Learn About Japan’s Centuries-Old Legend of the Hollow UFO Ship
The folklorist Yanagita Kunio once dismissed utsuro-bune tales as pure invention. Tanaka disagrees, at least when it comes to the 1803 Hitachi case. He points to the story’s specific year and its consistent illustrations of a saucer-like craft. Those details, he argues, set it apart from vaguer regional versions of the legend.
The historical context also adds another layer to the mystery. During the Edo period, Japan enforced strict policies that limited contact with foreign countries. A confirmed foreign shipwreck or visitor could have triggered an official government investigation and left a formal paper trail. When British sailors landed at Otsuhama in 1824, the incident helped push Japan toward an edict ordering foreign ships to be repelled. Tanaka suspects that something similar, but smaller and quieter, may have occurred at Kashimanada Beach. A brief, real encounter could have later fused with older Japanese folk traditions about mysterious hollow ships.
The strange script inside the vessel remains unsolved. One theory suggests that it echoes the faux-Roman lettering sometimes used as a decorative border in ukiyo-e, a style of Japanese woodblock printing. If so, the writing may never have meant anything at all. Tanaka has not ruled out stranger explanations, either, and has even raised the possibility of alien writing, though he does so with a laugh rather than as a serious claim.
That mix of the plausible and the unexplainable is what keeps Tanaka going. New documents could still surface, and each one could reopen the case. A mysterious woman washing ashore in 1803 inside a disc-shaped vessel covered in unreadable script is not a story anyone can fully close the book on, and that may be exactly why it has outlasted two centuries of skeptics.
Monster 'Sharkzilla' leaves trail of carnage off New York coast as scientists probe nuclear mutant theory
A mysterious predator lurking off the coast of New York has sparked a dangerous hunt for a monster shark capable of tearing apart some of the ocean's largest animals.
A humpback whale was discovered with a 24-inch bite mark, while a gray seal suffered a 22-inch wound and a 400-pound tuna was found ravaged in the water.
The trail of carnage has turned Montauk into ground zero for a real-life hunt featured in the Discovery Channel's Shark Week episode Sharkzilla Takes New York, airing on Friday at 9pm ET.
Local shark scientist Craig O'Connell believes the brutal attacks could signal the return of enormous predators once thought to have vanished from the region.
But he also raised a more disturbing possibility: that decades-old barrels of leaking nuclear waste could have affected wildlife inside a vast underwater canyon off the coast.
If his controversial theory were true, the team could be hunting a genetically altered shark that is faster, stronger and deadlier than an ordinary predator.
With a storm rapidly approaching, O'Connell and his crew had just 30 hours to find the creature, tag it and collect tissue for radioactive testing.
They called the suspected monster 'Sharkzilla.'
The trail of carnage has turned Montauk into ground zero for a real-life hunt featured in the Shark Week episode Sharkzilla Takes New York, airing on Friday at 9pm ET
O'Connell launched the investigation on September 20, 2025, following reports of large marine animals being attacked off Long Island.
Montauk was once famous as a destination where fishermen could encounter exceptionally large sharks, but years of intense fishing devastated their numbers.
O'Connell said: 'In the past, this is the place you came to catch monster sharks. There are so many records right here off the shores of Montauk.
'All these monster sharks were completely fished out. They're gone.
'But all the evidence we are seeing is telling me that all these big sharks might be back. I know those big sharks are out there, and we are going to find them.'
His search led the team approximately 100 miles off Montauk to the Hudson Canyon, a gigantic underwater gorge that begins at a depth of roughly 900 feet before plunging to around 4,000 feet.
Comparable in scale to the Grand Canyon, the dark chasm provides a potential hiding place for some of the Atlantic Ocean's largest predators. It also has a haunting history.
'In the late 1960s, they dumped 15,000 barrels of nuclear waste in the Hudson Canyon,' O'Connell said. 'Ten years later, they went out to check on these barrels, and they were all leaking.'
The team launched a hunt to 100 miles off Montauk to the Hudson Canyon, a gigantic underwater gorge that begins at a depth of roughly 900 feet before plunging to around 4,000 feet
He st
ressed that his theory linking the waste to the predator was controversial and unproven.
'Radioactive leaks could be impacting wildlife, even top predators,' O'Connell said.
'If animals are subjected to nuclear waste, this could cause genetic mutations and abnormal growth. If this predator is genetically altered, it could be faster, stronger and deadlier than any predator on Earth. We are calling it Sharkzilla.'
O'Connell and his team packed their boat with bait and headed toward the canyon, hoping to lure sharks close enough to attach tracking tags and collect tissue samples.
The tags would reveal where the animals traveled, while laboratory tests could determine whether their bodies showed signs of radioactive contamination.
The team reached the canyon's edge at 4am and lowered a baited camera into the darkness.
Six hours later, they pulled it back to the surface and examined footage captured more than 600 feet underwater in the dimly lit region known as the ocean's 'twilight zone.'
The team entered the water to hand-feed the sharks, placing themselves within striking distance as they attempted to tag the animals and secure tissue samples.
A huge mouth suddenly emerged from the darkness and attempted to bite the camera.
'That is an absolutely massive great white shark,' O'Connell said after seeing the animal, which he identified as a large female.
Another formidable predator then appeared, a mako shark.
O'Connell and his team entered the water to hand-feed the sharks, placing themselves within striking distance as they attempted to tag the animals and secure tissue samples.
A 10-foot female mako soon made a beeline toward the divers.
Makos are the fastest sharks in the ocean and are capable of moving at speeds exceeding 40 miles per hour, leading O'Connell to suspect that Sharkzilla could be one of them.
The team then deployed a decoy dolphin named Hudson, which was fitted with a large piece of tuna intended to draw the predator closer.
The team entered the water to hand-feed the sharks, placing themselves within striking distance as they attempted to tag the animals and secure tissue samples.
Makos are the fastest sharks in the ocean and are capable of moving at speeds exceeding 40 miles per hour, leading O'Connell to suspect that Sharkzilla could be one of them
Two makos emerged from the depths, an unusual sight because the animals are generally solitary hunters.
They then vanished without warning, raising fears that something much larger had frightened them away.
An enormous shadow eventually appeared, cruised near the team and disappeared into the darkness before they could identify it.
With time running out, the researchers created what they called a 'blubber blaster,' designed to mimic the aftermath of a dead whale bursting at the surface and releasing a feast capable of attracting sharks.
Just as the sun began to set, a giant female mako charged toward the boat.
'This is Sharkzilla,' O'Connell screamed.
Measuring nearly 12 feet long, the mako appeared powerful enough to have inflicted the enormous wounds found on animals off Long Island.
The monster in question appeared later during the search, measuring nearly 12 feet. The team captured tissue samples, finding no traces of radiation. They did find a mako birthing ground, suggesting that was why the shark was causing chaos in the area
When she refused to approach the cage, O'Connell swam outside and attempted to attach a tracking tag. The first tag bounced off her body, and she disappeared.
Despite fading daylight making the dive increasingly dangerous, O'Connell remained convinced that she would return.
When the mako reappeared, he successfully attached the tag and obtained a tissue sample before the team headed back to Montauk.
Signals from the tracker revealed that Sharkzilla was traveling in the same direction.
Tests ultimately found no evidence that the mako had radioactive mutations, destroying the team's most alarming theory.
However, the investigation indicated that the waters served as a breeding ground for makos, offering a more natural explanation for the carnage: the predators were hunting to feed their developing pups.
Sharkzilla was not a radioactive mutant, but a huge pregnant mako, an exceptionally fast and formidable predator patrolling the waters off New York.
July #15 MUFON eNewsletter -JULY 2026 sightings report
July #15 MUFON eNewsletter -JULY 2026 sightings report
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The Neuroscience and Psychology of the Alien Abduction Phenomenon: A Review
Alien abduction accounts typically involve the reported removal of a person from an ordinary setting, entry into a craft-like or enclosed environment, and interaction with apparently non-human entities, often accompanied by examinations, procedures, and a subsequent period of confusion, fear, or existential disruption (Jacobs, Citation1992). Such experiences sit at the intersection of clinical psychology, cognitive neuroscience, cultural studies, the study of exceptional human experiences (EHEs) – a broad category used for rare but impactful experiences that challenge a person’s usual assumptions about reality (White, Citation1990) – and even have relevance for sleep science.
