Pilots capture 'multiple UFOs' dancing around their Boeing passenger jet flying over Egypt

• READ MORE: UFO swarms targeting US military bases operated by 'mother ship'

By MATTHEW PHELAN SENIOR SCIENCE REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Commercial pilots have captured 'multiple UFOs' in the night sky as the passenger jet flew above Egypt

A video taken from inside the cabin showed several glowing orbs that the crew of the Boeing 747 said were 'dancing' around the plane.

Captain Van Pangemanan shared the clip on his YouTube channel, saying the UFOs flashed, 'as if they wanted to give a message.'

'We thought the light was a plane, but it wasn't on our radar,' the pilot said. 'Then we thought maybe it was a star, but the stars twinkled quickly and the stars didn't move.'

In his video, captured around 5am local time after the plane departed from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the UFOs can be seen swaying or wobbling in midair before appearing to go dark or duck into the cloud cover below.

Some have suggested that meteors from the Perseid meteor shower produced the lights, but Capt Van Pangemanan believes the UFOs' movements were too 'various' to be explained by a falling star. 

'The light of the UFO in front of us moves freely,' he said. 'The UFO light shone for a long time and moved.'

Captain Ruud Van Pangemanan, who vlogs about his life flying Boeing 747 passenger jets, emphasized that he and his crewmates scrutinized the odd light hoping to find some kind of explanation for the unusual movements they were seeing:  'What is it, in the sky and dancing?'

According to Capt Van Pangemanan, the orb-like UFO lights showed up around 30 minutes into the flight after a 'normal take-off and cruising' — and after he had enjoyed an early breakfast in the jet's cockpit.

Typically, the Perseid meteor shower begins in mid-July, according to astronomer and Old Farmer's Almanac editor Bob Berman, intensifying deeper into the summer until the storm of shooting stars peaks between August 11-13.

The apparent origin or radiant point for Perseid meteors is roughly northeasterly near the constellation Perseus, from which the annual event gets its name.

However, the celestial events actual origins are in debris left behind by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, whose path intersects with Earth every summer.  

Given that Capt Van Pangemanan and his Max Air Ltd flight were traveling roughly southwest in their Boeing 747 from Jeddah to Abuja, Nigeria, the UFO outside the starboard side of their cockpit would be pointing in the general direction of the meteor shower.

During the August peak of the shower, skywatchers free of urban light pollution can sometimes witness as many as 100 shooting stars overhead every hour.

'We also thought [about] the possibility the light was a satellite,' Capt Van Pangemanan continued, 'because right now there are a lot of Starlink satellites that have just been launched by Elon Musk.'

In the post to his YouTube channel, Capt Van Pangemanan opened the floor to his fans to help solve the mystery, asking: 'Please figure it out yourself, maybe you can Identify this Flying Object.'

'Guys, this is not a joke, or a 'picture' that was made,' witness and pilot Captain Ruud Van Pangemanan said in his video. 'This is my experience of seeing something strange'

Commercial pilots with a Nigerian airline recorded what one described as 'a UFO anomaly... in the sky and dancing' during an overnight flight above north Africa (pictured) 

The pilot and vlogger also gave some additional details on timing of the sighting, stating that it occurred 30 minutes after takeoff. 

In the comments below his YouTube posting, other pilots chimed in with their own stories of seeing similarly eerie UFOs while on duty.

'I use to fly the 747. I witnessed the same type of light flying over the sea of Japan on the way to Korea,' one pilot, named Paul Bishop, said. 

'A month later another pilot told me he witnessed the same thing over the Pacific and another said he saw it over Canada,' he added. 

DailyMail.com has reached out to Capt Van Pangemanan seeking more information on the sighting and will update this article when they reply.  

According to his Instagram account, the pilot has 32 years of flying experience that has more than 130,000 followers.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

19-11-2024 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

Is there life beyond the stars? This is one of those questions that have existed for centuries, and intrigued societies and great thinkers from the dawn of civilization. “Surely there is someone else out there in the distance,” they thought, and spoke in hushed tones about the mysteries that they could not explain. And so, generation by generation, century by century, the myths of the aliens remained, until a quite peculiar theory was born - the theory of the ancient aliens. Its adherents claim that extraterrestrial beings do exist, and that they visited our planet at the dawn of mankind, influencing its development and creating many ancient relics whose provenance cannot be explained today. These enduring mysteries are a dividing wedge between the scientific world and those who believe in something beyond the stars. But at the end of the day, is there truth to these beliefs?

• Elon Musk's “Ancient Aliens” Twittersphere Controversy Continues
• Belief in Alien Visits to Earth is Spiraling Out of Control…

Ancient Aliens or Ancient Artisans?

The theory of ancient aliens remains quite popular, even in our modern age when we think we have answers for many things around us. Ancient alien theorists claim that there is ample evidence of extraterrestrial visitations, scattered throughout human history. They point out mysterious artifacts, stunning architectural wonders, and traditional myths that - in their view - cannot be explained by the capabilities of ancient societies and civilizations.

But there are many who oppose these ideas, always siding with mainstream society, urging people to observe things from an empirical point of view - if there isn’t sufficient evidence to support it, the theory should be disregarded.

And then there are those who go to the extremes, claiming that we are a freak of nature, and are the only living beings in the universe, and that the places beyond the stars are simply barren.

And so the war of views continues. It has been going on for many decades now. The ancient aliens theory and the concept of extraterrestrials visiting ancient peoples gained major popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. Controversial authors such as Erich von Däniken popularized the idea during this decade. Däniken’s best-selling book, “Chariots of the Gods?”, published in 1968, became a major hit and the theory quickly gained many adherents. The author proposed that many of the world’s best-known wonders are linked to extraterrestrial visitations, such as the enormous Naza Lines in Peru, the Great Pyramids in Egypt, the Stonehenge in England, and many others. Without direct proof that they were built by humans - and without an explanation how they would do it in the first place - Däniken quickly pinned them on the aliens.

• Starseeds: Psychologists On Why Some People Think They’re Aliens Living On Earth
• The Alien Petroglyphs of Chile’s Valle del Encanto

Von Däniken suggests that the Nazca lines (200 BC– 700 AD) in Peru could be "landing strips" for alien spacecraft. 

(CC BY-SA 2.5 es)

Following the release of this book, the ancient alien theory gained momentum. Further books, such as “Gods from Outer Space” and “The Gods Were Astronauts”, as well as a number of documentaries, movies, and popular series all gave their own distinct views on these theories. In time, the theory incorporated claims that not only great structures were alien-made, but also religions, mythologies, and many innovations in history. And most of all, the theory posits that the Gods of ancient civilizations were actually alien beings, misinterpreted as deities by the primitive humans. And so came to be the theory of ancient aliens.

But can it be proven?

Is There Evidence of Ancient Aliens?

Those who staunchly believe that our distant ancestors came face-to-face with beings from outer space often point to what they consider compelling evidence that this is, in fact, true. However, this evidence is often based on the interpretation of texts, ancient artifacts, and major architectural feats. One evidence that they offer is the collection of Nazca Lines in Peru. These enormous geoglyphs, situated in the deserts of southern Peru, can only be seen from a great height. Those believing in ancient aliens claim that these lines were created as “landing strips” or messages for extraterrestrial visitors, exactly because they can only be seen from the air. Could the ancient Nazca people have observed spacecraft high above them, leaving these drawings as a message?

And, of course, the unexplained architectural marvels are always offered as clear evidence of alien visitation. For example, the site of Puma Punku in Bolivia is always mentioned. It is made of enormous stone blocks, some of which weigh well over 100 tons, all of which were carved with incredible precision and fitted precisely without the use of mortar. How was such precision achieved? These theorists say that the stones could not be carved like that, not without the use of very advanced machinery and technology, which could have only arrived from beyond the stars.

Puma Punku Stone Blocks – Bolivia. 

(Adwo /Adobe Stock)

Without a doubt, the myths of the Anunnaki are the most frequently offered evidence of extraterrestrial ancients. These ancient Sumerian texts speak of the so-called Anunnaki, a group of deities described as arriving on Earth to create humanity. Ancient alien theorists propose that this is the unopposable evidence that extraterrestrials genetically engineered humans for their own purposes and pushed forward the formation of the world’s first civilizations.

Akkadian cylinder seal dating to circa 2300 BC depicting the deities Inanna, Utu, and Enki, three members of the Anunnaki.

(Public Domain)

The same goes for the Great Pyramids of Giza, which are usually the first to pop-up in talks of ancient aliens. The sheer size, perfect alignment with the cardinal directions, and incredible precision with which it was made and aligned with the celestial bodies, could have only been achieved with extraterrestrial assistance.

Science v. Belief: Who Wins?

The ancient alien theory became a proper trend in the recent years, but even so modern science continues to adamantly discredit it, unconvinced. Most scholars simply dismiss these claims, pointing out that they were built upon misinterpretation of evidence, misunderstanding, and underestimating our ancestors. A key counter argument to these theories is simply human ingenuity and ability. Archaeologists have long pointed out that our ancestors were not as primitive or clueless as we might think, and when presented with ample time and workforce, they could have achieved some truly stunning achievements. Are we simply underestimating them?

Many engineers and archaeologists stepped forward and demonstrated the construction techniques that were used to build many ancient structures, such as Stonehenge or megaliths. They all agree that such structures were well within the capabilities of ancient societies. Even though they used rudimentary materials and tools, they were still capable of organizing a massive workforce for their projects and coming up with innovative methods that would make their work easier and feasible.

Sunrise at Stonehenge on the summer solstice, 21 June 2005.

(Andrew Dunn, 2 /CC BY 2.0)

Scholars also try to provide a logical interpretation and explanation of the texts and myths that are commonly seen as connected to aliens. For example, they argue that many of the ancient religious and mythical texts are symbolic or metaphorical, and not literal descriptions of events. And many of the similarities that are shared amongst ancient cultures, such as their ideas, myths, beliefs, gods, and art, are not necessarily explained by extraterrestrial meddling. Instead, we can safely conclude that they were spread through cultural diffusion, through migration, trade, and conquest. There is also the independent invention of the same thing - in completely different cultures. This explains the appearance of pyramids in many ancient civilizations: this is a common architectural form that advanced cultures could have “invented” without anyone’s intervention.

Skepticism and Inquiry

To those who teeter at the edge, not knowing what to believe at the end of the day, it is crucial to offer advice. Sure, the idea of ancient alien visitors and superior high-tech innovations in the neolithic is definitely captivating. But it should still be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. After all, such extraordinary claims require equally extraordinary evidence. However, much of the evidence that ancient alien theorists provide is rooted in speculation, conjecture, assumption, or free interpretation. And it always ends on the note that our ancestors were simply incapable of achieving any great feats, even when presented with ample time and many laborers.

But it is important to note that science bases everything on evidence - and truth is its only driving force. Repeatedly it has proven many things from our history and given explanations for many things that we previously had no knowledge on. From the secrets of the universe to the relics of our past, science seemingly pierced every mystery. But some evidence simply does not exist, even in the scientific world. And that is the evidence that extraterrestrials exist, and that they visited planet Earth in the past.

In the ongoing clash between the scientific world and the adherents of the ancient alien theory, the former always urges the latter to view our ancestors in a different light. To give credit where credit is due, and to understand that ancient humans were great thinkers, and observed the nature around them in a logical and innovative way, which allowed them to come up with many great inventions and creations. The Baghdad battery, the Antikythera mechanism, the hydraulics, navigation, sailing - the list of ancient achievements is never-ending, and the idea of extraterrestrial involvement is completely unnecessary in any of them. That is simply because those that came before us were not so feeble after all.

Antikythera mechanism. 

(CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Masters of Past and Future Earth

“If we want to set out on the arduous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first step begin to doubt everything that we previously accepted as correct and true. Can we still afford to close our eyes and stop up our ears because new ideas are supposed to be heretical and absurd?”

― Erich von Däniken, Chariots of The Gods

When there is something which we cannot explain, we cannot understand, or cannot comprehend at all, we often reach for the stars to find the answers, as if all the truth of the world lies in that distant space. And yet, the answers never come - only speculation, only daydreams, and only imagination. The scientific world fires back with its factual data, the sheer evidence, and the unearthed, tangible history. In it, there are never extraterrestrials. There are only the achievements of mankind, fueled by natural knowledge gathered for hundreds of thousands of years before the emergence of the first civilizations.

Yet even so, there are those things from history that not even science can confirm or explain. There are those creations that defy all sense of reason and logic, leaving us neither amongst the stars nor on the hard ground - but somewhere in between. Where, then, do we search for answers, if not in the great beyond?

