Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
Verreweg de bekendste ondergrondse stad is Derinkuyu in Turkije, onderdeel van het schitterende Cappadocië. In Cappadocië stikt het van de ondergrondse schatten, maar Derinkuyu is met 85 meter de diepste. Het complex bestaat uit verschillende kamers, kerken en wijnkelders, en biedt plek aan maar liefst 20.000 mensen. Ga met een gids naar beneden om het indrukwekkende gangenstelsel te bekijken.
Cappadocië stad, gelegen in het centrum van Turkije, is de thuisbasis van niet minder dan 36 ondergrondse steden, en op een diepte van ca., 85 m, Derinkuyu is de diepste. Ontdekt in 1963, het ondergrondse netwerk van tunnels en kamers omvatten alle instellingen en kamers die u zou vinden in een reguliere stad: woonvertrekken, stallen, kerken, opslagruimtes, refter, en wijnhuizen – en de ondergrondse wordt gezegd dat mogelijk gehouden meer dan 20.000 mensen.
Geopend voor het publiek in 1965, is slechts 10% van de ondergrondse stad toegankelijk voor bezoekers. Uniek aan Derinkuyu is de kruisvormige kerk gelegen tussen het derde en vierde niveau en het gewelfde plafond, aangezien er ter plaatse niet veel informatie rondhangt, boek dan een rondleiding en begin met verkennen.
2.Dixia Cheng, China
Dixia Cheng is de naam van de ondergrondse stad in Beijing en werd aangelegd tijdens de Koude Oorlog. In de jaren 70 werd hier een reusachtig netwerk aan gangen aangelegd, dat toegankelijk was via meer dan 100 geheime ingangen. Het complex bestaat grotendeels uit slaapzalen, ziekenhuizen en scholen en tot voor kort kon je er als toerist een kijkje nemen. Helaas is deze ondergrondse stad nu gesloten voor het publiek en het is onduidelijk wanneer je er weer een kijkje kan nemen.
De ondergrondse stad van Peking, Dixia Cheng, werd gebouwd in de jaren 1970 om te dienen als schuilplaats tijdens invasies, bomaanslagen en nucleaire aanvallen. Het lange netwerk van tunnels, vaak aangeduid als de ondergrondse grote muur, omvatte bijna 100 verborgen ingangen en, naar verluidt, werden gebouwd met complete diensten zoals scholen, ziekenhuizen en slaapzalen voor het geval burgers nodig hadden om hun toevlucht te zoeken voor een langere periode van tijd., Gelukkig was er nooit een gelegenheid voor deze enorme ondergrondse schuilplaats om zijn doel te bereiken, en in 2000 werd de plaats geopend voor het publiek. Een tour omvat slechts een klein rond stuk van het complex, maar is nog steeds het aantrekken van reizigers uit de hele wereld. Dixia Cheng is onder renovatie sinds 2008 en daarom gesloten voor bezoekers, maar zorg ervoor dat u het op uw bucket list te controleren wanneer het heropent op een onbepaalde datum in de toekomst.,
De ingang van de Ondergrondse Stad in Beijing.
3. Wieliczka Zoutmijn, Polen
Op steenworp afstand van de Poolse stad Krakau vind je de Wieliczka Zoutmijn, een van de bekendste attracties van het hele land. Deze 18de eeuwse zoutmijn bestaat uit schitterende kamers en ruimtes vol details en rijkdommen, zoals kroonluchters en beelden. Om er te komen moet je 378 traptreden afdalen en eenmaal beneden nemen gidsen je mee op sleeptouw door dit bijzondere complex.
De Wieliczka zoutmijn ligt in de stad Wieliczka, iets meer dan 9 mijl buiten Krakau.deze ondergrondse zoutstad, een van de grootste toeristische trekpleisters van Polen, is geëvolueerd van een reeks donkere grotten tot een complex labyrint dat nu meer dan 185 indrukwekkende mijl aan galerijen, ongeveer 3000 kamers en negen verdiepingen omvat, waarvan de eerste drie voor het publiek toegankelijk zijn.,
Zodra u de houten trap met 378 treden afdaalt, wordt u begroet met een grote verscheidenheid aan begeleide rondleidingen: als u geïnteresseerd bent in de geschiedenis van de zoutmijn, neem dan de Mijnwerkerstour en krijg inzicht in het moeilijke beroep van een zoutmijnwerker. Als u meer wilt weten over de religieuze aspecten, kunt u ook deelnemen aan de Pelgrimstour met een bezoek aan het zoutbeeld van Johannes Paulus II en een Heilige Mis aan het einde van de tour.,
Ondergrondse Zoutmijn Polen
4. Seattle, Verenigde Staten
De ondergrondse stad van Seattle is ontstaan toen het straatniveau halverwege de 19de eeuw een paar meter werd verhoogd. De voordeuren werden naar boven geplaatst en de benedenverdiepingen gingen dienst doen als een kelder. Tijdens een Underground Tour kun je een kijkje nemen op het vroegere straatniveau en krijg je een goed beeld van hoe de huizen er vroeger hebben uitgezien. Een boeiende tocht die leidt langs historische gevels die elk hun eigen versie van de geschiedenis vertellen.
5. Réso, Canada
Houd je niet zo van stoffige en slecht verlichte ruimtes? Dan kun je beter koers zetten naar Réso in de Canadese stad Montreal. Dit is een van de meest geavanceerde ondergrondse complexen ter wereld en de perfecte plek om te schuilen op een druilerige dag. Het hypermoderne Réso omvat een reusachtig ondergronds complex, bestaande uit winkelcentra, musea, theaters, schoolgebouwen en hotels. De totale lengte is 33 kilometer en beslaat een gebied van 12 vierkante kilometer.
RÉSO, afgeleid van het Franse woord réseau, wat netwerk betekent, is een van de hoekstenen van Montreal. Dit gigantische doolhof loopt onder de straten van Montreal in en rond het centrum en herbergt een breed scala aan winkels, restaurants, hotels, galeries, zeven metrohaltes, bioscopen, een bibliotheek en zelfs appartementengebouwen.,
de eerste onderling verbonden trajecten werden in 1962 aangelegd met als doel het verkeer te verlichten en een beschut vervoer te bieden, vooral handig tijdens het barre winterseizoen. Sinds de metro van Montreal in 1966 in gebruik is genomen, zijn er meer verbindingen toegevoegd en vandaag de dag bestaat RÉSO uit 20 mijl tunnels met meer dan 120 externe toegangspunten. Naast winkelen kunt u ook de permanente kunstwerken, openbare pleinen en culturele centra bekijken. Als u alle verborgen plekken wilt ontdekken, boek dan een rondleiding en begin te wandelen.,
Reso, Canada
6. Shanghai Tunnels, Portland, Verenigde Staten
Portland heeft zijn eigen ondergrondse stad bekend als de Shanghai Tunnels, of de minder voorkomende naam: de Portland Underground. Dit ingewikkelde netwerk zou ooit bestaan uit tunnelgangen die Portland ‘ s Old Town, ook bekend als Chinatown, verbinden met het centrale centrum., Helaas zijn veel van deze ondergrondse ruimtes opgevuld tijdens verschillende openbare werken projecten, maar een paar van hen zijn er nog steeds en open om te verkennen.vroeger waren de kelders van vele bars en hotels via deze tunnels verbonden met de rivier de Willamette, waardoor voorraden van aangemeerde schepen direct naar kelders konden worden verplaatst voor opslag, waardoor regen en zwaar verkeer werden vermeden. Hoewel nog steeds een controversieel onderwerp, het gerucht gaat dat de tunnels zijn ook gebruikt voor de praktijk van “shanghaiing”: het ontvoeren van mensen voor hen om te dienen als matrozen.,maar, vrees niet, vandaag kunt u een veilige wandeling maken en een deel van de Shanghai Tunnels verkennen om een idee te krijgen van het complexe netwerk van tunnels, en een begrip van de zeemijl geschiedenis rond Portland.
7. Coober Pedy, Australië
De Cappadociërs groeven zich in voor de veiligheid, maar in Australië gingen mensen de diepte in voor geld. Opaal, om precies te zijn. In het roestrode landschap rond Coober Pedy, 846 kilometer boven Adelaide, bleek je die edelsteen gewoon uit te kunnen graven.
’s Zomers kan het in deze woestijn wel 45 graden Celsius in de schaduw worden (en succes met schaduw vinden), maar ondergronds hangt de temperatuur het hele jaar rond de 24 graden. Dat was zo comfortabel, dat de opaaldelvers voor zichzelf woonvertrekken uitgroeven (‘dug-outs’), en daarna tunnels, winkels, opslag en zelfs een kapel. Nog steeds woont ongeveer de helft van de 1762 bewoners ondergronds.
Naast opaal draait het ondergrondse dorp natuurlijk ook op toeristen. Geen wonder dat de oorspronkelijke Kokatha-bewoners deze rare zandhoop kupa piti noemden: ‘witte man in een gat in de grond’.
Ondergrondse servisch-orthodoxe kerk in Coober Pedy.
Onder de straten van de Schotse hoofdstad ligt een donkere en vochtige wereld, daterend uit de 18e eeuw. De Edinburgh Vaults, ook bekend als de South Bridge Vaults, zijn een reeks kamers gevormd binnen de 19 bogen van South Bridge.,geopend in 1788, een periode van grote expansie en groei, de gewelven dateren uit de tijd dat Edinburgh een bijgelovige plaats was. Vandaag de dag stralen ze nog steeds een gevoel van gore en afgrijselijkheid uit. Oorspronkelijk gebouwd om tavernes, schoenmakers, Snijders, smelters en andere handelaren te huisvesten, en om illegale materialen op te slaan, geruchten gaan dat seriemoordenaars Burke en Hare ook verschillende lichamen hier beneden opbergen, die ze verkochten voor medische experimenten., Later, toen de bedrijven verhuisden, werden de gewelven de thuisbasis van de armste zielen van de stad, een achterbuurt compleet met pubs en bordelen verspreid over de natte kamers. Een plek zo grimmig dat elke rosse buurt van vandaag mooi en knus lijkt.duik onder Edinburgh ‘ s sierlijke oppervlak en luister naar de rillende verhalen van de gids over de spoken die nog steeds rondzwerven.,
9. Setenil de las Bodegas, Spanje
In tegenstelling tot sommige van de andere plaatsen op deze lijst, is Setenil de las Bodegas, een pueblo (kleine stad) in Zuid-Spanje, geen ondergrondse stad op zich, maar ligt het onder massieve overhangen van rotsen. Gelegen langs een smalle rivierkloof die is geërodeerd door de rivier de Rio Trejo, zijn de huizen gebouwd in en onder de muren van de kloof zelf., Mensen vestigden zich hier eigenlijk om praktische redenen: om de zomerhitte en de kou in de winter buiten te houden, bouwden ze alleen de gevel van het huis, terwijl de achterkant door de natuur werd afgeschermd.hoewel het klein is, heeft Setenil de las Bodegas een groot aanbod: bezoek de kleine tapasbars die onder de kloof liggen en proef lokale lekkernijen zoals chorizo, olijfolie, honing, jam en Andalusische wijn. En als je een natuurliefhebber bent, wandel dan langs El Escarpe de Río Trejo, een gebied van natuurlijke diversiteit, of Ruta De los Bandoleros, die vele romantische legendes inspireerde.,
10. Pilsen Historical Underground, Czech Republic
De stad Pilsen, in het westelijke deel van het land, is de thuisbasis van Pilsen Historical Underground, een labyrint van 12.5 mijl lang met gangen, kelders en putten die onder de stad zijn gebouwd straten in de 14e eeuw. Deze kelders dienden ooit als opslagruimte voor voedsel en vaten bier en, sommigen zeggen, als een ontsnappingsroute in geval van een aanval., Volgens de legende is er een schat begraven binnen de keldermuren, hoewel plundering wordt afgeraden.
Neem een rondleiding en verken dit ingenieuze ondergrondse systeem; hoogtepunten zijn onder andere de Ijskelder, de watertoren en de tentoonstelling over middeleeuwse boekbinden. De tour eindigt bij het Brouwerijmuseum, waar u het beroemde lokale Pilsner Urquell bier kunt proeven.,
SpaceX launches space station crew on 8-month mission
Story by William Harwood
NASA and SpaceX launched a new mission to the International Space Station with four crew members on board to replace the team that returned last month due to a medical issue with one member. Mark Strassmann has more.6h ago
With NASA's delayed Artemis II moon mission on hold, SpaceX pressed ahead with a Friday the 13th launch of four fresh crew members to the International Space Station in a mission to replace four fliers who came home early last month because of a medical issue one was having.
Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, strapped into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, blasted off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:15 a.m. EST.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Feb. 13, 2026.
Credit: Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images
Lighting up the pre-dawn sky, the Falcon 9 streaked away on a northeasterly trajectory aligned with the space station's orbit, on course for docking Saturday around 3:15 p.m. to boost the lab's crew from three back to a full complement of seven.
"It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day," SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the crew reached orbit.
"That was quite a ride," Meir responded.
Crew 12 originally expected to take off after four other astronauts ventured to the moon and back in NASA's Artemis II mission. But the moonshot was delayed to early March because of hydrogen fuel leaks in that crew's huge Space Launch System rocket. That, in turn, cleared the way for NASA to move up Crew 12's launch to Feb. 11.
