Once every eleven years, the Sun exhibits a marked increase in activity before reverting to a more quiescent state. We will elucidate the origins of this cyclical rhythm and the reasons why predicting the behavior of our star remains challenging.

The Sun in October 2019 during a minimum in activity (left) and in April 2014 during a previous maximum (right). Images courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory/Joy Ng

The deceptive constancy of our star

Every morning, the Sun ascends beyond the horizon, mirroring its emergence from a millennium ago. It appears unchanging to us; however, in actuality, its activity exhibits cyclical variations approximately every eleven years. At the beginning of the cycle, solar activity gradually increases. More and more spots and active regions appear on the surface of the Sun, its magnetic field becomes more complex, the movement of hot plasma on the surface becomes more turbulent, and, as a result, flares and ejections of matter into space become more frequent. Particles and magnetic structures from some of these events reach the  Earth and interact with its magnetosphere. This can cause geomagnetic storms, create problems for satellites and radio communications, and the auroras become brighter and can be visible even at unusually low latitudes. After the maximum, activity gradually decreases. The number of sunspots, flares, and coronal ejections on average becomes smaller, and the Sun moves to solar minimum. Then the cycle begins again. And so on from cycle to cycle. 

A graph illustrating sunspot numbers, accompanied by a forecast for Cycle 24, produced in 2011. Author: David Hathaway. Source: NASA

This rhythm was noticed as early as the 19th century, although astronomers had observed sunspots themselves much earlier. One of the earliest dated records belongs to Johannes Kepler: in 1607 he observed the Sun using a pinhole camera. However, Kepler mistakenly thought that the dark spot on the Sun’s disk was Mercury passing in front of the Sun. It was not until 1843 that the German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe drew attention to the approximately 10-year periodicity of changes in the number of sunspots. Later, the period was refined to approximately 11 years. The explanation for this cycle is related to the Sun’s magnetic field, which changes along with the motion and differential rotation of the plasma inside the star. In the early 20th century, astronomers finally had the opportunity to directly study the magnetic fields of sunspots – something that astronomers of the past could not investigate without the instruments available to us today.

Sketches of sunspots published by Johannes Kepler in his book “Phaenomenon Singulare Seu Mercurius In Sole” in 1609.
Credit: Johannes Kepler

The accidental discovery of the solar cycle

In 1826, German amateur astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe initiated a search for an elusive hypothetical planet thought to orbit closer to the Sun than Mercury. To prevent missing its transit across the Sun’s disk, he meticulously documented all dark spots observed through his telescope daily. Although he did not discover the planet, he amassed seventeen years of consistent observations, employing the same method throughout, and discerned a periodic pattern within the data. The number of sunspots fluctuated in a cycle of approximately ten years. Samuel Heinrich Schwabe subsequently published his findings in the early 1840s in the esteeme  astronomical journal Astronomische Nachrichten. 

An entry dated June 28, 1829, from the observation journal of Samuel Heinrich Schwabe. Author: Samuel Heinrich Schwabe

The Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf undertook the subsequent step. He meticulously examined observatory archives and assembled fragmented observations dating from 1745 — systematic records before that period did not exist. Utilizing this extended series, the interval was revised to eleven years. Additionally, Wolf established the numbering system that remains in use today, commencing with the cycle initiated in 1755. The current cycle is designated as number 25.

The reasons why sunspots became the primary measure of solar activity are evident in the era’s practices. They are observable even with basic telescopes, whereas solar flares were first documented only in 1859, and material outbursts from space were not detected until the 1970s. Sunspots continue to serve as a practical indicator today, although solar radio emissions are now also employed alongside them. 

The methodology scientists use to monitor the solar cycle.

Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

What is the origin of this rhythm?

Sunspots have been observed since the time of Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, but their true nature was not understood until 1908. At that time, American astronomer George Ellery Hale studied the light emanating from sunspots and discovered characteristic changes in it that occur only in a very strong magnetic field. Since then, it has become clear that sunspots are merely a visible sign, and the cause of the cycle must be sought in the behavior of the magnetic field inside the Sun. 

ExploreParanormal Gear

This behavior is atypical. The Sun’s surface is designated as the photosphere — namely, the visible stratum from which light is emitted. The Sun, of course, does not have a regular solid surface: the photosphere consists of very hot plasma. This is a state of matter in which the gas is largely ionized: along with neutral particles, it contains charged ions and free electrons. It is this mobile electrically conductive substance that forms the complex magnetic field of the Sun. Plasma conducts electric current well, and the magnetic field moves with it, as if frozen inside. This connection is two-way: the flows of matter seem to drag the magnetic field along with them, and a sufficiently strong field, on the contrary, slows down their movement.

The plasma exhibits variable rotational velocities across different latitudes. The equatorial zone completes a complete rotation in about 25 days, while at high, near-polar latitudes the rotation takes about 35 days. This difference in speed gradually deforms the Sun’s poloidal magnetic field: its field lines stretch in the direction of rotation and increasingly wind around the Sun, forming a toroidal component of the magnetic field. This part of the solar dynamo mechanism is called the omega effect.

A schematic representation delineating the three phases of the Sun’s magnetic field evolution throughout a cycle. On the left, the magnetic field extends longitudinally from pole to pole. In the central depiction, the field exhibits twisting along the parallels due to differential rotation speeds. On the right, the magnetic field appears entangled, with loops protruding outward and dark spots forming at their bases.

The second component of the mechanism functions concurrently with the first. In the Sun’s outer layer, hot plasma ascends, cools, and descends, while rotational forces twist these flows similar to the manner in which cyclones are twisted in  Earth’s atmosphere. The reversed magnetic field generated by this twisting gradually reverts to its original configuration, with the north magnetic pole occupying the position previously held by the south pole. This process occurs approximately at the peak of solar activity. This phenomenon is known as the alpha effect and remains a subject of considerable debate among researchers. Collectively, these two components constitute the solar dynamo.

The magnetic field beneath the Sun’s surface exhibits an uneven distribution. In areas where the magnetic field is particularly strong, it affects the movement of the plasma and can make a magnetically saturated region buoyant. It rises through the Sun’s mass, carrying with it the magnetic flux. Near the surface, the magnetic field can emerge in arcs and loops, while their ends remain submerged in the plasma. A strong magnetic field suppresses the convective transfer of energy from the depths, so where such a loop emerges, the surface becomes colder than the surrounding area. This is how a sunspot appears. The more complex and tangled the field becomes, the more often loops of opposite direction come together and reconnect. During such magnetic reconnection, some of the stored magnetic energy is quickly released. This can cause powerful solar flares, and under certain conditions, coronal mass ejections, when huge amounts of plasma are ejected into interplanetary space.

A composite image of an active region on the Sun, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA/SDO

The concept of such a mechanism was first proposed by the Irish physicist Joseph Larmor in 1919. However, the theory still does not elucidate why one of its cycles precisely endures eleven years. Individual cycles vary from nine to fourteen years, with an average of eleven. Currently, it remains infeasible to accurately predict either the duration or the intensity of the subsequent cycle.

Why the area is not actually dark

On the Sun itself, sunspots remain the most conspicuous manifestation of this phenomenon, and their designation leads to a common misconception. The term “spot” implies a defect or a void, although in reality it refers to the same incandescent material, but cooler than the adjacent regions. The photosphere is heated to approximately 5,500 degrees Celsius, whereas a sunspot reaches about 3,500 degrees in temperature. Consequently, the material within a sunspot emits roughly one-fifth of the light emitted by the surrounding surface, and this contrast is what renders the sunspot dark. 

A collection of images of the Sun captured during the initial year of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s operation, released on May 19, 2023. Credit: NSF/AURA/NSO

The smallest sunspots measure approximately 1,600 kilometers in diameter, whereas the largest can extend up to 160,000 kilometers — approximately twelve times the diameter of  Earth. The most intense flares and eruptions originate above these substantial sunspot clusters. These phenomena reach us through multiple pathways. 

The radiation emitted by the flare arrives at Earth in approximately eight minutes. It remains imperceptible to the human eye due to its predominant emission within the X-ray and ultraviolet spectra. Nonetheless, it ionizes the upper atmospheric layers, resulting in disruptions to shortwave radio communications on the sunlit side of the Earth and impairing the accuracy of satellite navigation as signals traverse the modified ionosphere.

Emissions of this substance propagate at a considerably slower rate, taking several days to reach Earth’s vicinity. They are responsible for magnetic storms and the resulting auroras, which become visible at much lower latitudes than usual under such conditions. Due to abrupt variations in the magnetic field, supplementary currents are induced in extensive power lines, leading to transformer overloads. The upper atmosphere heats and expands as a consequence of the storm, causing satellites in low Earth orbit to encounter a denser environment and consequently lose altitude at an accelerated rate. Additionally, high-energy charged particles can impair satellite electronics, causing issues ranging from isolated memory errors to the gradual deterioration of solar panels. Such events are markedly more frequent during solar maxima than during solar minima.

An eruptive prominence observed on August 31, 2012, that initiated a coronal mass ejection. A composite image captured in two ultraviolet bands. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO

This remains, however, merely a preliminary guideline. Predicting a specific flare is unattainable, and severe storms have been documented on numerous occasions even during the declining phase, when overall activity was diminishing.

What is currently occurring with the Sun?

The present cycle has demonstrated the considerable challenges associated with making precise predictions. In 2019, a panel of experts from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in collaboration with NASA, forecasted that the peak would occur in July 2025; however, it actually materialized earlier, in the autumn of 2024. Moreover, the predicted intensity was also inaccurate. The forecasted activity index was 115, whereas the actual index surpassed 160. These figures do not directly correspond to the count of sunspots on the solar disk, as the index also considers their groupings. The peak itself is identified by the average value over the year, making its exact date indeterminate until after it has occurred.

The apex of Solar Cycle 25 commenced in 2024, during which time the most intense solar flares occurred with extraordinary regularity. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL

Approximately concurrently, the polarity of the Sun’s poles underwent a reversal. Based on measurements from the Japanese Hinode spacecraft, this event likely occurred in October 2024 in the southern polar region, with the northern polar region experiencing the reversal approximately one month later. 

