This Woman Claimed the First Humans Were Androgynous Beings from Lemuria, Which She Believed Came Before Atlantis and Was Humanity’s First Home

This woman claimed Lemuria came first: a vast continent in the Pacific that served as the birthplace of the Third “Root Race.” These weren’t modern humans. She described them as androgynous, psychic beings that reproduced by laying eggs before biological sex, as we know it, even existed.

According to 19th-century occultist Helena Blavatsky, Atlantis wasn’t humanity’s beginning. It was the aftermath. She lived from 1831 to 1891 and became a major figure in modern Western occultism. In 1875, she helped establish the Society in New York with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and others.

Blavatsky argued that the world’s religions came from an older hidden wisdom preserved by advanced teachers called Masters or Mahatma

Her writing combined Hindu and Buddhist ideas with Western esotericism, Neoplatonism, spiritualism, contemporary science, and her own cosmic history. Supporters saw her as a restorer of ancient wisdom. Critics accused her of invention, fraud, and borrowing. Her influence is not in doubt.

Atlantis Before Blavatsky

Plato described a powerful island empire beyond the Pillars of Hercules, usually identified with the Strait of Gibraltar. The island was said to be larger than Libya and Asia Minor combined. Its rulers commanded a strong navy and tried to conquer lands around the Mediterranean.

In Plato’s story, Atlantis attacked ancient Athens about nine thousand years before the dialogue’s supposed conversation. Athens defeated it. Soon afterward, earthquakes and floods destroyed the island.

Plato said the account passed through Egyptian priests to the lawgiver Solon, but no matching Egyptian record has been found. Many scholars therefore read Atlantis as a philosophical story about power, pride, moral decay, and punishment rather than a reliable report about a prehistoric empire.

This moral structure was important for Blavatsky. Plato’s Atlantis fell after political ambition and ethical decline. Blavatsky expanded that pattern.

In her version, Atlantis was a real ancient civilization with great knowledge and psychic abilities. It fell because many inhabitants became selfish, corrupt, and willing to misuse their powers.

How Blavatsky Changed Lemuria

Blavatsky took the scientific name and gave it a completely new meaning. In The Secret Doctrine, Lemuria became the home of the Third Root Race of humanity. Atlantis became the home of the Fourth Root Race.

These “Root Races” were not simply ethnic groups in the modern sense. They were vast stages in a spiritual and physical evolution that, according to Blavatsky, unfolded over immense periods.

Each stage had its own form of humanity, its own continent, and its own role in the growth of consciousness. Blavatsky’s system included seven Root Races in total.

Blavatsky’s language about race came from the nineteenth century and is deeply problematic today. Her system sometimes mixed spiritual rank, physical development, continents, and living peoples in ways that created racial hierarchies.

Later occult movements developed some of these ideas in more openly racist directions. It is therefore important to understand “Root Race” as a historical Theosophical term. It is not a scientific category or an acceptable modern description of human differences.

The First Root Races

In Blavatsky’s system, the first two Root Races were not physical humans like us. They were shadowy or subtle beings.

The First Root Race was described as nonphysical and lacking ordinary self-consciousness. These beings did not have solid bodies, bones, or separate sexes. They were closer to spiritual forms than physical organisms.

The Second Root Race was denser but still not fully material. Blavatsky called these beings “boneless” because they had not yet developed complete physical bodies.

These early beings did not reproduce in the familiar human way. The story uses images of division, budding, expansion, and forms produced from subtle bodies.

These claims are part of Blavatsky’s esoteric mythology. They are not supported by biology, archaeology, or the fossil record. Even within Theosophy, they are presented through symbols and allegorical language.

Lemuria and the Third Root Race

Blavatsky described early Lemurians as huge, partly material beings. Over time, they became more solid and developed bones and physical organs. They were first presented as sexless or hermaphroditic. This meant that male and female were not yet separate biological forms

Later, according to Blavatsky, they reproduced through eggs. Eventually, one sex began to dominate in each body. Distinct men and women appeared, and reproduction became sexual.

Blavatsky imagined Lemuria as the cradle of humanity, inhabited by egg-laying hermaphrodites who lived in psychic harmony. Physical human bodies and the division into male and female appeared when higher beings descended into earthly life. This is a simplified version of a much more complicated story in The Secret Doctrine.

