“The Big Bang was not the beginning. There was something before the Big Bang and that something is what we will have in our future.”

“We are seeing them. These points are about eight times the diameter of the Moon and are slightly warmed up regions. There is pretty good evidence for at least six of these points.”

Would you argue with a Nobel Prize winner in physics? How about the late Stephen Hawking? Then good luck disputing this theory by Sir Roger Penrose, who won this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics for his work proving that black holes exist. In congratulatory interviews, Sir Penrose has discussed his belief in “Hawking points” – radiation leaked by evaporating black holes (a Stephen Hawking concept) which remains as an anomalous region in space after the black hole is gone.

Penrose then adds his own spin on Hawking points:

“The existence of such anomalous regions, resulting from point-like sources at the conformally stretched-out big bang, is a predicted consequence of conformal cyclic cosmology, these sources being the Hawking points of the theory, resulting from the Hawking radiation from supermassive black holes in a cosmic aeon prior to our own.”

Stephen Hawking

“In a cosmic aeon prior to our own.” In other words, in a universe prior to the one that began with the Big Bang. In his recent paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Penrose links these Hawking points to his own theory of conformal cyclic cosmology – the that the universe dies and is reborn infinitely, with each being created by its own Big Bang. He suggests that not everything is destroyed in the death of a universe and believes that Hawking points are survivors of a previous one.

“I think it’s a bad thing to get a Nobel prize too early. I know scientists who got their prize too early and it spoiled their science. If you’re going to get a Nobel prize for science it’s good to get in when you’re good and old, before you’re absolutely clapped out, when there is still something to do, that’s my advice.”

Before you attempt to disprove Sir Roger Penrose’s theory on Hawking points, consider that he’s been working on it since the 1964 publication of his paper, “Gravitational Collapse and Space-Time Singularities”, and spent much time working with Stephen Hawking, including together winning the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1975 and the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics in 1988. Despite all of those awards and one-half of the 2020 Nobel for Physics (the other half was awarded jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their work on black holes), Sir Penrose’s theory, like that of the Big Bang in general, is controversial and not universally accepted – in this or any previous universe.

“Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit with Penrose.”

In an interview with The Telegraph, Professor Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, agrees with Penrose’s idea that it’s better to get the award late in life, but this one was sadly too late for Stephen Hawking to share with him.

Perhaps they will … in the next universe.

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“If they had been called upon by the president to launch [the nukes] they couldn’t have done it.”

Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid – known for instituting the secret Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) in the Defense Department to study UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) – appears in a newly-released documentary on UFO cover-ups by governments worldwide. In this case, Reid is referring to numerous accounts by military personnel working at nuclear missile sites of UFO sightings over them and some actual interference by the UFOs, including full shutdowns of the launch systems, resulting in the security crisis Reid describes in a trailer for the documentary.

“Including shocking never-before-seen testimony from high-ranking government and military officials, NASA Astronauts, and riveting footage, the timely film includes bombshell reveals about UAP incursions at nuclear weapon facilities and the monumental events behind the NY Times’ recent disclosure of UFO videos and The Pentagon’s classified UFO Program. Providing eye-opening evidence that mankind is not alone in the universe, Senator Harry Reid says “The Phenomenon makes the incredible credible.”

Harry Reid

Director James Fox is known for “UFOs: 50 Years of Denial?” and “I Know What I Saw,” and the newly-released “The Phenomenon” is expected to build on that base of UFO research and exposure – in particular, UFOs allegedly disrupting operations at nuclear weapons facilities. One such incident was reported by Captain David D Schindele, a Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile launch crew commander at the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. In 1966, after UFOs were seen around the base, 10 ICBMs suddenly switched to ‘off-alert’ and could not be launched until they were reset. Schindele says he reported it up the chain of command, but he and the others who either saw the UFOs or the unexplained shutdown or both were told to never speak about to anyone for the rest of their lives. Schindele didn’t – until he mentioned the incident in an interview in 2010 and then in great detail in his tell-all book in 2017.

“Nobody has to agree why it’s there, but shouldn’t we at least be spending some money to study this phenomenon? Shouldn’t we study the stuff? The answer’s yes. And that’s all this was about. And why the federal government all these years has covered up, put brake pads on everything, stopped it. I think it’s very, very bad for our country.”

