Trying to access Area 51 is dicey, dangerous, pointless and fruitless. Do not do it. Such is the extent of the surveillance of the landscape that surrounds the base (and all of the Nevada Test and Training Range, too), it’s all but impossible to successfully penetrate the secret base. Cameras, motion-detection devices, heat-seeking technology, night-vision, aerial drones, helicopters and much more collectively ensure that any attempt to stroll onto Area 51 – whether by day or night – will simply not work. That doesn’t prevent people from thinking they can do exactly that, though. A perfect example of this stupid futility occurred in the latter part of 2012. It was in October of that year when a team from the BBC tried to achieve what no-one else had done: find a way into Area 51. The two primary figures in the saga were Andre Maxwell and Darren Perks. The former is a well-known Irish comedian, while Perks is a conspiracy-theorist. And for good measure, they had a few UFO sleuths with them too, as they traveled around not just Nevada, but also Arizona and California. The plan was for the pair to get as close as they could to Area 51, and have the film-crew capture all of the excitement for posterity. It didn’t quite work out like that, though. They should have known that: there was not a chance.

The entire crew and cast was clearly not prepared for what was about to come down on them. They actually thought that trying to get into the base under cover of darkness would actually work. Of course, it didn’t. And it couldn’t! Their first stop was the town of Rachel – the home of the Little A’Le’Inn, which is the closest place of normality to Area 51. Not too far away is what is known as Area 51’s “Back Gate.”

According to Perks: “There was no one around, no guards, no vehicles – nothing. We filmed for approximately thirty minutes and tried to call the guards but there was no one there and no sign of them. So we all decided to walk past the barriers onto the restricted area past the security huts and basically onto Area 51. Nothing happened.” Going through the gates does not mean that you are immediately on Area 51. The base itself is still more than eight miles from the gates. In other words, despite what Perks claimed, they were most assuredly not on Area 51, at all. They were still miles away from it. And trying to get to the base from the gate is impossible without the required clearance – as the team quickly learned to their cost.

For a while the team managed to get some stock-footage of the area. It was, however, when they decided to knock on the door of one of the security huts at the gate that all hell broke loose. Armed security personnel descended upon them, ordering them to lie down on the ground, face-down. Or else. Not surprisingly, one and all did exactly what they were told to do. And quickly, too. All of the team was extensively searched. And, for a while, their iPhones, wallets and cameras were confiscated. For around three hours they were forced to lie flat on the desert floor. Background checks followed, as did a trip to the local sheriff’s office, where they were duly chewed out and fined in the region of $500.00 each. A lesson was learned the hard way: if you try and penetrate Area 51, you will not succeed. Instead, you’ll have a gun pointed at you and you’ll likely end up out of cash and a file will be opened on you. In other words, unless you have a warped reason to have your life turned over for the worse, then be content with Google images of the base.

What can artificial intelligence tell us about ourselves? Despite the growing urge to barricade myself in a log cabin on the side of a mountain, 300 miles away from the nearest circuit board, and answer “The day a robot tells me anything is the day I die,” it turns out A.I. can reveal a lot about the mysterious and murky history of human evolution. Although like all good mysteries, the more information we get, the murkier it becomes. According to an article published in Nature Communications, scientists from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), and the University of Tartu have successfully used  artificial intelligence deep-learning algorithms to identify the existence of a third, unknown, human species in the genome of Asian individuals.

We know that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals in Eurasia and Denisovens in Asia and Oceania, but scientists have theorized that there may have been a third species of hominid that made its way into the modern human genome. Now, thanks to these deep learning algorithms, that has been confirmed. The identity of third species is still a mystery, however, but scientists believe this species may have been a hybrid species of Neanderthal and Denisoven. This would bolster the argument that the remains of a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid found this past summer in a cave in Denisova was not an isolated incident, but evidence of an ongoing evolutionary progression. According to Mayukh Mondal, a researcher with the University of Tartu:

“Our theory coincides with the hybrid specimen discovered recently in Denisova, although as yet we cannot rule out other possibilities.”

The current model of human evolution holds that some 80,000 years ago, modern humans left the African Continent and began their migration throughout the rest of the globe. Up until 40,000 years ago modern humans co-existed with the other known species of hominids, Neanderthals and Denisovans. Recent studies have determined that these other species of hominids interbred with humans, giving us the weird hominid casserole that all of us beautiful people are today. While the recent findings don’t change that, it reminds us that the whole picture is quite a bit more complicated than we’ve previously been able to determine.

Basically, this picture is simplistic to the point of being nonsensical.

