Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
Zaterdag 8 september 2018
Trumpets of the Apocalypse: Could this be the answer?
Trumpets of the Apocalypse: Could this be the answer?
Since 2011, strange reports have ebbed in concerning strange noises coming from the skies including humming, grinding metal, disparate noises that speak to the general hustle and bustle of the city and most bizarrely of all, trumpets. This year, new reports of this phenomenon have come in from areas as geographically disparate as Canada and Indonesia. Now, investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe is on a mission to get to the bottom of this scientifically baffling mystery.
Strange noises come from the sky – could this be the answer?
Various theories have been put forward since 2011 to explain the source of these bizarre sounds. One of the first theories to emerge came from the Azerbaijani geophysicist Elchin Khalilov who suggested that the phenomenon was caused by "acoustic-gravity waves caused by powerful solar flares and plasma emissions from the sun." However, this theory has not gained a great deal of traction and experts in the field of solar physics, such as David Hathaway of NASA, have said that they doubted that solar activity could be connected to the sounds.
Other theories have suggested that the sounds might be emanating from subtle movements of the tectonic plates. However, this theory can be dismissed for some reasons. Firstly, no unusual seismic activity has been detected in the areas which have been afflicted by the sounds during the event and secondly, if the noises were caused by a movement of the plates, then the phenomenon would surely have been detected long before 2011.
The above theories are based on the idea that the noises directly must be caused by a naturalphenomenon. However, Moulton Howe is not convinced that this is the case. Given that these recognisable noises started quite abruptly in 2011, she believes that it is more likely that the noises come from a man-made origin. She has theorised that the noises may have been tests of a controversial project called the Voice of God weapons. Since 2001, it is believed that the American Defense Department had been trying to create methods of causing disturbing noises and visions to psychologically target their opponents in the Middle East.
It is unknown as to whether Moulton Howe is correct in this hypothesis. However, since the noises have been known to be accompanied by visions of strange cityscapes in regions such as China, it is entirely probable that this disturbing phenomenon is something wholly created by human beings.
For someone who gets violently seasick, Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean. The Dutch inventor has designed the world’s first ocean plasticcleanup system but admits he won’t be on the ship with it when it launches out of San Francisco on Saturday. “I am not a man of the sea,” he says.
System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2,000ft long — snakes its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. Its destination is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of plastic waste twice the size of Texas held in position by ocean currents between California and Hawaii." data-reactid="12">After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2,000ft long — snakes its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. Its destination is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of plastic waste twice the size of Texas held in position by ocean currents between California and Hawaii.
plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview a few days before the launch, in between final preparations. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re turning the tide.”" data-reactid="13">If all goes to plan, Slat says, an array of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. “I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview a few days before the launch, in between final preparations. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re turning the tide.”
The eradication of the garbage patch, and more broadly the salvation of our oceans, has been Slat’s single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a diving trip to Greece yielded more plastic bag sightings than fish. Struck by the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents alone, he founded his company, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.
Boyan Slat, CEO of The Ocean Cleanup
System 001 was featured on TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has come a long way since then, Slat says. “It takes a trained eye to see the similarities.”" data-reactid="26">The idea grabbed imaginations around the world. In 2015, an early prototype of System 001 was featured on TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has come a long way since then, Slat says. “It takes a trained eye to see the similarities.”
What was originally envisaged as a large rigid barrier arranged around a central tank for collecting plastic, is today an unmanned, modular system that moves with the currents, naturally gravitating to areas of higher concentration. From the air it looks like a pipeline sitting on the surface of the sea, but beneath the waves lies a 10ft deep ‘skirt,’ which traps plastic accumulated by the current.
sea life will be protected from becoming ensnared. The hope is that plastic will accumulate as if on a seashore, ready to be collected by boats and taken for recycling." data-reactid="28">Because the system is solid rather than a net, Slat says sea life will be protected from becoming ensnared. The hope is that plastic will accumulate as if on a seashore, ready to be collected by boats and taken for recycling.
McDonald’s are moving to remove single-use plastics from their stores. (Some say not fast enough.) The U.N. says over 8 million tons of plastic still enter the oceans each year – the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic every minute." data-reactid="29">It’s an ambitious plan, and one that has received millions of dollars of funding thanks to fast-shifting public opinion on plastic. In December 2017, 193 countries signed a U.N. resolution to eliminate ocean plastic pollution, and big corporations like McDonald’s are moving to remove single-use plastics from their stores. (Some say not fast enough.) The U.N. says over 8 million tons of plastic still enter the oceans each year – the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic every minute.
But reducing our addiction to plastic is just one half of the equation, Slat says. “These garbage patches won’t go away by themselves. Even if we were to close the tap today the plastic would still be there in 100 years.”
System 001 floating in the San Francisco Bay before its launch
published in the journal Scientific Reports. “But of course what’s going to happen over the next few decades is that all the other 92% of plastic will be turned into microplastics as well,” Slat says. “So the sooner we get it out, the better.”" data-reactid="44">Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics which can eventually enter the food chain. Currently, however, just 8% of the plastic mass in the Pacific garbage patch is microplastics, according to research carried out by The Ocean Cleanup published in the journal Scientific Reports. “But of course what’s going to happen over the next few decades is that all the other 92% of plastic will be turned into microplastics as well,” Slat says. “So the sooner we get it out, the better.”
A thorny question remains in what will happen to the plastic that is brought back to shore from The Ocean Cleanup’s systems. Slat says he wants to turn it into branded merchandise, but acknowledges that all depends on the quality of the plastic, which remains a mystery. In any case, most of the plastic in the oceans is single-use, Slat argues. “By not making it into anything single-use, you can already reduce the chances of it ending up back in the oceans by 99%,” he says.
But it’s possible that lots of the waste returned to land will have to be carted off t }o third-party recycling plants and eventually recycled into more single-use plastics that might one day return to the oceans. The task ahead isn’t so much Herculean as Sisyphean.
Nevertheless, Slat isn’t dissuaded easily. “Big problems require big solutions,” he says. “If anyone has any better ideas, we’d love to know.”
Fishermen saw ‘robot-like creatures with slit mouths and crab pincers in most bizarre alien abduction ever’, secret hypnosis files reveal
The never-seen-before notes describe how the two men were fishing when a UFO hovered above them and three strange beings emerged
EXCLUSIVE
By Emma Parry, Digital US Correspondent
THE two men involved in one of the most bizarre ‘alien’ encounters on record recalled seeing "creatures with slit-like mouths and crab pincers" while under hypnosis, top secret files obtained by Sun Online reveal.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claim they were captured by three alien creatures and taken into a UFO while they were fishing in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on October 11, 1973.
PHILIP MANTLE
The secret notes have so far been hidden from the public
Now never-seen-before handwritten notes of a secret interview conducted on them under hypnosis reveal how they both described strange creatures looking like robots with unusual eyes, grey skin and crab pincers for arms.
The interview was conducted in 1973 by case investigators Professor J Allen Hynek and Dr James Harder - and the terrified men’s account was enough to convince the pair that they were telling the truth.
Dr Harder’s files include notes from the interview and other information he gathered - and offer a unique insight into the infamous sighting almost 45 years ago.
On one handwritten page Dr Harder writes: “I asked what the ‘creatures’ looked like and got a description which included 1. No neck, no helmet 2. crab-like hands, two digits … 3. slit-like ‘mouth’.”
JONNY DILLON
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, pictured, were left traumatised by the 1973 encounter
PHILIP MANTLE
The strange notes were taken during an interview conducted with the men under hypnosis
The beings did not communicate and had a “robot businesslike attitude”, the men recalled during the hypnosis session.
Charles, 42, and Calvin 19, were sat on the banks of the Pascagoula River, when they claim they heard a whizzing sound overhead.
They said that an oval shaped "craft", some 8ft across, suddenly appeared near them and seemed to levitate about 2ft above the ground.
