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.
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
24-02-2026
Eco Engineers: 5 Animals That Can Reshape Earth's Waterways
Eco Engineers: 5 Animals That Can Reshape Earth's Waterways
American alligators in the Florida Everglades use their snouts and claws to create massive trenches known as "gator holes." Paul Giamou/Getty Images
Nutrients, water and living space. Those are some of life's basic needs. Anything that alters their distribution is going to be a key factor in the struggle for survival. Change the waterways, the landscape or the availability of food and an entire ecosystem can be reshaped.
Certain species wield that power to great effect. One of the most fascinating topics in biology is the role of ecosystem engineers. Scientists define these as "organisms that directly or indirectly modulate the availability of resources to other species by causing physical state changes to biotic or abiotic materials."
In simple terms, ecosystem engineers alter their physical surroundings in ways that have major impacts on the livelihood of other organisms. A perfect example would be the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).
Out in the wild, the big reptiles like to make their own swimming pools. Using their snouts and claws, they create massive trenches known as "gator holes" in the limestone around Florida's Everglades. In short order, these things flood with water. The depressions also tend to remain full of water, even well into the dry season — a time when standing water is scarce.
For other life forms, these gator holes provide badly-needed oases. Frogs and turtles pour into these convenient little ponds, while plants surround their rims, attracting all kinds of insects. So, as unlikely as it sounds, Florida alligators are environmental stewards. They create brand-new homes for their neighbors and — in the process — strengthen the biodiversity of the Everglades.
Other ecosystem engineers leave different marks. Today, we're looking at five that reshape rivers, link ponds together and transform mangrove creeks. Mapmakers of the world, you'll want to keep your erasers handy when these beasties come to town.
Beavers can wreak havoc digging canals and building dams that often block rivers. Dean Fikar/Getty Images
The term "busy as a beaver" is high praise indeed. Beavers are insanely hard-working rodents; a lone individual can cut down up to 200 trees in a single year. Famously, they build sturdy homes — or "lodges" — for themselves out of branches, mud and other materials. They can also make their own large-scale ponds by damming streams.
With a well-placed dam, a beaver family will be able to regulate water flow. On the structure's upstream side, backlogged water may give rise to a standing pond where none previously existed. This not only gives beavers a place to build their lodges, it also affords easy access to surrounding trees. Often, a couple of inches (5 centimeters) or feet (0.6 meters) of water covers the bases of nearby pines and hardwoods that once stood on dry ground. As a result, beavers can swim right up to these trees. They also like to dig canals that branch out of the new ponds, penetrating deeply into the local forests.
These new beaver-created wetlands provide homes for smaller animals like amphibians. Plus, the rodents' dams make great natural filters, blocking excess nitrogen from our creeks and streams.
However, not all the side-effects are positive. When a beaver dam fails, it's liable to flood towns or farms. The aftermath can be expensive: In the southeastern U.S. alone, these floods are responsible for an estimated $22 million in yearly damages to the timber industry. It's not surprising, then, that many people view beavers as pests. If you've got a beaver problem, know that humane solutions are out there.
4: Hippos
Hippos carve up and revamp Africa's waterways just by going about their daily business. Arterra/Getty Images
Landscaping is child's play for these guys. Put a group of hippos into a floodplain with lots of nice, soft soil and they'll start reconfiguring the turf like crazy. The massive creatures like to plow through the reed beds that ring bodies of water. This creates deep depressions in the underlying soil, which in turn become channels. Also, on hot days, hippos will sometimes relax in the cool comfort of freshwater pools.
However, these don't offer much in the way of food. So when hunger strikes, the hippos leave their little pools to feed elsewhere. All of this coming and going produces what Discover magazine once called "hippo highways."
Worn down into deep, plant-free ravines by wandering hippos, these footpaths can be as much as 16 feet (5 meters) wide and — just like gator holes — they're quick to fill up with water. What's more, hippo highways linking the pools to big rivers can also be established. If the area should flood, these connection points may become an outlet for surging water. They also enable swamplands to expand. And under the right circumstances, the trench-like trails will divert a great deal of sediment from rivers into lagoons or ponds.
So to make a long story short, just by going about their daily business, hippos can carve up and revamp Africa's waterways. Neat. But if hippopotamuses are true blue ecosystem engineers, then how do they affect other organisms?
Well, one 2015 analysis determined that hippo dung is an important source of nutrition for at least some of the fish and insects that share the animal's native range. Don't underestimate the power of poop.
3: Muskrats
The burrows muskrats build have big implications for the waterways because they promote erosion, which can cause riverbanks to collapse. Design Pics/David Ponton/Getty Images
Beavers may be the poster children for ecosystem engineers, but other rodents also deserve some acknowledgement for their roles in shaping habitats.
Consider the muskrat. Like beavers, muskrats are known to create dome-shaped lodges out of things like twigs and leaves. But this isn't their only method of building shelters. Muskrats who live alongside rivers, ponds or ditches tend to eschew lodges in favor of deep holes they've burrowed into the banks. The critters begin by diving under the water, where they start working on a tunnel about 6 to 18 inches (15.2 to 45.7 centimeters) below the surface. From there, the muskrats dig farther and farther at an upward slant. Eventually, they produce a warm, dry living chamber that's only accessible through underwater entrances. Not a bad way to keep uninvited guests out.
Such burrows can have big implications for the waterways they're connected to. For one thing, the structures promote erosion, which can cause banks to collapse. This prompts water to race into the afflicted area, disrupting the river flow. Over time, if enough water is re-routed toward the collapsed bank, the river's curvature might change — thanks partly to the rodents. And much to the annoyance of human land developers, when a muskrat burrows into a manmade dam, unwanted drainage often follows.
2: Elephants
African elephants transform the landscape and waterways in multiple ways. Wim van den Heever/Getty Images
It's hard to keep a full belly when you weigh 7 tons (6.35 metric tons). African elephants are larger than life and have appetites to match. On a typical day, an adult will spend 12 to 18 hours eating, devouring as much as 600 pounds' (272 kilograms') worth of food in the process. All that munching is vital to the ecosystem. So are the bowel movements that come later.
Elephant dung is a nutritious fertilizer for the soils of Africa; it's also a vehicle by which many seeds are dispersed. Furthermore, by knocking down trees and eating shrubs, these colossal animals convert forests into grasslands.