While the theory of a third hominid species has existed for a while, it was only through deep learning algorithms that scientists were able to prove it. According to Òscar Lao, principal investigator at the CNAG-CRG:

“[Deep learning] is an algorithm that imitates the way in which the nervous system of mammals works, with different artificial neurons that specialise and learn to detect, in data, patterns that are important for performing a given task. We have used this property to get the algorithm to learn to predict human demographics using genomes obtained through hundreds of thousands of simulations. Whenever we run a simulation we are travelling along a possible path in the history of humankind. Of all simulations, deep learning allows us to observe what makes the ancestral puzzle fit together.”

Deep learning algorithms attempt to model how the human brain learns.

This is the first time that deep learning has been able to explain part of human history, and researchers are excited for the implications this has in biology, genetics, and evolution.

I’ll bet good money that somewhere down the line this, A.I. stuff is going to start feeding us disinformation. Sooner or later there’s going to be a journal article titled “Deep Learning Algorithms Determine Humans Were Born to Serve the Great Machine,” and you’ll be wishing you had the foresight to build a sweet cabin.

Something mysterious is lurking at the edge of our Solar System. So mysterious, in fact, that scientists can’t agree on what might or might not be out there. For years, scientists have debated the existence of an alleged “Planet Nine” beyond Neptune based on the gravitational effects something seems to have on surrounding objects. Astronomers haven’t found the alleged planet yet, but the search for it has instead turned up many strange objects and unexpected discoveries. Will we ever find a hidden planet at the far edge of our cosmic neighborhood?

The Kuiper Belt

A new study published this week says probably not – although it does reveal its own new set of mysteries. Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the American University of Beirut have been studying the strange orbital anomalies found in some of the Kuiper Belt objects beyond Neptune and believe they can be explained not by a ninth planet but instead by what the astronomers are calling a “relatively massive and moderately eccentric disc of trans-Neptunian objects.”

Their hypothesis is that the same gravitational effects seen at the edge of the Solar System could be explained by the existence of a massive disc of small objects composed of rock, metals, and ices of methane, ammonia, and water. Some of these may be tiny dwarf planets, while many may be asteroids. The disc – if it exists at all – orbits the Sun at the far end of the Solar System past Neptune.

Antranik Sefilian, a Ph.D. student in Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, says that while their theory is just that – a theory – it is in no way any more less plausible than the Planet Nine hypothesis:

While we don’t have direct observational evidence for the disc, neither do we have it for Planet Nine, which is why we’re investigating other possibilities. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that observations of Kuiper belt analogues around other stars, as well as planet formation models, reveal massive remnant populations of debris.

Of course, the researchers note that without any evidence either way, there could be both a Planet 9 and a massive disc of small objects out there – the point is we don’t know. I’m left to wonder: what if it’s something else entirely, something truly unknown? What if some wildly exotic object is causing the gravitational effects beyond Neptune? We’ve only really been exploring space for a few decades, after all; who knows what we haven’t discovered yet?

Last week, Professor Mike Brown from Caltech tweeted a photo that shows the plot of a newly discovered eccentric Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). The giant hidden planet is thought to sit on the edge of our solar system and is 10 times more massive than the Earth, gaseous, and similar to Uranus or Neptune

Daniel Whitmire, a retired professor of astrophysics now working at the University of Arkansas Department of Mathematical Sciences, suggests that the planet, also referred to as 'Planet X', triggers comet showers linked to mass extinctions on Earth at intervals of approximately 27 million years

The dislodged comets not only smash into the Earth, they also disintegrate in the inner solar system as they get nearer to the sun, reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth. This could have led to a number of mass extinctions on Earth, including the one that is blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs (illustrated)

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

They’re small, with soft flabby bodies, over-sized heads and thin, weakly developed bones. Aliens? That’s one thought, but they’re more likely a group of freaky fish that have evolved to the point that they can live in the oxygen-depleted dead zones of the ocean. Are they the eventual survivors of whatever it is we eventually do to destroy the rest of life on Earth?

“I could hardly believe my eyes. We observed cusk eels, grenadiers, and lollipop sharks actively swimming around in areas where the oxygen concentration was less than one percent of typical surface oxygen concentrations. We were in a suboxic habitat, which should exclude fish, but instead there were hundreds of fish. I immediately knew this was something special that challenged our existing understanding of the limits of hypoxia [low-oxygen] tolerance.”

