsia Mons was welling upward, stretching the planet’s rocky crust to its breaking point.
Aganippe Fossa is just part of a fascinating landscape once shaped by flowing lava and ice. Around Arsia Mons, satellite images show that the ceilings of some lava tubes (underground tunnels once filled with flowing magma) have collapsed inward, leaving these volcanic caves open to the Martian sky. And during the Martian autumn, an icy cloud wraps the top of Arsia Mons in a glittering shroud of ice droplets which can stretch hundreds of miles across the sky.
Archeologists Believe They've Located the Remains of Noah's Ark The story of Noah’s Ark is perhaps one of the most universally known Bible tales. The biblical patriarch used his enormous eponymous vessel to allow his family and a menagerie of animals to survive a great flood and repopulate the earth in its aftermath.
Researchers examining a peculiar geological formation in modern Turkey believe they may have in fact found the remains of Noah’s Ark, which would shine a whole new light on our understanding of the ancient world.
Biblical Flood The story of Noah’s Ark is one of the more memorable tales from the Bible. Ahead of a great flood, God chooses a man and instructs him to build an enormous boat and populate it with two of every animal, alongside his family.
The story goes that God observed man’s corruption, violence and weakness. Abhorred by the actions of his creation, God looked to wipe the slate clean with a cleansing flood and restore man’s goodness.
Hunt for the Ark The story is known all around the world. Many view it, along with other stories in the bible, as simple metaphor and myth, perhaps inspired by some natural calamity like a devastating flood of some kind.
Others believe the event occurred exactly as described in the Bible, and finding the remains of the Ark would prove their stance correct. Scholars, archaeologists and even amateur adventurers have tried, and failed, to locate the Ark over the years.
The Ark’s Location The Bible states that the Ark arrived on Turkey’s “mountains of Ararat” after the 150-day flood sent by God. Since 2021, archaeologists have been working at a geological formation in the Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı in eastern Turkey, which aligns well with the description in the Bible.
The Durofeiner formation looks, from above, to have a boat-like outline. Some suggest this could in fact be the fossilized remains of the Ark.
Noah’s Ark Research Team Many have believed Mount Ararat to be the Ark’s final resting place for some time now. Recent work at the Durofeiner site has been carried out by a collaboration between Turkish and American universities, the “Mount Ararat and Noah’s Ark Research Team.”
Researchers have taken samples from the rock formation, and tests revealed seafood, clay and marine materials. Some claim this as evidence of human activity in the region.
Age of the Site The 500-foot-high rock formation sits just 3 miles from the Turkey/Iran border. It’s composed primarily of limonite.
Researchers have determined that test samples from the site are around 3,500 to 5,000 years old. Biblical archaeologists and scholars put the time of the 150-day flood from the Noah’s Ark tale at around 3,000 BC, meaning the samples align well with this time frame.
Human Activity in the Region at the Time of the Flood Dr. Faruk Kaya of the Agri Ibrahim Chechen University claims the data gathered from the samples is proof of human activity in the area during the period following the biblical flood.
In her words: “According to the preliminary findings of our research, we believe that human activity occurred in this region during the Chalcolithic period (Stone and Copper Age), specifically between 5,500 and 3,000 BC.”
Too Early to Draw Conclusions Dr. Kaya was careful to stress that while these findings are promising for Ark hunters, they are far from conclusive, and it’s too early to tell whether they could lead to the discovery of Noah’s Ark.
In the same study, Dr. Kaya says: “Noah’s flood is believed to have taken place 5,000 years ago, and our findings indicate the presence of life in this region during that time. However, it is too early to draw definitive conclusions.”
Dispute of the Findings Not everyone supports the suppositions of the Mount Ararat team, and many geologists in particular have pushed back against their claims. Far from being evidence of human activity, they believe the formation at the Durofeiner site is simply ancient rocks.
It would take something far more substantial than the current findings to convince many in the geological community that researchers have found the fossilized remains of Noah’s Ark.
Flood Myths and Actual History Many ancient cultures share narratives of massive, cataclysmic floods. They likely represent a shared symbolic representation in mythical narratives of survival, rebirth and intervention of the divine.
These stories may indicate how ancient cultures responded to natural disasters. If we examine flood myths alongside geological evidence, we can start to get an idea of what actually happened and what is mythical embellishment.
Future Research Through multidisciplinary research of things like the Durofeiner site by archaeologists, Bible scholars and geologists working in tandem, we may be able to start to recontextualize the myth of Noah’s Ark into an established, historical narrative.
Researchers are far from done with the Durofeiner site and are planning excavations to conduct detailed analysis and hopefully uncover new artifacts. They hope to get greater insight into the history of the region, particularly ancient civilizations in the area, and hopefully firmly establish the existence of Noah’s Ark.
Transparency Is Key in Future Research Whatever the findings at the Durofeiner site ultimately mean, future research is probably warranted. It will be crucial to keep this research transparent, though, so that it’s properly framed.
Things can sometimes get contentious when science meets faith. Having a multidisciplinary team can help to give findings proper context without a skewed narrative one way or the other. If findings don’t completely support the myth of the great flood and Noah’s Ark, there is still meaningful significance to finding proof of human activity in an area of biblical importance.
Missie die leven op Mars simuleerde na meer dan jaar beëindigd
Een experiment waarbij vier vrijwilligers het leven op Mars hebben gesimuleerd, is na iets meer dan een jaar afgerond. De vier deelnemers hebben de simulator Mars Dune Alpha kunnen verlaten, zo heeft het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartagentschap Nasa zaterdag meegedeeld.
De eerste missie van het zogeheten Chapea-programma werd in juni vorig jaar opgestart. Dat programma moet het mogelijk maken om een toekomstige missie naar de rode planeet beter voor te bereiden.
In this image made from video provided by NASA, the crew members of the first CHAPEA mission, Kelly Haston, center, shakes hands with NASA Deputy Director Flight Missions Kjell Lindgren, second right, as other crew Ross Brockwell, emerges from their craft, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
NASA via AP
De vier deelnemers, twee mannen en twee vrouwen, hebben exact 378 dagen doorgebracht in de Mars Dune Alpha. Dat is een huis van 160 vierkante meter dat het leven op Mars moet nabootsen. De simulator staat opgesteld in het onderzoekscentrum van Nasa in Houston, in de Amerikaanse staat Texas.
De Mars Dune Alpha had onder meer een verticale boerderij om sla te laten groeien, een kamer voorbehouden voor medische procedures, een ontspanningsruimte en werkposten. Via een sas kwamen de bewoners terecht in een Marsachtge omgeving. Op het rode zand bevonden zich een weerstation, een toestel om bakstenen te maken, een kleine serre en een loopband, waarop de valse astronauten, opgehangen aan riemen, konden lopen. Het huis was gemaakt met een 3D-printer.
Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat.
Bill Stafford/NASA
De deelnemers mochten de simulator niet verlaten. Ze konden met vrienden en familie communiceren, maar dat gebeurde dan wel in ‘Mars-tijd’. Het versturen van een kort tekstbericht naar de buitenwereld duurde daardoor meestal 22 minuten.
De prestaties en cognitieve capaciteiten van de deelnemers werden tijdens het experiment nauwlettend in het oog gehouden. Dat moest het mogelijk maken om “belangrijke dingen te leren over complexe systemen en het zal de reis naar Mars en terug veel veiliger maken”, zegt Julie Kramer van Nasa.
Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat.
Bill Stafford/NASA
Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat.
Bill Stafford/NASA
Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat.
Bill Stafford/NASA
Ross Brockwell, een van de vier vrijwilligers, omschrijft zijn deelname aan het experiment als een geweldige ervaring. “Ik hoop echt dat we hierdoor een beetje dichter bij de realiteit van mensen op Mars kunnen komen.”
Nasa wil in 2025 en 2027 nieuwe Chapea-missies uitvoeren.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:HLN.be - Het Laatste Nieuws ( NL)
08-07-2024
UFOs target nuclear warheads and planes for alarming reason, experts warn
UFOs target nuclear warheads and planes for alarming reason, experts warn
Boffins have come up with a theory as to why UFOs are regularly seen near high-speed planes and nuclear warheads - and why they might be becoming more intrusive at US bases
The unconfirmed UFO appearance near Concorde - which has resurfaced on Reddit's UFOs subchannel, appears in a 1976 British Airways advert where an orb-like UFO can be seen darting toward the aircraft in an inquisitive way before accelerating away.
After the Fukushima lab disaster in Japan, witnesses told Netflix docuseries Encounters that UFOs saved them by lowering radioactivity levels.
Several glimmering white orbs could be seen above the plant after the nuclear disaster in 2011, and appeared to drop into the lab before emerging again.
Planes could also be a target of aliens(Image: Getty Images)
At the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, the monarch was honoured with a presentation by nine fighter jets letting off streams of smoke in the Union Jack's red, white and blue colours.
Reddit users were quick to point out that an unidentified disc could be seen near the jets - but no clear answer has ever been given to explain what it was.
There have also been reports of UFOs being seen after rocket test-fires.
New research from retired US Air Force staff sergeant Larry Hancock, and Ian Porritt, a data analyst affiliated with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project, shows the unusual activity around nuclear weapons and facilities has shifted over the years.
A UFO can be seen in a British Airways advert for Concorde in the 70s(Image: Getty Images)
The studies suggest that at first the UFOs seemed interested in the production of nuclear weapons, but now pop up around silos and bomber bases.
When a new arsenal of ICMBs was built in the 1960s, UFOs became “much more intrusive” in their approach of ICBM bases, Porritt previously said, adding: “They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base.”
There is also a theory that UFOs are actually “turning off” nuclear weapons - with several reports of this happening by the US military since the 60s.
There is a theory that UFOs are 'turning off' nuclear weapons(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
In the pair’s latest study, the research concludes: “Notable unidentified aerial phenomena loitering, military intrusions and weapons facility interference were documented in a series of incidents in 1967 (Malmstrom AFB) and 1975 (Loring AFB and Malstrom AFB), where at least one flight of 10 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) was officially recorded as having unexplainably gone off alert status.”
The study discusses how former US Air Force ICBM launch officer Robert Salas said he was asked by the AARO to gather information after he said an orange flying disc shut off 10 warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967.
Fukushima disaster witnesses told a Netflix docuseries that UFOs saved them by lowering radioactivity levels(Image: Zuma Press/PA Images)
He was later forced to sign an NDA on the matter by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Mr Salas is not the only one to have made such a claim. In 2000, US Air Force First lieutenant Robert Jacobs also said he witnessed this in 1964, but was told not to speak about the alleged encounter again.
And in June 2023, two Air Force veterans told DailyMail.com they had testified to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) that UFOs turned off their nuclear warheads.
The former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Lue Elizondo, has previously said there “seems to be a lot of correlation” between UFO appearances and nuclear sites.
And independent researcher Robert Hastings said in 2010: “Declassified US government documents and witness testimony from former or retired US military personnel confirm beyond any doubt the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites.'”
Als we een computer beschouwen als een mechanische rekenmachine, dan is de oudste tot nu toe gevonden computer het Mechanisme van Antikythera. Dit oude technologische wonder dateert van meer dan 2000 jaar geleden en is al lange tijd een mysterie dat moet worden opgelost. Terwijl sommige onderzoeken het in verband brachten met de Egyptische zonnekalender, heeft een recente studie aangetoond dat het mechanisme de Griekse maankalender volgt, en dat niet alleen. Aan de basis van de nieuwe ontdekking liggen in feite zwaartekrachtgolven: laten we eens kijken hoe dit mogelijk is!
Het Mechanisme van Antikythera
Als je hem vandaag de dag ziet, in zijn 82 fragmenten die zijn ondergebracht in het Nationaal Archeologisch Museum in Athene, in Griekenland, lijkt hij niet meer dan een vrijwel verwoeste vondst. In werkelijkheid wordt het Mechanisme van Antikythera beschouwd als 's werelds oudste computer, een machine die de astronomische bewegingen van de maan, zonsverduisteringen en de positie van de zon kon voorspellen, evenals die van de vijf destijds bekende planeten.
Het was in feite een geavanceerd astronomisch instrument, gebouwd tussen de derde en eerste eeuw voor Christus en samengesteld uit een complex systeem van tandwielen en tandraderen. In de loop der jaren hebben verschillende studies het Mechanisme van Antikythera diepgaander geanalyseerd en de interne tandwielen en gemechaniseerde werking van de structuur onthuld. Kortom, 's werelds oudste computer werd ontworpen om Babylonische astronomische cycli, Platonische wiskunde en Griekse astronomische theorieën te combineren. Het doel: de beweging van hemellichamen voorspellen op basis van de Egyptische zonnekalender. Of misschien niet?
Mechanisme van Antikythera en zwaartekrachtgolven: de nieuwe studie
Freeth et al./Scientific Reports - 2021
Een recent onderzoek door onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Glasgow heeft de heersende interpretatie over het gebruik van de Antikythera in twijfel getrokken. Met behulp van geavanceerde methoden die zijn ontwikkeld op het gebied van onderzoek naar zwaartekrachtgolven was het feitelijk mogelijk om te onthullen dat de component die verantwoordelijk was voor de kalender 354 of 355 gaten had, één voor elke dag van het jaar. Dus geen 365, zoals in de Egyptische zonnekalender, maar 354 of 355, zoals in de Griekse maankalender. Dit zijn de woorden van Graham Woan, een van de auteurs van het onderzoek:
De precisie van de plaatsing van de gaten zou extreem nauwkeurige meettechnieken en een ongelooflijk vaste hand vereisen om ze te maken. Het is een prachtige symmetrie dat we de technieken die we vandaag de dag gebruiken om het universum te bestuderen, hebben aangepast om een mechanisme beter te begrijpen dat mensen bijna twee millennia geleden hielp de hemel te volgen.
De oudste computer ter wereld, van meer dan 2000 jaar geleden tot nu
Marsyas/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
De technieken die zijn ontwikkeld op het gebied van onderzoek naar zwaartekrachtgolven zijn, zoals we hebben gezien, gebruikt om het mysterie van het Mechanisme van Antikythera te ontrafelen. Wat echter opvalt is, afgezien van de feitelijke kalender die dit instrument meer dan 2000 jaar geleden moest meten, de realisatie ervan. Want om de 354 of 355 gaten te maken en de Griekse maankalender te meten was een vaardigheid nodig die de komende duizend jaar niet meer zou worden gezien. Voor een even nauwkeurige astronomische klok had men moeten wachten op het Astrarium van Giovanni Dondi, dat rond 1300 werd gebouwd.
Kortom, het Mechanisme van Antikythera blijft een buitengewone getuigenis van het vernuft van het oude Griekenland en het vermogen om kunst, wetenschap en vakmanschap te combineren in een uniek artefact. Wat voor velen de oudste computer ooit gevonden is, is daarom veel meer: het bewijs van een wereld die inmiddels ruim 2000 jaar verdwenen is, maar vandaag de dag levendiger is dan ooit.
Unlocking the Roswell Mystery: Science’s Next Frontier
Unlocking the Roswell Mystery: Science’s Next Frontier
The mystery surrounding the 1947 Roswell incidentcontinues to captivate the imagination of UFO enthusiasts and researchers alike. Nick Pope, a former investigator of UFO sightings for the British government, asserts that modern forensic technology should be utilized to revisit the site near Roswell, New Mexico. His stance is that the location, which the military initially claimed to have recovered a flying disc from before retracting the statement a day later, still holds significant scientific potential.
The Epicenter of UFO Mysteries
Nick Pope describes Roswell as the ground zero of modern UFO mysteries. Contrary to the common belief that the media or public first broke the story, it was actually the U.S. military that announced the recovery of a “flying disc.” This statement was quickly retracted and replaced with an explanation involving a weather balloon. Despite the retraction, the incident’s enduring power is evident as people continue to discuss and speculate about it nearly eight decades later.
The Call for Forensic Investigation
Pope advocates for the application of contemporary forensic methods to investigate the Roswell site thoroughly. He suggests that technologies like DNA analysis and other modern forensic tools could uncover new evidence about what truly happened in 1947. According to Pope, this isn’t just about anecdotal accounts of lights in the sky; there were credible reports of something crashing, which means there could be physical evidence to analyze. Conducting a forensic investigation could potentially yield new insights and perhaps even debris from the crash site.
Contemporary Theories on Extraterrestrial Presence
In addition to discussing Roswell, Pope also comments on a recent research paper exploring the hypothesis that aliens may already be present on Earth. This 42-page paper, authored by three researchers including two from Harvard University, proposes that these beings could be living underground or might even be time travelers. While the paper does not present these ideas as facts, it encourages the scientific community to consider them seriously and investigate rigorously.
The Shift in Scientific Discourse
Pope finds it refreshing that the scientific community is now more open to discussing unconventional theories about extraterrestrial life. He notes that a few years ago, such discussions would have been inconceivable. Now, with public hearings in Congress and academic papers on the subject, there is a growing willingness to ask “what if” questions. This shift represents a significant vindication for those who have long been marginalized for entertaining these ideas.
Military Sightings and Compelling Evidence
Reflecting on his time investigating UFO phenomena for the British government, Pope points to sightings by military pilots as some of the most compelling evidence. These sightings are often corroborated by radar data, infrared camera footage, and sometimes satellite data. Although much of this information remains classified, Pope is hopeful that more of it will be declassified and made available to the public in the near future.
The Public’s Right to Know
One of the central issues Pope addresses is the balance between national security and the public’s right to information. While there are valid concerns about causing public panic or giving adversaries an advantage, Pope believes that ultimately, people have the right to know the truth. He advocates for greater transparency and hopes that more classified information will be released to the public.
VIDEO:
UFO expert: ‘There is science to be done in Roswell’ | NewsNation Prime
Nick Pope’s insights highlight the enduring intrigue of the Roswell incident and the potential for modern science to shed new light on this historical mystery. His call for a renewed forensic investigation into the Roswell site underscores the importance of utilizing contemporary technology to explore unexplained phenomena. As scientific discourse evolves to include more open-minded investigations into extraterrestrial theories, the possibility of uncovering new truths about UFOs becomes ever more exciting.
To be honest, we’re tired of waiting. Where are they? Where on Earth are all the aliens?
Well, not on Earth, or anywhere near, that’s very much the point.
At a conservative estimate, there are 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Let’s say there are 100 billion stars in each. Even if only 1% of those stars had a single planet orbiting around them, that’s still 200 quintillion possible new Earths.
Then let’s assume a planet has a one in a trillion chance of having the magic combination of water, temperature and chemicals for that magic spark to happen.
That still means there should be life on a few hundred thousand planets.
Surely one of those should have said hello by now?
Of course, not all of those will be home to intelligent life. We don’t know what they’ll be home to. Microbes. Crustaceans. Alien birds that fly using their ears, Dumbo-style. Jellyfish that look like VHS tapes. Space dinosaurs.
But among all those planets, around all those stars, in all those galaxies, there absolutely has to be some other form of intelligent life.
1. The Drake equation
The outrageously basic maths above is a very simplified version of the Drake equation – the second-most famous formula in science after E=MC2.
Proposed by radio astronomer Frank Drake in 1961, it calculates the likelihood of intelligent, communicating civilisations based on the a range of factors, including number of planets, chances of life arising, and how likely that life is to be advanced.
It looks like this:
N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L
So you can see why we did our own.
It isn’t a new conundrum. In fact, it has long had a name – the Fermi paradox.
Apparently, in 1950, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were enjoying a lively discussion about flying saucers over lunch when he blurted out ‘Where is everybody?’.
Well, we feel the same, and decided to ask a few experts why we haven’t found anyone – or been found – yet.
Alien life and intelligent alien life are two very different things
There are, sadly, many reasons why we may not have yet discovered alien life out there.
One of these, the Great Filter theory, proposes that there are simply so many hurdles to get over for intelligent life to reach a point we could see it, it is highly improbable they will be able to clear each of them and reach the same point us, or even further.
Related video:
Why haven’t we found aliens? A physicist shares the most popular theories (Big Think)
Think about it. Very, very simply, we started as life in the ocean, crawled out, diversified, some crawled back in, huge numbers went extinct five separate times, the rest kept evolving, humans arrived, we developed societies, health care, and finally, started looking for others.
‘Just because a planet is capable of supporting life, doesn’t necessarily mean that it will form there,’ says Dr Greg Brown, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
‘It certainly doesn’t mean that that life will overcome the myriad barriers between simple single-celled lifeforms and intelligent life capable of communicating with other civilisations across space, or that those changes will happen in such a way that they are active at the same time as us.’
This similar hypothesis considers how hard it is even to create the right conditions for even most basic forms of life, never mind getting to the point we are now.
‘This is an idea I happen to agree with,’ says Dr Paul Byrne, associate professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St Louis. ‘That it’s perhaps not difficult for life to emerge, but it’s extremely difficult for life to be sustained.
‘For example, we know that Earth has had liquid water on its surface for virtually all of its lifetime. That’s a crazy long time for conditions on the surface to remain pretty much between 0C and 100C.
4. Maybe we're not worth bothering with?
We could be a disappointment to other civilisations
Astrophysicist Amri Wande suggested maybe there actually is loads of life out there, so advanced extraterrestrials capable of searching around the universe can take their pick – and won’t deem Earth worthy of a visit because we’re not intelligent enough ourselves.
Savage.
‘We also know that life emerged at least as far back as 3.4 billion years, and possibly longer. But we also know that it’s at least possible that Venus had oceans for a time, and so it, too, might have had truly Earth-like habitable conditions – and perhaps even life.
‘But if it did have oceans, something went wrong at some point in the past to push the planet into a runaway greenhouse, and those oceans boiled off into space. Today, Venus is sterile, at least at the surface.’
Likewise, Mars once had liquid water flowing across its surface, and both the Moon and Mercury had thick, moist atmospheres for a very short time.
‘So getting a habitable environment might not be all that difficult, and maybe so is making life from non-life – known as abiogenesis,’ says Dr Byrne.
‘But keeping things nice and amenable to life could be really, really hard. Perhaps Earth is the only place in the solar system that has successfully managed it.’
5. They’re only microscopic, and living in oceans
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, is one thing, but trying to confirm, 100%, that a planet has some microscopic wrigglies wriggling around is even more difficult.
But that doesn’t mean we’re not trying.
These gals would be pretty hard to spot from trillions of miles away (Picture: Getty)
Warwick University PhD researcher Faith Hawthorn says: ‘There is some potential precedent for this in our own solar system, as we think that some moons of Jupiter and Saturn – Europa and Enceladus in particular – have liquid water oceans underneath thick crusts of ice on their surfaces.
‘Given the right sources of energy and the water providing a medium for chemical reactions, it may be a suitable environment for microbial life to form.
‘However, this would be extremely difficult – if not impossible – to detect on exoplanets.’
Detecting the presence of non-intelligent life, in the sense that they won’t be sending out signals, is generally focused on biosignatures in the atmosphere, offering chemicals and clues to what is living within it.
This would still be unlikely in the case of, say, microscopic life at the bottom of an ocean.
An artist’s impression of the planet K2-18 b, one potential home of alien life (Picture: Nasa/CSA/ESA/J Olmsted/N Madhusudhan)
But in September last year, Nasa discovered the strongest evidence for life yet when detecting the presence of dimethyl sulphide (DMS) in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, an exoplanet 120 light-years away.
DMS is produced by life, primarily phytoplankton in oceans, rivers and lakes.
6. We’re missing their signals, either because of the wrong frequency or timing
This is a big one. Yes, the universe is vast, so you’d imagine there should be other life out there. But it’s also really, really old – more than 13 billion years (or double that, according to one recent study), so what are the chances of us all being around at the same time?
‘If we compress Earth’s evolutionary timeline into a 24-hour period, life emerges at 4am,’ says Dr Minjae Kim, an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick.
‘The extinction of dinosaurs occurs at 11:41pm. The history of human-like creatures, exemplified by species like Australopithecus afarensis, begins at 11:58:43pm.
‘Essentially, human-like life has existed for a mere 77 seconds in this analogy. Remarkably, the timeframe in which humans have developed technology capable of interacting with potential extraterrestrial life is significantly shorter – less than a single second. This possibly implies remarkably brief technological lifespans compared to the overall age of planetary systems.’
We’re looking… (Picture: Getty)
Dr Byrne agrees.
‘The most likely explanation in my opinion is that space is ****ing huge and time is really long,’ he says. ‘Even if a sentient species emerged on a planet close enough for us to detect their signals, a difference of only a few ten thousand years would mean we’d miss them if their civilisation only lasted for a few millennia.
We need to give it more time
We humans are famously impatient, and have only been able to properly search the vastness of space for a few decades.
And while we know for sure there aren’t Martian-built canals on the Red Planet or a man on the Moon, there is still much more to explore.
‘We’re still continuing to develop higher-resolution spectrographs and instruments,’ says Ms Hawthorn. ‘These include those on the James Webb Space Telescope that would be able to sensitively detect biomarkers in the atmospheres of planets, so the next few years could start to be a game-changer for this.’
We’re also discovering new exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system – all the time.
7. The dark forest hypothesis
This is by far the scariest reason we haven’t found aliens yet.
The basis for the theory is that aliens are out there, but they are both silent and hostile. They keep quiet working on the assumption that other civilisations will be hostile too, and they don’t want to get wiped out in a massive interstellar war.
Fun.
Dr Paul Strøm, assistant professor at the University of Warwick, adds: ‘One natural step forward is to try to estimate the number of life-bearing planets and look for good candidates of favourable life hosting environments.
‘There are several examples of how this is being done currently – looking for life on the moons of Jupiter, listening out for radio signals and looking for other planets which may have the right conditions for life to emerge to mention only a few.
‘Just 25 years ago, the idea of detecting the composition of atmospheres of planets outside of our own solar system domain was only found in [theoretical] science. Today it is a reality. We can detect the composition of these exoplanets, and even monitor their weather patterns. How exciting!’
We’re waiting… (Picture: Getty)
The big question
‘So where is everybody?’ asks Dr Byrne.
‘They’re dead, or they haven’t come to be yet, or they’re too far away.
‘This, to me, is by far the most likely explanation for the seeming contradiction between there being loads of planets and zero evidence for alien civilisations. It’s a space and time numbers game.
‘Which doesn’t make it any less depressing, mind.’
Huge Asteroid Incoming It's no secret that asteroids pass close to Earth from time to time. There are currently around 1,000 asteroids that cross Earth's orbit on a regular basis.
Range of Sizes Asteroids range in size from 329 miles across to just 33 feet. 329 miles is the distance from New York to Augusta, while 33 feet is the length of a roll of wallpaper or two giraffes stacked on top of one another.
How Much Damage Can They Do? Most rocks that hit earth's atmosphere burn up on impact, which is how we get shooting stars and meteor showers. For a rock to hit the ground, it would have to be huge to begin with because so much would be lost in the atmosphere. Even a meteor the size of a tennis court failed to make it to the ground in 2013. Although it still caused damage because it exploded in the air and released more energy than a nuclear bomb.
Depends on the Location How much damage an asteroid could do would depend on the location where it hit. If it were in an isolated place, the damage would be less significant. But if one were to explode over a city such as London or New York, the damage could be widespread even if it didn't hit the ground. There would be heat damage and blast damage to buildings and people.
Asteroid 2024 MT1 8th July The asteroid which is passing Earth on the 8th July 2024 is 260 feet long. That's as big as the Statue of Liberty. It was detected and tracked by NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program which keeps an eye on anything that might be a threat.
Unlikely to do Damage 2024 MT1 is unlikely to hit Earth or cause any damage. It will pass us around 933,000 miles away which is about four times the distance from us to the moon. It is travelling at a staggering 40,600 miles per hour - hence the need for it to be monitored.
NASA's Observations Program NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program observes and tracks objects that approach the Earth from space. It uses telescopes and radar to detect objects from the ground. Although the tracking of 2024 MT1 has now passed over to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. This provides data such as the asteroid's position, speed and distance from Earth.
Ground-Based Strategies NASA has a Planetary Defense Coordination Office which works on strategies to combat any potential damage from asteroids hitting Earth. Although no impact or damage is expected from 2024 MT1, there are still strategies in place just in case. One of the possible actions could be to try and deflect the asteroid by crashing a space craft into it.
An End to Civilisation? We know that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. Could that happen to us? Thankfully not at any time in the next century thanks to early warning systems that can track the orbits of larger asteroids decades ahead of time. Smaller asteroids that can cause catastrophic regional damage are harder to track and these are the ones to watch out for.
Exciting for Some The close approach of 2024 MT1 isn't a scary prospect for everyone. Many astronomers and space enthusiasts are excited at the chance to catch a glimpse of the asteroid and it is hoped that much can be learnt from its composition and structure.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc America's most famous UFO case is still producing more evidence as scientists and civilians are on a mission to prove that the Roswell crash was not of this world. The 1947 incident made headlines when the U.S. Army Air Force issued a press release stating that it had recovered debris from a 'flying disc' — only later to reverse course, claiming that the material had really just belonged to a downed weather balloon.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc Geologist Frank Kimbler (pictured) is among the many experts who have challenged the military's official version of what crashed on the outskirts of this New Mexico town, where he has scoured the alleged UFO's crash site with a metal detector since 2010. Kimbler has since uncovered over 20 unusual scraps of metal material, most no bigger than a fingernail, and has now submitted one uniquely odd metal for testing to the Discovery Channel's new series 'Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction.'
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc Testing revealed that the metal was '100-percent pure aluminum,' which experts said was 'compelling evidence' that could prove aliens crashed in the area decades ago. 'I was really trying to champion truth throughout,' the new series' cohost, Chrissy Newton, told DailyMail.com, adding that she was not afraid to debunk a few celebrated UFO cases, if that's where the facts led. 'I want to prove that it's identifiable,' Newton said, 'not everyone's gonna like that.' Nevertheless, Newton found the tests on the pure aluminum mystery metal to be compelling, she said, in part because a former Pentagon UFO investigator has told her that 'pure aluminum has been connected to multiple other UFO crash sites.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc While Newton did not name her Pentagon source, she described them as 'a source formerly from AATIP,' the U.S. military's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program , which from 2007 to 2012 had been tasked (in part) with studying UFOs. Kimbler, who teaches earth sciences and geology at the New Mexico Military Institute, told Newton and her cohost that he had pulled this particular metal fragment, roughly a quarter-inch long, from an ant hill within the Roswell debris field. Testing ant hills for ant-harvested metals, the geologist noted, has been a common tactic for gold prospectors, mining geologists, and metal detector hobbyists alike.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc
The insect colonies are known for collecting sturdy and sometimes buried materials for to build their tunnel systems, according to Jim Davis of Utah's geology survey. 'Thanks to the ant's undertakings, prospectors have discovered rich lodes of gold, copper, nickel, turquoise, diamonds, and many other minerals,' Davis said. Over the years, Kimbler has been open that many of the metal fragments he's recovered from the infamous crash site might have a more earthbound explanation. 'Some of it could be trash, camper trash,' he told KRQE in 2018 after the Bureau of Land Management caught wind of his hobby, 'but some of it could be interesting.'
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc To confirm what Kimbler actually found, the new Discovery Channel series sent the metal sample for chemical testing via mass spectrometry to independent experts at the Texas-based firm Cerium Labs , which specializes is aluminum metallurgy. Dr Tom Hossain, chief scientist at Cerium Labs, reported that the aluminum metal fragment was not only unusual for its purity, but it also differed from the typical industrial-grade aluminum used in manufacturing. 'Most Al [aluminum] in use are anodized Al,' Dr Hossain said. Anodizing is an electrochemical process that converts the metal surface into a decorative, durable and corrosion-resistant finish known as an anodic oxide. It protects the metal underneath that finish from corroding in reactions with the oxygen molecules present in both air and water. 'This is not an alloy,' Dr Hossain wrote. 'This is pure aluminum.'
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc Kimbler's find joins a growing body of eyewitness testimony, and even declassified government records, that appear to indicate that the Roswell crash included some form of exotic metal materials. More than 40 witnesses to the Roswell crash mentioned that a metal-like material from the site could 'remember itself' when folded or physically altered, according to UFO researcher Anthony Bragalia. Bragalia obtained over 150 pages from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2021 via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which he said included telling new evidence about where this 'memory metal' may have ended up.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc The records included pages that repeatedly mention 'advanced technology reports' surrounding Nitinol, described as a shape recovery alloy. Nitinol had similar properties to the 'memory metal' found near the Roswell crash site, according to Bragalia. Pages from the FOIA reply indicate that the Pentagon was exploring whether Nitinol could be integrated into the human body for the improvement of health, the researcher wrote at his blog, UFO Explorations . 'Although much of the reports' details are redacted, what can be gleaned is that these technologies represent a literal quantum leap beyond the properties of all existing material known to man,' Bragalia said. 'Based on the documentation received,' he added, 'it appears that the retrieved debris exhibits other extraordinary capabilities.' 'In addition to 'remembering' their original form when bent or crushed, some of these futuristic materials have the potential to make things invisible, 'compress' electromagnetic energy, and even slow down the speed of light,' Bragalia said.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc Today, even the lead author of the Air Force's official 1994 report, Colonel Richard Weaver, that revisited the Roswell case has come forward to caution that the military's current official explanation is by no means conclusive. 'Did we say it was 100-percent? Col. Weaver said on a 2020 podcast . 'No way. We didn't say that.' Col Weaver also alluded ominously to 'politics and a lot of manipulation going on behind the scenes' of his 1994 inquiry, but added he is still confident in his report's explanation - that a secret military spy balloon was what crashed at Roswell. Not every case to come to the hosts of Discovery's new 'Alien Encounters' reaches this level of fascinating physical evidence and documentation, however, as the show examines each submitted 'alien encounter' to the same high investigative standards.
