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Terrifying map reveals the fate of every single glacier on Earth – as scientists warn HALF could collapse by 2100
A terrifying map has revealed the fate of every single glacier on Earth.
Called the Global Glacier Extinction Explorer, the interactive tool is the brainchild of scientists from ETH Zurich and Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
By zooming in, you can investigate whether a glacier is expected to disappear under different levels of global warming.
The map also reveals approximately when this could happen.
'Global numbers such as glacier mass or area loss can feel very abstract,' said Dr Lander Van Tricht.
'With this website, people can zoom into their own valley or mountain region and see what different levels of global warming could mean for the glaciers they know.'
Worryingly, the scientists say that nearly half of today's glaciers could disappear by 2100 if global warming remains at +1.5°C – with catastrophic consequences.

A terrifying map has revealed the fate of every single glacier on Earth. Called the Global Glacier Extinction Explorer, the interactive tool is the brainchild of scientists from ETH Zurich and Vrije Universiteit Brussel
To explore the fate of Earth's glaciers, select a warming scenario in the box on the left. There are options for 1.5°C, 2°C, 2.7°C, or 4°C of warming.
The colour of the dots indicates each glacier's fate.
Dark red shows that a glacier is already extinct, while orange suggests it will become extinct between 2027 and 2041.
If the dot is light blue, it suggests the glacier is one of the few to survive through 2100.
Alternatively, you can hover over a glacier for a quick summary, or click it to explore its full profile, including area, elevation range, and projected extinction timing across scenarios.
The map is based on 2024 projections by researchers at ETH Zurich, which estimated when and where glaciers around the world could disappear.
The projections suggest that, under +1.5°C of global warming, around 2,000 glaciers could disappear every year.
By 2100, that could mean just half of today's glaciers remain.
Meanwhile, if global temperatures rise by 2.7°C, only 20 per cent of glaciers would remain, while 4°C of warming would leave just 10 per cent of glaciers standing.
'Every fraction of a degree matters,' Dr Van Tricht said.
'Limiting warming to 1.5°C could preserve more than twice as many glaciers as a 2.7°C trajectory by 2100.'

Dark red shows that a glacier is already extinct, while orange suggests it will become extinct between 2027 and 2041. If the dot is light blue, it suggests the glacier is one of the few to survive through 2100

The map is based on 2024 projections by researchers at ETH Zurich, which estimated when and where glaciers around the world could disappear
While 2100 still feels far away, 2026 has already proved to be a bad year for glaciers.
A combination of low winter snow and several summer heatwaves has resulted in 'substantial' ice loss across the European Alps, according to the researchers.
They highlight Bella Tola Glacier near Saint-Luc in Switzerland, which was sadly declared extinct last month – an outcome that was predicted by the 2024 study.
In addition, Urirotstock Glacier – one of Switzerland's smallest glaciers – was also declared extinct this summer.
Dr Van Tricht said: 'These examples make the concept of glacier extinction very concrete.
'Our projections showed that many small Alpine glaciers are approaching the end of their lives, and we are now witnessing this process in real time.
'Bella Tola is particularly striking, as its observed disappearance falls directly within the extinction window projected by our models.'
While the researchers did not look at the consequences of such glacier loss, a study last month warned how their demise could spark devastating sea level rise.
Researchers from Ca' Foscari University of Venice estimate that glaciers outside the vast ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contain around 150,000 cubic kilometres of ice.
If every one of these glaciers melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by more than 12 inches (32.3cm).
'Behind every disappearing glacier is a place, a history and often a community that will experience its absence,' Dr Van Tricht said.
'The fact that some of the glaciers projected to disappear in our study are already vanishing today shows that glacier extinction is not a distant, end–of–century problem. It is happening now.'
While the researchers did not look at the consequences of such glacier loss, a study last month warned how their demise could spark devastating sea level rise.
Researchers from Ca' Foscari University of Venice estimate that glaciers outside the vast ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contain around 150,000 cubic kilometres of ice.
If every one of these glaciers melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by more than 12 inches (32.3cm).
'Behind every disappearing glacier is a place, a history and often a community that will experience its absence,' Dr Van Tricht said.
'The fact that some of the glaciers projected to disappear in our study are already vanishing today shows that glacier extinction is not a distant, end–of–century problem. It is happening now.'
Defense Aviation Company Hermeus Unveils New “High Mach Speed” Prototype
Defense aviation company Hermeus has announced the development of Ramjet-X, its next-generation ramjet propulsion test vehicle capable of carrying test payloads to high Mach speeds.
The company said Ramjet-X, designed to launch mid-flight from a carrier aircraft, offers the key advantages of competitive high-Mach test platforms while keeping costs low enough for a wider range of mission profiles.
Pre-flight testing of Ramjet-X is already underway, with its first official prototype test flights expected in 2027.
Most conventional jet engines can’t achieve supersonic speeds without dumping raw fuel into an afterburner and literally rocketing past the sound barrier. To travel at high Mach speeds without relying on rocket-style propulsion, engineers have turned to ramjet engines.
While ramjets are effective, they rely on the high-speed influx of air to operate. This limitation means aircraft equipped with this type of propulsion must be propelled to higher speeds by another craft or booster rocket before they can engage.

High-Mach Ramjet propulsion requires rapid air influx to enable combustion.
Image Credit: Hermeus
In an email to The Debrief, a Hermeus spokesperson explained that current options often rely on “large and expensive” boosters that are discarded after each test. Conversely, Ramjet-X relies on the company’s reusable aircraft to reach launch velocity.
“Ramjet-X is designed to be carried by Quarterhorse, which provides the speed and altitude required for deployment,” the company told The Debrief.

Ramjet-X is launched by Quarterhorse mid-flight.
Image Credit: Hermeus
The company could not disclose what speed Quarterhorse must achieve before it can launch Ramjet-X. However, the spokesperson did note that the launch craft is designed to return to home base for future missions.
When asked about Ramjet-X’s specific operating velocity once it disengages from Quarterhorse and engages its ramjet propulsion system, the company could only say the vehicle will operate at “High-Mach speeds.”
Conventional ramjets use a combination of high-velocity air and fuel to achieve extreme velocities. Hermeus said they cannot disclose specifics about Rocket-X’s fuel requirements.
Because of the sensitive nature of potential future missions, Hermeus was cautious about sharing specifics of any planned missions. The company also couldn’t provide technical details on what a typical mission profile might look like.
However, a Hermeus spokesperson told The Debrief, the vehicle’s architecture “allows customers and partners to integrate payloads, sensors, communications and computer systems, autonomy, material samples, propulsion technologies, and other experimental hardware and software onto Ramjet-X for testing in representative sustained high-Mach conditions.”