A door opened and three creatures - who were "humanoid" in shape and about 5ft tall - emerged and seized the men, "floating" them into the UFO, they later told police.
Both men reported being paralysed and numb - while Calvin claimed that he had fainted due to fright.
JONNY DILLON
A sketch of the creatures which allegedly "abducted" by Calvin and Charles
PHILIP MANTLE
This page describes how the "craft" never touched the ground and three creatures came out
The men said the creatures had claws at the ends of their arms, "carrot-like" growths for their nose and ears, and only one leg.
One page of Dr Harder’s handwritten notes states: “Key novel features - 1. Cessation of sensation upon contact. 2. “floating” them along one foot from the ground. 3. Crab-like arm appendages. Two ‘pincers’ of equal size.”
There was a “possible suggestion” they were “robot” due to their “lack of usual eye structure, pincers on arms and “possible fused lower ‘limbs’” according to the notes.
JONNY DILLON
The creatures allegedly had no neck, slit-like mouths and carrot-like nose and ears
PHILIP MANTLE
Dr Harder and Professor Hynek were sent to study the case but most of their research files - except these notes - have vanished
JONNY DILLON
We reported on the bizarre Pascagoula 'alien abduction' in 19734
JONNY DILLON
A sketch of the UFO which the men claim they were taken onboard by the "alien creatures"
“After they touched them they felt nothing but weightlessness,” the doctors’ notes read.
On the ship, Charles claimed that he was examined by what looked like a large football-shaped mechanical eye, about 6 to 8 inches in diameter, that seemed to scan his body.
Calvin claimed that he could not recall what had happened to him inside the craft.
GETTY
Dr Hynek was a renowned astrophysicist who coined the term "close encounters'
The men said they were released after about 15-20 minutes and the creatures levitated them, with Charles's feet dragging along the ground, back to their original positions on the river bank.
In another page of the notes, Dr Harder said attorney Joe Colingo described the men as looking "scared to death" and "as frightened as any two adult human beings as I've ever seen."
Philip Mantle, a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, managed to obtain the file containing the handwritten notes during his research.
PHILIP MANTLE
Many of Dr Harder and Prof Hynek's files relating to the case have mysteriously vanished
JONNY DILLON
Ufologist Philip Mantle is calling for anyone who knows where the other files are to get in touch
However - in a bizarre twist - he says that many of Prof Hynek’s and Dr Harder’s other notes and tapes from the case are mysteriously missing.
Hynek was a consultant to top secret UFO studies by the US Air Force including Project Blue Book (1952–1969). He initially started as a skeptic but went on to found the Centre for UFO Studies in 1973.
The astronomer also coined the phrase 'Close Enounters of the Third Kind' which was used as the title of Steve Spielberg's $20million blockbuster about UFOs in 1977.
His files were spread out between Northwestern University, the Centre for UFO Studies while Dr Harder's were kept at private facilities.
But Philip claims that dozens of boxes related to the case have vanished.
Philip, who has published the book Pascagoula - The Closest Encounter written by Calvin Parker, said: "No one knows who took these files.
"Were they taken deliberately, part of a possible cover-up? Or could they simply be lying in a collector's attic somewhere?
"The fact is that no one knows but we do know that these files and documents did exist and we are confident that they are 'out there' somewhere.
"We are asking anyone out there who might have these documents and files or may know of there whereabouts, or may have even been a witness themselves to the event, to please come forward.”
SpaceX wants to give rise to a human settlement on Mars.
Starting small with a couple of spaceships and expanding out into a sprawling metropolis, a colony on the red planet is partially the vision of Paul Wooster, principal Mars development engineer for SpaceX. Speaking at the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention in August, Wooster detailed how SpaceX is grappling with some of the big questions that come with taking on one of the biggest projects in human history.
“The idea would be to expand out, start off not just with an outpost, but grow into a larger base, not just like there are in Antarctica, but really a village, a town, growing into a city and then multiple cities on Mars,” Wooster said. The convention notes that Wooster is a long-time supporter that attended early conferences and also served as a founding member of the Mars Society.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk detailed the company’s plans to reach Mars at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, in September 2017. A newly designed “BFR” rocket that measures 348 feet tall will produce liftoff thrust of 5,400 tons from 31 Raptor engines. SpaceX will launch two rockets and their corresponding spaceships to Mars in 2022, filled with supplies for future missions. The company will send four more in 2024, two of which will ferry the first humans to the planet to set up an outpost.
Musk's BFR slide in its whole.
Wooster explained that each spaceship would carry around 100 tons of supplies, meaning the six ships would ferry around double the mass of the International Space Station to Mars. The ships would probably serve as the home for the first humans initially, as they work to extract resources and become self-sufficient fast. The humans will be tasked with extracting at least one tonne of ice per day, part of which will help make the methane fuel to bring the humans and rockets back to Earth.
The six ships are the first steps to permanent Martian cities. The humans will then need to consider establishing surface power, developing landing pads, habitats, greenhouses, additional life support, and all the other amenities to encourage a functioning settlement.
“All the capabilities you need to have a growing population on the surface,” Wooster said.
The BFR.
The humans will also have to consider tasks like setting up a suitable recycling system — no word on whether they’ll use color-coded bins. Another future issue is surface mobility, with artist concepts detailing pressurized rovers and a space suit for moving around the surface.
There are also questions about what they would be doing in their day-to-day life, once the settlement is stable. Researchers could learn more about the history, geology and climate of Mars. Teams could dive sub-surface, looking at questions about whether there ever was life on Mars — and if there is still life on Mars.
“These types of things are real opportunities for pretty much anyone in the broader Mars-related community to engage in,” Wooster said. “SpaceX is focused on getting the transportation architecture set up as quickly as possible, but it’s really to enable all these other types of activities.”
Ancient Mayan Statue Has QR Code On It's Face. Aliens Warning Us?
The ancient Mayan ruins of Mexico have nearly all, but a few, been excavated and their treasures placed in museums all over Mexico. This is not news. However, what may come as a shock to many, is that there are believers worldwide who fully believe that these statues hold proof that they were indeed made by ancient aliens, how inhabited our earth many, many years ago.
One such piece is that of an ancient Mayan statue, which has a face out of the ordinary. In fact, the face is a flat tablet, which looks remarkably like the QR codes we use in modern society to scan into our smart devices. There’s no doubt that its intention at the time was not to enable people thousands of years later to use as a scanning code, but experts have come to the conclusion it is more likely a warning of some kind, maybe of a disaster forthcoming sometime in the future.
Ancient Mayan Message?
News states “A photo of a statue with what looks like a QR code for a face has been making the rounds on social media, with some of the most imaginative people suggesting that it's evidence of ancient aliens. The "ancient aliens" would also have to be time traveling aliens, as QR codes were only invented in 1994. So the most likely explanation is that it's a modern statue.”
So, to believe its authenticity, people not only have to believe that the Mayans were indeed some alien race, but also that these aliens had the technology to be able to jump through time to thousands of years previously.
Whether or not people believe, a few have tried scanning the code into their smart devices to see just exactly what comes up. Nothing interesting! And there is speculation that it is no more than a model made by a Mexican electronic company to promote their products. It is up to you to come to your conclusions!
I took a few minutes to transcribe the QR code into machine readable format, and then scanned it. The result was rather boring:
The Pentagon in Washington, DC, is the largest building on Planet Earth – standing 71 feet (22 meters) high with each of the five sides measuring 921 feet (281 meters) in length. Astronomers studying the mysterious Hexagon which is located at Planet Saturn’s north pole have discovered new data which forced them to increase its measurements – the Hexagon is 20,000 miles (32,000 km) wide and about 180 miles high. If this Hexagon is the headquarters of Planet Saturn’s military, we’re gonna need a bigger Space Force.
