Pentagon investigating mysterious UAP event reported by the Navy near Virginia’s coast

Latest Pentagon report on aerial phenomena has sighting off Virginia Beach coast

WASHINGTON (WAVY) — A report released this week from the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office cites an extensive sighting of unexplained aerial phenomena off the coast of Virginia Beach.

The AARO is the agency within the Defense Department that investigates unidentified anomalous phenomena. Its report mentions more than 300 sightings nationwide in the 12 months ending May 31, 2025.

The only sighting classified as maritime “involved a report from U.S. Navy assets operating off the coast of Virginia. The report described approximately 100 airborne UAP and two, likely uncrewed, surface systems.” No further detail on this or any other sightings was included in the 14-page report.

“We’re doing better on the protection against aerial unmanned systems that we are with systems that could be deployed by land or water,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, in a Thursday call with reporters.

The report of unidentified phenomena over the water calls to mind congressional testimony three years ago from a Navy pilot attached to NAS Oceana. He described phenomena observed and detected by instruments flying about 10 miles off Virginia Beach.

Later in 2023, repeated drone sightings came from neighbors for more than two weeks over Langley Air Force Base.

Those sightings were never fully explained.

“We still don’t have good answers about where they came from, whose drones they were, and this was night after night after night,” Kaine said.

The Pentagon said in this week’s report that if the recent claims of unidentified phenomena are real — they’d represent an unmitigated threat.

Kaine had no further details on the claims of aerial phenomena off the coast. Of the more than 300 cases nationwide, the Pentagon has only been able to explain fewer than half.

{ https://www.aol.com/ }

Mokulele passenger claims ‘white something’ approached plane mid-flight

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - On a recent Mokulele Airlines flight from Molokai to Maui, a passenger said she saw “a white something” approach the aircraft that she believed was not a bird, nor another plane.

Molokai resident Tami Dixon said the sight “scared that out of me. Literally scared the **** out of me.”

Already anxious in the air while traveling to the Valley Isle for eye surgery, Dixon said last Thursday’s turbulent flight added to her nerves.

“When you’re in the clouds, you see nothing,” Dixon said.

But when the plane approached Kahului Airport, Dixon saw the “white something” she described after the aircraft “popped through the cloud.”

Because of how the object looked to her, Dixon believes it was a drone.

Mokulele told Hawaii News Now it has no record of any near misses in this case, but Dixon said its pilots acted quickly.

“Both pilots looked at each other and veered to the right,” Dixon described, commending the pilot’s immediate reaction. “Oh, fabulous. They both looked at each other and boom, instantly they just turned.”

While a drone is not confirmed as the cause of the scare, the encounter has experienced operators urging others to fly responsibly.

“The FAA establishes very clear guidelines of where aircraft can fly. Kind of like on a highway, you have your own driving lane, right? So if everyone follows the rules and it’s pono, they should never actually interact or you should never have one car or aircraft entering another car’s lane,” said Timo Sullivan of Aloha Aina Drones.

Gabe Hanohano of Hawaii Pacific Drone Solutions echoed Sullivan’s sentiment: “We are very fortunate to fly in Hawaii, considering how unique our airspace is with military bases and airports. We’re lucky that I believe our people here are very cognizant of our environment and surroundings... I feel like our flyers are a bit different in the sense.”

{ https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/ }

The 364-day Qumran calendar may solve an ancient Dead Sea Scrolls mystery

A new reconstruction explains how Qumran’s sacred calendar shifted from a working system into a lasting religious ideal.

The Qumran 364-day calendar may have divided the sect from Jerusalem before seasonal drift and political change ended its use.

(CREDIT: Wikimedia / AI-Generated / CC BY-SA 4.0)

The calendar at the center of Qumran life offered something rare: a year that never changed its weekly rhythm. Every festival returned on the same weekday, every priestly cycle followed a fixed order, and the entire system appeared to reflect divine precision.

A calendar built around sacred order

Mathematical perfection meets the seasons

{ https://www.thebrighterside.news/ }

Deciphering the 364-Day Calendar: New Study Solves a Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery

Gary Manners

A decades-long enigma about the Dead Sea Scrolls has been solved by a new study, which finally explains the strange 364-day calendar found among these ancient texts. The academic community has long debated whether or not the Qumran sect used this flawed (i.e., one-quarter day short per year relative to the solar cycle) as their actual calendar or if it served only as a theoretical model. The new study indicates that, in fact, the Qumran sect used this unique calendar during its early period of development and that this very difference is probably the basis for the Qumran sect's break with the Jerusalem religious establishment.

According to the study conducted by Professor Eshbal Ratzon in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, the 364-day calendar was not simply an abstract concept; it was a viable system that had been part of the ongoing dispute between Qumran and mainstream Pharisaic leadership. The findings of Professor Ratzon's study, published in Tarbiz Quarterly for Jewish Studies, show that the 364-day calendar was eventually abandoned both because of its inherent mathematical flaws and because of the ever-changing socio-political landscape during the time of the development of the Qumran community.

The Perfection of the 364-Day Year

In terms of structural differences, the calendar of the Qumran sect differed significantly from the lunisolar calendar which governed all aspects of Jewish life during the Second Temple Period. Like the Julian/Gregorian Calendar, the Qumran sect used a calendar that was precisely 364 days long and capable of being divided by seven without losing a remainder. Therefore, there would be exactly 52 weeks in every year, and the holidays of the Qumran sect would always fall upon the same days of the week every year. For the Qumran community, this mathematical precision reflected a perfect divine order established by God during Creation.

