Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
Verrassende feitjes over Adam en Eva Het verhaal van Adam en Eva is een van de bekendste bijbelverhalen en legde de basis voor de scheppingsleer. Bovendien is het het eerste verhaal waarin het concept van de erfzonde naar voren komt. Waar sommigen mensen het als fictie beschouwen, wat geldt voor veel Bijbelverhalen, zien anderen het als iets dat echt gebeurt is. Of je het nu wel of niet gelooft, in deze galerij kom je interessante en minder bekende feitjes tegen over Adam en Eva.
Er zijn meerdere verhalen over Adam en Eva Het verhaal van Adam en Eva komt inderdaad niet alleen in de bijbel voor. Er zijn soortgelijke scheppingsverhalen te vinden in andere culturen en religies.
Er zijn meerdere verhalen over Adam en Eva Chnemoe, de oude Egyptische god van de vruchtbaarheid, zou mensen uit klei hebben geschapen. Ook van Prometheus, de Griekse god van het vuur, wordt gezegd dat hij op die manier de mens heeft geschapen.
De herkomst traceren Het verhaal is zowel aan het Babylonische scheppingverhaal Enuma Elish ontleent als die van Gilgamesj, een epische held uit Mesopotamië. In het eerste verhaal wordt gezegd dat de mens geschapen zou zijn door het gebruik van stof.
De herkomst traceren In het tweede verhaal creëeren de goden een mannelijke metgezel voor Gilgamesj. De held verliest op een gegeven moment zijn onsterfelijkheid nadat hij voor de truc van een slang is gevallen. Dan stormt er een vrouw binnen die de mannen van een vredig bestaan weerhoudt. Klinkt dit jullie bekend?
Adam had twee vrouwen Adam had een eerdere vrouw genaamd Lilith, die uit de Hof van Eden werd verdreven omdat ze zich tegen haar man verzette. Lilith, een prominent figuur in de joodse mythologie, werd toen een demoon.
Adams tweede vrouw Pas toen werd Eva uit een van Adams botten geschapen. De interpretaties dit deel van het verhaal lopen uiteen. De meesten van ons geloven dat het om een rib ging, zo blijkt ook uit de vertaling van het Hebreeuws.
Het bot van Adam? De term die in de oorspronkelijke tekst wordt gebruikt, is 'tsela'. Hoewel het in de context van Eva's schepping gewoonlijk als 'rib' wordt vertaald, verwijst het in feite naar de zijkant of 'een deel dat uitsteekt ten opzichte van de verticale as van een menselijk lichaam'. Daarom is Eva wellicht geschapen uit een van Adams botten die in het buitenste deel van zijn lichaam zitten.
Het bot van Adam? Sommige onderzoekers wijzen op Adams baculum (penisbot) als oorzaak van de schepping. Zij stellen dat mensen, in tegenstelling tot veel andere zoogdieren, geen baculum hebben en dat Eva daaruit zou zijn geschapen. Als gevolg hiervan zouden volgende generaties mensen zonder baculum geboren worden.
Hadden Adam en Eva navels? Veel kunstenaars hebben er misschien niet bij stilgestaan (of misschien juist wel) dat Adam en Eva ontzettend vaak met navels worden afgebeeld.
Was het de duivel die Eva verleidde? In de joodse theologie bestond Satan aanvankelijk niet. Daardoor kwam de duivel in het oorspronkelijke verhaal niet voor. Het is echter mogelijk dat de slang later met de duivel in verband werd gebracht.
Was het de duivel die Eva verleidde? De islamitische versie van het verhaal is opvallend anders. Allah schepte Adam en beval de engelen om hem te vereren, maar Iblis (ook bekend als Satan) koos ervoor om niet naar hem te luisteren. Uit de Koran blijkt dat de slang inderdaad de belichaming van het kwaad is.
Wat was nou precies de verboden vrucht? De verboden vrucht wordt in de Bijbel niet expliciet beschreven als een appel, in tegenstelling tot wat vaak wordt gedacht.
Wat was nou precies de verboden vrucht? De vrucht wordt niet uitgebreid beschreven. De Hebreeuwse term 'peri' heeft meerdere betekenissen, waaronder vijgen, druiven en zelfs tarwe. Hierdoor zijn meerdere interpretaties mogelijk.
Waarom denken mensen dan dat het een appel was? Dit is te wijten aan een grappige woordspeling uit de 4e eeuw. Het Latijnse woord 'malus' lijkt een dubbele betekenis te hebben: 'kwaad' en 'appel'. Jerome, een geleerde die de bijbel in het Latijn heeft vertaald, gebruikte dit woord om de vrucht van de boom van de kennis van goed en kwaad te beschrijven.
Waarom denken mensen dan dat het een appel was? John Milton, een dichter uit de 17e eeuw, omschreef de verboden vrucht in zijn boek 'Paradise Lost' tweemaal als een appel, waardoor nog meer mensen hierin geloven.
Pijn bij de bevalling wordt toegeschreven aan Eva In Genesis 3:16 staat:"Ik zal uw moeite in uw zwangerschap zeer groot maken; met pijn zult u kinderen baren." Dit stuk uit de bijbel heeft de bevalling er voor vrouwen niet makkelijker op gemaakt.
Pijn bij de bevalling wordt toegeschreven aan Eva Hier zijn echter weer twijfels omtrent de vertaling. In alle andere voorbeelden van de Bijbel wordt de Hebreeuwse term etzev vertaald als 'arbeid', 'zwoegen' of 'werk'. In de context van een bevalling wordt het echter geïnterpreteerd als 'pijn' 'verdriet' of 'angst'.
Islamitische versie van Adam en Eva Zoals gezegd wordt het verhaal van Adam en Eva ook in de Koran beschreven. Er is echter een opmerkelijk verschil: zowel Adam als Eva worden verleid om een vrucht uit de boom te plukken. Daarnaast komt in de islamitische versie het idee van de erfzonde niet voor. Ze aten dus allebei van de boom en werden gestraft voor hun zonde, zonder dat de hele mensheid er voor altijd de dupe van was.
Islamitische versie van Adam en Eva Nadat ze uit het paradijs waren verdreven, brachten ze 200 jaar zonder elkaar door. Ze kwamen elkaar daarna echter weer tegen en kregen twee zonen samen, Qābīl en Hābīl. Net als in het verhaal van Kaïn en Abel vermoordt een van de broers op tragische wijze de ander. Adam en Eva kregen nog veel meer kinderen, twintig tweelingen zelfs!
De pre-adamitische theorie Volgens de theorie werd aangenomen dat niet ieder mens op aarde een nakomeling van Adam en Eva was. Degenen die niet als nakomelingen werden beschouwd, werden als minder belangrijk en gemakshalve als 'minder blank' gezien, wat leidde tot de grondgedachte die volgens sommige mensen slavernij rechtvaardigde.
De locatie van de Hof van Eden Waar de Hof van Eden zich bevindt is al lang een raadsel, waardoor veel mensen nieuwsgierig blijven. De bijbel geeft ons een paar hints.
De locatie van de Hof van Eden In Genesis 2:10 staat: "In de tuin van Eden was de bron van een rivier, die de tuin vochtig hield. Deze rivier splitst zich in vier andere rivieren" (afhankelijk van de vertaling). Dit zijn de rivieren Pison, Gichon, Tigris en de Eufraat.
De locatie van de Hof van Eden Er wordt gedacht dat de Hof van Eden zich mogelijk in Mesopotamië (het huidige Irak en Koeweit) of in het huidige Turkije of Armenië bevond. Waar hij precies lag blijft echter onbekend.
De genen van Adam en Eva Volgens een onderzoek bestond de mitochondriale Eva tussen 100.000 en 230.000 jaar geleden, terwijl de Y-chromosomale Adam ongeveer 75.000 jaar ouder was.
De genen van Adam en Eva Er wordt in dit onderzoek verwezen naar gemeenschappelijke mitochondriale voorouders van de mens van nu. Deze voorouders waren niet aan elkaar gekoppeld en waren ook niet de eerste mensen op aarde.
Atmosphere Pressure Changes Could Explain Mars Methane
One ongoing mystery on Mars is the sporadic detection of atmospheric methane. Since 1999 detections have been made by Earth-based observatories, orbital missions, and on the surface by the Curiosity Rover. However, other missions and observatories have not detected methane at all, and even when detected, the abundances appear to fluctuate seasonally or even daily.
So, where does this intermittent methane come from? A group of scientists have proposed an interesting theory: the methane is being sucked out of the ground by changes in pressure in the Martian atmosphere. The researchers simulated how methane moves underground on Mars through networks of underground fractures and found that seasonal changes can force the methane onto the surface for a short time.
“Our work suggests several key time windows for Curiosity to collect data,” said John Ortiz, a graduate student at Los Alamos National Laboratory who led the research team. “We think these offer the best chance of constraining the timing of methane fluctuations, and (hopefully) down the line bringing us closer to understanding where it comes from on Mars.”
The presence of methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere is of great interest to planetary scientists and exobiologists because it could indicate present or past microbial life. Or, it could also be related to nonbiological processes, such as volcanism or hydrothermal activity.
The problem with detecting methane is that it doesn’t last long. Once released into the atmosphere, it can be quickly destroyed by natural atmospheric processes. Therefore, any methane detected in Mars’ atmosphere means it must have been released recently, which only adds to the intrigue.
On Earth, most methane is produced by living creatures such as microorganisms in sedimentary strata, or in the guts of ruminants (cows, sheep, deer, etc.). For methane produced through abiotic or non-living processes, there is a high likelihood it could have been produced millions or even billions of years ago, lying trapped in underground rock formations.
But still, finding methane on Mars is a big deal because of the potential for biological sources, such as methanogenic microbes.
This graphic is the result of an analysis that gives a percentage chance of the methane originating in each grid square centered on Gale Crater. Image Credit: Giuranna et al. (2019)
In 2004, the Mars Express Orbiter (MEO) detected methane in the Martian atmosphere. In 2013 and 2014 Curiosity detected spikes in methane in the atmosphere at Gale Crater. Interestingly, MEO detected a methane spike again, at the same location that Curiosity did, only one day later.
Ortiz and his team wanted to better understand Mars’ methane levels, and used high-performance computing clusters to simulate how methane travels through networks of underground fractures, and then released into the atmosphere when driven by atmospheric pressure fluctuations. They also modeled how methane is adsorbed onto the pores of rocks, which is a temperature-dependent process that may contribute to the methane level fluctuations.
The team said their simulations predicted methane pulses from the ground surface into the atmosphere just before the Martian sunrise in the planet’s northern summer season, which just recently ended. This corroborates previous rover data suggesting that methane levels fluctuated not only seasonally, but also daily. With these insights, the Curiosity rover team can figure out when and where to look for methane, which could aid in the rover’s main goal, searching for signs of life.
“Understanding Mars’ methane variations has been highlighted by NASA’s Curiosity team as the next key step towards figuring out where it comes from,” Ortiz said. “There are several challenges associated with meeting that goal, and a big one is knowing what time of a given sol (Martian day) is best for Curiosity to perform an atmospheric sampling experiment.”
Astronomers spot 18 black holes gobbling up nearby stars
Astronomers spot 18 black holes gobbling up nearby stars
The detections more than double the number of known tidal disruption events in the nearby universe.
Jennifer Chu|MIT News
Star-shredding black holes are everywhere in the sky if you just know how to look for them. That’s one message from a new study by MIT scientists, appearing today in the Astrophysical Journal.
The study’s authors are reporting the discovery of 18 new tidal disruption events (TDEs) — extreme instances when a nearby star is tidally drawn into a black hole and ripped to shreds. As the black hole feasts, it gives off an enormous burst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Astronomers have detected previous tidal disruption events by looking for characteristic bursts in the optical and X-ray bands. To date, these searches have revealed about a dozen star-shredding events in the nearby universe. The MIT team’s new TDEs more than double the catalog of known TDEs in the universe.
The researchers spotted these previously “hidden” events by looking in an unconventional band: infrared. In addition to giving off optical and X-ray bursts, TDEs can generate infrared radiation, particularly in “dusty” galaxies, where a central black hole is enshrouded with galactic debris. The dust in these galaxies normally absorbs and obscures optical and X-ray light, and any sign of TDEs in these bands. In the process, the dust also heats up, producing infrared radiation that is detectable. The team found that infrared emissions, therefore, can serve as a sign of tidal disruption events.
By looking in the infrared band, the MIT team picked out many more TDEs, in galaxies where such events were previously hidden. The 18 new events occurred in different types of galaxies, scattered across the sky.
“The majority of these sources don’t show up in optical bands,” says lead author Megan Masterson, a graduate student in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “If you want to understand TDEs as a whole and use them to probe supermassive black hole demographics, you need to look in the infrared band.”
Other MIT authors include Kishalay De, Christos Panagiotou, Anna-Christina Eilers, Danielle Frostig, and Robert Simcoe, and MIT assistant professor of physics Erin Kara, along with collaborators from multiple institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.
Heat spike
The team recently detected the closest TDE yet, by searching through infrared observations. The discovery opened a new, infrared-based route by which astronomers can search for actively feeding black holes.
That first detection spurred the group to comb for more TDEs. For their new study, the researchers searched through archival observations taken by NEOWISE — the renewed version of NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. This satellite telescope launched in 2009 and after a brief hiatus has continued to scan the entire sky for infrared “transients,” or brief bursts.
The team looked through the mission’s archived observations using an algorithm developed by co-author Kishalay De. This algorithm picks out patterns in infrared emissions that are likely signs of a transient burst of infrared radiation. The team then cross-referenced the flagged transients with a catalog of all known nearby galaxies within 200 megaparsecs, or 600 million light years. They found that infrared transients could be traced to about 1,000 galaxies.
They then zoomed in on the signal of each galaxy’s infrared burst to determine whether the signal arose from a source other than a TDE, such as an active galactic nucleus or a supernova. After ruling out these possibilities, the team then analyzed the remaining signals, looking for an infrared pattern that is characteristic of a TDE — namely, a sharp spike followed by a gradual dip, reflecting a process by which a black hole, in ripping apart a star, suddenly heats up the surrounding dust to about 1,000 kelvins before gradually cooling down.
This analysis revealed 18 “clean” signals of tidal disruption events. The researchers took a survey of the galaxies in which each TDE was found, and saw that they occurred in a range of systems, including dusty galaxies, across the entire sky.
“If you looked up in the sky and saw a bunch of galaxies, the TDEs would occur representatively in all of them,” Masteron says. “It’s not that they’re only occurring in one type of galaxy, as people thought based only on optical and X-ray searches.”
“It is now possible to peer through the dust and complete the census of nearby TDEs,” says Edo Berger, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, who was not involved with the study. “A particularly exciting aspect of this work is the potential of follow-up studies with large infrared surveys, and I’m excited to see what discoveries they will yield.”
A dusty solution
The team’s discoveries help to resolve some major questions in the study of tidal disruption events. For instance, prior to this work, astronomers had mostly seen TDEs in one type of galaxy — a “post-starburst” system that had previously been a star-forming factory, but has since settled. This galaxy type is rare, and astronomers were puzzled as to why TDEs seemed to be popping up only in these rarer systems. It so happens that these systems are also relatively devoid of dust, making a TDE’s optical or X-ray emissions naturally easier to detect.
Now, by looking in the infrared band, astronomers are able to see TDEs in many more galaxies. The team’s new results show that black holes can devour stars in a range of galaxies, not only post-starburst systems.