The activity is presently declining and is projected to continue decreasing until reaching a minimum around the year 2030. Subsequently, Cycle 26 will commence, and at its peak — approximately in the mid-2030s — the polarity will reverse once more, reverting the magnetic field to its pre-2024 state. It has been observed that the interval between two activity minima is approximately eleven years, as evidenced by the frequency of sunspots and solar flares. During this period, the solar poles undergo a single polarity reversal. To complete another such reversal and return to the initial configuration, an additional cycle is necessary; thus, a complete magnetic cycle is estimated to span approximately twenty-two years.

• Posted in Articles, Questions

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Now imagine another planet where intelligent life appeared one million years, 10 million years or 100 million years before us. 

Such a civilization would already have had an extraordinary amount of time to develop. Such a civilization could theoretically have developed technologies far beyond anything we currently possess. 

It could potentially have developed for example: advanced artificial intelligence; autonomous machines; genetic engineering; nanotechnology; self-replicating systems; autonomous spacecraft; planetary engineering; Interstellar space travel: advanced energy systems; telepathy, time travel; technologies capable of modifying its own biology. 

They may have started as biological organisms. But after millions of years, they could have become something else entirely. A civilization that is partly or almost completely post-biological. 

Biological evolution and technological evolution could become intertwined. The civilization might begin changing itself deliberately. Its members could alter their biology. They could replace biological organs. They could integrate artificial intelligence into themselves. Eventually, the distinction between organism and machine could begin to disappear. 

We call them “aliens” and their craft “UFOs” simply because we don’t know who they are or what they represent. But what if that is the wrong way to look at them? What if they are not something mysterious at all, but the result of their own evolutionary journey on another planet? 

Just as humanity has evolved from primitive tools to advanced technology, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and space exploration, could these beings represent what humanity might ultimately become after millions of years along its own evolutionary journey, shaped by the technologies, developments, and techniques emerging today? 

Just think about this: If humanity were to encounter a civilization 100 million years more advanced than us tomorrow, would we even recognize it as a civilization, or would we simply call it something we cannot understand?

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Pentagon UFO Program Scientist Says “Gifted” Chinese Children Teleported Objects Through Sealed Containers

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Now, a new study published in the journal Science suggests that clues to the mystery may exist beneath the ice itself, according to researchers who point to geological evidence that could help explain what led to the formation of Antarctica’s glaciers during a comparatively warm period in our planet’s history.

Clues to Why a Continent Froze

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) holds enough frozen water that it could raise sea levels around the world by more than 50 meters if a sudden, total melting event were ever to occur. Fortunately, scientists don’t anticipate that happening any time soon, although questions over what caused the formation of the largest mass of ice on our planet have remained one of the most predominant mysteries about Antarctica’s ancient history.

Based on geological evidence and paleo-climatological proxy data, the ice sheet’s formation occurred near the transition between the Eocene and Oligocene eras around 34 million years ago, marking a significant step along our planet’s path toward the cooler conditions that prevail today, even amid anthropogenic factors that contribute to ongoing climate changes.

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Years of Hubble observations from 2023 to 2025 allowed the team to trace subtle hints that they eventually resolved into the decagonal wave at Saturn’s south pole.

Observing the Solar System

“We’ve never seen anything quite like this in Saturn’s southern hemisphere,” said co-author Amy Simon, OPAL principal investigator, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The northern hexagon has been there every time we’ve looked for more than 40 years. This feature is different — it appears to be strengthening, giving us the rare opportunity to watch a giant atmospheric pattern develop.”

Since its 1990 launch into low Earth orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has been observing our solar system, uncovering new details about our planetary neighbors. One such project is the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, which began collecting data with observations of Uranus in 2014 and now provides the crucial evidence for this discovery, with high-resolution images that resolve murky hints from ground-based observations.

As Saturn’s seasons changed, its south pole came into alignment with ground-based observatories. In images from those telescopes submitted to the Planetary Virtual Observatory Laboratory, amateur astronomers Trevor Barry and Jean-Paul Oger, along with Agustín Sánchez-Lavega of the University of the Basque Country in Spain, noticed something interesting happening on the gas giant.

A Strange Band on Saturn

The researchers spotted an undulating band along Saturn’s south pole, which, in further 2025 ground-based telescope images, began to suggest a decagonal (ten-sided) structure. With its incredible image clarity and spatial resolution, Hubble’s imagery finally allowed researchers to resolve the decagonal shape with certainty.

“Given Saturn’s symmetry in its north-south jet stream system, we have been searching for a counterpart to Saturn’s northern hexagon on the south pole in Hubble images since 1990,” said lead author Agustín Sánchez-Lavega of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. “Images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn between 2004 and 2017, showed no inkling of a long-lived formation, either. The Hubble data confirmed the feature’s presence back to 2023.”

The wave is an interesting three-dimensional feature that extends through multiple layers of the atmosphere within one of the planet’s jet streams. Because Hubble can image the planet in multiple wavelengths, the decagon’s location appears to shift between observations, as each wavelength penetrates the atmosphere to a different degree.

Questions About Saturn

“The most intriguing part to me is that this seems to have just formed recently,” said Simon. “The question is, why did it suddenly form now when we haven’t seen one before?”

Recognizing Saturn’s decagonal wave is only a first step. Follow-up observations to collect more data and computer models to piece together what is occurring on the planet will be required to firmly grasp the phenomenon. Questions remain about how it formed, how long it may last, and how similar it is compared to the northern hexagonal wave.

One thing the team will be sure to watch for in their continued observations is whether the shape evolves or maintains its decagonal structure. Their continued work could provide important new insights into how atmospheric dynamics operate on gas giants and what they can reveal about our own planet’s atmospheric phenomena.

• The paper, “A Decagon Wave Around Saturn’s South Pole,” appeared in Science Advances on September 2, 2026.
• Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

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Another strange image has been unearthed in the NASA archives which some believe is evidence of intelligent life driving along the surface of Mars.

NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been investigating whether Mars could have supported microbial life for the last 14 years, snapped the image just over a year ago on May 19, 2025.

It shows the dusty Martian landscape with rocky hills and distant mountains around 2.40am in Coordinated Universal Time on Earth.

However, the panorama also revealed a large and easily visible pattern in the ground which looked similar to a row of tire tracks.

One person asked: 'Are those Curiosity’s tracks we’re seeing?'

However, others who viewed the NASA image shared on social media that the tracks from the human-made rover are completely different from the pattern seen last year.

Fueling speculation that NASA’s rover had captured proof of some mechanical device driving on Mars, another image taken just two minutes later caught the same pattern in the ground from a different angle - suggesting this was not a camera glitch or trick of the light.

In September 2025, NASA declared it had found the clearest signs of ancient microbial life on Mars in a sample collected by the Perseverance rover.

Images sent from the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2025 captured a strange pattern some have compared to tire tracks

A second image sent by Curiosity photographed the same track from a different angle

Despite the history-making revelation, both the space agency and White House have maintained that no signs of intelligent, extraterrestrial life have ever been found.

There were no other photos from May 19, 2025 publicly posted by NASA that revealed if more tracks were found or if Curiosity got closer to the strange formation to get a more detailed look.

NASA and military officials have frequently called strange and unexplainable objects in space photos 'artifacts,' often blaming them on unusual camera lighting or corrupted data being transmitted back to Earth.

The 2025 image was reposted on Tuesday by social media user Kari Sivertzen, a space enthusiast who regularly shares public NASA images that contain strange anomalies that cannot be easily explained. 

Sivertzen said on X: 'Sometimes I spot things that catch my eye, and I share them here. I believe there is life on other planets, and since NASA has found potential traces of life on Mars, it’s the perfect place to look.'

While viewers were immediately drawn to the strange track marks, Sivertzen said she shared the rover's photo to point out clues that a body of water may have existed on Mars in the distant past.

'What I'm actually highlighting here are the depressions in the surrounding area, which look quite distinct and could be consistent with past water activity or an impact,' Sivertzen posted.

However, the photo had some lining up Curiosity's wheel marks to the uniform pattern seen on Mars, which appeared to show a straight line down the center of the track, with evenly spaced prints closely distributed in a straight line - just like a tire in motion.

A social media user to shared the 2025 Mars image said it also revealed signs of an ancient body of water on the planet

Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 to find evidence that the planet had conditions that could support microbial life billions of years ago

One person replied to the X post: 'It's not the rover, at least what I think, since that would have left two tracks and the "pattern" doesn't match other rover tracks.'

The X user pointed out that Curiosity has no center line in its tire tracks, and the treads also feature a jagged pattern with large square blocks between them.

This was not the first strange pattern or formation astronomy enthusiasts have spotted on the Red Planet.

Last month, Sivertzen shared another shocking photo from Curiosity appearing to show a jellyfish-like being or mechanical device moving along Mars' Gale Crater.

The unearthed panorama from 2023 revealed a small figure in the left corner of the image that appeared to have a large black body perched atop two spindly legs.

Images taken of the same area less than a minute earlier showed no sign of the mysterious figure.

The object in 2023 was seen in Gale Crater and was not present in images taken seconds before 

Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater since 2012. The area is a huge impact crater roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, with a towering mountain rising from its center.

Scientists believe this location will provide more evidence that life once existed on Mars thousands, and possibly millions, of years ago.

Like the Perseverance rover, it is using onboard instruments to study rock layers, clay deposits and climate history to look for microbial traces of life.

Skeptics have previously claimed that people see strange images in the Martian landscape because the human brain naturally attempts to recognize familiar shapes in ambiguous images, a phenomenon known as pareidolia.

It is the same psychological effect that can cause people to see faces in clouds, animals in rock formations or human-made structures across the barren Martian landscape.

Mars has produced several famous examples, most notably the so-called ‘Face on Mars,’ which was photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

Higher-resolution images later revealed that the apparent face was an ordinary eroded hill whose human-like appearance resulted from shadows and the relatively poor quality of the original photograph.

NASA and the Trump Administration are now planning for the first manned mission to Mars by the end of the decade.

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EXCLUSIVE - DR PHIL: There are crystal clear secret UFO videos the government's hidden in plain sight. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What I've heard... and the terrifying reason for the cover-up may be more damaging than a PANDEMIC

By MATT LONDON, US EXECUTIVE EDITOR, OPINION

Dr Phil McGraw is beginning to lose patience with the Trump administration's efforts to disclose decades of government-held secrets about unidentified flying objects, though he doesn't believe the President is to blame.

'I think the President is fully committed to wanting transparency, but I think his intention and what's getting bureaucratically executed are two very different things,' Dr Phil told the Daily Mail after the Pentagon released a new batch of documents and images related to UFOs, also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP.