In the longer Theosophical account, celestial beings help guide evolution. Some provide the early patterns from which bodies develop. Others awaken mind and self-consciousness. The human form is therefore not presented as the result of biological evolution alone. It is part of a spiritual drama in which souls, subtle bodies, nature, and higher intelligences work together.

The Awakening of the Human Mind

One important moment is the awakening of mind. Theosophical writers describe beings called the Sons of Wisdom or Lords of Flame stimulating early human forms. This gives humanity true self-awareness. Before it, the Lemurians are alive but lack developed reflective thought. After it, they can recognize themselves, build civilization, and make moral choices.

This entire episode is presented as an explanation for differences in human spiritual and intellectual development. Souls were said to have reached different stages before entering physical humanity.

This is where Blavatsky’s Lemuria becomes more than a strange creation story. It becomes her explanation for the human condition. People are physical animals, but they also contain mind and spirit. The Lemurian age represents the difficult joining of these levels.

It explains why human beings can be instinctive and violent while also being intelligent, creative, morally responsible, and capable of spiritual insight.

Where Blavatsky Placed Lemuria

Blavatsky placed Lemuria across a huge region. Her description stretched from areas near Madagascar and the Indian Ocean toward Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka, as well as Sumatra, Australia, and the Pacific.

She did not describe Lemuria as one small island. It was an enormous continent that changed shape during its long history. According to her account, most of the continent eventually disappeared. Islands and scattered areas of land were supposed to be its surviving mountain peaks and fragments.

A modern Theosophical account says that the first large Lemurian cities arose in a region associated with present-day Madagascar.

The later Lemurians were said to have received instruction from divine rulers. These teachers showed them how to survive in a changing physical world. They learned practical skills, science, building, mathematics, astronomy, and the arts. Theosophical sources describe cities made from stone, lava, metals, marble, and other materials.

This civilization did not appear instantly. It developed after humanity became physical, gained self-consciousness, and faced a world with changing seasons and harsher conditions.

Blavatsky claimed that Lemurians once enjoyed a natural spiritual awareness. They communicated partly through direct mental contact and felt a strong connection with nature and the divine.

As human intelligence developed, this innocent unity gradually disappeared. Humanity gained individual thought but also became more capable of selfishness, conflict, and error.

Reptilian Lemurians and Later Stories

There are other esoteric pictures of Lemurians. Some modern traditions describe them as large reptilian humanoids with telepathy and advanced technology. These ideas should not all be placed directly in Blavatsky’s mouth. They belong to a wider body of occult and New Age storytelling that grew around Lemuria.

Blavatsky supplied a powerful basic framework. Some later versions describe Lemurians as gentle spiritual beings living in harmony with the Earth. Others describe them as giants, reptiles, extraterrestrials, or hidden masters.

How Lemuria Was Destroyed

In Blavatsky’s history, Lemuria was older than Atlantis. The destruction of Lemuria prepared the way for the Atlantean period.

Theosophical tradition often contrasts the ways the two continents were destroyed. Lemuria was associated mainly with fire, volcanic activity, and underground forces. Atlantis was destroyed mainly by water. These disasters were not always imagined as single events occurring in one night. Continents could break apart through several upheavals over long periods.

Large sections of Lemuria were supposedly destroyed by volcanic eruptions and geological changes. The remaining people migrated to other lands or became part of later human populations.

Again, this is an occult narrative. Modern geology does not support the existence of a continent of this kind beneath the Indian or Pacific Ocean.

Atlantis and the Fourth Root Race

Atlantis belonged to Blavatsky’s Fourth Root Race. Its people were more physically developed and more intellectual than the Lemurians. They built large societies and possessed knowledge that later ages supposedly lost. Blavatsky helped popularize the modern image of Atlantis as a technically advanced civilization rather than simply a wealthy ancient kingdom.

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Over time, however, many Atlanteans used their knowledge for personal power and control. Their technical and psychic skills grew while their moral responsibility weakened. Atlantis became a warning that intelligence without ethics can destroy a civilization.

This theme explains why Atlantis remained attractive to later spiritual writers. It could be used to discuss modern fears about science, weapons, political power, and technology.