The findings also resolve a “missing energy” problem. Physicists have theoreticially predicted that TDEs should radiate more energy than what has been actually observed. But the MIT team now say that dust may explain the discrepancy. They found that if a TDE occurs in a dusty galaxy, the dust itself could absorb not only optical and X-ray emissions but also extreme ultraviolet radiation, in an amount equivalent to the presumed “missing energy.”
The 18 new detections also are helping astronomers estimate the rate at which TDEs occur in a given galaxy. When they figure the new TDEs in with previous detections, they estimate a galaxy experiences a tidal disruption event once every 50,000 years. This rate comes closer to physicists’ theoretical predictions. With more infrared observations, the team hopes to resolve the rate of TDEs, and the properties of the black holes that power them.
“People were coming up with very exotic solutions to these puzzles, and now we’ve come to the point where we can resolve all of them,” Kara says. “This gives us confidence that we don’t need all this exotic physics to explain what we’re seeing. And we have a better handle on the mechanics behind how a star gets ripped apart and gobbled up by a black hole. We’re understanding these systems better.”
Astronomers Discover 18 New Tidal Disruption Events
Astronomers Discover 18 New Tidal Disruption Events
A tidal disruption event occurs when a star winds up so close to a supermassive black hole that the tidal forces exceed the star’s self-gravity and shred the star; as the black hole feasts, it gives off an enormous burst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Masterson et al. identified 18 new tidal disruption events — extreme instances when a nearby star is tidally drawn into a black hole and ripped to shreds.
Image credit: Masterson et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad18bb.
“The majority of the new sources don’t show up in optical bands,” said Megan Masterson, a graduate student in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
“If you want to understand tidal disruption events (TDEs) as a whole and use them to probe supermassive black hole demographics, you need to look in the infrared band.”
Masterson and her colleagues recently detected the closest TDE yet, by searching through infrared observations.
The discovery opened a new, infrared-based route by which astronomers can search for actively feeding black holes.
That first detection spurred the group to comb for more TDEs.
For their new study, the researchers searched through archival observations taken by NASA’s NEOWISE mission.
They looked through the mission’s archived observations using an algorithm that picks out patterns in infrared emissions — likely signs of a transient burst of infrared radiation.
They then cross-referenced the flagged transients with a catalog of all known nearby galaxies within 600 million light-years.
They found that infrared transients could be traced to about 1,000 galaxies.
The authors then zoomed in on the signal of each galaxy’s infrared burst to determine whether the signal arose from a source other than a TDE, such as an active galactic nucleus or a supernova.
After ruling out these possibilities, the team then analyzed the remaining signals, looking for an infrared pattern that is characteristic of a TDE — namely, a sharp spike followed by a gradual dip, reflecting a process by which a black hole, in ripping apart a star, suddenly heats up the surrounding dust to about 1,000 K before gradually cooling down.
The team’s analysis revealed 18 clean signals of tidal disruption events.
The authors took a survey of the galaxies in which each TDE was found, and saw that they occurred in a range of systems, including dusty galaxies, across the entire sky.
“If you looked up in the sky and saw a bunch of galaxies, the TDEs would occur representatively in all of them,” Masteron said.
“It’s not that they’re only occurring in one type of galaxy, as people thought based only on optical and X-ray searches.”
“It is now possible to peer through the dust and complete the census of nearby TDEs,” said Harvard University’s Professor Edo Berger.
“A particularly exciting aspect of this work is the potential of follow-up studies with large infrared surveys, and I’m excited to see what discoveries they will yield.”
The new discoveries help to resolve some major questions in the study of TDEs.
For instance, prior to this work, astronomers had mostly seen TDEs in one type of galaxy — a post-starburst system that had previously been a star-forming factory, but has since settled.
This galaxy type is rare, and astronomers were puzzled as to why TDEs seemed to be popping up only in these rarer systems.
It so happens that these systems are also relatively devoid of dust, making a TDE’s optical or X-ray emissions naturally easier to detect.
Now, by looking in the infrared band, astronomers are able to see TDEs in many more galaxies.
The team’s new results show that black holes can devour stars in a range of galaxies, not only post-starburst systems.
The findings also resolve a missing energy problem. Physicists have theoretically predicted that TDEs should radiate more energy than what has been actually observed.
But the authors now say that dust may explain the discrepancy. They found that if a TDE occurs in a dusty galaxy, the dust itself could absorb not only optical and X-ray emissions but also extreme ultraviolet radiation, in an amount equivalent to the presumed ‘missing energy.’
The 18 new detections also are helping astronomers estimate the rate at which TDEs occur in a given galaxy.
When they figure the new TDEs in with previous detections, they estimate a galaxy experiences a tidal disruption event once every 50,000 years.
This rate comes closer to physicists’ theoretical predictions. With more infrared observations, the team hopes to resolve the rate of TDEs, and the properties of the black holes that power them.
“People were coming up with very exotic solutions to these puzzles, and now we’ve come to the point where we can resolve all of them,” said MIT’s Dr. Erin Kara.
“This gives us confidence that we don’t need all this exotic physics to explain what we’re seeing.”
“And we have a better handle on the mechanics behind how a star gets ripped apart and gobbled up by a black hole. We’re understanding these systems better.”
The team’s paper was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Megan Masterson et al. 2024. A New Population of Mid-infrared-selected Tidal Disruption Events: Implications for Tidal Disruption Event Rates and Host Galaxy Properties. ApJ 961, 211; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad18bb
12 Archaeological Finds That Show the Bible is Real Over the centuries, archaeologists have made discoveries that confirm the historical accuracy of the Bible. From artifacts to cities, here are 12 remarkable finds that provide evidence for the Bible's reliability.
Seal of King Hezekiah Discovered in Jerusalem In 2009, archaeologists uncovered a seal belonging to King Hezekiah, who ruled Jerusalem in the 8th century BC. The artifact features his name and iconography, verifying the king's identity and reign as described in 2 Kings.
This rare discovery substantiates that Hezekiah was a real historical figure, confirming the Bible's account of his rule during a pivotal period. The artifact also validates the scripture's depiction of governmental practices at the time.
Ancient Biblical Scrolls Found Intact in Qumran Caves In 1947, Bedouin shepherds stumbled upon jars in Qumran housing incredibly preserved Dead Sea Scrolls. These manuscripts contain Hebrew texts of every Old Testament book except Esther, verifying the Bible's historical integrity.
The Dead Sea Scrolls provide tangible proof that biblical accounts were recorded accurately, remaining unchanged for over a thousand years. They also open a window into early Judaism and the roots of Christianity.
According to John 5:2-9, Jesus healed a paralyzed man by the pool with five porches in Bethesda. In the 19th century, archaeologists found this large reservoir near Jerusalem's Sheep Gate surrounded by four colonnaded porticoes. Coincidence? I think not.
This discovery of the rare pentagonal pool confirms the existence and recognition of Bethesda during the Second Temple times. It also verifies the setting of this Gospel narrative regarding one of Christ's miracles.
House of King David Reference Found on Ancient Inscription In 1993, archaeologists discovered the earliest extra-biblical reference to the dynasty of King David on the Tel Dan inscription. The fragment explicitly uses the phrase "House of David" validating the biblical King's line.
This artifact provides concrete evidence that David had a ruling family - a fact often disputed by a multitude of scholars worldwide. It confirms that the biblical account of a Davidic line of kings is factual, not mythical.
Ancient Remains of the Coastal City Tyre Unearthed In Ezekiel 26, the prophet predicts the destruction of Tyre at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. Excavations have revealed sieges, collapsed walls, and ruins - evidence of this demise.
With ancient cities, absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence. In Tyre's case, the unequaled, lasting ruins testify to the Bible's account coming true concerning the city's great collapse.
Siloam Pool Where Jesus Healed Blind Man Identified According to the Gospel of John, Jesus commanded a blind man to wash the mud from his eyes in the Pool of Siloam located southeast of Jerusalem.
In 2004, archaeologists uncovered the remains of this very pool dating back to the Second Temple Period, providing geographical context for the Gospel account.
Inscription Bearing Name of Pontius Pilate Found at Herod's Palace In 1961, Italian archaeologists excavating Herod's palace near Bethlehem uncovered a limestone block bearing the inscription "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea" confirming he governed during the time of Jesus. This artifact cements Pilate as a verifiable biblical figure who sentenced Jesus to crucifixion. It also supports the historical accuracy of crucifixion as a punishment used by the Romans during that period.
This discovery verifies Caesarea as Pilate's center of administration, where he would travel from Jerusalem. As part of Herod the Great's coastal palace, the identification of this stone lintel definitively proves Pilate and Herod both occupied this complex. The artifact's origin from this important site also anchors the pivotal biblical moments between these two rulers in a real geographic location during a volatile political era in Judea's history.
Hometown Proof: Remains of Nazareth Houses Excavated Some historians questioned Nazareth's existence since the New Testament mentions it as Jesus' childhood town. However, house remains were uncovered in 2009 proving a small village existed there in Jesus' time.
This evidence categorically refutes skepticism over whether Nazareth was still inhabited between the 7th century BC and the late 1st century AD when Jesus lived there. It bolsters the scriptural authenticity regarding Christ's upbringing.
Western Wall Ruins Demonstrate Jewish Temple Destruction According to historical sources, the Second Temple fell in 70 AD after a Roman siege. The sole survivor - the Western Wall - still stands in Jerusalem's Old City testifying to this catastrophic biblical event.
The remains of Judaism's holiest site prove its documented destruction, providing visible confirmation regarding this pivotal moment. They also illustrate the Wailing Wall's enduring spiritual significance.
Seaside Town Capernaum is Confirmed as Jesus' Base In the Gospels, Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee serves as Jesus' home base during his ministry. In 1838, American explorer Edward Robinson pinpointed its location, with excavations uncovering fishing equipment, houses, and roads.
Archaeological evidence substantiates Capernaum as a fishing village inhabited from the 2nd century BC to the 11th century AD. This proves Jesus could have made it central for performing miracles and preaching to crowds as recounted in Gospel passages.
Rare Limestone Inscription Confirms Pontius Pilate's Role In 1961, archaeologists recovered a partial inscription bearing "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea" who authorized Jesus' crucifixion per the Bible. This stone lintel was reused in Herod's palace near Bethlehem.
As the only non-biblical reference to Pilate, it puts to rest doubts over his existence and governance in Judea. It also supports the scriptural timeline, placing his rule from 26 to 36 AD aligning with Jesus' death.
Evidence of Christ's Path on Via Dolorosa Street Unearthed The winding Via Dolorosa through Jerusalem's Old City is believed to have been the route Jesus walked, carrying his cross. Excavations revealed flagged paving stones from Hadrian's time.
This discovery dates the pathway to the 1st century AD, coinciding with the Holy Week timeline. The unearthed street spans the entire Via Dolorosa, lending credence that Christ trod this path during his agonizing journey.
Nearby Garden Tomb Offers Evidence Supporting Christ's Burial Just outside Jerusalem's Old City walls, a rock-cut tomb reflecting the 1st-century burial style resides in a garden setting. This site's location and features suggest it is a strong candidate for Jesus' grave.
While its precise authenticity is debated, this tomb's characteristics match John's description. Nearby rock features also point to evidence of crucifixion taking place there, indicating the site's credible link to Jesus' death and burial.
Artifacts Support Biblical Exodus Account of Enslaved Israelites For years skeptics doubted the Biblical Exodus story due to the absence of artifacts in Egypt's archaeological records. However, evidence found confirms slavery practices, brick-making methods, and living conditions align with scriptural accounts.
These small fragments provide subtle clues that echo the biblical story of Hebrew enslavement by Egypt's pharaohs. They present strands in a complex historical tapestry that lends plausibility to the scriptural narrative.
Tangibility from Texts to Towns that Affirms Scripture Spanning thousands of years, these 12 archaeological discoveries shed light on biblical events and figures that reshaped spiritual history. The unearthed ruins, artifacts, and inscriptions make tangible what was once only ink on parchment.
From the monumental Jerusalem temple remains to a fragment bearing Pilate's name, the physical evidence paints a portrait aligned with scriptural accounts - affirming its historical authenticity through the ages.
The legend of Area 51—and why it still fascinates us
The legend of Area 51—and why it still fascinates us
Secluded in the Nevada desert, the military base has long been associated with alien and UFO sightings. Here's the real history behind the conspiracy theories.
UFO believers look for suspicious spacecraft during a UFO and Vortex Tour in Sedona, Arizona. This composite image is a combination of six photographs taken in 2017 through night vision goggles.
PHOTOGRAPH BY COMPOSITE JENNIFER EMERLING
Each year, Area 51’s mythology draws tourists from around the world. People come to the air base near Rachel, Nevada, in hopes to catch a glimpse of otherworldly spacecrafts.
The legend of Area 51 has been discredited for years—but some of its history is based on true events. Here’s what you need to know about Area 51.
Where is Area 51?
About 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, somewhere between mile markers 29 and 30 along Nevada’s “Extraterrestrial Highway” (State Highway 375), lies an unmarked dirt road. Although no buildings are visible from the asphalt, the track leads to Groom Lake or Homey Airport—as it’s called on civilian aviation maps.
For those in the know, this road leads to a military base with many unofficial names: Paradise Ranch; Watertown; Dreamland Resort; Red Square; The Box; and The Ranch; Nevada Test and Training Range; Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Centre (Det. 3, AFFTC); and Area 51.
Earthlings are welcome at the restaurant and bar Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel, Nevada—a popular stop on the pilgrimage to Area 51.
The UFO Research Center library opened to the public in 1992 as part of the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. The library holds an extensive collection of reference materials on the history of extraterrestrial encounters and related phenomena.
The UFO Research Center library opened to the public in 1992 as part of the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. The library holds an extensive collection of reference materials on the history of extraterrestrial encounters and related phenomena.
Before World War II, the area near Groom Lake was used for silver and lead mining. Once the war began, the military took over the remote area and began conducting research: mainly nuclear and weapons testing.
Why build a secret base in the desert?
About 200,000 people visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico each year.
When the CIA started developing spy reconnaissance planes during the Cold War, then-CIA Director Richard Bissell, Jr. realised a private base was needed to build and test prototypes.
In 1955, he and Lockheed aircraft designer Kelly Johnson selected the secluded airfield at Groom Lake to be their headquarters. The Atomic Energy Commission added the base to the existing map of the Nevada Test Site and labeled the site Area 51.
Within eight months, engineers developed the U-2 plane, which could soar at an altitude of 70,000 feet—much higher than any other aircraft at the time. This allowed pilots to fly well above Soviet radar, missiles, and enemy aircraft.
After a U-2 was shot down by a Soviet anti-air missile in 1960, the CIA began developing the next generation of spy plane at Area 51: the titanium-bodied A-12. Nearly undetectable to radar, the A-12 could fly across the continental United States in 70 minutes at 2,200 miles an hour. The plane also was equipped with cameras that could, from an altitude of 90,000 feet, photograph objects just one-foot long on the ground.
Aliens and UFOs become part of Area 51 lore
Area 51 became forever associated with aliens in 1989 after a man claiming to have worked there, Robert Lazar, gave an interview with a Las Vegas news station. Lazar claimed that Area 51 housed and studied alien spacecraft and that his job was to recreate the technology for military use.
The world’s only spaceship-shaped McDonald’s attracts UFO tourists in Roswell, New Mexico.