Ramjet-X will enable “high-Mach” tests.
Image Credit: Hermeus
Hermeus also highlighted the potential cost savings of a “repeatable platform, launch architecture, and flight-test infrastructure,” designed to dramatically lower costs without sacrificing versatility or reliability.
“Instead of relying on a large dedicated expendable booster to accelerate the test vehicle into its ramjet operating regime, the launch aircraft provides much of that energy and then returns to fly again,” the company told The Debrief. “This architecture allows Hermeus to fly more by reducing the cost of expendable launch hardware.”
“High-speed flight testing is extremely expensive, and you don’t get many shots at it,” Hermeus CEO Zach Shore explained.
Hermeus said specific unit costs are not currently available. However, they said a projected cost per minute of high-Mach test time “is in the low $100k’s per minute.” For comparison, the company highlighted the historic and current costs of high-Mach flight testing.
“Most of the below comparisons are rocket-based but will give you an idea how costly high-Mach tests are and why Ramjet-X will fundamentally change the equation,” Hermeus told The Debrief.
Older examples include NASA’s X-43, which achieved around 21 seconds of high-Mach flight, and the Air Force’s X-51, which achieved around 350 seconds. Hermeus said both multi-year efforts cost around $450 million each in today’s dollars.
Current options include rocket-powered test flights aboard Rocket Lab’s HASTE, which Hermeus said run $10-20 million each, “not including the expendable cruise or glide vehicles.” The company also pointed to Stratolaunch Talon-A missions.
“Even though fully reusable, (they) are $10-12m per flight for a few min of on-condition time,” the company told The Debrief.
Conversely, Hermeus said its current projections of less than a million per minute offer potential customers “another order of magnitude reduction in the problem that matters most.”
“Ramjet-X is being designed around simplified manufacturing, rapid production, and expendability in meaningful quantities rather than the traditional model of building a small number of highly bespoke high-speed test articles as was done in other high-speed airbreathing flight test programs like X-43 and X-51,” the company told The Debrief.
When detailing the newly announced Ramjet-X’s benefits, Shore noted that their system gives them a way to place new systems into sustained high-Mach environments “without building an expensive one-off test program every time.”
“Bringing speed, sustained flight, and scalability all into one system lowers the barriers to gathering extremely valuable data from these conditions and accelerates programs for both us and our customers,” the Hermeus CEO explained.
When announcing Ramjet-X, Hermeus said the vehicle’s ramjet engine is already undergoing extensive testing at its Florida-based HEAT facility. Future tests will occur at the company’s California headquarters, with the first flight tests planned for 2027.
Buildings made of yeast expected to be printed on Mars
Researchers propose building houses on Mars using a 3D printer. The material would be a mixture of local materials with gelatin and yeast. The researchers believe that after hardening, it would have sufficient strength.

Researcher Zhisheng Qiu of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology proposes using a gelatin- and yeast-based mixture to construct buildings on Mars. It would be used as a material for 3D printing. According to phys.org, an article on the subject was published in the journal Chem Circularity.
In general, the idea of using 3D printers for constructing buildings in space, and on the Red Planet in particular, is far from new. Transporting prefabricated structures from Earth is simply too expensive. And construction work performed by people wearing spacesuits is an extremely difficult task.
Researchers also fully understand that, wherever possible, the printing material should be produced from what is available locally. Everyone also agrees that its base should consist of local small rocks, sand, and dust. The only remaining question is the binder — a substance that would initially be liquid and then harden and gain strength.
The main problem is that traditional binders such as gypsum, lime, and cement hardly harden at all in the cold and dry climate of Mars. The water they need for hydration would simply freeze or evaporate before becoming chemically bound. In addition, the limestone required to produce the latter two materials is absent.
This is where the idea of using gelatin and yeast comes in. These organic materials also contain a large amount of water. However, according to the study’s author, freezing followed by evaporation does not interfere with their hardening. They simply turn into a solid film.
If this is indeed the case and they can firmly bind inorganic components together, it could provide a real solution to the problem of construction on Mars. Yeast and other organic materials could also be grown directly on the Red Planet instead of being transported from Earth.
The author says he was inspired to pursue this solution by freeze-dried fruit, which becomes very hard when dehydrated. However, this is more than just an idea. He has already managed to print the first test sample, 30 mm high and 45 mm in diameter. Its strength turned out to be fairly similar to that of relatively weak concrete. The next step is larger-scale testing.
Aliens Are Actually Just Demons 'Without Moving Their Mouth' in Sightings, University Professor Suggests

Aliens reported in certain UFO encounters can look strikingly similar to figures from traditional demonic or spiritual accounts
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Aliens described in some reported UFO encounters may resemble figures long associated with demonic or spiritual phenomena, according to US professor Diana Pasulka, who has highlighted accounts of telepathy, levitation and voices perceived 'without moving their mouth.'
Pasulka, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, has stressed that these similarities do not prove aliens are demons, but the overlap is striking enough to warrant closer study.
Pasulka has spent years researching religion, technology and contemporary culture, including interviewing people who report encounters with alleged aliens or unidentified craft.
She has said that certain modern UFO narratives share features with older religious and paranormal stories, and that the language has shifted from angels and demons to aliens and advanced beings while many of the core details sound oddly familiar.
Speaking on That UFO Podcast, Pasulka discussed a subset of close encounter reports in which witnesses describe an entity that appears to bypass ordinary speech altogether.
Highlighting what she sees as a concerning overlap with some religious accounts of possession, she said witnesses report seeing 'an entity that seems to know your thoughts and can speak any language and can speak with you without moving their mouth.'
Witnesses have described what they interpret as telepathic communication, a voice perceived 'in the head' yet attributed to an external presence. On their own, those details might sound like standard alien lore. Pasulka's interest lies in how closely some of these reports resemble descriptions found in historical accounts of spiritual and religious experiences.
She also drew attention to stories of physical disturbances that witnesses link to alleged UFO events. On the podcast, she said some people describe 'poltergeist type of activity,' including objects flying across rooms and unnerving knocks on walls.
'You also see things that are poltergeist type of activity, you know, things flying and knocks on, you know, walls and scary things like that,' she said. 'So yeah, you do see this with certain UFO experiences.'
Such reports resemble phenomena traditionally associated with poltergeists and other alleged paranormal disturbances, rather than the clean metallic crafts of science fiction films.
Pasulka has written about how contemporary UFO stories have reshaped her thinking about belief without pushing her into full-on demonology. She has been clear that she is not claiming all UFOs or alleged alien entities are demonic.
On the podcast she emphasised that point, saying she is examining a specific cluster of intense, often private encounters that share characteristics with older accounts of demonic or spiritual activity. The question, in her view, is why the details line up so neatly, not whether that automatically proves a demonic cause.
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A reported experience in which a figure appears to read a person's thoughts, communicate without visibly speaking and is followed by alleged disturbances such as unexplained knocks or moving objects, looks very different from a brief light in the sky. Whether readers accept that interpretation or not, Pasulka argues that the reported similarities deserve closer examination.
The vocabulary, she suggests, has changed with the times. The underlying weird stuff, not so much.
The idea that aliens might be understood as dark spiritual beings is not new to the UFO world. Long before TikTok conspiracy threads, religious and occult thinkers were already wrestling with flying saucers.
Occultist Marjorie Cameron associated a reported 1952 UFO wave over Washington DC with the death of her husband, rocket engineer Jack Parsons, who had moved in the orbit of British occultist Aleister Crowley. Cameron interpreted the strange lights as part of a wider spiritual drama rather than a nuts-and-bolts extraterrestrial mission.
Mid-twentieth-century evangelist Walter Vinson Grant Sr. went even further in his 1954 booklet Men in Flying Saucers Identified: Not a Mystery! In the booklet, Grant argued that the beings associated with flying saucers were evil spirits rather than visitors from other planets.