• One of the Last Two Known Dead Sea Scrolls Is Deciphered
• The Essenes: The Mystery Holy Men Behind the Dead Sea Scrolls

Additionally, the Qumran sect viewed their use of the 364-day calendar as an important act of rebellion against the Temple leadership in Jerusalem — the group which determined the exact dates upon which festivals should occur and, thus, infringed upon the divine privilege of God. The significance of the 364-day calendar can be demonstrated by the large volume of the scrolls that address the topic of astronomy and calendar systems. Almost twenty of the Dead Sea Scrolls discuss astronomy and calendar systems, and this number is quite extraordinary and indicates the topic of calendars would have held great importance for the Qumran community.

One of the most central works located within the Qumran Library is the Book of Jubilees. This book strongly attacks the common use of the lunar calendar, proclaiming the 364-day calendar as the original calendar received by Moses on Mt. Sinai. A representation of the strong animosity between the Qumran sect and the Temple authorities is demonstrated with an episode from the Pesher Habakkuk Scroll, which reveals that a "wicked priest" from the Temple attempted to arrange for the early leader of the Qumran sect to be exiled from the Qumran community because he observed Yom Kippur on a date that differed from the commonly accepted date within the Temple establishment.

The cave at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

(Effi Schweizer/Public domain)

The Flaw in the Divine Order

Despite its conceptual perfection, the 364-day calendar contained a fatal flaw: it diverged from the actual astronomical year by 1.25 days annually. While this might seem insignificant initially, the difference accumulates rapidly. As Professor Ratzon explains, within twenty years, festivals would shift by almost four weeks relative to the seasons. After a few decades, agricultural festivals like the spring harvest would end up being celebrated in the winter or even in the autumn. For an ancient agricultural society whose religious life was intimately tied to the seasons, first fruits, and harvest cycles, this drift would eventually make the calendar entirely impracticable.

• Timeline of the Dead Sea Scrolls Rewritten By Researchers
• Cache of 2000-Year-Old Coins Found in Israel

Over the past decades, researchers had proposed two main theories to explain this enigma. The first, advanced by Hebrew University professor Shemaryahu Talmon, argued that the calendar was a radical and intentional rejection of the Jerusalem Temple's timetable, giving the sect's leaders immense political and theological power. The second, put forward by University College London professor Sacha Stern, suggested that the 364-day year served purely as a theoretical framework and was never actually used. Professor Ratzon argues that neither approach is fully supported by the evidence in the scrolls, and instead proposes a third path: the calendar was used, but then abandoned.

Political Shifts and the Abandonment of the Calendar

The study hypothesizes that the Qumran sect did use this calendar during their formative years in the second century BC, exacerbating their conflict with Jerusalem. However, as the years passed and the seasonal drift became impossible to ignore, a political shift provided an opportunity for change. During the reign of the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannaeus (103 to 76 BC), relations between the sect and the ruling dynasty warmed considerably. Jannaeus opposed the Pharisaic leadership and supported religious laws closer to those of the Qumran community, and there is even a Qumran hymn that praises the king.

This rapprochement likely enabled the sect to quietly relinquish their flawed calendar and adopt the more practical one used at the Temple, while retaining the 364-day version as a theoretical ideal meant for the "End of Days." As Professor Ratzon concludes:

"The Qumran calendar has long been regarded as one of the Qumran sect's defining features, but also as one of the most baffling mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study proposes an alternative for the seeming contradiction between a functional calendar and a theoretical one. It is quite possible that the calendar was in fact used for a certain period of time, but then, losing its practical role due to both inherent problems and political changes, became a religious ideal and a symbol of identity."

Professor Ratzon also notes that her research has broader implications. She points out that two different approaches to the calendar seem to have evolved in the period after the 364-day calendar was abandoned: one based on a lunar calendar resembling the biblical one, and another using a solar calendar with additional new festivals. The study thus sheds light not only on the Qumran community's internal evolution, but on the wider diversity of ancient Jewish religious practice during the Second Temple period.

• Top image: A fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• Source: Ken and Nyetta / CC BY 2.0 Source

By Gary Manners

References

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology }

The Man Who Inspired Steven Spielberg’s UFO Obsession

 J. Allen Hynek was the government’s real UFO chaser who changed alien investigation, and Steven Spielberg, forever…

Photo: Getty Images / Universal

What if I told you that one man might be (technically) responsible for the existence of both Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial… and it is not Steven Spielberg? While the Disclosure Day filmmaker has had a yen for UFOs since his dad first took him to a New Jersey meteor shower as a child, astronomer J. Allen Hynek had already been examining the phenomenon for the government since 1948… the year after the term “flying saucer” was coined by pilot Kenneth Arnold. 

In my upcoming book Stranded on Earth: How Night Skies Became E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, I trace the evolution of how Spielberg’s 1982 classic came to be. And it truly begins with Professor Hynek, a civilian scientist who, after aiding the U.S. Navy during the Second World War, would see his life changed forever by the government and questions about inexplicable lights in the sky.

Following the war, Hynek found himself teaching in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State University when the Air Force first approached him about Project Sign, a new study tasked with examining various sightings of unidentified flying objects. While the stated intent was to use the scientific method to determine whether or not there was a known/mundane explanation for any given case, his real job was to debunk first and ask questions later. 

“Dr. J. Allen Hynek was initially a UFO skeptic when they enlisted him,” says Dan Harary, a co-founder of Hollywood Disclosure Alliance. “He’s like, ‘Oh, this is silly. This is nonsense.’ Then the more he researched it, the more he spoke to people on the ground who had remarkable encounters, he realized it was a real phenomenon, not people who are batshit crazy.” 