But high winds off shore in the Atlantic Ocean, where the Crew 12 fliers would have to splash down in an ascent emergency, then prompted NASA to stand down until Friday, when calmer seas and lower winds were predicted.
While Crew 12 made final preparations to fly, engineers ran another test at nearby pad 39B Thursday to check the effectiveness of new seals in an umbilical connecting fuel lines to the SLS moon rocket. The seals are intended to prevent the sort of hydrogen leakage seen during a "wet-dress rehearsal" countdown Feb. 2.
NASA did not publicize the test, but the agency said later it did not go as planned because of what sources described as a frozen filter in ground equipment.
The trouble will have to be addressed before engineers can attempt a re-test of the new seals, followed by another full-up dress rehearsal fueling test to clear the way for launch as early as March 3.
Replacement crew sets sights on space station, boosting staff back to seven
In the near-term, Crew 12 has its sights set on joining space station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, fellow cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who were launched to the lab last November aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry ship. They will help the new crew get up to speed on the intricacies of station operations.
Meir and Fedyaev won't need much help because both are station veterans. Their crewmates are making their first trip to orbit, but Hathaway and Adenot bring a wide variety of operational experience to the table.
Crew 12 during training at SpaceX's Hawthorne, CA, rocket manufacturing facility. Left to right: Andrey Fedyaev, Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot.
Credit: SpaceX
Hathaway is a veteran F/A-18E fighter pilot with more than 500 aircraft carrier landings to his credit while Adenot is a French air force helicopter test pilot with more than 3,000 hours flying time under her belt. She's also an experienced sky and SCUBA diver and a certified yoga instructor.
Meir holds a Ph.D. in marine biology and participated in three all-female spacewalks during her first station stay in 2019-20. She and Fedyaev are looking forward to helping their rookie crewmates quickly get up to speed when they get to the ISS.
"Both of us are really excited to bring our past experiences and expertise to the very first flight for (Hathaway and Adenot)," she said. "We love this kind of balance that we have, of two veterans and two rookies, to hit the ground running when we get aboard the International Space Station."
Fedyaev, who flew to the space station aboard a Crew Dragon in 2023, was added to Crew 12 in December after veteran cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was removed. reportedly for violating security restrictions during training at SpaceX's Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said only that Artemyev was reassigned to other work.
Fedyaev's prior experience and training with SpaceX and NASA enabled him to join Crew 12 with little impact on launch preparations.
Early return of one station crew prompts accelerated launch of replacements
Crew 12 is replacing Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, co-pilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. Crew 11 originally was expected to return to Earth around Feb. 20, after a "handover" with their Crew 12 replacements.
But NASA ordered Cardman and company back to Earth on Jan. 15 after one of the Crew 11 fliers experienced an undisclosed medical issue. Crew 11 came down safely and all four crew members appeared healthy and in good spirits at a post-flight news conference.
But their departure left the station with a single NASA astronaut aboard -- Williams -- to operate systems in the U.S. segment of the complex. It also brought NASA research to a virtual standstill.
"What it means is, really, there's just fewer hands on board to do some of the work," said space station Program Manager Dina Contella.
"On the U.S. operating segment, if we were to have a major failure, then we would like to have a second USOS crew member to be able to go out and perform a complex spacewalk."
At present, she said, there are no major problems aboard the space station. Even so, NASA asked SpaceX to move the Crew 12 launch up by a few days to get the station crew back to full strength as soon as possible.
Before the Artemis II launch was delayed, NASA was planning a ship-to-ship call between the moon-bound astronauts and the space station crew. That should still be possible despite the moon mission delay.
Crew members face busy schedule in orbit
Meir certainly hopes so, because her partner during those all-female spacewalks was Artemis II crew member Christina Koch. And her astronaut class included Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, and she said she's close friends with commander Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
"I would be really excited to be able to talk to Christina, and also my classmate Victor Glover and kind of my astronaut uncles, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen," she said before the moon mission slipped to March. "We're all very excited to be all in space at the same time."
Jessia Meir poses in the space station's multi-window cupola during her first stay aboard the outpost in 2019-20.
Credit: NASA
But mostly, Meir is looking forward to the science her crew will conduct during a roughly eight-month stay aboard the space station.
"We will do experiments ranging from bone and muscle health, (studying) our blood flow, what's going on in all of these systems during the changes that we experience in microgravity," she said.
"There's an experiment that's looking at the small muscles in our necks and how they can support us in different gravitational phases. There will be images of our brains taken pre- and post-flight to look at any changes to the brain that happened during microgravity and space missions."
The astronauts will continue ongoing studies of how microgravity affects the vision of some long-duration fliers, apparently by changing the shape of the eye over time. Interestingly, those changes are not always for the worst.
Meir said she needed glasses before her first flight, but her vision improved to 20-15 over the course of her stay in space.
"Pretty interesting for me, it actually turned out to be quite advantageous," she said. "But of course, we're studying this really thoroughly, because we want to make sure that we don't have any long-term damage to astronauts' vision, or to the eyes themselves.
"The good thing is, we haven't seen any deficits long-term that exist beyond the missions, but we need to collect more data."
The crew will also test a new exercise machine developed by the European Space Agency that's designed to help astronauts stay fit during future flights to the moon and Mars. And they will work with landing simulator software to learn more about how microgravity might affect astronauts setting down on the moon or Mars.
Jessica Meir encourages her three-year-old daughter to launch a
"We even have a new experiment called Relax Pro that Sophie and I will be participating in that's looking at meditation and mindfulness and how that can benefit astronauts on space missions," Meir said.
But it won't be all work. Meir is bringing a piccolo with her and Fedyaev plans to play a harmonica he brought aboard on his first flight.
Along with the harmonica, "there were three guitars during our previous mission on board, Fedyaev said. "We used to sing together, and it was like karaoke.
"We sang different languages, or I would play the guitar, and everybody would sing the words from the song they looked up online. So we will probably meet and play our musical instruments and maybe actually give a concert!"
Adenot will be the second French woman to fly in space. Physician Claudie Haigneré, one of seven French astronauts chosen in 1985, spent 16 days aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1996. Adenot said Haigneré has acted as a sort of mentor for her and planned to attend the Crew 12 launch.
"I remember very well the first launch of Claudie Haigneré," Adenot said. "I was 14 years old, and that day it kind of clicked in my mind. She was the first French woman astronaut flying to space and before, only men.
"And you know, when you're a teenager, you're just looking for inspiration, and if someone has done it already, then it clicks in your mind: say, if a woman has done it already, then why not me?"
Meir also dreamed of spaceflight when she was a child and said she can't wait to get back aboard the space station.
"When I flew last time, I did not have a husband and a child, and now I have both," she said. "At the end of my seven months, last time, I actually wanted to stay longer, I wasn't ready to come home. And this time, perhaps will feel a little bit different since I'll be leaving my three-year-old back here.
"But everything that we're doing on board the space station is so exciting, it keeps us going, keeps us invigorated, and it's easy to not miss things back at home.
"I hope that what we're doing will be exciting enough and important enough, noteworthy enough, that one day when she's old enough, she'll appreciate that time away."
Major questions the Bible leaves unanswered The Bible remains the best-selling book of all time, but to this day scholars and theologists debate on a number of inconsistencies. Indeed, many parts of the Bible have been confirmed to be true by science. As for others, well, not quite. In fact, some parts of the Bible remain a complete mystery. Curious to learn what the biggest unanswered questions in the Bible are? Then click through!
1. The location of the Garden of Eden The original home of Adam and Eve, from where they were cast out by God, remains one of the mysterious locations in the Bible.
The location of the Garden of Eden It is true that the whole story can be interpreted as a metaphor, but what if one interprets it literally? Where would the Garden of Eden be located, after all? We can find some hints in Genesis 2.
The location of the Garden of Eden Genesis 2:10 says that, “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers” (the specific wording depends on the Bible translation). And then it mentions their names: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (the Tigris), and Phirat (the Euphrates).
The location of the Garden of Eden This hint has led to speculations that the Garden of Eden was located either in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and Kuwait), or modern-day Turkey or Armenia. Though the specific location has, thus far, not been located.
2. There are two creation stories In Genesis 1, God creates male and female at the same time. But then, in the very next chapter, Genesis 2, God created a woman from a man’s rib.
There are two creation stories Not only that, but even God himself is described as having two different names: Elohim in the first account, and YHWH in the second.
Metaphorical interpretation aside, there are indeed two different versions of the creation story. Sure, these may have been an editorial mistake when putting the Bible together, but still, which story should we trust and why?
3. Who were the "sons of God?" Genesis 6:2 says that, “The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.” So who were these “sons of God,” after all?
Who were the "sons of God?" There are various interpretations of who the "sons of God" were. Some theories point to fallen angels, while others say they might be the descendants of Seth (one of Adam and Eve's children). The Bible, however, doesn’t really tell us who they were for sure.
4. What really happened to the Ark of the Covenant? The Ark of the Covenant, which is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments, contains the Ten Commandments tablets. But whatever happened to such an important piece of Biblical history?
What really happened to the Ark of the Covenant? There is a theory that the Ark ended up in Ethiopia and it’s in Aksum today, where it’s guarded by a monk. Other theories point to the Ark being hidden somewhere beneath Jerusalem. To this day, no one has found it.
5. Who is Lucifer? He’s Satan, right? Well, there’s more to it, actually. Isaiah 14:12-17 mentions the story of Lucifer, however, you won’t find any connection to Satan or the Devil. Just that he’s a fallen angel who was cast down to earth by God for wanting to be above him.
Who is Lucifer? But then Luke 10:18-20 mentions Satan falling "like lightning from heaven." So, yes, it seems like Lucifer and Satan fell down from heaven, but are they the same? It is possible that the connection between the two was made after the Bible was written.
Who is Lucifer? So, who is Lucifer, after all? Some theories point to the hypothesis that Lucifer was a reference to a Babylonian ruler. Another theory says that Lucifer was simply the Latin word for “morning star,” but the truth is that no one knows for sure
6. What happened during the "lost years" of Jesus? Not much is documented in the Bible about Jesus’ so-called "lost years." So what was Jesus up to between the ages of 12 and 30, after all?
What happened during the "lost years" of Jesus? Some theories say Jesus stayed in Nazareth, while others say he went to study elsewhere. Locations range from Alexandria, in Egypt, to India.
What happened during the "lost years" of Jesus? It is possible that Jesus studied with the Jewish mystic group the Essenes, or that he traveled as far as Britain with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, who was a tin trader. The truth is that there is no solid evidence of any of these hypotheses.
7. How did humanity multiply? Okay, so Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and went on to have babies. But then for humans to multiply they had to intermarry, right? After all, there were no other humans around.
How did humanity multiply? Not only does it sound wrong, but scientifically speaking this wouldn’t have worked out. We need genetic diversity to thrive as healthy humans. So what gives?
How did humanity multiply? Well, one theory says that God either prevented genetic disorders that would likely happen from incestuous relationships, or that, indeed, he created more than two humans.
8. What happened to the lost tribes of Israel? Both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were formed by 12 tribes of Hebrew people. While there is historical evidence of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (which formed the Kingdom of Judah and are considered the ancestors of modern Jews), the remaining 10 tribes are not well documented.
What happened to the lost tribes of Israel? The tribes were reportedly overtaken by Assyria and exiled from the Kingdom of Israel. But where did they go? Some theories say they traveled to Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia, and even as far as Asia and North America.
What happened to the lost tribes of Israel? It is also possible that they merged with other non-Hebraic cultures and their traditions faded away over the years. Despite all the theories, no one knows for sure what happened to the lost tribes of Israel.
9. Where is Noah’s Ark? It is true that the Great Flood might have happened (though not on a global scale as the Bible mentions). But if Noah’s Ark did, too, what happened to it?
Where is Noah’s Ark? Over the years, numerous theories have emerged, and 'evidence' has been found, though none was robust enough or indeed conclusive.
Where is Noah’s Ark? One example includes wooden fragments discovered on Turkey's Mount Ararat. Being made of wood, it’s very possible that if the Ark ever existed, it rotted and disappeared over the years.
10. What happened to Enoch and Elijah? The Bible says that Enoch (the father of the 969-year-old Methuselah), one of the 'two witnesses,' "walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." But what does that mean? Did he die? Did he join God in heaven?
What happened to Enoch and Elijah? According to Kings 2 2:1, Elijah, the other witness, who was a prophet, “Went up by a whirlwind into heaven” in a chariot of fire. If indeed this was a description of his death, why did he ascend to heaven? He was a man, after all.
Amazing close-up footage of a Dark UFO Over Dundee, OR, USA Feb 9, 2026, UAP Sighting Paranormal News.
Date of sighting: February 9, 2026
Location of sighting: Dundee, Oregon, USA
Source: NUFORC
Hey guys, check this out. This is a dark UFO seen over Oregon this week and it's the most amazing 20 seconds ever! The object has two fork like arms sticking out and it follows in the direction those arms are pointing. Also this was caught in broad daylight so wow! Such rare footage, but I wonder...could it be a high tech US military drone or an alien ship sent to scan and record the inhabitants of Oregon? I feel it's alien...thats my personal opinion. Tell me your thoughts of this on my video by clicking the video below and writing on Youtube comments what you think is going on in Oregon.