Included in the latest dump were six videos of UAP encounters by Special Operations forces on an AC-130J gunship over the Gulf of Oman in September 2021. The footage, which appears to have been taken by a cellphone of screens, shows objects picked up by infrared cameras and other sensors.

An accompanying report indicated the Special Ops forces on the ship 'observed approximately 25 instances of UAPs while conducting a live fire exercise in the Gulf of Oman.' 

Beyond that, little additional information was provided.

For Dr Phil that's a problem. 

'This is the fifth tranche of information they've put out,' he said of the new material. 'There's not any context to this. There's very seldom any follow-up information.'

The renowned talk show host and former practicing clinical psychologist is a member of President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission and is in close contact with members of Congress about this disclosure process.

'This is the fifth tranche of information they've put out,' he said of the new material. 'There's not any context to this. There's very seldom any follow-up information'

'My point is: Are we really getting disclosure here?' he continued. 'Or are we getting information without context, so you don't really know the meaning of what they're reporting? Is that an accident? The pattern suggests that it's not really an accident.'

Dr Phil stresses that he is not one to engage in reckless speculation. In fact, House and Senate members have apparently sought him out to share their concerns over the potential of a mental health crisis, if non-human life and technology is revealed to the public.

'[Members of Congress] speak as candidly with me about it as anybody and maybe more so,' he told the Daily Mail. And these top government officials, he said, are as worried as he is that they're not getting the full story.

'The information about this, I've come to find, is very fractionalized,' Dr Phil explained. 'There's not one place or one person or group of people that has all the information. So, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand knows.'

That observation, he said, has given rise to suspicion, shared among members of Congress, that additional information may be held outside of federal government control.

'I think there is a fairly strong belief that a lot of this information has been housed, moved, managed, however you want to say it, to the private aerospace industry. Maybe to escape Freedom of Information Act requests,' Dr Phil shared.

The Freedom of Information Act or FOIA is a federal law that gives citizens the right to ask for and view records held by federal agencies. 

But if the information is not in government hands, the system can be thwarted.

'There are a lot of people who believe that [addition information is] in the possession of private aerospace companies, not the government, in terms of physically holding it and housing it. And I think there are senators and representatives that want to know… There are people on the Hill who believe that that's been done,' he said.

'Let's say something has been recovered,' Dr Phil continued in reference to potential non-human technology. 'The propulsion systems that have been described in some of these aircraft are pretty amazing. Some of them have no heat signature, some of them are astoundingly fast.

'They move in ways that we don't have the technology to navigate and move. If you were able to reverse engineer that and there was some kind of new energy source that would be a quantum leap forward, right? What would that be worth?'

It would be naive, he argued, to dismiss the possibility that groups would not be motivated to keep advanced technology hidden in defiance of administration demands.

A screenshot of a video released showing an unresolved UFO report from last year. The footage shows a small orb-like object traveling across the screen

Dr Phil observed, for instance, why aren't high-definition images and videos of these UFO encounters also being released?

'I've seen gun cameras, they're not grainy. You can see with great clarity, but we're not getting those and at least in some cases, they exist. We're not getting the best evidence that I believe exists.'

'I've seen radar readouts that are crystal clear. So why are we looking at stepped-down, degraded videos?'

There is also another possible explanation, he said, for the steady flow of UFO disclosures that offer clarity: a distraction campaign.

'Culturally, we kind of have attention deficit disorder,' said Dr Phil. 'We read headlines and if nothing big comes out and pays off, we kind of get inoculated to it... We adapt and don't have the same reactivity. That could be intentional. "Let's wear them out. Maybe this will blow over and they'll move on to the next big thing."'

Overall, Dr Phil's involvement in the UFO disclosure process has more to do with safeguarding public health than anything else – and he paints a concerning picture when it comes to the consequences of a potential revelation that humans are not alone in the universe.

'When we have the highest levels of anxiety and depression, and loneliness among our young people that we've ever had since we started keeping records, our mental health system is fully deployed,' he said.

'If all of a sudden, 10 percent of the population really had a problem with [disclosure of non-human life] and really needed help with it that could be 20 or 30 million people. It could be like a pandemic. I think it's important that we think about that ahead of time and be prepared.'

The UFO Phenomenon | Full Documentary 2021 | 7NEWS Spotlight

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Dr Phil McGraw has exposed the staggering number of UFO sightings which the Pentagon has never investigated despite overseeing the White House's massive disclosure campaign.

In a video released on Wednesday, Dr Phil claimed he was 'absolutely certain' the US government has been deceiving the American people for the last 80 years, covering up evidence of unexplainable encounters with UFOs and potential contact with alien life.

Although he did not claim to have proof that UFOs exist, the famed TV personality and author revealed how more than 1,800 legitimate reports of UFOs made by the public have been ignored by the Pentagon.

He added: 'Can some of those be explained away? I'm sure they can, maybe all of them, I don't know. The point is nobody in the government is even looking at these things.'

McGraw, who has previously criticized the ongoing rollout of documents, photos and videos allegedly tied to the government's UFO files, claimed the entire campaign was a giant lie that was continuing to keep the truth about extraterrestrials from the public.

'Most of you are as angry as I am that the government has lied straight to our face. This is what really p***** me off, there is not one government agency that lets everyday Americans report UAPs [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena].'

In February, President Trump ordered the US Department of War to oversee the declassification and release of all documents related to UFOs and alien life.

To this point, there have been five batches of files released, mainly coming from the FBI, CIA, NASA and the Pentagon, but the vast majority have contained vague reports, unrelated information or images which were too obscure to be considered real proof.

Dr Phil McGraw slammed the US government's alleged coverup of UFO sightings amid the highly criticized disclosure campaign led by the Pentagon

A video released in the first wave of UFO files appeared to show a glowing object resembling an 'eight-pointed star' with uneven arms that has been compared to a craft from biblical times

In his new video posted on X, McGraw took aim directly at the federal government, alleging that nearly every private citizen in the US was being shut out of the conversation surrounding UAPs - the updated term for UFOs.

He claimed that 93 percent of Americans have no official way of reporting UFO sightings to the government or military. That is more than 310 million people.

Officially, the only people who have the ability to file a report directly with the federal government about alleged sightings of strange flying objects or other phenomena are current and former federal employees, military service members, government contractors and pilots.

'It's turned a blind eye from most Americans. So, if the government doesn't want to see it, who does, where is all that information going?' he asked.

'If 99 percent of it proves to be nothing to see here, fine. What about the one percent?' 

The only avenue Dr Phil said was available to the general public were two private, non-government databases which allow anyone to submit reports about UFOs and other unexplainable encounters.

These are NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center, and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

McGraw noted that NUFORC currently had 1,855 UFO reports that they classified as 'Tier 1,' meaning that someone provided one of the hardest-to-explain sightings of a UFO which could not be dismissed as a bird, balloon, camera glitch or human-built aircraft.

Dr Phil claimed that the American people were being lied to by the US government, who he said had been concealing the truth about UFOs for 80 years

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El Niño is being supersized before our eyes: Scientists warn the devastating climate event is 'firmly established' – and is on track to wreak havoc until at least February

• READ MORE: Ocean temperatures hit a record high – and worst is yet to come 
  

ByXANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

The El Niño weather phenomenon is 'supersizing before our eyes' as it threatens to wreak havoc on the UK in autumn and early winter, experts have warned.

Scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the climate pattern – where Pacific sea surface temperatures become significantly warmer than average – is now 'firmly established' and is set to have huge impacts on rainfall and temperatures globally, triggering floods, drought and extreme heat.

Forecasts indicate an 'exceptionally huge likelihood of nearly 100 per cent' that El Niño will cause problems until February – the first time such an unequivocal update has been issued.

In the UK, El Niño is likely to make autumn and early winter colder, wetter and stormier, according to the Met Office. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: 'El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters – and those waters are heating up.

'Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather.

'The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race.'

Scientists warned El Niño is 'firmly established' and 'being supersized before our eyes' as temperatures continue to rise

Experts said the phenomenon will have huge impacts on rainfall (pictured) and temperatures across the globe

The El Niño Southern Oscillation is a naturally occurring climate cycle that shifts between hot El Niño years and cool La Niña years once every two to seven years.

As we enter an El Niño phase, the powerful trade winds that normally blow hot water across the Pacific towards Australia weaken, or even reverse.

That prevents cool waters welling up from the deep ocean below and causes hot water to collect near the surface off the west coast of South America.

Eventually, that warm water starts to spread out, raising the average global temperature and causing major disruptions to weather patterns around the globe.

The WMO said sea surface temperatures in the region at the heart of El Niño are already well above average and are continuing to rise.

The developing El Niño has gathered pace dramatically in recent months, with Pacific Ocean temperatures now more than 2C above average in some regions.

Scientists say the warmth lurking beneath the surface is even more remarkable, with some underwater areas reaching a staggering 8C above normal.

For September to November this year, the WMO's forecasts indicate there will be above-normal temperatures across almost all land areas around the world.

Forecasts indicate an 'exceptionally huge likelihood of nearly 100 per cent' that El Niño will wreak havoc until February

El Niño generally begins developing between March and June and reaches its peak intensity between November and February.

Its impact on global temperatures can extend beyond the period of peak ocean warming and be most pronounced in the year after development.

'El Niño has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world,' WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said.

'We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies.'

Britons have been told to brace for a cold and stormy winter as warm ocean temperatures in the Pacific send 'waves' rippling through the atmosphere.

These waves push the world's most powerful weather systems – including the jet stream – off their usual course, wreaking havoc on Britain's winter weather.

This winter, experts predict the jet stream will send storms towards the UK along powerful currents of fast-moving winds.

While it is still too early to say when these storms will occur, the latest weather predictions agree that bad weather is increasingly likely.

The developing El Niño has gathered pace dramatically in recent months, with Pacific Ocean temperatures now more than 2°C above average in some regions

Will Lang, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, told the Daily Mail: 'El Niño conditions increase the chance of storms in late autumn and early winter.'

Professor Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical Hazards, said: 'Powerful El Niños typically bring mild, stormy Autumns and early Winters to the UK, followed by bitter cold, although this isn't set in stone.'

A separate study, published last week, found the El Niño events have been ramping up for decades.