American Eastern Orthodox monk Seraphim Rose, writing from a traditional Christian perspective, took a similar line. In his 1975 book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, he suggested that UFO phenomena could represent demonic deception and warned against treating alleged encounters as benign contact with higher intelligences.
Renowned British UFO writer Gordon Creighton, known for his work on mysterious aerial phenomena, also leaned toward a supernatural interpretation. He argued that many so-called aliens might be better understood through a spiritual or religious frame than a purely technological one.
For proponents of that view, talk of aliens often masks a much older debate about angels, demons and the nature of spiritual experience.
Pasulka's work sits between these arguments. She is an academic of religion, not an exorcist, and she has also examined witness accounts and case material concerning alleged UFO and UAP experiences.
She notes that, whatever is ultimately going on, the people she interviews experience these events as real. They describe objects moving, time slipping, and bodies reacting in ways they cannot easily explain. In her writing and public comments, she has noted similarities between some of these reports and historical accounts of hauntings and demonic phenomena.
The reported experiences remain disputed and have not been established as evidence of demonic or extraterrestrial entities. The reports invite competing interpretations, from psychological or perceptual explanations to claims involving unknown physical or spiritual factors.
Independent verification of the reported experiences and their alleged explanations has not occurred. Pasulka's comments focus on similarities between accounts of certain UFO encounters and historical descriptions of spiritual or demonic phenomena, and she has explicitly said that those parallels do not prove the entities are demons.
For now, she appears less interested in telling people what aliens really are than in asking why some modern encounter stories sound so much like older religious ones. When a reported experience involves apparent telepathy, communication without visible speech and alleged physical disturbances, she argues that it may be more useful to compare it with centuries of spiritual narratives than to file it neatly under 'alien contact' and move on.
'Hovered Above the Hotel for 20 Minutes': Ex-RAF Witness Films Suspected Alien Triangular UFOs in Bali

The alleged UFO sighting began at 6.40pm, when the man and his partner spotted the objects roughly 600ft above their apartment
PHOTO Thor Deichmann/Pixab
A former Royal Air Force serviceman filmed what he believes were three UFOs hovering above a hotel in Seminyak, on Bali's west coast, on 6 July, footage that has since split ufologists and sceptics down the middle.
The witness, who asked not to be named, told Metro he watched the triangular shapes glow yellow, red and green against a clear sky for around 20 minutes.
For context, the sighting began at 6.40pm, when the man and his partner spotted the objects roughly 600ft above their apartment. 'We saw three triangular shaped objects in the sky,' he told Metro.
'One was flashing red, pink and blue green lights and the other was showing three steady green lights. The third was quite faint. They were not making any noise and were stationary.'
The pair briefly went inside to get ready for the evening. When they stepped back out, the objects had vanished. 'Quite weird really,' the witness said, which is about as understated as a close encounter gets.
Gary Heseltine, editor of UFO Truth Magazine, was sent the footage by a former colleague and told Metro his first instinct was drones. He changed his mind after studying the clip more closely. 'There are several things that suggest to me that they might be anomalous, or a UAP,' he said, using the current term for unidentified anomalous phenomena.
Heseltine pointed to the objects' silence, their unusual paired shapes and the fact they held position above the hotel for a full 20 minutes. He also noted the formation did not resemble typical drone patterns, and that a hotel in Seminyak was an 'unusual' location for such a sighting.
He compared the footage to the mysterious drone swarms that appeared over New Jersey and other East Coast states in 2024, concluding the Bali sighting was, in his words, 'curious and for me unidentified.'
Not everyone is convinced. Ufologist and filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee called the video 'impressive' but said he doubted it showed extraterrestrial visitors. He suggested the lights could belong to Balinese kites, known locally as layang-layang, fitted with LED lights, a tradition tied to the island's kite flying season, when locals fly the kites to ask Hindu gods for a good harvest.
'For a brief few seconds my ancient alien head on was thinking ancient Vimāna coming back,' Lee told Metro, referencing the flying craft described in Hindu texts. 'But logic kicks in, especially with those lights, I guess at night you also can't see the strings.'
Science writer and UFO sceptic Mick West was characteristically blunt. 'They look like LED kites,' he said. It's the kind of verdict that tends to end debates rather than start them, though this one seems set to run a while yet.
There's a familiar problem here too. UFO footage has a habit of arriving blurry, distant and hard to verify, and this clip is no exception. Kate Burns, VP EMEA at video authentication firm identifAI, told Metro that parts of the footage appear to have been edited.
'The challenge with such videos, however, is that the lower the resolution they are, the harder it is to provide an entirely confident score,' she said.
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Public appetite for these stories shows no sign of fading. A 2021 YouGov poll found roughly half of Britons believe aliens exist, and nearly one in ten claim to have seen a UFO themselves.
Nearly 100 sightings of orbs, triangles and metallic discs across UK skies have been logged with UFO Identified this year alone, though no official body records such reports.
Nick Pope, who investigated UFO reports for the Ministry of Defence in the 1990s, told Metro before his death in April that most callers to the department's 'UFO desk' genuinely believed what they'd seen.
'In the end, we found about 80% or so of these sightings were misidentifications, 15% had insufficient data and 5% were unknown,' he said. 'That 5% doesn't mean extraterrestrial, but as I always remind people, neither did we rule that out.'
Whether Bali's flashing triangles turn out to be kites, drones or something odder, nobody involved seems in a rush to say for certain.
Astronomer Theorise That Extraterrestrial Megacomputers Could Soon Reveal Hidden Alien Civilisations