Geologist unearths mystery metal at Roswell UFO crash site in new doc The show's premiere included two other cases: one proved to be explainable and the other appeared to remain a genuine mystery. Posting up at The Variety, a long-standing local watering hole in Roswell, New Mexico, Newton interviewed multiple self-described UFO and alien 'experiencers' on camera to more thoroughly vet their stories. Her cohost in this process, occult scholar and author Mitch Horowitz, called Kimbler an 'inspiration' for the local geologist's willingness to ask 'pure questions' and for taking a proactive approach to investigating these unexplained events. 'Along with Mitch, we both state our opinion, if we think it is a UFO or not,' Newton told DailyMail.com. 'But looking at the facts, [sometimes] there's not strong enough data to even make a conclusion.' 'Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction' premieres tWednesday, June 19 at 10PM ET/PT on the Discovery Channel. Soon after, the series will be streaming on Max.
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De stad Varginha werd beroemd In januari 1996 vond in de gemeente Varginha, in de Braziliaanse deelstaat Minas Gerais, een ufo-gerelateerd voorval plaats. Er zouden naar verluid buitenaardse wezens in de stad zijn geweest.
Ufologie in Varginha Het vredige stadje werd wereldberoemd door meldingen van waarnemingen van buitenaardse wezens en trok de aandacht van ufologen uit de hele wereld.
In een documentaire In 2022 kwam de zaak weer tot leven door de Amerikaanse documentaire 'Moment of Contact', geregisseerd door James Fox, met daarin getuigenissen van getuigen uit die tijd en van andere betrokkenen.
Hoe het allemaal begon De feiten begonnen bekendheid te krijgen toen sommige mensen beweerden dat ze vreemde wezens in de regio hadden gezien. In een interview vertelde één van deze getuigen alles tot in de kleinste details.
(Op de foto één van de getuigen, Valquíria Silva, 14, TV Alterosa).
Getuigenis over de buitenaardse wezens van Varginha "Het was bruin. Het hurkte, maar was kort. Ik had de indruk dat het iets heel zachts was, het zag eruit alsof het ging barsten, met een gladde huid en rode ogen. Het keek naar ons", zei Kátia Xavier in een interview met EPTV Sul de Minas, in 2006.
Andere getuigen De vermeende waarneming vond plaats op 20 januari 1996. Kátia was 22 jaar oud en werd vergezeld door twee vriendinnen, Valquíria en Liliane. Door hun getuigenissen werden er ook
Nog een getuigenis van een ufo-waarneming Op dezelfde dag beweerde het echtpaar Eurico (foto) en Oralina een object te hebben gezien dat over het terrein van hun huis vloog, met dezelfde kenmerken als die de zakenman had gemeld. Volgens hen gaf het rook af, maar maakte het geen geluid.
Verklaringen van de dierenarts van de dierentuin Volgens een verslag van G1 zei dierenarts Marcos Mina, nu directeur van de dierentuin, dat er donker slijm werd aangetroffen in de maag en darmen van de dode dieren, hoewel ze allemaal ander voedsel hadden gekregen.
De vreemde dood van een politieagent Een andere opzienbarende gebeurtenis was de dood van de militaire politieagent Marco Eli Cherese (foto) uit Varginha. Destijds werd zijn dood toegeschreven aan een virus dat zou zijn overgedragen door de vermeende buitenaardse wezens.
Wat was de echte doodsoorzaak? De toenmalige commandant van het 24e Militaire Politiebataljon van Varginha, Maurício Antonio Santos, verklaarde volgens het tijdschrift IstoÉ echter: "De doodsoorzaak was een ernstige ziekenhuisinfectie, die het gevolg was van een operatie".
En de Braziliaanse overheid? Hetzelfde tijdschrift wees erop dat de ufolologische gemeenschap destijds het idee koesterde dat het Braziliaanse leger, de militaire politie en de brandweer twee buitenaardse wezens hadden gevangen en naar ziekenhuizen in Campinas, in de staat São Paulo, hadden gebracht om daar een necropsie op hen uit te voeren.
De versie van ufologen Volgens ufologen verborgen Braziliaanse instellingen deze buitenaardse wezens, om te voorkomen dat informatie de bevolking bereikte.
De overheid ontkent betrokkenheid Bovendien ontkende de Braziliaanse overheid elke betrokkenheid bij de gebeurtenissen en de officiële versie is dat er geen bewijs is voor buitenaards leven.
De resultaten van het onderzoek van de militaire politie Volgens luitenant-kolonel Lúcio Carlos Pereira, hoofd van de militaire politie, was wat Kátia Xavier en haar vrienden zagen in werkelijkheid een man die in de volksmond 'Mudinho' werd genoemd. Hij hurkte voorover, in een houding die leek op wat ze in hun verslagen beschreven, en had waarschijnlijk een mentaal probleem, aldus IstoÉ.
Het buitenaardse ervaring van Varginha De zaak werd een cultureel fenomeen en genereerde veel speculaties en samenzweringstheorieën. Er werden zelfs monumenten in de stad geplaatst ter ere van de buitenaardse ervaring van Varginha.
De ufo-vormige watertoren in Varginha In Brazilië nam de belangstelling voor ufologie hierdoor aanzienlijk toe. Varginha kwam bekend te staan als 'ufo-stad' en het voorval trok de aandacht van de internationale media en het toerisme.
BIJKOMENDE INFO DOOR PETER2011
An artist’s rendition of the alien life form allegedly spotted in Varginha, Brazil.
Sketches drawn of the Varginha alien.
Newspaper reports about the alleged Varginha alien encounters.
The International Space Station (ISS) has long been a place that has inspired some of the best of humanity. Over the past 23 years, the football field-sized space structure has represented a beacon of peace as well as the epitome of human exploration. But the ISS cannot last forever. Last year, NASA announced that the space laboratory would be decommissioned by the end of 2030, at which point the floating lab will crash into the ocean.
While the ISS was never meant to last forever — many a space exploration professional, and NASA, argue — what comes next is far less certain. What is certain is that there will be no next gen ISS. The next era of space stations will be owned by private companies, many of which are currently vying for contracts with NASA. But with these budding new stations, the space agency itself won’t be calling all the shots. They’ll be an anchor client, for sure, but a customer nonetheless. Finally, the crowning achievement of the ISS — it’s the largest peacetime international project ever, NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman tells Inverse — will fall to the wayside.
“It’s the most complex and largest engineering exercise we’ve ever accomplished as human beings. It’s also the largest international project, according to a variety of metrics, that’s been done in peace time,” Reisman says.
As we look to the future of space travel, what will be lost when the ISS is gone? A lot, many experts argue. The ISS is home to the longest-inhabited platform in space of all time. Continuous, non-stop occupation in space will be essential to getting humans to loftier destinations, like Mars. Astronauts like Frank Rubio and the Kelly twins have demonstrated the brink of human endurance in microgravity, and that’s barely scratching the surface about what we need to learn to venture farther away, Don Platt, associate professor of aerospace at the Florida Institute of Technology, tells Inverse.
The International Space Station, as seen from Space Shuttle Discovery, in March 2009.
For NASA to split the costs of human space exploration in space, they’ll pay for access to these private space stations. Axiom, Blue Origin, Long Beach-based Vast Space, Nanoracks and Voyager Space are some of the companies striving to get the coveted NASA low-Earth orbit contracts through the agency’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program. NASA astronauts will then have to share the stations with other customers, either private citizens with a lot of disposable income to buy seats into space, or projects like Inspiration4 that sent an all-civilian crew to space, or astronauts from other space agencies or nationalities seeking to place one of their own some 250 miles high above Earth.
But to share the space practically, future stations must be much more automated. And smaller. They’ll need to be easier to maintain and use. All of this reduces their size.
The ISS is a massive collaboration of many space agencies around the world. NASA and Roscosmos lead the pack. But Japan, Europe, Canada and others have greatly contributed by way of modules, robotic arms, experiments and astronauts. The ISS is possible because there are control centers across the world, employing hundreds of people, to keep tabs on the gigantic craft. There’s no company that could hope to match this scale, Reisman says.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Aki Hoshide of the ISS Expedition 32 flight took this picture during an extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, in September 2012.
When it comes time to say goodbye, the ISS may require two years to fully be brought down.
The Space Shuttle, now retired, and its massive cargo space was essential to carrying segments of the ISS up to space. It’s unclear if the SpaceX Starship, currently in testing, will be ready in time for the ISS retirement procedures.
Reisman is thrilled by the progress and pace of development. Reisman is currently on the advisory board with Vast Space, and worked with SpaceX for seven years as its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule were getting ready to carry their first humans to space. Reisman was too young to be a part of Apollo, but thinks perhaps the pace of current low-Earth orbit technological development offers a taste of what that iconic chapter in history must have been like.
Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Oleg Novitskiy, of ISS Expedition 33, monitor data at the manual docking system controls in the Zvezda Service Module of the ISS during approach and docking operations of the unpiloted ISS Progress 49 resupply vehicle. NASA astronaut Suni Williams appears at the top.
But the ISS, Reisman’s home for a little more than three months over the course of two Space Shuttle missions in 2008 and 2010, embodies something unique. He says it was a more peaceful time, and its cultural role and its place in history as an incredible logistical accomplishment, may never happen again. He says we’ve moved away from that charmed period.
“There won’t be a government to government partnership. It won’t be the head of Roscosmos meeting regularly with the head of NASA, and the head of ESA and JAXA. That element won’t exist. I think that’s a shame. The ISS in its peak was really this beacon of hope. This Star Trek future, where we all get along,” Reisman says.
Editor’s Note:
This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Garrett Reisman is an ongoing advisor for Vast Space. A previous version of the story stated that he had left that position.
The Grand Canyon is known as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Credit: Matthew Lachniet
The Grand Canyon's valleys and millions of years of rock layers spanning Earth's history have earned it a designation as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But, according to a new UNLV study, its marvels extend to vast cave systems that lie beneath the surface, which just might hold clues to better understand the future of climate change—by studying nature's past.
(Credit: sumikophoto/Shutterstock)
A research team—led by UNLV paleoclimatologist and professor Matthew Lachniet—pulled an ancient stalagmite from the floor of an undisturbed Grand Canyon cave. By studying the mineral deposits' geochemistry, they were able to analyze precipitation patterns during the rapidly warming period following the last Ice Age to improve understanding about the potential impact of future climate change on summer monsoon rains in the U.S. Southwest and northwestern Mexico.
Their findings, published Oct. 2 in Nature Geoscience, revealed that increasing levels of water seeped into the cave between 8,500 and 14,000 years ago, during a period known as the early Holocene when temperatures rose throughout the region. Using a paleoclimate model, the researchers determined that this was likely caused by intensified and expanded summer rainfall stemming from atmospheric impacts on air circulation patterns that more quickly melted the winter snowpacks and sped up the evaporation process that fuels monsoon rains.
Recent photograph of Grand Canyon from Walhalla Plateau, with the red line showing the Great Unconformity between the metamorphic Proterozoic basement complex and the Paleozoic sediment strata.
ANNIE SCOTT/USGS
This is significant, authors say, because most of the water currently infiltrating through the bedrock and into caves and aquifers—and contributing to groundwater recharge—comes from winter snowmelt. During the early Holocene, however, when peak temperatures were only slightly warmer than today, both summer and winter moisture contributed to groundwater recharge in the region.
The authors suggest that future warming, which could cause temperatures to rise above those of the early Holocene, may also lead to greater rates of summer rainfall on the high-elevation Colorado Plateau and an intensifying North American monsoon, the pattern of pronounced and increased thunderstorms and precipitation that typically occur between June and mid-September.
UNLV professor Matthew Lachniet holds a stalagmite retrieved from a Grand Canyon cave. Credit: Laura Sangaila
"What was surprising about our results is that during this past warm period, both the summer monsoon and infiltration into the cave increased, which suggests that summer was important for Grand Canyon groundwater recharge, even though today it is not an important season for recharge," said Lachniet, who personally retrieved the stalagmite from a cave in the Redwall Formation on the South Rim of eastern Grand Canyon in 2017. "While we still expect the region to dry in the future, more intense summer rainfall may actually infiltrate into the subsurface more than it does today."
Stalagmites are common cave formations that act as ancient rain gauges that record historic climate change. They grow as mineral-rich waters seep through the ground above and drop from the tips of stalactites on cave ceilings. Calcite minerals from tiny drops of water accumulate over thousands of years, and much like tree rings, accurately record the rainfall history of an area. Three natural forms of oxygen are found in water, and the quantity of one form decreases as rainfall increases. This information is locked into the stalagmites over time.
Because of the distinct difference in the oxygen isotope composition between summer and winter precipitation, it is possible to estimate the relative contributions from each season. Variation in uranium-234 isotope and changes in the growth thickness of stalagmite give indication of the change in the amount of precipitation.
"We were able to validate the oxygen record with the growth data, with the uranium isotope data to confirm that in fact, we see significant increases in summer moisture during this warm period, which we attribute to the monsoon," said the University of New Mexico professor Yemane Asmerom. "Unfortunately, effective moisture is the balance between precipitation and evaporation. Unlike the more temperate Grand Canyon climate, the dry southern part is likely to be drier, as a result of the increased temperatures."
The research team used stalagmite samples to reconstruct groundwater recharge rates—or, the amount of water that penetrates the aquifers—in the Grand Canyon area during the early years of the Holocene period. High groundwater recharge rates likely occurred on other high-elevation plateaus in the region, too, they said, though it's unclear how the activity applies to hotter, low-elevation deserts.
UNLV paleoclimatologist Matthew Lachniet retrieved the stalagmite from an undisturbed Grand Canyon cave in 2017. Credit: Laura Sangaila
What is clear is that ongoing human-caused climate change is leading to hotter temperatures throughout southwestern North America, including the Grand Canyon region. Alongside population growth and agricultural pressures, this warming can reduce the infiltration of surface water into groundwater aquifers. Groundwater recharge rates also depend on the frequency and intensity of summer rains associated with monsoon season.
Though summer infiltration isn't a significant contributor to groundwater recharge in the region today, these latest findings suggest that could change in the future as the climate warms and monsoonal moisture increases. What's unknown is how a projected decrease in winter precipitation and snowpack could impact overall groundwater reserves.
In addition to Lachniet and Asmerom, the following researchers collaborated on the report: Xiaojing Du and Sylvia G. Dee of Rice University; Victor Polyak of the University of New Mexico; and Benjamin W. Tobin of the University of Kentucky.
An alleged UFO sighting at a farm near McMinnville, Oregon, 1950. Picture: SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES/ALAMY
As the new series of the BBC’s Paranormal looks into alleged UFO sightings, one aerospace expert says accessible, modern technology puts us in a stronger position than ever to work out what’s going on in the skies above us.
It was a rainy day in Pembrokeshire (Wales) in February 1977 when a group of pupils from Broad Haven Primary School claimed to see an unidentified flying object (UFO) outside.
David Davies, who was just 10 at the time, remembers his fellow students coming inside throughout the day “trying to alert the headmaster that there was something strange going on”.
The schoolboy was sure there was a logical explanation for what they had seen. “My intention was to go out there and completely prove them wrong,” David says.
But when he went to investigate, he says he saw a “silver, cigar-shaped object” about the size of a bus, with a domed upper section and a “red pulsating glow” on top.
“I had this overwhelming urge to run away,” David says of the sighting that lasted about 10 seconds.
This event in south-west Wales is explored in the latest series of the BBC’s Paranormal. Across four episodes, host Sian Eleri investigates alleged UFO sightings in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
It comes as claims about extraterrestrial life have captured the public imagination yet again. Last year, the US Congress convened a landmark panel on the topic, mysterious monoliths continue to appear in the UK and around the world, and social media is home to viral trends about “alien bodies”.
On TikTok, for example, there are more than a million posts with the hashtag “UFO”.
And one aerospace expert tells the BBC that in 2024, thanks to everyone having a phone in their pocket and many people using apps to follow air traffic, we are in “a much stronger position to be able to track what’s known and what’s unknown”.
So is there a simple explanation for why we see UFOs? And should they be investigated?
‘A lot of UFO hunting’
UFOs have held our attention for decades, ever since reports of alleged extraterrestrial debris in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, the movie The Flying Saucer being released three years later and the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union gaining steam throughout 1950s.
And stories about alien life would go on to influence popular culture in the years to come, from Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning E.T. in 1982, to The X Files first airing in 1993 and even recent additions like Jordan Peele’s 2022 film Nope feeding into the cultural obsession.
Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe – the head of the school of human and social sciences at Buckinghamshire New University — says there was also a “huge peak of interest” in UFO sightings around the 1980s that resulted in “a lot of UFO hunting”.
Reported sightings were covered by media around the world – and the alleged sighting at Broad Haven Primary School was picked up by publications as far as New Zealand.
The Broad Haven incident was one of a wave of sightings in the area in 1977 – dubbed the Dyfed Triangle. In the past, a number of theories have been put forward to explain them, including the work of a “local prankster”.
While sightings like the one in Broad Haven captured mass attention, Dr O’Keeffe says there may be plausible explanations.
“The key fundamental psychological explanation for what’s going on is around eyewitness testimony,” says Dr O’Keeffe, who also consults on the BBC’s Uncanny, adding that eyewitness testimony can be prone to errors.
“The nature of the interviewing of an eyewitness can distort the memory of the event significantly,” he adds, especially if the questioning of a witness is poor. For example, leading questions and exposure to media coverage of an event can be distorting factors.
However, the UFO sighting at Broad Haven Primary School was not just one eyewitness, it was a group of pupils. Here, Dr O’Keeffe explains the idea of “contagion” and group conformity could be behind a mass UFO sighting.
“Contagion is this idea that thoughts, feelings and behaviours can spread amongst a group of people,” Dr O’Keeffe says.
However, David feels he can “rule out” these psychological explanations for the 1977 sighting after the children reportedly drew near identical images of the UFO they had seen.
Before the incident, David adds, he did not have a “big interest in Sci-Fi”. But in the years that followed, he would spend thousands of pounds on books and research materials to understand what happened.
‘Not always publicised’
Dr Ryan Marks, an aerospace engineer who appears in Paranormal, says air traffic in the sky could also offer plausible explanations for UFO sightings, particularly around built-up areas where there are airfields.
According to the RAF Museum, between 1970 and 1990 there were five airfields in south Wales, with one being used as a missile testing range.
“There’s a huge amount of air traffic at any one time and that’s obviously increased over the last 40 years,” Dr Marks explains, adding that there is “always a level of military activity” in the sky and that “not all of this is always publicised”.
In March this year, for example, a US government report concluded that UFO sightings in the US in the 1950s and 1960s were caused by tests of advanced spy planes and space technology.
Around the mid-1970s to early 1980s, Dr Marks says developments were taking place in the UK exploring hot air balloons and airships – and some “would resemble traditional UFOs”.
He notes, however, these were “small-scale” experiments that did not get outside of the air hangar.
Today, Dr Marks says, “a lot of air traffic movements are recorded,” with free-to-download apps able to identify a plane, where it has come from and its destination. This “digital fingerprint” makes it a lot easier to track what is going on in the sky, he explains.
For his part, David remains confident in his UFO sighting.
“Unless somebody can explain to me what type of aircraft was flying at that time, that was 45-feet long, cigar-shaped and silver – I have no explanation for it,” he says, adding that believing in UFOs can sometimes be “like you’re banging your head against a brick wall, against society”.
“It’s still being dismissed as nonsense,” he says.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) closed their UFO desk in 2009 after saying it served no defence purpose and was taking staff away from more valuable defence-related activities.
In a statement, an MOD spokesperson added: “In over 50 years, no sightings of extraterrestrial intelligence, Unidentified Flying Objects and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reported to us indicated the existence of any military threat to the United Kingdom.”
Shola Lee is a journalist based in Tenterden, United Kingdom, with a focus on local news. She writes for BBC News, BBC Mundo, and Cigalah Group, and her work has also been featured in Yahoo News, 65twenty, Tyla, and UNILAD. Shola covers a wide range of topics, including community events, environmental issues, crime, and human interest stories.
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Huge UFO shoots away on house cam, Margate, Florida Jan 22, 2024, UAP Sighting News.👽👽👽
Huge UFO shoots away on house cam, Margate, Florida Jan 22, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting: January 22, 2024, 19:25
Location of sighting: Margate, Florida USA
Source: X account @isaiasroldan009
Hey all, check this out. A follower of mine on X tweeted to me to show me this video he captured at home in Florida a few months ago. He stated that he and his wife noticed a dark shadow over their home in the back yard so he checked his front cam because he didnt have a cam in the back yard and he focused it upward, just as he did, the huge dark shadow shot away...as if it knew it was being recorded. The shadow appears to be that of a disk, notice the dark round front area, and the flat back is due to the propulsion system causing a disturbance. Awesome and rare footage from Florida. 100% proof that aliens not only watch but notice if we are recording them or not too.
Scott C. Waring - Utah
Eyewitness Isaias Roldan on X platform, https://x.com/isaiasroldan009 please visit him and support him by following him.
Date of discovery: July 2, 2011 Location of discovery: Mars Discovered By: Scott C. Waring
Original post states:
Yeah I found another structure on Mars. You know the old saying, where theres smoke theres fire, well I found a few so I keep looking in hopes of finding more. Tonight I found these two unusual photos. I know, the last thing you want to see is another Mars building, but aren't you curious a little bit what alien buildings looks like? The first has the framework of what looks like an ancient wooden ship whose ribs are the only thing left, but this could also be the frame of an ancient building or the rib bones of an animal that died.
+++++
Updated July 6, 2024:
Guys this is getting ridiculous. NASA literally has change most my links. So often you will see reposts with new URLs here. Thats so other researchers can make videos, tiktoks, ect and help spread the world.
Now I just wanted to share this with you all. NASA deleted the original link which now gets a 404 error, click it above to see old link vs new. And I wanted to put this new link up so that other researchers could make videos, posts and so on about it. NASA tries to change the links in order to prevent such amazing and important discoveries from staying. It's a sneaky trick and something that the NSA or CIA must have taught them. I do this for everyone, so it's available for you all and exists for future generations.
Er is een nieuw wezen ontdekt in de diepten van de oceaan in de Golf van Alaska, voor de westkust van Canada. Laten we samen zijn merkwaardige eigenschappen en de sleutelrol die het in de diepten speelt ontdekken.
Nieuwe soort zeekomkommer ontdekt
Een nieuw waterdier, dat leeft op de bodem van de Stille Oceaan in de Golf van Alaska, is ontdekt door een team mariene biologen. Het is een soort met merkwaardige eigenaardigheden: het heeft tweehonderd poten en zijn kleur is roze. Het team, bestaande uit onderzoekers Francisco Solís Marín, Andrea Caballero Ochoa en Carlos Conejeros-Vargas, professoren aan het Instituut voor Oceaanwetenschappen en Limnologie in Mexico, presenteerde de ontdekking en beschreef het als een nieuw wezen dat over de zeebodem kruipt.
Maar wat is de naam van dit wezen wat nog nooit gezien was? Het is een onbekende variant van de zeekomkommer, paarsroze en bleek van kleur, met een lang, slijmerig lichaam uitgerust met 214 poten die in een zigzagpatroon zijn geplaatst en op kleine buisjes lijken. De wetenschappelijke naam in de studie gepubliceerd in Biodiversity Data Journal is Synallactes, maar de eenvoudigere bijnaam is McDaniel zeekomkommer.
De McDaniel zeekomkommer speelt een belangrijke rol voor de oceaan
Biodiversity Data Journal
De meer onofficiële naam werd geïnspireerd op Neil McDaniel, een deskundige natuuronderzoeker uit Canada die zich toelegt op de studie van zeedieren zoals koralen, anemonen, sponzen en zeekomkommers. Net als de andere exemplaren van zijn soort brengt de McDaniel zijn bestaan kruipend door op zoek naar voedsel. Deze wezens zijn te vinden op dieptes variërend van ongeveer 21 tot 426 meter. Om zich te voeden gebruiken ze hun talrijke tentakels, waarmee ze sedimenten van de zanderige zeebodem verzamelen, waaronder algen en verschillende soorten afval.
Hun activiteit, zo ontdekten de onderzoekers, blijkt zeer nuttig te zijn: zeekomkommers dragen over het algemeen aanzienlijk bij aan het mariene ecosysteem, omdat ze de onbetwiste "schoonmakers" zijn van afval dat in de diepte aanwezig is. Wat ze binnenkrijgen, wordt gefilterd en uitgestoten in de vorm van schoner zand: juist hun dieet zorgt er dus voor dat de zeebodem minder vervuild en vrij is van residuen. De vertering van zeekomkommers zorgt bijvoorbeeld voor een toename van calciumcarbonaat, wat nuttig is voor het gedijen en gezond blijven van koralen.
Kenmerken van de McDaniel zeekomkommer
De nieuwe soort McDaniel, met zijn zachte maar over het algemeen stevige en ruwe lichaam, is tussen de 22 en 30 cm lang, waarbij het onderste deel van het lichaam iets lichter van kleur is. Wat hem onderscheidt van andere zeekomkommers is het aantal papillen op zijn rug. Twee zigzaggende rijen van elk 62 buisvoeten en twee andere van elk 45 poten bevinden zich op het onderste deel van het lichaam en helpen hem om zich te verplaatsen over zanderige en rotsachtige oppervlakken in het noordoosten van de Stille Oceaan.
Het totale aantal zeekomkommers, die ook voorkomen in de Marianentrog, neemt af, maar biologen hopen dit tegen te gaan door meer bekendheid te geven aan het belang van deze wezens in oceaanecosystemen. Hun werk is weliswaar belangrijk, maar niet genoeg om het probleem van de onderwateromgeving op te lossen, maar een grote gemeenschap kan zeker een sleutelrol spelen in het welzijn van dit leefgebied.
Synallactes mcdanieli sp. nov.Holotype RBCM 995-00131-001. Ossicles of dorsal papillae A tri-, quadri- and pentaradiate tables; B spiny rods, with the lateral spines (sometimes branched); C long, thin, smooth, straight or curved rods with perforated ends.
Part of: Solís Marín F, Caballero Ochoa A, Conejeros-Vargas C (2024) Synallactes mcdanieli sp. nov., a new species of sea cucumber from British Columbia, Canada and the Gulf of Alaska, USA (Holothuroidea, Synallactida). Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e124603. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e124603
ON APRIL 17, 2013, attendees at an independently organized TEDx event in Geneva, Switzerland, were offered a glimpse at a seemingly impossible future.
Presented under the theme of “eCulture 360° and Wikinomics”, the event offered something unique even to a gathering of some of the most renowned international speakers on science and technology: the organizers billed it as a “TEDx with the opportunity to meet Jacques Vallée, one of the founder[s] of ARPANET, the first version of the Internet.”
Vallée’s lecture at the event, titled “The Age of Impossible: Anticipating Discontinuous Futures,” dealt with how the speed at which modern technology accelerates has resulted in events that would have seemed impossible to many people only years before they transpired. With examples ranging from the collapse of General Motors in 2009 to Bernie Madoff’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Vallee presented what he called a “Typology of the Impossible” that hinged on four main kinds of scenarios: events that escalated too quickly, convergences of “low-p scenarios,” events that appear to violate current cultural norms, and finally, scenarios that involve the appearance of a “completely alien concept within a particular culture.”
“There are many things in our culture today that fit that model,” Vallée said at one point during the talk, as he described historical instances where things that seemed unimaginable at one time later became technological norms. Such things, Vallee said, “are possible, but we cannot imagine them. The public is not aware that they can be done. History provides many examples, and the internet itself is an example of something that was unimaginable.”
After discussing his own part in helping create ARPANET, Vallée went on to share several more examples from recent history where unforeseen scientific advancements occurred, seemingly out of the blue.
“And finally,” the scientist said, never evincing a change in his measured tone and demeanor, “the Pentagon could not imagine that fast, erratic, mobile, oval objects in the sky were anything other than mental illusions, and they…” After a brief pause, Vallée cryptically added, “and you can fill out the answers in the next few years.”
Despite his success as a venture capitalist and “co-creator of the Internet”, most of the attendees at the 2013 TEDx event in Geneva were likely aware of what Vallée is best known for: his decades of involvement with the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. As a young computer scientist and astronomer in the 1960s, Vallee not only worked alongside Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the official scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book but also authored Anatomy of a Phenomenon, one of the earliest popular books written on the UFO subject by a professional scientist. Though he never uttered any of the popular names or abbreviations for the phenomenon, it was obvious what Vallee had been alluding to during this brief, passing reference to “oval objects” during his talk.
At least at that time, what had not been so obvious had been why Vallée specifically referenced the Pentagon’s relationship to UAP, nor why a series of seemingly impossible future events might come to pass involving this subject “in the next few years.”
THE CALL FROM DR. VALLÉE came through earlier than I expected.
The scientist’s voice, softened by age yet still resonant with the French he learned as a youth in Pontoise before emigrating to America many decades ago, was unmistakable to me, having heard it in many interviews and documentaries over the years. Vallée, now 83, is a man whose work in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is only one finger on the glove of his impressive resume, spanning decades of work in astronomy, physics, computer science, and venture capitalism.
As evidenced by his billing at the TEDx event in 2013, one could indeed argue that Vallée is partly responsible for the creation of the Internet, although the affable Frenchman is modest on this point, nearly to a fault. This much was evident almost immediately as we began our discussion, and I wasted no time in bringing up the talk in Geneva and some of the intriguing hints he had dropped at that time.
“I’ve seen the development and the unfolding of a number of technologies,” Vallée told me during our call. “Very often what happens is that a discovery is made, and everyone agrees that it is important, and people write papers, and so on. And then it disappears.”
Vallée with collaborator and fellow author Chris Aubeck (Credit: Chris Aubeck).
Don’t miss Jacques Vallée’s recent interview on Rebelliously Curious with Chrissy Newton over on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel, and linked at the end of this article.
“You know, the Arpanet was essentially dead for a while,” Vallée recalls from his years working on the project decades ago. “Until [the] National Science Foundation picked up the funding, thinking that there would be several internets.” Initially a simple matter of accounting, the NSF initially believed it would be easier to fund three separate projects that looked at using networks through which computers could connect for purposes of communication.
“And then they picked it up from the DOD, and it became the Internet, as we know it now.”
Vallée offered several similar examples of predecessors to the Internet—not all of them American innovations—a point which Vallée emphasized as he shifted back to our subject of greater mutual interest: UAP.
“When I watched the meetings in Congress recently, all they talk about is American cases,” Vallee said. “And among American cases, all they talk about is military cases.”
“I can tell you, having developed a lot of databases over the years, the U.S. is less than 2% of the habitable surface of the Earth,” Vallée said.
“So, if this is extraterrestrial, what about the other 98%?
THE PATH THAT BROUGHT Vallée into the tempest that is the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is a long one, which stems back to his early years in Pontoise at an age when the world was still at war.
“There are things you don’t forget,” Vallée said during our call, describing his memories of seeing American aircraft being shot down over his town when he was five years old.
“I remember seeing the crew dropping out in parachutes and the Germans shooting at them.”
By 1945, the war had ended, although fears of a return to conflict lingered throughout parts of Europe. To the north, reports of ghostly “rockets” over countries like Sweden in the summer of 1946 kept many guessing whether the Soviets were conducting tests, perhaps with a form of secret new aerial weapon they had captured from the Germans. The following year, an all-new kind of paranoia would erupt across the Atlantic, as American newspapers were flooded with stories of “flying saucers” seen careening through the skies, especially in airspace around sites of importance to U.S. national security.
By the Autumn of 1954, as the wave of sightings of strange objects was cresting over North America, France was having its own torrent of reports of similar phenomena. Major newspapers like L’Aurore and France-Soir were carrying stories about unidentified flying objects almost daily, and Vallée began collecting clippings of stories like those of Marius Dewilde, a railroad worker who described his observation of a pair of diminutive “robots” next to a dark machine resting on the train tracks.
The reports seemed incredible, and very well might have remained so had it not been for what occurred the following year in May 1955, when Vallée had his own sighting.
“My mother saw it first,” he would later recall of the incident. She had been working in the garden when Vallée, sixteen at the time, heard her screaming for him and his father. Vallée made his way from the attic where his father’s woodworking shop was located, and down three flights of stairs just in time to observe a metallic disc-shaped object “with a clear bubble on top” as it hovered over the nearby church of Saint-Maclou.
A modern view of Pontoise with the Cathédrale Saint-Maclou visible in the distance (Credit: Rozinante/CC BY-SA 4.0).
The object reminded them of the parachutists the family had watched descending from the skies during the war. His mother, who continued watching it, recalled how it sped away, leaving only a few wisps of white vapor where the object had been. Vallée would later learn that a schoolmate nearby had also noticed the object, observing it through binoculars.
Despite his father’s disapproval, Vallée maintained his interest in these unusual aerial objects. “I realized,” he would later write in his journal, “that I would forever be ashamed of the human race if we simply ignored ‘their’ presence.” The young Frenchman began to educate himself on the topic by reading the works of Aimé Michel, one of the earliest serious French researchers to undertake the study of unusual aerial phenomena. It was an interest he maintained through his college years, completing his degree in mathematics at the University of Paris in 1959 and going on to receive his M.S. from the University of Lille Nord de France two years later. By 1961, Vallée was employed at the Paris Observatory as an astronomer with its artificial satellite service, tracking space objects through theodolites by night.
“Naively, I started work here with great enthusiasm, assuming that we would be engaged in genuine research,” Vallée would recall of his years at the observatory. “That is not what I found.” In July of 1961, he and the other astronomers recalled a few instances where they observed objects passing overhead that they could not identify. “The next morning,” he recalled of one incident, his superior “simply confiscated the tape and destroyed it.” Vallée inquired as to why they hadn’t sent this seemingly important information along with their normal Telex tape dispatches to U.S. Navy officials in Paris.
“The Americans would laugh at us,” his superior scoffed.
Having his fill of the prevailing attitudes in Paris, by 1962, Vallée had emigrated to the United States, first working at the University of Texas, Austin, as a research associate in astronomy, and thereafter for a short stint at the McDonald Observatory, where he helped to compile the first informational map of the planet Mars with fellow French astronomer Gérard de Vaucouleurs. However, by the summer of 1963, Vallée was looking ahead at new opportunities, one of which arrived following a meeting in September with astronomer J. Allen Hynek, chair of Northwestern University’s astronomy department, who helped the young scientist find work as a systems analyst on campus. Hynek, at the time the scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book UFO investigation, was a natural ally; not only would he serve as a mentor to Vallée, who went on to receive his Ph.D. from the institution in 1967, but for years thereafter the two would remain close colleagues in the pursuit of their mutual interest.