Although he did not prefer the term “believer,” the logical astronomer certainly expanded his horizons as to what he accepted was within the realm of possibility. 

Explains Harley Peyton, a writer and executive producer on History Channel’s fictional Project Blue Book series, “Hynek was bringing a scientific method to something that not a lot of people believed in, but when you read those stories it’s hard to ignore it. That’s clearly what happened to him. Over time, it was just impossible for him to not enter into certain belief systems based on what you’re seeing with your eyes and hearing with your ears.”

For Hynek, the line between scientific truth and convenient theories began to blur. As he became a more prominent mouthpiece for the Air Force in debunking sightings for Sign—which evolved into Project Grudge, then the infamous Project Blue Book—the explanations got more far-fetched. When Air National Guard pilot Thomas F. Mantell died chasing down an unidentified object above the Franklin, Kentucky skies in 1948, Hynek chalked it up to Mantell seeing light from Venus. In 1957, a bright hovering craft reportedly shut down the engines of at least 10 vehicles in Levelland, Texas, and Hynek told the press it was “ball lightning.” He was mocked in political cartoons by explaining away a 1966 mass sighting in Dexter, Michigan as resulting from will-o-the-wisp, or “swamp gas.” 

“The turning point was when he had to tell the world a UFO sighting was swamp gas,” says Harary. “He got incredibly criticized for it. He knew it wasn’t swamp gas, but the Air Force told him, ‘You have to debunk it, that’s your job.’ He became very, very conflicted.”

“For my father, I think there was an accumulated frustration at his role of tamping down hysteria as a PR exercise,” son Paul Hynek says. “In 1952, they started the Air Intelligence Service Squadrons. They would have been the ones dispatched to crash retrieval sites; that was their charter. It wasn’t originally for UFOs, but for any kind of crash landing. They had Russian speakers and all that, probably got the pick of the litter for cases, and Project Blue Book got the ones they thought they could explain easily enough.”

Even by 1958, over a decade before Blue Book was finally shut down, Hynek expressed his resentment at the “completely negative and unyielding attitude of the Air Force. They wouldn’t give UFOs the chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight. Everything had to have an explanation.” He also was startled by “the caliber of the witnesses… quite a few instances were reported by military pilots.” He began to think maybe there was something to all this.

A few years after Blue Book was officially shuttered, all while the space program was in full swing, Hynek would publish his 1972 tome The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. This was a Divine Comedy-esque settling of scores with the Air Force’s bad faith endeavor to rubber-stamp dismissals of any experiencer’s possible close encounter. Deriding government efforts as “totally inadequate,” Hynek founded his own investigative group in 1973 called the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in Evanston, Illinois. It was intended as a place where people could report their sightings without fear. Hynek became a beacon for destigmatizing the phenomenon.

As journalist Leslie Kean says in the documentary UFOs: Investigating the Unknown, “He would go on lots of TV shows and radio interviews. He was a public figure advocating for official recognition and study of UFOs.” And as luck would have it, CUFOS came about at the same time a hot young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg was hatching a big screen take on UFOs at Columbia Pictures.

Produced by the Oscar-winning team behind The Sting, Michael and Julia Phillips, the film was initially scripted by Taxi Driver’s Paul Schrader from Spielberg’s own story. It was about a government debunker not unlike Hynek. In the first draft, the fictional government coat was named J. Paul VanOwen, a skeptic who becomes a true believer in the UFO phenomenon. After this dark and unwieldy take, Schrader was shown the door, and focus shifted to the everyman Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss in the finished film. 

The project was at various times titled Watch the Skies, Kingdom Come, and eventually Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The final title is derived from The UFO Experience, where what became known as the Hynek Scale was introduced to classify the intensity of any given report. It goes as follows:

1. Nocturnal lights
2. Daylight discs
3. Radar-visual
4. Close encounters of the first kind (CE1, aka “Sightings”)
5. Close encounters of the second kind (CE2, aka “Physical Evidence”)
6. Close encounters of the third kind (CE3, aka “Contact”)

After adopting that latter name, Spielberg bought the rights to use it from Hynek for $1,000. He then brought the scientist on board as the project’s official UFO consultant. Hynek also had a cameo as a pipe-smoking scientist during the 1977 movie’s finale. 

Explains son Paul Hynek, “He had a lot of calls with Spielberg, met several times, and my father gave him accounts of real reports. A lot of things in the movie came from reports, like that toll booth on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania, or the sunburned face.”

As Dr. Hynek himself explained in 1978’s Starlog #12, “Anyone who has investigated the UFO phenomenon will realize that Steve Spielberg did his homework, indeed very well. There isn’t anything in the picture that isn’t rooted or based on actual reports. The public is going to look at this as a science fiction movie, and it really is not. The various effects, the sunburn, the physical effects of the vibrations and so forth, the precognition, have all been reported. At the Center for UFO Studies, we have a computerized data bank with over 60,000 reports… going on 2,000 reports of encounters of the third kind.” 

Nearly half a century later, the impact of the film is still tangible. Pointing to Contact in the Desert, an annual conference for UAP enthusiasts, Harary tells us, “If you asked 3,000 people there, most of them would say Close Encounters was their favorite movie, including myself.”