Harry Reid has long been a proponent – both publicly and privately – of UFO and alien disclosure by the U.S. government, and hinted there is real physical evidence being hidden after the recent videos of UFO encounters with military pilots were released and eventually confirmed. When asked what “stuff” or other confirmed UFO sightings he’s referring to, Reid says “most” of it “hasn’t seen the light of day.”

Still image from the footage of the “tic-tac” UFO

There have been encounters between military pilots and UFOs since there were military pilots, and many can eventually be explained by mistaken aircraft (there’s and ours), equipment anomalies, poor visibility and other causes. That doesn’t cover all of them, but what Reid is referring to are special cases concerning nuclear missiles and weapons – a main reason for the Cold War with the Soviet Union. And Captain Schindele’s encounter is not the only one – American Military News reveals that Robert Hastings, who Schindele first told of his encounter in 2010, claims he’s heard of at least 120 former U.S. service members who witnessed UFOs flying around nuclear weapons facilities and/or deactivating equipment. Whether this is aliens, a foreign country, homegrown saboteurs or something else, this is a security risk that should be dragged kicking and screaming into the daylight already.

Will Harry Reid do the dragging? It’s worth remembering that he backtracked on his comments about the government having already recovered alien materials.

• “The Phenomenon” is available for downloading.

Just a couple of days ago, the FBI placed their file on the late UFO researcher/author/nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman onto their website, The Vault . The file runs to 61 pages. Don’t get too excited, however: there isn’t much at all in the material that will have ufologists foaming at the mouth. There is one interesting part of the file, though. It states that Friedman “…on February 27, 1984, contacted the Chief of Freedom of Information Privacy Acts (FOIPA) Section, Records Management Division of the FBI and requested information regarding weekly intelligence conferences with a proposed study of flying saucers. At the time Friedman made this request, he provided specific file numbers of FBI HQ files in which this information was contained. It is not known how Friedman obtained these file numbers [italics mine].” That’s really the only part of the file that is of any particular interest. The rest is all of a bureaucratic nature. I did wonder – before I dug into the file – if there might have been something related to the bogus Majestic 12 documents that got so many ufologists foaming at the mouth in the late 198os. After all, Friedman’s colleague Bill Moore (co-author with Charles Berlitz of the 1980 book, The Roswell Incident) had a file opened on himself by the FBI. And the FBI also opened a file on the MJ12 papers. Clearly, however, the FBI wasn’t interested in Friedman’s research into the MJ12 documents. So, does that mean the FBI had zero interest in those controversial, alleged 1947-period papers? No.

We do know something of deep interest though, thanks to the staff of the Bureau Co-Director within the Office of Information and Privacy. In correspondence (back in the 1990s), I was informed by office staff of the existence of an FBI “Main File” on Majestic 12,. It’s now in what is termed “closed status.” The title of the file is not something along the lines of “Potentially leaked document” or “Questionable document,” as one might imagine, given the strange story. Rather, the file title is nothing less than – wait for it – “Espionage.”Almost certainly, the reason why the FBI titled their MJ12 file “Espionage” was for the following reason: at one point in 1988, the FBI pursued the admittedly intriguing theory that the MJ12 documents might have been created by Russian disinformation experts and counterintelligence agents. Now, we come to the next stage. It helps to explain what was going on behind the scenes and expands on the above.

In 1999, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – wrote a now-declassified paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” Haines said that in the 1970s and 1980s there were “…concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using U.S. citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive U.S. weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the U.S. air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings [italics mine].”

Directly connected to the Soviet theory is the fact that, as U.S. Intelligence learned to its consternation during both the 1970s and the 1980s, an unclear number of unnamed UFO researchers – with important links to the U.S. defense industry – had been compromised by Soviet agents. It went like this: those saucer-seekers who just happened to work in the field of defense, and who had been caught tightly in a Kremlin web, would secretly provide the Russians with top secret data on the likes of the F-117 Nighthawk “stealth fighter” and the B-2 Spirit “stealth bomber” – which, at the time, were still highly classified and in test-stage out at the likes of none other than Area 51. In return, the KGB would provide those same American researchers with sensational documents on crashed UFOs and dead aliens. The plan that Moscow had in mind was for the Russians to get their eager hands on real, top secret, non-UFO-themed U.S. military/intelligence documents that could be used to advance Russian military aviation programs. But, those UFO investigators who worked in the defense world would receive nothing but faked garbage from their Soviet handlers, such as – you’ve got it – the Majestic 12 documents. That was the theory U.S. intelligence was concerned by. You can learn the the whole story in my 2019 book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin.