In a paper published in the journal Ecology, Natalya Gallo, graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, described what she and a research team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) found on a cruise and dive trip to some deep basins in the Gulf of California that are known to be suboxic – so-called dead zones where oxygen levels are so low that few if any animals or plants can live there. The remotely operated Doc Ricketts underwater robot(developed by MBARI) was sent to explore the Cerralvo Trough at depths between 600–900 meter (1,969–2,953 ft) and unexpectedly found the freaky-looking fish, not just surviving but thriving in schools numbering in the hundreds.

Cusk eel

“Many other types of fish are considered tolerant of low-oxygen conditions. But the fish in these parts of the Gulf are like the winners among a group of elite Olympic athletes.”

These Michael Phelps of the dead zone were predominantly cusk eels (Cherublemma emmelas) and lollipop cat sharks (Cephalurus cephalus). Both are bottom feeders with large heads and slender soft bodies (hence the name ‘lollipop’) which are good for living at great depths, and large gills which may help them take in enough of the suboxic water to get sufficient oxygen to live.

Obviously, these ‘Olympian’ fish don’t have Phelps-like Olympic bodies. It turns out they don’t have Phelpsian appetites either. What and how much these cull eels and cat sharks eat is still a mystery because they live in a dead zone which is, as its name suggests, dead. No fish, no plants, no worms, no Big Macs. It could be that their small, flabby, almost gelatinous bodies have low metabolisms but Gallo – whose Ph.D. thesis focuses on animals living in very low-oxygen environments – wants more data, which requires more dives into the Cerralvo Trough and the Gulf of California.

Lollipop cat shark

(Wikipedia)

This level of oxygen-deprived living is so unprecedented, the MBARI team believes these particular fish need a new name or classification. Their suggestion is ‘ligooxyphile’, which is Greek for ‘little oxygen lover’.

Little oxygen lovers. Is that the future of the rest of the creatures in our oceans … and possibly for us landlubber creatures as well? Team member and biological oceanographer Lisa Levin thinks it may be too late.

“Continued warming of the ocean may challenge even the most hypoxia-tolerant fishes. Elevated temperature will lower the solubility of oxygen in the water while increasing the amount of oxygen the fish need to survive.”

Do we all need to evolve into small, flabby, big-headed mouth-breathers? Or are we already?

What’s wrong with that?

Over the decades there have been a number of fictional tales of faked alien invasions. One of the more intriguing is Bernard Newman’s 1948 novel, The Flying Saucer. It tells of a secret group of scientists who fake three UFO crashes (one in New Mexico, no less – shades of the Roswell affair), as a means to convince the people of Earth that aliens are invading. In reality, it’s a big ruse. The reason: to try and unite the world and turn it into a (hopefully benevolent) New World Order-type future. H.G. Wells’ novel, The War of the Worlds, inadvertently provoked fears of an alien invasion when, in 1938, Orson Welles made a radio version of Wells’ classic 1898 book, which led some late listeners to the program to believe that a real extraterrestrial invasion was beginning.

In the real world, Annie Jacobsen’s 2011 book – Area 51 –included a story given to her by an elderly man named Alfred O’Donnell. The story told to Jacobsen controversially suggested that a strange and sinister plot between Joseph Stalin and crazed, deranged nut, Joseph Mengele was initiated in the late-1940s. The idea was to try and convince the United States that aliens were invading. And, how were they set on achieving it? According to O’Donnell, Mengele physically altered a number of children (so they would look “alien”), and who were remotely flown in a futuristic-looking UFO-type aircraft, all the way to the U.S. The plan was that when the craft was – again remotely – landed and the terribly mutated children climbed out, the U.S. would be plunged into a state of hysteria. It’s not unlike the Wells-Welles situation in 1938. But, so the story went, the craft didn’t land. Rather, it allegedly crashed in the wilds of Lincoln County, New Mexico, and – as a result – the U.S. government chose to hide what O’Donnell claimed really happened. It should be noted that UFO researchers have suggested that O’Donnell himself had been fed disinformation (knowingly or not), as a means to further hide the truth of whatever happened at Roswell. All of which brings me to an early 1960s-era show that just might have been the ultimate “faked alien invasion” saga.

It all revolves around a 1963 episode of the cult-classic sci-fi show, The Outer Limits – which, along with The Twilight Zone, defined 1960s-era, on-screen science-fiction. The episode in question is titled “The Architects of Fear” and it was broadcast on the night of September 30, 1963. It starred Robert Culp, Leonard Stone and Geraldine Brooks. In the story, the world is a very dangerous place. That much is obvious from the opening words of the show: “Is this the day? Is this the beginning of the end? There is no time to wonder. No time to ask why is it happening, why is it finally happening? There is time only for fear, for the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray? Or do we merely run now and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day?”

