The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
16-01-2025
What Are UAPs and Why Are They Gaining Global Attention?
What Are UAPs and Why Are They Gaining Global Attention?
In recent years, the term “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP) has replaced “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs) in official discourse, reflecting a broader approach to unexplained observations not limited to airborne occurrences. UAPs encompass mysterious phenomena in the sky, underwater, and even in space, which defy conventional explanation.
This change in terminology marks a significant shift in how these phenomena are perceived—moving from speculative to serious, scientific, and strategic investigation. Why are UAPs attracting so much attention, and what has changed in recent years to put them in the spotlight? I have been fascinated by this subject for over a decade, and in this article, I would like to explain, as best as I can recent developments in the field of UAP research.
What Are UAPs?
The term UAP includes observations of objects or phenomena that exhibit characteristics beyond current human understanding or technology. These may involve:
Aerial UAPs: Objects flying at extraordinary speeds, making sudden directional changes, or hovering without visible propulsion.
Underwater UAPs: Fast-moving objects detected beneath the ocean’s surface, often described as Transmedium vehicles capable of operating in air and water.
Space Phenomena: Unexplained movements or occurrences captured by satellites or astronauts.
The shift from UFO to UAP was formalized by organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage a more scientific and unbiased investigation. This change also aimed to remove stigma, enabling pilots, scientists, and military personnel to report sightings without fear of ridicule.
A Decade of UAP Developments
The past ten years have brought a series of revelations and investigations into UAPs, transforming public and governmental attitudes. Key milestones include:
2017: The AATIP Revelation
In 2017, The New York Times exposed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a Pentagon initiative investigating UAPs. The report revealed:
Declassified Videos: U.S. Navy pilots recorded objects defying the laws of physics, including the now-famous “Tic Tac” UFO seen off the coast of California in 2004.
Pilot Testimonies: Pilots described objects moving without visible propulsion systems, executing instantaneous changes in direction, and disappearing at speeds beyond human capability.
This disclosure marked a turning point, spurring global curiosity and demanding further investigation.
2020: UAP Task Force
The U.S. Department of Defense established the UAP Task Force (UAPTF) in 2020. Its mission was to evaluate UAPs as potential threats to national security, emphasizing military sightings near restricted airspace. This formal acknowledgment legitimized the study of UAPs.
2021: Preliminary UAP Report
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report summarizing 144 UAP incidents reported by military personnel between 2004 and 2021. Key findings included:
80 Cases Supported by Sensor Data: These sightings were corroborated by radar or infrared systems.
“No Single Explanation”: While some incidents were attributed to natural phenomena or human-made objects, most remained unexplained.
Recommendations for Study: The report stressed the need for additional data and a systematic approach to understanding UAPs.
2023: NASA Enters the Arena
In September 2023, NASA released its findings from an independent study on UAPs, focusing on how data could be collected to analyze these phenomena scientifically. The report concluded that while no evidence points to extraterrestrial origins, the lack of comprehensive data hinders definitive conclusions. NASA also announced a director to oversee its UAP research.
Congressional Hearings and Whistleblower Testimonies
In 2023 and 2024, U.S. Congress held hearings on UAPs, where former defense officials and whistleblowers claimed the existence of secret government programs retrieving non-human technology. Allegations included:
Reverse Engineering Efforts: Whistleblowers suggested attempts to study recovered materials from unidentified craft.
Public Transparency: Lawmakers emphasized the importance of sharing findings with the public to build trust and knowledge.
UAP Disclosure 2024: Unraveling the Mystery of Non Human Technologies
Why Are UAPs Attracting Attention?
Several reasons explain the growing focus on UAPs:
1. National Security Implications
UAPs are often observed near sensitive military installations or restricted airspace, raising concerns about potential espionage or advanced foreign technology. The possibility of adversaries deploying hypersonic drones or surveillance systems has prompted governments to take UAPs seriously.
2. Scientific Intrigue
Some UAPs exhibit flight characteristics beyond known aeronautical capabilities. Studying these phenomena could:
Challenge our understanding of physics.
Lead to breakthroughs in propulsion technology and materials science.
Provide insights into new forms of energy or transportation.
3. Growing Public Interest
Declassified videos and transparent discussions have captured the public imagination. Social media platforms amplify sightings, while documentaries and media coverage make UAPs a topic of global fascination.
4. Global Collaboration
Other nations, including Canada, Japan, and Brazil, have reported UAP sightings and begun their own investigations. Collaborative efforts could unify scientific and technological resources to better understand these occurrences.
SETI Talks: UAPs: Are they worth scientific attention?
What Does Science Say About UAPs?
While many theories exist, ranging from extraterrestrial visitation to advanced technology or atmospheric phenomena, the scientific consensus remains inconclusive due to a lack of consistent data. Some leading hypotheses include:
Advanced Human Technology: Hypersonic drones or experimental aircraft.
Natural Phenomena: Atmospheric anomalies, ball lightning, or meteors.
Extraterrestrial Origins: While no concrete evidence supports this, the possibility continues to fuel curiosity.
NASA and other agencies stress the importance of collecting high-quality data through sensors, radar systems, and AI analysis.
The Role of Government Transparency
Governments worldwide are under increasing pressure to disclose UAP-related information. In the U.S., laws like the National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 mandate reports on UAP incidents, aiming to address public concerns about secrecy. Greater transparency is seen as essential to building trust and fostering collaboration between agencies and the scientific community.
Looking Ahead: The Future of UAP Research
As the study of UAPs moves from speculation to serious inquiry, key priorities include:
Improved Data Collection: Developing systems to detect, track, and analyze UAPs in real-time.
Scientific Partnerships: Collaborations between government agencies, universities, and private institutions.
Global Monitoring: Creating international databases to pool resources and insights.
The next decade could redefine humanity’s understanding of unexplained phenomena and potentially open new frontiers in science and exploration.
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What Ancient UFO Sightings Reveal About Humanity’s Obsession With the Unknown
What Ancient UFO Sightings Reveal About Humanity’s Obsession With the Unknown
The earliest recorded observations of strange phenomena in the sky come from ancient civilizations. Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets, such as those in the Šumma ālu series from the second millennium B.C., describe shifting shapes and black meteors appearing in the heavens.
An illustration of interstellar artifacts and UFOs.
Depositphotos.
For centuries, humans have been captivated by mysterious phenomena in the sky. From strange shapes to glowing lights, accounts of unusual aerial events have sparked curiosity and inspired countless questions. But did reports of UFOs exist long before the 20th century? And if so, were they really encounters with extraterrestrial visitors—or simply reflections of cultural beliefs and natural events misunderstood at the time?
Ancient Sky Events: Signs, Omens, or Something Else?
The earliest recorded observations of strange phenomena in the sky come from ancient civilizations. Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets, such as those in the Šumma ālu series from the second millennium B.C., describe shifting shapes and black meteors appearing in the heavens. These texts often interpreted such occurrences as divine omens rather than mysterious visitors from another world.
Chris Aubeck, director of the Magonia Exchange—an archival project dedicated to UFO history—emphasizes the challenges of defining ancient accounts as UFO sightings. “There is no consensus on what constitutes the first recorded UFO sighting in history,” Aubeck explained. He points out that while ancient records document strange celestial events, their meanings were often tied to spiritual beliefs.
Greg Eghigian, a historian and professor at Penn State, agrees, according to Live Science. He notes that ancient accounts must be viewed within their cultural context. “These stories are disconnected from the societies in which they were created,” he said. What appears puzzling or extraterrestrial today was often a symbol of divine intervention, religious significance, or natural phenomena like comets or meteors.
One of the most vivid historical accounts of an aerial phenomenon occurred on April 14, 1561, in Nuremberg, Germany. Witnesses described orbs, crosses, and other shapes battling in the sky, accompanied by a mysterious black arrow-like object. Hans Glaser, a local artist, even created a woodcut illustrating the event, depicting the objects as they “fell from the sky, burning as they hit the ground.”
Although dramatic, this event was interpreted at the time as a divine sign or apocalyptic warning. Modern researchers note that the imagery and interpretation reflect the religious worldview of the era rather than evidence of extraterrestrial visitors.
UFOs Enter the Modern Era
The narrative around UFOs shifted dramatically in 1947 when amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine fast-moving objects near Mount Rainier, Washington. He described their movement as resembling a saucer skipping across water, leading to the now-iconic term “flying saucer.”
Arnold’s account captured public imagination, sparking a surge in reported sightings and the birth of modern UFO culture. At the time, many people believed these objects were advanced military aircraft rather than extraterrestrial visitors, reflecting Cold War-era anxieties.
“This sighting is widely regarded as the event that kick-started modern UFO culture,” Aubeck stated.
While UFO sightings continue to fascinate, they often reveal more about human culture than the mysteries of the cosmos. “Studying UFO sightings is valuable because they represent the urban legends of our time,” Aubeck explained. These stories demonstrate how cultural narratives and imagination shape the way we interpret the unknown.
Throughout history, people have gazed upward and wondered about the mysterious lights, shapes, and movements that defied explanation, weaving them into the fabric of their culture and beliefs. For ancient civilizations, these celestial events were often interpreted as messages from gods, warnings of impending events, or signs of divine favor. In more recent times, they’ve evolved into symbols of scientific intrigue, Cold War paranoia, and even hopes for extraterrestrial contact.
I believe that UFOs, in this sense, are far more than just strange objects in the sky. They represent the stories we tell ourselves about our place in the universe. Are we alone? Are there forces beyond our comprehension shaping our destiny? Every sighting, whether dismissed as a natural phenomenon or celebrated as a groundbreaking discovery, invites us to confront these timeless questions.
This enduring curiosity and creativity reveal something deeply human: our ability to turn the unknown into stories, myths, and hypotheses.
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The looming quantum apocalypse: What you need to know!
The looming quantum apocalypse: What you need to know!
Quantum computing, a transformative field leveraging quantum mechanics, has the potential to solve complex problems far beyond the reach of classical computers. While it promises significant advancements, it also poses risks, such as breaking cryptographic codes, threatening global data security.
For example: At NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL), experiments revealed unprecedented computational power and successfully solved the unsolvable problem. However, the quantum computer began generating independent and unconventional outputs, leading to speculation that it could think for itself or even connect with extraterrestrial intelligence. Concerned about the implications, NASA halted its quantum computing project in 2023, though some believe the research continued in secret.
Separately, researchers have hypothesized that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations might use black holes as quantum computers for computation and communication. highlighting the mysterious potential of these quantum systems to explore phenomena beyond Earthly understanding.
A fictional scenario (watch video below) illustrates the dangers of quantum technology spiraling out of control:
A mysterious data transfer lights up NSA monitors at 3 AM. Within hours, hospital records flash across Times Square billboards. Dating app messages spill onto every screen in the city.
Bank accounts vanish. Traffic lights freeze. Autonomous vehicles crash through shopping malls. Intelligence agencies scramble as decades of encrypted messages suddenly unlock. Someone or something has broken the unbreakable - the mathematical foundations that protect everything from banking passwords to nuclear launch codes.
The quantum apocalypse arrives years ahead of schedule. But as chaos spreads, patterns start to surface. The timing seems too perfect, the targets too precise.
Deep beneath the Pentagon, analysts notice something strange: some messages were decrypted months ago. The chaos isn't random - it's cover for something bigger.
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FILER’S FILES - Jan. 1 2025 - Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey - PART I
FILER’S FILES - Jan. 1 2025 - Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey - PART I
Major George A. Filer III ret. USAF
MUFON Eastern Region Director
President Air Force & Space Association NJ 310
Awarded Bronze Star in Air Force
New Jersey State Director Emeritus
Special reports General Twining – Discs Are Something Real , Mystery of the Black Triangles, Photo of Moon Base, Alien Beings at Top-Secret Facility, Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey, Ruins on Mars, RAND Corporation, Selected by Extraterrestrials. Benjamin Rich ,Robert Shiepe Discovered Tiny UAP/UFOs, British Laser in Use in Ukraine , and ASTEROID
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force and DOD investigated UFOs for more than forty years; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFOs are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Special Reports
General Twining – Discs Are Something Real and Not Fictitious
In 1947, General Nathan Twining wrote this now famous memo dated 23 September 1947.
Air Material Command Opinion Concerning “Flying Discs”
O: Commanding General Army Air Forces, Washington 25, D.C.
ATTENTION: Brig. General George Schulgen AC/AS-2
As requested by AC/AS-2 there is presented below the considered opinion of this command concerning the so-called “Flying Discs.” This opinion is based on interrogation report data furnished by AC/AS-2 and preliminary studied by personnel of T-2 and Aircraft Laboratory, Engineering Division T-3. This opinion was arrived at in a conference between personnel from the Air Institute of Technology, Intelligence T-2, Office, Chief of Engineering Division, and the Aircraft, Power Plant and Propeller Laboratories of Engineering Division T-3.
It is the opinion that:
The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
There are objects probably approximately the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft.
There is the possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.
The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of her objects are controlled either manually, automatically, or remotely.
The apparent common description of the objects is as follows:
(1) Metallic or light reflecting surface.
(2) Absence of trail, except in a few instances when the object apparently was operating under high performance conditions.
(3) Circular or elliptical in shape, flat on bottom and domed on top.
(4) Several reports of well-kept formation flights varying from three to nine objects.
(5) Normally no associated sound, except in three instances a substantial rumbling roar was noted.
(6) Level flight speeds normally about 300 knots are estimated.
Black Triangles tare UFOs reality, then why has no one blown the whistle? Informants in the U.K. have been talking about UFO’s and Flying Triangles because they see them every day. I have been a faithful subscriber to UFO rags from the U.K. for a long time. These magazines try to use a more down to earth approach as to which UFO’s are extra-terrestrial and which aren’t. In the British UFO Magazines, there is no question as to whether or not UFO’s exist. In order to understand what I am trying to tell you, you need to understand why Ufology in the UK commonplace is, you need to realize Britain’s UFO history. Britain has always been the center of “paranormal” anomalies with strange structures, ghosts, and intricate crop circles. You would think there would be unlimited investigations with all of these strange anomalies occurring. There are your amateurs and then there are some that are appointed.
One man in particular is Nick Pope, who joined the British Ministry in 1985 and involved in policy making during the Gulf War, and the Bosnian Serb conflict. Pope was then moved in the summer of 1991. He was appointed to a new post at Whitehall Secretariat Air Staff, Department 2A. I guess you could call it the equivalent of the “X-files.” As with any classic “I don’t belong here” story Pope did not believe in the UFO hysteria and was very skeptical about the Paranormal. After dealing with the reports from the “UFO” desk Pope was slowly changing his mind on the issue.
After 3 years at the British UFO” desk Nick Pope declared that UFO’s were a reality. He concluded that there was plenty of evidence to prove their existence. Pope was officially supposed to investigate whether or not these strange aircraft posed a threat to the UK’s defense. Unofficially He was expected to dismiss their existence. Pope decided it was up to him to tell the truth
about UFO’s. Pope claims that his peers and the department labeled him a loose cannon and found him to be very suspicious.
They lost trust in him. But Pope stood by his story, analyzing all the data, and claiming that it all added it up to a case for the existence of UFOs. A lot of the M.O.D. workers began humming the Twilight Zone theme whenever he would walk into the room, and after the X-files made it to the UK they called him “Spooky.” After all of the ridicule, and after claiming that he felt
UFOs posed a major threat to our defense systems; Pope was moved in 1994 from the M.O.D. to the financial department. The thing that is most frustrating is despite Pope’s entire candor; he is still bound by Britain’s official secrecy act. So, is what Pope saying fact or fiction? Apparently it’s fact; UFO’s are being seen in Britain. Some say it can be explained, but Pope says that a technological threat of non-human origin exists. Some say it is Science fiction, Pope continues to investigate such claims, even though it really isn’t his job anymore.
Since 1990 there have been over 4000 sightings of what is known as the “Flying Triangle” or “Silent Vulcan” Over Britain. In the early 90’s there were a similar number over Belgium, France, Holland, and Germany, with fighters being sent up to intercept this unknown craft? With people seeing aircraft “as big as a football field and hovering silently” to “hovering craft that shoot off silently.” Another claim was the sighting of “a huge black triangle rising out of the water” it is one of Europe’s most enduring waves of sightings. Nick Pope authored a book about many of these sightings including one over several Army bases in one night.