A society may become brilliant at engineering, communication, warfare, or controlling nature while remaining emotionally and morally immature. Atlantis then becomes a mirror rather than an archaeological claim. Its sinking represents the collapse that follows when human ability grows faster than human wisdom.

The Survivors of Atlantis

Blavatsky also wrote that not every Atlantean died. Groups of survivors escaped and carried their knowledge to other parts of the world. Atlantean survivors formed new societies in Egypt and the Americas. This idea became common in later alternative history.

It has been used to explain pyramids, monumental architecture, ancient myths, and similarities between distant cultures.

Mainstream archaeology does not accept a lost Atlantean parent civilization as the source of Egyptian or American civilizations. These societies developed within their own historical and cultural settings.

The survivor story serves an important purpose inside Theosophy. It allows wisdom to pass from one world age to another.

A continent may vanish, but part of its knowledge remains hidden in symbols, temples, religious traditions, initiation ceremonies, and secret schools. Blavatsky believed that ancient teachings had been scattered and disguised. Her own work claimed to reconnect these fragments with their original source.

Atlantis and Lemuria as Higher Dimensions

Some believers treat them as higher-dimensional realms or states of consciousness. They connect the lost continents with the fourth and fifth dimensions, higher vibrations, unity, telepathy, healing, and expanded awareness.

Lemuria is often linked with harmony, emotional openness, connection with nature, healing, and group consciousness. Atlantis is linked with knowledge, mental power, spiritual technology, and the danger of using such power irresponsibly.

The lack of scientific evidence does not make Blavatsky’s ideas historically unimportant. She changed the popular imagination. She helped turn Atlantis into the model of a lost high-technology civilization and Lemuria into a spiritual homeland of early humanity.

Later occultists, New Age teachers, channelers, novelists, and alternative historians continued to reshape these stories. Her version also survives because it deals with lasting questions.

Where did consciousness come from? Is technological progress the same as human progress? Can a civilization destroy itself through arrogance? Does knowledge survive the fall of cultures? Are myths memories, symbols, or inventions?

Blavatsky answered these questions with an immense hidden history. Most scholars and scientists reject that history as fact, but its symbols still speak to many people.

Atlantis began as Plato’s story about a powerful society brought down by pride. Lemuria began as a scientific guess about animal geography. Blavatsky transformed both into chapters of spiritual evolution. Modern New Age belief then moved them into higher dimensions and personal healing.

Helena Blavatsky’s importance lies less in proving that lost continents existed than in showing how flexible such stories can be. She gathered philosophy, religion, science, myth, and occultism into one dramatic vision. In that vision, humanity rises, falls, forgets, and begins again.

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In an era where AI-generated UFO images are making it increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine photographs from fabricated ones, many people are left wondering what is real. Here are some of the oldest and most discussed authentic UFO photographs, captured long before AI image-generation tools existed. 

1.The McMinnville (Trent) UFO Photograph (1950) 

These are the famous McMinnville UFO photographs, taken by Paul Trent on May 11, 1950, near McMinnville, Oregon, USA. 

While outside on the family farm, Evelyn Trent spotted a metallic-looking object in the sky and called her husband, Paul, who quickly grabbed his Kodak camera. He managed to take two photographs about 30 seconds apart before the object disappeared over the horizon. 

2. The Salem Coast Guard UFO Photograph (1952) 

This famous photograph was taken on July 16, 1952, by Shell R. Alpert, a 21-year-old U.S. Coast Guard photographer stationed at the Coast Guard Air Station in Salem, Massachusetts. 

The image shows four bright, elliptical objects flying in a loose "V" formation above nearby smokestacks. Alpert reported seeing the objects with his own eyes before photographing them, and another Coast Guardsman, Thomas Flaherty, also witnessed the event.  

3. The Lake Cote (Costa Rica) UFO Photograph (1971)  

Taken on September 4, 1971, this image is widely regarded as one of the highest-quality UFO photographs ever captured. 

The photograph was taken by Sergio Loaiza of Costa Rica's National Geographic Institute (Instituto Geográfico Nacional) during an aerial mapping survey for a hydroelectric project. 