A 2009 study revealed even more about the transformative powers that African elephants have over their habitats. Appearing in an issue of the journalBioScience, this study reported on the ecosystem engineers in Botswana's Okavango Delta. Elephants, the co-authors noted, are great at building water channels. The tusked herbivores like to cover the same land routes over and over again, making trails in the process. Sometimes, multiple generations of elephants will re-use the exact same footpaths. As time goes by, the heavy animals can't help but compress the soil, turning their walkways into trenches.
According to study authors, when elephants move back and forth between two bodies of water, their sunken trails become nice conduits. Thus, rivers or ponds that were once isolated can be merged via elephant-made canals.
And that's not the only service that elephant routes provide. In 2010, environmental scientists Roy Sidle and Alan Ziegler published a seven-year study on an Asian elephant trail in northern Thailand. By inspecting both water and sediment levels, they determined that this pathway helped send monsoon runoff directly into the local streams.
1: Burrowing Crabs
Burrowing crabs trenches along mangrove swamp shorelines so deep they often collapse. Nortondefeis via Wikimedia Commons
It's time to take a break from our own phylum. A number of crustaceans are great diggers, including the so-called fiddler crabs (genus Uca), which shelter in tunnels measuring up to 3 feet (0.9 meters) or more in depth. (The holes are quite a construction project, given the fact that most fiddler species are less than 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide.
And then we've got the "burrowing crabs" of the genus Chasmagnathus. Unrelated to the fiddlers, these guys live in the mangrove swamps, salt marshes and estuaries of eastern Asia. For many years, a South American species formerly known as Chasmognathus granulatus was assigned to this genus, but in 2006, it was reclassified and renamedNeohelice granulata — though, confusingly, some scientists still use the old name.
Often found in the mangrove swamps of Brazil and Argentina, Neohelice granulata is an efficient, deep-digging burrower. Like muskrat holes, the tunnels these small crabs builds are liable to weaken the surrounding turf. On mangrove swamp shorelines, this has the effect of widening tidal creeks, whose mud and clay-based banks are rendered more vulnerable to erosion by the digging invertebrates. And that's just part of the story. Because burrowing crabs have such a pronounced effect on sediment composition, their tunnels can also cause completely new creeks to form within these mangrove systems.
So despite being rather miniscule animals, burrowing crabs can shake up entire waterway networks. Will nature ever cease to amaze us?
Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS provided scientists with an exceptionally rare opportunity to study the nature of other planetary systems beyond our own. It was first discovered in July of last year, heading straight past the Sun and making itsclosest approach to our star in late October.
It’s been speeding out of the solar system ever since, releasing copious amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor that potentially date back billions of years.
But scientists think it’s technically still possible to send a probe and have a closer look, as Space.com reports. It’s admittedly a long shot: the mission would have to launch by 2035 to catch up with 3I/ATLAS by 2085, at which point it will be over 700 times the distance between the Sun and Earth away from us, or over four times the distance NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has covered over the last 48 years.
To gain enough speed, such a probe would have to perform close flybys of the Sun, making use of the Oberth effect to borrow energy from the star’s extreme gravitational field. As former NASA staffer and Space Initiatives chief scientist Marshall Eubanks told Space.com, it’s common for spacecraft to use the effect. However, as detailed in a new yet-to-be-published paper, he and his colleagues proposed performing a major burn during the closest approach to reach massive levels of acceleration — a delta-V, or a change in velocity, of over five miles per second.
Besides reaching potentially record-breaking speeds for any spacecraft, it would also have to endure searing temperatures as it brushes by the Sun.
After its daring solar flyby, the spacecraft would then need to perform several flybys of Venus to speed up even more, not unlike NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. In their paper, the researchers propose using a “refueled Starship Block 3” in low-Earth orbit, referring to SpaceX’s enormous launch platform, which would have “sufficient performance for such a mission.”
But whether it would be worth the effort to careen after 3I/ATLAS for decades remains debatable. The interceptor would also only be able to perform a flyby some 50 years from now due to the difference in velocities, greatly undermining the usefulness of such a major undertaking.
Fortunately, as more powerful space telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory come online, 3I/ATLAS probably won’t be the last interstellar object to be detected cruising by in the near future.
“We’ll just have to see,” Eubanks told Space.com. “Maybe after, say, ten interstellar objects have been found, 3I will seem commonplace and it won’t seem worthwhile to mount an expedition to chase it.”
However, any future interstellar objects should be chased by spacecraft that are already in orbit, Eubanks and his colleagues argued.
“There are better mission architectures, using a probe already in orbit in space, which would intercept an interstellar object around perihelion in much less time, rendering an Oberth unnecessary,” Adam Hibberd, Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software creator and coauthor of the latest paper, told Space.com.
Conveniently, the European Space Agency is already planning to launch its Comet Interceptor mission as soon as late 2028 and “park” it while it awaits its target, opening the door for studying future interstellar visitors.
“I feel quite confident that when we develop the ability to reach these interstellar objects, there will be a strong desire to directly explore at least some of them,” Eubanks told the outlet.
The Curiosity rover has studied a network of Martian “webs” — structures formed by ancient underground water. This raises the question once again of whether life could have existed on the Red Planet.
Panorama showing the Boxwork ridges on Mars. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
One of the distinctive features of Mars are geological formations called “boxworks,” which look like giant spider webs from space. They are low ridges stretching for many kilometers, with heights ranging from 1 to 2 meters, with sandy depressions between them.
To explain their shape, scientists have hypothesized that underground water once flowed through large cracks in the bedrock, leaving minerals behind. These minerals then reinforced the areas that became ridges, while other areas that did not have mineral reinforcement were eroded over time.
Martian “highway”
However, until recently, this was only a hypothesis. Although boxwork ridges also exist on Earth, they rarely exceed a few centimeters in height and are usually found in caves or dry sandy environments. To reveal the nature of these formations, it was necessary to examine them closely.
Selfie taken by the Curiosity rover. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Curiosity rover was used to solve this problem, which proved to be a real challenge for the team controlling it. They needed to plan the route for the 900-kilogram rover so that it could travel along the tops of ridges whose width was not much greater than the rover’s own width.
“It almost feels like a highway we can drive on. But then we have to go down into the hollows, where you need to be mindful of Curiosity’s wheels slipping or having trouble turning in the sand,” said Ashley Stroup, an operations systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “There’s always a solution. It just takes trying different paths.”
Water on Mars
Orbital images of the boxwork showed characteristic dark lines. In 2014, it was suggested that there were cracks in the rocks where groundwater seeped in and allowed minerals to concentrate. After examining the ridges up close, Curiosity confirmed that these lines are indeed cracks.