An undated photo of astronomer J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée
(public domain).
However, by the late 1960s, it seemed evident that scientific opinions on the UFO subject in the United States had finally begun to sour, despite the efforts of Hynek, Vallée, and a close network of like-minded scientists looking into the problem. By the end of 1968, the University of Colorado UFO Project, a U.S. Air Force-funded study headed by physicist Edward U. Condon, had delivered its findings; in an introductory summary to the lengthy report, Condon wrote that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge,” adding that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
Vallée, musing over the Condon study during our call, remembered his incredulity at the time he first heard about its conclusions.
“That’s an interesting chapter in science,” he said. “Or the failure of science.”
By then, Vallee had already returned to France. As he, his wife Janine, and their son, Oliver, were acclimating to life in Europe again, Vallée was quietly readjusting his approach to the UFO question.
“Once I was back in France, in a way, it served to give me the space to rethink what we had done,” Vallée told me. “I mean, I knew the Condon Committee was a joke… and that science was somewhere else. So it forced me to ask some fundamental questions that I would not have asked if I had stayed at Northwestern.”
“So I thought, where does all this come from, anyway?”
Vallée began haunting the old Paris bookshops, acquiring rare historical texts and early treatises on the sciences. An interesting question had begun to form in his mind, as he recorded in a journal entry on October 29, 1967: What about the forgotten accounts of Little People, of Elementals, of Leprechauns? If these beings are part of the same phenomenon we see now, what does that mean for their nature? Are we necessarily dealing with extraterrestrials?
“I found that the phenomenon has always been there,” Vallée says of his years spent mining observations of unusual aerial phenomena from texts that date back to classical antiquity. “Of course, they are describing it in the language of the time,” he notes, “but they are describing something that’s very, very much like what I get from witnesses today.”
The fruits of such musings culminated in Vallée’s seminal 1969 effort, Passport to Magonia, widely regarded as one of his most influential early works and, paradoxically, the effort that cast him as a pariah in the eyes of many of his ufological peers.
Mass market paperback edition of Passport to Magonia
(Credit: Archives for the Unexplained).
“At first, it was completely rejected.” he says, recalling one UFO magazine that featured his likeness shortly after Magonia was published, accompanied by the headline, “Vallée has gone off the deep end.” Today, Vallée laughs about the chiding he received from his peers, and I note a hint of nostalgia about those early works behind the dry chuckle that emerges.
“Maybe the truth was in the deep end.”
OVER THE COURSE OF the ensuing decades, Vallée would continue to challenge the extraterrestrial hypothesis favored particularly among American UFO researchers. Parallel to this effort, his professional career brought him into work with the Institute for the Future in the mid-1970s, where he worked as principal investigator on the National Science Foundation computer networking project that gave rise to one of the earliest iterations of the ARPANET conferencing system. In the following decade, Vallée would become involved in venture capitalism, first as a partner at Sofinnova, then moving on to become a general partner in multiple different Silicon Valley funds, including his involvement in private investments today.
As his professional career flourished, Vallée never lost sight of his fascination with strange aerial phenomena. He authored a string of follow-ups to Magonia on the topic of UFOs throughout the 1970s and 80s, each continuing to build on the premise that the phenomenon could be far more complex than conventional opinions on UFOs would offer. His pioneering work continued to garner attention along the way, even serving as the inspiration for Claude Lacombe, a French scientist portrayed by actor François Truffaut in Stephen Spielberg’s classic film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Actor François Truffaut in Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (fair use).
In the 1990s, Vallée authored a trilogy of books that focused on the prospects of alien contact. However, he always maintained a healthy distance from drawing conclusions about what any exotic technologies behind UFOs might represent. It was also during this period that Vallée began working with real estate developer Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a privately funded scientific research effort that looked at UFOs and related phenomena.
In July 2014, Vallée presented a paper at the GEIPAN International Workshop in Paris, France, titled “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: A Strategy for Research,” offering both a snapshot of what he had learned about the complexities of the phenomenon over several decades of study, as well as what he believed might be a path toward more fruitful future research.
“After years of ideological arguments based on anecdotal data the field of UAP research appears ready to emerge into a more mature phase of reliable study,” Vallée wrote in the paper’s abstract. Citing the mounting scientific interest in UAP around the world, based in part on documents conveying an official military interest in these phenomena, the scientist argued that the path forward would require the analysis of hard data, paired with intelligently informed theoretical studies.
“Without pre-judging the origin and nature of the phenomena, a range of opportunities arise for investigation,” Vallée wrote, warning that “such projects need to generate new hypotheses and test them in a rigorous way against the accumulated reports of thousands of observers.”
The problem was that in 2014, despite the existence of several notable independent catalogs containing information on historical incidents, there was no single collection of reliable UAP reports—a centralized database, in other words—upon which such studies could rely. This had been part of what prompted Vallée to assemble such a database for NIDS, work that would later carry over as Bigelow’s efforts moved out of the private sector and into the official world as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP).
(Credit: Jacques Vallée/fair use)
“In the United States the National Institute for Discovery Science (“NIDS”) and the Bigelow Aerospace Corporation have initiated a series of special catalogues to safeguard their own reports from public sources and from their staff,” Vallée wrote in his 2014 paper, adding that he had been asked to develop a UAP data warehouse containing 11 individual databases.
“The project is known as ‘Capella,’” it stated.
According to slides accompanying Vallée’s 2014 presentation, the Capella project focused on several areas that ranged from patterns emerging from UAP data to possible physics underlying the phenomenon and its impact on humans.
During our call, Vallée spoke candidly about the project and what he hopes it might still be used to achieve.
“There is such a database. It is the one we built as part of the AATIP/BAASS project in Las Vegas,” Vallée told me. Comprising roughly 260,000 cases from countries around the world, the scientist said during our call that the Capella database had been one of the major focal points of the program.
“Contrary to what people believe, [Capella] is the largest part of the budget that was spent on the classified project,” Vallée said. This included paying for translations of incident reports from Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and several other languages into English, and providing funding for teams that conducted additional research on-site.
“It was a large effort for two years, Vallée said, though he added that in reality, “probably close to fifty or sixty years of work went into the database.” Although Capella constitutes what is arguably the most extensive database containing information on UAP ever built, don’t expect to see it any time soon; it remains classified as a part of the data developed under the DIA’s AAWSAP program managed by James Lackatski between 2008 and 2010.
“The database is still classified, to my knowledge,” Vallée said during our call, prompting me to ask whether such a vast amount of historical information on the UAP subject shouldn’t be made publicly available.
Speaking with The Debrief in December 2021, Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D., director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies and a longtime colleague of Vallée, expressed frustration over previous statements made by Colm Kelleher, Ph.D., another of the scientists who worked on the AAWSAP program, who noted that much of the AAWSAP data will likely remain classified.
“I mean, isn’t that discouraging, disappointing, [and] ridiculous,” Rodeghier told The Debrief. “It’s not work on how we can get a hypersonic missile. It’s UFO investigations. How can that be classified at this point? And the answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t be classified now.”
During our call, Vallée expressed similar sentiments to Rodeghier’s, although he also defended Capella’s current classified status on account of some of the information it protects.
“You make a good point,” Vallée told me. “That’s the kind of thing that should be accessible to science,” although adding that “it will be accessible to very highly competent people who can continue to look at it under the proper classification.”
“I think it’s properly classified,” Vallée added, “because it contains a lot of medical data that should be private.” However, he said that he thinks that over time, perhaps portions can be “sanitized” for release to the public, “so that we don’t invade the privacy of individuals who have reported those things, especially their medical data.”
“It’s not classified for any military or intelligence reason as far as I know,” Vallée said. “But I’m not part of the project anymore.” Vallée noted that even he no longer has access to Capella, although several longtime colleagues of his who still work in government do.
“I’m very proud to have worked on that,” Vallée said. “It’s probably the high water mark in the computer study of UFOs so far.”
“But as we know, the high water mark is going to go even higher after this.”
DESPITE HIS OWN LEVEL of involvement with government UAP studies, as well as the level of interest generated by videos of unidentified objects collected by the U.S. military—the existence of which Vallée himself hinted at in Geneva as early as 2013—the 83-year-old scientist still doesn’t necessarily hold military UAP data in higher regard than that collected by civilians.
“The military cases in the databases I know of are less than ten percent in every country,” Vallee said during our call. “They are really good because the military has radar. They have, of course, planes that can chase the objects… pilots who are very well trained and very well positioned to give a description.”
“Those are excellent reports,” Vallée concedes. “But what about the farmer in the field, who sees [an object] close to him, and has traces, and has materials? Who has felt physiological reactions?”
“What about those cases?” he asks. “They are full of information.”
Vallée’s appreciation for UAP information collected from non-governmental sources is particularly evident in his latest book, Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, coauthored with Italian journalist Paola Leopizzi Harris. In it, they unravel the story of two men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, who claim to have witnessed the crash of an unusual aircraft near San Antonito, New Mexico, in August 1945. Padilla, who went on to become a State Trooper in Rowland Heights, California, maintained that as children, he and Baca had seen a large, dull-gray avocado-shaped object—along with its frantic occupants—where it had apparently crashed near his family’s ranch. The object, they say, was later recovered by the military.
Vallée while conducting field research in New Mexico in advance of the publication of Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret(Credit: Jacques Vallée).
In a newly updated second edition of the book, Vallée and Harris present additional witness testimony they have gathered about the alleged incident, which includes an observation of the crash remembered by the family of Lt. Colonel William J. Brothy, who at the time had been piloting a B-25 on a training mission. According to Brothy, he and his crew had flown over the site and recalled, “There were a lot of pieces.”
In Trinity, Vallée emphasizes what he believes are undeniable similarities between descriptions of the 1945 incident and a UAP landing in New Mexico observed by police officer Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Then, the following year another strikingly similar incident occurred near Valensole, France, involving the close observation of a landed craft and its apparent pilot or occupant.
“There is a case in Valensole, in France, and the case in Socorro. The object is identical to the Trinity object,” Vallée said. “And the [occupants] are identical to the creatures that Mr. Padilla is describing to me at Trinity, that he saw.”
“I was involved in Socorro, and I was involved in Valensole. Those are cases I know very well,” Vallée said, adding that Trinity contains new information on the Socorro case, once referred to by Hector Quintanilla, director of the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book at the time of the incident, as being “the best documented case on record.”
Today, much of Vallée’s research is focused on the collection and study of material samples believed to have been collected from UAP. Compared with his earlier work, which challenged popular notions about extraterrestrials being associated with UAP, this might surprise longtime followers of the scientist’s work. For Vallée, however, it is only the next phase in the many decades he has spent working toward resolving the mystery.
“It’s all one thing,” Vallée said during our call. “The first book I wrote was Anatomy of a Phenomenon, which… I took as a study of extraterrestrial intelligence in general, and how it was I thought UFOs illustrated the idea of life elsewhere and intelligence elsewhere… that’s definitely the place from which we started.”
“Then, when I started working with Dr. Hynek, and I started working with—in those days, it was just called ‘computer catalogs,’ it wasn’t dignified as databases or data warehouses—but those catalogs held thousands of cases. My first complete catalog was donated to the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado, when they did the study funded by the Air Force.”
“Which,” Vallée notes, “to my surprise, concluded the problem didn’t exist. So, we’ve come a long way from that.”
Given his level of involvement in working to resolve the UAP question—an effort now spanning more than six decades, including his involvement in official government UAP investigations in several countries and having authored some of the most popular books ever written on the subject—perhaps the most surprising thing expressed by Vallée during our discussion had been his predictions about how he thinks his own work will be remembered by future generations.
“I think everything I’ve done, and everything my contemporaries have done, is going to be forgotten,” he said, mirroring his observations of the invention, and subsequent reinvention, of so many other innovations in science over time, not least among them the World Wide Web.
“And then in a few years, it’s going to be reinvented by, you know, great people at Stanford and Harvard in a new way,” he tells me, accompanied by the distinctive chuckle I had by now come to expect after one of his witty responses.
“That’s always the way science works.”
Micah Hanks is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. Follow his work atmicahhanks.com and on Twitter:@MicahHanks.
Human-caused climate change is transforming the world at a lightning pace. New research reveals exactly what that means for Alaska’s glaciers and icefields. These critical bodies of frozen water are shrinking much faster than current models predict, and the rate of ice loss is accelerating rapidly, according to a study published July 2 in the journal Nature Communications. The science suggests icefields in Alaska and similar regions could soon reach a tipping point past which no amount of climate mitigation or greenhouse gas emissions could stop their decline, with unsettling implications for sea level rise.
“It’s incredibly worrying,” said Bethan Davies, lead study author and a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England in a statement. “The feedback processes this sets in motion [are] likely to prevent future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a tipping point into irreversible recession.”
More than 20 percent of global sea level rise results from mountain glaciers and ice cap melt and Alaska’s glaciers are already the largest single contributor among that portion. The new findings indicate that the state’s future contributions to rising tides may soon be baked-in, and impossible to prevent.
Davies and her co-authors combined historical aerial photographs, geologic data on the most recent glacial maxima, and satellite images to specifically quantify volume and area loss at one site, which likely carries implications for others. They focused their analysis on Juneau Icefield, a sprawling expanse composed of about 1,000 glaciers covering about 1,500 square miles on the Alaska/British Columbia border, and assessed how the formation changed between 1770 and 2020.
The scientists found some alarming trends. Following the end of the “Little Ice Age” that spanned from about 1300 to 1750, ice loss was relatively consistent between 1770 and 1979. During that period, Juneau Icefield lost between .65 and 1.01 cubic kilometers (0.16 to 0.24 cubic miles) of ice each year. Between 1979 and 2010, that rate increased to 3.08 to 3.72 cubic kilometers of ice loss annually. From 2010 to 2020, the rate of ice loss doubled in just a decade, rising to about 5.91 cubic kilometers per year. Zooming in on a narrower and more recent time period, losses accelerated even further between 2015 and 2020.
All of this has unfolded against the backdrop of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and rising average temperatures. Summer temperatures at Juneau Icefield were about 1 degree Celsus warmer, on average, from 2001 to 2020 than they were from 1941 to 1970. The mean winter temperature for the same time period is up more than 2 degrees C, lengthening the annual period of melt.
More than 20 percent of global sea level rise results from mountain glaciers and ice cap melt and Alaska’s glaciers are already the largest single contributor among that portion.
DAVID MARANO PHOTOGRAPHY/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES
As of 2019, 100 percent of the glaciers mapped at Juneau Icefield were receding and 108 had disappeared completely. The total ice loss since the Little Ice Age maximum is estimated to be about 24.25 percent of the icefield’s volume. In addition to the loss of ice volume and area, the remaining ice field is becoming increasingly fragmented and vulnerable.
As the melt eats away at the ice field and its glaciers, several knock-on processes are triggered which can lead to feedback loops that, in turn, produce more melting. For one, Juneau Icefield (as with many Alaskan icefields) is relatively flat, so it’s losing volume all over. As this happens, it becomes less thick and, over time, the surface of the ice gets closer to sea level. At lower elevations, the air is warmer, and melting increases.
Another feedback loop occurs when fresh snow accumulation is reduced at lower altitudes, as the icefield surface gets farther away from the snowline. With less fresh snow, the icefield surface becomes dirtier and less reflective. These darker surfaces absorb more heat and additional melting ensues. Fragmentation that exposes rocks and gravel also reduces the reflectivity (or “albedo”) of the icefield, and enables hotter air to penetrate deeper into glaciers.
Each of these processes individually is “destabilizing”, write the study authors, and together they are even worse news. Scientists rely on mathematical and computer models to try to predict how ice losses are set to unfold under climate change. However, existing icefield models often don’t consider these sorts of feedback loops and fail to capture the depth, breadth, and speed of planetary modification underway.
Currently, models suggest that Juneau Icefield should be losing ice linearly through 2040, with losses only accelerating after 2070, but the new study indicates those models are flawed. “Current glacier projections may be too small and underestimate glacier melt in the future,” Davies said. If we want to understand what the coming decades hold, we’ll have to pay closer attention to the past.
UFO Sighting Alert! 🚨 Unexplained Lights Over Roswell, NM Captured on Video!
UFO Sighting Alert! 🚨 Unexplained Lights Over Roswell, NM Captured on Video!
On the evening of May 14, 2024, the skies over Roswell, New Mexico, once again played host to a bewildering spectacle that has left both skeptics and believers scratching their heads. A recent UFO sighting, documented by an everyday traveler, has reignited the ever-intriguing debate on unidentified flying objects.
The Sighting
A recent road trip took a couple through the iconic UFO hotspot of Roswell. They decided to camp out at an OHV area approximately 20 miles northeast of the city, on one of the region’s distinctive plateaus. As they set up camp and began preparing their evening meal, something unusual caught their eye.
The witness described seeing flares of light appearing in the valley below, seemingly at eye level with their elevated position. Despite being 20 miles away from the main city and situated in rough ranchland, these lights did not align with any known sources or activities.
Witness Account
According to the witness, the lights appeared to break through the clouds on the horizon, but closer examination revealed they were well below the clouds and away from the horizon. These flares, looking somewhat like fireworks, had no visible source. The video, recorded at 9:25 PM, captures these sporadic lights appearing and fading out, adding to the mystery.
The lights were observed in an area without major industrial buildings or populated zones, making their origin even more perplexing. Despite the video quality being low due to the zoom and lighting conditions, the mysterious nature of the lights is evident.
What Did They See?
In the video accompanying this report, you can observe sporadic bursts of light, seemingly emerging from nowhere and disappearing just as quickly. These lights, reminiscent of fireworks, had no discernible origin, a detail that further deepens the mystery. The witness has confirmed that the lights were far from the horizon and not within the clouds, adding another layer of intrigue to this enigmatic event.
Seeking Answers
The witness has reached out to various communities, including Reddit, in hopes of finding a natural explanation or encountering others who have experienced similar phenomena. The video quality, though not perfect, captures the eerie beauty of these unexplained lights. As this sighting gains traction, it poses the age-old question: Are we truly alone, or is there something more to these mysterious lights in the sky?
This UFO sighting in Roswell, New Mexico, adds to the long list of unexplained phenomena that have captivated human curiosity for decades. As we continue to seek answers, the skies over Roswell remain a canvas of mystery, urging us to look up and wonder.
Stay tuned for more updates on UFO sightings and other unexplained phenomena. Don’t forget to watch the video and share your thoughts in the comments below!
Unveiling the Hidden Kingdom: Secrets Beneath Antarctica’s Icy Surface
Unveiling the Hidden Kingdom: Secrets Beneath Antarctica’s Icy Surface
The documentary “ALIEN CHRONICLES – ANTARCTIC WORLDS BELOW | The Hidden Kingdom” offers a compelling exploration into the mysteries surrounding Antarctica, particularly focusing on the theory of a hidden kingdom beneath its icy surface. This sci-fi documentary presents a series of intriguing claims, historical anecdotes, and modern-day scientific findings that invite viewers to reconsider conventional understandings of Earth’s structure and the possibility of hidden realms within our planet.
The Hollow Earth Theory
At the heart of the documentary is the Hollow Earth theory, which posits that Earth might not be a solid mass but could instead have vast, habitable cavities within. This idea, although not widely accepted by the mainstream scientific community, has persisted throughout history. The documentary traces this theory back to prominent figures such as Edmund Halley and Leonhard Euler. Halley, famous for Halley’s Comet, proposed in the 17th century that Earth consists of a hollow shell with multiple inner layers, each capable of supporting life. Euler, in the 18th century, suggested that the center of Earth houses a small sun, providing light and warmth to inner civilizations.
Historical and Mythological References
The documentary delves into various historical texts and mythologies that seem to support the Hollow Earth theory. Ancient Buddhist texts speak of a race of superhumans living in subterranean realms, accessible through tunnels guarded by monks. Similarly, Hindu texts describe the legendary kingdom of Shambala, located deep within the Earth. These stories, while mythical, resonate with the idea of hidden, advanced civilizations beneath our feet.
Admiral Richard Byrd’s Expeditions
One of the most captivating segments of the documentary focuses on Admiral Richard Byrd’s Antarctic expeditions. In 1947, Byrd led Operation Highjump, a major military expedition to Antarctica. According to his reported accounts, during a flight over the South Pole, Byrd encountered lush green landscapes and prehistoric creatures, including mammoths, suggesting the existence of a verdant, hidden world. Byrd claimed that he was taken into this subterranean realm by advanced beings concerned about humanity’s use of nuclear weapons.
Modern Scientific Insights
The documentary also incorporates modern scientific findings to bolster its claims. For instance, recent satellite data and 3D maps have revealed complex geological formations beneath Antarctica’s ice, including ancient cratons and orogens that resemble the structures of other continents. These discoveries have reignited interest in Antarctica’s potential hidden features and the possibility of ancient civilizations.
Controversies and Conspiracies
Despite the fascinating narrative, the documentary does not shy away from the controversies surrounding its claims. It touches on conspiracy theories about secret Nazi bases in Antarctica and alleged UFO sightings near the continent. While these theories lack substantial evidence, they add to the mystique and allure of the hidden kingdom hypothesis.
The Scientific Community’s Stance
Mainstream science largely dismisses the Hollow Earth theory due to lack of empirical evidence. Studies involving seismic data and Earth’s gravitational field support the current understanding of Earth’s interior as consisting of a solid core, a molten outer core, and a solid mantle. However, the documentary suggests that not all scientific mysteries have been solved, and Antarctica remains a largely unexplored frontier.
VIDEO:
ALIEN CHRONICLES – ANTARCTIC WORLDS BELOW | The Hidden Kingdom | Full SCI-FI Movie Documentary HD
“ALIEN CHRONICLES – ANTARCTIC WORLDS BELOW | The Hidden Kingdom” presents a thought-provoking blend of historical myths, scientific anomalies, and speculative theories. While the idea of a hidden kingdom beneath Antarctica may seem far-fetched, it captures the imagination and underscores the enduring human fascination with the unknown. As scientific exploration of Antarctica continues, who knows what secrets this frozen continent might yet reveal? Whether fact or fiction, the documentary invites viewers to keep an open mind and explore the possibilities that lie beneath the surface of our world.
Vier vrijwilligers hebben in opdracht van de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA een jaar lang het leven op mars gesimuleerd, volledig afgesloten van de buitenwereld.
Twaalf maanden lang verbleven Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell en Nathan Jones in de simulator Mars Dune Alpha. Deze hebben ze nu eindelijk kunnen verlaten.
Het viertal zat omgeven door rood zand en een koepel die hen afschermde van de wereld. Ze leefden gedurende liefst 378 dagen op zo’n 160 vierkante meter. Sinds zaterdagavond mogen ze eindelijk gaan en staan waar ze willen.
NASA voerde dit experiment uit om een missie naar de rode planeet te simuleren om zo kostbare informatie te verwerven om de echte missie uiteindelijk beter te kunnen laten verlopen. De 'fake' astronauten deden “Marswandelingen”, kweekten en oogsten verschillende groenten, onderhielden de apparatuur en opereerden onder stress, zoals op Mars kan gebeuren. Zelfs de communicatie met de aarde werd vertraagd, net zoals bij een echte missie.
De NASA plant nog twee gelijkaardige studies in 2025 en 2027. Het wil in totaal twaalf personen testen.
The UFO community has never been more active than it is now. The phenomenon has always been around us but due to the lack of transparency, it never became so open to discussion. Since the last decade, the number of UFO sightings has increased. And now, we are shooting these objects in the air, leaving the whole world to watch them.
Even after thousands of UFO cases including photos and videos, we have no clue who is behind it. China, Russia, the United States have their experts to investigate the UAPs but surprisingly, they do not blame each other. Perhaps, it is non-human technology and no one has any idea from where it came as filmmaker Jeremy Corbell claims.
It is really shocking and weird that nobody paid attention to former AATIP head Luis Elizondo’s statement about “UFO Occupancy and biological samples.” With Curt Jaimungal on his Theories of Everything (TOE) podcast in 2021, Elizondo carefully hinted that “potentially” the U.S. government has acquired otherworldly biological samples. He also suggested that the government has images of UAPs that appear to show beings inside them.
Elizondo spent 20 years as a military intelligence officer in the Pentagon and during his career, he ran the most secretive UFO program Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). In 2017, after the expose of this secret program, Elizondo whistleblew many things he had learned about UFOs and possible non-human intelligence.
“Have there potentially been biological samples recovered?” Curt asked. ELizondo replied: “Yes. I’m not going to expound on that… and be careful when I say that. I’m being purposely very open and vague at the same time, right? What does that mean? Well, it means what it means.”
Besides, when asked if there are photos that show occupants inside “craft,” Elizondo said: “There are some very compelling photos out there that seem to show something inside, some sort of occupancy, And I’ll leave it at that, because it gets really murky, much beyond that.
And there’s a lot that can be speculated. And so I try to avoid speculation as much as possible. But yes, I’ve spoken to enough people with firsthand knowledge that not only report the crafts that we know exists, but potentially some sort of intelligence inside these vehicles.”
Why isn’t this topic being discussed by everyone on the planet? Is it feasible that the majority of people are disregarding this news, even if they are aware of it? At what point does the truth and its mind-boggling consequences become too conspicuous to overlook?
UFO Occupancy Case
Keeping Elizondo’s words in mind, there is a UFO crash incident outside of Edwards Air Force Base involving a contactee survivor with at least one other witness. It happened to a young woman named Lorraine Dvorak Cordini in 1971. This case is mentioned in different books with minor changes.
According to the eyewitnesses, one summer evening in 1971, the calm Californian night was suddenly broken by a sharp unearthly roar, which ended with an equally frightening rumble. When people ran out of their houses, a large cloud and signs of flames were visible near Edwards Air Force Base in California. Several people stated that they had allegedly seen “three gray humanoids,” as well as a human woman in a strange, tight-fitting pink suit, among the ruins of some wrecked vehicle.
However, before anyone knew what had happened, a lot of military trucks and other vehicles arrived and quickly isolated the area. In addition, they removed the debris and any signs of the incident and took the humanoids and the woman with them. Some residents assumed they were taken to Edwards Military Base.
A witness named Debbie Clayton reported that she had heard a loud crashing noise. There was a cloud of dust outside her home. Ufologist Albert Rosales tracked down that mysterious woman in a pink bodysuit, and she agreed to undergo a hypnotherapy session to remember the events of that night.
Here Lorraine is in a local 1996 newspaper article: “Group prepares for first contact as UFO’s gain more credibility”. In light of current events, these were prophetic words.
Lorraine claimed that she had been abducted from her home, dressed in pink clothes, and taken to a large ship in Earth orbit for an inspection.
She was then put in a smaller ship – the one that crashed – and sent back to Earth with several strange creatures. She woke up already in the military hangar. Even stranger, at least according to the hypnosis sessions, while being there, she saw not only military personnel but also strange creatures with large heads, different from those that took her out of her room.
Needless to say, this whole story seems very strange and raises doubts about its veracity. Clayton was baffled when she found no newspaper written about the story and there was no news about it on TV as well.
It was the first case of the only human survivor found at a Crash Retrieval. Researcher Richard Geldreich Jr. has written details on this case and found the identity of the witness and contactee. Lorraine or Lori was working on her autobiography in 2009 but it never came out, perhaps she passed away before bringing it to the world.
Elizondo is certain about UFO occupancy and recovered alien biological samples. He even gave his candid take on the 1947 Roswell crash in New Mexico and more in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record.
He said he had conversations with so-called “graybeards” at the Pentagon who had been involved with UAPs since Project Blue Book. It was from these individuals that Elizondo learned what probably occurred at Roswell in 1947.
Elizondo said: ”These individuals were convinced that the events in New Mexico were not fiction. In fact that it was a, very much a real event and that some very exotic material was recovered… And then there was a subsequent effort to try to be very dismissive about what occurred in New Mexico.”
On UAP Phenomenon, Elizondo noted: “This is something we’ve been dealing with for a long time. Imagine the first person to get on a boat and sail over the horizon. There’s stories of sea monsters and Krakens that will devour you and destroy your boat. Yet, we did it anyways. We did sail, and we explored the world. It turns out, 500 years later, there really are sea monsters. We call them the Great Squid of the Pacific, and great white sharks and whales.
Now they’re just part of nature and have a scientific name, but those sea monsters still exist. They’re there, we just learned to understand them. Maybe this is the same thing. Maybe this is just another expedition over the horizon where we’re going to realize what we thought were monsters are really just neighbors.”
They aren't all that different from the ones found in Hawaii.
NASA's Juno spacecraft imaged volcanic plumes on the surface of Jovian moon Io.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Image processing by Andrea Luck)
NASA's Juno mission might have originally been all about Jupiter, but its extended mission has the spacecraft observing the gas giant's moons — and it's making some pretty interesting discoveries. Its latest find? The Jovian moon Io is covered in "fire-breathing" lava lakes.
Using its Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument, a project by the Italian Space Agency originally used to peer beneath Jupiter's thick clouds, Juno has captured infrared images of these lakes peppered across Io's surface, which show hot rings of lava surrounding a cooler crust. In the images, the rings are bright white with a thermal signature between 450 and 1,350 degrees Fahrenheit (232 and 732 degrees Celsius). The rest of the lake is much cooler, measuring at some minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 43 degrees Celsius).
"We now have an idea of what is the most frequent type of volcanism on Io: enormous lakes of lava where magma goes up and down," Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, said in a statement. "The lava crust is forced to break against the walls of the lake, forming the typical lava ring seen in Hawaiian lava lakes."
The leading hypothesis is that magma undergoes upwelling in these lava lakes, causing the lakes to rise and fall. When the crust touches the lake's walls — which can be hundreds of meters tall — the friction causes it to break, exposing the lava along the edge of the lake.
A secondary hypothesis suggests that magma wells up in the middle of the lake, pushing the crust outward until it sinks along the edge of the lake, again exposing the lava and forming those lava rings.
An infrared image of Chors Patera, a lava lake on Io. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM/MSSS)
Researchers still have much to study on Io, particularly when it comes to Juno's infrared imagery. "We are just starting to wade into the JIRAM results from the close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024," Scott Bolton, principal investigator for Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in the statement. "Combining these new results with Juno’s longer-term campaign to monitor and map the volcanoes on Io’s never-before-seen north and south poles, JIRAM is turning out to be one of the most valuable tools to learn how this tortured world works."
Mysterious monoliths are once again springing up in odd and remote locations around the world, particularly in North America. Among the latest appearances of these unusual mirrored structures, one recently appeared in the Nevada desert in mid-June, followed closely by another monolith appearing ten days later in Bellvue, Northern Colorado.
Given that Bellvue is about an hour away from where I live, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see one of these mysterious objects for myself.
There doesn’t seem to be an overall pattern to their appearance, but whoever is behind the monoliths (possibly the work of copycats, or maybe even a collective belonging to a larger organization), they do know how to get everyone’s attention with their unique construction and placement, resulting in waves of media attention following each appearance.
Monoliths also have fairly deep roots in science fiction, particularly as methods of communication from other (usually alien) societies, which further amplifies their intrigue. Given their cultural significance, before diving into the history of these mysterious monoliths, let me quickly clarify that I approach this topic with skeptical curiosity. I’m curious to know why someone would go to all the trouble to erect one of these structures, which appear to be made with everyday items like poured concrete and possibly sheet metal (sorry to burst anyone’s bubble that hoped this could be signs of alien contact, and yes, I’m an X-Files fan, too).
I pondered questions like these as I began to make my way north toward Bellvue.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MONOLITH APPEARANCES
In 2020, multiple different types of monoliths appeared across the globe. The structure seemed to be the same for the first three monoliths: a long, tall tower made of mirrored glass with all four vertical sides the same size.
In the case of the first three appearances, the monolith disappeared and then seemed to “reappear” somewhere else (though whether it was the same structure or something that looked similar is unknown).
It should also be mentioned that in several cases, the monoliths have seemingly “disappeared,” although in several instances it is known that they were dismantled and removed by authorities or landowners (as was the case with the monolith in Bellvue shortly after I visited it).
On November 18, 2020, the first monolith appeared in Utah’s Red Rocks County, creating a media circus of fascination mixed with speculation. This monolith quickly disappeared (with a YouTuber claiming to have removed the structure). The second monolith appeared nine days later, on November 27, 2020, in the Romanian city of Piatra Neamt. This second monolith also disappeared on December 1, leaving a large hole in the ground.
The third monolith quickly followed the first two, popping up in Pine Mountain in Atascadero, California, on December 2, 2020. According to a Vox article, the third monolith was disassembled and reappeared elsewhere on December 4, though I haven’t seen other articles mention the reappearance of the California monolith.
It’s important to note that each of the three appearances differed slightly. According to one article, the Romanian Monolith was covered with circles, while the Utah monolith had a smooth surface. They all generally seemed to be the same shape and size, which is why they are often grouped. I should note here that this does not mean they’re connected, though the structures are more similar than the ones that follow these three appearances.
After December 2020, the world seemed to go a bit monolith-crazy as copycat structures popped up around the globe, from Pennsylvania to the Netherlands to Joshua Tree and beyond. One headline after another showcased new monolith “appearances,” even if later they seemed to be proven as mimics or faked entirely. A Business Insider article claimed that December 2020 had over 87 monolith sitings.
Suddenly, all monolith sightings stopped, creating more of an aura of mystique around them as they faded from headlines.
Then, in March 2024, a monolith was spotted on the Welsh landscape. In mid-June 2024, another mysterious monolith appeared in the desert outside Las Vegas. Comparing photo images with the original three monoliths, it seems more similar to those structures than others, as it is a tall, uniformly shaped tower. Las Vegas authorities later took down this monolith. Less than two weeks later, the Colorado Monolith appeared.
Now, with more structures reappearing, the media and the general public are beginning to lean into monolith mania again, connecting these structures with science fiction references, perhaps to understand better why these monoliths are reappearing.