The aircraft was equipped with a 100-pound professional aerial mapping camera, mounted through the floor of the plane and operating automatically at an altitude of approximately 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). The mysterious disc-shaped object appeared in only one frame of a sequence of photographs taken roughly every 13 seconds. 

4. The Calvine UFO Photograph (1990) 

The Calvine UFO photograph, taken on August 4, 1990, near Calvine, Perthshire, Scotland, is considered one of the most intriguing UFO images ever captured. 

According to two anonymous hikers, they witnessed a large diamond-shaped object hovering silently for several minutes while a military jet appeared nearby. They claimed the object suddenly accelerated straight upward and disappeared from sight.

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Earth's catastrophic cycle: Study reveals how our planet's biggest disasters strike every 27 million years – and it suggests we could be due one soon

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By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

From devastating earthquakes to deadly asteroid impacts, our planet's biggest disasters have more in common than initially appears.

According to a new study, the most destructive events on Earth are based on a regular, hidden cycle.

Professor Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, says that disasters strike once roughly every 27 million years.

And his predictions suggest that we could be due for a cataclysm in the not–too–distant future.

In a new paper, Professor Rampino re–examines 89 geological events spanning the past 260 years using the latest age data and statistical techniques.

These events include marine mass extinctions, oceans suddenly being depleted of oxygen, vast chains of eruptions and earthquakes, fluctuations in sea levels, and changes in seafloor spreading rates.

According to his analysis, these events are connected by a main 27–million–year cycle – as well as shorter or longer patterns linking some types of event.

That means, despite having wildly different causes and effects, all of Earth's worst disasters could be triggered by a single, hidden planetary pulse.

Professor Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, says that disasters strike once roughly every 27 million years. This could mean Earth is due for a new disaster soon 

The idea that Earth's geological upheavals follow a regular pattern dates back to the 1980s.

The concept has proven extremely controversial, with many geologists arguing that there is no single mechanism that could connect such disparate events.

However, Professor Rampino remains adamant that there really is something deeper behind all of the mass extinction events.

In his paper, published in the journal Evolving Earth, Professor Rampino writes: 'While these ideas are still mostly outside the mainstream of current geological thinking, they could be the first steps in an important conceptual breakthrough in the Earth sciences.'

Alongside the main 27–million–year cycle, there are shorter mini–cycles, connecting some events every 8.9 million years.

Some disasters also appear to be connected by an even longer interval, up to 270 million years apart.

According to Professor Rampino, these events could be connected by nearly imperceptible shifts taking place deep within the Earth.

Beneath the outer layer of the crust, the Earth's semi–liquid mantle circulates at an incredibly slow rate through convection.

In a new study, Professor Rampino analysed 89 geological disasters and mass extinction events, revealing what he believes to be a deeper cycle 

If there are periodic changes in this circulation, it could trigger huge increases in volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and other large–scale geological processes.

Since all of these systems are so closely interlinked, changes happening deep within the Earth could have deadly knock–on effects in the oceans, climate, and biosphere.

For example, Professor Rampino looked at the ages of continental flood basalts, areas of cooled lava covering thousands of square miles that are the result of massive volcanic eruptions.

Not only do the ages of these flood basalts match up almost exactly with his 27–million–year–cycle, but they also coincide with two of Earth's biggest mass extinction events.

Another alternative explanation is that long–term variations in Earth's orbit influence the distribution of ice, water, and sediments across the planet.

Professor Rampino suggests these could subtly alter the stresses in Earth's crust and influence volcanic and tectonic activity over millions of years.

At present, there is no direct evidence to support either mechanism as a cause of disasters.

However, the most intriguing explanation places the blame for these disasters on Earth's movements within the galaxy as a whole.

Geological upheavals appear to be connected by a main 27–million–year cycle, as well as shorter cycles of about 8.9 million years and longer ones lasting up to 290 million years

These cycles could be linked to long–term convection patterns inside the Earth's mantle, the semi–liquid layer beneath the crust 

Over millions of years, our solar system wobbles up and down across the plane of the Milky Way, crossing the centre–line every 30 million years.

Professor Rampino points out that the timing of these crossings aligns with major upheavals on Earth.