Top image: AI image of a flying saucer coming out from clouds on pyramids. Source: JackBoiler/Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

VIDEOS

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena }

19-11-2024 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

In a rare joint hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," members of the U.S. Congress recently convened to explore whether the government is hiding information about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), also known as UFOs.

The hearing, led by the House Oversight Committee’s cybersecurity, IT, and innovation subcommittees, came as public and political pressure mounts for the government to address the increasing reports of unexplained aerial objects. While the Pentagon has consistently found no evidence of alien technology in UAPs, new witness testimonies point to a deeply classified and potentially wide-ranging investigation into these phenomena, reports NPR.

Explosive Testimonies from Four Key Experts

Four experts provided written and oral testimonies at Wednesday’s hearing, each stressing the need for greater transparency. Journalist Michael Shellenberger, author Luis Elizondo, former NASA administrator Michael Gold, and retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet offered distinct insights and called for an end to secrecy around the U.S. government’s UAP investigations.

Michael Shellenberger presented a 214-page document chronicling UAP incidents from 1947 to 2023 and cited sources alleging that the Department of Defense operates a covert project, code-named “Immaculate Constellation,” dedicated to tracking and studying UAPs. Shellenberger argued that secretive programs like this could erode public trust and demanded transparency legislation from Congress to provide clarity on UAPs.

Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, asserted that some UAPs are not of human origin and that governments worldwide are engaged in a high-stakes arms race to reverse-engineer these technologies. In his written testimony he writes:

"Let me be clear: UAP are real. … Advanced technologies not made by our Government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries."

When asked directly by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) if the U.S. is running secret crash retrieval programs designed to reverse-engineer alien craft, Elizondo responded, "Yes."

• The Rendlesham Forest UFO Sightings: An Unresolved Enquiry
• The Ancient History of UFOs and the Oppenheimer-Einstein Report

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduction speech at the hearing.

(YouTube screenshot)

Retired Admiral Tim Gallaudet recounted his personal experience with UAPs, referencing the “Go Fast” video, a 2015 Navy recording showing a fast-moving, unidentified object that displayed "flight characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal." He further alleged that the video file mysteriously vanished from Navy accounts soon after it was shared.

Michael Gold, a former associate administrator at NASA, emphasized the need to normalize scientific inquiry around UAPs, lamenting the stigma attached to discussing such phenomena. He called for NASA to receive dedicated funding to develop new tools for examining UAPs, which could lead to groundbreaking discoveries.

The Daily Mail comments:

“It's hard to imagine four people this different passionately agreeing on something as controversial and career-jeopardizing as a massive, government cover-up on UFOs — and yet they do.”

• ‘Clearest Photo Ever’ of a Huge UFO, Advanced Military Tech, Or Just A Rock In Water?
• CIA Document Dump Reveals 70 Years Of US Government UFO Info

“Immaculate Constellation”: A Secret Program with Far-Reaching Implications?

Shellenberger’s testimony revealed that “Immaculate Constellation” allegedly utilizes advanced tools to capture high-quality imagery of UAPs and even coordinates with fighter jets like the F-22 to intercept these objects.

According to Shellenberger, a whistleblower report alleges that an F-22 was once surrounded by a group of UAPs that boxed in the jet, suggesting an organized response from the unidentified objects.

The entire report on 'Immaculate Constellation' - the allegedly illegal 'Unacknowledged Special Access Program' (USAP) about UFOs that was leaked to Shellenberger — has now been posted online. Shellenberger told his followers on X that the hearing's co-lead, Rep Nancy Mace, was responsible for the decision to release this eleven-page document [PDF], reports the Daily Mail.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena }

19-11-2024 om 17:33 geschreven door peter  

Who are the Nephilim and what do they represent? Are they biblical giants? What does the term literally translate to, and why does the brief mention of them in the Book of Genesis show resemblance to other mythologies? The Nephilim have been a topic of great controversy. Many scholars, both independent and accredited, have dedicated much of their lives to answer these questions. It wasn’t until the discovery and translation of the Book of 1Enoch that we were finally given a better understanding of these Nephilim, but is it a proper understanding?

This detailed analysis will incorporate the theology during the proposed time of writing for the verses, grammatical study in Hebrew and Aramaic word forms, and even external influences that would have played a role in the region.

• Were All The Nephilim Giants Or Men Of Renown?
• Mighty Gilgamesh: Archetype Of The Nephilim

Some Grammatical Clues

In the past century, many independent scholars have taken the opportunity to exploit the Nephilim to their advantage. Zecharia Sitchin was one of those individuals, who proposed that the Nephilim were nothing more than a god-like race with the knowledge and technology to navigate the heavens, who came to earth and created mankind as slave labor mining rare materials. Sitchin had jumped on the chance to translate the Nephilim as: (1) those who came down from above, (2) those who were cast down, and (3) people of the fiery rockets. These made-up epithets are clearly ridiculous and groundless. The Hebrew verb for ‘to go’ or ‘to come down, descend’ is  yarad which shows no relation to the term in question. He then goes on to identify the Nephilim with the Sumerian deities, claiming that the Sumerians knew of their existence and that they came from a planet called Nibiru. According to Sitchin, Nibiru completed its rotation around our sun every 3600 or so earth years. The sources cited came from his mistranslated Mesopotamian inscriptions and cylinder seal impressions. Many others have tried to follow in Zecharia Sitchin’s footsteps, such as Alan Alford, but have quickly repealed their theories, claiming it was too outlandish of an idea. It was in his second book,  The Phoenix Solution, that Alan Alford retracted his ancient astronaut theories. Apparently, this made such a powerful impact that Zecharia Sitchin threatened Alan Alford with a 50 million dollar lawsuit on the grounds that Alford’s comments discredited Sitchin’s theories and destroyed his reputation.

Figure 1 - Stela depicting image of Baal Haddad in a smiting position.

Then there was Andrew Collins, using the sons of God and the Nephilim to hint at a forgotten race. This race allegedly knew and shared all the forbidden arts and sciences with humanity, thus leading them to their corruption and the Flood of Noah. Much of what Collins proposes, it seems, may be based on earlier works, such as that belonging to Sitchin. For example, Collins uses translations similar to Sitchin’s for the noun Nephilim.

In his book, From the Ashes of Angels, Collin’s clearly displays his lack of knowledge in biblical Hebrew; confusing the Nephilim with the sons of God, when it was the sons of God who supposedly had fallen (unto the daughters of men) and not the Nephilim. It would seem that most of these authors attempt to link the root word for the plural Nephilim with the Hebrew singular word of naphal. naphal means ‘to fall’ or ‘to fall in battle, by the sword’, ‘to be killed’, ‘to be fallen’ and also ‘to fall unto/ upon.’ All of these definitions display characteristics not held by the Nephilim or, as I will point out later in this article, the sons of God.

We first read of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4. This is one of two verses to mention the Nephilim three times throughout the entire Pentateuch. Genesis 6:4 reads:

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

The biggest clues to the identification of the Nephilim will come from Numbers 13:33:

And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Taking an interpretation of the Nephilim as the ‘people of the fiery rockets’ again holds no credibility when examining the term itself and the surrounding grammar of Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33. The word was left untranslated by the Revisers, the name of one of the Canaanite tribes. The Revisors have, in fact, translated the Hebrew gibborim, in Genesis 6:4, as ‘mighty men,’ which will be a key point in the coming conclusions. When the Old Testament was first translated to the Greek language, the word for Nephilim read gigantes, the Greek word for giants. This is confirmed in Numbers 13:33 with the description of the Israelites when compared to the race of giants.

It is extremely important for the reader to understand that in Hebrew grammar, the singular naphal cannot form the plural Nephilim. If we were to follow grammatical rules within the language, we would end up with the plural nophelim. Clearly this is not the same as Nephilim, and we can now see that it is impossible for naphal to be the root word used. A detailed analysis of the characteristics held by the Nephilim will further prove this in the section below. One other area of concern is that nophelim is not in the plural passive (perfect) form, but instead a plural active (imperfect), indicating that these beings are ‘falling’ and have not ‘fallen’. Now what have the Nephilim fallen from? The answer is nothing. If a link were to be established for someone(s) falling from God’s grace it would have to go to the sons of God as is apparent in the post-Exilic and not in the pre-Exilic literature. The biggest clue to the identification of the word’s root can be found in Numbers 13:33. The word Nephilim is used twice in this verse, but oddly enough, is spelled differently. Many have wondered what this could mean. In the first occurrence we find:

Top image: The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Public Domain)

By Petros Koutoupis

VIDEOS

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

19-11-2024 om 17:18 geschreven door peter  

A sample of the Moon’s far side retrieved by Chang’e-6 contains 2.83-billion-year-old basalt

Abstract

Open in viewer

Open in viewer

Radioisotope dating

The thirty-three low-Ti basaltic clasts were used for Pb isotope measurements (data S3). Zr-bearing minerals (number of analyses n = 44), apatite (n = 78), potassium (K)-rich phases (K-feldspar, K-glass, n = 54) and troilite (n = 11) were analyzed in a secondary ion mass spectrometer using a primary beam of O^- ions with ~3 μm, ~5 μm, ~15 μm and ~15 μm spot sizes, respectively (fig. S3). From the 187 individual measurements, 60 were discarded due to having elevated ²⁰⁴Pb/²⁰⁶Pb ratios, which indicates terrestrial contamination (21). The remaining 127 measurements were used to construct a Pb-Pb isochron (line of constant age) (Fig. 3A). Fitting a linear model to the data indicates a mean age of 2830 ± 5 Ma [mean squared weighted deviation (MSWD) = 0.53, 95% confidence level].

Open in viewer

In seventeen of the low-Ti basaltic clasts, we identified clean grains of plagioclase - those that are free of mineral inclusions, mesostasis pockets, or mesostasis domains - making them suitable for analysis of RbSr isotopes (fig. S4). A total of thirty-two clean plagioclase grains and twenty-seven plagioclase grains with various amount of late-stage mesostasis (data S4) were measured using multiple-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (21). The Rb-Sr measurements of grains with mesostasis domains and clean plagioclase follow a single isochron, with the clean plagioclase close to the initial ratio (Fig. 3B). The Rb-Sr isochron has a fitted model age of 2839 ± 95 Ma (MSWD = 2.3, 95% confidence level) and initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of 0.69927 ± 0.00004 (2σ). This Rb-Sr age is consistent with (but less precise than) that derived from the Pb-Pb measurements.

The consistent ages and pyroxene composition (fig. S2B) indicate that the measured low-Ti basaltic clasts probably have a common origin. We adopt the higher precision Pb-Pb age of 2830 ± 5 Ma and interpret it as the crystallization age of the low-Ti basalt unit. This is older than the 2.0 Ga basalt sampled by CE-5 (7, 8), but demonstrates that volcanism occurred more recently than 3.0 Ga on both the near- and far-sides of the Moon.

Origin of the parent magma

We consider the intermediate-Ti and low-Ti basalt units identified by remote sensing as likely corresponding to the low-Ti and VLT basalts in our sample, respectively, on the basis of their pyroxene compositional trends (fig. S2). Those trends indicate that extensive evolution of the parent magmas increased the TiO₂ contents of the erupted lava to the low-Ti and intermediate-Ti categories (19). The Ti abundances we measured in the pyroxene grains are lower (data S1 and fig. S2A) than we expected from the remote sensing data (Fig. 1C). We regard this discrepancy as likely due to the very different sampling scales. The remote sensing TiO₂ measurement is an average value of a large area (20 m pixel⁻¹ in Fig. 1B), whereas the scooped soil sample collected by CE-6 was from an area of less than 1 m². Although we conclude that the low-Ti basaltic clasts are representative of the mare basalts local to the sampling site (21), we are unable to determine the provenance of the VLT clasts. They could be derived from the older mare unit to the east of the CE-6 landing site (Fig. 1A), or be fragments of underlying mare units that were excavated to the surface by impacts, or were transported to the sample site from more distant locations (19).

It has been suggested that lunar magmatism was sustained by radiogenic heating from KREEP components in the mantle sources of the magmas (24). However, studies of CE-5 basalt (25) and some ~3.0 Ga lunar meteorites (26) have found that these younger basalts do not contain a KREEP component. Because the CE-6 low-Ti basalt records similarly young basaltic volcanic activity on the farside, we investigate whether the mantle source contained a KREEP component by examining the initial Sr-Nd isotopic compositions and initial ²³⁸U/²⁰⁴Pb ratio (μ value).

