This Week's Top Space Stories!
US government 'is silently monitoring snake-like UFOs' seen across the country
EXCLUSIVE: A former police detective believes the US government is well aware of the mysterious objects that have appeared over several different states
Simon Green Video News Editor
The US government is likely aware of the snake-like UFOs that have been spotted across the country and are monitoring them, a former police detective has revealed.
Over the past several months, people from all parts of the US have claimed to have captured bizarre objects in the skies on camera, which bear similarities to snakes in their movement.
The sightings started in June, when a popular YouTuber was shocked to discover a bright light above the Mojave Desert in California.
Since then, they have supposedly been spotted during a meteor shower in Wyoming as well as over New York moving like it was "alive".
After the sightings exploded, Daily Star Online asked Detective Constable-turned UFO hunter Gary Heseltine his thoughts on the mysterious "craft".
"Cigar-shaped UFOs have been seen for decades," he told this site.
"Occasionally some reports involve 'snake' like objects.
"These sightings can be rare and have been seen around the world from time to time, particularly in South American countries like Mexico and Peru."
Gary went on to claim the US military and government have "controlled the UFO field worldwide since the 1940s".
"I certainly believe that the US government and military know much more about ET visitation," he continued.
"I suspect that we only know 10% of the truth about UFOs and ET contact which means 90% is still in the secret world of military intelligence.
"Providing the sightings are numerous and have multiple witnesses, I have no doubt that someone in authority will be 'silently' monitoring the activity [of snake-like UFOs]."
Gary went on to say he has "met many people who were formerly military pilots" who have had had UFO encounters.
"There is no doubt in my mind that a small proportion of UFO reports involve ET visitation (3%)," he added.
Gary runs the Police Reporting UFO Sightings database, where he claims to have more than 500 reports of UFO sightings from police officers dating back to 1901.
He worked in the British Transport Police for 24 years before retiring in 2013 and now describes himself as the UK’s leading researcher UFO sightings.
Amerikaanse overheid monitort in het geheim ‘slangachtige UFO’s’. Hier worden ze gezien
Een oud-rechercheur heeft gezegd dat de Amerikaanse overheid weet dat slangachtige UFO’s op verschillende plekken in het land zijn gesignaleerd.
In de afgelopen maanden hebben mensen uit alle hoeken van de Verenigde Staten bizarre objecten vastgelegd in de lucht die vanwege hun rare bewegingen doen denken aan slangen.
De waarnemingen begonnen in juni, toen een populaire YouTuber een fel licht ontdekte boven de Mojavewoestijn in Californië.
Ze zouden ook zijn gezien tijdens een meteorenzwerm in Wyoming en in New York.
“Sigaarvormige UFO’s worden al decennia gezien,” zei ex-rechercheur Gary Heseltine tegen Daily Star Online.
“Soms worden er ‘slangachtige’ objecten gemeld,” voegde hij toe.
“Deze waarnemingen zijn zeldzaam en worden van tijd tot tijd gemeld, met name in landen als Mexico en Peru,” aldus Heseltine.
Hij zei verder dat de Amerikaanse overheid en het leger veel meer weten over buitenaards bezoek dan ze ons willen doen geloven.
“Ik schat dat slechts 10 procent van de informatie over UFO’s en buitenaards contact naar buiten is gekomen, wat betekent dat de overige 90 procent nog in handen is van de militaire inlichtingendiensten,” klonk het.
Hij zei ervan overtuigd te zijn dat de overheid de activiteit van slangachtige UFO’s in het geheim monitort.
Heseltine zei dat hij veel voormalige straaljagerpiloten heeft ontmoet die UFO’s hebben waargenomen in het luchtruim.
Hij schat zelf dat ongeveer drie procent van de UFO’s van buitenaardse makelij is.
[Daily Star]INCOMING! Mysterious object from interstellar space ‘approaching our solar system’ Harry Pettit, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter
A MYSTERIOUS object from deep space is fizzing towards the Solar System – and scientists have no idea what it is.
Dubbed "C/2019 Q4", the high-speed body appears to be on a path originating from another star system that will see it fire past Mars in October.
That would make it only the second interstellar visitor ever known to have reached the Solar System.
The first, a cigar-shaped object called Oumuamua, took the world by storm when it careened past Earth in 2017.
A pair of Harvard scientists claimed it could be an alien spacecraft, sparking a frantic flurry of scans as the object closed in on the Solar System.
Experts found no signs of alien signals, and Oumuamua whizzed past Earth before its true origin could be determined.
Now researchers at European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Germany say an object once thought to be from the Solar System may actually be an interstellar traveller.
C/2019 Q4 was spotted on August 30 by amateur Ukrainian astronomer Gennady Borisov, and scientists have studied it ever since.
"It's so exciting, we're basically looking away from all of our other projects right now," Dr Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer with the ESO, told Business Insider.
Dr Hainaut was also part of a team that studied Oumuamua during its brief visit.