Not only is the world a dangerous place, but it appears that an all-out nuclear Armageddon is right on the horizon, and with no return from the brink of destruction. Or is there? Just maybe there is. Cue the plans of a group that undertakes classified work for a variety of government agencies. Its name: United Labs. The highest echelons of the company plan to save the people of the world – and the world itself – by creating a faked alien invasion. In other words, if the Human Race can be deceived into thinking that an alien attack is looming large on the horizon, it will provoke the United States, Europe, China and the then-Soviet Union to combine their efforts to defeat the alien foe. The result: a world as one, rather than as a planet filled with nations that seem almost desperate to destroy each other.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the people at United Labs have found evidence of alien life on a faraway world they call Theta. The staff even have one of their Thetans, which is held secretly in the company’s facility. The United Labs people have no idea of the real agenda of the Thetans: are they friendly, hostile or somewhere in between? The questions are many. The answers are nowhere in sight. So, a decision is taken to turn the Thetans against us, the Human Race, in a very strange and alternative way. Such is the advanced nature of the technology at United Labs, they have the ability to surgically alter a human being and transform them into the identical form of a Thetan. The plan, then, is to have one of the employees surgically altered, to resemble a Thetan, and then reveal the Thetan to the world – and the plans that the aliens have for our world: destruction. Of course, no-one knows if the Thetans really are hostile, but making it look like that is the primary goal.

The secret, manipulative program begins when the highest echelons of United Labs get together to decide which one of them will be the man to undergo the radical surgery to turn him into something less than human – or maybe even more than human. Upon drawing lots, the man for whom life will never be as it was, is Dr. Allen Leighton (played by Culp). A great deal of planning goes into the project. Dr. Leighton – a physicist – is naturally crushed by the bleak fact that the time will come very soon when he will never see his wife, Yvonne (actress Geraldine Brooks), again. That much is very clear: the top secret project requires for Dr. Leighton to be killed in a plane crash. Of course, there is no plane crash. Rather, that is the cover story which is given to Yvonne and the press. Now, behind closed doors, the mutation of Dr. Leighton can begin without intrusion – or so it seems, at first.

Dr. Leighton is subjected to a series of bizarre medical procedures – some of which will physically alter his appearance to a significant degree. Other aspects of the plan to turn a man into an alien involve grafting alien tissue onto and into Dr. Leighton. There is, however, a terrible side-effect: Dr. Leighton’s mind begins to change, too. His normal, human thought processes – even his very character – start to fragment and he becomes far more like a real Thetan than he does a member of the Human Race. Add to that the fact that Yvonne astutely comes to realize that there is something profoundly suspicious about the nature of her husband’s death and we quickly get to see how things are in danger of unraveling. On top of that, Yvonne finds herself pregnant, something which Dr. Leighton – or what is left of him – quite understandably cannot forget. So, the plan has to go forward – and quickly so, if it is to work and prevent the destruction of the planet by the super-powers.

The United Labs staff create a high-tech vehicle which, they hope, will be assumed by the governments of our world to be an alien spacecraft. In reality, though, it’s one of ours. The plan is for the “alien spaceship” to land outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. Dr. Leighton – by then – will be completely alien in appearance and character. He will also be armed with a highly destructive weapon. The team hopes that when Leighton makes it clear to the elite of the U.N. that war with the Thetan race is all but inevitable, all of the powerful countries of our world will come together as one and fight the alien foe. It’s a brilliant idea – and a brilliant ruse, too. Unfortunately for United Labs, it doesn’t work as it should. In fact, it all ends in complete and utter disaster. The craft is not quite as reliable as the scientists assume. The result is that it crashes back to Earth and very near to the United Labs. And, nowhere near the United Nations. Dr. Leighton – in alien form – exits the crashed craft and stumbles through the surrounding woods, in which he is attacked and shot by a trio of terrified hunters. Severely injured, he makes his stumbling way towards the place where the whole, sinister plot began: United Labs. Yvonne, perhaps using a more than liberal degree of psychic power, still suspects that her husband did not die in a plane crash, makes her way to the labs, demanding to know the truth of what really happened to him.

As fate would have it, both Yvonne and what was once Dr. Allen Leighton arrive at the labs at pretty much the same time. As Allen Leighton dies in the lab, Yvonne realizes to her eternal horror that the alien monster before her is actually her beloved husband. One man is dead, a wife is in a state of turmoil, a secret project has quite literally come crashing down, and the threat of nuclear war is as likely as it was before the strange operation was initiated.