We select the five analyses of troilites in the CE-6 basaltic clasts that have the highest measured ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb ratios (data S2), 1.090 ± 0.007 (2σ), which we assume represents the initial ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb composition. The initial ²⁰⁴Pb/²⁰⁶Pb ratio is more difficult to determine due to the low current abundance of ²⁰⁴Pb. We therefore constrain the initial ²⁰⁴Pb/²⁰⁶Pb ratio using the estimated initial ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb and the best-fitting Pb-Pb isochron (Fig. 3A), which yields an initial ²⁰⁴Pb/²⁰⁶Pb of 0.00563 ± 0.00013 (2σ). We then use a two-stage lunar Pb isotopic evolution model (27) to estimate the μ value of the CE-6 low-Ti basalt mantle source. The model assumes the Moon formed at 4500 Ma and evolved as a single body, with initial Pb isotopes equal to the isotopic standard Canyon Diablo Troilite (28) and had a μ value of 460. Beginning at 4376 Ma in the model, the Moon differentiated to produce different mantle sources (27). Our application of this model indicates a μ value of 355 ± 8 for the CE-6 low-Ti basalt mantle source (Fig. 4A). This is much lower than the μ values of KREEP-rich basalts [> 2000 (27)] and the PKT basalt from CE-5 [~680 (7, 8)].

Open in viewer

The 32 clean plagioclase measurements yield an average initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of 0.69922 ± 0.00013 (2σ), which is consistent with the initial ratio determined from the fitted Rb-Sr isochron (0.69927 ± 0.00004, 2σ), and lower than those of CE-5 basalts and most Apollo mare basalts (fig. S5A). We measured Sm-Nd isotopic compositions of domains containing late-stage mesostasis with high proportions of apatite in the CE-6 low-Ti basalt (fig. S4 and data S5). We find the ¹⁴⁷Sm/¹⁴⁴Nd ratios vary from 0.2049 to 0.2384, and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd from 0.51370 ± 0.00007 (2σ) to 0.51424 ± 0.00013 (2σ). The averaged initial ε_Nd (defined in equation S1) is 17.2 ± 2.4 (2σ, n = 8), which is higher than other lunar samples (fig. S5B).

We calculate the expected evolution of the depleted mantle and urKREEP (primordial KREEP from the lunar magma ocean) using an initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of 0.69903 and a chondrite-like initial ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd. For the depleted mantle, ⁸⁷Rb/⁸⁶Sr and ¹⁴⁷Sm/¹⁴⁴Nd were set to 0.005 and 0.286, respectively. For urKREEP, they were set to 0.206 and 0.158, respectively, fitted to the plotted lunar samples in Fig. 4B, which shows the initial Sr-Nd isotopes of the CE-6 low-Ti basalt are compatible with our calculated Sr-Nd isotopic evolution trajectory for depleted lunar mantle with ⁸⁷Rb/⁸⁶Sr = 0.005 and ¹⁴⁷Sm/¹⁴⁴Nd = 0.286. The initial Sr-Nd -Pb isotopes of the CE-6 low-Ti basalt indicate a mantle source depleted in incompatible elements (elements that tend to remain in melts during partial melting or crystallization), containing no measurable KREEP component. The farside CE-6 low-Ti basalts, and nearside CE-5 basalts, indicate that heat-producing KREEP components were probably not responsible for the generation of their parent magmas.

It has been suggested that the asymmetry of lunar nearside and farside volcanic activity is due to differences in the thickness of the Moon’s crust (4, 29). The farside has a thicker crust [mean ~50 km compared to ~30 km on the nearside (30)], which could explain the lower level of volcanism. However, the SPA basin on the farside has a thinner crust (20-30 km (30)) than the mean, but still does not contain abundant mare basalts. The giant impact basins on the nearside, such as Imbrium, Serenitatis and Tranquillitatis, are all flooded by mare basalts, whereas the SPA basin, the largest lunar impact basin, contains few volcanic deposits (18).

The Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic signature of the CE-6 low-Ti basalt indicates it was sourced from a non-KREEP mantle source, whereas KREEP is widespread on the nearside. The very depleted mantle source could be related to the impact that formed the SPA basin, which had an excavation depth of 100 km (31). The SPA impact might have redistributed any sub-crustal KREEP material to the nearside of the Moon (11, 12), and induced partial melting of the mantle beneath the SPA basin, leaving a depleted mantle below SPA with low U/Pb and Rb/Sr ratios, and a high Sm/Nd ratio (fig. S6). Over time, Sr, Nd and Pb isotopic ratios evolved due to radioactive decay until they matched the isotopic compositions we measured for the CE-6 low-Ti basalts. Depleted mantle material would have a higher melting point temperature than mantle material that did contain a KREEP component (32). KREEP contains elements that generate heat through radioactivity (including K, Th and U), so the absence of KREEP in the CE-6 mantle source would correspond to a low heat flow in the SPA basin. We suggest a combination of these factors could explain the rarity of mare volcanism in the SPA basin.

Implications for lunar crater chronology

Isotopic dating provides absolute ages for locations on the Moon from which samples have been retrieved. The ages of other locations are indirectly estimated from the number and size of impact craters, calibrated to the locations with measured absolute ages. Models of this lunar crater chronology have shown that the impact rate on the Moon has varied over time (33). The lunar impact flux was high at early times, then rapidly declined to a nearly constant rate, but timing of that transition is poorly constrained. The canonical chronology model predicts that the transition occurred at ~3.0 Ga (33). However, the only absolute age available between ~3.0 to 0.8 Ga was the CE-5 basalts (7, 8). Our isotopic dating of the CE-6 mare basalt provides an additional calibration point at ~2.8 Ga.

Adding the CE-6 data point to a crater chronology model requires a determination of N(1), the spatial density of impact craters with diameter D ≥1 km, at the landing site. Prior to the launch of CE-6, predictions for the age of the landing site ranged from 2.42 to 3.33 Ga (5, 14, 19, 34) due to differences in the determinations of N(1). We adopt N(1) = (2.01 ± 0.90) × 10⁻³ km⁻² from a study (35) of craters with diameters ~200 m to 2 km in multiple areas of the mare beneath the CE-6 landing site. We discuss this choice of N(1) in Supplementary Text.

Using the measured date and N(1) value for the CE-6 landing site, we re-calibrate the lunar crater chronology model using least square fitting (Fig. 5A). We find

Open in viewer

N= 1.94 × 10⁻¹⁴(e^7.196t – 1) + 7.652 × 10⁻⁴t (1)

(1)

where t is time in Ga. This chronology model implies a constant impact flux after 2.83 Ga, slightly earlier than the canonical model (Fig. 5B).

{ https://www.science.org/journal/science }

19-11-2024 om 17:03 geschreven door peter  

Story by Samir Sebti

 

Astronomers at the Complutense University of Madrid first spotted this intriguing event using a powerful telescope in Sutherland, South Africa. The tiny asteroid, measuring just 37 feet wide, has been temporarily ensnared by Earth’s gravitational pull, transforming it into a mini-moon.

Richard Binzel, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), explains, “These happen with some frequency, but we rarely see them because they’re very small and very hard to detect. Only recently has our survey capability reached the point of spotting them routinely.”

While Earth’s primary moon boasts a diameter of 2,159 miles, 2024 PT5 is comparatively minuscule. To put it in perspective :

• Earth’s moon : 2,159 miles wide
• Asteroid 2024 PT5 : 37 feet wide$
• Size difference : Earth’s moon is over 300,000 times wider

Despite its small size, this temporary satellite provides valuable insights into our cosmic neighborhood and the dynamics of near-Earth objects.

The journey of Earth’s new mini-moon

Asteroid 2024 PT5 belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a group of space rocks that follow orbits similar to Earth’s, approximately 93 million miles from the sun. Some Arjuna asteroids can approach our planet at a close range of around 2.8 million miles, traveling at relatively low velocities of less than 2,200 miles per hour.

According to data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons system, 2024 PT5’s stay in Earth’s orbit will be brief. The capture began at 3 :54 p.m. EDT on September 29, 2024, and is expected to end at 11 :43 a.m. EDT on November 25, 2024.

Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, a professor and mini-moon expert from the Complutense University, likens the asteroid’s behavior to that of a window shopper. He states, “Asteroid 2024 PT5 will not describe a full orbit around Earth. You may say that if a true satellite is like a customer buying goods inside a store, objects like 2024 PT5 are window shoppers.”

This celestial visitor’s journey serves as a reminder of the dynamic nature of our solar system. While it won’t remain in Earth’s orbit for billions of years like our primary moon, its fleeting presence offers a unique opportunity for scientific study.

The significance of mini-moons in astronomical research

Mini-moons like 2024 PT5 provide scientists with valuable opportunities to study near-Earth objects up close. These temporary captures act as natural cosmic laboratories, offering insights into the composition of asteroids and the intricate workings of our solar system.

Binzel emphasizes the importance of these events, stating, “These temporary captures are natural cosmic laboratories. They help us understand the small bodies that come close to Earth and could be important for future space missions.”

While mini-moons are too small and dim for most amateur astronomers to observe, they fall within the detection range of professional-grade telescopes. To spot 2024 PT5, one would need :

The study of mini-moons contributes to our understanding of near-Earth asteroids and their potential impact on our planet. By analyzing these temporary satellites, scientists can refine their models of asteroid behavior and improve our ability to predict and mitigate potential collisions.

Future implications and ongoing research

As technology advances, researchers hope to study these fleeting visitors more closely. Future missions may even attempt to gather samples or test new spacecraft designs using mini-moons as targets.

The discovery of 2024 PT5 and other mini-moons highlights the ever-changing nature of our cosmic environment. It serves as a reminder that our solar system is a dynamic place, full of surprises and opportunities for scientific exploration.

While Earth’s second moon may be temporary, its presence opens up new avenues for research and discovery. As we continue to scan the skies, who knows what other celestial wonders we might uncover ? The universe never ceases to amaze, and each new finding brings us one step closer to unraveling its mysteries.

{ https://dailygalaxy.com/category/astronomy/ }

18-11-2024 om 23:30 geschreven door peter  

The problems arise from the combination of Mars’ ultra-thin atmosphere—which is over 100 times thinner than Earth’s — and the ultra-large size of spacecraft needed for human missions, likely between 20 – 100 metric tons.

“Many people immediately conclude that landing humans on Mars should be easy,” Manning said back in 2007, “since we’ve landed successfully on the Moon and we routinely land human-carrying vehicles from space to Earth. And since Mars falls between the Earth and the Moon in size and in the amount of atmosphere, then the middle ground of Mars should be easy.”

But Mars’ atmosphere provides challenges not found on Earth or the Moon. A large, heavy spacecraft  streaking through Mars’ thin, volatile atmosphere only has just a few minutes to slow from incoming interplanetary speeds (for example, the Perseverance rover was traveling 12,100 mph [19,500 kph] when it reached Mars) to under Mach 1, and then quickly transition to a lander to slow to be able to touch down gently.

In 2007, the prevailing notion among EDL engineers was that there’s too little atmosphere to land like we do on Earth, but there is actually too much atmosphere on Mars to land heavy vehicles like we do on the Moon by using propulsive technology alone.

“We call it the Supersonic Transition Problem,” said Manning, again in 2007. “Unique to Mars, there is a velocity-altitude gap below Mach 5. The gap is between the delivery capability of large entry systems at Mars and the capability of super-and sub-sonic decelerator technologies to get below the speed of sound.”

The largest payload to land on Mars so far is the Perseverance rover, which has a mass of about 1 metric ton. Successfully landing Perseverance and its predecessor Curiosity required a complicated, Rube Goldberg-like series of maneuvers and devices such as the Sky Crane. Larger, human-rated vehicles will be coming in even faster and heavier, making them incredibly difficult to slow down.

“So, how do you slow down to subsonic speeds,” Manning said now in 2024 as the chief engineer at JPL, “to get to speeds where traditionally we know how to fire our engines to enable touchdown? We thought bigger parachutes or supersonic decelerators like LOFTID (Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator) tested by NASA) would allow us to maybe slow down better, but there were still issues with both those devices.”

“But there was one trick we didn’t know anything about it,” Manning continued. “How about using your propulsion system and firing the engines backwards —retro propulsion — while you are flying at supersonic speeds to shed velocity? Back in 2007, we didn’t know the answer to that. We didn’t even think it was possible.”

Why not? What could go wrong?

“When you fire engines backwards as you are moving through an atmosphere, there’s a shock front that forms and it would be moving around,” Manning explained, “so it could come along and whack the vehicle and cause it to go unstable or cause damage. You’re also flying right into the plume of the rocket engine exhaust, so there could be extra friction and heating possibilities on the vehicle.”

All of this is very hard to model and there was virtually no experience doing it, as in 2007, no one had ever used propulsive technology alone to slow and then land a spacecraft back on Earth. This is mostly because our planet’s beautiful, luxuriously thick atmosphere slows a spacecraft down easily, especially with a parachute or creative flying as the space shuttle did.