Scott C. Waring - Back in Taiwan
Eyewitness states:
Was walking out to our cars and noticed a very low slow object above us in the sky it was seeming to be like a drone maybe having somewhat controlling it, but then it would turn and then would go straight up and then turn other directions and then flatten out and then fly away towards Newberg, Oregon.
We komen allemaal uit Afrika, maar wanneer bereikten we andere continenten? Heb je je ooit afgevraagd hoe en wanneer mensen zich voor het eerst over de wereld verspreidden, in een tijd voordat er auto's, vliegtuigen en boten bestonden?
Van de woestijnen van Afrika tot de ijzige vlaktes van Noord-Amerika, de reis van onze voorouders is er een van avontuur, overleven en ontdekken. Vandaag de dag zijn wetenschappers nog steeds bezig om de puzzel van de menselijke migratie in elkaar te passen. Ze gebruiken oude artefacten, genetische gegevens en zelfs voetafdrukken om te achterhalen waar we vandaan kwamen en hoe we elke uithoek van de aarde bereikten.
Benieuwd naar de ongelooflijke weg die onze voorouders hebben afgelegd? Klik verder om de fascinerende geschiedenis te ontdekken van hoe mensen de wereldburgers werden die we nu zijn.
Waar het allemaal begon Homo sapiens evolueerde ongeveer 300.000 jaar geleden voor het eerst in Afrika, waardoor het continent de geboorteplaats werd van de moderne mens.
Meerdere oorsprongen Het idee dat moderne mensen gelijktijdig in meerdere regio's, zoals Europa en Azië, evolueerden, was ooit een populaire theorie die de multiregionale of candelabra-hypothese werd genoemd.
De 'Out of Africa'-theorie De meeste wetenschappers denken dat Homo sapiens uit Afrika kwamen en zich daarna over de wereld verspreidde, waarbij ze andere hominiden vervingen of zich ermee mengden. Zoals Petraglia zegt: "Alle bewijzen wijzen naar de oorsprong en beweging van Homo sapiens uit Afrika".
Wanneer verlieten mensen voor het eerst Afrika? Ongeveer 200.000 jaar geleden begonnen Homo sapiens hun migratie uit Afrika, eerst naar nabije gebieden, en hun wereldwijde verspreiding gebeurde in de daaropvolgende duizenden jaren.
Oversteekpunt Een van de eerste routes uit Afrika liep misschien via het Sinaï-schiereiland, een nu droge regio tussen Egypte, Jordanië en Israël. Toen de eerste mensen daar trokken richting het oostelijke Middellandse Zeegebied, was het veel groener dan nu.
Lopend Een theorie zegt dat de eerste mensen via een landbrug van Afrika naar Arabië liepen, via de Bab el-Mandeb (of Bab al-Mandab) zeestraat, die ligt tussen de Hoorn van Afrika en het zuidelijke puntje van het Arabisch Schiereiland.
Met een peddel over Maar een studie uit 2006 sprak het idee van een landbrug tegen en stelde dat de eerste mensen misschien peddelend of drijvend de oversteek maakten.
Naar Azië Meer dan 100.000 jaar geleden verspreidden Homo sapiens zich naar Azië. Er zijn aanwijzingen dat ze de kustlijnen volgden en daarna langzaam het binnenland introkken.
Rondtrekken en mengen Zo’n 54.000 tot 44.000 jaar geleden kwamen moderne mensen de Denisovans tegen, een andere oude mensensoort, en vermengden zich met hen.
Denisova-erfenis Daardoor zeggen onderzoekers dat er nog steeds sporen van Denisova-DNA te vinden zijn in de genen van sommige Aziatische bevolkingsgroepen van vandaag.
Aankomst in Europa De eerste bewijzen van Homo sapiens in Europa zijn zo’n 210.000 jaar oud, met fossielen gevonden in de Apidima-grot in Zuid-Griekenland.
Eerste golf Maar als deze datering klopt, denkt Martin Richards, evolutionair geneticus aan de University of Huddersfield in Engeland, dat het misschien gaat om een vroege golf migrerende Homo sapiens die uitstierf of zich terugtrok tijdens een ijstijd (wanneer gletsjers zich uitbreiden).
Dichte verwanten Na deze periode denken wetenschappers dat Homo sapiens zich blijvend vestigde in Europa, zo’n 50.000 tot 60.000 jaar geleden. In die tijd vermengden ze zich met de Neanderthalers, een andere oude mensensoort, en vervingen hen uiteindelijk.
Aankomst in Oceanië In die tijd waren grote delen van Zuidoost-Azië en Australië met elkaar verbonden door land, en verspreidden mensen zich over deze gebieden.
Door de Stille Oceaan Zo’n 50.000 jaar geleden bereikten moderne mensen Nieuw-Guinea, wat blijkt uit archeologische vondsten. Van daaruit verspreidden ze zich in meerdere migratiegolven over de eilanden van de Stille Oceaan, waarbij ze zich aanpasten aan de unieke omstandigheden van elke eilandengroep.
De Lapita-expansie Door het bestuderen van Lapita-aardewerk hebben wetenschappers vroege menselijke aanwezigheid in Nieuw-Guinea en omliggende gebieden kunnen traceren. Volgens UNESCO markeren Lapita-locaties de eerste menselijke kolonisatie van Tonga, zo’n 2.800 jaar geleden.
Polynesische expansie Vergelijkbare locaties in de Bismarck-archipel, de Salomonseilanden, Vanuatu, Nieuw-Caledonië, Fiji en Samoa laten grote culturele veranderingen zien in de westelijke Stille Oceaan, zo’n 3.000 jaar geleden. Deze veranderingen worden gekoppeld aan de migratie van Austronesisch sprekende volkeren van Zuidoost-Azië naar de verder gelegen eilanden van Oceanië.
Polynesische zeereizen Zo’n 1.500 jaar geleden begonnen de Polynesiërs aan grote zeereizen over de Stille Oceaan en bereikten afgelegen eilanden zoals Hawaï, Paaseiland en Nieuw-Zeeland.
Op weg naar Noord-Amerika De traditionele theorie over menselijke migratie naar Noord-Amerika zegt dat vroege Homo sapiens zo’n 13.000 jaar geleden vanuit Siberië een landbrug overstaken, genaamd Bering (of Beringia).
Oorspronkelijke bewoners Nomadische inheemse groepen uit Siberië, zoals de Tsjoektsjen (op de foto), zijn de dichtstbijzijnde levende link met de vroege kolonisten in de regio. De Tsjoektsjen worden ook gezien als de nauwste Aziatische voorouders van de inheemse volkeren in Amerika.
Eerste Noord-Amerikanen Archeologen hebben bewijs gevonden van pre-Clovis nederzettingen en zelfs oudere menselijke voetafdrukken in New Mexico. Dit suggereert dat de eerste Noord-Amerikanen via deze route—en mogelijk langs de Pacifische kust—al minstens 23.000 jaar geleden aankwamen.
Zuid-Amerika Homo sapiens bereikte Zuid-Amerika zo’n 15.000 jaar geleden. Archeologische sites zoals Monte Verde in Chili bewijzen menselijke nederzetting van ongeveer 14.550 jaar geleden.
Ver terug Hoewel er discussie is over de tijdlijn van de vroege menselijke aankomst in Zuid-Amerika, wijst bewijs van meerdere sites erop dat Homo sapiens veel eerder arriveerde dan eerder werd gedacht.
Oude kolonisten De Uros zijn een van de oudste inheemse groepen van Peru, met wortels die teruggaan tot ongeveer 3.700 jaar geleden, toen de centrale Andes voor het eerst werden bewoond.
Genetische verbinding Volgens geneticus José Raúl Sandoval, die hun DNA heeft bestudeerd, "zijn de overgrote meerderheid van de inheemse Zuid-Amerikanen genetisch verwant, omdat ze afstammen van dezelfde groep voorouders die oorspronkelijk op het continent aankwam", ongeacht de route die ze namen.
Laatste stop: Antarctica Mensen bereikten Antarctica later dan elk ander continent. Hoewel de landing van de Amerikaan John Davis in 1821 officieel als de eerste wordt geregistreerd, zijn er aanwijzingen voor eerdere bezoeken.
Nog niet zeker Zelfs de bewering dat de Noren Henrik Bull en Carsten Borchgrevink (op de foto) eind 1800 als eersten voet aan wal zetten, wordt betwist.
Een andere theorie Sommige studies suggereren dat de Māori uit Nieuw-Zeeland mogelijk al in de 7e eeuw naar Antarctica zeilden, hoewel dit idee niet breed wordt geaccepteerd door historici.
Ever since we’ve had the capability, humanity has been desperately trying to make contact with other life in the universe.
While we’ve been beaming out information passively through our television and radio broadcasts, we’ve also sent more intentional messages.
Looking at these messages tells us how humanity wants to think of itself and what kind of relationship we hope to have with alien life.
We’ve loudly been broadcasting our presence on Earth out to the broader universe for decades. At first, these attempts were accidental. In Carl Sagan’s book Contact, he speculated that any aliens watching the stars with at least as keen an interest as we do would pick up high-powered television broadcasts — the first of which would have been Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies.
Fortunately, we’ve also been sending more intentional messages into space that E.T. may pay more attention to. These deliberate messages often contain information on our technological advancement; our understanding of mathematics, which is likely the only shared form of communication we would have with an alien species; and our culture and art. Together, they represent how humanity wants to be seen. Here’s a selection of some of the most noteworthy messages we’ve been sending to space in the hopes that somebody is listening.
The Arecibo Message with added color information.
Wikimedia Commons
1. The Arecibo Message
On November 16th, 1974, we sent a 2,380 MHz radio message pointed at the Messier M13 globular cluster 25,000 light years away. Over the course of its 3 minutes, the radio message sent 1,679 binary digits by shifting the radio’s signal frequency slightly for a 1 or a 0. When visualized, the Arecibo Message looks a little bit like discarded artwork from Space Invaders.
Like most of these messages, we tried to pack as much meaning in as little space as possible. Frank Drake (creator of the famous Drake equation) and Carl Sagan collaborated on what should go into it. From top to bottom, the message contains the numbers 1 through 10, information on the elements in our DNA, their atomic numbers, the nucleotides that constitute our DNA, and the double-helix structure. Below it, we listed the average height of a human, a simple graphic depicting our form, and our population at the time (4.3 billion). Then, there’s a simple model of our solar system, and the last part contains a depiction of a telescope.
It’ll take 25,000 years for the message to reach its destination, so it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know if it made contact. However, its intended purpose was rather to demonstrate our capability; the possibility of contact is just the cherry on top.
The Voyager Golden Records prior to being affixed to the Voyager probes.
NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
2.The Voyager Golden Records
Probably the most famous communication attempt on this list, the Voyager Golden Records were contained inside the two Voyager probes launched in 1977. Once again, the contents were selected by Carl Sagan and a committee he helmed.
The records contain instructions on how they should be played. If aliens get past that step, they’ll be greeted by the sounds of planet Earth, like wind, thunder, and whale and bird song. They’ll also hear spoken greetings in 55 different languages, music from different cultures, footsteps, and Sagan’s laughter.
The Golden Records also contain instructions for how to produce images from their contents. These depict people eating, planets in our solar system, locations on Earth, animals, insects, human evolution and physiology, and chemistry-related images.
The most interesting component, though, is the hour-long recording of a human’s brainwaves; specifically, Sagan’s wife, Ann Druyan. While her brain was being recorded, Druyan thought of a variety of topics, like Earth’s history and — having just gotten engaged to Carl Sagan — the experience of falling in love.
The Voyager probes were primarily meant to observe our solar system as they passed through, but they will be floating through space for quite some time. Maybe some aliens will have the opportunity to see how Druyan felt about falling in love or hear the many sounds from Earth we included. You can listen to the Golden Record’s audio recordings on Soundcloud here and here.
The Yevpatoria Planetary Radar.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
3. The Teen Age Message
This message was initially proposed to be sent via the Arecibo Observatory, the same radio telescope used to send the Arecibo Message, but was rejected over growing concerns that maybe it isn’t such a hot idea to broadcast humanity’s presence in the universe. The Dark Forest theory states that the reason why the universe appears empty is because all other alien life is hiding out fear of other, hostile civilizations — sending messages out to the stars has always been a contested proposition because of our ignorance about the friendliness of alien life.
But human perseverance and our desire to make contact with others has usually won out, and the Teen Age Message was eventually sent out from the Yevpatoria Planetary Radar in 2001. Alexander Zaitsev, the project’s leader, described his conception of the message:
There are two interconnected, inverse and direct, problems in concept of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) — Search for ETI by terrestrial intelligence (SETI) and Messages to ETI from terrestrial intelligence (METI). The key element of SETI is the Object of search, namely [the] Universe, where we hope to detect the ETI and then to decode theirs [sic] Messages, and so the essence of SETI is Space Science. In turn, the key element of METI is the intellectual Subject, who creates new messages for potential ETI and hope that They will detect and perceive these Messages, and so the essence of METI is Space Art.
In an attempt to make “space art,” the Teen Age Message contained the first live recording of a theremin concert for aliens. Seven songs were performed, and the total message was sent to six target stars, both of which were selected by teenage students (hence, the Teen Age Message). Depending on the star, the messages should reach their target destination between 2047 and 2070. (Far quicker than the 25,000 years the Arecibo Message will take!)