This article reviews the leading neurobiological and psychological explanations that have been offered for abduction reports. The goal is not to adjudicate the ultimate ontological status of these experiences, but to clarify what current evidence can and cannot explain, and to identify testable predictions. Also drawn on are selective parallels with two neighboring EHE domains: (a) psychedelic states, particularly those associated with N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and (b) near-death experiences (NDEs). Both domains frequently include vivid ‘entity encounter’ themes, significant emotionality, and durable aftereffects particularly of an existential nature, making them useful comparison cases when considering mechanisms and meaning-making (Strassman, Citation2001; Timmermann et al., Citation2018).
In recent years, renewed public and institutional attention to unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP (Cooper et al., Citation2017; Elizondo, Citation2024; Live Now From FOX, Citation2024) has also broadened interest in experiences that are interpreted as contact-related. This may have implications for affecting the prevalence and interpretation of anomalous experience as being contact-related, but also indicates that the ‘abduction’ phenomenon specifically, as part of the broader UAP dialogue, should be given greater attention to, upon which the rigor of neuroscience and psychology should be brought to bear. The explanatory sufficiency of these fields should also have important ontological implications for abductions, which could then be extrapolated to UAP at large.
A major challenge for the scientific study of abduction is that most data are retrospective, self-reported, qualitative and without rigorous interview technique. This does not invalidate the experiences as lived events, but it does mean that models must account for both the proximal state in which the experience occurred (e.g., sleep-related, waking, drug-associated), and how the event is consolidated into memory and communicated over time (McNally, Citation2012). The most productive approach, therefore, as with most complex phenomena and much like historical research on UAP, is to treat abduction accounts as multi-determined: different mechanisms may dominate in different cases, and many cases may involve converging influences, especially more compelling cases. Ontological humility, however, applies throughout, where provided explanations may not be satisfactory at present.
Two clarifications are important at the outset. First, abductees often report that the experience is ‘more real than a dream’, and many describe long-term consequences such as potential trauma, altered spirituality, or changes in identity. These reports therefore merit careful study regardless of one’s stance on their objective reality. Second, many published analyses mix together several phenomena under the same label: brief episodes occurring around sleep; extended narratives spanning multiple alleged events; and memories recovered or elaborated in therapeutic or quasi-therapeutic contexts. Throughout, mechanisms which are most plausible for different contexts, as well as places where evidence is currently weak, are highlighted.
Finally, prior familiarity with specialized constructs in sleep science, psychedelic neuroscience, or anomalous experience research is not assumed. When technical terms are used, they are defined and their explanatory relevance rather than biological detail is emphasized.
Neural models of abduction reports generally focus on how unusual brain states can generate (a) a compelling sense of external agency, (b) vivid multimodal imagery, (c) strong emotions such as fear and awe, and d) bodily effects such as paralysis. Because essentially all abduction data are retrospective and unaccompanied by physiological recording, the evidence base is indirect. Consequently, the most persuasive neural proposals are those that (1) are grounded in well-characterised altered states (particularly sleep-related states), and (2) make predictions that can be tested in prospective or laboratory designs. In the sections below four complementary strands are reviewed: serotonergic and psychedelic models; sleep paralysis and REM-intrusion accounts; regional neurocognitive proposals focused on body representation and sensed presence; and predictive processing frameworks that integrate these elements into a single, effective account of perception, belief, and meaning.
Interest in serotonergic psychedelics arises because some abduction reports contain themes that are also common in psychedelic experiences, such as intense visual imagery, altered self-boundaries, and encounters with seemingly autonomous entities (Michael, Citation2025c). Serotonergic psychedelics primarily act through the 5-HT2A receptor, and this system is strongly implicated in shifts in perception, meaning attribution, and the balance between top-down expectations and incoming sensory evidence (Carhart-Harris & Friston, Citation2019).
From a mechanistic standpoint, the relevance is not that a psychedelic state is ‘the same’ as abduction, but that psychedelics provide an experimentally tractable example of how the brain can generate high-fidelity social and agentive experiences under altered neurochemical conditions. DMT is especially relevant in phenomenological comparisons because reports often involve rapid onset, immersive environments, and perceived contact with ‘beings’ (Michael et al., Citation2021, Citation2023; Strassman, Citation2001).
Nevertheless, direct biological claims about endogenous psychedelic-like processes during abductions remain speculative, as is the case with other phenomena (such as NDEs, Michael et al., Citation2025). Serotonergic models help explain how vivid, socially rich experiences can arise from internal generative processes, informed by priors – and why such experiences may feel more ‘real than real’ to the person who has them. While corroborative elements are not required by experients, belief may still be partly inspired by physical effects.
Several aspects of the psychedelic literature are especially relevant. First, psychedelics can intensify the salience of ambiguous stimuli, making neutral sensations feel loaded with significance. Second, they can enhance ‘agentive’ interpretations – for example, the feeling that thoughts are received from elsewhere or that communications are occurring without ordinary speech (Bongiorno & Corlett, Citation2024). Third, they can generate complex social scenes that feel autonomous, including perceived interactions with beings that exhibit intentionality and perform roles (Winkelman, Citation2018).
At the same time, this article does not encompass abduction reports which occur under the influence of psychedelics. That many abduction features may be occasioned by them is further testimony to the explanatory import of psychedelics, but it is a separate question (beyond the scope of this article) as to whether such ‘psychedelic abductions’ should be considered under the same category as non-psychedelic (uninduced) ones. This is not to say, however, that psychedelic cases are less legitimate; on the contrary, if psychedelic-like neural processes are key in spontaneous abductions, these substances may be especially capable of providing access to such experiences, and if phenomenological similarity is prioritized then their authenticity can be argued for (Griffiths et al., Citation2019). But psychedelic cases, being automatically limited to parameters within consciousness, provoke questions related to the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Psychedelic research is therefore best viewed as a source of mechanistic analogies and measurement tools. For example, structured questionnaires and careful phenomenological interviewing – now common in psychedelic trials – can be adapted to abduction research to separate (a) raw perceptual content (e.g. an entity with all its attendant features) (b) pre-reflexive interpretations about the immanent, unfolding experience (e.g. an ‘alien’), as well as (c) aftereffects.
Sleep paralysis is the most frequently discussed neurobiological candidate mechanism for abduction-like experiences. It is a state in which a person wakes (or partly wakes) while muscle atonia associated with rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep persists. The result is an unpleasant blend of wakefulness and dream-like phenomena: the person may feel awake, unable to move, and accompanied by intense fear, pressure on the chest, or difficulty breathing. Hallucinations can occur, including a sensed presence, an ‘intruder’, or a feeling of being touched or restrained (Cheyne et al., Citation1999; Jalal, Citation2018).
Two features make sleep paralysis especially relevant to abduction narratives. First, it is common and cross-cultural, but its surface interpretation varies with local beliefs and expectations. Comparable underlying sensations can be framed as a supernatural attack, witchcraft, demonic oppression, or – in contemporary contexts – alien contact. Second, the combination of paralysis, fear, and vivid imagery naturally produces a narrative structure that resembles many abduction reports: restricted movement, perceived threat or control and an external agent, respectively (Bullard, Citation1989; Jalal, Citation2018).
Evidence linking abduction reports and sleep paralysis is correlational but consistent with this proposal. For example, abductees report higher rates of sleep paralysis than matched controls, supporting the idea that sleep-related vulnerability contributes to susceptibility (Blackmore & Cox, Citation2000). Sleep paralysis can also produce strong autobiographical conviction, and subsequent attempts to make sense of the experience may lead to elaborated interpretations, especially when reinforced by suggestive questioning or cultural narratives (McNally, Citation2012).
Patently, however, sleep paralysis will not be able to account for many reports. Abductions often entail complex settings, extended sequences over time, daytime contexts that are not obviously sleep-related, and alleged corroboration. Moreover, even when sleep paralysis is involved, it does not fully explain why some people consolidate the event as a literal external encounter while others interpret it as a sleep phenomenon. This gap motivates integrative accounts that combine state factors (e.g., REM intrusion) with cognitive and social influences (e.g., prior beliefs, trauma history, and memory processes).