The gravity of nearby stars during this crossing could disturb comets out in the distant Oort cloud, making a devastating asteroid impact more likely.

Alternatively, as the Earth moves through the crowded galactic centre, it picks up some of the dark matter densely packed in this region.

These dark matter particles could collect in the Earth's core and annihilate each other, triggering a massive release of heat.

He writes: 'The great surge of heat released in this annihilation process could be up to 250 times the Earth's present internal heat flux, which could initiate an intense pulse of global geologic activity.

'Such a major global geologic disturbance would be predicted about every 30 My or so as the Solar System encountered dense clumps of dark matter near the Galactic mid–plane.'

Professor Rampino points out that nine of the Earth's 13 mass extinction events occur within 0.3 to six million years of crossing the galactic plane.

Join the discussion197 comments

Could Earth's biggest disasters follow a hidden cycle?

Alternatively, Professor Rampino believes the disasters could occur when the Earth cross the plane of the Milky Way galaxy once every 30 million years 

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That could be particularly worrying news since Earth crossed the Galactic plane just three to four million years ago.

If this theory is correct, we could be due another disastrous geological upheaval anytime in the next two million years or so.

However, Professor Rampino admits that this is still a 'very controversial mechanism' and there is limited evidence to support its existence.

He added: 'We note that these results run counter to long–accepted interpretations of the nature of the geologic record, especially regarding a supposed lack of regular multi–million–year cycles in Earth's history.'

HOW THE DINOSAURS BECAME EXTINCT AROUND 66MILLION YEARS AGO

Dinosaurs ruled the Earth around 66million years ago, but suddenly disappeared in what is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction.

It was believed for many years that the changing climate destroyed the food chain of the huge reptiles. 

However, in the 1980s paleontologists discovered a layer of iridium - an element that is rare on Earth but found in vast quantities in space.  

When this was dated, it coincided precisely with when the dinosaurs disappeared from the fossil record. 

A decade later, scientists uncovered the massive Chicxulub Crater at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which dates to the period in question. 

Scientific consensus now says that these two factors are linked and they were both probably caused by an enormous asteroid crashing to Earth.

With the projected size and impact velocity, the collision would have caused an enormous shock wave and is likely to have triggered seismic activity. 

The fallout would have created plumes of ash thought to have covered the whole planet, making it impossible for dinosaurs to survive. 

Other animals and plant species had a shorter time-span between generations which allowed them to survive.

There are several other theories as to what caused the demise of the dinos. 

One early theory was that small mammals ate dinosaur eggs and another proposes that toxic angiosperms (flowering plants) killed them off.  

Extinction Events on Earth Happen Every 27 Million Years: Earth's Heartbeat

10 prehistoric Disasters That Almost Ended Everything on Earth

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Monster fire breaks out near Area 51 sparking theories of secret weapon testing

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By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

A massive fire has broken out near the highly classified Area 51 base in Nevada, sparking theories that a secret weapon was recently tested.

The blaze, dubbed the Quail Springs Fire, sparked on Saturday and has since burned through more than 4,400 acres. 

The fire is located in Lincoln County, Nevada, just south of Rachel, burning near Bald Mountain on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) withdrawn lands.

As of Monday, zero percent of the wildfire is contained as it spreads within the Nevada Test and Training Range, a military training area restricted to the public.

While officials said the fire was started by lightning, online users believe something more sinister is at play. Commenting on a livestream showing the blaze outside of Area 51, many people suggested a secret weapon was to blame.

'I don't want to be that guy, but I wonder if they're testing DEW (Directed Energy Weapons), and this is the result of such,' one viewer shared, referring to advanced systems that use lasers, high-power microwaves or particle beams to destroy targets.

Another commented, 'Maybe they tested a new dumb weapon and blew themselves up lol,' while another suggested the fire was to 'burn the evidence' of aliens.

Area 51 has become a cultural phenomenon thanks to decades of conspiracy theories connecting the base to UFOs, aliens and experimental aircraft testing.

YouTuber Dreamland Resort captured footage of the fire, showing columns of smoke around Bald Mountain, the highest peak in the Groom Range, located directly inside the restricted military zone of Area 51

Officials noted that no evacuations have been ordered, and no structures are threatened. 