As an interesting side note, teenagers have played a fairly important role in our attempts at contacting alien life. When Sagan included “Johnny B. Good” on the Voyager Golden Records, critics complained that rock music was too adolescent. Sagan replied, “There are a lot of adolescents on the planet.”
Copy of the original computer printout, with the signal in the bottom left
The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection.[1]
Wikimedia Commons
4. The Wow! Reply
In 1977, the Big Ear radio observatory at Ohio State University picked up a signal coming from the constellation Sagittarius that was 30 times as powerful as the average background radiation of space. The signal was so striking that astronomer Jerry Ehman circled it in red ink on a printout and wrote “Wow!” in the margins, giving the signal its name.
To date, this is the strongest candidate for an intentional alien communication that we’ve received on Earth. For one, the signal’s frequency was beamed at around 1,420 MHz. Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, also emits radiation at 1,420 MHz, making it an easily recognizable signal to any sufficiently advanced civilization. What’s more, when we studied alternative sources of the signal (i.e., an Earth-made signal reflected off of space debris, a signal emitted by distant comets), no theoretical sources matched the nature of the signal particularly well.
So, in 2012, 35 years after the first signal was detected, humanity sent a response. Ten thousand Twitter messages, including one from Stephen Colbert, were beamed back at the signal’s source.
Since alien life isn’t likely to be able to read Earth languages and may not even possess eyes to view the many videos and pictures included in the response, each message contained a repeating-sequence header to mark it as an intentional communication from intelligent life. The nearest sources of the Wow! signal were between 338 and 1,000 light years from Earth, however, so when the messages are finally received, both the hypothetical source civilization and humanity will be very different.
An aerial view of the Arecibo Observatory, which some may recognize from the 1997 film GoldenEye.
We’ve come along way since 1974, so it makes sense to send out more messages as we progress technologically and culturally. Currently, the Arecibo Observatory has challenged students to develop a new Arecibo Message. The observatory is asking teams of 10 students to create a message for alien civilizations, including the target stars and the energy of the signal. The Arecibo Observatory has also asked teams to in some way address the ongoing concerns over the risk of exposing humanity to unknown alien civilizations and communicate our peaceful intentions. After selecting the winners in September 2019, the new Arecibo Message will be beamed out to the broader universe in celebration of the 45th anniversary of the original message.
What messages did people send to extraterrestrial civilization
World Radio Day is celebrated on February 13. It was on this day in 1946 that UN Radio began its work. It tells people on all continents about peace and security. But radio waves can carry messages further than to the other side of the Earth. For 60 years now, people have been purposefully sending signals into space from powerful transmitters.
The message of the Arecibo telescope. Source: displate.com
Our radio near other stars
Technically, radio waves can propagate in a vacuum indefinitely. But as the signal moves away from the source, its power decreases. Those transmitters with which the inventors conducted their experiments had extremely low signal intensity. In order to catch them at least on the Moon, a radio telescope was needed.
In addition, the first radio broadcasts did not carry words. It was just a flashing “there is a signal — there is no signal”. The premiere of the transmission of a voice radio signal took place in 1906, the first radio station began broadcasting in the USA in 1920, and the debut television company was launched in 1929.
Guglielmo Marconi demonstrates one of the first radio transmitters.Source: Wikipedia
The signal of all these transmitters was strong enough for people to hear messages at a distance of hundreds and thousands of kilometers. But it was not directional, and therefore, at a distance of a hundred light-years, it would hardly be possible to hear it.
Radio transmitters that radiated a signal with a narrow beam appeared in the forties and quickly became more and more powerful. Their call signs could already be heard hundreds of light-years away. However, if anyone tried to listen to them, they wouldn’t have heard anything interesting. Because they were military radars, their signal carried no message and was perceived as noise.
How the idea of communication with space was born
The first signal purposefully sent into space should be considered the radar of the Moon, independently conducted by Hungarian and American scientists in 1946. Then the focused pulse was reflected from our moon and was picked up by an antenna on the Earth. Thanks to this experiment, the researchers learned many facts about the distance to the nearest celestial body and its physical characteristics.
The idea to send a meaningful message appeared in 1959. The scientific community had just accepted the idea that intelligent extraterrestrial life could really exist somewhere, and it could be contacted. This theory was expressed by the Italian physicist Giuseppe Cocconi and the American — Philip Morrison.
Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison. Source: Wikipedia
American scientists who took an interest in this idea were faced with a very simple question. How alien life forms will understand what we want to say. Spoken words, signs on paper and just mathematical symbols make sense only to those who know their meaning. It took scientists a decade and a half of discussions to solve this problem.
Soviet message to Venus
But where the question of the understandability of words and ideas did not arise, it was in the USSR. On November 19, 1962, the word “Mir” (which means peace or world in Russian) was sent from the Yevpatoria Center for Deep Space Communications in the direction of Venus in Morse code.
By that time, scientists did not know whether any life could exist under a dense layer of clouds. But Soviet scientists were sure that the inhabitants of the second planet from the Sun would understand not only Morse code, but also the Russian language. Their conviction in this was so high that they decided to introduce the aliens to both the “most advanced in the world” Soviet state and its founder. On November 24, the words “Lenin” and “SSSR” (the Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union) flew to Venus.
Radio complex in Yevpatoria. Source: arc.construction
Arecibo Message
By the mid-1970s, Americans had finally decided on the content of the message and the tool for sending it. The giant Arecibo radio telescope on the island of Puerto Rico was ideal for this. The diameter of its plate is 305 meters. At that time, it was the most powerful of the directional transmitters created by man.
The message was sent into space on November 16, 1974. The globular cluster M13 was chosen as the target for it. The signal will reach its destination about in the year 25974. If at this time a representative of intelligent life turns out to be near one of its giant luminaries and responds to the message in the same way, then the signal will be sent to Earth for another 25 thousand years.
Arecibo’s message consisted of 1,679 prime numbers. 1 could be considered a point, 0 — a void. There were only two ways to make a rectangle out of them. And only in one of them the points of 1 formed a meaningful picture. In this picture, numbers from one to ten, information about the atoms of some chemical elements and other information were encrypted. The authors of the message were astronomers Carl Sagan and Francis Drake.
After the Arecibo message, people cooled down to the topic of messages to aliens for 25 years. In 1999, Yevpatoria became the main location of communication with space again. The international Cosmic Call project involved sending a much longer message to the stars, consisting of 1.7 million binary numbers. The coding principle was the same as that of Sagan and Drake.
The message included a small image of an encyclopedia and messages from earthlings. Anyone who paid USD 15 could get into their list. More than 50 thousand such people gathered, thanks to which it took place. Scientists have chosen four fairly close stars as the destination: 16 Cygni, HD 178428, 15 Sagittae and Gliese 777. The signal will reach the target between 2050 and 2070.
Messages of the XXI century
In 2001, scientists sent a so-called The Teen Age Message into space. It got its name because of the age of the participants. The signal had a complex structure. In addition to digital images, it also contained an analog recording of a theremin concert. They sent messages again from Yevpatoria.
In 2003, the second Cosmic Call took place. In total, during it and the The Teen Age Message, the signal was sent to 11 different stars. If they have intelligent life, then its representatives will receive these messages between 2045 and 2070.
Theremin-concert sent into space
After that, the scientists sent messages several more times. For example, A Message from Earth and Hello From Earth, which were sent in 2008 and 2009. They were interesting because more than half a million earthlings took part in their sending. From this mass, with the help of a contest on the Bebo social network, 501 messages were selected, which were sent into space.
Their target was the star Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra. One of the planets in this system is similar to Earth and is located in a habitable zone. The signal will get it already in 2029. Perhaps there will be someone who likes to listen to the radio.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” as the saying often attributed to the late astronomer Carl Sagan goes. However, new research involvingorganic compounds discovered on the Red Planet has led one team of researchers to what is indeed an extraordinary possibility: that their presence cannot be fully explained by non-biological sources.
Since the initial discovery of small amounts of organic compounds in a rock sample collected by the Curiosity rover, interest in the potential for ancient Martian life has remained high. Now, with the publication of a new study in the journal Astrobiology, researchers at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center have put forward intriguing new data that furthers the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Theories of Life on Mars
While humanity may be eager to discover an intelligent species with which we can meaningfully interact, there is a strong chance that our first glimpse of extraterrestrial life will instead involve either a simple organism or a species long extinct, having existed at a distant point on the cosmic timeline.
Mars presents a scenario in which the planet is a wasteland, with only the faintest chance that extremophiles may still persist in its harsh environment. Scientists believe that Mars was not always like this, though. Billions of years ago, during its Noachian period, the Red Planet was likely much warmer, with a fuller atmosphere and bodies and liquid water on its surface. This is supported by present-day surface features, such as dry riverbeds and sediment layers, which provide evidence of lakes and even flowing water in the distant Martian past.
Curiosity Discovers Organic Compounds
In March 2025, researchers reported that three alkanes: decane, undecane, and dodecane—the largest organic compounds ever discovered on Mars—were found in rock samples collected and analyzed by the Curiosity rover. They came from samples of mudstone collected in the Gale Crater, an impact basin also believed to be a dry lake. Even then, astrobiologists hypothesized that the alkanes found in Gale Crater could be degraded fatty acids.
While such fatty acids can be produced by geological processes, here on Earth, their appearance is much more commonly associated with living organisms.
The data recovered from analyzing the samples in Curiosity’s onboard lab are insufficient to clearly determine whether the molecules were created by living beings or by geological processes. To come closer to answering that question, researchers decided to focus on the geological processes that may be at play, rather than the samples themselves.
Science, in other words, often comes down to being a process of elimination. By studying whether alternative explanations fit the samples—in this case, ideas such as whether meteorite impacts might have deposited the alkanes—researchers could better assess the potential likelihood of ancient life as an explanation.
Searching for Life on Mars
Based on the team’s extensive research, they have reached an intriguing conclusion: that non-biological processes cannot fully explain the presence of alkanes, suggesting that life on ancient Mars is a reasonable alternative hypothesis.
For their studies, the team synthesized a variety of data streams that included Curiosity’s data, laboratory radiation experiments, and mathematical modeling. Their goal was to glimpse what the Martian surface would have been like over the last 80 million years, accounting for the entirety of the rock’s suspected surface exposure time.
From this, the team developed estimates for the amount of organic material that likely existed in the stone before it was destroyed by cosmic radiation, based on the amount of alkanes there today. They discovered the amount required would far exceed what non-biological processes could produce, indicating that life very well could have played a role.
“We argue that such high concentrations of long-chain alkanes are inconsistent with a few known abiotic sources of organic molecules on ancient Mars,” the researchers write, “namely delivery of organics by IDPs and meteorites, atmospheric fallout and deposition from photochemical haze, and organic production from serpentinization and Fischer–Tropsch reactions on the Red Planet.”
The Perseverance rover sampled Cheyava Falls, a rock with "leopard spots," on Mars last year.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
“In contrast,” the team adds, “it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that an ancient martian biosphere would be capable of producing this level of complex organic enrichment in martian mudstone deposits, and that allochthonous delivery of hydrothermally synthesized organics could have contributed to the abundance of alkanes found in the Cumberland mudstone.”
Life on Mars is Increasingly Likely but Still Unproven
Overall, the team acknowledges the extraordinary nature of their position, once again evoking Sagan’s famous aphorism.
“We agree with Carl Sagan’s claim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” the researchers conclude in their paper, adding that they “understand that any purported detection of life on Mars will necessarily be met with intense scrutiny.”
“In addition, in practice with established norms in the field of astrobiology, we note that the certainty of a life detection beyond Earth will require multiple lines of evidence.”
While the team’s result is hopeful for Mars having once been home to life, more work remains to be done in order to support their claim. For instance, questions linger about how quickly organic molecules decay on Mars, given the planet’s unique conditions.
To that end, the team recommends further studies of radiolytic degradation rates to further test whether life most likely produced the alkanes, which the team nonetheless presents as being a “not unreasonable” hypothesis.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
This animation depicts water disappearing over time in the Martian river valley Neretva Vallis, where NASA’s Perseverance Mars takes the rock sample named “Sapphire Canyon” from a rock called “Cheyava Falls,” which was found in the “Bright Angel” formation.
The $80 billion mission to save the Doomsday Glacier: Scientists reveal wacky plan to build a 50-mile WALL around Thwaites to stop it collapsing and raising global sea levels by 2ft
Dubbed the Seabed Curtain, scientists claim this ambitious project could halt the Doomsday Glacier's retreat and avert the devastating consequences of global warming.
Scientists have found that the main cause of its retreat is a current of warm water creeping into the gap between the glacier and the continental shelf – melting the ice from below.
The Seabed Curtain would anchor in front of the glacier's most vulnerable sections and prevent this warm current from reaching the ice.
While the potential costs could reach well over $80billion (£58.7billion), the scientists say this is nothing compared to the destruction their wall could help prevent.
The Seabed Curtain is currently in its initial phase of development, and the researchers haven't yet finalised the design.
However, the basic plan is to use a reinforced tensile fabric suspended by buoyant elements and anchored to the seafloor by a heavy foundation.
This would stretch all the way around the Antarctic glacier like a colossal beach windbreak, preventing warm water from coming in and trapping cold water near the ice.
In one possible design, this would be a single structure, while others suggest using multiple fragmented sections to prevent the wall from acting like an enormous parachute.