"The main difference from 'Oumuamua and this one is that we got it a long, long time in advance, " he added.
"Now astronomers are much more prepared."
Early images of C/2019 Q4 suggest it's followed by a tail of dust.
That's typically what you see coming out the back of a comet, though scientists say they can't be sure that's definitely what the object is.
With more observations of C/2019 Q4, scientists have worked out the shape of its orbit.
If the object is indeed interstellar, scientists should be able to study it until early 2021, when it will grow too dim to see.
That means we'll have way more time to study it than Oumuamua, which was only visible for a few weeks before it disappeared into deep space, never to be seen again.
Back in January, a Harvard space chief claimed Oumuamua could be an alien spacecraft that broke down on its interstellar journey.
That may explain why we didn't spot any signals coming out of it – though not all scientists agree.
In July, an international team of scientists concluded that Oumuamua has a "purely natural origin". They reckon it's a hunk of rock ejected by a giant gas planet.
Here's everything you need to know...
Speaking to The Sun, space expert Lembit Opik said the new object shows how easy it is for interstellar objects to reach the solar system.
"Although it is unlikely that ‘Oumuamua is of alien origin, there are still some fascinating possibilities to emerge from its appearance," said Lembit, Chairman of Parliament for Asgardia, a group attempting to build the first "space nation".
"Due to the nature that it was travelling from one solar system to another that wasn’t our own, it implies two possible outcomes.
"Firstly, it shows that interstellar travel is possible. Humans and other lifeforms can potentially use phenomena such as ‘Oumuamua to travel on, taking us to unexplored corners of the universe.
"The other likely outcome is that lifeforms can be transported across all reaches of the universe.
"Whether it be bacteria or other such minute forms of life, it potentially means that life originating from one solar system could develop in another, potentially unlocking a mystery regarding the origin of life within the universe."
In other space news, SpaceX has lost control of 3 Starlink satellites weeks after launch.
An Apollo astronaut has admitted that he nearly died ‘trying to do a high jump’ on the Moon in 1972.
And, there may have been a breakthrough in the search for alien life as scientists pinpoint exact location of mysterious fast radio burst that ‘could be signal from ET’.
What do you think the mysterious object is? Let us know in the comments...
Mysterieus object uit interstellaire ruimte nadert ons zonnestelsel, en wetenschappers hebben geen idee wat het is
Er komt een mysterieus object uit de diepe ruimte op ons af en wetenschappers hebben geen idee wat het is. Dat schrijft The Sun.
Het object, C/2019 Q4 gedoopt, lijkt uit een ander zonnestelsel te komen en zoeft naar verwachting in oktober langs Mars.
Het is de tweede interstellaire bezoeker ooit in ons zonnestelsel.
Het eerste object, de ruimtesigaar Oumuamua, zorgde in 2017 voor de nodige consternatie toen hij langs de aarde kwam.
Harvard-wetenschappers claimden dat het een buitenaards ruimteschip zou kunnen zijn.
Onderzoekers van de Europese Zuidelijke Sterrenwacht in Duitsland zeggen nu dat een object waarvan in eerste instantie werd gedacht dat het uit ons zonnestelsel afkomstig is, waarschijnlijk een interstellaire bezoeker is.
C/2019 Q4 werd op 30 augustus gespot door de Oekraïense amateurastronoom Gennady Borisov, waarna wetenschappers hun telescopen op het object richtten.
“We laten al onze andere projecten liggen,” zei astronoom Olivier Hainaut. “Het is zo spannend.”
Dr. Hainaut was ook onderdeel van een team dat onderzoek deed naar Oumuamua.
“Het belangrijkste verschil is dat astronomen nu veel beter voorbereid zijn,” zei hij.
Wetenschappers zouden het object tot begin 2021 moeten kunnen bestuderen. Daarna is het te zwak.
C/2019 Q4 lijkt een stofstaart te hebben. Dat zie je vaak bij kometen, maar wetenschappers kunnen niet met zekerheid zeggen wat het is.
[The Sun]Mass UFO sightings are 'connected' to mega earthquakes, US Marine claims
EXCLUSIVE: The former US intelligence officer claims many sightings have been documented near disaster-struck locations
Katy Gill Video News Reporter
A former US Marine has claimed mass of UFO sightings are connected to mega earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Nick Karnaze, a former United States Marine Corps soldier who served in Afghanistan as an Intel Officer, is part of an investigation team tasked with collecting evidence to prove aliens have been in contact with Earth.
As part of his staggering findings for Discovery show Contact, the ex-soldier told Daily Star Online how he noticed a correlation between UFO sightings and natural disasters.
"We’re seeing a lot of sightings connected to earthquakes, which is very interesting," Nick told this site.
“Sarah [Cruddas] and I were looking at a lot of sightings around a series of earthquakes, relatively large for the area too.
US marine claims the sightings are related to natural disaster sites
(Image: Supplied)
“And I know the team in South America were also looking into similar patterns."