Read More

• When will the Super El Niño storms hit the UK? Scientists tell Brits to prepare for heavy rain and flooding from October - followed by a 'bitterly cold' winter 

Scientists from the University of Michigan examined corals in the Galapagos Islands to estimate the strength of previous events.

Their analysis revealed that El Niños have become nearly 40 per cent stronger in the last 40 years than the previous 1,000.

'We don't see a time in the past where El Niños have been as strong as today,' said lead author Professor Julia Cole.

'We show that the strength of El Niño changes in parallel with the warming of global temperature.

'Our findings tell us that the big El Niño events of the last 40 years are not normal in the context of the last thousand years.'

WHAT IS THE EL NINO PHENOMENON IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN?

El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases (respectively) of a recurring climate phenomenon across the tropical Pacific - the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short.

The pattern can shift back and forth irregularly every two to seven years, and each phase triggers predictable disruptions of temperature, winds and precipitation. 

These changes disrupt air movement and affect global climate. 

ENSO has three phases: 

* El Niño: A warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures (SST), in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Over Indonesia, rainfall becomes reduced, while rainfall increases over the tropical Pacific Ocean. The low-level surface winds, which normally blow from east to west along the Equator, instead weaken or, in some cases, start blowing the other direction from west to east. 

* La Niña: A cooling of the ocean surface, or below-average SST, in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Over Indonesia, rainfall tends to increase, while rainfall decreases over the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The normal easterly winds along the Equator become even stronger.

* Neutral: Neither El Niño or La Niña. Often tropical Pacific SSTs are generally close to average.

Source: Climate.gov

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UN warns 'supersized' El Niño could be the strongest ever | DW News

'Off the charts': World in 'extreme weather danger zone' with El Niño 'supersizing before our eyes'

El Nino could reach exceptional levels, WMO warns of global weather risks

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

UFO Nuclear Test Link Reportedly Debunked by Experts Warning Believers Not To Act Like 'Religion'

Astronomers have torn apart UFO claims linking 1950s 'orbiting objects' to nuclear tests, warning that believers must accept scientific scrutiny or risk turning the subject into a kind of religion

Astronomers in Australia and the US have now gone public with a challenge to the UFO claims first put forward in 2025 

PHOTO Sparker/Pinterest

International astronomers have published a devastating critique dismantling high-profile 2025 UFO claims that mysterious objects orbited Earth decades before the launch of Sputnik.

Led by researchers from Wellesley College and the University at Albany, the peer-reviewed study, accepted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, argues that previous assertions linking photographic 'transients' to US nuclear weapons tests relied on faulty mathematics and severely compromised archival data.

The original research, conducted under the Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations project, suggested that anomalous light flashes captured by California's Palomar Observatory represented non-human technology drawn to atomic detonations.

However, the latest scientific evaluation exposes deep methodological flaws, proving that glass plate defects, dust scratches, and incorrect observational timescales generated an illusory statistical signal.

As academic backlash mounts against unrefereed counterclaims, the rigorous study revives fierce debates over whether fringe UFO proponents truly welcome scientific stress-testing or prefer shielding speculative hypotheses from empirical reality.

Anatomy of the Original VASCO UFO Claims

The new critique focuses on alleged 'technosignatures' seen on photographic plates decades before the space age. The controversy began when astronomer Dr Beatriz Villarroel and collaborators reported evidence of objects apparently orbiting Earth years before any human‑made satellite was launched.

Working under the VASCO project, they said old photographic surveys from the Palomar Observatory in California showed fleeting 'transients' that could be sunlight glinting off non‑human technology.

A companion paper, co‑authored with Vanderbilt University anaesthesiologist Stephen Bruehl, went further, claiming a statistical correlation between the dates of those transients and US nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s.

If that had stood up, it would have been dynamite. Mysterious objects in pre‑Sputnik orbit, apparently clustering around nuclear detonations, look like the script treatment for Oppenheimer 2.

It also offered believers what they have long craved, a peer‑reviewed breadcrumb trail pointing towards UFOs as alien surveillance craft drawn to humanity's most dangerous toys.

How the Vasco UFO Claims Took Off

The VASCO project, short for Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations, is built on a smart, almost old‑school idea. Villarroel's team uses archival photographic plates, taken long before the sky was crowded with satellites and space junk, to hunt for technosignatures, signs of advanced technology that might briefly flare and then vanish.

The studies at the heart of the current argument used early 1950s images from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, known as POSS‑I. Each region of sky was photographed twice in quick succession, once with a red‑sensitive plate and once with a blue‑sensitive one.

VASCO's software scanned the digitised plates looking for things that appeared in one exposure but not the other. Those were labelled transients and, in the more speculative framing, possible UFO‑like artefacts in orbit.

The most attention‑grabbing claim was statistical. Villarroel's team said there were far fewer transients recorded on plates taken during Earth's shadow, when sunlight could not reflect off orbiting objects.

They calculated that deficit as a '22 sigma' result. In particle physics, 5 sigma is the gold standard for a discovery. Twenty‑two is almost absurdly strong, the sort of number that suggests either profound new physics or that something, somewhere, has gone mad in the spreadsheets.

In a second paper, Bruehl and Villarroel said that the dates of these transients significantly overlapped with the timing of nuclear tests. The implication, not exactly buried in the framing, was that whoever might be flying those hypothetical craft was paying close attention to mushroom clouds.

Rigorous Scientific Pushback Led by Wesley Watters

The pushback has now arrived in the form of a detailed critique led by Wesley Watters of Wellesley College. His paper, titled 'Critical Evaluation of Studies Alleging Evidence for Technosignatures in the POSS1 – E Photographic Plates,' was accepted by the Australian astronomy journal after peer review and posted online ahead of print.

What makes this more awkward for UFO enthusiasts is who is doing the debunking. Watters has previously argued that unidentified aerial phenomena deserve serious, agnostic study.

Co‑author Kevin Knuth, a physicist at the University at Albany, SUNY, has published work examining US Navy pilot UAP encounters. Both have been affiliated with Avi Loeb's Galileo Project, which is explicitly set up to examine UAPs scientifically, not to scoff at them.

In other words, this is not a hit job from dyed‑in‑the‑wool sceptics. It is criticism from scientists who, if anything, have stuck their necks out to say UFO reports should not be laughed out of the room.

Watters and his colleagues start with a mundane but brutal problem, the plates themselves. Old photographic glass is riddled with defects, from dust and scratches to emulsion flaws and copying artefacts.

Astronomers spent years trying to use similar plates to catch fleeting optical signals from gamma‑ray bursts, only to conclude the medium just was not up to that kind of work at scale.

Because of that, Watters refuses to call the POSS‑I blips 'transients' at all. His team rebrands them 'Selected POSS 1‑E Features,' or SPFs, until someone can prove they are real astronomical objects.

Then they try to reconstruct, plate by plate, what subset of the survey VASCO actually used, a task made harder because Villarroel's team did not publish their full working dataset.

Once they do that, a pattern emerges, and not a good one. SPFs cluster at plate edges, disappear in wide stripes, and bunch oddly in certain regions. The sky map is a mess. For a robust statistical analysis, you need an underlying distribution that is roughly uniform and random, something that can be modelled as a Poisson process.

Watters argues that the VASCO features fail that basic test, which means the more sophisticated maths layered on top is on wobbly ground from the start.

Collapsing the Statistical Mirage and Timescale Errors

When the Australian‑led group re‑ran the crucial Earth‑shadow calculation with their reconstructed dataset, the jaw‑dropping 22 sigma result vanished. They found no statistically significant deficit of features in Earth's shadow.

On closer inspection, only 11 of the 645 plates VASCO used were even in shadow, and just five were fully so. Most of the supposed signal came from a single problematic plate that sat in one of the odd 'bands' where defects were already clustering.

Watters' team points out that VASCO's correlation used the wrong observing timescale, treating the survey as if it spanned 2,718 observing days instead of the actual 312 days from which their plates were drawn. Correct that, and the apparent UFO‑nuclear overlap collapses into something more prosaic.

A loose relationship between the periods when the Palomar telescope was operating and when nuclear tests were conducted, perhaps because both favoured clear weather over the western US. As for aliens timing their fly‑bys to our detonations, that statistical mirage evaporates.

Philosophical Friction Between UFO Belief and Scientific Process

The final part of Watters' critique is almost philosophical. He accuses the VASCO papers of circular reasoning, treating the features as genuine transients from the outset and then using that assumption to argue they must be real technosignatures. Without independent confirmation that most of these specks are not just plate defects, the logic folds in on itself.

None of this means the VASCO concept is useless. On the contrary, trawling clean, digitised archives for technosignatures is a sharp, modern twist on classic astronomy. The problem, according to Watters, is that this particular dataset is simply too dirty and too sparse in the critical regions to bear the UFO‑flavoured weight put on it.

Predictably, the backlash has not been limited to journal pages. Unrefereed online documents have popped up purporting to rebut the Australian‑led critique, bypassing peer review entirely and demanding to be treated as equal parts of the scientific conversation.

Researchers who are unconvinced by the UFO‑friendly statistics are branded 'part of the problem' or worse. At which point many working scientists quietly ask themselves why they should spend time on this stuff when they could be doing almost anything else.

And that is the uncomfortable question hanging over this latest UFO skirmish. Does the UAP community actually want their favourite claims tested, stress‑tested even, inside the sometimes painful machinery of science, or do they want those claims protected from serious challenge? If you are unwilling to let your beliefs be broken by better data and better maths, you are not really doing science any more. You are doing something else entirely.

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trending }

No confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial life after nearly 70 years of searching

After nearly 70 years of searching, humanity has found no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial life—only potential biosignatures in a Martian rock, disputed chemistry 124 light-years away, and thousands of UAP reports that may have nothing to do with aliens at all. The answer, whatever it is, still arrives only in fragments.

By Life Signs · Edited by Lachlan Brown

Pale, millimetre-scale leopard spots with dark rims cover part of the Cheyava Falls rock in this Perseverance WATSON image.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. 

Source. The features are potential biosignatures, not photographed fossils or organisms.

Mars, K2-18 b and decades of UAP reports offer intriguing fragments, but each remains separated from confirmed extraterrestrial life by a different evidentiary gap.

An early alert was probably aircraft radar. Otherwise, the loudspeaker produced static and the chart recorder drew no meaningful feature. It was a tiny search by current standards, but it established the basic discipline: choose a plausible signal, observe, test interference and report the null result.

Later surveys covered far more sky, bandwidth and signal types. The scale can sound exhaustive when described by raw numbers. As SpaceDaily’s account of SETI@home explained, volunteer computers processed about 12 billion threshold events before a decade of filtering reduced the data to roughly 100 sky positions worth another look. Those billions were not billions of possible alien messages. Most were radio interference, statistical fluctuations or other products of an instrument listening from a noisy technological planet.

Even the largest search samples only a sliver of the possible combinations of sky position, frequency, time, signal shape and transmitter power. A civilisation could be quiet, use a method not being monitored, transmit in another direction or exist millions of years out of step with the brief era in which Earth can listen.

A detection is not yet a confirmation

The word “evidence” covers several levels that are easily collapsed in public discussion. A detector may register a feature. Researchers may show that the feature resembles a molecule or process associated with life. They must then ask whether the feature is real, whether the identification is unique and whether geology, chemistry, contamination or technology can explain it.

A biosignature is therefore not a synonym for an organism. NASA defines a potential biosignature as a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more evidence before a conclusion can be reached. A technosignature has the same logic: it is an observable sign that could reveal technology, not any unexplained event by default.

Confirmation would demand convergence. Independent instruments should recover compatible results. Alternative explanations should be actively tested rather than merely overlooked. The evidence must fit its environment, because a molecule produced by life in Earth’s oceans may have a different source in a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, and a light moving strangely in a compressed video may move normally once range and camera motion are known.

The Martian rock is a serious candidate, not a biological sample

The most tangible of the current fragments sits inside a sealed tube on Mars. Perseverance drilled the Sapphire Canyon core from a rock called Cheyava Falls in Jezero Crater in July 2024. The rock formed in an ancient river-valley setting and contains fine clay and silt, organic carbon, sulphur, oxidised iron and phosphorus.

In a 2025 peer-reviewed analysis in Nature, the rover team described millimetre-scale reaction fronts nicknamed leopard spots. Instrument data were consistent with two iron-rich minerals, vivianite and greigite, arranged where electron-transfer reactions had occurred between sediment and organic matter.

That combination matters because related reactions on Earth can support microbial metabolisms, and microbes can participate in the formation of these minerals. The wet sedimentary setting could also preserve traces of ancient life. NASA consequently described Sapphire Canyon as Perseverance’s best candidate for signs of ancient microbial processes.

• Editors’ Recommendations

  

  Perseverance reached Mars for about $2.7 billion, while a crewed expedition could cost hundreds of billions because humans require years of life support, protection, supplies and a way home—although the frequently quoted $500 billion figure is only a rough historical estimate, not a settled NASA price tag.

  
  One cotton T-shirt takes about 2,700 litres of water to make — roughly what one person drinks in two and a half years.

  The Artful Age

  

  What winter means on Mars: temperatures can plunge to −130°C, carbon dioxide falls as snow or freezes directly onto the ground, as much as 16% of the atmosphere becomes part of the winter polar cap, and air pressure planet-wide swings by roughly 25% over the seasonal cycle.

But the minerals can form without biology. Heat, acidic conditions and reactions involving organic compounds offer abiotic routes, and the rover cannot reproduce the range of microscopy, isotope measurements and controlled experiments available in an Earth laboratory. SpaceDaily’s earlier examination of Cheyava Falls reached the necessary boundary: this is a compelling pattern in a habitable context, not a fossil, cell or confirmed product of metabolism.

At 124 light-years, chemistry is reconstructed from starlight

K2-18 b is more remote in every sense. The planet is about 124 light-years away, roughly 2.6 times Earth’s radius and 8.6 times its mass. It orbits in the conventional habitable zone of a cool red dwarf, but that does not establish an ocean or a surface where familiar life could live.

The disputed chemistry is therefore a fragment twice removed. The first question is whether the sulphur-bearing gases are present. Only after that would researchers ask how they formed. Even a secure detection of DMS would not by itself demonstrate an ocean, a habitable climate or biology.

Thousands of UAP reports ask a different question

UAP reports belong to another evidence category altogether. They concern events observed in Earth’s atmosphere, oceans or nearby space, often through human testimony or sensors designed for defence rather than scientific measurement. “Unidentified” describes the status of an observation. It does not describe the origin of an object.

The historical volume is undeniably measured in thousands. According to the US National Archives, Project Blue Book collected 12,618 sightings between 1947 and 1969, leaving 701 categorised as unidentified. More recently, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, held 1,870 reports as of 30 May 2025. Those counts come from different programmes and should not be added into one clean statistical series, but they show how many reports can accumulate without producing an extraterrestrial conclusion.

AARO’s latest annual report received 319 cases and resolved 114 of them, while also closing 256 older cases. All 370 resolutions involved ordinary objects or events, including balloons, satellites, birds, aircraft, drones, one rocket launch and one manned jet pack. The office moved 191 new reports into an active archive because the available data were insufficient and sent nine for deeper intelligence, scientific or technical analysis.

Insufficient data can preserve an unknown indefinitely. A sincere witness may not know distance or speed. A short infrared clip may lack original metadata. A bright satellite flare can appear to move or hover in surprising ways. AARO resolved 238 older reports as satellite flaring after adding three-dimensional modelling, an unusually clear example of better analysis converting mystery into identification.

This does not make UAP investigation pointless. An unidentified event near an aircraft can represent a flight hazard, a drone, foreign surveillance or a sensor problem even if it has nothing to do with extraterrestrial life. It does mean that volume is not proof, a distinction also central to SpaceDaily’s coverage of recent Pentagon UAP releases.

Why the fragments resist simple answers

All three cases suffer from limited access, but in different ways. Cheyava Falls is a physical sample from a once-wet environment, yet the most capable laboratory is millions of kilometres away. K2-18 b is observed as a tiny modulation in the light of a star, so noise and model assumptions can imitate chemistry. UAP records concern nearby events, but many were not collected with the calibration, metadata and repeatability a controlled scientific observation would require.

The limitations create three distinct risks. Mars can preserve non-biological chemistry that looks suggestive in a life-friendly setting. Exoplanet retrievals can prefer a molecule because the tested model library is incomplete. UAP cases can remain unresolved because essential measurements were never taken. Calling all three “evidence for aliens” erases the very information needed to judge them.

The fragments also invite a common human shortcut. Once an observation fits a hoped-for story, every remaining uncertainty can feel like an empty space waiting for that story. Science treats the empty space differently. It asks what additional observation would distinguish the proposed explanation from its rivals.

A null result is not an empty result

Nearly 70 years without confirmation sounds like a verdict only if the search is assumed to have been complete. It has not been. Radio SETI has examined a small portion of a vast parameter space. Mars rovers have sampled a few locations on one planet. Webb has begun atmospheric studies of worlds whose signals sit near the limits of its instruments. Ocean worlds such as Europa and Enceladus have not yet been sampled directly for life.

Null results still narrow the possibilities. A silent radio survey constrains certain transmitters at certain times and frequencies. A disputed spectrum exposes which systematics must be controlled in the next observation. An ordinary explanation for a UAP helps investigators recognise the same optical or orbital effect in future reports.

Nor does the absence of confirmed life support the opposite claim that Earth is alone. Detection and prevalence are different questions. A search may fail because life is rare, because technology is brief, because the target is wrong or because the instrument is not yet sensitive to the signal that exists.

What genuine confirmation would look like

On Mars, confidence would rise if multiple independent lines of evidence converged on biology: diagnostic microscopic structures, distinctive isotope patterns, complex organic distributions and a geological context that excludes plausible abiotic formation. Bringing a well-documented sample into a controlled laboratory would allow tests Perseverance cannot perform, although contamination control would remain essential.

For an exoplanet, repeat spectra across instruments and transits would need to recover the same molecular features. Researchers would then have to show that the gases coexist in quantities difficult to maintain without biology under a physically credible model of the planet. One molecule, especially one inferred near the noise floor, is unlikely to carry the conclusion alone.

A technological signal would need equally strong provenance. A radio transmission might repeat from the same point on the sky, show structure inconsistent with natural emission and survive checks against terrestrial and satellite interference. A UAP case would need calibrated multi-sensor data, precise geometry and a documented chain of custody before extraordinary performance could even be established. Extraordinary motion inferred from an underdetermined image is not yet extraordinary technology.

The careful answer in 2026 is therefore less dramatic than either certainty. Humanity has not confirmed extraterrestrial life, and it has not shown that life is absent beyond Earth. It has a Martian sample worthy of better tests, an exoplanet spectrum teaching astronomers how fragile remote biosignatures can be, and a large archive showing that an unresolved observation is not an identified alien craft.

The answer still arrives only in fragments. The task is not to dismiss them, and not to assemble them into a conclusion too soon. It is to keep asking which fragment survives the next measurement.

{ https://spacedaily.com/ }

Aliens and the Bible?

By Garrick R. Oxley

Getty Images

In “Disclosure Day,” a movie released this summer, famed director Steven Spielberg once again invited audiences to ponder the existence of extraterrestrial life—and the implications it would have for religion on Earth.

In a CBS interview, Mr. Spielberg described what might happen if the government suddenly confirmed that it had concealed evidence of extraterrestrials: “If this truth were just known overnight…that would mess up a lot of people.” He added, “What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? Is God our God only on this planet, or is God a God for every system where there’s civilization, intelligent life…?”

These are provocative questions. And Mr. Spielberg is not the only one making headlines about UFOs and the possibility of life on other planets.

What was once considered fringe or conspiratorial has in recent months popped up everywhere from the White House to the Catholic Church, as public fascination with unidentified anomalous phenomena—or UAPs, as the government calls them—has become more mainstream.

In May, the Pentagon began making large swaths of UFO files public with very little context, leaving curious sleuths to piece together their own interpretations. The dumps began just weeks after former President Barack Obama set off a media frenzy for stating in an interview that aliens are real, though he later tempered that take.

“Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” the former president, who made a surprise visit to the “Disclosure Day” set, posted on social media. “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

Some religious adherents, as well as nonbelievers, maintain that the existence of life on other planets might undermine many faiths because it would complicate assertions that humans are unique. But others argue the opposite.

“Belief in UFOs is really one of the best things that’s happened to religion in a long time,” said Diana Walsh Pasulka, a religion scholar at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. “It’s a blow to the secular, materialist worldview.”

Whether one views the possibility of alien life as an impediment to religious belief or an asset, for Christians, the truth must be compatible with Scripture.

Familiar Fascination

The idea of otherworldly beings coming to Earth is nothing new.

“People would call it the plurality of worlds. So even back in the time of Socrates and Aristotle, there were Greek philosophers who talked about beings on other planets and other stars,” Ms. Walsh Pasulka said.

But it was not until after 1945 that modern conceptions of UFOs began to develop, according to Jeffrey Kripal, a historian of religions at Rice University. “The flying saucer and the alien and the UFO—it’s definitely a Cold War invasion narrative,” he said.

That narrative explains why UAPs are often perceived as hostile to humans. But it has also evolved over time and led to the formation of some religions—like Scientology, which counts many a Hollywood celebrity among its adherents—that see extraterrestrials as good or even part of a divine plan. Some adherents to the Nation of Islam, for example, believe that its founder will inaugurate an apocalyptic return to Earth on a spaceship.

Thousands of years ago, King Solomon wrote, “there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9). UFO fascination falls into this category. The underlying curiosity today is not that different from what people felt decades ago when they discussed rumors about Area 51 and flocked to movies like “Men in Black,” “Independence Day” and “War of the Worlds.”

Interest in aliens also evokes Acts 17:21, which speaks of people who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” Some tend to be on the edge of their seats about every alleged sighting or new document dump. Maybe this time the right piece of smoking gun evidence will be released, they think. Undeniable proof never comes, yet there is a certain thrill in the chase.

The wide spectrum of views toward aliens and UFOs and their impact on religion can feel overwhelming. But Christians do not need to be confused. God has provided a firm anchor for answering life’s greatest questions: His Word, the Holy Bible.

Even if the truth of a specific news event appears to be murky, no alien discovery can overthrow Scripture. Jesus Christ said, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). He also taught, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). The Bible reveals one God who created the entire universe, and the purpose He is carrying out within it.

Having this foundation means Christians do not need to be on edge for every UFO rumor, fearful it will shatter their belief system. They are confident that the Bible is true, and that the truth about alien life cannot break or overthrow it.

Does the Bible Teach Aliens?

Some Bible readers have wondered if Ezekiel chapter 1 in the Old Testament describes UFOs.

Take time to read the chapter. The prophet Ezekiel observed living creatures, wheels, brilliant light and an extraordinary structure moving through the sky. It can appear to fit modern concepts of alien spacecraft. Verse 15 identifies “living creatures” with “four faces.”

But notice that the last verse of the chapter shows that what had been described was “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (vs. 28). It was depicting God on His throne and the angels surrounding it. Far from proof of green men from Mars or anything like that.

The beings described here are cherubim—powerful angelic beings associated with God’s throne. In chapter 10, Ezekiel says directly that the beings from the vision are cherubim: “And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar” (10:15). Also read verse 20.

Various other verses also speak of cherubim. For instance, II Samuel 22:11 says “He [God] rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and He was seen upon the wings of the wind.”

Read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no proof of alien life.

Some may still ask: Even though the Bible does not say aliens exist, could life exist elsewhere in the universe?

Scripture does not directly address the topic. Yet it does reveal that God created all things (John 1:3; Rev. 4:11). If the knowledge of extraterrestrial life were important to God’s purpose for mankind, He would have revealed it.

What is important is the knowledge God has revealed—including a spirit realm that plays an important role in His purpose for human beings.

Angels are created beings who serve God (Psa. 103:20). They are much more powerful than most realize. The illustrations found in books and in churches do not do them justice. Scripture shows that angels play an important role in God working with human beings here on Earth.

There are also fallen angels—demons—in this spirit realm who serve Satan the devil. Ezekiel 28:14 shows Satan himself is a fallen angel, having previously been “the anointed cherub that covers.” Satan and the demons are not pursuing their own interests, either—like angels, they are focused on people.

II Corinthians 11:14 adds that the devil can appear to be something he is not: “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” This principle would also apply to demons.

Some believe recent UFO sightings are really encounters with these fallen spirits.

“I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons,” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, said in a podcast interview.

That sentiment was echoed by Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, formerly an exorcist with the Archdiocese of Washington. He was removed in June by the archbishop, who said statements by Mr. Rossetti “gravely undermine” Catholic teaching on demons and the devil.

“It’s my personal belief that probably many, if not most, of these UFO sightings are in fact demons,” Mr. Rossetti said in a May 29 video posted on his Facebook page.

Thinking alien encounters are demonic could seem like a safer or more biblical position than that they are real aliens. Yet we should also be careful of believing every sighting is an evil spirit.

While it is possible this could be true in rare situations, not every unexplained light, object or noise is demonic. Many UAP reports have ordinary explanations—balloons, satellites, birds, aircraft or drones. Others remain unresolved simply because there is not enough reliable data to determine what was seen. An unexplained sighting is not necessarily a supernatural one.

More important than dissecting every document or sighting is understanding the very real spirit world Scripture reveals.

The Spirit Realm

Spirits in the spirit realm include God the Father, Jesus Christ, Satan the devil, and a multitude of angels, both righteous and fallen.

Some angels have greater authority than others, such as the archangels Gabriel and Michael. Satan was the archangel Lucifer before he rebelled against God.

Satan and the demons also interact with human beings—but to deceive and oppose God’s purpose.

Hebrews 1:14 says righteous angels are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” Who are the heirs of salvation? Christians. Read Romans 8:17 and Titus 3:7.

Put simply, the role of angels is to help the people God is working with succeed and reach salvation.

We could not know this unless Scripture revealed it. Hebrews 13:2 adds, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” God could use an angel to help us and we have no idea what really happened. They can appear and work in a way that leaves people unaware.

Also understand that angels are not mindless tools. They really care about people. Luke 15:10 says, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents.”

What goal do Satan and the demons have? Revelation 12:9 says the devil “deceives the whole world.” Satan and his demons deceive people into accepting lies and not believing the truth of the Bible. This deception could involve aliens and UFOs but also many other things in life.

I Timothy 4:1 speaks of a time when “some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils [demons].” The next few verses provide some specific examples of these doctrines. Demons have doctrines just like people and churches do. They use these teachings to harm and deceive.

The apostle John warned: “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (I John 4:1). Unlike angels, Satan and the demons work to spiritually destroy Christians and keep them from fulfilling their incredible potential in God’s Plan.

The Bible also warns against admiring righteous angels to the point of worship. Colossians 2:18 says: “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.” While angels do play a valuable role, God is the only Being a Christian may worship.

Where Should We Focus?

As time goes on, there will be more alleged UFO sightings, eyewitness accounts and document leaks. But the Bible shows what is really worth focusing on: “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).

Setting affection on things above does not mean obsessing over objects in the sky. It means focusing on God and His Plan instead of rumors and conspiracy.

Philippians 4:8 provides more parameters for what to think about: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

While there is nothing wrong with keeping up with the news, we should be careful of how content about aliens makes us feel. If we find that it draws us toward negative thinking, we should adjust our news consumption.

There is a great irony in the obsession with aliens. People scan the heavens searching for intelligent beings greater than we are, but do not stop to consider the awesome future God has in store for ordinary people.

We saw that angels help the heirs of salvation. Psalm 8 adds more: “What is man, that You are mindful of him? And the son of man, that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor” (vs. 4-5).

Today, people are “a little lower” than angels. But God has great glory and honor in store for humans.

Hebrews 2 quotes the same psalm and expands on it: “Unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that You are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that You visit him? You [God] made him [man] a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of Your hands: You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He [God] put all in subjection under him [man], He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him” (vs. 5-8).

“All things” have not yet been put under man’s control. But that is the awesome future just ahead. Christians who receive salvation will be much more powerful than any angel or demon today. They will rule all things alongside God the Father and Jesus Christ. They will rule in the “world to come,” a responsibility that has not been offered to any angel.

Peter added: “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you…which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into” (I Pet. 1:10, 12).

As powerful as angels are, they are not privileged to understand the Plan of God the way human beings can—the way you can.

• To learn more, read The Awesome Potential of Man.
• This article contains information from The Associated Press.

{ https://rcg.org/realtruth/ }

The Alleged Nixon–Jackie Gleason Alien-Bodies Encounter

by Steve Paslow

One of the strangest stories in American UFO lore involves President Richard Milhous Nixon, born January 9, 1913 and died on April 22, 1994; the 37th U.S. President, and the comedian and actor Jackie Gleason, born February 25, 1915; died on June 24, 1987;- and four alleged deceased extraterrestrial bodies, supposedly being kept at a secret Air Force facility in Florida. The story is fascinating—but it is important to distinguish what was actually documented from what has only been alleged. There is no publicly verified evidence that Nixon showed Gleason extraterrestrial bodies.

Jackie Gleason, best known for The Honeymooners, had a genuine interest in UFOs and paranormal subjects. His fascination was sufficiently well known that stories about his alleged UFO experiences became part of his biography. He even had a distinctive, circular house in New York that was popularly nicknamed the “Mothership.” Gleason was also acquainted with Richard Nixon. According to accounts surrounding the story, the two men played golf together and had a personal relationship during Nixon’s presidency.

The most commonly repeated version places the incident in 1973, during Nixon’s presidency. According to the story, Nixon unexpectedly arranged for Gleason to accompany him to Homestead Air Force Base in South Florida. Gleason was allegedly taken, under the accompaniment of armed guards, through a heavily secured area of the base and eventually brought into a restricted room.

There, he saw four small humanoid bodies. The beings were described as approximately two feet tall, with relatively large heads, small or bald heads, and unusually large ears. Some versions say the bodies were embalmed or preserved and were being kept in cases. The account claims Gleason was deeply disturbed by what he saw.

The most important source for the allegation was Beverly McKittrick Gleason, born in 1925; died on 1983; Jackie Gleason’s second wife, and she swote that the story is true. According to Beverly’s later account, Gleason returned home after the alleged encounter and told her that Nixon had taken him to Florida to see the bodies. She said that he was extremely upset and that he described the beings to her. Beverly subsequently discussed the story publicly. In a later interview, she said she initially believed Gleason’s account completely because he appeared convinced that what he had seen was genuine. She also said that Gleason became angry when she talked publicly about it, because it was meant to be a secret. That last point has become an important part of the UFO legend: Gleason himself apparently did not publicly confirm the story, while his former wife continued to describe what he had allegedly told her.

According to Beverly’s account, Gleason had wanted the matter kept private. When the story became public, he reportedly objected strongly. This has been interpreted in two completely different ways. UFO proponents argue that his anger could have resulted from a genuine concern that he had revealed a government secret. Skeptics point out that anger over a sensational story does not demonstrate that the story was true. Gleason could simply have been angry that a private conversation had been made public. Anyway, you look at the matter, it was common knowledge at the time that the US government very much did not want the public to learn of such eerie stories.

The story has changed considerably as it has been retold. In one version, Nixon took Gleason to Homestead Air Force Base and showed him four preserved bodies. Other versions add a crashed flying saucer, pieces of an extraterrestrial craft, or even a spacecraft allegedly being kept inside a hangar. Some later accounts contain considerably more details than the earliest versions. This evolution is significant because it makes it difficult to determine exactly what, if anything, Gleason originally claimed.

A UFO researcher presenting the case at a 2003 crash-retrieval conference noted that three people claimed to have been told versions of the story originating with Nixon, Larry Warren, and Beverly Gleason, while emphasizing Beverly as the principal witness concerning Gleason’s account. This is where the evidence becomes extremely weak. There is no publicly authenticated government document, photograph, autopsy report, military record, or physical evidence establishing that Homestead Air Force Base possessed extraterrestrial bodies. Likewise, there is no publicly authenticated document establishing that Nixon personally took Gleason into a secret facility to view them. The story therefore belongs in the category of an unverified UFO allegation, rather than established history. Interestingly, even accounts sympathetic to the story acknowledge the lack of proof. One modern discussion of the case explicitly notes that there is no proof that aliens were stored at Homestead or that Nixon showed them to Gleason. Naturally, the U.S. government would not allow any proof to be made available to the public.

It is widely known that the United States government wanted information on UFOs (unidentified Flying Objects) is to be kept secret from the public. Such proof in the way of documentation would be highly classified. This matter is especially true for concealment considering any wreckage, ,especially of machines from the crafts, and the dead bodies of extraterrestrial crew thereof. There would also be very harsh penalties for exposing such otherworldly information to the general public, but often then when the situation gets “out of hand”, a  very strong downplaying and misinformation campaign strategy becomes used. When there is absolutely no proof to a story about otherworldly aliens, the skeptics can convince a great majority of the public to simply dismiss the story; not to pay any further attention to it. And the United States government can be satisfied with that outcome.

What makes the story unusually persistent is that it isn’t simply an anonymous Internet tale. There really was a Jackie Gleason, there really was a Richard Nixon, they really knew one another, and Gleason really did have a strong interest in UFOs and paranormal subjects. Beverly Gleason also really did tell the story publicly and later discuss it in interviews. What remains unproven is the crucial part: whether Gleason actually saw extraterrestrial bodies—and whether President Nixon was the person who showed them to him.

So the best historical assessment is: The Nixon–Gleason alien-body story is a well-established UFO legend with a traceable history and identifiable witnesses, but there is no publicly verified evidence that the alleged event actually occurred. That distinction is particularly important because later books, podcasts, television programs, and Internet accounts sometimes present the story as an established fact rather than as an allegation. But, if the story is true, the U.S. government would see to it that the claims would be just an allegation as far as the public could tell.

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Psychokinesis, often called telekinesis, is the alleged ability of a person to influence or move physical objects using the power of the mind alone, without physically touching them. The word psychokinesis comes from Greek roots meaning roughly “mind movement.” Telekinesis means movement at a distance. The idea is one of the most famous and controversial subjects in paranormal research. Stories of people supposedly bending metal, moving objects, levitating themselves, influencing dice, or even affecting electrical and mechanical devices have fascinated the public for more than a century. But there is an important distinction between claims of psychokinesis and scientific evidence for psychokinesis. Despite numerous experiments and dramatic personal accounts, science has not established that human beings can reliably move or influence objects solely through thought.

Psychokinesis is generally divided into several kinds of alleged phenomena. Moving objects. The classic form of telekinesis is the supposed ability to move an object without touching it. A person might supposedly cause a pencil to roll across a table, make a coin move, or cause a small object to rise into the air. Another famous claim involves bending spoons, forks, keys, or other metal objects through mental concentration. This became particularly popular during the twentieth century, especially after performers and alleged psychic individuals demonstrated spoon bending before audiences.

Some alleged psychokinetic practitioners have claimed the ability to make themselves or other objects float. Stories of levitation have appeared in religious traditions, spiritualism, séances, and modern paranormal reports.Psychokinesis has also been investigated in a much less dramatic form. Instead of attempting to move an object visibly, researchers have sometimes asked people to concentrate on dice, random-number generators, or other systems and attempt to influence their results. The supposed effect, if present, would be extremely small and detectable only statistically.

Interest in mind-over-matter phenomena became especially strong during the nineteenth century. The rise of Spiritualism produced séances in which mediums claimed that spirits could communicate with the living and produce physical effects. Tables allegedly moved by themselves, objects supposedly appeared or disappeared, bells rang without being touched, and other strange events were reported.Some of these events were attributed to spirits rather than to the medium’s own mind. Nevertheless, they helped establish the cultural background from which modern psychokinesis developed. Unfortunately, many famous séance phenomena were eventually exposed as tricks, deception, or misinterpretations. That did not prove that every paranormal claim was fraudulent, but it demonstrated how easily people can be fooled by apparently impossible physical effects.

One of the most important figures in the history of parapsychology was Joseph Banks Rhine, a researcher at Duke University. Beginning in the 1930s, Rhine investigated alleged extrasensory perception and psychokinesis under experimental conditions. Rather than asking someone to perform spectacular feats such as levitating a table, Rhine used statistical experiments. For example, subjects might attempt to influence the results of dice. If a person could mentally cause a particular number to appear more frequently than chance would predict, researchers could look for a statistical deviation. This was an important change in approach.

Perhaps the most recognizable image associated with telekinesis is the bending spoon. During the 1970s, Israeli-born performer Uri Geller became internationally famous for demonstrations involving supposedly psychic abilities. He appeared on television and performed demonstrations in which spoons and other metal objects appeared to bend or deform. Geller maintained that psychic abilities were involved. Skeptics, however, argued that the effects could be produced through ordinary magician’s techniques, preparation of the objects, misdirection, or other physical methods.Professional magicians have demonstrated many ways in which an apparently impossible spoon-bending performance can be accomplished without paranormal powers. Consequently, spoon bending became less convincing as evidence for genuine telekinesis.

One of the most famous alleged psychokinetic individuals was Nina Kulagina, a Soviet woman who became well known in paranormal circles during the Cold War. Films and reports claimed that Kulagina could move small objects across tables without touching them. Some demonstrations allegedly showed her moving objects while sitting several feet away. She reportedly underwent experiments involving investigators and scientists. The demonstrations attracted considerable attention because the Soviet Union was a scientific and technological rival of the United States, leading some Western paranormal researchers to take the reports seriously. However, critics pointed out problems with experimental controls and the possibility of concealed physical mechanisms. There has never been a generally accepted scientific demonstration establishing that Kulagina possessed genuine psychokinetic powers.

The controversy surrounding Uri Geller became particularly interesting because some scientists believed that at least some of his performances deserved investigation, while magicians argued that his demonstrations could be duplicated using conventional methods. The debate illustrated an important problem in paranormal research: An extraordinary demonstration is not necessarily extraordinary evidence. If a person can bend a spoon, for example, the important scientific question is not merely whether the spoon bent. The question is: Can the effect still occur when every ordinary method of producing the effect has been eliminated? That is a much more difficult test.

The human brain certainly produces physical effects. Electrical activity occurs throughout the nervous system. The brain controls muscles, releases chemical signals, regulates organs, and influences behavior. But this is very different from telekinesis. When a person picks up a cup, the brain sends signals through the nervous system to muscles in the arm and hand. The muscles physically move the cup. In alleged telekinesis, there would be no physical contact. The proposed mechanism would somehow have to allow mental activity in the brain to exert a measurable force on an object outside the body. Modern physics does not have an established mechanism that allows ordinary human thoughts to exert such forces at a distance

Some people have suggested that brain waves might be responsible for telekinesis. The brain does generate electrical activity, and this electrical activity can be measured with instruments such as an EEG. However, the electrical fields produced by the brain are extremely weak and decrease rapidly with distance. There is no established evidence that ordinary brain activity can generate enough force to push an object across a table or bend metal. Brain-computer interfaces demonstrate something interesting, however. Modern technology can detect certain patterns of brain activity and use computers to translate those patterns into commands. A person can therefore sometimes control a cursor, robotic device, or prosthetic limb using brain signals.But this is not telekinesis.

The brain is providing information to an electronic system, which then supplies the physical force. There are many ways apparently impossible physical effects can occur without paranormal abilities. These include: hidden wires, magnets, air currents, vibrations, static electricity, specially prepared objects, concealed physical contact, mechanical devices, misdirection, sleight of hand
unconscious movements, selective reporting, video editing, deliberate deception.

There is another important factor: human perception is imperfect. People naturally look for patterns and explanations. When something unexpected happens, we may remember the remarkable event while forgetting all the ordinary occasions when nothing happened. Suppose someone places a lightweight object on a table and concentrates intensely on it. After several minutes, the object moves slightly. It can be very tempting to conclude that the person’s mind caused the movement. But there could have been an air current, vibration from the building, unevenness in the table, static electricity, or another ordinary explanation. If the experiment is repeated hundreds or thousands of times under controlled conditions, however, researchers can determine whether the movement occurs more often than would be expected by chance. That is where scientific testing becomes important.

The scientific consensus is that psychokinesis has not been demonstrated reliably under controlled, independently reproducible conditions. Parapsychology researchers have reported statistical anomalies in some experiments, particularly experiments involving random-number generators and other statistical systems. However, these results remain controversial. Critics have raised concerns involving: experimental design, statistical analysis, publication bias, inadequate controls, multiple testing, replication failures, possible unconscious methodological errors. A phenomenon as fundamental as psychokinesis would require extraordinarily strong evidence because it would represent a major discovery about the relationship between consciousness and physical matter.

Could Psychokinesis Ever Be Proven? In principle, yes. A convincing demonstration would need to be repeatable.For example, imagine a person claiming to move a small object mentally. Researchers could place the object inside a transparent enclosure that prevented air movement and physical contact. Multiple cameras could record the experiment from every direction. Independent investigators could control the equipment. The object could be weighed and monitored by sensitive instruments. The person could then attempt to move the object repeatedly. If the object consistently moved in a measurable direction whenever the person concentrated—and independent laboratories could reproduce the same result—it would be extraordinarily important. Scientists would investigate the mechanism. If ordinary explanations were eliminated and the phenomenon survived repeated testing, psychokinesis would become a legitimate scientific discovery rather than merely a paranormal claim.

Telekinesis has become one of the most popular supernatural abilities in movies, television, books, and video games. Characters with telekinetic abilities are often portrayed as being able to: throw people across rooms, lift cars, crush objects, stop bullets, levitate, move weapons, open doors, manipulate objects from a distance. These abilities are fictional and dramatically exaggerated. Real-world psychokinesis claims, by comparison, generally involve very small effects—if the reported phenomena are genuine at all.

The most interesting aspect of psychokinesis may not be the spectacular claims. It is the possibility that consciousness could somehow interact with physical reality in ways that science does not yet understand. Modern neuroscience has made enormous progress in understanding how the brain works, yet consciousness itself remains a profound scientific problem. We know that thoughts are associated with measurable activity in the brain. We know that thoughts can cause the body to act. We know that technology can detect brain activity and translate it into commands. What has not been established is that thoughts alone can directly push, pull, bend, or otherwise manipulate external physical objects. Therefore, psychokinesis remains an intriguing paranormal hypothesis rather than an established scientific ability. The subject sits at the boundary between psychology, neuroscience, physics, magic, and the study of unexplained phenomena—and that is precisely why it has remained fascinating for so long.

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{ https://mysticsciences.com/ }

A technology store in Russia has released footage of a moment it claims shows one of its robot assistants lashing out at a customer after he pushed it. 

The video, taken inside Volga Electronics in Saratov, shows the robot walking up to a man as he enters the shop. 

The man extends his arm out for a handshake, but when the robot ignores him, the customer jokingly pushes the machine away. 

Just seconds later, the robot responds by unleashing a violent flurry of kicks and punches aimed at the customer. 

Two staff members intervene and are shown trying to hold the robot back as it continues to take aim at the customer. 

It is unclear why, if the attack on a customer was genuine and not a publicity stunt, the store would choose to release the footage. 

The video has gone viral on social media, with many viewers pointing out the dangers of robots. 

'The machines are getting ready to take over. We were warned,' one X user commented. 

Video grab shows a customer approaching a robot at the Volga Electronics technology store in Saratov, Russia and extending his arm out for a handshake

After the customer pushes the robot, the machine appears to get ready for a fight

The robot is seen unleashing a violent flurry of punches and kicks aimed at the customer 

Another said: 'We will be seeing more instances of this until we pause reckless AI model developments.'

This is not the first video to emerge of a robot performing martial arts moves.  

It comes just weeks after a humanoid robot wearing a clown wig kicked a child in the stomach during a martial arts show in China.

The robot wearing an afro wig was giving a unique martial arts demonstration to a crowd of onlookers at Urumqi Botanical Garden in Xinjiang, China.

While the audience filmed the performance, the robot transitioned into a fighting stance and executed a spinning roundhouse kick.

The unexpected move struck a young boy directly in the stomach, leading him to double over in pain before falling backwards into the crowd.

The robot stumbled backwards after the kick before appearing to balance itself, recover and continue the performance.

The video went viral online, with the footage sparking fresh debate over the AI- powered robots.

One commenter wrote on X: 'Very soon we will be attacked by these robots cause I don’t really know why China is just so enthusiastic about making these robots.' 

Store staff rush to intervene as the robot continues to take aim at the customer 

The clip has since gone viral on social media 

Another added: 'Why are humans so hell bent on destroying themselves. Who needs these.'

In another instance earlier this year, dozens of bots took to the stage at the CCTV Spring Festival gala, which is China's most-watched TV show. 

Wearing vests, the robots performed kicks, flips, and even moves with nunchucks, swords, and poles. 

Amazingly, their daring performance took place just metres away from human children performers.

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

The discovery also offers insights into the sophistication of the society and the types of artistic expression taking place thousands of years ago in this archaeologically rich region of southeastern Turkey, according to a recent Yenisafak news agency report.

11,000-Year-Old Composite Sculpture Found at “Parallel Site” to Göbekli Tepe

When most people think of ancient megalithic structures, well-known archaeological sites like the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and Machu Picchu likely come to mind. Critically, all those impressive feats of ancient engineering were accomplished after the generally agreed-upon formation of humanity’s first societies.

Those attitudes began to shift after the relatively recent discovery of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. Famous for its massive stone pillars and lifelike animal sculptures found throughout much of the site, the site’s construction has been scientifically dated to between 11,500 and 12,000 years before present. That date places this impressive site and its artwork’s creation thousands of years before those first human societies.

While researchers continue to excavate Göbekli Tepe, they have also unearthed several historically rich sites in the same region. That includes the nearby Karahan Tepe, which has been dated to a few hundred years after its more famous neighbor.

“Composite Sculpture” Represents Style Not Previously Identified in Region

According to the ministry, Karahan Tepe lies approximately 30 kilometers from Göbekli Tepe. The historic sites are part of the larger Taş Tepeler archaeological project. That effort includes a cluster of Stone Hills sites previously dated to the Neolithic period more than 11,000 years before present.

When Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the discovery, he described the ancient artwork as a “composite sculpture.” The Minister said the find, which he also described as 11,000 years old, represented a style not previously encountered at the ancient site, near Şanlıurfa.

The minister said the unusual sculpture was found during ongoing excavations this year. Instead of resting inside a majestic monument like the Göbekli Tepe sculptures, the leopard-and-man statue was found resting on a bench along the wall of a circular structure “roughly three meters in diameter.”

Notably, the structure’s floor was paved with flat stones. The ministry said this suggests a sophisticated level of deliberate architectural planning “during an era predating the emergence of cities and written records.”

Find “Opens the Door to New Questions About the Earliest Periods of Human History”

When discussing the discovery’s significance, the ministry pointed to the volume of monumental structures and elaborate artworks found in the region. They also noted the value of artifacts representing humanity’s transition “between mobile hunter-gatherer existence and settled agricultural life,” which “challenge previous assumptions about the timeline of complex social organization.”

“While Göbeklitepe has drawn international attention since the 1990s for its T-shaped pillars and animal carvings, Karahantepe has emerged as a significant parallel site since excavations began there in 2019,” the announcement explains.

After highlighting Turkey’s ‘Heritage to the Future’ initiative, which supported the effort, Minister Ersoy said the ancient statue’s discovery “opens the door to new questions about the earliest periods of human history” and would resonate throughout the scientific community.

• Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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

Microbes in Antarctica’s Soil Live in an Extreme Environment

Announcing the findings, study leader and postdoctoral researcher Nick Dragone and co-author Noah Fierer, a CIRES Fellow and Director of the Center for Microbial Exploration, noted that scientists have always assumed that microbial species were widespread.

“There is a long-standing assumption in microbiology that ‘everything is everywhere,’” Dragone explained.

That’s because, unlike plants and animals, which are generally restricted to certain global zones or latitudes, microbes are highly mobile. For example, a simple updraft could propel microbes into an atmospheric jet stream, then deposit them hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Comparing 100 Antarctic Strains with 500 Worldwide Strains

Instead of starting with any microbial species, the CIRES team focused on bacterial strains within the Arthrobacter group. First, these strains grow well in lab conditions, which was critical to the team’s experiments. Second, Arthrobacter group bacterial strains are found in diverse environments ranging from the tropics to Colorado, and most critically, to Antarctica’s soil.

Byron Adams, professor of biology at Brigham Young University and a co-author of the study, said the species is widespread, but also diverse.

“Arthrobacter as a group may be found all over the planet, but when we look closely at individual strains, just like penguins, Antarctica clearly has its own distinctive biological history,” the professor explained.

To start, the team collected soil samples from Antarctica. They also collected comparison samples from similarly cold, arid regions like the Tibetan Plateau, Svalbard in the Arctic, and Chile’s Atacama Desert.

When examining the sampled soils, the team tested over 100 Antarctic bacterial strains and 500 worldwide strains.

Dragone and Fierer both noted that the research was made possible by “long-term collaborations among international research teams who have spent decades collecting samples across the continent for various projects.”

Genetic Sequencing Finds 90% of Antarctic Microbes are Endemic

After sequencing the genomes of the Arthrobacter strains found in samples from Antarctica’s soils, the team compared them with worldwide strains. For the worldwide species, the team obtained genomes from international research databases.

As hoped, the genetic comparison found species in Antarctica’s soil that were not found anywhere else in the world. Perhaps even more shocking, 90 percent of the Antarctic strains they’d sequenced were completely endemic, with no matches anywhere in the world.

Fierer said previous studies had identified “a few endemic microbes found in very specific environments.” However, the researcher also noted that finding such a large and unexpected number of endemic microbial species “does suggest there could be some in other locations.”

“[Determining] whether other microbial groups show these patterns is a good direction to go,” Fierer added.

Next, the team ran a follow-up experiment to see whether the endemic Antarctic strains showed signs of adaptation to the local, extreme environment. This included growing strains of the collected Antarctic Arthrobacter strains in the laboratory. Critically, the team mimicked the continent’s harsh environmental conditions.

First, the experiments showed that the strains collected from Antarctica’s soil were extremely resilient. They also grew more slowly than non-endemic strains. The team suspects these results show that Arthrobacter strains “are uniquely adapted to Antarctica.”

“We already knew that a broad diversity of microbes can survive the inhospitable conditions of Antarctica,” Fierer said. “Now we know that some of those microbes are also unique to Antarctica and are uniquely adapted to life on the southern continent.”

“Some of Antarctica’s Most Distinctive Species are Microscopic”

When discussing the implications of their findings, Adams pointed to a potential shift in public perception of what species diversity means.

“We tend to think of biodiversity in terms of penguins, seals, and whales, the researcher explained, “but this shows that some of Antarctica’s most distinctive species are microscopic.”

Along with the study’s scientific and public relations value, the team said it “sets the stage for future research on microbial life in Antarctica.” They also noted that the findings will aid efforts to preserve Antarctica’s biological diversity, including its microbial species.

“Protecting Antarctic biodiversity also means protecting the biological history contained in a handful of soil,” Adams concluded.

The study, “Evidence for endemism and local adaptation in Antarctic soil bacteria,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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