Is this hillside hiding the world's oldest pyramid? Ancient structure in Indonesia could be up to 20,000 years old

• Geologist claims the site in West Java could be 9,000 to 20,000 years old
• Dr Danny Hilman says man-made hillside hides a pyramid structure
• Tests have established parts of the structure date to 7,000 BC
• Could re-write pre-history, but other experts claim excavation is flawed

By SARAH GRIFFITHS FOR MAILONLINE

Egypt’s oldest pyramid was built almost 5,000 years ago but a similar structure hidden beneath rubble could be up to four times older.

If true, the claim could rewrite prehistory and shed light on an obscure yet powerful and advanced ancient civilisation.

Geologist Dr Danny Hilman believes that a site in West Java is revered because it hides an ancient temple built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago.

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A geologist claims that the world's oldest pyramid is hidden under rubble (pictured) in West Java, which if true, could re-write pre-history in the region and shed light on a powerful and advanced ancient civilisation

The Megalithic site of Gunung Padang was discovered in 1914 and is the largest site of its kind in Indonesia. 

It is nestled among volcanoes, banana palms and tea plantations, at 2,903 ft (885 metres) above sea level some 75 miles (120km) south of Jakarta.

Chunks of volcanic rubble jut out up from the stepped hillside, which is considered sacred by the Sundanese people who live locally.

Geologist Dr Danny Hilman believes the site is culturally important is because it is an ancient pyramid which was built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago.

He suggests that it may have been built for worship or astronomy. 

The megalithic site of Gunung Padang (pictured) was discovered in 1914 and is the largest site of its kind in Indonesia. It's nestled among volcanoes banana and tea plantations, at 2,903 ft (885 metres) above sea level

Chunks of volcanic rubble stick up from the stepped hillside (pictured), which is considered sacred by the Sundanese people who live locally. Geologist Dr Danny Hilman thinks the reason the site is so revered is that it is an ancient pyramid which was built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago

THE WORLD’S OLDEST PYRAMIDS 

If the structure in West Java is revealed to be a 20,000-year-old pyramid, it will be the oldest on Earth.

In 1996, archaeologists discovered pyramids on the Atlantic coast of southern Brazil that sate to around 3,000 BC, making them a few hundred years older than Egypt's oldest pyramid.

But both civilisations built them for religious reasons.

The Brazilian pyramids are made from shells and were probably built in phases over decades or even centuries, The Independent reported. 

For years, experts thought the pyramids were simply piles of domestic rubbish.

Egypt’s oldest known pyramid is the step pyramid of Djoser, which was built in around 2,700 BC.

It was built by a master builder called Imhotep for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser and is composed of six steps.

the ancient structure was rocked by a pyramid in 1992, leaving it unstable with a large hole in its domed roof, but restoration is underway.

If this is true, prehistoric people would have had to manoeuvre chunks of volcanic rock onto terraces built on the mountainside and stack them on top of each other to create a pyramid – a considerable feat of ancient engineering.

Dr Hilman, a senior geologist at Indonesia’s Centre for Geotechnical Research, says that proof of the structure’s organisation lies underground.

His excavations have been backed by the Indonesian government, which recently decreed that the upper part of Gunung Padang is 'the largest megalithic structure in south-east Asia,' The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

President Yudhoyono dubbed the dig a ‘task of history…of important value to humanity.' and it has yielded some ancient artefacts.

Dr Hilman said: ‘People think the prehistoric age was primitive, but this monument proves that wrong.’

He believes such a pyramid would be proof of an advanced ancient civilisation in Java and said that the majority of the stepped site is man-made, perhaps built by generations over a matter of centuries.

The geologist is now working to establish the authenticity of the site. 

Some rocks were originally stuck together with a form of ancient glue and have been carbon dated to be around 7,000 BC. 

Dr Hilman said that the ruins hide walls and rooms with steps and terraces below, which are evidence of a complex building. 

Dr Hilman said: ‘People think the prehistoric age was primitive, but this monument proves that wrong.’ Some rocks were originally stuck together with a form of ancient glue and have been carbon dated to be around 7,000 BC. The site is thought to have been built for worship or astronomy

The site (marked on the map) is nestled among volcanoes, banana palms and tea plantations, at 2,903 ft (885 metres) above sea level some 75 miles (120km) south of Jakarta, and south east of Sukabumi City (marked)

The terraces are bordered by retaining walls of stone that can be accessed by 400 steps rising around 311 ft (95 metres).

The structure is covered with massive rectangular stones of volcanic origin.

It has been subjected to multiple geoelectric surveys, where ground penetrating radar and samples have been used.

From this, he believes the terraced hill is 328 ft (100 metres) thick and is made up of a number of layers.

He said that so far man-made structures have been detected 49 ft (15 metres) underground. 

Experts dated rock between nine and 13 ft (three and four metres) below the surface as 6,500 years old and 12,500 years old below the surface.

However, Dr Hilman’s controversial findings are disputed and 34 Indonesian archaeologists and geologists have submitted a petition criticising the projects’ methods and motives.

They say that the excavation threatens the preservation of the site as it is and are annoyed at the prospect of involving civilian archaeologists in the excavation.

Volcanologist Sutikno Bronto believes that the structure isn’t a pyramid at all, but the neck of an old volcano and that the stones surveyed have been weathered by nature instead of being cut by humans.

Another anonymous expert is sceptical that such an ancient civilisation could have been advanced enough to build a pyramid so many thousands of years ago, when tools recovered from a nearby cave, dating to 7,000 BC were very primitive.

The terraces are bordered by retaining walls of stone (pictured) that can be accessed by 400 steps rising around 311 ft (95 metres). They date to at least 5,000 BC

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

(Danny Hilman Natawidjaja)

Here, scattered across a vast hilltop in the West Java province of Indonesia, lay the remnants of a massive complex of rocky structures and monuments – an archaeological wonder since described as the largest megalithic site in all of Southeastern Asia.