There’s no doubt there is a fascinating back-story concerning the MJ12 documents (that still has yet to be fully resolved). As the FBI’s file on Stan Friedman shows, though, the Bureau seemingly had no interest in Stan and his MJ12 research, even at the height of the FBI’s investigations into those inflammatory papers in late 1988.

Ever since we have ventured off of our world and into space we have uncovered various mysteries and shed light on how the universe works. It has been a great time of scientific discovery, and we have made great strides in pushing out into the vast solar system that once was just flickers within our imagination. Yet for all that we have uncovered and all of the questions we have answered there have been perhaps even more questions and mysteries posed. Some of the stranger of these are the myriad stories of alien forces beyond our understanding lurking in the background of these space travels of ours, with all manner of unusual claims made by astronauts and amateur space watchers. One odd incident concerning this is claimed to have happened during a fateful space shuttle mission, during which, according to some, aliens crashed the party and ruined everything.

On February 25, 1996, Space Shuttle Columbia was engaged with mission STS-75, the 75th Space Transportation System mission flown by NASA’s four space shuttles. The 15-day mission had the primary objective of deploying the Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) experiment, which entailed using a joint NASA/Italian Tethered Satellite System in order to harness a new source of spacecraft power by utilizing a special electrodynamic tether system to collect power within the electrically charged ionosphere. The idea was that the cables would conduct electricity from the ionosphere and convert it into power, thus paving the way to a cheap energy source for satellites, space stations, and spacecraft. In order to achieve this, the plan was to deploy the satellite and 20.7 kilometers (12.9 mi) of tether and then measure how much current could be gathered, as well as monitor the physics of the tether’s movement and various other factors. It was meant to be a fairly groundbreaking mission, but something would go wrong.

Space Shuttle Columbia

Over a period of 5 hours the astronauts carefully unreeled the satellite on its thin tether to a length of 19 kilometers, after which they had only one kilometer to go before they planned to stop it and begin their experiments. However, as the shocked 7-man crew of the Columbia looked on, the tether began to ripple, before finally snapping to send a long portion of it, as well as the satellite attached to it, drifting off into space. Although a lot of data had still been gained from the mission, the loss of the satellite and tether was a crushing blow and launched an extensive investigation into the incident. According to NASA, the reason would be found to have been a weakening of the cable due to pinholes in the insulated cover of the tether, which had allowed air trapped beneath to seep out into space, and these air bubbles were then transformed into plasma from the roughly 3,500 to 5,000 volts of power coursing along it. This in turn caused a local explosive electrical discharge from the copper wire in the tether to a nearby electrical ground, causing the cable to snap. However, this official view would be challenged.

During the unfortunate incident, astronauts had filmed the whole thing, and as soon as the video became available to the public people started noticing something very odd about it. The video footage shows what appear to be a series of bright spots or lights whizzing about the area, in particular seeming to swarm around and hover about the tether. Those who saw this quickly came to the conclusion that these were UFOs, and stated that obviously these UFOs had been attracted to the tether for some reason and had caused it to break. The objects became even more pronounced when enhanced videos began circulating not long after the original footage was released. Still other more far out theories emerged as well, such as the claim that these were not UFOs, but rather some sort of lifeform living in space, a sort of “space amoeba” of sorts. These creatures are theorized as living in the void and feeding on space debris or electrical energy, and it is just about as weird as it sounds. The site Secrets of the Universe explained of these hypothetical organisms and their relation to the tether incident:

They exist in a spectrum not visible to the naked eye under normal conditions. They appear to be totally harmless, feeding off electrical or other energy. If you look closely at the footage you will observe them increasing in brightness near electrical storms. With this in mind it is not in the least surprising to find them swarming around the electrodynamics tether which is NASA’s attempt to harness the very energy that they feed on.