THE SCIENCE FICTION ROOTS OF MONOLITHS
With each monolith appearance, the media usually references extraterrestrials in some fashion. This is mainly due to the popular culture connotations of monoliths, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Still from '2001: A Space Odyssey'
MGM
As a science journalist and science communicator, I am fascinated by the connections between science fiction and science fact, especially when we can utilize science fiction techniques to make science more digestible and accessible to all audiences.
However, in the case of the monoliths, little factual science is being communicated. Instead, awe, curiosity, and speculation swirl in an almost impenetrable fog as people wonder if aliens could have made these structures.
It’s easy to see why people may ask this, as 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably the most popular reference to monoliths and uses a monolith in the film as a way for aliens to communicate with humans. In a later interview, Kubrick stated that, “From the very outset of work on the film, we all discussed means of photographically depicting an extraterrestrial creature in a manner that would be as mind-boggling as the being itself.”
However, 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t the only science fiction work that references or uses monoliths as plot devices. My personal favorite is science fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson’s use of the monolith in his 2001 book Chronoliths, where strange monoliths appear across the globe, made of an indestructible unknown material. The monoliths in Wilson’s book also bear an inscription to a mysterious warlord named Kuin, who had a military victory 20 years into the future. When I heard about the Nevada monolith, I actually texted a single word to my husband, who introduced me to Wilson’s writings: “chronoliths.”
In both of these literary cases, monoliths tie back to an unknown extraterrestrial species, making the connection all too tempting for anyone to wonder about as more real-life monoliths appear.
MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH THE COLORADO MONOLITH
After an hour of driving north, I found myself not in an alien landscape, but instead outside a dairy farm. The nearby Howling Cow Café and its accompanying dairy business made the place in the middle of nowhere seem more charming.
Fortunately for monolith seekers like me, a sign on the establishment’s front door also read, “For the monolith, walk by the fountain and look past the trees.
A monolith near Gass Peak, Nev., on Sunday, June 16, 2024
Following these directions and squinting in the bright Colorado sun, I soon saw the mirrored structure atop a nearby hill. Excited, I moved closer, only to realize I couldn’t touch the monolith as it was on private property. Like the other nearby spectators, I took many photos and videos, my mind trying to capture and make sense of what I was seeing.
I expected something more mysterious. After all, with the media hyping the monolith’s reappearance so much, it seemed like I should have had some sort of emotional reaction to it, or perhaps be stunned into silence. Instead, I felt something more akin to uncanniness, as the monolith appeared like a door in the wide Colorado sky, waiting for someone to step into it.
The Colorado monolith is most certainly a mimic structure, as it’s wider than both the Nevada and Welsh monoliths. While the dairy farm owners claimed not to know anything about its origins, it is possible, like the other monoliths, that someone in the nearby vicinity knows more but is keeping quiet. At least, that seemed to be the case for the Howling Cow Café (and has been in the past for other “convenient” monolith appearances next to businesses).
Even if this structure doesn’t fit with the others, it doesn’t mean it won’t make you feel on edge. As I turned from the monolith to head home, I caught myself looking back, as if feeling it track my movements.
While I’m skeptical about these monoliths’ otherworldly origins, there is one thing I’m not skeptical about: the power of a good mystery.
A metal monolith in the ground in a remote area of red rock in Utah. The mysterious silver monolith that was placed in the Utah desert has disappeared less than 10 days after it was spotted by wildlife biologists performing a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep, federal officials and witnesses said
(AP
Update:
The monolith near Bellvue, Colorado has been removed since the author’s visit to the location. Also, The Debrief’s French correspondent and frequent contributor Baptiste Friscourt has shared with us that the monoliths appear to be the work of “an international collective of artists.” The current whereabouts of the Bellvue monolith since its removal are unknown, as is the identity of its creator(s).
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the Science Communicator at JILA (a world-leading physics research institute) and a science writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with her on X or contact her via email at kenna@thedebrief.org
This is a microscope image of a dark Bennu particle, about a millimeter long, with a crust of bright phosphate. To the right is a smaller fragment that broke off. The presence of phosphate hints that Bennu may have once been part of an ocean world. Image Credit: Lauretta & Connolly et al. (2024) Meteoritics & Planetary Science
Nine months have passed since NASA’s OSIRIS-REx returned its samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth. The samples are some of the Solar System’s primordial, pristine materials. They’ve made their way into scientists’ hands, and their work is uncovering some surprises.
Some of the material in the samples indicates that Bennu had a watery past.
NASA chose Bennu for the OSIRIS-REx sampling mission for several reasons. First, it’s a near-Earth asteroid (NEA), so it’s relatively close to Earth. It’s also not very large at about 500 meters in diameter and rotates slowly enough to allow for a safe sampling procedure.
But the overarching reason was probably its composition. It’s a B-type asteroid, a subtype of carbonaceous asteroids, which means it contains organic molecules. Finding organic molecules throughout the Solar System is one way of tracing its origin and formation.
Returning samples to Earth is the best and most complete way to study asteroids. Asteroid fragments that fall to Earth are scientifically valuable. But much of their lighter material simply burns up when entering Earth’s atmosphere, leaving a huge crater in our understanding.
Space missions always seem to surprise us somehow. If they didn’t, there’d be less impetus to send them. In this case, the sample contains chemicals that OSIRIS-REx didn’t spot when it was studying Bennu.
"Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world.”
Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator, OSIRIS-REx mission
New research in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science presents these findings. It’s titled “Asteroid (101955) Bennu in the laboratory: Properties of the sample collected by OSIRIS-REx.” The co-lead author is Dante S. Lauretta, the principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission and the Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The paper is an overview of the sample and serves as a catalogue from which researchers can request sample material for their research.
“Finally having the opportunity to delve into the OSIRIS-REx sample from Bennu after all these years is incredibly exciting,” Lauretta said in a press release. “This breakthrough not only answers longstanding questions about the early solar system but also opens new avenues of inquiry into the formation of Earth as a habitable planet. The insights outlined in our overview paper have sparked further curiosity, driving our eagerness to explore deeper.”
This image shows OSIRIS-REx’s Bennu sample poured from the TAGSAM into eight trays. Image Credit: NASA/UoA/LPL
“We describe the delivery and initial allocation of this asteroid sample and introduce its bulk physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties from early analyses,” the authors write in their paper. The 120-gram sample dates back billions of years. It’s pristine, meaning it hasn’t melted and resolidified since it was formed.
The astromaterials curation team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center used the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) procedure to document the condition of the sample and the sampling equipment. This was done while the sample was still inside its glovebox, which is highly reflective for this purpose. This is a meticulous process involving hundreds of images stacked together.
Overall, the sample is dark. But there are brighter materials interspersed in it. “Some stones appear mottled by brighter material that occurs as veins and crusts,” the authors write. The largest piece is about 3.5 cm long, but much of it is dust. Stones with hummocky morphologies have the lowest densities, and mottled stones have the highest densities.
“Some of the high-reflectance phases have a hexagonal crystal habit, whereas others appear as clusters of small spheres, platelets, and dodecahedral forms,” the authors write. The collection also contains some individual pieces that are highly reflective.
Overall, the material is grouped into three categories:
Hummocky material with uneven surfaces. Their surfaces feature rounded mounds and depressions reminiscent of cauliflower. This material is generally dark but has some microscopic, brighter material.
Angular particles that have been fractured and have sharper edges. They have hexagonal and polygonal shapes and have some layering. They’re generally dark, but some faces have a metallic lustre and specular reflections. They also have some highly reflective inclusions like the hummocky material.
Mottled particles that are mostly darker but have layers of reflective material. The reflective material fills in small cracks in the darker material and also occurs as bright, individual flakes.
The three sub-types of material in the Bennu sample are hummocky, angular, and mottled. Image Credit: Lauretta et al. 2024.
Representative samples were also analyzed at other institutions in the US using different instruments including a plasma mass spectrometer, an infrared spectrometer, and an X-ray computer tomographer. These examinations revealed other information, like particle densities and elemental abundances. In particular, it contains isotopic information for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. It also compares these abundances to those of other asteroids.
But what jumps out from this initial analysis is the sample’s serpentine and other clay minerals. Their presence is similar to what’s found on Earth’s mid-ocean ridges, where Earth’s mantle encounters water.
Earth’s mid-ocean ridges are where seafloor spreading takes place. Rising hot rock meets the oceans, driving the serpentinization process. Image Credit: By 37ophiuchi BrucePL – Based on diagram File: Mittelozeanischer Ruecken – Schema.png. I translated it from German to English and revised the outlines of rock units. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79658206
On Earth, contact between mantle material and ocean water also creates clays and other minerals like carbonates, iron oxides, and iron sulphides. These were also found in the Bennu sample.
But one finding stands out among the rest: water-soluble phosphates. These compounds are found throughout Earth’s biosphere and are an important component of biochemistry.
JAXA’s Hayabusa 2 mission found a similar phosphate in its sample from asteroid Ryugu. But the phosphate from Bennu is different. Unlike any other asteroid sample, it has no inclusions and different-sized grains. The magnesium sodium phosphate in the Bennu sample suggests a watery past.
This image shows reflective phosphate in one of the rocks in the Bennu sample. The presence of phosphates suggests a watery past. Image Credit: Lauretta et al. 2024.
“The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds on Bennu, suggest a watery past for the asteroid,” Lauretta said. “Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world. Although, this hypothesis requires further investigation.”
In their paper, the authors outline several hypotheses for Bennu’s past. One of them states that “… the dominant lithologies on Bennu’s surface have mineralogical, petrological, and compositional properties closely resembling those of the most aqueously altered carbonaceous chondrites.”
The Bennu sample also shows that the asteroid is chemically primitive, meaning it has remained largely unchanged since its formation. The rocks have not melted and resolidified since their initial creation. The asteroid’s elemental properties also mirror that of the Sun.
“The sample we returned is the largest reservoir of unaltered asteroid material on Earth right now,” Lauretta said.
This figure from the research shows a reflected light image (a) and a UV fluorescence image (b) of a part of the Bennu sample. The UV fluorescence microscopy image shows the distribution of carbonates and phosphates (blue fluorescence) and organic nanoglobules (yellow fluorescence). Image Credit: Lauretta et al. 2024.
The initial research also shows that Bennu is rich in carbon and nitrogen, critical clues to the asteroid’s origins. These chemicals also play a role in the appearance of life, adding to the intrigue.
“These findings underscore the importance of collecting and studying material from asteroids like Bennu – especially low-density material that would typically burn up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere,” said Lauretta. “This material holds the key to unraveling the intricate processes of solar system formation and the prebiotic chemistry that could have contributed to life emerging on Earth.”
Harold Connolly is a co-author of the study and the mission sample scientist who leads the Sample Analysis Team. He’s also a professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and a visiting research scientist at UArizona. “The Bennu samples are tantalizingly beautiful extraterrestrial rocks,” Connolly said. “Each week, analysis by the OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team provides new and sometimes surprising findings that are helping place important constraints on the origin and evolution of Earthlike planets.”
And this is really just the beginning. With these evaluations in hand and the sample catalogued, research scientists around the world will request samples for their own research.
Whatever caused the sudden deaths of dozens of cattle in northwestern Colorado late last year remains elusive, according to officials who ended their investigation into the matter last month.
The unexplained incidents received widespread media attention, giving rise to speculations involving everything from wolf depredation and soil based pathogens, to stirring—but unfounded—claims of a mysterious “creature” that “left no tracks” responsible for the killings.
However, an investigation by The Debrief based on documents obtained through Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, as well as interviews with investigators who probed the mysterious deaths, have revealed new details about the incidents that perplexed state officials and local cattle farmers on Colorado’s Western Slope last year.
AN UNSETTLING DISCOVERY
THE ORDEAL BEGAN in early October 2022, with the discovery of several calf carcasses strewn about the 13,000 contiguous deeded acres that comprise the family-owned and operated LK Ranch, located eight miles southeast of Meeker, Colorado.
Bordering Colorado’s scenic White River National Forest, one of the country’s most-visited national parks, the ranch is operated by the Klinglesmith family, a well-known and respected mainstay of the Meeker community and past recipients of a Wildlife Landowners of the Year recognition by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
“The Klinglesmiths are the epitome of the rural, hard-working cattle rancher,” said Baily Franklin, Meeker District Wildlife Manager at the time of the family’s recognition, “and they serve as tremendous role models in northwestern Colorado.”
On October 4, 2022, the family discovered a total of 19 calf carcasses on their property, along with the remains of one adult cow. Eighteen of the calves were all located within just 1.5 miles of one another, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services were quickly notified.
One of several instances involving mysterious cattle deaths discovered near Meeker, Colorado, last Autumn (Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
“We were first notified about October 4 of a livestock producer that had found some dead cattle,” said CPW Northwest Region Manager Travis Black in an interview with The Debrief. Black said a local CPW District Wildlife Manager and the USDA Wildlife Services control specialist were accompanied by another local officer from a neighboring region during an initial visit to the location where the remains were located.
“Several carcasses had tails missing and marks consistent with canine teeth,” the Klinglesmith family would later report in an update on the investigation that appeared on November 28, 2022. While the carcasses appeared to display hemorrhaging in locations where CPW investigators are trained to look for signs of depredation by canines, the possibility that wolves might have been involved presented unique challenges for investigators trying to determine whether an animal was responsible for some of the killings.
“Our district wildlife officers are trained in identifying depredation primarily from bears and [mountain] lions,” Black told The Debrief.
“Wolves [are] a new one for us,” Black said, although emphasizing that the neighboring CPW officer who assisted in the early investigations had recently undergone training specifically focused on recognizing wolf depredation.
“The local district wildlife officer had twenty-plus years doing this job,” Black said. “It’s not like this was a new guy that didn’t know what he was doing.”
Necropsies were carried out on several of the earliest calf discoveries to aid in determining their cause of death. On October 7, an additional calf carcass was discovered, this time in the Wilson Pasture area along the east fork of Flag Creek, according to a partially redacted document providing a timeline of the discoveries obtained by The Debrief through an Open Records Act request.
Two days later, on October 9, another carcass was discovered at West Miller Creek, and over the course of the next two weeks, the total number of dead calves would climb to 42, excluding two additional deaths resulting from sick calves found by the Klinglesmith family on October 9 believed to have been suffering from Brisket disease, a condition found in cattle residing at high altitudes that sometimes results in heart failure.
A map indicating locations of calf remains discovered near Meeker, Colorado, in October 2022
(Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
However, as the investigation continued and additional cattle remains were discovered, one perplexing common trait began to emerge: only a handful seemed to show what CPW officials believed to be signs of wolf depredation.
“The three individuals involved, along with the landowner, decided that there were some injuries on a handful of these calves,” Black told The Debrief. “And I’m talking about four or five of them, not all eighteen.”
“A lot of those dead calves didn’t show any physical marks on the outside, but there were a handful of them that they determined were consistent with wolf depredation,” Black said.
“That does not mean that we said wolves did it.”
However, as investigators worked to understand what factors—or combinations of them—were behind the cattle deaths, the question over wolf involvement only promised to further aggravate a brewing storm that Colorado officials had long been dreading; one with roots that extend all the way back to the early 19th century, and the era of government-sanctioned wolf hunting in America.
OF WOLF AND MAN
DURING THE MIDDLE of the nineteenth century, beavers and other animal populations were in acute decline due to a demand for their pelts. As a result, many professional hunters turned their attention toward a new quarry that was capable of demanding comparable prices in the burgeoning fur trade.
Employing poison traps baited with elk, bison, or other natural prey of the canine predators to help ensure their pelts could be retrieved intact, between the years of 1870 and 1877 as many as 100,000 wolves were killed annually.
The era of the “Wolfers” had begun.
A Wolfer with his hounds, pictured near Amidon, North Dakota, in 1904
(public domain).
More than two centuries earlier, the first bounty systems on wolves were instituted in European settlements in America. A cash reward of a penny for each of the animals killed was instituted in Massachusetts Bay Colony as early as 1630, and by 1818 with the declaration of the “War of Extermination” against wolves and bears in Ohio, several more states began adopting bounty systems against wolves.
Shortly before its establishment as a state on August 1, 1876, a bounty system was established in what would become the State of Colorado in 1869. Similar bounty systems were established in Wyoming, Montana, and other states during the ensuing decades. By the turn of the century, wolf populations had declined significantly in many parts of America. In 1915, the first official government wolf hunters were hired, remaining in action until June 30, 1942. During this period, more than 24,132 wolves were killed under the direction of the United States government.
Artist’s depiction of former Presdient Theodore Roosevelt engaging in a wolf hunt in 1907
(public domain).
By the 1960s, wolf populations in the contiguous 48 states had reached record-low numbers, with scattered pockets of the remaining 350 to 750 animals existing in parts of extreme northeastern Minnesota. With the passing of the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1966, the timber wolf became the first species of American wolf that officially became recognized as endangered under federal law.
The protection of this single wolf species didn’t stop the animals from being killed, however. Between 1969 and 1974, in response to ongoing depredation of livestock, a Directed Predator Control Program conducted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources still resulted in the killing of an average of 64 wolves each year, with $50 incentives offered to designated trappers in various parts of the state who harvested wolves. It wasn’t until the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was enacted by Congress and implemented under the direction of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that gray wolves and subspecies like the eastern timber wolf and Rocky Mountain wolf finally saw federal protection.
Recovery plans to help re-establish the decimated American wolf populations began in the late 1970s in various states, mostly undertaken by the USFWS, although the reinstatement of trapping resulting from the depredation of livestock continued for short periods in several states.
By the end of the century, work to manage wolf populations in various states continued. Throughout the early 2000s, the reclassification of gray wolf populations into three distinct population segments, as well as the proposed delisting of wolf species and other developments related to wolves in America, resulted in several legal controversies (an entire timeline of events detailing these events can be found at the website of the International Wolf Center).
Photo 1084F, taken in North Park, Colorado, depicts a wolf spotted in the wild in July 2019. The photo was later submitted anonymously to CPW
(Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
In October 2020, the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species Act list of endangered animals in the contiguous 48 United States. In November of that same year, Proposition 114, a ballot initiative that sought to reintroduce wolves west of the continental divide in Colorado, went to vote and was passed. Now recognized as state statute 33-2-105.8, it directs the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop a gray wolf reintroduction and management plan no later than December 31, 2023. It also allocates state funding to aid livestock owners “in preventing conflicts with gray wolves and pay fair compensation for livestock losses.”
Then, in October 2022 as dozens of dead calves were being found on the LK Ranch southeast of Meeker, Colorado, CPW officials realized they had a real problem on their hands.
That would especially be the case if wolves were found to be responsible.
CATTLE DEATHS AND CONSPIRACY CLAIMS
AS THE INVESTIGATIONS continued, Colorado officials remained baffled by the strange cattle deaths. Despite the questions that remained, a handful of the incidents did appear to present indications of canine activity. On October 7, 2022, CPW issued a news release revealing to the public that investigations into possible wolf depredations on U.S. Forest Service Land in the Meeker area were underway.
“This is an active investigation and CPW is working closely with the livestock producer to collect additional evidence, including looking for scat and tracks in the area,” the release stated. “If the depredations are confirmed as being caused by wolves, CPW will work in partnership with the livestock producer to implement approved hazing methods and respond to any damage claims submitted.”
“It is important to note,” the release added, “that no wolf reintroductions have taken place yet in Colorado and recent depredation incidents are not related to or a result of wolf reintroduction efforts in Colorado.”
Despite its careful wording, pushback following the CPW’s October news release came almost immediately.
“I received emails, mostly from wolf advocates, that were concerned that misinformation was being provided to the public and to ranchers,” Black told The Debrief, who said he became an easy target for parties who believed CPW was siding with local livestock producers worried about how the reintroduction of wolves could potentially impact their business.
“I was accused of collusion,” Black said, “and cooperation with livestock producers to try and stir up, you know, fear of wolves.”
“And it couldn’t be further from the truth,” Black said of the allegations. “We were just trying to follow an investigative process and figure out exactly what happened in a very unusual case.”
According to a copy of a livestock depredation guide produced for internal use by CPW officials that The Debrief obtained, wolf depredation is usually indicated by wounds inflicted to the hindquarters, flanks, throat, and front legs of large animals like cattle. Wolves also prefer most often to feed on the viscera and hindquarters of large livestock first, although large bones “may be chewed or broken while smaller bones may be consumed,” and such feeding patterns “are not always obvious on prey killed by packs.”
Screenshot from a depredation guide detailing signs commonly associated with wolf depredation (Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
The guide also provides details on the spacing of puncture wounds left by canine teeth, noting the difference between those of wolves and coyotes generally involves a wider width when wolf depredation is involved. The spoor left by wolves is also larger than that of coyotes, with adult wolf tracks generally around 4.75 to 5 inches in length and 4 inches wide.
A Colorado Parks and Wildlife wolf support work summary dated October 24, 2022, states that biologists from the White River National Forest set up ten wildlife cameras in the area on October 11, 2022, just days after the initial group of dead calves were found.
“Reconyx cameras were used and placed on trees 7-9 meters across from another tree scented with a lure attractant,” read a copy of the document obtained by The Debrief. Additionally, a pair of howling stations were established along Forest Road 217 on the same day the cameras were installed.
“We removed all cameras on October 21st,” the document states. “No wolves were photographed on our cameras during the deployment window of October 11-21.”
Additionally, howling surveys conducted during the same period the cameras remained in use produced no audio recordings of wolves, and investigations along muddy areas near where one recently deceased calf body had been discovered “showed no canine tracks,” and “no scat was noted.”
At least a few scat samples collected and analyzed at other locations by CPW investigators “did not provide any DNA amplification,” according to emails reviewed by The Debrief, although a total of 14 hair samples were also collected during this period. One of the hair samples provided no amplification, and 12 were identified as bovine. Intriguingly, the final sample was determined to belong to a “wild canid,” although the research molecular biologist who performed the analysis said it had “a messy analysis and indicated coyote,” but added that “not much should be read into that as the sample was very degraded.”
The Debrief reached out to the biologist who provided these results, although the individual declined to comment further based on their limited involvement with the CPW’s investigation.
The question remained, then, as to what had been responsible for the deaths of more than 40 cattle around Meeker, Colorado, within a few short weeks. By now, with little evidence to support the presence of wolves in the area, some investigators were leaning toward the possibility that a very different kind of killer might have been involved.
A killer of the unseen kind.
ON THE TRACK OF AN INVISIBLE KILLER
AS THE DAYS wore on and more dead calves continued to be found, investigators were becoming convinced that the evidence in hand simply did not support the conclusion that wolves could have had any significant involvement. Eventually, a new possible explanation came to their attention: a soil-based pathogen called clostridium chauvoei associated with a condition called black leg, known to sometimes occur in both cattle and sheep.
“As we researched this clostridial disease and outbreaks in other regions of the world with large casualties, some similarities to this situation were recognized,” the Klinglesmith family wrote in their November 2022 update. Still, one of the prevailing questions involved what circumstances might have caused a large number of cattle to suddenly fall victim to this unseen pathogen.
Microscopic image of bovine heart tissue showing evidence of clostridium bacteria (Credit: Abreu, et al/Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation).
According to one study cited in the family’s November update, “when the oxygen tension drops in areas of muscle in which spores are present, usually as a consequence of blunt trauma and associated tissue hemorrhage, degeneration, and necrosis, the spores germinate, proliferate, and produce toxins that are responsible for most clinical signs and lesions of black leg.” Such conditions would also seem to be consistent with the small number of initial cattle deaths around Meeker that displayed evidence of canine depredation.
Another possible factor involved a management decision among producers in the area to change the normal vaccination schedule, which usually entailed a spring and fall dose of 8-way vaccine, and instead administer a pair of fall doses. “The 8-way vaccine contains and protects against eight clostridial strains,” the Klinglesmith family wrote in their November update. “This change in vaccine protocol allowed us to focus spring immune responses on the four main respiratory viruses, and Pasteurella.”
“Our goal in changing vaccine protocol was to administer fewer antibiotics throughout the summer months for respiratory sicknesses,” the family wrote, “and we were successful in this aspect.”
However, the change in vaccine protocol may have also left several cattle that season susceptible to any forms of clostridium that might be present. In their update, the Klinglesmiths noted that “if in fact a clostridial was triggered by an attack, with a return to our original vaccine protocol we should be able to avoid the heavy casualties,” thereby reducing “our losses to a few depredation casualties,” and maintaining a strategy that “fits the research and experience consistently reported in the Northern Rockies.”
Ultimately, the results from pathology tests for the presence of clostridium chauvoei would be the final say in the matter. But before those tests could be completed, the sobering number of unexplained cattle deaths occurring around Meeker had already become the subject of significant attention from the media, which only further complicated an already uneasy situation for CPW officials.
It certainly didn’t help that among the speculations now in circulation were new claims of a “mysterious creature” that could have been responsible for the killings.
MYSTERIOUS MUTILATIONS AND KILLER CREATURES
THROUGHOUT THE EARLY 1970s, a wave of unsettling livestock deaths and mutilations captured the attention of people across the nation, deaths the likes of which Colorado had its fair share.
“Given the rate of human slaughter in any large American city, it might not seem too important that between April and September of this year 129 cattle were mutilated in the state of Colorado,” read an article by Alexander Cockburn in the December 1975 issue of Esquire. Similar stories appearing around the time drew attention from politicians like U.S. Senator from New Mexico Harrison Schmitt, as well as U.S. Senator Floyd Haskell of Colorado, who began to appeal to then-Attorney General Griffin B. Bell and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help in the matter.
One of several FBI documents detailing cattle mutilation incidents reported in the U.S. during the 1970s
(Credit: FBI).
“If the FBI will not enter the investigation of mysterious livestock deaths in Colorado and some adjacent states, then Sen. Floyd Haskell, D-Colo., should take the matter to Congress for resolution,” read a Denver Post article on September 3, 1975. The FBI, citing the absence of “interstate transportation” that would warrant attention from federal authorities, advised that “Our jurisdiction was explained to Senator Haskell and he said that he understood our statutory limitations,” according to a September 12, 1975 memorandum (the FBI’s entire collection of files related to animal mutilations can be read online here).
Quite unlike the cattle deaths that occurred near Meeker, Colorado, last Autumn, the cattle mutilation incidents that peaked during the mid-1970s reportedly involved animals found dead with selected organs and other body parts removed, and often blood drained from their carcasses. Between 1973 and 1976 alone, more than 1500 alleged cattle mutilations in 22 U.S. states were reported, prompting speculations about everything from satanic cults and secretive government research efforts to UFOs.
Although many of the cattle mutilation incidents from throughout the decades remain unsolved, nothing that conclusively links them to cultists, government agencies, or aliens with a flavor for filet mignon has ever surfaced. However, the persistence of such stories throughout the decades—tales now legendary among many Colorado cattle producers—did little to help the situation when dead calves started appearing around Meeker last October.
Black recalled one phone call he received from a family member who “asked if we had aliens or something.”
“There were a lot of kinda wild theories thrown out there,” Black told The Debrief.
By the end of November 2022, characterizations of the Meeker cattle deaths as having involved an “elusive predator” or a “mystery killer” began appearing after the publication of an article in the New York Post which, although correct in most of the details about what was known at the time about the evolving investigations by CPW and other Colorado officials, built intrigue by attributed dozens of the cattle deaths to an unknown predator “that has left no tracks.”
The remains of another calf found during investigations into cattle deaths near Meeker, Colorado, last fall
(Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
Based on emails from officials obtained by The Debrief through Colorado Open Records Act requests, the sensational media coverage of the situation did not go unnoticed by CPW investigators, who were growing increasingly frustrated by the elusive source behind the cattle deaths.
“I’m sure you’re aware of the consternation about the deaths of Lenny Klinglesmith’s cattle, and it seems to be getting worse,” read one email reviewed by The Debrief, where an official referred to an article by one news outlet as “not very good in multiple ways.”
“I’m sure you can appreciate that the press will write a story (both good and bad), and that is out of our control,” another email message read.
“If some want to jump to conclusions, that is their prerogative,” it continued. “Yes, the speculation isn’t helping,” the official wrote. “Neither will pushing for a final answer without due diligence.”
Another email exchange on November 30, 2022, noted that “The media continues to twist this story how they see fit,” adding that “One side wants to downplay wolf involvement. The other wants to blame wolves.”
Speaking with The Debrief, Black recalled his own frustrations over the media coverage the CPW’s investigation generated.
“We can’t control what the media says,” Black told The Debrief. “We tried to provide as detailed information as we could during this event, and they tend to pick and choose pieces of that or take some of it out of context and develop their own story.”
However, the details of that story would only become more complicated once the results of pathology tests for possible clostridium infection finally returned.
INCONCLUSIVE ANALYSIS
ON OCTOBER 20, 2022, results from the Colorado State University Diagnostic Laboratory returned with pathology results from samples collected at the scene of several of the Meeker cattle deaths. While noting the presence of “significant autolysis in the skeletal muscle sections which makes interpretation difficult,” the results of the analysis nonetheless concluded that “there is no evidence of necrosis or active inflammation to suggest Black Leg,” the infectious bacterial disease associated with clostridium chauvoei.
Another series of samples tested by the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory yielded similar results on October 21, 2022, indicating “no microscopic lesions in the tissues examined that explain the cause of death in this animal.”
“This is frustrating,” Black wrote in an email to another CPW official dated Wednesday, November 30, 2022. “Initial assessments made by [District Wildlife Managers] and Wildlife Services staff said there were multiple injuries consistent with wolf depredation. I’ve seen some of the photos… I understand why they made that assumption. However, there is no other supporting evidence.”
Partially redacted theodolite image of cattle remains photographed during investigations in October, 2022, obtained by The Debrief through a Colorado Open Records Act Request
(Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
“Then the possibility of Clostridium bacteria came up,” Black’s email continued. “This seemed to answer a lot of questions. Then samples and lab analysis failed to positively point to this as [the] cause of death.”
“It also creates a lot of room for conjecture,” Black wrote. “Did wolves chase the cattle or attack them initially and cause a low oxygen environment within tissue that exacerbated the bacteria and created a toxin? Or is this natural progression of the disease?”
“Nobody can seem to give us a definitive answer.”
THE INVESTIGATION ENDS, AND QUESTIONS REMAIN
ON FEBRUARY 7, 2023, four months after the first dead calves were discovered near Meeker, CPW announced that it was closing its investigation, despite there being no conclusive explanation that could account for all the cattle deaths.
“CPW investigators could not determine the exact cause of death for a few calves with hide damage and trauma consistent with a canine attack,” the news release stated
According to the CPW release, the discovery of a pack of nine dogs seven miles from where the cattle deaths occurred that were blamed for harassing wildlife, “cast doubt on whether wolves were in the area.”
“CPW is working with the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s office on a call-by-call basis and will deal with any domestic dog issues according to legal processes,” the release added.
Black was quoted in the release saying that while some cattle displayed wounds that were “consistent with injuries from large canines,” there had been “no confirmation of wolves in the area,” adding that “we do not have specific evidence to determine what species of canid caused the depredations.”
In Colorado, a 90-day window is allotted for producers to present proof of loss when deaths suspected to be the result of animal depredation occur. Following last October’s cattle deaths, the investigation by CPW was officially closed after the expiration of this window period.
“The Klinglesmith family would like to thank the local DWMs and veterinary staff for the many hours spent in the field and in the office investigating this incident,” Lenny Klinglesmith was quoted saying in the release, which added that his family did not plan to pursue compensation for the losses “Due to lack of evidence of wolves in the area.”
One week later on February 14, The Humane Society of the United States reported that wolves had been ruled out as a cause behind the Meeker cattle deaths, admonishing CPW officials for assessments they said “led to anti-wolf hysteria” among residents and certain stakeholders on the Colorado Western Slope.
“A wildlife expert who examined photos of dead cows obtained by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in an open records request has concluded that wolves are not to blame for the deaths of 41 cattle whose bodies were found near Meeker, Colorado in 2022,” the press release read.
According to a report based on a review of CPW documents provided by the HSUS, Carter Niemeyer, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture District Supervisor and Wolf Management Specialist wrote that there wasn’t any evidence that supported wolf involvement in the cattle deaths in Colorado last year.
“Based on the evidence in these photos,” Niemeyer wrote in his report, “it [is] my opinion that wolves had nothing to do with the death of Meeker cattle. I don’t really see any evidence of dog bites either. Although they can be less damaging, dogs can inflict serious injuries to the legs of cattle or even the faces/nose.”
“I believe the cattle died fairly quickly where they were standing,” Niemeyer continued, “and the cause had nothing to do with predation of any sort.” Niemeyer also raised the question of whether Brisket disease might have played a more significant role in the deaths, based on communications that referenced a pair of cattle deaths that were believed to have been caused by this condition.
“My question would be – If a couple of cattle died this way, it is reasonable to assume others did too,” Niemeyer wrote. “Brisket disease is a well-known and recognized condition in cattle that graze at high elevations in Colorado.”
“In conclusion, I did NOT see any evidence of wolf predation in any of the images provided,” Niemeyer wrote.
LINGERING QUESTIONS
FOR TRAVIS BLACK, what began as an investigation into how more than 40 cattle died in his home state last year blossomed into a controversy that eventually made its way into headlines around the world. At the heart of the investigation had been the concerns of a respected ranch family in Meeker, who felt an obligation to communicate with their neighbors in the region about the unsettling situation that had invaded their lives.
It is a situation that, even today, remains unresolved.
“It was Mr. Klinglesmith that first reached out to the media about this,” Black told The Debrief. “And I understand where he was coming from. I’d probably have made the same decision if I’d been that producer.”
However, those initial efforts to provide clear and reliable information to the public about the investigation also drew media attention, which eventually gave rise to misperceptions about the investigation that would further hamper efforts to get to the bottom of the deaths.
“That certainly caused the media to start inquiring,” Black said. “It put CPW in a position where we had to put something out, right? To let them know, yes, something happened. We’re investigating it.”
Yet those investigations seemed to have only left people like Black and his coworkers with more questions than answers about what factors might have caused the bizarre deaths.