A new astronomy paper proposes that highly efficient alien megacomputers could produce detectable heat signatures around nearby stars
PHOTO Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplas
A new preprint by astronomer Michael Garrett proposes that extremely advanced extraterrestrial computing systems could leave detectable waste-heat signatures around stars.
A new paper posted on the arXiv preprint server proposes that highly efficient computing systems might create a detectable signature known as a Slysh halo.
The idea begins with a simple premise about civilisation itself. Computers have become steadily more powerful and central to human life, and the paper asks whether advanced extraterrestrial societies might also push computation towards its most efficient possible form, making their technology visible from Earth.
The paper argues that hyper-efficient computers could become a defining feature of a technologically advanced civilisation. Its proposed Slysh halo takes its name from V. I. Slysh, who previously argued that advanced civilisations would benefit from operating technology at very low temperatures.
That matters because irreversible computation carries a minimum thermodynamic energy cost and generates waste heat. Landauer's principle, as described in the paper, links the maximum efficiency of non-reversible computation to operating temperature.
Present-day data centres provide a familiar comparison. Modern data centres produce enough heat to require cooling systems. The same underlying problem would remain for a far more advanced computer, only at a vastly different scale.
The colder the system, the more efficient it can become. The source gives a striking comparison. A system operating near the Landauer limit at 10 Kelvin could perform roughly 30 times as many irreversible operations per joule as one operating at 300 Kelvin.
A Slysh halo pushes that logic outward. Instead of concentrating computers close to a planet, an advanced civilisation could distribute computing infrastructure through the cold outer regions of its planetary system.
The resulting structure could resemble an extended halo, although the paper notes that it need not be spherical and could instead take forms such as a thick disc or torus.
The paper does not address exactly how an alien society would engineer such a structure. The observational question is narrower. What would all that unavoidable waste heat look like from here?
Scientists Just Found 84 'Mysterious Objects' in Space That Defy Everything They Know About Galaxies

Astronomers have found 84 hypersoft X-ray sources in six galaxies, offering possible clues about Type Ia supernovae and galactic ionisation By NASA/CXC & J.Vaughan - PHOTO Chandra X-Ray Observatory/wikimedia commons
Astronomers have identified 84 'hypersoft X-ray sources' across six galaxies using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, including Andromeda and the Pinwheel Galaxy, in a discovery announced on 9 September 2026.
The objects are detected through unusually low-energy X-rays, while modelling suggests they produce large amounts of energetic ultraviolet radiation, much of it in the extreme-ultraviolet range, a combination of properties the researchers say has not previously been observed in a group of cosmic sources.
The objects were not spotted through a new observing campaign. Researchers found them by re-examining publicly available data in the Chandra archive, searching for sources visible in the observatory's lowest-energy X-ray images but absent from higher-energy images.
They described the result in a paper published in Nature Astronomy.
The 84 sources were found across six galaxies: M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, and four elliptical galaxies. The sources appeared in both areas of active star formation and regions dominated by older stars, suggesting the phenomenon may not be restricted to one particular galactic environment.
Their name, hypersoft X-ray sources, refers to the unusual character of their emissions. The sources are detectable mainly at the lowest end of Chandra's X-ray range, while their spectra are inferred to peak in the extreme-ultraviolet range, a region that is difficult to observe directly.
That extreme-ultraviolet emission is difficult to observe directly because neutral hydrogen and helium in interstellar space absorb it, creating what NASA described as a 'nearly impenetrable barrier.'
'We've never encountered a group of objects that act like this,' said Mustafa Muhibullah of the University of Alabama, who led the study. 'Of course, the next step was to try to figure out what these things are.'
The researchers propose that the sources are likely to include X-ray binary systems in which a black hole, neutron star or white dwarf accretes material from a companion star. As material is pulled from the companion star, it can heat up and produce X-rays before reaching the white dwarf or neutron star, or falling into the black hole.
Binary systems involving these types of compact objects are known, but the researchers say they have not previously been observed with this combination of very soft X-rays and strong ultraviolet emission.
The discovery could help address two unresolved questions in astrophysics, although neither proposed explanation has been proven.
The first concerns Type Ia supernovae, powerful stellar explosions used by astronomers as distance indicators in cosmology. Type Ia supernovae played a central role in the discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating, but scientists have struggled to identify the systems that produce them before detonation.
The archive search also points to a broader problem in astronomy. Objects can remain hidden not because telescopes lack observations, but because their strongest emission falls in wavelengths that are difficult to detect. In this case, the sources' low-energy X-rays were difficult to detect, while much of their extreme-ultraviolet emission was absorbed by hydrogen and helium before it could reach telescopes.
Rosanne Di Stefano of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, a co-author of the study, said, 'By combing through the Chandra archive, we were able to eliminate what used to be a blind spot for telescopes.'
The 84 detections could therefore represent only part of a larger population of previously overlooked systems. Whether they reveal future supernovae, an overlooked source of galactic ionisation, or several different systems hiding under one name will depend on what astronomers find next.
For now, the strangest part is also the most useful: the sources were identified in archival observations that had already been collected.
Could these flashing triangles in the sky be real-life UFOs?
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Pentagon UFO office tried to convince Navy admiral that Tic Tac was US tech
A tough Tic Tac to swallow.

A dramatic Tic Tac UFO over the ocean with military radar screens.
Image by Cybernews.
A retired Navy admiral says the Pentagon ran an "influence operation" to convince him that a 2004 UFO sighting in the shape of a Tic Tac was American military tech. He’s not buying it, though, arguing that hiding revolutionary tech from the battlefield for 20 years makes zero sense.
Speaking on The Good Trouble Show with Matt Ford, Tim Gallaudet ran through the details of the awkward encounter.
The meeting was initially scheduled for 90 minutes, but Gallaudet says it eventually lasted around 2 and a half hours, with the conversation eventually turning to whether the strange objects seen by Navy pilots were actually secret US technology.
Gallaudet says AARO’s acting director, Tim Phillips, first discussed other issues, including the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, before the conversation moved on to UAP and disclosure of whistleblower Chris Mellon’s criticism of a historical records report by All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a government agency investigating UAPs.
According to Gallaudet, Phillips dismissed Mellon’s criticism by saying Mellon was “full of shit,” before playing up the reputational fact that he worked in counter-intelligence.
Gallaudet recalls that moment as when the meeting began to get strange.
I think that was the bit, that was the whole beginning of the rest of the meeting, that was attempting to basically turn me and my thoughts,retired Navy admiral, Tim Gallaudet.
He says the conversation continued as he exited Philips’ office, with staff desperately trying to convince him that the famous Tic Tac UAP, reported by Navy pilots in 2004, was merely US technology and not an unknown phenomenon.
Gallaudet confronted them directly, telling the Pentagon workers he knew that this was all a secret plan to sway his views.
However, he did concede to Ford that this is his interpretation of events, rather than a full-blown smear or disinformation campaign.
Gallaudet says he later attended a lecture by former AARO chief Sean Kirkpatrick, where Kirkpatrick again “doubled down on the claim that the Tic Tac was Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) tech.”
Gallaudet's objection is straightforward: if DARPA really possessed technology capable of the extraordinary performance attributed to the Tic Tac, he argues that it would be far too sensitive to discuss openly while the technology remained operationally useful.
“That stuff would be so tightly classified. It’s ridiculous,” he told Ford.
Gallaudet argues that the explanation creates a huge problem: if the US really had this capability, why has it apparently not appeared on the battlefield?
His argument is that the lack of obvious military use over 22 years makes the “secret US technology” explanation difficult for him to accept.
One Redditor on the r/UFO, however, suggested that the government doesn't really have much credence in this, as any secret technology would be in the hands of private companies, explaining that “they can quietly sell their knowledge to countries around the world – including Russia and China.”