“People did study it a bit, and we came to the conclusion it would be great to try it and find out whether we could fire engines backwards and see what happens,” Manning mused, adding that there wasn’t any extra funding laying around to launch a rocket just to watch it come down again to see what happened.

But then, SpaceX started doing tests in attempt to land their Falcon 9’s first stage booster back on Earth to re-use them.

“SpaceX said they were going to try it,” Manning said, “And to do that they needed to slow the booster down in the supersonic phase while in Earth’s upper atmosphere. So, there’s a portion of the flight where they fire their engines backwards at supersonic speeds through a rarified atmosphere which is very much what’s like at Mars.”

As you can imagine, this was incredibly intriguing to EDL engineers thinking about future Mars missions.

After a few years of trial, error, and failures, on September 29, 2013, SpaceX performed the first supersonic retropropulsion (SRP) maneuver to decelerate the reentry of the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket. While it ultimately hit the ocean and was destroyed, the SRP actually worked to slow down the booster.

NASA asked if their EDL engineers could watch and study SpaceX’s data, and SpaceX readily agreed. Beginning in 2014, NASA and SpaceX formed a three-year public-private partnership centered on SRP data analysis called the NASA Propulsive Descent Technology (PDT) project.  The F9 boosters were outfitted with special instruments to collect data specifically on portions of the entry burn which fell within the range of Mach numbers and dynamic pressures expected at Mars. Additionally, there were visual and infrared imagery campaigns, flight reconstruction, and fluid dynamics analysis – all of which helped both NASA and SpaceX.

To everyone’s surprise and delight, it worked. On December 21, 2015, an F9 first stage returned and successfully landed on Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral, the first-ever orbital class rocket landing. This was a game changing demonstration of SRP, which advanced the knowledge and tested the technology of using SRP on Mars.

“Based on the analyses completed, the remaining SRP challenge is characterized as one of prudent flight systems engineering dependent on maturation of specific Mars flight systems, not technology advancement,” wrote an EDL team, detailing the results of the PDT project in a paper. In short, SpaceX’s success meant it wouldn’t require any fancy new technology or breaking the laws of physics to land large payloads on Mars.

“It turns out, we learned some new physics,” Manning said. They found that the shock front ‘bubble’ created around the vehicle by firing the engines somehow insulates the spacecraft from any buffeting, as well as from some of the heating.

EDL engineers now believe that SRP is the only Mars entry, descent and landing technology that is intrinsically scalable across a wide range and size of missions to shed enough velocity during atmospheric flight to enable safe landings. Alongside aerobraking, this is one of the leading means of landing heavy equipment, habitats and even humans on Mars.

But still, numerous issues remain unsolved when it comes to landing a human mission on Mars. Manning mentioned there are multiple unknowns, including how a big ship such as SpaceX’s Starship would be steered and flown through Mars’ atmosphere; can fins be used hypersonically or will the plasma thermal environment melt them? The amount of debris kicked up by large engines on human-sized ship could be fatal, especially for the engines you’d like to reuse for returning to orbit or to Earth, so how do you protect the engines and the ship? Mars can be quite windy, so what happens if you encounter wind shears or a dust storm during landing? What kind of landing legs will work for a large ship on Mars’ rocky surface? Then there are logistics problems such as how will all the infrastructure get established? How will ships be refueled to return home?

“This is all going to take a lot of time, more time than people realize,” Manning said. “One of the downsides of going to Mars is that it is hard to do trial and error unless you are very patient. The next time you can try again is 26 months later because of the timing of the launch windows between our two planets. Holy buckets, what a pain that is going to be! But I think we’re going to learn a lot whenever we can try it for the first time.”

And at least the supersonic retropropulsion question has been answered.

“We’re basically doing what Buck Rogers told us to do back in the 1930s: fire your engines backwards while you’re going really fast.”

2007 article: 

• The Mars Landing Approach: Getting Large Payloads to the Surface of the Red Planet

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

18-11-2024 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

By SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE 

At first glance at this creature, you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a sparkly pair of fake eyelashes.

But the creature is very much real and was discovered at the junction of three tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean.

Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute spotted the animal while using an underwater robot to scour the seabed.

The animal is a polychaete - a class of marine worms, more widely known as bristle worms.

'To describe this polychaete, one simply must use jazz hands — it is the only way to capture this deep-sea worm's dazzle!' the experts said in an Instagram post about the polychaete.

Footage of the creature has garnered huge interest on Instagram, with thousands of viewers flocking to the comments to discuss it.

One viewer described it as a 'forbidden toilet scrubber', while another called it a 'deep sea Xmas tree'.

And one joked: 'It looks like two eyelashes put together.'

At first glance at this creature, you'd be forgiven for mistaking it as a sparkly pair of fake eyelashes. But the creature is very much real and was discovered at the junction of three tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean

One viewer described it as a 'forbidden toilet scrubber', while another called it a 'deep sea Xmas tree'

The polychaete was spotted while ROV (remotely operated vehicle) pilots were exploring the Chile Margin.

'The international science team is exploring along the margin, a nearshore deep-sea feature where a submerged continental shelf extends from the country's west coast and drops steeply and suddenly into the Pacific Ocean,' the Schmidt Ocean Institute explained on Instagram.

'It runs the entire length of South America due to the subduction of the Pacific plate under the South American plate.

'The confluence of tectonic forces and terrestrial influences makes this margin a natural laboratory for investigating chemosynthetic and deep-sea environments that host animals like this [queue jazz hands] shimmering deep-sea worm.'

In a video posted to Schmidt Ocean Institute's Instagram account, the animal can be seen inching along the sea bed, with its iridescent bristles glimmering in the light.

Polychaete means 'many bristles', the experts explained.

'Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia covered in bristles called chaetae,' they wrote.

'Some worms are bioluminescent, but this sassy sparkler has protein structures in the bristles that make them iridescent.

In a video posted to Schmidt Ocean Institute's Instagram account, the animal can be seen inching along the sea bed, with its iridescent bristles glimmering in the light

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

18-11-2024 om 21:28 geschreven door peter  

By ZAC CAMPBELL

This is the hilarious moment that an octopus smacked a fish in the face while both animals were hunting together underwater. 

Video footage shows the tentacled creature appearing to be solely focused on finding food at the seabed with a nearby fish doing the same. 

With the pair appearing to forage in relative tranquility, the octopus comes out with a hugely unexpected move, swiping the fish away in anger as it got too close. 

The octopus then continues to moodily look for sustenance while the shocked fish is seen hurriedly swimming away to avoid further punishment from the irate mollusc. 

Stating its claim as an animal not to be crossed at the depths of the ocean, the octopus can then be seen prowling around for more food - but without challenging any further fish to a fight. 

Video footage shows the tentacled creature appearing to be solely focused on finding food at the seabed with a nearby fish doing the same

With the pair appearing to forage in peace next to one another, the octopus comes out with a hugely unexpected move, swiping the fish away in anger as it got too close

New research shows that there may be an explanation for the octopuses' behaviour, as it suggests that octopuses - previously thought to be solitary creatures - might sometimes socialise with fish in order to share the responsibility of hunting.

The findings broaden our understanding of the shared social life of octopuses and fish, scientists say.

In the past, the animals have been seen to hunt together for shared prey such as molluscs and crustaceans.

The new study sheds more light on this, revealing that when hunting prey together, some octopus and fish species appear to share leadership.

However, it is not always a harmonious group hunt, with the scientists observing aggression among group members, including fish displacing others by darting towards them, and octopuses punching some fish to the outer areas of the group.

After analysing data from 120 hours of dives, scientists found that leadership is shared for different types of decisions.

For example, goatfish specialised in deciding where the hunting pack moves - while the octopus decided whether and when the move would be made.

The authors note that although other types of mixed-species hunting is known - such as badger-coyote, mixed birds, and moray eel-grouper groups - they appear to be less flexible in using social information to change strategy compared to octopus-fish hunting groups.

Octopuses and fish hunt together, taking it in turns to lead according to a new study

Writing in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal, the authors say: 'These findings expand our current understanding of what leadership is and what sociality is.'

Eduardo Sampaio, from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany, and colleagues tracked octopus–fish hunting packs during scuba diving expeditions in the Red Sea.

They saw 13 hunting groups consisting of one day octopus and different species of fish, including gold-saddle goatfish and blacktip groupers.

The researchers suggest that this joint effort leads to better success compared to the octopus or fish acting alone.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

18-11-2024 om 21:00 geschreven door peter  

Tucker Carlson Says ‘There Are Forces That Are Not Human, Existing in a Spiritual Realm We Cannot See’

Tucker  Carlson believes that the U.S. government has entered into some agreement with entities thought to be aliens, who are not extraterrestrial but have always been present on Earth and maybe spiritual.

On Timcast IRL podcast, Carlson discusses the idea that there are non-human forces influencing human behavior, suggesting that these forces might exist in a spiritual realm. He mentions that many people refer to these beings as “dimensional beings” but expresses uncertainty about labeling them as angels or demons.

Carlson reflects on how people are influenced by good and evil forces beyond themselves, and he asserts that everyone, if introspective, can recognize these external influences. He also touches on the idea that creativity, particularly in art, might be driven by forces outside the individual, which artists often describe as “channeling.” Carlson implies that both positive and destructive acts are likely the result of these external spiritual forces acting upon people.

“So there are forces. That are not human, that do exist in a spiritual realm of some kind that we cannot see and that when you think about it, sort of make you think we live in an ant farm.”

Recently, Tucker Carlson said he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago, in an assault that he says left him bleeding and with scars from “claw marks”.

“That’s what happened to me. I had a direct experience with it,” said Carlson. Asked if he was referring to journalism, Carlson responded: “No, in my bed at night. I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs and mauled, physically mauled.”

Carlson, who said he still bears the scars, said his assailant was a “demon”. He added: “Or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.” He said at the time of the attack, he was asleep in bed. I was “totally confused, I woke up, and I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I was going to suffocate”, he said.

“I walked around outside and then I walked in and my wife and dogs had not woken up. And they’re very light sleepers. And then I had these terrible pains on my rib cage and on my shoulder, and I was just in my boxer shorts and I went and flipped on the light in the bathroom, and I had four claw marks on either side underneath my arms and on my left shoulder. And they’re bleeding.”

He added that he explained the encounter to an assistant, an evangelical Christian, who told him: “That happens, people are attacked in their bed by demons.” Carlson, who lives in the woods of Maine, did not say where the attack occurred, but called it a “transformative experience” that left him “seized with this very intense desire to read the Bible”.

In his 1969 book “Passport to Magonia: On UFOS, Folklore and Parallel Worlds,” Astronomer and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée argues for a “parallel universe co-existing with our own.” The idea was reiterated in Vallée’s subsequent writings. He summarized his objection in his 1990 paper “Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects”:

1. Unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the earth;
2. The humanoid body structure of the alleged “aliens” is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel;
3. The reported behavior in thousands of abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race;
4. The extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded human history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon;
5. The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives.

They are Jinn

In an interview with Whitley Strieber, former CIA officer Jim Semivan says he refers to the UFO, UAP, and Alien Phenomena as Jinn. He does not mean that in a religious way – credibility to the inter-dimensional hypothesis. (Source)

“This phenomenon does lie to you and it is very very deceitful at times. It will tell you things that sound wonderful but also make no sense and is it toying with us or is it using some kind of you know symbols that we don’t understand?“

I refer to them as a ‘Jinn’ because you know in Arab culture they’re sort of like us or they’re made out of quote-unquote fire or ether or whatever. But they also have the same kind of emotions but there’s good Jinn and there’s bad Jinn.”

Dr. Karla Turner claimed There Are Entities who can take our consciousness – out of our physical bodies, disable our control of our bodies, install one of their own entities, and use our bodies as vehicles for their own activities before returning our consciousness to our bodies. She died of Cancer within a year after her work was published.

Read also:

• This Mexican Scientist Claimed We Live in a Holographic Matrix, Disappears Mysteriously After It
• Erich Von Däniken Changed NASA Engineer Mind, Convincing Him To Consider Ezekiel Vision As Alien Spacecraft
• Tom DeLonge Claimed There’s A Massive Underground Pyramid In Alaska, Larger Than The Great Pyramid Of Giza, Potentially Suppressing Human Consciousness

Karla Turner was one of the few America’s alien abductees who found a respectable position in UFOlogy after she had made some strong claims about alien abductions.

Her extensive research into the subject revealed that aliens manipulate perception, control consciousness, cause unexplained illnesses and mental decline, and engage in gruesome activities in underground facilities.

Her findings highlight the alarming physical, psychological, and spiritual consequences faced by abductees, raising questions about the true nature and intentions of these extraterrestrial encounters.