However, he added: “There are a few possible explanations but not nothing is really jumping out as definitive to say ‘this is what's causing it, and this is why’.”
Footage has emerged over the years claiming to show UFOs in the region of earthquakes.
In one clip, multiple UFOs were spotted on camera over locations recently hit by an earthquake.
While a second claimed a UFO may even be the cause of the natural disaster.
Massale UFO-waarnemingen kunnen worden gelinkt aan mega-aardbevingen. Amerikaanse marinier doet opmerkelijke uitspraken
UFO-waarnemingen zijn te linken aan mega-aardbevingen en andere natuurrampen. Dat heeft een ex-marinier gezegd.
Nick Karnaze, die als inlichtingenofficier gestationeerd was in Afghanistan, onderzoekt in de nieuwe tv-serie ‘Contact’ bewijs waaruit zou blijken dat aliens de aarde hebben bezocht.
De oud-soldaat denkt een verband te hebben gevonden tussen UFO’s en natuurrampen.
Aan de serie, te zien op Discovery Channel, werken ook oud-CIA-officier Myke Cole, analist Michael Livingston, astrofysicus Sarah Cruddas en journalist Paul Beban mee.
“We zijn tot de ontdekking gekomen dat veel waarnemingen gelinkt kunnen worden aan aardbevingen, wat erg interessant is,” zei Karnaze tegen de Britse Daily Star.
“Ik deed samen met Sarah [Cruddas] onderzoek naar een aantal waarnemingen rond plekken waar aardbevingen zijn geweest,” zei hij.
“En het team in Zuid-Amerika zocht naar soortgelijke patronen,” voegde hij toe.
Hij benadrukte dat hij niet met zekerheid kan zeggen dat buitenaardsen hiervoor verantwoordelijk zijn.
Door de jaren heen zijn er geregeld beelden verschenen van vermeende UFO’s in regio’s waar zich aardbevingen hebben voorgedaan.
In één filmpje zijn meerdere UFO’s te zien boven locaties die waren geraakt door een beving. In een andere video wordt geclaimd dat een UFO de oorzaak is van een natuurramp.
De ex-marinier merkte verder op dat er ook UFO’s zijn waargenomen in de buurt van militaire installaties.
[Daily Star]Alien civilizations may have explored the galaxy and visited Earth already, a new study says. We just haven’t seen them recently.
The Milky Way could be teeming with interstellar alien civilizations — we just don't know about it because they haven't paid us a visit in 10 million years.
A study published last month in The Astronomical Journal posits that intelligent extraterrestrial life could be taking its time to explore the galaxy, harnessing star systems' movement to make star-hopping easier.
The work is a new response to a question known as the Fermi paradox, which asks why we haven't detected signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The paradox was first posed by the physicist Enrico Fermi, who famously asked, "Where is everybody?"
Fermi was questioning the feasibility of travel between stars, but since then his query has come to represent doubts about the very existence of extraterrestrials.
The astrophysicist Michael Hart explored the question formally when he argued in a 1975 paper that there had been plenty of time for intelligent life to colonize the Milky Way in the 13.6 billion years since the galaxy formed, yet we'd heard nothing from them. Hart concluded that there must be no other advanced civilizations in our galaxy.
The new study offers a different perspective on the question: Maybe aliens are just taking their time and being strategic, the authors suggest.
"If you don't account for motion of stars when you try to solve this problem, you're basically left with one of two solutions," Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a computational scientist and the study's lead author, told Business Insider. "Either nobody leaves their planet, or we are in fact the only technological civilization in the galaxy."
Stars (and the planets around them) orbit the center of the galaxy on different paths at different speeds, and as they do, they occasionally pass one another, Carroll-Nellenback pointed out. So aliens could be waiting for their next destination to come closer to them, his study says.
In that case, civilizations would take longer to spread across the stars than Hart estimated. So they may not have reached us yet — or maybe they did, long before humans evolved.
Researchers have sought to answer the Fermi paradox in several ways. Studies have investigated the possibility that all alien life forms in oceans below a planet's surface and have posited that civilizations might be undone by their unsustainability before accomplishing any interstellar travel. There's also the "zoo hypothesis," which imagines that Milky Way societies have decided not to contact us for the same reasons we have nature preserves or maintain protections for some uncontacted indigenous peoples.
A 2018 Oxford University study, meanwhile, suggested that there's a roughly two-in-five chance that we're alone in our galaxy and a one-in-three chance that we're alone in the entire cosmos.
But the authors of the newest study said that previous research hasn't accounted for a crucial fact of our galaxy: It moves. Just as planets orbit stars, star systems orbit the galactic center. Our solar system, for example, orbits the galaxy every 230 million years.
If civilizations arise in star systems far from the others (like our own, which is in the backwaters of the galaxy), they could make the trip shorter by waiting until their orbital path brings them closer to a habitable star system, the study said. Once they're settled in that new system, the aliens could wait again for an optimal travel distance to make another hop, and so on.