The unresolved tension seems to be whether such technology even exists, and, if it does, the mystery remains as to why it hasn't surfaced in military use.
The Next Step In UAP Disclosure Is Better Measurement – Analysis

Image: ChatGPT
Washington can release more files, but declassification cannot recover range, timing, or calibration that an observation never captured. AARO’s latest report points toward a common evidence standard.
Washington can release every UAP file it holds and still leave the central scientific problem untouched. Declassification can reveal what a witness reported and how an agency interpreted it. It cannot add range, synchronized timing, or calibration to an event that was never measured well enough.
That is not an argument against transparency. It is an argument for completing it. In February, President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon and other agencies to identify and release records on unidentified anomalous phenomena. By June, the administration’s disclosure campaign had released about 300 files, while the National Archives continued digitizing historical records. Disclosure supplies institutional context. Measurement supplies physical context. The two are not substitutes.
The latest annual report from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, makes that distinction unusually clear. AARO received 319 reports, resolved 114, transferred 191 to an active archive pending corroborating data, and identified nine for further specialist analysis. The report’s most consequential finding was not a shape in the sky. It was that a lack of timely, actionable sensor data continued to prevent resolution.
An archived case is not evidence of exotic physics. It is evidence that a question outlived the measurements needed to answer it. ‘Unresolved’ is a status of evidence, not a category of object.
The policy window is open. On July 8, AARO highlighted a Naval Postgraduate School special issue on UAP science and analysis devoted to data vetting, event-based sensing, military observations, and practical photography. Twelve days later, AARO posted its annual report. Together, the releases point toward the next phase of UAP policy: not merely opening more files, but making future observations comparable, testable, and useful.
AARO acknowledges that its holdings are shaped by collection bias. Reports cluster in the continental United States, its coastal waters, and areas where U.S. forces operate because those are the places with more American sensors and personnel. A map of reported anomalies is therefore partly a map of where institutions looked. It cannot, by itself, show where unusual events are most common.
The problem is global. Civil aviation, meteorology, astronomy, space surveillance, and defense organizations observe overlapping parts of the sky, but they use different instruments, retention rules, clocks, metadata, and access controls. No country can infer global prevalence from its own uneven coverage. Reports that cross borders cannot be compared reliably when their evidence is recorded in incompatible forms.
The distinction also matters for security. AARO’s report separately recorded 50 known unmanned-aircraft incidents near U.S. nuclear infrastructure, weapons, and launch sites; none was reported as UAP. Better measurement serves two purposes at once: it keeps weak evidence from becoming an extraordinary claim, and it keeps a real incursion from disappearing into a vague anomaly category.
Eurasia Review covered NASA’s independent UAP study when it warned that too few high-quality observations existed to support firm scientific conclusions. NASA’s scientific guidance emphasized systematic calibration, multiple measurements, and complete sensor metadata. AARO’s new report shows that the same data-quality bottleneck remains.
A video may show apparent motion, but without range it cannot establish physical speed. An infrared point may look hot, but without radiometric calibration, target size, emissivity, and atmospheric correction it cannot establish temperature. An optical event and a radio transient may occur at the same time, but timing alone does not show that they came from the same source. These are measurement problems, not philosophical objections.
The answer is not simply more cameras. Ten instruments that share the same timing fault, calibration error, software defect, or environmental confounder can create the appearance of corroboration while repeating one mistake. A stronger design uses heterogeneous redundancy: different instruments measuring the same physical quantity through different mechanisms, with uncertainty and common-cause failure treated explicitly.
The Galileo Project’s multimodal observatory work demonstrates the value of combining wide-field optical and infrared tracking, narrow-field characterization, radio-frequency measurement, acoustics, and environmental sensors. Its observatory-system architecture treats commissioning, calibration, raw-data provenance, and reproducible processing as parts of the scientific instrument rather than administrative details.
New sensor physics can add an independent witness. NIST’s Rydberg-atom methods can make traceable measurements of radio-frequency electric fields, including magnitude and phase. In a research observatory, an atom-based probe should complement mature antennas and receivers, not replace them. Agreement between channels based on different physics is more informative than agreement between two copies of the same receiver. Disagreement can reveal which assumption failed.
The hardest design problem is deciding when a measurement supports an inference. Automated systems are optimized to return labels, but a scientific instrument sometimes needs to refuse. A vision model may be highly confident that an object is unusual while its range remains unknown. The confidence score still cannot supply velocity. Invalid timing should block a time-difference calculation. Sensor saturation should block a claim about the source’s spectrum.
What Are Nebulae and How Can One Observe Them?
In astronomical images, we frequently observe depictions of diverse and remarkably beautiful nebulae that resemble a horse’s head or a butterfly. However, it is often challenging to comprehend their true nature, as most of the time, when we look up at the sky, such formations are not visible to the naked eye.
The Horsehead Nebula is among the most renowned nebulae.
Source: Wikipedia
When individuals envision the Milky Way, the initial aspect that arises is the hundreds of millions of stars comprising it. Indeed, these are virtually the sole objects observable in the sky, aside from the celestial bodies constituting the Solar System. Nonetheless, it is likely that everyone has encountered images in popular science and other publications depicting exquisite nebulae, which frequently resemble the fantasies of artists.
Hence, the questions arise regarding the location of these objects, their nature, and the reasons for their invisibility. Several approaches exist to address these inquiries; however, we shall commence with the last. The vast majority of what are referred to as nebulae are not visible to the unaided eye due to their excessive faintness.
This is likely the reason why, during the initial millennia of astronomical observation, their existence was unknown. More specifically, they remained unidentified by European astronomers. For instance, populations residing in the Southern Hemisphere have been able to observe two small clouds in the night sky since ancient times — celestial formations that appear to have separated from the Milky Way and consistently occupy the same position.
The Magellanic Clouds above the Paranal Observatory.
Source: phys.org
Among Europeans, they were first observed by the crew of the circumnavigational expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520. Their description of these stationary clouds—twice and ten times the size of the Moon — so deeply impressed astronomers that they named them in honor of the renowned explorer.
Another object visible to the naked eye — and one that was discovered by Arab astronomers long before European astronomers — is the Andromeda Nebula. It has an angular size of 3.2° × 1°, which is six times larger than the full Moon. However, most of it is very faint, and only the central regions are bright enough to be seen as a small, bright spot.
The object was first documented in 946 by the Persian astronomer al-Sufi. European scholars commenced detailed investigations in the 17th century following the invention of the telescope. It is observable to the naked eye; however, optimal viewing conditions include a clear, moonless night away from the extensive light pollution typical of major urban areas.
Andromeda Nebula.
Source: Wikipedia
If you are positioned appropriately at the opportune moment, you should be able to identify the three brightest stars in the constellation Andromeda. Instructions on how to accomplish this can be found in this article. Subsequently, mentally connect the middle star of these three, known as Mirach, with the highly prominent constellation Cassiopeia, which resembles the letter M, and follow the line. You will shortly discover a small, bright spot, which is the central region of the Andromeda Nebula.
However, the objects in Andromeda, the Magellanic Clouds, and the faint luminous point observable on a very dark night within the constellation Triangulum are not nebulae in the contemporary understanding of the term. Rather, they are galaxies akin to the Milky Way. They appear as spots with diffuse boundaries — comprising the light emitted by millions of stars that constitute them.