Fortunately, astronomers agree that the hexagon is a jet stream moving at about 200 mph (320 km/h) with a circular vortex spinning in the middle. First discovered by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions in 1980 and 1981, it was believed to only be as high as Saturn’s troposphere (lowest level of atmosphere). Cassini arrived in 2004 and its measurements seemed to confirm that of its predecessors. However, scientists decided to withhold final judgement until Saturn’s spring when the clouds changed to allow Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) to take better measurements. With Saturn’s year spanning 29 Earth years, spring didn’t arrive until 2009 and low temperatures didn’t allow accurate readings until 2014. (Is Saturn having climate change issues too?)
Nothing happens fast on Saturn, so it took the astronomers three more years of data collection and analysis to find out that that the hexagon is a towering monstrosity.
“As the polar vortex became more and more visible, we noticed it had hexagonal edges, and realized that we were seeing the pre-existing hexagon at much higher altitudes than previously thought.”
Credit: JPL/NASA
In a statement from the European Space Agency, Sandrine Guerlet of the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique in France and co-author of the study published in Nature Communications, described the surprising discovery that the hexagon stands 180 miles tall. It seems hard to believe that a jet stream could maintain such a distinctive shape over such a large area and at such a high altitude, but there it is. Why?
“This could mean that there’s a fundamental asymmetry between Saturn’s poles that we’re yet to understand, or it could mean that the north polar vortex was still developing in our last observations and kept doing so after Cassini’s demise.”
The researchers found that Saturn’s south pole has no such hexagon anywhere at any height. That could mean the poles are different in ways not yet understood. One theory as to how a cloud could maintain such a solid, well-defined shape through multiple levels of atmosheres is a process called evanescence, where waves travel can travel upwards with only minor loss of strength, thus maintaining their shape. But why a hexagon? Lead author Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester answers that one.
“We simply need to know more. It’s quite frustrating that we only discovered this stratospheric hexagon right at the end of Cassini’s lifespan.”
Ah, yes … Cassini self-destructed in an atmospheric plunge on September 15, 2017. NASA has future missions to Saturn and its moons planned but none budgeted for. Since Cassini took over 6 year to get to Saturn, we’re not looking at getting new data for a while. Until then, Saturn continues to be the most stylish planet with its iconic rings and its huge polar hexagon.
At least we don’t have to worry about the Saturn Space Force … that will probably come from Enceladus.
Wikipedia notes: “North American Aerospace Defense Command…known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection for Northern America.Headquarters for NORAD and the NORAD/United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) center are located at Peterson Air Force Base in El Paso County, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The nearby Cheyenne Mountain Complex has the Alternate Command Center. The NORAD commander and deputy commander (CINCNORAD) are, respectively, a United States four-star general or equivalent and a Canadian three-maple-leaf general or equivalent.”
It’s a little-known fact that now and again highly controversial tales surface concerning NORAD and nothing less than alien bodies. Of course, it’s not at all out of the question that the collective tales are simply that: tales. Indeed, as interesting as such stories are, they parallel sensational claims of (A) the U.S. Government having Bigfoot bodies hidden away at secret sites, of (B) extraterrestrial corpses held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, and of (C) alien corpses hidden at the world’s most well-known secret base: Area 51. The stories are intriguing and eye-opening. But, so far, at least, no evidence of such bodies existing – and kept hidden behind closed doors – has ever surfaced. Worse, some of the stories come from people unwilling to share their full, real names – which effectively renders the stories useless, even if they do have some validity to them. All of which brings me back to the matter of NORAD and alien bodies.
In early 1968, Suzanne, then of Gallipolis, Ohio was told an amazing story by her father. According to the tale, Suzanne’s father decided to come clean on something that he knew of the UFO phenomenon. It was something amazing and which, if true, had a bearing on national security.. Suzanne’s father said that in 1965 and while employed at NORAD, he saw, under circumstances that he declined to explain, a series of black-and-white, aerial photographs of three small, large-headed bodies strewn around a desert floor, and which also showed a large amount of silvery, bright debris. The location, Suzanne’s father said, was New Mexico, and the photos were taken in 1947. This strongly suggests the now-famous Roswell affair of 1947 – although, admittedly, Suzanne’s father made no reference to Roswell at all. Suzanne was warned by her father not to reveal what he had told her until after his death – which occurred in 1981. Such was the concern, and even fear, in her father’s voice, however, Suzanne chose to remain silent until the late-1990s.
A very similar account surfaced from Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt – who have both dug deep into the intricacies of the Roswell affair. Commenting on those who had either direct or indirect access to actual crash- recovered exhibits of alien technology or alien remains, Schmitt and Randle stated the following in their 1991 book, UFO Crash at Roswell: “There are others, however, who have firsthand experiences, but who did not see the bodies. They, through their work with the military, saw files containing notes about the crashes and photographs of the bodies. One of those is a man who said he worked at NORAD in Colorado Springs. In the course of computerizing some of the files, he came across one labeled: USAAF (United States Army Air Force) Early Automation. The file dealt with the recovery of several small bodies and included black and white photographs of them. The man said the bodies were small, no more than four or five feet tall, with big heads.”
NORAD jets
There’s no doubting the fact that both accounts have similarities. First and foremost, there is the NORAD connection. Second, both men – Suzanne’s father and the Schmitt-Randle source – claimed, during the course of their work at NORAD, to have seen photos of small, unusual bodies. In both cases, the photos were black-and-white. Of course, none of this proves anything at all – indeed, one story may well be a fabrication, or an elaboration, based on the other. Like the stories coming out of Area 51 and Wright-Patterson, the NORAD tales are intriguing. But, right now, that’s all they are. Unless you know better…
UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. caused a stir in the White House in 1952.
(Credit: Bettmann Archive)
1952 was the year America caught flying-saucer fever.
So when a rash of strange sightings was reported in the skies over Washington D.C. that summer, the press and the public demanded answers. Were these unexplained radar blips, crafts that in some cases outran jets, part of a nuclear-armed Soviet invasion—a very real threat at the height of the Red Scare? Or were they evidence of something far more mysterious?
The Washington, D.C. sightings of July 1952, also known as “the Big Flap,” hold a special place in the history of unidentified flying objects. Major American newspapers were reporting multiple credible sightings by civilian and military radar operators and pilots—so many that a special intelligence unit of the U.S. Air Force was sent in to investigate. What they found—or didn’t find—along with the Air Force’s official explanation, fueled some of the earliest conspiracy theories about a government plot to hide evidence of alien life.
UFO mania takes hold
It all started in 1947, when a search-and-rescue pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported nine “saucer-like things…flying like geese in a diagonal chainlike line” at speeds exceeding 1,000 m.p.h. near Mount Rainier in Washington State. Within weeks, “flying saucer” sightings had been reported in 40 other states.
In the name of national security, Air Force General Nathan Twining launched Project SIGN (originally named Project SAUCER) in 1948, the first official military-intelligence program to collect information on UFO sightings. Its investigators dismissed the vast majority as hoaxes or misidentifications of known aircraft or natural phenomena.
But a few cases remained “unexplained.”
By 1952, the UFO-investigation unit was called Project Blue Book, led by Captain Edward Ruppelt at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Ruppelt and his team would probably have continued to investigate a couple dozen sightings a month if not for the April 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Just above its knockout cover shot of Marilyn Monroe ran an equally eye-catching headline: “There is a Case for Interplanetary Saucers.”
The article, written with Ruppelt’s full cooperation, explained the Air Force’s national-security interest in UFOs. And it made a convincing case—through the colorful retelling of 10 unexplained UFO “incidents”—that these unidentified objects were extraterrestrial in origin. As one rocket scientist working on “secret” projects for the U.S. told LIFE: “I am completely convinced that they have an out-of-world basis.”
According to The Washington Post, the number of UFO sightings reported to the Air Force jumped more than sixfold, from 23 in March 1952 to 148 in June. By July, the precise conditions were in place for a wildfire of UFO mania: widespread Cold War anxiety, mainstream press coverage of unexplained UFO incidents and a healthy dose of “midsummer madness.” All that was needed was a spark.