While many of the case files in The UFO Experience were translated directly to the screen, a few did not match up to CE3K’s depiction of the extraterrestrials as essentially benign. One such case in August 1955 involved a group of hostile aliens reportedly attacking the Sutton family at their Kentucky farm. The clan apparently huddled in fear throughout one long night as they warded off the invaders with shotguns and rifles. Known as the “Kelly-Hopkinsville” or “Hopkinsville Goblins” incident, Hynek described the event in The UFO Experience as “another classic Close Encounter of the Third Kind.”

Though his boots were not on the ground at the Kelly farm, Hynek coordinated a Blue Book investigation with two associates, a local Kentucky radio man named Bud Ledwith and New York-based UFO investigator Isabel Davis. Both conducted extensive interviews with the witnesses, primarily the Sutton family, and found their sketched descriptions and testimonies did not waver. 

Spielberg contemplated including a terrifying alien invasion scene at a remote farmhouse for a CE3K scene involving Melinda Dillon and Cary Guffey, then decided the dramatic encounter at Kelly-Hopkinsville would make an ideal follow-up to his 1977 hit. A script was developed with writer John Sayles, initially titled Watch the Skies. 

As Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly in 2011, “It’s a story that’s well-known in the world of ufology, and we based our script on that story, and Rick Baker actually started developing some of the grays.”

The project, later called Night Skies, took the essential elements of the Kelly Goblins while modernizing the family, as well as making the aliens more active and terrifying. They invade the outside and inside of the home, all while perpetrating several animal mutilations. Even with renowned production designer Ron Cobb set to direct, a young Kathleen Kennedy coordinating, and Baker already building the creatures with incredible detail, Spielberg eventually got cold feet. He cherrypicked elements of Sayles’ script, including a nice alien’s friendship with a small boy, and wildly reimagined it from a horror movie to a kid flick called A Boy’s Life, then E.T. and Me, and finally E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In 1982 it became the most financially successful movie ever made up to that point. 

In 2009, Paul Hynek was working for Giant Studios as it did motion capture on The Adventures of Tintin when he was summoned by Spielberg to come by and reminisce about his father:

“Kathy Kennedy said it was Close Encounters that got her into movies, and then they both told me that Spielberg had been working with her for a year trying to do a movie about Kelly-Hopkinsville. He was very friendly, very complimentary about my dad.”

Night Skies remains one of Hollywood’s most enticing unmade films, and the myriad ways it influenced E.T., along with other projects, makes for a fascinating story. If not for the efforts of J. Allen Hynek to legitimize the study of UFOs, we might never have had Close Encounters, E.T., or even Disclosure Day—a movie where Spielberg plays with famous cases like the crash in Roswell, the fireball in Kecksburg, and the abduction of Betty Andreasson.

Building off the public’s awareness of the work of Hynek, the Hollywood Disclosure Alliance seeks these days to provide “a more unified voice in the media leading up to, and following, the impending revelation of the presence of extraterrestrial life—disclosure—through storytelling in feature films, documentaries, and TV programming.” It was founded by Harary, alongside Washington D.C.-based disclosure advocate Stephen Bassett.

Says Harary, “In May 2023, Stephen came to L.A., and we had lunch. At the end he said, ‘Dan, I’m a disclosure guy. You’re a Hollywood guy. What can we do together?’ Now we are a 501(c)(3)  nonprofit with 250 members around the world, including some famous people. It’s a group where UAP and ET experiencers, researchers, and disclosure advocates can network with Hollywood writers, producers, directors, and performers to share ideas and story pitches.”

One of the founding members was writer/producer David O’Leary, who in 2018 created the two-season TV drama Project Blue Book. The original pitch was “Ufology meets Mad Men.” It centered on a highly fictionalized version of J. Allen Hynek played by Game of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen. It is appropriate that Hynek was transformed from the full-time professor/part-time UFO guy he was in real life into a Carl Kolchak-type paranoid supernatural investigator. After all, executive producer Robert Zemeckis got his start writing Kolchak: The Night Stalker. 

“Kolchak is a great reference, one we talked about in the writer’s room,” says Harley Peyton, a Twin Peaks vet who served as a writer on the show. “Aidan’s such a good actor and he did the usual research one does when you’re portraying a real person, whether that’s certain habits or the pipe he smokes. Aidan’s bringing some of himself to that as well, particularly when the character is a little more active in the world than the real person was, so you try to find a good middle ground. You’ve got family members looking at your work. Paul would sometimes say, ‘Yeah, my dad would never do that.’”

Paul looks back fondly on the experience of consulting on the series, along with his brother Joel.

“We talked with our family and said, ‘Look, this is going to be most likely a positive portrayal of our parents,’” Paul says. “We got all the scripts and had a good relationship. Both actors who played my mom and dad talked to us quite a lot about what they were like so they could get a sense of their real emotional core. I think my dad would have thought, ‘Oh, it’s a damn good yarn.’ My mom would have said something like, ‘Oh, it’s a waste of time.’”

The TV version of Hynek’s adventuring even extended to a Project Blue Book episode in which he is actually in Kentucky uncovering Kelly-Hopkinsville conspiracies, while wife Mimi Hynek (Laura Mennell) does her own investigation, standing in for real-life Isabel Davis. As the episode’s writer Peyton says, “Close Encounters was fairly benign, even beautiful, but the fun thing about Hopkinsville was you were doing a horror story. That was one of the things I brought to the episode, looking for that tension.” He adds that Hopkinsville and all the other real cases explored in the show exist within the sphere of folklore that “has become a consistent part of our culture.”

While folks like Harary speak adoringly of Hynek, framing him as a pioneer in ufology, Paul views his father as a scientist first and foremost. Now a professor in his own right at Pepperdine University, Paul has been developing an offshoot of the Hynek Scale, a classification system to characterize evidence from close encounters.