In her book “Taken,” Karla Turner discussed the idea that some prominent abduction theorists state should be avoided — do not think of aliens as good and evil.

Dr. Turner claimed that “this cannot be done, nor should it be.” She continued that those who had been abducted have the right to know how their “participation” would be used by their abductors, under what circumstances and what reason would the abducted be “made a part of this agenda” since they have been “implanted, trained, and programmed to participate in some future scenario.” Don’t abductees have the right to know for what purpose “our minds, bodies, and souls will be used?”

Dr. Turner’s main concerns regarding alien abductions were the aliens’ cruelty towards abductees, both physically and mentally. Victims experienced traumatic events such as forced impregnation, painful miscarriages, and severe injuries.

She believed that the aliens had complete control over the minds of humans, using psychic technology to manipulate their perceptions and memories.

Ex-US Navy Officer Saw ‘Non-human Entities’ In His Bedroom

Matthew Roberts, a former cryptologist in the US Navy with 16 years of service, shared his experience and encounters with non-human entity during a Netflix series “Encounters.” He was present on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2015 during an event involving the now-famous “Gimbal footage.” (Click here to read the full article)

During his AMA on Reddit, Roberts described the non-human entities: “I saw ones that had blue skin and were tall. I saw very tall white ones that resembled Jack Skellington. I saw one that looked like a yard gnome. I saw some that appeared to radiate white light. I don’t know where they were from they never revealed that.”

Matthew Roberts explains that he never tried to film any of the encounters with non-human entities in his bedroom. When asked if he considered setting up a recording device, he mentions that these encounters often happen when individuals are in an altered state or when the entities appear in the sky with a craft, conveniently when the person does not have his cell phone.

He considered recording the experiences but decided against it. He reasons that it would not convince everyone, as some might think he faked it. Roberts believes the argument over the authenticity of any images would overshadow the main point, which is encouraging people to seek and have their own experiences with consciousness. He emphasizes that he does not need people to believe him; instead, he wants others to explore consciousness firsthand.

Roberts asserts that the truth of these experiences has been documented for thousands of years by various individuals, citing such authors as William Walker Atkinson, Mabel Collins, Joseph Campbell, Dr. John Mack, and Dr. Robert Moore. He challenges the notion that he could have orchestrated the biggest hoax in human history, suggesting that there may be something genuinely significant in these experiences.

He points to the wealth of evidence available for those willing to examine it, citing a podcast by Mark Gober called “Where is My Mind,” where accomplished scientists discuss their work on consciousness. Roberts believes that understanding consciousness surviving death is a crucial aspect of our existence, mentioning the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) and the substantial prizes offered for evidence of consciousness after death.

He suggested that these entities seem to have a significant level of control over the experiences people have, which contributes to why some individuals perceive these encounters as malevolent or evil. He acknowledged that many people who invest time and money into gathering evidence of these phenomena often end up without conclusive results.

{ https://howandwhys.com/ }

18-11-2024 om 18:49 geschreven door peter  

Dr. Steven Greer: Unveiling the Mysteries of Aliens, UFOs, and Government Secrets

Dr. Steven Greer, a globally renowned expert in ufology, has dedicated his life to uncovering the truths behind extraterrestrial encounters and UFO phenomena. As a former medical doctor turned full-time researcher, Dr. Greer’s insights and experiences provide a unique perspective on the intersection of extraterrestrial life, government secrecy, and advanced technology.

The Journey of Discovery: From Childhood to Ufology Pioneer

Dr. Greer’s fascination with extraterrestrial life began early. As an 8-year-old, he witnessed an unidentified flying object (UFO) in broad daylight. Despite his parents dismissing the sighting, the experience ignited a lifelong passion. Years later, as a teenager, he had another close encounter following a near-death experience that deepened his understanding of consciousness and the universe.

These early events laid the groundwork for his later work in ufology, where he combined scientific inquiry with a quest for understanding the nature of consciousness and extraterrestrial intelligence. His family background also played a role—his uncle worked on the lunar module for the Apollo mission, sparking young Greer’s interest in aerospace and technology.

Government Secrets and Rogue Operations

A pivotal moment in Dr. Greer’s career came in the 1990s when he was invited to brief high-ranking officials, including CIA directors and President Bill Clinton’s administration, on UFOs. He discovered that even top government officials were often denied access to classified UFO programs. This revelation highlighted the existence of rogue operations managing extraterrestrial technology beyond governmental oversight.

Dr. Greer uncovered a network of covert programs conducting advanced research on downed UFOs and extraterrestrial technology. He asserts that some of these operations involve man-made UFOs, crafted using reverse-engineered alien technology. According to Dr. Greer, these advanced vehicles, which defy gravity and conventional propulsion, have been in development since the mid-20th century.

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Human-Initiated Contact

Dr. Greer pioneered the concept of Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (CE-5), which involves human-initiated contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Unlike traditional encounters, CE-5 protocols involve meditation and focused intention to establish communication. Dr. Greer believes this approach fosters peaceful interactions and demonstrates humanity’s readiness for interstellar communication.

One notable CE-5 event occurred in Florida, where Dr. Greer and a team observed multiple UFOs appearing in response to their protocols. This and similar experiences reinforced his belief that contact with extraterrestrial beings could be achieved outside governmental frameworks.

The Threat Narrative: Disinformation and Control

Dr. Greer has consistently challenged the mainstream narrative framing extraterrestrials as a threat. He argues that much of this portrayal is a result of disinformation campaigns designed to manipulate public perception. He asserts that covert organizations exploit fear of the unknown to justify military spending and maintain control.

One example is the so-called “alien abduction” phenomena, which Dr. Greer claims are staged by rogue human factions using advanced technology to mimic extraterrestrial encounters. He also cites animal mutilations, often attributed to aliens, as orchestrated psychological warfare tactics.

The Lost Century: Suppressed Technology and a Brighter Future

Dr. Greer’s latest documentary, The Lost Century and How to Reclaim It, explores a century’s worth of suppressed technologies derived from extraterrestrial research. These technologies, he argues, have the potential to revolutionize energy, transportation, and global development. For instance, zero-point energy systems could eliminate dependence on fossil fuels, while advanced propulsion technologies could redefine space exploration.

However, Dr. Greer warns that these advancements remain hidden due to vested interests in maintaining the status quo. He emphasizes the need for transparency and global collaboration to unlock humanity’s full potential and address pressing challenges like poverty and environmental degradation.

Extraterrestrial Motives: Observing Humanity

According to Dr. Greer, extraterrestrial civilizations have been observing Earth for millennia, with modern activity intensifying after the advent of nuclear weapons. He believes their primary concern is the potential threat posed by humanity’s destructive capabilities, both to Earth and beyond. Despite their advanced technology, Dr. Greer maintains that these civilizations are fundamentally peaceful, seeking to guide humanity toward a more sustainable and enlightened path.

A Call for Disclosure and Action

Dr. Greer’s work highlights the urgent need for disclosure and accountability. He advocates for governments and private organizations to release classified information about UFOs and extraterrestrial technologies. Public awareness, he argues, is key to addressing the challenges posed by secrecy and fostering a global dialogue on the implications of extraterrestrial contact.

Through initiatives like the Disclosure Project and CE-5 protocols, Dr. Greer inspires individuals to take action, challenging them to approach the unknown with curiosity and hope rather than fear.

VIDEO:

• https://youtu.be/smaU21h706A

Dr. Steven Greer’s groundbreaking work has shed light on the complexities of extraterrestrial encounters, government secrecy, and advanced technology. His vision of a transparent and collaborative future offers a compelling roadmap for humanity to embrace its place in the cosmos. As interest in UFOs continues to grow, Dr. Greer’s message serves as both a wake-up call and an invitation to explore the infinite possibilities of the universe.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

18-11-2024 om 17:59 geschreven door peter  

(Credit: Avi Loeb/Galileo Project)

Altogether, the Galileo Project Observatory is recording a continuous movie of the sky. The data is uploaded to a computer system and subsequently analyzed by machine-learning algorithms. The computer software is optimized to identify outliers among familiar insects, birds, leaves, clouds, balloons, drones, airplanes, and satellites that appear in the data stream.

The Galileo Project was inaugurated on July 26, 2021. Our exceptional research team took two years to design and assemble the hardware components, another half a year to calibrate the instruments, and a full year to analyze the preliminary commissioning data collected from January through May 2024. This data contains half a million objects observed during these five months. The Galileo Project team is currently in the process of establishing two additional observatories in other locations, with the goal of tripling its data collection rate within the next six months.

Left: Mechanical design drawing of the infrared camera array (Dalek). Right: A photograph of the real Dalek array at the Observatory.

(Image credit: Galileo Project)

The workhorse of the uniquely designed GP Observatories is called Dalek, an array of eight uncooled infrared cameras placed on half a sphere. Despite its name being inspired by the famous villains of Doctor Who, Dalek more closely resembles the head of the fictional robot character R2-D2 in the film Star Wars.

U.S. government officials have publicly admitted the puzzling appearance of unfamiliar objects near Earth. Reports on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Avril Haines, led in 2022 to the establishment of a new office under DNI and the Department of Defense called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

“To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently,” the office has previously conveyed as its official position on claims that extraterrestrial technologies might have been recovered and studied by the United States in the past.

As of now, there is little publicly available scientific data on UAPs with flight properties that lie outside the performance envelope of known phenomena. The Galileo Project Observatories offer an array of multimodal, multispectral sensors that continuously monitor the sky and acquire UAP data via a rigorous long-term census of all aerial phenomena to check for any object that may not be of terrestrial origin.

In addition to performing intrinsic and thermal calibrations, Dalek was commissioned through a novel extrinsic calibration method. The Galileo Project radio sensor collected airplane positions from Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data. Using machine learning software, such as the You Only Look Once (YOLO) model for object detection and the Simple Online and Realtime Tracking (SORT) algorithm for trajectory reconstruction, the GP team established a baseline for assessing the performance of the GP Observatory over five months of field operation.

A collection of sensors in the Galileo Project Observatory at Harvard University monitors the entire sky in infrared, optical, radio, and audio

(Credit: The Galileo Project).

Using an automatically generated data set derived from ADS-B-data, a dataset of synthetic three-dimensional trajectories, and a hand-labeled real-world dataset, the GP team found an acceptance rate (fraction of airplanes passing in the effective field of view of at least one camera that is recorded) of 41% for ADS-B equipped aircraft and a mean frame-by-frame aircraft detection efficiency (fraction of recorded airplanes in individual frames which are successfully detected) of 36%. The detection efficiency depends on weather conditions, distance, and object size.

Left: Examples of reconstructed trajectory data points. Right: The GP research team overlayed three snapshots of the frame-by-frame object YOLO detections inside green outlines and annotated with red text for each corresponding reconstructed object. The snapshots are taken and located at each trajectory’s start, middle, and end

(Credit: Galileo Project).

Approximately half a million trajectories of aerial objects were reconstructed during the five-month observation period. These trajectories were analyzed with an outlier search algorithm. About 16% of the monitored trajectories were flagged as outliers and manually examined. From these 80,000 outliers, 144 trajectories remained ambiguous.

These are likely mundane objects but cannot be further identified without distance information. The observed count of ambiguous outliers combined with systematic uncertainties yields an upper limit of 18,271 outliers for the five-month observing period at a 95% confidence level.

Fraction of aircraft in range which are detected for each Dalek camera and spatial location in the camera image frame. Each bin represents an area of size 80×64 pixels in the original camera image.

(Image credit: Galileo Project).

The main limitation of this commissioning data analysis stems from not knowing the distances to the objects that were monitored. In the coming months, the GP team plans to use multiple Dalek units separated by a few miles, to measure the distance of aerial objects by observing them from different directions. Similarly, humans have two eyes because natural selection favored stereoscopic vision in allowing them to assess the distance of predators.

Following these commissioning results, as reported in the exciting paper available here, the GP research team is now working around the clock on a series of additional papers, including a better analysis of outliers identified by our Observatory.

A public hearing in the U.S. Congress titled “UAP: Exposing the Truth” will be broadcast live (available online here) at 11:30 AM ET on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. When watching it, we must remember that politicians’ expertise is in government and national security rather than interstellar matters.

What lies outside the Solar system happens to be my day job and the research focus of the Galileo Project. Rather than relying solely on testimonies that often pertain to classified information, the Galileo Project research team aims to follow the evidence from its sensors wherever it leads and share the data openly with the public. This standard scientific practice is far more informative than political maneuvers to disclose classified information from stubborn government agencies.

A more robust answer to Fermi’s old question, “Where is everybody?” will likely come from scientists, rather than politicians or journalists.

• Additional related Galileo Project papers can be found here. 

• Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

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

18-11-2024 om 01:17 geschreven door peter  

Journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the Public news outlet, displays redacted reports during a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday as he stresses the need for more transparency over UAP investigations.

Testifying during the hearing were Dr. Tim Gallaudet, a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy and current CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC; Luis Elizondo, a former Department of Defense official and well-known advocate for UAP disclosure; Michael Gold, former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships and a member of NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, and Michael Shellenberger, founder of the website Public, where he published a recent article alleging the existence of a secretive UAP-related special access program (SAP) based on statements he says were provided to him by a U.S. government employee who remained on background.

During opening remarks provided at the outset of the session, Rep. Mace alluded to pushback she reportedly received in advance of holding the hearing, adding that congressional efforts to understand the full scope of the U.S. government’s involvement with UAP investigations have had only limited success.

“Congress has tried in recent years to lift the veil and find out if information about UAPs is being withheld,” Mace said, noting significant criticisms she and other lawmakers were aware of regarding a historical report produced by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), one of several factors she said has undermined confidence in the office’s investigations.

“We know there are advanced technology programs,” Rep. Moskowitz said during opening remarks, referencing past programs developed at the high-security facility in the Nevada desert known as Area 51, which has long been associated with experimental aircraft development and UFO conspiracy theories. “Americans have questions about whistleblowers that have come forward to talk about retribution,” Moskowitz added.

Mace also referenced a 12-page document (a copy of which subsequently appeared online) relating to “Immaculate Constellation,” the alleged program revealed in Mr. Shellenberger’s reporting. This document, provided by Shellenberger before the hearing, was formally entered into the congressional record prior to the conclusion of opening remarks during the hearing.

“Representative Luna just told me that if I say ‘Immaculate Constellation,’ I’ll be on some list,” Mace joked as she referred to the document. “Maybe a FISA warrant, so uh, come at me, bro.”

Four experts testified in Wednesday's public hearing. You can watch the proceeding here.

During his opening remarks, Rear Admiral Gallaudet referred to his personal experience coming to learn of a now-famous U.S. Navy video, popularly known as “Go Fast,” and how an email he and others received from another U.S. Navy official disappeared following the incident.

“I concluded that the UAP information must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agency — a compartmented program that even senior officials, including myself, were not read into,” Gallaudet said.

“Last year’s UAP hearing before this oversight committee confirmed that UAP-related information is being withheld from senior officials and members of Congress,” Gallaudet said, adding that as recently as this week, he had “learned from former DoD official Chris Mellon that satellite imagery of UAP from a few years ago still has not been shared with Congress.”

“Equally concerning, last year’s UAP hearing also revealed that elements of the government are engaged in a disinformation campaign to include personal attacks designed to discredit UAP whistleblowers,” Gallaudet added.

“Let me be clear,” Mr. Elizondo said following Gallaudet’s remarks. “UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government—or any other government—are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.”

“I believe that America’s greatness depends on three elements,” Elizondo added. “A watchful Congress, a responsive Executive Branch, and an informed public.

“Over the last decade and a half, I learned that certain UAP programs were, and are, operating without any of these elements,” Elizondo said, seemingly in acknowledgment of special access programs long suspected of being related to UAP that have remained hidden from Congress and the American public.

Elizondo also alluded to threats he and other officials have received for coming forward and discussing UAP from groups within the government who have in the past subjected him and others to “unwarranted criminal investigations, harassment, and efforts to destroy one’s credibility.”

“Many of my former colleagues and I have provided classified testimony to both the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” Elizondo said. “Many of us have subsequently been targeted by this cabal with threats to our careers, our security clearances, and even our lives.”

“This is not hyperbole, but a genuine fact,” Elizondo said, “and this is wrong.”

In his opening statements, Mr. Shellenberger discussed UAP whistleblower claims he learned of from sources who spoke with him on background, some of whom have asserted the U.S. Executive Branch has managed UAP programs and related issues for decades without Congressional oversight.

The claims primarily involve an alleged secret Department of Defense program called “Immaculate Constellation,” said to be a strategic intelligence initiative consolidating data from classified military sensors to capture high-quality imagery and atmospheric effects associated with UAPs.

Shellenberger argued that U.S. intelligence officials are stonewalling the release of such information on UAP—even some that may not be damaging to U.S. national security.

“The intelligence community is treating us like children,” Shellenberger said. “It’s time for us to know the truth about this. I think that we can handle it.”

During his opening statement, Mr. Gold acknowledged the stigmas that have long surrounded the topic, emphasizing that such attitudes even complicated his colleagues’ efforts with NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, some of whom said they were mocked or threatened over their participation.

“Our best tool for unlocking the mystery of UAP is science, but we cannot conduct a proper inquiry if the stigma is so overwhelming that just daring to be part of a NASA research team elicits such a vitriolic response,” Gold said.

“Therefore, one of the most important actions that can be taken relative to exposing the truth of UAP is to combat the stigma,” Mr. Gold added, “and this is where I think NASA can be imminently helpful.”

Responding to a question from Rep. Jared Moskowitz, former counterintelligence agent Lue Elizondo said that he signed a document that limits his ability to discuss certain details involving alleged UAP crash retrievals that he learned of during his time in government.

After Moskowitz pressed Elizondo about the document, which Elizondo said he signed within a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), the former counterintelligence officer clarified that “there are certain documents that we have in the U.S. government that allow people to have access to certain programs.” When asked how many individuals are required to sign similar documents, Elizondo told Moskowitz, “It depends [on] how many people are going to get access to the information, sir.”

Later in the hearing, Rear Admiral Gallaudet, in addition to discussing his knowledge of a UAP that resembled a “button” or disc-shaped object captured in satellite imagery, also likened a meeting he had with AARO officials earlier this year to an “influence campaign” against him.

“Earlier this year, I met with the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and what I thought would be a 90-minute meeting just to meet with leadership turned out to be an hours-long influence operation on me,” Gallaudet told Rep. Grothman.

According to Gallaudet, AARO officials “attempted to convince me of the validity of the very flawed and error-ridden historical records report.”

“In addition,” Gallaudet continued, “they tried to have me question very valid UAP reports like the Tic Tac incident,” even urging him to consider the possibility “that the Tic Tac was American technology.” Gallaudet said AARO officials also attempted to discredit various UAP whistleblowers during the meeting.

During the hearing, when asked if there are programs involving UAP operating outside of proper congressional oversight, Elizondo told Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) that he believed this was accurate.

“100 percent,” Mr. Elizondo said.

Asked by Burchett about why the Pentagon’s Public Affairs office “employs a psychological operations officer as a singular point of contact for UAP related inquiries,” Elizondo said there is a “long history” of the DoD “providing misleading and false information to the public through various news outlets and media outlets in order to discredit this topic.”

“I have personally been victim to it,” Elizondo said. “We have the documentation to substantiate where this information has been absolutely inaccurate,” further asserting that some of these efforts had been in coordination “with former leadership of AARO at the time as well.”

When Rep. Garcia asked what the witnesses thought UAP might represent, Gallaudet and Elizondo suggested it may represent evidence of non-human intelligence, while Shellenberger and Gold said they were uncertain.

Regarding purported biological samples associated with past alleged UAP crashes, Elizondo told Rep. Laturner (R-KS) that “anecdotally it was discussed quite a bit when I was at the Pentagon.” However, he could not speculate on the specifics of these incidents, which he said occurred before he was born.

Later in the hearing, Gallaudet also pushed back on skeptical explanations for at least one of several known U.S. Navy videos that have become associated with UAP in recent years.

“There are debunkers out there who have said the ‘Go Fast’ video was just a balloon,” Gallaudet said. “That only one video that was released.”

“There were dozens of these encounters,” Gallaudet added.

Near the conclusion of the hearing, Rep. Mace’s question regarding what these phenomena could represent and how the witnesses would define non-human biologics or intelligence elicited varied responses.

“I don’t think it’s a stretch when you look at the diversity of life on this planet and the size of this universe to think that there’d be more diverse, higher order non-human intelligences throughout the universe, and that’s probably what’s visiting us,” Rear Admiral Gallaudet said.

“I would take the scientific approach,” Elizondo said, “The definition would be the ability to react to a stimulus in a manner that requires an intellectual thought process.”

Following Elizondo, Shellenberger’s response was to the point, offering one of the most concise summaries of the current level of conclusive information available about UAP.

“I just don’t know,” Shellenberger stated.

Gold added that he feels “we must be modest in our assumptions that we’re looking for intelligence that could be biological. It might not.”

“Artificial intelligence. ML. Machines. We assume that all intelligence would be like us,” Gold added. “And every time we look out into the universe, we are humbled relative to what we don’t know, in terms of the forms of intelligence; of what it may take.”

“I can assure you, I probably can’t answer your question,” Gold added, “but I think the ultimate answer is going to surprise us all.”

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

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

18-11-2024 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

• READ MORE: Police collect wreckage of 'octagonal-shaped UFO' shot down

By KELLY GARINO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A swarm of UFOs that were completely unaffected after being hit by missiles outside of an Afghanistan military base was caught on a jaw-dropping video.

On Friday, 'The UFOs subeddit' - a forum for UFO discussions where people can talk about sightings, experiences, news and investigations - shared the full 10-minute version of the infamous video.

The video begins with the camera scanning the flat land outside of the military base before zooming up on the distant mountains, where four black dots hovering in the sky can be seen.

A few moments later, the camera captured the mysterious orbs more closely - and it appeared as though they were dripping fuel beneath them. 

A short-range missile could then be seen entering the frame from the top right before striking through two of the levitating orbs - seemingly ripping right through them.

The dots appeared to explode after being struck, but the debris seemed to quickly dissipate into the air revealing the orbs were actually unharmed.

Many viewers of the footage initially believed that the peculiar dots were either training targets or flares.

But just as the video time stamp neared the six-minute mark, the camera switched from FLIR - a type of camera that uses thermal imaging to create an infrared image of a scene - to normal vision.

A swarm of UFOs were seen completely unaffected after being hit by a missile outside of an Afghanistan military base - and the 10-minute was shared on Reddit

The video showed some sort of artillery or missile striking right through two of the levitating orbs before the debris quickly dissipated into the air and left the mysterious orbs back to their original state  

The quick camera switch revealed the orbs as glowing multi-colored dots that rigidly moved in a spatial relationship with each other. 

Bright pink, orange, purple and yellow colors pulsated from the orbs as they slowly moved in unison around the sky.

Hundreds of Reddit users took to the comments to share their reactions - many admitting they had seen something similar.

'Myself and one other saw exactly this in Afghanistan,' one user wrote. 'The difference was they shot up into the sky in sequence one after another. We both acknowledged what we saw and agreed we wouldn't tell anyone else because we'd get laughed at.'

The user then singled out the commenters who believed the dots were flares, noting that when he experienced something similar he initially thought the same thing himself.

'Four illuminated dots appeared in the sky and moved down in unison, descended slowly,' he added. 'They then stopped around 100-150 meters altitude and hovered for a couple minutes, looking like they were moving in small circles.'

'They then gained elevation faster than anything I've ever seen move (literally it was like a streak of light). They disappeared either through cloud cover or the lights were put out.'

'My eyes were opened to a few things that night and I became a more open minded person,' he wrote. 

Many Reddit users initially thought the dots were flares, but the camera later switches from FLIR mode to normal vision - revealing that the orbs were glowing multi-colored dots that rigidly moved in a spatial relationship with each other

Hundreds of Reddit users took to the comments to share their reactions - many being that they had seen something similar in their life

Another user seemed to agree and responded: 'I saw something similar as a child in the Midwest. When it shot up it looked like a meteorite in reverse and literally winked out of existence.' 

But this isn't the first account of a possible UFO sighting over Afghanistan. 

An anonymous retired Navy senior chief said that he and other military service members observed a metallic orb in the sky of Afghanistan back in the early 2000s.

He noted how his observation looked similar to the video that was displayed during a Senate hearing just last year. 

However, due to security agreements and the fear of legal consequences, he is unable to come forward with more detailed information. 

'I'm going to be honest with you. I'd love to tell everything in detail, but I'm not willing to go to jail to do it,' the retired Navy senior chief told Fox News. 'I'm constrained because of security agreements, so they need a way for submissions to be made.'

He also noted how there needs to be a secure and safe method for individuals to come forward about potential UFO sightings - something that was also argued for by Senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Marco Rubio of Florida following the senate hearing.

'To date, we have seen no efforts to communicate the existence of the secure process to the public,' the senators wrote in a letter to the DoD.

A retired Navy senior chief officer revealed how he witnessed a metallic orb also over Afghanistan in the early 2000s which looked similar to a video displayed by the Senate last April - but he never came forward with more detailed information due to security agreements and fear of legal troubles

This past Friday, a bombshell whistleblower report regarding the US government's top-secret UFO data retrieval program dropped - revealing new evidence of Non-Human Intelligence on Earth

'We request that you provide us an update on the plan to publicize the secure process for witnesses to come forward.'