The Washington National Airport, 1953.
(Credit: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
Mysterious radar blips buzzing over the White House
Shortly before midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1952, air-traffic controller Edward Nugent at Washington National Airport spotted seven slow-moving objects on his radar screen far from any known civilian or military flight paths. He called over his supervisor and joked about a “fleet of flying saucers.” At the same time, two more air-traffic controllers at National spotted a strange bright light hovering in the distance that suddenly zipped away at incredible speed.
At nearby Andrews Air Force Base, radar operators were getting the same unidentified blips—slow and clustered at first, then racing away at speeds exceeding 7,000 mph. Looking out his tower window, one Andrews controller saw what he described as an “orange ball of fire trailing a tail.” A commercial pilot, cruising over the Virginia and Washington, D.C. area, reported six streaking bright lights, “like falling stars without tails.”
When radar operators at National watched the objects buzz past the White House and Capitol building, the UFO jokes stopped. Two F-94 interceptor jets were scrambled, but each time they approached the locations appearing on the radar screens, the mysterious blips would disappear. By dawn of July 20, the objects were gone.
‘I tried to make contact with the bogies’
Nobody bothered to tell Ruppelt, the Air Force’s lead Project Blue Book investigator, about the sightings. He found out a few days later when he flew into Washington, D.C. and read news reports. Ruppelt tried to get out to National and Andrews to interview radar operators and air-traffic controllers, but was denied a government-issued car or even cab fare. Frustrated, he flew back to Ohio with nothing.
The very next Saturday, the UFOs were back over the nation’s capital. Again, Ruppelt found out through a phone call from a reporter, and immediately called on two Air Force colleagues to check out the situation at National. The same radar blips were back, and radar operators wondered out loud if the dozen or so objects on their screens couldn’t be caused by a temperature inversion, a common phenomenon in D.C.’s hot, muggy summer months.
A temperature inversion occurs when a layer of warm air forms in the low atmosphere, trapping cooler air beneath. Radar signals can bounce off this layer at shallow angles and mistakenly show near-ground objects as appearing in the sky. Ruppelt’s Air Force colleagues, however, were convinced that the objects on the radar screen weren’t mirages, but solid aircraft.
To be safe, two more F-94 jets were scrambled to chase down the unidentified targets appearing on radar screens at both National and Andrews. A game of high-speed Whack-a-Mole ensued, where the jets would race to a location targeted by radar, only for the blips to vanish. Finally, one of the jet pilots caught sight of a bright light in the distance and gave chase.
“I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet,” the pilot later told reporters. “I saw several bright lights. I was at maximum speed, but even then I had no closing speed. I ceased chasing them because I saw no chance of overtaking them.”
Captain Edward Ruppelt, standing, and General John Samford, seated to the right of him, discussing the reports of unidentified flying objects with other Air Force officers at a 1952 news conference.
(Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
Averting mass panic with a disputed theory
The next day, newspaper headlines across America screamed “Saucers Swarm Over Capital” and “Jets Chase D.C. Sky Ghosts.” The publicity and public panic over the sightings were so great that President Harry Truman himself asked aides to get answers. When they called Ruppelt, he said it could have been caused by a temperature inversion, but more investigation was needed to fully explain both the radar images and credible eyewitness accounts.
But before such an in-depth investigation could take place, the Air Force called a press conference, the longest such news event since World War II. The Air Force brass had decided, without consulting Ruppelt or the Project Blue Book team, that the best response to the sightings was to feed the press and the public an easy-to-swallow explanation.
Dodging specific questions about what pilots and radar operators had seen in the skies over the Capitol, Major General John Samford came back again and again to the temperature-inversion theory. Never mind that Ruppelt had since come to the opposite conclusion.
“The investigators had ruled out the inversion,” says Alejandro Rojas, editor of the UFO news site OpenMinds. “They had examined that situation. The radar operators said, ‘Inversions happen. We know what inversions look like. This is not an inversion. This is not the same thing at all.’”
To Ruppelt’s disappointment, the Air Force’s press conference worked exactly as planned. The papers reported the temperature-inversion story and the public largely seemed to accept it. In his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Ruppelt reports that after the press conference, UFO sightings dropped from 50 a day to 10.
Skeptics, however, weren’t satisfied with the pat government response. Many accused Air Force and Project Blue Book investigators of devious behavior and secret knowledge. It wasn’t until Project Blue Book documents were made public WHEN that UFO sleuths could see that the closest thing to a government cover-up of UFO sightings in the nation’s capital was actually a conspiracy of ignorance.
“The Washington UFO flap perfectly illustrates the real government ‘cover-up’,” says Nick Pope, a UFO journalist who used to run UFO-investigations unit for the British Ministry of Defense. “It’s not a situation where the authorities conspired to keep some terrible truth about UFOs from the people, but rather, the government doing its best to keep people from realizing that they didn’t have all the answers.”
De dag dat UFO’s over het Witte Huis vlogen en de luchtmacht het weer de schuld gaf.Kreeg Washington buitenaards bezoek?
iOp zaterdag 19 juli 1954 zag luchtverkeersleider Edward Nugent zeven objecten op zijn radarscherm. Ze bevonden zich ver uit de buurt van vluchtpaden van militaire en burgervliegtuigen. Hij grapte dat hij een ‘vloot vliegende schotels’ zag.
Twee andere luchtverkeersleiders zagen op dat moment een vreemd fel licht in de verte dat plotseling met grote snelheid wegschoot.
Op de nabijgelegen Andrews Air Force Base werden dezelfde ongeïdentificeerde objecten waargenomen.
Oranje vuurbal
Ze bewogen zich in eerste instantie langzaam voort en bleven bij elkaar in de buurt, om vervolgens weg te schieten met snelheden van boven de 11.000 kilometer per uur.
Eén luchtverkeersleider zag een ‘oranje vuurbal met een staart’. Een piloot maakte melding van ‘zes felle lichten, als vallende sterren zonder staart’.
Toen de objecten over het Witte Huis en het Capitool vlogen, kwam er abrupt een einde aan de grapjes.
Twee F-94’s stegen op om de objecten te onderscheppen. Toen ze aankwamen, verdwenen de mysterieuze radarstipjes plotseling.
Gedwarsboomd
Edward J. Ruppelt, die voor de Amerikaanse luchtmacht onderzoek deed naar UFO’s en die Project Blue Book leidde, werd niet geïnformeerd over de waarneming.
Hij probeerde de luchtverkeersleiders te interviewen, maar werd daarbij gedwarsboomd. Hij gaf uiteindelijk op.
Een week later verschenen de UFO’s opnieuw boven de hoofdstad. Radarbeheerders vroegen zich af of de stipjes mogelijk werden veroorzaakt door termperatuurinversie.
Ruppelts collega’s binnen de luchtmacht waren er echter van overtuigd dat de objecten op het radarscherm geen illusie, maar echte vliegtuigen waren.
Paniek
Opnieuw werden twee F-94’s ingezet. Eén van de piloten zag de felle lichten in de verte en zette de achtervolging in.
“Ik probeerde contact te maken,” zei de piloot later tegen journalisten. “Ik zag meerdere felle lichten. Ik vloog op maximum snelheid, maar kwam niet dichterbij.”
De kranten stonden er bol van en al snel sloeg de paniek toe. De luchtmacht besloot het volk te vertellen dat de waarnemingen het gevolg waren van temperatuurinversie, terwijl dat duidelijk niet het geval was.
De kranten namen de verklaring over en het volk was weer rustig.
Hole That Caused Leak in Russian Spacecraft Possibly Traced to Assembly or Testing: Report
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
Space station astronauts patched a small hole in the upper orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft (left) on Aug. 30, 2018. Russian space officials have said that hole was likely caused by a drill here on Earth; investigators are currently trying to figure out exactly what happened.