Early modelling conducted by a group of glaciologists in 2024 tentatively suggested that this approach could slow glacial melting by a factor of 10 in some locations.
However, this has never been tested in practice, and researchers don't really know whether this would work or what the consequences would be.
To learn more, scientists plan to install a 492ft-long (150m) and 132ft-tall (40m) section of curtain at the Fjord Ramfjorden in mainland Norway.
The researchers are also conducting an ecological study at the Fjord Mijenfjorden in Svalbard.
The Thwaites Glacier (pictured) is a vast, slow–moving river of ice roughly the size of the UK that traps enough fresh water to raise sea levels a staggering 2.1ft (65cm)
Why is it nicknamed the 'Doomsday Glacier'?
Thwaites Glacier – which is around the size of Great Britain or the US state of Florida – has been nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier.
With ice up to 2,000 metres thick in places, if the glacier were to collapse, global sea levels would rise by 65cm.
This would plunge entire communities underwater, forcing millions of people out of their homes to safer inland areas.
This fjord is protected by a large island near the mouth, so comparing it to nearby fjords should tell researchers what kinds of impact a large barrier might have on a polar ecosystem.
However, given the astronomical costs of creating the wall, critics may well wonder why scientists would bother investigating the solution at all.
According to the leaders of the Seabed Curtain Project, these costs are totally justified by the enormous threat posed by the Thwaites Glacier.
The Doomsday Glacier traps an enormous amount of fresh water and holds it on land, so that it doesn't contribute to sea level rise.
If it were to collapse, all of that water would be dumped directly into the ocean, and global sea levels would increase dramatically.
Additionally, scientists believe that this would destabilise the entire Antarctic ice sheet, which could lead to several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries.
Marianne Hagen, co–lead of the Seabed Curtain Project and former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, told IFLScience: 'For me, it's kind of a no–brainer.
Previous studies have found evidence of storm–like circulation patterns beneath Antarctic ice shelves that are causing aggressive melting beneath the 'Doomsday Glacier'
'If it's possible to take 65 centimetres of global sea level rise off the table for everybody, with one single targeted intervention in one location, I'm willing to explore it. I think we have an obligation to do so.'
Worryingly, the scientific evidence suggests that Thwaites may already be on its way to collapse.
Current estimates suggest that it could totally collapse within the next few decades if nothing is done to slow climate change or prevent it from melting.
Ms Hagen adds: 'If you compare [the project costs] with the coastal repair and damage cost, it's a fraction. The cost of this project will run in billions. The cost of the damages will run into trillions.'
However, the project is not without its critics, and other scientists have accused the Seabed Curtain of being a 'distraction' from the real issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In a paper published last year, scientists from Monash University slammed the untested idea for risking 'intrinsic environmental damage.'
The researchers added that the wall could not be built at a sufficient scale or speed to tackle the crisis in time.
The Thwaites glacier is slightly smaller than the total size of the UK, approximately the same size as the state of Washington, and is located in the Amundsen Sea.
It is up to 4,000 metres (13,100 feet thick) and is considered a key in making projections of global sea level rise.
The glacier is retreating in the face of the warming ocean and is thought to be unstable because its interior lies more than two kilometres (1.2 miles) below sea level while, at the coast, the bottom of the glacier is quite shallow.
The Thwaites glacier is the size of Florida and is located in the Amundsen Sea. It is up to 4,000 meters thick and is considered a key in making projections of global sea level rise
The Thwaites glacier has experienced significant flow acceleration since the 1970s.
From 1992 to 2011, the centre of the Thwaites grounding line retreated by nearly 14 kilometres (nine miles).
Annual ice discharge from this region as a whole has increased 77 percent since 1973.
Because its interior connects to the vast portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that lies deeply below sea level, the glacier is considered a gateway to the majority of West Antarctica’s potential sea level contribution.
The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would cause an increase of global sea level of between one and two metres (three and six feet), with the potential for more than twice that from the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Message Sent Into Space (And What We've Heard Back)
At the turn of the 20th century, a quest for signals was initiated due to the possibility of life and civilizations on Mars. As radio technology advanced, a much more effective method of searching for and communicating with extraterrestrials became possible.
On November 16th, 1974, the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico sent out the strongest signal ever sent into space. The broadcast's goal was to showcase humanity's technical advancement. Renowned SETI researcher Frank Drake and famous scientific communicator Carl Sagan created it. The Arecibo Message has remained the most widely publicized effort to contact extraterrestrial intelligence in the forty-eight years since its transmission.
Due to the current technological advancement, the possibility of making contact with extraterrestrial life is higher than ever. However, we won't have to wait too long for an answer when we finally make that call to ET, And the plans of finally placing that call are already in place. Researchers worldwide, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Jonathan H. Jiang, have created a new signal called "The Beacon in the Galaxy" message. Every METI attempt to date, including the Voyager Golden Records, Pioneer Plaques, and Evpatoria Transmission Messages, is combined with elements of the revised Arecibo Message to create this new signal.
Also, sending a message into deep space is now available to everyone, thanks to Celestis Memorial Spaceflights. "The Enterprise Flight," the inaugural Celestis Voyager Memorial Spaceflight, will take off from Earth and journey three million kilometers into deep space. So it's now possible for you to take part in that endless space voyage and go "where no one has gone before"! For those who wish to join the Star Trek legendary explorers (Nichelle Nichols, the Roddenberrys, and "Scotty" Doohan) remains as they journey into deep space, all you need to do is add your names or messages to the Celestis MindFile™.
The Arecibo Message
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC)
The transmission was part of a celebration to commemorate the completion of a three-year upgrade to the 305m Radio Telescope at Arecibo. A graphic message was sent to our alleged cosmic neighbors in the M13 globular star cluster. About a third of a million stars make up this cluster, located about 21,000 light-years away towards the Milky Way's outskirts. The usage of Arecibo's megawatt transmitter coupled with its 305-meter antenna gave the broadcast a tremendous signal. When using the antenna, the transmitter's power was focused on a specific sky area. This emission was equal to broadcasting at a power level of 20 trillion watts. It could be picked up by an antenna the size of Arecibo just about everywhere in the galaxy.
The deep-space message comprised 73 lines with 23 characters each, totalling 1679 bits. And the purpose of these two prime numbers was to aid the aliens in deciphering the message. Frequency shifting at 10 bits per second was used to broadcast the "zeroes" and "ones." The duration of the transmission was under three minutes. This message was illustrated in a graphic that was reproduced there. It included the Arecibo telescope, DNA, our solar system, a stick representation of a human, and various biochemicals found on Earth. Even though it's doubtful that this brief inquiry would ever elicit a response, the exercise was beneficial in forcing us to consider the challenges of communicating over extreme distances, time, and a potentially substantial cultural divide.
Other Messages Attempts
Center for Deep Space Communications. Evpatoria Planetary Radar. RT-70. Photo: US gov KH-9
Since the start of the Space Age, several attempts to send a message to space with the hope of contacting extraterrestrial life have been attempted. The Morse Message, transmitted in 1962 from the Ukrainian Evpatoria Planetary Radar, was the first radio communication consciously beamed into space. This transmission consisted of a series of short radio transmissions to Venus, each of which was encoded with the phrases "Mir," "Lenin," and "USSR" in Morse code. There were also further attempts to send signals to stars 17 to 69 light-years away from Earth between 1999 and 2016.
The illustration on the Pioneer plaque
The Pioneer Plaques, installed aboard the first crewless missions sent beyond the Solar System's outskirts, are another example of an attempt to communicate with alien life. Carl Sagan conceived of sending these signals as the first message from Earth to the stars. This message to outer space featured the position of Earth in our galaxy, two circles that stand in for neutral hydrogen, and drawings of a naked woman and man standing next to a spaceship. Then came the Voyager Golden Records, which were more of a time capsule in nature and were also created by Carl Sagan and his associates at Cornell University. Instructions for playing the record were shown on the front of the record, with sounds and visuals representing Earthly life and culture. Voyager Golden Records also included a pulsar map and a picture of neutral hydrogen on the original Pioneer Plaques. Despite the many attempts to DM the ET, we are still waiting for a response. Perhaps the messages are still boldly journeying the vast space and have yet to reach a system inhabited by intelligent species.
The Sounds of Earth Record Cover - GPN-2000-001978
Photo: NASA/JPL
A New Message to the Aliens "Beacon in the Galaxy"
In its essence, the concept of a Beacon in the Galaxy message is relatively straightforward. The scientists will broadcast this binary-coded message towards the direction of our Milky Way's galactic core through radio waves. These scientists, like their predecessors, believe that physics and mathematics provide humanity's best chance of establishing contact with alien civilizations. Although human language and culture are essential to understanding who we are as individuals and how we interact with others, extraterrestrial intelligence might struggle to make sense of them. These researchers claimed that using binary to transmit a message will be understood by every form of intelligence in the universe.
The message is divided into 13 sections, 25,500 bytes, or around 204,000 effective binary digits. These same scientists decided that the SETI Telescope in California and the FAST telescope in China would be in a good position to send a message into space based on the best time during a specific year. The message will contain the following information in particular:
Mathematical operations.
Prime numbers include the highest prime number, decimal systems, and binary.
Representation of the solar system highlighting Earth
The position of our solar system as determined by globular clusters
Earth's map
The most prevalent elements
Earth's makeup and features
An invitation for a response
There's also a timestamp encoded corresponding to when it was sent into space, relative to a chronology that begins with the Big Bang.
While we have yet to engage in meaningful conversation with potential life outside of Earth's origin, our scientists, philosophers, artists, and everyday curious continue to look for new ways to let the universe know that we are here and our existence is open to meeting other beings from space.
Soviets ran secret investigation into glowing 'jellyfish' UFO seen above Russian city
USSR's own X-Files also collected eye-witness reports of humanoid figures tied to unexplained lights in the sky
BY Daniel Smith Interim Head of Operations - Content Hub & GAU
The UFO remained in the sky for more than an hour before vanishing
A 'jellyfish' UFO crowned by shifting coloured lights hovered above a Russian city for an hour before disappearing in the 1980s.
The strange case is among a newly shared bundle of Soviet-era documents that lift the lid on how officials in the former USSR quietly recorded and assessed strange objects in the sky- even as they publicly dismissed visiting alien craft as Western nonsense.
The material, translated into English and published by journalist George Knapp, spans around 70 pages and pulls together reports from the 1970s and 1980s.
According to Knapp, the archive was removed from Russia in the early 1990s and has only now been made widely accessible, offering the public a rare window into how Soviet institutions catalogued what they called 'Abnormal Atmospheric Phenomena'.
One of the most striking entries is dated February 13, 1989, and describes a large aerial object over Nalchik, in southern Russia. Witnesses reported a 'jellyfish'-like form that they said remained in the sky for more than an hour before vanishing from view.
Other accounts include a young man reporting luminous streaks across the sky followed by a brush with humanoid figures, reports IBT.
Investigators note the claims and details but stop short of declaring what, if anything, the witness encountered. A separate 1979 incident in Kazakhstan describes campers who said they saw tall, dark figures near a wooded area. Again, recollections were consistent - but there was no physical evidence to pin anything down.
The files reference sightings logged by civilians, soldiers, and technical specialists, as well as the procedures for taking testimony, filing reports, and weighing possible explanations.
While the documents don’t offer hard proof of anything extraterrestrial, they do show an organised effort to track cases that didn’t fit neatly into known boxes.
Jellyfish-like UFO seen above a Soviet city in the 1980s
Many entries propose Earth-bound explanations like atmospheric effects, sensor quirks or even experimental aircraft. Some files consider whether certain sightings might have involved foreign technology - a live concern in the Cold War years - or simply rare natural phenomena.
One of the most infamous cases of a Russian UFO was in 1993, when state media reported the military had downed an extraterrestrial craft in Siberia using a surface-to-air missile.
This supposedly led to an encounter with five humanoid entities who emerged from the wreckage. These beings reportedly merged into a singular, glowing sphere that emitted a catastrophic burst of light, instantly transforming 23 nearby soldiers into stone pillars.
The soldiers were turned into stone pillars, accoording to reports
The report suggests that only two witnesses survived the event, while the resulting limestone remains and wreckage were transported to a clandestine research facility near Moscow.
US intelligence officials at the time noted that if these accounts were authentic, they represented a highly dangerous threat from advanced alien technology.
A tiny copper-alloy tool long overlooked in a museum collection is reshaping what archaeologists know about the origins of human engineering.
Researchers said the artefact shows ancient Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated rotary bow drill more than 5,300 years ago.
The object, cataloged as 1924.948 A in the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has now been identified as the earliest known metal drill.
The finding pushes back the timeline for advanced drilling technology by more than two millennia, forcing scholars to rethink when complex mechanical tools first emerged.
First excavated a century ago from a cemetery at Badari in Upper Egypt, the tool shows wear consistent with rotary drilling.
The tool contained arsenic and nickel, with notable amounts of lead and silver, suggesting deliberate engineering choices and pointing to early material trade or shared technical knowledge across the ancient Mediterranean.
Lead author Dr Martin Odle from Newcastle University said: 'This re-analysis has provided strong evidence that this object was used as a bow drill, which would have produced a faster, more controlled drilling action than simply pushing or twisting an awl-like tool by hand.