These bumpy nodules formed from minerals left behind after groundwater on Mars dried up billions of years ago. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The rover also discovered irregular formations called nodules, which are a clear sign of the presence of underground water in the past. Unexpectedly, these nodules were found not near the central cracks, but along the walls of the ridges and in the depressions between them.
This discovery is particularly important given the geography of the region. Curiosity is climbing the slope of the 5-kilometer-high Mount Sharp. Each layer was formed during different geological eras. The higher Curiosity climbs, the more signs of alternating periods of water drying up and wet periods with rivers and lakes appear in the landscape.
“Seeing boxwork this far up the mountain suggests the groundwater table had to be pretty high,” said Tina Seeger of Rice University in Houston, one of the mission scientists leading the boxwork research. “And that means the water needed for sustaining life could have lasted much longer than we thought looking from orbit.”
Sometime in March, Curiosity will leave the boxwork and begin studying the sulfate layer covering Mount Sharp. It consists of salt minerals formed as a result of water drying up. Studying it will help us learn even more about what the climate of the Red Planet was like billions of years ago.
What do Obama and Trump’s alien comments actually reveal?
What do Obama and Trump’s alien comments actually reveal?
During an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen released last Saturday (February 14), former president Barack Obama didn’t shy away from the question, when asked whether extraterrestrials exist, he replied simply, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them.”
Donald Trump responded to Obama’s comments by suggesting the former president may have revealed classified information, saying Obama “gave classified information — he’s not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake.”
Trump later wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that, due to the tremendous public interest, he would direct the Secretary of War and other relevant departments and agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and UFOs.
Concerns about secrecy intensified when a massive public archive from The Black Vault, run by researcher and ufologist John Greenewald Jr., reportedly containing 3.8 million declassified U.S. government files, vanished just one day after Trump ordered the release of all UFO-related documents.
Critics, however, claim the move to release all files tied to UFOs and extraterrestrial contact is merely a distraction from other political controversies.
In the video below, Richard Dolan assesses what Obama actually said, why the reaction was wildly overblown, and why Trump’s instinctive response made the issue more interesting. More importantly, Richard examines the deeper structural problem behind UFO disclosure: a labyrinth of federal agencies, special access programs, and private defense contractors that may sit largely beyond presidential reach. This story is really power, secrecy, and what history tells us about how difficult it really is to break through the system.
In the end, many believe it may be the same old story, with little, if anything, about aliens truly being revealed… but who knows?
Obama thinks extraterrestrials exist and he’s not the only former president to think so... here’s what the scientists believe
In an early episode of the TV show The X Files, a government informer known as “Deep Throat” poses a question to FBI agent Fox Mulder:
“Mr. Mulder, why are those like yourself, who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life on this Earth, not dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?”
Mulder answers: “Because, all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive.”
The exchange neatly sums up the problem with conspiracy theories, notably that it is far harder to prove something is definitely not true than to show that it may be true. The door of possibility for the incredible, always remains slightly ajar.
This week Barack Obama poured more fuel on the alien conspiracy fire, admitting that extraterrestrials are “real”, although insisting none are housed at Area 51 – a top secret air force base in the Nevada desert where ufologists believe alien technology from the 1947 “Roswell Incident” is stored.
The Roswell Incident involved a supposed extraterrestrial spacecraft crashing into the New Mexico desert, with the debris – and possibly alien bodies – recovered by the US government.
Mr Obama is arguably the most sober and well-informed public figure to entertain the existence of alien life in recent years, although he is not the first president to acknowledge that aliens could be real.
Jimmy Carter reported seeing a UFO when he was governor of Georgia in 1969, while Ronald Reagan had a similar experience while flying his Cessna in California in 1974. He later asked Mikhail Gorbachev whether Russia would help, should the US be attacked by “someone from outer space”.
Most scientists believe that alien life is possible – even if it is just microbial – but many also think that intelligent life is likely. After all, the universe is huge and has been around for a very, very long time.
There are billions of stars similar to the Sun in our galaxy – the Milky Way – with a high probability that some have planets like Earth, orbiting in the habitable zone, where life could have evolved.
If Earth-like planets are typical then some have had the time to develop intelligent life, and interstellar travel.
After all, it took 67 years from the first flight of the Wright brothers for humans to reach the Moon, and Nasa’s Voyager probes have now left our Solar System.
One of the alleged Roswell crash sites Credit: Justin Sutcliffe
Many of the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way are billions of years older than the Sun, which means alien civilisations had plenty of time to evolve and work out how to travel to other worlds. Yet there is little sign of them.
This is known as the Fermi Paradox. If all this intelligent alien life exists, where is it? Are we to believe it is hiding from us, its existence revealed only to a few in the upper echelons of government?
Certainly there have been ongoing sightings of strange technology that could be alien.
In the 1940s, Allied pilots during the Second World War reported being hounded by fast-moving blobs, which they dubbed “foo fighters”.
Astronauts Ed White and James McDivitt spotted a huge “metallic object” approaching the Gemini 4 orbiter in June 1965 while James Lovell reported a “Bogey at 10 o’clock high” on a mission six months later.
In 2021, Lt Cdr Alex Dietrich, a US navy pilot, went public for the first time to describe how she had seen multiple UFOs while stationed off the coast of southern California on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in 2004.
The objects moved impossibly fast, she said, dropping a distance of 80,000ft in less than a second and jumping dozens of miles in seconds, in an incident that was caught on infrared camera and radar.
Britain even has its own “Roswell”, known as the Rendlesham Forest incident, in 1980. US air force troops stationed at RAF Woodbridge reported sightings of a floating, glowing object that was metallic in appearance with coloured lights.
But attempts to get to the bottom of what is dogging our skies have proved inconclusive.
US air force troops stationed at RAF Woodbridge reported sightings of a floating, glowing object Credit: Drew Gardner/Eyevine
In 2023, Nasa released a report following a 15-month inquiry into UFOs – now known as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – warning that the data were too limited to make “definitive scientific conclusions”.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Nasa’s Thomas Zurbuchen, who initially headed up the UFO task force back in 2023, said he believed stories of “unexplained phenomena”.
“Not only did I talk to pilots, I talked to individuals who had sightings and they were really convinced. I really felt they told me the subjective truth. They were not lying, they were not making things up. I think they were telling me what they saw.”
But he said there could be multiple explanations, such as foreign technology – such as Chinese spy balloons - or natural phenomena, like luminescent clouds.
A 2024 paper from the universities of California, Arizona and the Harvard-Smithsonian argues that reports of UFO phenomena could be plasmas, or ionised gases, which are drawn to the electrical charge of aircraft, spacecraft and satellites.
It is not clear what aliens Mr Obama is referring to, or whether what he has been told is even accurate. After all, he admits to not seeing any himself. It would not be the first time that the US government has invoked a UFO conspiracy to mask secret technology, or a more unpalatable truth.
Mr Obama later clarified his comment to say that he had no evidence that aliens had made contact, but said the odds were good that “there’s life out there” somewhere.
In the book The Hunt for Zero Point, Nick Cook, an editor for the Jane’s Defence Weekly, spent 10 years investigating classified US government projects to build an anti-gravity aircraft.
It is thought that the US air force deliberately fostered reports of UFOs at this time to distract from the testing of this or other stealth technologies.
In the next few years, multiple probes, rovers and spacecraft will be visiting bodies in our own Solar System on the hunt for life, and we will probably soon obtain conclusive proof that life is possible elsewhere, even if it is tiny or extinct.
Last year, Nasa said it found colourful spots on Mars that may have been excreted by ancient microbes, in what was described as the “clearest evidence” yet that life once thrived on the Red Planet.
A paper published in the Journal of Astrophysics and Aerospace Technology in 2023 suggested that fossilised sponges, corals, worm eggs, algae, fungi, lichen, shrimp, crabs, sea spiders, scorpions, the tell-tale green glow of living cyanobacteria and even a translucent millipede, had all been seen on the surface of Mars.
Intelligent life is another matter, and I suspect if it is visiting us, it will be little grey machines rather than little green men. It makes far more sense to send AI into the rigours of interstellar space than an organic being with a limited lifespan.
But I am still sceptical. UFO sightings have not significantly increased since the advent of smartphones, CCTV and satellites, which are surely good enough to have provided definitive proof by now.
And we have telescopes across the globe listening for the faintest hint of a radio signal or message from another civilisation. So far, silent. And maybe that is a good thing.
The late Stephen Hawking was concerned that direct contact with advanced alien civilisations would inevitably lead to the colonisation of Earth by extraterrestrials.
In spite of Mr Obama’s claims, I suspect we are still alone. It may be safer for us to stay that way.
For Bill Diamond, the president and chief executive of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (Seti) in California, Obama’s beliefs are hardly radical. Seti is the world’s leading research organisation dedicated to the scientific search for life beyond our planet – and Diamond insists that aliens are out there.
“Oh yes,” says the 69-year-old scientist. “I do believe aliens are real. Definitely… It is one of the questions we ask if you want to get a job at Seti. If you don’t believe in aliens, there’s probably no point having a job with us.” Diamond’s job involves overseeing teams of scientists working on various projects and sifting through torrents of data from radio telescopes, searching for patterns that nature alone cannot explain.
Bill Diamond, current president of Seti in California, spends his days contemplating vast distances and civilisations he may never see
Stuart Bebb/Seti
Diamond is careful, though, to draw distinctions in what he means by aliens. He is not talking about flying saucers and abductions. “Life is probably very common in the universe,” he says. “It’s when you start talking about complex organisms, intelligence and then, ultimately, technology that it becomes a different matter.
“The conditions that would allow for [aliens] to exist, which are mostly time and evolution, are probably not going to be as common as the conditions that allow just basic cellular life to emerge. But statistically speaking, there will be many examples of intelligent and ultimately technological life on other worlds.”
So if they do exist, what will they look like? Public imagination of aliens in film and fiction are of little men flying through our skies in spaceships and etching elaborate patterns into wheat fields. Diamond smiles at the cliché. Reality, he believes, is both less theatrical and far harder to picture.
“It’s very hard for us to imagine what aliens would be like,” he says, but points to the biodiversity of our own planet which may offer clues. Aliens may even be similar to creatures like jellyfish, he suggests. “We have jellyfish that, from my point of view, are pretty extraordinary looking, a bit like aliens – and various sea creatures and birds and reptiles and mammals and so forth.” On Earth alone, evolution has produced creatures that seem almost otherworldly. Octopuses with nervous systems that extend into their arms, whales capable of complex communication. If such diversity exists under one sky, perhaps it’s not so difficult to imagine stranger things still under another.
The same physical laws apply everywhere, Diamond notes. Gravity, chemistry and energy behave the same way across the known universe. This does not mean that aliens would look human but it does mean that they would be shaped by similar constraints. “They will obviously be shaped by their environment. A bigger planet than Earth is going to have a stronger gravitational field that’s going to require an organism that is capable of withstanding that gravitational pull so likely to be a more robust physical species. A planet slightly smaller would have a lower gravitational field that might allow for more spindly, less structurally solid beings.”
In a recent interview, former US president Barack Obama affirmed his belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life
YouTube
So if aliens do exist, how would they get in touch? Diamond is clear about what he does not expect. “I think crop circles are rather unlikely,” he says. “If you’re an advanced civilisation, and you are able to be here in some capacity, having a presence or impact on our planet and you wanted to get our attention or have the technology to visit Earth in some direct or impactful way, you have technology far beyond our ability to imagine.”
Such a civilisation would not stumble upon us. It would already know we were here. It would have studied our atmosphere, our radio signals. It would understand our level of technology and, almost certainly, our languages, Diamond says.
Instead, he believes that contact is far more likely to come as a signal. “First contact is most certainly going to be an observation of a phenomena that nature doesn’t produce, that we can say that’s technology,” he says. “Certainly, if an advanced civilisation wanted to get in touch or contact us, radio transmission would be one of the most efficient and effective ways.”
However, he jokes that even if aliens could contact us, they might not want to. “There is a joke amongst some researchers,” he says. “When alien spacecraft fly by the Earth, they lock the doors.”
At Seti, Diamond describes three ways that scientists search for life. The first is “in situ” exploration, sending instruments directly to a place of interest. Nasa’s Perseverance rover is currently exploring Mars to determine whether life exists or once existed there. That approach, for now, is limited to our own solar system. The second is remote observation. The James Webb Space Telescope can examine the atmospheres of distant planets up to around 1,000 light years away. The third is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence itself, though Diamond prefers a more precise description. What Seti is really seeking, he says, is extraterrestrial technology, something that acts as a proxy for life and intelligence.
So, when might all of this happen? “A Seti discovery could happen tomorrow, it might not happen for a thousand years, we don’t know,” Diamond says. “But one of the things we also say in this business is that the probability for finding life beyond Earth if you don’t look for it is zero.”
The challenge, he explains, is scale. If a signal was sent from Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our solar system, it would only take four years to get here. Yet if an alien civilisation 1,000 light years away sent a message today, it would not reach us for 10 centuries. If we replied, our response would take just as long. Therefore, any exchange would unfold across generations rather than lifetimes.
The probability for finding life beyond Earth if you don’t look for it is zero,’ says Diamond
Diana Robinson
That does not dampen his optimism. Humanity has been technologically capable for barely a century. In that time, we have gone from inventing radio to building space telescopes that can study worlds hundreds of light years away. Given enough time, our reach will expand.
A confirmed detection would be historic. Diamond and his colleagues are already thinking about what it would mean. What will that discovery do to humanity as we know it? Change it for the better, Diamond hopes.
“Whatever the nature of the discovery, almost certainly it will have an impact on us,” he says. “How will it impact religious beliefs and how will it impact governments and international diplomacy?”
For a man who spends his days contemplating vast distances and civilisations he may never see, the conclusion is strikingly human. “I hope we will be excited by the news and not threatened by it. Maybe people would finally realise we are all on this one planet as one little island and in this together so it might be smart for us to co-operate instead of fighting with each other.”
NASA has reviewed the infamous Starliner incident that saw astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore stuck on the International Space Station for 278 days longer than intended. According to the new report, the organization places the "anomalies" in the same category as the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
On 5 June 2024, Wilmore and Williams were launched into space for an eight-day-long mission on board the orbiting laboratory. The two US astronauts were flying onboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, the third test of the new vehicle, which was supposed to demonstrate its safety for shuttling astronauts to and from the ISS. But that part didn't go so well.
Before they had docked with the ISS, the crew took over control of the spacecraft for an hour of flight demonstrations. The spacecraft performed well, but the following day saw several troubling anomalies.
"And then we got into day 2. The start of day 2 was the same starting off, and then we did have some failures as we are all aware. We lost an RCS jet, then we lost another one. And then you could tell the thrust, the control, the capability was degraded. The handling qualities were not the same," Wilmore said from the ISS in June 2024.
"From that point on you could tell that the thrust was degraded," Wilmore added. "At the time we didn't know why."
Starliner docked safely with the ISS, and Williams and Wilmore climbed on board what would turn out to be their home for the next nine months. NASA and the astronauts aboard the space station attempted to figure out the issue while the spaceship was still docked, but eventually Starliner returned to Earth without a crew.
In a new report and press conference, NASA revealed that it considers the incident a "Type A" mishap. This is the most serious category of incidents outlined by the agency.
“The Boeing Starliner spacecraft has faced challenges throughout its uncrewed and most recent crewed missions. While Boeing built Starliner, NASA accepted it and launched two astronauts to space. The technical difficulties encountered during docking with the International Space Station were very apparent,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.
“To undertake missions that change the world, we must be transparent about both our successes and our shortcomings. We have to own our mistakes and ensure they never happen again. Beyond technical issues, it is clear that NASA permitted overarching programmatic objectives of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to-and-from orbit, influence engineering and operational decisions, especially during and immediately after the mission. We are correcting those mistakes. Today, we are formally declaring a Type A mishap and ensuring leadership accountability so situations like this never reoccur. We look forward to working with Boeing as both organizations implement corrective actions and return Starliner to flight only when ready.”
To qualify as a Type A mishap, an incident must result in mission failure, the loss of crew or a spacecraft hull, or "unexpected aircraft or spacecraft departure from controlled flight for all aircraft except when departure from controlled flight has been pre-briefed".
"This was a really challenging event," associate administrator of NASA, Amit Kshatriya, said during the press conference. "We almost did have a really terrible day."
NASA revealed that while en route to the ISS, several thrusters failed, leaving the crew without "six degrees of freedom" or the ability to control the craft's orientation and direction.
"During the rendezvous and proximity operations, propulsion anomalies cascaded into multiple thruster failures and a temporary loss of six degree of freedom control," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman explained.
"Now, the controllers and the crew performed with extraordinary professionalism. Flight rules were appropriately challenged, control was recovered, and docking was achieved. It is worth restating," he added. "What should be obvious at that moment had different decisions been made, had thrusters not been recovered, or had docking been unsuccessful, the outcome of this mission could have been very, very different."
Ultimately, NASA acknowledges that there were problems in prior tests of Starliner that weren't properly understood before the crewed mission.
"A mission elapsed timing error prevented the guidance software from calculating orbital insertion burn timing, which triggered excessive thruster firings, incorrect orbital insertion, major propellant use, and ten thrusters that were declared failed off," Isaacman explained of the first orbital flight test in December 2019. "This mission was declared a high visibility close call."
Commercial Crew accepted risks in the [Service Module] propulsion system and the [Crew Module] propulsion system that were not fully understood prior to [Crewed Flight Test]," the report concludes. "These risks included variances to requirements and unexplained anomalies from the previous flight tests. There were no unstated technical concerns among the NASA team during the commit to flight process, but there was a shared underestimation of the likelihood of future thruster failures."
Ultimately, the report concludes that there are issues that need to be addressed and thoroughly tested with Starliner before it is allowed to fly again.
"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware," Isaacman added in a letter to NASA colleagues. It is decision making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."
"Even with our best efforts and programs, like [Commercial Crew Program], that have seen great success, mistakes will occur,” he added. “What defines us is whether we learn from them, improve because of them, and strengthen confidence across this workforce and the nation we serve. That requires transparency and accountability, neither of which can be selectively applied."
It's unclear how much opportunity Boeing will have to ferry further crew to the station with Starliner, given that the ISS is currently due to crash down into Point Nemo in the Pacific Ocean in 2031 (assuming we don't turn it into a space museum). But if they can sort out the issues, there may be opportunities to use the spacecraft beyond the end of the ISS. At the moment, further investigations into the cause of its problems continue.
Greenewald shared the news online, explaining that some server directories had their permissions, the safeguards on who can access or edit them, and the file ownership logs changed without explanation.
Black Vault has become a go-to resource for anyone wanting to see exactly what the government has quietly made public over the last 80 years.
Greenewald has spent three decades organizing information on hidden programs and little-known incidents that suggest the US has been involved in top secret efforts to recover and take advantage of alien technology.
Troves of declassified files the public can freely search through on the Black Vault detail military base reports, witness testimonies, and even CIA directives since the 1940s and 50s which have been unsealed without widespread public knowledge.
The researcher has also publicly revealed every time a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was returned by the CIA, FBI, and other government organizations with little or no response.
The timing of the potential sabotage came just hours after the president's history-making declaration, ordering the Pentagon to disclose anything 'related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).'
Hours after saying Barack Obama acted improperly by allegedly sharing classified information when he said that aliens exist, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to declassify all UFO files
Creator of The Black Vault, John Greenewald Jr, wrote on social media that the website containing 3.8 million declassified files was wiped hours after Trump's UFO order
In a statement released on X, Greenewald said he did not 'fully suspect foul play' but noted that he couldn't rule out the possibility because of the suspicious information he had received from the website hosting provider.
'[They] had no idea what happened, and on their side, they said it was a deletion, not corruption,' the researcher posted on Saturday.
In simpler terms, someone or something intentionally removed every single file from the Black Vault's server, deleting all the records released by the CIA and other groups, without fully shutting down the site so alarms wouldn't go off right away.
Until recently, the US government has flat-out denied that UFOs or extraterrestrial beings existed, maintaining for decades that there has never been any physical evidence recovered that proves something non-human has ever landed on Earth.
Greenewald has previously filed over 11,000 FOIA requests with the US government to obtain these documents, including some declassified reports that date back to the alleged UFO crash landing at Roswell in 1947.
His investigations have also provided legitimate paper trails, detailing how former administrations and the intelligence community created secret task forces of high-ranking military and scientific officials to research UFO incidents.
These groups include the Majestic 12 (MJ-12), which was allegedly formed after the Roswell crash and worked for over two decades investigating sightings of alien spacecraft, working with non-human technology, and contacting extraterrestrials.
The Black Vault contains millions of pages of declassified information from the CIA and other sources on UFOs, secret government projects, and investigations into high-profile assassinations
The Black Vault's records stretch back to early files detailing the US government's actions following the alleged crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947
Luckily for The Black Vault, Greenewald revealed that all of the more than 3.8 million files were backed up in secure locations and the site was restored soon after the mysterious wiping took place.
'It is a stark reminder to us all, me included. Keep backups. Keep them in multiple places. And never be intimidated by anything that comes our way, no matter what we expect may have happened,' the researcher wrote on X.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Greenewald for comment on the incident, which the researcher called a 'very oddly timed server maintenance.'
'In my honest opinion, I feel it was a very odd-timed server maintenance done by the hosting provider, that went awry,' Greenewald posted Saturday.
'They didn't catch it, and when I did, they didn't take blame, and there was no way to fully prove what happened, and by whom. Could I be wrong? Yes. Could it have been foul play? I can't rule it out.'
Data wipes like this can occur in a few ways, often without it being a malicious attack. However, these file wipes can be done intentionally by bad actors.
The most common problem happens when hosting companies perform routine updates or data cleanups.
If a software glitch, human error, or incompatible changes take place, it could accidentally delete files or alter permissions.
Hardware issues, such as failing hard drives, software bugs, or even power outages, could also corrupt or erase data. However, The Black Vault's host allegedly ruled out corruption, pointing to a deliberate erasing of the declassified files.
That leaves the possibility of hackers breaching the server through vulnerabilities, including weak passwords, outdated software, or phishing attacks.
Once in the system, the attackers might delete files to cause chaos, especially if the site deals with sensitive data that some groups might want suppressed.
Critics of the Trump Administration's promise to release all files tied to UFOs and extraterrestrial contact have claimed the move is merely a stunt to distract the public from other political controversies and nothing about aliens will actually be learned.
Many on social media have pointed to the previous releases of the documents detailing President Kennedy's assassination and the Jeffrey Epstein files both containing heavily redacted information that provided no definitive 'smoking gun.'
In 2016, Secret Service agents caught this man outside the White House. He was throwing papers and a flash drive over the fence because he believed he had to warn the whole country about aliens from Mars.
30‑year‑old former US Marine Kyle Odom, from Idaho, became wanted for the attempted murder of Pastor Tim Remington in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Witnesses and police said Odom ambushed Remington in the church parking lot after Sunday services, shooting him multiple times in the head, back, hand, and side at close range before fleeing, yet the pastor survived, which his congregation viewed as a “miracle.” (Source)
The day before the shooting, Remington had prayed onstage with US presidential candidate Ted Cruz at a campaign event, which initially led some people to suspect a political motive. Police soon identified Odom as the only suspect and launched a two‑day manhunt.
Kyle Andrew Odom
Two days after the shooting, on a Tuesday evening, Odom appeared unexpectedly at the White House in Washington, D.C., where tourists were taking photos. Secret Service agents saw him throwing items—documents and a flash drive—over the White House fence and detained him.
When they checked his name, they discovered the Idaho arrest warrant for attempted murder, and his arrest in Washington suddenly ended the nationwide search. Investigators then learned that he had driven from northern Idaho to Boise, boarded a flight, and traveled across the country to deliver his message to the US president, even though he was already wanted for the shooting.
At the same time, Odom had mailed or sent a 21‑page or 40‑plus‑page “manifesto” to his parents and several Idaho TV stations, and he also posted on Facebook about aliens from Mars, changing his profile picture to an alien image.
In the manifesto, he introduced himself as a bright, successful person: born and raised in North Idaho, raised in a loving family, joined the Marine Corps after high school, developed a strong interest in science, studied biochemistry at the University of Idaho, won scholarships and awards, and graduated magna cum laude before being invited to Baylor College of Medicine to work on genetics. He insisted that he was “100% sane, 0% crazy,” but the rest of the document clearly showed an increasingly paranoid, delusional state of mind.
Odom wrote that his problems began in spring 2014, during his final semester at the University of Idaho, when he was stressed by a heavy course load and turned to daily meditation to cope. As he practiced more, he believed he was achieving “extreme states of consciousness,” and during one meditation session, he described an out‑of‑body experience: complete darkness, loss of physical awareness, and then a blue light approaching that he interpreted as another being. After this, he felt his classes suddenly became very easy, as if he had tapped into some new power, and he said he performed far beyond what he had before.
Later, Odom accepted a PhD offer in human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston but quickly decided to leave, claiming the work had become too easy after his “awakening.”
He wrote that the day after deciding to leave, his life turned into “a living hell”: he could not sleep, he felt he was being targeted, and he believed people around him—including classmates—were not real humans but aliens trying to provoke him into becoming “the next school shooter.” Feeling persecuted, he left Texas and returned to his hometown of Coeur d’Alene, convinced that unknown forces were manipulating his life.
During flights and everyday situations, Odom began to think that strangers were sending him secret messages and that newspaper headlines carried hidden meanings directed at him. Because he had applied to several government agencies, he initially thought this strange communication might be some covert government contact method.
Once back in Idaho, he received a text message from John Padula, an outreach pastor from the Altar Church, inviting him to attend services. When he went, he immediately felt that something was terribly wrong, as if his life was in danger inside the church, so he left.
Odom then began receiving text messages from Pastor Tim Remington, which in reality were Bible verses and spiritual encouragement, but he interpreted them as threatening communications from a hidden group. He believed the verses referred to “their power,” that Remington was sending coded warnings, and that the word “angels” in one message was somehow linked to helicopters flying over his house, which he saw as a sign that powerful beings were after him.
Around this time, he began experiencing intense involuntary physical sensations, which he described as feeling as though external forces were affecting his body. He also reported hearing music and later voices in his head.
As his symptoms intensified, the inner voice, which he believed came from aliens, told him he would be “sacrificed like Jesus and beheaded.” When a stranger with a religious pamphlet knocked on his door, he became delirious and convinced that his death was imminent.
He fled on a one‑way flight to visit family in Albuquerque but believed that the man sitting next to him was reading his mind and that, at the baggage claim, he was “surrounded” by aliens identified by their constant sniffing, which he thought was a dominance behavior. He came to believe that these beings were everywhere, disguised as humans but truly giant green frog‑like creatures with a snout‑like proboscis on their heads.
Odom wrote that the aliens kept pressuring him to go outside alone, and when he refused out of fear they would kill him, they allegedly threatened his family. To protect his family, he claimed he agreed to do whatever they wanted, and he believed they responded telepathically by telling him to “Go to church,” which he took as a command to return to the Altar Church.
At the church, he noticed a smell like “reptile and vinegar” and concluded that whoever he was dealing with was an extraterrestrial species. He admitted that he was hearing voices more often and seeing hallucinations that he intellectually knew were not real, yet he still insisted these were caused by telepathic aliens, not by any mental illness.
A strong adult-themed element ran through his delusions. He described these alleged Martian beings as “hypersexual” and claimed that both male and female entities acted out inappropriate fantasies within his mind.
In one episode, he described being in a grocery store bakery surrounded by older men whom he believed were aliens who mentally stimulated him and instructed him to imagine inappropriate acts. These experiences, along with persistent voices and visions, severely affected his mental health and led him to attempt to take his own life twice.
In one incident, he described trying to harm himself inside his car but later said the perceived entities intervened before he could follow through. Afterward, he admitted himself to a local Veterans Affairs hospital for help. The article notes that it was not immediately confirmed what treatment he received.
After being discharged from the hospital, Odom returned to the Altar Church, where he later said he had a face-to-face meeting with Pastor Remington around August of the year before the shooting. According to Odom’s account, he believed the pastor revealed what he described as a “true” alien form during their conversation. He wrote that the pastor’s appearance seemed to change, with his facial features looking different and his eyes appearing unusual.
Odom later claimed he became convinced that members of the church were involved in a plot against him. He left the church and did not return for some time. In his writings, he described ongoing fears that he was being followed or harassed, including when he attempted to resume his studies.
Odom tried to rebuild his life by studying pharmacology at North Idaho College and said he began to feel some recovery. However, he believed that the aliens followed him into every class, interfered with his ability to study, and harassed him during tests, making it impossible to succeed.
In his view, they targeted him specifically because of his intelligence and his knowledge of genetics, fearing he might spark a “scientific revolution” that would expose them. He wrote that they had trouble controlling his mind because he was “too smart,” so they decided to remove him from society altogether.
After the repeated suicide attempts and ongoing torment, Odom concluded that the only remaining option was to “take action” against the beings he believed were ruining his life. He wrote that his life had been destroyed by “an intelligent species of amphibian‑humanoid from Mars” and said Remington and Pastor Padula were either these aliens themselves or their puppets.
The manifesto did not clearly explain why he chose that specific Sunday to attack, but he openly admitted that he had plotted to shoot Remington. On the day of the attack, he later boasted on Facebook that he had shot the pastor 12 times and claimed no normal human could survive, using this to support his belief that Remington was not human.
In the same manifesto and social‑media posts, Odom expanded his theory into a global conspiracy. He said the world was secretly ruled by an ancient Martian civilization that had infiltrated all levels of human society, and that Pastor Remington was one of them and the reason his life was ruined.
He claimed these Martians are “ubiquitous,” living as both blue‑collar workers and powerful leaders, controlling governments, militaries, and corporations while monitoring every “wild” human like animals in a zoo; he said our freedom is only a carefully crafted illusion. He put together a list of “noteworthy Martians” that included about 50 members of the US Congress from both parties and dozens of Israeli leaders, “every prime minister since 1948,” and he said this list was far from complete.
Part of the manifesto was addressed directly to US President Barack Obama. Odom began by thanking him for his sacrifice to the country, then claimed that aliens were controlling and humiliating the president, boasting to Odom about what they supposedly did to him. He urged Obama to stop letting them humiliate him and framed himself as someone taking a stand to end this nonsense, asking if there could be a better legacy than exposing the Martians. He said his “last resort” was to act to bring all of this to the public’s attention, insisted he was a good and innocent person, and added that the “people” he killed were not what others thought.
After sending his manifesto to family and media and posting online that the world is ruled by an ancient civilization from Mars, Odom traveled to Washington, D.C., to get his information into the president’s hands. When he was arrested at the White House fence, authorities found he had been throwing documents and a flash drive—likely containing the same manifesto—over the fence, and police in Idaho said this document heightened their concern about him during the manhunt.
Not long before his arrest, he had written on Facebook that he was being chased, was sending his story to major news organizations, and had no time left. His capture ended any immediate threat he might pose to the many people he had identified as “Martians” in Congress and elsewhere.
In November 2017, the legal outcome of his actions was decided. In the Idaho state court, then‑32‑year‑old Kyle Odom pleaded guilty to an enhanced aggravated battery charge for shooting Pastor Tim Remington and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with a requirement that he serve at least 10 years before being eligible for parole.
Remington testified that being shot in the head, hand, and side left him with memory lapses and ongoing health problems that affected every part of his life, yet in court, he publicly forgave Odom, called him the real victim, and said he wished him no harm and would remain his friend despite the attack. (Source)
At sentencing, Odom told the court he was deeply remorseful and explained that, at the time of the shooting, he believed his delusions were real, including the idea that Martians were interfering in his life and controlling people around him. He said he felt like he was dreaming and could not wake up, and that he still sometimes felt that way, emphasizing how lost in his own hallucinations he had been. The judge ordered him to pay more than $216,000 in restitution to cover Remington’s medical expenses, with the possibility of more as new bills came in, reflecting the serious long‑term damage caused by the attack.
Some examples of "geraisites," named after the state of Minas Gerais where they were found, in their different forms. Credit: Álvaro Penteado Crósta/IG-UNICAMP
For the first time in Brazil, researchers have identified a field of tektites. These are natural glasses formed by the high-energy impact of extraterrestrial bodies against Earth's surface. These structures, named geraisites in honor of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where they were first discovered, constitute a new strewn field. This expands the incomplete record of impacts in South America.
The discovery was described in an article published in the journal Geology by a team led by Álvaro Penteado Crósta, a geologist and senior professor at the Institute of Geosciences at the State University of Campinas (IG-UNICAMP). Crósta collaborated with researchers from Brazil, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.
Until now, only five large tektite fields had been recognized on the planet: in Australasia, Central Europe, the Ivory Coast, North America, and Belize. The Brazilian field now joins this select group.
Where geraisites are found in Brazil
The geraisites were initially located in three municipalities in northern Minas Gerais—Taiobeiras, Curral de Dentro, and São João do Paraíso—in a strip about 90 kilometers long. Since the article was submitted, new occurrences have been recorded in the Brazilian states of Bahia and, more recently, Piauí. According to Crósta, this expands the known area to more than 900 kilometers in length.
"This growth in the area of occurrence is entirely consistent with what is observed in other tektite fields around the world. The size of the field depends directly on the energy of the impact, among other factors," the researcher explains.
By July 2025, the authors had collected approximately 500 specimens, a number that has since grown to over 600 with the most recent findings. The fragments range in size from less than 1 gram to 85.4 grams and reach about 5 centimeters on the longest axis. Their shapes are typical of aerodynamic tektites: spherical, ellipsoidal, drop-shaped, discoid, dumbbell-shaped, or twisted.
Although they appear black and opaque at first, they become translucent under intense light and display a grayish-green color. This color is distinct from that of European moldavites, which have been used in jewelry since the Middle Ages due to their characteristic intense green color. Their dark surfaces are marked by many small cavities.
"These small cavities are traces of gas bubbles that escaped during the rapid cooling of the molten material as it traveled through the atmosphere, a process also observed in volcanic lava but especially characteristic of tektites," says Crósta.
Geochemical fingerprint of geraisites
Geochemical analyses show that geraisites have a high silica (SiO₂) content ranging from 70.3% to 73.7%. The combined content of sodium (Na₂O) and potassium (K₂O) oxides ranges from 5.86% to 8.01%, which is slightly higher than in other tektite fields. Small variations in trace elements, such as chromium (10–48 parts per million) and nickel (9–63 ppm), were identified, indicating that the original material was neither pure nor homogeneous. The presence of rare inclusions of lechatelierite, a form of glassy silica produced at extreme temperatures, further supports an impact origin.
"One of the decisive criteria for classifying the material as a tektite was its very low water content, as measured by infrared spectroscopy: between 71 and 107 ppm. For comparison, volcanic glasses, such as obsidian, usually contain from 700 ppm to 2% water, whereas tektites are notoriously much drier," Crósta points out.
Dating based on the ratio of argon isotopes (⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar) indicates that the event occurred approximately 6.3 million years ago, at the end of the Miocene epoch. Three groups of very similar ages were obtained (6.78 ± 0.02 Ma, 6.40 ± 0.02 Ma, and 6.33 ± 0.02 Ma), which is consistent with a single impact event.
"The age of 6.3 million years should be interpreted as a maximum age since some of the argon may have been inherited from the ancient rocks targeted by the impact," the researcher comments.
Hunt for the missing crater
To date, no associated crater has been identified. According to Crósta, this is not unusual; only three of the six large classical tektite fields have known craters. In the case of the largest field, located in Australasia, the crater is believed to be oceanic. In Brazil, isotopic geochemistry indicates that the molten material originated in Archean continental crust between 3.0 and 3.3 billion years old. This directs the search to the São Francisco craton, an ancient and geologically stable portion of the continental crust and one of the oldest regions of the South American continent.
"The isotopic signature indicates a very ancient continental, granitic source rock. This greatly reduces the universe of candidate areas," says Crósta. In the future, aerogeophysical methods such as magnetic and gravimetric surveys may reveal circular anomalies associated with a buried or eroded crater.
Modeling the impact and its scale
While it is not yet possible to accurately estimate the size of the impacting body, researchers consider it unlikely that it was small. The large amount of molten material and the wide area of dispersion indicate a significant impact event, albeit smaller than the event responsible for the Australasia field, which extends for thousands of kilometers.
The team is currently working on a mathematical model of impacts to estimate parameters such as the energy released, the velocity, the angle of entry, and the volume of molten rock. They are doing this as new data on the spatial distribution of geraisites becomes available. The discovery of the geraisites fills an important gap in the record of impacts in South America. Only about nine large impact structures are known there, and almost all of them are much older and located in Brazil. This discovery also reinforces the idea that tektites may be more common than previously thought, but often go unnoticed or are mistaken for ordinary glass.
To combat sensationalist interpretations of cosmic impacts, Crósta manages the @defesaplanetaria Instagram profile with undergraduate students. The profile is dedicated to scientific dissemination and differentiating real risks from irresponsible speculation about meteorites and asteroids. Impacts were frequent during the formation of the solar system when a large amount of debris was scattered and planetary orbits were undefined. Large bodies migrated from one position to another, projecting smaller bodies in various directions. However, today, with the system stabilized, impacts are incomparably less frequent.
"Understanding these processes is essential to separating science from speculation," the researcher concludes.
Publication details
Alvaro P. Crósta et al, Geraisite: The first tektite occurrence in Brazil, Geology (2025). DOI: 10.1130/g53805.1
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 75 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