Credit: NASA/Space.com
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft responsible for last week's leak aboard the International Space Station (ISS) may have received its wounds here on Earth, on the grounds of its manufacturer, according to a new report from Russian news agency TASS.
ISS controllers noticed a slight pressure drop on the night of Aug. 29 and alerted crewmembers about it the next day. The astronauts traced the issue to a 2-millimeter (0.08 inches) hole in the upper "orbital module" of the crew-carrying Soyuz, which arrived at the station in June.
Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, the Soyuz commander, soon patched the hole with epoxy, apparently solving the problem. Pressure levels have been steady ever since, NASA officials have said. (The leak never put crewmembers in any serious danger, officials have stressed.) [Russia's Crewed Soyuz Space Capsule Explained (Infographic)]
The cause of the hole remains under investigation, however. Early speculation centered on a possible micrometeoroid strike, but now human error is strongly suspected. Indeed, the hole's circular shape suggests a drilling mishap, as do nearby marks on the module wall.
The incident may have occurred during the final assembly or testing of the Soyuz, according to the new report, published today (Sept. 6) by the Russian news agency TASS. Both of these activities take place at facilities run by the Soyuz's builder, Russian aerospace company Energia, in the city of Korolyov, near Moscow.
"One of the possibilities is the spacecraft might have been damaged in the final assembly hangar. Or it could happen at the control and testing station, which carried out the final workmanship tests before the spacecraft was sent to Baikonur," an unnamed source in the aerospace industry told TASS, which stressed that it has not confirmed such suspicions.
Soyuz spacecraft — which have been astronauts' only ride to and from the ISS since NASA's space shuttle program retired in 2011 — launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz passed pressure-chamber tests before going to Energia's final-assembly hangar, the source told TASS. And the assembly and testing facilities are tightly controlled spaces, he added. (TASS referred to the source as a "he.")
"Only those with proper security clearance are allowed to enter," the source said. "Also, at the entrance to the hangar and the control and measurement station there are security guards checking all those who come and go."
Energia is conducting an investigation into the Soyuz incident. And Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, has vowed to find the person or persons responsible.
The orbital module is a spherical portion of the Soyuz that allows more gear to go up with the spacecraft. Unlike the lower crew capsule, the orbital module does not survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
"The part of the site that draws the most attention is the underground burial chamber of a Nubian king who conquered Egypt in 715 B.C.," writes National Geographic's Nora Rappaport. She quotes Turchik on the benefits of his chosen photographic technology, which allows him to "fly over and gain this connection between all the other burial sites, between the pyramid and the temple, and get an understanding of what that is from the air.”
Just as you'll visit the pyramids if you take a trip to Cairo, you'll visit the pyramids if you take a trip to Mexico City — but the pyramids of the still-impressive, still-mysterious ancient city of Teotihuacán. "Helicopters illegally fly over this area for foreign dignitaries, but we were told we might be the first to have filmed the pyramids with a drone," writes the uploader of the video just above. He and his collaborators shot it early one morning for a Boston University research project on "what the ruins of a pre-Aztec metropolis can teach us about today’s cities." History and urbanism buffs alike will want to read the accompanying article, but even just a glance at these clips tells you one thing for sure: whether old and long-ruined or relatively new and thriving, every city looks good from above.
Un homme a photographié de mystérieuses lumières bleues dans le ciel. Beaucoup pensent qu’il s’agissait d’un OVNI.
Lorsque Rolf Ernst a regardé le ciel nocturne au-dessus de Gundelsheim il y a un peu moins de trois semaines, il a vu quelque chose d’inexplicable. Environ 50 lumières bleues volaient entre Heidelberg et Nuremberg. Il a regardé cette scène pendant cinq minutes. Après cela, les lumières n’étaient plus visibles. Maintenant, le témoin se demande ce qu’il a vu cette nuit-là. En raconte son histoire au journal echo24.de le 18 août 2018, il s’est rendu compte qu’il n’était pas le seul à les avoir vus.
« Quels étaient ces objets volants étranges ? », s’est questionné le témoin tout en publiant une photo de son observation. Dès lors, des journalistes ont enquêté sur l’origine de ces lumières bleues. Ces lumières non identifiées pourraient avoir une explication rationnelle selon eux.
Au cours de cette enquête, ils ont constaté que ces lumières n’avaient pas été seulement visibles à travers Gundelsheim – et pas seulement le 18 août. A plusieurs reprises, des personnes ont signalé avoir assisté à ce même phénomène sur le site Web ufowatch.de. A chaque fois, il s’agissait d’une multitude de petites lumières qui se déplaçaient de manière uniforme, mais très rapidement dans le ciel.
Ces OVNI ressemblaient à ce qu’avait observé Rolf Ernst. Certains témoins ont même filmé ces lumières surnaturelles.
La photo de Rolf a été transmise à plusieurs observatoires. « Malheureusement, nous n’avons aucune information à ce sujet », a déclaré Volker Lang de l’observatoire Robert Meyer situé à Heilbronn. De plus, des sites d’information ont tenté de résoudre ce mystère, en vain.
Andreas Dobler de la Schwäbische Sternwarte de Stuttgart croit tenir une explication : « Pour nous, cela ressemble à un départ nocturne de ballons à LED. »
Ces objets sont souvent lancés dans le ciel pendant les mariages ou les anniversaires malgré le fait qu’ils soient interdits.
Cette explication vous semble-t-elle satisfaisante ?
The unique swirl patterns may be produced by ancient magma tubes.
An image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credits NASA / LRO / WAC science team.
If you prop up a telescope and look at the Moon, you’re likely to see some curious-looking shapes dotting its surface. Many people take them to be craters left over from meteorite impacts, since this is, after all, the Moon.
That would be jumping to conclusions, however, according to a team from the Rutgers University. These bright, undulating shapes are known as ‘lunar swirls’ and up until now, they were somewhat of a mystery.
Cheesy swirls
One of the most striking features of these swirls is that they come hand-in-hand with powerful — but localized — magnetic fields. These swirls, as well as their strange magnetism, have been known for decades. Efforts to map magnetic activity on the Moon (it doesn’t have a magnetic field of its own) during the Apollo 15 and 16 missions were the first to identify these swirls as sources of magnetism back in 1979.
Since then, try as we might, we just couldn’t make heads or tails of the swirls. Each new tidbit of information only seemed to compound the problem further. For example, the swirls are less pronounced and less intricate at higher altitudes. Every swirl has its own magnetic signature, but there are also magnetic fields on the Moon that are completely distinct from swirls. To top it all off, the swirls show geological signs suggesting they’re new formations (they’re much less weathered than the surrounding rocks) — however, they’re definitely not new formations; we’ve seen them up there for decades now.
Reiner Gamma (60 km width, same swirl as above), seen by the Clementine spacecraft. Image credits NASA.
“The cause of those magnetic fields, and thus of the swirls themselves, had long been a mystery,” said planetary scientist Sonia Tikoo of Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
“To solve it, we had to find out what kind of geological feature could produce these magnetic fields – and why their magnetism is so powerful.”
Computer modeling allowed the team to discover that, in order to fit the observed magnetic signature, each swirl has to form close to or directly above narrow structures that are close to the surface and can create a magnetic field. One structure that would fit this description are lava tubes, or lava dikes — the products of ancient volcanic activity, the team explains.
These tubes are left-overs from the same basalt lava flows which, 3 to 4 billion years ago, created the dark and wide basalt plains seen over the lunar surface. This would explain why those underground formations became magnetized. The magnetic fields generated by the tubes would also deflect incoming solar wind particles, helping to insulate the swirls from weathering effects.
When Moon rock (regolith) is heated to around 600° Celsius (875° Kelvin or 1,112° Fahrenheit) in an environment that lacks oxygen but has a magnetic field, it becomes ‘imprinted’ with this field itself — it becomes magnetized. Heat causes some minerals in the rock to break down, releasing iron, which becomes magnetized across the same direction as the surrounding field.