“I go back to the drum I keep beating,” Black maintains. “We saw injuries consistent with wolf depredations.”
“But never once did we say it was wolves.”
Black says the headlines that played up the mysterious aspects of the deaths, characterizing them as “slayings” by some unidentified “creature” had likely only fed into the misperception that wolves, or perhaps some other animal, were to blame.
“It did make managing the situation difficult,” Black said, noting that the media coverage and resulting rumor mill prompted CPW to hold a commission meeting on November 17, 2022, where Black attempted to update the public and “put to rest some of the rumors that were flying out there.”
However, as the end of the three-month period allotted to producers like the Klinglesmith family to provide evidence of loss steadily approached, it became evident to all parties that a resolution was unlikely to be found before the deadline arrived.
“We coordinated with the landowner, and he agreed,” Black told The Debrief. “In consultation with Klinglesmith, we agreed to close the investigation.”
Throughout the duration of CPW’s inquiry, Black says that there was no clear evidence of wolves uncovered during the 90-day investigation period. However, equally frustrating to investigators had been that in addition to the scant evidence of canine depredation, there had also been no clear evidence that any of the other potential causes CPW had explored were to blame.
“We couldn’t say [definitively] that it was clostridium. We couldn’t say for certain that it was dogs [or] other canines that harassed the cattle.”
“There just wasn’t enough evidence to support any of the above,” Black said.
The question remains as to what the actual cause behind the deaths of so many cattle around Meeker last year had been, although several possibilities exist. Perhaps some yet-to-be-determined pathogen had been to blame, which might explain why tests for any of the suspected strains of clostridium turned up empty-handed. It also seems plausible—if not likely—that the changes to the vaccination schedules that occurred earlier in 2022 had been related to the deaths in some way.
Another alternative is Brisket disease, a condition that is recognized for affecting mostly high-altitude cattle populations like those in northwestern Colorado but can sometimes manifest in cattle dwelling as low as 3000 feet. Brisket disease was also confirmed in at least two of the incidents reported by the Klinglesmiths last year early in the investigation and perhaps should not be ruled out as having been a potential factor in more of the cattle deaths.
Still another possibility might involve a form of toxin present in the environment, which calves could have been exposed to either through ingestion of vegetation or other food sources or through contaminated water. Presently, although there is no evidence of contaminants in the environment known to have been detected by CPW investigators, examples of bovine deaths resulting from toxicity have occurred elsewhere in recent years. These include cattle deaths in Ontario in 2007 that were later attributed to the consumption of Senecio jacobaea, a plant more commonly known as Tansy ragwort.
In the aftermath of the strange ordeal, there is at least one thing that seems very clear to Travis Black, although it offers little consolation in light of the mysterious incidents that pushed his community into the international spotlight last year.
“The only thing I could say,” Black told The Debrief, “is that there was zero evidence of wolves.”
Could We Replace Ingenuity With a Swarm of Robotic Bees?
Humans finally achieved controlled flight on another planet for the first time just a few years ago. Ingenuity, the helicopter NASA sent to Mars, performed that difficult task admirably. It is now taking a well-deserved rest until some intrepid human explorer someday comes by to pick it up and hopefully put it in a museum somewhere. But what if, instead of a quadcopter, NASA used a series of flexible-wing robots akin to bees to explore the Martian terrain? That was the idea behind the Marsbee proposal by Chang-Kwon Kang and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The project was supported by a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant back in 2018 – let’s see what they did with it.
The concept was initially inspired by work at the University of Tokyo on a dragonfly-like micro aerial vehicle (MAV). It is one of the few drones able to fly in Earth’s gravity using flexible wings that flap. But would it be useful on Mars?
Mars has both advantages and disadvantages compared to Earth when considering whether flexible wing flight is possible. In the advantage column, it has about ? of the gravity of our home planet, so less force is necessary for an aircraft to lift off. However, there is only about 1% of the atmosphere on Mars compared to Earth, so a flexible-wing aircraft would have significantly less atmosphere to push off to create that force.
Fraser explains Ingenuity’s final fate.
Ultimately, part of the Phase I project for the Marsbee grant was to determine whether the approach was feasible. But why do so in the first place? Ingenuity, known at the time as the Mars 2020 Helicopter, was already on the path to conducting the first powered flight on another planet. While it was successful at its stated mission, it had several downsides, including a relatively large size, which is at a premium on interplanetary trips, and a flight time limited to only about 3 minutes.
Neither of those limitations was a show-stopper, obviously, but a flexible-wing aircraft that is smaller and lighter could solve both of those problems. Engineers could potentially even store multiple craft in the same space as what Ingenuity needed in its ride-along with Perseverance. But would they work?
The short answer appears to be “not without additional technical development.” Modeling of the design showed weaknesses in a few areas that must be addressed before launching any successful Marsbee mission. The biggest hurdle appeared to be how flexible structures, like those that would make up the system’s wings, interacted with the uncertain aerodynamic environment of the Red Planet.
Video describing the Marsbee concept. Credit – NASA 360 YouTube Channel
Other challenges include the weight of the battery pack and the development of a guidance and control system that could deal with the randomly windy Martian atmosphere while remaining small and light enough to fit on a flexible wing flyer. Also, it would be challenging to direct the flyers without a GPS, which doesn’t yet exist on Mars.
For now, efforts to develop Marsbees seem to have been put on hold, at least for the last several years. With the success of Ingenuity, many questions about the feasibility of flight on the Red Planet have already been answered. But with a little more technical development and derisking, it might be possible that someday we’ll see flights of robotic bees buzzing around the Red Planet.
Alpha Centauri Could Have a Super Jupiter in Orbit
This image of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri AB also shows the much fainter red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The picture was created from pictures forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The blue halo around Alpha Centauri AB is an artifact of the photographic process, the star is really pale yellow in colour like the Sun. Image Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2 Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin/Mahdi Zamani
Alpha Centauri Could Have a Super Jupiter in Orbit
The three-body problem is one of Nature’s thorniest problems. The gravitational interactions and resulting movements of three bodies are notoriously difficult to predict because of instability. A planet orbiting two stars is an example of the three-body problem, but it’s sometimes called a “restricted three-body problem.” In that case, there are some potential stable orbits for a planet.
A new study shows that the nearby Alpha Centauri AB pair could host a Super Jupiter in a stable orbit.
“The three-body problem, which seeks stable orbit configurations among gravitating bodies, is a longstanding challenge in celestial mechanics,” Feng writes. Feng examines ? Centauri AB, our nearest binary neighbour, to understand if the system could host a super Jupiter and what orbit the giant planet could follow.
Feng isn’t the first astronomer to tackle the problem. “As the closest triple stellar system to Earth, Alpha Centauri system has attracted diverse studies in astronomy, including exoplanet stability,” Feng writes. Though the entire Alpha Centauri system is a triple star system, ? Centauri AB are far enough from the third star that they comprise a binary system.
Size comparisons for the Alpha Centauri A and B, Proxima Centauri, and the Sun. Image Credit: Planetary Habitability Lab/UPR Arecibo
There are some solutions to the three-body problem if one of the bodies has a negligible mass compared to the other two. ? Centauri AB is a pair of Sun-like stars. ? Centauri A is a class G star a little more massive than the Sun, and ? Centauri B is a class K star a little less massive than the Sun.
The study compares the ? Centauri AB system with a similar star system named GJ65AB (Gliese 65). It’s a binary pair known to host a Neptune-mass exoplanet. Though Gliese 65 is a pair of M-dwarfs, the comparison is still valuable because it “shares similar mass ratios and orbital eccentricities,” Feng writes. Gliese 65 is also close at only about 8.8 light-years from Earth. Feng also performed simulations of the ? Centauri AB system to test the idea of it hosting an exoplanet.
“The similarities between GJ65AB and Alpha Centauri AB, together with the newly detected stable super Neptune in the GJ65 system, suggest the stability of the corresponding potential super Jupiter in Alpha Centauri AB,” Feng writes. The Gliese 65 and the Alpha Centauri AB systems have nearly identical mass ratios and eccentricities. If GJ65 can host a planet in a stable orbit, can ? Centauri AB also host one?
Feng used the Mean Exponential Growth factor of Nearby Orbits (MEGNO) method to test the potential stability of a super Jupiter at ? Centauri AB. First, he used it to simulate the GJ65AB system and the newly discovered planet to verify the planet’s orbital stability. Then, he did the same with ? Centauri AB. “For this simulation, we restricted the semimajor axis of the planet to range from 0.1 to 5.0 au, and eccentricities less than 0.5,” Feng writes.
The MEGNO simulations for Gliese 65 showed that the newly discovered Neptune mass planet should be stable.
This figure from the research shows MEGNO results for Gliese 65. Dynamically stable regions of e (orbital eccentricity) and a (astronomical units) are shown in green, and the results show that the planet discovered around GJ65 should be stable. We identified the stable zone spanning from 0.1 to ~ 0.35 au, which contains all the stable orbits for ? ranging from 0 to 0.5 to ~0.35 au, which contains all the stable orbits for ? ranging from 0 to 0.5,” Feng explains. Image Credit: Feng 2024.
The next step was to find stable orbits for a planet orbiting ? Centauri AB. To do that, Feng used ? Centauri A as the primary star and injected a 350 Earth-mass planet at a distance of 23.336 AU. All of the other parameters were similar to GJ65 but scaled to ? Centauri AB. “We figured out the stable zone with ? spanning from 0.1 to ~ 2.2 au, and ? ranges from 0 to 0.5,” Feng writes.
Feng says that the “potentially stable planet” should have ? about equal to 1.189 and ? about equal to 0.33. Those numbers place the planet in the stable zone in MEGNO results.
This figure from the study is a stability map based on MEGNO values for a Jupiter-mass planet in Alpha Centauri AB. Dynamically stable regions are coloured in green. For a stable planet around ? Centauri AB to “mimic” the stability of the newly discovered Neptune planet around GJ65, the planet would have ? about equal to 1.189 and ? about equal to 0.33, which places it right in the green stability zone. Image Credit: Feng 2024.
Of course, none of this means there is a planet there. It just shows that a potential stable orbit is available.
Feng’s work proposes that exoplanets in binary systems with nearly identical mass ratios and eccentricities can exhibit similar stability properties. “From this hypothesis, together with the newly detected Neptune-mass planet in the GJ65 system, which is similar to Alpha Centauri AB, we assume the existence of a potential Jupiter-mass planet with corresponding orbital parameters in Alpha Centauri AB should also be possible,” Feng writes.
No planets have been detected around ? Centauri AB, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one there. Our planet-hunting methods are far from absolute, and there are bound to be many planets in nearby systems that we haven’t been able to detect yet.
There are many proposals for missions to the region or for telescopes designed to probe the system more deeply. Their neighbour, Proxima Centauri, has two confirmed exoplanets. And there’ve been tantalizing hints that Alpha Centauri A hosts a planet, but it remains only a candidate.
A true detection or emphatic non-detection may be years or decades away. Who knows? But at least Feng’s work shows that there could be a stable orbital home for a super Jupiter in the system.
Astronomers Have Counted Over 800 Stars That Have Disappeared Without A Trace. Now They Think They Know What Happened.
Astronomers Have Counted Over 800 Stars That Have Disappeared Without A Trace. Now They Think They Know What Happened.
Story by Michael Levanduski
SOURCE : NASA
SOURCE : NASA
When looking up into the night sky, you can see millions of stars with the naked eye. When using high-powered telescopes, that number jumps up into the billions.
While most people cannot point out too many specific stars, they know they are always there. Throughout human history, people have even used the consistency of the stars to aid in navigation, planning, and much more.
Of course, today we know that stars do eventually die, often in brilliant explosions known as supernovae. Smaller stars can also simply fade out over time as they exhaust their fuel sources.
Over the past 70 years, however, scientists have documented another phenomenon with stars. They simply disappear without a trace. Astronomers look at the star at one point, then when they return (even just an hour later), and it is gone.
What makes this even more unusual is that the star never returns.
“Were one to stand gazing up at a visible star going through a total collapse, it might, just at the right time, be like watching a star suddenly extinguish and disappear from the heavens. The collapse is so complete that no explosion occurs, nothing escapes and one wouldn’t see any bright supernova in the night sky.”
This can happen, they theorize, when massive stars collapse under their own gravity and become black holes, or extremely dense neutron star, immediately.
All detectable evidence that this occurred would be captured by the gravity and sucked back in, leaving nothing for us to see. From our perspective, it would look like the star simply disappeared.
The evidence that they used is from observing a binary star system that is called VFTS 243. In it, a star that is about ten times more massive than our sun is orbiting with a black hole. Vigna-Gomes says of this situation:
“The orbit of the system has barely changed since the collapse of the star into a black hole.”
One obvious problem with this type of theory is that it is difficult to gather any type of hard evidence for it.
All the energy, partials, and even light would be sucked back down into the black hole. in this type of case, scientists can theorize what would happen and compare it to the data that is available.
Related video:
Spiralling Stars Captured By The Hubble Space Telescope (Dailymotion)
So far, it seems that things fit well.
Of course, more research is needed before the theory can be widely adopted.
Law enforcement couldn't help noticing the 'friendly humanoids, who have come in peace' and their spaceship-like vehicle
Smiling troopers in two states performed traffic stops in recent days on a spaceship-like vehicle heading to the UFO Festival in — of course — Roswell, New Mexico, Fox News reported.
A couple of close encounters of the nerd kind, one might say, to borrow from a sitcom episode from the last century.
The first took place in Missouri, as the Crawford County Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post last Friday about a pair of "friendly humanoids, who have come in peace."
'He was also warned about our strict enforcement of warp speed on the interstate and to keep his phasers on stun only while traveling.'
The sheriff's office noted that the traffic stop "was a little out of this world," but law enforcement was assured that the vehicle's occupants — as the below dashcam image indicates — were "heading west to Roswell, NM for a festival."
Image source: Crawford County (Missouri) Sheriff's Office
The sheriff's office added in its post that "there was a brief conversation about his out of space, correction, out of state registration, but he assured us that he would take care of that issue when he returned to Krypton. He was also warned about our strict enforcement of warp speed on the interstate and to keep his phasers on stun only while traveling."
Image source: Crawford County (Missouri) Sheriff's Office
Fox News, citing an email from the sheriff's office, said the vehicle's driver was observed committing a lane violation; the vehicle's Indiana tag also was expired.
Considering the "wind/traffic of the interstate plus the size and aerodynamics of his vehicle, he understood that the potential for lane violations existed," a Crawford County Sheriff's Office official added in a statement to Fox News.
"Given the good nature of the driver and the interesting nature of the vehicle, we opted to provide a fun social media post for our community," the official added in the statement, the cable news network said. "It was a great interaction, and we wished him safe travels to his destination."
There was a second close encounter with same vehicle Monday in Oklahoma, Fox News said.
Image source: Oklahoma Highway Patrol
"It's not every day you pull over a UFO," the Oklahoma Highway Patrol wrote Tuesday on its Facebook page. "Trooper Ryan Vanvleck #722 pulled over this vehicle on the Turner Turnpike yesterday for an obstructed tag. They were on their way to a UFO festival in Roswell, New Mexico. Trooper Vanvleck let them go with a warning."
Image source: Oklahoma Highway Patrol
The event to which the vehicle's occupants apparently were headed looks to be the "UFO Festival" set to take place in Roswell from July 5 through July 7. The annual gathering promises attendees that they can participate in a "cosmic extravaganza filled with out-of-this-world events, including the renowned Roswell Galacticon, family fun at the AlienFest, the gripping Roswell Incident, the captivating Roswell Film Festival, and enlightening experiences at the International UFO Museum and Research Center."
Denisovans Survived on Tibetan Plateau until 48,000-32,000 Years Ago
Denisovans Survived on Tibetan Plateau until 48,000-32,000 Years Ago
Archaeologists have found a new hominin rib specimen in Baishiya Karst Cave, one of the only two places where Denisovans are known to have lived. Dated to 48,000-32,000 years old, the specimen also belongs to the Denisovan lineage, extending their presence at the cave well into the Late Pleistocene.
A portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps.
Image credit: Maayan Harel.
Denisovans are an extinct hominin group initially identified from a genome sequence determined from a fragment of a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia.
Subsequent analyses of the genome have shown that Denisovans diverged from Neanderthals 400,000 years ago and that at least two distinct Denisovan populations mixed with ancestors of present-day Asians.
In 2019, a 160,000-year-old jawbone from Baishiya Karst Cave, a limestone cave at the northeast margin of the Tibetan Plateau, was identified to be of Denisovan origin.
In 2020, archaeologists found Denisovan mtDNA in the sediments of this cave d indicating their presence at about 100,000 years ago, 60,000 years ago, and possibly 45,000 years ago.
The new rib bone of a Denisovan from Baishiya Karst Cave dates to approximately 48,000-32,000 years ago.
“Together, the fossil and molecular evidence indicates that Ganjia Basin, where Baishiya Karst Cave is located, provided a relatively stable environment for Denisovans, despite its high-altitude,” said Dr. Frido Welker, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen.
“The question now arises when and why these Denisovans on the Tibetan Plateau went extinct.”
In their research, Dr. Welker and colleagues studied more than 2,500 bones from Baishiya Karst Cave.
“We were able to identify that Denisovans hunted, butchered and ate a range of animal species,” said Dr. Geoff Smith, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Reading.
“Our study reveals new information about the behavior and adaptation of Denisovans both to high altitude conditions and shifting climates.”
“We are only just beginning to understand the behavior of this extraordinary human species.”
Today Baishiya Karst cave is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists, but it's just as highly valued by paleontologists as our only evidence for Denisovans on the Tibetan Plateau.
An artist's impression of the Stone Age landscape of Ganjia Basin where Baishiya Karst Cave is located, depicting some of the animals which were identified by archaeologists via bone analysis.
The Denisovan rib bone, broken during excavation. So far its owner is not known to have been nicknamed Adam.
Image Credit: Dongju Zhang’s group (Lanzhou University).
Many of the bones recovered from the Baishiya Karst Cave, such as this hyena vertebra, have cut marks most likely made by Denisovans using stone tools.
Credit...Dongju Zhang’s group/Lanzhou University
Bone remains from Baishya Karst Cave were broken into numerous fragments preventing identification.
The researchers used a novel scientific method that exploits differences in bone collagen between animals to determine which species the bone remains came from.
“Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) allows us to extract valuable information from often overlooked bone fragments, providing deeper insight into human activities,” said Dr. Huan Xia, a researcher at Lanzhou University.
The scientists determined that most of the bones were from blue sheep, known as the bharal, as well as wild yaks, equids, the extinct woolly rhino, and the spotted hyena.
They also identified bone fragments from small mammals, such as marmots, and birds.
“Current evidence suggests that it was Denisovans, not any other human groups, who occupied the cave and made efficient use of all the animal resources available to them throughout their occupation,” said Dr. Jian Wang, also from Lanzhou University.
“Detailed analysis of the fragmented bone surfaces shows Denisovans removed meat and bone marrow from the bones, but also indicates the humans used them as raw material to produce tools.”
This research is described in a paper in the journal Nature.
H. Xia et al. Middle and Late Pleistocene Denisovan subsistence at Baishiya Karst Cave. Nature, published online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07612-9
Caught in orbit around Earth during an Apollo 10 mission, this UFO looks awfully close to the Apollo module. The photo was taken in July of 1969 and shows a solid craft in high orbit. Notice the bulging center of the craft...much like we hear about in classic UFO reports. AI is the new UFOlogist tool that everyone needs to start using. Did you also notice that the alien occupant of the UAP is visible in the dark dome cockpit of the UFO? It's true, check out the close up above and see.
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De Denisoviërs zijn oude, uitgestorven mensen die voor het eerst werden geïdentificeerd in 2010: een nieuw onderzoek heeft meer ontdekt op de plek waar ze meer dan honderdduizend jaar leefden.
De Denisoviërs zijn recenter dan gedacht
De wetenschap weet nog steeds niet veel over de oude Denisoviërs, mensen die duizenden jaren geleden uitstierven, maar een nieuwe studie heeft iets meer ontdekt: deze groep leefde meer dan 100.000 jaar op het Tibetaans Plateau. Archeologen onderzochten 2500 fossiele botfragmenten van verschillende diersoorten, die werden ontdekt in de karstgrot van Baishiya, in Tibet, op een hoogte van 3.280 meter. De grot ligt nabij Xiahe, in de Chinese provincie Gansu. Het is een van de slechts drie plaatsen ter wereld waar bewijs is gevonden van hun bestaan op aarde.
Uit het nieuwe onderzoek is gebleken dat de Denisoviërs in staat waren om te jagen en een grote groep dieren van verschillende grootte te verwerken voor consumptie en het maken van gereedschappen, waaronder vogels, wolharige neushoorns, marmotten en blauwe schapen. De onderzoekers vonden ook een menselijk fossiel overblijfsel van tussen 48.000 en 32.000 jaar geleden, het meest recente van de fossielen van Denisoviërs die tot nu toe zijn ontdekt. Dit betekent dat deze soort later uitstierf dan eerder werd gedacht.
De Denisoviërs van Tibet waren veerkrachtige mensen
Nature
De beperkte hoeveelheid fossiel bewijs heeft het moeilijk gemaakt om informatie te verkrijgen over deze mensen, maar dankzij het nieuwe onderzoek weten we nu dat de Denisoviërs die de karstgrot Baishiya bewoonden een grote veerkracht hadden en zich aanpasten aan een van de meest barre omgevingen op aarde. Dongju Zhang, hoofdauteur van het onderzoek, archeoloog en professor aan de Universiteit van Lanzhou, zei: "Ze gebruikten alle dieren die ze tot hun beschikking hadden, wat betekent dat hun gedrag flexibel was."
Het gevonden fossiel was hoogstwaarschijnlijk een tijdgenoot van de moderne mens en de Neanderthalers die destijds in Eurazië leefden, volgens Frido Welker, professor aan de Biomolecular Paleoanthropology Group van het Globe Institute aan de Universiteit van Kopenhagen en co-auteur van het onderzoek.
Denisoviërs: de ontmoeting met Neanderthalers en moderne mensen
Nature
Zoals we al zeiden, werden Denisoviërs voor het eerst geïdentificeerd in 2010 door DNA-sequenties te onderzoeken die in het laboratorium werden verkregen uit het eerste fossiele fragment dat werd gevonden. Sindsdien zijn er slechts een dozijn overblijfselen gevonden op de hele planeet, waarvan de meeste in de Denisova-grot in het Altaigebergte in Siberië, waar deze uitgestorven soort zijn naam aan te danken heeft.
Op basis van genetische analyse hebben wetenschappers ontdekt dat zij zich, net als de Neanderthalers, bij de moderne mens hebben gevoegd: zelfs vandaag de dag overleven sporen van Denisovan-DNA in de mens en dit duidt op hun geconcentreerde aanwezigheid in Azië. Het eerste fossiel buiten de grot werd in 2019 door een monnik ontdekt in de aartsgrot Baishiya, die door Tibetaanse boeddhisten als heilig wordt beschouwd en meer dan 160.000 jaar oud is. De duizenden fragmenten van dierlijke botten werden onderzocht met behulp van de meest recent uitgevonden techniek genaamd Archeozoölogie die erin slaagde individuele dieren te identificeren. Tegenwoordig herbergt dit gebied voornamelijk blauwe schapen, geiten en jakken.
Naast de Denisoviërs leefden er verschillende groepen mensen in de Denisova grot, waaronder de Neanderthalers en de eerste moderne mensen: in de karstgrot Baishiya leefden echter alleen de eersten en hier zijn alle “geheimen” over hun uiterlijk, gedrag en de redenen voor hun uitsterven verborgen.
Vier 'astronauten' na fictieve marsmissie van 378 dagen terug in de echte wereld: wat doet 1 jaar isolatie met een mens?
Vier 'astronauten' na fictieve marsmissie van 378 dagen terug in de echte wereld: wat doet 1 jaar isolatie met een mens?
Artikel door Heleen Vander Beken
Rood zand, een koepel die je van de rest van de wereld afzondert, en 160 vierkante meter om met z'n vieren in te wonen en werken. Dat is de wereld waarin Anca Selariu, Nathan Jones, Ross Brockwell en Kelly Haston het afgelopen jaar leefden.
De 4 'valse' astronauten leefden om precies te zijn 378 dagen samen in isolatie. En die koepel mogen ze vanavond om 23 uur onze tijd verlaten. Voor het eerst in een jaar zullen ze terug kunnen gaan en staan waar ze willen, hun familie en vrienden vastpakken, en echt alleen zijn wanneer ze dat willen.
Met het experiment wil het Amerikaanse ruimteagentschap NASA missies naar Mars voorbereiden, met een focus op de voedselvoorziening tijdens zo'n missie. En ook de gevolgen van die isolatie voor de crew kunnen ze zo onderzoeken, want eerder onderzoek toont aan dat mensen wel degelijk veranderen door een ruimtemissie.
De proefpersonen leefden in omstandigheden die lijken op die van een mogelijke missie naar Mars. Ze hebben geen vers voedsel, behalve de groenten die ze zelf telen, er werden geen nieuwe voorraden geleverd, ze hadden een beperkte hoeveelheid water...
Ook de communicatie met het thuisfront was gesimuleerd met een vertraging van 6 tot 22 minuten - zo traag zou het namelijk ook gaan naar Mars - en 2 keer met een black-out (radiostilte) van 2 weken. Ze zagen geen daglicht en werden blootgesteld aan stresssituaties, bijvoorbeeld technische problemen. Ze oefenden er ook op ruimtewandelingen.
Groepsdynamiek als grootste uitdaging
Eerder was er namelijk al een kortere versie van dit soort experiment. 6 mensen verbleven 4 maanden lang onder een plastic koepel op de flank van een berg: de Mauna Loa-vulkaan op Hawaï. In dat verlaten, rotsige landschap moesten ze onder meer ontdekken hoe je kan koken tijdens een marsmissie.
De Belg Angelo Vermeulen, een bioloog gespecialiseerd in ruimtevaart, was er toen bij als gezagvoerder.
Dat brengt ons meteen bij het allermoeilijkste van de missie: de groepsdynamiek. "Ik moest als gezagvoerder de groep bij elkaar houden. Die samenhang is de grootste uitdaging, maar ze is essentieel, niet alleen voor het welzijn van iedereen, maar ook om samen de uitdagingen te kunnen aanpakken die zich voordoen." Denk dan aan problemen met apparatuur, de barre omstandigheden, noem maar op.
Niet evident als je een jaar lang samen opgesloten zit. "Vaak zie je dat één iemand zich in zulke experimenten, of ook tijdens ruimtemissies, wat afzondert van de groep. Logisch, want je hebt behoefte aan wat privacy. Ook tussen de crew in het station en de crew in het controlecentrum ontstond er spanning, wat ook wel vaker gebeurt in ruimtemissies. Je kijkt anders naar de dingen als je daar zit."
Vier 'astronauten' na fictieve marsmissie van 378 dagen terug in de echte wereld: wat doet 1 jaar isolatie met een mens?
Hoe ze zullen reageren als de deur vanavond opengaat, is af te wachten. Maar Vermeulen herinnert zich wel nog wat het met hem deed. "Je kijkt er enorm naar uit, om terug te kunnen buitenstappen, zonder afspraken te maken en een ruimtepak te moeten aandoen. Ik dacht vaak aan het moment dat het voorbij zou zijn."
"Ik herinner me ook nog het uitgebreide ontbijt dat we kregen. We hebben ons allemaal op het verse fruit gestort. Dat trok ons het meeste aan, omdat we dat gemist hadden." Al hebben ze in de simulatie die nu beëindigd wordt een kleine plaats om verse groenten te telen, waarschijnlijk zal ook dit team naar vers voedsel snakken.
Maar de ervaring na de 'bevrijding' ging veel dieper voor Vermeulen, die zich echt had ingeleefd in de idee dat hij op een andere planeet leefde. "We stapten in een busje en zigzagden naar beneden. Het eerste wat je ziet, is de oceaan, nadat je lang in een dor lavalandschap hebt geleefd. Dat water terugzien, dat beroerde me enorm: het feit dat dat water is meegebracht door meteorieten in de geschiedenis van de aarde."
"Ik denk dat het wat lijkt op wat astronauten ervaren als ze de aarde zien vanuit de ruimte: je wordt je zo bewust van de kwetsbaarheid van onze aarde. En hoe uniek die groene planten hier zijn."
Geen daglicht en slapeloze nachten
Los van die emotionele ervaringen, heeft de isolatie ook effect op je lichaam. Vermeulen herinnert zich bijvoorbeeld dat iedereen in het team wel een of andere vorm van slaapproblemen had.
"Dat is zeker ook zo in de ruimte", zegt Angelique Vanomberen, wetenschapscoördinator bij het Europese ruimteagentschap ESA. "Je hebt geen normale blootstelling aan daglicht. In het internationaal ruimtestation ISS zie je bijvoorbeeld 16 keer per dag de zon opkomen, in een simulatie als deze zie je gewoon geen daglicht, terwijl dat de aanmaak van melatonine regelt, een slaaphormoon."
"En dan heb je nog de psychologische stress van die isolatie. Als ik niet lekker in m'n vel zit, kan ik ook moeilijker slapen", legt Van Ombergen uit.
Verandering in hersenen en bloed
Of je je tijdens die lange maanden samen ook verveelt? "Het is niet zo saai als je zou denken. Je hebt heel veel onderzoek te doen, je moet 1 uur per dag fysieke oefeningen doen om gezond te blijven, en je organiseert samen ontspanningsmomenten zoals een filmavond", blikt Vermeulen terug.
Maar je lichaam verandert wel door die eentonige isolatie. "We weten van eerder onderzoek, zowel bij dieren als bij mensen dat, wanneer je ze gaat isoleren in een monotone omgeving, dat dat impact heeft op hun brein", zegt Van Ombergen. Bij muizen en ratten veranderde de hippocampus in de hersenen, specifiek een stuk ervan dat belangrijk is voor het vormen van herinneringen en het verkennen van nieuwe omgevingen.
"Toen ze anderhalve maand uit isolatie waren, was die bloedwaarde wel weer verbeterd, maar nog niet op het oorspronkelijke niveau", vertelt Van Ombergen. "Hoe die op lange termijn evolueert, moet nog blijken uit onderzoek."
"Het interessante aan dit experiment is dat we nu kunnen zien welke veranderingen de isolatie en psychosociale stress precies geven in je brein. Bij astronauten die uit de ruimte komen, weten we niet wat er een specifieke verandering veroorzaakt."
En je kan in dit soort simulaties ook kritieke situaties nabootsen die op Mars zouden kunnen gebeuren. "Dat geeft al een eerste indruk van hoe mensen ermee omgaan. Al weten ze natuurlijk ergens in hun achterhoofd altijd wel dat het een simulatie is", besluit Van Ombergen.
De NASA plant nog 2 gelijkaardige studies de komende jaren, om in totaal 12 personen te testen, en ook de ESA doet vergelijkbaar onderzoek.
The First Space War Is Here: Find Out How the Next One May Play Out
Wars in space are no longer just science fiction. In fact, Space War I has been raging for more than two years, with no quick end in sight. This isn’t the kind of conflict that involves X-wing fighters or Space Marines. Instead, it’s a battle over how satellites are being used tocollect imagery, identify military targets and facilitate communications in the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“As I looked at Ukraine in the early months, it was obvious to me: This is the first space war,” says David Ignatius, a journalist who lives a double life as a foreign-affairs columnist for The Washington Post and a spy-thriller novelist.
In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Ignatius delves into the potential national-security threats posed by satellite-based warfare — and how he wove those threats into the plot threads of a new novel titled “Phantom Orbit.” The tale lays out a scenario in which Space War I tips toward a potentially catastrophic Space War II.
Ignatius shies away from calling the novel “science fiction.”
“All of my books really are drawn from my reporting,” he says. “I begin with the real world — the subjects that interest me — and if they seem bigger and more important than I can express in a newspaper column of 800 or 1,200 words, then I think maybe that might be a novel.”
The real-world reporting behind “Phantom Orbit” began in 2017, when Ignatius became intrigued by calls for the creation of the U.S. Space Force. Over the years that followed, he mapped out a spy-novel plot with a Russian satellite researcher as one of the main characters — and made plans for a research trip to Russia’s industrial heartland.
But before he could take that trip, the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022 — and Russia put Ignatius on its list of banned travelers. “My journalist friends were envious,” he recalls.
David Ignatius is a Washington Post columnist as well as a novelist. (Credit: Stephen Voss)
In response, the Russians have escalated the space-based battle — by interfering with Starlink, scrambling satellite navigation systems and camouflaging its military assets to hide them from satellite sensors.
For more than two decades, policymakers have warned about the potential for a “space Pearl Harbor” — a sneak attack on America’s orbital assets. Ignatius points to U.S. Rep. Mike Turner’s recent warning about the potential for Russia to use nuclear weapons in space. Such weapons might destroy enough satellites to create a crippling debris field in orbit, or shut down electronics with an electromagnetic pulse.
“The Russians understand their vulnerability in space. They understand that the United States and its commercial companies would suffer asymmetric damage. We’d suffer a lot more than Russia or China,” Ignatius says. “So, they’re willing to go forward with this planning, and it ought to scare the heck out of people.”
What is to be done? “What I would say, first, is that our existing systems in space need to be hardened,” Ignatius says. “They need to be less vulnerable to all of the mischief that an adversary could attempt.”
The U.S. Space Force is already well into its effort to make satellite networks more resilient — and more replaceable in the event of an attack. That’s what its “Tactically Responsive Space” initiative is all about. Millions of dollars are being paid out to commercial ventures to demonstrate how they could help the U.S. military send up fresh assets to support existing networks in a matter of days, if not hours.
“Phantom Orbit” by David Ignatius. (Jacket Design: Pete Garceau for W.W. Norton & Co.)
One rapid-response demonstration mission, known as Victus Nox, was conducted successfully last year with Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems serving as the Space Force’s commercial partners. Another demonstration, Victus Haze, is currently being readied by Rocket Lab and True Anomaly. In all, a dozen commercial launch providers are on the Space Force’s list for future rapid-response satellite missions.