In this scenario, aliens aren't jet-setting across the galaxy — they're just waiting long enough for their star to get close to another star with a habitable planet.
"If long enough is a billion years, well then that's one solution to the Fermi paradox," Carroll-Nellenback said. "Habitable worlds are so rare that you have to wait longer than any civilization is expected to last before another one comes in range."
To explore the scenarios in which aliens could exist, the researchers used numerical models to simulate a civilization's spread across the galaxy. They factored in a variety of possibilities for a hypothetical civilization's proximity to new star systems, the range and speed of its interstellar probes, and the launch rate of those probes.
The research team did not attempt to guess at aliens' motivations or politics — a tendency that some astronomers view as a pitfall in other Fermi paradox solutions.
"We tried to come up with a model that would involve the fewest assumptions about sociology that we could," Carroll-Nellenback said.
Still, part of the problem with modeling the galactic spread of alien civilizations is that we're working with only one data point: ourselves. So all our predictions are based on our own behavior.
But even with this limitation, the researchers found that the Milky Way could be filled with settled star systems that we don't know about. That still held true when they used conservative estimates of the speed and frequency of aliens' interstellar travel.
"Every system could be habitable and could be settled, but they wouldn't visit us because they're not close enough," Carroll-Nellenback said, though he added that just because that's possible doesn't make it likely.
So far, we've detected about 4,000 planets outside our solar system, and none has been found to host life. But we haven't looked that hard: There are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and even more planets. One recent study estimated that up to 10 billion of those planets could be Earth-like.
So the study's authors wrote that concluding that none of those planets hold life would be like looking at a pool of ocean water and finding no dolphins, then deciding that the entire ocean has no dolphins.
Another key element in debates about alien life is what Hart called "Fact A": There are no interstellar visitors on Earth now, and there is no evidence of past visits.
But that doesn't mean they were never here, the authors of the new study said.
If an alien civilization came to Earth millions of years ago (the Earth is 4.5 billion years old), there might be no remaining signs of their visit, the authors wrote. They pointed to previous research suggesting that we may not be able to detect evidence of past alien visits.
It's even possible that aliens have passed near Earth since we've been here, but decided not to visit. The paper called this the "Aurora effect," named for Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "Aurora."
What's more, aliens might not want to visit a planet that already has life, the authors said. To assume that they would, they added, would be a "naive projection" of a human tendency to equate expansion with conquest.
The study accounted for all these considerations — the calculations assumed that alien civilizations would settle only a fraction of the habitable worlds they encountered.
Still, the researchers said, if there are enough habitable worlds, aliens could easily have spread across the galaxy by now.
For now, the researchers don't think we should get discouraged by any perceived silence from the universe.
"It doesn't mean that we're alone," Carroll-Nellenback said. "It just means that habitable planets are probably rare and hard to get to."
In the next few years, our ability to detect and observe other potentially habitable planets is expected to improve dramatically as new telescopes get built and launched into space.
The Kepler telescope made leaps and bounds in the search for planets that might host life in our galaxy. In Earth's orbit today, the Hubble Space Telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite are continuing the search. NASA is also building the James Webb Space Telescope, which may be able to see as far through space and time as the Big Bang; it's set to launch in 2021.
Of course, what would really improve scientists' ability to estimate the probability that we're alone in the universe would be more data on the speed or ranges of interstellar probes. A better sense of how long hypothetical alien civilizations last would be useful too.
"We're in desperate need of some data points," Carroll-Nellenback said.
Nieuwe studie: aarde is mogelijk al bezocht door buitenaardse beschavingen. Waar zijn ze nu (en komen ze ooit weer terug)?
In de Melkweg kunnen mogelijk talloze buitenaardse beschavingen worden gevonden, blijkt uit een nieuwe studie. We weten alleen niet dat ze bestaan, omdat ze heel lang geleden voor het laatst op bezoek zijn geweest.
Uit de studie, gepubliceerd in The Astronomical Journal, blijkt dat intelligent buitenaards leven een sterrenstelsel waarschijnlijk op zijn gemakje verkent.
Onderzoekers hebben op basis van een aantal modellen gesimuleerd hoe een beschaving zich over een sterrenstelsel verspreidt.
Wetenschappers stellen dat er op dit moment geen interstellaire bezoekers op aarde zijn en dat er geen bewijs is dat ze er ooit zijn geweest.
Maar dat hoeft niet betekenen dat ze nooit op onze planeet zijn geweest, stellen de auteurs van de nieuwe studie.
Als een buitenaardse beschaving honderdduizenden of zelfs miljoenen jaren geleden naar de aarde is gereisd, zijn er mogelijk geen sporen meer te vinden van hun bezoek, aldus de auteurs.
Ze verwezen naar eerder onderzoek dat suggereert dat we bewijs voor buitenaards bezoek in het verleden mogelijk niet kunnen detecteren.