However, Lazar’s credentials were soon discredited: according to school records Lazar never went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or California Institute of Technology, as he claimed. At the time though, engineers at Area 51 were studying and recreating advanced aircraft—just aircraft acquired from other countries, not from outer space.
Nevertheless, with all of the high-tech flights out of Area 51—including more than 2,850 takeoffs by the A-12—reports of unidentifiable flying objects skyrocketed in the area.
An alien face is woven into the chain link fence outside a shopping center in Roswell, New Mexico.
“The aircraft’s titanium body, moving as fast as a bullet, would reflect the sun’s rays in a way that could make anyone think, UFO,” sources told journalist Annie Jacobsen for her 2011 book on Area 51.
Is the truth out there?
The government formally acknowledged the existence of Area 51 for the first time in 2013 when the CIA declassified documents about the development of the U-2 and A-12. Previously, locals knew something odd was happening in the desert but details were scarce and hard to verify.
Area 51 is still an active base—but the purpose it has served since the 1970s is a top-secret mystery. It will be a few more decades, at least, until current work is declassified and available to the public.
Two humans and their backseat stowaway drive to Roswell, New Mexico, famous for a supposed alien spaceship crash in 1947. Some conspiracy theorists believe remains from the Roswell crash were taken to Area 51, a secret military base near Rachel, Nevada, to study.
The site continues to be a pillar of U.S. alien mythology. A 2019 interview with Lazar on a popular podcast inspired a “Storm Area 51” event, in which about 6,000 people showed up in the desert to look for evidence of aliens. (It ultimately morphed into a festival celebrating all things alien.)
Even today, Area 51 draws believers and skeptics who frequent the small but thriving trail of alien-themed museums, restaurants, motels, parades, and festivals—all in hopes of discovering that the truth really is out there.
Photographer Jennifer Emerling has spent time photographing UFO culture in the American West. See more photos from the project on her website Welcome, Earthlings and her Instagram.
Editor's note:This story was originally published on September 20, 2019. It has been updated.
Area 51: A Nexus of Modern Mythology and Advanced Technology
Area 51: A Nexus of Modern Mythology and Advanced Technology
In the heart of the Nevada desert lies a place shrouded in as much mystery as it is in secrecy: Area 51. This highly classified remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base has been the focal point of numerous conspiracy theories, mainly concerning UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Among the most captivating figures in this saga is Bob Lazar, whose controversial claims have stirred public curiosity and skepticism alike.
The Allure of Area 51
Area 51’s mystique is not just a product of modern folklore; it is rooted in its clandestine history and groundbreaking technological developments. The base’s existence was unacknowledged by the U.S. government until 2013, fueling speculation about its purpose and contents. The secrecy surrounding Area 51 is primarily due to its role as a testing ground for advanced aircraft and surveillance technology during the Cold War.
Bob Lazar: Catalyst of the Area 51 Mythos
Bob Lazar catapulted Area 51 into the public eye in 1989 with his explosive claims. Lazar alleged that he was employed at a subsidiary site near Area 51, known as S-4, where he purportedly worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology. He claimed this technology was harnessed from recovered alien spacecraft and mentioned the use of an element, Moscovium (Element 115), as a power source, an element that was not synthesized until 2003. Lazar’s descriptions of the aircraft’s interiors and his assertion of alien involvement in human affairs over millennia added layers to the Area 51 narrative.
Skepticism and Scrutiny
While Lazar’s assertions have been influential, they have not escaped scrutiny. Investigations into his educational and professional background raised questions, with no records supporting his claims of studying at MIT and Caltech. Lazar countered this by suggesting a government cover-up of his identity. Despite his story’s inconsistencies, he remains a prominent and divisive figure in the discussion of Area 51 and UFOs.
Area 51 in Popular Culture
Area 51’s intrigue has transcended into popular culture, notably depicted in films like “Independence Day.” The portrayal of Area 51 as a storage site for alien technology and spacecraft in the movie further entrenched its association with extraterrestrial phenomena in the public imagination.
Advanced Technology and Aircraft Testing
Beyond the tales of alien technology, Area 51’s true significance lies in its role as a testing site for groundbreaking aviation technology. Projects like the U-2 spy plane, A-12, and the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter were all developed and tested here. The base has been pivotal in advancing the United States’ aerial and reconnaissance capabilities, particularly during the tense periods of the Cold War.
The Expansion of Area 51
Recent satellite imagery indicates that Area 51 has expanded since the end of the Cold War. This suggests its ongoing importance in military and aerospace development, likely focusing on new types of drone aircraft and possibly other advanced technologies.
VIDEO:
Area 51: Aliens, UFOs, Bob Lazar & Advanced Technology
Area 51 remains an enigmatic symbol at the intersection of fact and fiction. While it continues to be a hotbed for conspiracy theories and extraterrestrial folklore, its real contributions to technology and national security are undeniable. The base stands as a testament to human ingenuity and the endless pursuit of technological advancement, even as it keeps fueling our imagination about the unknown and the unexplained. As long as its full history and current operations remain concealed, Area 51 will continue to captivate and mystify as a true ‘Dreamland’.
Hoe veel verschillen wij van eerdere mensensoorten? Gefeliciteerd Homo sapiens! We zijn erin geslaagd om niet uit te sterven en hebben het goed gedaan, in tegenstelling tot andere archaïsche mensensoorten. In tegenstelling tot wat vaak wordt gedacht, verliep onze evolutie niet lineair. In feite leefden er in dezelfde periode andere mensensoorten naast ons. Wij Homo sapiens vermengden ons zelfs met sommigen van hen. Toch waren wij uiteindelijk de enige overlevenden.
Maar wat onderscheidt deze vroege mensensoorten van ons? Klik door de galerij om meer te ontdekken.
Australopithecus afarensis Het geslacht Australopithecus is een bekende voorouder van de moderne mens. Onder hen werd de soort Australopithecus afarensis beroemd toen Lucy werd ontdekt, een skelet dat werd gevonden in 1974. (afbeelding).
Australopithecus afarensis De Australopithecus afarensis leefde ongeveer 3 tot 3,7 miljoen jaar geleden in Oost-Afrika. Ze hadden een tenger postuur en kleine hersenen. Hun lengte varieerde van 96 cm tot 165 cm en hun gewicht van 25-64 kg.
Australopithecus afarensis Fossielen van de Australopithecus afarensis werden ontdekt in Kenia, Ethiopië en Tanzania. Deze soort was voornamelijk vegetariër.
Homo habilis De Homo habilis, de vroegste mensensoort die tot het geslacht "homo" behoort, stamt af van de Australopithecus. De Homo habilis kwam voor in Zuid- en Oost-Afrika en leefde ongeveer 1,4 tot 2,3 miljoen jaar geleden.
Homo habilis Vergeleken met de Australopithecus zagen ze er meer gepolijst en gebogen uit, maar toch bleven ze kleiner dan de huidige mens, met een gemiddeld gewicht van ongeveer 34 kg.
Homo habilis In tegenstelling tot hun voorgangers at de Homo habilis vlees. Ze kregen erkenning voor hun vaardigheden in het maken van gereedschap, waardoor ze hun naam kregen. Het betekent letterlijk "handige mens".
Homo rudolfensis Er werd slechts één schedel opgegraven in het Turkana-bekken in Kenia, en later een onderkaak in Malawi, beide zeldzame fossielen van deze oude mensensoort. De gevonden schedel levert het bewijs van grotere hersenen vergeleken met de Homo habilis.
Homo rudolfensis Er is nog steeds een wetenschappelijke discussie gaande over de classificatie van Homo rudolfensis binnen het homo genus. Sommigen beweren dat het een Australopithecus met grotere hersenen kan zijn geweest. Deze soort bestond ongeveer 1,7 miljoen jaar geleden en viel samen met Homo habilis en Homo erectus.
Homo erectus In tegenstelling tot het vorige voorbeeld zijn er veel fossielen van de Homo erectus, die dateren van 110.000 tot 1,89 miljoen jaar geleden. De Homo erectus was de mensensoort die het langst overleefde!
Homo erectus Ze hadden een groter lichaam en kleinere tanden dan de Homo habilis en leken meer op de moderne mens. Ze hadden echter langere benen en kortere armen dan wij.
Homo erectus De Homo erectus, die ongeveer 68 kg woog, was ongeveer net zo groot als wij en was tussen de 150 cm en 180 cm. Ze waren de eerste mens die zich buiten Afrika waagden.
Homo ergaster De Homo ergaster bewoonde Oost- en Zuidelijk Afrika van 1,4 tot 1,9 miljoen jaar geleden. Net als bij de Homo rudolfensis is er een voortdurende wetenschappelijke discussie gaande over de vraag of de Homo ergaster een aparte soort is of een ondersoort van de Homo erectus.
Homo ergaster Homo ergaster en Homo erectus leefden in dezelfde periode naast elkaar op aarde. De Homo ergaster had een magerder postuur dan de Homo erectus, maar ze aten hetzelfde, hadden dezelfde levensstijl en gebruikten allebei gereedschap.
Homo floresiensis De Homo floresiensis werd in 2003 door wetenschappers gevonden in de Liang Bua-grot op het eiland Flores, in Indonesië. Aangenomen wordt dat deze oude mensensoort ongeveer 50.000 tot 100.000 jaar geleden bestond.
Homo floresiensis Ze waren veel kleiner dan de huidige mens, maar toch waren het bekwame jagers. Archeologen ontdekten jachtgereedschap dat werd gebruikt om een uitgestorven olifantensoort, de stegodon, te vangen. Onderzoekers suggereren dat deze mensen, waarvan wordt aangenomen dat ze afstammen van de Homo erectus, zich hebben aangepast aan het leven op een eiland door tot dwergen te evolueren.
Homo heidelbergensis De Homo heidelbergensis bewoonde verschillende gebieden over de hele wereld van 200.000 tot 600.000 jaar geleden. Fossielen suggereren dat ze oostelijk en zuidelijk Afrika, Europa en mogelijk China hebben verkend.
Homo heidelbergensis Zij waren de eerste mensensoort die in staat was om in koudere omgevingen te leven. Ze hadden dan ook aanleg voor het maken van vuur, het ontdekken en bouwen van schuilplaatsen en het maken van gereedschap en wapens zoals speren.
Homo antecessor De eerste fossielen van de Homo antecessor werden tussen 1994 en 1996 opgegraven in Atapuerca, Spanje. Deskundigen hebben hun leeftijd vastgesteld op 800.000 tot 1,2 miljoen jaar.
Homo antecessor De Homo antecessor vertoonde, in tegenstelling tot andere voorouders, overeenkomsten met de moderne mens, zoals hun gezichtsstructuur en jachtgewoonten.
Homo naledi In 2015 werden in het grottenstelsel van Rising Star in Zuid-Afrika in totaal 1.550 fossielen ontdekt. Deze fossielen behoorden toe aan een soort die bekend staat als Homo naledi. Wetenschappers schatten dat deze soort tussen 236.000 en 335.000 jaar geleden bestond.
Homo neanderthalensis De Neanderthalers, mogelijk de bekendste oude mensensoort, leefden ongeveer 24.000 tot 200.000 jaar igeleden. Ze worden vaak afgeschilderd als "holbewoners" en er wordt aangenomen dat ze de meest verwante uitgestorven voorouders van onze soort zijn.
Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthalers waren kleiner dan de moderne mens, maar ze hadden een sterk postuur. Ze woonden in Eurazië tijdens de ijstijden en pasten zich aan het koude klimaat aan. Neanderthalers blonken uit in het maken van geavanceerde wapens, gereedschappen, kleding en het bouwen van schuilplaatsen.
Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthalers waren niet alleen intelligenter dan andere soorten, maar ze hadden ook grotere hersenen. Bovendien vertoonden ze culturele uitingen zoals rituele begrafenissen, kunst en muziekinstrumenten.
Homo neanderthalensis Hoewel de Neanderthalers uitgestorven zijn, bestaat hun genetisch materiaal nog steeds bij moderne niet-Afrikaanse mensen door kruisingen.
Denisovamens In 2010 werden de overblijfselen van deze bijzondere mensensoort ontdekt in een Siberische grot. Er wordt geschat dat ze ongeveer 400.000 jaar geleden leefden.
Denisovamens Er wordt gedacht dat de Denisovamens zich van de Neanderthalers hebben afgescheiden en niet naar Europa, maar naar Azië zijn gemigreerd. Ze vermengden zich ook met de huidige mens en zijn mogelijk de laatste archaïsche mensensoort die uitstierf.
Homo longi In 1933 werd in Harbin, in het noordoosten van China, een schedel ontdekt. Deze schedel, die bekend staat als de "Drakenman", was groter dan de moderne mens en had duidelijke kenmerken zoals vierkante oogkassen en prominente wenkbrauwranden.
Homo longi In 2021 erkenden wetenschappers het uiteindelijk als een afzonderlijke mensensoort. Het fossiel wordt geschat op ongeveer 146.000 jaar oud. De classificatie van Homo longi als soort is echter nog steeds omstreden, waarbij sommige wetenschappers suggereren dat hij tot de Denisovamens behoort.
Samengevat. Chinese wetenschappers hebben een nieuw materiaal gemaakt dat lijkt op de huid van drie dieren: de kameleon, glaskikker en baardagaam. Het materiaal dat de naam Chimera meekreeg, zou naar eigen zeggen dingen onzichtbaar maken voor bijvoorbeeld radar en camera’s.
Deze uitvinding kan gebruikt worden om dingen te verbergen in een militaire omgeving, of in de natuur om dieren te bestuderen zonder ze te storen. Het is een grote stap vooruit in het maken van dingen die onzichtbaar zijn.
In het nieuws. Onderzoekers van twee universiteiten in China hebben dit bedacht. Ze gebruikten ideeën van drie verschillende dieren, schrijft de South China Morning Post.
De onderzoekers schrijven over hun uitvinding in het vakblad Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ze gebruikten speciale materialen die licht en warmte anders weerkaatsen.
Deze nieuwe uitvinding maakt gebruik van speciale stoffen die licht en warmte op een slimme manier kunnen sturen.
Zoom in. De uitvinding lijkt op de huid van de kameleon, glaskikker en baardagaam. Deze dieren kunnen van kleur veranderen, doorzichtig worden of hun warmte regelen.
Chimera was een mythisch beest dat drie verschillende dieren combineerde – een leeuw, een geit en een slang.
De uitvinders hebben ervoor gezorgd dat het materiaal bijna niet te zien is voor camera’s die warmte meten.
Een experimentele versie van de Chimera metasurface werd ontwikkeld in een proces van vijf stappen, waaronder het gebruik van plastic en metalen gaas.
Zoom out.Volgens de onderzoekers zijn de potentiële toepassingen van de technologie enorm, van militair gebruik tot natuurbehoud.
In het leger kan Chimera helpen om spullen of mensen onzichtbaar te maken in verschillende gebieden. Zo kunnen ze niet opgemerkt worden door radars, warmtecamera’s en gewone camera’s, zeggen de wetenschappers.
Deze uitvinding kan ook in de natuur worden aangewend. Bijvoorbeeld voor het bestuderen van dieren zonder ze te storen.
The James Webb Space Telescope caught Saturn's icy moon Enceladus spraying a 'huge plume' of watery vapor far into space — and that plume may contain chemical ingredients for life.
An illustration of NASA's Cassini orbiter soaring through a giant vapor jet over the moon Enceladus
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Scientists caught Saturn's icy moon Enceladus spraying a "huge plume" of watery vapor far into space — and that plume likely contains many of the chemical ingredients for life.
