A hilarious video has revealed the moment a robot fell down the stairs after getting distracted by a crowd of cheerleaders. 

The clip was filmed at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games, which are taking place in Beijing, China.  

At the start of the video, five humanoid robots can be seen performing a cheerleading routine – complete with colourful wigs, short skirts and pom–poms. 

A silver robot then climbs up to a podium at the side of the stage, before glancing over at the dancers. 

Unfortunately, the distraction becomes too much, and as the bot tries to climb down the other side, it falls head–first off the stairs. 

The hilarious clip was posted to X by @Gman_EAI, and has been viewed more than 1.2 million times.

'It is now proven that us men are very simple creatures,' one user replied. 

Another added: 'Because of the rainbow hair one with that mini skirt! Bro had to stare!' 

At the start of the video, five humanoid robots can be seen performing a cheerleading routine – complete with colourful wigs, short skirts and pom–poms

A silver robot then climbs up to a podium at the side of the stage, before glancing over at the dancers

Unfortunately, the distraction becomes too much, and as the bot tries to climb down the other side, it falls head–first off the stairs

This is just one of many falls at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games. 

Earlier this week, a weightlifting robot collapsed onto a judges' table, before being rushed away on a stretcher.

The fall took place during the weightlifting final at the second edition of the competition, which is hosted at the Beijing National Speed Skating Oval. 

Footage of the event showed the humanoid robot – who was initially poised – quiver as it attempted to grip and lift a weight with both hands over its head.

As the bot brought the weight above its head, it began to shake and ultimately drop the weight to the floor.

It then began malfunctioning, before stumbling toward a table of judges and ultimately collapsing. 

In the moments following the fall, a group of staff clad in red vests can be seen quickly attending to the robot and piling it onto a stretcher where it is carefully escorted from the event's main floor. 

Officials then immediately halted the competition and declared the attempt over. 

The bot pictured before it took a tumble. It is among hundreds of droids to participate in the second edition of the Chinese competition

In the moments following the fall, a group of staff clad in red vests can be seen quickly attending to the robot

The competition – which began on Sunday and will run for five days – also saw a robot surpass legend Usain Bolt's 100m sprint world record. 

The bot ran 100m in 9.39 seconds – beating the human world record set by the Jamaican sprinting great who ran it in 9.58 seconds. 

Elsewhere at the competition, another robot performed Cristiano Ronaldo's iconic 'Siuuu' celebration on the football pitch, while a group of droids participated in a synchronised march at its opening ceremony. 

It is estimated more than 2,000 robots gathered for the event at its opening day.

And although 96 per cent of the teams entering the games are Chinese, 16 countries from six continents will take part in the 1,301 matches.

The games include competitions modelled on human sports as well as task–based events some of which require fully autonomous robots.

World Humanoid Robot Games officials will award independent robots full points but semi–autonomous bots will only receive half points. 

Out of the 50 events scheduled, 30 are sports competitions while the remaining 20 are work scenario tasks.

Three humanoid robots running in the the 100m race during the events opening ceremony

robots perform during the opening ceremony of the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing

A humanoid robot falls next to another humanoid robot that caught fire after completing a 100m prelim race

Sports–based events include weightlifting, gymnastics, football and even a tug of war. There are also 11 Olympic–style track and field events. 

The 20 work–based tasks involve dextrous hand challenges such as bricklaying, power tool assembling and package handling.

It is understood that the work competitions act as an opportunity to show where humanoid robots will first be commercially used.

However, no events in the 2026 edition of the games will include stairs, ladders, uneven terrain or human–robot collaborations.

READ MORE 

• Moment humanoid robot smashes Usain Bolt's 100m world record... before it is stretchered off the track at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing

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Robot Gets Distracted by Cheerleaders and Falls Down Stairs at 2026 Humanoid Robot Games!

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UFO Beliefs Explored: Author Warns It Is 'Always Going to Be More Likely That Someone Is Wrong'

UFO reports may feel convincing, but Adam Kirsch says witnesses are more likely to be mistaken than to have seen alien technology

Adam Kirsch explores why UFO beliefs endure, arguing that testimony and unexplained sightings should not be confused with evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft AI Generated image

Adam Kirsch, author of the forthcoming We Want to Believe, has argued that UFO claims should be approached with scientific caution, warning in an interview that it is 'always going to be more likely that someone is wrong about what they saw' than that an extraterrestrial craft has appeared in the sky.

Kirsch's book, We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters, is due to be published by Columbia Global Reports on 25 August.

The Atlantic senior editor examines why unidentified flying objects, now often called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, retain such a powerful hold over the public imagination even when conclusive physical evidence remains elusive.

Whistleblowers claims, military footage and declassified Pentagon material have brought renewed official and public attention to a subject once largely associated with flying-saucer lore, while films and social media have kept the alien question in wider public discussion.

Columbia Global Reports describes the book as an examination of how UAP moved from 'dismissed error to unresolved problem' and why questions about them continue to endure.

UFO Beliefs and the Search for Meaning

Kirsch told reporters that his interest in UFOs began in 2017, when mainstream reporting focused on Pentagon videos and a previously undisclosed programme that collected reports of unexplained aerial sightings.

'The real start of my interest in the subject was in 2017 when there was this sudden reporting in the mainstream media about the Pentagon UFO videos and the so-called secret program to collect UFO reports,' he said. 'For the first time, it seemed like maybe there was some legitimate news or evidence.'

What had long been dismissed as fringe material could now be discussed through military testimony, congressional interest and surveillance technology. The terminology changed, too. UFO became UAP, a more formal term increasingly used by the US government when discussing unexplained observations.

Yet Kirsch's book is not simply a rebuttal of every strange report. He sees the attraction of UFO beliefs as tied to older questions about religion, philosophy and human significance. The publisher similarly describes his approach as drawing on both belief and scepticism rather than treating UAP simply as fantasy or threat.

'For me, humanity's way into the subject is that UFOs are a way of thinking about a lot of the same questions we might also think about in religious or philosophical terms,' Kirsch said. 'Questions like what is unique about humanity, are we alone in the universe, are there other minds, what's our destiny as a species?'

The possibility that humanity is not alone is not merely a scientific proposition. It carries an emotional charge, one that can make every blurry video, unexplained radar reading and pilot account feel potentially significant. Confirmation of intelligent extraterrestrial life would carry profound scientific and philosophical implications.

Kirsch said he had been drawn deeper into the history and lore partly because the discovery of other intelligence in the universe would indeed be extraordinary. 'It would be amazing if we could find proof of that,' he said.

The problem, he added, is that UFO history has repeatedly followed a familiar pattern. Public excitement rises, apparent clues gather momentum and the story eventually 'peters out because there is no evidence and there isn't anything concrete to point to.'

UFO Beliefs Meet the Evidence Test

Kirsch's central distinction is between testimony and evidence. People can report an experience honestly while being mistaken about what caused it, particularly when they are observing something unfamiliar, distant or fleeting.

He pointed to testimony from former military aviators David Fravor and Ryan Graves, arguing that what appears to be corroborating evidence may be less definitive than it initially seems.

'When the camera sees something, the person doesn't see it. And when the person sees something, the camera doesn't see it,' Kirsch said. 'It's always one or the other, it's never both at the same time.'

That is Kirsch's assessment of the cases rather than a definitive finding about all available evidence surrounding the encounters.

He noted that complaints about UFOs being difficult to photograph are hardly new. Witnesses in the 1950s were already saying such objects were strangely unphotogenic, despite the expectation that a physical craft in the atmosphere might produce clearer photographic evidence.

'The obvious and logical explanation is that there's nothing to take a picture of,' Kirsch said.

That is a blunt assessment, but it illustrates the distinction at the centre of Kirsch's argument. A vivid sighting can feel conclusive to the person who experienced it. The leap from 'I saw something I cannot explain' to 'I know what it was' is where he argues greater scientific scrutiny is required.

Kirsch invokes the 18th-century philosopher David Hume's approach to reported miracles. Hume's argument asks whether it is more probable that testimony is mistaken than that an extraordinary event has occurred.

'The same is true of UFOs,' Kirsch said. 'They're not supernatural or miraculous. If they really existed they'd exist in time and space and three dimensions like everything else.'

Kirsch went on to argue that, given current scientific understanding of the universe and interstellar travel, mistaken observation remains more probable than an extraterrestrial spacecraft as the explanation for a UFO report.