Het is zelfs mogelijk dat aliens de aarde zijn gepasseerd terwijl er mensen op leefden, maar dat ze hebben besloten om er niet te landen.
In dit geval spreekt men ook wel van het Aurora-effect, vernoemd naar het boek ‘Aurora’ van Kim Stanley Robinson.
[Business Insider]Americans Skeptical of UFOs, but Say Government Knows More
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As an internet campaign called "Storm Area 51" has nearly two million people pledging to break into a highly secure military base later this month in the hopes of uncovering possible secrets about UFOs, a recent Gallup poll finds two-thirds of Americans believe the government knows more about the subject than it has conveyed.
| Yes | No | No opinion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GALLUP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2019 Jun 19-30 | 68 | 29 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1996 Sep 3-5 | 71 | 19 | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For decades, UFO enthusiasts have claimed the government is warehousing crashed UFOs, and possibly aliens, at Area 51, part of an Air Force base in southern Nevada. In other UFO news, the Navy recently issued new guidance for personnel to report "unexplained aerial phenomena" after a spate of unusual sightings by Navy pilots.
The 68% today who believe the government is withholding information about UFOs is comparable to the 71% found in 1996. Both times, the results were similar among all main demographic groups, including by age, education and party identification.
However, it appears that only about half the number who think the government is hiding something about UFOs think it is covering up information about alien space landings, specifically. This conclusion is based on the finding that far fewer people give credence to UFO sightings or have witnessed them, personally, than think the government knows more than it's telling.
Even as most Americans are skeptical that aliens have visited Earth, the majority (56%) believe that those who spot UFOs are seeing something real, not just imagining it. This is up from 47% in 1996, possibly reflecting public awareness of military testing and the proliferation of drones which people may think can be mistaken for UFOs.
Separate from possible space landings on Earth, about half of Americans, 49% think that people somewhat like ourselves exist elsewhere in the universe. Even more, 75%, believe that some form of life exists on other planets.
UFO believers are found in all demographic and political segments of society, but are particularly likely to be residents of the West. That is the home of Area 51, as well as nearby Roswell, New Mexico -- where a crash of some kind in 1947 sparked the Area 51 conspiracy theories that persist to this day.
Additionally, the new poll finds significant differences in UFO sightings by education and income, with lower socio-economic Americans being more likely than their counterparts to report belief.
Notably, Americans identifying as Protestant and Catholic are similar to the national average in believing UFOs are real. However, Americans with no religious affiliation are more likely to put stock in UFOs, with 40% saying some have been alien visitors.
| Think some UFOs are alien spacecraft^ | Personally seen a UFO ^^ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ^ Source: Aug. 1-14, 2019 Gallup poll ^^Source: June 19-30, 2019 Gallup poll | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GALLUP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. adults | 33 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Men | 34 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Women | 33 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 18 to 29 | 39 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 30 to 49 | 32 | 17 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 50 to 64 | 34 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 65+ | 29 | 13 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| East | 32 | 12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Midwest | 27 | 15 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| South | 32 | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| West | 41 | 20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College graduate | 27 | 11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Not college graduate | 37 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| $100,000+ | 33 | 9 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| $40,000-100,000 | 34 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Less than $40,000 | 37 | 21 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Protestant/Other Christian | 31 | 17 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Catholic | 32 | 14 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| No religion | 40 | 17 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While not a majority, 33% of Americans believe alien spacecraft have visited Earth at some point. This group is potentially sympathetic to those who want to uncover what the government knows about alien landings, once and for all.
Another third or so of Americans may assume the government isn't being completely transparent about what it knows, but not because it is hiding something. For example, they may believe officials are keeping quiet because unidentified sightings could unnecessarily alarm the public, or because refuting UFOs would require disclosing sensitive military information.
Regardless of what Americans think of UFOs or the government's awareness of them, the subject is part of the nation's consciousness with 86% of U.S. adults saying they have heard of or read about unidentified flying objects.
De overheid houdt informatie over UFO’s achter. Nieuwe peiling toont verrassende resultaten
De meerderheid van de Amerikanen gelooft dat de overheid meer weet over UFO’s dan zij doet vermoeden.
Dankzij het evenement ‘Bestorm Area 51’, waar miljoenen mensen zich voor hebben aangemeld, is het UFO-onderwerp populairder dan ooit.
Uit een recente peiling blijkt dat 68 procent van de Amerikanen denkt dat de overheid informatie over UFO’s achterhoudt. In 1996 was dit nog 71 procent.
De helft van deze groep denkt dat informatie over landingen van buitenaardsen in de doofpot is gestopt.
Daarentegen meende 29 procent van de ondervraagden dat de Amerikaanse overheid alle informatie over het onderwerp al heeft gedeeld met het volk.
Een andere peiling laat zien dat 33 procent van de Amerikaanse volwassenen van mening is dat sommige UFO’s buitenaards zijn.
Deze groep wil graag dat de waarheid over landingen van aliens naar buiten gaat komen.