But those early settlers couldn't have guessed the greatest wonder of all might lay hidden, buried deep in the ground below their feet.

(Danny Hilman Natawidjaja)

In controversial new research presented at the AGU 2018 Fall Meeting in Washington, DC last week, a team of Indonesian scientists presented data to make their case that Gunung Padang is in fact the site of the world's oldest known pyramid-like structure.

Their research, which has been conducted over the course of several years, suggests that Gunung Padang is not the hill we think it is – but is actually a layered series of ancient structures with foundations dating back some 10,000 years (or even older).

"Our studies proves that the structure does not cover just the top but also wrap around the slopes covering about 15 hectares area at least," the authors write in the abstract for their new poster.

"The structures are not only superficial but rooted into greater depth."

Using a combination of surveying methods – including ground penetration radar (GPR), seismic tomography, and archaeological excavations – the team says Gunung Padang is not just an artificial structure, but a series of several layers built over consecutive prehistoric periods.

The topmost, megalithic layer made up of rock columns, walls, paths, and spaces, sits above a second layer some 1-3 metres below the surface.

(Danny Hilman Natawidjaja)

The researchers suggest this second layer has previously been misinterpreted as natural rock formation, but is actually another arrangement of columnar rocks organised in a matrix structure.

Below this, a third layer of arranged rocks - containing large underground cavities or chambers - extends as far as 15 metres deep, and this sits upon the lowest (fourth) layer, made of 'lava tongue' basalt rock, somehow modified or carved by human hands.

According to the researchers, preliminary radiocarbon dating suggests the first layer could be up to approximately 3,500 old years old, the second layer somewhere around 8,000 years old, and the third layer in the vicinity of 9,500 to 28,000 years old.

As for the purpose of these ancient, vast structures, the researchers – led by geophysicist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences – suggest the ancient pyramid could have had a religious basis.

"It's a unique temple," Natawidjaja told Live Science.

For now, that's speculation, but if the researchers' other claims about the structures turn out to be right, it's a major finding that could challenge notions of what prehistoric societies were capable of.

'It's huge,'' Natawidjaja told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2013. ''People think the prehistoric age was primitive, but this monument proves that wrong.''

(Danny Hilman Natawidjaja)

Still, not everybody is convinced. Natawidjaja's research has been the subject of much controversy in Indonesia and elsewhere, with a large number of archaeologists and skeptics criticising the team's methods and findings.

The latest research presentations – which, for now, remain non-peer-reviewed – will probably add fuel to the fire, but they also give the world a closer glimpse at what could be one of the world's most ancient and mysterious structures.

As for what that structure really is, only time will tell.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC last week.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

Wetenschappers ontdekken verste object ooit in ons zonnestelsel: de rozige dwergplaneet ‘Farout’ - HLN.be

Bron: CNN, Die Welt

De Amerikanen Scott Sheppard en Chad Trujillo hebben de ontdekking gisteren bekendgemaakt. Veel is er over het nieuwe hemellichaam met officiële benaming ‘2018 VG18’ nog niet geweten behalve dan dat de dwergplaneet eerder roze lijkt (wat op een oppervlakte van ijs zou kunnen wijzen) en een doorsnede van ongeveer 500 km heeft.

Duizend jaar

Farout doet er ongeveer duizend jaar over om een keer rond de zon te draaien. De afstand van de zon naar de dwergplaneet komt overeen met 120 keer de afstand van de zon naar de Aarde. Het zal nog jaren duren vooraleer sterrenkundigen de precieze vorm van zijn omloopbaan zullen kunnen vaststellen omdat hij zich erg traag verplaatst.

Al jaren zijn wetenschappers op zoek naar een negende planeet die zich aan de rand van ons zonnestelsel zou bevinden. Het is in dat kader dat uiteindelijk ‘Farout’ werd ontdekt. Astronomen vermoeden namelijk dat de objecten aan de rand van ons zonnestelsel - die trouwens allemaal in een grillige baan cirkelen - onder invloed staan van een groter hemellichaam. Maar die zogenoemde ‘Planeet X’ is nog steeds niet gevonden. 

Bekijk ook:

Marslander Insight stuurt nieuwe foto’s

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Spectacular, colorful tomb of ancient Egyptian high priest revealed (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

The newly-discovered tomb at the Saqqara necropolis, 30 kilometers south of Cairo.

© AFP / Khaled Desouki

The tomb at the Saqqara necropolis is in good condition and its walls are lined with images depicting the tomb owner, a high priest, and his family, according to Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, Dr. Khalid Al Anani.

Numerous colorful statues have also been found at the site, which dates back to the reign of King Neferirkare of the Fifth Dynasty, and archaeologists hope to find the sarcophagus of the high priest himself. Neferirkare was in power around the 25th century BC.

© AFP / Khaled Desouki

Excavations continue at the site, with archaeologists cleaning and restoring their finds as they continue deeper into the cemetery.

The discovery is “one of a kind in the last decades,” according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

© AFP / Khaled Desouki

The tomb's entrance

© AFP / Khaled Desouki

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

OPNIEUW AANVARING TUSSEN VLIEGTUIG EN UFO ( VIDEO )

Steeds vaker zien we vliegtuigen die uiteindelijk wel landen, maar met een forse beschadiging aan de neus van het toestel. 

Zo ook een Boeing 737 van Aeromexico die met een enorme deuk in de neus landde op het vliegveld van Tijuana.