'This suggests that Egyptian craftspeople mastered reliable rotary drilling more than two millennia before some of the best-preserved drill sets.'
Researchers said the artefact shows ancient Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated rotary bow drill more than 5,300 years ago, far earlier than previously believed
When archaeologist Guy Brunton first documented the object in the 1920s, he described it simply as a small copper awl with leather wrapped around it.
The brief classification led the artefact to be largely overlooked for nearly a century.
Microscopic analysis revealed wear patterns inconsistent with simple puncturing or scraping. Fine striations, rounded edges, and a subtle curve at the tip indicate the tool was repeatedly rotated, pointing to sustained rotary drilling rather than basic piercing.
Researchers also found six coils of extremely fragile leather thong still wrapped around the shaft, which they said provides direct evidence of a bow drill system.
In such a mechanism, a string wound around the drill shaft is driven back and forth by a bow, rapidly spinning the tool to cut into material.
'Behind Egypt's famous stone monuments and jewelry were practical, everyday technologies that rarely survive archaeologically,' Odle said.
'The drill was one of the most important tools, enabling woodworking, bead production, and furniture making.
Bow-powered drills appeared frequently in New Kingdom tomb scenes, and several complete examples from that era survive.
Pictured is the Khufu Pyramid, also known as the Great Pyramid, in Giza Pyramid Complex, dating to about 1,000 years after the ancient drill was crafted
The Badari discovery is far older, dating to Naqada IID, and suggests Egyptians had perfected fast, controlled rotary drilling nearly two millennia before those later depictions.
Naqada IID, a late Predynastic period around 3300 to 3200 BC, saw the inception of kingship, writing, and organized religion, which would become the basis of the classical Egyptian civilization.
A study released in December revealed a discovery that changes what we know about ancient Egypt.
The New Kingdom, which lasted from 1550 to 1070 BCE, was Egypt's peak of power, wealth, and territorial expansion, the era of famous rulers like Tutankhamun.
It began with the 18th Dynasty, founded by Pharaoh Ahmose I, who reunited Egypt and expelled the Hyksos invaders, restoring central authority after a period of fragmentation.
Now, scientists have confirmed that the massive Santorini (Thera) volcanic eruption occurred before the reign of Ahmose, meaning the 18th Dynasty, and the New Kingdom itself, rose later than previously believed.
Until now, historians had often assumed the eruption might have coincided with the early New Kingdom, and some researchers even tried to link it to specific pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III or Ahmose I.
The breakthrough comes from radiocarbon dating of Egyptian artifacts from the 17th and early 18th Dynasties.
Researchers examined a mudbrick stamped with Ahmose's name, a linen burial cloth, and wooden funerary figures called shabtis, all of which were directly tied to known pharaohs and their temples.
Because these objects are anchored to specific historical contexts, their ages provide a reliable snapshot of the period.
The study shows that the eruption predates these artifacts, reshaping how historians understand the rise of Egypt's most powerful period.
Tapes containing the original, high-quality transmission of the Apollo 11 moon landing were wiped after being quietly shelved in an unmarked storage area byNASA.
While other recordings of the historic 1969 mission survived, the revelation that at least some moon landing video disappeared has fueled wild conspiracies that NASA has been covering up what astronauts saw or even that the whole mission was faked.
1969 moon landingEFE
Now, the truth about these 'erased' tapes has been revealed by Tim Dodd, better known as the 'Everyday Astronaut' on YouTube, who said the lost footage was only a set of backup magnetic tapes containing the raw transmission from space.
Dodd explained that the backup tapes were considered by NASA to be less critical since all the essential data, video, and radio signals were successfully transmitted to Houston and broadcast live on TV.
The backup copies of Apollo 11's historic mission were mistakenly taped over when NASA reused older magnetic tapes due to a shortage of those specific film reels in the 1970s and 1980s.
Speaking on the Danny Jones Podcast, Dodd said no one at the time anticipated future technology would be able to upscale or enhance the resolution (upres) of the raw footage for better quality, which is now possible today.
However, NASA still possesses thousands of hours of data proving the first moon landing really took place, including lower-quality versions of telemetry data, audio, and video from Houston's recordings.
Dodd added that the space agency also still has shockingly clear 70 millimeter film from the cameras the Apollo astronauts used on the moon, a grade of film that is still used in IMAX movies 57 years later.
Crystal clear images taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts during the original 1969 moon landing, captured on 70 millimeter film and shared in a 2019 documentary by director Todd Miller
Tim Dodd, known as the 'Everyday Astronaut' on YouTube, revealed the fate of the original backup recordings of the Apollo 11 moon footage on the Danny Jones Podcast
Dodd, who creates educational videos about rockets, space exploration, and NASA's history, broke down exactly what happened to the erased moon landing tapes, starting with how the signal was sent back from Apollo 11 to Earth.
The live transmission from the moon was sent to receiving stations, including one in California's Mojave Desert, and then split into two feeds.
One feed went to Mission Control in Houston for real-time monitoring, where all telemetry on the spacecraft's condition, audio and video were recorded.
The video at Mission Control was converted from the moon's 'slow-scan' format to standard NTSC TV format using a 'kinescope' method, which means the space agency filmed a monitor with a camera to make it usable on TV broadcasts.
This converted version was what the public saw at home in 1969, which was of lower quality than the video on the magnetic tapes but 'good enough' at the time, according to Dodd.
The other feed contained the raw backup, recorded directly onto the large magnetic tapes, which were roughly a foot wide and looked similar to giant cassette tapes.
NASA viewed the tapes as a safety net in case the link between Apollo 11 and Houston failed. During a crisis, the space agency might have needed to analyze raw data to understand what went wrong, but none of that happened.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin unfurl the US flag on the moon in 1969
Neil Armstrong (Pictured) captured on 70 millimeter film before the Apollo 11 mission. This grade of film is still used to produce IMAX-quality movies six decades later
'They're like, "It would be great if we had that still, you know, hold on to those tapes. Make sure we have those backups. We had this 45-minute blackout because our dish went down or something." They didn't have that,' he continued.
'They didn't imagine a world where we could take and re-scan and up you know up-res the hell out of that footage as well because it would have been a lot cleaner in that raw format.'
Dodd called the claims that NASA deliberately erased the moon landing recordings 'misconstrued.'
However, the podcaster and YouTube host admitted that skeptics have one difficult argument to counter when it comes to debating whether the moon landings were real - that being the mystery of why the missions stopped in 1972.
Dodd told Jones the real reason America's moon missions stopped was the massive economic cost of building and launching Saturn V rockets to the moon.
'I understand the frustration of, you know, we did this thing 54 years ago, and we lost that ability to do it. But we also spent $300 billion in today's money to get us there,' he said.
'We had three other rockets and hardware built and the crew to do so, and we just said, "Eh, not worth it." Like that's what I'm frustrated with.'
The team used their new printing method to encode a photo of the Mona Lisa onto their smart skin material (left). The photo, which can initially appear hidden in the material, can be revealed by stretching, exposure to heat, exposure to liquid or by adjusting the material from a 2D to a 3D shape (right).
Provided by Hongtao Sun. All Rights Reserved.
Octopuses and their cephalopod cousins have long fascinated biologists with their seemingly supernatural shapeshifting. The cephalopods rapidly change color and texture, blending into their surroundings and evading predators. This natural camouflage is a remarkable bit of biology that engineershave tried to replicate, albeit with limited success. But that may be changing.
Researchers at Penn State say they’ve developed a new hydrogel material inspired by octopus skin that can encode images directly into its structure. The imprinted images then disappear and reappear when the skin is exposed to subtle changes in temperature or a surrounding solvent. The result is a “4D” synthetic smart skin capable of revealing hidden images and shifting surface patterns.
Smart Skin
To demonstrate the technology, the team encoded a black-and-white image ofLeonardo Da Vinci’s“Mona Lisa” into the material. At room temperature, the image is essentially invisible. However, when heat is applied the hidden contrast sharpens until the image becomes clear. Though still early in development, the material could lay the foundation forsynthetic adaptive camouflage, with potential military applications and beyond. The findings were published this week in the journalNature Communications.
It’s an impressive engineering feat that also highlights the elegant complexity nature has refined through millions of years of evolution. Even with all our resources and combined brian power, humans still can’t best nature’s innate artistry.
How octopuses hide
Scientists are starting to really understand the complexity of octopus brains and their unique capacity for problem-solving. When it comes to shapeshifting though, the process appears to be more instinctual than deliberate.
Biologically, cephalopods rely on specialized neuromuscular organs called chromatophores to perform their evolutionary magic trick. The chromatophores expand and contract in response to neural signals triggered by environmental cues. They also use muscular hydrostats to rapidly alter the texture of their skin. Together, these features give octopuses an extraordinary dynamic range of appearance, allowing them to seamlessly blend into their surroundings.
“This intricate system of nerves and muscles grants soft-bodied organisms the remarkable ability to simultaneously alter their optical appearance, surface texture, and shape,” the team on this new study writes.
Printing a ‘newspaper’ on skin
To try and replicate how octopuses camouflage and shape shift in a lab, the Penn State team needed a way to alter both appearance and shape using a single, soft synthetic material. They started by 3D-printing a hydrogel that would serve as their canvas. Using a process called halftone-encoded printing, the researchers first translated an image into a binary grid of pixels, where different patterns of 1s and 0s corresponded to regions of the material with distinct physical properties. Much like newspaper printing, the density and distribution of these pixels create the illusion of light and dark areas.
Once the image was converted into a binary pattern, the team encoded it directly into the hydrogel using controlled UV light during the printing process. In other words, the image was “seared” directly onto the hydrogel canvas. Rather than adding ink or pigment like a tattoo, the UV exposure programmed subtle differences into the material’s internal structure. Under normal conditions, these differences are invisible to the naked eye.
A common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) in the waters of San Giovanni di Sinis, Sardinia, Italy. Image: Emmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
But when the material is heated up, the areas corresponding to the 0 and 1 patterns respond differently, gradually increasing their visual contrast. The previously hidden image then emerges as the material reacts to its environment. The process is somewhat similar to how invisible ink is exposed when a revealing solution or special light is applied. The researchers describe this as a form of 4D printing because it takes a three dimensional object and alters its appearance over time via exposure to external stimuli. They were also able to demonstrate the same effect by changing the surrounding solvent, which caused the hidden image to reappear.
“We’re printing instructions into the material,” Penn State industrial engineer and study co-author Hongtao Sun said in a Penn State blog post. “Those instructions tell the skin how to react when something changes around it.”
To demonstrate this effect, they first encoded the letters “PSU” into the hydrogel film. After altering the film’s temperature, the letters revealed themselves. Upping the difficulty, they then repeated the process with a grayscale image of the “Mona Lisa.” In theory, they say the same approach could work with any image. It simply needs to be converted into a binary pattern and encoded onto the hydrogel.
This isn’t the first time scientists have taken inspiration from octopus anatomy. In 2021, engineers at Rutgers University created a 3D printed synthetic muscle that subtly changed its shape when exposed to light. More recently, researchers at Stanford developed a flexible, synthetic material that would swell and change size when targeted with a beam of electrons. Elsewhere, roboticists have even developed octopus-like, slightly terrifying “Tentacle Bot” outfitted with mechanical armies and suckers that helps it move around and grab objects.
For centuries, nature has quietly outperformed human engineering. Octopuses and cuttlefish can vanish against coral, ripple their skin into spines, or flash patterns to communicate—sometimes all at once. Now, a team of researchers from Penn State and the Georgia Institute of Technology says it has taken a major step toward replicating that biological magic in asynthetic material that behaves more like living skin than plastic.
In a new peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications, engineers report a novel way to “print” multifunctional smart materials that can hide and reveal images, change texture, bend into complex shapes, and even embed information that can only be read under specific conditions.
Researchers describe the material as a cephalopod-inspired “smart synthetic skin” made from hydrogel and fabricated using a technique the team calls halftone-encoded 4D printing.
Most synthetic materials—even advanced ones—are designed to do just one thing well. A coating might change color, a polymer might bend when heated, or a gel might respond to moisture.
However, combining multiple dynamic behaviors in a single, soft material has remained a major challenge. Researchers argue their approach overcomes that constraint by digitally embedding instructions directly into the material itself.
“Cephalopods use a complex system of muscles and nerves to exhibit dynamic control over the appearance and texture of their skin,” co-author and professor at Penn State, Dr. Hongtao Sun, said in a press release. “Inspired by these soft organisms, we developed a 4D-printing system to capture that idea in a synthetic, soft material.”
The term “4D printing” refers to structures that change after printing. Unlike conventional 3D printing, where a shape is fixed once fabrication ends, 4D-printed materials are engineered to transform in response to external stimuli, such as heat, solvents, or mechanical stress.
In this case, the researchers used a hydrogel—a water-rich, jelly-like material already known for its responsiveness—to create a film that can reconfigure itself in multiple ways.
The novel system is unusual in how it programs the material’s behavior. Instead of stacking various components or embedding electronics, researchers used a printing strategy borrowed from graphic design: half-toning.
In newspapers and photographs, halftone dots create the illusion of continuous tones using only black and white ink. Here, the researchers used a similar logic to encode “binary” regions into the hydrogel.
Some regions of the material are highly cross-linked and stiff, while others are lightly cross-linked and softer. These regions act like ones and zeros—digital instructions embedded into the material during printing. When the environment changes, each region responds differently, and the combined response determines how the entire sheet behaves.