Zestien procent claimt zelf eens een UFO te hebben gezien.
UFO-enthousiastelingen zeggen al decennia dat de overheid gecrashte UFO’s en mogelijk ook aliens bewaart in Area 51 in het zuiden van de staat Nevada.
Daarnaast kunnen straaljagerpiloten sinds kort waarnemingen van UFO’s melden bij de Amerikaanse marine.
De reden hiervoor is dat ze heel vaak vreemde dingen in het luchtruim zien.
[Gallup]Strange life forms found deep in a mine point to vast 'underground Galapagos'
Something odd is stirring in the depths of Canada's Kidd Mine. The zinc and copper mine, 350 miles northwest of Toronto, is the deepest spot ever explored on land and the reservoir of the oldest known water. And yet 7,900 feet below the surface, in perpetual darkness and in waters that have remained undisturbed for up to two billion years, the mine is teeming with life.
Many scientists had doubted that anything could live under such extreme conditions. But in July, a team led by University of Toronto geologist Barbara Sherwood Lollar reported that the mine’s dark, deep water harbors a population of remarkable microbes.
The single-celled organisms don’t need oxygen because they breathe sulfur compounds. Nor do they need sunlight. Instead, they live off chemicals in the surrounding rock — in particular, the glittery mineral pyrite, commonly known as fool’s gold.
“It's a fascinating system where the organisms are literally eating fool's gold to survive,” Sherwood Lollar said. “What we are finding is so exciting — like ‘being a kid again’ level exciting.”
Sherwood Lollar is excited not only because of the peculiar the mine’s rock-eating life seems, but also because of the growing realization that strange forms of life might not be so peculiar after all. Scientists are starting to find similar microbes in other deep spots, including boreholes, volcanic vents on the bottom of the ocean and buried sediments far beneath the seafloor.
“The deep microbial realm reveals a biosphere that’s more extensive, resilient, varied and strange than we had realized,” said Robert Hazen, a mineralogist at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, and co-founder of Deep Carbon Observatory, a global project to study the deep biosphere.
Cut off from light, air, and any connection to the surface, this shadowy realm seems more like an alien world than part of Earth. Hazen said exploring it could help us understand how life might have begun on other planets as well as on our own. We might even find alien-like creatures living undetected right beneath our feet.
Sherwood Lollar’s work builds on a 2018 report by Deep Carbon Observatory scientists who tried to map the total extent of Earth’s deep biosphere comprehensively for the first time.
In the eye-opening report, a team led by Cara Magnabosco, a geobiologist at the Swiss technical university ETH Zurich, estimated that some 5 x 10^29 cells live in the deep Earth: that’s five-hundred-thousand-trillion-trillion cells. Collectively, they weigh 300 times as much as all living people combined. The team describes this hidden ecosystem as an “underground Galapagos.”
The denizens of the deep are an exotic bunch even beyond their appetite for solid rock. One species, the microbe Geogemma barossii, can live at temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit — well above the boiling point of water and close to the theoretical limit at which vital organic molecules start to disintegrate.
Separate studies of material drilled near the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean hint that some organisms could be living six miles below the seafloor, limited only by the heat at such tremendous depths. Laboratory experiments show that some microbes can tolerate pressures 20,000 times higher than the air pressure at sea level, meaning that there are almost certainly more extreme ecosystems out there than the one in the Kidd Mine.
“We’re finding that we don't really understand the limits to life,” Sherwood Lollar said.
The pace of existence in the deep also seems radically different from that on the surface. In ancient environments like the trapped waters at the bottom of the Kidd Mine, food and energy are scarce. To compensate, cellular metabolism slows almost to a standstill.
“Many of the microbes may survive for thousands of years or more without dividing, just replacing their broken parts,” said Karen Lloyd, a University of Tennessee microbiologist who studies life at the bottom of the ocean.
There are so many deep microbes that, despite a seemingly lazy existence, they collectively exert a huge impact on their habitats. For instance, a community of cells on the ocean floor consume methane gas that bubbles up from ancient sediment. “Deep subsurface microbes eat massive amounts of methane that would otherwise be released,” Lloyd said, helping curb atmospheric levels of a potent greenhouse gas.
One of the big questions facing Sherwood Lollar is how the deep-life community at the Kidd Mine is related to those found in other mines or stretched out beneath the oceans. “The number of systems we've looked at so far really is limited,” she said, “but they probably had a single origin at some point in life’s 4-billion-year history.”
If so, there should still be clues about when and how life first colonized the deep.
Fossils show that surface life has changed enormously over billions of years, but slow-motion deep life may retain much of its primitive characteristics. That’s especially true at the Kidd Mine, which is in one of the oldest, most stable portions of Earth’s crust. (The rock in and around the mine have lain undisturbed for 2.7 billion years, and have been cool enough to support life for at least 2 billion years.)