They also said no residences or public spaces are currently threatened.

YouTuber Dreamland Resort captured footage of the fire, showing columns of smoke around Bald Mountain, the highest peak in the Groom Range, located directly inside the restricted military zone of Area 51.

The fire is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, which is listed as the landowner for Area 51 and surrounding regions. 

'The Quail Springs Fire experienced moderate growth, primarily due to winds, high temperatures, and low relative humidity,' according to officials with the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), one of the agencies working to control the blaze. 

'Firefighters are utilizing a confine and contain strategy, rather than full suppression.' 

Twenty-six personnel are currently assigned to the fire under the direction of a Type 3 incident commander. 

Because the blaze is burning inside a restricted military training area, crews are working to contain it rather than attempting a direct attack.

Area 51 is a highly classified US Air Force facility located within the Nevada Test and Training Range, approximately 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas

The blaze, dubbed the Quail Springs Fire, sparked on Saturday and has since burned through more than 4,400 acres

Firefighters are also protecting specific buildings, infrastructure and other assets at risk.

BLM added that firefighters will continue to monitor the blaze as warm, dry weather and afternoon winds persist through Tuesday. 

Fire activity is expected to intensify each afternoon before easing overnight as temperatures fall and humidity rises.

Isolated thunderstorms could also produce sudden, erratic wind gusts that may rapidly spread the flames. No major change in the weather is currently forecast.

Area 51, established in 1955, remained largely unknown until 1989, when Robert Lazar claimed on TV that he worked at a secret site near Groom Lake, 'S-4,' studying alien technology and spacecraft.

As of Monday, zero percent of the wildfire is contained as it spreads within the Nevada Test and Training Range, a military training area restricted to the public

While the remote US Air Force base in Nevada, approximately 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas, has kept a tight lid on its activities, the CIA finally lifted the lid in 2013, officially admitting Area 51's existence.

The agency declassified a more than 400-page report that detailed how testing its secret spy planes 'accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s.'

The U-2 spy and A-12 reconnaissance planes were being flown in the shadows of the desert amid the Cold War, but the extreme altitudes sparked fears of an alien invasion.

'High-altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect, a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),' the report states.

'Once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports.'

However, the CIA report does not mention Area 51's purpose after 1974.

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What really happened when the dinosaur–killing asteroid hit Earth: Worldwide fires incinerated most animals within HOURS – before a global winter wiped out any survivors, study finds

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By SHIVALI BEST, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

It's one of the most pivotal events in our history – but what really happened when the dinosaur–killing asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago?

For decades, scientists have debated the sequence of events. 

Some believe the asteroid impact itself wiped out the dinosaurs, while others are convinced another after–effect was to blame for their demise. 

Now, scientists from Purdue University claim to have settled the debate once and for all.

According to their research, a cloud of dust from the asteroid collision may have caused planetwide combustion – sparking devastating fires that burned most animals to death within hours.  

Any survivors would have then perished in a global winter, they say. 

'With the dust cloud trapping thermal radiation, it was like the surface and everything on it was being charbroiled,' explained Professor Brandon Johnson, lead author of the study. 

'And that's what killed the dinosaurs and all the other animals.'

For years, scientists have known about the Chicxulub asteroid – a six to nine–mile–wide space rock that smashed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago. 

However, until now, the sequence of events that followed has remained unclear. 

When the asteroid hit Earth, we know from geology and impact simulations that an enormous cloud of dust and rock vapor was thrown high into the air. 

Some of this rock vapor cooled and condensed into tiny rock droplets, known as spherules, which flew away from the impact crater, before falling back to the surface. 

Previous studies have suggested that these spherules were hot enough to burn animals without shelter – but not enough for plants to suddenly burst into flames. 

For this reason, many scientists have suggested the immediate effects of the collision were not to blame for the mass extinction. 

However, in their new study, the Purdue University team believe they've found a missing piece of the puzzle. 

Based on fresh evidence from layers of rock, they now believe some of the rock vapor did not condense to form spherules, and instead lingered in the air. 