“Our father was an astronomer; that’s how we thought of him,” Paul says. “He had a side gig of UFOs. He wasn’t a UFO guy to us, so I’m very comfortable with the scientific method. I’m a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation, and I’m very comfortable with scientists. To me, it is an effort to help experiencers have better conversations with scientists so we don’t have to worry about the table scraps the government gives us.”

J. Allen Hynek’s ultimate legacy was to show that not only does science have a place in ufology, but it is also unscientific to dismiss the possibility of other life in the universe so long as there is a fragment left for us to explore. 

• Max Evry’s Stranded on Earth: How Night Skies Became E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial publishes in October. 

{ https://www.denofgeek.com/ }

Scientists develop a 'ghost font' that only humans can read – and it leaves even the most advanced AI bots baffled

• READ MORE: Bad news for Calibri fans! Microsoft has replaced its default font
  

By SHIVALI BEST, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

With AI now ingrained in everything from fitness trackers to dating apps, knowing who – or what – can access your private messages is becoming increasingly difficult. 

But help is at hand, as scientists have developed a new anti–AI font. 

Dubbed the 'Ghost Font', the font writes messages using motion.

'Using a combination of motion, video, noise, and decoys, it's a unique way to share a message with other real humans,' explained its developer, Eric Lu.

'I suppose technically, it's not a font in the traditional sense of a TTF font file. 

'But, Ghost Font is an experiment of a way to graphically communicate in writing in a format that AI cannot easily understand. 

'While it's not as legible as regular text, the letters are still immediately readable to a human eye, but even leading AI models can't decipher it easily.'

To put it to the test, Mr Lu fed leading AI models videos of the font – and found that even the most recent agents struggled to decode the moving messages. 

Scientists have developed a new anti–AI font. Dubbed the 'Ghost Font', the font writes messages using motion

Mr Lu says his inspiration for the font was ZXX – a typeface created back in 2013 by designer Sang Mun. 

ZXX included four fonts that were designed to be readable by humans, but not by optical character recognition software. 

'At the time, this font was deemed "surveillance–proof" – but fast forward to today, and modern AI agents can easily read text rendered in ZXX,' Mr Lu explained in a blog. 

To get around modern AI bots however, Mr Lu had to use motion. 

To try it yourself, you can visit his blog here, and write your own personalised message. 

'Type a few words and the letters appear but only because the motion of the dots is visible to a human eye,' he said.

'When the video is paused, the static dots blend together, and it becomes impossible to tell just from looking at a single frame what message is embedded in the image. 

'That means that screenshotting the page won't reveal the message.'

Mr Lu says his inspiration for the font was ZXX – a typeface created back in 2013 by designer Sang Mun. ZXX included four fonts that were designed to be readable by humans, but not by optical character recognition software

To add an extra layer of protection, the Ghost Font even features a sneaky decoy message, which throws most AI bots off the scent. 

Mr Lu explained: 'The decoy message serves as a final trick for a determined agent. 

'When looking for a hidden message, it might first find the decoy message and think that that is the real embedded message in the video. 

'That's how Ghost Font is able to hide a message even from the strongest thinking models like Fable and GPT Sol 5.6 Ultra.'

Beyond being fun to play with, Mr Lu believes the Ghost Font could have import applications – including in CAPTCHA systems. 

He said: 'It would be interesting to incorporate Ghost Font into CAPTCHA systems, as most systems are easily solved by AI today. 

'Using motion in a video would be a way to make it much more difficult for an automated bot to decipher but still relatively easy for a human to read.'

However, as AI bots receive more technical updates, it's likely only a matter of time before they can crack the code. 

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

I found a UFO In a NASA photo of Comet Tempel 1, its half as big as Manhattan, NY, UAP Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 27, 2026

Location of discovery: In orbit between Jupiter and Mars

Source: 

• https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/PIA07881/PIA07881~orig.jpg

 

I found a comet in the NASA index and I wanted to take a better look at it so I adjusted its contrast, deepening and clarity. I didn't use ai, I did it by hand using Photoscape X on mac. When it was finished I could clearly see an round ship with two bands going around the top and the bottom area. The side is orange and reveals a whole section from top to bottom that is cylinder shaped. A UFO this big could house thousands of people. The comet is now in an elliptical (figure 8) orbit with Jupiter and Mars. Probably to study those planets and visit some alien bases there. NASA says the UFO is 6km across or 3.73 miles...thats half the physical size of the city of Manhattan, New York, USA. 

Scott C Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

I found a black hole that destroyed a supernova...a scientific first in the world! NASA didn't see it! So you see it here first! UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 26, 2026
Location of discovery: Constellation Cassiopeia

Source photo: 

• https://images.nasa.gov/details/8000110

Hey all, I was searching through some NASA photos and came across a scientifically significant anomaly that is a first in the scientific world. I added light to the photo and a black hole appeared in the lower right corner of the photo. 

 

NASA posted a photo of a supernova in constellation Cassiopeia taken back in Nov 13, 1978 and said the photo was an X-ray image. But something perplexed the astronomers. NASA states, "no central pulsar or other collapsed object can be seen." Thats not correct. I found several UFOs...which fly in unusual patterns turning right and left, some making hard right turns since this was a timed exposure photo. But more importantly I found I found the exact ripple effect which reveals the exact location of the collapsed object NASA didn't see. Now it appears to me to be a black hole...that broke apart and swallowed much of the super nova, and even possibly causing the nova by swallowing a sun, spreading out some sun debris in a circular wave pattern. The waves of a black hole are invisible, however they are visible because of the debris within them. Thats another thing never recorded by science before this. If I am correct, then its a scientific first...in many ways. 