Nevertheless, it is possible to observe genuine nebulae with the unaided eye. The most notable of these is the Orion Nebula. To appreciate it, one must first identify the constellation Orion. Subsequently, locate the three stars that constitute its belt. Beneath these stars, there is an elongated cluster of stars known as Orion’s Sword. In actuality, these objects are not gravitationally bound; however, among them, a hazy patch with indeterminate edges can be observed. This is precisely what we seek.
Orion Nebula.
Source: Wikipedia
A comparable celestial object is located within the constellation Sagittarius. Its most conspicuous feature is an asterism known as “The Teapot.” Just above the “spout” of this Teapot, and contingent upon sufficiently dark skies, one can observe a faint, hazy region known as the Lagoon Nebula, or M8.
In other words, nebulae are inherently too dim to be fully perceived with the unaided eye. However, when employing binoculars or a modest amateur telescope, the quantity of such observable objects increases to dozens.
One of the most effective methods to study nebulae is through the catalog initiated by Charles Messier in 1771. Currently, it comprises 110 objects, predominantly nebulae or galaxies, with some star clusters included. This catalog provides sufficient scope to understand the remarkable diversity within the realm of nebulae.
A diagram of the Orion constellation and the nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Source: NASA / ESA / CSA / MCCAUGHREAN & PEARSON
Nevertheless, the question persists: what precisely are these entities referred to as “real nebulae”? If they are neither remote galaxies in which individual stars are discernible nor star clusters situated within the Milky Way, then what could they be? They appear akin to clouds in the Earth’s sky — and indeed, are clouds composed of gas and dust occupying a specific region within the Milky Way.
What is their size? For instance, the Orion Nebula, previously referenced, extends across 24 to 33 light-years, with one light-year equating to 63,241 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. The Lagoon Nebula surpasses this in scale, measuring between 110 and 140 light-years.
The fact that the former appears larger is attributable to its proximity, being approximately 1,344 light-years away, in comparison to the 5,200 light-years for the Lagoon Nebula. Nonetheless, there are more extensive clouds within the Milky Way; however, they are significantly more distant from our location.
Simultaneously, nebulae can be characterized as relatively sparse environments. Most exhibit a particle concentration ranging from 100 to 10,000 per cm³, with only the densest regions reaching up to one million particles per cm³. In comparison, Earth’s atmosphere at the surface contains approximately 10¹⁹ molecules per cm³.
Lagoon Nebula.
Source: Wikipedia
Nebulae predominantly comprise hydrogen and helium, rendering them remarkably akin to stars in this regard. Nevertheless, they also encompass heavier elements, water, silicates, and organic molecules, such as amino acids. Some of these substances are found in nebulae as small solid grains.
Nebulae typically do not emit their own light; instead, they predominantly absorb or scatter the light that traverses them. This phenomenon occurs because, notwithstanding their low density, they extend over vast distances. Consequently, as light passes through these regions, it is partially absorbed and scattered, which accounts for their appearance resembling dark clouds.
The Witch Head Nebula, illuminated by reflected light.
Source: Wikipedia
Nevertheless, it is frequently observed that one or more luminous stars are positioned near the periphery or even within a nebula. Their emitted light reflects off the outer layers of the nebula, rendering it visible. It is due to this phenomenon that we are able to perceive its remarkable shapes.
All of these principles are applicable to nebulae in which the molecules exist in an inactive state. However, it is frequently observed that, owing to a proximate source of radiation, these molecules become ionized, heat up, and subsequently emit energy independently. Such nebulae are referred to by astronomers as emission nebulae.
Nevertheless, an emission nebula does not inherently emit radiation within the visible spectrum or across a wide range of frequencies. Many of these nebulae are detectable solely at particular wavelengths. In such instances, they are designated as radio nebulae.
Fermi Bubbles.
Source: Wikipedia
An exemplary instance is represented by the Fermi bubbles — immense spherical formations of gas ascending on opposite sides of the Milky Way’s plane, situated above its central region. Their existence remained unknown until the early twenty-first century, owing to their composition of exceedingly rarefied matter that radiates within the X-ray spectrum. This radiation is subsequently absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere. The bubbles could only be detected following the advent of space telescopes designed to operate within that particular range.
All of the above considerations pertain to large nebulae that span tens of light-years into space. However, they merely constitute a specific phase within the matter cycle of the Milky Way, which is intrinsically connected to stellar evolution.
When cold interstellar clouds commence condensation, the process unfolds in an uneven manner. Regions of increased density emerge within the clouds, attracting surrounding material. Over time, these regions evolve into globules, where protostars are formed. Subsequently, these stars ignite, and the radiation pressure expels some of the gas and dust, while the remaining material persists in the form of protoplanetary disks.
Protoplanetary disks within the Orion Nebula.
Source: Wikipedia.
Protoplanetary disks are also classified as a type of nebula; however, their dimensions are so diminutive that amateur telescopes lack the required capability for detection. Subsequently, planets originate, and the star commences its typical lifecycle. Beyond this point, the subsequent evolution is contingent upon its mass.
Stars that are comparatively light and cool, such as our Sun, do not share characteristics with nebulae until they attain the concluding phase of the red giant stage. Subsequently, they disperse their outer layers, which then expand into space and contribute to the formation of a nebula.
These shells, referred to as planetary nebulae, exist for a comparatively brief duration by cosmic standards. Nonetheless, they can assume a diverse range of shapes, frequently exhibiting near symmetry: from rings and bipolar formations to intricate asymmetrical shells. It was specifically this similarity to a planetary disk that earned them their name.
These intriguing celestial objects are observable even by amateur astronomers utilizing modest telescopes. The apparent magnitude of planetary nebulae such as the Dumbbell, the Helix, and the Ghost of Jupiter ranges from 7 to 8, thereby rendering them accessible targets for amateur observation.
The Ghost of Jupiter planetary nebula.
Source: Wikipedia
The relationship between large, luminous stars and nebulae exhibits considerable complexity. The majority of these stars, which are already in the final stages of their evolutionary journey, are enveloped by gas and dust of diverse origins. Such structures may also be classified as nebulae; however, these formations can only be observed utilizing the most powerful telescopes across different wavelength ranges.
Subsequently, a supernova explosion transpires, dispersing vast quantities of gas and plasma into the cosmos. This process leads to the formation of supernova remnants, which are, in essence, nebulae as well.
However, both they and planetary nebulae share the same fate. In a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years, they will disperse completely, and their material will form new giant clouds stretching for tens of light-years.
The realm of nebulae is astonishing and heterogeneous. It also encapsulates a distinct moment in the history of the universe — one that will dissipate within a relatively brief period, merely a few thousand years. Therefore, cherish this moment.
EXCLUSIVE - Green Beret behind secret pastors' UFO meeting issues chilling warning about sinister new religion quietly reaching millions... and predicts 'very, very dark' future for Christian faith
For months, influential Christian pastors have spoken cryptically about secret UFO disclosure meetings they said were hosted by mysterious government insiders.
The Daily Mail first reported in May that private meetings of intelligence insiders, former military members and faith leaders were said to have taken place in February ahead of the government's release of its 'UFO files,' a collection of declassified records concerning unidentified flying objects.
Now, one of the men who claims to be behind those gatherings has stepped forward.
Retired US Army Green Beret Paul Bock told the Daily Mail that he helped organize the meetings to warn church leaders about what he claims is a dangerous new religion forming around belief in extraterrestrial beings.
Bock said the emerging belief system teaches that beings once worshipped as God or angels were actually ‘nonhuman intelligences’ that ordinary people can summon for healing, secret knowledge and spiritual advancement. ‘Do I think that it is leading many, many people astray right now? Absolutely,’ he said.
At the heart of Bock’s warning were disturbing images he reportedly obtained during his independent investigation into UFOs and their possible connection to Scripture.
He said the photographs showed ‘hyperdimensional’ creatures, including a squid-like being and a ghostly humanoid figure that appeared to exist outside the earthly realm.
Bishop Alan DiDio, a North Carolina pastor, claimed that he attended the gathering hosted by Bock and was shown photographs of strange entities. ‘This is one of the strangest meetings I’ve ever been involved in during a quarter of a century of ministry,’ DiDio told the Daily Mail.