One of the more controversial cases is the Bentwaters -Woodbridge UFO case. The Bentwaters-Woodbridge bases are leased to the United States Air Force under NATO terms. The case is one of the creepiest ones I have ever heard. There were at least 30 witnesses who came forward to tell the story of what happened to USAF personnel and British Military in the Rendlesham Forest between the two bases, in December of 1980.
The incident began when two USAF security personnel spotted unusual lights hovering over Rendlesham forest. The security staff was worried that a small plane was crashing in the heavily wooded area. According to Sergeant Larry Warren, who was stationed at Bentwaters, It looked like the plane hit and a fire was smoldering in the forest. A group of men set out to find the strange red glowing area. What the men came a upon was a triangular UFO. Airmen Steve Roberts and James Archer said that the UFO had a red light on top of it and blue and white lights at the middle and bottom. Archer then claimed he saw occupants inside the strange craft. He claimed that they did not appear human.
here were also reports of Jeeps and several High-powered “Light all’s” abruptly died. Sgts. Larry Warren and Adrian Bustinza said that the energy just drained out. Animals were going crazy, and the men mentioned a yellow mist in the air. There was another strange anomaly in the area away from the clearing. It was transparent, elliptical like a see through an aspirin tablet. It then filled with a bright pulsating mist and it emitted a rainbow of colored lights. There was a film shot of the incident. And audio tapes made. However, it was later confiscated and flown to Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany. NOTE: The above image is a rendering. Thanks to Ken Pfeifer MUFON NJ www.worldUFOphotos.org
Photo of Moon Base on NASA’ Persons Desk
NASA scientist employee leaves Top Secret Photos Won his desk when Press Takes Photo.
Astronaut Edgar Dean “Ed” Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region and was the sixth person to walk on .Moon. He revealed later he had seen structures on the Moon.. On Feb 9, 2016 · On Thursday, February 4, 2016the world lost the last of the Apollo 14 astronauts. Edgar DeanMitchell, U.S. Navy test pilot and the sixth person to walk on the Moon, passed away in his sleep near his Florida home at the age of 85.
Craft and Alien Beings at Top-Secret Facility
In a this interview, former S-4 Level 2 sentry Derek Hennesy, also known as Connor O’Ryan, revealed his experiences of witnessing grey extraterrestrial beings and disc-shaped craft at Area 51. Hennesy explained that there are four levels in S-4, with the top level being a hanger for the flying disc ships.
He stated that the first and second levels are all elevators where they keep the flying disc ships, and that while he was there, they were trying to operate the discs, which he witnessed unsuccessfully. He also mentioned that there were scientists and high-level White House officials present at the facility.
Hennesy described the layout of the facility, including four elevators and the fact that there are no centuries on levels three and four. He stated that he had no knowledge of what goes on in those levels, but he had heard rumors of a heavy or EB being present. He also described the bays on level two, which are separated by automatic doors and contain elevators that can bring the whole floor to the top.
The most striking revelation from Hennesy was his description of the storage of extraterrestrial bodies on level two. He stated that there were tubes present, about two feet in width and six feet in height, and that the creatures inside were completely identical, with no way of identifying them individually. He described the creatures as resembling the typical depiction of grey aliens, but with shriveled eyes that resembled prunes and no visible eyelids or hair.
He also stated that their bodies were very thin and frail looking. Hennesy also described the security measures in place at the facility, including a plastic card with magnetic information, a handprint scan, and a right eye retina scan for access to levels three and four.
He stated that if clearance was not granted, instructions were to arrest the individual immediately.
Hennesy’s testimony has been deemed credible by those who conducted the interview, as his voice analysis did not show any signs of stress, and the information he provided matched up with other information and rumors that have been circulating about the secretive Area 51 facility. Thanks to https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.
Mere days after New Jersey’s governor told us to “calm down,” and shortly after experts suggested residents weren’t actually seeing drones in the first place, officials are now temporarily banning drone operations over portions of the state. Hmmm, I wonder why.
DRONE OR UFO
the FAA Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) stated that they will be banning drones until mid-January and will respond to any threatening drones with “deadly force” if they present an “imminent security threat.”
“At the request of federal security partners, the FAA published 22 Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) prohibiting drone flights over critical New Jersey infrastructure,” the FAA said in a statement
Mere days after New Jersey’s governor told us to “calm down,” and shortly after experts suggested residents weren’t actually seeing drones in the first place, officials are now temporarily banning drone operations over portions of the state. Hmmm, I wonder why.
The FAA Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) stated that they will be banning drones until mid-January and will respond to any threatening drones with “deadly force” if they present an “imminent security threat.”
“At the request of federal security partners, the FAA published 22 Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) prohibiting drone flights over critical New Jersey infrastructure,” the FAA said in a statement
ORLANDO, Fla. – A holiday drone show at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando took an unexpected turn over the weekend. What began as a festive display on Saturday, with red and green-lit drones illuminating the sky, quickly turned into chaos as several drones collided and plummeted into the crowd, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).The mishap resulted in one person, later identified as a child, being rushed to a local hospital for medical treatment. Two small drones crashed and fell to the ground hurting a 7 year old boy who was knocked out by impact on December 21, needing heart operation/
US bans drones in parts of New Jersey and New York
US aviation authorities have banned the use of drones at 22 infrastructure sites in New Jersey and another 29 in New York state for 30 days after a spike in drone sightings in the eastern US.
The measures allow the government to use “deadly force” against unmanned aircraft if they pose an “imminent security threat”.
Pilots operating in restricted zones risk being intercepted and detained by law enforcement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
US aviation authorities have banned the use of drones at 22 infrastructure sites in New Jersey and another 29 in New York state for 30 days after a spike in drone sightings in the eastern US. Starting dec 21, 2024 The measures allow the government to use “deadly force” against unmanned aircraft if they pose an “imminent security threat”.
This amazing NASA image has a vehicle in it. What appears to be a pickup truck, a car ramp, mechanical objects an enclosure or remnants of a circular structure and various other fascinating objects are seen.One of the mechanical objects looks like a water heater, and the other is very unusual to say the least. The vehicle appears to have a rounded carrier device possibly for carrying water or fluids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5920t3zZUs
Amazing Mars Anomalies◄ NASA Image◄ A Pickup Truck A Car Ramp Mechanical Objects And A Satchel★★★
NASA image PIA17766
RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is funded through government contracts and university collaborators. Over 30 Nobel Prize winners have been employed by RAND. From physics to economics, the 2000 person think tank provides high-level information and evaluation to the U.S. government.
RAND has conducted studies in UFO studies, weapons development, intelligence gathering and the design of sensitive underground installations for the USAF. Military personnel are also engaged in their studies.
Battelle Memorial Institute
“Like RAND- Battelle Memorial Institute was heavily engaged by government to study UFOs.” It now appears that Battelle metallurgists likely analyzed the Roswell memory metal retrieved from the 1947 crash. That conclusion was drawn from a “reverse engineering of information” of the literature on shape recovery metal; by the revealing statements of two U.S. Generals; through the confession of analysis by a senior Battelle scientist and by establishing other connections.
But perhaps the most interesting of these telling connections is this: The Director of Battelle at the time of the Roswell crash -Clyde E. Williams- simultaneously sat on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation! Thanks to Deep Secrets of a UFO Think Tank Exposed! by Anthony Bragalia
Keeping it all in the Family with Ben Rich
Benjamin Rich helped to lead aerospace giant Lockheed Martin as President of Lockheed Advanced Aeronautics. He oversaw the ultra-secret Lockheed “Skunk Works” division where he spearheaded the development of the Stealth bomber and universally acknowledged as “the father of Stealth technology. ‘Ben Rich stated some extremely revealing things about the reality and nature of UFOs before he passed on.
In a letter to his friend and associate John Andrews he replies to Andrew’s observations about the UFO phenomenon. Andrews had written a letter to Rich in which Andrews says, “I believe with certainty in manmade UFOs. I am tending to believe there are also extraterrestrial UFOs.”
Rich -In handwritten letter- replies to Andrews, “Yes, I am a believer in both categories.” Andrews was a forensic illustrator and aviation model-maker. Before his own death, Andrews related that Rich went further in privately explaining that, “there are two types of UFOs, the ones we build and the ones ‘they’ build.”
Rich told Andrews of his concern that the public should not be told. But Rich told Andrews he had recently changed his mind on this and that, “those involved in dealing with the ‘subject’ could represent a bigger problem to citizens than knowledge of the visitors themselves.”
Just before he died, Andrews says that Rich confirmed to him that “items” were recovered at the crash at Roswell in 1947. Rich also told associate John Goodall, “We have things at Area 51 that you and the best minds in the world won’t even be able to conceive for the next 30-40 years.” He stated, “We have the technology to take ET home.” In fact, Rich gave numerous clues and hints about the alien reality to several people before he passed.
Scientist William Tompkins
Selected by Extraterrestrials.
Scientist William Tompkins wrote three books and states, “That our planet has been a battleground for warring extraterrestrial cultures for thousands of years. The result has been wars, destruction and attempts to hinder our progress. Recently there has been a great spike in technical innovation due to help from friendly aliens. He believes that perhaps he and many other uniquely talented people have been gifted with skills that more closely reflect what human intelligence is capable of when not held back by outside forces. Regardless of your opinion of the UFO phenomenon, Mr. Tompkins has taken on this subject with energy and claims he designed eight cylinder shaped craft 600 feet long carrying smaller fighting craft”. He has done extensive research into extraterrestrials and UFOs. “Tomkins claims the Extraterrestrials also recently, helped develop a great spike in technical innovation in the US. Tomkins was taken into the Navy because of his ability to draw technical plans of ships in world war II. He transferred to . Naval Air Station San Diego , who was commanded by Admiral Abaca who had 29 Navy spies in Germany. They claimed Hitler had signed an agreement with Reptilians which gave Nazis UFOs and the ability to lengthen life
Navy intelligence operatives would return to a small conference room in a tower at the US base. Data was put into packages and flown to these to top secret Naval Research Facilities , aviation companies, and universities. They were to develop parts of UFOs at Douglas, Lockheed, Northrop, Grumman, JPL, etc.
After the war, some German scientists and their technology were brought to the US in Project Paperclip along with their advanced technology. Tomkins claims we were able to bring the Roswell alien craft down while using advanced technology.
The first volume of Selected by Extraterrestrials covered the life ofBillTompkins to about 1970 and did not go deeply into the super-secret briefings he attended with Navy spies reporting the flying disks they had seen. Each book takes the reader into his work in aviation and secret UFO projects. Most of Mars life is underground in various caverns. Some human’s ancestors are from other star systems. “Tomkins worked on the fling wing which was an advanced design of the German Horton jet 229
YB-49 Flying Wing
The YB-49 featured a flying wing design was a jet-powered development of the earlier, piston-engine Northrop XB-35. The flying wing was passed over in favor of the more conventional Corvair B-36 piston-driven design. Design work performed in the development of lying wings proved to be valuable decades later in the development of the B-2 stealth bomber, which entered service in the early 1990s.
Technically they had won the competition against the B-36. The Northrop flying wings were more difficult to pick up on radar and could fly much faster and was an excellent bombing platform. Tompkins frequently visited China Lake Naval Station that has a large cavern underground and a network of rail systems underground. Bill Tompkins said he drove up to Lake Isabella on the highway to Walker Pass where his family of five were abducted. They lost time but Tompkins had no recollection of what happened.
William Tomkins joined along with Admiral Webster and developed a Navy League Council from 1982 to 2000 in Southern Oregon. Former Navy officers had been seeing UFOs coming in and out of Mt. Shasta in Northern California. They flew their private planes to attempt to locate the doors that opened to let the craft pass though. Children were being contacted and met with an alien lady who would use holograms to explain ET in Medford, Oregon. Many had taken ETs lessons and later joined the Navy.
Robert Shiepe Discovered Tiny UAP/UFOs
Numerous Black Tiny 10 inch UFO/UAPs Around Heo8c90te helicopter
Robert Shiepe is the discovery and creator of a new subliminal photography that makes it possible to find and record unknown, fast small moving objects. Robert Shiepe (pictured with his cameras above) lives in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. In 2017, he noticed some new unusual flying activity by the Army, Coast Guard and LA Police (LAPD choppers).
Palmdale Orb April 14, 2021
He has recorded and documented over 4000 videos. The authorities are now and have been chasing an uncatchable drone approximately the size of a small group football. These drones are nearly invisible to the human eye (too fast) but not to the camera. For obvious reasons, this story is not yet in the news. He has personally given this information to the echelon of Aviation and the intelligence community and SETI and the Air Force.
Robert Shiepe, Pharmacist, is inventor and founder of the first mail order pharmacy in the United States in 1986.
Robert Shiepe writes, “These small drone-like objects here and now will be referred to as ”Dragons” because their silhouette resembles that of a ‘dragon fly’. These dragons have been chased by many agencies, over 3000 sorties. These dragons are also being recorded by at least three ocean vessels and have been recorded in Marina del Rey and north to Venice beach.”
Craft photo over FAA building in Oklahoma city
It is a great honor to have earned your trust. Obviously, this is a new science and it will take about another year before people understand these dragons.
It’s exciting that we are here to share this new advance information with others.
Again, these UAP activities are happening every day in Marina del Rey, California and the tiny UFOs are following all aircraft into Los Angeles LAX. airport These tiny UFOs that come out of the Pacific Ocean track every aircraft and helicopter that flies anywhere near Los Angeles. Why do they desire this kind of information?
January 12 2023, we had a powerful video day. The Government Dept of Homeland Security / DHS , sent in a lot of helicopters , like the coast guard , police, CBS news chopper an the navy Seahawk mh60 Romeo. It was crazy over here. The Seahawk came in ready for bear. the pilot and the gunner had their doors open.
The gunner did not have a machine gun but a Gatling gun.
I was lucky enough to get the video. check it out and tell me what you think. Also is it normal for a Seahawk to fly over Los Angeles with a gunner with a Gatling gun ? seems a bit t too much..
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a new Jan 14, 2023, report about UFO sightings in the United States. The US government has received over 350 UFO sighting reports since March 2021, half of which remain unexplained.
Many years ago, that then-vice president of engineering at Seagate Technology told me of his earlier US Air Force experience with UFOs when he was assigned to a Strategic Air Command unit. He told me that SAC and USAF pilots would often detect and track UFOs but were ordered not to submit written reports of sightings.
For SAC, the “unusual flight pattern” of interest occasionally included UFOs’ accelerating to great speed in one direction and suddenly making sharp (e.g., 90-degree) turns at undiminished speed — seemingly in non-adherence to fundamental laws of physics. He said that the UFOs’ flight speeds sometimes substantially exceeded the capabilities of any human-built flying craft or device then (and now) in existence. Radar operators were instructed to deny they had UFOs on their screens and to divert the aircraft away from the UFOs.
British Laser in Use in Ukraine
UKRAINE has unveiled a laser weapon dubbed ‘Trident’ that blasts aerial threats at the speed of light. The Star Wars-style weapon can shoot down drones and planes from over a mile away and could give Ukraine an advantage as the Russian offensive slowly creeps forward.
Britain’s Dragon Fire laser could have been used to help with Ukraine’s designs
Credit: MOD/DSTL
Ukrainian troops will use the laser to shoot drones and planes out of the sky Credit: Reuters A Ukrainian commander revealed the existence of the weapon, called “Tryzub”, during a defense conference on Monday.
Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, who commands Ukraine’s unmanned forces, said Ukraine was only the fifth country to have an operational laser. He said: “Ukraine has laser weaponry called ‘Trident.’ “It really works; it really exists. “As of now, we can use this laser to shoot down aircraft at altitudes of over 2 kilometers.”Tryzub is the name of the golden trident on Ukraine’s coat of arms and is the symbol of the country.It is not yet clear how Ukraine developed the weapon – but they could have had help from a similar UK design.Former Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suggested back in April the UK’s own laser weapon Dragon Fire could be sent to Ukraine.