Sherwood Lollar wants to sequence the genes of the Kidd Creek microbes and then do a 23andMe-style analysis to unravel their kinship to other residents of the deep Earth: Are they all still close relatives, or have they diversified and adapted significantly to their local environments? It’s a delicate project, but she hopes to have results within a year or two.
Such studies could offer hints about where life first arose on Earth. Charles Darwin imagined the beginning might have occurred in a warm little pond, but “there's absolutely no reason why it could not have been a warm little rock fracture,” Sherwood Lollar said. In many ways, she noted, sulfur-breathing microbes living beneath thick, protective layers of rock would have been well suited to the brutal conditions on our planet when it was young.
Another, even wilder possibility is that life originated more than once, with other forms still surviving somewhere on Earth. “We've literally only scratched the surface of the deep biosphere,” Hazen said. “Might there be entire domains that are not dependent on the DNA, RNA and protein basis of life as we know it?” Perhaps we just haven’t found them yet.
Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, has long advocated systematic searches for such “shadow life.” The recent forays into the deep biosphere show how it might be done. Since known organisms cannot survive above 250 degrees Fahrenheit, Davies suggests going to extreme environments (around undersea volcanic vents, for instance) and checking for anything that appears alive at temperatures around 300 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
"That would stand out as a candidate for shadow life,” he said.
Ever cautious, Sherwood Lollar points out that she hasn’t found any evidence of shadow life at the Kidd Mine. But she heartily agrees that scientists need to keep a wide-open mind about what could be lurking within the deep world: “We see only what we look for. If we don't look for something, we miss it.”
Vreemde levensvormen in mijn wijzen op ‘ondergronds Galapagos’ op kilometers onder het aardoppervlak. Is hier schaduwleven?
De Canadese Kidd Mine is de diepste plek op aarde die ooit verkend is. De mijn bevindt zich op bijna drie kilometer onder de grond, het is er altijd donker en toch wemelt het er van leven.
Veel wetenschappers betwijfelden of leven onder dergelijke extreme omstandigheden zou kunnen bestaan.
Onlangs ontdekte geoloog Barbara Sherwood Lollar van de Universiteit van Toronto samen met haar collega’s opvallende microben in het water in de mijn.
De organismen hebben geen zuurstof nodig omdat ze zwavel ademen. Ze hebben ook geen zonlicht nodig, en doen zich tegoed aan mineralen in de rotsen, vooral pyriet of klatergoud.
“Het is een fascinerend systeem waar organismen letterlijk klatergoud eten om te overleven,” zei Sherwood Lollar.
Plekken zoals de Kidd Mine hebben geen toegang tot de buitenlucht en zonlicht. Toch zijn er allerlei ecosystemen te vinden.
In 2018 hebben wetenschappers geprobeerd de biosfeer in het binnenste van de aarde in kaart te brengen.
Zij schatten dat alle organismen in de diepe aarde 300 keer meer wegen dan alle mensen tezamen.
Het team omschreef dit verborgen ecosysteem als het ‘ondergrondse Galapagos’.
Eén van de organismen, Geogemma barossii geheten, kan temperaturen van ruim 121 graden Celsius weerstaan.
Uit onderzoek in de Marianentrog blijkt verder dat sommige organismen weten te overleven op zo’n 10 kilometer onder de zeebodem, waar de druk extreem hoog is.
Het is bovendien mogelijk dat er soorten zijn die niet afhankelijk zijn van DNA, RNA en eiwitten.
Sherwood Lollar merkte op dat ze dergelijk ‘schaduwleven’ nog niet is tegengekomen, maar voegde toe dat wetenschappers een open geest moeten houden.
“We zien alleen datgene waar we naar zoeken,” zei ze. “Als we ergens niet naar zoeken, missen we het.”
[NBC News]Earth May Already Be Inside A Black Hole, Scientist Says
A physicist claimed that Earth and the entire universe could already be inside a black hole. According to the physicist, this theory is related to the idea that the Big Bang was actually a black hole.
As indicated in various scientific reports, black holes can form through a number of ways such as when a massive star bigger than the Sun collapses on itself and dies. This occurrence causes a supernova and a formation of a black hole. Scientists also believe that a collision between two neutron stars can create a black hole.
In theory, these scenarios indicate that black holes are formed when a massive volume of mass exists at a certain spot in space. This causes a rift in the space-time fabric, which then leads to a black hole, according to Express.
Due to this theory, many scientists believe that the Big Bang, which is credited as the creator of the entire universe, was actually a black hole. According to supporters of this theory, the Big Bang was a black hole that opened in a different universe. The cosmic material absorbed by the black hole became the building blocks of the universe.
For theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski of Poland, this concept points to the possibility that the universe where Earth is in was formed inside the Big Bang black hole.
“Our universe may exist inside a black hole,” he stated in an article he wrote for Inside Science. “This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today.”
“It’s a theory that has been explored over the past few decades by a small group of physicists including myself,” he added.
If this theory is true, then it would explain why the universe is still growing and expanding. Since the Big Bang black hole is still active, the cosmic material that it is continuously absorbing becomes part of the growing universe.