“In simple terms, we’re printing instructions into the material,” Dr. Sun explained. “Those instructions tell the skin how to react when something changes around it.”
One of the most striking demonstrations described in the study involves hiding and displaying images. To showcase the effect, the team encoded a halftone version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa into a thin hydrogel film.
When washed with ethanol, the film became transparent, and the image disappeared entirely. When placed in ice water or gradually heated, the portrait re-emerged with high contrast as the gel swelled or contracted.
According to Haoqing Yang, a doctoral candidate in industrial and manufacturing engineering at Penn State and the paper’s first author, the choice of image was symbolic rather than technical.
“This behavior could be used for camouflage, where a surface blends into its environment, or for information encryption, where messages are hidden and only revealed under specific conditions,” Yang said.
Crucially, the image does not simply fade in and out. It is revealed because different regions of the hydrogel scatter or transmit light depending on temperature and solvent exposure. The visual effect is reversible and repeatable, allowing the same material to cycle between hidden and visible states.
The study also demonstrates a second, less obvious layer of information encoding. Even when an image is optically invisible, it can still be recovered mechanically.
By gently stretching the smart skin and measuring its deformation using digital image correlation, the researchers showed that invisible patterns can be reconstructed from strain maps. In other words, the information is still there—it just requires a different “key” to read it.
Beyond optics and encryption, the smart skin also exhibits controlled shape-morphing behavior. A flat sheet can curl into dome-like structures, saddles, or textured surfaces reminiscent of cephalopod skin.
Unlike many other shape-changing materials, this transformation does not rely on multiple layers or composites. Instead, the geometry appears from how the halftone patterns are arranged within a single sheet.
“Similar to how cephalopods coordinate body shape and skin patterning, the synthetic smart skin can simultaneously control what it looks like and how it deforms, all within a single, soft material,” Dr. Sun said.
The ability to combine these behaviors—optical change, mechanical response, surface texture, and shape transformation—within one material system is what sets this breakthrough apart from other synthetic materials.
Previous approaches often required stacking materials or sacrificing one function to achieve another. Here, the binary halftone strategy allows the functions to be co-designed digitally before printing.
Researchers emphasize that this work builds on earlier studies of smart hydrogels but significantly expands their capabilities. In prior efforts, the team concentrated on programming mechanical properties and shape changes. In the new study, they demonstrate that halftone-encoded printing enables multiple functions to be integrated and coordinated within a single film.
Going forward, Dr. Sun and his colleagues say the next step is scalability. They envision a general manufacturing platform that permits precise digital encoding of diverse functions into dynamic materials.
While the technology is still at a laboratory stage, the implications could be significant. By borrowing ideas from octopus skin and combining them with digital manufacturing, the researchers have shown that materials can be programmed to behave more like systems than static objects.
This shift opens the door to a wide range of tangible applications. In everyday contexts, materials like this could lead to clothing or architectural surfaces that automatically adjust insulation, texture, or appearance in response to temperature and weather, or to packaging that reveals hidden information only under specific conditions.
In more advanced settings, the same principles could enable soft robots that move and adapt without motors or electronics, medical implants that change stiffness or shape inside the body, or physical objects that store encrypted data not in chips but in how the material itself deforms or transmits light.
By embedding multiple functions directly into matter rather than layering components on top of one another, the approach hints at a future in which responsiveness, computation, and security are built into materials from the moment they are manufactured.
If these capabilities can be scaled and adapted beyond hydrogels, future “smart skins” may blur the line between material and machine—much like their biological inspirations have done all along.
“This interdisciplinary research at the intersection of advanced manufacturing,” Dr. Sun explains. “Intelligent materials and mechanics opens new opportunities with broad implications for stimulus-responsive systems, biomimetic engineering, advanced encryption technologies, biomedical devices, and more.”
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter:@LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email:LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com
Researchers say the ancient moat reshapes what we know about Jerusalem’s defenses during the First Temple period. A massive stone-cut feature hidden beneath Jerusalem’s City of David is reshaping how archaeologists understand the ancient city’s defenses. Long debated in scholarly circles, the structure matches descriptions of a deep moat referenced in biblical texts and dates to around 3,000 years ago, during the First Temple period.
New excavations and careful reanalysis suggest this wasn’t a minor trench, but a major engineered barrier designed to protect the city’s core. The finding helps clarify how Jerusalem was fortified — and how its leaders used landscape and construction to control movement, access, and security.
1. The Structure Was Found in the City of David The discovery was made in the City of David, an area just south of Jerusalem’s Old City that has been excavated for decades. Archaeologists uncovered a deep, rock-cut channel separating the city’s residential areas from its political and religious center.
This feature had been partially known, but its true scale and purpose were unclear. New excavations revealed its depth, width, and strategic placement, pointing to a deliberate defensive role rather than simple drainage or quarrying.
2. It Dates Back Roughly 3,000 Years Based on pottery, construction style, and stratigraphy, researchers date the structure to around the 10th century BCE. This places it firmly in the era traditionally associated with Jerusalem’s early monarchy and the First Temple period.
That timing is significant because it aligns with written descriptions of fortified Jerusalem during this era. While archaeology doesn’t confirm narratives outright, matching dates strengthen the case that texts were describing real, large-scale infrastructure.
3. The Moat Was Carved Directly Into Bedrock Unlike later defensive walls built above ground, this structure was carved directly into solid bedrock. That would have required extensive labor, planning, and centralized authority.
Such effort suggests the city’s leaders viewed defense as a top priority. Carving stone rather than piling earth also made the barrier harder to cross, harder to fill in, and more permanent than simpler fortifications.
4. It Functioned as a Defensive Barrier Archaeologists now believe the channel acted as a moat, physically separating the city’s core from surrounding areas. Anyone approaching the administrative or royal center would have had to cross this obstacle.
This setup would have slowed attackers and controlled access points, forcing movement into narrow, defensible routes. It reflects sophisticated urban planning rather than ad-hoc defense.
5. Biblical Texts May Reference This Feature Several ancient texts describe a defensive divide protecting Jerusalem’s most important structures. Scholars long debated whether those passages were symbolic or literal.
The newly analyzed structure fits those descriptions in size, placement, and function. Researchers stress this doesn’t “prove” texts, but it does show they may preserve accurate memories of real city features.
6. Earlier Excavations Missed Its Full Purpose Parts of the channel were uncovered in earlier digs, but they were often interpreted as quarries or incomplete construction projects. Without full exposure, its defensive role wasn’t obvious.
Only by connecting multiple excavation zones and reexamining earlier assumptions did archaeologists recognize the structure as a single, continuous system built with a clear strategic goal.
7. The Moat Helped Control Movement Inside the City Beyond defense, the moat likely played a role in controlling who could access elite or sacred areas. Gates or bridges would have funneled movement into monitored points.
This kind of internal boundary reflects social and political hierarchy, separating everyday residential life from centers of power and worship within the city.
8. The Discovery Changes Views of Early Jerusalem For years, scholars debated how large and organized Jerusalem was during this period. Some argued it lacked the resources for major infrastructure.
A project of this scale suggests a city capable of mobilizing labor, engineering expertise, and long-term planning — pointing to a more complex and powerful early Jerusalem than some models assumed.
9. Defensive Design Was Integrated With the Landscape Rather than imposing walls alone, city planners used natural ridges and valleys, enhancing them with carved features like this moat.
This approach reduced construction needs while maximizing defensive advantage. It shows a deep understanding of terrain and how to adapt it for urban protection.
10. Not Every Discovery Comes From Something New This find underscores how archaeology often advances through reinterpretation, not just new digs. Features once labeled mundane can gain new meaning with fresh context.
By revisiting earlier finds with updated methods and broader excavation data, researchers can uncover insights that were hiding in plain sight.
11. The Moat Offers a Clearer Picture of the Ancient City Taken together, the evidence paints a picture of Jerusalem as a carefully planned, defensively minded city 3,000 years ago. The moat wasn’t an afterthought — it was central to how the city functioned.
As excavations continue, researchers expect the structure to help refine timelines, urban layout, and how ancient Jerusalem balanced security, governance, and daily life.
When the Berwyn Mountain UFO was spotted in 1974, it got local villagers talking – but could an alien spacecraft really have crash-landed in North Wales?
Many UFO buffs are more than familiar with the Roswell incident, where an extraterrestrial spacecraft is alleged to have crashed in New Mexico. What you might not know is that Wales has had its own Roswell, often humorously dubbed the ‘Roswelsh Incident’.
More commonly known as the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident, it all began in the evening of 23rd January 1974. Local residents felt sudden earth tremors and heard what sounded like an explosion. After emerging from their homes to investigate, the villagers saw peculiar lights in the sky.
The ‘official’ verdict is that this usually quiet area of northern Wales had simply been struck by an earthquake before a meteor passed overhead. However, there’s good reason to believe that something much more extraordinary happened that fateful night.
The tremors and disconcerting ‘bang’ noise are thought to have occurred around 8:30pm that evening, as per reports from locals. One of those locals, Huw Lloyd, was interviewed about his own experiences for the third episode of Ancient Aliens’ 12th season.
Though only 14 years old at the time of the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident, Huw was able to recall events in immense detail decades later. ‘I was at home with my two sisters and my neighbour, basically watching television, and there was, like, a thud.’
He added: ‘The next thing, the whole place started shaking quite violently, like an earth tremor. We were all a bit stunned. We had never experienced anything like that before.’ Whatever it actually was, neighbours were soon ringing to say they had also experienced it.
‘The Welsh Roswell’ - the Berwyn mountain UFO crash, Llandrillo, Wales, January 23, 1974
Huw noted: ‘My parents weren’t at home, they were in the next village and they’d felt it there as well.’ Speculation was rife that a plane had crashed. Later that evening, Huw was taken to within sight of where the craft had supposedly landed – and saw the distant area pulsating with otherworldly light. However, he was not allowed to get any closer to it.
You might not need reminding what happened (or, should we say, is said
to have happened) with Roswell, but here’s a recap anyway. In July 1947, news broke that the US military had recovered remains of a ‘flying disc’ near the city of Roswell.
The military later reported that this claimed spacecraft had actually turned out to just be pieces of a weather balloon. However, many UFOlogists have dismissed this as a mere cover story. Theorists allege that genuine extraterrestrial technology was found at the crash scene and subsequently taken to the famed Area 51.
Could something similar have happened in northern Wales? It has certainly been suggested. According to British authorities, no spacecraft (or even aircraft) remains were actually found where the Berwyn Mountain UFO is often alleged to have crashed.
This is a bizarre revelation, as it does not explain the spookily pulsating light thought to have been seen by Huw Lloyd and other witnesses. It also runs counter to reports of other startling sightings that night. For these reasons, many UFOlogists doubt that the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident can be entirely explained by earthly phenomena.
Ancient Aliens: UFO Crash Site in Wales (Season 12) | History
Witness statements defy easy explanation
In the late Noughties, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) started declassifying its ‘UFO files’. In 2010, documents released by the National Archives revealed how the MoD sought to explain the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident.
According to the files, a private investigation launched at the behest of the British Astronomical Society suggested that the UFO was a disintegrating meteor. This could explain why even a search and rescue team apparently failed to find any craft or large impact crater at the alleged crash site.
However, the files also mention some witnesses claiming to see what they described as a ‘bright red light, like a coal-fire red. Large perfect circle. Like a big bonfire. Could see lights above and to the right and white lights moving to bottom.’
Some theories state that the Berwyn Mountain UFO was indeed retrieved – and taken away to Rudloe Manor. This Wiltshire manor house is often cited as ‘Britain’s Area 51’, as it is known to have long been the hub of MoD investigations into UFOs. Could subterranean tunnels beneath Rudloe Manor have housed the Berwyn Mountain UFO itself?
We bekijken hier de tien grootste mysteries Heb je ooit naar de ruïnes van een oude beschaving gekeken en jezelf afgevraagd hoe zo'n ontzagwekkende plek is gemaakt door degenen die ons zijn voorgegaan? Als dat zo is, dan ben je niet alleen, onze wereld kent nog altijd veel mysteries.
Ruïnes die een totaal raadsel blijven Sommige van de bekendste archeologische vindplaatsen over de hele wereld zitten nog steeds vol geheimen, aldus National Geographic Expeditions, die tien van de bekendste plaatsen opsomde die nog steeds een compleet raadsel zijn voor archeologen.
1. Machu Picchu in Peru Machu Picchu is waarschijnlijk de bekendste stad van de Inca's, maar we weten eigenlijk maar weinig over hoe hij tot stand is gekomen. Wel weten we dat hij gebouwd is door de Incaleider Pachacutec in de 15e eeuw, maar niet waarom hij gebouwd is.
Foto: Christophe Meneboeuf - eigen werk / Wikimedia
Populaire theorieën over Machu Picchu Een populaire theorie is dat de Inca's Machu Picchu bouwden als een hooggelegen toevluchtsoord voor hun vorsten. Maar kennelijk bouwden ze de tempels, baden en plaatsen zonder de hulp van een wiel, metalen gereedschappen of mortel. Indrukwekkend, nietwaar?
Waarom viel Machu Picchu? Machu Picchu werd om mysterieuze redenen verlaten en we weten nog steeds niet waarom. De Encyclopaedia Britannica merkte op dat water een rol kan hebben gespeeld, terwijl andere theorieën suggereren dat de Spaanse conquistadores de oorzaak zijn.