Scientists detailed the eruption — glimpsed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in November 2022 — at a conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on May 17.
"It's immense," Sara Faggi, a planetary astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said at the conference, according to Nature.com. According to Faggi, a full research paper on the massive plume is pending.
This isn't the first time scientists have seen Enceladus spout water, but the new telescope's wider perspective and higher sensitivity showed that the jets of vapor shoot much farther into space than previously realized — many times deeper, in fact, than the width of Enceladus itself. (Enceladus has a diameter of about 313 miles, or 504 kilometers.)
Scientists first learned of Enceladus' watery blasts in 2005, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft caught icy particles shooting up through large lunar cracks called "tiger stripes." The blasts are so powerful that their material forms one of Saturn's rings, according to NASA.
Analysis revealed that the jets contained methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia — organic molecules containing chemical building blocks necessary for the development of life. It's even possible that some of these gases were produced by life itself, burping out methane deep beneath the surface of Enceladus, an international team of researchers posited in research published last year in The Planetary Science Journal.
Water is another piece of evidence in the case for possible life on Enceladus. Enceladus is totally encrusted in a thick layer of water ice, but measurements of the moon's rotation suggest that a vast ocean is hidden beneath that frozen crust. Scientists think the spurts of water sensed by JWST and Cassini come from hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor — a hypothesis supported by the presence of silica, a common ingredient in planetary crusts, in the vapor plumes.
NASA scientists are discussing future return missions to seek out signs of life on Enceladus. The proposed Enceladus Orbilander would orbit the moon for about six months, flying through its watery plumes and collecting samples. Then, the spacecraft would convert into a lander, descending on the surface of the icy moon. Orbilander would carry instruments to weigh and analyze molecules, as well as a DNA sequencer and a microscope. Cameras, radio sounders and lasers would remotely scan the moon's surface, The Planetary Society reported.
Another proposed mission involves sending an autonomous "snake robot" into the watery depths below Enceladus' surface. The robot, dubbed the Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor, features cameras and lidar on its head to help it navigate the unknown environment of Enceladus' ocean floor.
UFO investigator and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released another captivating footage for UFO enthusiasts. Along with investigative journalist George Knapp, Corbell claims to obtain spectacular footage of a UFO with five shiny lights in the V-formation as in the “Phoenix Lights,” hovering over a Marine base in the California desert.
Corbell has provided a detailed description of this incident and considered it a “Mass UFO sighting” as it involves a substantial amount of diverse documentation, including videos, photos, and recorded direct eyewitness testimonies from active military personnel. But still, it carries numerous doubts. Before discussing them, let us first take a look at the sighting details shared by Corbell.
According to Corbell, the incident occurred on the evening of April 20, 2021, at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms – Camp Wilson, a significant United States military base. The sighting lasted approximately 10 minutes and was witnessed by more than 50 people. They consistently reported observing a triangular-shaped craft during the encounter. It did not make any sound and was reported to be the size in the range from a football field to that of a three-bedroom, two-story house.
Corbell explained that he received a tip about the incident, prompting him to investigate further. Within a remarkable 36 hours after the event, he managed to connect with individuals who were present at the base during the sighting. He compared the sighting to the famous Phoenix Lights incident, citing the resemblance of a perfect V-shaped row of lights.
The craft was first observed at 8:20 pm PST and after a few minutes of observation, witnesses captured it on their iPhones. At 8:29 p.m., another remarkable occurrence took place. Illumination rounds were discharged into the night sky, above the UAP craft, leaving a visible trace and providing additional evidence of the incident. Astonishingly, at 8:30 pm, witnesses reported that the UAP seemingly “blinked out” or disappeared, just moments before the illumination rounds approached the vicinity of the unidentified craft.
Skeptical of military involvement, Corbell shared the first video of the sighting on his podcast “Weaponized” and discussed it in detail with Knapp. The footage captured the astonishment and confusion of witnesses as they saw the unidentified object in the sky. While the video did not clearly show the body of the craft, the audio and eyewitness accounts confirmed its presence.
Corbell shared the second video, which featured the reactions of U.S. Marines who were present. Their comments reflected a mix of bravado and genuine awe, acknowledging that something extraordinary was unfolding before their eyes, says Knapp. They ruled out the possibility of flares and recognized the uniqueness of the situation.
Corbell Rules Out Flares As An Explanation For UFO
Corbell debunks the theory that the sighting could be attributed to flares. He points out that the lights observed in the footage were a different color, more reddish, compared to the illuminating flares typically used, which are brighter and have a different hue. Flares also descend on parachutes, while the unidentified craft remained stationary for the duration of the sighting, with only slight forward movement at one point.
Although the triangle shape of the craft is not visible in the video, eyewitnesses on the ground reported seeing it. In a stroke of luck, another detachment of Marines shot up illuminating flares in an attempt to get a better look at the craft. The subsequent footage shows the descent of these flares onto the object, providing a side-by-side comparison between the appearance of flares and the lights observed on the craft.
Interestingly, as the flares descend, the lights on the craft appear to blink out in succession. However, according to eyewitnesses, the entire craft itself disappeared, as they could see more clearly than the footage captured.
Corbell raises an intriguing question about the behavior of the craft. If it is intelligently controlled, how might it react to the presence of flares being deployed above it to illuminate the area? This line of inquiry suggests that the craft’s response, or lack thereof, could indicate an advanced level of control and intelligence behind its movements.
Interview with Two US Marines who saw UFO
Corbell conducted a groundbreaking interview with two active-duty US Marines who witnessed this remarkable UFO sighting. The conversation, which was recorded and obtained by Corbell, provides a gripping firsthand account of the event, offering a glimpse into the experiences of these Marines during the encounter.
Taking place approximately 36 hours after the initial sighting, the interview captures the raw emotions and astonishment felt by the Marines as they recall the extraordinary incident. Both Marines, one serving as a mortar man and the other as artillery, share their perspectives on the sighting, revealing intriguing details about the event.
Corbell begins the conversation by asking for specific details, such as the location and time of the sighting. The Marines state that the event occurred around 8:25 pm near 29 Palms, California, adjacent to Camp Wilson, a Marine base. The Marines mention that the sighting attracted considerable attention, with over 50 people gradually gathering to witness the mysterious lights that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Illumination rounds(Top) were fired to show a better view of the UFO (Below). Credit: Jeremy Corbell
When asked about people’s reactions to the sighting, the Marines explain that the majority of witnesses were unable to identify the object. They note that, despite being military personnel, the sighting was unprecedented for them and left everyone puzzled.
Corbell then inquires about the evidence the Marines captured, referring to the video and photo that were shared with him. The Marines confirm that the footage was indeed recorded by one of them, emphasizing that the lights remained stationary for a solid 10 minutes. They assert that the lights were not flares, as flares typically descend rather than stay in one spot for an extended period.
In response to Corbell’s question about their belief in the presence of a craft, one Marine confidently states that he would have to believe so, referencing a photo he took showing a black triangular shape beneath the lights. He dismisses the possibility of the object being flares or illumination rounds based on his experience working with artillery. The other Marine explains that the size, color, and behavior of the lights were unlike anything they had encountered before, drawing comparisons to their own illumination rounds.
Corbell seeks further clarification, asking if the craft was hovering silently. Both Marines affirm that there was absolutely no sound, emphasizing the stationary nature of the object. When pressed about the size, one Marine compares it to a stealth bomber, although acknowledging that a stealth bomber cannot hover. He suggests that the object might have been even larger than a stealth bomber.
As the conversation progresses, the Marines recount additional intriguing details. They describe objects that emerged from the craft and circled it shortly before it went dark. They explain that these objects were the orange lights seen in the footage, which were actually the illumination rounds discharged above the craft. After the lights disappeared, helicopters began rapidly approaching the area, circling it extensively. The Marines note the presence of a convoy of over 60 trucks that also headed towards the site.
Corbell concludes the interview by asking the Marines to reflect on their experience. One Marine admits that he cannot determine what exactly they witnessed, as it was unlike anything he or his comrades had ever seen before. However, he firmly states that it was not anything recognizable from the US military and believes it was a UFO. The other Marine expresses his curiosity, emphasizing that the event remains highly documented, yet its nature and origin remain a mystery.
Another explanation by John Greenewald, Jr.
Renowned researcher John Greenewald, Jr. offers an alternative explanation for the UFO sighting over Twentynine Palms. Drawing from his experience working on the television show UFO Hunters, Greenewald suggests that the event could be linked to military training exercises rather than an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
Greenewald recalls his time on the show, where they encountered numerous cases similar to this sighting. To provide context, he highlights the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 2-21 taking place at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center on the same date as the UFO sighting. He presents photographs released by the Department of Defense (DoD) that depict military aircraft on runways during the training exercise.
Greenewald refers to nighttime videos released by the DoD, recorded on April 20, 2021, which showcase the significant military activity in the area. He emphasizes that the DoD’s official release clearly indicates the date and location of the videos. Greenewald acknowledges the presence of live training ranges in the Twentynine Palms area but notes that there was no mention of the UFO event coinciding with the military training exercise in the podcast transcript he examined.
Drawing from his past experiences, Greenewald suggests that many incidents occurring over military training ranges are often misinterpreted as UFOs when they are more likely related to military activities. He recalls solving cases involving Air Force One sightings, military aircraft, and drones, which were initially thought to be UFOs. Greenewald explains that the extensive work done behind the scenes often reveals the true nature of such incidents.
To provide further evidence, Greenewald refers to the additional context provided by The Black Vault, sourced from submitted material. He mentions the presence of B-Roll footage showing five aircraft flares being shot in night vision, which resembles the lights observed in the “UAP” videos. Greenewald questions the coincidence of both the flares and the UFO event occurring on the same date.
Greenewald concludes by sharing the Department of Defense’s response to the claims. A spokesperson confirms the presence of military aviation assets and the ongoing Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course in Twentynine Palms at the time. However, they state that there is no record of communication or allocation of resources to investigate a UAP sighting, and the authenticity of the report cannot be verified.
While Greenewald’s explanation points to military training exercises as a plausible cause for the UFO sighting, further investigation and analysis are necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.
Both Jeremy Corbell and John Greenewald, Jr. present their respective explanations based on their knowledge and perspectives. Corbell highlights the firsthand accounts of eyewitnesses, including active military personnel, who describe a triangular craft with specific characteristics and behavior. He emphasizes the mass UFO sighting and the subsequent air and ground response, suggesting that the event warrants further investigation.
On the other hand, Greenewald provides an alternative perspective grounded in his experience working on UFO-related projects and analyzing military activities. He draws attention to the military training exercises taking place at the same time as the sighting and presents evidence, such as photographs and videos released by the Department of Defense, suggesting that the lights observed could be related to flares and other military operations.
Ultimately, it is up to us to evaluate the evidence and draw our own conclusions. Both Corbell and Greenewald contribute to the ongoing discussion surrounding UFO sightings, offering differing viewpoints that highlight the need for continued research and analysis in order to better understand these phenomena.
Perseverance is Definitely Inside an Ancient Lake on Mars
The search for life on alien worlds has captivated us for hundreds of years. In some respect, the search for life has expanded to the search for water since it is not unreasonable to assume if there is water then there is a good chance there is life too. When NASA selected the landing site for Perseverance, they were looking for such a body of water and settled upon the Jezero Crater. Images from orbiters reveal a crater that looks like it has been filled with water in the past but further investigations were needed to confirm. Now it seems, Perseverance has risen to the challenge.
Perseverance is a car sized rover that arrived on Mars on 18 February 2021 and carried with it the innovative Ingenuity helicopter, the first powered aircraft on another world. The main objective of the mission was to identify ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life and if possible, finding evidence of ancient microbial life through collecting rock and soil samples. Since its arrival in 2021, the rover has been travelling around the 50km wide crater studying the geology and atmosphere as it goes.
Mars Perseverence rover sent back this image of its parking spot during Mars Solar Conjunction. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
A paper recently published in Science Advances journal declares that the crater was indeed filled at some point in its geological past, with water! More that it has deposited layers of sediments on the floor of the crater which have gone through periods of erosion as the lake shrank but are now visible in space images of the region.
Although there have been nearly 3 years of operation on Mars, the really interesting stuff occurred between May and December 2022 when Perseverance drove from the crater floor onto the ancient river delta, a region believed to be 3 billion years old. During its journey, Perseverance used RIMFAX (the Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment) to shoot radar signals into the ground every 10cm. The pulses reflected from depths of about 20metres from below the surface showing that the base of the sediment was here and they had located the top of the buried crater.
The Jezero Crater and delta. Credit NASA
The data from RIMFAX showed sediment from two distinct periods bordered by periods of erosion as the environmental factors affected the sediments. The team reported that the original crater floor was not completely flat and that erosion must have taken place prior to the deposition of the sediments in the lake.
Despite the discovery of sediments, the team have yet to identify any fossilised remains or primitive life. The journey however has just begun. Over the last few decades we have found mounting evidence that water is common across the universe. It seems to that the processes we see on Earth are also common. Perhaps then we may be permitted to assume that other processes are replicated across the Cosmos, perhaps those that lead to the evolution of life! Time will tell if this latter assumption plays out.
Feast Your Eyes on 19 Face-On Spiral Galaxies Seen by Webb
These Webb images are part of a large, long-standing project, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which is supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide. Before Webb took these images, PHANGS was already brimming with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope’s Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, including observations in ultraviolet, visible, and radio light. Webb’s near- and mid-infrared contributions have provided several new puzzle pieces. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA
Feast Your Eyes on 19 Face-On Spiral Galaxies Seen by Webb
If you’re fascinated by Nature, these images of spiral galaxies won’t help you escape your fascination.
These images show incredible detail in 19 spirals, imaged face-on by the JWST. The galactic arms with their multitudes of stars are lit up in infrared light, as are the dense galactic cores, where supermassive black holes reside.
The JWST captured these images as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) programme. PHANGS is a long-running program aimed at understanding how gas and star formation interact with galactic structure and evolution. One of Webb’s four primary science goals is to study how galaxies form and evolve, and the PHANGS program feeds that effort. The VLT, ALMA, the Hubble, and now the JWST have all contributed to it.
But Webb’s images are the juiciest.
“Webb’s new images are extraordinary. They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades.”
Janice Lee, Project Scientists, Space Telescope Science Institute.
The JWST can see in both near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) light. That means it reveals different details, and more details, than even the powerful Hubble Space Telescope, which operates in visible light, UV light, and a small portion of infrared light.
This is NGC 4254 (Messier 99), a spiral galaxy about 50 million light-years away. It has a peculiarity to it, as one spiral arm is normal looking, and one is extended and less tightly wound. Though not a starburst galaxy, it forms stars three times as fast as other similar galaxies. This rapid star formation rate may have been triggered by interaction with another galaxy about 280 million years ago. With the JWST’s help, the PHANGS program will help astronomers understand NGC 4254’s history. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
In these JWST high-resolution images, the red colour is gas and dust emitting infrared light, which the JWST excels at seeing. Some of the images have bright diffraction spikes in the galactic center, which are caused by an enormous amount of light. That can indicate that a supermassive black hole is active, or it could be from an extremely high concentration of stars.
“That’s a clear sign that there may be an active supermassive black hole,” said Eva Schinnerer, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “Or, the star clusters toward the center are so bright that they have saturated that area of the image.”