Poplawski noted that this could also explain why space agencies cannot observe what is happening inside other black holes.
“Every black hole would produce a new, baby universe inside,” he stated. “If that is true, then the first matter in our universe came from somewhere else. So our own universe could be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe.”
“Just as we cannot see what is going on inside black holes in the cosmos, any observers in the parent universe could not see what is going on in ours,” he added.
Scientists continue to study the nature of dark matter. Pictured: In this handout from NASA/ESA, an artist's concept illustrates a quasar, or feeding black hole. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) revealed millions of potential black holes in its survey of the sky in 2011.
Photo: NASA/Getty Images
Bevindt de aarde zich al in een zwart gat? Deze wetenschapper zegt van wel
Volgens sommige wetenschappers bevindt ons hele universum zich in een enorm zwart gat, dat deel uitmaakt van een nog groter heelal.
Dat impliceert dat zwarte gaten eigenlijk een soort tunnels zijn die naar andere universa leiden.
Eén van de wetenschappers die deze theorie bestudeert, is Nikodem Poplawski van de Universiteit van New Haven in Connecticut.
Volgens hem zijn wormgaten mogelijke alternatieven voor de theorie van Albert Einstein, die stelt dat in het centrum van een zwart gat een singulariteit ontstaat wanneer de dichtheid van de materie te groot wordt.
Ondanks de vele aanwijzingen hebben wetenschappers moeite om deze theorie te aanvaarden.
Poplawski gebruikt een aangepaste versie van de algemene relativiteitstheorie om zijn theorie te ondersteunen.
Deze versie houdt ook rekening met het draaien van atoomkernen, iets wat Einstein zelf niet deed.
Als Poplawski gelijk heeft, wordt de materie in een zwart gat niet samengeperst, maar afgestoten om vervolgens de bouwstenen te vormen voor nieuwe sterrenstelsels, sterren en planeten in een ander universum.
Volgens deze theorie is ons heelal er slechts één van vele. Het zou zich in een veel groter universum bevinden waarin elk zwart gat een ander heelal kan huisvesten.
Het universum dat we om ons heen zien uitdijen, zit volgens Poplawski gevangen in een reusachtig zwart gat.
[International Business Times via Express]'Alien-like' creature with curly tentacles caught off coast of Alaska
A clip of the deep sea creature with long tentacles around its tiny orange body was posted online and has been viewed more than one million times
Tiffany Lo
A fisherman has caught an eerie-looking sea creature off of the coast of Alaska.
Footage posted by Sarah Vasser-Alford shows the orange animal making rhythmic movements as it extends its long, curly tentacles.
The fisherman then turns the sea creature around to reveal a creepy-looking body with murky 'blood vessels' underneath.
The video has left viewers, who compare it to a horror movie scene, mesmerised.
Sarah posted the clip last month and it has already amassed over 1.2 million views.
The deep sea creature was found off of the coast of Prince of Wales Island, in Alaska.
One viewer described it as 'an alien' while another one suggested that it could be 'live coral'.
The bottom of the creature's body
(Image: Sarah Vasser-Alford/Facebook)
Some compared it to the creature in horror movie Alien
(Image: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
However, the animal was identified as a basket star, which belongs to an echinoderm group known as brittle stars, with a disk-shaped body and five flexible arms.
Others concerned viewer said: "Put it back in the water and let it be!"
"He shouldn't be out of the water, he can't breathe!" another commented.
Sarah explained: "I was out halibut fishing with my mom and some friends and when My mom reeled up her line the basket star was on the hook.
"Also it was put back in the water unharmed."
Basket stars have highly branched arms that could help them move easily along the sea floor.
They can grow up to three feet long and inhabit the deep sea.
Bizar zeewezen met tentakels gevangen voor de kust van Alaska. Heb je ooit zoiets gezien?
Een vrouw heeft tijdens het vissen in Alaska een bizar zeewezen uit het water gehaald dat van een andere wereld lijkt te komen.
Het wezen is gevangen door Sarah Vasser-Alford, die afgelopen maand voor de kust van Prins van Wales-eiland aan het vissen was met vrienden en familieleden.
De groep was erg verbaasd toen ze een vreemd oranje wezen met lange tentakels aan de haak sloegen.
Vasser-Alford plaatste een filmpje van de bizarre vangst op Facebook, dat al ruim een miljoen keer is bekeken.
Sommigen vergeleken het zeewezen met de facehugger uit de film Alien.
Uiteindelijk bleek het te gaan om een medusahoofd, behorende tot de stekelhuidigen.
Vasser-Alford heeft het dier overigens weer teruggezet.
Bekijk het filmpje hieronder:
[Mirror]
Huge Unknown Object Crashes Into The North Side Of The Moon Captured Live
Mysterious Humanoid Figure on Air Vehicle appears above Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Moon, New Mexico
Unknown craft caught exiting sub-glacial launch facility in Antarctica