He added that modern scientific education requires people to question instinctive explanations, not simply trust them because they are dramatic or satisfying. Released UAP footage may not reveal every available detail, Kirsch said, but an incomplete public record does not automatically point to 'some cosmic secret.'

That distinction also reflects the broader premise of We Want to Believe: unexplained observations may warrant investigation without, by themselves, establishing that extraterrestrial spacecraft are visiting Earth.

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With the arrival of an eagerly awaited preliminary assessment on unidentified aerial phenomena by the Navy’s UAP Task Force in June, opinions on its findings were mixed and varied.

Of greater significance than the contents of the report, perhaps, had been what it left out. Nowhere in the nine-page document delivered to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) did words like “extraterrestrial” or “alien” make an appearance, a reality that was no doubt received with much frustration by longtime proponents of the existence of unusual aerial phenomena.

This, despite hopeful pre-reporting by the New York Times, who promised that officials who had been briefed on a classified version of the report prior to its debut “conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings” meant that more exotic potentials couldn’t be ruled out. This seemingly left open for the possibility “that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.”

To date, there remains nothing conclusive that links observations of unidentified aerial phenomena—or what until recent years were commonly referred to simply as UFOs—with extraterrestrial technologies. While many hopeful proponents of such speculations on the origin of UAP were likely irritated by the report’s ambiguous tone, the document did reveal a few notable surprises.

“The UAPTF is currently working to acquire additional reporting,” one portion of the report reads, “including from the U.S. Air Force (USAF), and has begun receiving data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”

The inclusion of the FAA as a source for information about UAP within the document was notable, especially because in years past, the agency tasked with regulating all civil aviation in the United States has seemed to want no involvement of any sort with unidentified flying objects.

FAA Order JO 7110.65Z – Air Traffic Control, a publication that “prescribes air traffic control procedures and phraseology for use by personnel providing air traffic control services” took effect on June 17, 2021—just days prior to the delivery of the UAP Task Force’s preliminary report. In chapter nine of the order, dealing with “Special Flights”, section eight is titled “Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Reports”, and outlines the following procedure for UFO sightings made by air traffic control personnel:

9-8-1. GENERAL

1. Persons wanting to report UFO/unexplained phenomena activity should contact a UFO/ unexplained phenomena reporting data collection center, such as the National UFO Reporting Center, etc.
2. If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department.

Identical wording with regard to UFO observations by FAA Air Traffic Organization personnel appears in other publications by the agency, which includes Section 7 of FAA Order JO 7210.3CC – Facility Operation and Administration.

The UAP Task Force and the FAA

It therefore came as a surprise for many who read the recent ODNI report, with its inclusion of the following statement: “The FAA captures data related to UAP during the normal course of managing air traffic operations. The FAA generally ingests this data when pilots and other airspace users report unusual or unexpected events to the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization.”

According to its own procedural publications cited above, the FAA appears to direct air traffic operators to report instances involving UAP (or UFOs, as the agency’s documentation still calls them) to civilian organizations like the Washington-based National UFO Reporting Center. These publications appear to provide no procedural details related to an internal system for collecting such data within the agency.

The fact that the FAA “captures data related to UAP” had not been the only pertinent information about the agency’s involvement with UAP studies included in the June report. Additionally, its authors state that “the FAA continuously monitors its systems for anomalies, generating additional information that may be of use to the UAPTF. The FAA is able to isolate data of interest to the UAPTF and make it available.”

“The FAA has a robust and effective outreach program that can help the UAPTF reach members of the aviation community to highlight the importance of reporting UAP,” the report also states.

“That may be news to the FAA,” Suzanne Rowan Kelleher reported in a Forbes article in June, adding that she was told the “agency that operates air traffic control and navigation for both civil and military aircraft insists it does not deal directly with UAP sightings from commercial pilots.”

“The FAA doesn’t track these reports,” Kelleher quoted an FAA spokesperson as having said, who told her that “The National UFO Reporting Center is your best source.”

Similarly, David Axe writing for The Daily Beast noted that “The FAA did not respond to a request for comment” regarding his inquiries about the agency’s UAP data collection described in the June ODNI report.

The FAA Finally Goes on the Record About UAP

In light of the specific references to the FAA and its apparent role in supporting the Navy’s UAP Task Force outlined in the ODNI report, The Debrief reached out to the agency for clarification, asking if it could confirm its role in the collection of UAP data. After several weeks of inquiries, the FAA finally responded to requests for clarification from The Debrief.

“The Federal Aviation Administration documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility,” an FAA spokesperson told The Debrief in an email.

“If the pilot report can be corroborated with supporting information such as radar data, it is shared with the UAP Task Force,” the spokesperson added. The statement marks a notable shift from the FAA’s previous positions regarding UAP, and its insistence even in days following the release of the ODNI report that it has limited involvement with the collection of such data.

Earlier versions of the FAA’s JO 7110.65 order included the additional recommendation that UFO reports should be sent to agencies “such as Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS),” with the inclusion of a phone number and email for contacting the organization.

According to an FAA briefing guide issued in February 2010, “Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) is a new organization that is devoted to exploration of extremely advanced aerospace technology, including the so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) or unidentified flying object (UFO) topics.”

The guide added that “In 2001, another of Mr. Bigelow’s organizations, the National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), succeeded in becoming the ‘go-to’ organization for the reporting by pilots and air traffic control of UFOs in the United States.”

“NIDS is now defunct and has been replaced by the larger, more capable BAASS,” the 2010 guide reads. “Therefore, pilot and air traffic control reporting of UFOs in the United States should now go to BAASS, vice NIDS. So we are deleting the NIDS acronym and adding the BAASS acronym.”

Robert Bigelow, the FAA, and UFOs

The story of how Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) and its predecessor, the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), became recipients of UFO reports from the FAA–thereby freeing the FAA from having any direct involvement with UFOs for several years–can be traced back to retired United States Army colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D. A longtime advocate for development of nonlethal weapons while in government, Alexander also worked for Robert Bigelow’s NIDS organization for a time. Speaking with Alexander, The Debrief asked about his role in arranging for the FAA to forward UFO reports it received to Bigelow’s organization.

“That is correct,” Alexander said. “This is one of those serendipitous events when I was first assigned to the Pentagon and living in northern Virginia.”

As Alexander explained, shortly after his assignment he had taken residence in an apartment building where “they had a Friday night happy hour kinda thing, and one of the other occupants happened to be the Deputy Director of Security for the FAA. So I knew him personally.”

“After 911,” Alexander told The Debrief, “[the FAA] became sacrificial lambs. I might mention the FAA had been screaming about security for years before that. The airlines had been resisting mightily.”

“So I went to Washington and had an initial conversation, and said look, we’re interested in [UAP],” Alexander says. Following this meeting, the FAA Deputy Director “was able to set up a secondary meeting where we had Bob [Bigelow] and Colm [Kelleher] with us. And we came in and met with some senior FAA officials.”

“Interestingly, the guys who had experience as air traffic controllers were pretty supportive,” Alexander said. “Many of them had experiences of reports coming in while they were on duty. Organizationally, they were just happy to have an outlet to make this go away.”

“Which, by the way, is the way this has happened across the board in many governmental agencies,” says Alexander.

In the mid 1980s, Alexander founded an informal group of government insiders interested in finding out whether there might be a black program within government that dealt with UFOs. Called the Advanced Theoretical Physics Project (ATPP), Alexander’s group included members from all three military branches and others from the aerospace and intelligence communities. A requirement for membership had been a Top Secret-SCI security clearance at SI-TK, so that all members “had appropriate clearances and could help disseminate information.”

Despite receiving a limited amount of support from many high-level officials during their search, the ATPP found no evidence of any existing black programs within government that were involved with UFOs. To the contrary, Alexander came away from the experience with the feeling that most agencies within government want as little to do with the subject as possible.

In March, Politico reported that several government agencies had allegedly been “blocking or simply ignoring the effort to catalog what they have on [UAP],” based on testimony from several past and present government officials with knowledge on the matter. Despite the aversion to releasing information on UAP shown by the intelligence community, it did not result in a postponement of the report’s delivery to the ODNI by its June 25 deadline, as some had suspected might occur.

“From what I understand,” Alexander says, “all those agencies listed [in the ODNI report] technically participated, but several were certainly dragging their feet, and this was not voluntary at all.”

“Most of them just don’t want anything to do with the topic,” Alexander says.