This process doesn’t usually take place on Earth, because there’s a lot of oxygen here. It can’t take place on the Moon today, because it lost both its lava flows and its magnetic field. However, according to some of the team’s prior research, the lunar magnetic field persisted up to 2 billion years longer. So their hypothesis fits the timeline.
“No one had thought about this reaction in terms of explaining these unusually strong magnetic features on the Moon,” Tikoo said. “This was the final piece in the puzzle of understanding the magnetism that underlies these lunar swirls.”
The team hopes that the next mission to the Moon will study these swirls directly, and confirm or disprove their hypothesis.
The paper “Lunar Swirl Morphology Constrains the Geometry, Magnetization, and Origins of Lunar Magnetic Anomalies” has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
Life on Mars? 40 Years Later, Viking Lander Scientist Still Says 'Yes'
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
NASA's twin Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 to hunt for signs of life on the Red Planet. Forty years later, scientists are still arguing about what the landers' observations mean.
Credit: NASA
In 1976, NASA's twin Viking landers touched down on Mars in an attempt to answer a weighty question: Is there life on the Red Planet?
Gilbert Levin was the principal investigator of the Vikings' Labeled Release (LR) life-detection experiment. The instrument got positive responses at both landing locales. However, scientists did not reach a consensus on whether his results were proof of life.
Now, more than four decades after the Viking landings — and with a lot more information about Mars in hand — Levin believes that NASA hasn't properly followed up on the Viking landers' results.
Gilbert Levin, Mars maverick.
Credit: Gilbert Levin
"I am certain that NASA knows there is life on Mars," he said this past July on David Livingston's popular online program "The Space Show."
Levin called for a re-examination of Viking LR data by an objective panel. But there's more.
Over the past 40 years, a succession of orbiters, landers and rovers has gathered evidence that life exists on Mars today, Levin said.
There is "substantial and circumstantial evidence for extant microbial life on Mars," he said on "The Space Show."
Methane spikes
As an example, Levin noted that NASA's Curiosity rover has found cyclical and seasonal spikes in Mars methane. More than 90 percent of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is generated by microbes and other organisms.
"This is really hard to ignore as evidence for life," Levin said.
However, water-rock chemistry can also produce methane, so it's not persuasive evidence of life, Curiosity mission team members and other scientists have said.
NASA's Curiosity rover used an instrument called SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars ) to detect seasonal changes in atmospheric methane in Gale Crater. The methane signal has been observed for nearly three Martian years (nearly six Earth years), peaking each summer.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity has also discovered organic molecules in 3-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks near the surface. Organics are the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. But again, they're not convincing evidence of life by themselves; naturally occurring organics have also been spotted on asteroids, for example.
Water, water and more water
Mars Express’ MARSIS radar instrument made 29 dedicated observations in a 200-kilometer-square area near Mars’ south pole between 2012 and 2015, indicated on the map at left. The readings turned up a bright radar reflection indicative of liquid water, shown as blue on the map at right.
(Context map: NASA / Viking; THEMIS background: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU; MARSIS data: ESA / NASA / JPL / ASI / Univ. Rome; R. Orosei et al 2018)
An enhanced color image of a part of Mars' massive valley, Valles Marineris.
Image: nasa
Readings from ground-penetrating radar suggest the presence of liquid water about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) beneath the Martian surface.
(ESA / NASA / JPL / ASI / Univ. Rome; R. Orosei et al 2018)
Then there's the July 2018 news from the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission: The orbiter apparently spotted an underground lake beneath a mile of ice near the Red Planet's south pole.
Various spacecraft have found evidence of water on Mars over the years, Levin said, and now "we are deluged with an underground lake … so water is no longer the problem."
Levin also pointed to Curiosity imagery that can be interpreted as depicting fossilized stromatolites, structures that are built by colonial microbes here on Earth. There are intriguing similarities between ancient sedimentary rocks on Mars and structures shaped by microbes on Earth, he said.
Everything that we have learned about environmental conditions on Mars, Levin said, would permit terrestrial microorganisms to survive — and that includes the harsh radiation, the low pressure and the frigid temperatures.
As for present-day life on the Red Planet, "it's getting to the point where the shoe is on the other foot," Levin said. "It's very hard to image a sterile Mars." [Ancient Mars Could Have Supported Life (Photos)]
More knowledge
Viking veteran Ben Clark, now a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said "it's about time to start earnestly searching for signs of [Mars] life again."
Clark developed a Viking-carried instrument that measured the composition of Martian soils.
"From what we have learned since Viking about the past history of Mars, it was even more eminently suited for the origin of life than we knew when the search began," Clark said. "A Viking lesson learned is that you had better understand the environment well before designing tests for biological activity."
Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a professor at the Technical University Berliny, also said the Viking life-detection experiments were conducted before scientists really understood the Red Planet.
"Life is intrinsically linked to its environment," Schulze-Makuch told Space.com. Not having that information in hand, we cannot home in on optimal search and life-detection strategies, and "that, of course, also applies to the icy moons," he added, referring to ocean-harboring worlds such as the Jupiter moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus.
"If it would have been known at the time of the Viking mission about Mars what is known today, they probably would have come up with the conclusion that microbial life likely exists on Mars," Schulze-Makuch said.
"I think the consensus is shifting more into the direction that the extraordinary claim would be that 'Mars is and was always lifeless,'" he added, referring to astronomer Carl Sagan's famous saying that "extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence."
Nevertheless, Schulze-Makuch said that any declaration of life on Mars still requires overwhelming evidence before being scientifically saluted. "Just think about how long it took before it was accepted that there was and still is liquid water on Mars!" he said.
The biological package carried by the Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers to search for evidence of life.
Credit: NASA
Better-informed instruments
John Rummel is familiar with Levin's steadfast life-on-Mars position.
"The Mars science community would have benefited greatly if Gil Levin had aspired to a leadership position in science after the Viking lander missions had completed their life-detection experiments," said Rummel, who twice served as NASA's planetary protection officer and is a former chair on planetary protection for the agency's Committee on Space Research.
New missions with better-informed instruments looking for life were possible then, Rummel said, but they needed a strong advocate who had the sort of data that Levin possessed.
"Fundamentally, there is nothing new about Mars that wasn't possible with Viking, but it is a long way from Chryse or Utopia [the two Viking landing spots on Mars in 1976] to the sub-polar-cap lake now claimed by the Italians," Rummel, who's now based at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, told Space.com. "If Levin had stayed fully engaged, we might have already tried to go there."
Beyond the science debate
Astrobiologist Chris McKay, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, is a longtime Mars investigator.
The science community is in general agreement, McKay said, that the Viking LR experiment did not detect life. The reactions noted by that instrument and the other results from Viking can be explained by reactive chemicals called perchlorates, he said.
Perchlorates were first detected in Martian soil by NASA's Phoenix lander in 2008, nearth the Red Planet's north pole. Further observations by other spacecraft strongly suggest that perchlorates are widespread throughout Mars.
That perchlorate explanation, however, is tentative, McKay said. "We cannot rule out that Gil Levin is correct and that there are dormant life-forms in the Martian soil," he said.
If so, that finding has implications beyond the science debated. "Are we confident enough that the Martian soil is lifeless to send astronauts … and then to bring those astronauts back to Earth? I say no," McKay said. "It seems to me that the standard of proof must be higher for these activities, and we have not reached that standard yet."
But McKay thinks Levin is right in continuing to insist that the possibility of life be considered.
"Life may not be the scientifically preferred explanation, but it cannot yet be disproven," McKay concluded.
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades.
De NASA weet dat er leven is op Mars. Volgens deze Vikinglander-wetenschapper kunnen we het bewijs niet langer negeren
In 1976 kwamen twee Vikinglanders aan op Mars om daar te speuren naar leven. Volgens Gilbert Levin, die deel uitmaakte van het Vikingprogramma, is dat ook daadwerkelijk gevonden.