Op 13 december was een Boeing 737-800 van Aeromexico bezig met de nadering van het vliegveld van Tijuana toen de bemanning een forse dreun hoorden. Zij hadden geen flauw benul wat dat geweest zou kunnen zijn, maar aangezien alles nog normaal functioneerde hebben ze de landing doorgezet en het vliegtuig veilig aan de grond gekregen.

Na de landing bleek sprake van een fikse deuk in de neus van het toestel.

Alhoewel niemand weet wat er tegen het vliegtuig botste en de schade veroorzaakte, wordt er eigenlijk automatisch vanuit gegaan dat het een drone geweest is. 

Met de fenomenale stijging van het aantal drones neemt natuurlijk ook de kans toe dat er ééntje een keer een vliegtuig raakt en zeker als het vliegtuig zich op een lagere hoogte bevindt: 

Echter, het is helemaal niet zeker dat het Aeromexico toestel is geraakt door een drone. Het zou, voor zover ons bekend, de eerste keer in de geschiedenis zijn dat een drone dergelijke significante schade veroorzaakt. 

Er zijn maar heel weinig voorvallen waarbij echt een passagierstoestel en een drone betrokkenzijn en de keren dat dit gebeurt is de schade heel erg beperkt gebleven en zeker niet zo ernstig als bij het toestel hierboven.

Het zou uiteraard ook een ufo geweest kunnen zijn die tegen het toestel is gebotst, zeker als dat gebeurt in een land als Mexico, waar ongeveer net zoveel ufo's rondvliegen als dat er auto's rond rijden. En binnen Mexico is Tijunana ook nog eens een plaats die regelmatig in het nieuws komt vanwege de vele vreemde lichten die daar in de lucht worden waargenomen.

Een ander argument waarom hier sprake geweest zou kunnen zijn van een ufo is dat er meerdere van dit soort schades zijn voorgevallen, maar alleen op grote hoogte. Op een hoogte waar geen drones vliegen, maar waar de betreffende vliegtuigen er na de landing net zo uit zien als hierboven.

Daarom hierna een deel uit een eerder artikel waarin wordt ingegaan op de risico's voor het vliegverkeer van ufo's en een aantal praktijkvoorbeelden van aanvaringen tussen vliegtuigen en ufo's.

Er doen zich een aantal vreemde verschijnselen voor en één daarvan is dat er in het mainstream nieuws steeds vaker op wordt gehamerd dat we UFO’s nu toch echt een keer serieus moeten gaan nemen.

Zoals bijvoorbeeld in de volgende uitzending van Fox News, waar de Engelsman en ufoloog bij uitstek, Nick Pope, te gast is om te praten over het steeds groter wordende gevaar dat UFO’s opleveren voor de burgerluchtvaart. 

In de uitzending wordt uiteraard ingespeeld op de eerdere vrijgave van ufobeelden en wordt enkele keren herhaald dat we, al was het alleen maar voor de veiligheid van het vliegverkeer, nu toch echt UFO’s serieus moeten gaan nemen. 

Dit alles lijkt weer een beetje op het verdere hersenspoelen van de bevolking richting het in de nabije toekomst bekend maken van de geheime ruimtevloot. 

En toch, er gebeuren regelmatig vreemde dingen met vliegtuigen. 

Zoals afgelopen week toen een An-24 van Polar Airlines tijdens een vlucht boven het Russische Siberië volgens de officiële berichten letterlijk in zwaar weer terechtkwam. 

Wat dat dan precies geweest zou zijn is niet duidelijk, maar wel dat dit vliegtuig met iets in aanraking is geweest tijdens de vlucht. 

Het zag er als volgt uit na de landing.

Volgens Polar Airlines was het geen blikseminslag en zij suggereren dat het misschien hagel geweest zou kunnen zijn. Echter, er wordt nogal geheimzinnig gedaan en men zegt niet dat het toestel in een zware hagelbui terecht is gekomen, dus wie weet hebben we hier wel een aanvaring met een UFO. 

Dit is niet de eerste keer dat vliegtuigen aan de grond komen met dit soort schade. Wij hebben hier al vaker over geschreven en hier volgt een deel uit een eerder artikel waar wellicht ook sprake is van een botsing tussen een UFO en een vliegtuig: 

Volgens de onderstaande video uit Zuid Amerika gaat het wel degelijk af en toe mis. 

Zo vertellen ze het verhaal van wat er gebeurde op 15 mei 2015 met een Boeing 777 van Aeromexico. 

Dit toestel vertrok die dag om half acht ’s avonds voor een vlucht naar Madrid in Spanje. Ongeveer anderhalf uur na vertrek besloot de bemanning onverwacht een noodlanding te maken in Cancun omdat ze zeiden dat er storingen optraden in het elektrische systeem. 

Na de landing in Cancun nam een passagier een foto van het toestel dat er toen zo uit zag:

Volgens de onderstaande video heeft dit vliegtuig een botsing gehad met een onbekend vliegend object; een UFO dus. 

De officiële versie van het verhaal is dat ze al direct na vertrek een blikseminslag hadden waardoor de schade ontstond en er eveneens problemen waren met het elektrische systeem. 

De botsing van de 777 met een onbekend object lijkt veel op die die een vliegtuig van Air China twee jaar geleden had en waar wij toen het volgende over schreven: 

De vlucht was in de vroege ochtend van 4 juni vertrokken van Chengdu naar Guangzhou. Het vertrek van de Boeing 757 verliep zonder problemen. Twintig minuten na take-off, terwijl ze zich op een hoogte bevinden van 26.000 voet, krijgt de verkeersleiding een noodoproep van het toestel en wordt besloten een noodlanding te maken in Shunagliu. 

Deze verliep zonder problemen en er werd de passagiers meegedeeld dat een en ander het gevolg was van een technisch mankement. Echter, direct na het incident had één van de passagiers de tegenwoordigheid van geest om enkele foto’s te maken.