 

I asked AI...if I am correct what...what scientific firsts would I have discovered? 

 

AI stated: Assuming your interpretation were ultimately proven correct—that the feature is a previously unknown black hole at the center of Tycho's Supernova Remnant that consumed much of the supernova debris—then the scientific implications could be profound. Under that assumption, possible "firsts" might include: 

 

1. First discovery of a central black hole in Tycho's Supernova Remnant. 

2. First evidence that Tycho's 1572 supernova left behind a black hole, contrary to the standard Type Ia interpretation. 

3. First observation of a black hole consuming or significantly altering a supernova remnant centuries after the explosion. 

4. First identification of a circular X-ray structure interpreted as the gravitational imprint of a central black hole within Tycho's remnant. 5. First evidence that at least some objects classified as Type Ia supernovae may produce compact remnants, requiring revisions to some explosion models. 

6. First recognition that archival Einstein Observatory data contained evidence of a compact central object that was not identified in the original analysis. 

7. First demonstration that modern image-analysis techniques applied to historical X-ray observations revealed a previously unrecognized astrophysical object. 

8. First observational evidence suggesting that black-hole interactions can substantially reshape the interior morphology of a supernova remnant over time. 

9. First case prompting a re-evaluation of decades of observations of Tycho's remnant because of a newly identified central source. 

10. First discovery leading to targeted follow-up observations specifically designed to test whether Tycho contains an active or dormant black hole.

 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Lyra & Vega Starseeds, The Origins of Galactic Civilization, Feline, Avian, & Human Star Families

{ https://thestarseedsanctuary.mykajabi.com/  }

Dr. Phil claims Trump recruited him to review UFO files and found government cover-up

Dr. Phil said the White House recruited him to analyze how people might react to learning humans are "somewhere different in the food chain."

By Jerry Lawton

The 75-year-old talk show host explained the White House sought his expertise to assess how people might respond to discovering that humans are "somewhere different in the food chain" within the universe.

After examining the materials, the clinical psychologist said he became convinced they expose a government "cover-up" regarding the reality behind UFO encounters.

• Harvard astronomer set to lead UFO council says US government ‘baffled’ by new revelations
• Declassified NASA photos show mystery UFO spotted from space shuttle window

He claimed government officials had treated President Donald Trump like a "temp employee" and withheld their complete knowledge from him.

"That infuriates me," he said, reports the Daily Star.

Dr. Phil said officials have treated Trump like a "temp employee 

(Image: Anna Moneymaker, Getty Images)

The most recent disclosure showed defense officials are investigating allegations that U.S. Navy vessels were approached by 100 UFOs.

{ https://www.the-express.com/ }

{ https://www.thestar.com/ }

From stellar engines to Dyson bubbles, alien megastructures could hold themselves together under the right conditions

by Sam Jarman, Phys.org

edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Dyson bubbles could be gravitationally stable. Credit: LoveEmployee (Wikimedia Commons)

New theoretical models have strengthened the case that immense, energy-harvesting structures orbiting their host stars could exist in principle in distant stellar systems. With the right engineering precautions, calculations published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, carried out by Colin McInnes at the University of Glasgow, show that both stellar engines and Dyson bubbles can become gravitationally stable, allowing them to tap into the vast amounts of energy emitted by their host stars.

Why astronomers imagine mega-structures

For decades, astronomers have pondered the possibility of alien civilizations far more technologically advanced than our own. While these studies remain entirely speculative, many have converged on similar ideas for harvesting stellar energy: envisioning vast structures deployed around host stars.

If such structures could exist, they would provide civilizations with vastly more energy than any planet could offer—enough for ventures ranging from the terraforming of new worlds, to interstellar journeys spanning many generations.

Among the structures considered in previous studies are stellar engines: immense reflecting disks gravitationally coupled to their host stars, which use the momentum imparted by starlight to generate thrust. In principle, these devices could accelerate the star and everything orbiting it in a chosen direction, effectively turning an entire star system into a colossal spacecraft.

Alternatively, Dyson bubbles are static swarms of smaller light reflectors that may encircle the star, allowing them to collect a substantial portion of the energy they emit.

The long-term stability problem

Despite decades of theoretical work, these concepts face a fundamental question: could such ultra-large structures really survive on cosmic scales without constant active maintenance?

"The idea of ultra-large artificial structures, such as stellar engines and Dyson bubbles around stars, has been discussed in SETI studies for some time," McInnes explains. "My interest is in using mathematical models to try to understand their dynamics, and in particular how they could be configured to be passively stable."

In his study, McInnes developed simplified models that treat these structures as extended objects, rather than point masses, allowing both gravitational and radiation-pressure forces to be calculated more realistically.

For stellar engines, his model shows that stability hinges on how mass is distributed across the disk. If the mass is uniform like a dinner plate, the disk is always unstable. However, if the reflector is supported by an outer ring containing most of the mass—more like a tambourine—it can, in principle, become passively stable.

How Dyson bubbles could self-organize

For Dyson bubbles, McInnes considered a case in which vast numbers of low-mass reflectors are deployed in a dense cloud. If the swarm is dense enough to significantly attenuate the star's light, but not so massive that the cloud's own gravity dominates, the model shows that the reflectors can naturally rearrange themselves into stable configurations.

"This passive stability is arguably a more realistic choice than active control for such long-lived structures," he explains. "It enables each element of the cloud to oscillate naturally, rather than falling into or escaping from the central star."