Levin claimt dat de NASA de resultaten van de Vikinglanders niet goed heeft onderzocht.
“Ik ben er zeker van dat NASA weet dat er leven is op Mars,” zei hij.
Ook nu nog
In de afgelopen 40 jaar hebben sondes, landers en rovers bewijs verzameld waaruit blijkt dat leven ook nu nog op Mars bestaat, aldus Levin.
“Er is substantieel en indirect bewijs voor microbieel leven op Mars,” zei hij.
Hij merkte op dat NASA’s Marsrover Curiosity methaanpieken heeft gevonden op de rode planeet. “Meer dan 90 procent van alle methaan in de aardatmosfeer wordt geproduceerd door microben en andere organismen,” klonk het.
Niet negeren
“Dit kun je gewoon niet negeren als bewijs voor leven,” zei Levin.
In juli dit jaar liet de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA weten dat er een ondergronds meer was ontdekt op de rode planeet.
Foto’s
Door de jaren heen hebben verschillende ruimtesondes bewijs voor water op Mars gevonden, merkte Levin op. “Water is dus niet langer het probleem.”
Hij wees daarnaast op foto’s van Curiosity waarop volgens hem gefossiliseerde stromatolieten zijn te zien, structuren die op aarde worden achtergelaten door microben.
Conspiracy theorists claim Novichok crop circle predicted Dawn Sturgess’ death as giant sign for chemical weapons appeared in nearby field just hours before
Just before the 44-year-old died, a strange pattern appeared in a wheat field near her hometown of Amesbury. But was the strange formation an artistic prank or something much more sinister?
By Anthea Gerrie
Was it a hoax by pranksters with highly sophisticated compasses and tools - or a terrifying message from outer space?
A giant crop circle - a geometric formation that appears in a field without explanation - showing the symbol for chemical weapons, was spotted just hours before Dawn Sturgess died of Novichok poisoning in July.
CROPCIRCLECONNECTOR.COM
This Novichok crop circle appeared near Salisbury in July
Like former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who fell critically ill in Salisbury in March, Dawn collapsed after coming into contact with the same poison in Amesbury - just eight miles away.
While the Skripals survived, Dawn tragically died on July 8 - eight days after first being taken to hospital.
Novichok is designed to be among the deadliest nerve agents ever made, created by Russian scientists who developed it between 1971 and 1993.
Once in contact with the human body it causes uncontrollable shaking, breathing becomes impossible and eventually victims die of heart failure.
PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES
Dawn Sturgess died from Novichok poisoning soon after a crop circle appeared
Yesterday cops released a European Arrest Warrant for Russian spies Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - almost six months after the Skripal poisoning.
But crop circle enthusiasts believe there was an ominous sign sent from a greater power which foretold her death.
They say it appeared as she lay on her deathbed, after the news broke of her poisoning but before she took her final breath.
So was this an act of some extraterrestrial power or a man-made hoax?
War signs in England's fields
The Novichok crop circle was spotted on an isolated hill near Amesbury, Wiltshire where Dawn lived, on July 7, the day before she died.
It consisted of three circles forming a triangle linked to a small inner circle - the international symbol for chemical weapons - within a huge outer circle measuring 175 feet wide.
These men are wanted over the attempted hit on the Skripals in Salisbury
Photographer Matthew Williams says he was first on the scene of the formation after being tipped off by an anonymous source. He denies having any involvement in it's creation.
Matthew, who was the first person to be prosecuted for destruction of a farmer's crop when he was caught creating a circle in 2000, tells Sun Online: "The circle was created the day before the untimely passing of Dawn Sturgess."
"It would never be intended in any other way than to warn of the use of such weapons and to highlight the plight of the victims."
� SOUTH WEST NEWS SERVICE
Photographer Matthew Williams has previously made crop circles
Roeland Beljon, who has been researching crop circles for 24 years, believes formations can be created by the power of thought - and he thinks this could be true of the Novichok circle.
“The formation near Amesbury could be a hoax or the real phenomenon," he tells Sun Online.
"It doesn't really matter whether the connection between the formation and the poisoning was intentional.”
REX FEATURES
Lucy says crop circles are built on lines of energy
Monique Klinkenbergh, owner of the Crop Circle Exhibition centre in Hampshire, agrees that the interest in the poisonings could have caused a related shape to appear, saying that if people talk or think a lot about a subject it can appear as a pattern in the fields.
The mother-of-four tells Sun Online: “To know whether a crop circle is ‘authentic’, you have to be the very first in the circle to look for any signs of people having been present.”
Monique gave up her job as an art publisher to research crop circles
Mysterious crop circle appears in Essex on the eve of the solar eclipse in bizarre aerial footage
"If the crop has been carefully laid in an intricate pattern it's likely to be real - whereas you can tell if it's just been flattened crudely with a board as man-made circles are."
Alien messages and energy lines
Crop circles appear predominantly in Wiltshire, Hampshire and adjacent counties but have been spotted as far east as Essex and as far north as Yorkshire.
While nobody can say for certain why Wiltshire sees the most common sightings, it's believed it could be down to the fact it's one of the most spiritual places in the country.
Energy lines are believed to run through the county, which is the reason why ancient people built Stonehenge and Avebury Circle there.
SWNS:SOUTH WEST NEWS SERVICE
An intricate crop circle found in Wiltshire in 2000
Monique Klinkenbergh, who has opened a museum about crop circles in Wiltshire
Magical healing powers
Some researchers, including former professor of architecture Michael Glickman, say the formations are too geometrically complex to be man-made, while others suggest forces of nature cause them to occur.
“We know an electric force is involved in the formation of crop circles,” says Lucy Pringle, who has been researching crop circles for 28 years and claims sitting in one healed her injuries.
Lucy Pringle says being in a crop circle healed her shoulder injury
"I had damaged my right shoulder playing tennis the previous evening," she tells Sun Online.
"As I was sitting relaxing in the circle, I became aware of energy rippling through my shoulders.
"I gently moved my right shoulder and found to my amazement that I could move it without pain.
"I stayed where I was and let the energy continue to flow, until my shoulder was completely mobile and free of pain.”
Notable crop circles - and where to see them
Some of the most impressive circles include:
The Julia Set - 151 individual circles forming a comma shape 900 feet along appeared in a field opposite Stonehenge on a Sunday afternoon in 1996, stopping traffic.
The Galaxy - a formation of 409 individual circles arranged in a giant spiral which appeared on Milk Hill, also in Wiltshire, in 2001
The Martinsell Hill, Wiltshire, formation of July this year containing 140 identical triangles forming a five-pointed star within a circle.
Angry farmers with £120k losses
While some farmers whose land becomes damaged by crop circles make light of it, others are not so tolerant.
Tim Carson, who has had more than 100 circles appear on his land in Pewsey Downs, Wiltshire, claims they have cost him £120,000 in damaged crops - and he's had to spend thousands more on replacement products.
SWNS:SOUTH WEST NEWS SERVICE
Crop circles may look pretty, but they can cost thousands of pounds' worth of damage
It has been harvest time since the chemical symbol circle's arrival in July, wiping away a trace of the intricate pattern.
So how it first ended up in the fields of Wiltshire, for now, remains a mystery.
Zenuwgas-graancirkel verschenen in Groot-Brittannië na vergiftiging. Was dit een onheilspellend teken?
Vlak nadat Dawn Sturgess in juli werd vergiftigd met zenuwgas, verscheen er een gigantische graancirkel in een weiland met het symbool voor chemische wapens.
Dawn zakte net als de voormalige dubbelspion Sergej Skripal en zijn dochter Joelia in elkaar nadat ze in contact was gekomen met het gifgas.
Hoewel de Skripals de aanslag overleefden, overleed Dawn op 8 juli, acht dagen nadat ze naar het ziekenhuis was overgebracht.