The FAA Flip Flops on UAP

Also in March, The Debrief reported on its investigation into UAP incidents found within the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), an online database maintained by NASA which collects anonymous reports on behalf of the FAA from pilots, air traffic control personnel, and others who observe potential aviation hazards.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

EXCLUSIVE - True tomb of Jesus discovered after 2,000 years as hidden location that aligns with Bible account is found

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

The Bible describes Jesus' burial place as a tomb carved into rock, set inside a garden near where he was crucified.

For nearly 1,700 years, Christians have believed that tomb lies within Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The first church was built over the site by Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, and generations of pilgrims have since traveled there to pray where Christ is believed to have been crucified, buried and resurrected.

Now, with excavations beneath the church complete, archaeologists have pieced together a fuller picture of an ancient landscape that bears a striking resemblance to the one described in the Gospel of John.

Lead archaeologist Francesca Romana Stasolla told the Daily Mail: 'We have found evidence of a funerary landscape, alongside small areas planted with vines and olive trees, as well as a pastoral landscape characterized by sporadic human activity.'

The excavations show that the church stands over an abandoned quarry outside ancient Jerusalem where cultivated plots and multiple rock-cut tombs existed side by side.

That combination closely mirrors John's description of a garden containing a tomb near the place where Jesus was crucified.

Although no physical evidence identifies the tomb's occupant, the parallels keep alive the possibility that early Christians preserved the true location of Jesus' burial.

Archaeologists have found evidence beneath  the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that aligns with what the Bible says about where Jesus was buried

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre attracts an estimated four million visitors each year.

The original church was dedicated in AD 335 after Roman buildings at the site, traditionally described as a temple to the goddess Venus, were demolished.

During the work, builders uncovered a rock-cut chamber that was identified as the burial place of Jesus, who had died nearly 300 years earlier.

Emperor Constantine's workers focused on one particular tomb that was already being venerated as Christ's burial place, excavating around it to separate it from the surrounding graves. 

The second church at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which stands today, was built and restored starting around 614 to 626 AD, following the destruction and fire caused by the Persian Sassanid invasion.

The discoveries add to the ongoing debate over the location of Jesus' burial.

Many scholars support the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the site, citing the presence of rock-cut tombs from the first century.

Others argue that the Garden Tomb, another ancient burial site in Jerusalem, better matches biblical descriptions.

There is a long-held debate over where Jesus was laid to rest. Some say the church while others believe he was put inside an ancient rock-cut tomb, known as the Garden Tomb (pictured), which aligns with Biblical text

Archeologists were excavating the floor of the church (pictured) when they uncovered signs of an ancient garden that is mentioned in the Bible as where Jesus was laid to rest

The latest findings are detailed in a new 98-page preliminary report published in Liber Annuus, the archaeological journal of Jerusalem's Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. 

The report brings together results from the final 2025 excavation campaign, completing a project that began during a major restoration of the church's floor in March 2022.

Evidence of the ancient garden was first announced in 2025, but completed excavations have now allowed researchers to reconstruct how the cultivated land, abandoned quarry and burial chambers fitted together across the wider site.

The report revealed that the landscape began as a vast stone quarry cut into the side of a hill outside Jerusalem's ancient walls, with some sections reaching nearly 20 feet beneath the church's present floor.

As stone extraction gradually ended, the deepest areas were filled with soil and divided by low dry-stone walls, creating small plots that could be cultivated.

'Evidence of cultivation is provided by archaeobotanical and pollen remains, which have enabled us to reconstruct a landscape suitable for pastoralism, with natural vegetation used for grazing,' Stasolla said.

The first church was built over the site by Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Pictured on the right is part of the foundation wall of Constantine's church

Above are Christians touching the Unction Stone at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which they believe marks the sacred spot where the body of Jesus was washed, anointed with spices, and wrapped in linen for burial

'This type of Mediterranean landscape was widespread throughout the region and coexisted with the abandoned quarry area and the presence of rock-cut tombs.'

Researchers dated the cultivated landscape through its position within the archaeological layers and pottery recovered from the quarry fills.

The evidence places it after the quarry was abandoned but before Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the area in the second century AD, a broad period encompassing the lifetime of Jesus.

However, the plant remains have not been given an absolute laboratory date, meaning archaeologists cannot prove the garden was being cultivated at the precise time of Christ's crucifixion.

Archaeologists also recovered traces of fruits, legumes and wild vegetation, revealing an open Mediterranean landscape that was cultivated, visited and used for grazing but not permanently inhabited.

At the same time, exposed rock faces left behind by the quarry provided ideal locations for burial chambers to be carved directly into the stone.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre attracts an estimated four million visitors each year

The inside of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre features stunning mosaics throughout

Researchers found multiple tombs opening into the same former quarry at different heights, connected by narrow paths winding between the graves and cultivated plots.

The result was a complex landscape where gardens, grazing land and rock-cut tombs existed together, just as the Gospel of John places a garden and burial chamber beside the site of Jesus' crucifixion.

John 19:41 reads: 'Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.'

The garden reference is one of several clues contained in the Bible.

John 19:20 places the crucifixion close to Jerusalem, while Hebrews 13:12 says Jesus suffered outside the city gate. Archaeologists found that the quarry stood outside Jerusalem's walls at the time of Jesus but remained close to the city, matching both descriptions.

Matthew, Mark and Luke each describe Jesus' grave as having been carved from rock. The excavations confirmed that the gardenlike landscape was also a genuine ancient burial ground containing multiple chambers cut directly into the quarry's exposed stone.

John also states that the tomb was close to the crucifixion site, allowing Jesus to be buried quickly before the Jewish Sabbath began. 

A Roman structure erected during Emperor Hadrian's reign in the second century stood directly against the tomb. Pictured are foundation walls constructed during his reign

Many Christians come to see the Stone of Anointing in Holy Sepulchre Church. Above are two nuns praying before the stone

At the Holy Sepulchre, the chamber traditionally identified as his tomb and the rock of Calvary exist within the same compact area.

None of those features was unique in ancient Jerusalem, as abandoned quarries were commonly reused for cultivation and burials. 

What makes the Holy Sepulchre compelling is the convergence of all the clues in one place: outside the ancient walls but close to the city, with cultivated land, a rocky crucifixion site and a cemetery containing rock-cut tombs.

Within that burial ground, one particular chamber would eventually become the focus of centuries of Christian veneration.

A Roman structure erected during Emperor Hadrian's reign in the second century stood directly against the tomb, making it inaccessible, while also cutting into the nearby rock of Calvary, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion.

The report suggested the surviving Roman walls may have belonged to a smaller cult site rather than the massive pagan temple described in traditional accounts.

Roughly two centuries later, Constantine's workers demolished the Roman structure and excavated the same location to expose the venerated tomb.

They removed the surrounding rock, separated the chamber from the other graves and constructed the first Christian shrine around it.

Its position was considered so important that architects allowed different sections of the enormous church complex to fall out of alignment rather than move the tomb.

The first monument was probably open to the sky and consisted of a small circular shrine surrounded by 12 columns, allowing early pilgrims to gather around the burial chamber.

Although none of this proves Jesus was buried inside, the decision to return to and preserve one specific tomb centuries later raises the possibility that knowledge of its location survived through generations of early Christians.

The second church at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which stands today, was built and restored starting around 614 to 626 AD, following the destruction and fire caused by the Persian Sassanid invasion

Stasolla said: 'The archaeological area beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre reveals the long history of a part of Jerusalem that, in the early fourth century AD, underwent the monumentalization of Christological memory.

'In this case, I believe that the archaeological evidence should be used primarily to understand the places and contexts in which Christian memory took shape and became firmly established.'

The evidence shows that Christians were commemorating this particular location by the fourth century, but it cannot confirm that Jesus had been buried there three centuries earlier.

Important gaps remain, as no inscription identifies Jesus, and it cannot be definitively proven that the chamber was new, nor that it had been used or belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, as the Gospels state.

The Bible says that Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Jewish council, asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion, wrapping it in clean linen and placing it in his own unused rock-hewn tomb.

The discoveries therefore do not confirm the biblical account, but they demonstrate that the traditional site contains the principal geographical and physical features described in the New Testament.

'The Church of the Holy Sepulchre gives monumental form to the sites where, since very early times, tradition has located the memory of Christ's death and resurrection,' Stasolla said.

'Archaeology undoubtedly attests to the enduring nature of this commemorative tradition.'

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Mystery statue unearthed at Sardis archaeological dig

by Sy Boles, Harvard Gazette

Researchers with the long-running Harvard–Cornell Archaeological Exploration of Sardis have unearthed a larger-than-life statue estimated to be nearly 2,500 years old.