One of the mystery objects filmed near the broken tether

It is all very entertaining, but as soon as these conspiracy theories began making the rounds NASA and the astronauts who had actually been on the mission were quick to dismiss the possibility that these were aliens of any kind. It was all explained by astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz as “a little bit of debris that kind of flies with us,” meaning ice crystals and other miscellaneous tiny objects that sort of fly along with the shuttle in the weightlessness of space. In addition to this, a water dump from the shuttle, which is a completely normal and routine procedure, had been carried out not long before the experiment began, meaning there was more of this debris surrounding the shuttle than usual. It is perfectly harmless and the particles are miniscule, but when illuminated by the sun, compounded by the effect of the camera’s image intensifier circuit, which is known to distort bright objects, the objects seem much larger, more robust, and brighter in the video footage than they really are. The telephoto lens of the camera is also used with a circular mirror that has a hole in the middle, which can leave an artifact on the images. One of the astronauts, Tom Jones, made a lengthy statement about the incident trying to clear up the confusion and also dispel the idea that NASA was hiding evidence of aliens in any way. He told Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine:

Astronauts have not seen any evidence of alien life. Reports of unidentified flying objects in images returned from the shuttle or space station have turned out to be ice crystals, drifting orbital debris, lightning flashes, or meteors streaking through the dark atmosphere below. So far, our search for extraterrestrial life — and other civilizations in space — has turned up no proof of alien civilizations. I was on the shuttle Columbia — STS-80 — and even made a blog entry, ‘Did UFOs Visit The Shuttle Columbia?’ Because when we came back from that mission in 1996, NASA got several queries from people who were watching the video — NASA TV back then — and said, ‘Hey, we saw spaceships on the shuttle video. What’s NASA got to say about that?’ I looked at the video and I said, ‘Oh, I know what this is — this is just ice crystals floating along beside the ship for the first couple of days of the flight.’ What looked to some people like a spaceship streaking across the star field, was — to us, looking out the windows — a complete non-event. And yet, it was very significant to people who were watching. Certainly, nothing in the way of spaceships.

Now, I’m aware that there have been a couple of astronauts in the past who’ve spoken out and said they know from other people that there’s evidence of UFOs and spaceships that have visited the Earth and that the government might be withholding it. They all seem to be secondhand, or they seem to be sightings of things that they’ve seen in orbit that, perhaps, they couldn’t explain at the time. And that’s where the story seems to peter out.

Also curious is that NASA made no mention at all of any such objects surrounding the shuttle or the tether in any of their mission reports, and it seems as though perhaps this really was a mundane occurrence. Yet conspiracy theories are not quick to die, and there are certainly those who do not buy the official statements. For them this is all a cover-up and an effort for NASA to spread disinformation and bury the truth. Such theories point to the constant perceived opaqueness of NASA and the numerous times the agency has cut feed to cameras at the slightest whiff of something odd. Is NASA up to something? Are there really strange forces at work up there in space? What really happened during the STS-75 incident? Was this just misidentified ice crystals or something else? Amazingly enough it is still being debated, and if anything it shows that there are plenty of mysteries that are being generated by our being in space, whether real or imagined.

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An interesting question was put to me just a few days ago. It revolved around my book published earlier this year: The Rendlesham Forest UFO Conspiracy. It’s a book that suggests the famous events of December 1980 in Suffolk, England woods had nothing to do with aliens, but everything to do with secret experiments. The question went approximately like this: How do you think the UFO community might respond if it’s proven there was no extraterrestrial presence in the forest? Well, that’s a good question. Right now, we don’t have hard evidence that the whole thing was a test of advanced technologies to see how military personnel might respond in extremely strange and alternative situations. What we do have, however, as I note in my book, is a large amount of data and information that points in that very direction. To a degree, I can answer the question by looking at the responses that surfaced when the book was published. It was clear to me that more than a few people who had spent a lot of time on the Rendlesham case simply didn’t want to even look at the information I had found. “Nick’s a wanker,” was one of the more concise responses LOL! Another, which was put forward by four people (it’s entirely possible there may have been others, too) was that I had sold my soul and I was now secretly working for “the government.” You know: the dreaded “Them” (also know as “they” in conversation). Others were just confused by the fact that I had made a full-turn on the incidents of December 1980. One even said he was “hurt” by my change of mind. Jeez. That was one of the craziest things said.

All of the above is pretty much what I expected. There is, however, a serious, important issue here. In fact, there are several issues. They all revolve around the emotional response to the book. One: several people who took me to task on Facebook, openly admitted they had never read the book. That also happened with my 2017 anti-UFO book on Roswell. It’s hardly the rational approach to take, though. Two: when my Rendlesham book was published there was a real sense of denial on the part of more than a few. That’s unfortunate, because focusing on one theory just because it’s cool and exciting (the E.T. angle, of course) , is very stupid. Three: If you saw some of the debates on Facebook, you’ll know there was an interesting revelation. Almost immediately after the book was published, a few researchers of Rendlesham quietly emailed back and forth on one specific subject: would my book affect potential, upcoming events (conferences, lectures, etc.) when the 40th anniversary comes along at the end of this year? Of course, the idea that a book could have an adverse affect on conference tickets at a gig – or several gigs – is ridiculous. But, that’s how some paranoid types in the community responded. Now, we come to the most important angle of all this.

If the incidents in Rendlesham Forest in December 1980 really were the manipulative work of government and military agencies, then we should strive to find the answers and expose the affairs for what they were – which is what I’m doing and have been doing for a long time. Like it or not, there is good evidence that Rendlesham – as a highly-classified experiment – was not alone. Indeed, it’s clear that some of the prime UFO events of the last sixty or so years were staged. I’m talking about the Antonio Villas Boas event of 1957, the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill case, the Hickson-Parker incident of 1973, and the Bennewitz story of the late 1970s/early 1980s. Ufology has been duped – and on a massive scale.

Finally: why haven’t we, the UFO community, solved these cases and exposed them for what they really were (and still are)?  After all, it’s not as if there’s not enough people in the UFO field to find the truth. There’s plenty of us. I’ll tell you why: secret experiments are not as exciting – or as enticing – as aliens. So, they are largely ignored. And the manipulators behind all of this know that only too well. So, they quietly and successfully continue with their mind-meddling behind a UFO camouflage. It really is that simple.

The thought of one black hole is disconcerting – even with the potential that it could be a portal to time travel. The thought of a supermassive black hole sucking in stars takes it up a notch – even with the idea that most are located at the center of a galaxy, as is the case with our own Milky Way. A new discovery by astronomers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) may require a better superlative than “supermassive” – they’ve located a supermassive black hole in the act of consuming SIX galaxies at once. No, “super-duper-massive” isn’t even a good try. Let’s see if the tale of the finding inspires one.

“The cosmic web filaments are like spider’s web threads. The galaxies stand and grow where the filaments cross, and streams of gas — available to fuel both the galaxies and the central supermassive black hole — can flow along the filaments.”

Astronomer Marco Mignoli of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Bologna and lead author of the research published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, makes this event sound like a common garden discovery of spiders, webs and perhaps a huge mantis caught in the middle. Now, imagine the mantis eating the web like spaghetti and sucking the spiders into its gaping jaws along with it. That’s a better picture of this black hole which existed in the first billion years of the universe, had a mass of a billion suns and controlled this web of six galaxies that was the size of 300 Milky Ways. Super-ginormous?

“Our work has placed an important piece in the largely incomplete puzzle that is the formation and growth of such extreme, yet relatively abundant, objects so quickly after the Big Bang.”

In the study’s press release, co-author Roberto Gilli, also an astronomer at INAF, explains that the team was looking for an answer to how black holes formed after the Big Bang – when stars were too young to be huge and too young to die and collapse into black holes. If black holes were created by the Big Bang, how did they find enough to eat to feed their teenage growth spurts?

“The new-found structure offers a likely explanation: the “spider’s web” and the galaxies within it contain enough gas to provide the fuel that the central black hole needs to quickly become a supermassive giant.”

The key to this discovery is the Very Large Telescope, which enables astronomers to see dim galaxies from the early days of the universe. Co-author Colin Norman of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore says they were always there – astronomers just needed the power to see them.

We still need a name for what the astronomers now call SDSS J1030+0524 – a luminous quasi-stellar object. Super-quasi-normous black hole? Incredibly hulky black hole? Bottomless pit of a black hole? It’s no wonder astronomers stick to password-like designations.