Phenomenologically, sleep paralysis episodes often include three clusters of experiences: (1) an ‘intruder’ or sensed presence; (2) an ‘incubus’ component, such as chest pressure and a sense of suffocation; and (3) vestibular-motor sensations, such as floating, vibration, or perceived movement despite paralysis. These clusters provide multiple routes to abduction-like interpretations. For example, an intruder plus tactile sensations can be experienced as restraint by entities, while vestibular-motor sensations can be experienced as levitation or transport into another environment.
The cultural dimension is crucial here, as with most other altered states. Cheyne et al. (Citation1999) stipulate that neurophysiological features are shaped into specific narratives through culturally learned interpretations. In a predictive processing language, the brain must explain a threatening but ambiguous bodily state; culturally available ‘agent’ explanations are often the fastest way to restore coherence (Winkelman, Citation2018). This provides a bridge between physiology and folklore: abduction-like interpretations (including in situ, affecting the primary experience) should be most likely in communities where such narratives are familiar, where other explanations (& experiences) such as demons or djinn are found in those where these narratives are socially ‘available’ instead.
Finally, sleep paralysis models must be applied with care. Some abductees report clearly wakeful daytime episodes, repeated encounters over years, or events involving multiple witnesses. These features may reflect misclassification, social contagion, memory conformity – or genuine environmental anomalies – but they also remind us that sleep paralysis is best treated as one mechanism among several. The task is to pay attention to features diagnostic of a sleep-related pathway (e.g., paralysis, hypnagogic imagery, sleep proximity, bedroom setting etc.)
Regarding dreaming, one striking experiment, based on the idea that abductions are tied to sleep paralysis which is in turn wedded to false awakenings, OBEs and lucid dreams, Raduga et al. (Citation2020, Citation2021) leveraged the controllability of lucid dreams by instructing lucid dream adepts to deliberately emulate alien or UFO encounters. Seventy five percent of dreamers successfully reported these encounters, implying that alien/UFO encounters may simply represent the spontaneous activations of the same lucid dream-related mechanisms (& specific imagery) in those somehow prone to these mechanisms’ unprovoked stimulation. Additionally, 24% reported concurrent sleep paralysis, partly supporting the sleep paralysis model – but the fact that most didn’t experience sleep paralysis may undermine the model. A clear limitation is that volunteers were instructed as to what types of experiences to have, which may constitute priming prior to the suggestible state of dreaming. Such likely priming is contrasted to the more challenging explanation for spontaneous UFO/abduction cases having to rely on the culturally learnt prior hypothesis, i.e. the alien abduction narrative, being universally available to experiencers. Lastly, 20% of the UFO/alien encounters were associated with ‘realism’, i.e. the sense that the experience was real, including the superimposition of otherwise strange elements (aliens/UFOs) into normal scenes. While this may foster belief in the experience, in its contrasting the hyper-associative, creative bizarre quality of REM dreams – it is still consistent with REM intrusion. Also, such relative realism is typically the case for the majority of spontaneous abduction experiencers, implying lucid dreams are a convincing model only a fifth of the time.
Direct evidence on the neural correlates of abduction reports is sparse. Most discussion is inferential, drawing on neuroscience findings from related experiences that involve the confluence of strong sense of presence, altered body representation, and vivid imagery.
One influential idea is that disruptions in multisensory integration and body representation – particularly around the temporoparietal junction, or the wider right superior parietal cortex – can generate experiences of a presence nearby, agency attribution, and unusual bodily sensations, including a sense of disembodiment or out-of-body travel (Jalal & Ramachandran, Citation2014). These mechanisms are well documented in research on out-of-body experiences and related autoscopic phenomena (Blanke et al., Citation2015), which are features not uncommonly reported in abductions.
Another strand of the literature emphasizes the temporal lobe because temporal-limbic networks are involved in autobiographical memory, emotional salience, and the feeling of personal meaning. Abduction reports are often described as ‘numinous’, ontologically shocking or involve convictions of déjà vu (Cheyne, Citation2001), and such appraisals are plausibly shaped by emotion and memory systems.
Lambrinos (Citation2011) appears to be the only study to have directly employed functional MRI neuroimaging in a sample of abductees. They found that the recall of memories of the abduction experience (vs. other ‘normal’ memories) were specifically associated with increases in right hemispheric activity of the lateral globus pallidus (GP), which partially overlaps with Nolan’s findings below – as well as with the superior frontal gyrus and parietal supramarginal gyrus – which is adjacent to Jalal and Ramachandran (Citation2014) model above.
Nolan (Lex Fridman, Citation2022; UFO UAP News, Citation2023; James, Citation2023) describes structural MRI findings, not from abductees, but from some UAP-engaging intelligence personnel (including pilots and physicists) showing unusually high connectivity between the head of the caudate and putamen – a circuitry linked to sensory integration, goal-directed control, attention/salience, and what he frames as “intuition”. Because some individuals reportedly showed the same pattern before their contact event, he argues it may be a rare, partly congenital trait that could predispose certain people to notice or interpret UAPs that others miss, sometimes implying a “psychic” angle. However, the sample is drawn from intelligence agencies, so the finding could simply reflect selection effects in a high-functioning occupational group. Due to the lack of publication, it is unclear to which groups the sample was compared; the key comparison would be within that same intelligence community between those who did and did not report UAP contact. Elizondo (Citation2024) also notes follow-up work by Nolan suggesting slightly elevated caudate-putamen connectivity in autism and schizophrenia compared with unspecified controls, justified by Nolan via “savant/genius” associations but potentially risking pathologising anomalous experience. An alternative comparison group with putative psychical capacity (e.g. remote viewers) might be more conceptually appropriate.
A key point is that such neural accounts are only ever best treated as one side of the neuropsychological coin. Abduction reports typically include not just perceptual anomalies but coherent social scenes, interpretations, and lasting meaning. Neural mechanisms do not by themselves explain why a person adopts a specific narrative (e.g., ‘aliens’) rather than another culturally available narrative. Both neural and psychological models by no means compete, and must be integrated (as elegantly attempted by predictive processing approaches, below).
Neural proposals are often framed in terms of specific ‘nodes’ of the brain, but their broader function is what matters: integrating signals about the body, the environment, and other agents into a unified scene. When that integration is disrupted – by sleep-state instability, stress, or fear – the resulting scene can include a vivid other, a distorted sense of one’s body, and mislocalised touch or movement. In abduction narratives, these are precisely the elements that make experiences feel coercive: the sense that another intelligence is present, acting upon the body, and overriding voluntary control.
Predictive processing (also called predictive coding) offers a useful integrative framework because it focuses on how the brain combines prior expectations with sensory input to construct perception and belief. In this view, perception is an inference: the brain continually predicts what is likely to be present and updates these predictions in response to sensory evidence. Under conditions of ambiguity, arousal, or unusual internal signals, predictions can dominate, producing percepts that feel compelling even when they are generated primarily from internal models (Andersen, Citation2019; Friston et al., 2013).
This framework maps naturally onto experiences that occur in altered states, be them psychedelic, sleep paralysis – or abduction. If any of the features of bodily paralysis, breath discomfort, or threat-related arousal occur in these altered states, it would create strong prediction errors. The brain attempts to explain the source of these signals quickly, and culturally available ‘agent’ templates (e.g., a malign, controlling entity) can provide a ready interpretation. This helps explain both the cross-cultural regularities (presence, threat, restraint) and the culture-specific surface content (Bullard, Citation1989; Jalal, Citation2018).
Predictive processing has also been extensively applied to psychedelic neuroscience. Psychedelics can alter the balance between prior beliefs and sensory evidence, changing how meaning is assigned to internal imagery and making social and agentive experiences more likely to be treated as extrinsically real (Carhart-Harris & Friston, Citation2019). Clinical and cognitive work on delusion-like belief formation further suggests that when prediction errors are high and explanation is urgent, unusually confident interpretations can become entrenched (Bongiorno & Corlett, Citation2024).
Lastly, Mago et al. (Citation2026) suggest that under psychedelics such as DMT, highly novel and thus unpredictable experiences are less easily recognized as self-generated, which can cause them to be experienced as originating from an external agent or entity, with the specific form this takes shaped by the adoption of a ‘best hypothesis’ from a suite of relaxed prior expectations.