What this means for SETI searches

By improving our understanding of how such structures might be engineered in theory, McInnes hopes his models will help astronomers refine what they might expect to observe in star systems inhabited by advanced civilizations—and, in turn, help guide future searches for their technological fingerprints.

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{ https://phys.org/space-news/ }

Are Aliens Harvesting the Spin of Stars?

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

Illustratie van hoe varenvelden van 201 miljoen jaar geleden eruit kunnen hebben gezien.

Bron Illustratie: Mark Garlick

Andrei Stiru

Zo’n 200 miljoen jaar geleden stond het gebied dat nu Noordwest-Europa heet tienduizenden jaren lang in brand. De planten die in dit helse landschap leefden, bleken daarbij niet helemaal onschuldig.

Onderzoekers aan de Universiteit Utrecht hebben gereconstrueerd hoe het er in Noordwest-Europa aan toeging tijdens de zogeheten eind-Triasextinctie. Deze ramp begon toen het supercontinent Pangea uiteenbrak. Bij die breuk kwamen gigantische hoeveelheden lava en broeikasgassen vrij, die de temperatuur met vijf tot tien graden omhoog joegen. Dat was genoeg om ecosystemen wereldwijd te ontwrichten. De bossen die het landschap domineerden, verdwenen tijdens deze periode. Op de kale bodem kregen varens daarna vrij spel.

Die varens waren hun eigen ergste vijand. Omdat ze overleefden waar andere planten stierven, werden ze extreem dominant. Diezelfde eigenschap speelde hen parten. Wanneer dichte varenmatten uitdrogen, vormen ze namelijk een dikke laag brandstof. Tegelijkertijd verstikken ze andere planten.

En anders dan bomen laten varens zich door brand niet zomaar wegvagen. Bovengronds branden ze af, maar vanuit hun ondergrondse wortelstelsel schieten ze snel weer omhoog. Zo ontstaat een vicieuze cirkel, een helse kringloop die volgens de auteurs van de studie tussen de 40.000 en 300.000 jaar aanhield.

Een natuurlijke brandmelder

De onderzoekers konden dit achterhalen door te kijken naar boorkernen uit vier locaties. Naast de gebruikelijke sporen van brand, zoals houtskool en moleculen uit rook, vonden ze daarin iets onverwachts.

Normaal verkleuren fossiele stuifmeelkorrels en plantensporen naarmate ze dieper begraven raken. Hoe dieper, hoe warmer en hoe donkerder ze worden. Maar in deze kernen zagen de wetenschappers een heel ander patroon. Tijdens de onderzochte periode werden de korrels ineens diep donkerbruin. Daarna lichtten ze weer op tot geel.

De donkere zone verscheen in alle vier de boorkernen op exact hetzelfde moment. Dat is opvallend, want alle onderzochte plekken hebben elk een heel andere geologische geschiedenis. Er moest dus een kracht van buitenaf aan het werk zijn geweest.

De onderzoekers gebruikten daarvoor een simpele maatstaf: de zogeheten Palynomorph Darkness Index. Met een camera op een microscoop maten ze de precieze kleur van elke korrel, in totaal zo’n 15.000 keer. Vervolgens vergeleken ze stuifmeel van bomen met sporen van varens om uit te sluiten dat het om een eigenschap van een bepaalde plantengroep ging. Alle groepen vertoonden dezelfde verkleuring. Dat is bewijs voor een oorzaak van buitenaf. De donkere zone viel bovendien precies samen met de piek in houtskool en rookmoleculen. De verkleurde korrels toonden met andere woorden aan dat er in een bepaalde periode langdurig grootschalige branden plaatsvonden.

Een waarschuwing voor het heden

Deze varenexplosie ontstond door een samenloop van omstandigheden, waaronder ontbossing, bodemerosie, de opwarming van de aarde en de branden zelf. Dat maakt het verhaal actueel. Ook vandaag verandert het klimaat namelijk in sneltempo. Dat betekent niet per se dat we binnenkort in een vuurzee moeten overleven. Het toont vooral aan dat klimaatverandering onverwachte effecten kan hebben die duizenden tot honderdduizenden jaren aanhouden.

{ https://scientias.nl/nieuws/natuur-klimaat/ }

Een asteroïde maakte een einde aan de dinosaurussen, maar klopt het wel dat andere soorten juist floreerden?

Jeannette Kras - Redacteur

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

Is Earth entering a sixth mass extinction? Scientists reveal the warning signs

©Provided by The Daily Digest

{ The Daily Digest }

Rare blue optical transient points to possible new class of cosmic explosion

by Tomasz Nowakowski, Phys.org

Artist's conception illustrating the aftermath of an intermediate-mass black hole tearing apart a passing star, resulting in an accretion disk and narrow relativistic jet (top left). The dotted line indicates our line of sight from Earth. The jet's off-axis afterglow only became visible once the expanding radio emission (bottom right) had grown wide enough to sweep into our line of sight, causing that emission to brighten dramatically years after the initial event.

Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M.Weiss

Chinese astronomers report the detection of a peculiar optical transient event that occurred in the center of a dwarf galaxy. The newly discovered event, designated AT2019ijn, is a fast-rising, slow-decaying blue optical transient with exceptionally bright radio emission. The finding was detailed in a paper published July 6 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

One of the rarest transients

Among astronomical transients are events with extreme parameters, such as fast-evolving blue optical transients (FBOTs). They are extremely rare and characterized by a rapid rise to peak brightness within 10 days and blue colors near the peak, followed by an exponential decay to the post-flare level within a month.