According to their research, a cloud of dust from the asteroid collision may have caused planetwide combustion – sparking devastating fires that burned most animals to death within hours (pictured: a still from Netflix's 2026 hit, The Dinosaurs)

This 'dust blanket' would have made the surface 3.5 times warmer – making the spherules hot enough to not only kill the animals in their paths, but also to spark spontaneous forest fires. 

Professor Johnson explained: 'Without fine dust, this still wouldn't have been a good day for dinosaurs. It would have killed some off, but it probably wasn't enough to start many wildfires. 

'With the fine dust, the Cretaceous animals received 17 times the dose of thermal radiation that is 100% lethal to humans. 

'It was enough to ignite grass, pine needles, lichen and maybe even directly ignite wood.

'The clouds would have blocked daylight so to any animal, like humans, that don't see far into the infrared, the surface would have probably looked dark. 

'You would only have been able to see a reddish glow from the wildfires. 

'But there really wouldn't be anything alive to do the seeing anyway, except for any animal that was able to burrow or swim or shelter in some way, to find a way to survive. 

Not all the animals would have burned to death in the fires, according to the researchers. 

They point out that many would have choked to death on the smoke. 

Alexandria Johnson, one of the researchers who specialises in clouds, explained: 'Even if critters were to survive the charbroiling, they would likely have had lasting health effects from these particulates as well. 

'But when you look at the time scales of the cooking versus the inhalation risks, the cooking is much faster.'

So, what happened after these first few hours?  

According to the researchers, the dust blanket actually supports another popular theory – a global winter. 

Once the spherules had finished falling and the fires had petered out, the dust would have blocked warmth from the sun for decades, leaving any remaining animals to starve to death.  

To verify these theories, the researchers now hope to find records of the global wildfires. 

Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paeleontologist at University College London, who was not involved with this study, said: 'It would be great to figure out which animals survived right at the impact and what their biological features were.

'This could finally tell us why some animals made it when others, like the dinosaurs, didn't.'

EARTH HAS HAD FIVE GREAT EXTINCTION EVENTS WITH THE MOST FAMOUS A DINOSAUR KILLING ASTEROID

Five times, a vast majority of the world's life has been snuffed out in what have been called mass extinctions.

End-Ordovician mass extinction
The first of the traditional big five extinction events, around 540 million years ago, was probably the second most severe. Virtually all life was in the sea at the time and around 85% of these species vanished.

Late Devonian mass extinction

About 375-359 million years ago, major environmental changes caused a drawn-out extinction event that wiped out major fish groups and stopped new coral reefs forming for 100 million years.

Five times, a vast majority of the world's life has been snuffed out in what have been called mass extinctions. The most famous may be the End-Cretaceous, which wiped out the dinosaurs.

Artist's impression

End-Permian mass extinction (the Great Dying)
The largest extinction event and the one that affected the Earth's ecology most profoundly took place 252 million years ago. As much as 97% of species that leave a fossil record disappeared forever.

End-Triassic mass extinction
Dinosaurs first appeared in the Early Triassic, but large amphibians and mammal-like reptiles were the dominant land animals. The rapid mass extinction that occurred 201 million years ago changed that.

End-Cretaceous mass extinction

An asteroid slammed down on Earth 66 million years ago, and is often blamed for ending the reign of the dinosaurs.

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New science advisory council forms to help US government ‘resolve the UAP mystery’

Federal agencies and the military have a long and complicated legacy dealing with technologies and craft that personnel have reported performing in ways that seem to defy or transcend modern capabilities. 

At a high level, the Defense Department’s teams set up to study UAP — the modern term for UFOs and transmedium objects — have taken different shapes over the years. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is the latest version. It was set up under the Biden administration in 2022 to fulfill a requirement in that year’s National Defense Authorization Act, following concerns from lawmakers that some UAP could be high-tech drones or other platforms developed by America’s enemies.

The office has issued multiple reports spotlighting the ever-expanding DOD portfolio of UAP investigations, and its insiders have maintained that they have found no evidence to confirm that any UAP cases involve extraterrestrial activity or technology to date. 

In February, President Donald Trump indicated that he would be directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other relevant departments and agencies to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, [UAP], and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”

So far, there were three batches of UAP files released on May 8, May 22, and June 12, 2026, via this initiative.

Loeb noted that the latest collection includes a new report that’s dated June 5, 2026, and signed by AARO’s Director Jon Kosloski. 