De officiële verklaring kwam al vrij snel daarna: het was een vogel geweest. Als we dan kijken naar de grootte van de toegebrachte schade, dan moet het wel een enorme vogel zijn geweest. Een die bovendien iets van een soort verfstrepen heeft achtergelaten.

Een vogelaanvaring bij deze vlucht is uitgesloten omdat én het vliegtuig daarvoor te hoog vloog én omdat er geen sporen zijn gevonden op het vliegtuig zoals bloedspetters of veren. 

Er zijn nog talloze verhalen over bijna botsingen tussen vliegtuigen en UFO’s. Hebben we hier daarom toch te maken met buitenaardsen die niet goed uitkijken met hun snelle UFO’s of is er een andere verklaring?

{ http://niburu.co/ }

Weird sky creature caught on camera in Mairipora, São Paulo, Brazil

On December 16, 2018 during a walk in a park located in Mairipora, São Paulo Brazil at 10 o’clock in the morning the photographer saw a very strange white object in the sky. Although the object was very far away or very small, yet it stood out greatly.

At the time he thought it was strange, but he continued his walk and did not give much importance to it.

But when he got back to his house at about 13 o'clock, he looked up at the sky again and the object was apparently still in the same place.

His house is about 3-4 kilometers from the park where he first saw it. As he could not identify the object, he has photographed it with his camera that has a zoom of 50x, in addition also he made a video.

Did the photographer caught something “Unnatural” or there is a logical explanation for this bat-like shaped phenomenon in the Brazilian sky?

  

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

UFO Sighting In Taiwan of 6 UFO Crafts near Mountain. Oct 25, 2010 UFO Sighting News.

I had to make this post again since it was deleted for unknown reasons. so here it goes. SCW

Sighting location: Alishan Forest Recreation Area, Taiwan 
Date of sighting: Oct 25, 2010

Mr. Nien was in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area when he decided to snap a few pictures. The pictures he took were only 7 seconds apart. This means that the crafts speed was faster than the human eye could see it. This fits with what we believe alien tech is capable of. Mr. Nien took the photos at 9:41 AM and did not notice anything unusual when he had taken it. It was when he uploaded the photos to his computer that he noticed the UFO. Another UFO sighting in Taiwan back in Jan of 2004. It was all over every TW news station and newspaper. I (Scott C. Waring) even talked to an F-16 Teacher in the Taiwan Air Force and he said it looks like they are in flight formation and getting ready for something. Then he noted that they seem to shoot off one by one, then are replaced by another glowing UFO from below. I have seen had a similar sighting personally when I was in South Dakata, Rapid city. Very similar in appearance, except we saw the glowing balls fly away quickly one by one. 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

ICE ICE BABY

Tunnel Vision

The NASA-sponsored research is just a concept study. Deploying it would require years of work and extensive precautions against damaging any potential ecosystem on Jupiter’s moon — not to mention figuring out a way to transport the heavy bot to Europa.

“We didn’t worry about how our tunnelbot would make it to Europa or get deployed into the ice,” said Andrew Dombard, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago who worked on the concept. “We just assumed it could get there and we focused on how it would work during descent to the ocean.”

{ https://futurism.com/ }

“Far Out!”

It’s official: astronomers found a new dwarf planet in our solar system — and it’s the most distant object ever observed in our solar system.

“I said ‘far out!’ when I discovered it, and it’s a very far out object,” said astronomer Scott Shepard from the Carnegie Institution for Science, as quoted by New Scientist. 

The tiny planet is called 2018 VG18 — later nicknamed “Farout” by the team that discovered it — and it’s about 3.5 as far away as Pluto, some 18 billion kilometers (11.2 billion miles) away. That’s more than 100 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun — and about the same distance as Voyager 2, the NASA probe that launched in 1977 and reached interstellar space this month.

Farout was spotted by the Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii on November 10 by Shepard and several colleagues, according to a statement on Carnegie Institution for Science’s website.

(Illustration by Roberto Molar Candanosa and Scott Sheppard, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science.)

Unusual Orbits

So far, Farout is still deeply mysterious. But one aspect already attracting scientific interest is its unusual orbit. Farout orbits at an unusual angle, along with other so-called “trans-Neptunian objects.”  There’s been a lot of speculation in recent years about what might be causing those astronomical bodies’ unusual trajectory.

One of the most popular explanations is the possible existence of a ninth planet, or Planet X. In fact, the astronomers discovered Farout while searching for the existence of a ninth planet, according to the statement. Most recent data suggests it could also be a group of objects within the same gravitational field.

Slow And Pinkish

But we can glean at least some details about Farout. Farout is estimated to be 500 km in diameter, and to take more than 1,000 years to orbit the Sun. It also has a pinkish hue, according to the researchers.

“With new wide-field digital cameras on some of the world’s largest telescopes, we are finally exploring our Solar System’s fringes, far beyond Pluto,” said Chad Trujillo, astronomer from Northern Arizona University.

The discovery shows that even though researchers are now routinely finding planets orbiting other stars, there are still planet-sized undiscovered objects in our own solar system. It really goes to show how much there still is to learn about our relatively small corner of the galaxy.

• READ MORE: A new dwarf planet called Farout is the most distant we’ve ever seen [New Scientist]
• More on Planet X: Theorized Planet Nine Might Actually Be A Cluster Of Little Rocks

{ https://futurism.com/ }

Does anyone worry about Egyptian curses guarding ancient tombs anymore? Apparently not since the country’s tourism ministry figured out how much money can be made by holding big ‘tomb opening‘ media extravaganzas as soon as they’re found. The curses don’t even seem to be scaring away tourists who are actually climbing up the Great Pyramid to take nude selfies — unless you count getting arrested as a curse). Whatever the case, any and all curses were ignored over the weekend as a 4,000-year-old “exceptionally well-preserved” tomb belonging to a royal purification priest under the reign of King Nefer Ir-Ka-Re was opened and exposed to the harsh lights of the world media.