New Jersey Orb
Orb photographed near Princeton, NJ after December 21, snow by George F ox
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:FILER FILES - overzicht met foto's met dank aan Georges Filer en WWW.nationalUFOCenter.com (ENG)
FILER’S FILES - Jan. 1 2025 - Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey - PART II
FILER’S FILES - Jan. 1 2025 - Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey - PART II
Major George A. Filer III ret. USAF
MUFON Eastern Region Director
President Air Force & Space Association NJ 310
Awarded Bronze Star in Air Force
New Jersey State Director Emeritus
Special reports General Twining – Discs Are Something Real , Mystery of the Black Triangles, Photo of Moon Base, Alien Beings at Top-Secret Facility, Drone & UFO Sightings Over New Jersey, Ruins on Mars, RAND Corporation, Selected by Extraterrestrials. Benjamin Rich ,Robert Shiepe Discovered Tiny UAP/UFOs, British Laser in Use in Ukraine , and ASTEROID
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force and DOD investigated UFOs for more than forty years; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFOs are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
The True Story of an Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs U.S. Air Force Major George Filer belongs to the generation of pilots and aviators who first became aware of the strange aircraft showing up in the Earth’s atmosphere after World War II. These men – military professionals who flew planes, served as radar operators and air traffic controllers at airfields around the world – began to whisper amongst themselves about encounters with suspected extraterrestrial aircraft.
During secret debriefings at U.S. bases, pilots and air crew told their commanders of seeing UFOs off their plane’s wings. Award-winning investigative author John Guerra spent four years interviewing Filer, a decorated intelligence officer.
From objects in the skies over Cold War Europe to a UFOs over during the Cuban Missile Crisis to lights over the DMZ in Vietnam Filer leaves nothing out about his Air Force UFO encounters,
Filer’s most memorable case – the shooting of an alien at Fort Dix Army Base in 1978 – is fully recounted for the first time in this book. As a member of the Disclosure Project, military experts, astronauts, and scientists urge the U.S. government to release all it knows about UFOs to the public. Filer describes his UFO encounters in this incredible book, by John L. Guerra. https://amzn.to/2SK3SIQ
Support Earth Changing Research
I have put together a flash drive of the last twenty-two years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings that will explain the phenomena and the importance to your life and your family. Additionally, I have included my book that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me in authoring the book. We are asking for a donation of $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
Special reports are: The Bible and Unidentified Flying Objects at Christmas, Energy from Ancient Menhir Monuments, New Jersey. big drones, and carbon 60
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force and DOD investigated UFOs for more than fifty years; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFOs are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Reports
The Bible and Unidentified Flying Objects at Christmas
Bible and UFOs by Preacher BARRY DOWNING
At Christmas time it would be interesting to review some of the teachings of the Bible because I feel it is one of the most important books on Earth that describes, their occupants and give us information on why they are here.
The Bible states,”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God made man in his image, in the image of God.” If he made us in the image of God it is likely he made other aliens in his image as we are.
According to the Bible you have a mortal body and soul and spirit that is immortal. The term soul is used 754 times in the Bible and we’re told the soul is the invisible spiritual part of man, a living organism. The Bible claims you have a soul, a life force that continues after death as outlined by Barry Downing in The Bible and Flying Saucers.
At the time we take our last breath the soul or spirit leaves the body and some people who have technically died, like my brother say they hovered above their own body for 20 minutes only to return to live again.
Many medical personnel claim to have seen the spirit leave the body at the time the physical body dies.
Transfiguration OR SOUL LEAVING THE BODY
My wife who was helping her brother walk at the time of his death, felt his body become lighter as his spirit left, followed by his full weight. This time of year, we celebrate the birth of Christ who was announced by angels, and his star was seen in the east.
One of the key parts of the Bible explains the transfiguration of Jesus that illustrates why we celebrate Christmas. “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother and led them up a high mountain. And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three shelters here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased: listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were filled with awe.” (Matthew 17). The scene represents that Jesus glory shone out through His human form according to Unger’s Bible Dictionary and represents one of the most important events of His life on Earth.
To analyze the scripture from a Ufologist standpoint, we learn that Jesus takes three witnesses up a mountain where they meet two of the patriarchs of the Bible.The word cloud is likely a UFO.
Both Moses and Elijah who had been dead for hundreds of years meet with Jesus and are wearing clothes and are able to talk but are seen in a glorified state representative of those who have come into the Kingdom of God. Their souls or spirits are able to return to Earth alive. Of interest to us is that they are passengers aboard a bright cloud similar to ones often reported in these files. The word cloud or clouds are used 156 times in the Bible and describe anything that flies in the sky except birds or insects. The unidentified flying bright cloud we are told also carries God, who blesses Jesus, and gives his approval and blessing.
The Bible and Torah are filled with references to clouds, pillars of clouds or pillars of fire or flying rugs. The allusions to clouds in Scripture, as well as their use in symbolical language, can only be understood when we remember the climate.
where there is hardly a trace of cloud from May to the end of September. Clouds are referred to as showing the power and wisdom of God in their formation. (Psalms 135.6). I suggest that this story is true, that key figures in the Bible ride on a bright cloud or UFO. Perhaps messengers from Heaven continue to ride in UFOs looking for spirits or souls at the time of death of our bodies from Earth and take us to Heaven? We also learn that God tells us to listen to Jesus’ message. Apparently millions have believed and each year we celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas that occurred some 2016 years ago. If we believe His message we are promised ever-lasting life. Of course, if the promise is untrue, we will all die. However, if it is true that our soul lives on, I’ll meet you in Heaven! Merry Christmas and public holidays around the world.
Jesus stated, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Many scriptures describe Heaven as a planet in the Northern sky with God, angels, armies, land, structures, trees and animals.
Angels are described as superhuman beings who are messengers of God who travel to our world. Some have spiritual bodies but most appear as real beings with personal bodies that have feelings, passion, emotions and desires.
We are told angels come from a planet called Heaven and are given credit for many healings and the protection of many people throughout history.
The Bible records 104 appearances of angels to men on Earth and that one third of the angels rebelled against God and came to Earth to deceive man.
In the first chapter of Mathew in the New Testament, we are told the Holy Spirit visited the Virgin Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings you are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But, the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
In the first chapter of Mathew in the New Testament, we are told the Holy Spirit visited the Virgin Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings you are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But, the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end”. Mary asked the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God!” Luke 1-verses 26 to 35
Note: We can speculate Time Travel or advanced technology allows angels to travel from Heaven to Earth and carry out various missions. I have met people who have seen and talked to angels and have been healed by them. Many claim their lives were saved by angels. The allegations are often similar to stories about seeing extraterrestrials.
People often feel as if it would take a miracle for something to happen which would defy all odds — a meaningful coincidence — to quell our troubles. I have found these miracles can occur when people pray.
There are apparently angels who Guard us while others tempt us. The Bible claims that the angels are sent by the Father in Heaven who promises the greatest gift of all, ‘eternal life.’ I have studied the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and many ancient writings. The angels, the messengers of God, brought the Holy Scriptures to humans. Think of these ancient writings as not only religious but also as technical and historical documents .
UFOs could be God’s angelic host
Billy Graham the friend of most of our recent Presidents and has preached the Gospel to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history—nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries. He wrote in his book “Angels, God’s Secret Agents”
“Some Christian writers have speculated that UFOscould very well be a part of God’s angelic host who preside over the physical affairs of universal creation.”
The Bible states, “That night shepherds were in the fields guarding their flocks of sheep and suddenly an angel appeared among them, and the landscape shone bright with the glory of the Lord. They were badly frightened, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid! I will bring you the most joyful news ever announced, and it is for everyone! The Savior-yes the Messiah, the Lord-has been born tonight in Bethlehem! How will you recognize him? You will find a baby wrapped in a blanket, lying in a manager! Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others—armies of heaven-praising God: Glory to God in the highest heaven, they sang, “and peace on earth for all those pleasing him.” (Luke 2) The armies of heaven may actually describe UFOs that are often seen in large numbers.
Dr. Billy Graham says, “Angels have a much more important place in the Bible than the devil and his demons.” In Angels God’s Secret Agents” Dr. Graham combines the fascinating experiences of those who are certain they have been attended by angels with what the Bible says about angels from on high. Here is ringing assurance to all Christians that through angels God is present for His People. We can take comfort in the fact that, with the host of angels at God’s call, we are not alone. Dr. Graham looks also at how angels are to help people minister the message of the gospel of Christ. In the middle of the book he talks about Hebrews 11 where he believes angels helped and protected some people who accomplished amazing things for God.
Ancient Sumerian texts as well as the Bible reveal the existence of angels or Anunnaki, ‘Those who from Heaven to Earth Came.’ Only in recent years has modern science caught up with ancient scientific knowledge. Angels are depicted by many who have seen them often appear similar to the reports of Nordic aliens. While Draco’s or Reptilians are often identified with the Devil.
These angelic visitors are according to most of the great historic religious writings of mankind and much of Earth’s history revolves around these visitors from space who are often identified as Gods or angels. In Indian Vedic writings the topmost authority is known as Brahma, and he lives in the highest material planetary system, called Brahmaloka or Heaven. It seems reasonable to assume the most sacred writings of our ancestors are not simply myths, but are based on actual visits by angels, ET visitors, divas’ or whatever you choose to call them. They are often given credit for bringing writing, agriculture, and religion to Earth. Thousands of books, art and songs have been authored describing their interactions with Earth.
ET ORIGINS of Humanity
A few years ago, I had dinner with Zecharia Sitchin felt that only in recent years has modern science caught up with ancient scientific knowledge.
The Bible often mentions angels in glowing metal craft of the divine glory and brightness and the appearance of fire as in the Hebrew word ‘hashmal.’ The descriptions of Ezekiel (1:4, 8:2) clearly indicate brilliant highly polished glowing yellow like brass or electrum an alloy of silver and gold.
One Minute After You Die
Erwin Lutzer says, “Someone you know is about to pass away. Will they enter delight or horror? Many people spend more time planning for a vacation than preparing for eternity. The bestselling book, “One Minute After You Die” opens a window on eternity with a simple and moving explanation of what the Bible teaches about death.” Erwin W. Lutzer brings a biblical and pastoral perspective to the death. Perhaps it doesn’t seem real that we will still exist—fully conscious and alive—beyond the grave. But it’s true, and it calls for careful consideration. The world seems more dangerous now with Hamas, China, Russia, Iran. Ebola, ISIS, and the threat of nuclear war increasing.
The central doctrine of Christianity is that Jesus died to save sinners from eternal doom. Until we see ourselves as deserving of that fate, we will never understand the cross. The Bible tells us that one day we’ll stand before the judgment seat of Christ. But how often do we reflect on what that means? Many believe as long asI’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven.” Wrong!
Erwin Lutzer says, “A person must accept Jesus as Lord and Savior to get your ticket for Heaven.” For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:13, He challenges you to thoughtfully re-examine your eternal destination—while there’s still time. Making wise judgments in an anything-goes world is the Christian’s mandate—and it’s not easy! Many religions and stories concerning death and recovery confirm that we possess a soul or an inner life-force, because you have an unlimited potential inside you. According to the Bible , “Your soul will continue to live on after death. My late friend
L t. Col. Wendell Stevens and William Sherwood , claim the reason angels have come to earth is to take the souls of believers to Heaven. John Lear and other insiders claim our soul, or our life force is the key to understanding UFOs. Your soul or life force that continues after the death of your body is the most valuable part of you. A simple belief in Jesus, may send you to Heaven and hopefully we’ll meet there.
“Angels in Starships” reports:
“The UFO object again moved through the sky to a point where it hovered over a group of trees. Now I can observe it better than before. On the upper part was a large dome, on whose highest point a dazzling white light that illuminated the disc and its surroundings completely.
The domes had small round windows around it, from which a similar light shone. This light was stronger, but rather than blinding the eyes, it seemed to evoke an overall pleasant feeling within me. I was drawn to this light as if under a spell and felt an unaccustomed joy within me which bestowed a blessing.”
From this luminous disc I heard the voice of Raphael speaking to me. “It is not the first time,” he said, “that we have met with men of Earth in this manner.
From everlasting, we have spoken with mankind from our space vehicles, flying discs and starships. In your holy scriptures you have read that the Lord spoke to men of Earth from out of a cloud; your present encounter is no different from that which was experienced by your forefathers throughout the ages’
Angels God’s Messengers from Heaven UFO contact from Angels In Starships
Scientist Dr. Carl Sagan in his book, “Intelligent Life in the Universe” with I. S. Shklovskiĭ indicated Earth had likely been visited by extraterrestrial’s. He states: “Sumer was an early–perhaps the first civilization the contemporary sense on the planet Earth.
It was founded in the fourth millennium B.C. or earlier. We don’t know where the Sumerians came from. I feel that if the Sumerian civilization is depicted by the descendants of the Sumerians themselves to be of non-human origin, the relevant legends should be examined carefully.” (Page 456)
He goes on to ask, “What might an advanced extraterrestrial civilization want from us?“He answered his own question by stating, “One of the primary motivations for the exploration of the New World was to convert the inhabitants to Christianity — peacefully if possible — forcefully if necessary. Can we exclude the possibility of an extraterrestrial evangelism?” (Page 463) The most knowledgeable people in the UFO field frequently mention Religion is of prime importance in understanding our visitors. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF8#q=intelligent%20life%20in%20the%20universe%20carl%20sagan.
Touching Heaven
For several years I have subscribed to Dr. Chauncey Crandall’s Heart Health Report that I found very informative. Now he has written an amazing book about how a doctor’s glimpses of eternity.
One quarter of all deaths is heart related. He sees firsthand those dying on earth, and what happens after death. Dr. Crandall a Cardiologist knows his patients well.
When they are dying, he sits at the bedside with them and holds their hands. He prays with them. Sometimes he can feel what they feel and see what they see. At other times his patients have near-death experiences and “come back” with astonishing descriptions of the afterlife
. In “Touching Heaven,” Dr. Crandall reveals how what he has seen and heard that has convinced him that God is real, and that we are created for a divine purpose, that death is not the end, that we will see our departed loved ones again, and that we are closer to the next world than we think.
Are you seeing these messages, these signs, and these gifts with spiritual eyes — or missing them with your physical ones? In “Touching Heaven”, you will see how to connect with God by seeing His marvels and by acknowledging His gifts. You will discover the power of spiritual touch — physically laying hands on someone’s forehead or shoulders.
You will read what it means to be “slain in the spirit” — when people often fall down in a gentle, graceful swoon or undergo other physical reactions after being touched by God’s Holy Spirit.
You also will see what the demonic forces of Satan can do to people — and how to use the Word against these dark powers of evil. Fortunately, darkness cannot remain where the light of heaven falls. You will see why, as a believer, you carry the power of heaven with you into every situation. Dr. Crandall says, “Use my experiences as a steppingstone on your own path to operating in the light of heaven. Believe me, you will be forever changed. God Puts Us Where He Wants Us for a Specific Purpose. While thirsting for my own “tribe” to minister to, I decided I would even quit medicine and go into full-time ministry — if that was what God wanted.”
But as I listened, I heard the voice of God tell me my work was with my medical patients. My role in life is to help heal them — and save them. I also felt the Lord prompting me to pray with them personally, if they would allow it. Only one patient has ever turned me down. And with just this single addition to my spiritual life, I’ve seen miracles happen. One patient, Earl, was in heart failure and waiting for a donor heart. He had been on intensive life support for months and couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow. After praying for him, the next day Earl was sitting up. His heart eventually became so healed that he never needed that heart transplant. I want to be clear: It was not me; it was the power of God, activated by prayer.”
I don’t question the presence of heaven anymore, and I hope after hearing of my experiences, you won’t either. You see, after everything I’ve witnessed, heaven is more real and tangible to me than ever. In Jeremiah, we are told: “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” And while I fight for the lives of my patients, I am no longer content to focus merely on their mechanical hearts and their physical well-being. Book: Touching Heaven – By Dr. Chauncey Crandall Adw3.hearthealthreport.com/Special: Yours for Only $4.95
“The more I study science, the more I believe in God.” – Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein’s name has become synonymous with the word “genius.” He was a theoretical physicist who is most commonly known for developing the theory of relativity and the most famous equation (E = mc2) for mass/energy equivalence. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 and published more than 300 scientific papers.
The implications of these scientific finds would reinforce claims by other scientists and observers of having contact with ‘off-world’ human looking extraterrestrials.
The ‘off-world’ human looking extraterrestrials have been claimed to have provided some of the genetic material for human evolution, and claim they are in fact our ancestors. Genesis 6 states, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
Most of humanity would consider this group of extraterrestrials to be ‘benevolent’ as described by ‘contactees’ such as George Adamski, George Van Tassell, Howard Menger, and Alex Collier who each explain the nature of their voluntary interactions with these human looking extraterrestrials. These “contactees” often provide physical evidence in the form of photographs, film and/or witnesses of their contacts with extraterrestrial races.
Naval Interest in UFOs
While the U.S. Air Force has always been associated with the study of the UFO phenomenon the Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203 with the help of the Office of Naval Intelligence presents the first important clue that the Pentagon was well aware of the phenomenon’s marine nature. This document is one of the rarest documents in the national archives linking the Office of Naval Intelligence to any association with the investigation of the phenomenon. This secret document of December 1948 records the observation that “Sightings have been most intense throughout the states bordering The Atlantic and Pacific coastlines”
It implies that a year ago the Navy created a special secret group to investigate strange aerial and marine manifestations. Study 203 represents the tip of an iceberg, of naval involvement with the phenomenon that has gone unrecognized for over a hundred years. UFOs didn’t invade America’s airspace from Canada or Mexico they appeared from the sea. A considerable collection of data indicates Naval experience with the phenomenon dated back to at least 1900.
Became an admiral Frank Schofield
The first journal to routinely publish reports about the phenomenon as early as the 1900’s was the U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office’s “Notice to Mariners’ and the first name given to the enigmatic phenomenon by that same office was “Celestial Phenomenon” seen at sea. Almost fifty years later the air force would call these same enigmatic objects “Unidentified Flying Objects”.
One account published in “Notice to Mariners” provides insight into an early serious naval interest in UFOs. Curious sightings of strange flying objects seen at sea are common in marine history.
The UFO sighting of Lt. Frank Schofield later promoted to admiral while aboard the USS Supply, off the coast of California on the 28th of February 1904 and reported in “Notices to Mariners”. Schofield’s account was: “The meteors appeared near the horizon and below the clouds, traveling in a group from Northwest to North directly toward the ship”. At first their angular motion was rapid and color a rather bright red. As they approached the ship they appeared to soar, passing above the clouds at an elevation of about 45 degrees. After rising above the clouds their angular motion became less, when they appeared to be moving directly away from the Earth at an elevation of about 75 degrees West. It was noted that the color became less pronounced than the meteors gained in elevation. When sighted, the largest meteor was in the lead, followed by the second in size and third in size flying in formation. The largest meteor had an apparent area of about six suns. It was egg shaped the sharper end forward. The after end was regular and in full outline”. “The second and third meteors were round and showed no imperfections in shape. The second meteor was estimated to be twice the size of the sun in appearance, and the third meteor about the size of the sun”.
“The near approach of these meteors to the surface and the subsequent flight away from the surface appeared to be most remarkable. The meteors were in sight for over two minutes and were carefully observed by three people, whose accounts agree as to details. “
This account is a typical marine UFO sighting in a massive collection of sightings except, the witness later would become Admiral Schofield, Commander In Chief, of the Pacific Fleet in the 1930s. The accountability and detail of the Schofield sighting could only confirm suspicions, collected from numerous historical marine reports that unidentified aerial objects were operating over the Earth’s oceans and seas.
When military personnel who have had UFO experiences rise to the highest levels of military hierarchy it would be prudent to expect that they would give the UFO reality exacting consideration throughout their careers.
It is likely a secret Naval project was formed later in the century to analyze the plenteous collection of worldwide UFO sightings is certainly magnified when Lieutenant Schofield’s UFO sighting, and his ascent in the naval hierarchy are considered. The rise of Schofield to CIC of the Pacific Fleet with a perception of an unusual marine phenomenon certainly should have influenced the development and direction of naval UFO investigations. Frank H. Schofield was in a position to have had a pivotal influence on the Office of Naval Intelligence concerning UFO investigations.Thanks to Hank Worbetz
Special reports are: The Bible and Unidentified Flying Objects at Christmas, Energy from Ancient Menhir Monuments, New Jersey. big drones, and carbon 60
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force and DOD investigated UFOs for more than fifty years; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFOs are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Reports
Energy from Ancient Menhir Monuments
Cosmic Energy Research reports they have been studying ancient stone structures and their related places of power and energy. First, there were separate stones of various sizes, called menhirs, later followed by groupings of stones, then more sophisticated big circle structures like Knowth shown here and some pyramids are energy accumulators.
Archaeologists assume that menhirs were built for cult-related, agricultural, calendar, and astronomic purposes. From our research, it was discovered most of the menhirs were structures that created energy or were chosen because of their inherent power. Menhirs focus or accumulate energy. In order for a menhir to function as an energy accumulator, it must be insulated from the bedrock with suitable natural materials.
Expert literature states how the ground under earth bulwarks were adjusted. In his work “Stones of Time,” on Page 91 Martin Brennan describes how the structure in Knowth has been insulated”. Layers of grass and clay are sandwiched with layers of slate and pebble-stone. Hundreds of menhirs are located on the American continent, the United Kingdom, and China. Quartz for example is thought to induce clairvoyance and is ideal for crystal gazing. The association with crystals and spiritual communication is worldwide. Granite often has innate radioactivity, electrical and vibratory characteristics.
When I visited Stonehenge, my family and I could feel the energy from the stones and thought we could hear the sound from the stones. This may be a type of healing energy or a method for communication, or even an anti-gravity system. The boulders at Stonehenge weigh 25 tons and more and the Blue Stones were brought from a hundred miles away from Wales or Ireland. Fiery balls of light and frequent crop circles are reported in the area.
In Maria’s book “Stonehenge’s Elongated Skulls”, the people with the long skulls built long structures and later Stonehenge, Avebury and numerous archeological sites. People with elongated skulls were rulers in Egypt, Sumer, and Peru and associated with royalty. The mummified remains of Pharaohs often have elongated skulls. Pharaoh Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti in Egypt who believed in one God had elongated skulls.
Maria had evaluated the remains of the elongated skulls and determined they were all murdered and their long lost history lost. Apparently, a group of invaders decided to eradicate the people of the elongated skulls after they settled the area for hundreds of years. She also discovered a Neolithic High Queen that was laid to rest in the largest and longest barrow ever constructed in prehistoric Britain. Her book explains the untold history of the elongated skulls and how it was hidden from the Western world.
It is thought the elongated skulls found in the Stonehenge area may not be human The skull shown with teeth was found at West Kennet Long Barrow not far from Stonehenge. The other picture is from NASA showing the skull or a sculptured rock from Mars that suggests Martians or other aliens had elongated skulls. Some areas of Mars have pyramids and Pharaoh like statues. The entire Stonehenge area has exceptional people with elongated skulls that may have come from Mars or some other planet attempting to reproduce similar structures on Mars. They built Silbury Hill the largest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe called the “Hill of the Shining Beings, We know that Mars atmosphere and water diminished with some type of catastrophe and that gravity there is much less than on Earth. Mars gravity is only one sixth of Earths and to launch a spaceship from Mars would be relatively easy compared to a craft leaving Earth.
Some of the people with elongated skulls were buried in the West Kennet Long Barrow a Neolithic tomb, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire, England. The construction of the West Kennet Long Barrow commenced about 3600 BC, which is some 400 years before the first stage Stonehenge, and it was in use until around 2500 BC.
Maria Wheatley states, “We have studied and understand the archaeology of Avebury; however, archaeology alone can never fully answer why such magnificent sites as Avebury, Silbury Hill and Stonehenge, barrows and Curses’ were skillfully crafted by our ancient ancestors. The prehistoric architects of ancient sites were acutely aware of the Earth’s magnetic energies, which they carefully integrated into the foundation plans of their monuments using long-lost technology. At Stonehenge, for example, certain megaliths, such as the Altar Stone, were positioned above a geometric earth energy pattern, known as geospiral, to harness the earth force, which perpetually charged the stone with magnetic energy. We can locate these enigmatic patterns in the ritual landscape and begin to sense their energetic power.”
Note: There is strong evidence that ancient humans worshiped disc shaped and cylinder shaped flying objects. American Indians in Ohio were buried in their mounds with small flat flint circular stones. Although writing has not been found, it is possible to infer that disc objects observed in the sky became objects of worship.
While in the Air Force I chased a mile long Mothership over England based on the length shown on the ground and airborne radars. The ancient Britain’s would have been impressed like I was about the huge cylinder shaped craft and may have made designated landing places for the craft. Nearby is the Stonehenge Cursus a long rectangular earthwork that runs for about 3km (1.8 miles) on an east-west alignment and 400 feet wide.
It was built during the Neolithic period, around 3100BC, making it slightly earlier than the circular bank and ditch of the first phase of Stonehenge. Although similar Cursus monuments exist in England and many theories have been put forward, scientists do not know the purpose of these mysterious monuments.
Cylinder overlaid on Stonehenge Cursus
They generally survive 3000 years only as marks, and 6 foot ditches that are visible mainly from the air. Curses’ (plural ‘cursūs’ or ‘cursuses’) was a name given by early British archaeologists such as William Stukeley to the large parallel lengths of banks with external ditches which they thought were early Roman RACE courses, hence the Latin name cursus, meaning “course.” Cursus monuments are now understood to be Neolithic structures and represent some of the oldest prehistoric monumental structures of the British Isles and Europe landscapes.
Examples include the four cursuses around England. A notable example is the Stonehenge Cursus, within sight of the more famous Stonehenge. Note: There is strong evidence that ancient man worshiped disc shaped and cylinder shaped objects. It appears the cylinder craft landed in the cursus archaeological site since they have the same shape and size
Mothership photographed over Rhode Island
Vancouver reported 116 UFO sightings more than any other Canadian city. The city that once played host to The X-Files is also the best place in Canada to spot a flying saucer, according to the Canadian UFO Survey. That’s right: If the truth is out there, Vancouver is probably a good place to find it. Astronomer Chris Rutkowski said, “The sheer number of sightings – 1,100 in all of Canada last year – demands further research.
UFOS are REAL
“Are we looking at a real phenomenon? Is there a psychological phenomenon accounting for all this?” said Rutkowski, who works with the Canadian UFO Survey. “Why do people persist in seeing something that supposedly shouldn’t be there?” Vancouver has been a UFO hot spot for years, according to the survey, and B.C. was second only to Ontario for sighting. About 300 UFOs were reported across the province, with sightings peaking between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Mysterious aircraft are flying over New Jersey. Here’s what big drones are made for
NJ Drone Photographer- Dave Kotinsky — NJ Drone
I n New Jersey: Residents have reported seeing drones the size of small cars flying around at night; officials are unsure if they’re seeing anything unusual, or if these are drones at all.
But even if the New Jersey sightings turn out to be something else, large drones do exist. And they can have a wide range of potential applications for hobbyists, commercial users or the military, according to unmanned aircraft experts.” Ryan Wallace, associate professor of aeronautical engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told CNN. Drone sightings? Law enforcement officials, including the FBI, are still trying to confirm what exactly New Jersey residents are seeing and where they’re coming from — or if they’re drones at all, versus regular airplanes, flying normal routes, that people are misidentifying. “We have reports from the public and law enforcement dating back several weeks,” the FBI field office in Newark said New Jersey residents have described seeing drones flying overhead, sometimes in clusters. Drone sightings have been reported around Morris and Somerset counties, according to local officials. Both counties are in the New York metropolitan area Drones are reported over Maryland, Virginia, California, and a Congressman claims Iranian’s have a ship launching the drones. This was denied by the government. Story by Clare Duffy
Strange Craft
The True Story of an Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs U.S. Air Force Major George Filer belongs to the generation of pilots and aviators who first became aware of the strange aircraft showing up in the Earth’s atmosphere after World War II. These men – military professionals who flew planes, served as radar operators and air traffic controllers at airfields around the world – began to whisper amongst themselves about encounters with suspected extraterrestrial aircraft.
During secret debriefings at U.S. bases, pilots and air crew told their commanders of seeing UFOs off their plane’s wings. Award-winning investigative author John Guerra spent four years interviewing Filer, a decorated intelligence officer.
From objects in the skies over Cold War Europe to a UFOs over during the Cuban Missile Crisis to lights over the DMZ in Vietnam Filer leaves nothing out about his Air Force UFO encounters,
Filer’s most memorable case – the shooting of an alien at Fort Dix Army Base in 1978 – is fully recounted for the first time in this book. As a member of the Disclosure Project, military experts, astronauts, and scientists urge the U.S. government to release all it knows about UFOs to the public. Filer describes his UFO encounters in this incredible book, by John L. Guerra.
The book covers some historical documented cases as well as those that touch us with modern technology today. As you read the chapters you will see the attempts to cover-up and even discredit witnesses to the actual ighing events.
The hope here is to provide subject matter to stimulate thought that perhaps we are not alone. Bill Weber, a former MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) State Director, who brings over 26 years of experience within the field of Ufology.
He has been a guest speaker on several radio shows, local TV and has presented his research at State and local conferences in Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. He shares some of his cases and research within this book to enlighten those who read it.
Both a Kindle Edition and Paper book edition
George Filer writes a complete story of the Alien found dead at McGuire Air Force Base.
They used the Harbin skull, also known as 'Dragon Man,' which is a 150,000-year-old nearly complete human skull discovered in China in 1933.
Paleoartist John Gurche utilized fossils and genetic data from the extinct species to recreate plastic replicas of remains.
He estimated the facial features of the ancient hominid using the eye-to-socket size ratio that is shared between African Apes and modern humans, and by measuring aspects of the skull's bone structure to determine the shape and size of the nose.
Gurche then overlaid muscle on to the face by following markings on the skull left behind from chewing, revealing the first true look at an 'unknown human.'
Their fossil and DNA records show that they lived on the Tibetan plateau, but traveled far and wide, with traces of their presence found in Southeast Asia, Siberia and Oceania.
Scientists first sequenced their genetic code in 2010 using a 60,000-year-old finger bone recovered from Denisova Cave in Siberia, finding Denisovan DNA in modern-day humans all over the world and particularly in Papua New Guinea populations.
Scientists have reconstructed the face of a long-lost human ancestor that may have played a critical role in our evolution
This is strong evidence to suggest that Denisovans interbred with Homo sapiens before they disappeared. Alongside Neanderthals, these ancient humans are our closest extinct relatives.
Researchers believe that this crossbreeding helped Homo sapiens adapt to new environments as they expanded their range across the world, and thus played an important part in our evolutionary history.
Despite a wave of research over the last two decades, much remains unknown about these early humans, as their fossil record is incredibly sparse compared to that of Neanderthals.
But thanks to a skull that was hidden in northeastern China for over 80 years, we can now see what our Denisovan ancestors really looked like.
The skull was found by a worker in Harbin, China in 1933. While it is similar in size to a modern human cranium, it has a wider mouth and a more prominent brow.
Upon discovering the remarkably complete 150,000-year-old fossil, he hid it inside a well where it remained for the rest of the 20th century.
In 2018, the skull resurfaced when the Chinese worker told his grandson about it shortly before he died.
Today, this fossil is known as the Harbin skull.
But there is a strong possibility that the Harbin skull is Denisovan, researchers say. A paleoartist used a plastic replica of this skull to begin reconstructing the Denisovan's face
The primary evidence to support the Harbin's skull's Denisovan lineage is the morphological similarity between it and a jawbone found in Xiahe Cave on the Tibetan Plateau in 1980
Gurche used this skull to create a lifelike reconstruction of the Denisovan face.
Paleoartists use fossils and genetic data to determine what ancient species looked like when they were alive, then create models or illustrations of their appearance.
Gurche is famous for his hyperrealistic sculptures. His goal is always to get as close as he can to 'looking into the eyes of these extinct species,' he told National Geographic.
He used a plastic replica of the Harbin skull, commissioned by National Geographic, to begin making his Denisovan model.
Then, Gurche estimated the size of the Denisovan's eyes using comparative anatomy, which is the process of comparing and contrasting the anatomy of different species.
He knew African apes and humans share a similar ratio of eyeball diameter to eye socket size, so he used this ratio to sculpt the eyes.
As for the nose, Gurche studied and carefully measured the bone structure of the Harbin skull to infer how wide the nasal cartilage might have been, and how far the nose protruded out from the face.
Many other fossils of Denisovan lineage have been recovered across the world, including this molar found in in Laos. But compared to Neanderthals, the Denisovan fossil record is sparse
All human skulls bear markings that indicate the position of the chewing muscles on the sides of the head, so he used these in addition to other measurements that indicate their thickness in order to build out the Denisovan's face shape.
The Denisovan facial reconstruction is featured on February 2025 cover of National Geographic
The end result is a lifelike, science-backed rendering of this ancient human's appearance, offering the most realistic look at our Denisovan's ancestors to-date.
Today, the Harbin skull's lineage is still debated as there is no definitive genetic evidence to confirm what species it belongs to.
But experts believe there is a strong possibility that the skull is Denisovan.
The primary evidence to support this is the morphological similarity between the Harbin skull and a jawbone found in Xiahe Cave on the Tibetan Plateau in 1980.
Although the 160,000-year-old jawbone found 45 years ago contained no viable traces of genetic material, scientists were able to identify its lineage in 2016 using a new technique that indirectly analyzes a fossil's DNA through its longer-lasting proteins.
Unraveling exactly how the Denisovans were able to travel thousands of miles across the world, and why they disappeared, will require more fossils
That analysis revealed that the jawbone was Denisovan, and its similarity to the Harbin skull suggests that fossil likely is too.
What's more, the skull was found within the known geographic range of Denisovans, and was dated to a similar age.
Based on this evidence, some experts believe the Harbin skull is the most complete Denisovan fossil ever found.
Though this new look at the Denisovan face marks a major leap forward in scientists' understanding of this extinct human species, unraveling exactly how they were able to travel thousands of miles across the world, and why they disappeared, will require more fossils.
An Army Green Beret has made startling claims about encountering alien technology inside a secret underground US Navy base in 2014.
Randy Anderson, who served eight years in the Army Special Forces, was conducting weapons training at the Naval Support Activity Crane in Indiana when he and another Green Beret were escorted into an elevator and taken below ground.
'We moved down a hallway and entered an area with a marking on the wall that said 'Off-world technology,'' Anderson recalled. 'Immediately, alarm bells went off in my head. That's when the strange sh** started happening.'
Anderson described a room containing a 'metallic, basketball-sized sphere' that was 'levitating above a podium' and appeared 'unnatural.'
'[The researchers] began explaining that it had been recovered from a craft that had crashed,' he said. 'I remember them saying it was a control mechanism for the craft... and that it interacted with consciousness.'
He also described being shown a rectangular metallic object with a crystal-like screen that could wrap around a person's forearm.
'It almost looked like a mirage effect,' Anderson said. 'Above the screen, hieroglyphic symbols began to appear. It seemed to be some kind of communication tool.'
An Army Green Beret has made startling claims about encountering alien technology inside a secret underground US Navy base in 2014
Randy Anderson, who served eight years in the Army Special Forces, was conducting weapons training at the Naval Support Activity Crane in Indiana when he and another Green Beret were escorted into an elevator and taken below ground
He mentioned his friend Mike Herrera, a US Marine who went public in 2023, really inspired him.
Herrera claimed that he and his six-man unit witnessed a flying saucer being loaded with weapons while serving in Indonesia in 2009.
'I saw David Grusch was brave enough to come out [and] that guy had some really high level information,' Anderson said while speaking with Jesse Michels, the host of American Alchemy.
'That took a lot of risk doing that and who am I to protect my little story? I think it's important to tell it because it adds to the credibility and of all these guys that are doing it.'
He claimed that the US has had UFOs since 'the 1930s’ and has been secretly back-engineering them and carrying out a public disinformation campaign to prevent the details from leaking publicly.
Naval Support Activity Crane is a US Navy facility that provides technical support and engineering services for the military.
Anderson said he was at the facility to do a course in advanced weapon training, along with units of armorers, special operations and other Green Berets.
'There was only me and one other guy who was exposed to what we were exposed to,' he said.
Anderson then pulled a document that shows he was certified at Naval Support Activity Crane for completing the 'USAOCSOF-p Weapons Repair Course, but the certificate does not feature a date for when it was given.
Anderson then pulled a document that shows he was certified at Naval Support Activity Crane for completing the 'USAOCSOF-p Weapons Repair Course, but the certificate does not feature a date for when it was given
Anderson described seeing a room containing a 'metallic, basketball-sized sphere' that was 'levitating above a podium' and appeared 'unnatural' (stock)
'The [elevator] door opens, we go through a security-type checkpoint,' he said.
'The first thing that stood out to me was that it was significantly more modern than everything up top and that that was odd.'
The soldiers said there were foreign weapons in the secret facility from Russia and China that America had captured. 'It was pretty advanced stuff,' he said.
A few moments later, Anderson spied a plaque on a door that read 'Off-world technologies' that led to the metallic orb.
He told Michels he had an uncomfortable, ominous feeling looking at the strange object.
'It could have been something that triggered an evaluation for me and this guy, and they brought us out there to see if we would react to the technology,' said Anderson.
He gave a similar interview five months prior to YouTuber UAP Gerb, where he discussed the technology in more detail.
During that discussion, Anderson described the orb 'almost looking like liquid, but it was metallic.'
'Both the items they had under there, they said somehow interacted with consciousness,' Anderson said. 'Certain people will go up to the object and it will respond.'
He suggested the response could have been related to the person's DNA or consciousness.
However, Anderson claimed something may have been done to his memories following the secret meeting below the Indiana base.
'There's a really weird component to this, and I don't know what this means, but when I think back to this particular memory and, and this never happens to me in any other thing, I get real fuzzy,' he said.
'It gets real fuzzy like almost something was purposely done to make it that way.'
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Every few years, an eerie cycle plays out in the news. Headlines report the sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs/UAPs). Then, a government agency issues a denial.
In 2006, employees at Chicago O’Hare International Airport described seeing an unidentified object hoveringquietly near a terminal. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed it as a weather event.
Then in 2014, Navy pilots reported seeing a series of spinning saucers. The Pentagon did not comment at the time. Later in 2021, an American Airlines pilot said a long, cylinder-shaped object flew over his aircraft and resembled a missile. In response, the FAA said that no such object appeared on official radars.
This cycle of UFO sightings and official denial has fueled conspiracy theories that the U.S. government is hiding alien information from the public. And in recent months, revelations from former government workers have prompted more people to believe these conspiracy theories might be legitimate.
What Is a Conspiracy Theory?
A conspiracy theory is the belief that a small group of people are acting secretly, and their actions are meant to benefit their exclusive group. The idea that aliens exist is not a conspiracy theory. It becomes a conspiracy theory only when people believe that a small group — typically government insiders — are hiding information about aliens from the rest of us.
When it comes to UFO conspiracy theories, the U.S. government tends to take the blame. More so, conspiracy theorists tend to merge the U.S. government into a singular identity, even though scholars argue there are millions of people who work for “the government.”
Conspiracy theories become more palatable to nonbelievers when trustworthy (or seemingly trustworthy) informants come forward with information. The last decade has seen an increase in credible-seeming people stating they have either witnessed UFOs or have evidence the government knows about aliens and is hiding them from the rest of the public.
In 2023, a former official at the Pentagon, David Grusch, came forward as a self-described whistle-blower who once served on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. He claimed the U.S. had debris from a spacecraft of “nonhuman origin.”
Grusch also said the U.S. has known about alien aircraft for decades, and his statements were helped by other government reports, including a 2021 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that didn’t deny UFO sightings and instead admitted there were a lot of unanswered questions.
One common UFO conspiracy theory, including the one proposed by Grusch, is that the government is hiding remnants of a UFO that crashed into the Earth. One of the first crash coverup conspiracies began in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, when reports of debris from a flying saucer were discovered near a military base.
The U.S. military dismissed the debris as a weather balloon, not a flying saucer. As the decades passed, conspiracy theorists believed the government knew it was actually a UFO and intentionally hid the truth.
It turns out the government was indeed hiding something — it just wasn’t a spaceship filled with little green Martians. In 1994, the General Accounting Office (GAO) audited the records related to the Roswell incident and released a report of their findings.
In 1947, the U.S. worried about Russian nuclear capabilities. They were trying to monitor the upper atmosphere for evidence of Russian nuclear testing using a balloon device. When the balloon crashed, the U.S. military didn’t want the world to know what they were really doing. The UFO conspiracy theory was a helpful distraction.
Top 4 Mysterious UFOs in the USA! | The Proof Is Out There
Unseen UFOs
(Credit:Dean Clarke/Shutterstock)
Another common UFO conspiracy theory is that the government not only has the remnants of an alien spaceship, but they also have the occupants in custody.
Area 51, located in Nevada, has long been suspected of harboring crashed UFOS and extraterrestrial beings. One scholar described Area 51 as an “open secret” in which people understand the government is doing something but don’t know exactly what.
Area 51 is closed to the public, and the nearest public viewpoint is 12 miles away. In the 1980s, conspiracy theorists began promoting the idea that the government had aliens tucked away at Area 51.
Alien UFO Crash Retrievals - Storming Area 51 (Episode 3)
Storming Area 51
The theory was heightened in the late 1980s by an ex-employee who claimed he saw alien spacecraft with “gravity generators” when he worked at Area 51. He argued the U.S. government was hiding what they knew about extraterrestrial life from the American people.
The ex-employee also boasted he held degrees from prestigious institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). When reporters researched his background and found no evidence he attended these schools, the ex-employee said the government erased his background so he would not exist on record because he was working with such highly-classified information.
The ex-employee was eventually discredited, and the government seemed to ignore him. However, the Air Force’s tolerance for alien accusations has its limits. In 2019, a Facebook group developed the idea to “Storm Area 51” because they “can’t stop all of us.”
More than a million people signed the pledge to show up at Area 51 and “see them aliens.” The Air Force issued firm warnings not to come, and the event was over before it began.
How Did Our Fascination With Alien Abductions and Flying Saucers Transpire?
How Did Our Fascination With Alien Abductions and Flying Saucers Transpire?
About 75 percent of Americans believe in extraterrestrials. Find out why flying saucers and alien abduction stories are scattered throughout history, and where they came from.
In September 1961, Barney and Betty Hill were driving late at night in the mountains of New Hampshire when they saw a flying object whizzing in the sky. Barney thought it was a plane until he saw it swiftly switch directions.
According to The Interrupted Journey, the couple nervously continued driving until a spacecraft confronted them. They remembered seeing “humanoid-like” creatures and hearing pinging sounds reverberate off their car trunk. And then, they found themselves 35 miles further along on the highway with almost no memory of what had just transpired. They believed they had been abducted.
The Hills reported their experience to the nearby Air Force base and it later became the subject of a book and then a movie. Their experience was widely considered the start of a collective fascination with extraterrestrials.
It’s a captivation that persists, and 75 percent of Americans believe there are intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in the universe. But attitudes have changed, and most Americans no longer think aliens are hostile or a national security threat. Social scientists say our attitudes towards Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) have evolved with our acceptance of technology.
Flying Saucers Fixation
(Credit: ktsdesign/Shutterstock)
Scholars mark 1947 as the start of the UFO fascination. A pilot flying in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state reported seeing disc-shaped objects. In the next decade, aliens were primarily seen as benevolent, intelligent beings who came to Earth to offer advice or warnings.
In 1961, the Hills reported their abduction and stories about aliens became more sinister. Social scientists, like famed psychologist Carl Jung, analyzed the UFO obsession and found it fit neatly with humans’ long fascination with heavenly ascents. Whereas past societies looked for angels, saints or Gods to descend from the heavens, modern Americans were looking for “technological angels.”
Starting in the 1960s, aliens were both benign angels and menacing demons, which prompted some religious scholars to see UFO fixation as a modern religious movement.
Other scholars saw the popular fascination as a response to society dealing with rapidly changing technology. At the start of the 1950s, for example, most households didn’t have a television. That changed within the decade, and Americans were also aware that technological advancements would soon bring computers into our workplaces, households and even our bodies through devices like cardiac pacemakers.
Most Americans now rely on technology for work and entertainment. People who call out to Alexa to add an item to the grocery list aren’t as technologically anxious as people were in the past. And for decades, that anxiety fueled books, TV and film about extraterrestrials.
The 1982 film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial dominated box office sales and was one of the few storylines to depict a kind alien. Most popular narratives featured frightening aliens. The long-running TV series X Files, involved a government coverup about alien life forms. Similarly, the 1997 film Men in Black, based on the comic book series, involved government agents protecting both alien allies and Earthlings from a variety of cosmic criminals.
Stories about abduction were also common, which scholars have analyzed and identified consistent patterns and rhetorical devices.
One scholar suggested that aliens were a stand-in for technological fears. Abductees described how the aliens controlled their bodies and minds. The aliens used high-tech, futuristic gadgets to conduct tests, many of which were described as stressful and painful. In the end, the person had lost time they could not account for.
Another study looked at 130 accounts of alien abductions. The author found that the standard abduction story about aliens waking you from bed, transporting you into a spaceship and then subjecting you to medical tests was a modern myth in which the storyteller placed themselves as the hero. One abductee, for example, made himself a hero saying his “superior genetics” was the reason that aliens had abducted him multiple times.
Abductee stories about humanoids communicating telepathically are outlandish, but compelling. And social scientists think they persuade people to listen.
Investigating Alien Abduction Cases
(Credit: Shutterstock/MyImages - Micha)
In 2007, a psychologist interviewed and analyzed people who felt aliens once abducted them. The psychologist concluded these people were sane but created false memories that fictional accounts partly fueled.
So why would anyone else believe their stories of aliens sucking them into a spaceship and then probing them in all the wrong places? The author found that the stories were compelling because the emotions expressed were both real and relatable. The stories followed a consistent pattern, which made them feel more valid. And, there were also many people willing to tell these tales.
The large number of people who have described UFO encounters or abductions has prompted scholars to consider the belief a type of myth-making.
And myths, one scholar notes, endure because they have both the appearance of truth and societal approval. Thus, UFO fascination flourished because the accounts seemed truthful and many people were willing to trust in a repetitive, but incomplete narrative and to believe there was much more to be learned. Just as they said in the X-Files, “the truth is out there.”
Historian Greg Eghigian looked at the history of reported UFO sightings. This is what he found.
Historian Greg Eghigian looked at the history of reported UFO sightings. This is what he found.
Iain Todd
The history of reports of 'flying saucers' and 'UFOs' is fraught with alleged conspiracy theories and cover-ups, claims by believers and de-bunks from non-believers.
Are people really seeing things in the sky that can't be explained? And if that is the case, does that necessarily mean they must be of extra-terrestrial origin?
Whether we believe in the idea that alien craft are visiting Earth or not, it's a fact that there are numerous eye-witness accounts from across the world in which people claim to have seen something beyond belief in the sky.
So what happens when you take a scientific, empirical look at reports of UFOs and flying saucers?
What patterns emerge, and do they tell us anything about the cultural or geopolitical trends at the time the reports were made?
Greg Eghigian is Professor of History and Bioethics at Penn State University in the United States and has written a book called After The Flying Saucers Came.
It's just that: a history of UFO reports and what they can tell us about belief in the extra-terrestrial.
We spoke to Greg to find out more about the flying saucer craze.
Interview about the history of flying saucers and UFOs with historian Greg Eghigian
What made you decide to look into the history of flying saucers?
I’m an historian of science and medicine by speciality, and over the years have looked primarily at the history of how scientific and medical establishments and governments have understood ideas, feelings, people and thoughts that were marginal, or deemed to be outside the mainstream.
I was led to the topic of flying saucers and UFOs in part by those interests, though it does deviate from what I normally work on.
I was always fascinated with this stuff when I was growing up.
I was a really voracious reader and consumer of anything about aliens and outer space visitors and things like that, though that interest waned as I got older and I grew interested in lots of other things unrelated to this.
But I was talking with a colleague of mine, an historian who was working on a book project that involved looking at the renaissance of the occult right after World War II in Europe.
I asked her: “was that whole flying saucer thing a craze in Europe at the time?”
She said “I don't know, you ought to look into it and write something about it.”
And I just dismissed it out of hand.
But one summer I was ill, so I couldn't do traveling as I normally do, and I started going through digital databases of newspapers in Germany in the late 1940s and 50s.
And bam: all these headlines about flying saucers.
I wrote an article on it and I thought there must be so many historians who have done work on this.
I found one. One sole book on the history of the subject in 1975 by a historian who, by the way, later becomes a subject in my own book because he becomes a true believer and a major figure in the alien abduction phenomenon.
And that's how I got hooked. I thought, okay, I'm diving in.
At Fort Worth Army Air Field on 8 July 1947, Brigadier General Roger M Ramey (left) and Colonel Thomas J Dubose, identify metallic fragments found at Roswell as pieces of a weather balloon. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images
You don't have to believe the reports are true in order to factually catalogue the history of it, do you?
No, I come at this from that very perspective.
I make it very clear from the start, I'm not here to try to present evidence that aliens have been visiting us.
But I also don't come from the perspective of the debunker who's here to tear down every opinion.
I wanted to take the general ethos of most historians and say, I'm here to chronicle the way we've come to think about and talk about and debate this subject.
Especially in this day and age with a lot going on when it comes to discussions about exoplanets and SETI and things like that.
It seems to me it's the time to revisit that history and think about how we got to the point where we are now.
Does it all begin with Roswell?
No, it doesn't begin with Roswell! In fact, Roswell is a blip, a really minor blip. It's a very tiny footnote.
When you look at it in the wider perspective, it actually starts a little earlier than that with a private pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold, who's flying around Washington State, around Mount Rainier, looking for a crashed plane.
And he sees these strange pan-shaped objects flying at high speeds.
He comes back, lands on the ground and tells people he’s seen some weird stuff, and reports it to the authorities and also the media.
And the media starts asking him questions about it. They ask him, how did these things fly? How would you describe it?
He said they flew like a saucer might if you skipped it over water.
And a very enterprising journalist knew a headline when they saw one and called them flying saucers.
Within 6 weeks, a survey said 9 out of 10 Americans had heard the term flying saucer.
Roswell pops up as a story for about 2 days and then disappears and is never heard of again, until you get into the late 1970s and early 80s.
(L-R) Pilots E.J. Smith, Kenneth Arnold and Ralph E. Stevens look at a photo of an unidentified flying object they sighted en route to Seattle, Washington. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images
When you hear a report like that from a pilot, someone who’s an expert in aviation, do you find yourself struggling to remain neutral?
Yeah, reports like that pop up all the time and there are lots of head scratchers.
And there are times you read something and you say, this doesn't pass the sniff test.
When you're talking about historical cases where you can't talk to anybody anymore, you're left saying, geez, I wish there was a little more information about this, or I wish somebody had a camera at the time.
But when you hear seasoned pilots, for instance, who are very knowledgeable, talk and describe things that they see, that is really arresting and it makes you pause.
The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung put it really, really well. He said "things are seen in the sky, but we don't know what".
And even the authorities, whether it's the UK Ministry of Defence or the United States Air Force, all have historically fully admitted there are cases we can never explain.
They make us scratch our heads; we're sort of left with a big question mark.
How do you approach a topic like this as an historian?
There are a couple of things that it's important to keep in mind.
One is that the language that's often used in the UFO world, if you will, is often very sloppy.
Just think of something like the term ‘UFO’: Unidentified Flying Object.
Even though it sounds precise, it was meant to replace ‘flying saucer’, because ‘flying saucer’ was seen as a kind of biased term.
‘UFO’ is biased in its own ways.
Is that really an object? Flying implies piloting and it implies design.
It's fair to say the same thing holds true with the distinction between sightings and reports.
A sighting is an experience that someone has, but we know that the vast majority of people who see something odd never say anything, not to officials, to the media, the police or the Air Force.
Something has to lead somebody to actually report it to some institution – it might be a UFO group, it might be authorities – and they then write it down in some form.
It could be in a messy form, it could be a police officer who's ho-humming it all the time.
So what I'm interested in is reports, these documents that we have.
They oftentimes aren't very detailed. So as an historian we are ultimately left with trying to work with records and documentation.
That can be a recording, that can be an interview, but it oftentimes it’s self reports and also reports by others.
How do we discuss reports of flying saucers? How have different institutions and different groups grappled with it?
And how have they made that into something that they see as worthy of a conversation, and sometimes worthy of some sort of action on the part of people who can take action?
The term 'flying saucer' has now entered our common vocabulary. Credit: KTSDesign / Science Photo Library
Do you find any narrative consistency throughout reports of UFOs?
What's interesting is that's one of the things that changes.
When you look particularly in, say, the first decade or decade and a half of the phenomenon, there is a lot of diversity, in terms of what's reported.
The most common thing that people see are lights. Maybe it's different colors. Maybe they flash off and on, but lights: very vague, very blurry.
Not much more detail than that.
You hear people talking about cigar-shaped things, saucer-shaped things, globes, hexagonal objects.
But you really see the diversity when people say they actually saw the occupants of these vehicles.
In the 1940s and 50s into the early 60s, it's a very wide range, very diverse group of beings that are talked about.
Everything from little men under four feet tall, sometimes as small as under 12 inches.
Other times they're large, hairy monsters that sort of look like Sasquatch.
There are robots, there are males, there are females, there are androgynous beings, there are bulbous heads.
Some are absolutely gorgeous and look like fashion models, all sorts of things.
What happens over time, and this is what's interesting to me, is that those images start to winnow down, and there becomes a kind of a homogeneity to it all, kind of a standardisation, if you will, in descriptions.
And that to me, in part, is something that signals a role that culture is increasingly playing in terms of helping to shape those images into images that are familiar to everyone.
Did you find correlation between the language that's used at the time of a report and current movies, songs, popular culture?
Well, again, what I love about this history is it confounds every preconception I had.
I, like most everybody else, was ready to think there must be so much influence of pop culture on UFO sightings and reports and the way people describe things.
And in part there is. There's no question that the pulp science fiction of the first half of the 20th century had a direct impact on the early alien visitor story, the way people engaged with it.
It's not a surprise that most all of those first few years of people pushing the UFO narrative, there seems to be inspiration from the pulp science fiction world.
But where you see something that doesn't quite connect that way is with film.
The idea has been always that films must have a real profound influence on, say, upticks in the number of sightings.
And that doesn't really bear out. You have a very big wave of sightings and reports in the United States, for instance, in 1952.
But there's no major big UFO film from that time period that takes place.
Or you could take something like Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters.
I talked to one of the folks who leads one of the big organizations that were looking into UFOs at the time, and I asked him about it.
And he said, what we saw at the time was not an uptick in new sightings.
People weren't seeing UFOs right after the film, but what they did see an uptick in was the number of people coming forward saying "five years ago, or three years ago, I saw something that seemed like that".
So it triggered that.
And we know from the UK, for instance, that following Spielberg's film E.T., there was actually a downward movement in the number of UFO sightings.
So it doesn't neatly map on to popular culture as much as we like to think at times.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Popular UFO movies don't necessarily cause an increase in reported UFO sightings. Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
You hear people say it's not a coincidence it all kicked off during the Cold War and Space Age.
I definitely would argue that the Cold War plays a critical role in this.
The UFO as we know it is unimaginable without the Cold War, and it's a spectre that haunts the entire history.
People are constantly making references to UFOs.
For instance, in those early years, one of the questions that comes up is, okay, the flying saucers are here, they're aliens.
Why are they here in 1947, 1948? Why now and not five years earlier, 500 years earlier?
And the argument that starts being put forward is, well, the aliens have seen the atomic bomb explosions.
They've seen that we have unlocked the key to atomic energy and they are scared.
They're either scared for us or they're scared of us, but they realise we have reached this level of civilisation that makes us a qualitatively different species.
What I don't see is a lot of what some people have argued is the case, that bad times promote more flying saucer panics or flying saucer reports.
That seems to me a bit of a problematic argument because it seems to me prone to cognitive bias.
Pick up a newspaper from any time period you like, and outside of maybe when the Berlin Wall fell, you will see mostly bad news.
Journalists are very good at reporting bad news and sometimes have a hard time knowing how to make good news interesting!
Do you find a large majority of sightings and reports are from the US? And does that suggest it's to do with the culture of the society?
I would say the evidence shows that the United States plays a very critical role. It's a hub.
It's a hub in that the news emanating out of the United States is what triggers the UFO phenomenon.
Throughout the history of flying saucers and UFOs, whenever there's a new development, like the events occurring since 2017, it is something that gets reported everywhere else.
That said, it's very clear within a few years that there are hubs popping up throughout the world and other places, and the influence actually goes in the other direction at times.
There are places in Europe, in South America, where you see a really pronounced concentration, not only of sightings and reports, but also activities by UFO organisations.
So I would say in Europe, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain all played a very, very big role.
Whereas in Germany, for instance, it was a much more muted phenomenon.
In South America, Brazil and Chile, Argentina play major roles.
And my argument would be, it has to do with whether or not you have a civilian UFO organization infrastructure.
In places where that gets built up and is sustainable, that's where you see this ability to articulate these narratives and lay out these programs to study the phenomenon, but also to have an impact worldwide on how these things are understood and viewed.
Some argue it's not a coincidence that UFO sightings increased during the Cold War. Photo by Camerique/Getty Images
Did you come across attempts to explain the strangest cases away?
Oh, I see that all the time.
Over the years I've been working on this, I've gotten to know lots and lots of 'ufologists', as they're called, UFO researchers of various kinds, and talked with people who say they've had experiences having contact with aliens or other kinds of beings.
It's a pretty diverse group of people.
I think there's a lack of appreciation just how many diverse perspectives there are when it comes to the flying saucer and UFO phenomenon in terms of how people approach it.
A lot of folks I know are not really altogether different from the people, say, over in the UK defence ministry who were very sceptical about this.
They themselves will tell you 95% of sightings, if not more, are easily explained.
And in fact, many UFO investigators I talk with, this is one of the things they do all the time.
They get a phone call or they get an email, they look into the case and they find out it's a rather mundane explanation.
Somebody was floating Chinese lanterns or somebody saw Starlink satellites which, if you see those things in the sky and don't know what that is, I would call that a UFO sighting.
One of the things I talk about in the book is the motivation for why people get involved in this stuff.
It’s that ability to be a detective, to crack a case.
It's really not altogether different from your favourite true crime podcast where everybody's invited to chime in and crack the case.
It keeps you going in the hope that maybe one day, a case is going to come along that makes you think “this is not going to go away”.
A group of SpaceX Starlink satellites in the night sky over Uruguay. Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP via Getty Images
After you finished the book, was it hard to leave the subject alone?
Yeah, it is hard to leave it alone. I won't be leaving it alone because now I get a lot of people wanting to talk with me and contact me about discussing it.
And I'm going to be working on a new project, writing a book about the controversy surrounding the alien abduction phenomenon that was particularly lively in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
So no, once you've met the UFOs, they don't leave you alone!
What do you think about the argument that smartphones mean we should have irrefutable proof by now?
The ‘everyone carries a camera now’ argument is one I've heard a lot, and it's actually convinced some old-time UFO investigators that maybe there is not much to this anymore.
I've gotten a response from other UFO researchers who say, we know our smartphones are good at taking a picture of nice food at a restaurant or your friends at a party.
It's not a very refined or precise instrument for tracking something as complicated as a UFO.
US Congress hearing ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency’, on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, 26 July 2023. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
How do you feel about more recent reports like those that have occurred since 2017 with the US Navy footage and Pentagon briefings in the US?
First of all, the fact that intelligence officials in the United States have come forward to say unequivocally, these pilots saw real objects, these are not computer glitches, these are not optical illusions, something is there.
That's unusual. That you didn't tend to get over the decades, that kind of admission.
And also their admission that they have maybe been derelict in taking seriously the reports of pilots, that they've ridiculed them, that a certain amount of peer and hierarchical pressure has really influenced people not to report things.
From my position as an academic, what I really find exciting and interesting is NASA's intervention.
Because, you know, NASA is about civilian science, it's not about classified projects.
So adding that legitimacy to me seems to be the really unprecedented step.
That's the thing that I think opens the pathway for people from all sorts of disciplines to begin having conversations about what research projects might look like.
I think we'll see over the next, say five to 10 years, where this takes us.
Archaeologists Discover What May Be World’s Oldest Three-Dimensional Map
Archaeologists Discover What May Be World’s Oldest Three-Dimensional Map
The Paleolithic rock shelter of Ségognole 3 in the Paris Basin contains a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape, says a team of archaeologists from the University of Adelaide and the MINES Paris – PSL.
View of the three-dimensional map on the floor of Ségognole 3 rock shelter.
Image credit: Médard Thiry.
The Ségognole 3 rock shelter has been known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Paleolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration.
In 2017, archaeologists found that Paleolithic people had worked the sandstone in a way that mirrored the female form, and opened fractures for infiltrating water into the sandstone that nourished an outflow at the base of the pelvic triangle.
New research suggests that part of the floor of the sandstone shelter which was shaped and adapted by Paleolithic people around 13,000 years ago was modeled to reflect the region’s natural water flows and geomorphological features.
“What we’ve described is not a map as we understand it today — with distances, directions, and travel times — but rather a three-dimensional miniature depicting the functioning of a landscape, with runoff from highlands into streams and rivers, the convergence of valleys, and the downstream formation of lakes and swamps,” said Dr. Anthony Milnes, an archaeologist at the University of Adelaide.
“For Paleolithic peoples, the direction of water flows and the recognition of landscape features were likely more important than modern concepts like distance and time.”
“Our study demonstrates that human modifications to the hydraulic behavior in and around the shelter extended to modeling natural water flows in the landscape in the region around the rock shelter.”
“These are exceptional findings and clearly show the mental capacity, imagination and engineering capability of our distant ancestors.”
Thanks to his extensive research on the origins of Fontainebleau sandstone, the authors recognized several fine-scale morphological features that could not have formed naturally, suggesting they were modified by early humans.
“Our research showed that Paleolithic humans sculpted the sandstone to promote specific flow paths for infiltrating and directing rainwater which is something that had never been recognized by archaeologists,” said Dr. Médard Thiry from the Mines Paris – PSL.
“The fittings probably have a much deeper, mythical meaning, related to water.”
“The two hydraulic installations — that of the sexual figuration and that of the miniature landscape — are 2-3 m from each other and are sure to relay a profound meaning of conception of life and nature, which will never be accessible to us.”
The researchers discovered the presence of three-dimensional modeling by closely examining fine-scale geomorphological features.
“This completely new discovery offers a better understanding and insight into the capacity of these early humans,” Dr. Thiry said.
Mapping of the cave floor with École River valley.
Credit: Dr. Médard Thiry
A) The carvings on the cave floor. B) A map of the local valley showing comparable patterns and features.
Before this discovery, the oldest known three-dimensional map was understood to be a large portable rock slab engraved by people of the Bronze Age around 3,000 years ago.
That map depicted a local river network and earth mounds, reflecting a more modern map concept used for navigation.
“Collaborating across disciplines — such as archaeology, geology and geomorphology — is vital in science,” Dr. Milnes said.
“We believe the most productive research outcomes are found at the boundaries between disciplines.”
View of the three-dimensional map on the Ségognole 3 cave floor.
“Re-evaluating field studies and conducting frequent site visits are important,” Dr. Thiry said.
“It’s clear from our ongoing project that insights and interpretations do not appear immediately but emerge through new observations and interdisciplinary discussions.”
The discovery is reported in a paper in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.
Médard Thiry & Anthony Milnes. 2025. Palaeolithic Map Engraved for Staging Water Flows in a Paris Basin Shelter. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 44 (1): 2-26; doi: 10.1111/ojoa.12316
New Study Identifies Earth’s Secret Metal Highways Beneath Ancient Continents
New Study Identifies Earth’s Secret Metal Highways Beneath Ancient Continents
ByMacquarie University
Research from Macquarie University shows that critical metals accumulate around the edges of ancient continental cores due to silica loss in rising carbonate-rich melts. This discovery highlights new exploration targets essential for supporting a green economy.
New research from Macquarie University has pinpointed likely locations of essential metals crucial for advancing a green economy.
Transitioning to a green economy demands significantly more critical metals—such as copper, rare earth elements, and cobalt—than current supplies can meet. To address this shortage, it is essential to discover new metal resources formed through different geological processes in previously unexplored regions.
New research published on January 8, 2025, in Nature, led by Dr. Chunfei Chen during his postdoctoral work with the Earth Evolution research group at Macquarie University, sheds light on where and how critical metals likely accumulate. The study identifies the margins of ancient continental cores as promising locations for these metal deposits and explains the geological mechanisms behind their formation.
“These cores are the thickest, bowl-shaped, parts of tectonic plates. Melts that form below their centers will flow upwards and outwards towards the edges, so that volcanic activity is common around their edges,” says Chen.
The Role of Carbonate-Rich Melts in Metal Concentration
Previous high-pressure experiments in the Earth Evolution group have shown that initial melts at around 200 kilometers depth are rich in carbonate but contain much less silica than most rock melts.
Chunfei Chen in laboratory.
Credit: Macquarie University
The new experiments by Dr Chen and colleagues show that these melts will lose silica and become almost pure carbonate as they flow upwards and outwards beneath the continental cores.
Distinguished Professor Stephen Foley from Macquarie’s School of Natural Sciences explains the link to critical metals lies in this change in melt composition.
“The initial melts can carry lots of critical metals and sulfur, but our new results show that these are dropped by the melt as it loses silica. This causes concentrations of critical metals and sulfur in linear arrangements around the edges of thick continental cores,” says Professor Foley.
The research also confirms that mantle samples brought to the surface in volcanoes in these areas do indeed contain more sulfur and copper than elsewhere on the continents.
This new work explains recent observations by researchers at the Australian National University and Geoscience Australia that found critical metals are accumulated around the edges of continent cores, and brings these areas into sharp focus for future exploration activities.
Reference:“Sulfide-rich continental roots at cratonic margins formed by carbonated melts” by Chunfei Chen, Michael W. Förster, Svyatoslav S. Shcheka, Isra S. Ezad, Joshua J. Shea, Yongsheng Liu, Dorrit E. Jacob and Stephen F. Foley, 8 January 2025, Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08316-w
Funding: Australian Research Council, Key R&D Program of China, Key Program of NSFC-Tongyong Union Foundation, Macquarie University, NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility
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Dr. Steve Taylor says Altered states of consciousness can affect our sense of identity, and our normal sense of separation between us and the world. He finds that Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored or in pain. It seems to speed up when we’re in a state of absorption, such as when we play music or chess, paint, or dance. More generally, most people report that time seems to speed up as they get older.
In his book, he calls this phenomenon “Time Expansion Experiences or (TEEs)” – in which seconds can stretch out into minutes. The reasons why time can speed up and slow down are a bit of a mystery. Some researchers, including me, think that mild variations in time perception are linked to information processing.
Dr. Steve Taylor is a British psychologist, author, and academic specializing in Consciousness Studies, Spirituality, Positive Psychology, and Transpersonal Psychology. He teaches courses in Social Psychology and Interdisciplinary Psychology. He has published 14 books, including Waking From Sleep, The Leap, and Extraordinary Awakenings, many of which are best-sellers focused on psychology and spirituality.
Taylor’s research has been featured in major academic journals, including The Journal of Humanistic Psychology and The Journal of Consciousness Studies, as well as in popular media outlets such as The Daily Mail, The Guardian, and BBC radio and TV channels. He is a member of the British Psychological Society and was the past chair of its Transpersonal Psychology section.
Dr. Steve Taylor
Dr. Steve Taylor explains that TEEs are moments in which time seems to slow down dramatically, allowing a person to think and act with extraordinary clarity. These experiences often occur during high-stress or emergency situations, such as car crashes, falls, or attacks. (Source)
According to Dr. Taylor’s research, about 85 percent of people have experienced at least one TEE. Around half of these events happen during accidents or emergencies, where individuals feel that the expansion of time allowed them to make decisions or take actions that might have otherwise been impossible, potentially saving them from injury or death.
One example Dr. Taylor mentions is a woman who experienced a TEE when a metal barrier nearly fell onto her car. During the event, time seemed to slow, enabling her to decide how to escape.
TEEs can also be experienced in sporting events, as one participant shared an experience in ice hockey where an action that normally lasted seconds felt like ten minutes. Additionally, these experiences can occur in moments of stillness, such as during meditation or in natural settings, when a person feels deeply present and aware of the passage of time.
Dr. Steve Taylor discusses TEEs are often reported under extreme conditions, such as during psychedelic experiences with substances like LSD or ayahuasca. He shares a specific instance where a person using LSD felt the seconds on their stopwatch stretch, indicating intense time dilation.
Dr. Taylor then explores various theories about why these TEEs happen. He dismisses the idea that they are linked to the release of noradrenaline, a hormone that usually occurs during emergencies and is associated with the “fight or flight” response. This doesn’t explain the calm, relaxed feelings many people report during Tees, even in dangerous situations.
He also rejects the theory that TEEs are purely an evolutionary adaptation to help ancient humans survive emergencies by slowing down time. According to Taylor, this theory doesn’t account for TEEs experienced in peaceful situations, such as deep meditation or being one with nature.
Another idea Dr. Taylor considers is that TEEs could be illusions of recollection. In emergencies, he theorizes, heightened awareness could cause people to take in more information, creating the illusion that time was expanding when it wasn’t. However, many people who have experienced Tees are certain they had more time to think and act, leading Taylor to question this theory.
In a recent unpublished poll, Dr. Taylor found that most people who had experienced TEEs believed them to be real moments in the present, rather than illusions of memory. Only 3 percent thought the experience was illusory, with the vast majority believing it was an actual event.
In terms of timelessness, there may be a strong sense that linear time is an illusion. For example, one person who had an NDE after being electrocuted described an awareness of “The conventional distortion is the construct of a ‘past’, a ‘now’, and a ‘future’… At the earliest level of my NDE journey that human construct fell away, that arrow of time.”
In “Dying: A Transition,” Monika Renz also suggested that the process of dying – even without the phenomenology of the NDE – can feature a sense of timelessness.
In her studies of the experiences of the dying, she has identified three stages of the process: pre-transition, transition, and post-transition. In the posttransition phase, the dying person lets go of fear, accepts death, and experiences a state of ego-transcendence and tranquility. As Renz has described it, this stage “sometimes lasts no more than a few minutes, at her times perhaps hours, in some rare cases days, there is an utterly different atmos
Dr. Steve Taylor suggests that the key to understanding certain experiences, like those involved in trauma or intense activities, lies in altered states of consciousness.
He explains that incidents like accidents disrupt normal psychological processes, leading to a sudden shift in consciousness. In sports, he introduces the concept of “super-absorption,” where a person becomes deeply absorbed in an activity, causing time to slow down instead of speeding up. This phenomenon occurs when concentration is sustained over an extended period.
Altered states, according to Dr. Taylor, also influence our sense of identity and the separation between us and the world around us. He references psychologist Marc Wittmann’s observation that our sense of time is closely linked to our sense of self.
Normally, we experience the world as external to our mind, but during intense altered states, the boundaries between our inner self and the external world dissolve. As a result, we feel more connected to our surroundings, and our sense of time becomes more fluid, allowing us to slip into a different time world.
Dr. Taylor suggests that “our normal experience of fast-flowing linear time is merely a psychological construct, and even illusory in nature.”
He references Kant’s theory, which suggests that time is not a fundamental property of the external world, but instead a mental framework that our mind uses to impose structure on our experiences. Taylor also connects this idea to certain physics theories, particularly those proposed by Roger Penrose, who argues that our perception of time as linear is similar to our understanding of space—both are constructs we use to organize events in the universe.
According to Dr. Taylor, the experience of linear time may be tied to the dualistic way we view reality, where a clear distinction exists between “self” and “other.” As this sense of duality diminishes, time itself may appear to slow down, as is often described in “time-expansion experiences” (TEEs) during accidents or emergencies.
In some extraordinary states, like mystical experiences, near-death experiences (NDEs), or psychedelic journeys, where the self is no longer separate from the world, linear time may entirely fade away. Taylor’s theory suggests that as the boundaries of the self dissolve, so too does our sense of time, emphasizing that time is a construct linked to our usual self-concept, disappearing when the self-concept weakens.
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Fort Lauderdale flight crew captures color-shifting Orb at high altitude
Fort Lauderdale flight crew captures color-shifting Orb at high altitude
The crew of a Surjet private air service flight had an unusual encounter on December 23 while returning to Fort Lauderdale. Flight attendant Cassandra Martin, along with two pilots, was onboard the aircraft flying over the Bahamas when an unexpected event caught their attention.
“I suddenly heard air traffic control say, ‘We have a foreign object; can you please identify it?'” Martin recounted to NBC Miami.
Curious, she looked out the window. “I glanced to the left, and the pilot noticed three objects, though I only saw one. I quickly grabbed my phone, pressed it against the window, and tried to record a video of the object,” she explained.
Martin described the orb as white, later shifting to a faint green hue, almost as though surrounded by an electric field. The object followed their flight for about 45 minutes before disappearing.
What made the sighting extraordinary was the altitude. The jet was cruising at approximately 43,000 to 45,000 feet, yet the orb was far above the aircraft and still managed to track it for the extended duration.
The orb’s speed and maneuverability ruled out possibilities such as a balloon or a consumer drone. Unless the orb is of extraterrestrial origin, the orb might be a craft or drone equipped with highly advanced technology not yet publicly known, akin to recent reports of sophisticated drones spotted across the U.S.
This remarkable incident follows a December 16, 2024 sighting aboard United Airlines flight UA2359 from Chicago to Newark. During that flight, a passenger filmed several unidentified orbs at altitudes between 40,000 and 50,000 feet. Additionally, reports surfaced from at least four commercial airline pilots who witnessed mysterious, colorful, circular lights moving at extreme speeds over Oregon in the same month.
These repeated sightings raise questions: Are they advanced black projects hidden from public knowledge or evidence of something extraterrestrial? Regardless of their origin, the increasing reports of advanced drones and strange orbs suggest that something significant is occurring.
As We Explore the Solar System, Radiation Will Be One of Our Greatest Threats
Astronauts are vulnerable to radiation from the Sun and other sources. They're even more vulnerable beyond the ISS, on missions to the lunar or Martian surfaces. However, different countries and space agencies assess the risk differently. That needs to change. Image Credit: NASA
As We Explore the Solar System, Radiation Will Be One of Our Greatest Threats
The Sun can kill. Until Earth developed its ozone layer hundreds of millions of years ago, life couldn’t venture out onto dry land for fear of exposure to the Sun’s deadly ultraviolet radiation. Even now, the 1% of its UV radiation that reaches the surface can cause cancer and even death.
Astronauts outside of Earth’s protective ozone layer and magnetic shield are exposed to far more radiation than on the planet’s surface. Exposure to radiation from the Sun and elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the main hurdles that must be cleared in long-duration space travel or missions to the lunar and Martian surfaces.
Unfortunately, there’s no harmonized approach to understanding the complexity of the hazard and protecting astronauts from it.
Astronauts haven’t gone further into space than the ISS for decades. But if Artemis lives up to its promise, they’re about to leave Earth and its protective environment behind. Artemis will land astronauts on the Moon, which could be an intermediate step to an eventual landing on Mars. What hazards does radiation pose, and how can astronauts be protected?
A new research editorial in the Journal of Medical Physics examines the issue. It is titled “System of radiological protection: Towards a consistent framework on Earth and in space.” The lead author is Werner Rühm from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, München (Neuherberg), Germany. The same issue of the Journal of Medical Physics contains several other articles about radiation exposure. Together, they’re part of a research effort by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to update and harmonize radiation exposure guidelines.
The term ‘radiation’ is descriptive enough that most of us recognize the potential threat. However, when it comes to variable space environments and human physiology, the word holds a lot more detail. The authors use the term ‘mixed radiation field’ to describe the radiation environment astronauts must endure.
“The mixed-radiation field outside and within a space vehicle is of particular complexity involving not only low-linear energy transfer (LET) radiation such as gamma radiation, electrons, and positrons but also high-LET radiation such as neutrons and heavy ions,” the authors write. The components of the field contain a wide span of particles with different energy levels. “The quantitative and even qualitative risks of exposure to the combined impact of a complex radiation environment, microgravity, and other stressors remain unclear,” they explain.
One problem in preparing for exposure to these mixed radiation fields is the different approaches taken by different countries and space agencies.
NASA astronauts exploring Mars on future missions, perhaps starting in the 2030s, will require protection from long-term exposure to the cancer-causing space radiation environment. Credit: NASA.
According to lead author Rühm, this disharmony is caused by “the complex and dynamic radiation environments and an incomplete understanding of their biological consequences. Because of this, space agencies follow somewhat different concepts to quantify radiation doses and their resulting health effects.”
This paper and its companions are part of an effort to unify our understanding of radiation and its hazards and to harmonize the various approaches to dealing with them. The goal is to develop a “consistent radiological protection framework.” To do that, the authors explain that several questions need answers:
Which radiation-induced health effects should be considered?
What dose quantities are the best for the radiological protection of astronauts?
Which metrics should be used to quantify radiation-related health risks?
How do we address sex and age differences in radiation risk?
What kind of protection criteria should be applied?
How do we decide on the tolerability of radiation-induced risks, given that astronauts are exposed to many other occupation-related risks?
How do we deal with the fact that increased health risks due to radiation exposure may persist after an astronaut’s career ends?
How do we communicate radiation risk and make a comparison with other health hazards in a meaningful way?
How do we harmonize national radiological protection guidelines, given that different subpopulations might have different levels of risk tolerance?
This list of questions vividly illustrates the complexity of the radiation exposure problem. Answering them will help harmonize the approach to radiation on space missions.
Rühm and his colleagues want to support space agencies as they harmonize and coordinate their guidelines for astronauts’ exposure to radiation. The goal is to develop an approach consistent with the thorough guidelines followed here on Earth.
The difference between how males and females respond to radiation illustrates one of the problems in developing radiation exposure guidelines. In past decades, much medical research was based on males and the results were applied to females as well. According to Rühm, the same thing has happened with radiation.
“It is worth mentioning that on Earth, the System developed by ICRP does not include any systematic differentiation between recommendations on limits for males and females,” the authors write. This is in spite of the fact that it is “well known that there are individual differences in radiation sensitivity between males and females.” The difference is largely because reproductive tissue is more susceptible to radiation than other tissue, and women have more of it.
This infographic shows how men’s and women’s bodies react differently to spaceflight. It’s also becoming well-known that women are more sensitive to radiation exposure. Image Credit: NASA/NSBRI
NASA has developed a different approach to radiation exposure because of this. “This standard is based on a REID (Risk of Exposure-Induced Death) of 3% calculated for cancer mortality in the most vulnerable group of astronauts––35-year-old females,” the authors write. Scientists understand that females are more vulnerable to radiation than males and that younger females are more sensitive than older females. It’s worth noting that astronauts are unlikely to be under the age of 35.
The difference between the sexes isn’t the only thing that needs to be addressed when it comes to astronauts’ exposure to radiation. Different sub-populations might have different risk factors; there are lifestyle-related risks, different mission architectures hold different risks, and many other factors come into play. Harmonizing an approach with all of these different factors is a daunting task.
Difficult or not—and there’s nothing easy about space travel—a harmonized and coordinated approach to understanding the radiation risk is the logical next step. Artemis itself is a collaboration between different nations and agencies, and it’s only fair to the astronauts themselves that they have the same protections and considerations when it comes to radiation exposure.
Rühm and his colleagues hope that their work will help lead to a harmonized approach to assessing the radiation hazards faced by astronauts in mixed radiation fields. We owe it to the people willing to put their lives on the line and serve as astronauts.
“Adventurous people have always tried to widen their horizon, this is part of our very nature as humans,” Rühm says. “Our work contributes to and supports one of the most exciting and challenging human endeavors ever undertaken.”
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BepiColombo Just Completed its Sixth Flyby of Mercury. Here are the Best Images
It’s not unusual for space probes to complete gravitational flyby manoeuvres en route to their destination. It’s a bit more unusual when the flyby is at the destination planet. ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft is manoeuvring around Mercury into its final orbit. With each flyby it gets closer and closer and closer until its finally captured by Mercury’s gravity in 2026. During the latest flyby, stunning images of the nearest planet to the Sun were captured from just a few hundred km. Checkout the best and most stunning images of Mercury yet.
Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System and closest to the Sun is a rocky world. It’s surface somewhat resembles the Moon, desolate and heavily cratered. The lack of an atmosphere and the proximity to the Sun means daytime temperatures can reach a whopping 472°C but they plummet to -200°C at night. Mercury’s orbit is highly elliptical taking just 88 Earth days to complete one full orbit around the Sun. From Earth Mercury is never far from the Sun in the sky and so is very difficult to observe in the bright twilight sky.
Image of Mercury taken by NASA’s MESSENGER mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/ASU/Carnegie Institution of Washington
To date, only two spacecraft have visited Mercury; Mariner 10 and Messenger. There is now another on the way, BepiColombo. It was launched on 20 October 2018 where it began its journey to the innermost planet. Led by ESA, this joint mission with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA.) is made up of two orbiters; ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. On arrival, the two orbiters will manoeuvre into their dedicated polar orbits, beginning their operations in early 2027.
BepiColombo stacked in preparation for launch. ESA
During a press briefing on 9 January 2025, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed the first images from the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) and the results did not disappoint.
In this first image, BepiColombo passed over Mercury’s terminator, the line between the day and night hemispheres, allowing M-CAM 1 to peer into the permanently shadowed craters of the north pole. The craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer can be seen with their permanently dark floors. Despite Mercury’s proximity to the Sun, the floors of the craters are some of the coldest places in the Sun. In these dark, shadowy places there is even evidence of frozen water!
The second image captures the volcanic plane known as Borealis Planitia. The large smooth plains on Mercury, rather like those on the Moon, formed billions of years ago. In the case of Mercury, it’s thought the plains formed 3.7 billion years ago when volcanic eruptions flooded the surface with molten lava. Any craters that were in the area, such as Henri and Lismer got filled with lava and as the planet cooled, wrinkles formed in the plains much like the wrinkling of an apple skin
Many of the smaller craters in this region have been wiped out by the lava but the rim of Mendelssohn crater is still visible along with Caloris Basin, a large impact crater with a diameter of 1,500 km.
The final image was taken by M-CAM 2 and shows more evidence of volcanic activity and impact events. There is a bright region toward the upper limb and this is known as Nathair Facula. It’s the result of the largest volcanic explosion on Mercury with a central vent 40km across. Evidence has been found for at least 3 major eruptions that have deposited lava over 150km away. In stark contrast, to the left is the much younger Fonteyn Crater, just 300 million years old!
If you've ever told someone to 'go to hell', you probably didn't have a real location in mind.
While most people no longer believe that hell is a physical place, that has not always been the case.
Scattered across the world, there are five terrifying locations that are claimed to be entrances to the underworld.
And experts now say that there could be some surprising scientific truths to back them up.
From the nightmarish location that inspired Jesus' account of hell to the cave that mysteriously kills anyone who enters, these locations are as close to hell on Earth as you can get.
In Iceland, you can find the ever-burning brimstone of Hekla Fell, a volcano believed by Christians to be the real location of hell.
While in Belize, archaeologists are now piecing together the mysteries of the crystalised skeletons hidden within an eerie portal to the Mayan underworld.
So, would you be brave enough to visit any of these real-life gates to hell?
1. Gehenna
In his 'Sermon on the Mount' Jesus famously warned that anyone who allows their hand or eye to sin will be cast into 'hell'.
However, biblical expertsbelieve that isn't really what Jesus said.
In the earliest version of the text, the word that Jesus uses is not 'hell' but 'Gehenna'.
Rather than referring to a place of eternal torment, Gehenna is a real location just outside the walls of old Jerusalem.
A contraction of the name Valley of Hinnom, or 'Ge-Hinnom', Gehenna isone of the deep gorges which can be found to the southwest of the old city.
According to the Bible, this was the place where ancient Israelites practised child sacrifice, making offerings of their own young to the god Baal.
Jesus' sermon on the mount is often translated as saying that sinners go to 'hell'. However, the word he really used was 'Gehenna' which refers to a real valley to the south of Old Jerusalem (pictured)
Five locations scientists believe could be gateways to the hell
Gehenna, Israel
Hierapolis, Turkey
Hekla, Iceland
Actun Tunichil Muknal, Belize
St Patrick's Purgatory, Iceland
For this reason, many believed that the location had been cursed by God and made unfit for worship.
Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote in Time: 'In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial.
'Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet.'
As the bible was translated into other languages, the word Gehenna was gradually swapped for the English word 'hell'.
This means that, according to Christianity, Gehenna is literally hell on Earth.
The Valley of Hinnom might also be the origin of the fires of hell which have filled the popular imagination.
According to some accounts, the Valley of Hinnom was used by the people of Jerusalem as a landfill site where rubbish fires perpetually burned.
Some biblical scholars believe this could have inspired the idea that sinners would be cast into a place of eternal fire.
Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom (pictured), was believed by Jews in Jesus' day to have been a place of human sacrifice. By saying that sinners would be thrown into Gehenna, Jesus may have meant that they would not receive a proper burial. Over time, Gehenna became linked to the Christian idea of Hell and the underworld
However, while a Roman-era rubbish dump has been found in the North of the city, there is no archaeological evidence that Gehenna was ever really used to burn waste.
2. Hierapolis
It might not come as a surprise that passing through the gates to the underworld can be hazardous to your health.
But at Hierapolis, in modern-day Turkey, attempting to pass in through this ancient portal really could cost you your life.
The ancient Roman city of Hierapolis was built during the reign of emperor Tiberius between 14 and 37 BC.
In the ruins of this once bustling city, archaeologists have found extensive baths, a gymnasium, an agora or meeting place, and even a Byzantine church.
Discovered in 2011, the entrance to hell is a small door leading into a cave-like grotto built into one wall of an open arena.
In modern-day Turkey, scientists have found an ancient Roman portal to the underworld with the power to kill anyone who enters (pictured)
According to the ancient philosopher Strabo, the castrated priests of the underworld would carry sacrificial animals down through the door, known as the Plutonium.
To the shock of the spectators lining the surrounding amphitheatre, the animals would die on the spot as if struck down by an invisible assailant while the priests would remain unharmed.
In his account written 2,000 years ago, Strabo says: '[The] space is filled with a cloudy and dark vapour, so dense that the bottom can scarcely be discerned ... Animals which enter ... die instantly.
'Even bulls, when brought within it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have ourselves thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless.'
Shockingly, modern scientists have found that Strabo was completely correct about the Plutonium's deadly properties.
In addition to warming the springs which drew tourists to the town, this geological activity produced thick clouds of CO2 which would rise up out of the cave.
At night, the CO2 pools thickly in an enveloping cloud of mist which the ancient Romans attributed to the breath of Kerberos, the three-headed guard dog of hell.
The 'Plutonium' in Hierapolis was believed to be an entrance to the underworld. In reality, scientists found that the temple had been built above a geological faultline which produced enough CO2 to kill animals brought near it
In a study published in 2018, researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen found that CO2 outside the temple entrance reached concentrations of 40-50 per cent.
The authors write: 'Astonishingly, these vapors are still emitted in concentrations that nowadays kill insects, birds, and mammals.
'They reach concentrations during the night that would easily kill even a human being within a minute.'
While the priests were tall enough to keep their heads above the gases, the sacrificial animals were trapped inside the toxic cloud and killed.
Even today, these gases are so toxic that visiting this entrance to hell unprepared really could be a one-way ticket to the afterlife.
3. Hekla
Even from afar, it is easy to see why Medieval Christians believed that Hekla might be the entrance to hell.
The snow-capped peak of this 1,491-metrevolcano towers above Southern Iceland.
Hekla in Iceland was once believed to be the gates of hell through which souls would pass on their way to the underworld
The Icelandic word 'Hekla' refers to a short, hooded cloak which could reflect the dramatic layer of clouds that gather about its peak.
The mountain's demonic reputation first emerged around the year 1104 when Hekla burst out of dormancy with an enormous eruption.
Based on geological studies, it is believed that the eruption was a category VEI 5 - the same rating as the eruption of Mount St Helen in 1980.
The explosion was so violent that 21,000 square miles (55,000 km squared) - more than half of Iceland - was bombarded by rock and ash.
According to accounts written at the time, people could see the blast of lava, searing ash, and toxic gases from the sea as lava bombs weighing up to 12 tonnes rained down on the country.
The eruption was so violent that news of Hekla's diabolic force soon spread around the ancient world.
In 1180, a Cistercian monk called Herbert de Clairvaux boasted that Helka was even more deady than Mount Etna in Italy.
He wrote: 'The renowned fiery cauldron of Sicily, which men call Hell's chimney ... that cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace compared to this enormous inferno.'
This volcano earned its diabolical reputation thanks to a series of massive eruptions that began in 1104. Hekla produced so much lava and ash that medieval writers believed they had found hell
As one of Iceland's most active volcanoes, Hekla has continued to earn its sinister status. The volcano most recently erupted in 2000 (pictured) in an explosion which created a 4.3 mile (7km) fissure
By 1120, a poem by the monk Benedeit called the mountain the eternal prison of Judas, referring to the lowest circles of hell.
In the early 14th century, one medieval author described seeing large birds flying into the volcano's fires which were believed to be the souls of the damned entering inferno.
Most famously, the 16th-century German scholar Caspar Peucer wrote that the gates to hell could be found in 'the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell'.
Although the legends about Hekla's connection to the underworld died off by the 19th century, the volcano has continued to earn its fiendish reputation.
The mountain has even erupted as recently as the year 2000 when it opened up a 4.3 mile (7km) fissure which sprayed ash and steam 9 miles (15km) into the air.
4. Actun Tunichil Muknal
In Belize, the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal, meaning 'Cave of the Stone Sepulcher', is one of the best preserved entrances to the underworld anywhere on the planet. Its 3 miles (5km) long tunnels have been undisturbed for over 1,000 years and contain the grizzly remains of human sacrifices
While legends about hell vary wildly from culture to culture, one common thread that ties these stories together is that hell is often believed to be deep beneath the Earth.
In Belize, you can find one of the best contenders for an entrance to the subterranean underworld within the caves of Actun Tunichil Muknal, meaning 'Cave of the Stone Sepulcher'.
Actun Tunichil Muknal (the ATM Cave) lay undiscovered and undisturbed for more than 1,000 years after the collapse of the Mayan Empire.
The cave extends more than three miles (five kilometres) beneath the Earth and archaeologists have found artefacts dating back to around 800 AD.
Most shockingly of all, the cave is filled with the grisly remains of the victims of human sacrifice.
When the cave was first discovered in 1989, archaeologists were shocked to find the remains of individuals as young as four years old who had been bludgeoned to death.
The most famous of these remains is so old that the bones have crystalised into glittering calcite, earning it the name 'The Crystal Maiden'.
Researchers now think that the cave was revered as an entrance to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld and the domain of the death gods.
One of the victims has been there so long that their bones have crystalised, earning them the nickname 'The Crystal Maiden'. Experts believe that the Mayans thought the cave was an entrance to Xibalba, the underworld, and made sacrifices there to appease the lords of hell
Based on the arrangement of the bodies, researchers believe that this was the site of ritual murders designed to reenact the 'Popol Vuh' creation myth.
During the 10th century, the Mayan empire was being blighted by droughts and natural disasters which culminated in the civilisation's rapid collapse.
Their sacrifices were intended to appease the Lords of Xibalba who were thought to be responsible for the droughts.
Professor Holley Moyes, an expert on the caves from the University of California told the BBC: 'Amongst the Maya, we hardly see any – almost no – human sacrifice until the late classic period.
'And I think they start doing it because they are in the middle of a drought, and they are trying to up the ante.'
5. St Patrick's Purgatory
On a little-known Irish island, you can find a supposed entrance to hell which has had an outsised impact on the Christian understanding of life after death.
St Patrick's Purgatory, located on Station Island in northwestern Ireland, was considered by early medieval people to be the edge of the known world.
Station Island in Ireland is home to St Patrick's Purgatory. In the medieval period, it was believed that the caves on the island could give visitors glimpses of hell
While St Patrick today might be better associated with shamrocks and green hats, he once had a much more terrifying reputation.
According to a 12th-century text written by a monk named H. of Saltrey, St Patrick prayed to God for a way to convert the Irish pagans.
His efforts were rewarded by a vision of a 'pit of purgatory'.
This chasm filled the mind of anyone who entered with visions of hell fire and monsters, essentially providing a first-hand experience of the consequences of rebuking Christianity.
According to medieval texts, this pit is located on Station Island where a monastery founded by one of St Patrick's disciples still stands today.
Early visitors reported finding a small cave where they would be bombarded with unearthly visions.
The 12-century historian Gerald of Walesof Wales wrote: 'This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them, … he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits.'
The cave was filled in and replaced with a more conventional chapel in the year 1790, but St Patrick's vision of a temporary hell would go on to have a far wider influence.
The caves were filled in in 1790 and replaced with a large chapel. However, the reports of hellish visions went on to form the basis of the Christian understanding of hell and purgatory which persist today
After reports of the mystical powers of St Patrick's caves were reported, the monastery became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe.
The idea that sinners might briefly experience suffering before reaching salvation formed one of the essential cornerstones of the idea of purgatory, a sort of waiting room for heaven.
By popularising these ideas, St Patrick's Purgatory became a critical point for the evolution of Christian ideas about what happens after you die.
Just 100 years after the first accounts were written, purgatory was made official church doctrine in 1274.
Even today, pilgrims from around the world undergo notoriously gruelling visits to the island to get a taste of hell first-hand.
So, while you might no longer be able to take a day trip to the inferno in the cave beneath the island, you can still visit the place where our modern ideas of hell began.
Britain was a fractious nation in the 7th Century AD, still looking for stability several centuries after the collapse of the Roman empire.
At this point, various kings ruled over different regions of land and many languages and religions dominated certain locales.
The exact date of the church is not known, but it is though to be around 633AD, or shortly after, when Ethelburga, a native of Kent, likely returned to her homeland following the death of her husband, Edwin.
Edwin was the son of Ethelfrith, a Northumbrian king who was known for his warring prowess and repeated skirmished with the Gododdin, a fierce celtic-speaking people from the north-east area of the then-called 'Britannia'.
King Redwalld of East Anglia dominated the centre of the country, and established the kingdom of Mercia while the Picts dominated modern-day Scotland.
Augustine (right, on bended knee), and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha (left). The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised.He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country. Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop
Another king ruled the south-east, with Ethelbert of Kent and his French Christian wife Bertha in command of the region.
These royals had been visited by a bishop from Rome in 597AD called Augustine after Pope Gregory sent him on a mission to take Christianity to the British isles.
The Pope's sudden interest in the British isles is believed to stem from a chance encounter with two 'Angli' slaves in an Italian slave market.
Their blonde hair and fair skin captivated the Pope and he immediately said of the inhabitants of England, known as Angels at the time: 'Non Angli sed angeli'.
Directly translated into English it means 'not Angels but angels of God'.
His instant infatuation was the kickstarter for the Roman clergy to begin their efforts to bring Evangelicalism to the desolate and divided nation.
Augustine, and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha.
The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised.
He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country.
Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop.
Meanwhile, the feared Ethelfrith from the north died and was succeeded by his son, Edwin, who soon mounted a charge on the rest of Britannia.
His vast army descended from the north and swept through Mercia and into Kent.
The mission ended in the conquest of the south-east and Edwin seized Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha, as his trophy.
She became his second wife and her devote Christian beliefs went with her to the north.
A Roman monk was also claimed as part of Edwin's spoils and he performed a baptism on the young King Edwin.
This monk was then assigned the task of founding what is now one of the most iconic christian sites in the UK, York Minster.
After Edwin abandoned his Pagan beliefs, his reflective approach was not matched by all his contemporaries.
His high priest was so inflamed by the king's decision he hurled a spear into his own temple and ordered conflagration.
In 633AD King Cadwallen of Gwynedd and King Penda of Mercia invaded Northumbria and killed Edwin in battle.
He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed.
The troops of King Cadwallon of Gwynedd raise their spears and rejoice at the death of King Edwin in 633AD. He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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