Viewed with the explanatory power of predictive processing, ‘alien abduction’ need not be a single syndrome. Instead, a family of experiences and memories can become organized around an abductive narrative when (a) the person is in a state that generates strong anomalous signals (e.g., REM intrusion, extreme stress), (b) the person has psychological or social factors that foster elaboration (e.g., fantasy proneness, suggestibility, exposure to alien-related narratives), and (c) the resulting memory is consolidated through rehearsal and further post-hoc priming. This approach could lead to testable predictions, such as how abduction-like reports should correlate with state instability (sleep disruptions), prior expectations, and markers of memory elaboration, and that experimental manipulation of ambiguity and threat should shift perceived agency and meaning.
In addition, once a person adopts a particular explanation, later ambiguous experiences may be assimilated into the same framework – as if being auto-primed by past experiences – creating the impression of repeated contact. This may be related to state-dependent memory, and is not unique to abduction, but could occur in other contexts, like under psychedelics, where people interpret multiple anomalous experiences through explanatory models stabilized over time (Michael et al., Citation2024).
A further advantage is that predictive processing can accommodate both ‘benign’ and ‘threatening’ abduction narratives. Threat-related priors (e.g., vulnerability, intrusion) can bias perception toward hostile interpretations, whereas priors centered on curiosity or spirituality may bias interpretation toward guidance or transformation. Such priors will be predicated on individual differences in affect regulation, trauma history, and belief systems, and it should be reiterated that these do not merely color the memory but shape the experience as it unfolds.
Finally, predictive processing provides a bridge to clinical and psychiatric constructs without pathologising abductees. High-confidence inferences in ambiguous contexts are ubiquitous; they become clinically relevant only when they are distressingly hostile, impairing, rigid, or disconnected from corrective feedback. Many abductees function well and do not present with psychopathology (Mack, Citation2000).
Malmstrom (Citation2005) modeled the expected visual perception of the mother by a cradled neonate based on its under-developed occipital system, and concluded it would appear remarkably like the classical ‘grey’ alien. They suggest this also explains the instinctive response (e.g. of emotionality or awe, familiarity or bonding, even sexual attachment) shown by people presented with images of grays – as well as explaining the success of regression to recover memories which produce such imagery.
Alien abduction experiences may partly relate to thanatosis (death-feigning), drawing on the idea that NDEs could have evolutionary roots in thanatosis, due to neural overlap (partially disconnected states with suppressed vital physiology) and phenomenological overlap (superficial NDE-like features triggered during human thanatosis, akin to a “fear-death experiences”; Peinkhofer et al., Citation2021); a novel suggestion form the present review. Although thanatosis was not originally associated with rich inner experiences, more elaborate altered-state content may have emerged later alongside language, symbolism, and memetic transfer. Thanatosis could contribute mechanistically to abduction given that: (a) NDEs and abductions share some phenomenology (Michael, Citation2024) and some neurobiology (e.g., REM intrusion; Raffaelli et al. Citation2023), and (b) sleep paralysis (an abduction model) converges with thanatosis both physiologically (paralysis) and phenomenologically, especially in the predator-like entities that precipitate thanatosis and the similarly terror-inducing entity encounters reported in sleep paralysis.
Abduction reports should be discussed alongside psychedelic experiences and NDEs because all three domains include, at the very least, altered bodily experience, intense affect, vivid environments, encounters with apparently autonomous beings and numinous qualities. Quantitative work comparing DMT experiences and NDEs has reported notable overlaps in broad phenomenological dimensions (Timmermann et al., Citation2018), as do other psychedelics and NDEs (Martial et al., Citation2024). These overlaps motivate the hypothesis that shared underlying neurocognitive mechanisms apply in both, and may also in abduction experiences given the phenomenological comparability.
At the same time, close qualitative analyses indicate meaningful differences between psychedelics and NDEs (Martial et al., Citation2024; see Michael et al., Citation2025 re: DMT and NDEs). Similarly, abduction narratives appreciably differ, with prototypical themes of paralysis, coercion, bodily violation, and kidnapping (though these may sometimes arise in DMT). While neural differences are yet to be fully elucidated (especially with abductions), the obvious differences in context and precipitation between all three will have explanatory value, because if abductions are similarly regarded as psychedelic-like then their content may be comparably context-sensitive.
Neurobiological models explain how abduction-like experiences can arise in altered states, but psychological models help explain why certain individuals are more likely to report these experiences, how the experiences are interpreted, and why the memories are often vivid, stable, and impactful. The literature below focuses on three broad domains: cultural transmission, individual predispositions and memory processes.
The same underlying sensations can be organized into different narratives depending on available templates. Folklorists have long noted that abduction reports share structural similarities with older supernatural encounter traditions, such as faerie lore, even as surface imagery shifts with time and technology (Bullard, Citation1989). Contemporary media and community discourse can provide scripts that guide interpretation, language, and even expectations about what ‘typically’ happens. Additionally, recent discussions of UAP as a broader cultural category may further increase the availability of abduction interpretations of anomalous experiences, even when the proximal experience is sleep- or stress-related, as may have occurred after the popularization of the Roswell ‘crash’ (dos Santos & Martins, Citation2020). In similar vein, the propagation of high-profile abduction cases in the collective imagination elevates the legitimization and availability of such explanations (French, Citation2024).
One practical implication is that research must attend to the social ecology in which abduction memories are discussed. Support groups, investigators, online communities, and some therapeutic settings can provide interpretive reinforcement. Where hypnotic regression or other suggestive techniques are used, the risk of priming and memory distortion increases, particularly when interviewers presume a specific narrative. This concern has been emphasized with recovered memories leading to abduction reports where ‘missing time’ or fragmented recall is later filled in through guided exploration (McNally, Citation2012).
Cultural transmission implies the testable claim that the more a narrative template is culturally salient and emotionally resonant, the more likely it is to be used to explain ambiguous or anomalous experiences. This is compatible with sleep paralysis models, predictive processing models, and trauma-related memory dynamics.
Several studies suggest that abductees differ from controls on psychological variables linked to altered experience and memory vulnerability. Clancy et al. (Citation2002) found that individuals who reported abduction memories – and those who inferred abduction from perceived aftereffects – showed elevated false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm compared with controls. Thus, memory systems amongst abductees may be vulnerable to suggestion and narrative elaboration, especially when the event is emotionally intense. Abductees have also been reported to score higher on dissociation and unusual belief-related traits as other key predictors, alongside physiological reactivity compared to war veterans when exposed to scripts describing their respective experiences (McNally et al., Citation2004). This latter finding importantly implies that while past trauma may be a predictor, the abduction experience itself constitutes a traumatic memory, where such trauma-related processes could stabilize vivid memories while also promoting threat-focused interpretation and avoidance. This does not mean that the experiences are simply delusional, but does suggests that abduction reports often function psychologically like other high-arousal autobiographical events: they are salient, rehearsed, and meaning-laden (McNally, Citation2012).
Holden and French’s review emphasized that psychological explanations are best treated as probabilistic rather than deterministic: no single trait identifies an abductee, and many people with these traits will never report abduction experiences (Holden & French, Citation2002). Conversely, some abductees present as otherwise psychologically typical. This heterogeneity again supports the view that while certain traits hold potentially predictive power, neural, contextual, or possibly other anomalous models must be attended to.
Trauma and adversity have also been discussed as potential background factors. The evidence here is mixed and may depend on how ‘trauma’ is defined and measured. Nonetheless, two points are robust. First, trauma-related hyperarousal can destabilize sleep and increase the likelihood of REM intrusion, which in turn increases the likelihood of frightening sleep-related hallucinations. Second, traumatic appraisal can intensify memory consolidation: events that are encoded as threatening or violating tend to be rehearsed, avoided, or both, which can strengthen their narrative features. Eventually, repeated episodes strengthen a contact-based explanatory model. These dynamics help explain why abduction experiences can have durable aftereffects even if their proximal mechanism is sleep-related. Holden and French emphasize that in light of such psychological avalanching, supportive, non-suggestive clinical approaches are critical for distressed experiencers (Holden & French, Citation2002).
Finally, the false memory findings should be interpreted cautiously. Elevated false recall in a laboratory task does not mean an individual’s autobiographical memory is generally unreliable, nor does it establish that a specific abduction memory is false. Rather, these tasks identify cognitive tendencies that can increase susceptibility to memory errors under certain conditions, especially when combined with suggestion, where ambiguous experiences are more likely to be consolidated into elaborate narratives.