Shouldn’t there be a “No climbing or nude selfies” sign?

“It is the most beautiful tomb discovered this year.”

If anyone should know, it’s Antiquities Minister Khaled Anany, who announced the opening of yet another tomb at the Sacred Animal Necropolis in Saqqara to Egypt Today and other media sources. “Royal purification,” a description found in the tomb’s hieroglyphics, means high priest “Wahtye” was a supervisor for the king whose duties included inspecting the holy boat, which is most likely the funerary vessel used for taking the king to the afterlife. Wahtye had no boat in his own tomb, but the fact that it has apparently never been looted or even opened since its sealing meant that the writings and paintings on the walls were in great shape (see the beautiful photos here) and told the stories of his life, his wife ’Weret Ptah’, his mother ‘Merit Meen’ and the rest of his family participating in activities such as making wine and pottery, religious ceremonies, sailing and hunting. Royal purification priest was obviously a pretty good gig during the reign of King Nefer-Ir-Ka-Re, who ruled during the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, a period from the early 25th century BCE until the mid 24th century BCE.

Sailing on the Nile

“The color is almost intact even though the tomb is almost 4,400 years old.”

Secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri really didn’t need to put any more spin on the announcement. The tomb is a rectangular shape measuring 10 meters (33 feet) long, 3 meters (10 feet) wide and 3 meters high, with a basement with a basement, five burial shafts and two false doors. The colors are brilliant for being 4,000 years old and the statues carved into wall niches are in great shape. It’s no wonder the Antiquities Ministry opened the tomb just days after its discovery and is already preparing to open another one nearby that was just found.

Are the curses gone? Did they ever exist to begin with? Perhaps the only people being cursed by these ancient Egyptian tombs are the ones who were planning new mummy horror movies.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

A Garden In The Afterlife - Woman struck by lightning tells her Near Death Experience

When Elizabeth Krohn headed to her Houston synagogue to attend a memorial service for her beloved grandfather, she couldn’t have known that her life would be changed forever.

As she drove the pleasant weather gave way to a downpour and fierce thunder and lightning soon followed.

She arrived at the synagogue and, with her young son in tow, started to make her way from the car to the building.

It was then that she was struck by lightning.

Elizabeth saw herself lying on the asphalt as she floated up to what she describes as a garden electrified with vivid, unearthly colors and infused with a sense of unconditional kindness and love.

She felt herself communing with a spiritual being, while her sense of time was upended.

She was given the choice of returning to her earthly life or remaining in the otherworldly paradise.

When she was told that if she went back she would have a third child—a girl who had already selected her and her husband as parents—she rejoined her body and the temporal world.

Then it got even stranger.

After the lightning strike her life was changed forever. She began to have dreams about future events, developed synesthesia, started seeing auras, and sometimes had a sense of inanimate objects radiating a life force.

Oh, and she also gave birth to a daughter.

  

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

Real UFO or manipulated hoax? Pink doughnut-shaped flying object spotted in the skies of Ireland

Even though many people consider this sighting as an evidence of extraterrestrial life, sceptics argue that this video is a manipulated hoax.

Did Ezekiel admit to seeing UFO in Bible? Conspiracy backed by NASA scientist revealed

Apollo Moon Landings: Pseudoscience and 6 Reasons Why There Was No NASA Hoax

 Barry Vacker

Some Apollo conspiracy theorists believe Stanley Kubrick filmed the Apollo moon landings for NASA.

It happens every year. One or more students ask me if I think the Apollo moon landings were a hoax. I teach critical media studies at Temple University in downtown Philadelphia, where the diverse collection of urban students are street smart, open-minded, and hard-working. This is not an indictment of students in my classes. I’m sure it happens at other colleges and universities. Frankly, it’s not surprising that some American college students wonder about the Apollo 11 moon landings, given that polls and surveys show 24% of Americans and 25% of British citizens believe NASA faked the moon landings. Some people believe that NASA paid director Stanley Kubrick to film the fake footage.

The internet and YouTube are littered with zillion of claims that NASA masterminded an Apollo hoax. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) depicts this issue in the scene where Matthew McConaughey confronts the future educators who deny NASA landed humans on the moon. Why are there so many attacks on the great achievements of Apollo? One reason is because of the rise of pseudoscience in popular culture.

In the masterpiece Interstellar, McConaughey (playing a former NASA pilot) confronts an educator who believes the moon landing was a NASA hoax perpetrated to bankrupt the Soviet Union.

Pseudoscience in the Guise of Skepticism

The students skeptical of the Apollo moon landings are often those who fashion themselves as rebels, anti-authoritarians, and challengers to the American cultural orthodoxy. Of course, being skeptical of the US government is understandable in general. Like all other political systems throughout history, the US government has lied, currently lies, and will lie again in the future. Governments are always lying about something. It’s obvious the US government is still lying about the Kennedy assassination, but there is zero doubt NASA sent humans to the moon.

It saddens me that youthful rebellion and much-needed government skepticism are channeled into pseudoscientific nonsense—not unlike the “ancient astronaut theorists” celebrated in the long-running Ancient Aliens (2010-) series, which is repeatedly aired on the History Channel in the United States.

Hijacking the space narrative from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Ancient Aliens series perfectly illustrates the rising tide of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory in American culture.

Like those who deny the Apollo moon landings, the ancient astronaut theorists present themselves as rebels against the mainstream orthodoxy of modern science and archaeology. They offer nothing other than an endless stream of bogus “evidence” for the scientifically illiterate and well-intentioned skeptics, like the students who ask me about Apollo. My debunking of the “ancient astronaut theorists” is (by far) my most read essay in Medium. It has thousands of readers, who I assume agree with the ancient astronaut theory because the essay also has very few likes and little applause. Yet not one reader has even remotely challenged any of my arguments. There are reasons why this particular version of pseudoscience exists, but I’ll save that for the end of this essay.