“The report mentions that during two days in October 2023 law enforcement officials noticed anomalous phenomena including an orange ‘mother’ orb launching smaller red orbs. About 40% of the reported phenomena lack a reasonable explanation and remain unresolved,” Loeb told DefenseScoop. “The civil duty of scientists like myself is to serve the U.S. government by interpreting existing data or recommending how to get new data that would resolve the nature of UAPs. This is a detective story that can be resolved with better data.”

The scientist confirmed that all of the data shared with the newly installed team will be unclassified. 

The UAP Science Advisory Council will report to a higher-level UAP Governance Board, which Loeb said will serve as an interagency body that can use each of its members’ capabilities and unique authorities to cohesively address national security threats posed by unexplained phenomena.

An ODNI official told DefenseScoop that the agency — alongside the FBI and DOD — established that new board “to provide guidance, recommendations and coordination at the interagency level, bringing together military, law enforcement, the intelligence community, and other civilian agencies,” in support of Trump’s recent directive on UAP transparency.

“The UAP Governance Board met for the first time yesterday,” the ODNI official said on Wednesday, without sharing the identities of the original participants.

The board’s mission statement includes that members will “integrate and optimize interagency processes involved in the investigation of UAP incidents and collection procedures used to analyze UAP data to ensure more effective support to” AARO. 

The ODNI official also confirmed that the board is supported by several advisory groups with expertise and work outside the U.S. government, including the UAP Science Advisory Council. 

Loeb supplied a list of other experts joining him on the new science council in its earliest days, as well as their focus areas in this forthcoming work to, as he put it, “help AARO resolve the UAP mystery.” 

He said they are: Prof. Carol Cleland, anomaly identification; Dr. Richard Cloete, data analysis and AI tools; Dr. Omer Eldadi, data management, AI, and human psychology; Dr. Tim Gallaudet, oceanography; Ross Howard, communication; Ben Lamm, oceanography and biology; Dr. Devesh Nandal, numerical analysis and astrophysics; Prof. Garry Nolan, molecular biology and materials science; Dr. Michael Shermer, the study of anomalies; Dr. Peter Skafish, anthropology; Prof. Matthew Szydagis, instrumentation and data collection; and Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, quantitative psychology. 

“Since UAPs are physical objects that interact with humans, the council includes members with expertise in physical sciences as well as psychology and biology,” Loeb explained. “All members had an intense interest in the scientific study of UAPs for many years.” 

Among them is Tim Gallaudet, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who previously served as commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, assistant secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and in other senior roles. 

Gallaudet told DefenseScoop that he hopes to apply his expertise and experience in ocean science, as well as government leadership, to help the council “most effectively accomplish its mission and support the new UAP Governance Board.”

During his own decades-long career, Loeb has advised lawmakers and U.S. government leaders on science and space matters, and also held many leadership positions in academia.

Over the past five years, he’s led the Galileo Project at Harvard University in search for extraterrestrial technological artifacts near Earth. At this point, the research team operates three observatories that collect and analyze data on millions of objects as they hustle to discover outliers that fall outside the performance envelope of human-made technologies.

“My leadership style promotes transparency and trust. This is why I was the longest serving chair, for three terms of 3 years, in the history of Harvard’s Astronomy department,” Loeb said.

In his view, if the orbs in AARO’s recent report represent unknown technologies employed by adversarial nations, then they would mark a serious breach of national security. 

That’s why he believes that resolving their nature should be a high priority for the U.S. government, requiring the development of better sensors and AI algorithms to collect and interpret new data. 

“The down-to-Earth interpretation of UAP is that we are dealing with human-made technologies. In this case, the defense system of the U.S. against espionage on strategic assets is being compromised,” Loeb told DefenseScoop. “We know about the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down in 2023. When finding an ant on the kitchen cabinet, we get alarmed because we realize that there must be many more ants hiding elsewhere in the kitchen.” 

The frequency of the new science council’s meeting cadence has not been decided.

“We will make the best lemonade out of the lemons we are given,” Loeb said. “The best is yet to come. Stay tuned to future updates.”

RELATED

{ https://defensescoop.com/2026/06/17/ }

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/ }