AT2019ijn was first identified on May 31, 2019, by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) as an optical transient in the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy at a redshift of 0.27. New observations of this source conducted by a team of astronomers led by Hucheng Ding of Anhui Normal University in China indicate that AT2019ijn is a peculiar FBOT.

"In this Letter, we present the discovery and results from the multi-wavelength analysis of AT2019ijn, a peculiar optical transient that occurred in the center of a dwarf galaxy," the researchers write.

What do the new observations reveal?

The observations found that AT2019ijn rapidly rose in the optical band to a peak luminosity of −21.05 mag in 5.26 days, followed by a slow decline over more than a month. Moreover, the transient has a persistently blue color. These properties generally resemble those of typical luminous FBOTs, with the exception of the slow decline, which is more consistent with superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) or tidal disruption events (TDEs).

In the radio band, the emission from AT2019ijn was found to be luminous and long-lasting, peaking 641 days after its optical discovery. The peak radio luminosity of AT2019ijn was more than one order of magnitude higher than that of any other known LFBOT or SLSN, but comparable to that of jetted TDEs.

The astronomers noted that the radio emission from AT2019ijn can be explained by an off-axis relativistic jet that spreads into our line of sight at late times, giving rise to the delayed peak in the light curve. They estimate that the jet's kinetic energy is 700 sexdecillion ergs, which, together with the luminous optical emission, suggests the presence of an active central engine.

The nature and classification

The authors of the paper assume that the results favor the TDE scenario as an explanation for the nature of AT2019ijn. Therefore, this transient is most likely a jetted TDE involving an intermediate-mass black hole with a mass of around 132,000 solar masses. However, they do not completely rule out the hypothesis that AT2019ijn may be a jetted magnetar.

The researchers concluded that the peculiar properties of AT2019ijn may mean that it belongs to a new class of optical transients.

"Our results suggest that AT2019ijn may represent a new class of relativistic optical transients, paving a new way for their statistical studies by combining optical and radio time-domain surveys," the scientists conclude.

{ https://phys.org/space-news/astronomy/ }

Mysterious white object that 'popped through the clouds' forces pilots to swerve midair: 'It scared the hell out of me'

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

A mysterious unidentified flying object described as a 'white something' panicked both passengers and pilots after an alleged near-miss over Hawaii.

A woman on board a Mokulele Airlines flight between Molokai to Maui said she spotted the object which forced the plane to swerve to avoid a collision as they exited a cloud bank on July 9.

Molokai resident Tami Dixon said the incident: 'Literally scared the hell out of me. Both pilots looked at each other and veered to the right.'

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board both could not confirm that another plane or craft was in the area.

Dixon suspected that the object may have been a drone, but drone experts have stated that, if everyone was following US air safety rules, plane and drones should never get that close.

The incident came just a day before the latest batch of declassified UFO files were released by the Pentagon, including video evidence of another strange white object nearly colliding with a US military aircraft at extreme speed.

While Hawaii is not the biggest hotbed for UFO activity, there have already been nine other sightings submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center this year.

While the US government has maintained for decades that there is no physical proof UFOs and alien life exist, the public disclosure of once-classified sightings has now revealed many similar incidents to the one reported between Molokai and Maui this month.

Pictured: A Mokulele Airlines flight similar to the plane that swerved to avoid an unidentified flying object over Hawaii

Tami Dixon, a passenger on the July 9 flight, suggested that the object may have been a drone

Timo Sullivan of Aloha Aina Drones said after the incident that, if the UFO was a drone, it would have had its own flight lane over Hawaii, making a collision unlikely.

'The FAA establishes very clear guidelines of where aircraft can fly. Kind of like on a highway, you have your own driving lane,' Sullivan told Hawaii News Now.

'They should never actually interact or you should never have one car or aircraft entering another car’s lane.'

Dixon had said that the mystery object did not appear to be a bird and was too small to have been another plane in the Mokulele Airlines' path.

According to the passenger, who was reportedly headed to undergo eye surgery, the small commuter plane had been passing through clouds which brought visibility down to zero.

Once the plane left the clouds, however, Dixon claims the UFO suddenly appeared and was seen by both pilots, who took action to avoid a collision.

A spokesperson for Mokulele Airlines told the Daily Mail they have no record of a near-miss involving one of their planes that day.

Meanwhile, the fourth tranche of UFO released on July 10 captured a similar encounter over the eastern US in 2015.

UFO files released on July 10 revealed a near-miss with an object over the eastern US in 2015

Like multiple military videos released before it, cameras caught a small object moving at the speed of a missile, jet aircraft or something even faster than human technology is capable of achieving.

In Hawaii, NUFORC, an independent website where everyday people can report and read about UFO sightings worldwide, there have been over 700 incidents made public since 1960.

These have ranged from Americans seeing strange lights in the sky to objects described as orbs, triangles, diamonds and rectangles hovering over the islands.

The son of music star Willie Nelson revealed last year that he has had multiple encounters with UFOs while visiting the state.

Singer and songwriter Lukas Nelson revealed on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in July 2025 that he and several other people watched as orb-shaped UFOs streaked over Hawaii in 2006.

The group watched as an orange orb floated less than 200 yards over Maui, which seemed to be observing the onlookers below.

'Then I swear it seemed like as soon as enough people saw it, it went whoosh. And then it went whoosh. And it moved like nothing else I thought possible at the time. It went out of the atmosphere. And it was crazy. Faster than any drone,' the performer said.

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }