Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS.
ON 06/06/2024 MORE THAN 2.056.610
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
29-05-2024
The 1957 RB-47 UFO Encounter: Unraveling a Secret Signal
The 1957 RB-47 UFO Encounter: Unraveling a Secret Signal
In 1957, an extraordinary UFO encounter involving a U.S. Air Force RB-47 aircraft provided a compelling case of an unidentified flying object being detected through advanced electronic intelligence (ELINT) equipment. This incident, combining visual confirmation, radar detection, and ELINT data, remains one of the most fascinating and well-documented UFO encountersin history.
The RB-47 Aircraft
The RB-47, a modified version of the B-47 bomber, was equipped with sophisticated ELINT equipment. This six-engine turbojet-powered strategic bomber was primarily designed for reconnaissance missions during the Cold War. The RB-47H variant, involved in this encounter, was specifically adapted for electronic intelligence gathering, carrying a crew of six, including three electronic warfare officers.
The Encounter
On July 17, 1957, an RB-47 took off from Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas for a training mission over the Gulf of Mexico. As the aircraft returned from the Gulf, it detected an unusual radar signal. Frank McClure, the operator at the number two ELINT monitor, noticed an airborne radar signal at 2.8 gigahertz, a frequency typically associated with ground-based radar.
Unusual Signal Behavior
McClure initially thought his equipment was malfunctioning, but the signal exhibited behavior that no ground-based radar could replicate. The signal moved around the aircraft, which was flying at 500 miles per hour, indicating it was emanating from an airborne source. This unexpected movement led McClure to realize that the signal was from an unidentified object following the RB-47.
Visual and Radar Confirmation
At around 4:10 a.m. CST, the pilot, Lieutenant Chase, and co-pilot James McCoy observed a luminous object moving at high speed across their flight path. The object appeared as a bright light, sometimes white and other times red. Concurrently, the ELINT equipment detected the same signal, confirming the presence of the unidentified object.
As the RB-47 flew over Louisiana and Texas, the crew continued to detect the signal and visually observe the object. Ground radar stations, including one in Duncanville, Texas, also tracked the object. The synchronized detection by ground radar, airborne radar, and ELINT equipment provided strong evidence of the object’s existence and capabilities.
Extraordinary Maneuvers
The UFO demonstrated extraordinary flight capabilities, such as abrupt stops, rapid altitude changes, and the ability to evade pursuit. At one point, the object dropped 15,000 feet in altitude and disappeared from radar, only to reappear moments later. These maneuvers were beyond the capabilities of known aircraft at the time, further deepening the mystery.
Investigation and Analysis
Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force’s official UFO investigation program, and other agencies investigated the RB-47 encounter. However, they could not provide a satisfactory explanation. The encounter was classified as “unknown,” and crucial ELINT data reportedly disappeared during the investigation process, adding to the intrigue.
Significance of the Encounter
The RB-47 UFO encounter stands out due to the convergence of multiple forms of evidence: visual sightings by experienced military personnel, radar detection by both the aircraft and ground stations, and ELINT data. This combination of evidence from credible sources makes the RB-47 encounter a pivotal case in UFO research.
The incident underscores the potential existence of advanced, unidentified aerial technology and highlights the importance of thorough documentation and investigation. As UFO phenomena continue to capture public and scientific interest, the RB-47 case serves as a critical reference point for understanding and exploring these mysterious events.
The 1957 RB-47 UFO encounter remains a remarkable and enigmatic event in the history of UFO sightings. With its combination of visual, radar, and ELINT evidence, it provides a compelling case for further investigation into the phenomena of unidentified flying objects. The encounter challenges our understanding of aerial technology and continues to intrigue researchers and enthusiasts alike, emphasizing the need for openness and scientific inquiry in unraveling the mysteries of the skies.
On the night of March 13, 1997, the people of the United States witnessed one of the largest and best-knownUFO sightings in history. The UAP phenomenon was observed in the skies over the southwestern states of Arizona and Nevada and the Mexican state of Sonora. According to a Rocky Mountain Poll conducted at the time, as well as the commotion that ensued, around 10% of Arizonans claimed to have witnessed the incident that is now known as “The Phoenix Lights.”
One of the eyewitnesses named Richard Curtis from Arizona, claiming to have solid evidence of the incident, contacted local Councilwoman Frances Barwood. He vanished following an encounter with MIB and a media revelation.
Frances Barwood, a member of the city council, opened an investigation into the incident. Since the military and local authorities had already managed to claim that the lights seen by the eyewitnesses were only flares, her coworkers thought her behavior was ludicrous.
Barwood received a call from Richard Curtis a few months later. He said right away that he had extremely detailed footage of the Phoenix Lights despite being an injured former soldier. He claimed that had personally captured them using high-quality equipment.
“He said you could see the shape. He said you could see how big it was in comparison to the surrounding buildings and everything. He described that the lights were gaseous. He was so excited that he had gotten all this on video,” Barwood recalled him telling her. Additionally, Curtis admitted to Barwood that he had no idea who else to call and that he trusted her.
A drawing of the object created by witness Tim Ley appeared in USA Today. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Since the majority of the Phoenix Lights video footage up until this point had been merely specks of light on a dark background, Barwood was intrigued by this message. Curtis agreed to provide copies of the footage to Barwood’s office after she urged him to do so. However, days passed, and she did not receive films either by mail or by courier. “I thought he made this up. He didn’t have video, you know, all this stuff,” she said.
A week later, Curtis telephoned Barwood at her house and inquired about her thoughts on the films. Barwood informed him that she had not received them and expressed her amazement. Curtis continued by telling her that following their phone call, two men from her workplace stopped up at his home. The two “similar-looking” individuals were fully covered in black (three-piece black suits, black shoes, black hats, black suitcases, etc.). The men were not dressed in jackets or other gear, even though it was fairly chilly outside. It struck Curtis as weird.
Richard Curtis
He asked the men if they were from Barwood’s office and they confirmed it. Then they inquired about the Phoenix Lights videos, specifically to find out if Curtis had copied them. They responded that they would make copies for him themselves when he said he had not been able to. Curtis then handed them his videos and the two men left his house in a black sedan.
Barwood informed Curtis that she had no men in her office and that all of her staff were female. “I had no idea who these guys were. It sounds so bizarre. Nothing made sense to me,” Barwood recalled thinking. All of this infuriated Richard Curtis, who concluded that the authorities had misled him. In an interview with Phoenix TV, he discussed everything that had happened, including the “Men in Black” visit and that they took his videos.
And shortly after that, when Barwood tried to call Curtis, she discovered that he was not answering. When she got to his apartment, he was not there, but the neighbors informed her that Curtis had supposedly taken a faulty medication and had been transported by ambulance to the hospital. There were no records of Curtis ever being admitted to any Phoenix-area hospitals when Barwood started looking for him there.
Barwood made the decision to have her phone lines checked by a professional when she questioned how the odd men even knew about the tapes. He visited her house and conducted his tests there. After that, he went outdoors. “He wouldn’t come back in the house. He came to the backdoor and said, “No, I’m not coming in. Yes, your phone is tapped, it’s a government tap,” she said.
Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood sits in her north Phoenix home with a copy of The Arizona Republic which touts “UFO Mania” on its front page June 20, 1997. Barwood didn’t see the lights, but many people called her about them demanding an explanation. (AP Photo/Scott Troyanos, File)
Since the military and authorities insisted that the Phoenix Lights were nothing more than flares, Barwood was astounded to learn that someone in the US government had tapped her phones. Richard Curtis vanished without a trace.
It became a worldwide sensation throughout the course of the subsequent months. It was “the second biggest case in UFOlogy after Roswell,” according to the late Art Bell, host of the syndicated paranormal radio program Coast to Coast AM.
The bizarre light show, according to skeptics, was caused by man-made aircraft from Glendale’s Luke Air Force Base or other neighboring military installations conducting training drills. The Phoenix Lights, according to UFOlogists, were not of this world.
Below you can find a transcript from a FOX10 NEWS (Phoenix Lights) reported by Jim Schnabel: (Source)
Voiceover: Months after this (March 13) sighting there are many questions regarding the strange lights over Phoenix. Is this a solid craft, or merely lights in an empty sky? What could be the conclusive evidence is now mysteriously missing. Richard Curtis claims his home video is proof that this sighting was a huge flying craft. And he claims his video shows a solid object in the sky passing over his home.
Curtis: I saw the bottom part (of the craft) as it went over Phoenix, because the lights lit the bottom of it, and it partially blocked out the clouds and the stars. : voiceover: Curtis called city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood, wanting to show her the footage. : (on screen: cut to a headshot of Barwood)
Barwood: He said he had it on two videotapes, and would I like them, so I said, “Of course I would.”, and could he give me copies of them. He said he would. I told him how to get them to my office and to mark them ‘personal and confidential’.
Voiceover: But before Curtis could send copies to Barwood, he’s paid a visit by two mysterious men in black. : Curtis:(voiced over MIB reenactments) They were dressed in black suits, with black hats and sunglasses. They asked me if I had tapes for councilwoman Barwood, and I said “Yah, they’re laying right here”. They said, “We’ve stopped by to pick them up.” So I said, “Great!” and just handed (the original tapes) to them.
Barwood: I didn’t get them, and I have no idea who these two men were since I have just females working in my office. It’s absolutely puzzling to me.
Voiceover: Did the tapes ever exist, and if so were they proof of more than “lights” in the sky? And who were these mysterious Men in Black who allegedly took them?
Curtis (voiced over): I think someone listened in on that phone call and wanted those tapes.
Barwood (voiced over): I can’t explain it. It’s just eerie. Voiceover: The mystery continues.
NASA and its space aviation partners are in the midst of a major problem. Their newest human-rated spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, is in the middle of a string of issues. The latest? A second helium leak. While it might seem easy to place full blame on Boeing, in reality, rocketry is, put simply, extremely difficult.
Boeing and SpaceX received contracts a decade ago to build out the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program. This would see astronauts launch into space from American soil for the first time since the Space Shuttle retired. In the interim, NASA paid Russia tens of millions of dollars to purchase individual seats on their Soyuz spacecraft. This mostly wrapped up when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon aced its summer 2020 astronaut debut flight.
Boeing’s Starliner is meant to join the Crew Dragon as a go-to transportation vehicle, but its been delayed longer than expected. Earlier this month, it was moments from flying Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station. But two hours before the targeted launch window, officials from the company that supplied the rocket, United Launch Alliance, recommended standing down. The initial problem was a liquid oxygen valve. That was swiftly addressed. But as teams reviewed the crew capsule, they detected a helium leak. That, too, was quickly fixed. But a new, unrelated, helium leak has now emerged.
NASA, United Launch Alliance, and Boeing employees hold a press conference to discuss the scrubbed launch of NASA's Boeing Starliner spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center on May 6, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
ANADOLU/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
Helium is important because it allows the spacecraft thrusters to fire, and isn’t combustible or toxic, according to NASA.
NASA will conduct a flight readiness review probably next week, the space agency reported on Thursday. The new target launch date is June 1.
PUTTING THE DELAY INTO PERSPECTIVE
Delays stemming from mechanical issues are not uncommon.
Even tried and tested launch vehicles, like the SpaceX reusable Falcon fleet, have experienced ongoing issues like corrosion from salt water.
When the SpaceX Crew Dragon was at the same stage as the Boeing Starliner is now, with a successful uncrewed docking at the orbiting laboratory under its belt, and in the midst of preparations for sending its first astronauts into space, the Crew Dragon literally blew up.
As CBS News reported in 2019, teams were just about to fire up its “fault-tolerant propulsion” engines, which would bring the crew capsule away from the rocket in less than eight seconds in case of an emergency during liftoff. But just before beginning this test of its launch escape system, there was an anomaly. Beachgoers witnessed reddish-orange smoke rising after the incident. Crew Dragon didn’t fly its first astronauts, for the Demo-2 mission, until a year later.
Artemis I, NASA’s most-recent foray around the Moon with a human-rated spacecraft, is another example of this liminal space.
The premier mission of the Artemis program established that the Orion capsule could successfully swing out past the Moon, farther than any such spacecraft has flown before, and land back on Earth, coming in faster and hotter than Apollo astronauts ever did. But the first trip with astronauts, Artemis II, has been delayed by a year due to an issue with the heat shield. Charred material unexpectedly came off the capsule during descent, posing a potential risk to the integrity of the spacecraft if it happened to be entering a different orientation than its entry in late 2022.
In the grand scheme of spaceflight history, delays tend to fade from memory. What people remember is the awe of a successful trip, and the sad moments when they’ve failed. Space is undeniably hard.
The Space Development Agency (SDA) has announced it is moving forward with the development of a ground system infrastructure for its experimental “FOO Fighter” fire control satellites.
Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems is developing the Fire-Control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter, or FOO Fighter (F2) system. The system will involve an array of eight prototype satellites capable of high-fidelity tracking of adversary missiles and providing precise coordinates to missile defense interceptors.
The program “will accelerate the ability to provide fire-control in support of global detection, warning, and precision tracking of advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems,” according to a draft solicitation released by the SDA last fall. “The F2 system will demonstrate advanced missile defense capability by incorporating fire control-quality sensors into a prototype constellation,” the solicitation adds.
This week, it was revealed that the first request for proposals for the experimental satellites is set to be released on June 18, according to SDA Director Derek Tournear, who spoke with reporters on May 24. The proposal request was first reported by Breaking Defense.
According to its current timelines, the SDA plans to solicit proposals for contractors to develop and manage the ground system backbone for the FOO Fighter program. This initiative marks a significant step toward advancing the U.S.’s satellite-based missile defense capabilities.
Tournear explained on Friday that a pre-RFP announcement had been posted on the SAM.gov website, detailing the SDA’s solicitation for an integrator to develop and manage the ground system for the FOO Fighter program.
The first solicitation, called the “Advanced Fire Control Ground Integration,” is looking for contractors to lay the groundwork for the program through the establishment of a developmental operations center (DOC) at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
The development of the system’s DOC will include the construction of ground entry points for data downlinks, cloud hosting for computing, and providing the IT resources that will support the FOO Fighter program during its initial stages, as well as later providing support for other fire control demonstrations.
This will be followed by a second solicitation, the “Advanced Fire Control Mission Integration” (AFCMI), later this summer. This solicitation will secure a contractor to oversee ground-based operations for the management of incoming data from the FOO Fighter and future demonstrations, helping to propel the program toward eventual use with military operators.
Originally, the SDA had envisioned hiring a sole contractor to oversee all of the program’s demonstration satellites under the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) Futures Program (PFP). This included the T1DES (Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System) project and the T2DES (Transport Layer Tranche 2).
Following additional feedback from industry stakeholders, an additional draft solicitation was issued last month, prompting SDA to take a slightly different approach.
The April 30 solicitation announced an award “using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) with a total potential value of approximately $414 million to build eight satellites, for launch in first quarter fiscal year 2027,” revealing that the fixed-price agreement had been awarded to California-based Millennium Space Systems, Inc.
“The FOO Fighter program will provide an operational demonstration of fire control efforts separate from, but complementary to, our missile warning/missile tracking and missile defense efforts already underway in the tranches,” Tournear said, accompanying the solicitation’s release.
“We look forward to working with Millennium, a new teammate in the expanding marketplace of performers innovating to deliver the PWSA for the warfighter,” Tournear said.
Tournear told reporters on Friday that feedback from the industry made it evident that the previous solicitation had been confusing due to the level of complication it involved, likely making it very difficult for any prospective contractor to execute. It was, therefore, impractical for SDA to depend on a single contractor to manage the full range of technologies the FOO Fighter program will require.
Tournear said the new ground system for fire control must be operational before the FOO Fighter satellites are launched. Current estimates aim to have them in orbit by the first quarter of fiscal 2027.
“The contracts will start in the first week of December 2024, and then everything will be in place by the summer of 2026,” Tournear said last week, emphasizing that SDA plans to have the infrastructure for the program’s operation ready well ahead of the satellite launch.
The program’s unique title is more than just a random designator. The name appears to be rather obviously derived from a nickname given to phenomena encountered by Allied pilots flying over Europe during the Second World War who, as early as March 1942, began reporting sightings of unusual lights that reportedly paced their aircraft.
The odd name incorporated the word “foo,” first used and popularized by artist Bill Holman, who created the then-popular Smokey Stover cartoon strip. The term “Foo Fighter” was believed to have first been used by Donald J. Meiers, a radar operator with the 415th Night Fighter Squadron.
Additional details about the SDA’s FOO Fighter program can be found on the agency’s website.
Astrobiologist Lisa Kaltenegger spends her days building miniature worlds.
Kaltenegger and her colleagues study how different species and combinations of bacteria, plants, and fungi change the chemistry of the air around them. They then program all of that data into computer simulations that model how the whole atmosphere of a planet changes as life evolves. She then translates those model atmospheres into the spectrum of light astronomers might see through a telescope like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Someday, she hopes that the vials of well-tended microbes, tiny samples of hot lava, and thousands of lines of computer code in her labs will help astronomers recognize the chemical signs of life in the atmosphere of a distant planet.
In her recent book, Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos, Kaltenegger describes the result as a “light fingerprint” for life (and one of its telltale features is a combination of oxygen and methane).
Inverse talked with Kaltenegger about exoplanets, aliens, and how science mixes caution with optimism.
Lisa Kaltenegger spends more of her time at a computer than at a telescope eyepiece these days.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Inverse: When you began your work simulating the light fingerprints of exoplanet atmospheres in your lab, we hadn’t even discovered a rocky, “Earth-like” planet in the habitable zone of another star yet. In Alien Earths, you describe the moment you found out about the first pair of such planets and what it meant to you. How long did you work on this research before you had a planet to use it on?
Kaltenegger: I started thinking about how to do this in 1999 or 2000, and I really started modeling it around 2004. People were finding the first planets in the habitable zone, but it was with the wobble technique, so we didn't really know their mass; they could still be gas balls or rocks. It took about a decade until 2013, until we found the first Kepler planets in the habitable zone that were small enough to be rocky.
It was a long stretch where there were still some hints that those planets would exist, like from radial velocity measurements, but we just were unsure.
I think when we found that first exoplanet around another star, it was an educated guess that there should be other ones. But the one problem we had was the timeline; that the work would be needed at some point seemed like a logical conclusion, but the problem was, was it going to be within my lifetime? There were people telling me that this was way too far advanced, that this is something nobody would need in our lifetimes. And I usually fall back to this idea that I have on science, that you're basically putting these stepping stones into place. Even if it might not be you who actually can do the observations, the ideas that we put together can vibrate through time.
I usually fall back to this idea that I have on science, that you're basically putting these stepping stones into place. Even if it might not be you who actually can do the observations, the ideas that we put together can vibrate through time.
Your book describes one lab full of colorful microbe colonies in vials, and another where you actually make lava by melting powdered rock samples. That sounds like so much fun! What is your normal work day like?
I work a lot on my computer. What I do most of the time is actually putting these pieces together and putting it into this atmospheric model to figure out how these signs of life would appear to a telescope. I do get to go to the biology lab, to the Earth and atmospheric lab, and to the lava lab.
But I have people who actually have those as their specific things, because otherwise I could get going and forget to feed the bacteria. I could see myself forgetting something critical. In our team, we have a person who trained in microbiology who's growing most of these biota, so that's a big step forward from me killing half of the biota when I tried this. And then we have somebody else whose specific expertise is lava, that actually knows how to handle molten rock. I have to say in my head 'Don't touch it, it's molten rock.'
Your tone in the book is very hopeful. How optimistic are you that we’ll detect life on another planet during your career?
We have billions and billions of possibilities out there, so I think the numbers are forever in our favor. The question is how to spot it, and this is what we are learning.
It requires these databases of signatures, like biopigments, that you could see as mixtures of gases in an atmosphere. It requires you to understand your data well, and to understand the star well. Where we are right now is learning how to take the star's signal out to figure out what's going on with the small planets, and the TRAPPIST-1 system is the one that we've started with. It's really hard to do even with the biggest telescope we have.
We have billions and billions of possibilities out there, so I think the numbers are forever in our favor. The question is how to spot it, and this is what we are learning.
One of the first questions that I asked myself is if you looked at the Earth through time, how long could you have spotted life? Because that was a completely open question. Just in terms of how long Earth's atmosphere has had unique signatures of life, it's about half the planet's lifetime, so 2 billion years. If we assume that the evolution of a planet is the same everywhere, time-wise, then I think we have a great chance to find signs of life. If the evolution of life to do photosynthesis and produce oxygen is faster, then we have a higher chance. If it's slower, then it's going to become more tricky to identify it. But being that generation and the group of people who figure out what this probability is, is actually a fascinating journey.
So how optimistic am I? The bigger surprise to me would be if we find nothing. If life is everywhere it can be, and it developed to leave unique signs, then we have a shot with the JWST in the next 5 to 10 years.
The problem is that if you make a certain assumption for the model of the star, and you apply it to your data, you get a solution. Then you come to the second observation, and we figure out the star is actually completely different than we thought it was. The problem is that results in error bars that are very big, and those big error bars do not preclude us from saying either way if there's an atmosphere enough, so I'm not worried yet. Once we have beaten down the error bars from the star, if we still don't find anything, then it can exclude things like a Martian atmosphere. But we're not there yet.
Currently, what [the JWST data] means is that we can exclude a 'substantial atmosphere,' but the Earth doesn't have a 'substantial atmosphere.' We never expected the TRAPPIST systems to have 10 or 100 bars of hydrogen and CO2, because they're too small, so it's not really surprising, what we've found.
Let's assume that that we find there is no atmosphere on any of the TRAPPIST-1 planets. That actually doesn't mean that the next M star over will also have planets with no atmosphere. TRAPPIST-1 is of the smallest systems, extremely active, and very tightly packed. In science, we have to be very careful not to take one example and extrapolate it to everything else.
Once you find an exoplanet atmosphere with a mix of chemicals that looks like a fingerprint of life, how do you decide when to make the ‘we found aliens’ claim?
The scientific community generally agrees on something called three sigma detection. When you run the model, and it does machine learning and lots of super cool things to figure out what's in the atmosphere [of an exoplanet], if that signal doesn't hit the three times higher than the noise, a lot of times [those signals] are artifacts. And so we've already seen this when we have the first hints that there could be dimethyl sulfide [in a planet’s atmosphere] — that is like a 1.2 sigma, so not anywhere near this threshold yet.
And then I think what needs to happen is that the data needs to be scrutinized by way more than one team. Because you never know; there could be an error in your model, or there could be something you program differently that gives you better results than other teams.
If two independent teams find a confirmation, then the next step is you put all the criticism you can out there: What else could it be? Like exotic geophysics or photochemistry. That's what I do with the light fingerprints, to say [when a planet] might look like it has life, but it doesn't — under what circumstances do we have to be very careful? It's not to say that I'm not excited every time someboday says 'Oh, this could be life.' But it's like the methane on Mars; I wish for it to be life, but if I have 99 or 100 explanations that don't require life, then as a scientist, I do have to say, 'I wish it were life, but it seems like that it's not.'
The more the planet becomes not Earth-like, the more cautious we have to be with our interpretation of the results.
Your book describes a lot of really strange, interesting planets — some you’ve simulated in your lab, and some you’ve actually studied telescope data from. Of all of them, which do you think would make the most interesting science fiction story?
So, when we found Kepler 62 e and f, the two first Kepler words: Just the vision that this would be a water world, that when you dive in, there would be ice on the bottom of this ocean, which because of the pressure, would be warm ice. There would be waves that would never break.
The other one that I'd love to see a sci-fi novel about is that giant planet we found around the white dwarf. We can only wonder, when the star exploded, did they go underground and shelter through the explosion of the star? Did they have any idea if they could survive this? You know that the white dwarf, even over billions of years, would get colder, so they would actually have to do climate change – create as much CO2 as humanly possible. And so I think that would be a super cool sci-fi plot, where your planet or moon is a spaceship that goes to the exploded planet of a star, and that's where you have to survive.
Sighting of a space debris in North Carolina once again raised curiosity about UFOs and aliens. Space experts have given a clarity.
A space debris has been spotted by a person on a private mountaintop in the west of North Carolina's Asheville, raising curiosity about whether it was part of Unidentified flying object (UFO) or there is extraterrestrial presence. However, space experts have revealed that the debris came from a recent SpaceX mission, as per a Fox Weather report. A crew of four was launched by SpaceX mission to the International Space Station.
The device measures a minimum of three feet in width and exhibits distinct scorch marks, suggesting it endured significant heating during its fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere.
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Spacecraft are equipped with thermal protection systems to withstand the intense heat produced during reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However, the trunk section of the mission is intentionally designed to break apart and burn ..
Earlier this year, the United States has said that it found no evidence of UFOs or aliens and that most sightings were "ordinary objects" that were the results of 'misidentification'. In the 63-page report titled "Historical Record of US Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)," the Pentagon said, "the Department of Defense's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) found no evidence of any US government investigation, research, or review panel verifying a"UAP represented extraterrestrial technology".
FAQs:
Q1. What is the full form of UFO? A1.The full form of UFO is Unidentified flying object. Q2. What is full form of UAP? A2.UAP full form is Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
Venus is Currently Volcanically Active, New Study Confirms
Venus is Currently Volcanically Active, New Study Confirms
Using radar data from NASA’s Magellan mission, planetary scientists have detected volcanic-related flow features in two different regions of Venus: on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia.
This image shows the Sif Mons area with the active volcanic region highlighted in red. Image credit: Davide Sulcanese, IRSPS – Università d’Annunzio.
Venus’ thick atmosphere has made it difficult to directly observe the surface of the planet.
However, global radar mapping performed in the 1990s by the Magellan spacecraft showed that Venus’ surface is covered with many volcanoes and has likely been shaped by widespread volcanic activity in its past — though the role of volcanism in the planet’s geologic present remained unclear.
However, evidence of more recent activity from one volcanic vent on the planet’s surface was identified in the Magellan data in 2023.
In the new study, d’Annunzio University researcher Davide Sulcanese and his colleagues analyzed two sets of Magellan radar data obtained in 1990 and 1992 to look for evidence of volcanic activity.
They found surface changes that could indicate volcanism in two areas where volcanic-related features are present, located on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia.
After analyzing the various possible sources, the authors suggest that these variations were likely caused by fresh lava flows.
They suggest that Venus is a geologically active planet in the present day, but also that present-day volcanism is rather widespread.
They also suggest that volcanic activity on Venus is comparable to that of Earth, indicating that Venus is more volcanically active than previously thought.
Artist’s impression of a volcano erupting on Venus. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.
“Using these maps as a guide, our results show that Venus may be far more volcanically active than previously thought,” Dr. Sulcanese said.
“By analyzing the lava flows we observed in two locations on the planet, we have discovered that the volcanic activity on Venus could be comparable to that on Earth.”
“We interpret these signals as flows along slopes or volcanic plains that can deviate around obstacles such as shield volcanoes like a fluid,” added Dr. Marco Mastrogiuseppe, a researcher at Sapienza University of Rome.
“After ruling out other possibilities, we confirmed our best interpretation is that these are new lava flows.”
“These new discoveries of recent volcanic activity on Venus provide compelling evidence of the kinds of regions we should target with NASA’s upcoming VERITAS mission when it arrives at Venus,” said Dr. Suzanne Smrekar, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and principal investigator for VERITAS.
“Our spacecraft will have a suite of approaches for identifying surface changes that are far more comprehensive and higher resolution than Magellan images.”
“Evidence for activity, even in the lower-resolution Magellan data, supercharges the potential to revolutionize our understanding of this enigmatic world.”
The results were published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.
D. Sulcanese et al. Evidence of ongoing volcanic activity on Venus revealed by Magellan radar. Nat Astron, published online May 27, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02272-1
Egypte is een land met een eeuwenoude geschiedenis, rijk aan archeologische vindplaatsen en artefacten die duizenden jaren oud zijn. Ondanks de vele vondsten zijn er echter nog veel mysteries die moeten worden opgelost en die geleidelijk aan de oppervlakte komen. Onlangs hebben archeologen bijvoorbeeld sporen gevonden van een ondergrondse structuur die nog nooit eerder is ontdekt: deze bevindt zich in de buurt van de piramides van Gizeh.
Ondergrondse structuur ontdekt bij de piramides van Gizeh
Sato et al./Archaeological Prospection
Een onderzoeksteam van Japanse en Egyptische archeologen heeft sporen ontdekt van een bouwwerk in de vlakte van Gizeh. Het zou gaan om een tweedelige ondergrondse constructie die verborgen ligt onder de Westelijke Necropolis, een van de meest bestudeerde archeologische vindplaatsen in Egypte van de afgelopen decennia.
Als we de resultaten lezen die gepubliceerd zijn in het tijdschrift Archaeological Prospection, gebruikten de onderzoekers bodemradar en elektrische resistiviteit tomografie. De scans onthulden een L-vormige structuur die zich uitstrekte over een gebied van 10 bij 15 meter en ongeveer een meter onder het zand begraven lag. Maar dit is niet de enige ontdekking, want er kan een nog grotere structuur onder liggen op een diepte tot 10 meter onder het woestijnoppervlak. Het is de vraag waar deze structuren voor werden gebruikt, maar op dit moment kunnen archeologen er alleen maar naar gissen.
Hoe slaagden ze erin een ondergrondse structuur te vinden zonder te graven?
Sato et al./Archaeological Prospection
Het vinden van een ondergrondse structuur zonder te graven is niet eenvoudig: archeologen zijn weliswaar bekend met de Westelijke Necropolis, en de vlakte van Gizeh ligt vol met locaties om onderzoek uit te voeren, maar het is niet allemaal zo eenvoudig als het lijkt. Daarom maakten de onderzoekers gebruik van bodemradar en elektrische resistiviteit tomografie. De eerstgenoemde methode, ook bekend als Ground-penetrating Radar of GPR, is een methodologie die in de geofysica wordt gebruikt om de ondergrond te bestuderen. In de praktijk worden elektromagnetische golven naar de grond gestuurd en net als bij een radar worden hun reflecties gemeten om de ondergrond te reconstrueren. De tweede is in plaats daarvan een methodologie die veranderingen in de elektrische weerstand van ondergrondse materialen detecteert.
Met behulp van deze twee technologieën, die beloven een revolutie teweeg te brengen in de archeologie, hebben onderzoekers gebieden met verschillende dichtheden geïdentificeerd onder een deel van de Westelijke Necropolis. Op het eerste gezicht is het een gebied dat niet bedekt is met graven; ondergronds zijn er echter twee structuren die moeten worden bestudeerd.
Wat was het doel van de twee verborgen structuren?
Nina Aldin Thune/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED
De twee structuren waarvan het onderzoeksteam de sporen heeft ontdekt, zijn niet van natuurlijke oorsprong maar door mensenhanden gemaakt. Toch is er, zoals we al zeiden, weinig bekend over hun daadwerkelijke doel: ze kunnen zo'n 4000 jaar oud zijn, zoals een groot deel van de rest van de Westelijke Necropolis, maar ze kunnen ook ouder zijn. En verder, niets. Op dit moment hebben archeologen opgemerkt dat er mogelijk een kamer is in de diepste structuur, maar gezien het ontbreken van andere informatie hebben ze besloten om het een “anomalie” te noemen.
Verder onderzoek zal nodig zijn om echt te begrijpen waar de twee verborgen structuren voor werden gebruikt. Na alle opgravingen van de afgelopen twee eeuwen is Egypte nog steeds de hoofdrolspeler van verrassende ontdekkingen en onverwachte vondsten. En zoals zo vaak het geval is, staan we nog maar aan het begin.
Hunter Abducted in the Remote Yukon Wilderness: 1987 UFO Humanoid Close Encounter
Hunter Abducted in the Remote Yukon Wilderness: 1987 UFO Humanoid Close Encounter
In the remote wilderness of the Yukon, a hunter named Kevin experienced an extraordinary and unsettling event in 1987. This story, which blends elements of classic UFO encounters with unique personal details, offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of alien abductions and unexplained phenomena.
Setting the Scene
Kevin, whose full identity remains undisclosed for privacy reasons, lived in the small town of Ross River. On September 2, 1987, he embarked on a moose hunting trip near a place called McAss. Despite the rainy and unpleasant weather, Kevin set out on his motorbike, determined to reach his destination.
During his journey, Kevin stopped at an old trailer to spend the night. This trailer, typical of those found at oil lease sites, provided basic shelter in the bush. Early the next morning, he resumed his trip, eager to meet up with his friends.
The Initial Encounter
As Kevin rode along the North Canol Road, he took in the scenery, scanning the landscape for signs of moose. His journey took a bizarre turn when he noticed a strange craft in the sky. The object was flying low, approximately 30 to 40 yards above the ground, and was silent. Kevin described it as a cigar-shaped craft, the size of a DC-3 plane or a large school bus, lacking any typical aircraft features like wings or a tail fin.
Realizing the unusual nature of the craft, Kevin crouched in the grass to observe it more closely. The craft soon disappeared behind a hill, but his ordeal was far from over. He then heard a metallic clunking sound behind him, similar to a car door slamming shut. Curious and cautious, Kevin decided to investigate.
Alien Encounter
To his shock, Kevin encountered two beings that he described as insectoid, with heads resembling grasshoppers and large bug-like eyes. These beings wore blue jumpsuits and stood in the ditch by the road. One of them raised a device resembling a flashlight and directed it at Kevin. Instantly, he felt as though he was pulled out of reality, enveloped in an eerie silence.
Kevin’s next memory was regaining consciousness on the road, disoriented and terrified. His motorbike had been moved, and he found the keys in his hand. He quickly returned to the trailer, realizing that hours had passed, even though the encounter seemed brief.
The Abduction Experience
Back at the trailer, Kevin experienced a sense of vibration and heard a faint humming sound, suggesting the presence of the beings nearby. As he tried to relax, he began having flashbacks of his abduction. He recalled flying over the landscape and coming face-to-face with gray aliens, distinct from the insectoid beings he initially encountered.
These gray aliens communicated telepathically, assuring Kevin that they had already performed experiments on him. Despite his fear, he felt a strange sense of familiarity and comfort with the beings. They offered to show him his home planet, displaying a white star, which Kevin found peculiar as he expected Earth to appear blue and green.
The aliens then offered him a yellow liquid to drink, promising it would help him forget the experience. Although Kevin was reluctant, he sipped the liquid and soon found himself back on the ground, with only partial memories of the event.
Similarities to Other Encounters
Kevin’s story shares similarities with other UFO and alien abduction reports. The cigar-shaped craft and the presence of gray aliens are common elements in such narratives. Interestingly, the metallic clunking sound he heard parallels accounts from Ron Morehead, who recorded Bigfoot vocalizations in the Sierra Mountains. Morehead’s experiences also included strange lights and metallic sounds, suggesting a possible connection between these phenomena.
Reflections on the Encounter
Kevin’s encounter in the Yukon wilderness raises several intriguing questions. The nature of the beings—whether extraterrestrial, interdimensional, or part of a secretive government operation—remains unknown. The advanced technology displayed by the aliens, including their ability to induce amnesia and transport individuals instantaneously, challenges our understanding of reality.
Unlike many abduction accounts characterized by trauma and fear, Kevin’s experience evolved into a sense of calm and familiarity with the beings. This variation underscores the complexity of these encounters and suggests that the intentions and behaviors of the abducting entities might differ widely.
Kevin’s 1987 encounter in the Yukon wilderness adds a compelling chapter to the ongoing saga of UFO and alien abduction phenomena. His story, marked by vivid details and emotional nuances, provides valuable insights into the mysterious world of human-alien interactions. Whether these experiences are literal events or deeply psychological phenomena influenced by cultural narratives, they continue to intrigue and challenge our perceptions of the unknown.
Vijandelijkheden in de ruimte Als de zaken blijven escaleren en de Derde Wereldoorlog inderdaad uitbreekt, zoals velen vandaag de dag speculeren, zou die strijd dan beperkt blijven tot de aarde? Recent nieuws doet ons vermoeden dat zelfs de ruimte aangetast zou kunnen worden.
Een dreigende satelliet En volgens de woordvoerder van het Pentagon, Pat Ryder, "lanceerde Rusland een satelliet in een lage baan om de aarde waarvan we inschatten dat het waarschijnlijk een anti-satellietwapen is". Hij meldde dit in een persconferentie waarover de BBC berichtte.
Koude Oorlog in de ruimte? Onze planeet begint te klein de worden voor de mensheid. In de tweede editie van de Koude Oorlog heeft de strijd zich blijkbaar verplaatst naar de ruimte, waar de boel mogelijk zou kunnen escaleren.
Gewapende satelliet? Pat Ryder ging zelfs zover om te beweren dat de Russische satelliet "vermoedelijk in staat was om andere satellieten aan te vallen".
Een waarschuwing vanuit Washington Washington heeft Moskou al gewaarschuwd dat ze de situatie in de gaten zullen houden en dat ze niet zullen aarzelen om beslissingen te nemen op basis van de bescherming van hun belangen.
Moskou ontkent alles De onderminister van Buitenlandse Zaken van Rusland, Sergei Ryabkov, heeft dergelijke informatie omschreven als "fake news", in verklaringen die zijn verzameld door het persbureau Interfax.
Ze handhaven hun ruimtebeleid "De Amerikanen kunnen zeggen wat ze willen, maar ons beleid verandert wat dat betreft niet, want we zijn altijd tegen de inzet van aanvalswapens in een lage baan om de aarde geweest", voegde Sergei Ryabkov hier nog aan toe.
Verdachte lancering Vreemd genoeg bevestigt het Russische Ministerie van Defensie de lancering van een ruimtevaartuig op 17 mei, maar zonder verdere details te geven over de missie die deze lancering inhield.
Gevechten buiten de dampkring? De verklaringen van Maria Zakharova, woordvoerster van het Russische Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken lagen in dezelfde lijn, en zij beschuldigde de Verenigde Staten ervan de ruimte te willen veranderen in "een arena voor militaire confrontaties".
Vechten in de ruimte zal de volgende stap zijn Ondanks de verklaringen uit Moskou en Washington waarschuwen verschillende militaire experts volgens de BBC al enige tijd dat de ruimte de volgende grens van oorlog wordt in een wereld die steeds afhankelijker wordt van technologie.
Geheimzinnig Chinees ruimtevliegtuig brengt onbekend object in baan rond de aarde
DE AMERIKAANSE B-378
CREDIT BOEING
Geheimzinnig Chinees ruimtevliegtuig brengt onbekend object in baan rond de aarde
Floris Poort
Het Space Shuttle-achtige ruimtevliegtuig van China heeft tijdens zijn derde missie een onbekend object in een baan rond de aarde gebracht.
China troefde de VS eind vorig jaar af met de derde lancering van zijn herbruikbare ruimtevliegtuig. Inmiddels is het al ruim 165 dagen in een baan rond de aarde, en sindsdien stoot het voertuig allerlei signalen uit, en worden objecten losgelaten. Astronoom Jonathan McDowell van het Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics denkt meer te weten.
Onbekend object
"Een nieuw object (59884/2023-195G) is gecatalogiseerd in verhouding met het met het Chinese CSSHQ-ruimtevliegtuig", aldus McDowell. "Het lijkt rond 1900 UTC 24 mei te zijn uitgeworpen", schrijft de astronoom over het onbekende object. Het zou volgens de wetenschapper een satelliet, of 'een ander stuk hardware' kunnen zijn. Mogelijk wordt er al hardware afgestoten voordat de landing wordt ingezet, of wordt met het object geoefend voor bepaalde manoeuvres of het terughalen van satellieten.
"Dat gebeurde bij de eerste vlucht ook", schrijft McDowell over een dergelijke test. Het ruimtevliegtuig werd in 2020 voor het eerst getest, toen voor twee dagen. In 2022 steeg 'ie nogmaals op, en bleef het vaartuig 276 dagen in een baan om de aarde.
Gebaseerd op Amerikaans ontwerp
Het Chinese ruimtevliegtuig lijkt volgens experts op de Boeing X-37B die door de VS wordt ontwikkeld. Dat 'vliegtuig' lijkt op een miniatuur-Space Shuttle en heeft sinds 2010 al zes missies achter de rug. Tijdens zijn laatste missie, die in november 2022 ten einde kwam, verbleef het 908 dagen lang in een baan rond de aarde. Experts denken dat het ontwerp van het Chinese vliegtuig gebaseerd is op de X-37B.
Town baffled after looking up to see nine pillars of light in night sky
Town baffled after looking up to see nine pillars of light in night sky
I'm sure I can guess what you're thinking...
Brenna Cooper
Residents in a Japanese town were left wondering if they were at the forefront of an alien invasion after spotting nine eerie pillars of light in the night sky.
Every unexplained flash of light in the sky, wayward glow lantern or runaway balloon has been accused of being an extra terrestrial at some point.
Beyond the alien mass-hysteria, according to the US government, there are no credible occurrences of UFO's - recently rebranded to UAP's (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon).
However, residents of Tottori Prefecture in southern Japan might be left wondering if that's entirely true after a nine mysterious pillars of light were captured floating in the sky on 11 May.
Like anyone confronted with such a strange occurrence in the sky, residents swiftly snapped photos of the pillars and uploaded them to social media to seek an explanation.
The pillars of light were spotted above the Tottori Prefecture in southern Japan
(X / @maashii_taiy)
The lights were originally shared on X by user Maashii, who wrote: "Around 22:00 today, I discovered a streak of light above Mikaya Port in Daisen Town, Tottori."
"When I looked up at the night sky in front of my house, I saw several streaks of light in the sky," he also told Japanese news site Hint-Pot.
The lights appeared to be floating to the north of the town above the Sea of Japan, with the tweet viewed over 12.1 million times and capturing the attention of X users across the world.
Unsurprisingly, the strange lights led some to speculate that they 'might be abducted by aliens' or if it's 'one big UFO'.
Meanwhile, some also shared their own pictures of the lights.
However, the lights actually have a completely reasonable explanation - and it's not little green men in spaceships.
The lights appeared to float over the Sea of Japan
(X / @totoro8201)
The beams in the sky are actually above a patch of the sea popular with fishing boats, meaning that the lights are actually reflections of the boats in the harbour at the point.
This isn't the first time the lights have been spotted either, with fellow Daisen resident Marcy telling Hint-Pot that she'd witnessed the floating lights a handful of times since moving to the town nine years ago.
The phenomenon is known as 'Isaribi Kochu' or 'fish-attracting light pillars'.
The lights don't often appear, however, sometimes happening once a year, according to Japan Today in 2015.
In order to coax nocturnal fish to their boats, fishermen use lights in order to attract them.
However, according to the publication, when the overnight temperatures drops low enough, ice crystals can form in the air above ships, and given the right conditions, they are bright enough to reflect into the sky and can be seen from shore.
So not aliens, but still pretty cool right?
Featured Image Credit: X/@maashii_taiy/X /@totoro8201
Man adamant that he's stumbled upon a UFO covered in mysterious fur
Man adamant that he's stumbled upon a UFO covered in mysterious fur
The North Carolina native thinks he has found proof of extraterrestrial life in the forest
Joshua Nair
A man from North Carolina is claiming that he has found a UFO that features heavy-duty metal and some odd bits of fur.
Justin Clontz, anAmerican works at Glamping Collective, a luxury campsite in Haywood County, describes what he saw as a 'once in a lifetime' discovery while out working.
The popular holiday spot apparently became the landing spot for a huge unidentified flying object - something that Justin said wasn't a common occurrence.
Justin is convinced that he has found a UFO.
(WMTW Channel 8)
The weird occurrence had him feeling 'shocked' when he was trying to figure out what it was, as Justin said he was in pure disbelief.
"It's once in a lifetime you know, it don't happen every day," he stated.
The discovery happened when he and a coworker spotted the large object on a secluded trail near Canton, with photos taken revealing a burnt carbon fibre shell with robust metal plates bolted together, sporadically covered in bits of fur around the edges.
As it was extremely heavy, Justin had to haul the object from the area, and managed to drag it away with the help of a lawnmower.
He revealed his unique removal method to WLOS: "I just tied a rope to it and drug it out with a lawn mower.
"It's a one in a million chance that it lands, especially if it landed somewhere off the trail in the woods you'd have never found it but it just happened to land on the trail."
The campsite worker also highlighted that the object managed to land between a gap in the trees without causing a fire, landing silently as the object was deep in the woods.
Justin highlighted that you don't hear much from the woods when you get far down that trail.
Following the discovery, he has been looking for aerospace experts for help to identify the UFO's origins - though he has not any clarification from anyone just yet.
There was some fur around the outside of the object.
(WMTW Channel 8)
Justin's discovery is not the only possible sighting of UFOs in the world this year, as a town in Japan spotted floating lights in the sky, in something from a dystopian film.
The residents of Tottori Prefecture in southern Japan spotted nine mysterious pillars of light floating in the sky on 11 May.
The lights were originally shared on X by user Maashii, who wrote: "Around 22:00 today, I discovered a streak of light above Mikaya Port in Daisen Town, Tottori."
"When I looked up at the night sky in front of my house, I saw several streaks of light in the sky," he also told Japanese news site Hint-Pot.
The lights appeared to be floating to the north of the town above the Sea of Japan, with the tweet viewed over 12.1 million times and capturing the attention of several X users.
In this episode we cover the latest news including the passing of Dr. Bruce Maccabee, UAP and Congress news, an interview on ball lightning with Dr. Karl Stephan, and we look at more UAP videos from Enigma Labs.
Dat NASA van plan is terug te keren naar de maan met een menselijke bemanning is geen mysterie. Ter voorbereiding op de Artemis III-missie testte de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie enkele nieuwe technologieën voor toekomstige maanwandelingen. Daarvoor stuurde het enkele astronauten naar een vulkanisch veld in de staat Arizona, maar met een heel speciale uitrusting. Laten we eens kijken waar het om gaat!
De reden voor de NASA-tests in Arizona
NASA/Josh Valcarcel
We bevinden ons in Arizona, in de Verenigde Staten, en meer precies in het vulkanische veld San Francisco, dat bestaat uit meer dan 500 vulkanische kloven. Dit is een ideale omgeving, onder de omstandigheden die hier op aarde beschikbaar zijn, om de apparatuur te testen waarmee het mogelijk zal zijn om met de Artemis III-missie naar de maan te gaan. Nadat ze speciale ruimtepakken hadden aangetrokken, simuleerden de astronauten enkele maanwandelingen, om op alle eventualiteiten voorbereid te zijn.
Twee verschillende NASA-teams voerden de tests uit. Het eerste team bestaat uit vluchtleiders en wetenschappers van het Johnson Space Center en houdt op afstand toezicht op de activiteiten van de astronauten. Het tweede team bestaat uit ingenieurs en werkt in het veld en voert “maanwandelingen” uit in de woestijn van Arizona.
Is alles klaar voor de Artemis III-missie?
NASA/Josh Valcarcel / NASA
Bij de vier door NASA gesimuleerde maanwandelingen maakten de teams gebruik van augmented reality-displays en navigatie met heldere lichten. Maar als je naar de gedeelde foto’s kijkt, is het bijzondere ontwerp van de ruimtepakken die de astronauten gebruikten duidelijk. Kort gezegd: ze zien er beslist incompleet uit.
De waarheid is dat het testen op Artemis III op verschillende locaties plaatsvindt en verschillende doeleinden heeft. In Arizona is het niet nodig om de hele opstelling van het ruimtepak uit te proberen, maar eerder om de werking van enkele componenten te evalueren tijdens een wandeling over het oppervlak van onze satelliet. Dit zijn simulaties waarvan het belang voor het succes van missies te vaak wordt gebagatelliseerd. In werkelijkheid maken tests zoals die in Arizona het mogelijk om te oefenen in geologische omstandigheden die vergelijkbaar zijn met die op de maan: eenmaal daar zul je immers niet gemakkelijk naar huis kunnen terugkeren.
Van Arizona tot de zuidpool van de maan
NASA/Josh Valcarcel
De gesimuleerde maanwandelingen met de vreemde ruimtepakken zijn momenteel de meest getrouwe simulatie van de Artemis III-missie die tot nu toe is uitgevoerd. De omstandigheden in de woestijn van Arizona lijken immers erg op die van de maangrond waarop de astronauten zich voorbereiden om te betreden.
Het doel van de veldtesten is immers om de uitdagingen die de Artemis III-missie op de zuidpool van de maan zal tegenkomen beter in te schatten. Deze omvatten het verzamelen van gegevens en communicatie met het team dat de vlucht bestuurt en het wetenschapsteam in Houston. Kortom: het duurt niet lang meer voordat een bemanning astronauten terugkeert naar de maan, en het is beter dat alles tot in de puntjes geregeld is. Misschien zullen er nog steeds onvoorziene gebeurtenissen plaatsvinden, maar dat betekent niet dat je niet voorbereid kunt zijn door in vreemde ruimtepakken rond te lopen in de woestijn van Arizona.
Tot voor kort betekende praten over een ruimtelift dat je je op sciencefictionterrein begaf. In staat zijn om naar een ruimtestation in een baan om de aarde te gaan zonder gebruik te maken van een ruimteschip lijkt iets onrealistisch, maar toch is het een steeds reëler wordende mogelijkheid. Het nieuwste bedrijf dat aan dit ambitieuze project is begonnen, is de Japanse Obayashi Corporation. Maar is het echt mogelijk om een ruimtelift te bouwen? En wanneer zal hij klaar zijn? Laten we daar samen achter komen!
Wat is een ruimtelift?
Liftport/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED
Een ruimtelift is een hypothetische constructie die het aardoppervlak moet verbinden met een geostationaire baan, zo'n 36.000 kilometer boven de aarde. Dit speciale transportmiddel zou werken als een klassieke lift, met cabines die langs een lange, sterke kabel omhoog en omlaag gaan. Kortom, een ruimtelift zou mensen en goederen in de ruimte kunnen vervoeren zonder dat daar raketten en ruimtevaartuigen voor nodig zijn.
Hoewel het idee op zich niet nieuw is - een eerste vermelding dateert al uit 1895 - lijkt de aanpak van de Obayashi Corporation een concrete interesse in de realisatie van de eerste ruimtelift op aarde te bevestigen. Aan de andere kant zou zo'n constructie enorme voordelen bieden bij het transport van en naar de ruimte, maar tegelijkertijd ook aanzienlijke uitdagingen met zich meebrengen.
Het idee van Obayashi Corporation
大林組広報部/Youtube
De realisatie van een ruimtelift zou mogelijk worden gemaakt door de vooruitgang in het onderzoek naar koolstofnanobuizen, dat de kern van het project vormt. Volgens de Obayashi Corporation zou deze ruimtelift zich over ongeveer 96.000 kilometer van de aarde naar de ruimte kunnen uitstrekken en resistente kabels gebruiken om mensen en goederen naar een ruimtestation in een geostationaire baan te brengen. Op deze manier zou de omwentelingsperiode van het station gelijk zijn aan de rotatieperiode van de aarde.
Voor de bouw van de lift zijn echter verschillende stappen nodig. Eerst zouden materialen door raketten naar een lage baan om de aarde worden gestuurd, waar ze zouden worden gebruikt om een ruimtestation in elkaar te zetten dat wordt aangedreven door elektromotoren. Eenmaal klaar zou dit ruimteschip een geostationaire baan moeten bereiken om vervolgens de kabel naar de aarde te verlengen. Eenvoudig, toch?
Is een ruimtelift echt haalbaar?
大林組広報部/Youtube
Volgens Obayashi Corporation zeker wel. Het bedrijf wil zo snel mogelijk beginnen met de bouw en de ruimtelift operationeel hebben voor 2050, met alle positieve gevolgen voor de kosten van ruimtevaart, koolstofuitstoot en het transport van mensen en goederen.
Kortom, vandaag de dag wil het idee van een ruimtelift meer dan ooit breken met science fiction en onze dagelijkse realiteit binnendringen. In theorie is dit een haalbaar project, maar het vergt een gecoördineerde internationale inspanning. Velen zien het project wellicht als slechts een poging van de mens om het bereik van zijn doelstellingen uit te breiden naar de ruimte, duizenden kilometers voorbij het Internationale Ruimtestation. En dit behoort zeker ook tot de doelstellingen van de Obayashi Corporation, maar dat niet alleen. Het is ook een poging om iets werkelijkheid te laten worden wat tot voor kort alleen een verbeelding was. Een toekomstige realiteit, zeker, maar een concrete en tastbare realiteit.
Is it chasing us? That thought coursed throughBetty and Barney Hill’s minds as they drove down the empty winding country road in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It was a September night in 1961, they hadn’t seen a car for miles, and a strange light in the sky seemed to follow them.
When they finally got home to Portsmouth at dawn, they were far from relieved. They felt dirty. Their watches stopped working. Barney’s shoes were strangely scuffed and Betty’s dress was ripped. There were two hours of the drive that neither one of them could remember. What had happened
With the help of a psychiatrist, the quiet couple eventually revealed a startling story: Gray beings with large eyes had walked them into a metallic disc as wide, Betty said, as her house was long. Once inside, the beings examined the couple and erased their memories.
Their experience would kick off an Air Force inquiry, part of the secretive initiative Project Blue Book that investigated UFO sightings across the country. The incident would also become the first-ever widely publicized alien-abduction account and shape how stories like it were told—and understood—from then on. Debate continues as to whether the husband and wife were liars, fantasists, crackpots or simply sleep-deprived people who later recovered seriously scrambled memories.
The Hills Saw Strange Lights Pursuing Their Car
The Hills’ road trip was spontaneous, a well-earned break Barney decided the couple needed, as explained in The Interrupted Journey, a 1966 book they collaborated on with author John G. Fuller. Barney worked a grueling night shift at the post office, driving 60 miles each way. Betty’s job handling state child-welfare cases was no easier. The little free time this biracial couple had was devoted to their church and activities related to the civil-rights movement. After 16 months of marriage, Betty and Barney saw this trip through Montreal and Niagara Falls as their delayed honeymoon. They left so impulsively they had no time to go to the bank before it closed for the weekend. They got in their car with less than $70 in their pockets.
On the last night of their three-day trip, the tired couple sipped coffee in a Vermont diner to recharge before driving back. Barney figured if they pushed through, they could beat the wind and rains from an approaching hurricane. They left the diner around 10 p.m., estimating they could reach their red-framed house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. at the latest.
As they drove, strange light in the sky gave another reason to hurry. At first it looked like a falling star, but grew larger and brighter with each mile. Barney, an avid plane watcher and World War II vet, was sure they had nothing to worry about. It’s just a satellite, he assured Betty. It probably went off course.
The light seemed to move with the car as Barney steered down the curving mountain road. The light zigged and zagged, ducking past the moon and behind trees and mountain ridges, only to reappear moments later. Sometimes it seemed to move toward them in a game of cat-and-mouse. It had to be an illusion, they thought. Maybe the car’s movement made it seem like the light, too, was moving.
Curiosity overcame them. The couple pulled over at road stops and picnic turnouts to get a closer look. Through binoculars, Betty saw that the white light was really an object spinning in the air.
“Barney,” she told her husband, “if you think that’s a satellite or a star, you’re being completely ridiculous.”
Betty and Barney Hills' Close Encounter
He knew she was right. Barney had an IQ of 140, noted Fuller in his book. Barney was also a pragmatic man who wouldn’t give flying saucers a second thought, remembered his niece Kathleen Marden in her work, Captured: The Betty and Barney Hill Experience. The night was too quiet for a helicopter, a commercial plane or even military jet with a hotshot pilot. He didn’t want to spook Betty, but he was becoming concerned. What was this light and why was it toying with them?
About 70 miles past the diner, the object hovered just above the treetops, approximately 100 feet above them. Barney abruptly stopped the car, keeping the engine running. He shoved a handgun he’d hidden beneath the seat into his pocket and rushed into a dark field, leaving Betty in the car. What he saw was as big as a jet but as round and flat as a pancake. “My God, what is this thing?” he recalled thinking. “This can’t be real.”
API/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY IMAGES
AN ILLUSTRATION OF BETTY AND BARNEY HILL'S 1961 ALIEN ABDUCTION
Behind rows of windows, gray uniformed beings seemed to look right at him, Barney recalled. He tried to lift his hand to his pistol but somehow couldn’t. A voice told him not to put down his binoculars.
He had a startling thought: We’re about to be captured. Yelling hysterically, he ran back to the car and barreled down the road as Betty tracked the craft, craning her head outside the car window. Without explanation, loud, rhythmic beeps sounded from the car’s trunk. The couple felt instantly drowsy and lost consciousness.
They came to around two hours later and 35 miles down the road.
Using Hypnosis to Recover the Hills' Abduction Memory
Back home in Portsmouth, they tried to make sense of the night. Barney felt compelled to examine his body’s lower half. Both seemed aware of a puzzling presence.
In the weeks and months after, Betty, an avid reader, checked out books from the library discovering the civilian UFO group National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). She also reported the sighting to the Air Force, worried about radiation.
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE/GADO/GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE DEPICTING AN ALIEN SPACE SHIP, AT 200 FEET AND 100 FEET ABOVE THE EARTH'S SURFACE, DRAWN BY ALLEGED ALIEN ABDUCTEE BETTY HILL AND REGARDED AS ONE OF THE FIRST EXAMPLES OF THE FLYING SAUCER ALIEN SPACESHIP ARCHETYPE, SEPTEMBER 20, 1961.
In coming years, with Betty suffering from disturbing dreams and Barney developing an ulcer and anxiety, the couple sought mental help. The two met with Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist and neurologist who specialized in hypnosis, a mainstream technique at the time.
Through months of weekly sessions, Simon helped the couple piece together what they think had happened: A vessel had landed on the Hill’s car, putting them to sleep. Afterward, gray beings walked them up a long ramp and into the spacecraft.
Once inside, the Hills were separated, taking turns in an examination room that had curved walls and a large light hanging from the ceiling. Each was asked to climb up on a metal table. The table was so short, Barney’s legs hung over the side.
During the examinations, the beings removed Betty and Barney’s clothes, plucked strands of their hair, took clippings of their nails and scraped their skin. Each sample was placed on a clear material, not unlike a glass slide. Needles, connected to long wires, probed their heads, arms, legs and spines. One large needle, around 4 to 6 inches long, was inserted into Betty’s belly. This pregnancy test left her twisting in pain. Throughout, a being Barney and Betty called “the leader” watched from the side.
After Betty’s examination ended, the beings rushed back into her room, excited. They discovered that Barney’s teeth could be removed. Betty laughed, explaining that Barney had dentures, a fact of human aging the beings struggled to understand.
When the U.S. government tapped the academic to help investigate UFOs, he was initially a skeptic. But not for long.
Later, alone with the leader, Betty asked where the craft had flown, admitting she knew little of the universe. The being joked with her, saying “if you don’t know where you are, there wouldn’t be any point in telling you where I am.” Later, under hypnosis, she drew a star map shown to her on the ship.
In 1965, the Hills' story was picked up by a Boston newspaper. After that, everything changed. The quiet couple’s story became the subject of a best-selling book and a movie starring James Earl Jones. The upstanding civil servants had become celebrity abductees.
The Hills' Story Became a Model for Alien Abductions
BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
BARNEY HOLDING UP A DIAGRAM EXPLAINING THE ALIEN ABDUCTION
The Hills weren’t the first to spot a UFO or even to report an abduction. But their story did capture the nation’s imagination and was so widely publicized, it has helped shape how we talk about alien encounters and abductions to this day.
Before the Hill’s story, alien encounters were friendly, according to Christoper Bader, a professor of sociology at California’s Chapman University. Some aliens even lived on earth and commuted back on weekends. But once the Hills’ story became better known, abduction accounts shared certain characteristics, such as medical examinations and missing time. Aliens with large heads and big eyes—dubbed “grays” in UFO circles—became classic sci-fi staples in personal accounts and pop culture, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and shows like the X-Files.
The Hills’ story—and those that came after—helped pave the way for a new understanding of human experience. Richard J. McNally, a Harvard psychologist, puts it this way: “The ‘alien-abduction’ phenomenon, in my opinion, shows how sincere, non-psychotic individuals can develop beliefs about, and false memories of, incredible experiences that never happened.”
Experts of all stripes have tried to explain why intelligent, otherwise mentally stable people came forward with these experiences. Many psychologists say sleep paralysis and hallucinations played a role. Leading questions during hypnosis—the main way most abductees unlock their stories—could also have been a factor.
The Psychology of Alien Encounter Stories
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
BARNEY AND BETTY HILL HOLDING A NEWSPAPER REPORTING ABOUT THEIR ALLEGED ALIEN ABDUCTION IN A RURAL PORTION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE IN LATE SEPTEMBER 1961
Those who report abduction might also see the world a little differently. According to research, one of the strongest predictors of false recall is a vivid imagination. This group scores high in “magical ideation” and is more likely to believe in ghosts and tarot readings, according to McNally.
Some believe the Hill’s story was simply a myth in the making, with the supernatural meetings, vulnerable protagonists and otherworldly journeys that are often the hallmarks of legend. Many point to the stress of being an interracial couple living in a predominantly white state in a turbulent era. (The year of their hypnosis, 1964, was marked by Cold War tensions and civil-rights unrest, with numerous urban riots erupting that summer.) “You have a biracial couple at a time where obviously it was not easy to be a biracial couple,” says Bader. “Look what those aliens were: a mixture of black and white. I find that very meaningful.”
Abductee stories depend on first-hand accounts—the most vulnerable form of evidence. Memories can be distorted by stress or distraction, or even manufactured. When a false memory is in place, psychologists say, the brain works to fill in the details. Psychologist Michael Shermer points to ‘patternicity,’ the tendency to see patterns even when none exist, helping us to see faces in clouds or assume that one event caused another.
Investigators noted the hair on the alleged victim’s arms was singed, and the skin burned. The grass where he claimed to have had the encounter was also scorched.
Fighter pilots and radar operators from the USS Nimitz describe their terrifying—and still inexplicable—2004 encounter.
Past experience also shapes human perception. Barney, a World War II vet, thought the head “gray” looked like Hitler and seemed menacing. Betty, meanwhile, who had been excited to see the aliens, bantered with the affable gray who performed her medical examination. That alien even agreed to give her a book to bring to earth with her, she said, though other crew members would later overrule that decision.
In this way alien abduction and encounter stories have helped psychologists understand the human brain, its defects—and the weaknesses inherent in memory and first-hand accounts, according to Christopher French, a psychologist specializing in human experience related to the paranormal. “What we see and hear, especially under less than ideal observational conditions, can be heavily influenced by our prior beliefs and expectations,” wrote French in the The Guardian.
NICAP’s scientific advisor cross-examined the couple and found their account credible. The Air Force’s Project Blue Book would ultimately dismiss the story, determining the unexplained craft could be explained by “natural causes”—hinting that the couple hadn’t seen a spacecraft but only the planet Jupiter.
For his part, psychiatrist Simon never felt the Hills had made up their story. He concluded Betty had dreamed the abduction and Barney had absorbed her story, especially since many of the most vivid details matched descriptions of dreams Betty had jotted down after the event. “I believe implicitly in the honesty of these people,” he said on a ‘70s radio program.
Of course, another explanation is always possible: The abduction actually occurred. The Hills stuck by their story, despite years of skeptics and detractors. Like many abductees, the couple never felt false memory or sleep paralysis explained what they experienced. Betty became a known voice in UFO research and claimed she was visited multiple times in the decades to follow.
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Alien Abduction: The True Story of Betty and Barney Hill – Revealed on Joe Rogan with Dan Aykroyd
Alien Abduction: The True Story of Betty and Barney Hill – Revealed on Joe Rogan with Dan Aykroyd
The Joe Rogan Experience episode featuring Dan Aykroyd delves into one of the most intriguing alien abduction stories of the 20th century: the case of Betty and Barney Hill. This tale, recounted with rich detail and historical context, sheds light on the mysterious world of UFO encounters and the phenomena associated with them.
The Betty and Barney Hill Abduction
In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials while driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This incident is often cited as the first widely publicized alien abduction story in the United States. According to their account, the couple experienced a close encounter with a UFO, followed by a period of missing time. Under hypnosis, they later recalled being taken aboard a spacecraft, where they underwent medical examinations.
Evidence and Credibility
Dan Aykroyd emphasizes several pieces of evidence that lend credibility to the Hills’ story. Notably, there was a fluid stain on Betty’s dress, which she believed was used during the medical procedures performed on her. Additionally, the couple’s car showed unexplained marks on its trunk. These physical traces, though not definitive proof, support the plausibility of their account.
The Hills’ testimonies, particularly those given under hypnosis by Dr. Benjamin Simon, are another compelling aspect of their story. Barney’s intense fear and detailed recollections, as captured in the tapes of these sessions, further underscore the authenticity of their experience. Aykroyd points out that neither Betty nor Barney had any prior interest in astronomy, making their detailed descriptions of the star systems they saw aboard the spaceship particularly intriguing.
The Zeta Reticuli Star Map
One of the most fascinating elements of the Hills’ story is the star map that Betty claimed to have seen during her abduction. Betty’s drawing of this map, under hypnosis, was later analyzed by amateur astronomer Marjorie Fish. Fish’s three-dimensional model identified the stars as Zeta Reticuli 1 and 2. This identification was significant because it suggested that Betty had seen a star system not widely known at the time, adding a layer of credibility to her account.
Broader Abduction Phenomena
The conversation between Rogan and Aykroyd expands to discuss other abduction cases and the work of researchers like Budd Hopkins. Hopkins was known for his work with abductees, using hypnosis to help them recall their experiences. He documented numerous cases where individuals reported being taken by extraterrestrials, undergoing examinations, and then being returned to different locations or in different states of dress.
Aykroyd draws an analogy between these abductions and the practice of catch and release in fishing. Just as fishermen release their catch back into the water, seemingly without concern for their exact return location, extraterrestrials might similarly abduct humans, perform tests, and then return them haphazardly.
Skepticism and Belief
A central theme in the discussion is the skepticism that often surrounds UFO and abduction stories. Both Rogan and Aykroyd acknowledge the difficulty many people have in believing such extraordinary claims. However, they argue that the infrequent and bizarre nature of these occurrences makes them challenging to dismiss outright. They urge a balanced approach, remaining open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life while critically examining the evidence.
Historical Context and Media Coverage
Aykroyd references numerous historical newspaper reports and government memos from the 1950s that document UFO sightings. These reports suggest that the phenomenon has been acknowledged for decades, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness. This historical context highlights the enduring public and governmental interest in UFOs and alien encounters.
John Mack’s Contributions
The discussion also touches on the work of John Mack, a Harvard psychiatrist who wrote extensively about abduction experiences. Mack’s academic background and his thorough investigations into these phenomena provided a measure of legitimacy to the study of alien abductions. His books, such as “Abduction,” have influenced many, including skeptics, by presenting well-documented cases and thoughtful analysis.
The Joe Rogan Experience episode with Dan Aykroyd offers a comprehensive exploration of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction story, supported by various pieces of testimonial and circumstantial evidence. It places their experience within the broader context of UFO phenomena, highlighting the challenges of proving such extraordinary claims. Despite the skepticism that often accompanies these stories, the enduring fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial life continues to captivate the public imagination.
The Roswell incident: Did the US Government cover up an alien crash in 1947? The real history that challenges the conspiracy
The Roswell incident: Did the US Government cover up an alien crash in 1947? The real history that challenges the conspiracy
During the summer of 1947, flying saucers were capturing the world’s imagination against a backdrop of rising tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Then, a mysterious incident in Roswell, New Mexico, laid the foundations of a supposed cover-up – the full picture of which only came into focus decades later. In the second season of our Conspiracy podcast series, Rob Attar speaks to David Clarke and asks if visitors from outer space really did make contact at Roswell
In the years immediately following the end of the Second World War, a spate of observations of mysterious airborne objects began to accumulate around the globe.
Similar Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) had been described by Allied pilots during the Second World War (the so-called ‘foo fighters’).
Alongside such aerial phenomena, the Nazi regime’s experimentation with rocket-propelled missiles (the V1 and V2 programmes), and its post-war appropriation by the Allies, launched a post-war revolution in weapons technology.
Amid rising Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, anxiety over a missile gap soon led to an arms race, while wild rumours about the other’s technological innovation soon became rife.
But in 1947, these Earthly fears were eclipsed by a seemingly extraterrestrial ‘visitation’, which brought the city of Roswell, New Mexico, to the world’s attention.
The conspiracy theory: the US government covered up the crash of an alien spacecraft
In late June 1947, W W ‘Mac’ Brazel, a rancher living in New Mexico, discovered an unusual debris field on his land near Roswell.
Days later, he alerted the local authorities, who in turn notified Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). Military personnel were dispatched to the location whereupon they supposedly recovered material from a damaged extraterrestrial spacecraft and even the bodies of its alien crew.
The base issued a statement confirming that a “flying disc” had been recovered in the vicinity and “inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field”. Yet the following day a correction was released that clarified the debris was in fact a downed weather balloon.
Decades later, in 1978, the so-called ‘Roswell incident’ returned to the spotlight. According to a whistle-blower who had been involved in the operation, the weather balloon story was a cover-up. Photographs of the balloon wreckage had been carefully staged, while the actual spacecraft was spirited away for investigation. At the same time, everyone connected to the incident was sworn to silence.
Researchers tracked down several witnesses who corroborated that a crashed alien spaceship had indeed been salvaged and taken to the enigmatic Area 51 in Nevada where technicians had subsequently reverse-engineered it for the US military.
Not only that, but it was said that extraterrestrial beings had been retrieved from the crash site and had been subjected to autopsies.
What is the source of the theory?
To understand the origins of the Roswell incident, historian and broadcaster, David Clarke, believes it is necessary to begin two weeks earlier on 24 June 1947 and over 1,000 miles northwest.
“Kenneth Arnold, who was a private pilot, was out flying a small aircraft over the Cascade [Range] mountains in Washington state,” says Clarke, who was speaking on our Conspiracy podcast series. “As he was flying towards Mount Rainier, in the distance he saw what he described as a formation of ‘strange aircraft’. They were flying in echelon formation, the way that geese or ducks [do].”
Arnold reckoned that these strange vessels, which he later described as ‘batwing-shaped’, were travelling at supersonic speed. Incidentally, the sound barrier would not be broken until 14 October later that same year by US Air Force officer, Charles Yeager.
“He radioed Yakima airbase and when he landed … [it had been] transmitted all around the United States that this guy had seen some weird objects in the sky. He was surrounded by newspaper reporters,” says Clarke.
His description of the objects’ movement as being akin to a saucer skipping over a pond caught journalists’ imagination, who coined the term ‘flying saucer’.
“The story went viral to use a modern expression,” says Clarke.
“Within 48 hours of Kenneth Arnold reporting what he’d seen, flying saucers were on the newswires across the United States, across North America and Europe. And people started seeing and reporting saucer-shaped flying objects in the sky”.
It was during this craze that the RAAF dispatched Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to inspect the debris found near Roswell.
But whereas Cavitt maintained that the wreckage was ostensibly ‘normal’, Marcel convinced himself “that it was something very, very unusual and not something that was manufactured in the United States”, explains Clarke.
The reasons why the theory of the Roswell Incident took hold
The airbase’s correction, insisting that the discovery was in fact that of a weather balloon, negated the idea that something more peculiar had been found. That summer in New Mexico soon faded from popular memory – at least for the time being.
“I’ve got a huge collection of books on UFOs and flying saucers from the 1950s up to the present,” says Clarke, “the Roswell incident is not mentioned in any of those books and articles and magazines during the 1950s, during the 1960s”.
Decades later, after trust in the US government had been badly damaged in the wake of the JFK assassination and the unpopular Vietnam War, a more cynical audience was primed to reconsider the official narrative around the Roswell incident.
Clarke believes that this context is the reason why the 1980 book The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William Moore was so successful in introducing the idea of a government cover-up.
“They went and re-interviewed some of the people who were there at the time. Jesse Marcel, for instance – there’s no other way to describe him – he was a UFO believer. He bought into the idea that flying saucers were craft from outer space,” says Clarke.
According to conspiracists like Marcel, the cover-up even entailed intimidating would-be whistle-blowers with murder: “‘Bullets are cheap’ was the phrase that was used,” explains Clarke.
“There are people who worked in the morgue at Roswell [who] said that they remembered this truck turning up with armed guards and these small bodies of creatures being offloaded”.
By the end of the 20th century, the Roswell incident had acquired an iconic status within the ufology community but also within popular culture generally. During the 1990s, the conspiracy was woven into the X-Files TV drama series and the blockbuster movie, Independence Day.
“That shows how much it’s become a part of the collective American imagination – almost to rival the JFK conspiracies,” says Clarke.
The evidence that debunks the Roswell Incident
The UFO ‘wreckage’ that Brazel came across on his ranch – and later confirmed by Cavitt – consisted of balsa wood, tinfoil, metal strips and other detritus.
As was officially established that summer, these materials, though certainly incongruous to the location in which they were found, were the remnants of a high-altitude balloon.
Clarke points out that “there was a cover-up in some respects, in that when they announced that this thing that had been found was just a weather balloon that wasn’t true because it wasn’t just a weather balloon, it was [part of] a top secret balloon experiment”.
In 1994, the US Congress launched an official investigation into the events of summer 1947. Its conclusions formed part of a two-volume report that revealed that a highly clandestine operation code-named ‘Mogul’ had been conducted at the time from Alamogordo Army Air Field, less than 150 miles west of Roswell.
“The US Navy and the CIA were launching enormous balloon trains from Alamogordo. Everyone will remember at the beginning of 2023, the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by the US Air Force. A very similar thing was going on in 1947,” says Clarke, citing a recent incident that sparked speculation about alien aircraft visiting Earth.
With the Cold War just getting underway at the time, the US was keen to establish whether the Soviets were conducting nuclear tests.
“They were sending these enormous balloons up,” explains Clarke, “and they were riding the jet stream across the Atlantic, and they had a gondola underneath with cameras inside and a radiosonde where they could track the balloons”.
“One of these balloon trains in the logbook from Alamogordo was lost in the desert shortly before the debris [at Brazel’s ranch] was found,” says Clarke – though he stresses that a direct link between the two cannot be definitively made despite the circumstances.
A few years later, in 1997, the US Air Force published another report. One of its findings attributed the reports about humanoid ‘creatures’ turning up at facilities in and around Roswell to false memories.
According to Clarke, the report “tried to explain where some of the ideas about bodies being retrieved from the desert came from”.
As part of that later investigation, “it turned out that they were actually throwing dummies from aircraft over the desert”.
These tests were part of a secret programme to assess the effect on the human body if pilots ejected from aircraft and fell from high altitudes.
For Clarke, the Roswell incident also bears many of the age-old tropes about celestial visitors descending to Earth in a revelatory fashion.
“Effectively you could see the aliens in the flying saucer as being representative of gods or angels coming to give us their sacred knowledge. And they always crash in a remote area. They’re never crashing in Tunbridge Wells or anywhere like that. It’s always some remote area of desert”.
More than this, Clarke asserts that Roswell became an urban legend for the atomic age and that its DNA is typical of American folklore.
He cites the case of Aurora, Texas – where, in 1897, a UFO allegedly collided with a windmill. The locals “retrieved the body of this Martian pilot, buried it in the local cemetery, and they retrieved bits of metal from this airship that had hieroglyphics on it”.
Clarke says that this was in fact a hoax concocted to attract visitors to the small town after the railway had bypassed it, and he notes that the story is almost “a carbon copy of the Roswell incident”.
Perhaps the most expedient angle on Roswell is that the longevity of this conspiracy theory serves the US military’s interests and may even explain why some ex-military and ex-intelligence personnel have gone on record to suggest that extraterrestrials crashed there in 1947.
For example, ongoing rumours about Area 51 and the back-engineering of otherworldly technology makes for a formidable strategy.
“There’s no two ways about it that there’s some very good evidence that they just encourage that story because it’s a useful disinformation tool against an enemy … don’t mess with us because we’ve got alien technology,” says Clarke.
As conspiracy theories go, he believes that Roswell is among the more ‘harmless’ ones. “The idea that out there in the cold dead Universe there is someone who is interested in us, that we’re not alone, that they’re going to come and save us, that’s quite a comforting thought,” says Clarke, “and I think that out of all the conspiracy theories and myths, this is probably the most positive one of all”.
Earlier this year the US Government admitted that it has developed, tested and flown prototype aircraft some of which have been seen and reported as UFOs.
The Pentagon said “some of these systems had a ‘saucer’ or triangle-shaped appearance and were capable of hovering aloft”.
The US Department of Defence’s All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), released the first volume of its historical investigation of UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) in February.
The report traces military technology linked to UFOs back to the end of the second world war and the famous Roswell incident of 1947. It says that all the evidence points to “misidentified authentic highly sensitive national security programs”.
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt was deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk at the time of the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980 and blew the whistle after an extraordinary sequence of events
Lt Col Charles Holt described what he saw(Image: 7News Australia)
The Rendlesham Forest incident refers to three days in December 1980 where numerous unidentified, triangle-shaped objects were spotted hurtling through the sky. They were seen close to the twin airbases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge which were then being used by the US Airforce.
Two airmen carrying out patrols of the nuclear base were sent into the forest to investigate a strange object seen to land there. What they saw that night became one of the most compelling UAP military sightings mysteries of all time, anywhere in the world.
American commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt added credibility to the sightings, when he recorded a memo claiming he saw another unidentified object in the forest two nights later.
A general view of the control tower at the former RAF Bentwaters base near Rendlesham Forest(Image: PA)
The memo found its way into the British military archives and was eventually declassified and released by the US government. It described an encounter with an apparent UFO in the forest.
The sighting even made a News of the World front page story proclaiming " UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK, And that's OFFICIAL"
But the Ministry of Defence said the event posed no risk to national security and was never investigated as a security matter. Government agents were later accused of a cover up.
7NEWS Australia journalist, Ross Coulthart interviewed Lt Col Halt in 2009 and reposted his chat on YouTube earlier this week, attracting almost 200,000 views at the time of writing.
The Rendlesham Forest sighting caused uproar across the UK(Image: IG)
In it, Lt Col Halt recalls witnessing a glowing object that was metallic in appearance, "bright-orangeish-red like fire" with coloured lights.
As he attempted to approach it, it appeared to move through the trees sending animals on a nearby farm "into a frenzy."
He said: "The first thing I saw out of the ordinary was when we were standing at the site, measuring and taking radiation readings and trying to ascertain what this thing was.
"I looked up through the forest and towards the coast. I can best describe it as something looking like an eye with a black centre. The object at first was very stable, still. But it was the equivalent of dripping molten metal. Something was shedding off it and drifting onto the ground."
Whatever it was sent down a beam according to Halt(Image: Marti Bug Catcher/Shutterstock)
From 200m away, he added: "When the object started moving towards us, it moved forward from the field into the forest...it's moving thorough the trees going up and down...it was under some kind of intelligent control. It had to be to avoid the trees.
"Then it came towards us at one point and then it receded. It went away. It went back into the field and stayed there for a few seconds and then silently it exploded into white objects and they just disappeared."
Lt Col Halt added: "We went out into the field after the object disappeared and we're searching around with our flashlights looking for some evidence because obviously something was dripping off this object, or appeared to be. And I thought there has be be some slag, some residue, something on the ground or some burn marks or something. And the only thing we found is evidence of being cattle there.
"We didn't find anything at all. And while we were out there searching around, we saw objects in the sky to the north. They were bright objects, they changed shape from half moon to elliptical to full circles."
Lt Col Halt descrbed what he saw in a memo and tape recording
Lt Col Halt said he requested air traffic experts check radar systems which drew a blank. He descrbed the beams as moving at "very high speed," adding: "They were sort of synchronised. They would move in sharp angular movements as though they were doing a grid search or something...It didn't make any sense to me and I'm puzzled at this point.
"Then we turned and looked, somebody saw one to the south, and then another one to the south...it was closest to us (and) came almost directly overhead at very high speed and stopped. It was stationary.
"We were standing there in awe then all of a sudden, a beam came down (from more than 1,000ft above), right to the side of us. It was an interesting beam, it was concentrated, it did not radiate. It came down like a laser.
"It illuminated a spot on the ground around 10 or 12ft away...I'm thinking is this a warning? Is this communication? What is this? What do we do now? And just as abruptly as it came on, click, it went off."
Lt Colonel Charles Holt's memo(Image: NGN PICTURE LIBRARY)
Police were called to the scene but reported that the only lights they could see were from the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse.
The next morning, servicemen returned to a small clearing and found three small impressions on the ground in a triangular pattern as well as burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees, but police concluded the indents had been made by an animal.
Lt Col Halt, who held one of the highest positions in the US military, made a 20-minute tape recording of his sighting and wrote a memo just days later which he sent to the Ministry of Defence.
But he claims there was a cover-up by a clandestine agency.
An airman drew what he saw(Image: GETTY/JONAUSTIN)
In his new introduction to the interview, journalist Ross Coulthart states: "...what he (Halt) told me stunned me. He was a man, one rank below a general, revealing what he believed was a conspiracy by the US military and the British military to conceal what was clearly some kind of intelligently controlled, highly technologically advanced object moving through a forest, immediately adjacent to a base crammed full of dangerous nuclear weapons.
"Why on earth would the Americans and the British want to supress such an incident?
"There's a great story told by an author called Georgia Bruny and she tells of how she met the British prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, and she asked her about the Rendlesham Forest incident....Margaret Thatcher leaned across to her at a dinner party and said: 'You can't tell the people.'"
Nearly half a century on, mystery still surrounds the incident dubbed "Britain's Roswell" - named after the alleged UFO crash in the New Mexico desert in July 1947.
Fencing around ex-RAF Bentwaters is said to be a UFO hotspot(Image: JONAUSTIN)
Sceptics have disregarded the sightings as nocturnal lights, the Orford Ness Lighthouse, bright stars or a possible hoax.
Since then, the sightings have been the source of much debate and speculation among UFO enthusiasts and the subject of numerous books, articles and TV programmes.
The forest even has its own official UFO trail, complete with a life-size replica of a flying saucer.
After the fascinating story resurfaced on YouTube, hundreds of viewers flocked to share their thoughts.
One said: "The Rendlesham Forest incident has always struck me as the most credible encounter, with the first-rate witnesses."
Another added: "The best summation of the Rendlesham incident I've ever seen and observed by a high-ranking colonel with no doubts that the objects seen were under intelligent control!"
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