Paul Bock (pictured) told the Daily Mail he was one of the individuals who organized a meeting with influential pastors to warn them of a growing movement to frame aliens as a new religion
However, the Daily Mail could not independently confirm that the private meetings took place as described or verify the images allegedly shown to the pastors.
The Pentagon’s main UFO investigative unit has said that most reports of mysterious phenomena in the sky have ordinary explanations, including balloons, drones and even birds.
Despite the Pentagon’s ongoing release of UFO records and claims from several members of Congress that the government possesses more evidence, US officials have maintained that there is no verified physical proof of extraterrestrial life or that UFO sightings involve alien beings.
After matching the Bible’s teachings to documented accounts of UFO contacts, Bock determined that the growing belief that biblical entities were actually aliens was hostile to Christianity.
According to the Christian faith, Jesus taught that he alone is God in the flesh, the only way to the Father and that spirits must be tested by Scripture.
The UFO faith, according to Bock, treats Jesus as just one teacher among many and tells people to trust unnamed beings who bring their own message of contact, evolution and ‘new knowledge.’
‘I took the Christian perspective. I took the non-Christian perspective. This truly is deceptive. Nothing about this lines up with the word of God,’ Bock claimed.
Bock told the Daily Mail the photos shown to pastors were obtained from a man he called a ‘psionic,’ someone with paranormal abilities, whom he met after starting his UFO research in 2022.

Images included in the UFO files released by the Pentagon have been compared to angels flapping their wings

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
‘He was into some very, very dark things, and so these pictures were of entities that would show up when he would go out and do these rituals, and these, in the faith, we would call these summoning rituals,’ Bock explained.
Although he did not see any extraterrestrial activity while on active duty, Bock said he had gained access to shocking images of what he called ‘hyperdimensional’ creatures.
‘One looks like a humanoid figure. It’s very ethereal. It looks like a spiritual type of thing. It’s very different than what you’d think, in a sense, but also at the same time, very, very creepy,’ Bock said.
The February meeting in a Tennessee Airbnb was said to be organized by Bock, evangelist Tony Merkel and one of Bock’s associates, whom he did not name publicly.

Pictured: Bishop Alan DiDio of Revival Nation, an attendee of the UFO pastor meeting in February
‘We would say, “Look, guys, the government’s talking about this. Are you aware of the answers the world is giving? Because these are very good answers. They’re very convincing. What is your answer?”’ he recalled.
DiDio said he, Merkel and fellow pastor Joseph Zupetz were attending the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville when they were invited to Bock’s gathering nearby.
‘I still don’t know if I would have gone if it weren’t for Tony Merkel, and if it weren’t for Paul, [whom] I had known previously. I knew Paul to be an American hero and a man of integrity,’ DiDio said.
DiDio recalled the meeting lasting about three hours and featuring a slideshow and PowerPoint presentation.
‘These are Christian men who love God, who, in the process of their investigation, working within all areas of this phenomenon within the government, outside of the government, they uncovered some information they believe was concerning,’ he said. ‘They shared with us that the church really needs to wake up to this reality.’
The bishop noted that recent surveys had shown more people in the US now believe in the existence of alien life than in God.
‘This can cause a dramatic shift in our culture if the church doesn’t know how to process this,’ he explained.

Bock (left) recently spoke publicly with Dido (right) and revealed himself as one of the men hosting the pastor meeting regarding UFO disclosure

Bock has revealed the details of what was said to the pastors in a book published in August 2026
Bock said much of the information he presented included publicly available material and clips that had been shown secretly to Congress.
The images have not been released publicly as part of the Pentagon’s ongoing UFO disclosure rollout, and DiDio believes the government has been ‘slow-walking’ the disclosure of more shocking items in its possession.
DiDio claimed other sources with knowledge of the government’s disclosure plans warned that more striking UFO material would emerge by 2027.
While the pastor meeting was initially kept secret, Bock is now sharing what he learned about the alleged UFO faith system and its connection to Christianity.
He has detailed what the pastors heard in his book, ‘The Disclosure Agenda,’ released in August.
The government knew the weird truth about the Roswell UFO—but kept it secret for 47 yearsHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
As the embers of World War II still smoldered, the world looked to the future with trepidation as the two superpowers emerging from the global conflict—the U.S. and the Soviet Union—began drawing new battle lines. The front lines of the two world wars were gone. Instead, the new boundary lines were drawn with conferences, doctrines, and covert intelligence. By 1947, the Cold War was well underway, and the U.S.’s covert surveillance of its geopolitical adversary began in earnest.
One of those early top-secret initiatives was known as Project Mogul, a sophisticated system of aerial microphones designed to travel into the ionosphere to monitor sound waves emanating from the Soviet Union. After the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki only two years earlier, the U.S. feared the Soviet Union would soon develop fission weapons of its own (a fear that was eventually realized 1949).
Scientists at New York University developed constant-level balloon technology that allowed balloons to fly at a consistent altitude, as well as telemetering equipment capable of relaying information gathered from the upper atmosphere to ground stations.
“Project MOGUL branched out into many areas related to the geophysical properties of the upper atmosphere, including radiowave propagation, radar propagation, ionospheric physics, solar physics, terrestrial magnetism, meteorological physics, and weather forecasting,” says one U.S. Air Force Reserve report. “Considerable resources were devoted to Project MOGUL which included numerous bomber and transport aircraft and two oceangoing vessels. At one point the staff, exclusive of contractors, numbered over 100 persons.”
While the science behind the idea was sound, and though Project Mogul provided a model for balloon-based top-secret projects in later decades, the cost and feasibility of the program severely limited its usefulness. Eventually, fixed-wing aerial reconnaissance replaced monitoring balloons. Still, Project Mogul made it into the history books—just not in a way that anyone intended.
On June 14, 1947, a rancher named W.W. Bazel and his son, Vernon, discovered unexplainable wreckage in the desert 80 miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. On July 7th, Bazel brought the strange debris to George Wilcox, the sheriff of Roswell, who was similarly perplexed by it, and the following day, the local Roswell Daily Record wrote a story saying that the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) had captured a “flying saucer.” Immediately, the military countered the claim saying that the “saucer” was likely a weather balloon. But Bazel, as reported in the next day’s Roswell Morning Dispatch, disagreed with that assessment.
Although Roswell looms large in our imagination today, the incident mostly faded from history at the time. That is until the book The Roswell Incident, published in 1980, resurfaced the episode, concluding that the balloon story was a cover up. The engine of conspiracy was now fully primed, and the Roswell incident became one of the most infamous UFO stories in history.
Finally, in 1994—nearly 50 years after Project Mogul was originally conceived—the U.S. Air Force issued a report admitting that the Roswell “flying saucer” was actually a spy balloon, specifically NYU Flight 4, that initially launched on June 4, 1947, and crashed into the desert.
After half a century, the mystery of Roswell was finally laid to rest—or was it? Today, the small New Mexico town remains the “Alien Capital of the World,” hosts an international UFO museum, and the logo of Roswell’s tourism website features a flying saucer. The obsession of the incident remains, as one retired Air Force officer who worked on Project Mogul told The New York Times back in 1994.
“This won’t lay it to rest,” Colonel Albert C. Trakowski said. “The psychology is simple: People believe what they want to believe.”
What's Carving Active Gullies on Mars? It's Not Water
Some of the "frosted" gullies as seen on Mars.
Credit - NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Scientists were shocked when they received the first images of Martian gullies. They were even more shocked as those gullies appeared to change over time. Their similarities to gullies seen on Earth were uncanny, but all of Earth’s gullies are formed by the water run-off, and Martian is too cold and has too sparse an atmosphere to have liquid water on its surface. Whatever has been causing those changing gullies couldn’t have been water, so what was it? A new paper from Apolline Leclef of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale at Université Paris-Saclay and her colleagues, available in pre-print on arXiv, shows how they are likely caused by CO2 frost turning into a fluid.
To prove this idea, the authors turned to data from two of the longest-standing observers of Mars’ environment - Mars Express and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). They looked at data collected by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on MRO and the OMEGA spectrometer on Mars express, but focused on a very specific location. Known as Sisyphi Cavi, this system of deep polar pits is situated near the polar ice cap near Mars’ south pole. But crucially, despite being known to have active gullies itself, it is well outside of the more temperate latitudes where gullies on Mars usually form.
Their first task was to completely disprove the theory that the gullies were driven by water. Water itself has a very specific spectral absorption band at 1.5 um. That band was completely absent during the spring ice melt, where the CO2 ice that blankets the planet’s surface during the winter vanishes. There were some detection of salts and clays, which typically require water to form, but only in the high plateaus and crater rims of the area, not anywhere near where the gullies are located. So pretty clear, liquid water was not the cause.
Fraser talks about where liquid water could hide on Mars
Which turned the researchers attention to the next potential culprit - geysers. On Earth, we think of geysers as jets of hot water spewing up from inside the Earth’s surface. But on Mars, they have a different mechanism, known as the Kieffer geyser mechanism. As described above, the wintery parts of Mars are blanketed in a sheet of transparent dry ice. During the spring months, the increase in sunlight starts to heat up the dark soil at the bottom of those clear sheets of ice, sublimating some of the CO2 underneath. Eventually, after the pressure builds up enough, the ice ruptures and high-velocity jets of CO2 gas geyser outwards, bringing dark plumes of sand and soil with them. This results in the “dark spots” cameras on Mars Express and MRO have seen from orbit.
Geysers are certainly a plausible mechanism for creating gullies. However, according to the paper, the timing is off. The dark spots that are indicative of geyser action appear in later winter and peak around the spring equinox. However, the gully activity doesn't even begin until mid-to-late spring, after the geysers have already become largely dormant. So it seems geysers aren’t the answer to where the gullies form either.
Since the two main theories don’t match the data, the authors point out a third one, which we’ll call the Air Hockey Effect. If you’ve ever played air hockey, you know a slab of solid material (like an ice sheet) can essentially float, and therefore move easily, when supported by a cushion of air from underneath. The authors think a sublimation-driven process on Mars, known as CO2 frost fluidization, does the same thing on a larger scale to the CO2 ice sheets on Mars, which is the cause of the gullies.
Fraser talks about the lack of liquid water on Mars.
In this case, instead of geysering out through small cracks in the slab of ice, the gas itself acts as a lubricant, causing a stationary pile of dry ice and dirt to slide down a slope, becoming a fast-moving flow capable of carving alluvial-style aprons and carving deep trenches into the Martian landscape. Ultimately, the end result would look exactly like the gullies seen on the Red Planet today.
If true, this would prove that Earth-like features don’t always require Earth-like physics. The dynamic erosion posited at Sisyphi Cavi happens without a single drop of liquid water, and instead relies on the freeze-thaw cycle of the Martian atmosphere. While not great news for astrobiologists, planetary scientists and geologists can surely appreciate how the facts fit the evidence in this case, even if the headline isn’t as fantastic as “Liquid water found on Mars!”
Learn More:
The Pre-Egyptian Mystery: The Osiris Shaft Beneath Giza