The Space Force is even supporting the development of new space station architectures — such as the orbital system being built by Gravitics, a Seattle-area startup.
Keeping track of what’s going on in orbit — also known as space domain awareness — is another must-have for ensuring America’s space security. With Pentagon support, True Anomaly, Starfish Space and Northrop Grumman’s SpaceLogistics subsidiary are working on spacecraft that could approach other satellites in orbit to inspect them, refuel them, boost them into different orbits or deorbit them safely.
In the Fiction Science podcast, Ignatius hints that there may be bigger things to come. “I was just hearing about a company that’s going to radically change the way space and other big weapons systems are built,” he says. “It will revolutionize how weapons are built. The Russians and Chinese just don’t have anything remotely like that kind of creativity. So, there are a lot of reasons that I think people should be worried, but that’s a reason people should be reassured.”
Which begs the question: Which company is Ignatius talking about? If I had to guess, I’d put a bet down on a defense-tech startup called Anduril. But Ignatius isn’t telling. At least, not yet.
“It’s coming to a Washington Post near you,” he says with a laugh.
This report and the accompanying podcast were originally published on Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log. Stay tuned for future episodes of the Fiction Science podcast via Apple, Spotify, Player.fm, Pocket Casts and Podchaser. If you like Fiction Science, please rate the podcast and subscribe to get alerts for future episodes.
Basketball-Sized Meteorites Strike the Surface of Mars Every Day
This is an image of the first meteoroid impact detected by NASA’s InSight mission; the image was taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Basketball-Sized Meteorites Strike the Surface of Mars Every Day
NASA’s InSight Mars Lander faced some challenges during its time on the red planet’s surface. Its mole instrument struggled to penetrate the compacted Martian soil, and the mission eventually ended when its solar panels were covered in dust. But some of its instruments performed well, including SEIS, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure.
SEIS gathered Mars seismic data for more than four years, and researchers working with all of that data have determined a new meteorite impact rate for Mars.
SEIS was designed to probe Mars’ interior structure by measuring seismic waves from Marsquakes and impacts. It measured over 1300 seismic events. There’s no way to absolutely measure how many of them were from impacts, but scientists working with the data have narrowed it down.
NASA’s InSight lander placed its seismometer onto Mars on Dec. 19, 2018. SEIS was later covered with a protective shell to shield it from wind. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Their results are in new research published in Nature Astronomy titled “An estimate of the impact rate on Mars from statistics of very-high-frequency marsquakes.” The lead authors are Géraldine Zenhäusern and Natalia Wójcicka, from the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich, and the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, London, respectively.
“This is the first paper of its kind to determine how often meteorites impact the surface of Mars from seismological data.”
Domenico Giardini, Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics at ETH Zurich and co-Principal Investigator for the NASA Mars InSight Mission.
Though SEIS was an effective instrument, it couldn’t always tell what each seismic event was. Only a handful of the events it detected were powerful enough to determine their location. However, six events in close proximity to the InSight lander were confirmed as meteorite impacts because they were correlated with acoustic atmospheric signals that meteors make when they enter Mars’ atmosphere. The six events belong to a larger group called very high-frequency (VF) events.
While the source process for a typical marsquake measuring magnitude 3 takes several seconds, an impact-generated quake takes much less time because of the collision’s hypervelocity. These are the VF events.
During about three years of recording time, InSight and SEIS detected 70 VF events. 59 of them had good distance estimates, and according to the researchers, a handful of them were “higher quality B VF events,” meaning their signal-to-noise ratios are strong. “Although a non-impact origin cannot be definitively excluded for each VF event, we show that the VF class as a whole is plausibly caused by meteorite impacts,” the authors explain in their paper.
This figure from the research shows envelopes of recorded VF quality B events sorted by distance, plotted from 120?seconds before to 1,100?seconds after the event. They’re aligned by their first signal (Pg) arrival. The blue lines are the second signal arrival (Sg.) The six red events are the confirmed impact events, and for those, the black lines show where the “chirp” signal arrives. The chirp signal is a signature of impact events. Image Credit: Zenhäusern, Wójcicka et al. 2024.
This led to a new estimate of Mars’s impact frequencies. The researchers say that between 280 and 360 meteoroids about the size of basketballs strike Mars each year and excavate craters greater than 8 meters (26 ft) in diameter. That’s almost one every day at the upper end. “This rate was about five times higher than the number estimated from orbital imagery alone. Aligned with orbital imagery, our findings demonstrate that seismology is an excellent tool for measuring impact rates,” Zenhäusern said in a press release.
Impact rates on different bodies in the Solar System are one way of understanding the age of their surfaces. Earth’s surface is young because the planet is so geologically active. Earth is also much easier to study in greater detail, for obvious reasons. But for bodies like the Moon and Mars, impact rates can tell us the ages of various surfaces, leading to a more thorough understanding of their history.
Orbital images and models based on preserved lunar craters have been the main tools used by planetary scientists to infer impact rates. The data from the Moon was used to extrapolate Mars’ impact rate. But there are problems with that method. Mars has more powerful gravity and is closer to the source of most meteors, the asteroid belt.
That means more meteoroids strike Mars than the Moon, and that had to be calculated somehow. Conversely, Mars has widespread dust storms that can obscure craters in orbital images, while the lunar surface is largely static. Mars also has different types of surface regions. In some regions, craters stand out; in others, they don’t. Trying to accurately account for that many differences when extrapolating impact rates from the Moon to Mars is challenging.
This work shows that seismometers can be a more reliable way to understand impact rates.
“We estimated crater diameters from the magnitude of all the VF-marsquakes and their distances, then used it to calculate how many craters formed around the InSight lander over the course of a year. We then extrapolated this data to estimate the number of impacts that happen annually on the whole surface of Mars,” Wójcicka explained.
This figure from the research shows crater size and seismic moment for the six confirmed impacts near the InSight lander. Circles show single craters, and triangles show the effective diameter of crater clusters. The vertical error bars reflect the uncertainty in seismic moment magnitude derived using standard error propagation techniques. The horizontal error bars are given by the resolution of HiRISE images used to determine the crater sizes. Image Credit: Zenhäusern, Wójcicka et al. 2024.
“While new craters can best be seen on flat and dusty terrain where they really stand out, this type of terrain covers less than half of the surface of Mars. The sensitive InSight seismometer, however, could hear every single impact within the landers’ range,” said Zenhäusern.
These results extend beyond Mars. Understanding Mars also helps us understand the wider Solar System. “The current meteoroid impact rate on Mars is vital for determining accurate absolute ages of surfaces throughout the Solar System,” the authors write in their paper. Without accurate surface ages, we don’t have an accurate understanding of the Solar System’s history.
Now we know that an 8-metre (26-feet) crater is excavated somewhere on Mars’ surface almost daily, and a 30-metre (98-feet) crater is a monthly occurrence. But it’s about more than just crater size. These hypervelocity impacts create blast zones that dwarf the crater itself. The blast zones can easily be 100 times larger than the crater. So, a better understanding of impact rates can make robotic missions and future human missions safer.
“The higher overall number of impacts and the higher relative number of small ones found in our study show that meteoritic impacts might be a substantial hazard for future explorations of Mars and other planets without a thick atmosphere,” the authors write in their conclusion.
This study is a win for InSight and SEIS and for the researchers who pieced this together.
“This is the first paper of its kind to determine how often meteorites impact the surface of Mars from seismological data – which was a level one mission goal of the Mars InSight Mission,” says Domenico Giardini, Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics at ETH Zurich and co-Principal Investigator for the NASA Mars InSight Mission. “Such data factors into the planning for future missions to Mars.”
Eeuwenlang dachten wetenschappers te weten waar de mythologische griffioen zijn oorsprong vond – en nu blijken ze er al die tijd toch naast te hebben gezeten
Eeuwenlang dachten wetenschappers te weten waar de mythologische griffioen zijn oorsprong vond – en nu blijken ze er al die tijd toch naast te hebben gezeten
Men veronderstelde dat dinosaurusskeletten de basis vormden voor de legende van de griffioen. Maar een nieuwe studie daagt die aanname nu uit.
Een griffioen is een mythisch wezen dat voorkomt in de mythologieën van verschillende culturen, waaronder de oude Griekse, Egyptische en Perzische. Het is een machtig wezen, afgebeeld met het lichaam van een leeuw en de kop en vleugels van een adelaar. Eeuwenlang dachten wetenschappers te weten waar de legende van de griffioen vandaan kwam. Zo zou het wezen zijn afgeleid van dinosaurusskeletten, zoals die van de Protoceratops. Maar een recente studie maakt nu korte metten met deze veronderstelling.
Verband Meer dan dertig jaar geleden opperde de folklorist Adrienne Mayor voor het eerst dat dinosaurusskeletten, zoals die van de Protoceratops, de inspiratie waren achter de mythologische griffioen. Sindsdien is deze hypothese een integraal onderdeel geworden van boeken, documentaires en museumtentoonstellingen. De hypothese suggereert dat oude nomaden die goud zochten in Centraal-Azië de resten van Protoceratops ontdekten. Verhalen over de botten van Protoceratops verspreidden zich vervolgens naar het zuidwesten via handelsroutes. En dit zou mogelijk hebben bijgedragen aan de inspiratie voor verhalen over de griffioen.
Meer over de Protoceratops Protoceratops was een kleine dinosaurus van ongeveer twee meter lang, die leefde in Mongolië en Noord-China tijdens het Krijt, ongeveer 75-71 miljoen jaar geleden. Ze behoorden tot de groep van gehoornde dinosaurussen, waardoor ze verwant waren aan Triceratops, hoewel ze zelf geen gezichtshoorns hadden. Net als griffioenen stonden Protoceratops op vier poten, hadden ze snavels en hadden ze franje-achtige uitsteeksels aan hun schedels die als vleugels kunnen worden geïnterpreteerd.
Om te onderzoeken of de bewering inderdaad waar is, hebben onderzoekers de verspreiding en eigenschappen van Protoceratops-fossielen opnieuw bekeken. Ze raadpleegden ook klassieke bronnen die de griffioen linken aan Protoceratops en werkten samen met historici en archeologen om het traditionele beeld van de oorsprong van de griffioen te begrijpen. En uiteindelijk concludeerden ze dat geen van de argumenten stand hield.
Goud Het idee dat nomaden die goud zochten fossiele resten van de Protoceratops zouden hebben ontdekt, lijkt bijvoorbeeld onwaarschijnlijk. Dat komt omdat Protoceratops-fossielen honderden kilometers verwijderd zijn van oude goudvindplaatsen. Het is ook twijfelachtig of nomaden überhaupt de Protoceratops-skeletten zouden hebben zien liggen, zelfs als ze op zoek waren naar goud op de plekken waar deze fossielen lagen. “Men denkt vaak dat dinosaurusskeletten half begraven worden ontdekt, alsof ze daar liggen als de resten van recent overleden dieren,” zegt onderzoeker Mark Witton. “In werkelijkheid is echter maar een klein deel van een verwerend dinosaurus-skelet zichtbaar voor het blote oog. Ze vallen echt niet op, behalve dan voor ervaren fossielenjagers. Als de nomaden meer van de fossielen hadden willen zien, wat nodig zou zijn als ze mythen wilden vormen over deze dieren, moesten ze het fossiel uit het omringende gesteente halen. Dat is echter geen eenvoudige taak, zelfs niet met moderne gereedschappen. Het lijkt waarschijnlijker dat Protoceratops-resten over het algemeen onopgemerkt bleven.”
Vergelijkingen tussen het skelet van Protoceratops en oude afbeeldingen van griffioenen laten zien dat griffioenen duidelijk zijn geïnspireerd op grote katachtigen en vogels. Dit blijkt uit hun spierstructuur, lange, flexibele staarten en manen, terwijl ze in vrijwel alle proporties en vormen verschillen van Protoceratops. Afbeelding: Mark P. Witton
De verspreiding van mythen over de griffioen door de geschiedenis heen strookt evenmin met de hypothese dat deze legende begon met fossielen uit Centraal-Azië en zich van daaruit naar het westen verspreidde. Bovendien zijn er geen duidelijke verwijzingen naar Protoceratops-fossielen in oude literaire werken. Daarnaast vertoont Protoceratops enkel gelijkenissen met een griffioen omdat het een dier is met vier poten en een snavel. Maar daar houdt het wel een beetje op. Veel griffioenen zijn duidelijk samengesteld uit kenmerken van levende katten en vogels, niet van fossiele dinosaurussen zoals Protoceratops.
Kortom, hoewel wetenschappers lange tijd dachten te weten waar de griffioen zijn oorsprong vond, wordt deze heersende veronderstelling nu weerlegd. “Het is essentieel om het onderscheid te maken tussen fossiele folklore die op feiten berust – dus verbindingen tussen fossielen en mythen gesteund door archeologische ontdekkingen of sterke referenties in literatuur en kunst – en speculatieve theorieën gebaseerd op intuïtie,” meent onderzoeker Richard Hing. “Het idee dat mensen dinosaurusbotten vonden en in hun mythologie integreerden, is op zichzelf niet verkeerd. Het is echter wel noodzakelijk om dergelijke voorstellen zijn gestoeld op historisch, geografisch en paleontologisch bewijs. Zonder deze basis blijft het slechts bij speculatie.”
Als je alles wat we over het universum (denken te) weten op een rijtje zet, ligt het voor de hand dat we niet alleen zijn en in het heelal ook talloze andere levensvormen op ontdekking wachten. En toch kunnen we ze tot op heden maar niet vinden. Hoe is dat mogelijk?
Al millennia lang vragen mensen zich af of wij alleen zijn. Of dat er elders in het universum toch ook leven te vinden is. Heel lang kon de mensheid alleen maar gissen naar het antwoord op die vraag. De afgelopen decennia zijn we echter – mede dankzij krachtige telescopen en satellieten – veel meer over het universum te weten gekomen en wijst eigenlijk alles erop dat er ook elders wel leven te vinden moet zijn. Zo hebben telescopen bijvoorbeeld aangetoond dat er buiten ons zonnestelsel niet alleen talloze sterren te vinden zijn, maar dat die sterren veelal ook één of zelfs meerdere planeten herbergen. Ook heeft onderzoek aangetoond dat ingrediënten voor leven (zoals wij dat kennen) – of in ieder geval de voorlopers daarvan – volop in de ruimte beschikbaar zijn. Kortom: het lijkt allesbehalve vergezocht dat er elders ook leven te vinden is. En dat niet alleen: met het oog op de leeftijd van het universum zou dat leven ook prima intelligent kunnen zijn of zelfs technologisch superieur aan ons (zie kader).
We zijn late levensvormen Het universum is naar schatting ongeveer 13,7 miljard jaar oud. Ons zonnestelsel – met daarin onze thuisplaneet – is ‘slechts’ 4,5 miljard jaar oud. Het betekent dat er buiten ons zonnestelsel planeten te vinden zijn die veel ouder zijn en waarop leven – in theorie – dus ook veel meer tijd heeft gehad om zich te ontwikkelen en inmiddels zowel qua intelligentie als technologische ontwikkeling een stuk verder is dan wij zijn.
Met dat in gedachten zou je dan weer verwachten dat die superslimme, technisch superieure aliens er toch op uittrekken en zich – hetzij bedoeld of onbedoeld – aan ons kenbaar maken. Maar dat is tot op heden niet gebeurd.
Een paradox En zo is er dus sprake van een schril contrast tussen de (grote) statistische waarschijnlijkheid dat aliens bestaan en de harde werkelijkheid dat we die aliens – of (restanten van) hun ruimtevaartuigen – maar niet kunnen vinden of tegenkomen. Die paradox staat ook wel bekend als de Fermiparadox.
Mogelijke oplossingen Een klinkklare oplossing is er nog altijd niet voor die paradox. Maar onderzoekers hebben de afgelopen decennia wel mogelijke oplossingen – oftewel redenen voor het feit dat we nog altijd geen aliens hebben ontdekt – voorgedragen. We lichten er hieronder een paar uit.
1. We zitten in een dierentuin… Ja, aliens bestaan. En ze hebben ons zelfs al ontdekt. Maar ze vinden ons zo interessant (of vermakelijk), dat ze besloten hebben ons niet van hun bestaan op de hoogte te stellen. En ons in plaats daarvan – met de buitenaardse tegenhanger van popcorn in de hand – van een afstandje te observeren, ondertussen alles in het werk stellend om zelf niet te worden opgemerkt. Dat is in een notendop de ‘kosmische dierentuin’-hypothese. En het kan inderdaad helpen verklaren waarom we in een heelal dat logischerwijs toch ook andere levensvormen moet herbergen, die levensvormen maar niet kunnen vinden.
2. …of in een boerengehucht Andere optie: het heelal wemelt inderdaad van de aliens en die reizen volop rond. Maar wij bevinden ons toevallig in de kosmische equivalent van een boerengehucht, waar nooit iemand komt.
3. Aliens zitten met een ultieme crisis Dat we nog geen aliens zijn tegengekomen, kan ook komen doordat die aliens – voor ze ons bereikten of wij hen konden detecteren – aan hun eigen expansiedrift ten onder zijn gegaan. In dit scenario ontwikkelt een buitenaardse beschaving zich sneller dan goed voor haar is en loopt deze op een gegeven moment tegen haar eigen grenzen aan. Komt het je bekend voor? Dat kan kloppen; deze hypothese is namelijk losjes gebaseerd op wat we hier op aarde, in steden zien gebeuren, zo legde onderzoeker Michael Wong een aantal jaren geleden aan Scientias.nl uit. “Andere wetenschappers hebben al vastgesteld dat steden groeien op een manier die op de lange termijn onhoudbaar is, omdat de consumptie van hulpbronnen terwijl de steden groeien, onevenredig toeneemt.” En dat is problematisch. Want het betekent dat er een moment komt dat steden bijvoorbeeld meer energie nodig hebben dan voorhanden is. “Het resulteert in crises die we ‘singulariteiten’ noemen en waarbij de populatie en energievraag in een eindige tijdsperiode eindeloos toeneemt.” In zo’n scenario is de beschaving gedoemd om tegen tekorten aan te lopen, waardoor – zonder innoverende maatregelen – het complete systeem ineenstort. “Wij hypothetiseren dat planetaire beschavingen zich net zo gedragen als steden,” stelt Wong. “En als dat het geval is, lopen ze vroeg of laat tegen een grens aan die hun groei beperkt. Die grens noemen wij ‘asymptotische burnout’: een ultieme crisis waarin de tijd die tussen singulariteiten (oftewel crises, red.) verstrijkt, korter is dan de tijd tussen innovaties.” In het geval van zo’n asymptomatische crisis innoveren de buitenaardse wezens dus eigenlijk te langzaam om aan hun eigenhandig gecreëerde ondergang te ontsnappen. Als zo’n asymptotische burnout dreigt, hebben aliens twee opties, zo stellen onderzoekers. Of ze doen niets en hun beschaving stort volledig in. Of ze verleggen hun focus. Wong: “Ze geven prioriteit aan homeostasis: een staat waarin kosmische expansie niet langer een doel is.” In beide scenario’s gaan wij de aliens niet vinden. Want in het eerste scenario zijn zij er niet meer. En in het tweede zijn ze niet (langer) gericht op het verkennen van de ruimte of het vergroten en verkondigen van hun aanwezigheid, maar ligt de focus op het redden van het vege buitenaardse lijf.
4. Aliens roeien zichzelf uit Een beetje een variant op de buitenaardse crisis van hierboven: aliens roeien zichzelf altijd uit voor ze goed en wel op interstellaire ontdekkingsreis gaan. Deze hypothese veronderstelt dat een hoge mate van intelligentie – nodig voor interstellair reizen – eigenlijk altijd gepaard gaat met zelfdestructie. Zeer intelligente beschavingen gaan hierbij aan hun eigen intelligentie ten onder, bijvoorbeeld doordat ze hun klimaat veranderen of massavernietigingswapens ontwikkelen (en inzetten). Of doordat andere technologieën die de zeer intelligente beschavingen ontwikkeld hebben zich op een andere manier uiteindelijk tegen hun makers keren.
5.Wij zijn zeldzaam Een andere intrigerende oplossing voor de Fermiparadox: we zijn tamelijk zeldzaam. Deze oplossing sluit zeker niet uit dat er elders in het heelal planeten zijn waar leven kan ontstaan, maar veronderstelt dat die levensvormen veelal uitsterven alvorens ze zich tot zeer intelligente levensvormen kunnen ontwikkelen. Intelligente levensvormen hebben veel tijd nodig om zich te ontwikkelen en in die lange periode kan er van alles misgaan. Het klimaat kan flink veranderen, er kan een planetoïde inslaan, een nabije ster kan exploderen, etc. Kortom: het kan verkeren, en dat is niet altijd in het voordeel van de ontwikkeling van leven. Ook de lange geschiedenis van het leven op aarde wordt gekenmerkt door perioden waarin het leven het uitermate moeilijk had of zelfs grotendeels ten onder ging. En van planeten als Mars en Venus weten we bijvoorbeeld ook dat ze in de afgelopen miljarden jaren flink zijn veranderd. Zo moet Mars ooit warm, vochtig en potentieel leefbaar zijn geweest, maar is deze nu koud en droog. En waar Venus ooit op de aarde moet hebben geleken, is het nu een kokende planeet met een giftige atmosfeer. Het moge duidelijk zijn: als ergens levensvormen ontstaan, is het allesbehalve vanzelfsprekend dat deze zich ook ontwikkelen tot complexe, intelligente levensvormen. En ervan uitgaande dat de ontwikkeling van leven op veel planeten stokt, is het ook niet gek dat we nog geen intelligente aliens hebben gevonden. Zelfs als ze – net als wij – op sommige planeten herhaaldelijk door het oog van de naald hebben weten te kruipen en zich tot intelligente wezens hebben weten te ontwikkelen, is de kans dat we ze tegenkomen of detecteren – doordat ze net als ons zo zeldzaam zijn – vrij klein.
6. Het ligt aan ons Misschien moeten we de hand in eigen boezem steken en concluderen dat we geen aliens kunnen vinden, omdat we nog niet goed hebben gezocht. We zijn natuurlijk nog maar relatief kort op jacht naar sporen van buitenaards leven; radiotelescopen speuren in dat immense heelal nog maar enkele decennia naar buitenaardse radiosignalen. En ook de zoektocht naar (potentieel leefbare) planeten buiten ons zonnestelsel staat welbeschouwd nog in de kinderschoenen; van de miljarden planeten die in onze Melkweg te vinden zijn, hebben we er nog maar iets meer dan 5000 ontdekt. En slechts een klein deel daarvan is inmiddels wat uitgebreider bestudeerd en gekarakteriseerd. Maar we zoeken niet alleen nog maar kort; de vraag is ook of we wel goed zoeken. Want je oor te luister leggen om buitenaardse radiosignalen op te vangen, klinkt misschien als een waterdicht plan. Maar wie zegt dat aliens middels radiosignalen communiceren? En zoeken naar potentieel leefbare planeten is ook heel tof, maar wie zegt dat wat wij ‘leefbaar’ vinden, ook leefbaar is voor aliens?
7. Aliens willen geen contact Mensen zoeken dus reeds op verschillende manieren naar aliens. En in de meeste gevallen is die zoektocht passief: we kijken of we een signaal van aliens kunnen opvangen. Maar 50 jaar geleden werd besloten eens over te gaan tot actieve communicatie; in 1974 stuurde onderzoeker Frank Drake opzettelijk een radioboodschap naar Messier 13. Niet iedereen was daar enthousiast over; sommige mensen – waaronder de bekende wetenschapper Stephen Hawking – vonden het onverstandig om onze aanwezigheid zo te etaleren en waren bang dat het kwaadaardige aliens aan kon trekken. Geen gekke gedachte. Stel je nu voor dat buitenaardse beschavingen er ook zo over denken. Dan zullen ze er alles aan doen om detectie te voorkomen. En ook dat kan verklaren waarom we ze nog niet gevonden of ontmoet hebben.
Het is slechts een kleine greep uit de vele hypothesen die zijn bedacht om te verklaren waarom we tot op heden geen aliens hebben ontdekt. Of ze hout snijden? Dat weet niemand. Ondertussen gaat de zoektocht naar aliens onverminderd hard door. “Hoe meer we leren over het universum, hoe sterker ook het verlangen wordt om vast te stellen wat onze plaats daarin is,” merkt Wong, die eerder het vermoeden opperde dat aliens door een opeenstapeling van crises er maar niet toe komen ons te bezoeken of berichten. “Zijn we alleen en uniek? Zijn we de enige levensvormen en enige vorm van bewustzijn? Of zijn we slechts het zoveelste voorbeeld van een veelvoorkomend planetair fenomeen?” Het zijn vragen die de mensheid al millennia bezighouden en daar lijkt vooralsnog geen verandering in te komen.
NASA announced who will execute its plan to destroy the football-field-wide International Space Station (ISS).
The orbiting laboratory went up piece by piece, flight after flight via the Space Shuttles. But the currently plan for the proposed U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, as its being called, would be to bring humanity’s farthest outpost down all at once. On Wednesday, the space agency said it selected SpaceX to develop and deliver this spacecraft to allow for a “safe and responsible” end to the station’s space tenure after 2030.
Both the vehicle and its cargo would burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. “While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, NASA will take ownership after development and operate it throughout its mission. Along with the space station, it is expected to destructively break up as part of the re-entry process,” NASA officials wrote in the announcement.
In December 2021, during a six-hour and 32 minute spacewalk to replace a failed antenna system on the International Space Station’s Port-1 truss structure, NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn snapped this picture with his camera.
The mission’s main goal is to ensure there’s no risk of harm to populated areas. The first step is to dock the vehicle to the ISS. Then teams would gradually lower their altitude until they’re ready to perform the deorbit burn. The vehicle would execute that burn, NASA officials told reporters on Friday afternoon.
WHY DESTROY THE SPACE STATION?
The ISS is subject to numerous forces as it orbits 270 miles above the planet’s surface. Year after year, these take their toll. The station currently requires regular maintenance by the astronauts who swap in and out, keeping the station permanently occupied and functional.
What’s more, NASA also seeks to open up its budget for loftier goals. Retiring the ISS may free up resources to develop the Artemis program, which could see the first humans on the Moon since Apollo.
WHAT’S NEXT?
NASA officials said they will be working with SpaceX to execute the design and construction of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle. The mission’s final price tag also isn’t set. “The single-award contract has a total potential value of $843 million,” according to the announcement.
There are lots of "scars" on Mars, but not many have been seen with such excellent resolution.
A snaking scar on Mars.
(Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)
New images published by the European Space Agency have captured a 600-kilometer-long (373-mile-long) snaking scar on Mars' surface in greater detail than ever before. The Red Planet is full of scratches and scars, and this one, named Aganippe Fossa, is another of these ditch-like grooves with steep walls — more specifically, however, Aganippe Fossa is what's called a "graben."
"We're still unsure of how and when Aganippe Fossa came to be, but it seems likely that it was formed as magma rising underneath the colossal mass of the Tharsis volcanoes caused Mars’s crust to stretch and crack," ESA officials wrote in a recent press release.
As is common in planetary nomenclature, the name "Aganippe Fossa" has its roots in classical mythology. Aganippe, daughter of the river Termessos, was a nymph associated with a spring found at the base of Mount Helicon in Greece. In homage to its naming origins, Aganippe Fossa appears at the base of one of Mars' largest volcanoes, Arsia Mons. "Fossa" is then derived from the Latin term for ditch or trench, and refers to a long, narrow depression on the surface of a planet or moon.
The recently published images owe themselves to ESA's Mars Express, Europe's first mission to the Red Planet, which has been orbiting Mars since 2003. Although its lander, Beagle 2, was lost, the orbiter remains conducting a global investigation of Mars. It maps minerals, studies the atmosphere, probes beneath the crust and investigates the planet's blob-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Mars Express captured the new images of Aganippe Fossa with its high resolution stereo camera and revealed the varied surface features of Mars in great detail, showing both clustered, uneven hills and smooth, gently sloping cliffs covered in debris — referred to as hummocky and lobate terrains, respectively.
Topography of Aganippe Fossa. (Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)
These terrains are characteristic of Arsia Mons's ring-shaped "aureole," the ESA press release states, in reference to a 100,000-square-kilometer (38,610-square-mile) disk around the base of the volcano, possibly associated with ancient glaciers.. "Intriguingly," the statement continues, "this aureole has only built up on the northwestern flank of the volcano, likely due to prevailing winds from the opposite direction controlling where ice settled over time.
The team also describes windblown dust and sand dynamics of this region of Mars, which create "zebra-like" patterns on the planet's surface as a result of darker material getting deposited on lighter ground. "The surface here also shows evidence of lava flows, dating from when the volcano was active." the scientists wrote.
Aganippe Fossa is one of many classical albedo features on Mars, which refers to the light and dark features that can be seen on the planet through even an Earth-based telescope. With space-based orbiters, astronomers have been given unprecedented views of the planet's surface and its intriguing topography.
"The mission has been immensely productive over its lifetime, creating a far fuller and more accurate understanding of our planetary neighbor than ever before," ESA scientists said.
Large Language Models with Artificial Intelligence (AI) are neural networks whose hardware is very different from the human brain. They consume giga-watts of power instead of tens of watts, they are made of silicon instead of spongy flesh and blood, and their artificial neurons transmit signals at the speed of light. Such signals would have traveled 150 kilometers during the half-millisecond it takes neurotransmitter molecules to travel between synapses in the million-times smaller brain.
These material differences suggest that AI systems represent what we might characterize as an “alien” intelligence. Sure, we can do our best to align AI with humans through extensive training and supervision, but in the long run, this attempt might end up being comparable to putting lipstick on a pig.
Indeed, the fundamental distinction between AI and human intelligence might offer us a first taste of what we may one day encounter through the eventual discovery of extraterrestrial technologies manufactured under unimaginable circumstances on some distant exoplanet.
The Drake equation does little to shed any light on the chances of having such an encounter. Within billions of years, it takes just a single advanced civilization in the entire Milky Way galaxy to fill all of interstellar space with self-replicating probes that are equipped with AI and 3D printers so as to produce copies of themselves out of the raw materials they can find in remote locations. This trick of self-replication is familiar to terrestrial microbes, which regularly reproduce and multiply.
Interestingly, the computational abilities of both AI and the human brain are limited by the power available to them. The human brain grew to consume a fifth of the body’s metabolic energy, a requirement barely satisfied by hunting and gathering natural resources. The exponential growth of AI systems will likely saturate within a decade or two because of limitations on the electric power supply.
It is natural to assume, by extension, that the level of intelligence exhibited by extraterrestrial probes will be limited by their power supply. The energy flux supplied by a star scales inversely with distance squared, whereas the time to cross that distance scales in proportion to its value. As a result, the amount of available stellar energy scales inversely with the distance of the closest approach to a star. By reaching the Earth-Sun separation, an interstellar probe can harvest 100,000 more energy than attainable at the midpoint between the Sun and its nearest star. This provides a good incentive for interstellar probes to visit the habitable region around stars. Diving ten times closer to the star could lead to the melting of the probe, as its surface temperature would exceed a thousand degrees.
Aside from providing power at tolerable surface temperatures, the habitable region around a star also offers the opportunity for finding liquid water, which could be converted to hydrogen or oxygen fuel through the breakup of water molecules by electrolysis. For these reasons, habitable planets could be viewed by interstellar probes as fueling stations.
Functional interstellar probes might arrive near Earth for these reasons. Imagining that they do it because of us is pretentious. We might not be the main attraction on Earth, as science fiction movies often lead us to believe, given our self-centered mindset.
In a big city, we often find strangers on our street who do not care about us. Similarly, extraterrestrial probes might not view our nuclear arsenals as a threat or as an asset. But we might use them to benefit from their insights or align our interests with theirs. These are the same motivations that guide our interaction with AI systems. Given these similarities, the abbreviation AI could stand for alien intelligence as much as it stands for artificial intelligence of our own making.
Our biggest telescopes are unable to detect the flux of sunlight reflected from meter-size probes unless they arrive within a distance comparable to the Earth’s diameter. Based on the impact rate of interstellar meteors, like IM1 or IM2, there should be millions of meter-scale objects from interstellar space within the orbit of the Earth around the Sun at any given time. The key question is whether any of these interstellar objects is artificial in origin. And most importantly, are there any functional devices among the rocks and space trash that most objects represent?
I write this with hopes that the three observatories of the Galileo Project in the U.S. will join forces with the Rubin Observatory in Chile, to find new interstellar objects starting in 2025. Even if only one in a million of these objects happens to be a functional device, its discovery will change the way we behave, similar to the realization that someone is reading our emails or listening to our phone calls.
After identifying the nutrients an interstellar probe feeds on, we can attract it to our backyard by generously providing these nutrients. A closer encounter would allow us to learn more about the nature of its alien intelligence. The limited power supply might limit an alien probe’s intelligence level, but the critical unknown is whether that level exceeds ours. When dealing with alien intelligence, the ultimate challenge is the `unknown unknowns,’ not the `known unknowns.’
We might be part of a large population of intelligence that emerged since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The fundamental question is how many of them have more parameters than the human brain. For now, our limited knowledge allows us to imagine the benefits of large numbers. We know that there are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, similar to the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy or the number of Milky Way galaxies in the observable volume of the universe.
AI systems might augment our bodies in the future, like alien lifeforms. This will not be unprecedented, as there are 100 trillion bacteria in the human gut, similar to the number of stars in a rich cluster of galaxies.
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial:The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos,” both published in 2021. His new book, titled “Interstellar,” was published in August 2023.
Police in Missouri had an ‘out of this world’ experience after they had to pull over a ‘UFO’ for a minor traffic offence.
UFO-Like Vehicle on Oklahoma Highway
Crawford County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri shared the unexpected encounter on social media with photos of the vehicle.
Posting on Facebook, the Sheriff’s office shared photos of the vehicle resembling an alien spacecraft with two people seated inside.