The diffraction spike in the center of NGC 1365 is a telescope artifact caused by an enormous amount of light in a compact region. It’s caused by either the active supermassive black hole or tightly grouped stars in the galactic centre. NGC 1365 is a double-barred spiral galaxy about 74 million light-years away. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
Stars near a galaxy’s center are typically much older than stars in the arms. The further a star is from the galactic center, the younger it typically is. The younger stars appear blue and have blown away the cocoon of gas and dust that they spawned in.
This is NGC 2835, a spiral galaxy about 35 million light-years away that has four or five spiral arms. Blue dots are very young stars that have blown away nearby gas and dust with their powerful UV light. Orange/red clumps are where even younger stars reside. They’re still surrounded by gas and dust. Several background galaxies are visible in the image. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
Orange clumps indicate even younger stars. They’re still wrapped in their blanket of gas and dust and are still actively accreting material and forming. “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
The new images were released alongside some of the Hubble’s views of the same galaxies. These highlight how observing different wavelengths of light reveals or obscures different details in the galaxies. In the PHANGS observing program, different telescopes have observed galaxies in visible light, infrared light, UV light, and radio.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 628 (left) and the same galaxy as imaged by the JWST (right.) Both images are grand and inspiring and full of information, but the JWST image provides more detail. Large bubble-shaped gaps between concentrations of gas and dust are visible. In some of the images, those could be caused by supernovae. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
Since the human eye can’t see infrared, different visible colours are assigned to different wavelengths of light in order to make the images meaningful. In the JWST image of NGC 628 above, the galaxy’s center is filled with old stars that emit some of the shortest wavelengths of light the telescope can detect. They’ve been given a blue colour to make them visible. In the Hubble image, the same region is more yellow and washed out. The region emits the longest wavelengths of light that the Hubble can sense, so it has different colour assignments than the JWST.
Janice Lee is a project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. She spoke for all of us when she said, “Webb’s new images are extraordinary. They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
This is NGC 1672, a spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away. It may be a type II Seyfert galaxy, though astronomers aren’t totally certain. It has both a bright nucleus and a surrounding starburst region. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
These galaxies are all spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, meaning their massive arms define them. The spiral arms are more like waves that travel through space rather than individual stars moving collectively. Astronomers study the arms because they can provide key insights into how galaxies build, maintain, and shut off star formation. “These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of the galaxies,” Rosolowsky added. “We think of these like waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.”
The spiral galaxy NGC 1566 is about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. NGC is interacting with smaller member galaxies in its neighbourhood. It’s an active galaxy, meaning its nucleus emits a lot of light that doesn’t come from stars. Instead, it probably comes from the supermassive black hole at the center. NGC 1566 is extensively studied due to its proximity, orientation, its strong spiral arms and its active galactic nucleus. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team
Ever since it began science operations, the JWST has given astronomers an overwhelming flow of data that will fuel research for years and decades to come. These beautiful images are just a part of a larger data release that includes a catalogue of about 100,000 star clusters. “The amount of analysis that can be done with these images is vastly larger than anything our team could possibly handle,” said the University of Alberta’s Erik Rosolowsky. “We’re excited to support the community so all researchers can contribute.”
In the summer of 2023, Carlos Guana, a wildlife filmmaker and storyteller, and Phillip Sternes, a biology doctoral student at the University of California Riverside, set out on an expedition off the central coast of California to film great white sharks and other wildlife in the Pacific waters near Santa Barbara.
On July 9, 2023, while operating his Mavic 3 Pro aerial drone approximately a quarter mile off the coast of Carpinteria, California, Guana spotted something striking and beautiful moving beneath the ocean surface.
Although the creature was familiar in appearance—a small, almost ghostly pale white shark—neither Guana nor Sternes immediately recognized what the drone’s camera had managed to capture at the time.
It wasn’t until later while rewatching the footage that they noticed something odd about the shark’s appearance.
“Upon close examination of video and photos, the individual’s pale color appears to be a thin white film covering the shark,” Guana and Sternes would later write. “We noted that as the shark was swimming, the whitish film was being sloughed off.”
The infant great white shark Sternes and Gauna observed, as seen from the front
(Carlos Gauna/The Malibu Artist).
Although it seemed possible that the unusual film might have been caused by some kind of skin disorder that neither of the observers recognized, nor could it be found in the available literature on white sharks, a more likely possibility soon presented itself: this might be the remains of intrauterine material left over from the creature’s seemingly very recent birth.
If the latter were true, it would be an unprecedented sighting, given that what Guana and Sternes had filmed was likely a baby great white shark and the first of its kind ever captured on film.
“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said in a recent statement about their discovery.
Now, their discovery has been reported in a new paper that appeared in the Environmental Biology of Fishes journal.
Great whites are among the most famous shark species, partially due to their famous, monstrous depiction in films like Jaws. Despite the attention the species has received, many things about them remain mysterious to ocean scientists.
Guana, who is known online as The Malibu Artist, has filmed these and other species of sharks in locations all over the world, documenting an impressive amount of footage of the creatures where they are often shown swimming frighteningly close to beachgoers.
His footage of these enigmatic ocean predators has racked up millions of views online, but the new images could offer scientists new clues about one of the most perplexing mysteries involving great white sharks.
“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science,” Guana said in a statement. “No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive.”
“There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers,” Guana says, “But nothing like this.”
The suspected newborn great white shark, observed from the side
(Carlos Gauna/The Malibu Artist).
Like mammals, young great sharks are born live, and it is believed that they might feed on unfertilized eggs while still in the embryonic stage, along with a milky substance secreted within the uterus of the mother that provides additional nourishment.
It is the remnants of this intrauterine milk that Sternes and Guana believe they observed on the shark they filmed last July.
Other key observations also point to the likelihood that what they filmed represents the first imagery of a baby great white shark. While filming in the area, the pair observed several very large—and potentially pregnant—female great whites nearby.
By comparison, the small shark they captured in imagery with Guana’s drone is very small, and its appearance and behavior both suggest a very young creature—perhaps as little as a day, or even just a few hours old.
Also of interest is that the coastal waters of central California had already been put forward in the past as a potential birthing location for great whites. Hence, the pup that Guana and Sternes observed was in the right place, and at the right time, to be a likely match for a newborn great white.
White sharks are a protected species, although Guana and Sternes note in their paper that fishermen do sometimes inadvertently catch these sharks, some of which may die resulting from stress or injuries.
If the central California coast is indeed a breeding ground for white sharks, as opposed to waters much further offshore, as some past studies have suggested, then a greater level of management may be required to help ensure the conservation of the species and their habitat.
Ultimately, Guana and Sternes write that their aerial drone footage “has provided shark science with another interesting set of information,” adding that “future drone observations of sharks in this area will greatly improve our knowledge and understanding of white shark life history.”
Their recent paper, “Novel aerial observations of a possible newborn white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) in Southern California,” can be read online here, along with additional imagery of the white shark they observed in July 2023.
It seems like the waiting time is over, UFO disclosure is imminent. There is growing skepticism and indifference towards whistleblower David Grusch’s claims that the US federal government has hidden information about recovered extraterrestrial spacecraft from Congress. Republican leaders have dismissed potential witnesses, and NASA officials have reportedly withdrawn from an upcoming hearing on UFOs.
However, two Republican lawmakers leading the investigation still intend to hold a public hearing on July 26. US Representative Anna Paulina Luna confirms the hearing date and mentions that the names of witnesses will be released a week before the event.
Luna and Rep. Tim Burchett are facing pressure from the Pentagon and NASA after announcing their investigation into UFOs (also known as UAPs). NASA has stopped cooperating with the investigation, leading to speculation of a cover-up. Despite the challenges, Luna and Burchett remain determined to hold the hearing and promise an impressive lineup of witnesses. If necessary, Burchett is even willing to hold a field hearing in his own front yard. The hearing is scheduled for the last week of July before Congress goes on recess in August.
Meanwhile, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the upcoming Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology. (Source)
“Let me say this unequivocally, without ambiguity, in no uncertain terms, we are not alone, aliens not only exist but have been here for five millennia, if not considerably longer, they are not friendly and humanity is absolutely in danger,” writes Steve Sprague.
According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.
One of the most chilling aspects of the disclosure centered around Ganzi’s technological superiority. The insider explained that the technology recovered and possessed by humans is composed of terrestrial components manipulated in a manner that exceeds human understanding. These materials, created by alien processes, involve elements and physics beyond our comprehension. The Ganzi, however, refuse to share their technology with humanity, fearing the dire consequences of us wielding power beyond our current evolutionary stage.
The insider emphasized the vast technological gap between humans and the Ganzi, stating that they are millions of years ahead of us. They warned that humanity’s very existence could be threatened without the proper knowledge to manipulate these advanced materials. Humans were compared to protozoa on the technological scale, highlighting how far we have yet to evolve.
Disturbingly, the insider also shared incidents involving encounters with the Ganzi. One notable event involved the disintegration of an F-15 fighter jet by a particle beam technology wielded by extraterrestrial beings. The astonishing video evidence showcased a green beam hitting the side of the aircraft, which subsequently turned to ash without leaving any debris. Further analysis of the footage revealed the presence of extraterrestrial occupants, commonly referred to as Greys, characterized by their small bodies, large heads, and prominent eyes.
While the Ganzi were not described as inherently malevolent, they view humanity as an annoyance, akin to flies. However, the insider cautioned that provoking or interfering with their mission could lead to dire consequences. Reports of lost pilots and destroyed ships in encounters with the Ganzi underscore the potential dangers of crossing paths with these technologically advanced beings.
These shocking revelations come as anticipation mounts for the upcoming Congressional Hearing on UAPs. The insider has promised to come forward and share their information with the public during the event, which is expected to shed further light on the existence of extraterrestrial life and the presence of UFOs.
Sprague writes that the insider revealed to him that the Ganzi can manipulate matter in ways beyond human comprehension. They have a deep understanding of DNA manipulation, enabling them to increase lifespans indefinitely and cure or prevent diseases. It is even speculated that they have experimented on humans, possibly for reasons such as galactic war or slave labor.
Perhaps one of the most chilling revelations shared by the insider relates to nuclear power. They stated unequivocally that the Ganzi vehemently oppose humanity’s use of nuclear weapons. Any attempt to engage in large-scale nuclear conflict would be met with severe consequences, potentially leading to a complete shutdown of human society. The Ganzi have made it clear that they will not tolerate actions that could jeopardize the Earth or their larger objectives.
Moreover, the insider highlighted Ganzi’s superior abilities in manipulating higher dimensions, allowing them to be present anywhere at any time. They operate within the framework of Multi-Dimensional Theory and Brane Theory, concepts that challenge human understanding. This exceptional capability to navigate dimensions and remain undetected unless desired adds a layer of intrigue to the extraterrestrial presence on Earth.
The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.
Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.
In response to the question of why he was chosen by the insider, Sprague admitted uncertainty but speculated that a mutual friend with military and intelligence background may have facilitated the connection. He highlighted the importance of trust and the fact that he was seen as an outsider to the intelligence and journalistic spheres. Sprague acknowledged that his role in this situation may be that of a blunt instrument serving a specific goal. (Source)
Sprague mentions that his source is currently not in their home state and may or may not testify in front of cameras during the hearings. The source’s identity and their potential employment with a defense contractor remain undisclosed to protect their livelihood and family from potential fallout. However, Sprague asserts that if the hearings do not take place or the source cannot testify publicly, the information he received will still be released, leaving it out of his hands and independent of his involvement.
Sprague dismisses any connection between his information and a post on 4chan, asserting that he had never visited the platform before and had no intention of doing so in the future. He clarifies differences between the accounts, such as the claim of first-hand dealings with the craft, which he states his source did not mention. Regarding the element discussed by Bob Lazar, Sprague mentions that his source considered it pure trash and explained that the craft operated using a theoretical field similar to an Einstein-Rosen bridge or wormhole.
Sprague mentions his need for at least two more parts to cover additional topics, including the F-15 incident and post-disclosure scenarios. He expresses exhaustion after a busy day and indicates that he will engage with readers on Twitter the following day.
Former US intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress during the July 2023 UAP hearing, stating that we have numerous spacecraft of non-human origin. If this is the case, one might wonder if any contact has been established between humans and these extraterrestrial species. There have been persistent rumors suggesting that the US government may have signed treaties with these extraterrestrials and has been engaged in collaborative efforts with them over an extended period.
According to a rather extraordinary claim made by former US government consultant Timothy Good, it is alleged that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had three clandestine meetings with extraterrestrials. Good claimed Eisenhower met aliens at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954. In more recent times, former Israeli Space Head Haim Eshed stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars. Eshed went on to claim the existence of a “Galactic Federation” and implied that then-President Trump was on the brink of making significant revelations in this regard.
Video Evidence
During a podcast with former Fox News anchor Clayton Morris on his show Redacted, Joshua Reid, a former United States Navy serviceman with a background in missile weapons defense systems, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. He opened the conversation by referencing his personal experiences in the Navy, specifically during the years 2004 to 2006. Reid’s background made him intimately familiar with topics related to secret space projects, a subject that has piqued his interest for over two and a half decades.
It is worth noting that Joshua Reid’s extensive research in the field of UAPs and classified information has led him to the inner workings of certain government activities. His extensive four-year investigation revealed a disconcerting pattern. It appeared that military technology, particularly in special access programs, was unintentionally making its way to foreign adversaries, including China. This exchange of classified information seemed to involve universities and professors who were receiving grants to reverse engineer technologies from these programs.
The remarkable twist in this story was that Hillary Clinton’s emails were potentially facilitating the sale of this classified information to China and other foreign entities. China would fund universities, enticing professors to divulge information on special access programs. This enabled them to advance their technology rapidly, potentially reaching parity with the United States.
Former Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III, well-versed in these special access programs, played a crucial role in this unfolding drama. He represented David Grusch and became a central figure in the whistleblower saga. According to Reid, multiple whistleblowers were involved, with two possessing firsthand information and tangible evidence. The fear of repercussions led these individuals to testify in front of congressmen, notably, Indiana Congressman André Carson. However, it was not until these whistleblowers presented video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials that congressmen took their claims seriously.
The impact of these videos was profound. Congressmen were visibly shaken, with one trembling and another drinking water profusely. This sudden shift in demeanor signified that the evidence was both extraordinary and unsettling. The whistleblowers were introduced to Inspector General McCullough, who had an extensive background in the very special access programs at the center of the controversy.
“I’ve heard that we can confirm this later, but from what I’m hearing, André Carson is this Congressman that they testified in front of, along with a few others. The Congressman didn’t take these guys seriously, but what ended up happening is they pulled out the evidence, a DVD, and they showed these congressmen video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials. After these videos were shown to congressmen, they were noticeably shaken in fear. One of them was holding a piece of paper and could not stop shaking. Another was drinking water profusely, and this is when they began to take this very, very seriously and introduce these gentlemen to the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, McCullough. Hence, he enters the picture as someone who understands these SAP programs, has been read into these programs from back in the day, and is now representing these gentlemen.”
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He posed the question of where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He asked Reid where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
One of the prominent UFO researchers who has been sharing insider knowledge on UAPs is investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. It is quite uncertain if Coulthart possesses this DVD evidence but he did reveal that there exists a huge UFO in the possession of the United States that cannot be moved, and he knows the location of the craft. Ross mentioned the existence of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth for a long time and the recovery of certain objects, but he could not disclose specific details due to concerns about revealing advanced technologies.