In 1969, the video and television technologies weren’t advanced enough to stage and fake the moon landing in any plausible way. NASA didn’t have anything like CGI or Photoshop back then. The TV cameras were primitive compared to the cameras of 2017, with HD and 360-degree perspectives. Though the fake moon-landing claims have been debunked on the internet, here are some of the most obvious reasons the Apollo moon landings could not have been faked.

1. 842 pounds of Moon Rocks

The astronauts on the six Apollo missions retrieved 842 pounds of moon rocks that were brought to Earth and shared with scientists around the world. If the rocks were from our planet and not from the moon, the scientists would surely have realized that and called NASA on its trickery. NASA still loans out sample moon rocks to educators and scientists from around the world. Could they all be in on the hoax across 50 years?

NASA still loans lunar samples to scientists and educators. Image from NASA website, October 20, 2017.

2. The Soviet Union Knew Apollo 11 Happened

The United States and former Soviet Union were in a “space race” to get to the moon first, supposedly to show the superiority of their socioeconomic systems. The Soviet Union easily tracked the Apollo spacecraft to the moon with its telecommunications satellites and picked up both the Apollo radio transmissions to Mission Control and all of the television broadcasts. The Soviets possessed such technologies because they too sent spacecraft to the moon in the 1960s (sans cosmonauts). If NASA didn’t really send astronauts to the moon, the Soviet Union would have certainly known and taken the opportunity to embarrass the United States on the “world stage” at the height of the Cold War. The possibility of the Soviets going along with such a hoax is far below zero (lower than the winter temperatures in Siberia!). Moscow’s Pravda newspaper even acknowledged the Apollo 11 moon landing with a front-page story.

News story of Apollo 11 moon landing. Pravda, July 22, 1969.

3. Reflectors Left on the Moon

The Apollo 11 and 14 astronauts left behind mirror-like prisms on the moon (the lunar laser-ranging retroreflector array) that are targeted with lasers by scientists at the McDonald Observatory in Texas and other observatories around the world. The lasers accurately determine the distance from Earth to the moon, which is moving away from the Earth by about 3.8 cm per year. Could all the astronomers and scientists at the McDonald Observatory be in on the NASA hoax? What about astronomers from other observatories in other nations?

4. Tracks on the Moon

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided images of the Apollo landing sites, including astronaut tracks, moon buggies and their tracks, and the descent part of the lunar modules. In the 21st century, could the world’s scientists and astronomers be fooled by trick photos from NASA?

From the NASA website, October 20, 2017.

5. Could 400,000 Scientists Be Tricked?

Approximately 400,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians worked on the Apollo project for over a decade. They came from many countries and all over the US. It is patently absurd to think they all were all somehow tricked or part of a NASA hoax.

NASA’s Mission Control during the Apollo program. For Apollo 11 conspiracy theorists, these scientists and technicians were creating the hoax or were all tricked.

6. Why Land on the Moon 5 More Times?

The United States made six visits to the moon. Let’s consider for a moment that they were all staged. If the first “hoax” were successful, the United States would have defeated the Soviets in the race to the moon. Why risk faking five more visits and thus increase the chances of slipping up and getting caught by 500%? NASA would have had to fake the famed Apollo 13 mission, which was aborted on the way to the moon because of an on-board explosion; it was freaking scientific genius that enabled the Apollo 13 astronauts to orbit the moon and return safely to Earth. If NASA faked the moon landings, one time would have been enough. Along with the other reasons listed above, that’s why we can be certain Apollo landed on the moon and returned to Earth six times.

Patches for the Apollo flights 12–17. Why fake five more moon landings and fake the near-disaster of Apollo 13?

Apollo and the Attacks on Human Achievement

To me, it’s mind-blowing that pseudoscience and antirationalism are widespread in the global culture of the 21st century. Let’s be very clear what is stake here: truth, sanity, human achievement, and our place in the universe. The Apollo missions were incredible achievements, perhaps the greatest in the history of the human species. The Apollo program dramatically illustrated the incredible things humans can do when reason, science, creativity, cooperation, ambition, and bravado are applied to the pursuit of genuine achievement and enlightenment. Claiming Apollo was a conspiracy is not merely an attack on NASA, it’s an attack on human reason, achievement, and aspiration. What’s the underlying reason for the Apollo conspiracy theorists? Here’s my take.

The original perspective of Earthrise, the famed image captured by Apollo 8. Earth amid the cosmic void, the concept most people can’t handle without relying on a Creator or some other story to make us feel special and secure. The reason we can’t see the stars in the image is because of the camera settings to capture both the Earth and the bright lunar landscape in a clear image.

NASA’s grandest achievements (Apollo and the Hubble Space Telescope) have collectively destroyed the pre-Copernican narratives humans use to explain their origins and destinies. In the wake of Apollo and the views of Earth from space, the tribalism (racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, etc.) and narcissistic delusions of cosmic centrality and our super-specialness are bogus beliefs and can no longer be taken seriously. Yet these views are running amok on Earth. NASA and Apollo have rocked our worldviews and much of society has yet to accept what it means, still clinging to sacred texts and YouTube videos claiming the moon landings were filmed by Kubrick. Even the Apollo 8 astronauts contributed to the rise of anti-science culture by reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon in 1968—an intellectual collapse of epic proportions, a crash on global TV. We are not special, not significant, not the center of the universe, and there’s no evidence that super-beings are looking after us and controlling our destiny, be they deities or ancient aliens.