They also shared a photo of one of their officers posing next to the vehicle with his thumbs up.
The driver of the vehicle was reportedly travelling in the ‘spacecraft’ vehicle for a festival in Roswell, New Mexico - a city known for its alien-inspired conspiracy theories.
They were pulled over for a minor traffic offence.
Picture: Crawford County Sheriff’s Office
Crawford County Sheriff’s Office shared the post online. Picture: Crawford County Sheriff’s Office
The post read: “Well, you never know what will be traveling through Crawford County but this one was a little out of this world.
“These friendly humanoids, who have come in peace, are heading west to Roswell, NM for a festival.
“There was a brief conversation about his out of space, correction, out of state registration, but he assured us that he would take care of that issue when he returned to Krypton. He was also warned about our strict enforcement of warp speed on the interstate and to keep his phasers on stun only while traveling.”
'Best ever UFO footage' caught on camera had it's authenticity '100%' confirmed
'Best ever UFO footage' caught on camera had it's authenticity '100%' confirmed
Could this be the closest we've come to proving the existence of aliens?
Brenna Cooper
Aliens and UFOs are surely one of the longest running fascinations of modern times.
Ever since reports of an alien spaceship crashing at Roswell way back in the 1940s hit the press; mankind has been hooked on UFO hysteria.
We all know someone who's spotted a rogue birthday balloon or glow lantern in the sky and whipped their phone camera out to declare that an alien invasion is imminent - but every now and again footage emerges and rattles even the biggest alien skeptics.
One person who managed to capture pretty eerie footage is pilot Jorge A. Arteaga, whose video recorded during a flight has been called the 'best UFO footage ever' - and has also been found to be 100 per cent authentic.
Check out the footage for yourself:
Arteaga was travelling through the skies above Antioquia, Colombia, when he spotted a strange object hurtling through the sky.
Captured in brought daylight, the mysterious, square-like object shoots out of the clouds and past Arteaga's cockpit in a matter of seconds.
He was able to quickly grab his camera and record the object - which appeared to be light in colour and pointed at one end - as it flew towards him before quickly speeding off.
Arteaga would later claim that he and his co-pilot had spotted the item floating in the air between the cities of Medellín and Santa Fe, before it drastically picked up speed and beelined towards them.
The pair had originally wanted to follow the UFO, but later abandoned the search after it suddenly began to hurtle towards them.
A birthday balloon? A rogue Wii Fit board? Or aliens?
(X/Jorge Arteaga)
Now I know what you're thinking, surely it's just another runaway balloon or random piece of debris?
Not according to Arteaga, who claimed that it would have been too cold or turbulent for a balloon to survive, adding that they were flying 12,500 feet in the air at the time.
And it seems that Arteaga has the backing of controversial ufologist Jaime Maussan, who later authenticated.
As for what happens during a 'UFO authentication' process we're not sure, but the pair would later sit down for an interview about the video, which Maussan later shared on his social media account.
"We are facing one of the greatest UAP (UFO) evidences of all time; captured by the Captain Pilot Aviator @JorgeArteagaG," he wrote on X, alongside a clip from their chat.
UFO or flying supermarket carrier bag?
(X/Jorge Arteaga)
Maussan went on to add that Arteaga had told him the object moved with 'something totally unknown without means of propulsion with movements that he considers intelligent.'
He also added that he'd cross-referenced the footage with Pilot Lieutenant Ryan Graves, who had agreed the clip showed a UFO, also known as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena).
Whether or not you believe the clip is a UFO or a floating piece of rubbish depends on what your stance on aliens is.
Eerie footage of UFO 'splitting in two' before mysteriously vanishing resurfaces
A video has resurfaced of mysterious lights in the sky, which many believe to have been extraterrestrial visitors to Earth.
Way back in the late 1990s, or 1997 to be precise, there were a series of strange sightings in the night sky. This was stretched between Tucson, Arizona, and just past Phoenix, close to the border with Nevada some 300 miles south.
All manner of strange things were reported at the time, including claims of strange formations of lights in the sky. There were even claims of a v-shaped UFO passing overhead. Scary stuff.
A video has resurfaced from a later round of the so-called 'Phoenix Lights', not to be confused with the much-loved Peter Kay comedy set in Bolton.
KTSDESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty
The clip appears to show a UFO splitting into two, with the light dividing and going off in separate directions. The image, of course, is extremely hazy as these videos always seem to be.
The footage was uploaded to YouTube, and explained by YouTuber ChaosMoogle.
He said: "This is not an infrared video — it is just a regular video, so we're seeing it how it would be seen with the naked eye."
An official explanation was in fact given for the sightings of lights in the sky around Phoenix. Local air force bases announced that they had been conducting routine training operations, and that the lights seen in the sky belonged to their aircraft.
But, of course, some people did not buy this explanation and firmly believed that there was something being covered up, and that something was an alien presence in the sky over Nevada.
Youtube/ ChaosMoogle
The suspicion around aliens became more pronounced following a congressional hearing this year, which once again opened up the question of whether there have been aliens visiting Earth.
One question which always provokes questions is looking at a map that shows reports of sightings of aliens, the vast majority - nearly all of them in fact - are in the USA.
Aliens must love the USA.
Former intelligence officer Major David Grusch made a surprising testimony in front of Congress where he claimed that U.S. officials had discovered crashed alien spacecraft. Moreover, he claimed that the craft had indeed contained 'non-human' remains.
The Pentagon has, of course, denied the claim.
Meanwhile, the reaction to the apparent announcement from many Americans was one of indiffernece. Many videos being posted showing off a collective shrug as many Americans struggle to get by amid rising fuel prices, health insurance, and living costs.
So much so it's become a joke online, that aliens arrive and say that they have taken over our government and done away with our rulers.
MRO HiRISE image reveals remnants of an ancient city on Mars destroyed by thermonuclear attack
MRO HiRISE image reveals remnants of an ancient city on Mars destroyed by thermonuclear attack
Years ago, physicist Dr. John Brandenburg stated that there is evidence of two nuclear explosions on Mars. These explosions could have been caused by thermonuclear bombs.
Remnants of an ancient city on Mars destroyed by thermonuclear attack.
Evidence supporting this theory includes the presence of nuclear isotopes in the Martian atmosphere and the detection of a thin layer of substances such as uranium, thorium, and radioactive potassium on the surface of Mars.
The absence of craters at the sites indicates that the bombs were likely detonated above ground in an air blast, which worsens the global fallout but dampens the immediate ground impact. Conversely, if detonated on the ground, the local devastation is immense but the global impact is minimized. Regardless, these explosions were powerful enough to cause a global catastrophe and significantly alter Mars' climate. According to Brandenburg, the nuclear attack apparently wiped out two races: the Cydonians and Utopians.
The MRO HiRISE image ESP_019103_1460 shows the "Atlantic Chaos," and a closer examination reveals a city that was almost destroyed by the thermonuclear explosions. Amid the ruins of destroyed buildings and towering structures, a largely intact dome-shaped structure is visible (See image below.)
The remnants of this city suggest that Mars was once inhabited by intelligent species like the Cydonians and Utopians, who lived there under conditions similar to those on Earth. This also serves as evidence that far more advanced civilizations may have existed for millions of years and possessed the capability to annihilate all life on a planet using thermonuclear bombs, among other means.
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More Evidence that the Kuiper Belt is Bigger Than We Thought
The Kuiper Belt was named in honor of Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who postulated a reservoir of icy bodies beyond Neptune. The first Kuiper Belt object was discovered in 1992. We now know of more than a thousand objects there, and it's estimated it's home to more than 100,000 asteroids and comets there over 62 miles (100 km) across. Credit: JHUAPL
More Evidence that the Kuiper Belt is Bigger Than We Thought
As the New Horizons spacecraft continues its epic journey to explore the Kuiper Belt, it has a study partner back here on Earth. The Subaru Telescope on the Big Island of Hawaii is deploying its Hyper Suprime-Cam imager to look at the Kuiper Belt along the spacecraft’s trajectory. Its observations show that the Kuiper Belt extends farther than scientists thought.
The observations support the search for Kuiper Belt objects (KBO) for New Horizons to explore next. So far, Subaru has found many smaller bodies out there. However, none of them are along the spacecraft’s trajectory. In a big surprise to the science teams at Subaru, at least two of those objects orbit beyond 50 astronomical units, which is the current assumed “limit” of the Belt.
If observers continue to find more such objects outside that 50 AU “limit”, it means the Kuiper Belt is bigger than everybody thought. Or it could exist in two parts—a sort of inner and outer Kuiper Belt. Scientists already know that the belt is much dustier than expected, thanks to observations taken with the dust counter onboard New Horizons.
Implications of an Expanded or Two-part Kuiper Belt
Beyond simply expanding the limit of the Kuiper Belt, the Subaru observations have profound implications for our understanding of the solar nebula, according to Fumi Yoshida, who led the research for the Subaru observation team. “Looking outside of the Solar System, a typical planetary disk extends about 100 AU from the host star (100 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun), and the Kuiper Belt, which is estimated to extend about 50 AU, is very compact. Based on this comparison, we think that the primordial solar nebula, from which the Solar System was born, may have extended further out than the present-day Kuiper Belt,” said Yoshida.
Let’s say the primordial disk was quite large. Then it’s possible that undiscovered planetary bodies clipped the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. If that happened, then it makes sense to search the outer limits of the current Belt to find such a cut-off object. It’s also possible that perhaps that truncation created a second Kuiper Belt beyond the currently known belt. What it’s like is anybody’s guess, although it’s probably dusty and very likely has at least a few larger objects. So, even if there’s nothing along the New Horizons trajectory, using Subaru to study the distribution of objects it has found will help scientists to understand the evolution of the Solar System.
The Hyper Suprime-Cam at the Subaru Telescope in Hawai’i is part of the search for New Horizons flyby targets. It has a special filter to aid in the search. Credit: Subaru Telescope.
Searching for KBOs
Subaru Telescope’s has been searching for more KBOs to explore ever since New Horizons flew past Arrokoth in 2019. The idea is to find additional KBOs along the path of flight. The search focused two Hyper Suprime-Cam fields along the spacecraft’s trajectory through the Belt. The New Horizons team spent about 30 half-nights to find more than 240 outer Solar System objects.
The next step was for a Japanese team to analyze images from those observations. However, they used a different method than the mission team did and found seven new outer Solar System objects. The scientists then analyzed the HSC data with a Moving Object Detection System developed by JAXA. Normally it detects near-Earth asteroids and other space debris. Those types of bodies move very fast, compared to more distant ones. So, looking for very dim, faraway, slow-moving objects was a challenge. That’s because the team had to adjust for the speed of the Kuiper Belt objects. Then they applied some updated image analysis to confirm their findings. Scientists now know the orbits of two of the seven new objects and they’ve been assigned provisional designations by the Minor Planet Center (MPC.
Schematic diagram showing the orbits of the two discovered objects (red: 2020 KJ60, purple: 2020 KK60). The plus symbol represents the Sun; green lines are the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The numbers on the vertical and horizontal axes represent the distance from the Sun in astronomical units. (1 AU corresponds to the distance between the Sun and the Earth). The black dots represent classical Kuiper Belt objects. These are thought to be a group of icy planetesimals that formed early in Solar System history. The gray dots represent outer Solar System objects with a semi-major axis greater than 30 au. These include objects scattered by Neptune. They extend far out, and many have orbits inclined with respect to the ecliptic plane. The circles and dots in the figure represent their positions on June 1, 2024. Credit: JAXA
Continuing to Search the Kuiper Belt
The discovery of more KBOs in the outer Solar System (along with New Horizons’ continued dust detection activities) tells scientists that there’s more to the Kuiper Belt than anyone expected. The proof will be in continued Subaru observations to detect and confirm more objects “out there.”
“The mission team’s search for Kuiper Belt objects using Hyper Suprime-Cam continues to this day, and a series of papers will be published in the future, mainly by the North American group,” said Yoshida. “This research, the discovery of sources with the potential to expand the Kuiper Belt region using a method developed in Japan and led by Japanese researchers, serves as a precursor to those publications.”
A dozen employees said they watched a "large, disc-shaped craft" hover above a Coloradoconcert venue and then vanish.
"What's even crazier is that as soon as we all started noticing it and stopped what we were doing to pay attention to it, the craft tipped at an angle and slowly started moving belly-first to the east," an employee reported to the National UFO Reporting Center about the June 5 sighting at the Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Morrison.
"Then it started fading away until it was invisible. It didn't shoot off into the distance. It simply dissolved into the ether. We all watched it vanish."
The "silent" hovering object was long – about the size of a "three-story office building" – with three levels of windows and lights, according to the National UFO Reporting Center.
"We all turned to look in the direction he was pointing and sure enough, there was a UFO hovering about half a mile to a mile north of Red Rocks."
They all turned their attention to the strange object in the sky, and it suddenly "fade(d) into nothing as soon as it knew it was being watched," according to the National UFO Reporting Center post.
Scott Roder, a veteran crime scene recreation expert, used artificial intelligence and computer software to break down a short video to prove there's movement and at least two "beings" in the Las Vegas alien video, which has been debated.
(Jim Quirk/QuirkZone on YouTube)
Scott Roder, a veteran crime scene reconstruction analyst, broke down the Las Vegas witnesses' video and outlined two "smokey filters" that didn't match the background.
He theorized that "the beings" used some sort of "cloaking mechanism" to "shield" themselves from the curious family and, later, responding police officers.
WATCH: CRIME SCENE RECREATION ANALYST BREAKS DOWN REPORTED ALIEN SIGHTING
In one second of real time, there are 30 frames that show a "head… with smoke around it," which Roder called "some sort of cloaking device," moving into the top right corner of the video and peering over the fence.
"I applied the same principles that I would apply to any kind of homicide investigation," said Roder, who testified in cases like Oscar Pistorious' murder trial.
"At this particular time, with what we've seen here, is proof of a couple of things. That these entities… are real. They're there. This is not fake. This is not a fraud."
A crime scene recreation analyst breaks down a video of a reported alien in Las Vegas and outlines where he said "there's no doubt" two creatures appear.
There are believers, skeptics and people on the fence about extraterrestrial life, but there's a growing interest in UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena), as they're referred to today.
Roder worked with Jim Quirk, a reporter who runs the Extraterrestrial Reality podcast and who shared videos and images with Fox News Digital, to recreate the scene in the Las Vegas backyard on April 30, 2023.
Roder wants to open it up to "peer review."
"Bring it on," he said.
"I want to open this up. Everything that we've done. I'm opening it up for peer review… I'm willing to hear what professionals in my field have to say about this and open it up. And if I'm wrong, you know, I'll admit it," Roder said, although he's certain he's right.
"These two items, these two beings, are in the real world environment with the Kenmore family. That's a fact," Roder said. "Now the question is, Who are they? Where are they from and what do they want? That's where the conversation goes."
A mismatched pair of stars 3,000 light years away may be gearing up for an explosion in the next few months. T Coronae Borealis (T CrB to its friends) is normally too dim to see with the unaided eye, but roughly every 80 years, it flares brightly enough to appear as a “new” star, or nova, in Earth’s northern sky. Its last event was in 1946, and astronomers say it’s likely to go off again this summer.
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE — BOOM
T CrB is actually a pair of stars, trapped in each other’s orbit — and in an extremely messy relationship that sometimes literally explodes.
One member of the pair is an aging red giant, which has burned up all its hydrogen fuel and is now fusing helium atoms together at its core. Helium fusion produces a tremendous amount of heat and radiation pressure, so the aging star’s outer layers have swelled outward to many times its original size (this is the same fate that will eventually befall our Sun in about 5 billion years). The other half of the dynamic duo is a white dwarf: the burned-out remains of a star’s core (this is what our Sun will look like sometime after its red giant phase).
About every 80 years, the red giant shrugs off its outermost layers of gas, and the white dwarf’s gravity grabs them. White dwarfs are nowhere near as dense as neutron stars, but they're still pretty dense, being the remnants of stellar cores — and it doesn't take much to ignite one again, at least temporarily. When the gas discarded by the red giant falls onto the surface of the white dwarf, it puts just enough pressure on the inner layers of the white dwarf to kickstart nuclear fusion.
That sudden burst of fusion triggers a chain reaction that eventually engulfs the outer layers of the star in what's called a runaway thermonuclear reaction. The envelope of gas around the white dwarf (the same envelope it just snatched away from the nearby red giant), heated by the runaway nuclear fusion, explodes outward at roughly 3,700 miles per second. In other words, KABOOM.
And 3,000 light years away, people on Earth will be able to see what looks like a new star in the night sky.
This illustration shows the red giant in T CrB with a disk of discarded gas around it. The white dwarf (the bright spot in the disk at the beginning of the animation) eventually gobbles up so much material that its surface explodes in a runaway thermonuclear reaction.
HOW TO SEE THE NOVA IN T. CORONAE BOREALIS
You can’t see the T Coronae Borealis system with the unaided eye right now, because it’s too dim and too far away. When the nova happens, that will change; the now-invisible star will suddenly appear, blazing brightly for about a week. But you’ll need to know where to look.
This occasionally explosive pair of stars is located in a very small, C-shaped constellation called Coronae Borealis (or the Northern Crown if you’re not a fan of conversational Latin). The Northern Crown lies between the big kite-shaped constellation Boötes and the smaller constellation Hercules. Hercules makes a good landmark, because it’s shaped a little like the more familiar Orion, and it’s almost directly overhead after sunset.
If you’re not an experienced stargazer with a clear view of the night sky, though, your best bet might be to download a star-chart app that can help you pinpoint objects in the sky. It’s a good idea to play with the app and find out where T Coronae Borealis is – the better to appreciate its sudden appearance when the nova finally goes off.
HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN T. CORONAE BOREALIS WILL GO SUPERNOVA?
For the last several centuries, astronomers have watched this pair of stars flare up fairly regularly: about once every 80 years. And the last time this happened, in 1946, astronomers had advanced enough equipment to measure changes in the stars’ brightness in specific wavelengths of light, especially during the months and years leading up to the nova.
“Its behavior over the past decade appears strikingly similar to the observed behavior in a similar timeframe leading up to the 1946 eruption,” writes NASA in a recent press release. “If this pattern continues, some researchers say, the nova event could occur by September 2024.”
But there are no guarantees, and predicting a nova in a star system 3,000 light years away is far from an exact science, especially since astrophysicists still don’t understand the mechanics of these explosions in much detail (which is something they’re hoping this year’s nova can shed more light on).
“Recurrent novae are unpredictable and contrarian,” says NASA astrophysicist Koji Mukai in a recent statement. “We’ll see how T Coronae Borealis behaves.”
WHAT WILL WE LEARN FROM THE NOVA?
The handful of stars in our galaxy that regularly flare up in bright novae are even farther away than T Coronae Borealis (which is actually pretty close by, in stellar terms). That makes it difficult for astronomers to see much detail about exactly how the runaway thermonuclear reaction kicks off and how it finally burns itself out. If predictions are correct, though, T Coronae Borealis should give astronomers an excellent view of all the gory details this time around.
Amateur astronomers all over the world are watching T Coronae Borealis’s dark spot in the night sky right now so they can alert scientists the moment it explodes. When that happens, electronic eyes all over the planet – and in orbit – will pivot toward the star system to record what happens. Teams of astronomers plan to watch the fireworks show with JWST, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, the Swift Observatory, the Very Large Array, and a host of other telescopes on Earth and in space. Those observations should cover pretty much the whole spectrum of radiation, from long, slow radio waves to short, energetic gamma rays.
Much of that information will be new; scientists didn’t have anything like the Fermi Gamma-Ray observatory back in 1946, so they have no idea how a nova looks in gamma rays. Another new addition is NASA’s Imaging Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, with its ability to study how closely the light waves in a given beam of x-rays line up with one another; that can reveal all sorts of detail about the x-rays’ origins and the space they’ve traveled through.
WHAT ABOUT BETELGEUSE?
It won’t take T CrB’s white dwarf very long to burn up all its hydrogen fuel and settle back down: It’ll only be visible in the sky for a few days, and the runaway thermonuclear reaction itself will last just a fraction of that time. When Betelgeuse eventually explodes, however, the glow of its death throes will hang in the sky for several months. What’s the difference?
The kind of explosion that lights up T CrB once every 40 years is called a nova, and it happens when a white dwarf gets briefly reignited in a runaway nuclear reaction. Imagine throwing lighter fluid and a match onto a pile of burned-up charcoal. It will catch fire and burn for a moment, but it won’t last.
When Betelgeuse dies, however, it will go out in a blaze of glory called a supernova. A supernova happens when an extremely massive star runs out of fuel for its nuclear reactions; the outer layers collapse, and the pressure of the collapse triggers an enormous explosion. Think of it as blowing up the grill: It’s going to be bigger and brighter than what happened when you lit up the charcoal, and you’re only going to be able to do it once.
Novae like T CrB, though, are the explosive cosmic gifts that just keep on exploding.
The mysterious vehicle was spied in satellite images 👽
UFO-like vehicle spotted on Google Maps.
Eagle-eyed users spied it in the harbour next to a navy base.
Social media goes wild trying to guess what exactly the vehicle is.
The truth really might be out there after all. At least that is according to eagle-eyed Google maps users who believe they havespotted a “UFO”.
The mysterious vehicle was spied in satellite images, dated 2024, in the harbour next to the Port Hueneme U.S. Navy base in California. Social media users on X (formerly Twitter) have debated what exactly the UFO-like objectcould be with suggestions including, looks like a stingray," and "the sub-flyer from Journey to the Bottom of the Sea”.
Data Scientist John Basham adding his two cents wrote: "It means either they screwed up and allowed this thing to be photographed. Or they want it photographed to send enemy nations down a rabbit hole."
What was the UFO?
A UFO-like vehicle has been spotted on Google maps. Photo: Google/Airbus/Maxar / SWNS|Google/Airbus/Maxar / SWNS
After the vehicle was spotted on Google maps and a frenzy of speculation, the craft was revealed as the U.S. military's Manta Ray prototype uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV). Built by manufacturer Northrop Grumman, it is designed for long-duration undersea missions.
The company announced they completed full-scale testing off the coast of Southern California in February and March. Manta Ray was built through the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program.
What exactly is the vehicle?
Northrop Grumman described the vehicle as a "new class of UUV, it is an extra-large glider that will operate long-duration, long-range and payload-capable undersea missions without need for on-site human logistics."
“Our successful, full-scale Manta Ray testing validates the vehicle’s readiness to advance toward real-world operations after being rapidly assembled in the field from modular subsections,” Dr. Kyle Woerner, DARPA program manager for Manta Ray said in May. “The combination of cross-country modular transportation, in-field assembly, and subsequent deployment demonstrates a first-of-kind capability for an extra-large UUV.”
DARPA says they are engaging with the U.S. Navy on the next steps for testing and transition of the technology.
MEET THE REAL-LIFE FOX MULDER: NICK POPE TALKS UFOS, CLICHES AND BUSTS MYTHS
MEET THE REAL-LIFE FOX MULDER: NICK POPE TALKS UFOS, CLICHES AND BUSTS MYTHS
Nick Pope’s dive into the world of UFOs happened by pure chance. Back in 1991, while working for the UK's Ministry of Defence, he was unexpectedly assigned to investigate UFO sightings—a role meant to last just three years. But once he got a taste of the mysteries and compelling data, he couldn’t walk away. Fast forward to today, and Pope’s become a top expert, especially after helping declassify a treasure trove of government documents.
Want to know what he discovered? Keep reading to explore the surprising truths behind UFO sightings and why they matter more than you might think.02/07/2024
What first drew you to UFO investigations and how did you become a leading expert?
I fell into it rather by accident than design, because I was given it to do as a government job. I was a civilian employee of the Ministry of Defence for 21 years, and I was due in 1991 for a move. You get posted to all the different areas, so you could be in security, policy, finance personnel, and they had a UFO job – I was due for a move at the exact time that that vacancy came up. And I was given that job to do for three years to essentially research and investigate the phenomenon, to assess the defence and national security implications.
I did that for three years and then I just felt that it was too interesting to walk away from, so at the end of that particular posting, I stayed involved. Years later, the British government declassified and released a lot of the Ministry of Defence UFO files. Thousands of documents, many of which I wrote, so I helped with that programme, my name got out there and so the rest is history.
The rest is indeed history. We can see how that would be something that you would sort of fall into and then not want to lead, it sounds so interesting! What would be the most surprising discovery that you came across during a time that, if you can tell us.
Well, I think it was the general point that some of these sightings were much, much more than just vague lights or shapes in the sky, and that there was some really good hard data on a lot of these cases. For example, multiple instances where these things were seen by not just commercial airline pilots, but military pilots [and] simultaneously tracked on radar systems. We've now, particularly in the United States, over the last few years seen senior intelligence officials talk about these things being picked up on satellites, and we've even seen some declassified films of these things shot from fast jets through forward-looking infrared cameras. I think what surprised me was just the fact that this wasn't all just kind of science fiction and conspiracy theory territory, that it really did take you into some fairly hard defence, national security and flight safety issues.
Do you think that [because] there's more evidence cropping up, and a lot more hard, factual evidence, as opposed to the sort of conspiracy theories or general conversations, that the governments are taking more action to be prepared for things, worst case scenario?
Very much so, yes. The US government in particular has really led the way on this subject. There's been a study and reports issued by NASA, who of course a few years ago said we're not interested in UFOs. They said we're looking for life out there, but we don't think any of it's coming down here. But that completely reversed in the last three or four year, and now [they’re a] part of the wider US government UFO research and investigation. Also, the Department of Defence, so the Pentagon, is involved [and] the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has issued reports. [Now that] we've had these declassified US Navy videos that I think a lot of people saw and wondered about because again, there's just been this complete 180° narrative flip, that this subject has come out of the fringe and into the mainstream.
I mean, a few years ago the US government was saying we're not interested, we don't have a programme, and I think what's really amazing is that there's been engagement from the United States Congress, down to the point of having congressional hearings on this and… for all the political divide we see, we've had both Republicans and Democrats come together and push for answers on this. It's less, it's less pronounced in the UK, but there are a few hints that things are going on behind the scenes. Firstly, the US government revealed that theFive Eyes Intelligence Sharing Alliance (United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) has been doing some work on UFOs, so we know even though they're not talking about it, there's been, there's been some engagement from the UK. The other really interesting thing is that just about a month ago, it was revealed that [the] Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are doing a small study on how the discovery of extraterrestrial life might be announced.
So they're kind of dressing it up as ‘well, what if the James Webb Space Telescope finds something?’ But of course, you can read it across to any scenario you like involving aliens, and just so the fact that the British Government, for the first time is working on a plan of how this would be announced and maybe asking questions like ‘do we have a contingency plan for this?’ Because the answer actually is no, you don't. So, I think they're about to find out they might need one.
Just watching some of the films and some of the programmes like not the not the actual ones or the documentary ones, but just fiction/science fiction, it very much feels like there needs to be a contingency plan and that's just from a viewer's perspective. If you actually started to look into the data behind it, you would definitely think you need a contingency plan.
100% yes. In government, we often use the phrase low probability, high impact and it just well I guess it means what it says. Even if you think there's a comparatively small chance of something happening, if the societal implications are big enough, you must have a plan. So, for example, there are contingency plans, and NASA is actively working on things like what if we discovered a big comet or asteroid heading for the Earth and there have been science fiction movies about that. Of course, Armageddon and Deep Impact for example, and Meteor way before that, I guess Sean Connery back in the 70s.
So you have it's better to have a plan and not need it than need it and not have it. We don't know what extraterrestrials might be like, [or] what they might want, but… if we ever do get visited and they land on the White House lawn, that kind of ‘first-contact’ scenario, about the only good assumption you can make is that their technology will be orders of magnitude above and beyond anything we have, just because they can get here. And we certainly can't get there.
I think now we've got this realisation that previously it's like the iceberg we've just seen the tip of it, but below the surface, there are tens of thousands of people. There's a great line in the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind it's “ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances” and it's that I think that's driving it. So, it's coming from the bottom upwards from the public with their sightings. And then it's coming from the top downwards when we've got all these government officials and top guns in the US and suddenly there no stigma anymore – or there's less stigma than there was. There's still some [but] not as much.
I mean, when you were literally in a situation where you can turn on the Evening News and see a U.S. Navy pilot talk about how they were chasing these things, and suddenly they were performing speeds, manoeuvres, accelerations that go way beyond anything they've got. And you think these top guns are fairly difficult to impress and they're just like, wow, this thing, whatever it was, went from virtually standstill to high max speeds in a second, and we got it on radar, so it's not just optical illusion or sensor error. So, I think I think it's those sorts of things that have led to this fundamental change.
It's definitely made it a lot more difficult to ignore. That's probably where a lot of the stigma came from before – it was just a few people here and there who had spoken about their encounters or experiences. And then you've got a lot of people saying ‘well, I didn't see it and you can't prove it’. Whereas now, like you said, there's a lot of things that make it very difficult to ignore – the data, radars, there are experienced pilots, and it's not just the average [person] who said something about something.
Exactly. And all of this ties back to the fact that even when the sceptics say, well, ‘why should I take this seriously?’, you can now say, well, they've just had a hearing on it in Congress or the office of the Director of National Intelligence just issued a report on it. And these are the people who normally report on things like ballistic missile programmes or next-generation stealth fighters, whatever it might be. And then you can go on to the website and read [UFO reports], or at least the unclassified versions.
When you have that comparison – they're talking about those important things, and they're also talking about UFOs, it very much like these are things that everyone should be paying attention to, sitting up and being a bit more observant about what they see and who says what.
Yes, exactly. And you when, when government and the military and the intelligence community are taking it seriously, demonstrably so, then I think even the most hardened sceptic might sit up and say ‘well, wait a minute. Why? Why are they suddenly doing all these studies and issuing all these reports and having all these hearings?’ Because there's no smoke without fire.
Exactly! What do you think is the biggest misconception about UFOs that you possibly have encountered?
I think one that springs to mind is the shape people going to still have this idea of flying saucers and disc-shaped craft. I'm not saying that there haven't been sightings over the years, clearly there have been, but I think most times now when you talk to the pilots, they talk about smaller craft which are either spherical or oval-shaped. In the US very famously one of them was even known as the Tic Tac incident because this thing was white and oval-shaped.
But also, these things are often triangular shape to sort of flat triangle. I've spoken to witnesses who've seen these things slide directly overhead. And I remember one witness very clearly said that he just thought it was a really, really cloudy night because one by one the stars disappeared as if behind some cloud. Then he suddenly realised that he was looking at the underside of a huge black triangular shaped craft, just a couple of hundred feet above him, just moving almost silently overhead, and he was like, wow. I think by his own admission he stood there with his mouth open, his eyes wide, thinking what the heck is that?
Another counterintuitive point is that people always think UFOs are very, very fast, and they're not necessarily. Sometimes they are capable of hovering or moving at very slow speeds, then accelerating away to the horizon in a split second. Another surprising fact, I'm busting all the cliches today, is that these things are just often seen in really remote rural areas. And it's not true. Actually, if you plot them out on a map, a lot of the sightings are in the big cities.
Now you could say that from a sort of statistical point of view, a lot of these lists are not controlled, they don't factor in population. So, in one sense, if you've got a city like London with 8+ million people, if there's something strange in the sky, there are more potential witnesses.
But people just think that [with the] light pollution and the obstructed view from tall buildings. ‘oh you don't have UFO sightings in big cities’. You absolutely do. London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, these are all UFO hotspots.
Looking ahead, what do you think the future holds for UFO research? Or what do you hope is the next big breakthrough?
I think and I forgot to add this to one of your earlier questions when you asked what's driving this. And one of the things I meant to bring in is the way in which science and academia are now engaging on this. So for example, we have people like Professor Avi Loeb at Harvard, who leads a research programme called Galileo Project, and he's an astrophysicist. A few years ago, scientists wouldn't touch this subject with a barge pole, but now they are. Academics are studying this, more scientists are coming on board. We're seeing UFOs now studied not just by enthusiasts, but by governments, the military, the intelligence agencies, science, academia, and I think that's the future.
And [I think] we're going to see the scientific search for extraterrestrial life, so things like astrobiology come closer and closer, develop linkages with UFO research, because in a sense, as I always say, all these people are looking for the same thing, but they're just looking in different places, and with different methodologies. But what we're now seeing for the first time is those people linking up and doing a bit of both. So, like I say, NASA using James Webb Space Telescope to look for biosignatures, but also doing UFO sightings because going back to that cliché of life out there, you'd feel pretty foolish if you spent millions and millions looking for life out there. And the very thing you were looking for was down here, under your nose all along.
Finally, you've been a regular guest on various TV shows and documentaries and also a spokesperson and consultant for several UFO and alien-themed movies to date. Has there been any that has been a favourite sort of experience or favourite to talk about or consult on?
Well, I think I can't not mention The X-Files, it's just such an iconic TV series and of course now spin-off movies. And in the early years when Chris Carter was creating The X-Files, he went around quietly attending UFO conferences, sitting at the back taking notes. So, it's this great situation where art imitates life, or life imitates art. People say that there's a relationship between science fiction and the UFO phenomenon, and there is but not in the way that a lot of people think. People think ‘ohh these people who see UFOs, they're just picking this up from science fiction’. Often, it's the other way around.
I did some spokesperson work for Fox on The X-Files, one of movies and I think a DVD box set and I got to meet Chris Carter, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and things. And the media had for years called me the real-life Fox Mulder. So that was fun.
Two of the most thoughtful and possibly realistic science fiction movies are Contact and Arrival – like all good science fiction, yes, it's about aliens, but it's also about us, and the human reaction to all of this, so that was good. And, of course, more recently, with UFO Day on BLAZE, I'm on a lot of those shows. I'm one of the series regulars on Ancient Aliens, and I know now I'm segueing into documentaries, but Ancient Aliens is obviously an institution that's been running for multiple seasons and still going strong, and I'm very happy to be involved in that show. I know BLAZEare going to be showing a lot of episodes.
And then of course the new show UFO Encounters UK that I'm also on both those episodes. I mentioned that Close Encounters of the Third Kind quote – “ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances” – I guess that's the epitome of that quote because that's it's just very visceral, how these people just tell their stories. People with nothing to gain, and but potentially quite a lot to lose. Just telling it straight, and how this is what happened. With the UFO subject comes back to the ordinary people and their sightings, their experiences of this and. And I mentioned again there's this thing that people often say the day before I had my sighting or experience, and the day after and these people are changed profoundly and deeply by it and often it sets them on a quest, a sort of journey of discovery as they try and make sense of all this and try and find other people like them, who've had these experiences because often they often think that's the only people I could talk to about this is somebody else who's been through it. I've had people who haven't even told family members about sightings and experiences, but they'll try and connect with other people who've had that shared experience.
Yeah, it is about the shared experience, isn't it? It's difficult when you have something like you said that's profoundly changes you that no one else can really relate to.
Yes. It's not necessarily that these people are looking for validation. I mean they know what they saw, But they want that sense of community. They want that sense of oh, it's not just me.
Tune into BLAZE (Freesat channel 162) all day on Tuesday 2nd June to find the very best UFO shows, and catch the premiere of UFO Encounters UK from 9pm.
Webb Sees Hourglass-Shaped Molecular Cloud around Protostar
Webb Sees Hourglass-Shaped Molecular Cloud around Protostar
Astronomers using theMIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) cameraaboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the molecular cloud L1527.
L1527, shown in this image from Webb’s MIRI instrument, is a molecular cloud that harbors the IRAS 04368+2557 protostar. The more diffuse blue light and the filamentary structures in the image come from organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while the red at the center of this image is an energized, thick layer of gases and dust that surrounds the protostar. The region in between, which shows up in white, is a mixture of PAHs, ionized gas, and other molecules.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI.
L1527, also known as LDN 1527, is located approximately 447 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Taurus.
An infant protostar called IRAS 04368+2557 is embedded within the molecular cloud, which is part of the Taurus star-forming region.
IRAS 04368+2557 is only 100,000 years old — a relatively young stellar body.
Given its age and its brightness in far-infrared light, the star is considered a class 0 protostar, the earliest stage of star formation.
IRAS 04368+2557 hosts an edge-on disk with two misaligned parts.
The inner and outer parts of the disk have slightly different orbital planes, connected at 40 to 60 AU (astronomical units) from the protostar, but the disk has point symmetry with respect to the protostar’s position.
Webb’s previous observation of L1527, with NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), allowed astronomers to peer into this region and revealed this molecular cloud and protostar in opaque, vibrant colors.
Both NIRCam and MIRI show the effects of outflows, which are emitted in opposite directions along the protostar’s rotation axis as the object consumes gas and dust from the surrounding cloud.
These outflows take the form of bow shocks to the surrounding molecular cloud, which appear as filamentary structures throughout.
They are also responsible for carving the bright hourglass structure within the molecular cloud as they energize, or excite, the surrounding matter and cause the regions above and below it to glow.
“Unlike NIRCam, however, which mostly shows the light that is reflected off dust, MIRI provides a look into how these outflows affect the region’s thickest dust and gases,” the Webb astronomers said in a statement.
“The areas colored here in blue, which encompass most of the hourglass, show mostly carbonaceous molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.”
“The IRAS 04368+2557 protostar itself and the dense blanket of dust and a mixture of gases that surround it are represented in red.”
“In between, MIRI reveals a white region directly above and below the protostar, which doesn’t show as strongly in the NIRCam view.”
“This region is a mixture of hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and thick dust, which shows that the protostar propels this matter quite far away from it as it messily consumes material from its disk.”
“As IRAS 04368+2557 continues to age and release energetic jets, it’ll consume, destroy, and push away much of this molecular cloud, and many of the structures we see here will begin to fade.”
“Eventually, once it finishes gathering mass, this impressive display will end, and the star itself will become more apparent, even to our visible-light telescopes.”
“The combination of analyses from both the near-infrared and mid-infrared views reveals the overall behavior of this system, including how the central protostar is affecting the surrounding region.”
“Other stars in Taurus, the star-forming region where L1527 resides, are forming just like this, which could lead to other molecular clouds being disrupted and either preventing new stars from forming or catalyzing their development.”
Within the uncertainties of involved astronomical and biological parameters, the Drake equation typically predicts that there should be many exoplanets (< 100 to millions) in our Milky Way Galaxy hosting active, communicative civilizations. These optimistic calculations are however not supported by evidence, which is often referred to as the Fermi paradox. University of Texas at Dallas Professor Robert Stern and ETH-Zurich’s Professor Taras Gerya elaborate on this long-standing enigma by showing the importance of long-term plate tectonics as well as oceans and continents for the evolution of active, communicative civilizations.
Stern & Gerya propose that the lack of evidence for active, communicative civilizations reflects the scarcity of long-lived plate tectonics and/or continents and oceans on exoplanets with primitive life.
Image credit: Sci.News.
In 1961, the American astrophysicist and astrobiologist Dr. Frank Drake devised an equation in which several factors are multiplied together to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy capable of making their presence known to humans:
N = R * fp * ne * fl * fi * fc * L
N: the number of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions (radio waves, etc.) are detectable;
R: the number of stars formed annually;
fp: the fraction of those stars with planetary systems;
ne: the number of planets per solar system with an environment suitable for life;
fl: the fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears;
fi: the fraction of life-bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges;
fc: the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that produces detectable signs of their existence;
L: the average length of time (years) such civilizations produce such signs.
Assigning values to the seven variables has been an educated guessing game, leading to predictions that such civilizations should be widespread. But if that is true, why is there no conclusive evidence of their existence?
This contradiction is known as the Fermi paradox, named for the Italian and later naturalized American nuclear physicist and Nobelist Dr. Enrico Fermi, who informally posed the question to colleagues.
“Life has been around on Earth for about 4 billion years, but complex organisms like animals didn’t appear until about 600 million years ago, which is not long after the modern episode of plate tectonics began,” Professor Stern said.
“Plate tectonics really jump-starts the evolution machine, and we think we understand why.”
In their paper, Professor Stern and Professor Gerya propose refining one of the Drake equation factors — fi, the fraction of life-bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges — to take into account the necessity of large oceans and continents and the existence of plate tectonics for more than 500 million years on those planets.
“In the original formulation, this factor was thought to be nearly 1, or 100% — that is, evolution on all planets with life would march forward and, with enough time, turn into an intelligent civilization. Our perspective is: That’s not true,” Professor Stern said.
The researchers propose a revision to the Drake equation that defines fi as the product of two terms:
foc: the fraction of habitable exoplanets with significant continents and oceans;
and fpt: the fraction of planets that have had long-lasting plate tectonics.
Based on the team’s analysis, the fraction of the exoplanets with optimal water volume is likely very small.
The authors estimate the value of foc ranges between 0.0002 and 0.01.
Similarly, they conclude that plate tectonics lasting more than 500 million years is also highly unusual, leading to an estimate of fpt at less than 0.17.
“When we multiply these factors together, we get a refined estimate of fi that is very small, between 0.003% and 0.2%, instead of 100%,” Professor Stern said.
“This explains the extreme rareness of favorable planetary conditions for the development of intelligent life in our Galaxy and resolves the Fermi paradox.”
“Biogeochemistry posits that the solid Earth, particularly plate tectonics, speeds up the evolution of species,” he added.
“Studies like ours are useful because they stimulate thinking broadly about larger mysteries and provide an example of how we can apply our knowledge of Earth systems to interesting questions about our Universe.”
The paper appeared in the April 2024 edition of the journal Scientific Reports.
R.J. Stern & T.V. Gerya. 2024. The importance of continents, oceans and plate tectonics for the evolution of complex life: implications for finding extraterrestrial civilizations. Sci Rep 14, 8552; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-54700-x
This article was adapted from an original release by the University of Texas at Dallas.
Guys, please subscribe, it really helps me out. OK, I found this Arecibo radar image on Dec 1, 2023 however I decided today to let AI have a crack at it and show me what it really looks like. And so I wanted to share it with you and get your thoughts on the subject. Arecibo says this object is 800 meters across and calls it an asteroid. We know better than believe that garbage right? It's a UAP. This is100% proof that aliens exist and UFOs are real, and I challenge any US gov agency to prove me wrong.
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet on Grusch, UAP claims: Full Interview | Reality Check
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet on Grusch, UAP claims: Full Interview | Reality Check
In an insightful interview with Ross Coulthart for NewsNation, retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet shared his perspectives on the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and the implications of a purported cover-up by the U.S. government. The interview, held during the Soul Foundation conference, revealed Gallaudet’s firm belief in the presence of non-human intelligence (NHI) and his support for whistleblower David Grusch’s claims of a secret UFO retrieval program.
Gallaudet’s Professional Background
Tim Gallaudet has had a distinguished career, first serving in the U.S. Navy and later as the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under former President Donald Trump. His roles included significant responsibilities such as leading aircraft carrier combat operations and supporting Navy SEAL Teams during counterterrorism missions. At NOAA, he focused on weather forecasting and analyzing atmospheric conditions, providing him with a deep understanding of natural phenomena.
Belief in Non-Human Intelligence
Gallaudet’s conviction in the existence of NHI stems from multiple sources. He highlighted the legislative actions taken by Congress, such as establishing a Department of Defense (DoD) office dedicated to UAP studies and NASA’s involvement with a UAP study team. He views these steps as substantial evidence supporting the reality of UAP phenomena. Gallaudet strongly believes that the testimonies provided by David Grusch and other witnesses about crash retrieval programs are credible.
Allegations of a Government Cover-Up
According to Gallaudet, the U.S. government has deliberately concealed information about UAPs to maintain a technological edge in potential military conflicts. He suggests that the secrecy surrounding UAP-related technology is a strategic move to prevent adversaries from gaining access to advanced capabilities. However, he advocates for the public disclosure of the existence of NHI, arguing that society is ready to handle such revelations.
Personal Experiences and Evidence
Gallaudet recounted his experiences that shaped his beliefs in UAPs. As the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, he worked with astrophysicists who studied the vastness of the universe, leading him to conclude that it is unlikely humans are alone. He also mentioned a secret email he received in 2015 containing the “goast” video, which he asserts depicts technology beyond human capabilities.
Safety Concerns and Scientific Inquiry
A significant concern for Gallaudet is the safety risk posed by UAPs, especially incidents involving near-miss collisions with military aircraft. He criticized the over-classification of UAP information, which prevents open discussions and scientific inquiry. Gallaudet stressed the importance of systematic scientific studies of UAPs, which could lead to significant advancements in understanding and potentially beneficial technologies.
The Role of the Soul Foundation
The Soul Foundation aims to advance the scientific study of UAPs, promote public education, and recommend policies to encourage government transparency. Gallaudet supports the Foundation’s mission to reduce stigma and skepticism around UAP phenomena and facilitate collaborative research. He emphasized the importance of both technological and sociocultural studies to understand the full implications of UAPs.
Challenges in Achieving Government Disclosure
Gallaudet acknowledged the bureaucratic and cultural hurdles within the government that impede UAP disclosure. He noted the differences in how the Navy and the Air Force handle UAP information, with the Navy being more open to transparency. He advocated for legislative measures like the Schumer Amendment, which would mandate a review of classified UAP programs and determine what information can be safely disclosed.
VIDEO:
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet on Grusch, UAP claims: Full Interview | Reality Check
Tim Gallaudet’s interview sheds light on the complexities surrounding UAP phenomena and the challenges of government disclosure. His insights, backed by his extensive military and scientific experience, underscore the need for greater transparency and systematic scientific inquiry. The efforts of organizations like the Soul Foundation, coupled with legislative action, are crucial in advancing our understanding of UAPs and addressing the multifaceted implications of potential non-human intelligence.
UFO stopped for 'speeding' on motorway as cops claim driver was from 'Krypton'
UFO stopped for 'speeding' on motorway as cops claim driver was from 'Krypton'
The person driving the UFO turned out to be a bit of a local celebrity named Steve Anderson, who claimed that the craft took eight months to build, and said in 2013 that he “lost track” the cost
An actualUFOhas finally been spotted speeding by police.
The bizarre sight happened in the United States, and was made public by the Crawford County Sheriff's Office in Missouri. According to them, someone was seen on a motorway, driving towards Roswell for a festival.
But rather than driving in a car, they were actually in a giant UFO-shaped vehicle, complete with pop-off roof, for the alien-human driver to escape from. However, rather than going at normal speed, they were pulled over for driving at hyper speed.
The truth is . . . on the motorway(Image: Facebook)
An official, posting on Facebook, said: “Well, you never know what will be traveling through Crawford County but this one was a little out of this world.
These friendly humanoids, who have come in peace, are heading west to Roswell, New Mexico for a festival. There was a brief conversation about his out of space, correction, out of state registration, but he assured us that he would take care of that issue when he returned to Krypton.
The force added: “He was also warned about our strict enforcement of warp speed on the interstate and to keep his phasers on stun only while travelling.”
The Facebook post was shared nearly 7k times, with more than 765 comments also made. It later turned out that the person driving it is a bit of a local celebrity named Steve Anderson. The craft took eight months to build, and said in 2013 that he “lost track” of how much it cost to do so.
Turns out it was made by a local celebrity(Image: Facebook)
Speaking to Indy Star at the time, he said: “It's so odd — the oddity of it all — and it makes them smile and forget about their problems. I think that's what life is all about: These great little moments that you get to live in, for the moment. I love going through McDonald's drive-thru.”
And more than 10 years later, people still love it. Responding on Facebook, one person asked if the driver stopped at “Uranus,” while another said it was “great to see law-enforcement with a sense of humour”.
And a third, who saw the UFO in question, said: “They're from Indiana. I've had the pleasure of passing them on the road in the past while travelling back up from Kentucky. Definitely an awesome sight to see lol.”
According to the San José Public Library, World UFO Day is celebrated on two days: June 24, the day that pilot Kenneth Arnold allegedly saw flying saucers in 1947, and July 2, the day a spaceship supposedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Whether or not you believe in aliens, they have been been in the news lately. Just last year, a congressional hearing was formed to specifically to uncover the truth about UFOs, as the Deseret News previously reported.
While we might not get to the truth about UFOs any time soon, we can at least watch movies about UFOs.
So to celebrate World UFO day, here are the 21 best alien movies of all time.
The 21 best alien movies of all time
1. ‘Arrival’ (2016)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Netflix.
In “Arrival,” giant, mysterious alien spaceships appear all over earth, and linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is recruited to investigate. Louise is tasked with a unique job: to communicate with the aliens.
Along with physicist Ian Donnelly, Louise makes serious headway — but the work with the aliens has a mysterious and puzzling effect on her mind.
2. ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
Rated: G.
Streaming: Max.
While we don’t see any aliens in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the possibility of aliens looms over the entire movie.
Instead of focusing on aliens, the Stanley Kubrick film chooses to explore technology’s role in the evolution of humanity — and whether it’s for the better or for the worst. This exploration leads to a fascinating sci-fi thriller that might leave you pondering the potential downside of technological advancement.
3. ‘Men in Black’ (1997)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Hulu.
One day, New York police office James Darrell Edwards III (Will Smith) finds himself chasing down a bad guy — who turns out to be an alien.
He’s then scouted by Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), who introduces him to the Men in Black, or the MIB, a secret organization that monitors and polices aliens. James agrees to become K’s partner and takes on the name Agent J.
“Men in Black” is a hilarious action buddy-comedy that your whole family will love. Plus, it’s got a killer theme song.
4. ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1978)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Tubi.
If you’re looking for a classic alien movie, look no further than “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Based on a 1956 movie of the same name, the film takes place in San Fransisco, after a race of parasitic aliens descend to the earth.
The film has an excellent cast, including the late Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy.
My personal favorite alien movie on the list, “Super 8″ follows a group of kids in 1979 whose hometown is facing alien invasion.
Months after the death of his mother, Joe (Joel Courtney) and his friends are shooting a zombie film when they witness a catastrophic train derailment. Joe and his friends begin to investigate as sinister and mysterious phenomena begin to occur around their town.
“Super 8″ a great film with lots of humor and heart, as well as a great mystery.
6. ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (1977)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Disney+.
The first movie in the extensive “Star Wars” franchise, “Star Wars: A New Hope” is a heroic journey and space opera. It follows young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) who finds himself unexpectedly embroiled in a sweeping galactic war.
Luke teams up with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and meets a host of quirky aliens, robots and many more space creatures.
The first “Star Wars” film is beloved for a reason — it’s got great humor and action, and it will appeal to pretty much everyone.
7. ‘Asteroid City’ (2023)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Prime Video.
If you’re looking for a quirky take on alien invasion, look no further than Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.” A play within a movie, “Asteroid City” is written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) and is shown on widescreen.
In the play, a youth stargazer convention is being held at the fictional desert town of Asteroid City. When a UFO descends over Asteroid City, the inhabitants are forced into a hush-hush quarantine.
8. ‘Galaxy Quest’ (1999)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Paramount+.
Perhaps the funniest alien movie on the list, “Galaxy Quest” follows the has-been cast of the once-popular sci-fi show of the same name.
At a fan convention, Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) and the rest of the cast get approached by a group of real aliens, called Thermians — and are beamed up on their ship.
The Thermians mistakenly believe that “Galaxy Quest” is a historical documentary and ask the crew for help. Chaos and hijinks ensue.
9. ‘Lilo & Stitch’ (2002)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Disney+.
Lilo, a lonely Hawaiian girl who is cared for by her older sister, Nani, innocently adopts a strange-looking dog she names Stitch.
Unbeknownst to her, Stitch is actually a dangerous alien genetic experimentation. Two aliens, Jumba and Pleakley, go to Earth and attempt to capture Stitch.
“Lilo & Stitch” is the perfect family alien movie that everyone will enjoy.
10. ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ (2014)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Apple TV, YouTube and Prime Video for $3.99.
“Edge of Tomorrow” is a great twist on the classic alien-action movie. Earth is under attack by aliens, and Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) — who has never been in combat — is assigned on a mission to defeat the aliens.
Cage is killed within minutes. But he’s thrown into a time loop and relives the same fight and death over and over again. As time goes by, his fighting skills and improve, and he grows closer to Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) — and to defeating the aliens.
11. ‘Star Trek’ (2009)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Paramount+.
A movie reboot of the original “Star Trek” series, the 2009 movie of the same name portrays the beginnings of Captain James T. Kirk’s space adventures (Chris Pine).
Kirk is three years into his time at Starfleet Academy — where he and Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto) have butted heads — when a distress signal is emitted from Vulcan. Along with his friend Leonard McCoy and other cadets, Kirk is assigned to Captain Christopher Pike’s ship, the Enterprise.
Both old fans and newer fans will enjoy “Star Trek,” including the few familiar faces from the original series who make an appearance.
12. ‘Independence Day’ (1996)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Hulu.
A few days before Independence Day in 1996, aliens enter Earth’s orbit. In an effort to protect the country — and the world — Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith), President Thomas Willmore (Bill Pullman) and others join together to stop total destruction.
This is a classic alien movie that even your kids will love — and it has one of the most iconic speeches of all time.
13. ‘Signs’ (2002)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Apple TV for $3.99.
One of the most beloved alien movies ever, “Signs” follows a grieving family in rural Pennsylvania.
Former priest Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) lives with his children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigal Breslin), alongside his younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), who helps with the kids after Graham’s wife died in car accident six months ago.
Strange goings-on begin to happen in their town and all across the world. Rumors swirl that aliens are the cause, and the Hess family soon find themselves fighting for their lives.
14. ‘A Quiet Place’ (2018)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Paramount +.
“A Quiet Place” is a surprisingly emotional film that focuses more on the love and resilience of a family instead of the alien invasion affecting them.
A species of sightless aliens with excellent hearing have invaded the planet. The Abbott family — headed by Lee (John Krasinski) and Evelyn (Emily Blunt) — have already lost one child to the aliens.
Now, over a year later, Evelyn is pregnant. The family lives in safety and silence and is able to communicate with their deaf daughter Reagan and their son Marcus using American Sign Language.
But soon their home is under attack by the aliens and Evelyn and Lee must fight to protect their children.
15. ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (1951)
Rated: G.
Streaming: Prime Video for $3.59.
Another classic alien flick, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” takes place during the Cold War.
An alien spaceship lands in Washington, D.C., from which a humanoid alien and his robot emerges. The alien is named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and he has come on behalf of his alien race to deliver a message to all the leaders of the world.
But while Klaatu is friendly, his robot companion, Gort (Lock Martin), proves to be dangerous.
16. ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Prime Video for $3.79.
The kid-friendly alien movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” follows a gentle alien who, when visiting Earth with his fellow aliens, gets separated from his group.
The alien is quickly discovered by Elliot (Henry Thomas). Elliot introduces the alien, who names himself “E.T.,” to his older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and younger sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore).
When both Elliot and E.T. fall ill, forcing the government to intervene, Elliot and his siblings must help. E.T. return home.
17. ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ (1996)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Paramount+.
Possibly the best “Star Trek” movie, “Star Trek: First Contact” follows the crew of the USS Enterprise as they work to defeat the Borg, a species of of aliens connected to a hive mind called “The Collective.”
“Star Trek: First Contact” features the entire cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” including Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes as Riker and Brent Spiner as Data.
18. ‘Dune: Part 1′ (2021) and ‘Dune: Part 2′ (2024)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Max.
“Dune: Part 1″ and “Dune: Part 2″ follow Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), the son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Furgeson).
In the distant future, Duke Leto has been tasked to oversee Arrakis, a desert planet that produces spice — a substance that helps with space travel and gives enlightenment to those who partake.
Upon arrival, the House of Atreides is attacked by the Harkonnens, who previously ruled over Arrakis. Paul and Jessica escape and are aided by the Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, who believe that Paul is the Lisan al Gaib or the prophesied messiah.
19. ‘No One Will Save You’ (2023)
Rated: PG-13.
Streaming: Hulu.
“No One Will Save You” follows Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman who is shunned by the other people in her town and lives alone in her childhood home. One night, a humanoid alien breaks into her home and she kills it in order to defend herself.
Brynn continues to fight against the aliens — and her town. “No One Will Save You” leans more horror than classic alien movie, and it will have you on the edge of your seat.
20. ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ (1977)
Rated: PG.
Streaming: Prime Video.
One day, electrician Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has a close encounter with a UFO — and has sunburns from the UFO’s bright lights to prove it. After his encounter, Roy becomes obsessed with UFOs, and will do anything to uncover the truth about aliens.
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is an iconic alien film — so much so that it was preserved in the National Film Registry.
"The most common misconception is that [UFOs] are all the same thing and they're all extraterrestrial, and neither of those are true," said one government expert
Kimberlee Speakman is a digital writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2022. Her work has previously appeared in Forbes and she has also worked in broadcast television as a reporter for Hawaii-based news station KHON2 News.
Illustration of an unidentified flying object.PHOTO: GETTY
July 2 marks World UFO Day, a day celebrating and creating awareness for unidentified objects in the sky. Though, they have become less of a mystery in recent years thanks to new reports from the U.S. government.
The U.S. Department of Defense and the Pentagon shared in public reports that it has been examining more than 800 sightings of UFOs — which the government calls unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs — in order to find explanations for them.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who works at theAll-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office(AARO), which investigates these flying objects, toldABC Newsin 2023 that people are quick to jump to conclusions when they see these objects. "The most common misconception is that [UFOs] are all the same thing and they're all extraterrestrial, and neither of those are true," he said.
Instead, Kirkpatrick noted that a majority of the cases they’ve investigated are "readily explainable," and have been attributed to a full range of items from military spacecraft to birds. "I have a full range of hypotheses: On one end of the spectrum, it's advanced technology that's coming from an adversary,” he said, per ABC News.
He added, “Right in the middle, I have all my known objects — balloons and drones and birds and whatnot. And then on the far end of the spectrum, we have extraterrestrials.”
However, while many of the sightings have explanations, he admitted that there was also a small percentage of cases — about 2 to 5% – that don’t have any. One of the cases that the AARO hasn’t been able to figure out includes a navy pilot’s encounter with a “Tic Tac”-shaped UFO.
Whistleblowers have also previously made claims to Congress that extraterrestrials exist. Among them is former U.S. intelligence official David Grusch, who claimed in 2023 that “non-human” beings had been retrieved from spacecraft, though he had not seen an UAP.
Kirkpatrick told ABC News that while he “can’t rule” out the chance of intelligent life beyond Earth, he also doesn’t “have any evidence” of it existing just yet.
The Pentagon echoed his statements, saying in a 2023 statement that the AARO “has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."
The AARO has its ownwebsitewhere people can submit reports of UFO sightings and also learn about the outcome reports of some of the cases that have already been submitted. In its case reports, the office explains their assessments of the unidentified objects.
"A lot of these stories, a lot of these allegations, crop up again and again over history. I'm not going to jump ahead to conclusions until we have more data," Kirkpatrick told ABC News at the time. Though, he added that if they did find evidence of extraterrestrial life, that would "probably be the best outcome of this job."
Guys, you got to see this video of a focused alien building on Mercury I found a few years ago. I decided to have AI focus it and it's just melting my brain at what I discovered. Please subscribe to my youtube channel. Thanks
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Another Baltic Sea UAP off Santa Monica, California, Google map, UFO Sighting News.
Another Baltic Sea UAP off Santa Monica, California, Google map, UFO Sighting News.
I found this UFO that measures 30 meters below the ocean off the coast of Santa Monica, California. I'm not sure why no-one else has ever seen it, but it's there, go check for yourself. 100% proof that aliens have visited earth.
Tall White Base Below Area 51 Found! Indian Springs Area! Google Earth Map - UFO Sighting News.
Tall White Base Below Area 51 Found! Indian Springs Area! Google Earth Map - UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: June 30, 2024
Location of discovery: 40 miles South of Area 51
Coordinates: 36°39'3.68"N 115°41'39.83"W
Ok, Charles Hall who worked with the USAF and Tall White aliens said the location of their base was the top area of Indian springs...in the old firing range...this is it! We found the location of a landing area where the entrance to the base will be. The base is 2-5 miles below the ground and can only be accessed at this point. 100% proof that Tall Whites exist and Charles Hall was telling the truth in his interviews on TV. See video location in my video I made today.
Massive triangle UFO over city: Eyewitnesses and photographic proof!
Massive triangle UFO over city: Eyewitnesses and photographic proof!
In this video, we delve into an extraordinary UFO sighting over Puerto Rico that left witnesses in awe. On May 15, 2005, an immense triangular object, comparable to the size of two ballparks, was photographed in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Witnesses reported the UFO caused their vehicle's engine and lights to fail as it silently passed overhead.
Editor's note: The UFO resembles the infamous TR-3B antigravity craft but given the size of the UFO compared to the size of TR-3B it is possible that the witnesses saw a real UFO.
(The TR-3B: This craft uses highly pressured mercury accelerated by nuclear energy to produce a plasma that creates a field of anti-gravity around the ship. Conventional thrusters located at the tips of the craft allow it to perform all manner of rapid high speed maneuvers along all three axes. Interestingly, the plasma generated also reduces radar signature significantly. So it'll be almost invisible on radar and remain undetected.)
We analyze the photographic evidence, recount the firsthand experiences, and explore the potential electromagnetic effects of this mysterious craft.
Antarctica’s Hidden Aliens: Government Secrets Unveiled!
Antarctica’s Hidden Aliens: Government Secrets Unveiled!
Are you ready to uncover the astonishing secrets about the alleged alien base under Antarctica? This theory has intrigued UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists for decades, suggesting that extraterrestrial beings have been living beneath the icy surface, hidden from the public eye by government secrecy. Here, we delve into the riveting accounts and evidence that challenge our understanding of Earth’s most remote continent.
The Alleged Encounter of Admiral Richard Byrd
One of the most compelling pieces of this puzzle involves Admiral Richard Byrd, a notable U.S. Naval officer and explorer. Byrd was one of the first pilots to fly over both the North and South Poles. His participation in Operation High Jump, the largest expedition to Antarctica, is at the heart of this conspiracy. In 1946, Byrd led an impressive fleet consisting of 13 ships, 23 aircraft, and over 4,500 military personnel on a mission that lasted four months. The official objectives included military training, scientific research, and the search for potential Nazi bases.
However, Byrd’s diary, reportedly found by his son years later, suggests a startling discovery during this expedition. According to the diary, Byrd and his team found an entrance to an underground world at the South Pole. Inside, they encountered a temperate, lush environment, reminiscent of a tropical rainforest, complete with crystalline cities. They were soon met by advanced, disc-shaped aircraft that took control of their planes and guided them to land. Here, Byrd claimed to have met an alien leader referred to as “master,” who expressed disappointment in humanity’s use of nuclear weapons during World War II.
Project Stargate and Remote Viewing
Adding to the intrigue is Project Stargate, a CIA initiative launched in 1978 during the Cold War. This project aimed to use psychic spies to gather intelligence through a technique called remote viewing. Patrick Price, one such psychic, allegedly reported seeing an alien base inside Mount Hayes, Alaska, where extraterrestrials were collaborating with military personnel in a sophisticated research facility. Price’s sudden and mysterious death following this revelation has fueled speculation about a potential government cover-up.
UFOs and Nuclear Sites
The theory extends beyond these encounters, suggesting a link between UFO sightings and nuclear sites. Many UFO sightings have been reported near nuclear launch sites and military bases, raising questions about the aliens’ motives. The narrative proposes that these extraterrestrial beings are monitoring human activities, particularly our use of nuclear weapons, out of concern for Earth’s future.
Government Suppression and Public Skepticism
The idea that governments are hiding information about extraterrestrial life is a common theme in UFO conspiracy theories. Byrd’s alleged encounter, for instance, was supposedly kept secret by the military to avoid mass panic. Similarly, the abrupt end to Patrick Price’s life after his remote viewing sessions hints at possible efforts to silence those who come too close to the truth.
While these stories are captivating, they lack concrete evidence and rely heavily on anecdotal accounts and speculative connections. The theories about an alien base in Antarctica or extraterrestrials working with the U.S. military are intriguing but should be approached with a critical mind.
As we continue to explore the mysteries of our world and beyond, it is essential to distinguish between verified facts and imaginative speculation. Whether or not there are hidden aliens in Antarctica, the fascination with such possibilities reflects our enduring curiosity about the unknown and the potential for discovering advanced civilizations beyond our own.
Stay tuned to Lab 360 for the latest revelations in space exploration and keep questioning the world around you.
Approximately 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were similar to today. Global temperatures averaged about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a temperature increase we’re on track for in coming decades, unless we significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions). And the global mean sea level was upwards of 65 feet higher than present, thanks to ice melt. That’s right: 65 feet higher, an increase that would submerge most of the state of Florida, and nearly all of New York City.
Yet most current-day models of sea level rise don’t indicate we’re headed towards anything like 65 feet of sea level rise in the near-future, even at 2 to 3 C of warming. The discrepancy between past and future projection has been an unsettling mystery for climate and ocean scientists for years. Many researchers in the field think the answer comes down to incomplete and inaccurate models. New study findings could be part of solving the puzzle.
The world’s ice sheets are subject to a never-before-identified and worrying climate tipping point, according to the study published June 25 in the journal Nature Geoscience. The discovery, based on a novel mathematical and computer model of ice melt and seawater movement, means we could be in for far more sea level rise in coming years than previously forecasted. “Our projections of sea level rise might be significant underestimates,” said Alex Bradley, lead researcher and a climate scientist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), in a press statement.
Here’s how: Coastal ice sheets are made up of floating shelves and grounded sections. This is where ice sits directly on land. In between is the so-called “grounding zone.” Ocean water rushing beneath the grounding zone triggers melt, which can change the structure of the ice mass, subsequently allowing more water to intrude farther and faster in a feedback loop, according to the new analysis. Generally, models assume that all ice sheets have a point of stability where they’ll stop receding, based on the topography of the land that underlies them. Thanks to gravity, it’s hard for water to flow uphill. But the new assessment suggests that, with enough warming and melt progression widening the grounding zone, ocean water will be able to continue intruding deep beneath ice sheets, even upslope.
Climate tipping points occur when a relatively small shift in something like temperature or atmospheric carbon rapidly leads to an outsized impact. In this case, climatologists behind the new research found that subtle increases in ocean warming could lead to very large ice losses and sea level rise. For every ice sheet, including the pivotal expanse of ice that covers Antarctica and contains about 6 million cubic miles of water, there is a point of ocean warming where that feedback loop of melt, structural shifts, and more melt will become a “runaway” process. At a certain ocean temperature, refreezing ice can’t make up for the losses, triggering “dramatic changes” in ice sheet behavior, according to the researchers’ analysis.
Making matters worse, the researchers suggest there will be little warning that Antarctica and other ice sheets are nearing their individual grounding-zone tipping points. Such changes will be “hard to detect…until the tipping point is passed,” they write. The resulting, fated sea level rise would unfold relatively quickly, on the order of decades to centuries.
“This is missing physics, which isn’t in our ice sheet models,” Bradley said, adding that BAS scientists are now working to incorporate it into revised models.
Surprisingly, the Thwaites “Doomsday Glacier” is less at risk of passing this particular tipping point than other ice shelves, per the assessment. (Though seawater intrusion is causing Thwaites to melt faster than expected, according to another recent study.) But other shelves like the Pine Island glacier, which is already Antarctica’s largest contributor to sea level rise, are highly susceptible.
The analysis offers just one initial and simplified model, which doesn’t account for all of the factors relevant for ice sheet melt. For instance, tides aren’t part of the researchers’ equations. And the scientists don’t expect melt triggered by intrusion to proceed indefinitely. Nonetheless, the findings are alarming.
“With every tenth of a degree of ocean warming, we get closer and closer to passing this tipping point, and each tenth of a degree is linked to the amount of climate change that takes place,” Bradley told The Guardian. “We need very dramatic action to restrict the amount of warming that takes place and prevent this tipping point from being passed.” The only way to stop such melt in its tracks is to halt the largest single driver of climate change and rapidly transition away from burning fossil fuels.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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