The discovery is remarkable for several reasons, said Nicholas Cahill, the field director of the AES team and a professor of Greek and Roman art and archaeology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

"It is very rare to find such monumental sculptures of this period anywhere in the Mediterranean, and this exceptionally well-preserved, unique monument casts important new light on the major arts of Lydia and on the Lydians' ties to their own past," he said.

The excavation is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye and by Harvard Art Museums. The Turkish site was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site last year, cementing its position as a critical site for understanding the ancient world.

Researchers made the discovery in late May while examining a major Roman colonnaded avenue. The statue had been broken into two main pieces and reused, face down, as paving stones in the ancient thoroughfare.

A buried monument emerges

"You sort of see these whole worlds opening up in front of you," Cahill said of the moment he realized the team had found something extraordinary.

A team of conservators carefully excavated around the statue to gradually reveal its full shape and size in the ground.

"Then the guesswork started," said Susanne Ebbinghaus, the George M.A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art at Harvard Art Museums, who was in Sardis for part of the excavation. "'Is this archaic? Maybe not, it looks a little later. Is it a guy? Is it a girl?' When they started cleaning the soil around the head, we saw he had sideburns, so that question was settled."

The people of the Lydian Empire, which controlled what is now western Türkiye from about the middle of the 7th century to the middle of the 6th century B.C., left little written record of their civilization. Much of what was known came from what Greeks and Romans wrote about it—and from their point of view, the Lydians were eastern barbarians. But archaeological evidence has revealed that Sardis, the capital of the Lydian Empire, was a center for luxury and culture, particularly perfumes and fine clothing.

James McCurley '27, a Classics and Physics concentrator who worked on the dig over the summer, said the excavation of the mammoth statue was the highlight of his experience.

"After all the anticipation, I was worried the statue might be underwhelming, that we'd dig it up and find its front weathered beyond recognition. Discovering that the statue was not only well-preserved but almost intact and 2,500 years old was a wonderful surprise."

Conservators lifted the pieces from the ground on July 13 and transported them to an AES conservation lab to begin a thorough, ongoing analysis.

Many details have been revealed since that early, excited guesswork.

An old style with new clues

At well over 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall, the figure would have towered over onlookers. He wears a tunic of thinner material (called a chiton in Greek), a diagonally wrapped mantle and a distinctive, perhaps local garment with fine horizontal folds. The design has few parallels in ancient sculpture, said Harvard Art Museums' Bahadir Yildirim, who is the Sardis expedition administrator and assistant director of fieldwork and who participated in the cleaning and analysis.

"The surprising thing about this piece is that it has some features that haven't been seen on sculpture like that ... the drapery underneath, the distinctive horizontal patterning," he said.

The statue's bolt-upright stance, long coiffed hair and manner of dress resemble archaic Greek sculptures from the 6th century B.C. But the prominent veins and other anatomical details betray a much later date, likely in the 470s to 450s B.C., the early Classical period in Greece. During this era, Sardis was no longer an independent capital but had been conquered by the Achaemenid Persians and had become a major provincial center.

But the figure shows no Persian influence. The statue, therefore, comes across at first as a very traditional sculpture, adhering to age-old hairstyles and dress codes while also hinting at familiarity with the current styles in Greece, where such a sculpture might have been depicted as a nude youth. But the Lydians and other Anatolian peoples did not exercise naked and did not depict their young men without clothes.

The references to multiple cultural traditions and time periods reflect an artist with a complex understanding of his or her place in the world, Cahill said.

"This sculptor knows about contemporary styles in Mediterranean and Anatolian sculpture, the interest in hands and the structure of the face and so forth, and yet [the statue is] wearing clothes from 100 years earlier," Cahill said. "I think they're very clearly looking back to their own past."

A likely sacred setting

The original placement and purpose of the monumental statue is unknown. But one possibility is that it stood at the sanctuary of Cybele, the native mother goddess, which has never been found but has been described in literary sources as one of the most important sanctuaries in Sardis. It was common for wealthy citizens or political leaders to ensconce their likeness in the presence of a deity so they could effectively worship in perpetuity, Ebbinghaus explained.

"You put yourself in a prominent place where your fellow citizens or subjects can see you, but also you are indeed worshiping the god—and if you're a ruler, drawing legitimization from the relationship to that deity. So it might well have been an important person being represented," she said.

Most ancient marble statues were painted, and this one was likely no exception. The Sardis conservation team is now working to clean the statue while preserving any remaining flecks of paint for color analysis.

When conservation is complete, the fragments will be joined, and the statue will be displayed in a Turkish archaeological museum, along with other finds from Sardis. The first Harvard excavation of Sardis, a joint project with Cornell University, began in 1958 and was led by George M.A. Hanfmann (1911–1986), a professor of fine arts at Harvard and curator of ancient art at the Fogg Art Museum.

{ https://phys.org/science-news/ }

More Files, More Questions: What the Pentagon’s Latest UAP Release Really Changes

Forty-one records. Gulf of Oman footage. FBI triangle interviews. Eight decades of files entered the public record on August 7. This edition examines what the evidence actually shows—and applies the standard that must hold regardless of how compelling the headlines are.

Artistic Reconstruction — Not a Photograph

This image is an artist’s reconstruction based on witness descriptions in FBI records. It is not a photograph, sensor image, or documentary record of any specific event. The UFO Times applies this label to all reconstructed imagery involving unidentified phenomena.

2. The FBI Triangle Records: Documented Accounts, Unresolved Observations

The released FBI documents describe interviews with multiple witnesses who reported observing large, silent, triangular aircraft—often at low altitude, often with no visible propulsion exhaust. Some estimates placed the objects at more than 300 feet across.

Those accounts are striking. The accounts are detailed and were formally documented by the FBI. The released interview summaries, however, contain no bureau conclusion verifying the witnesses’ physical estimates or identifying what they observed.

But the documents are interview summaries, not technical analyses. The FBI did not conclude that the objects represented exotic technology. The records establish that witnesses described observations they could not explain and that the FBI documented those descriptions. They do not establish the physical nature of the reported objects.

The documents do not establish the origin or nature of the objects. They preserve multiple witness descriptions of apparently triangular objects with unusual reported characteristics. Whether the separate observations shared a common cause remains unknown.

One critical caution: the triangular image circulating online and attributed to these records is an artist’s reconstruction, not a photograph or sensor image. We have applied the label “ARTISTIC RECONSTRUCTION—NOT A PHOTOGRAPH” to every use of that image in our coverage. This distinction matters more than most headlines have acknowledged.

1953 Naval Photographic Interpretation Center film analysis. The analysts examined footage from the Montana (1950) and Utah (1952) film cases. Their calculations were limited partly because object distance was assumed rather than measured. Their final determination was inconclusive. This document has been mischaracterized in some coverage as definitive evidence of a concealed programme.

Project Sign, established in 1947, was the first formal U.S. Air Force UFO investigation programme. Several later participants claimed that an internal “Estimate of the Situation” favored an interplanetary interpretation and was rejected or destroyed. No authenticated copy has entered the public record.

3. The 1953 Film Analysis and Project Sign: History That Cuts Both Ways

The 1953 Naval Photographic Interpretation Center film analysis and the Project Sign documents add historical depth without resolving the central question.

The analysis examined footage from the Montana (1950) and Utah (1952) film cases—two of the most-discussed UAP films of the early Cold War era. The analysts noted that object distance was assumed rather than measured, which limited the reliability of any speed or size calculations. Camera position, focal length, and the absence of a firm reference object further constrained their conclusions. Their final determination was inconclusive.

Project Sign—established in 1947 as the Air Force’s first official UFO investigation—underwent a significant internal debate. Several later participants claimed that Project Sign produced an “Estimate of the Situation” favouring an interplanetary interpretation and that senior Air Force leadership rejected or destroyed it. No authenticated copy has entered the public record, so the account remains historically important but not independently verifiable. The programme was reorganized as Project Grudge and later Project Blue Book. The investigative priorities, methods and institutional attitudes changed substantially under each successor programme. Historians continue to debate how seriously each pursued unresolved cases.

What these documents show is not quite what some have claimed: the historical record shows recurring institutional tension over how much personnel, funding and scientific attention UFO investigations should receive—not necessarily an agency that had answers it concealed.

If the later accounts are accurate, the rejection or destruction of that assessment would be historically significant. The surviving Release 05 records do not independently prove that episode. The records do not, however, prove what was in the sky. They show that the institutional response changed substantially and remains the subject of historical debate.

RELATED 

{ https://theufotimes.com/ }

Science can scan forests, date skeletons, and decode ancient machines, but some chapters of history still refuse to close.

By Kaif Shaikh

Yet even with these tools, some historical mysteries remain unresolved. Not because they lack importance, but because earthquakes, climate shifts, erosion, and human activity have erased the very evidence needed to solve them, or maybe because the events themselves unfolded in ways that defy easy explanation.

From unexplained explosions and abandoned settlements to missing tombs and lost technologies, these cases sit at the boundary between what can be proven and what can only be inferred. 

The seven mysteries that follow are not rooted in myth or speculation, but in real events supported by credible evidence, each offering a reminder that, despite our best efforts, history does not always yield its secrets.

1. The 1908 Tunguska event – Siberia, Russia  

On June 30, 1908, a powerful explosion detonated over a remote region of Siberia near the Tunguska River, flattening an estimated 80 million trees across more than 2,000 square kilometers. The blast was so intense that seismic waves were recorded across Eurasia, and atmospheric disturbances were detected as far away as Western Europe. Yet no impact crater or large fragments were ever conclusively identified.

Most scientists agree the event was caused by a stony asteroid or comet fragment that exploded mid-air in what is known as an atmospheric airburst. Computer simulations and field studies support this explanation, but uncertainties remain about the object’s composition, size, and trajectory. 

Competing hypotheses, including a cometary fragment rich in volatiles, persist because physical evidence is sparse. Over a century later, Tunguska remains the largest known impact event in recorded human history, and its exact mechanics are still being refined by modern planetary science.

3. The lost colony of Roanoke – America 

Established in 1587 on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina, the Roanoke Colony was England’s first serious attempt at permanent settlement in North America. When Governor John White returned from a supply mission to England three years later, the settlement was completely abandoned. No bodies were found, and there were no signs of violence.

The only clue was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a post, a reference to a nearby island inhabited by Indigenous peoples. Archaeological work suggests the colonists may have dispersed and integrated into local communities due to food shortages, disease, or strained relations with neighboring groups. 

However, no single explanation accounts for all the evidence, and no confirmed remains of the settlers have ever been identified. Roanoke endures as a case study in early colonial fragility and the limits of historical reconstruction.

4. The lost cities of the Amazon Rainforest and the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization

For much of the 20th century, scholars believed the Amazon rainforest could not support large, complex societies. That assumption has been overturned by lidar surveys and archaeological research, which have revealed extensive networks of roads, plazas, fortified settlements, and managed landscapes hidden beneath the forest canopy. 

These discoveries suggest populations in the millions may have lived there before European contact. Why these societies collapsed—whether due to disease, environmental change, or social disruption—remains unresolved.

Similarly, the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the world’s earliest urban cultures, declined around 1900 BCE. Major cities were systematically abandoned, not destroyed. Geological evidence points to shifting river systems and prolonged drought, but the civilization’s undeciphered script limits understanding of its political and social response. In both cases, advanced societies vanished without clear historical records, leaving archaeology to piece together incomplete stories.

5. The Nazca lines – Peru 

Etched into the arid plains of southern Peru between roughly 500 BCE and 500 CE, the Nazca Lines consist of hundreds of enormous geoglyphs depicting animals, plants, geometric shapes, and straight lines stretching for kilometers. The figures are best visible from the air, raising questions about how and why they were created.

Peru’s Nazca Lines form giant figures visible only from the sky

© Janeth Charris/Pexels

Archaeological research suggests the lines were made by removing dark surface stones to expose lighter soil beneath, a technique that has allowed them to endure for centuries in the dry climate. Leading interpretations link the geoglyphs to ritual activity, water management, or ceremonial pathways tied to seasonal cycles. 

7. The Antikythera Mechanism – Ancient Greece 

Recovered from a Greek shipwreck dated to around 100 BCE, the Antikythera Mechanism is the most complex known mechanical device from the ancient world. Composed of interlocking bronze gears, it was used to predict eclipses, planetary movements, and astronomical cycles with remarkable precision.

Advanced imaging techniques, including X-ray tomography, have revealed inscriptions and gear systems far more sophisticated than anything previously known from that era. While researchers have reconstructed much of its function, critical questions remain: who designed it, how widespread such technology was, and why this level of mechanical knowledge disappeared for over a millennium. 

The device challenges conventional timelines of technological development and stands as a rare glimpse into lost scientific traditions that were never fully transmitted to later civilizations.

Kaif Shaikh is a journalist and writer passionate about turning complex information into clear, impactful stories. His writing covers technology, sustainability, geopolitics, and occasionally fiction. A graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication, his work has appeared in the Times of India and beyond. After a near-fatal experience, Kaif began seeing both stories and silences differently. Outside work, he juggles far too many projects and passions, but always makes time to read, reflect, and hold onto the thread of wonder.

{ https://interestingengineering.com/science }

Key points

• Prolonged UAP uncertainty can turn curiosity into powerlessness, anger, and mistrust.
• Information gaps make false narratives and confident claims more appealing.
• Honest communication about what is known and unknown can make uncertainty easier to tolerate.

Source: Ahmed/Unsplash

{ https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/anxiety }

Scientists finally know why astronauts struggle to poop in space — and reveal a hidden risk of long-haul spaceflight

A new NASA-backed study has pinpointed why astronauts often experience constipation in space and how that might affect their health on long-haul missions to Mars and beyond.

 By Harry Baker  Edited by Nicoletta Lanese, Laura Mondragó

Scientists have finally gotten to the bottom of why astronauts struggle to poop in space, thanks to a new blood test. The findings also reveal an unexpected side effect of this cosmic constipation that may need to be addressed before humans take long-haul trips to Mars and beyond, the study authors say.

As soon as people started living in space, it became apparent that it was harder to go "number two" among the stars than down on Earth — and not just because of how complicated it is to use a space toilet. For most astronauts, this gastrointestinal change is just an inconvenience, but some have to take laxatives to overcome the problem. The drugs are routinely stocked on most space missions, including the recent Artemis II mission.

Constipation is one of several digestive issues astronauts contend with, including bloating, indigestion and acid reflux, according to NASA. And like most other health problems that can affect astronauts, researchers have long suspected that microgravity is the leading cause. However, it has been very hard to prove that hypothesis or understand the other effects that chronic constipation may have on astronauts' general health.

 Jeannette Kras - Redacteur

Astronomen hebben in het vroege heelal een opmerkelijk object ontdekt. Het lijkt op een enorme ster, ongeveer zo groot als ons zonnestelsel, maar het straalt honderd miljard keer meer energie uit dan een gewone ster. De meest waarschijnlijke verklaring: een volledig nieuw type kosmisch object, een zogeheten zwartegatster.

De ontdekking, gepubliceerd in Nature, is gedaan met de James Webb-ruimtetelescoop. De telescoop legde het helderrode object vast in een periode waarin het heelal nog maar enkele honderden miljoenen jaren oud was. Het lijkt te bestaan uit een centraal zwart gat, omgeven door een enorme, dichte gasmantel. De energie is daardoor niet afkomstig van kernfusie, zoals bij gewone sterren, maar van het zwarte gat zelf.

Hoofdauteur Rohan Naidu: “We denken dat er een centraal zwart gat zit dat 100.000 keer zo zwaar is als de zon. Daaromheen bevindt zich een zeer uitgestrekte gasmantel die eruitziet als een ster ter grootte van het zonnestelsel. Het is enorm.”

De ontdekking kan bovendien een verklaring bieden voor de mysterieuze kleine rode stippen die op vrijwel alle diepe opnamen van de James Webb-telescoop opduiken. “Deze kleine rode stippen lijken overal in het vroege heelal voor te komen, maar verdwijnen tegen de huidige tijd bijna volledig”, zegt Naidu. “Wat deze objecten precies zijn, is een van de meest bediscussieerde onderwerpen uit het James Webb-tijdperk.”

Op zoek naar vroege sterrenstelsels

De astronomen zochten niet bewust naar een zwartegatster. Het team gebruikte de James Webb-telescoop om de vroegste sterrenstelsels op te sporen in een onderzoeksprogramma met de naam Mirage or Miracle (MoM). “Er is al enige tijd een raadsel rond veel heldere oude sterrenstelsels”, zegt Naidu. “Wat we ontdekten, is dat iets wat eruitziet als een uitzonderlijk helder vroeg sterrenstelsel, oftewel een ‘miracle’, in sommige gevallen eigenlijk een ‘mirage’ kan zijn.” Het lijkt op een sterrenstelsel, maar het is in werkelijkheid iets anders.

{ https://scientias.nl/nieuws/astronomie-ruimtevaart/ }

Secret Soviet UFOs: What happened when two scientists knocked on a door in Estonia? | Reality Check

Ross Coulthart

Something metallic turned up under a garden in a quiet Tallinn suburb in 1969, and the Soviets spent the next twenty years trying to get it out, bringing in excavators and scientists and military, borrowing the house from its owners and living in it, digging on and off until perestroika ended the whole effort and they walked away. Astrophysicist Dr. Beatriz Villarroel and Ocean X co-founder Dennis Åsberg went to that address to find out what is still down there. Nobody came to the door, but the neighbor who had watched all of it from his window talked to them for an hour.

This is their full conversation with Ross Coulthart, recorded for "Secret Soviet UFOs" and running well past what the special had room for. Villarroel walks through the peer-reviewed work that brought her to Estonia, highly reflective objects photographed in orbit years before anyone on Earth had launched a satellite, and why she thinks the same search belongs in the ground. Åsberg ties Merivälja to the Baltic Sea anomaly his team found on sonar roughly 300 kilometers away and argues that both could predate the last ice age. Between them, they count five European cases and will not give up the coordinates of one of them. What nobody can answer yet is what sits under that garden, and the only thing that would settle it is ground-penetrating radar in the yard of a man who has already told them no.

Secret Soviet UFOs: What happened when two scientists knocked on a door in Estonia? | Reality Check

Reality Check: Secret Soviet UFOs | KGB swarms suburban house in UFO hunt

{ https://www.newsnationnow.com/ }

I’ve spent five decades investigating. Here are the facts

FBI Files Detail 'Bronze Metallic Object' Materialising in Sky as Pentagon Releases UFO Data

For the first time, complete UFO case files drawn from multiple federal agencies have been made directly accessible online

The Pentagon has started putting decades of declassified UFO files online via a new public website, officials in Washington confirmed on Friday. 

PHOTO Wayne Thornton/Pinterest

The Pentagon has begun publishing decades of declassified UFO files on a new public website, officials confirmed on Friday in Washington, bringing previously secret reports from the late 1940s to 2025 into the open for the first time.

The move follows President Donald Trump's directive earlier this year ordering US agencies to release government records on UFOs, now formally labelled unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, along with any files touching on 'extraterrestrial life.'

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, has spent recent years sifting through historic reports and producing public summaries, but this is the first time complete case files, drawn from multiple federal agencies, have been made directly accessible online.

Pentagon UFO Website Puts 'Never-Before-Seen' Files in One Place

The Pentagon said the new site will host 'never-before-seen' UFO material, including videos, photos and original documents pulled from across the US government.

In a statement, the Department of Defence stressed that anyone can now search the database without security clearance, and promised further releases on a 'rolling basis' as more files are reviewed.

It can be recalled that interest in UFOs has surged in recent years, fuelled by leaked cockpit footage, congressional hearings and an increasingly vocal community of former officials urging transparency.

The Pentagon appears keen to show it has heard that noise. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth hailed Friday's drop of documents as 'unprecedented transparency,' even as some files arrive heavily redacted, with full pages blacked out.

Many of the UFO sightings cluster around sensitive military activity and major deployments. In the 1950s and 1960s, that meant Cold War flashpoints in Germany and the Soviet Union.

In more recent years, alleged encounters concentrate in the Middle East, particularly near the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq and Syria, where the US has maintained a sustained footprint and some of its most advanced surveillance kit.

Officials suggest that it is no coincidence. The lion's share of reports in the cache come from military pilots and personnel, often using sophisticated sensors that far outstrip civilian technology. If you go looking with the best gear, in other words, you see more weird stuff.

Crucially, in all of the incidents described in the newly released records, the Pentagon says the aerial phenomena posed no apparent threat to US forces. Most of the unknown objects either broke contact abruptly or vanished from view just as quickly as they had appeared.

Orbs, a 'Super-Hot' Object and a Bronze UFO in the Sky

Among the more recent entries, one 2023 case in the western United States stands out inside the document trove. Over two days, federal law enforcement officers independently reported strange orbs in the sky, with one account describing 'orbs launching other orbs.'

The Pentagon itself labels that episode 'among the most compelling' in its holdings, although the files stop short of any firm conclusion about what was actually seen.

In a separate 2024 encounter in Iraq, an unidentified craft was reported zipping across the surveillance systems of a US aircraft at high speed while the crew was engaged in an unrelated strike. The object cut across their sensors but, again, did not interfere with the mission and disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

A 2025 account relayed by a senior intelligence officer to the FBI pushes things further into science-fiction territory. According to the government's own description, US personnel were dispatched in a helicopter to search an area where orbs had previously been reported.

They allegedly located a 'super-hot' orb hovering above the ground, which then travelled roughly 20 miles at a speed too fast for the helicopter to keep up. That is the sort of detail that will send online forums into overdrive.

The historic files are hardly less surreal. NASA transcripts from 1969 in the release record Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin telling officials he saw what he described as a 'possible laser' in space, noting a 'fairly bright light source' that the crew tentatively ascribed to that explanation.

Then there is the FBI's own artwork. One composite sketch, based on witness reporting, shows what the bureau calls an 'apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materialising out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously.'

The image reads like classic UFO lore, except this time it is filed in a government record rather than a tabloid or late-night talk show.

Trump Claims Credit as Experts Warn of New Speculation

Trump teasing a major disclosure of UFO and UAP material. On his social media platform, the president took a victory lap on Friday, saying it was his push for 'Complete and Maximum Transparency' that forced the release.

'It was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects,' Trump wrote, claiming the publication will allow Americans to 'decide for themselves' what is happening in the skies.

Last month, while welcoming the Artemis II astronauts to the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that his administration would be 'releasing as much as we can in the near future.' UFOs, he said, had been 'in the minds of people for a long time', hinting that the government needed to catch up with public curiosity.

Not everyone inside the Pentagon ecosystem is thrilled about how the data drop is being presented.

Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of AARO, issued a pointed warning against reading too much into raw files without expert context.

READ MORE

The Pentagon Just Declassified a UFO 'Time Warp' Encounter and Harvard Is Blaming Alien Technology

He said there was 'nothing unexpected' in the latest release and argued that, without analysis, the website would 'only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and armchair pseudoscience, particularly from the playhouse politics theatre company.'

For starters, AARO's official reviews to date have not found any evidence that UFOs or UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin. That conclusion runs directly against the hopes of some true believers, and it is one reason the office has itself become a target of suspicion and wild claims.

The newly released files arrive, then, in an awkward middle ground. On one hand, this is the first time complete case files, even in redacted form, have been published straight from federal archives. On the other, many pages remain obscured, and the government is still saying, essentially, that nothing in its vaults proves alien visitors.

Whether this wave of UFO transparency calms public obsession or just adds more fuel to it, the files are now out there, and they are not going back in the box.

RELATED

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ }

Iran’s Alien Files? Tehran’s U.S. Conspiracy Claim Takes on New Leverage in a High-Stakes War

INSIDE THIS REPORT

• Iranian media once promoted an extraordinary claim that alien forces secretly controlled the United States.
• No verified evidence establishes that Iran possesses UAP materials—or that the U.S. has an alien partnership.
• But in wartime, even unproven “disclosure” claims can become a potent tool of propaganda, pressure and psychological warfare.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

As U.S.-Iran hostilities continue to shake the region, an old and extraordinary allegation from Iranian state-aligned media is worth revisiting—not as proof of extraterrestrial contact, but as a warning about how UAP narratives can be turned into geopolitical weapons.

In January 2014, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency circulated a report claiming the United States had been governed since 1945 by a secret extraterrestrial “shadow government.” The story invoked a supposed alien agenda, alleged contact with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and claims attributed to documents supposedly linked to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on the Fars publication and its allegations at the time.

The claim takes on a different significance in the middle of a real geopolitical crisis. The relevant question is no longer whether the 2014 story was credible—it was not supported by verifiable evidence—but whether Tehran could revive, expand or strategically deploy the same narrative if it claimed to possess proof that the United States has been governed by a secret extraterrestrial “shadow government” since 1945.

To be clear, there is currently no public, credible evidence that Iran possesses such proof, or that the United States has cooperated with extraterrestrial beings, or has hidden an alien program from Congress or the public.

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reached a similar conclusion in its historical report. Read AARO’s historical-record report here.

But, that doesn’t end the legal, political or national-security significance of the subject. It sharpens it.

A government at war does not need authentic alien artifacts to exploit public interest in alien artifacts. It needs a plausible narrative, carefully timed releases, selectively edited footage, ambiguous radar tracks, alleged insider testimony, or claims that cannot immediately be disproven because the underlying information is classified.

If Iran were to announce that it possessed UAP-related material—whether real, misunderstood, fabricated, foreign-made, or simply unexplained—the first battlefield would be public confidence. Tehran could frame the release as evidence that Washington has concealed advanced technology, lied to its own citizens, or maintained secret arrangements beyond democratic oversight.

The immediate target would not necessarily be scientists. It would be American public trust.

That kind of disclosure campaign could be designed to trigger congressional demands for classified briefings, force the White House into rapid denials, fuel online speculation, and divide an already polarized public over whether officials are withholding information. It could also muddy the line between authentic classified aerospace programs, adversary technology, drone incursions and truly unresolved aerial events.

The strategic value would be especially high during sensitive diplomacy. A claimed Iranian “UAP disclosure” could be deployed to distract from sanctions negotiations, military setbacks, intelligence disclosures, weapons inspections or domestic unrest. Tehran could offer supposed evidence through intermediaries, friendly media channels, foreign intelligence contacts, or international institutions—then demand political concessions, sanctions relief, security guarantees, or a halt to military action in exchange for access to the material.

That would amount to leverage by ambiguity.

The legal problem for the United States would be just as serious as the public-relations problem. If Iran released purported documents identifying U.S. facilities, defense contractors, aviation programs or alleged recovery sites, federal officials could face a difficult choice: deny the allegations and risk validating portions of the disclosures, or refuse substantive comment and allow speculation to intensify.

American intelligence agencies have confronted versions of that dilemma for decades. Genuine classified programs, especially aerospace, surveillance and weapons-development projects—can create the appearance of a cover-up when viewed without context. AARO itself noted that secrecy surrounding legitimate national-security programs has fueled public speculation about hidden extraterrestrial knowledge.

Iran could exploit that uncertainty with remarkable precision.

Still, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. A grainy video, anonymous source, metal fragment, or government statement probably wouldn’t do much to establish ‘proof’ of an extraterrestrial U.S.-connection.

Without real and authenticated evidence, a revived Iranian claim that they have alien materials or proof that the “United States is being governed by a secret extraterrestrial “shadow government,” would be political theater—not disclosure.

But political theater can matter during war. It can move markets, influence public opinion, strain alliances and force governments to spend valuable time rebutting claims that were engineered to be impossible to conclusively disprove in real time.

Iran’s 2014 alien-shadow-government story may have been dismissed as fringe propaganda. In today’s environment, however, it offers a revealing preview of how UAP narratives could be repackaged as a modern instrument of state pressure: not to prove that aliens are here, but to exploit the fact that millions of people believe governments may know more than they are saying.

{ https://usaherald.com/ }

'We Want to Believe' book explores the reality of UFOs: 'It's always going to be more likely that someone is wrong about what they saw' (interview)

"They're not supernatural or miraculous. If they really existed they'd exist in time and space and three dimensions like everything else."

UAPs are hot these days, whether they can be partially explained or wholly dismissed 

(Image credit: David Wall/Getty Images)

After all these years, we still want to believe.

Whether you're a bona fide believer or a staunch skeptic, we can all agree that UFO legends and lore is a fascinating subject that continues to fuel endless debate. And with pop culture feeding our lizard brains lurid tales of flying saucers and alien invasions, it’s no wonder humanity is always up for a good story of inexplicable aerial sightings or various uncanny encounters of the third kind.

In "We Want To Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream And Why It Matters" (Aug. 25, Columbia Global Reports), acclaimed literary critic and Senior Editor at The Atlantic Adam Kirsch explores this insatiable drive to wonder at unidentified phenomena. For Kirsch, the topic asks many of the same questions that human religions do. "For me, humanity's way into the subject is that UFOs are a way of thinking about a lot of the same questions we might also think about in religious or philosophical terms," Kirsch told Space in an interview. "Questions like what is unique about humanity, are we alone in the universe, are there other minds, what's our destiny as a species?"

Kirsch says the recent wave of alleged whistleblowers helped push him towards studying UFOs, or UAP, as they're now known.

"The real start of my interest in the subject was in 2017 when there was this sudden reporting in the mainstream media about the Pentagon UFO videos and the so-called secret program to collect UFO reports. For the first time, it seemed like maybe there was some legitimate news or evidence."

Get ready for the next Pentagon file drop with our essential UFO reading list

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Kirsch recognized that monumental occasion as a pivotal moment that truly altered the way that American culture and media talked about the titillating topic.

"I got more into the history and the lore of UFOs and partly out of just that basic idea that it would be really cool if there were other minds in the universe. It would be amazing if we could find proof of that. Over the years it's happened repeatedly in this history of UFOs. There's a lot of public excitement and then it peters out because there is no evidence and there isn't anything concrete to point to. And that's definitely what's happened over this last cycle."

Using grounded scientific logic and basic common sense, Kirsch brings a calm measured approach to the UAP hysteria that's been gripping the whole country.

"One of the interesting things about testimony that people like David Fravor and Ryan Graves gave about this is, 'When the camera sees something, the person doesn't see it. And when the person sees something, the camera doesn't see it.' It's always one or the other, it's never both at the same time. Even as long ago as the 1950s, people were saying that UFOs for some reason are not photogenic. No one ever seems to be able to get a real clear image of a UFO the way you’d think you'd be able to if they actually exist in the atmosphere."

"The obvious and logical explanation is that there's nothing to take a picture of. But it does get to this basic question of how do we go from, 'I had an experience' to 'This is what the experience tells me about the world.' I talk in the book about the difference between evidence and testimony. When they're talking about UFOs, people often blur that distinction. Testimony is an account and people are often wrong or misinterpret about what happened to them."

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 215 — Disclosure Day

After all the smoke clears, the test that Kirsch declares must be applied to these reports is the same test that 18th-century philosopher David Hume said when talking about religious miracles.

"You don't have to prove that a miracle didn't happen, all you have to do is prove that it's more likely that someone was wrong, than that the laws of nature were suspended," Kirsch adds. "The same is true of UFOs. They're not supernatural or miraculous. If they really existed they'd exist in time and space and three dimensions like everything else. Based on the way we understand the universe and space travel, makes the odds very small that a UFO report would really be an actual extraterrestrial spacecraft. It's always going to be more likely that someone is wrong about what they saw.

"Modern science and scientific education is all about learning to not trust your instincts. It's about learning to say that the way that I spontaneously understand the world is wrong and there's a better way to understand it. UFOs are a perfect example of this because there's no evidence for them, but there's lots of people that see things in the sky they don't understand.

"With these released UAP videos, we might not be getting the whole truth, but that doesn't mean the whole truth is as interesting as I want it to be, and that there's some cosmic secret."

"We Want To Believe" is available at bookstores and online outlets Aug. 25, 2026.

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{ https://www.space.com/entertainment }

Metals recovered by Russia from alleged UFO appear not to be from Earth: Coulthart

Rob Taub

(NewsNation) — Some metals from an alleged UFO recovered by Russia in Estonia were determined not to be of Earthly origin.

NewsNation special correspondent Ross Coulthart told “NewsNation Prime” the discovery by Russian scientists showed the metals were “not normal isotopic ratios that you would expect for similar metals that were found on this planet.”

The development follows Coulthart’s latest podcast, “Secret Soviet UFO,” which details a story from the 1960s where a suburban couple was doing routine work on their home when a worker digging a well struck a hard metallic object.

“The reality is the Soviet Union had its fair share of anomalous events and this is one of the most celebrated ones,” Coulthart said after visiting the site. “It’s been the subject of speculation in Estonia for many years, both before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain.”

KGB had files about the alleged UFO event: Coulthart

Coulthart noted the event was recorded in both KGB files and files of the former Overseas Intelligence Service, the KGB and now the FSB.

“We also know from multiple witnesses who were on the ground at the time that there was a massive investigation where the Soviet military came in, the whole house garden was dug up, there was a tunnel dug to the object, whatever it was, and there were reports — multiple reports — of people including a worker that tried to hit the object with a pickaxe,” he added.

“He was hit in the chest by some kind of propulsive force. We don’t know what that force was, but as a result of that incident and weird anomalous things that happened in and around the house that were witnessed and recorded again by multiple witnesses, the entire tunnel system was closed up and as best as we know, the object has never been recovered,” Coulthart said.

Metals discovered supposedly caused weird events: Coulthart

The object — now dubbed “Object M” — appeared to cause “weird phenomena” around the house, with multiple events recorded by multiple witnesses. Coulthart noted Russian files were discovered that exemplified diagrams of Object M under the ground.

“There were ground-penetrating radar tests done by scientists intriguingly at the very beginning of the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s; there was even a Japanese team that went and did their own ground-penetrating radar survey and they confirmed that there was indeed an anomalous metallic object about 30 metres, 30 feet under the house.”

Coulthart believes the discovery led to one of the biggest UFO investigations of all time.

“The Soviets in the era of the Cold War dedicated an investigation to over 10,000 UFO cases, and what they found proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that Russia was very, very interested in UFOs,” he acknowledged.

{ https://www.newsnationnow.com/entertainment-news/ }

Did the Government Just Admit It Can’t Explain the UAP Orbs — Or Did It Just Hire Someone to Explain Them Away?

INSIDE THIS REPORT

• Avi Loeb says government sources asked him to build a science council because they can't explain UAP orbs as human-made tech.
• The wording raises a hard question: are officials seeking answers, or a credible cover story?
• A closer look at the "orb" phenomenon suggests something Loeb's framework may not be built to capture.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

WASHINGTON - Professor Avi Loeb has spent the summer of 2026 becoming the most quoted man in ufology, and his latest post on X may be the most consequential yet. Writing through the account of the UAP Science Advisory Council he now chairs, Loeb said reliable, national-security-focused U.S. government sources asked him to build the council because the nature of UAP orbs remains unresolved based on all publicly available data — and, as he put it in his own words, because they cannot explain the orbs "in terms of human-made technologies."

That single phrase deserves more scrutiny than it has received.

“Reliable US government sources who are focused on national security asked me to establish the UAP Science Advisory Council because they cannot explain UAP orbs in terms of human-made technologies. Given these circumstances, it is the duty of all genuine scientists to figure out who these strangers visiting our backyard are.” - Professor Avi Loeb @ProfAviLoeb

On its face, Loeb's statement reads as vindication for years of witness testimony: the government, by its own admission, is stumped. But read it again. "Cannot explain UAP orbs in terms of human-made technologies" is not the same sentence as "cannot explain UAP orbs." It is narrower, and the narrowness may be the point. It suggests a search confined to one hypothesis space — ours — rather than an open inquiry into what these objects actually are.

If the goal from the outset is to find a terrestrial, technological explanation, then the council isn't hunting for the truth. It's hunting for the most defensible version of a predetermined answer.

That distinction matters enormously, and it is worth asking plainly: are the agencies who approached Loeb genuinely trying to solve the orb phenomenon, or are they trying to acquire his credibility — his Harvard pedigree, his media fluency, his willingness to speak in public — to construct a narrative the public will accept?

A scientist of Loeb's stature lends enormous weight to whatever conclusion eventually gets announced. That weight is valuable whether the underlying goal is disclosure or damage control.

Loeb's own record complicates the picture further. Public reporting this year has repeatedly noted that the council formed after intelligence and defense officials, including the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the ODNI, and the FBI, tasked him with assembling a multidisciplinary panel to bring scientific rigor to the government's UAP files.

Loeb has framed his approach as a "whodunit" — better sensors, better data, elimination of competing explanations. That is a defensible scientific method. But method only gets you as far as the assumptions baked into it, and this investigation may be starting with the wrong ones.

Here is where independent research into the orb phenomenon diverges sharply from the official framework. Reports of sphere-like objects — the so-called Buga sphere, metallic ball-shaped craft, luminous circular objects tracked by military sensors — are typically treated as a single category: unknown physical craft awaiting classification. Loeb's council, understandably, wants better instrumentation and material data to sort that category out. But that approach assumes the orbs are objects in the conventional sense: solid, engineered, governed by the same physics as a drone or a satellite.

My own investigation into the orb phenomenon points somewhere else entirely. The pattern that recurs across credible sightings — orbs descending low, entering the atmosphere, and appearing to track their surroundings with something resembling awareness — does not fit the profile of hardware. It fits the profile of something behaving. Witnesses do not describe machines. They describe presence. That is not a materials-science problem, and it may not yield to a materials-science solution, no matter how sophisticated the council's sensors become.

None of this proves the government is running a cover story. It is entirely possible that officials approached Loeb in good faith, hoping rigorous science will finally cut through decades of speculation. But the phrasing he chose to publish — a search for a human-made explanation — leaves the door open to a less comforting possibility: that the mission was never to find out what the orbs are, but to find a way to explain them that the public, and perhaps Congress, will accept without asking what else they might be.

Genuine science does not start with the answer it's permitted to find. Until the council's mandate is stated without that qualifier, the public is right to keep asking the question Loeb himself raised: who — or what — are these strangers visiting our backyard?

{ https://usaherald.com/ }

ILLUSTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION // NOT EVIDENCE

Overview

A bright streak of light seen over the Las Vegas sky just minutes before a family placed a 911 call reporting what they believed were alien figures was most likely a meteor, according to a scientist who reviewed the event. The flash, which briefly drew attention online and among local observers, has become the latest example of how a single sky event can quickly take on a life of its own when it overlaps with unexplained or emotionally charged reports.

The timing of the fireball — appearing shortly before the emergency call — fueled speculation among people following the story. But the scientific assessment points in a far more ordinary direction: a natural object entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. In other words, the dramatic light show was likely astronomical, not extraterrestrial.

What Scientists Concluded

Based on the available review of the event, the bright object was identified as a likely meteor, not evidence of alien activity. Scientists routinely use factors such as a streak’s brightness, motion, and duration to distinguish meteors from other aerial phenomena, and this case appears to fit that familiar profile. While the public conversation around Las Vegas has long included paranormal and UFO speculation, the fireball itself does not appear to provide support for those claims.

The distinction matters because fireballs are often mistaken for something more unusual, especially when they appear unexpectedly over populated areas at night. Their sudden brilliance can make them seem artificial or controlled, but that visual impact is consistent with a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. In this case, the scientific reading offers a grounded explanation for a moment that otherwise invited more fantastical interpretations.

Why the Incident Drew Attention

What made the Las Vegas episode stand out was not just the streak of light, but the proximity of that sighting to a 911 call involving claims of alien activity. That sequence gave the story a built-in tension that spread quickly beyond local news audiences. For many observers, the fireball and the emergency call seemed connected; scientists, however, say the two events should not be treated as evidence of the same cause.

This is a familiar pattern in unexplained-sky reporting: a plausible natural event occurs, then a separate human report adds a layer of mystery. When those timelines overlap, public interest often jumps ahead of the evidence. The meteor explanation helps separate what was seen in the sky from what was later reported on the ground.

Broader Context

The episode also lands in the middle of an ongoing national fascination with UFOs, paranormal claims, and unexplained aerial phenomena. In recent years, those topics have shifted from fringe conversation into mainstream debate, with new government transparency efforts and persistent public curiosity keeping the issue in the spotlight. That environment can make ordinary events feel extraordinary, especially when they happen in places already associated with spectacle and mystery.

For now, the best-supported explanation for the Las Vegas fireball is straightforward: a meteor. The 911 call may continue to fuel online debate, but the streak of light itself appears to have a scientific answer.

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{ https://usubjects.com/ }

5.5km UFO On Moon Watching NASA 1967 Mission, UAP Sighting News.

Date of photo: Feb 23, 1967

Date of discovery: Aug 22, 2026

Location of discovery: Earths moon

Source: 

• https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorbiter/frame/?3078

There is a long spacecraft hovering over the moons surface in a NASA photo from 1967. This is 100% proof that aliens were watching humans before we ever stepped on the moon. 

 

I took the measurement of the crater in the photo called Theophilus crater, which is 110km or 68 miles across by 4.4km or 2.7 miles deep and can conclude that this UFO is 1/20 the length of the crater...equals 5.5km or 3.4 mile long UFO. Thats huge to us humans but to aliens, its considered a small shuttle craft. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

 

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