Symbool
De graancirkel werd ontdekt in de omgeving van Amesbury in Wiltshire, op de dag voordat de vrouw overleed.
De formatie bestond uit drie cirkels die een driehoek vormden en die verbonden waren met een kleinere cirkel in het midden; het internationale symbool voor chemische wapens.
Fotograaf Matthew Williams kreeg naar eigen zeggen een anonieme tip over de graancirkel. “De cirkel is een dag voor het overlijden van Dawn Sturgess gemaakt,” zei hij tegen The Sun.
Roeland Beljon, die al 24 jaar onderzoek doet naar graancirkels, zei dat formaties kunnen ontstaan als gevolg van gedachtekracht.
Aandacht
Graancirkelonderzoekster Monique Klinkenbergh zei dat de graancirkel kan zijn ontstaan vanwege alle aandacht voor de vergiftigingen.
Als mensen veel over een bepaald onderwerp praten of nadenken, kan het als patroon in een weiland ontstaan, zei ze.
Graancirkels verschijnen vooral in Wiltshire, Hampshire en nabijgelegen graafschappen.
Energielijnen
Dat daar zoveel formaties verschijnen zou te maken hebben met energielijnen die door het land lopen.
Sommige wetenschappers, zoals oud-professor Michael Glickman, zijn van mening dat de formaties te complex zijn om door mensen gemaakt te kunnen worden.
Anderen zeggen dat ze ontstaan door natuurkrachten. “We weten dat een elektrische kracht betrokken is bij het ontstaan van graancirkels,” zei Lucy Pringle, die al 28 jaar onderzoek doet naar dit fenomeen.
Did Google Earth just expose NASA? Bizarre 'pyramid structure' spotted on moon
AN ANCIENT civilisation that lived on the moon has been exposed after a pyramid structure was discovered on the surface, according to wild claims online.
Mysterieuze piramidevorm ontdekt op de maan. Kijk en oordeel zelf
Op internet is er aandacht voor een vreemde vondst op de maan. De Argentijn Marcelo Irazusta claimt op Google Earth een piramideachtige structuur op het maanoppervlak te hebben ontdekt, zo schrijft de Daily Star.
Hij stelt in een video op zijn YouTube-kanaal dat deze onregelmatigheid niet op natuurlijke wijze kan zijn ontstaan.
Anderen lijken het met hem eens te zijn en claimden dat het Amerikaanse ruimteagentschap belangrijke informatie voor ons achterhoudt.
Leugens
“Wanneer zullen mensen de leugens van de NASA doorprikken?” vroeg iemand zich af. En een ander zei: “Wat een vondst. Ze gaan hem zeker onder het tapijt vegen.”
Weer iemand anders schreef: “Piramides op de maan. Wauw, dit kan de wetenschap doen veranderen.”
Er waren ook sceptische reacties. Zo beweerden sommigen dat de software verantwoordelijk is voor de piramidevorm.
Piramide
Vorig jaar zei UFO-jager Mark Sawalha een piramidevorm te hebben ontdekt op de maan, en wel op een foto van de NASA.
“Je ziet op een foto van de Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter van de NASA in het midden van de krater Eudoxus een object dat eruitziet als een piramide,” zei hij.
Sawalha ontdekte eerder ook al vreemde objecten op de maan.
W.Y. Evans-Wentz was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1878 and developed a deep interest in the world of the paranormal at a young age. It was an interest that he never lost. Indeed, it stayed with him until his death, in 1965. As well as being a respected anthropologist, Evans-Wentz was someone who was also fascinated by Buddhist teachings and beliefs. Evans-Wentz was a prestigious writer and publisher, having published, in 1927, an English version of widely acclaimed and still extensively read, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. As for his own books, they were as notable as they were varied, one of the most revered being The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. It’s a book which is packed with fascinating accounts of old, supernatural encounters between the people of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Brittany, and magical entities that have variously been referred to as elementals, fairies, goblins, sprites, and the “wee folk.” One story collected by Evans-Wentz stands out.
The story was personally shared with Evans-Wentz by a colleague at England’s Jesus College at Oxford University – a university which Evans-Wentz studied at as a young man. The story told to Evans-Wentz was as bizarre as it was undeniably sensational. The man in question was Irish and a former resident of County Kerry, one who had chosen Oxford University as his place of education. According to the curious story told to Evans-Wentz, it was in the first week of December 1910 that the man and a friend were heading home from a night out in the Irish city of Limerick. Given that it was a fair distance away, and darkness was already on the land when they went out – never mind during their return – they chose to travel on horseback, something which would make the journey to Limerick, and home again, an easy one. It turned out, however, that fate had other things in store for the two twenty-three-year-olds. Very strange and unforgettable things.
It was as they approached Listowel – a 14th century market town in County Kerry – that the pair couldn’t fail to see a powerful, brilliant light at a distance of around half a mile from them. Suddenly, the light was joined by another one that was practically identical in appearance, and also in size, which was somewhere in the order of around six feet in height. As the two men sat on their horses, and stared in amazement at these curious displays of light, they saw something incredible happen: within the flames that were contained within the two lights, they could see a pair of what were described as radiant beings with “human form;” the flames having transformed into the entities. The lights then moved towards each other and unified as one. The figures within, Evans-Wentz was told, then strode out of the lights and towards the two men. Incredibly, they seemed to be glowing. In other words, the brilliance they gave off was not a reflection from the balls of light that surrounded them. No, they were radiating the glowing eeriness themselves.
Such was the brightness, the two friends were unable to make out if their visitors of the night were male or female, or one of each. But, they were clearly humanoid and had noticeable halos around their heads. Not surprisingly, they quickly headed home, their galloping horses getting them there in a timely fashion.
Now, we get to the next part of the story: note that the two witnesses saw a pair of lights that transformed into radiant beings with “human form.” This issue is very similar – if not practically identical – to a story told by Contactee Orfeo Angelucci in the 1950s. It was the night of May 23, 1952 and as he drove home from work, not long after midnight something very strange happened. As he drove down Victory Boulevard, Angelucci was shocked and amazed to see “slightly above my line of vision,” a red, glowing, oval-shaped object that was “about five times as large as the red portion of a traffic light.” It seemed to carefully maintain its distance from Angelucci’s car, as if beckoning him to follow – which he did. He drove across a bridge spanning the Los Angeles River, and looked on, mesmerized, as the object came to a halt, hovering over the intersection at a “lonely, deserted stretch of road called Forest Lawn Drive.”
Without warning, the red-colored ball suddenly shot away at high speed – but not before two, smaller, fluorescent green objects, about three-feet in diameter, flew out of it and headed directly for Angelucci. They hung, magically, only a few feet above his car for a few minutes, after which something dramatic allegedly occurred. Emanating, apparently, from between the two green balls of light, said Angelucci, was the sound of “a masculine voice in strong, well-modulated tones and speaking perfect English.” Stressing that he should not be afraid, the disembodied voice explained to a shocked Angelucci that he was in direct communication with “friends from another world.” Angelucci was also told: “Man believes himself civilized, but often his thoughts are barbaric and his emotions lethal. We do not say this as criticism, but state it only as fact. Thus it is best to approach all planetary visitors with friendly, welcoming thoughts.” Angelucci went on to have other encounters of the Contactee variety and became a well-known figure in 1950s-era Ufology.
There is no doubt that there are notable parallels between both stories. Some might say that the two events – 42 years apart – were caused by the very same phenomenon. But, there is another connection that just might get to the heart of the matter. Just like W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Orfeo Angelucci was born in Trenton, New Jersey. In light of this, I have to wonder if Angelucci may have taken a deep interest in the writings of someone who just happened to be a local author (namely, W.Y. Evans-Wentz) and, subconsciously, weaved parts of the Evans-Wentz saga into his own. At the very least, it’s a theory to ponder on…
Meer van UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
Trumpets of the Apocalypse: Could this be the answer?