In a recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” host Andy engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Ross. The discussion centered around the secrecy surrounding UFO sightings and government knowledge. Ross, who has deep insights into the matter, shared his perspective on why certain details remain undisclosed.
Andy began by addressing a critical question that has been on the minds of many UFO enthusiasts: the location of the mysterious craft. He asked Ross whether he could reveal where the craft was being held.
Ross responded: “Let me tell you, I can’t tell you the country it’s in; it’s not America. But what I can tell you is that the place where it is kept is used for another purpose that is a laudatory purpose that’s as much in your interests in your country in the UK as it is in mine in Australia and as it is in America. The simple reasons are that there are other uses for the place where this object is stored, and we could end up with a storm Area 51-type scenario if you came out and announced it.”
Ross went on to explain the potential consequences of revealing such information, including international incidents and threats to the safety of personnel at the facilities. He also emphasized the importance of protecting sources, drawing on his experience as a journalist dealing with sensitive intelligence.
Interestingly, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the July 2023 Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company, which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology.
According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.
The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.
Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.
Sprague wrote, “Date 4 – May 19, 2022, Biden is now in Alaska and stopped off to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This video is the most incredible of all. Biden meets with three of the Ganzi. Biden puts a small device in his ear and a conversation occurs without sound. The video lasts for nine minutes and then four people enter the area. One of the people is John Podesta. The other three are unknown. The beings leave and the video ends. In September of 2022, Biden names Podesta as the Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. December 14, 2022, America has a breakthrough in fusion. To achieve this scientific feat – a laser is used. This laser has ‘unique’ properties.” (Source)
Sprague’s claims cannot be verified; however, it is certain that there exists an alien craft, and the United States has successfully accessed its interior. Dr. James Lacatski, a retired DIA intelligence officer who established the UFO program that operated from 2008 to 2010, has confirmed this. He stated that the craft possesses a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but lacks conventional features such as an engine, wings, intakes, exhaust, or fuel tanks.
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An In-Depth Look into The Pentagon UFO Files
An In-Depth Look into The Pentagon UFO Files
For decades, the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) has captivated the imagination of the public and researchers alike. This fascination reached a new height with the recent disclosure of The Pentagon UFO Files, a collection of information and evidence gathered by the US government. These files, long shrouded in secrecy, offer a rare glimpse into the government’s perspective on what could be one of the most profound discoveries in human history – the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and their implications for humanity.
The Revelation:
After years of speculation and secrecy, the US government’s acknowledgment of these files marks a significant shift in the discourse surrounding UFOs. The files contain detailed accounts of encounters, expert analyses, and, perhaps most intriguingly, military confirmations of unexplainable aerial phenomena. This disclosure not only challenges our understanding of the skies above but also raises important questions about the nature of these phenomena and their potential impact on national security.
Analysis and Expert Opinions:
The Pentagon UFO Files encompass a range of sightings and encounters, some dating back several decades. These incidents, often involving highly credible military personnel, display characteristics that defy current technological and scientific understanding. The speeds and maneuverabilities of these UAPs, as observed and recorded, go beyond the capabilities of known human-made aircraft.
Experts from both scientific and military backgrounds have been analyzing these cases, looking for plausible explanations. In some instances, natural phenomena or misidentifications of conventional objects like aircraft and weather balloons were determined to be the cause. However, a significant portion of these sightings remains unexplained, fueling theories about their potentially extraterrestrial or interdimensional origins.
The Role of Government Secrecy and Public Perception:
The revelation of The Pentagon UFO Files has also brought to light the complex relationship between government secrecy and public knowledge. For decades, projects like Project Blue Book, Project Grudge, and others under the Department of Defense conducted investigations into UFO sightings. These projects, often criticized for their lack of transparency, have contributed to widespread skepticism and conspiracy theories.
The recent disclosure, while groundbreaking, has not been without its critics. Some argue that the released information is still heavily curated, raising questions about what might still be withheld and why. This ongoing secrecy perpetuates public distrust and speculation about the government’s true knowledge of UFOs and their implications.
The Future of UFO Research:
The Pentagon UFO Files have reignited interest in UFO research, not just within conspiracy circles but also among mainstream scientists and academics. This renewed focus could potentially lead to more systematic and open investigations into UAPs. It also underscores the need for international collaboration and transparency in studying these phenomena, as UFO sightings are a global occurrence with implications that transcend national borders.
VIDEO:
The Pentagon UFO Files (FULL DOCUMENTARY) UAO, USA GOVERNMENT, USA MILITARY
The release of The Pentagon UFO Files marks a new era in our quest to understand the unexplained phenomena in our skies. It challenges us to reconsider our place in the universe and invites us to explore possibilities that were once relegated to science fiction. While many questions remain unanswered, one thing is clear: the pursuit of knowledge about UAPs is more important than ever, promising to unlock mysteries that could redefine our understanding of the world and potentially, the cosmos.
De ontdekking van Nag Hammadi: zijn dit de verloren boeken van de Bijbel? Ruim zeventig jaar geleden werden in Nag Hammadi, Egypte, verschillende gnostische teksten ontdekt. Deze galerij duikt in de geschiedenis van deze oude boeken en de controverse die hen omringt.
Zouden dit werkelijk de ontbrekende boeken van de Bijbel kunnen zijn? Kijk naar de foto's om erachter te komen.
Wat en wanneer De gnostische evangeliën bestaan uit 52 teksten die in 1945 in Egypte werden ontdekt. Deze teksten werden op papyrus geschreven en verzameld in 13 oude boeken die codices worden genoemd. Ze werden in december 1945 opgegraven door Muhammad 'Ali al-Samman, een Arabische boer, in een begraven pot.
Wat is er met de boeken gebeurd? De boeken werden later illegaal verkocht in Caïro. Ondanks de inbeslagname van de meeste boeken door de Egyptische regering, werd één enkele codex discreet uit Egypte getransporteerd en uiteindelijk zijn weg naar Europa gevonden.
Waar staan de teksten nu? De originele teksten zijn momenteel ondergebracht in het Koptisch Museum in Caïro onder de identificatie NHC (Nag Hammadi Codices).
Gnostici en gnosticisme De term ‘gnostisch’ is afgeleid van het Griekse woord ‘gnosis’, wat ‘kennis’ betekent. Gnostici hielden vast aan het geloof dat ze verborgen kennis bezaten over God en het goddelijke, vandaar hun naam. Ze hadden verschillende perspectieven op Jezus en zijn leringen. Helaas werden veel van hun teksten uitgeroeid, omdat ze door de vroege kerk als ketters werden bestempeld.
Gnostici en gnosticisme De gnostici waren geen georganiseerde afzonderlijke religie, maar bestonden in plaats daarvan uit verschillende religieuze en filosofische stromingen die bloeiden van de 2e tot de 4e eeuw na Christus.
Gnostische overtuigingen Gnostici waren van mening dat de materiële wereld slecht was en de spirituele wereld deugdzaam. Explore God legt uit dat gnostici mensen zagen als 'goede geesten die gevangen zaten in kwaadaardige materiële lichamen'.
Hoe zagen gnostici God? Gnostici hielden vast aan hun geloof in een Oppergod, transcendent en onbegrijpelijk. Bovendien waren ze van mening dat een mindere God, bekend als Demiurg, en niet de Oppergod, verantwoordelijk was voor de schepping van het universum.
Wat was de gnostische perceptie van Jezus? Volgens de gnostici werd Jezus beschouwd als de ‘Verlosser’ wiens doel het was om de waarheid aan de mensheid te onthullen. Terwijl sommigen Jezus als volkomen goddelijk beschouwden en verstoken waren van de menselijke natuur (het fysieke lichaam als inherent slecht beschouwden), geloofden anderen in zijn menselijkheid.
Redding in het gnosticisme Gnostici geloofden dat verlossing niet afhankelijk was van sacramenten of vergeving van zonden. Ze waren van mening dat mensen 'gnosis', geheime kennis, moesten verkrijgen om verlossing te bereiken.
God woont in ons Het geloof van de gnostici was dat men door zichzelf te begrijpen kennis van God kon verwerven. Een fragment uit het boek 'The Gnostic Bible', gepubliceerd op gnosis.org, legt uit dat gnostici de intermediaire rol van priesters, rabbijnen of andere religieuze figuren niet accepteerden.
Wat is een evangelie? Het woord ‘Evangelie’ komt van de Griekse term ‘euaggelion’, die het concept van ‘goed nieuws’ overbrengt. Vroege christenen omarmden deze term om de boodschap van Jezus over te brengen en verslag uit te brengen over zijn leven.
Gnostische Evangeliën De teksten die in het gnosticisme bekend staan als evangeliën onthullen het perspectief van de gnostici ten aanzien van Jezus. Bekende voorbeelden zijn onder meer Thomas, Maria en Judas.
Het Evangelie van Judas Volgens deze controversiële tekst was Judas eigenlijk een goede apostel, zoals The New York Times betoogt. Er wordt aangenomen dat het evangelie zegt dat Judas zijn verraad aan Jezus op bevel van Jezus zelf uitvoerde.
Zijn de evangeliën betrouwbaar? De betrouwbaarheid van de teksten is uitgebreid besproken. A Clear Lens benadrukt drie belangrijke tegenargumenten: data, consistentie en historische context
Samenhang Gezien de talrijke verhalen over Judas in de canonieke teksten van andere apostelen, is het logisch dat de gnostische interpretatie van Judas argwaan kan wekken.
Samenhang De canonieke verslagen portretteren de boodschap van Jezus als universeel toepasbaar, terwijl de vertolking van de gnostici suggereert dat hij zijn wijsheid exclusief deelde met een paar uitverkorenen.
Historische achtergrond De misvatting draait om het gebruik door de gnostici van mythen om hun overtuigingen over te brengen, wat betekent dat de teksten mogelijk geen feitelijke details over het leven van Jezus verschaffen.
De Bijbel Volgens de International Bible Society onderging de Bijbel een langdurig compilatieproces, waarbij verschillende boeken uit de definitieve versie werden weggelaten.
Het Nieuwe Testament De vier evangeliën die voor het Nieuwe Testament zijn gekozen, zijn geschreven door Matteüs, Marcus, Lucas en Johannes, bekend als de officieel aanvaarde canonieke evangeliën.
Wat is de canon? Biblica, de International Bible Society, definieert de canon als de boeken die worden erkend als door God geïnspireerd en gezaghebbend voor geloof en leven.
Waarom werden de gnostische evangeliën uitgesloten van de Bijbel? Volgens bijbelgeleerde Darrell L. Bock tijdens een interview met Beliefnet "is bij de wortel van deze (canonieke) evangeliën ofwel een apostolische figuur betrokken, ofwel iemand die nauw verbonden is met een apostolische figuur." En dat: "De evangeliën die in de Bijbel terecht zijn gekomen, stammen allemaal uit de eerste eeuw. Geen enkel evangelie uit die [gnostische] lijst dat ik ken, dateert feitelijk uit de eerste eeuw."
De Da Vinci-code Volgens de National Geographic was het populaire boek van Dan Brown geïnspireerd op de gnostische evangeliën, maar geleerden zijn het niet eens met Browns standpunt.
Waarom zijn deze teksten belangrijk? De gnostische evangeliën bieden waardevol inzicht in het gnosticisme en het vroege christendom en werpen licht op verschillende besproken ideeën en de interpretatie ervan door de vroege kerk.
Zie ook: De meest verontrustende delen van de Bijbel
Solar flares pose a major hazard to electronics and infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit, but they may have played a role in kick-starting life on Earth. Credit: NASA/SDO/J. Major
The water that life knows and needs, the water that makes a world habitable, the water that acts as the universal solvent for all the myriad and fantastically complicated chemical reactions that make us different than the dirt and rocks, can only come in one form: liquid.
The vast, vast majority of the water in our universe is unsuitable for life. Some of it is frozen, locked in solid ice on the surface of a world too distant from its parent star or bound up in a lonely, wayward comet. The rest is vaporized, existing as a state of matter where molecules lose their electron companions, boundless and adrift through the great nebular seas that dot the galaxies, or ejected completely into the great voids between them. Either way, that water exists only one molecule at a time, at a temperature of over a million degrees yet its density so low that you could pass through it and mistake it for the cold, hard vacuum of space itself.
No, for water to be liquid it must exist in special place around a star, not too cold for it turn to ice, not too hot for it to turn to gas. It must lay within what astronomers call the habitable zone, or, if they’re feeling playful, the Goldilocks zone.
The habitable zone is different for every star throughout the galaxy, because no two stars are alike. The smallest red dwarfs are barely a tenth the mass of the Sun, with luminosities a thousand times weaker. The largest are great beasts, a hundred solar masses or more, so bright they can be seen from thousands of light-years away by the unaided eye. Around each star a simple iron law holds, the fact that the intensity of light, and all the warmth and comfort that light brings with it, diminishes with the square of the distance from the source. An object twice as far away will experience a quarter of the brightness; at a distance of four times that drops to a sixteenth, and so on. That is why Pluto, despite only sitting about 30 times further away from the Sun than the Earth, is forced to experience never-ending dim twilight, even at the height of its day.
Too far from a star and the radiant temperatures are too cold, and any water freezes. Too close, and the water slips its bonds, free to roam as a gas. In between, in a special band determined by the star’s mass, age, and brightness, sits the habitable zone, where a planet is capable – yes, merely capable – of hosting water in its liquid state on its surface.
For our own Sun, the habitable zone stretches from just within the orbit of Venus to just beyond the orbit of Mars. Three planets perfectly situated within the warm embrace of our Sun, and yet only one has life. What happened? What made our planet so special, or so lucky? It’s impossible to say for sure, because the potential of habitability is not a promise.
There is, however, one other place where we know liquid water can exist. Ironically, it’s in the frozen moons of the outer solar system. There, under surfaces of frozen ice a hundred kilometers thick sit globe-spanning liquid water oceans, with more liquid water than exists on the surface of the Earth. There the habitability isn’t given by the rays of the Sun, but from their molten cores emanating heat, driven by the gravitational warping of the giant planets they orbit. Life could certainly find a purchase there, in places of darkness that the Sun never can touch, even though there worlds are not, according to the traditional definition, habitable.
port Us Log In Credit: CfA POSTED ONJANUARY 28, 2024 BY PAUL M. SUTTER The Improbable Origins of Life on Earth We do not yet know how, where, or why life first appeared on our planet. Part of the difficulty is that “life” has no strict, unive
We do not yet know how, where, or why life first appeared on our planet. Part of the difficulty is that “life” has no strict, universally agreed-upon definition.
Normally this is not an issue, as the vast majority of life is most definitely alive, and only biologists interested in the extreme edges – viruses, prions, and the like – need to worry about precise classifications. But to study the origins of life we must, by necessity, examine a process that takes non-living matter and fundamentally changes it. Presumably this process happened in stages, with fits and starts along the way, and so the line between uncoordinated chemical reactions and the beginnings of vibrancy must be blurred.
It’s helpful here to present at least a simple working definition of life, not to rewrite the biology textbooks, but so that at least we can properly frame the discussion of life’s origins. And for those purposes a simple statement will suffice: life is that which is subject to Darwinian evolution. That is, life experiences natural selection, that unceasing pressure that chooses traits and characteristics to pass down to a new generation through the simple virtue of their survivability. If the trait contributes in some way, even circuitously, to the survivability of an organism and its ability to reproduce, it persists. All else is discarded (or, at best, gets carried unceremoniously along for the ride).