To keep the dominant narratives alive back on Earth, the achievements and discoveries of NASA, Apollo, and the Hubble telescope must be neutralized, marginalized, or flat-out discredited. It’s like Galileo and Edwin Hubble never existed. In the end, those who deny the moon landings are waging an assault on sanity—an assault on logic, science, and basic rationality. More importantly, the deniers are attacking and undermining the great human achievement of Apollo, precisely because the real meaning of Apollo challenges the dominant narratives to which they are desperately clinging to out of sheer existential dread. The hoax was not perpetrated by NASA or Kubrick, but in the minds of the deniers and their pre-Copernican narratives. It’s not even remotely sane.

In the wake of Apollo and the Hubble telescope, we face the paradox of our greatest achievement. We humans have ventured to the moon and peered into a vast and ancient cosmos, a universe of two trillion galaxies stretching across 100 billion light years, a universe in which our species is not central or significant and perhaps even meaningless. As seen in the Apollo 8 photo above, the blackness of space shows there is no self-evident meaning or purpose to human existence. This poses the greatest intellectual challenge for humanity: to ground human purpose and meaning in something external to our existence, in a vast universe of which we are insignificant and inconsequential. Pseudoscience and Apollo conspiracy theorists have no answer for this challenge.

NASA’s great achievements suggest we practice a bit of cosmic humility along with developing a new philosophy for human existence. It’s like we need an Apollo program for secular philosophy. It’s time to abandon the superstitions and pseudoscience. It’s time to grow up.

{ https://medium.com/ }

Water plumes on Europa: Tasting an extraterrestrial ocean

Computer simulations of the plumes of liquid water that stream out of Jupiter's moon Europa show that the forthcoming space mission JUICE may offer an answer to the question as to whether the Jovian moon's subsurface ocean could harbour life. Hans Huybrighs comes to this conclusion in the doctoral thesis he has recently completed at the Max-Planck Institute of Solar System Physics and the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, in collaboration with the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna.

A deep ocean of liquid water is hidden under the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Life might have developed here, shielded from sunlight and curious observers from planet Earth. Peeping through the ice to find traces of this hypothetical life is easier said than done, especially when you realize that the ice could be several kilometres thick. In 2022 the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch its space mission JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE). The JUICE spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter and its icy moons in 2030 and on board will be the Particle Environment Package (PEP) developed at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF). New research shows that PEP, an instrument consisting of several particle detectors, will be able to "taste" the plume in different ways and shed some light on the contents of Europa's ocean.

Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter's moon Europa, made in recent years, have shown that water is erupting from Europa's surface.

"Europa's plumes are the most straight-forward way to taste its subsurface ocean," says Hans Huybrighs. "Flying through one of the plumes of water and taking samples of the material could be the easiest way to study Europa's ocean. JUICE will be the first mission that might be able to do this."

After its arrival at the Jupiter system in 2030, JUICE will make two flybys of Europa. To figure out if JUICE will indeed be able to sample the plumes, Hans Huybrighs and his colleagues made computer simulations of the plume eruptions. By calculating the trajectories of millions of particles launched by the eruption, it is possible to determine if the particles can reach the spacecraft and, if enough of them do, to detect them. The simulations show that though most of the particles fall back to the surface after the eruption, enough of them can reach the JUICE spacecraft as long as a plume is active near the spacecraft's orbital footprint. Interestingly, some of particles won't fall back. They become electrically charged after being bombarded by radiation particles moving in Jupiter's strong magnetic field. These newly-charged particles are no longer bound by gravity and will move away from Europa, guided by electromagnetic fields. Even though only a fraction of the plume particles become electrically charged, enough of these particles can still be detected by the PEP instrument.

"Our simulations show that JUICE will be able to detect the plume eruptions in at least two different ways," says Hans Huybrighs. "It might even be possible to detect not only the water of the plume, but other substances that tell us more about the contents of the sub-surface ocean and its habitability as well."

Hans Huybrighs defended his doctoral thesis, "A search for signatures of Europa's atmosphere and plumes in Galileo charged particle data", at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, on 5 December 2018.

• Explore further: ESA's JUICE spacecraft could detect water from plumes erupting on Europa

{ https://phys.org/ }

SCIENCE BEHIND THE FICTION: CAN WE BELIEVE THE AREA 51 WITNESS OR WAS HE A LIAR?

Anyone familiar with the UFO community has probably heard the name Bob Lazar. He’s something of an infamous character among skeptics and UFO enthusiasts, alike. He’s largely responsible for bringing Area 51 to the attention of the public in 1989.

Lazar emerged, first shrouded in anonymity and a fake name, later in the light of day as himself. He claimed to have been hired as a physicist working at S-4, a site near the now famous Area 51, to reverse-engineer captured alien technology.

Interviews conducted at the time, with TV reporter George Knapp, detail Lazar’s alleged experiences at S-4 involving several disk-like craft, antigravity engines, and little gray aliens.

Soon after, however, Lazar mostly faded into obscurity, working at his own company, United Nuclear, selling scientific materials. Now he’s back as the star of a recent documentary about his life and experiences with extraterrestrial technology entitled Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers.

Directed by Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, the documentary has been criticized for offering no new information on the decades-old story. Supporters of Lazar say that’s because there’s no new information to tell. Lazar has remained largely steadfast in his claims and willing to admit his ignorance when questioning strays into territory outside of his experience or expertise. These are qualities that lend credibility to believers. It is, after all, how a person would react were they telling the truth.

It’s also clear that Lazar has some level of scientific literacy, speaking in a way that sounds to many as though he knows what he’s talking about. It’s easy to see why his story captured the imaginations of so many. It’s a good story. But is it any more than that?

Whether or not Lazar believes his own story, whether it’s true to him, is something that will likely never be known. But we can scrutinize his individual claims and see if they stand up to examination, in this world or any other.