'What's worse, our government spent too many years ignoring or downplaying the threat,' Rubio said. 'Thankfully, that is beginning to change, but as we saw earlier this year, the defense and intelligence communities are still struggling.' 

But this past Friday, a bombshell whistleblower report regarding the US government's top-secret UFO data retrieval program dropped - revealing new evidence of Non-Human Intelligence on Earth.

The whistleblowers claimed that the investigation 'was in response to urgent and credible threats to the good and safety of the United States of America,' while claiming that the Executive Branch has been managing UAP and NHI issues without Congressional knowledge. 

The report detailed the findings of 'Immaculate Constellation,' an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) established to 'detect' and 'quarantine' the military's best UFO imagery, videos, eyewitness testimonies and electronic sensor evidence.

It featured numerous eyewitness accounts from 1991 through 2022, including flying metallic orbs, 'jellyfish'-shaped aircraft, and UFOs that reportedly altered witnesses' perception of time.

The public-version of the report also discussed how infrared satellites captured footage of a massive 400-foot-wide saucer-shaped UFO soaring out of a dense cloud. 

'This behavior was evasive in nature and implied that the saucer-shaped UAP had become aware that it was under observation by a space-based collection platform,' read the report.

The whistleblower report was posted online the same night as a Congressional UFO hearing during which lawmakers heard testimony from four sworn witnesses on America's weird and troubling experiences with potential UFOs

The program was discussed at a Congressional hearing about UAPs on Wednesday and shortly after, Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) made the 11-page document available to the public.

Michael Shellenberger, a sworn witness of the hearing, told the court that Immaculate Conception has captured thousands of 'high-resolution imagery' of UAPs.

These accounts and others detailed in the report showed that UFOs are 'operating around the globe, often in close proximity to sensitive foreign assets and locations,' the report stated.

'The American people need to know that the US military is sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information, still photos, video photos or sensor information, and have for a very long time,' Shellenberger said. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

17-11-2024 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

True story behind Netflix's The Manhattan Alien Abduction: photos, 23 witnesses and a bombshell lawsuit

• A courtroom showdown could end this New York UFO mystery once and for all 

By JAMES REINL, SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

UFO sightings and alien abductions are often reported by folks in the boondocks without any witnesses around to back up their stories.

Not for Linda Napolitano, who was in 1989 taken from her New York City apartment and beamed onto a spaceship by extraterrestrials, as 23 onlookers bore witness, it is claimed.

Napolitano's story has gripped UFO enthusiasts for decades. Now, the incident has exploded onto the small screen — and into the courtroom.

A Netflix show presents the abduction as an 'elaborate hoax,' and Napolitano has fought back with a lawsuit accusing the streamer of defamation.

Her complaint reopens a rift between a husband-and-wife duo of alien researchers and raises tough questions about those who say they've encountered visitors from space.

As millions of viewers stream The Manhattan Alien Abduction, and lawyers duke it out in court, concerns about who is being honest will doubtless intensify.

While the US government is increasingly open to discussing aliens, it's unclear whether those with abduction stories are telling the truth, or suffering from false memories, mental health issues or just making it up. 

Napolitano, a stay-at-home mom, stands by her story that on the night of 30 November 1989, three aliens kidnapped her outside her 12th-floor Lower Manhattan apartment.

Linda Napolitano, 77, has stuck by her story of being abducted by aliens from her Manhattan apartment in 1989

They made her levitate out her window and into a spacecraft hovering above the city, where they carried out experiments on her, before returning her to her bedroom, she says.

But this astonishing event wasn't her first brush with aliens, she claims.

Thirteen years prior, upstate in the Catskills, she recalls finding a strange bump on the side of her nose.

This was later identified as a mystery foreign object.

Several months before the 1989 incident, Napolitano says she wrote to UFO researcher Budd Hopkins about that incident in the Catskills, and joined his support group for abductees.

READ MORE

EXCLUSIVE

• UFO swarms filmed buzzing over Area 51 and other US military sites for months after 'mothership' encounter

Hopkins believed the object in her nose was implanted by aliens.

An X-ray purportedly shows the object, but, when a specialist came to check Napolitano's nose, it could not be found.

After the 1989 incident, Hopkins scoured downtown for people to corroborate Napolitano's story.

About 20 people witnessed it; some even said they saw Napolitano floating above her building, it is claimed.

Hopkins documented this in his book Witnessed: True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction.

But he used pseudonyms for the witnesses, casting doubt on their authenticity.

Among the purported witnesses were two guards for then-UN chief Javier Pérez de Cuéllar — but these testimonies have also been questioned.

Napolitano insists they were all genuine onlookers who saw the night's mind-boggling spectacle.

The Netflix recreates Napolitano's story of being levitated out her window and into a spacecraft hovering above the city

The docuseries presents archive footage of Napolitano pointing up to where she says the abduction took place

UFO researcher Budd Hopkins' hypnosis sessions with Napolitano have been called into question

'If I was hallucinating, then the witnesses saw my hallucination,' she told Vanity Fair in 2013.

'That sounds crazier than the whole abduction phenomenon.'

Hopkins' then-wife, Carol Rainey, a filmmaker and UFO researcher, was also embroiled in the case.

She initially believed Napolitano and they became friends, she said, but over time she grew skeptical.

Rainey says Hopkins interviewed abductees under hypnosis in search of suppressed memories.

But the results of his sessions with Napolitano were not credible, she said.

The three-part Netflix docuseries features interviews with Napolitano, 77, who now lives in Tennessee, and Rainey, who died in 2023.

It also features archive footage of Budd, who died in 2011.

In the show, Rainey, then divorced from Budd, said her ex-husband had 'lost his objectivity' and may have guided Napolitano's comments under hypnosis.

She vowed to 'continue to ask questions' about the suspect abduction story.

In her appearances, Napolitano maintains she told the truth.

Only a 'sociopath' would fabricate such a grand narrative, she says, while accusing Rainey of debunking her in a bid to 'get even with Budd.'

Napolitano's story has gripped UFO enthusiasts for decades

Napolitano (left) and Carol Rainey started out as friends but fell out over the abduction story. 

An X-ray purportedly shows a mystery object in Napolitano's nose, but there are questions over its authenticity

She's in part backed up by her son Johnny, who appears in the documentary, though his likeness is obscured.

'There’s no way I believe she would want to make anything like this up,' he says. 

He recalls seeing three 'beings' in the family living room, in what he calls a 'terrifying' experience that left him feeling 'hopeless.'

'I just try to erase it from my life,' he says.

According to Napolitano, the aliens were not done with her family after that night in 1989. She says they came back years later and targeted her family, giving them nosebleeds. 

Napolitano, Hopkins' estate, and others filed the lawsuit against Netflix, Rainey's estate, and others at New York Supreme Court, two days before the show started streaming on October 30.

The complaint seeks an undetermined amount of monetary damages for six claims, from fraud to defamation, and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

Another request to stop the show from screening was not granted in time.

The complaint says Napolitano 'was not remotely close to be like or appear as the person that is on screen' and that she 'never had any bone to pick' with Rainey.

Napolitano 'was set up as such a villain for purposes of controversy and conflict, all of which was a patently and deliberately false portrayal to support the false narrative of the truth,' it adds.

Netflix did not answer our request for comment.

Napolitano told DailyMail.com that she could not 'take any risks' by discussing her abduction amid the lawsuit.

'I don't talk about the case at all,' she said.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

17-11-2024 om 23:30 geschreven door peter  

Shocking UFO footage from new Netflix series shows craft eerily going underwater

By ALEX HAMMER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Footage from a new docuseries that seeks to prove the existence of aliens appears to show an unidentified aircraft descending into the English Channel.

Netflix's Investigation Alien follows journalist and ufologist George Knapp as he assembles a crack-team to prove their existence - and it has yielded evidence such as this. 

An expedition commissioned for the Knapp docuseries captured the clip - their second sighting that night.

First, as they operated an ROV off the French coast of Normandy, they saw an illuminated object roughly 200 yards in the distance, first stationary, then speeding away.

It returned hours later, however, when everyone except the night crew was asleep - before plummeting into the waters below. An eagle-eyed mariner was able to capture it on film - seemingly leaving the minds behind the new series at a loss.

Footage filmed by an expedition commissioned by Netflix's Investigation Alien appears to show an unidentified flying aircraft descending into the English Channel

The strange green orb that the team captured on camera 

(Image: Netflix)

The brief clip appears to show an unidentified 'flying' object transforming into an unidentified 'submerged' object in real-time, experts said

'[This was] with everybody sleeping, with the exception of our night watch guy,' underwater archaeologist Rory Kremer tells Knapp of the clip, which appears to an unidentified 'flying' object transforming into an unidentified 'submerged' object in real-time

'Don't tell me it's going to go in the water,' Knapp says in response, as the orb descends.

'I'll be damned,' he adds after it happens, showing real confusion.

The series' main investigator and narrator, Knapp proceeds to ask for Kremer's professional opinion.

The archaeologist with over 20 years of experience admits he is equally stumped, despite his crew being the ones to capture the clip, 

 'So this is what it does when it thinks that nobody is watching?' Knapp asks before turning to Kremer. 'Have you ever seen anything like this?'

'A willy peter flare is the only thing I know like that that will hang up in the air, but that's not a flare, because there's no smoke going off of it,' the archaeologist says, admitting he has no real answers - at least ones that involve human technology.

'Look at that. It's under the water,' he goes on to exclaim, conceding to Knapp he does not know the craft's nature.

Underwater archaeologist Rory Kremer is seen speaking about the footage his crew caught off the Channel Islands with journalist and ufologist George Knapp, the series' main investigator

'I don't got any answers - do you?' he asks - leaving Knapp to posit that it could be evidence of a subterranean base. 

'You think it's got a base down there?' Knapp asks his friend.

'It could be. It could be.'

The two begin to speak about previous sightings in the region, which stretch back hundreds of years.

'Archaeology is your thing,' Knapp asks Kremer at this point. 'What do you think?'

Kremer responds by pointing to the native tribes that once inhabited the region - and their tales of unknown objects flying.

'All have oral histories of lights they cannot explain,' the expert said, telling Knapp how these sightings off the Channel Islands were 'usually attributed it to gods.'

'It has gone on a long time,' he continued, before touting the clip's importance.

'Archaeology is your thing,' Knapp asks Kremer at this point. 'What do you think?' Kremer responds by pointing to the native tribes that once inhabited the region - and their tales of unknown objects flying.

'I think we really scratched the surface here. There could very well be something underwater.'

Knapp, in a narration provided after the exchanged, agreed.

Pointing to previous reports of undersea anomalies seen skirting the skies as well,  he accused the government of keeping similar evidence under wraps, despite them likely being extraterrestrial in natured.

'I'm going to share this with some insiders I know [to] hopefully get more videos like this released to the public, to get to the bottom of what non human intelligence might be doing in our oceans,' Knapp said of the footage, which has yet to be released to the public.

'This is not us. It's from somewhere else,' he maintained.

The video, meanwhile, does not show the unidentified craft exiting the water after seemingly lowering in.

Investigation Alien - a 'paranormal docuseries [where] renowned UFO reporter [Knapp] investigates new evidence, interviews an array of experts and meets with emerging witnesses who are finally willing to go on the record' - released Friday.

It's now streaming on Netflix

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

17-11-2024 om 22:59 geschreven door peter  

Spherical UFO is seen hovering over New Jersey in jaw-dropping footage

By ALYSSA GUZMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A spherical UFO has been spotted hovering over New Jersey in new jaw-dropping footage. 

An unidentified Reddit user took to the site to share a video of a shiny object flying over a construction site in Florence, New Jersey, on Monday. 

The small circular object was captured on camera at around 2pm flying quickly across the sky and appeared to be rotating. 

The user, who is known as Chesapeakefitness1 on the platform, said they noticed the object moments after hearing a 'loud jet sound,' which caused them to look up. 

While other users suspected it was a Mylar balloon - commonly used at birthday parties - caught up in a gust of wind, the Redditor pushed back against the theory.

Others said it was moving too fast to be a Mylar balloon and appeared to be 'mechanically controlled'.

An unidentified Reddit user took to the site to share a video of a shiny object flying to apply over what appears to be a construction site in Florence, New Jersey, roughly 15 miles outside of Trenton, on Monday

'The object is hard to see being small, but it is too unusual to be a balloon. Mylar usually reflects sunlight, but this might have its own light?' one questioned.  

Another simply observed: 'Awesome footage. seems like a spinning sphere in a hurry.' 

As for what the object actually was is yet to be determined. 

New Jersey ranked fourth in Google searches for UFO activity, according to data analyzed in August. 

New Jersey recorded 16,820 UFO-related queries - 18.1 per 10,000 people, 

Neighboring New York had 37,260 monthly UFO-related search queries, or around 19.04 per 10,000 residents. 

Massachusetts came in first, with 13,750 monthly Google queries related to the topic (or 19.64 searches per 10,000 people).

The Jersey sighting comes just days after a Las Vegas resident reportedly saw a bizarre cube-shaped object in the sky.

They claimed they had witnessed strange aerial lights in the area 'over 100 times' since June 2020, adding that these craft 'always seem to head toward Nellis Air Force base.'

New Jersey ranked third for UFO related searches. The small circular object was spotted around 2 pm flying quickly across the sky and appeared to be rotating (pictured: Florence, New Jersey)

For at least 17 nights last December, swarms of noisy small UFOs were seen 'moving at rapid speeds' and displaying 'flashing red, green, and white lights' within the highly restricted airspace over Virginia's Joint Base Langley–Eustis.

Vegas natives have posted videos confirming they too have seen more than one red, green or white UFO that 'wasn't flashing like a regular aircraft [or] like a satellite.'

Another witness, who documented one September 4, 2024, case from their own 60-night experience with the odd lights, hoped coming forward might help get answers.

'I live approximately 7 miles from Nellis,' they said. 'Past two months, every single night, I've seen numerous different things going on. Just wondering what it all is.'

General Glen VanHerck of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), has pled with the US Secretary of Defense to authorize electronic eavesdropping tools to get to the bottom of the Langley swarm.

The general, who led the mission to take down the infamous Chinese spy balloon in February 2023, described Langley's 'drone swarm' wave as unlike any other reported.

And speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee this past March, General VanHerck's successor as the head of NORAD, Air Force General Gregory Guillot, told lawmakers that still more baffling UFO cases over US bases continue to mount.

'I wasn't prepared for the number of incursions that I see,' General Guillot confessed.

One Las Vegas witness, who documented their own months-long experience with the odd lights near Area 51 on Sept. 4, 2024, hoped coming forward might end their own confusion. Above, a still from that witness's video, dubbed Enigma #298748

'I lived under a commercial flight pattern near the airport, so I'm very familiar with what airplanes and conventional aircraft look and behave like,' one observer to a September 13, 2022 case (above) stated. 'This was not conventional,' they said of the 'very bright light'

While the new witnesses to the UFO sightings near Nellis were all civilians — working with consumer phone cameras and not the military-grade radar, infrared and NASA imaging tech deployed at Langley — their reports echo the Air Force's own experiences.

'They were flashing weirdly not [like] the normal navigation lights,' one witness reported in their submission to a UFO-spotting app run by start-up Enigma Labs.

'Typically sightings near bases such as Nellis and Area 51 where there are a lot of experimental aircraft being tested are assumed to be advanced technology under development,' Enigma Labs consultant Alejandro Rojas told DailyMail.com.

'However, given the admission that UAV are flying in secured airspace over other Air Force bases,' he noted, 'we need to take a closer look at these.'

Rojas, a seasoned UFO expert and cofounder of the nonprofit, told DailyMail.com that Enigma has received 'a lot of reports near Nellis Air Force Base.'

For those looking to witness 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' (UAP) for themselves, a new report listed the best spots to see a UFO as Phoenix, Arizona and New York City. 

Phoeniz was famously home to one of the biggest UFO events in U.S. history, which occurred on March 13, 1997.

That night, hundreds of people reported seeing 'The Phoenix Lights'.  

Phoenix has long been a hotbed of paranormal activity - with its most major, and widespread, account of UFO sightings happening on March 13, 1997

According to the recent study, July is best time of year to spot a UFO in New York, Ohio, Colorado and Oregon - with the most common time between 9 and 10 pm.

For states such as California and Arizona, November is reportedly the best month to watch the skies.

 { https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

17-11-2024 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Meet the Siberian Simba: Perfectly preserved saber-toothed KITTEN is discovered mummified in the Arctic permafrost, 37,000 years after it died

• READ MORE: Inside the wacky plan to 'de-extinct' the woolly mammoth by 2028 

By WILIAM HUNTER

Scientists exploring the Arctic were in for a surprise after discovering a perfectly preserved saber-toothed kitten. 

The kitten has been mummified in the permafrost for 37,000 years ago, according to researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

In their new study, published in Scientific Reports, the team has revealed unprecedented details of this long-extinct animal.

Despite having died during the last ice age, the three-year-old kitten's head, forelimbs, torso, and paws were kept in near-pristine condition by the cold.

The team found that its neck was twice as thick as a modern-day lion cub's. 

Meanwhile, its jaw was specially adapted to hold its iconic cone-shaped incisors.

The scientists even discovered how the kittens 'bean shaped' toes would have helped it walk through the snow of the last ice age.

In their study, the researchers write: 'For the first time in the history of palaeontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied.'

Scientists have discovered a perfectly preserved saber-toothed kitten (pictured) buried in the Siberian permafrost 37,000 years after it died

The researchers say that the saber-toothed tiger's paws (pictured) were much wider than those of a lion (bottom right) in order for it to spread its weight as it walked over deep snow 

During a 2022 expedition, scientists found the remains of the mummified kitten frozen into a block of ice in the Badyarikhskoe region in the Russian republic of Yakutia.

For unknown reasons, only the upper half of the body was found in one piece. 

However, the kitten's incomplete femur and shin bone were also found relatively intact nearby.

Although it isn't clear how the kitten died, the researchers believe that it would have lived during a period called the Late Piocene during which Earth was covered in vast ice sheets.

Previous studies have found 'numerous' woolly mammoth bones in the soil of this area but this is the first time such a completely frozen specimen of any species has been found. 

Lead author Dr Alexey Lopatin and his colleagues write: 'Findings of frozen mummified remains of the Late Pleistocene mammals are very rare.' 

Normally, the bones from animals from this period are scattered by scavengers and the elements, long before they can be found by scientists.

This means that we still don't know much about the animals which walked the Earth during the last ice age.

Compared to a lion cub of the same age (bottom) the saber-toothed kitten (top) had a wider jaw, a flatter muzzle, and a muscular neck that was twice as thick as a lion's 

Scientists found the perfectly preserved specimen in 2022 while digging in the permafrost of the Badyarikhskoe region in the Russian republic of Yakutia (pictured)

However, thanks to this discovery, researchers now have a unique window into the development of this iconic species.

The saber-toothed kitten is covered with a coat of dark brown fur which the scientists describe as 'short, thick, soft' and is longer over its neck and back.

The kitten also has a short whispy beard growing around its chin and two rows of fine whiskers.

Comparing the mummified sabre-toothed tiger to a modern lion cub of a similar age, the researchers noted several obvious differences.

Most noticeably, the mummified kitten was significantly more muscular and had a 'very massive neck' and an unusual muzzle shape which is significantly wider than that of a modern lion.

This, and other key adaptations, are believed to have allowed the saber-toothed tiger to grow its massive fangs.

Dr Lopatin and his co-authors write: 'One of the striking features of the morphology of Homotherium, both in adults and in the studied cub, is the presence of an enlarged premaxillary bone.'

This bone, which sits in the front part of the upper jaw, would have allowed the kitten to grow a row of large cone-shaped incisors.

The saber-toothed tiger hunted large mammals like aurochs and deer which lived in modern-day Siberia during the last ice age. The researchers discovered several adaptations which would have allowed these hunters to survive the cold and grow such large teeth 

However, this particular kitten was too young to have grown its impressive fangs as scans showed that it still had some of its baby teeth.

Additionally, the incredible preservation of this specimen reveals the interesting ways in which the big cat adapted to its frozen environment.

As well as a thick coat and small ears which help reduce heat loss, the sabre-toothed mummy had wide paws to spread its weight over the snow.

Likewise, the baby cat lacked carpal pads, pads of thick skin found at the back of the wrist joint, which scientists believe help to walk in deep snow.

This big cat, homotherium latidens, is the only species in its genus known to live in Eurasia during this time period.

Comparisons to species found in Spain suggest that it probably hunted big prey animals like aurochs and deer.

But finding this specimen so deep in Siberia suggests that they may have ranged much further north than previously expected.

For now, the researchers have only identified the most obvious and unusual features of the mummified cat but they are already planning more research to discuss the cub's anatomy in much greater detail.

SABRE-TOOTH TIGERS DIDN'T GET THEIR FANGS UNTIL THEY WERE THREE 

The sabre-tooth tiger may have been capable of slaying mammoths and rhinos, but it only had relatively small teeth until the age of three.

Research suggests that the animal's impressively long, dagger-shaped teeth developed later in life than modern cats do.

But once they emerged, they grew twice as quickly as the lion's, for example.

The sabre-tooth tiger, now more accurately known as the sabre-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis, lived in North and South America until it became extinct 10,000 years ago.

The big cats are famous for their protruding canines, which could grow up to seven inches (18 cm) long.

Although well-preserved fossils are available to researchers, very little is known about the ages at which the animals reached key developmental stages and grew teeth, for example.

Researchers from Clemson University in South Carolina examined specimens recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles

They used data from stable oxygen isotope analyses with X-rays and information from previous studies to calculate when the prehistoric cats' permanent upper canines came through, as well as other growth events.

They believe that the cats got most of their teeth by 14 to 22 months, with the exception of their famous 'fangs'.

The experts say the long teeth didn't develop until the cats were around three years' old, which is delayed in comparison to similar-sized living members of the cat family.

A partially fossilized jaw from an adult Smilodon fatalis saber-toothed cat showing a fully erupted canine - which didn't appear until later in life

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

17-11-2024 om 22:03 geschreven door peter  

Rock and thin section images of the Bruce’s Hill and Umbaumba sections.

The Earth has always been bombarded with rocks from space. It’s true to say though that there were more rocks flying around the Solar System during earlier periods of its history. A team of researchers have been studying a meteorite impact from 3.26 billion years ago. They have calculated this rock was 200 times bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. The event would have triggered tsunamis mixing up the oceans and flushing debris from the land. The newly available organic material allowed organisms to thrive. 

Meteorite impacts are a common event and its not unusual to see these rocks from space whizzing through the atmosphere. Giant meteorite impacts have become an important part of Earth’s geological history. The impacts release colossal amounts of energy that can destroy life, create wildfires, tsunamis and eject dust into the atmosphere. The Chicxulub impact around 66 million years ago is perhaps one of the most well known impacts and wiped out the dinosaurs. The study of these interplanetary wanderers is imperative as we strive to protect ourselves from potential impactors that pose a threat to human life. 

A bright meteor caught by one of the Global Fireball Network’s cameras from the Rancho Mirage Observatory (Eric McLaughlin) on April 7, 2019.

Credit: NASA Meteorite Tracking and Recovery Network.

Impacts like these have had a massive affect on the development of Earth and its suitability for life. Geological studies of rocks from the Archean Eon have revealed 16 major impacts with impactors measuring at least 10km in diameter. At the time of impact the effects can be devastating but over time, their can be benefits to life although it’s not well understood. In a paper published in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences the team led by Nadja Drabon from Harvard University explore rocks from an event 3.26 billion years ago. 

Known as the S2 event, the impactor is believed to be a carbonaceous chondrite between 37 to 58 km in diameter. It is thought to have exploded over South Africa with debris landing in the ocean causing giant tsunamis. The impact mixed up iron(II) rich deep waters with the iron(II) poor shallower waters. It will have also caused the waters to heat leading to partial evaporation of surface water with a temporary increase in erosion around coastal areas. 

Perhaps one of the most valuable effects of the impact was the injection of phosphorus into the atmosphere with a positive impact on the Earth’s habitability for life. Study of the layers of rock above the layer caused by the S2 event reveals an increased amount of nutrients and iron which helped microbial life to thrive. 

The study has helped to build a clearer understanding of how giant impacts can aid the development of life. It does of course depend on the size and type, material and the conditions of the atmosphere before the event. The S2 event seems to have quite a mixed effect on early life, in particular marine life. Overall some forms of life were positively impacted while others seemed to have experienced challenges. Marine life that relies upon sunlight to survive (the phototrophs) were effected by the darkness while those living at lower depths were less influenced. The detrimental effects of the atmosphere would likely only have been short lived lasting perhaps just a few years before recovering quickly causing only a temporary impact to marine life. But the injection of phosphorous in the atmosphere would have had far more long term beneficial effects to life. 

Source : 

• Effect of a giant meteorite impact on Paleoarchean surface environments and life

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

17-11-2024 om 18:51 geschreven door peter  

16-11-2024 om 21:24 geschreven door peter