Earth is the only known place in the solar system, in the galaxy, in the entire universe where Darwinian evolution takes place.
To succeed at evolution and separate itself from mere chemical reactions, life must do three things. First, it must somehow store information, such as the encoding for various processes, traits, and characteristics. This way the successful traits can pass from one generation to another.
Second, life must self-replicate. It must be able to make reasonably accurate copies of its own molecular structure, so that the information contained within itself has the chance to become a new generation, changed and altered based on its survivability.
Lastly, life must catalyze reactions. It must affect its own environment, whether for movement, or to acquire or store energy, or grow new structures, or all the many wonderful activities that life does on a daily basis.
By interacting with its environment, making copies of itself, and storing information (like how to interact with the environment and make copies of itself), life can evolve, growing in complexity and specialization over geologic time, from humble molecules to conscious minds capable of peering into its own shrouded origins.
In the modern era, with billions of years of practice behind it, life on Earth has evolved a dizzying array of chemical and molecular machines to propagate itself – a menagerie so complex and interconnected that we do not yet fully understand it. But a basic picture has emerged. Put exceedingly simply (for I would hate for you to mistake me for a biologist), life accomplishes these tasks with a triad of molecular tools.
One is the DNA, which through its genetic code stores information using combinations of just four molecules: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. The raw ability of DNA to store massive amounts of information is nothing short of a miracle; our own digital system of 1’s and 0’s (invented because it’s much simpler to tell if a circuit is on or off than some stage in-between) is the closest comparison we can make to DNA’s information density. Natural languages don’t even earn a place on the chart.
The second component is RNA, which is intriguingly similar to DNA but with two subtle, but significant, differences: RNA swaps out thymine for uracil in its codebase, and contains the sugar ribose, which is one oxygen atom short of the deoxyribose of DNA. RNA also stores information but, again speaking only in generalities, has the main job of reading the chemical instructions stored in the DNA and using that to manufacture the last member of the triad, proteins.
“Proteins” is a generic catch-all term for the almost uncountable varieties of molecular machines that do stuff: they snip apart molecules, bind them back together, manufacture new ones, hold structures together, become structures themselves, move important molecules from one place to another, transform energy from one form to another, and so on.
Proteins have one additional function: they perform the job of unraveling DNA and making copies of it. Thus the triad completes all the functions of life: DNA stores information, RNA uses that information to manufacture proteins, and the proteins interact with the environment and perform the self-replication of DNA. This cycle allows living organisms to experience the gift of evolution.
And this cycle is, as I said, gloriously complex and obviously the result of billions of years of fine-tuning and refinement. The interconnected nature of DNA, RNA, and proteins means that it could not have sprung up ab initio from the primordial ooze, because if only one component is missing then the whole system falls apart – a three-legged table with one missing cannot stand.
Plants Growing in Space are at Risk from Bacterial Infections
Graduate student Noah Totsline works in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources lab of Harsh Bais on a NASA-sponsored project looking at how plants grown in space are more prone to infections of Salmonella compared to plants not grown in space or grown under gravity simulations. The microgravity environment of space can be simulated in the lab by rotating the plants at a precise speed that causes the plants to react as if they were in a constant state of free-fall.
Plants Growing in Space are at Risk from Bacterial Infections
I have spent the last few years thinking, perhaps assuming that astronauts live off dried food, prepackaged and sent from Earth. There certainly is an element of that but travellers to the International Space Station have over recent years been able to feast on fresh salad grown in special units on board. Unfortunately, recent research suggests that pathogenic bacteria and fungi can contaminate the ‘greens’ even in space.
It’s been at least three years that astronauts have been able to eat fresh lettuce and other leafy items along with tortillas and powdered coffee.. Specially designed chambers on board allow them to grown plants under carefully controlled temperature, water and lights to ensure a successful harvest. There is however an issue that the ISS is a relatively closed environment and so it is easy for bacteria and fungi to spread and astronauts to get ill.
The International Space Station stretches out in an image captured by astronauts aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly-around in November 2021. Credit: NASA
A paper just published in Scientific Reports and NPJ Microgravity and authored by a team led by Noah Totsline explores what happens with lettuce grown under ‘simulated’ weightless environments (the device known as a clinostat rotate them so that plants did not know which way was up or down). This was achieved by being gently rotated. Plants it seems though, are pretty good at sensing gravity using their roots. The team found that plants under these conditions were more prone to infection than those on Earth in particular Salmonella.
One of the main lines of defence for plants is their stomata. These are tiny pores in the leaves, much like the pores in our skin, that close to defend when an environmental stress is detected, such as bacteria. The team exposed plants in their micro-gravitational environment to find the plants opened the stomata instead of closing them.
The team went a step further and introduced a natural bacteria known as UD1022 which usually helps to protect plants. In the clinostat however, it failed to help the plant to protect itself from other more harmful bacteria.
The research was not just an interesting scientific problem but does solve real world problems. Space is slowly opening up with more and more non-astronauts becoming astronauts and travelling into space and this is only going to increase. As SpaceX and the like press ahead with the commercialisation of space travel we absolutely must find a way to grow and farm sustainable and healthy food instead of prepackaged snacks if we are to become a truly space fairing civilisation.
We are some way away from that of course but this is step one in a long journey. Sadly it is not as simple a task as sterilising the seeds since their could easily be microbes in the environment on board the ISS (or other space craft that come in the future) and perhaps it is these that pose the greatest risk. The team are now looking at ways to genetically modify plants to help them cope in the microgravity of space.
NASA Gives us an Update on its Long-term Plans for the Moon and Mars
NASA's plans for exploration of the Moon and Mars are a unified architecture covering all mission, crew, and technology contigencies. Image courtesy NASA.
NASA Gives us an Update on its Long-term Plans for the Moon and Mars
Going to Mars is a major step in space exploration. It’s not a quick jaunt nor will it be easy to accomplish. The trip is already in the planning stages, and there’s a good chance it’ll happen in the next decade or so. That’s why NASA and other agencies have detailed mission scenarios in place, starting with trips to the Moon. Recently, NASA updated its “Moon to Mars Architecture” documents, including a closer look at some key decisions about Mars exploration.
Those decisions cover a wide gamut of challenges to living and working on the Red Planet. NASA planners narrowed them down to these key areas: science priorities, number of crew members on the first trip, how many on each follow-up trip, number of crew members per Mars location, Mars surface power generation technologies, what kinds of missions will be sent (the “target state”), and establishing what they call a “loss of crew risk” posture. That last one involves making the right decisions about missions based on risk to the crew’s health and performance.
NASA Plans for the Moon and Mars
Why create a mission architecture for the Moon and Mars? Essentially, anybody going to these other worlds needs a mutually agreed-upon “roadmap” that plans the explorations and technologies needed. That’s why NASA created its first Moon to Mars objectives in 2022 and has been refining them ever since. The agency’s roadmap includes feedback from a wide swath of society. Members of academia, U.S. industry, international partners, and the NASA workforce all contributed to the project.
“Our new documents reflect the progress we’ve made to define a clear approach to exploration and lay out how we’ll incorporate new elements as technologies and capabilities in the U.S. and abroad mature,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This process is ensuring that everything we are doing as an agency and together with our partners is focused on achieving our overarching exploration goals for the benefit of all.”
The Key Decisions Regarding Mars Exploration
In a white paper published along with the Moon to Mars Architecture document, NASA explains key areas of concern when it comes specifically to Mars exploration. The first is science. It’s the main reason for going the both the Moon and Mars, and its needs will drive almost all other considerations. It will determine the resources needed, including crew numbers, payloads, technology deliveries, and power and communications infrastructure, and contingencies for possible accidents or other challenges.
An artist’s concept of Mars explorers and their habitat on the Red Planet. Courtesy NASA.
Once the science is determined, planners can decide on crew needs for the first and subsequent missions. As the white paper states, “…a series of focused science exploration missions to different landing sites would favor one architecture. Establishing a permanent, fixed base from which astronauts could conduct many surface missions supporting diverse and evolving exploration activities would favor a very different architecture.”
From there, planners will figure out the “cadence” of the missions and crew deployments. How often do we send missions and how many people will go? Just as an example, let’s say that the first mission will land in Jezero Crater, near the Perseverance rover. NASA could use its data to determine further science exploration at the site. That will drive the best placement for habitats and other infrastructure, and the type of mission will dictate the number of crew members needed.
Those decisions will then drive the infrastructure and technology needed for each step. Science stations need power to do the science, but also to sustain the habitats for the science teams. If those teams travel across the surface, their rovers will need power, fuel, and possibly replacement parts. Crew members themselves will need to be able to grow food, use local resources to extract fuel and water, and otherwise maintain safe living conditions. And, these are just the first steps in the long-term exploration of Mars, enabled by what people learn about living and working on the Moon.
Why Does NASA Want a Moon to Mars Plan?
While it may seem sexy to send people directly to Mars without any intervening stops at the Moon, NASA and other agencies want a measured approach. The idea to use the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars is not new. The Moon makes a good “training base” of sorts where we can “practice” with the technologies and techniques of living on another world. In addition, it offers a unique environment for astronomy and planetary science exploration. Astronauts learn in an environment close to Earth and if something dire happens to them, rescue is not far away.
Artist’s impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA
These ideas underlie the planning for the upcoming Artemis missions to the lunar surface. There’s supposed to be a gateway orbiting the Moon, to which astronauts and equipment will fly. Then, from there, materials and people head to the Moon to explore various sites, and begin the complex tasks of exploration and habitat construction. That set of missions will establish the foundation for scientific exploration, and land a diverse set of people on the lunar surface, all in cooperation with international partners. Ultimately, everything they learn on the Moon will prepare people for the leap to Mars.
The Moon to Mars mission architectural plans unite both lunar and Mars exploration in one timeline, identifying technologies and capabilities needed to accomplish each step. They are living documents, updated every year to reflect changes in any aspect of mission planning and technology.
Japanse maanlander werkt opnieuw, meer dan een week na de landing
Japanse maanlander werkt opnieuw, meer dan een week na de landing
Artikel van Kathleen Heylen
Op 19 januari slaagde Japan erin om voor de eerste keer een onbemand ruimtetuig neer te zetten op de maan. Maar de landing verliep niet helemaal volgens plan. Er bleekeen probleem met de zonnepanelen van de maanlander, waardoor ze geen stroom konden opwekken. Daardoor was JAXA genoodzaakt om de maanlander uit te schakelen, om zo energie te sparen.
Kort voordien hadden de maanlander en de twee robotvoertuigjes aan boord nog wel foto's en data doorgestuurd naar de aarde. Zo kon JAXA achterhalen dat de maanlander door een probleem met een van de motoren op zijn zijde was geland. Daardoor konden de zonnepanelen onvoldoende zonlicht opvangen. Maar er was nog hoop dat dat zich zou herstellen.
De zonnepanelen waren gericht op het westen. Ze zouden meer zonlicht kunnen opvangen naarmate de zonsondergang op de landingssite zich inzet. Die vindt plaats op 1 februari, in de aanloop naar dat moment verandert de richting van waaruit het zonlicht komt geleidelijk. En dat lijkt de maanlander nu weer aan de praat te hebben gekregen.
Een foto gemaakt door het robotvoertuigje LEV-2, meteen na de landing, toont dat de maanlander op zijn zijde terechtgekomen is en daardoor onvoldoende zonlicht kon opvangen.
De maanlander is ook meteen aan de slag gegaan. Met zijn multispectrale camera (MBC) onderzocht hij de samenstelling van gesteenten in de buurt van de landingssite. Met dat soort onderzoek willen wetenschappers meer te weten komen over het ontstaan van de maan.
Op X (vroeger Twitter) postte JAXA een van de foto's die zijn doorgestuurd. Daarop is een gesteente te zien dat de naam "Toy poodle" kreeg. "Toy poodle" is een van de gesteenten die het Japanse team als "interessant" beoordeelde op basis van de eerste foto's meteen na de landing.
Nauwkeurige precisie
Uit die allereerste gegevens bleek ook al dat de maanlander op ongeveer 55 meter is geland van de plaats waar hij oorspronkelijk had moeten landen. Dat is uiterst nauwkeurig. Japan had zich als doel gesteld om binnen een zone van 100 meter te landen, terwijl andere ruimtevaartnaties marges van enkele kilometers gebruiken.
Die nauwkeurigheid is een van de speerpunten van de Japanse maanmissie. De komende jaren staan heel wat onbemande én bemande vluchten naar de maan op de agenda. Ook wordt gekeken naar een basis op maan. Het is dus belangrijk om uiterst precies te kunnen landen, ook op terrein dat minder toegankelijk is.
Een eerdere simulatie toont hoe de Japanse maanlander op de maan had moeten landen.
Het is niet duidelijk wanneer de operaties van de Japanse maanlander zullen eindigen. Eerder al had JAXA gezegd dat het tuig niet ontworpen was om een nacht op de maan te overleven. Die maannacht begint nu donderdag en duurt ongeveer 14 dagen.
Japan is nog maar het vijfde land dat erin slaagt om een onbemand ruimtetuig op de maan te laten landen, na de Sovjet-Unie, de Verenigde Staten, China en India.
Unraveling the Mysteries of Area 51: The Intriguing Accounts of Bob Lazar and John Lear
Unraveling the Mysteries of Area 51: The Intriguing Accounts of Bob Lazar and John Lear
In the realm of UFO lore, few stories have sparked as much fascination and controversy as those surrounding Area 51, a highly classified United States Air Force facility in Nevada. Central to these tales are the figures of Bob Lazar and John Lear, whose claims about alien technology and government secrecy have captivated public imagination. Investigative reporter George Knapp played a pivotal role in bringing these narratives to light, challenging our understanding of the unknown.
Bob Lazar: A Glimpse into the Unknown
Bob Lazar emerged in the late 1980s as a figure of intrigue within the UFO community. Claiming to be a physicist, Lazar asserted that he was employed at a top-secret government facility known as S4, located near Area 51. His primary role, he said, was to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology from recovered alien spacecraft. Lazar’s descriptions of these crafts were detailed and technical, describing propulsion systems that defied known physics, specifically gravity manipulation through antimatter reactors.
His story extended beyond mere engineering marvels. Lazar spoke of various alien species and implied that the U.S. government was deeply involved in studying their technology. The veracity of Lazar’s claims has been widely debated, with skeptics pointing to inconsistencies and lack of evidence, particularly in Lazar’s educational and professional background.
John Lear’s Contributions
John Lear, a respected aviator and son of the inventor of the Learjet, William Lear, lent a significant voice to the UFO narrative. With ties to various intelligence agencies, Lear’s transition into UFO research added a layer of credibility to the discussions about extraterrestrial activities. He posited that the U.S. government had been recovering alien spacecraft since the late 1940s and that these activities were closely guarded secrets.
VIDEO:
Bob Lazar and John Lear talk alien craft at Area 51 ~ with investigative reporter George Knapp
Lear’s role in the Lazar story is pivotal. He introduced Lazar to George Knapp, which eventually led to the public disclosure of Lazar’s experiences. Lear himself became an outspoken advocate for the existence of UFOs and alien visitors, contributing to the growing public discourse on the subject.
George Knapp’s Investigative Journalism
Enter George Knapp, an investigative reporter whose interest in Lazar’s and Lear’s accounts brought them into the public eye. Knapp’s journalistic rigor provided a platform for Lazar to share his experiences. His interviews and investigations into Lazar’s background added depth to the narrative, though they also raised questions about Lazar’s credibility.