2. Skara Brae op de Orkneyeilanden in Schotland Dit archeologische mysterie ken je waarschijnlijk niet, maar is afkomstig van de Britse eilanden. Skara Brae werd net als Machu Picchu verlaten en we weten nog steeds niet waarom. Maar wat is dit verbluffend bewaard gebleven oude dorp?
Een goed bewaard gebleven neolithisch dorp Skara Brae was een neolithische stenen dorp van negen huizen op de Orkneyeilanden bij Schotland. We beschikken over resten van de levendige levensstijl van de dorpelingen, zoals hun toiletten en ladekasten. Maar de locatie is gehuld in mysterie.
3.De Grote Sfinx van Gizeh in Egypte De Grote Sfinx van Gizeh is het afgelopen decennium het middelpunt geweest van veel controverse vanwege de bewering dat hij veel ouder is dan archeologen eerder dachten. De vraag is wie de sfinx heeft gebouwd en waarom.
Hoe zit het met de Sfinx? Kimberly McGlynn van de North Dakota State University schreef in een artikel over de leeftijd van de Sfinx dat sommige archeologen stellen dat de Sfinx ongeveer 4500 jaar oud is en werd gebouwd tijdens het bewind van farao Chefren. Anderen zijn het daar echter niet mee eens.
Hoe oud is de Sfinx eigenlijk? Egyptologen als John Anthony West en dr. Robert Schoch waren het erover eens dat watererosie aan de voet van de Sfinx een deel van het bouwwerk kon dateren in een andere en veel oudere tijdspanne tussen 7000 en 10.000 jaar oud.
4. Angkor in Cambodia Angkor is het grootste mysterie van Cambodja. Maar in tegenstelling tot de anderen op deze lijst weten we wel veel over de ruïnes van de stad. De stad werd gesticht door Jayavarman II van het Khmer-rijk en werd het grootste stedelijke complex van de pre-industriële wereld.
Het watersysteem van Angkor De stad is een uitgestrekt doolhof van straten en is voorzien van een ingewikkeld watersysteem volgens de technieken van de oudheid. Helaas heeft het verbazingwekkende vermogen van Angkor om water op te slaan de stad niet kunnen redden van de ondergang, en we weten nog steeds niet precies waarom.
5. Paaseiland in Chili Paaseiland is een van die mysterieuze archeologische vindplaatsen die archeologen nog steeds voor raadsels stellen en dat is heel logisch. Hoe hebben de Polynesiërs die op het eiland woonden in vredesnaam zulke enorm standbeelden gebouwd? En nog belangrijker, waarom?
Meer dan 900 megastandbeelden op het eiland National Geographic schreef dat de meer dan 900 beelden op het eiland waarschijnlijk zonder hulp van wielen of grote dieren zijn gebouwd. Onderzoekers begrijpen hun doel nog steeds niet helemaal, maar ze hebben wel theorieën.
Photography - eigen werk, CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia
6. De tempels van Ġgantija in Malta Malta lijkt je misschien niet direct een plek waar zich het grootste archeologische mysterie ter wereld bevindt, maar toch zou dat wel eens zo kunnen zijn vanwege de tempels van Ġgantija. Ze bevinden zich op het eiland Gozo en verbijsteren ons al eeuwenlang.
Foto: Stijndon - eigen werk, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia
Een van de oude bouwwerken ter wereld Verschillende delen van de tempel werden al in 3600 v. Chr. en in 2900 v. Chr. gebouwd. Het is ook een van de vroegste vrijstaande bouwwerken ter wereld die archeologen kennen volgens Heritage Daily.
Foto: Bs0u10e01 - eigen werk, CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia
Wie werd er vereerd in de tempel? Het gebied werd jarenlang bewoond en we zijn er vrij zeker van dat het een tempel was waar onze voorouders naartoe gingen om te vereren. Maar wie ze vereerden en hoe ze dat enorme ding bouwden is vandaag de dag nog steeds grotendeels een mysterie.
7. Tikal in Guatemala Tikal was een machtige Mayastad die floreerde in 300 na Christus. Er woonden ooit ongeveer 60.000 mensen en de stad besloeg een oppervlakte van 47 vierkante kilometer. De stad is bedekt met veel monumenten, maar er is geen enkele verklaring voor het verlaten ervan.
De stèles van Tikal National Geographic ontdekte dat we veel te weten zijn gekomen door het ontcijferen van de stèles (monolieten) op de locatie. Maar de hiërogliefen vertellen ons niet of het droogte, ziekte of oorlog was die de inwoners dwong de stad te verlaten.
8. De Nazcalijnen in Peru De Nazcalijnen behoren zonder twijfel tot de grootste mysteries ter wereld. Deze lijnen dateren uit 200 tot 500 na Christus en vormen ingewikkelde afbeeldingen die vanuit de lucht gezien kunnen worden, maar we hebben geen idee hoe de makers ervan dat zo fantastisch hebben gedaan.
De mythe van de Nazcalijnen “Het aantal Nazcalijnen dat in de grond is gekerfd loopt in de duizenden en ze verbeelden wezens uit zowel de natuurlijke wereld als de menselijke verbeelding”, schreef Live Science en voegde eraan toe dat er ongeveer 1500 glyphen zichtbaar zijn op de grond.
9. Het Terracottaleger van Qin Shi Huangdi in China Het 8000 soldaten tellende terracottaleger van de eerste Chinese keizer Qin Shi Huangdi is een bijzondere historische rariteit. Het mysterie achter dit archeologische wonder is niet hoe ze zijn gemaakt, maar waarom? Wat beschermden deze soldaten?
10. Chichén Itzá in Mexico Chichén Itzá is nog zo'n Maya wonder dat baadt in mysterie. Het werd gebouwd in de 6e eeuw en telde volgens National Geographic op het hoogtepunt 50.000 inwoners. Vandaag de dag is het nog steeds een mysterie omdat we niet weten wat er met de inwoners is gebeurd.
"Hoe is het afgelopen met deze bijzondere cultuur?"
"Hoe is het afgelopen met deze bijzondere cultuur? Misschien was het interne oorlog die haar ondergang inluidde, overbevolking, ontbossing of droogte. We zullen het misschien nooit weten", zegt National Geographic.
A batch of Soviet-era UFO documents, allegedly smuggled out in 1993, has been publicly released by acclaimed journalist George Knapp.
Knapp had smuggled the documents out of Russia and subsequently released them three decades later.
Despite the Soviet Union publicly dismissing UFOs publicly, their stance appears to have been very different in private.
The 70-page English translation reveals several layers of UFO inquisitions, including covert investigations spanning from 1979 through the following decades.
However, the underlying curiosity regarding UFOs actually began as early as the 1950s.
Pactrice Picot via Getty Images
Soviet technicals
Beginning in 1953, the Soviets outwardly looked at UFOs as a concoction by “American imperialists.” But internally, curiosity and research was percolating over the years.
A couple of academics and enthusiasts worked in the shadows – engineer Yuri Formin throughout the 1950s and Moscow Aviation Institute academic Felix Ziegel after 1967. While Formin delivered closed UFO lectures to military personnel, Ziegel pushed for international recognition.
The report references analysis of over 700 reliable cases between 1978 and 1983, with military units tasked with observation, registration, and identification of Abnormal Atmosphere Phenomena (AAP).
The document is mostly a military-scientific report, with instances of abnormal aerospace phenomena, including technical analyses including gravitational research and biological effects of the experiencers.
It is written in a largely technical tone, mainly assessing the threat of AAP, and critically – investigating whether the unique features of these craft could be reverse-engineered for Soviet military gain.
The witness accounts
Buried within the dossier are three vivid accounts of various extraterrestrial incidents in the 70’s and 80’s.
On February 13th, 1989, a city-block-sized vessel, in the shape of a jellyfish, flew high above the rooftops of the city of Nalchik, around 250 miles inland.
An overarching red light split into a sequence of green lights, which then converged and scaled up into the sky. Following a 90-minute lull, a prominent UFO loomed over the city, accompanied by a smaller ghost craft that zipped around before retreating upward.
Experiencer Anatoly Malishev, aged 18, was sketching a sunset in his local woodlands of Blagoveshenka, whereby a flaming streak appeared in the sky. Three anthropoid – humanlike – figures zoned towards him.
Malishev was taken to their planet and thoroughly examined, with the aliens concluding “very strong nerves; mental faculties below the average.” The Russian investigators claimed he was of sound mind.
Screenshot from George Knapp's UFO Soviet dossier
On the night of June 27, 1979, A group of children and their guides encountered alien beings when camping near a hillock, in Derzhavinsk, Kazakhstan. A group of boys, along with one of the adults, ventured toward the tree-line and stumbled on, in deep-shock, jet-black beings towering over them (they were about 10 feet tall.).
The following morning one of the girls and a teacher saw one of the pink-eyed beings sitting in a makeshift seat near the mound they camped at. When questioned many months later, all the children that witnessed the event had practically the same details, with no deviation.
Skepticism as a facade
This leak reveals a major secret Soviet program running in parallel to that of the US. Heavy academics like Yuri Formin and Felix Ziegel were the prominent figures in the engine room of extraterrestrial speculation, even if the Soviet Union flexed skeptical on the face of it.
UFOs were a serious, top-tier national concern for both superpowers, shrouded in secrecy. And, as one Redditor shared – the decades where this information occurred is not too far retrospective to warrant, that it’s completely past its sell-by date.
The urgency and scale of the Soviet research program raises significant questions about the specific threats they recognized, and strategic advantages they worked to gain.
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Visitors looking at a model of the Tianggong Space Station. Credit - CGTN / VCG
A major theme in communist governments is the idea of central planning. Every five years, the central authorities in communist countries lay out their goals for the country over the course of the next five years, which can range from limiting infant mortality to increasing agricultural yield. China, the largest current polity ruled by communists, recently released its fifteenth five-year plan, which lays out its priorities for 2026-2030. This one, accompanied by a press release of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s state-owned giant aerospace corporation, has plenty of ambitious goals for its space sector.
Perhaps the most culturally significant part of the announcement is the country’s plans for Tiangong Kaiwu, its space mining project. Named after a foundational 17th century Ming Dynasty Encyclopedia, and roughly translated as “The Exploitation of the Works for Nature,” this project is focused on mining water ice from resources in space.
Most western space mining firms are concentrating on bringing back rare materials, such as platinum and palladium, to Earth as part of their space mining efforts. China, on the other hand, sees the potential for harvesting water, both as a source of biological necessity, but also as a way to split it into rocket fuel. The current plan is focused on feasibility studies, with the next 5 years focused on tech demos of things like robot drills and in-orbit processing, with the intention to scale up to full industrial mining at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Fraser discusses whether he’s concerned about China’s space policy.
From a technical standpoint, the most ambitious plan might not even be feasible. There’s been a lot of hype around the idea of putting data centers in space currently, and the plan mentions building “gigawatt-level space digital infrastructure” as one of its core goals. Space certainly has some advantages over ground-based data centers, such as access to (almost) 24/7 sunlight and no competition for power from other demand centers, such as cities. However, there is one huge technical problem that has yet to be solved for these data-centers in the sky - heat.
While space is typically considered “cold”, more importantly, it is a vacuum. On Earth, data centers require massive cooling systems that constantly run air (or water) over their processors to get rid of the waste heat and stop them from literally burning themselves out. In space, however, there is not such convective solution. Even if you ran air or water over the surface, there’s nowhere else for it to go to cool down. The only way to get rid of the “waste heat” of a gigawatt’s worth of power is to radiate it away using infrared light. In the very real engineering world, doing so would require radiators the size of football fields. Those are well beyond the capabilities that any current space-faring organization has to launch, let alone China with its relatively limited rocket payload sizes. This goal seems more like a direct challenge to SpaceX, which also faces the same technical difficulties, than a realistic assessment of what the country will be capable of achieving in five years.
Another arena of direct competition with SpaceX and its private western competitors is space tourism. China’s organizations do have a leg up here, as they own their own space station, which could serve as a type of “hotel” to space tourists, similar to how SpaceX can host tourists on the international space station. But in a more immediate sense, they’re going to start at the same place SpaceX and Blue Origin started-off - by launching tourists above the Kármán line. On January 12th, CAS Space, a commercial spin-off from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tested a tourist vehicle capable of doing just that.
Video of the CAS Space Lihong-1 Y1 rocket test last month. Credit: VideosFromSpace YouTube Channel
The most nebulous of the goals listed in the press release is an aim to "strengthen China’s role in shaping international regulations for space traffic management…” Here, the second largest country (and economy) in the world is saying that they want more of a say in standards and regulations that will dictate how the space industry operates. Since those frameworks and standards are normally set by Western countries, it's unclear whether China intends to set up competing structures or engage more fully with the existing system to dictate what the future of space infrastructure will look like.
Five-year plans are when governmental goals move from “theoretical” to a guarantee of funding. The contrast with America’s deeply gutted funding for NASA and its science programs more generally couldn’t be starker. As China continues to catch up in the technologies that will define the next stage of space exploration, many of its companies and foundations will look to this plan for guidance. Organizations that hope to compete against them should as well.
Meer van UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
De 10 coolste ondergrondse steden ter wereld
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