Education and Training

Prior to beginning work at the mysterious S-4 facility, Lazar claims to have earned degrees in physics from MIT and electronic technology from Caltech. A subsequent investigation revealed that neither institution has any record of him as a student, let alone a graduate.

This level of education would likely be required of anyone hired by the government for a secret project dissecting alien crafts for duplication. Yet, Lazar himself admits to not understanding why he was chosen, stating he was not the most qualified person. Lazar seems to be at least as bewildered by his own story as anyone listening to it.

The question of Lazar’s education threatens to erode the very foundation of his claims. Without these degrees, it’s hardly believable he’d attain such a position on a secret project of any kind.

But he passed Polygraph Tests…

Another piece evidence Lazar has in his favor is the couple of polygraph tests he’s taken and passed. Supporters are quick to point at this as iron-clad proof that Lazar is telling the truth, despite the common knowledge that polygraphs are inconsistent and unreliable.

Polygraphs, or lie-detectors as they are commonly known, rely on physiological responses to detect deception. The common polygraph measures subjects for changes in heart rate or blood pressure, respiration, and skin conductivity. It all seems very scientific. You know the difference between when you’re lying and telling the truth. Surely there is some measurable physiological difference taking place when a person lies.

But there’s no good evidence to suggest that current polygraphs, as they are designed and implemented, effectively measure deception. Moreover, there is no standardized method of questioning.

What these machines seem to really be measuring is fear or anxiety. And there are any number of reasons an innocent person might feel fear or anxiety and a guilty person might not.

In short, Lazar may very well be telling the truth to the best of his ability, but a polygraph doesn’t prove that one way or another. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, that only indicates that Lazar is not intentionally being deceitful. It wouldn’t be the first time an individual believed something patently untrue.

What’s more, there are even those within the UFO community itself who believe that Lazar is being truthful despite being wrong.

No conspiracy theory is complete without a second layer of additional conspiracy. Some believe that Lazar was, in fact, hired by the government and intentionally placed in situations that would foster a belief in extraterrestrials and their technology for the express purpose of exposing that narrative to the public. All of this was done, according to some, in order to cover up the real truth about aliens on Earth.

Mysterious Element 115

During the course of Lazar’s interviews he’s discussed the various alien crafts he witnessed while working at S-4, supposedly originating from Zeta Reticuli, some 39 light years away. According to Lazar, the crafts move by use of engines capable of manipulating gravity using an, at the time, unknown element.

Element 115 was used in reactors to create a field of gravity waves which allowed the crafts to counteract the Earth’s gravity or create an artificial downhill in any direction they chose.

It’s Lazar’s explanation for the seemingly erratic behavior of alien crafts. It’s a neat explanation which is, on its face, internally consistent.

Lazar also suggested that Element 115 could not be synthesized on Earth, as it is simply too heavy. Lazar claimed instead that the substance could only be made in very large stars. Though the powers that be at S-4 had pounds and pounds of the stuff.

Despite his claims, scientists in Russia did succeed in synthesizing a material which fits in the appropriate slot on the periodic table.

Moscovium, as element 115 was named after its confirmation, is incredibly radioactive, with a half-life of less than a second. To date, approximately 100 atoms of the stuff have been observed.

Lazar, however, was wrong in more ways than one. Moscovium can’t be manufactured in a star, no matter the size. Sun-like stars fuse hydrogen into helium and, depending on the size of the star, that process can continue up the periodic table to iron. That’s where fusion ends. Heavier elements can be made during supernova events but it’s unclear if that’s what Lazar meant. In any event, so far as we know, Moscovium only exists artificially in a laboratory setting.

Even if Moscovium does occur naturally, Zeta Reticuli, the binary star system from which Lazar’s aliens supposedly originate, is similar in character to our sun. There’s no good reason Moscovium should occur naturally there.

The Motion of Flying Saucers

At one point in Lazar’s interviews, he explains the cause for the erratic motion of flying saucers, saying it is a result of interference between Earth’s gravity and the gravity-engines of the crafts.

Lazar explains that gravity is variable near the surface of the Earth and implies that these variations in gravitational force makes flying near the surface unwieldy in a way that isn’t so when maneuvering through empty space.

It’s true that gravity is not wholly constant throughout the whole of the planet. Because of the world’s spheroid shape, the effects of gravity differ depending on latitude. There is also altitude to consider as well as the density of nearby material.

Moving from the equator to one of the poles will result in roughly half a percent of change in the impact of gravity on an individual or object. Local changes based on material density (the factor which would influence a flying craft) account for less than a tenth of a percent. It’s difficult to imagine beings capable of traversing interstellar distances and being tripped up by something so trivial. And not just once or twice but all the time. Erratic movements are a hallmark of UFO sightings.

Conclusions

We can’t prove a negative. Maybe Bob Lazar really did work at a secret government facility in Nevada, reverse engineering secret extraterrestrial technology.

Maybe the government has undertaken a vast conspiracy to discredit him by erasing his educational records. Maybe he is an unfortunate genius caught up in the greatest scandal in all of human history.

Maybe the government has messed with his mind, accounting for his inability to remember clearly when he started working at S-4 or when he first encountered a craft from another world, things the average person would likely never forget.

Maybe there’s a good explanation for why beings from another star system should look so similar to human beings in body structure.

These are questions that will likely be the focus of controversy for a long while yet. There are far more down-to-Earth explanations for UFO sightings and tales of alien visitation.

What we can say for certain is the available evidence doesn’t support Lazar’s claim. Whether that means he’s lying, confused, or the victim of an elaborate interplanetary conspiracy -- we’ll leave that up to you.

Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers is available on demand now.

{ https://www.syfy.com/ }

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }