More than 100 UFOs sightings reported in NY last year

More than 100 UFOs sightings reported in NY last year

More than 100 UFO sightings were reported in New York last year to the National UFO Reporting Center. The center, based in Davenport, Wash., says it makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports. “Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author’s own words.”

“We hope that this information will prove to be useful to the general public and the UFO community at large.” Whether or not you believe these reports, the New York state UFOs are worth a look. In all, there were 103 UFO reports from the state in 2018.

Many mention triangular-shaped objects or groups of objects, blinking lights, hovering objects and either saucer-shaped or cigar-shaped craft.

The majority of sightings happened after dark, but one student spotted an object while taking a test on the morning of April 17 in Burnt Hills.

“I was sitting in class and looked out of my class window and noticed a small egg-shaped object made of metal. It was floating above my school, but since I was taking a test I didn’t point it out.”

The National UFO Reporting Center site indicates whether anyone checked out the report (some are labeled “hoax?”) or view video or photos.

A sighting from Route 88 near Richmondville, Schoharie County, in July mentioned a semi truck with trooper and military escort: “On the flatbed was a craft that resembled a somewhat flattened bullet, with the back end flatter and 3 or 4 round things inside the back end for possible propulsion or exhaust function. no windows. no wings.”

The center noted: “Nice illustration provided by witness. We suspect that the object probably was some type of military platform.”

And then there’s the report that begins, “please keep me anonymous we just want to know if we are safe.”

“My son and sister witnessed a creature at 3:20 in the morning while letting dog out.they came in running and screaming.they said the thing was 7-8 feet tall grey green elongated head, no genitals and when they startled it it ran at an impossible speed covering over 150 in two seconds and was out of sight.”

A 2017 study by Chapman University in California found that 35 percent of Americans believe that aliens have come to Earth in the ancient past; 23 percent believe aliens are still visiting in modern times.

The National UFO Reporting Center said it has recently seen a high volume of prank calls on its hotline, “typically dozens per day … we suspect that the same problem may spill over to the stream of incoming written reports.”

However, it said, “there are, nevertheless, many excellent reports, submitted by anonymous parties, that deserve a reader’s attention, so a anonymous report is not necessarily unreliable.”

Attribution:Jim Shay and Teresa Buckley - Timesunion

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Video – The Moon is Artificial and I Can Prove It: Alien Observatory

No doubt you’ve heard some of the completely unexplainable stories about the moon. There are the enigmatic structures that made front-page news of major new publications… but were then dismissed from all media, and even photo-shopped out of photos. There are the strange “lunar wave” videos of recent years, which seem to show the moon’s image actually jumping – as though it were a projected hologram; and.. you only need to search YouTube to see hundreds of entirely credible videos of strange lights, flurries, and unidentified flying aircraft departing and landing on the surface of the moon. Yet, the US supposedly quit landing on the moon in 1973, was our every scientific question answered? Why are these credible testimonies ignored… or dismissed? Could there be more to that ball in the sky than meets the eye

If you research the moon, you might be surprised. Its reference in ancient history, its perfect geometrical symmetry, astronaut testimonies, all seem to point to only one logical conclusion: that our moon is most likely a hollowed out structure, and an artificial satellite, that was intentionally placed into Earth’s orbit only a few hundred thousand years ago – and that the advanced engineers accomplished this intending not only to influence the Earth’s biology but to oversee and control her inhabitants.

Attribution: etupdates - Youtube

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Whirling 'Cannonball' Pulsar Flees Supernova Site at Epic Speed

US Military Shoots ICBM Target Out of the Sky in Missile Defense Test

By Elizabeth Howell

Missiles shot from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base successfully destroyed an airborne target Monday (March 25) as part of a U.S. missile defense test, military officials said.

The target was an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, about 4,000 miles (6,440 kilometers) from Vandenberg.

During the test, sensors in space, on the ground and at sea helped guide two ground-based interceptors (GBI) fired from Vandenberg. The first interceptor destroyed the target, a re-entry vehicle, while the second one searched the remaining debris for other threatening objects. Since there were no re-entry vehicles in the debris, the second missile hit the next "most lethal object" in the wreckage and also destroyed it, U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials said in a statement.

• Related: How Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles Work (Infographic) 

A threat-representative ICBM target launches from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands March 25, 2019 in this long-exposure photo. It was successfully intercepted by two ground-based interceptor missiles launched from California.

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

One of two Ground-Based Interceptors launches from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to destroy an ICBM target launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 25, 2019.

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

The 'lead' Ground-based Interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019, in the first-ever salvo engagement test of a threat-representative ICBM target. It was the first of two missiles launched to intercept an ICBM target vehicle by the Missile Defense Agency.

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

The 'trail' Ground-based Interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019. The remnants of a plume from a second launch in the salvo can be seen at right.

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

This infrared image shows the successful destruction of a threat-representative ICBM target by two long-range Ground-based Interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019. The salvo missile intercept was the first of its kind.

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

A final infrared image of the successful intercept of a threat-representative ICBM target by two long-range Ground-based Interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019. 

(Image: © U.S. Missile Defense Agency)

"This was the first GBI salvo intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target, and it was a critical milestone," Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, director of the MDA, said in the statement. "The system worked exactly as it was designed to do ... The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat."

A first-ever test March 25, 2019 saw two ground-based interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile target launched from a separate test site.

(Image: © U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency)

Officials added in the statement that they are evaluating the system performance to get more information, but everything received so far shows that the test "met requirements." 

This is the latest in a series of tests testing examining how the United States would respond to ICBM threats. One possible nation that could be threatening is North Korea, which has conducted its own tests and said in the past that the United States is among the nations it hopes to destroy.

• Military Space - Spacecraft, Weapons and Tech
• How Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles Work (Infographic)
• US Air Force Launches Advanced Missile Defense Satellite

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace.

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NASA Gigantic meteor explosion lights up the skies

NASA Gigantic meteor explosion lights up the skies

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

4 things we’ll learn from the first closeup image of a black hole

Event Horizon Telescope data are giving scientists an image of the Milky Way’s behemoth

BY  LISA GROSSMAN 

 

FIRST LOOK  The first image from the Event Horizon Telescope may show that the black hole at the center of our galaxy looks something like this simulation.

BRONZWAER, DAVELAAR, MOSCIBRODZKA AND FALCKE/RADBOUD UNIVERSITY

We’re about to see the first close-up of a black hole.

TheEvent Horizon Telescope, a network of eight radio observatories spanning the globe, has set its sights on a pair of behemoths: Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, and an even more massive black hole 53.5 million light-years away in galaxy M87 (SN Online: 4/5/17).

In April 2017, the observatories teamed up to observe the black holes’ event horizons, the boundary beyond which gravity is so extreme that even light can’t escape (SN: 5/31/14, p. 16). After almost two years of rendering the data, scientists are gearing up to release the first images in April.

Here’s what scientists hope those images can tell us.

What does a black hole really look like?

Black holes live up to their names: The great gravitational beasts emit no light in any part of the electromagnetic spectrum, so they themselves don’t look like much.

But astronomers know the objects are there because of a black hole’s entourage. As a black hole’s gravity pulls in gas and dust, matter settles into an orbiting disk, with atoms jostling one another at extreme speeds. All that activity heats the matter white-hot, so it emits X-rays and other high-energy radiation. The most voraciously feeding black holes in the universe have disks that outshine all the stars in their galaxies (SN Online: 3/16/18).

A CAMERA THE SIZE OF EARTH How did scientists take a picture of a black hole? Science News explains.

The EHT’s image of the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A*, also called SgrA*, is expected to capture the black hole’s shadow on its accompanying disk of bright material. Computer simulations and the laws of gravitational physics give astronomers a pretty good idea of what to expect. Because of the intense gravity near a black hole, the disk’s light will be warped around the event horizon in a ring, so even the material behind the black hole will be visible.

And the image will probably look asymmetrical: Gravity will bend light from the inner part of the disk toward Earth more strongly than the outer part, making one side appear brighter in a lopsided ring.

Does general relativity hold up close to a black hole?

The exact shape of the ring may help break one of the most frustrating stalemates in theoretical physics.

The twin pillars of physics are Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which governs massive and gravitationally rich things like black holes, and quantum mechanics, which governs the weird world of subatomic particles. Each works precisely in its own domain. But they can’t work together.

“General relativity as it is and quantum mechanics as it is are incompatible with each other,” says physicist Lia Medeiros of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Rock, hard place. Something has to give.” If general relativity buckles at a black hole’s boundary, it may point the way forward for theorists.

Since black holes are the most extreme gravitational environments in the universe, they’re the best environment to crash test theories of gravity. It’s like throwing theories at a wall and seeing whether — or how — they break. If general relativity does hold up, scientists expect that the black hole will have a particular shadow and thus ring shape; if Einstein’s theory of gravity breaks down, a different shadow.

Medeiros and her colleagues ran computer simulations of 12,000 different black hole shadows that could differ from Einstein’s predictions. “If it’s anything different, [alternative theories of gravity] just got a Christmas present,” says Medeiros, who presented the simulation results in January in Seattle at the American Astronomical Society meeting. Even slight deviations from general relativity could create different enough shadows for EHT to probe, allowing astronomers to quantify how different what they see is from what they expect.

CONSIDERING ALL POSSIBILITIES Physicists expect black holes to follow Einstein’s rules of general relativity, but it might be more interesting if they don’t. This computer simulation shows one possibility for how a black hole would look if it behaved unexpectedly.

Do stellar corpses called pulsars surround the Milky Way’s black hole?

Another way to test general relativity around black holes is to watch how stars careen around them. As light flees the extreme gravity in a black hole’s vicinity, its waves get stretched out, making the light appear redder. This process, called gravitational redshift, is predicted by general relativity and was observed near SgrA* last year (SN: 8/18/18, p. 12). So far, so good for Einstein.

An even better way to do the same test would be with a pulsar, a rapidly spinning stellar corpse that sweeps the sky with a beam of radiation in a regular cadence that makes it appear to pulse (SN: 3/17/18, p. 4). Gravitational redshift would mess up the pulsars’ metronomic pacing, potentially giving a far more precise test of general relativity.

“The dream for most people who are trying to do SgrA* science, in general, is to try to find a pulsar or pulsars orbiting” the black hole, says astronomer Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Va. “There are a lot of quite interesting and quite deep tests of [general relativity] that pulsars can provide, that EHT [alone] won’t.”

Despite careful searches, no pulsars have been found near enough to SgrA* yet, partly because gas and dust in the galactic center scatters their beams and makes them difficult to spot. But EHT is taking the best look yet at that center in radio wavelengths, so Ransom and colleagues hope it might be able to spot some.

“It’s a fishing expedition, and the chances of catching a whopper are really small,” Ransom says. “But if we do, it’s totally worth it.”

ONE OF MANY? The pulsar PSR J1745-2900 (left in this illustration) was discovered in 2013 orbiting roughly 150 light-years from the black hole at the center of the galaxy. That’s too far to use it to do precise tests of general relativity, but astronomers hope that the pulsar’s existence means the Event Horizon Telescope will find many more even closer to the black hole.

RALPH EATOUGH/MPIFR

How do some black holes make jets?

Some black holes are ravenous gluttons, pulling in massive amounts of gas and dust, while others are picky eaters. No one knows why. SgrA* seems to be one of the fussy ones, with a surprisingly dim accretion disk despite its 4 million solar mass heft. EHT’s other target, the black hole in galaxy M87, is a voracious eater, weighing in at about 2.4 trillion solar masses. And it doesn’t just amass a bright accretion disk. It also launches a bright, fast jet of charged subatomic particles that stretches for about 5,000 light-years.

“It’s a little bit counterintuitive to think a black hole spills out something,” says astrophysicist Thomas Krichbaum of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. “Usually people think it only swallows something.”

Many other black holes produce jets that are longer and wider than entire galaxies and can extend billions of light-years from the black hole. “The natural question arises: What is so powerful to launch these jets to such large distances?” Krichbaum says. “Now with the EHT, we can for the first time trace what is happening.”

EHT’s measurements of M87’s black hole will help estimate the strength of its magnetic field, which astronomers think is related to the jet-launching mechanism. And measurements of the jet’s properties when it’s close to the black hole will help determine where the jet originates —  in the innermost part of the accretion disk, farther out in the disk or from the black hole itself. Those observations might also reveal whether the jet is launched by something about the black hole itself or by the fast-flowing material in the accretion disk.

Since jets can carry material out of the galactic center and into the regions between galaxies, they can influence how galaxies grow and evolve, and even where stars and planets form (SN: 7/21/18, p. 16).

“It is important to understanding the evolution of galaxies, from the early formation of black holes to the formation of stars and later to the formation of life,” Krichbaum says. “This is a big, big story. We are just contributing with our studies of black hole jets a little bit to the bigger puzzle.”

Citations

• L. Medeiros. Modeling variability and non-Kerr spacetime effects in black hole images. American Astronomical Society meeting, January 2019, Seattle.

Further Reading

• E. Conover. A star orbiting a black hole shows Einstein got gravity right — again. Science News. Vol. 194, August 18, 2018, p. 12.
• L. Grossman. The ecosystem that controls a galaxy’s future is coming into focus. Science News. Vol. 194, July 21, 2018, p. 16.
• L. Grossman. Astronomers can’t figure out why some black holes got so big so fast. Science News Online, March 16, 2018.
• E. Conover. Event Horizon Telescope to try to capture images of elusive black hole edge. Science News Online, April 5, 2017.
• A. Grant. The mysterious boundary. Science News. Vol. 185, May 31, 2014, p. 16.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

Animated image via GIPHY.

The first close-up observations by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft of its target, asteroid Bennu, reveal new details that pose a bigger challenge than scientists expected to the mission’s objective of collecting a sample of the asteroid.

The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft reached Bennu on December 3, 2018, after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km). For the past three months, OSIRIS-REx has been investigating Bennu at close range, beginning to search for an ideal site to collect a sample, and getting to know the asteroid in much greater detail.

While the spacecraft’s observations have confirmed many of the measurements obtained by ground-based observations, recent findings have revealed that Bennu is a more challenging target than the mission was originally designed for.

Here are some key findings from mission team members, presented at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in Houston on March 19, 2019.

Bennu’s surface is rockier than expected, creating challenges for the team whose mission is to scoop up a sample of pristine material and return it to Earth in 2023.

Image via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

Big boulders on Bennu’s surface

The OSIRIS-REx team developed its sampling strategy around what they knew about Bennu when they designed the mission. They anticipated plentiful patches of relatively smooth surface with gravel and pebbles less than 1 inch in size that extend over at least 55 yards (50 meters). Instead, the spacecraft observed only a small number of regions, each between 5.4 and 22 yards (5 and 20 m), that are devoid of large boulders that pose a hazard to the spacecraft when it touches down to collect its sample.

This trio of images was taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on February 25, 2019, in orbit around Bennu, about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) from the asteroid’s surface. The images show a wide shot and 2 close-ups of a region in Bennu’s northern hemisphere.

Image via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

… make for a terrible airfield

Instead of having the equivalent of half a football field to navigate in, the spacecraft will have to operate within the confines of sampling sites that are half the size of a basketball court or smaller.

High-resolution images made with the OSIRIS-REx cameras reveal a surface packed with more than 200 boulders larger than 33 feet (10 m) in diameter and many more that are 3 feet (1 m) or larger. The largest boulder measures 63 yards (58 m) across.

Bennu is very dark

OSIRIS-REx measurements also confirm that Bennu is one of the darkest objects in the solar system, reflecting only 4 percent of sunlight. One of the surprises turned out to be a larger-than-expected variability in surface albedo, the proportion of light reflected by a surface. In other words, Bennu’s surface features vary greatly from one another with respect to their brightness. The high variability in albedo presents a challenge for the laser of the spacecraft’s lidar system, designed to guide the sample acquisition approach.

These findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on March 19, 2019.

This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 19, 2019, was created by combining 2 images taken on board the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Image via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin.

Another surprise … particle plumes!

In another strange discovery, OSIRIS-REx observed plumes of particles being energetically ejected from the surface of Bennu. It’s the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface.

The OSIRIS-REx team first spotted the particle plumes in images while the spacecraft was orbiting Bennu at a distance of about one mile (1.61 km). The mission team did a safety assessment and concluded the particles did not pose a risk to the spacecraft. The team continues to analyze the particle plumes and their possible causes. Read more about the discovery from NASA.

Dante Lauretta is OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lauretta said in a statement:

The discovery of plumes is one of the biggest surprises of my scientific career. And the rugged terrain went against all of our predictions. Bennu is already surprising us, and our exciting journey there is just getting started.

The size of asteroid Bennu, which is 1,614 feet (492 meters) wide, compared with the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower in this NASA image.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was only 15 miles (24 km) from asteroid Bennu – on December 2, 2018 – when it captured the 12 high-resolution images that make up this mosaic. The mosaic shows features as small as 20 feet (6 meters)

Image via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

Bottom line: New findings about asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx mission.

• Via NASA

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

A Hubble Space Telescope view of asteroid 6478 Gault, showing 2 narrow, comet-like tails of debris. The bright streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars.

Image via NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)/SpaceTelescope.org.

Asteroids are typically solid rocky or metallic bodies; comets are fragile, icy bodies that sometimes sprout tails when they come near the sun. But some asteroids have been found to appear comet-like, in that they also have tails. Scientists said on March 28, 2019, that they used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe such an asteroid, called 6478 Gault. Clear images from the telescope provided researchers with new insight into this asteroid’s unusual past, they said. They now believe that Gault is self-destructing slowly, which is the reason for its two narrow, comet-like tails of debris. Each tail is evidence of an active event that released material into space. Why is it self-destructing? The reason is thought to be its unusually fast spin on its axis.

The team’s results have been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal Letters (preprint here).

Astronomers have known about asteroid Gault for some time. It was discovered in 1988. The object is 2.5 to 5.5 miles (4 to 9 km) wide, and it’s located in the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers said in a statement:

… the recent observation of two debris tails is the first indication of the asteroid’s instability. This asteroid is one of only a handful to be caught disintegrating by a process known as a YORP torque. When sunlight heats an asteroid, the infrared radiation that escapes from its warmed surface carries off both heat and momentum. This creates a small force that can cause the asteroid to spin faster.

If this centrifugal force eventually overcomes gravity, the asteroid becomes unstable. Landslides on the object can release rubble and dust into space, leaving behind a tail of debris, as seen here with asteroid Gault.

Astronomers estimate that among the 800,000 known asteroids that occupy the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, YORP disruptions occur roughly once per year. From the Hubble observations, researchers inferred that the release of material from the asteroid took place in short episodes lasting from a few hours to a couple of days. They commented:

The direct observation of this activity by the Hubble Space Telescope has provided [us] with a special opportunity to study the composition of asteroids. By researching the material that this unstable asteroid releases into space, [we] can get a glimpse into the history of planet formation in the early ages of the solar system.

Follow-up observations have been made by various ground-based telescopes, and, these astronomers said:

These data were used to deduce a two-hour rotation period for Gault, which is very close to the critical speed at which material will begin to tumble and slide across the asteroid’s surface before drifting off into space.

Astronomer Jan Kleyna of the University of Hawaii – lead author of the new paper – commented:

Gault is the best ‘smoking-gun’ example of a fast rotator right at the two-hour limit. It could have been on the brink of instability for 10 million years. Even a tiny disturbance, like a small impact from a pebble, might have triggered the recent outbursts.

Astronomer Olivier Hainaut of the European Southern Observatory in Germany explained:

This self-destruction event is rare. Active and unstable asteroids such as Gault are only now being detected by means of new survey telescopes that scan the entire sky, which means asteroids such as Gault that are misbehaving cannot escape detection any more.

• Read more about asteroid Gault via SpaceTelescope.org

Bottom line: Hubble Space Telescope sharp imaging has provided valuable detail on activity from active asteroid Gault, which is now known to be spinning on its axis so fast – about every two hours – that material on its surface at times flies off into space.

• Source: The Sporadic Activity of (6478) Gault: A YORP-driven event?

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

Scientists plead to stop creation of killer robots: We're at 'the brink of a new arms race'

By Chris Ciaccia | Fox News

Why some scientists are calling for an international ban of autonomous killer robots

A look at why some scientists are calling for an international ban of autonomous killer robots.

Dozens of scientists, health care professionals and academics have written a letter to the U.N. calling for an international ban of autonomous killer robots, saying recent advances in artificial intelligence "have brought us to the brink of a new arms race in lethal autonomous weapons."

The letter, which has been signed by more than 70 health care professionals and was put together by the Future of Life Institute, states that lethal autonomous weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and despots, lower the barrier to armed conflict and "become weapons of mass destruction enabling very few to kill very many."

"Furthermore, autonomous weapons are morally abhorrent, as we should never cede the decision to take a human life to algorithms," the letter continues. "As healthcare professionals, we believe that breakthroughs in science have tremendous potential to benefit society and should not be used to automate harm. We therefore call for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons."

• USING 'KILLER ROBOTS' IN WAR WOULD BREACH INTERNATIONAL LAW, ADVOCATES SAY

In addition to the letter, a study written by Dr. Emilia Javorsky posits that recent advances by a number of countries working on lethal autonomous weapon systems "would represent a third revolution in warfare," following gunpowder and nuclear weapons.

The effort put forth by the Future of Life Institute follows a 2018 pledge from more than 2,400 individuals from companies and organizations around the world. Those from Google DeepMind, the European Association for AI and University College London and others said they would “neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.”

Past concerns

Others have raised concerns to the U.N. as well about the benefits and costs of killers robots. Experts from several countries met in August 2018 at the Geneva offices of the U.N. to focus on lethal autonomous weapons systems and explore ways of possibly regulating them, among other issues.

In theory, fully autonomous, computer-controlled weapons don’t exist yet, UN officials said at the time. The debate is still in its infancy and the experts have at times grappled with basic definitions. The United States has argued that it’s premature to establish a definition of such systems, much less regulate them.

Some advocacy groups say governments and militaries should be prevented from developing such systems, which have sparked fears and led some critics to envisage harrowing scenarios about their use.

In 2017, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other leading artificial intelligence experts called on the United Nations to issue a global ban on the use of killer robots, which includes drones, tanks and machine guns. “Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close,” Musk and 115 other specialists from around the globe wrote in the letter.

• IS SKYNET A REALITY? AS TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, TECH GIANTS WARN OF DANGER

'The biggest risk we face'

Musk has repeatedly worried about the rise of artificial intelligence, having previously stated it could be the "biggest risk we face as a civilization." The tech exec has even gone so far as to say it could cause World War III.

Research firm IDC expects that global spending on robotics and drones will reach $201.3 billion by 2022, up from an estimated $95.9 billion in 2018.

Over the years, several luminaries, including Musk, legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and a host of others have warned against the rise of artificial intelligence.

In September 2017, Musk tweeted that he thought AI could play a direct role in causing World War III. Musk's thoughts were in response to comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said that  "who becomes the leader in this sphere [artificial intelligence] will be the ruler of the world."

In November 2017, prior to his death, Hawking theorized that AI could eventually "destroy" humanity if we are not careful about it.

{ https://www.foxnews.com/ }

New Linda Moulton Howe Something Huge Has Been Discovered in Antarctica

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Some discoveries change everything. Most just explain a lot. A few explain a LOT. The latter is the case of a new discovery in North Dakota – a killing field formed perhaps no more than hours after the event that caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago … the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula and created the Chicxulub crater. Fossils found in what was once an inland sea show that the dinosaurs and other creatures there died in a rain of glass crystals formed when molten particles tossed skyward cooled and fell to the ground. And if that didn’t kill them, the seismic waves did. Is this the best picture ever of the day the Cretaceous Period ended? The day the K-T boundary was formed? The day the dinosaurs stood still?

“This is the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found associated with the K-T boundary. At no other K-T boundary section on Earth can you find such a collection consisting of a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which died at the same time, on the same day.”

In an interview published in the University of California Berkeley News, Robert DePalma, curator of paleontology at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History in Florida and a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, explained how his very first career dig in the summer of 2013 triggered the interest that kept bringing him back to North Dakota to slowly reveal that the Hell Creek Formation — a fossil cornucopia of preserved remains of fish, tree trunks, conifer branches, dead mammals, mosasaurs, insects, Triceratops, dinoflagellates, ammonites and more — was created within 24 hours of the impact that created Chicxulub and ended Cretaceous. That day is described in “Prelude to Extinction: a seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota,” to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s like a museum of the end of the Cretaceous in a layer a meter-and-a-half thick.”

Mark Richards, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus and provost and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, and Walter Alvarez, the UC Berkeley Professor who is credited with coming up with the extinction-causing asteroid over 40 years ago, were brought in by DePalma to analyze this layer of history. (Photos and videos of the site and the researchers can be viewed here.) The key to linking it to the Chicxulub impact was perfectly-preserved beads of glass called tektites that blanketed the creatures to the point that they appeared in the gills of fossilized fish. These beads did more than fall – they were propelled from the sly at up to 200 miles-per-hour.

A meteor impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur, the first victims of Earth’s last mass extinction event. The death scene from within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota. (Graphics and photos courtesy of Robert DePalma)

Fossilized fish piled one atop another, suggesting that they were flung ashore and died stranded together on a sand bar after the seiche withdrew.

Walter Alvarez and Robert DePalma at the Tanis outcrop in North Dakota.

Tektites, 1 millimeter spheres of glass, recovered from the Tanis fossil bed.

Robert DePalma excavating at the Tanis fossil site in North Dakota.

Fish carcasses and two logs tossed together by the seiche created by seismic waves from the meteor impact.

A perfectly preserved fish tail from Tanis deposit.

“You can imagine standing there being pelted by these glass spherules. They could have killed you.”

Run!

This is the most well-preserved example of death by tektites in the world and funnels of them in perfect shape were found buried in the ground. How did that happen? That was the second key discovery, according to DePalma.

“Tsunamis from the Chicxulub impact are certainly well-documented, but no one knew how far something like that would go into an inland sea. When Mark came aboard, he discovered a remarkable artifact — that the incoming seismic waves from the impact site would have arrived at just about the same time as the atmospheric travel time of the ejecta. That was our big breakthrough.”

Instead of a single tsunami, the area was hit with seismic waves called seiches that we now know were created far from the impact. Richards described the scene on that day 66 million years ago:

“The seismic waves start arising within nine to 10 minutes of the impact, so they had a chance to get the water sloshing before all the spherules (small spheres) had fallen out of the sky. These spherules coming in cratered the surface, making funnels — you can see the deformed layers in what used to be soft mud — and then rubble covered the spherules. No one has seen these funnels before.”

These layers of fossils, tektites and sediment are topped by a coating of iridium, a metal rarely found on Earth because it comes from … you guessed it … asteroids and comets. No matter where you dig around the world, when you hit the 66 million years ago mark, you find a layer of iridium that has come to be called the K-T or K-Pg boundary when Cretaceous ends and the Tertiary or Paleogene Period begins.

And now we know that the best place to see how the whole thing happened, including definitive proof that dinosaurs were still alive moments before the Chicxulub impact, is not in the Gulf of Mexico but in North Dakota.

The Peace Garden State is standing proud.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/  }

Members of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) gathered in Paris last week to talk about aliens and what they came up with is quite interesting to say the least. They mentioned that although researchers have been searching the skies for many decades, there is a lack of actual evidence proving that aliens exist.

Since there are billions of stars surrounding us, we’ve never heard any communication from extraterrestrials and this where the Fermi Paradox comes in, which is the contradiction between the lack of evidence that extraterrestrials exist and the high probability that they do in fact exist.

There are many theories as to why we haven’t had any contact with aliens, such as they’re sleeping, or they’re not around anymore. But one theory in particular was discussed in Paris last week by the METI researchers and it’s that maybe we have been quarantined by the extraterrestrials. They suggested that we may be in a type of cage like we’re in some kind of galactic zoo.

Florence Raulin Cerceau, who is the METI director as well as an astrobiologist, explained, “This puzzle of why we haven’t detected extraterrestrial life has been discussed often,” adding, “But in this workshop’s unique focus, many of the talks tackled a controversial explanation first suggested in the 1970s, called the ‘zoo hypothesis’.” METI president Douglas Vakoch weighed in by saying, “Perhaps extraterrestrials are watching humans on Earth, much like we watch animals in a zoo.”

The zoo hypothesis was first presented by MIT researcher John Ball in a 1973 paper. He wrote, “Extraterrestrial intelligent life may be almost ubiquitous,” adding, “The apparent failure of such life to interact with us may be understood in terms of the hypothesis that they have set us aside as part of a wilderness area or zoo.” He later wrote in another research paper, “ETI may be discreetly and inconspicuously watching us but not dabbling.”

In 2016, Josh Hrala told ScienceAlert that while the zoo hypothesis does assume that aliens exist, perhaps the reason why they’re not interacting with us is because they don’t want to have any influence on our society and they just want to keep observing us from far away.

The zoo hypothesis is one of many theories involving alien life, but it’s definitely an interesting hypothesis to consider. “It seems likely that extraterrestrials are imposing a ‘galactic quarantine’ because they realize it would be culturally disruptive for us to learn about them,” stated researcher Jean-Pierre Rospars from the Institut national de la recherche agronomique and who attended the METI workshop.

Whether we’re in some sort of galactic zoo or not, it would still be very exciting and life-changing if we could somehow receive any type of communication from extraterrestrials, or even solid proof that they do in fact exist.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/  }

Bizarre Secret Files Released on Lost Ancient Human Civilizations

{ https://beforeitsnews.com }

Welcoming our new overlords of any kind is becoming more than just a funny meme … it may be a warning that their arrival could be happening faster than we can perceive, comprehend … or stop. That seems to be the case if the overlords are artificially intelligent robots as the tech news media this week brings stories of AI robots reproducing, evolving and reciting bible verses to humans based on data collected to determine what their spiritual needs at the moment might be. Robots controlling what you pray for? Will they stop you from praying for less robots?

Wired reports this week on research in the field of evolutionary robotics being conducted at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam by computer scientist Gusz Eiben. Ebsen uses simple AI robots with simple “genomes” that define what their color will be. He then has them “mate” via connections and combine their genomes. Like in humans, he programmed the connection and combination to have flaws that can cause mutations in the “offspring.” The end result?

“One parent is fully green, and the other parent is fully blue. Then the child has some modules that are blue and some that are green, but the head is white. That’s not what we put in—it’s a mutation effect.”

Obviously, negative or flawed mutations would not be the goal. Programmers of evolutionary robots would design them to combine their strongest “genes” or characteristics to produce a baby bot with the best of both robot parents. With computers powering their intelligence and decision-making, this “evolution” could result in combinations not foreseen by human engineers. Additionally, what humans may see as genetic flaws may have uses that the AI determines to be valuable.

Everything will be OK as long as humans tightly control the algorithms … right? Research scientist David Howard, who recently published a framework for evolutionary robotics in Nature Machine Intelligence, proposes a scenario where scientists developing robots for exploring jungles do it by sending robots out into jungle to learn for themselves.

“What we’d do is get lots of small robots that are quite simple and cheap to make. We’d send them out, and some of them would do better than others.”

By “do better than others,” Howard means make it back to the lab in one piece. Those that do would be allowed to “mate” and create the next generation of bots to send out into the jungle again and repeat the process. What could possibly go wrong?

Where did every bot-ty go?

“From the Gospel according to Matthew. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Sage advice, you say? Would you feel the same way if you knew it was an AI robot’s response to your concern? In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Gabriele Trovato, a roboticist and assistant professor at Waseda University in Japan, introduces SanTO, a 17-inch-tall robot equipped with a microphone, sensors and a facial recognition-enabled camera. Trovato developed SanTO with a specific purpose in mind (view photos of SanTO here):

A woman interacts with SanTO at a nursing home in Siegen, Germany.

PHOTO: GABRIELE TROVATO

“Religion has evolved through history, from oral tradition to written tradition to press and mass media. So it’s very reasonable to think that AI and robotics will help religion to spread out more.”

Although Trovato was warned by religious officials that SanTO should not offer biblical interpretations, it comes close by making decisions which text to recite by interpreting the needs of the person it is working for based on the questions asked and cues picked up by the facial recognition system. Isn’t that counseling and teaching using biblical quotations?

Robots are reproducing, evolving and “spreading the word” of religious texts. Perhaps when we worry about our eventual takeover by the robot overlords, we should less concerned about the “over” and fret more about the “lord” part.

Or are we too late?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Archaeologists have discovered over 100 ancient inscriptions that were carved into the rock at Wadi el-Hudi, which is where the Egyptians mined amethysts in ancient times. They also found 14 stele (which are inscriptions that are carved on a slab of stone or pillar) and 45 ostraca (which are inscriptions that are written on pottery pieces).

While tests are currently being conducted on the findings, archaeologists have already concluded that several of the inscriptions were from approximately 3,900 years ago (a time period known as the “Middle Kingdom”), and several of the ostraca were from around 2,000 years ago (approximately the same time that Egypt was taken over by Rome).

Egypt

During the Middle Kingdom time period in Egypt, the pharaohs discovered that Wadi el-Hudi was an excellent source for amethysts and started mining it. “They were bringing it back and making it into jewelry and doling it out to their elite and their princesses,” Kate Liszka, who is the director of the Wadi el-Hudi expedition, told Live Science.

Although other scholars previously surveyed Wadi el-Hudi, many of the inscriptions were overlooked. “The site is just so full of inscriptions behind every boulder and around every wall that they missed a lot of them,” Liszka stated. In order to find new inscriptions, the team is using 3D modeling, photogrammetry, and reflectance transformation imaging (RTI).

The team hopes that the inscriptions will answer many of the mysteries surrounding Wadi el-Hudi, such as whether or not the miners were being forced to work against their free will. “I don’t know if I’m excavating a legitimate settlement where people were treated well or if I’m excavating a prison camp,” explained Liszka.

Amethyst

Some of the inscriptions indicate that there were groups of soldiers who were staring down at the miners while they worked, which makes researchers wonder whether the soldiers were keeping a watchful eye on the miners to make sure they were working hard, or if they were just protecting them.

• Click here to see one of the many inscriptions discovered in Wadi el-Hudi.

Credit: Photo courtesy Wadi el-Hudi Expedition

Credit: Photo courtesy Wadi el-Hudi Expedition

Another unanswered question is how the miners got access to water since the closest well was 1.9 miles away from them. And since it’s very possible that the well wasn’t even in use at that time, the Nile River was around 18.6 miles away.

Researchers also found a 3,400-year-old stela which had the name Usersatet written on it, who was viceroy of Kush in southern Egypt. What’s so mysterious about the finding is that no mining was being conducted at Wadi el-Hudi during that time, leaving it completely abandoned, so why did someone bring it 18.6 miles throughout the desert in order to leave it there? Hopefully with more research being done there, some of these questions may eventually be answered.

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Deadly blizzard, UFO or...? Prosecutors travel to Dyatlov Pass to solve 60yo Mystery

Located in the Ural Mountains, the remote patch of wilderness became infamous in paranormal lore after a 1959 incident where a group of hikers were found dead in the Ural Mountains under unclear circumstances.

Despite a contemporaneous investigation by Russian officials and subsequent decades of study from independent researchers, the cause of the strange event has never been fully determined.

Back in 2008 an unnamed individual reportedly stumbled upon an intriguing piece of metal while visiting the area and was only recently confirmed after an expedition finally made their way out to the specific location to both see the object for themselves and to bring it back to civilization to be studied.

And now Russian prosecutors conducted a week-long expedition in March to re-open a probe in to the mysterious Dyatlov Pass case.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

The 5 Most Credible Modern UFO Sightings

Stargazers looking for Aurora Australis mystified by bright green flash

PHOTO: Residents in Tasmania's south captured the fast flash of light on camera. 

(Supplied: Leoni Williams)

 

• RELATED STORY: Aurora Australis 'picket fence' captured by photographer after five years of chasing
• RELATED STORY: What's an aurora and how do you spot one in Australia?

They were waiting for the Aurora Australis, but amateur photographers were left guessing after seeing a bright green flash light up the Tasmanian sky.

Key points:

• Residents in Tasmania's south saw a bright green flash in the starry sky
• Social media users suggested it was a meteor, glowing green because of the metals inside the rock
• An expert says it could also be space debris, but added it was a "spectacular" sight

Amateur photographer Leoni Williams captured a shot of the green streak about 9:30pm on Thursday by "accident".

Overlooking Pipe Clay Lagoon, toward Clifton Beach in southern Tasmania, Ms Williams had her camera facing south in anticipation of an Aurora.

"I was very lucky to capture this bright green object before it disappeared over the horizon," Ms Williams said.

"I'm still not sure what it was. I didn't actually see it with the naked eye as I wasn't watching. I had just set the camera on 30 seconds and pushed the shutter and turned back to my phone.

"I would imagine it was pretty quick. I nearly missed it because it was at the end of the exposure."

Photo sparked social media debate

Ms Williams took to social media to try and find out what she'd captured on camera.

Opinions varied, with some thinking it was a shooting star, a fallen satellite or even a UFO.

Spotted from the Huon Valley to Dodges Ferry, other photos began popping up on social media.

Eventually, it was shared on social media page Australian Meteor Reports.

"It's definitely a meteor," page administrator David Finlay said.

"That flash that's been captured is a very, very bright meteor — it's what we'd call a 'fireball'. It probably lit up the countryside."

PHOTO: The bright green flash puzzled onlookers in Tasmania. 

(Supplied: Daniel Lam)

Mr Finlay — a former industrial chemist who has been studying astronomy from an very early age — said the flash was created by a "small rock from space, blazing through the atmosphere, creating friction with the atmosphere".

"It glows and ionises gas — that's what you see as this fireball blazing through the sky.

"If it actually survives atmospheric entry and lands as a rock on land, that's what we call a meteorite — only if it makes it to the ground."

Why is it green?

As for the bright green glow, Mr Finlay said it had to do with the elemental components of the meteor.

"The green is produced by a combination of the nickel and iron in the meteor," he said.

"It's probably just a normal rocky meteor but it would contain flecks of metal in the rock, producing that colour. It's very cool.

"It's what we colloquially call a 'fish squisher' because it's over the ocean," he said.

Professor Simon Ellingsen, the head of physics at the University of Tasmania, said it was possible the object was manmade space debris rather than a meteor.

"[The colour] is almost certainly because of the specific elements and minerals in the object," he said.

"It probably wouldn't have looked that green to the naked eye [because] digital cameras are so good at picking up the light."

He said while it wasn't unusual to spot a meteor or space debris over Tasmania, this object would have been a special sight to see.

"The sort of rule of thumb is if you go outside to a clear, dark sight, you'll see a shooting star, so to speak, about every 10 minutes or so," he said.

"This one that's been caught is bigger than normal and more spectacular than you normally get.

"This photographer was obviously in the right place at the right time."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

VIDEO: Stargazers were hoping to glimpse the Aurora Australis, seen here over Tasmania late last year (ABC News)

SpaceX readies 'Starship Hopper' spacecraft prototype for first test

The uncrewed vehicle is a small version of a 100-passenger spaceship that will take humans to Mars.

{ https://www.nbcnews.com/mach }

NASA’s First Mars Rover Actually Explored An Ancient Sea

By Alison Klesman 

The Pathfinder mission landed in Mars’ Ares Vallis, where the Sojourner rover catalogued rocks that may have been eroded by floodwaters. 7

(Credit: NASA/JPL)

Mars may be a dry, cold planet today, but it was once a warmer, wetter one. NASA’s Opportunity rover was the first rover to find solid evidence of water on Mars — but years before Opportunity’s discoveries, NASA’s first Martian rover mission spent its time exploring an ancient spillway that once connected Mars’ northern ocean to an inland sea.

Mars Pathfinder landed 22 years ago, on July 4, 1997. The mission’s 23-pound (10.6 kilograms) rover, Sojourner, was the first rover to explore the surface of Mars, wheeling through Ares Vallis for 83 days. The mission investigated whether massive channels in the landscape, spotted by Mariner 9, were caused by floodwaters, as indicated from orbit. But the rover’s findings were inconclusive, leaving open the possibility that the shallow channels had been carved by lava instead of water. But that possibility is no longer viable, according to a paper published February 25 in Nature Scientific Reports, which states that the features Sojourner mapped are, in fact, the result of cataclysmic flooding on the Red Planet.

Formed by Martian Water

“Our paper shows a basin, with roughly the surface area of California, that separates most of the gigantic Martian channels from the Pathfinder landing site. Debris or lava flows would have filled the basin before reaching the Pathfinder landing site. The very existence of the basin requires cataclysmic floods as the channels’ primary formational mechanism,” said lead author Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) in a press release.

The basin, according to Rodriguez, contains sedimentary rock consistent with deposits that would have been left by groundwater flooding, which formed an inland sea. “This sea is approximately 155 miles (250 kilometers) upstream from the Pathfinder landing site, an observation that reframes its paleo-geographic setting as part of a marine spillway, which formed a land barrier separating the inland sea and a northern ocean,” she said. “Our simulation shows that the presence of the sea would have attenuated cataclysmic floods, leading to shallow spillovers that reached the Pathfinder landing site and produced the bedforms detected by the spacecraft.”

According to the researchers, the ancient inland sea resembles the disappearing Aral Sea on Earth. “Our numerical simulations indicate that the [Martian] sea rapidly became ice-covered and disappeared within a few thousand years due to its rapid evaporation and sublimation. During this time, however, it remained liquid below its ice cover,” said co-author Bryan Travis, also of PSI.

Though its presence was brief, Rodriguez said the sea could have hosted life — and the deposits it left at the Pathfinder landing site could contain evidence of that life. That evidence could even be within reach, she added, as its location is “easily accessible by future missions.”

Are you ready to take a closer look at Mars? Check out our free downloadable eBook: Mars: Exploring the Red Planet.

Did Curiosity snap an image of a mysterious “creature” on Mars?

Ultimate evidence of life on Mars: Did NASA’s Curiosity rover snap an image of a mysterious “creature” on the surface of Mars?

NASA’s Curiosity rover has snapped another incredible image of Mars that has led to a lot of debate whether there is life or not on the red planet. Many people believe that even though the surface conditions of Mars are far too harsh to sustain life, there is life beneath the Martian surface, and this new image of NASA’s curiosity rover has awakened the debate among researchers, ufologists, and media whether Mars is home to alien life.

For all of you who remain skeptical head over to NASA’s archives and see the RAW image file, to do so, click here.

The “peculiar” image seems to show “something” hanging onto the cliffs on the red planet, at least that’s how it looks, doesn’t it? Can’t see the object in question? Look carefully to the center-right part of the image, there, you will notice a strange object that clearly stands out from the rest of the surrounding landscape. There are rocks on Mars, there are rocks that might look a bit strange, and then you have objects like the one in this image. Something that is completely out of place and doesn’t seem to be a rock.

The object in question seems to have ten weirdly shaped “lines” or “tentacles” coming from the center of the oval-shaped “structure?”

If it is a rock, then it surely is the strangest rock ever seen on the red planet, wouldn’t you agree?

But, what is this thing? Is it just another rock? Or is it possible that this image is the ultimate proof of life on Mars, and that this isn’t just another rock, like many claim it to be? A Very strange-looking rock that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in the surrounding landscape of the red planet.

You cannot deny seeing a curiously shaped object in the image, an object that doesn’t look like a rock and doesn’t seem to belong to the cliff, where the object is seen.

Interestingly, people who have seen the image believe that this mysterious objects is in fact guarding some sort of entrance to an underground tunnel on Mars. Too much science fiction? Well could be, but if you see the image closely, you will see that behind this mysterious “tentacle object,” there seems to be some sort of entrance, of course this could be just another shadow behind it, but you cannot help and wonder what the heck this object actually is?

Rock or not, this image has certainly awakened the interest in a lot of people for Mars, and everything that is going on at the surface of neighbour planet.

What if, there actually is life on Mars, life that somehow, managed to survive the harsh conditions on the red planet, and found a safe harbor beneath the Red Planet’s surface.

Let us know what you think this mysterious object might be!

• source

{ http://sciencevibe.com/ }

UFO sighting: Witness recounts 'fast moving UFO' over Glasgow - 'I felt threatened'

A BRITISH UFO eye witness felt “threatened” by the presence of an alien spaceship emitting lights over Glasgow, according to a shock UFO report.

Remote Viewing Revelations From the US Military to the MoD

{ https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/ }

Wetenschappers gaan op Antarctica boren naar ijs van 1,5 miljoen jaar oud - HLN.be

Bron: Nature, The Guardian

Op 9 april zal de precieze locatie van de boring bekend worden gemaakt. Een team van prominente ijs- en klimaatwetenschappers uit 10 Europese landen hebben twee jaar lang naar de ideale plek gezocht. Het enige wat we voorlopig weten is dat het in het oosten van Antarctica zal zijn, in een gebied dat Little Dome C heet en op 3.200 meter boven zeeniveau ligt. Daar zal tot onderaan een 2.750 meter dikke ijsplaat worden gedrild. De werken zullen in juni 2020 van start gaan.

Beyond Epica heet het project en het wordt gesponsord door de Europese Commissie. Die zou maar liefst 11 miljoen euro in het project pompen.

Lees ook

Rivieren op Mars recenter dan gedacht en dubbel zo breed als die op aarde

Temperatuur

15 jaar geleden slaagden wetenschappers van Epica er al in om ijs te vinden van 800.000 jaar oud. Dat toonde een heel nauwe relatie tussen het niveau van CO2 en de temperatuur op aarde. “We kwamen toen ook te weten dat de concentraties van broeikasgassen die we vandaag kennen, veel hoger liggen dan ze de afgelopen 800.000 jaar ooit geweest zijn”, aldus professor kwarternaire wetenschappen Raimund Muscheler van de universiteit van Lund in Zweden in de Britse krant The Guardian.

Muscheler houdt zich bezig met de studie van het Kwartair, de jongste en tegelijk kortste periode in de aardgeschiedenis, die de jongste 2,6 miljoen jaar overspant. (lees hieronder verder)

Hoe het komt dat het ijs ons zo veel kan vertellen? Wel, ijsplaten worden gevormd door sneeuwval die jarenlang opbouwt. Elke keer het sneeuwt, wordt er een extra laagje gevormd. Die laagjes worden vervolgens samengeperst tot ijs door nieuwe lagen die erop vallen. In die sneeuw zitten echter ook luchtbellen, gassen en stofdeeltjes en die kunnen een beeld geven van de temperatuur, de atmosfeer en het klimaat op een bepaald moment in onze geschiedenis.

Grote verandering

“Ruwweg een miljoen jaar geleden deed er zich een grote verandering in het klimaatsysteem van de Aarde voor”, aldus glacioloog Poul Christoffersen van de universiteit van Cambridge. “Die wordt de Mid-Pleistocene Transitie genoemd. Ervoor kwamen ijstijden om de 40.000 jaar voor, erna om de 100.000 jaar. Als we voor het eerst ijs zouden kunnen vinden dat meer dan een miljoen jaar oud is, kan ons dat iets leren over hoe het klimaat vroeger werkte en wat die Transitie veroorzaakt kan hebben. Het zou te maken kunnen hebben met broeikasgassen zoals CO2, maar dat weten we niet. Als dat zo is, betekent het dat die stoffen het klimaat op Aarde echt heel dramatisch kunnen veranderen.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Rivieren op Mars recenter dan gedacht en dubbel zo breed als die op aarde - HLN. be

Bron: Science Advances

De conclusies maken het niet makkelijker voor onderzoekers die Mars’ drastische transitie van de natte naar de droge periode bestuderen. Die zou tot later in de geschiedenis van de planeet hebben geduurd dan tot nu toe gedacht. Met andere woorden: er was tot minder lang geleden dan gedacht water op Mars, tot het allerlaatste moment van de natte periode. Tussen 3,6 en 1 miljard jaar geleden stroomde dagelijks 3 tot 20 kg water per vierkante meter door de rivierbeddingen over de hele planeet verspreid. De nieuwe studie schat het nu op 1 miljard jaar geleden en zelfs nog later. Of: minstens 1 miljard jaar recenter dan vorige berekeningen.

Lees ook

Marsrover Curiosity spot kiezels zoals die op aarde

Edwin Kite en zijn team onderzochten meer dan 200 oude, al lang opgedroogde rivierbeddingen op Mars aan de hand van foto’s gemaakt met NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), die rond de planeet cirkelt. De diepe geulen op de foto’s bevatten informatie over het water dat er ooit doorstroomde en over de klimatologische omstandigheden waarin dat gebeurde. De grootte van de beddingen wijst op een continue eerder dan op een tijdelijke waterstroom enkel ’s middags. 

De gemiddelde dagtemperaturen lagen dus boven het vriespunt, wat dan weer een sterk broeikaseffect suggereert. “Maar dat wordt niet gestaafd door de bestaande modellen van Mars’ klimaatveranderingen”, zegt de studie. De atmosfeer van Mars was vroeger zo dik dat er maar een derde van zonnestralen die wij nu op de aarde ontvangen doorkwam. Onvoldoende voor vloeibaar water.

Als de vooropgestelde periodes van stromende rivieren op Mars kloppen, dan zou dat kunnen betekenen dat de atmosfeer van de rode planeet sneller verdween dan eerder werd gedacht. Uit vorige studies bleek dat de verdunning 4 miljard jaar geleden zou zijn ingezet en zo zou hebben geleid tot het geleidelijk uitdrogen van de rivieren. De nieuwe studie plaatst dat uitdunnen van de Martiaanse atmosfeer nu miljarden jaren later.

Kite schuift nog een andere optie naar voren: mogelijk versprong het klimaat op Mars herhaaldelijk als een op/aan-knop van droge naar natte periodes.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Vlaamse geoloog levert bewijs voor vloedgolf na meteorieteninslag 66 miljoen jaar geleden - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

De inslag van de 10 kilometer brede meteoriet veroorzaakte verschillende zware aardbevingen. Tot hiertoe waren er weinig fysieke bewijzen dat die meteorieteninslag vloedgolven teweeggebracht zou hebben. Uit de studie blijkt dat de gesteentelaag in Noord-Dakota gevormd werd door een vloedgolf die binnen enkele uren na de meteorieteninslag het land in de omgeving overspoelde. De gesteentelaag lag zo’n 3.000 kilometer ten noorden van de krater.

In de gesteentelaag werden honderden fossielen gevonden van vissen en dinosauriërs, tot bomen en haaientanden. “In de kieuwen van de vissen bevonden zich tektieten, fragmenten aards gesteente die door de inslag van de meteoriet gesmolten zijn en in de ruimte werd gekatapulteerd. Tijdens hun val naar de aarde stollen ze weer. Ook in de hars van fossiele bomen vonden we zulke tektieten terug. Deze vondsten bewijzen dat de dier- en plantensoorten gesneuveld zijn als rechtstreeks gevolg van de meteorieteninslag”, aldus Vellekoop.

De resultaten van de studie zullen op 1 april in het vakblad PNAS gepubliceerd worden.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Helikoptervlucht over de rode planeet? Volgens NASA is het mogelijk - HLN.be

Bron: AD.nl

De dichtheid van de atmosfeer op Mars is ongeveer 1 procent van die op aarde. Om de 1,8 kilo zware helikopter te testen, zouden de onderzoekers het toestel op een hoogte van 30.480 meter moeten laten vliegen, wat verre van praktisch is. NASA koos er daarom voor om de omstandigheden op Mars na te bootsen in de JPL Space Simulator in Pasadena, Californië. In deze simulator vonden op verschillende dagen twee succesvolle testvluchten plaats, zo laat NASA weten op zijn website.

Lees ook

SpaceX-baas Musk onthult prijskaartje van reis naar Mars

De atmosfeer van Mars heeft niet alleen een andere dichtheid dan die op aarde, ook de temperatuur is er veel lager; tot -90 graden Celsius. Om de omstandigheden op Mars na te bootsen, werd de JPL Space Simulator, een cilinder met een diagonaal van 7,62 meter, eerst vacuüm gezogen. De stikstof en de zuurstof werden vervolgens vervangen door koolstofdioxide, het belangrijkste bestanddeel van de atmosfeer van Mars.

Testcase

Als alles volgens plan verloopt, wordt de Mars-helikopter in juli 2020 gelanceerd, samen met de Mars 2020 Rover. De landing op Mars, waarbij de helikopter onder de ‘buik’ van de rover hangt, is gepland voor februari 2021. De eerste testvlucht op de rode planeet, waarbij de heli tot anderhalve minuut in de lucht blijft, volgt enkele maanden later.

Na de landing op Mars dient de helikopter vooral als testcase voor toekomstige ’unmanned aerial vehicles’of uav’s. De Rover 2020 gaat de gesteenten op de planeet bestuderen, onder meer door via boringen monsters te verzamelen.

Bekijk ook:

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Water found under surface of MARS could be critical resource for human settlers

Scientists found high pressure deep below the surface forced the water through fractures within some of Mars' craters

By Tony Whitfield

Mars

(Image: Science Photo Library RF)

Water could be flowing deep underground around the equator of Mars providing ideal locations for future bases, a new study found.

The springs bubble up from groundwater 750 metres deep through cracks in craters pockmarking the Red Planet's surface.

Scientists found high pressure deep below the surface forced the water through fractures within some of Mars' craters.

These springs leaked onto the surface, generating the sharp and distinct linear features found on the walls of these craters.

And these water features fluctuate with the seasons on the Red Planet.

In 2018 researchers supported by the Italian Space Agency detected the presence of a deep-water lake on Mars under its south polar ice caps.

READ MORE

• Venus is NOT the closest planet to Earth, controversial study claims

Now the new study by the University of Southern California in Los Angeles suggested groundwater likely exists in a broader geographical area than just the poles of Mars and that there is an active system.

The findings were based on the studying the characteristics of Mars Recurrent Slope Linea, which are akin to dried, short streams of water that appears on some crater walls on Mars.

Scientists previously thought these features were affiliated with surface water flow or close subsurface water flow.

Dr Essam Heggy, who is a member of the Mars Express Sounding radar experiment MARSIS probing Mars subsurface, said: "We suggest that this may not be true.

"We propose an alternative hypothesis that they originate from a deep pressurised groundwater source which comes to surface moving upward along ground cracks."

First author Dr Abotalib Abotalib added: "The experience we gained from our research in desert hydrology was the cornerstone in reaching this conclusion.

"We have seen the same mechanisms in the North African Sahara and in the Arabian Peninsula, and it helped us explore the same mechanism on Mars."

READ MORE

• First person on Mars is 'likely to be a woman', NASA reveals

Previous research to explore groundwater on Mars relied on interpreting the returned electromagnetic echoes sent from the radar-probing experiments from orbit onboard Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

These experiments measured the reflection of the waves from both the surface and the subsurface whenever penetration was possible.

However, this earlier method did not yet provide evidence of groundwater occurrence beyond the 2018 South Pole detection.

The researchers used hi-resolution optical images and modelling to study the walls of large impact craters on Mars.

The goal was to correlate the presence of fractures with the sources of streams that generate short water flows.

The pair, who have long studied subsurface aquifers and groundwater flow movement on Earth and in desert environments, found similarities between the groundwater moving mechanisms in the Sahara and on Mars.

Dr Heggy said: "Groundwater is strong evidence for the past similarity between Mars and Earth - it suggest they have a similar evolution, to some extent.".

READ MORE

• NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover TATTOO mocked online as fans spot huge error

He added this deep source of groundwater was the most convincing evidence of similarities between the two planets.

It suggested both may have had wet periods long enough to create such an active groundwater system.

Dr Heggy said: "Understanding how groundwater has formed on Mars, where it is today and how it is moving helps us constrain ambiguities on the evolution of climatic conditions on Mars for the last three billion years and how these conditions formed this groundwater system.

"It helps us to understand the similarities to our own planet and if we are going through the same climate evolution and the same path that Mars is going.

"Understanding Mars' evolution is crucial for understanding our own Earth's long-term evolution and groundwater is a key element in this process. "

The new study suggests that the groundwater that is the source of these water flows could be at depths starting at 750 meters deep.

He concluded: "Such depth requires us to consider more deep-probing techniques to look for the source of this groundwater versus looking for shallow sources of water."

• The study was published in Nature Geoscience.

{ https://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

Mysterious streaks in a Martian impact crater suggest the red planet still has an ACTIVE groundwater system hundreds of meters beneath the surface

• Researchers studied features on Mars’ Recurrent Slope Linea, which appear to have been created by streams
• Suggests active groundwater likely exists far beyond the Martian poles, in some cases as deep as 750 meters
• The researchers say groundwater system may be the best sign yet that Mars had long wet period in its past

By CHEYENNE MACDONALD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

An active groundwater system may still be thriving on Mars hundreds of meters beneath the surface, according to new research.

Though recent studies have detected the presence of deep lakes near Mars’ south pole, features linked to water in areas closer to the equator have largely been attributed to flows at or near the surface.

But, a new investigation using data from Mars Express and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter now suggests groundwater is much more prevalent across the red planet than previously suspected.

Scientists now say active groundwater likely exists far beyond the Martian poles, in some cases as deep as 750 meters, and gives rise to surface streams that leave snaking streaks along many crater walls.

Scroll down for video 

The team studied high resolution images to analyze ground fractures along the walls of large impact craters, such as Mars' Recurrent Slope Linea (pictured). And, they say these characteristics appear similar to features seen on Earth. Water sources as deep as 750 meters below the surface could be producing streams even outside of the poles

In the study, the team studied features observed on Mars’ Recurrent Slope Linea, which appear to have been created by short streams of water.

While it’s been suggested that these were the result of surface water flows, the researchers say ‘this may not be true.’

‘We propose an alternative hypothesis that they originate from a deep pressurized groundwater source which comes to the surface moving upward along ground cracks,’ said Essam Heggy, a member of the Mars Express Sounding radar experiment MARSIS.

The team studied high resolution images to analyze ground fractures along the walls of large impact craters.

And, they say these characteristics appear similar to features seen on Earth.

‘The experience we gained from our research in desert hydrology was the cornerstone in reaching this conclusion,’ said lead author Abotalib Z. Abotalib.

‘We have seen the same mechanisms in the North African Sahara and in the Arabian Peninsula, and it helped us explore the same mechanism on Mars.’

‘Groundwater is strong evidence for the past similarity between Mars and Earth – it suggests they have a similar evolution, to some extent,’ Heggy said.

According to the researchers, the newly hypothesized groundwater system may be the best sign yet that Mars had a long wet period in its past.

Water sources as deep as 750 meters below the surface could be producing streams in equatorial areas.

A separate study published earlier this year identified what's said to be the first evidence of such a groundwater system. The researchers say numerous features seen on the crater floors at depths of 4,000-4,500 meters are suggestive of water, with evidence of pools and flows that changed over time. Some of these features can be seen in the deep basin, above

‘Understanding how groundwater has formed on Mars, where it is today and how it is moving helps us constrain ambiguities on the evolution of climatic conditions on Mars for the last three billion years and how these conditions formed this groundwater system,’

‘It helps us to understand the similarities to our own planet and if we are going through the same climate evolution and the same path that Mars is going.

‘Understanding Mars’ evolution is crucial for understanding our own Earth’s long-term evolution and groundwater is a key element in this process.’

‘Such depth requires us to consider more deep-probing techniques to look for the source of this groundwater versus looking for shallow sources of water,’ Heggy says.

WHAT SIGNS OF WATER HAVE RESEARCHERS FOUND?

A new study on data from the Mars Express satellite has now revealed the extent of an ancient groundwater system on the red planet.

Researchers found features that indicate the presence of past water at depths of 4,000-4,500m, including:

• 
  
  • Channels etched into crater walls
  • Valleys carved out by groundwater
  • Curved deltas that may have formed as water levels rose and fell
  • Ridged terraces in crater walls from standing water
  • Fan-shaped deposits of sediment

Researchers also found minerals linked to the emergence of life: clays, carbonates, and silicates.

Scientists have detected the first geological evidence of an interconnected system of water reservoirs deep beneath the surface of Mars. This includes channels, valleys, curved deltas, ridged terraces, and fan-shaped deposits of sediments, as illustrated above

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Discovery could shed light on the Earth, as well as the red planet

Andrew Griffin

There may be a vast and active system of water running underneath the surface of Mars, scientists have said.

Groundwater on Mars may run much deeper than previously thought, with streams flowing invisibly under the surface, a new study has found.

Recurrent Slope Linae on the Palikir Crater walls on Mars. (Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

The discovery may help fundamentally change our understanding of the red planet, as well as informing our search for life.

Last year, scientists working with the Italian Space Agency found the presence of a dee-water lake on Mars, under its south pole. The new study suggests that groundwater could still be flowing in active system, and that it could lead to streams flowing on the surface in parts of the planet near the equator.

The researchers found the groundwater probably exists in areas much broader than the plus and that the system could run as deep as 750 meters.

The researchers made the discovery after analysing the characteristics of the Mars Recurrent Slope Linea, which are like dried, short streams of water that appear on the walls of some of the planet's craters.

Previously, researchers thought those features were the result of flowing water across the surface or just underneath it. But now the researchers believe they are actually coming up from a deep pressurised source from where water is pushed up.

Watch more

• 
  Mars flowed with huge rivers relatively recently, scientists say

"We propose an alternative hypothesis that they originate from a deep pressurised groundwater source which comes to surface moving upward along ground cracks," said Essam Heggy, one of the co-authors on the new paper.

Researchers came to the conclusion after seeing similar mechanisms at work on Earth.

"The experience we gained from our research in desert hydrology was the cornerstone in reaching this conclusion. We have seen the same mechanisms in the North African Sahara and in the Arabian Peninsula, and it helped us explore the same mechanism on Mars," said Abotalib Z. Abotalib, the paper's first author.

Some of Mars craters have fractures in, and the scientists say those allow water springs to rise up to its surface, pushed up by the pressure deep below. Those springs then leak out onto the surface, which leads to the clear features that can be seen in images of the walls of those creators.

That would explain why the water features seem to fluctuate according to Mars' seasons, the researchers say as part of the new study published in Nature Geosciences.

Scientists should consider those exposed parts where the water springs out as primary candidates when looking to explore Mars and understand how habitable it could be, the researchers say. Water of this kind is likely to key to the question of whether Mars could support life – either future human exploration, or basic life that could have lived there in the past or even survive now.

New probing methods would allow scientists to explore those fractures and understand any potential water system that is lurking beneath the surface, the scientists write in the study.

As well as shedding light on the possibility of living on the planet, the new findings are convincing evidence that Mars has important similarities to our own Earth.

"Groundwater is strong evidence for the past similarity between Mars and Earth – it suggests they have a similar evolution, to some extent," said Heggy.

That could help shed light on our own planet and its evolution, as much as the red planet itself.

"Understanding how groundwater has formed on Mars, where it is today and how it is moving helps us constrain ambiguities on the evolution of climatic conditions on Mars for the last three billion years and how these conditions formed this groundwater system," said Heggy in a statement.

"It helps us to understand the similarities to our own planet and if we are going through the same climate evolution and the same path that Mars is going. Understanding Mars' evolution is crucial for understanding our own Earth's long-term evolution and groundwater is a key element in this process."

{ https://www.independent.co.uk/ }

Declassified documents reveal SHOCKING government projects, including research on warp drives and high-energy laser weapons

by: Ethan Huff

(Natural News)Your tax dollars, believe it or not, are (or at least were) being used by the federal government to research crazy sci-fi concepts like “warp drives,” wormhole travel, high-energy laser weapons, and invisibility cloaking, newly-declassified documents reveal.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was forced to make public the details of some 38 formerly top-secret government projects, which had been classified and sent to Congress last year.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, made the request to see what the DIA was up to, only to learn that all sorts of hair-brained projects were being conducted using tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

“I think anyone who looks at these titles will scratch their heads and wonder what on earth the Defense Intelligence Agency was thinking,” Aftergood reportedly told Motherboard(VICE).

Among these titles was a research endeavor entitled, “Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy,” which was headed up by Eric Davis from the Austin, Texas-based EarthTech International Inc. This project was described as an effort aimed at “exploring the forefront reaches of science and engineering,” with a focus on the theories of spacetime, studies of the quantum vacuum, and the government’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence, aka UFOs and space aliens.

Another project was entitled, “Invisibility Cloaking,” and was led by German scientists Dr. Ulf Leonhardt from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. This one focused on theoretical quantum optics, and the theoretical creation of “an invisible ‘hole’ in space, inside which objects can be hidden.”

• Get more news like this without being censored: Get the Natural News app for your mobile devices. Enjoy uncensored news, lab test results, videos, podcasts and more. Bypass all the unfair censorship by Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Get your daily news and videos directly from the source! Download here.

Yet another, entitled, “Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions,” focused on “researching technologies that will enable breakthroughs in interstellar travel.” Richard Obousy, the man behind the project, was reportedly credited by Gizmodo back in 2009 for developing “a scientifically accurate warship design” that could hypothetically use dark energy to propel itself through space.

“The list of research papers tells us something more than previous reporting did about this odd program,” Aftergood added in an email to Motherboard. “Now we have a better idea of exactly what the Defense Intelligence Agency was up to, and what it produced.”

For more news about space, be sure to check out Space.news.

Harry Reid secretly funded these crazy UFO space projects with $22 million stolen from taxpayers

As far as the American public was concerned, such projects didn’t exist. But now that the media has grabbed hold of them, thanks to Aftergood’s FOIA request, we now know a bit more about what was going on, and how much it was costing taxpayers.

Then-Senate majority leader, Democrat and Big Pharma hack Harry Reid, it turns out, had secretly allotted $22 million in taxpayer funding – without taxpayers’ consent, it’s important to note – for the program, though it remains unclear how the individual projects within the program were selected.

“These are the kinds of topics you pursue when you have more money than you know what to do with,” points out Aftergood about this gross abuse of the public coffers.

Not surprising is the fact that most of this $22 million budget went to Reid’s buddy, a UFO hunter by the name of Robert Bigelow of the Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace company. Bigelow, as you might recall, was the protagonist in the documentary Hunt for the Skinwalker, which told of the billionaire entrepreneur’s extraterrestrial Skinwalker Ranch.

“I loved science fiction when I was younger,” Aftergood says. “Today, I love good government. So I was not especially amused,” he added, jokingly.

Screenshots of the now-declassified documents containing a complete list of all of Harry Reid’s pet UFO and space projects are available at this link.

Sources for this article include:

• DailyMail.co.uk
• Motherboard.VICE.com
• NaturalNews.com

{ https://www.naturalnews.com/ }

A high-tech surveillance aircraft was recently seen flying over Area 51, one of the world’s most mysterious and infamous military research sites. While aliens are the usual suspect whenever the words “aircraft” and “Area 51” are uttered, a much more frightening boogeyman is behind this latest flyover: the Russians. 

“Did someone say boogeyman?”

On March 28th, 2019, Russia flew several Tupolev Tu-154M aircraft over many of America’s most sensitive military installations in the deserts of Nevada and California. The Tu-154 was designed in the 1960s by the Soviet Union and is still used today for passenger flights, cosmonaut training, and can be fitted with state-of-the-art electronic or optical surveillance equipment. The Tu-154M, the variant used in these flights, is used exclusively for surveillance and imagery collection.

A Russian Air Force Tu-154M

According to radar data tracked by FlightRadar24 and reportedby The Drive, the Tu-154M left Travis AFB near San Francisco before flying over Edwards Air Force Base, Fort Irwin, and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake before making a turn to survey the holy grail of military aerospace secrecy: the Nevada Test and Training Range near Area 51. The aircraft mostly stayed between 14,000 and 15,000 feet while it was conducting surveillance, plenty low enough for panoramic cameras to capture every detail of whatever was happening on the ground below. Good thing the really good stuff is in bunkers deep below the ground or inside Robert Bigelow’s hangars.

While it’s unnerving to thing about Russian spy planes flying over America’s most sensitive research facilities, it turns out this flight was a completely routine part of the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement between the U.S., Russia, and 32 other nations which allows each state to conduct “short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others’ entire territories to collect data on military forces and activities.” These flights are conducted periodically in order to allow nations to keep tabs on each other’s activities – or at least let each other see what they want each other to see. Over the years since the Open Skies Treaty was ratified, Russia and the U.S. have both accused one another of breaking the terms of the treaty time and time again. American intelligence agencies recently conducted Open Skies flights over Russia in February 2019 just when it looked like the agreement would fall apart due to rising tensions between the two superpowers.

Area 51

If we allow Russia to fly over our most sensitive airspace and research installations, it makes you wonder what types of flights aren’t being sanctioned by treaties. How many anomalous aerial phenomena or sightings of unidentified flying vehicles over the years can be attributed to non-sanctioned surveillance flights? Could the recent “disclosures” of government UFO programs have anything to do with incursions into American airspace by advanced surveillance drones or other aircraft flown by rival superpowers or even non-state actors? While those questions remain unanswered, this incident shows above all else that there is much more spooky activity going on overhead than we know. Could the entire extraterrestrial angle be a psy-op to keep the public from freaking out about the Russians or anyone else flying aircraft or weapons over our heads?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

A team of international astronauts spent six days in a pitch-black Sa Grutta cave system underneath Sardinia, Italy. When they emerged from the cave, they had a newly discovered species of a blind, colorless crustaceans with them.

"[It's] like walking in an underground wonderland," said NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, describing his experience underground in the Sa Grutta caves in Sardinia, Italy.
Credit: ESA–V. Crobu

The cave-dwelling crustacean is the size of a fingernail (just 8 millimeters long) and is named Alpioniscus sideralis which is the Latin word for “stellar”. The astronauts found it running around in a pitch-black pool inside of the Italian cave.

Cave in Sardinia

The expedition was conducted in 2012 with astronaut trainees from the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, China, and Japan. When they noticed the tiny crustaceans in the small pond, they lured them out of the water by using liver and rotten cheese as bait.

The astronauts were training underground as part of the European Space Agency’s CAVES program. This training helps International Space Station candidates to perform research together while in dangerous subterranean environments.

Paolo Marcia, who is a zoologist from the University of Sassari, explained the expedition in a statement, “I would like to think that when humans land on Mars and explore its caves, this experience will help them to look for other species, knowing that life has few limits and can develop in the most inhospitable places.”

After studying the genetics of the Alpioniscus sideralis by using molecular analysis, it was confirmed that it doesn’t match up with the other species found around that region. The astronauts described their findings in a December 2018 study that was published in the journal ZooKeys which can be read here.

Sardinia

The Alpioniscus sideralis is a type of woodlice, which are very small crustaceans that left their watery habitat millions of years ago in order to colonize on land. However, with this new discovery, it appears as if the species went back to its original roots and is back living in the water – this time in a subterranean cave pool located in Sardinia.

You can see a picture of the Alpioniscus sideralis by clicking here.

Credit: ESA–M. Fincke

It’s incredible to think that astronauts on a training exercise in a pitch-black cave ended up discovering a new species of crustaceans. Maybe they’ll find some unknown living creatures when they’re finally able to explore Mars.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Glowing UFO Over Venezuela Mountains Seen Landing In Area, Feb 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 16, 2019
Location of sighting: La Puerta, Venezuela
Source:

•  http://inexplicata.blogspot.com
  
  

This type of UFO has been seen in South America several times. When close to the craft it will appear as a bright orange light, too bright to make out any detail, but if its high enough in the sky, it can easily be mistaken as the sun during a sunset. 

This particular craft is flown by an alien species that is almost godlike. They came in hopes of preventing a horrible future for humanity and have constantly come back to abduct people and then teach them about how humanity has several possible endings looming very close in time. They hoped that they could change the future by teaching a few humans, but they were wrong. The humans they spoke to were too frightened and had no social power or important roles in which they could make those changes. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

Rodríguez pointed out that while they were not far from the place where the UFO apparently landed, he preferred not to approach it. "I was happy to have recorded it and kept going. I wasn't too sure about going back and looking at something that could have an uncertain outcome."

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Linda Moulton Howe: Why Are Insects Dying Out in Huge Numbers?

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

The “Replicator”: New 3D Printer Uses Rays of Light to Shape Objects, Transform Product Design

A new 3D printer uses light to transform gooey liquids into complex solid objects in only a matter of minutes.

Nicknamed the “replicator” by the inventors — after the Star Trek device that can materialize any object on demand — the 3D printer can create objects that are smoother, more flexible and more complex than what is possible with traditional 3D printers. It can also encase an already existing object with new materials — for instance, adding a handle to a metal screwdriver shaft — which current printers struggle to do. 

Credit; UC Berkeley video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally

The technology has the potential to transform how products from prosthetics to eyeglass lenses are designed and manufactured, the researchers say.

“I think this is a route to being able to mass-customize objects even more, whether they are prosthetics or running shoes,” said Hayden Taylor, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and senior author of a paper describing the printer, which appears online today (Jan. 31) in the journal Science.

“The fact that you could take a metallic component or something from another manufacturing process and add on customizable geometry, I think that may change the way products are designed,” Taylor said.

UC Berkeley researchers used a new light-based 3D printing technique to add a handle onto a screwdriver shaft

UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally

Most 3D printers, including other light-based techniques, build up 3D objects layer by layer. This leads to a “stair-step” effect along the edges. They also have difficulties creating flexible objects because bendable materials could deform during the printing process, and supports are required to print objects of certain shapes, like arches.

The new printer relies on a viscous liquid that reacts to form a solid when exposed to a certain threshold of light. Projecting carefully crafted patterns of light — essentially “movies” — onto a rotating cylinder of liquid solidifies the desired shape “all at once.”

“Basically, you’ve got an off-the-shelf video projector, which I literally brought in from home, and then you plug it into a laptop and use it to project a series of computed images, while a motor turns a cylinder that has a 3D printing resin in it,” Taylor said. “Obviously there are a lot of subtleties to it — how you formulate the resin, and, above all, how you compute the images that are going to be projected, but the barrier to creating a very simple version of this tool is not that high.”

Taylor and the team used the printer to create a series of objects, from a tiny model of Rodin’s “The Thinker” statue to a customized jawbone model. Currently, they can make objects up to four inches in diameter.

“This is the first case where we don’t need to build up custom 3D parts layer by layer,” said Brett Kelly, co-first author on the paper who completed the work while a graduate student working jointly at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “It makes 3D printing truly three-dimensional.”

The 3D printer works by shining changing patterns of light through a rotating vial of liquid. A computer algorithm calculates the exact patterns of light needed to shape a specific object.

UC Berkeley photo by Hayden Taylor

A CT scan — in reverse

The new printer was inspired by the computed tomography (CT) scans that can help doctors locate tumors and fractures within the body.

CT scans project X-rays or other types of electromagnetic radiation into the body from all different angles. Analyzing the patterns of transmitted energy reveals the geometry of the object.

“Essentially we reversed that principle,” Taylor said. “We are trying to create an object rather than measure an object, but actually a lot of the underlying theory that enables us to do this can be translated from the theory that underlies computed tomography.”

Besides patterning the light, which requires complex calculations to get the exact shapes and intensities right, the other major challenge faced by the researchers was how to formulate a material that stays liquid when exposed to a little bit of light, but reacts to form a solid when exposed to a lot of light.

“The liquid that you don’t want to cure is certainly having rays of light pass through it, so there needs to be a threshold of light exposure for this transition from liquid to solid,” Taylor said.

The researchers formulated a thick, syrupy liquid that hardens into a solid when exposed to a certain threshold of light.

UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally

The 3D printing resin is composed of liquid polymers mixed with photosensitive molecules and dissolved oxygen. Light activates the photosensitive compound which depletes the oxygen. Only in those 3D regions where all the oxygen has been used up do the polymers form the “cross-links” that transform the resin from a liquid to a solid. Unused resin can be recycled by heating it up in an oxygen atmosphere, Taylor said.

“Our technique generates almost no material waste and the uncured material is 100 percent reusable,” said Hossein Heidari, a graduate student in Taylor’s lab at UC Berkeley and co-first author of the work. “This is another advantage that comes with support-free 3D printing.”

The objects also don’t have to be transparent. The researchers printed objects that appear to be opaque using a dye that transmits light at the curing wavelength but absorbs most other wavelengths.

“This is particularly satisfying for me, because it creates a new framework of volumetric or ‘all-at-once’ 3D printing that we have begun to establish over the recent years,” said Maxim Shusteff, a staff engineer at the Livermore lab. “We hope this will open the way for many other researchers to explore this exciting technology area.”

Indrasen Bhattacharya of UC Berkeley is co-first author of the work. Other authors include Christopher M. Spadaccini of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This work was supported by UC Berkeley faculty startup funds and by Laboratory-Directed Research and Development funds from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The team has filed a patent application on the technique.

• Contacts and sources:
   Kara Manke
  UC Berkeley

Source: 

• http://www.ineffableisland.com/2019/03/the-replicator-new-3d-printer-uses-rays.html

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Russian Soviet UFOs Incredible Intelligent Disclosure

The history of UFOs and encounters with other-worldly beings includes events from all over the world. Russia — formerly the Soviet Union — has a major part of that history. Its story is dramatic, at times chilling, and always provocative.

Richard Dolan is one of the world’s leading researchers and writers on the subject of UFOs and believes that they constitute the greatest mystery of our time.

He is the author of two volumes of history, UFOs and the National Security State, both ground-breaking works which together provide the most factually complete and accessible narrative of the UFO subject available anywhere.

He also co-authored a speculative book about the future, A.D. After Disclosure, the first-ever analysis not only of how UFO secrecy might end, but of the all-important question: what happens next?

OTHER VIDEOS, selected by Peter 2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

More than 50 years after it happened, The Falcon Lake UFO incident remains one of the most compelling close encounter cases on record, and yet, compared to cases like Roswell or Rendlesham Forest, for example, it has maintained a relatively low profile. This is curious, given the reams of official documentation of the event, physical evidence in the form of strange metals found at the sight, and the fact that the witness suffered almost-fatal injuries as a result of coming into direct contact with a structured craft of unknown origin.

In a new book, published through my August Night imprint, noted UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski opens his vault of documents and images, gathered over several decades of inquiry, and presents a comprehensive picture of the Falcon Lake UFO incident. The book, When They Appeared, is co-authored by Stan Michalak, son of the original witness, who provides his inside perspective of what was happening in the Michalak home immediately following his father’s extraordinary encounter, documenting the daily struggles of his family as they dealt with his father’s injuries and the endless stream of investigators and media. Released after years of planning, When They Appeared is a sober and meticulous deconstruction of an event that presents a serious challenge to any true skeptic. Here, Chris and Stan talk to me about the Falcon Lake case, how it affected the Michalak family, and why it remains so important.

Chris Rutkowski (left), Stan Michalak (right), and the sketch of the craft drawn by Stan’s father, Stefan.

RG [to Chris]: Describe Stefan Michalak’s encounter in a nutshell and what sets it apart from so many other alleged close encounter cases.

CR: In May, 1967, Stefan Michalak was enjoying his hobby as a rockhound in Whiteshell Provincial Park, just north of Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada. Shortly after noon, his attention was drawn to two disc-shaped objects high in the sky. They both descended, and one dropped down to land or hover just above a flat rock outcropping not far from Michalak. He crouched behind a boulder and bushes so as not to be seen, and observed the craft for about half an hour. During this time, Michalak sketched the object in detail, noting it was a metallic craft of some kind, about 35 feet in diameter and about 12 feet high, with a domelike section on top from which bright purple light was emanating. Michalak said he could hear a whooshing sound as if air was being expelled or taken in, and there was a smell like burning electrical circuitry.

As he watched, a small door opened in the side of the craft, and light poured out from the opening as well. More importantly, Michalak now heard sounds like high-pitched voices, leading him to believe the craft was occupied. Convinced it was a secret American experimental vehicle that had encountered engine trouble, Michalak stood up and bravely walked towards the UFO, calling out jovially: “Come on out, Yankee boys! I can help fix your broken down flying machine!” By the time Michalak reached the craft, the voices had stopped, but he touched the side of the craft with his rubberized glove, which melted. The door shut, the craft revolved, and facing him was an exhaust vent of some kind. Suddenly, hot gas blasted out of it, knocking Michalak to the ground and setting fire to dry leaves, pine needles, and Michalak himself. He managed to extinguish the flaming result, but he realized he needed medical attention so he headed back home. He was treated in hospital for second degree burns and released, but then told his story to media in an attempt to warn others to stay away from that area or suffer the same fate.

Stefan Michalak following his close encounter with a landed craft at Falcon Lake. The burns on his chest and abdomen are clearly visible, their formation matching his description of what he speculated may have been exhaust vents on the craft, which expelled a blast of hot gas at him at close range, setting his shirt alight.

The incident was investigated by local UFO investigators, but more importantly, by several official agencies, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and even Canada’s own nuclear research facility. The latter was because soil samples collected by the RCAF were found to be radioactive, as were strange pieces of metal found a year later at the site. The case was also investigated by representatives from the Condon Committee and was included in the infamous Condon Report. Besides being a close encounter case with physical evidence, the case is remarkable because many official documents have been available or found by researchers, including medical records, RCMP documents, interview files, and analyses of the soil and metal samples. All in all, there are hundreds of pages of documents detailing the great lengths to which two countries’ investigative agencies went in studying the incident.

A piece of the radioactive metal that was retrieved from the crash site in 1968. It was found in the cracks of the Precambrian rock. (Chris Rutkowski).

RG: [to Stan]: Your father’s experience affected him for the rest of his life, but it affected your family too. How did you cope with it? How did you manage to integrate and assimilate your father’s experience into the relative normality of your everyday existence?

SM: At the beginning, we were most concerned for his health. In a matter of two weeks, he had dropped twenty pounds and was having difficulty keeping food down or eating anything that was solid. It took almost a month before he was able to enjoy real food. His weight gradually returned to about 160 to 170 pounds. His burns had healed, but the spots on the lower abdomen remained for quite a while longer, resolving into round, red welts which healed as scar tissue – so he always had hard nuggets under his skin, even after many years. His nausea and blackouts continued for a time as well.

Chris Rutkowski (left) and Stan Michalak (right) visit the remote site of the Falcon Lake UFO incident in May, 2017.

As a family, we were very aware of what he was experiencing. My sister was so heavily involved in her university education and working most evenings, that she was seldom at home during the day. My brother was also in university, and studying hard, but he became our “gate guardian” to keep away the ever-present media. I did my best to not be underfoot, to respect my father’s quiet time, and not be a bother.

It was my mother who bore the brunt of it, and kept a grip on her family, that is to say on her children, but she was also an excellent nurse while my father recovered. Any investigators who came to our home, like RCMP or RCAF, were looked after by my mother; she always offered refreshments and treats to anyone who was considered an official guest. Outside the home, she maintained an air of self-assurance even though she was constantly watchful of the media, and careful what she said to anyone about what had happened. It’s not as though she was trying to keep a secret, she just preferred not to have to explain all of it to just anyone. Not to mention the fact that her English was poor, and she was self-conscious of that.

Once he was fit to return to work, our family life didn’t actually change too much. There was never a time when we felt like celebrities. This was a difficult story that came with injury and a measure of disbelief, so there was no joy in it, only concern. I was bullied in school for it and, of course, there were constant reminders from those who were skeptical and rather mean about it. It took a few years to calm down to the point where no one seemed to care enough about the story. Only then were we able to resume a relatively normal life without the constant reminder that we were the family of that odd man who was burned by the UFO.

RG: [to Chris]: Was the Falcon Lake encounter an isolated incident, or did it fit into broader UFO activity at the time, regionally or nationally?

CR: In addition to Michalak’s experience, there had been several UFO reports in the Whiteshell area around that time, suggesting it was part of a localized flap or wave. But UFO reports found in the Canadian National Archives show that the Falcon Lake case was pivotal in its influence and connection with other incidents in Canada in 1967, including other unexplained reports investigated by official agencies, not the least of which was the first report of a crop circle that was investigated by no less than the Royal Canadian Air Force itself! And at the time, there were even unexplained radar cases at military installations within a short distance of Falcon Lake.

Falcon Lake.

RG: [to Stan]: What was your father’s opinion on the possible origin of the craft?

SM: Dad had no idea at all what it was that he saw in the woods that day. His first thought was that it was a test craft, something top secret, likely from the United States. He was an industrial mechanic, on his way to becoming a millwright, so he had knowledge of machines, fit and finish, metal construction, and metallurgy. He did not have a good foundation in things like propulsion systems, aero engines, nuclear power, or any of the things one normally associates with aircraft technology. So, he was perplexed when he considered that the two craft he saw did not fit into the basic fundamentals of terrestrial flight – the things that most people take for granted – such as the screeching sounds made by jet engines, the roar of exhaust as planes take off, the powerful whine of turbo engines, or the rumble of piston power. The very idea of Newtonian principles of flight were lost on him. He never researched the possibilities (at a time, remember, when that would have meant looking things up in books at the library, and not online, as we can do today) or tried to rationalize what he saw.

He was, however, a relatively naïve man. He had been a military policeman in Poland before World War II, then went underground to fight with the partisans after the country was defeated by the Nazis. So, he was not an ignorant nor overly fearful man. He had enough experiences in his time in war-torn Europe, and ten years of trying to settle in Canada, to give him some accurate perspective. But when faced with something he truly did not understand, he would often take the word of the first person who professed to know something about it. He had learned early in life to find an expert in something he needed to know to get information that way. Unfortunately, the so-called experts who lined up to talk with him immediately declared that this UFO was extra-terrestrial – and they gave him sound explanations for their theories, so he began to see the possibilities that these craft could not have come from the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. As an example, he claimed the UFOs made no noises that he recognized when they flew – nothing typical of an earth-bound aircraft. Well, argued the experts, if the sound the craft made did not follow any typical examples, they simply had to be from beyond our planet – it was only logical. He would entertain arguments from skeptics who claimed that the blast of air that hit him and caused his injuries was simply too terrestrial in nature, and could not have come from an other-world craft. So, he was confused – which was the correct answer?

When asked what he thought he saw, he would often answer, “You tell me.”

Stefan Michalak’s sketch of the UFO he witnessed.

RG: [to both]: What are your personal thoughts on the nature of the craft that Stefan saw?

CR: This case is one of the last true “nuts and bolts” UFO reports in ufology. There was no suggestion of exotic concepts more popular today, such as dimensional portals, consciousness downloads, telepathy, etc. Michalak was a very pragmatic and “down to earth” man (pun intended), with no interest in paranormal or spiritual aspects of phenomena. He was convinced he had seen and touched a physical craft of some sort. We know that that this time period was the cusp of the American Apollo space program, it makes sense that Michalak would have thought in those terms, especially given his own military background. But since we know that nothing resembling such a saucer-shaped craft had been successfully flown by any country (then or now), we are left with a mystery. Michalak was not one to make up stories or fabricate a hoax, and he had too much respect for fellow military members to lie, especially since he had nothing to gain and did not seek money or notoriety.

SM: I have always been an aviation enthusiast. In my latter years, I became very knowledgeable, and have extensively researched what was happening around the world in aviation technology in the 1950s and 1960s. I have found nothing concrete in our development of air or space craft that explains what he saw that day, yet, not having seen the UFOs for myself, I can’t explain his sighting any more than he could. So, does logic dictate that if I can’t explain it, but I know it was seen and experienced, then it must be other-worldly?

Simply exploring basic physics, something that can be done these days in a matter of a few hours online, provides a lot of insight into what this craft could not be. We know that there was a lot of theoretical research being done into propulsion systems back in the 1960s, and that there are still ongoing studies that speculate on what it would take to power a craft like the one my father saw. So far, nothing has come of it. Once again, it leaves us with the extra-terrestrial explanation as the only logical answer. If we had such technology in 1967, why strap three men into a tiny capsule on the top of a massive rocket in order to get them to the moon, when one could do the job with whatever made the UFOs work – assuming, of course, that they were of American origin?

A grid of dots can be seen on Stefan Michalak’s burned shirt.

I am inclined to believe that what landed on that rocky outcrop was not of this world. We have tried to offer terrestrial explanations for its behaviour because we don’t have any reference for anything other than what we presently know. That doesn’t give us actual answers, just theories based on limited knowledge. The biggest problem with this case, as far as I’m concerned, is that, like my father, I have relied on experts to give me answers when I needed to solve complex problems or understand complicated issues. To date, there really aren’t any experts in this field, just a lot of smart people with theories. I believe the case will remain “unexplained” until it isn’t – and by then, we will have solved bigger issues on this planet than simply who may have paid us a visit 50 years ago.

RG: [to Chris]: What was/is the Canadian government’s official explanation for the Falcon Lake incident?

CR: I will defer to the RCAF, which noted in a report: “Neither the DND nor the RCMP investigation teams were able to provide evidence which could dispute Mr. Michalak’s story. Although the investigation has been completed, a satisfactory explanation or conclusion is still lacking.”

When They Appeared is available now from all good online bookstores.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

On March 19, 2019, a strange aerial object that appeared to be falling from the sky while emitting some sort of smoke trail was recorded by a man in Anchorage, Alaska. After he submitted it to a local TV news outlet, the video quickly received national and worldwide attention and tons of speculation as to what it might be. Those suggesting a conventional aircraft were stunned when both the US Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration weighed in with official statements saying they had no idea what the object might be, but it definitely didn’t belong to the US military nor any US commercial airlines. After a full week, there is still no answer nor explanation. What was it?

“What is that?”
“I don’t know what that is. I hope it’s not a plane.”
“It’s definitely not sky writing, that’s for damn sure. It’s like something …”
“It’s going straight down. … Now there’s some fire on the end of it. You see it?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m going to get close. It looks like a plane dropping. I hope not.”

That worried conversation between two people comes from the cellphone video taken by one of the voices – Adonus Baugh, an 18-year-old who was just pulling away from his house with his mother, the other voice in the video, when he saw the anomaly in the sky. They were able to pull over and record it for about 40 seconds. When he turned it over to KTVA, the CBS affiliate in Anchorage, he said at first “I thought it was a meteor or something coming into the atmosphere.” Based on his comments, neither he nor his mother were able to identify it. (Watch the video and see the photos here).

There’s plenty to see in the Alaskan sky that’s strange

After reporting on the sighting, KTVA was contacted by a third witness, Bebe Kang, who took two photographs of the smoking object at about the same time (8:23 pm) and posted them briefly on Facebook with a comment:

“It didn’t look like an airplane or one of those jets. It was big, super slow and RED!! I tried to get a video but it got further and smaller. I really just thought it might be an asteroid”

She later took them down because “I didn’t want people to think I was seeing aliens.”

KTVA contacted Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a combined Air Force and Army base in Anchorage that is home to F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster III transports, E-3 Sentry AWACS command jets, Alaskan Command (ALCOM), Alaskan NORAD Region (ANR), Joint Task Force-Alaska (JTF-AK), Eleventh Air Force (11 AF), the 673d Air Base Wing, the 3rd Wing, the 176th Wing and other units. If anyone should know what the object in the video is, it should be them. Right?

“That doesn’t look like any of our planes.”

Base spokesperson Erin Eaton declined to speculate one what or whose it might be and has issued no further reports. Suspicious? A cover-up? KTVA also contacted Federal Aviation Administration officials, who said the object was not an aircraft and they had no reports of any planes reporting problems on the evening of March 19. Despite the Air Force and FAA denials, Peter Davidson, the director of the Washington-based National UFO Reporting Center, told KTVA it was “a high-altitude jet airliner, with a contrail behind it.”

“It is in level flight, but because it is flying away from the camera, it appears to be ‘falling’. It is not, but parallax makes it look that way.”

“Parallax” is the photographic effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions. That could certainly be true and comments on various web sites seem to agree that the object looks more like a plane and contrail illuminated by late-evening reddish sunlight.

Are any of these from UFOs … or all of them?

EXCEPT … the Air Force and the FAA have no records of any planes in that particular spot in the Anchorage sky on March 19. Officially, at least. Since the intial report by KTVA, there seems to have been no further official investigations, speculations or conversations. Perhaps they’re afraid that …

“I didn’t want people to think I was seeing aliens.”

What is it?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

UFO Caught In Photo During Selfie In New Mexico, March 24, 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 24, 2019

Location of sighting: Rio Rancho, New Mexico, USA

Source: MUFON #99416

 

A person was taking photos with friends in New Mexico last week when an metallic object flew past in the back ground. The UFO was caught in just one photo, but it was enough. It looks as if she was taking Instagram photos or photos for some other social sharing network when they accidentally caught this alien craft. 

 

When I made a close up photo of the UFO I didn't see any wings, propellers, windows, to indicate it was a plane or jet. It was in only one photo which means its not a balloon, because it moves too fast. It is possible that a UFO was deliberately flying overhead to scan the these people when they were out taking photos. If this was a alien drone, which can be as small as 1 meter to softball size, then it was there for pure research gathering reasons. 

Scott C. Waring

 

Eyewitness states: 

Shiny metal with green violet and blue lights around it and a dark spot on top of it.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

5 UFOs in the sky above Miami, Florida 27-Mar-2019

This UFO sighting was just submitted through our Facebook Page. 

Witness report: 

We see this yesterday in Miami at 7:45 pm. A big mother sphere shot out 5 smaller spheres and they hovered for some time.

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

Pre-Columbian Amazon Was Not So Virgin After All

Archaeologists are discovering that the Amazon region was not a pristine place before European contact. In fact, a new study suggests that there was quite a large population living there. What evidence can we see for their villages today? The outlines of their settlements and a few hardy artifacts.

Just over a year ago, large geometric earthworks (geoglyphs) in the southwestern Amazon made international headlines as both an unexpected discovery and for the resemblance of some sites to the famed Stonehenge. They are estimated to be at least 2,000 years old.

Called the Geoglyphs of Acre because most of them are located in the Brazilian State of Acre, nearly 500 locations were identified. They come in various shapes: squares, circles, U-forms, ellipses, and octagons; but researchers believe that they all enhanced the connection between humans and nature. Their very existence shows that humans were in the Amazon much earlier than once believed – although the impact they had certainly is nothing compared to the levels of destruction seen today.

• Was the Amazon Rainforest Once Home to A Massive Lost Civilization?
• Mysterious Geoglyphs of Amazonia May Show Ancient Humanity Had an Major Impact on Rainforest

Examples of geoglyphs and mounded ring villages in the Amazon: a. LiDAR digital terrain model of the Jacó Sá site. b. Aerial photo of one of the structures at Jacó Sá site. c. Aerial photo of Fonte Boa site.  (CNPq research group Geoglyphs of Western Amazonia/ Denise Schaan )

Now there is mounting evidence that humans ventured into other parts of the Amazon as well. The Chicago Tribune reports that 81 geoglyphs have been found in the upper Tapajós Basin, a “transitional zone” where Brazil borders Bolivia. This area receives less rainfall than lower regions and is also called terra firme. It is a place that rarely floods and a location which archaeologists have largely ignored in favor of more fertile regions closer to large rivers.

Jonas De Souza of the University of Exeter, UK collaborated with other scientists Britain and Brazil to explore a terra firme region which has been forgotten, despite being bordered on the east and west with archaeological sites. According to The Guardian , the new sites were first noted in deforested areas by satellite imagery.

The newly identified earthworks show signs of ditch enclosures, sunken roadways, and earth platforms and vary from small 30 meter (98.43 ft.) wide villages to immense 19-hectare settlements.

Ditched enclosures of the Upper Tapajós Basin (UTB). ( Google, DigitalGlobe )

The possibility was too exciting to leave at satellite image analysis, so researchers set off to explore 24 of the sites on the ground. De Souza told The Guardian, “Everything that we identified on satellite imagery that we tested was an archeological site.” The results published in Nature Communications shows that the trip was worthwhile. The authors write :

“The results of our predictive model of ditched enclosures show that, despite the enormous distances covered, earthworks are found across areas of notable environmental similarity, with pronounced seasonality in rainfall and temperature […] The seasonal drought of the transitional forests of this region probably facilitated clearance for the construction of earthworks. The easy-to-clear vegetation and the more fertile/less weathered soils of seasonally-dry forests are factors that made them attractive to Pre-Columbian farmers.”

De Souza said that the team found artifacts such as ceramics and polished stone axes, and also dark fertile earth which comes with extended human habitation. No buildings have been detected, but that’s not surprising because they were probably made of wood. Charcoal found near the ceramics at the sites has been carbon dated to 1410 - 1460 AD, in line with sites in the southern part of the Amazon, which were most active between 1250 and 1500.

Site Mt20. ( José Iriarte )

One of the most startling results of the research is the claim based on models that 500,000 to a million people were living in that part of the Amazon and they may have built some 1,000 to 1,500 enclosures! De Souza clarified , “It's probably the case that some areas of the Amazon were sustaining large populations and others were not. Because there is so little research, we are slowly discovering what was happening in each.”

That large of a population would have certainly meant modification to the rainforest, but de Souza pointed out ,

“The forest is an artifact of modification. It has nothing to do with the kind of practice we are seeing nowadays - large-scale, clearing monoculture. These people were combining small-scale agriculture with management of useful tree species. So it was more a sustainable kind of land use.”

• The Mysterious Man-Made Ditches that Predate Amazon Rainforest
• Ancient Medicinal Knowledge of Amazon Tribes to Be Recorded in Writing for First Time in History

Amazon Rainforest, Brazil. (Ben Sutherland/Darren and Sandy Van Soye/ CC BY NC SA 2.0 )

Although the numbers may appear high at first, they seem to fit with accounts given by the first Europeans who entered the Amazon. Those reports were mostly discredited by historians as fantasy. Now archaeological evidence is giving the early travelers some support.

But the European arrival meant devastation for many of the settlements, as de Souza said , “We know that diseases travelled much faster than people and probably this population was already weakened by diseases brought by Europeans even before the Europeans set foot on the area.”

• Top Image: Archaeologists used satellite imagery to find archaeological sites in the Amazon’s upper Tapajós Basin. Source: University of Exeter/PA

By Alicia McDermott

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

AN INCREDIBLE UFO was photographed hovering over Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport in Germany, a prominent UFO expert has shockingly claimed.