Continuing with the thread of early trauma predisposing to complex psychological events, one other framework comes from Newman and Baumeister (Citation1996). They proffer that the classic abduction narrative is redolent of sadomasochism, that is, the enjoyment of experiencing pain or humiliation (masochism) or inflicting it on others (sadism). The narratives involve themes of power dynamics and control, submission and domination, or punishment by alien beings, in the context of the exploration of fear and vulnerability, and so experiencers may derive a sense of arousal or pleasure, even if terrified, from said experiences. The argument is that they may locate a form of relief (even if the newly rendered version may be itself novelly traumatic) via this especially complex coping method of fantasy; a form of autotherapeutic theatrical reenactment. Such defence mechanisms are argued to be against unconscious conflicts, fears or desires likely emanating from early, unresolved sexual trauma. However, they could also be a form of PTSD-like flashback re-dressed by the subconscious in bizarre new surface content, which may aid as another defence (though may itself be traumatizing). The resultant experience is thought to be fostered through inherent fantasy proneness and its elaboration into memory distortion via hypnosis with therapists specialized in abduction regression.
Problematically, not all abductees present with this form of traumatic history – though, it may be deeply suppressed or not inquired about. The authors also offer no empirical evidence – but they do provide several case examples of persons reporting being abducted by extraterrestrial beings, subjected to medical examinations, and experiencing intrusive procedures, who as revealed during therapy also had a history of sexual abuse (e.g. in one case, physical and sexual abuse by the father, which paralleled themes of powerlessness, violation, and helplessness embedded in their abduction account).
The Neuroscience and Psychology of the Alien Abduction Phenomenon: A Review - PART II“The Images Reveal a Remarkably Unusual Object”: Astronomers Just Discovered an Odd Three-Lobed Asteroid—And It’s Not Traveling Alone
Astronomers have made a surprising discovery about one of the brightest space rocks in the main asteroid belt.
With help from some of the astronomy world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes, astronomers now report new evidence that the asteroid (44) Nysa is vastly unlike most asteroids in appearance, possessing an unusual three-lobed structure.
However, that’s not all the team behind the new research says they have discovered: the object also appears to be accompanied by a previously unknown object.
Asteroid (44) Nysa imaged with the SHARK-VIS instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope. The tiny moon S/2026 (44) 1, arrowed, was pulled from the asteroid's glare using techniques borrowed from exoplanet hunting
(Credit : SHARK-VIS/LBT Observatory)
According to the international team behind the discovery, the roughly 47-mile-wide asteroid Nysa is a rare variety of space object, whose uneven appearance could offer new insights into the violent collisions that played a significant role in shaping the early solar system. Belonging to a rare class of asteroids, the object may also help scientists better understand how such objects preserve material from early in the universe.
While the Nysa’s unusual shape and accompanying object, which astronomers have characterized as a small moon, are all newly-discovered features, knowledge of the asteroid’s existence goes back more than a century, and astronomers have long studied the object due to its unusually bright surface, which is believed to be rich in a translucent crystalline mineral called enstatite.
Based on past observations, astronomers suspected that the object might possess an elongated shape, composed of two connected lobes, although the object’s exact shape remained unknown.
That all changed after astronomers turned the SHARK-VIS instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, and the SPHERE/ZIMPOL instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, toward the object. Doing so allowed researchers to capture the sharpest images of Nysa ever seen from Earth.
Based on those observations, astronomers have now revealed an asteroid unlike any previously seen.
Kate Minker, a Lowell Observatory astronomer and the lead author of a new paper detailing the discoveries, says the new images reveal a truly unique asteroid, in addition to offering potential clues about its formation.
Above: A maximum pixel stack of Nysa and its moon (indicated with pink arrows) imaged on Feb. 15, 2026
(Image Credit: Kate Minker et al.).
“The images reveal a remarkably unusual object,” Minker said in a statement. “The most likely explanation is that Nysa is either a contact trinary, consisting of three connected components, or an extremely irregular coherent body unlike anything we’ve previously observed.”
To determine the reasons for its odd shape, the team combined the new imagery made possible with the Large Binocular Telescope’s SHARK-VIS instrument and the SPHERE/ZIMPOL with existing photometric observations obtained by other observatories around the world. The resulting data set offered Minker and her team a detailed three-dimensional model of the asteroid.
Now, the team reports that their reconstruction of Nysa points to strong evidence that it consists of three distinctive lobes, each of which is connected by more narrow regions.
Another intriguing finding from the new data is the identification of the small satellite orbiting Nysa, which the researchers have given the temporary designation of S/2026 (44) 1.
Observed during two separate campaigns, this tiny moon is believed to be only a little more than a half mile across and orbiting at least 106 miles from its host asteroid.
“We borrowed a specialized technique from another field of astronomy, known as ‘high-contrast imaging,’ to detect the small moon whose faint light was overwhelmed by the intense brightness of the primary asteroid,” said Gianluca Li Causi of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in a statement.
Right now, scientists believe Nysa’s unusual shape was likely the result of an ancient collision, in which fragments expelled from larger bodies were gradually reassembled over time into a single body.
There are other possibilities, too. One theory holds that Nysa could be a victim of a cosmic hit-and-run incident, resulting from a collision with a much larger asteroid at some point in the very distant past—possibly billions of years ago.
Minker and her team hope that future observations of the asteroid and its newly discovered moon will provide further insights and eventually allow astronomers to calculate Nysa’s mass and density more accurately.
Arrokoth, photographed by New Horizons in 2019 - two bodies that drifted together gently enough to stick rather than shatter. Nysa may be the same trick performed with three. This is a red-blue anaglyph image, view it with 3D glasses and the two lobes separate into real depth
(Credit : NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/National Optical Astronomy Observatory)
Doing so could ultimately bring to light which of the competing scenarios about its formation is most likely to be accurate, and ultimately, it could elevate Nysa to a small—but quickly growing—class of unusual asteroids that may preserve a record of the catastrophic conditions in our solar system, which helped shape it during its very earliest periods.
Asteroid Dinkinesh with its satellite Selam, seen by NASA's Lucy spacecraft in 2023. Small asteroids with moons have turned out to be common and each moon helps us to understand the properties of its parent body
(Credit : NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab)
The team’s new paper, “Unmasking (44) Nysa: Evidence for a trilobate structure,” was recently uploaded to the arXiv.org preprint server.
UAPs Are Out There. This Physicist Is Convinced They’re Not Human—And He’s Trying to Prove It.
How likely is it for extraterrestrials to visit Earth? Maybe the real question is: Are they already here?
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
In the fall of 1988, not long after I arrived as a graduate student at Montana State University in Bozeman—after a night of many reported UFO sightings—two cows were found on a nearby ranch, killed and surgically mutilated. The next day in the physics department, a group of us graduate students were excitedly discussing the gruesome event and the rumors on the local news that UFOs had something to do with it. Apparently, we were a little too loud and excited, because soon a professor emerged from his office, ready to tell us to keep it down.
But when he found out we were talking about the cattle mutilations and UFOs, he couldn’t help but join in. He said friends who worked at the nearby Malmstrom Air Force Base reported that UFOs regularly flew over the installation and interfered with their nuclear launch facilities, shutting down flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles. We listened politely because he was a professor, but as soon as he walked away, we couldn’t help but laugh.
More than three decades later I was teaching a course on astrophysics at the University at Albany (State University of New York), where I became physics professor in 2005 after working as a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. During a lecture on the possibility of finding life on other planets, my students asked me whether it was possible aliens had ever visited Earth, maybe conducting their own search for extraterrestrial life. When I started poking around the internet for anything to tell them other than the usual Fermi Paradox and Drake Equation, I was stunned to stumble upon a YouTube video of a 2010 press conference featuring former Air Force officers and personnel, some from Malmstrom Air Force Base, talking about UFOs shutting down nuclear missile sites.
That’s when I realized UFOs—today we call them Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs)—might not be as laughable as I thought when I was a graduate student. Instead, the whole thing struck me as a very serious matter. If such incursions at nuclear weapon sites have been happening for decades, and no one has acted on them because they assumed it was nonsense, we might have a serious problem on our hands.
So, in 2015, after a career of working on “respectable” science like astrophysics, quantum information, and machine learning, I decided to make an unconventional pivot. I began to analyze the existing evidence of UAPs, working through the problem like the trained scientist that I am: pencil, paper, lots of math, and my own machine learning software. Studying photographs, video, and radar returns of the most credible UAP encounters (like Japan Airlines Flight 1628 and the USS Nimitz Encounters), I was able to estimate their minimum accelerations and speeds. I estimated that some UAPs had been accelerating at several thousands of g’s (most of us would black out at about 5 g’s) and traveling 40,000 mph, about the same speed as the New Horizons probe to Pluto is going right now.
Why does everybody always assume UAPs are alien spaceships? It’s pretty simple: because some of them travel as fast as spaceships!
But the universe is vast, and there are about 300 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy, each with their own planets. How likely is it really—even if they’re out there somewhere—for aliens to find and visit Earth, an infinitesimal needle in an inconceivably huge haystack?
To get a realistic handle on how possible interstellar travel and interstellar colonization would be, I decided that I should simulate the process. I wanted to demonstrate how a spacefaring civilization might travel between star systems by, say, putting up a base, traveling to the next star system, putting up another base, and on and on until they found us. You can think of this as diffusion, and it’s not unlike watching how fast and far a drop of cream can spread in your morning mug of coffee.
I simulated ten million spacefaring civilizations. Each one had a given starting location, a lifetime, and constant spacefaring technology—which includes maximum accelerations and speed, as well as a maximum time tolerance for the length of an interstellar trip. Each civilization also has a parameter called resilience, which reflects the probability that they will be able to find a habitable location in any given star system.
Using these variables, I was able to estimate that the probability of an interstellar-capable civilization visiting Earth is about 0.000405 percent. That means that out of all of the spacefaring civilizations in the galaxy, only about 0.00009 percent of them will physically encounter our planet. Not only is interstellar travel difficult, but Earth is hard to find.
My simulations also suggest that if there are extraterrestrials present on Earth today, then they probably found Earth a very long time ago—more than 1.7 million years ago (on average about 1.2 million years ago). This makes sense, given that UFOs have been observed by humans since Roman times.
Another powerful piece of evidence that we aren’t alone is that UAP sightings tend to occur the day following a nuclear disaster. It happened after Fukushima; it happened after Chernobyl. Whether aliens are monitoring our technical progress, helping us prevent existential disaster, or simply gawking like humans beneath the Aurora Borealis, they must be close by—on Earth or at least in our solar system—to get here so quickly.
Carl Sagan once dismissed UFO sightings by arguing that there were simply too many of them, that interstellar spacecraft wouldn’t be “arriving every other Tuesday.” He was absolutely right. They appear to show up so often because they’re already here.
Sagan also said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and that’s just what my colleagues and I are now trying to find through our research group, University at Albany Project X (UAPx), a collaborative effort to study UAPs through rigorous data collection and high-tech sensors.
Fortunately, UAP research is taken much more seriously than it was when I was in graduate school. When I first started researching and writing about UAPs, I fretted a lot. I thought I was going to get myself into hot water. But I have been pleasantly surprised by and grateful for the positive feedback I’ve gotten, especially the support from my university, where I have received several awards and generous support from donors.
The topic has opened up considerably since The New York Times’ 2017 article on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. I am now a member of the U.S. UAP Scientific Advisory Council that is working to help the U.S. government resolve the nature of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena through rigorous scientific methods. Recently, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed that NASA has UFO imagery that it cannot explain, whereas previous administrators have essentially said, “nothing to see here.” The UAP topic should be covered with seriousness, accuracy, and proportion. Serious coverage does not require sensationalism, and skepticism does not require ridicule. The scientific method requires that we follow the evidence and then draw conclusions.
I think there’s a growing sense that we should, at the very least, know what—and who—is flying in our skies. If it turns out not to be an alien spacecraft, that’s fine, but we’d all be safer if we figured it out. Of course, doing so would also present an unparalleled opportunity for humanity to enhance our knowledge, our technology, and our understanding of our place in the universe.
Ashley StimpsonAshley Stimpson is a freelance journalist who writes most often about science, conservation, and the outdoors. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, WIRED, Nat Geo, Atlas Obscura, and elsewhere. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her partner, their greyhound, and a very bad cat.
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Mini masterpieces! Remarkable 40,000-year-old bird figurines the size of a thumbnail reveal the artistic genius of Ice Age humans
Archaeologists have uncovered two exquisitely carved bird figurines dating back 40,000 years, each no bigger than a human thumbnail.
The miniature Ice Age masterpieces were discovered in the famous Hohle Fels Cave in southwest Germany, one of Europe's richest prehistoric archaeological sites.
Experts believe the tiny sculptures were painstakingly carved from mammoth ivory by some of the earliest modern humans to settle in Europe.
Measuring just two to three centimetres long, one bird appears to be brooding while the other has its wings outstretched as though soaring through the air.
The remarkably lifelike carvings were found during excavations after researchers painstakingly sifted every gram of sediment removed from the cave.
Researchers think the carvings resemble ptarmigans, grouse-like birds that would have lived in the cold Ice Age environment.
They believe the figurines could have served as personal talismans or as symbols of identity of the person who carved or carried them.
‘The figurines demonstrate that the earliest artists were skilled ivory carvers who could depict delicate motifs in miniature form,’ Professor Nicholas Conard, director of excavations at the University of Tübingen, said.
Measuring just two to three centimetres long, one bird appears to be brooding while the other has its wings outstretched as though soaring through the air
Archaeologists excavate the cave in tiny sections just two to three centimetres deep before washing the soil through fine sieves in search of the smallest artefacts
The newly discovered birds are extremely small, approximately 2cm long by 1cm wide (0.8 x 0.4 inches).
The resting bird is depicted in great detail with prominent eyes, while the bird with outstretched wings has a distinctive beak and clear markings representing feathers.
‘The figurines in their present state weigh only 1.3 and 0.7 grams and are the smallest and finest depictions from this period, 40,000 years ago,’ Professor Conard said.
Modern experiments recreating similar Ice Age carvings suggest they would have taken hundreds of hours of skilled work using primitive tools.
In 2025, archaeologists discovered two small bird figurines, resembling relatives of the pheasant called ptarmigans, in Hohle Fels Cave, Germany. One figurine has its wings outstretched; the other is resting.
Credit: R. Ehmann, University of Tübingen
Professor Conard believes the artistic skill displayed by these early humans reflects a leap in cultural and cognitive sophistication that may have helped them flourish across Ice Age Europe while other groups disappeared.
The discoveries add to the extraordinary collection of prehistoric art already unearthed at Hohle Fels Cave.
Previous finds include the world-famous Venus of Hohle Fels, thought to be the oldest known depiction of a human figure, along with some of the world's earliest musical instruments.
Fragments of a vulture-bone flute were also uncovered during the latest excavation season, suggesting music may once have echoed through the cave.
Researchers think the carvings resemble ptarmigans, grouse-like birds that would have lived in the cold Ice Age environment (file image)
Previous finds at the cave include the world-famous Venus of Hohle Fels, thought to be the oldest known depiction of a human figure
Archaeologists excavate the cave in tiny sections just two to three centimetres deep before washing the soil through fine sieves in search of the smallest artefacts.
The painstaking approach allows even thumbnail-sized carvings to be recovered after lying hidden for tens of thousands of years.
Exactly why the figurines were created remains a mystery.
Some experts believe they may have played a role in storytelling, spiritual rituals or rites of passage, while others suggest they helped preserve memories or reinforce group identity.
‘These objects were created with a purpose other than simple enjoyment,’ Daniel Adler, a palaeolithic archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, told Nature.
Lyn Wadley, a specialist in African archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, believes the objects could have been used in rites of passage, such as pregnancy or birth.
Top-secret files reveal 'metallic triangle UFO' lurking over Brit holiday hotspot
A mysterious triangular UFO has been exposed lurking directly above a favourite Brit holiday hotspot in newly released military files. Top-secret US government documents detail a bizarre mid-air encounter over the eastern Mediterranean, giving holidaymakers a chilling reason to look up from their sunbeds.
The spooky encounter came to light following a massive declassification dump ordered by President Donald Trump. Among the trove of newly exposed papers is an official military report detailing an encounter between an American plane and a mysterious aircraft while flying back to base between Greece and Turkey.
Military observers officially logged the strange shape in the sky as a "triangular and metallic" object.
Top-secret US government documents detail a bizarre mid-air encounter over the eastern Mediterranean
(File image)(Image: US Department of Defense)
According to the report, the unknown craft was spotted cruising at 24,989 feet (around 7,600 metres) while travelling at 168 knots (roughly 193mph).
While it might not be pulling off Star Wars-style hyperspace jumps, the strange vessel proved unusual enough to spark a top-level military probe. However, spooks are still keeping some details under wraps.
The exact date of the sighting remains heavily redacted in the public papers, while several chunks of the document are stamped with the code "1.4(a)" - a government mark used to hide sensitive data, including the identities of the pilot involved.
The report was previously slapped with a "secret/NOFORN" classification, meaning it was strictly forbidden from being shared with foreign intelligence agencies or allies.
Speaking previously about the release of the files, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said: "The Department of War is moving at the same pace as President Trump to provide unprecedented transparency regarding our government’s understanding of unidentified anomalous phenomena."
He added: "These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fuelled justified speculation, and it's time the American people saw them for themselves."
The file release is part of a massive, ongoing government drop that has seen tens of millions of records spanning back as far as World War II being reviewed for public release.
Published through a dedicated official portal, new batches of military documents, raw video clips and pilot witness accounts are being unleashed in rolling tranches every few weeks.
Chicxulub Impact Dust May Have Fueled Dinosaur Extinction
About 66 million years ago, an asteroid 6 to 9 miles (10 to 15 kilometers) wide raced toward Earth at a speed of around 45,000 miles per hour. It struck the seas off the coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula with the force of billions of atomic bombs, carving out the 112-mile-wide Chicxulub crater. The asteroid vaporized almost instantly. Temperatures at the impact site soared to thousands of degrees, and a shockwave spread outward at supersonic speed, flattening forests and destroying the landscape for hundreds of miles. In the days that followed, the skies grew increasingly dark. Fine silicate dust, sulfur aerosols, and soot from the fires blocked the Sun's light. Temperatures dropped rapidly, and Earth entered an ‘impact winter’ of several years. Without sunlight, photosynthesis nearly ceased. Plants withered, and even microscopic phytoplankton in the oceans declined.
Map of the Chicxulub crater impact area. This shaded relief image of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula shows a subtle, but unmistakable, indication of the Chicxulub impact crater.
(NASA/JPL-Caltech/Public Domain)
For years, scientists have debated the most deadly aspects of the asteroid impact. A new study, “Heat and wildfires during the K-Pg mass extinction enhanced by fine dust,” published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, highlights the role of impact dust in triggering global fires and winter. Study author Brandon Johnson maintains:
"We’re in the realm where we might be essentially killing off everything within that first hour or two."
He emphasizes how impact dust played a key role in the rapid extinction of dinosaurs and other life forms.
Artist's illustration of the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago, an event widely recognized as the trigger of the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction that eliminated the non-avian dinosaurs.
(Fredrik/PD-USGov-NASA)
Results from geology and impact simulations reveal that the moment of impact triggered explosive temperatures and pressures, releasing energy that vaporized rock, kicking up an enormous cloud of dust and rock vapor, and propelling gaseous rock high into the atmosphere. As rock vapor cooled, it condensed into tiny rock droplets known as spherules. The spherules flew away from the impact crater, then returned to the surface as mini-meteorites. During their descent, the friction of the falling spherules cut through the air, generating an intense heat pulse.
Reconstruction of a dinosaur at the Natural History Museum, London, UK.
Credit: Christoph Schmid
Previous studies suggested that these same spherules had an effect like turning on a worldwide broiler that radiated enough heat to sizzle thin-skinned animals without shelter, but not enough to set plants on fire immediately. For a while, this line of reasoning led researchers to reconsider the idea that the immediate effects of the Chicxulub impact were the principal factor behind the dinosaurs' extinction. Now, geologic investigations show that certain layers of rocks recorded the extinction event within North America. The rock layers contain a layer of extremely fine post-impact dust that formed originally from rock vapor that didn’t condense to form spherules. Johnson says, “It reinvigorated my interest in what happened to the leftover vapor - that’s where this work started.”
Combining previous simulations of the Chicxulub impact with geological observations from the extinction dust layer, the new study calculates the amount of dust held in the atmosphere immediately after impact and how that layer would boost Earth’s retention and release of heat from the falling spherules. With the dust blanket following, the heat released at the surface was 3.5 times more intense than with the spherules alone - enough to kill animals and even start spontaneous forest fires. Johnson goes on to say:
“This work of ours supports this idea that it really is the impact that was devastating to terrestrial life and caused the mass extinction.”
The very same dust driving Johnson’s global fires theory also supported another popular extinction idea: that dinosaurs starved to death during a prolonged winter brought on by the force of the impact, which pushed dust into the atmosphere. “It seems quite counterintuitive,” Johnson says, “but actually it’s the same effect.” He explains that the effect is similar to how an insulated mug can serve a dual purpose. It keeps soup hot or iced coffee cold. Once the spherules had finished falling and the fires had been extinguished, massive dust clouds could have blocked the Sun's warmth for years on end, causing a global winter. Johnson and his colleagues believe that the global fires were the deadliest, but they must examine more of the geological record to pin that down. To date, the best evidence that wildfires occurred during the extinction-level event originates from North America, but it’s also equally possible that the effects were weaker or different further away from the impact site in Mexico.
Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paleontologist with University College London, who wasn’t involved with this study, says, “It could be that we will eventually find the records of completely global wildfires, but we just don’t have the data so far.” Researchers note that future study matters because the dinosaurs' extinction is currently the best record of how entire ecosystems respond to disasters. Knowing whether animals were burned alive quickly or slowly starved over the following decades is crucial for interpreting the impact as a major disruption to evolution and ecosystem recovery. Chiarenza says:
“It would be great to figure out which animals survived right at the impact site and what their biological features were. This could finally tell us why some animals made it when others, like the dinosaurs, didn’t.”
By Ramsey Hardin
Lost Aquiry Civilization: LiDAR Reveals Millions Lived in the AmazonA latest study has uncovered that the Amazon rainforest, which has always been assumed to be a virtually untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans, was the site of a huge civilization now referred to as Aquiry. This civilization existed between 600 BC and 850 AD and occupied the southwestern part of the Amazon. The real shock is that it supported millions of people leaving behind extraordinary monuments for centuries under the thick jungle.
As is the case with all these revelations in the last decade, LiDAR was used to establish the presence of a settlements across about 4200 square kilometers of thick jungle in the Acre and Amazonas states of Brazil. The laser technology allowed for the identification of almost four hundred huge constructions that had never been noted before. Huge geometrical structures such as circles, squares, rectangles, and octagons served ceremonial or political purposes instead of forming settlements.
The sheer scale of the discovery cannot be overemphasized. The accomplishment of the Aquiry civilization spanned an area of 183,000 square kilometers, which is comparable to the total area of Syria or the UK. Extrapolating from the surveyed area, scientists estimate there could be over 20,000 such earthworks across the region. This civilization grew in size during the first millennium, and according to scientists, it might have comprised up to three million people. This number is much greater than earlier calculations based on more conservative assumptions concerning the pre-Columbian population of the Amazon.
Tequinho archeological site in Acre Brazil.
The Aquiry people left a significant impact on nature, creating geoglyphs by digging ditches up to five meters deep and using the soil removed to make mounds. Some of these geometric forms are several hundred meters across, displaying advanced organizational capabilities as well as knowledge of mathematic principles. The biggest of geoglyphs spans an area of close to 50 hectares. Since there was no stone in the area, the Aquiry only used earth to create their geoglyphs. As a result, unlike other civilizations that were contemporary with Aquiry, they did not leave behind any rock ruins.
As indicated by modern research and according to indigenous oral tradition, these places acted as the centers for building relations between the different communities, and other important beings. They were meant to serve the purpose of gathering places for different rituals, trade, political matters, and also displays of generosity of the local chieftains. In turn, rituals included dances, music, feasts, and games, showing that the society was highly developed in terms of social and ritual activities overall.
The Aquiry were not a single unified kingdom but a network of many different communities sharing a common worldview. This diversity is reflected in the varying dimensions, shapes, and construction methods of the earthworks. The major centers were often connected by wide, remarkably straight roads and causeways, forming a carefully planned regional network. "The cultures and societies that composed the Aquiry shared a common worldview and constructed ceremonial centers in a variety of monumental geometric forms," explained Professor Martti Pärssinen of the University of Helsinki, who led the study.
Diverse earthwork types with their topographical contexts.
Credit: Pärssinen, M et al., Nature (2026)
The findings, published in the journal Nature, overturn the long-held belief that the Amazon was a pristine wilderness before European arrival. The Aquiry actively managed their environment on a vast scale, burning sections of bamboo-dominated forest to clear land for their monumental centers and for fields of maize, squash, and manioc. Building and maintaining these centers for around 1,500 years required a large workforce, a division of labor, and sophisticated administrative and cosmological motivations.
Furthermore, the civilization practiced sophisticated agroforestry. The study revealed that the prevalence of valuable, protein-rich tree species in the region—such as the Brazil nut and the peach palm—is the result of long-term human interaction. The Aquiry deliberately promoted the growth of culturally significant trees to the detriment of other species, shaping the forest's biodiversity in ways that are still visible today. This finding has direct implications for understanding the biocultural history of the Amazon and even for future climate models.
"The results we obtained disrupt our understanding of the Amazonian region's past," said Pärssinen. "The research shows that human impact on the Amazon environment has been much greater than previously believed."
Despite these significant discoveries, much about the Aquiry civilization remains unknown. Researchers have not yet determined what languages these communities spoke or what they called themselves. (The name "Aquiry" derives from the Indigenous Arawakan designation for the Acre River, meaning "river of caimans"). The civilization's apparent rapid disappearance around 850 AD is equally puzzling.
This timeline coincides strikingly with the relatively abrupt collapse of the Classic Maya civilization in Mesoamerica and the decline of the Tiwanaku and Wari cultures in the Andes. The temporal coincidence raises intriguing questions about possible continental-scale climatic or social factors that may have affected multiple civilizations across the Americas during that same period.
As archaeologists continue to scan the vast, uncharted expanses of the Amazon, it is likely that thousands more ancient settlements and earthworks lie hidden beneath the jungle canopy. If similar population densities are found elsewhere in Amazonia, the total pre-Columbian population of the Amazon could have reached tens of millions—a revelation that would fundamentally rewrite the history of the Americas.
By Gary Manners
{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology }
Giant Black Cube Orbiting The Sun Detected on NASAs photos, UFO Sighting News.
'UFOs' in The Large Hadron Collider May Be Hints of Dark Matter
For years, strange signals have been emerging from inside the Large Hadron Collider.
Physicists call them UFOs – not extraterrestrial aircraft, but unidentified falling objects. They're strange glitches in the proton beam, sudden beam-loss events that physicists are reasonably certain are caused by microscopic dust drifting into the beam.
But the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is about as pristine an instrument as physicists can build. The mystery is: What shakes the dust loose?
According to physicists Xunyu Liang and Ariel Zhitnitsky of the University of British Columbia in Canada, one of the biggest question marks in the Universe could be responsible.
"You can think of the LHC as a gigantic and extremely delicate Swiss watch. It is built to keep running despite countless small disturbances around it," Liang and Zhitnitsky told ScienceAlert.
"In our idea, a piece of dark matter passing through the Earth tens of kilometers away could create a tiny vibration, like someone lightly tapping the table under the watch. That vibration could travel to the LHC and shake loose a microscopic piece of dust inside it. If the dust then drifted into the proton beam, it could disrupt the machine and cause a beam-loss event."
The idea didn't originate with tiny, dark matter-induced shock waves.
Liang and Zhitnitsky study a hypothetical form of dark matter called axion quark nuggets, or AQNs. When they learned that the LHC's UFOs were thought to be the result of dust, one detail snagged their attention.
The specks of dust were estimated to be micron-sized – which is about the same size as the AQNs they study.
At first, they wondered whether the mysterious 'falling objects' might actually be AQNs. That turned out to be a dead end – the size match between the two was just a coincidence.
But the false lead ignited a new question: If AQNs aren't the dust itself, could they be the force that dislodges the dust from the beam screen?
No LHC upgrades would be required to search for dark matter.
(CERN)
"At first, we expected to find a relation between the LHC's mysterious 'unidentified falling objects' and dark matter. Later, we realized that we were actually putting forward the first proposal, to the best of our knowledge, to use the LHC to search for macroscopic, non-elementary dark matter," Liang and Zhitnitsky said.
"It is an amusing example of how a scientific idea can originate from an initial misconception and then develop into a serious research question."
To explore their idea, the pair naturally turned to physics.
We don't know what dark matter actually is. It barely interacts with the normal matter that the visible Universe is made of; we only know of its existence because of its gravitational effects.
Those effects show that dark matter is everywhere, but because it barely interacts with ordinary matter, it has remained frustratingly difficult to detect directly.
One hypothetical exception is AQNs – dense, macroscopic objects with masses up to about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) that could interact with their surroundings in ways individual dark matter particles do not.
The idea is speculative, but the researchers argue that, if an AQN passed through Earth within around 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the LHC, the tiny underground acoustic shock wave generated by its passage could very faintly shake the accelerator.
This shaking could be enough to rattle a few specks of dust into the proton beam, triggering a beam-loss event.
These signals, the team calculated, would be about five times stronger than background noise.
They would produce a distinctive pattern that scientists could identify as the fingerprint of an AQN event: three or more correlated UFOs within 2 seconds of each other at successive points along the 27-kilometer (17-mile) LHC tunnel.
And the search could happen now, without any additional hardware or modifications required to the existing facility.
"What makes our case especially appealing is that the LHC already has excellent monitoring systems built in, the beam-loss monitors, that were installed for a totally different reason (protecting the machine from damage)," Liang and Zhitnitsky said.
"It turns out they may also be sensitive to something no one designed them to detect."
The pair has not searched existing LHC records themselves. Instead, the paper is intended to motivate a reanalysis of past UFO events to see whether the predicted bursts are already hiding in the data – and to inspire dedicated campaigns in the future.
The approach might not be limited to the LHC either. Other particle accelerators, if large enough, could also possibly detect these AQN events, forming a global acoustic detector network.
Related: Scientists Witness Lead Literally Turn Into Gold in The Large Hadron Collider
"It would meaningfully broaden the landscape of dark matter research. Much of the field has understandably focused on microscopic elementary particles, while macroscopic, non-elementary candidates remain comparatively under-explored," they told ScienceAlert.
"A detection of correlated UFO events would offer compelling support for a macroscopic-object explanation, and would encourage the community to consider a wider range of dark-matter candidates alongside the elementary-particle picture."
Mind-bending discovery deep inside notorious UFO hotspot leaves experts stunned
BY Tom McGhie
A discovery at a paranormal “hotspot” notorious for UFO sightings has left experts stunned.
Skinwalker Ranch is a massive 512-acre property in northeast Utah, US and has been a centre for paranormal investigations for over 30 years. Owner Brandon Fugal claims his team has retrieved manufactured materials from deep within the ranch's rocky mesa, including heat-resistant ceramic fragments and peculiar metals.
He told American Alchemy podcast host Jesse Michels that drilling equipment repeatedly hit an enigmatic underground object before extracting material that didn't resemble the surrounding landscape.
“There's something under the mesa,” said Fugal. “To be extracting material that is manufactured, that's engineered, from hundreds of feet within the mesa.”
The team has also detected potential underground voids and identified what it believes to be an invisible energy anomaly enveloping the site. But no spacecraft has been discovered and the material has not been definitively linked to extraterrestrial technology or scrutinised in a published, a peer-reviewed study found.
Fugal, a real estate developer, bought Skinwalker Ranch from billionaire aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow in 2016 and converted it into a closely monitored outdoor laboratory.
The team of researchers started drilling into the mesa in 2021 after ground-penetrating radar hinted at potential voids and an odd subterranean formation. The probe was initially launched to verify long-standing rumours that caves, tunnels or a man-made structure were hidden beneath the rocks.
“We thought, well, let's debunk it,” said Fugal. But the researchers stumbled upon a debris field filled with material that seemed out of place with the region's natural soil and rocks.
“There's both a debris field of material that does not fit,” said Fugal. “It is unusual and not a natural part of the landscape or soil composition, which has been verified. It appears that there are voids within the mesa, which is what initially led us to conduct ground-penetrating radar studies.”
Researcher Brandon Fugal claims his team drilled into a Utah mesa and discovered underground voids and a debris field of material that does not match the area's natural soil composition.
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