Knapp’s work highlighted the challenges in investigating claims surrounded by secrecy. His efforts to verify Lazar’s employment history and academic credentials met with obstructions, fueling theories of a government cover-up. The questions raised by Knapp’s investigation continue to add to the mystique and skepticism surrounding Lazar’s claims.
The Legacy of Lazar and Lear
The stories of Bob Lazar and John Lear have become integral to the UFO mythology, particularly regarding Area 51. Their accounts have fueled debates about government transparency, scientific evidence, and the possibility of extraterrestrial contact. The continuing public interest in their stories is a testament to the enduring human fascination with the unknown and the unexplained.
Ben jij klaar voor de Apocalyps? Onthulling van de mysteries van het boek Openbaring Het Bijbelboek Openbaring staat bekend om zijn dramatische weergave van het einde der tijden. Het boek is de basis geweest voor veel afbeeldingen van de Apocalyps, die – in sommige gevallen – behoorlijk gruwelijk zijn. Maar wat weten we eigenlijk over de auteur van Openbaring; de Vier Ruiters van de Apocalyps, of de betekenis van het getal 666, ook wel het getal van het beest genoemd?
In deze galerij verkennen we het boek Openbaring om licht te werpen op deze vragen en meer. Klik verder om iets nieuws te leren!
De focus ligt niet alleen op de apocalyps Veel mensen geloven dat het boek Openbaring slechts een apocalyptisch verslag is van wat er gaat gebeuren, maar de auteur van het boek, Johannes, richtte zich vooral op de terugkeer van Jezus Christus.
De focus ligt niet alleen op de apocalyps In 70 GT maakte Johannes een tragische gebeurtenis in de geschiedenis mee toen Jeruzalem zwaar werd beschadigd door de Romeinen. Men geloofde dat Jezus terug zou komen om de Romeinen te verslaan en gerechtigheid te zoeken voor zijn dood en het lijden van de christenen.
De focus ligt niet alleen op de apocalyps Dit soort anti-Romeinse propaganda overtuigde christenen ervan dat hun leider en redder tijdens hun leven terug zou komen. Hoe zorg je ervoor dat christenen gemotiveerd blijven om christen te blijven? Deel een intrigerend verhaal met hen.
The Apocalypse zou een script voor een horrorfilm kunnen zijn Bepaalde delen van het boek Openbaring bevatten gewelddadige inhoud, vooral met betrekking tot de Apocalyps. Laten we onze discussie beginnen met de Vier Ruiters van de Apocalyps en hun kenmerkende paarden.
De vier ruiters van de Apocalyps Openbaring 9:17-19 geeft details over het uiterlijk van deze paarden: "De hoofden van de paarden leken op de hoofden van leeuwen, en uit hun muilen kwam vuur, rook en zwavel." Vind je dat niet behoorlijk intimiderend? Maar er is meer aan de hand!
De vier ruiters van de Apocalyps "De kracht van de paarden zat in hun mond en in hun staart; want hun staarten waren als slangen, met koppen waarmee ze verwondingen toebrengen." Niemand zou een vrachtwagen met deze paarden hebben!
De mensheid staat op het punt heel slecht te worden Ze worden letterlijk gekookt door de zon, gebombardeerd met enorme hagelstenen, en dan wordt de zon pikzwart terwijl de maan een bloedrode tint krijgt. En alsof dat nog niet genoeg is, regenen de sterren uit de hemel, gevolgd door een enorme aardbeving. Ja, die tijden zijn serieus zwaar!
Het wordt nog erger Er is een verhaal over sprinkhanen wier ‘gezichten leken op menselijke gezichten. Hun haar was als vrouwenhaar en hun tanden waren als leeuwentanden.’ Bovendien bezaten ze een schorpioenachtige angel, maar het was hen verboden dodelijke slachtoffers te veroorzaken. In plaats daarvan zouden deze sprinkhanen individuen gedurende een periode van vijf maanden kwellen. De aard van deze situatie is zeer verontrustend.
Openbaring is in de Bijbel terechtgekomen dankzij één enkele persoon Het proces van het samenstellen van de Bijbel, ook wel de officiële verzameling genoemd, duurde meerdere jaren. Gedurende deze tijd werden talloze boeken geëvalueerd, waaronder de opmerkelijke opname van het boek Openbaring. Athanasius, een zeer invloedrijke priester, speelde een cruciale rol in dit streven.
Openbaring is in de Bijbel terechtgekomen dankzij één enkele persoon Ondanks dat hij vijf keer met ballingschap en afzetting te maken kreeg, verdedigde Athanasius de kracht van de Openbaring. Hij geloofde dat het stand kon houden tegen iedereen die tegen de Kerk was. Verrassend genoeg leidde zijn geloofwaardigheid ertoe dat het boek in het Nieuwe Testament werd opgenomen, zelfs toen anderen twijfelden aan de waarde ervan.
Auteur van het boek Openbaring? Het auteurschap van Openbaring is een onderwerp van discussie waarbij meerdere personen betrokken zijn die in de Bijbel Johannes worden genoemd, waaronder de apostel van Jezus en de schrijver van een van de evangelieverslagen.
Auteur van het boek Openbaring? Het gebruik van soortgelijke woorden heeft het argument versterkt van degenen die geloven dat de auteur van het boek Johannes en het boek Openbaring één en dezelfde zijn. Dit standpunt wordt echter niet door iedereen gedeeld.
Wie schreef de Openbaring werkelijk? De apostel Johannes noemt zijn eigen naam meerdere keren in zijn boek, maar volgt verrassend genoeg niet dezelfde stijl in Openbaring, waarbij hij elke verwijzing naar zichzelf weglaat, wat duidelijk niet zijn stijl was.
Wie schreef de Openbaring werkelijk? Beide auteurs gebruiken verschillende Griekse woorden om Jezus het lam te noemen. Bovendien is de Griekse schrijfstijl van de apostel verfijnder. De auteur van Openbaring lijkt geen moedertaalspreker te zijn.
Hij was geen gewone christen Gedurende die tijd kende het christendom verdeeldheid tussen de verschillende groepen, en Johannes, waarvan werd aangenomen dat hij een Jood was, beschouwde Jezus als de Joodse Messias.
John's strikte mening Het boek bevat verschillende aanwijzingen van de auteur. De auteur steunde bijvoorbeeld niet dat heidenen (niet-joden) volgelingen van Jezus zouden worden zonder zich te houden aan de regels die in de Thora zijn uiteengezet.
666 heeft geen verband met Satan Het getal 666 wordt vaak geassocieerd met de duivel. Maar volgens Openbaring 13:18: "Dit vereist wijsheid. Laat degene die inzicht heeft, het getal van het beest berekenen, want het is het getal van een mens. Dat getal is 666."
666 heeft geen verband met Satan Dit aantal wordt echter niet geassocieerd met enige kwade connotaties. Het komt feitelijk overeen met de identiteit van een individu, zoals vermeld in het boek Openbaring. Deskundigen suggereren dat deze persoon niemand minder is dan keizer Nero.
Welke methode is gebruikt voor de berekening? De informatie werd verkregen via gematria, een Hebreeuwse numerologische praktijk die waarden aan letters toekent.
Waarom Nero? Nero behandelde christenen op een zeer harde manier en nam zijn toevlucht tot het levend verbranden ervan. Dit maakte hem tot een sterke kanshebber voor de titel van het beest.
Hoe zit het dan met het merkteken van het beest? Er wordt gedacht dat het in Openbaring 13:16-17 genoemde merkteken verwijst naar Romeinse munten of postzegels die door het rijk werden gebruikt.
Toen het einde van de wereld niet plaatsvond Er zijn meerdere mislukte voorspellingen over de Apocalyps geweest, die allemaal gebaseerd waren op Openbaring. Eén zo’n voorspelling werd gedaan door de Schotse wiskundige John Napier, die het einde van de wereld in 1688 of 1700 voorspelde.
Mislukte apocalypsvoorspellingen Bovendien zijn er hedendaagse gevallen geweest, zoals de Branch Davidian-sekte, waarbij de leden helaas omkwamen bij het beruchte Waco-incident in Texas in 1993. Bovendien slaagde eindtijdcomplottheoreticus David Meade er de laatste tijd ook niet in om de apocalyps accuraat te voorspellen. zowel in 2017 als in 2018.
Meer boeken over de Apocalyps Er bestaan andere joodse apocalyptische geschriften, zoals IV (of 4) Ezra, ook bekend als de Apocalyps van Esdras, die qua betekenis wedijvert met het boek Openbaring.
De locatie waar Openbaring werd geschreven Volgens Openbaring 1:9 werd de verblijfplaats van Johannes genoteerd als het Griekse eiland Patmos, waar hij schreef.
De locatie waar Openbaring werd geschreven Er wordt aangenomen dat een grot, omringd door een klooster, de plek is waar de auteur het boek schreef. Ondanks het ontbreken van bewijsmateriaal leidde de betekenis ervan tot de aanwijzing ervan als UNESCO-werelderfgoed.
Openbaring vormde het Amerikaanse Midden-Oostenbeleid Evangelicalen hebben een aanzienlijke invloed in de Amerikaanse politiek en zien de betekenis van Israël in relatie tot de profetie die in Openbaring wordt geschetst. Het geloof dat Joodse mensen naar Israël moeten terugkeren en Christus als hun verlosser moeten omarmen voordat Jezus terugkeert, is een belangrijk aspect van dit perspectief.
Gebeurtenissen op verschillende manieren bekijken Het Preterisme beschouwt de gebeurtenissen in Openbaring als hebbend plaatsgevonden in de periode tussen de bediening van Johannes de Doper en de val van Jeruzalem in 70 GT, toen de tekst werd geschreven.
Gebeurtenissen op verschillende manieren bekijken Sommigen geloven dat de apocalyps nog moet komen, terwijl anderen de gebeurtenissen interpreteren alsof ze al plaatsvinden. De ruiters symboliseren verovering, oorlog, hongersnood en dood. Is dit louter toeval?
Bron:
(Grunge)
Zie ook: De schokkend nauwkeurige profetieën van 30 minder bekende profeten
Details involving a mysterious object that was released during the test flight of an experimental Chinese spaceplane that landed this month were among several potential threats from space addressed in a recent report issued by a Washington-based think tank.
The assessment, produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Aerospace Security Project (ASP), examined the varieties of weapons most likely to pose a threat from orbit, as well as the nations capable of deploying them, specifically citing China and Russia as “both challenging the world order that has been in place and has secured peace since the end of World War II.”
Detailing counterspace weapons that “pose a serious risk to the space environment and the ability of all nations to use the space domain for prosperity and security,” the ASP assessment places particular significance on systems that result in orbital debris, focusing on four distinct types of weapons: kinetic physical, non-kinetic physical, electronic, and cyber counterspace weapons.
A portion of the report also focused on the recent launches of a pair of spaceplanes by China, one orbital, the other suborbital, from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
“[Few details have surfaced about either vehicle,” the report states, although it is known that the first spacecraft was launched in September 2020 by a Long March 2F and thereafter remained in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for close to 48 hours. During that time, it was observed to release a secondary object.
The mystery object, circled in red, appears some distance behind China’s spaceplane, circled in blue, during its operations in orbit
(Credit: Slingshot Aerospace/CSIS).
While little else is known about the mysterious object, it was determined to be “capable of broadcasting transmissions,” according to the ASP report.
The second test flight occurred on August 4, 2022, remaining in LEO for close to two months before raising its orbit on October 23, shortly before the spacecraft also released an object.
The ASP report says that publicly available data does not provide clear details on the exact time that the object was released from the second Chinese spacecraft. However, it was first recognized on
The Debrief previously reported that the object had been observed while China’s spaceplane had been carrying out its operations in orbit, which is believed to resemble the U.S. X-37B spaceplane, showing “a Chinese interest in matching U.S. capabilities.”
The X-37B, which is said to resemble China’s spaceplane (Public Domain).
October 31, 2022, according to the U.S. Space Force space tracking database.
“There are no indications that a spaceplane capability would act as a counterspace weapon,” the ASP concludes, though noting that its ability to release unknown objects into orbit “could progress to a co-orbital ASAT capability.”
Earlier this month, images released online by independent geospatial intelligence provider BlackSky Technology Inc appeared to show a Chinese aerostat hovering over a runway at the country’s Korla East Test Site in Xinjiang, along with what analysts believed to have been laser anti-satellite weapons capabilities.
A report published by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) last year also stated that between 2019 and 2021, China has reportedly doubled the number of satellites it has in orbit.
According to the ASP’s recent assessment, China currently possesses satellite capabilities that include “advanced positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT); satellite communications; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); missile warning; and space situational awareness.”
China’s ground-based space surveillance infrastructure is also addressed, citing knowledge of facilities it has built “in countries around the world, including as far away as South America.”
Apart from concerns over China’s space operations, extensive portions of the ASP report also address developments in Russia, which include mention of Dimitry Rogozin’s replacement last July by Yuri Borisov, changes that were “possibly a demotion for both men” on account of Rogozin’s social media activity which the report’s authors characterized as “erratic,” as well as Russia’s then-stated plans to depart from its operations aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Last month, Russia said in an about-face that it planned to continue its support of ISS operations at least until 2028, despite previous statements that it would end its support in 2024, and amidst rising tensions between Washington and Moscow related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Credit: NASA)
A February 2022 incident involving a Viasat hack carried out by Russia was also addressed among the cyber-related activities the country has engaged in recently, citing it amidst information on a more recent similar cyber intrusion carried out against a “U.S. commercial satellite communications provider” last November.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official serving as an analyst with CISA said that the Russian state-sponsored hacking group Fancy Bear had succeeded in the infiltration of the network, where they had reportedly been able to operate for several months before it was learned that the hack had occurred.
While countries like North Korea have shown significantly less in the way of space operations in recent months, the ASP notes in the report that such minimal counterspace weapons concerns are “overshadowed by the immense number of missile launches conducted in 2022.”
While the majority of the ASP space threat assessment addresses potential weapons and other dangers that may emanate the activities of various nations in space, there were also some positive developments, which included the absence of any confirmed ASAT tests within the last year, which the CISA says may be due to “greater recognition of the destructive potential of debris-generating activity in space,” which potentially impacts the safety of orbital operations for all nations and their space programs.
“In 2023, it will be important to monitor if this consequential trend is sustained,” the report concludes.
Whitley Strieber, born in Texas, United States, is a famous author known for his thought-provoking horror fiction. Strieber wrote a novel called The Wolfen, which later became a popular film in 1980. However, it was his book Communion that garnered significant attention, particularly from the UFO community. His book changed this dynamic almost instantly, attracting widespread interest beyond the usual UFOlogy circles.
Strieber’s writings have been adapted into various movies and TV shows, contributing to his global acclaim as a best-selling author. However, his popularity soared after the publication of “Communion” in 1987, a non-fiction novel detailing his encounter with non-human intelligent beings. The book became a major success, reaching the No. 1 spot on The New York Times’ non-fiction bestseller list.
In 1989, a film adaptation of “Communion” was released, featuring actors Christopher Walken and Lindsay Crouse. The author’s real encounter with aliens happened on December 26, 1985, when he was sleeping alone in his cabin in the woods, upstate New York. That night, Strieber was awakened by an unusual noise. When he opened his eyes, he saw a small alien creature approaching his bed.
“Throughout the world, there is a certain type of face, a being that’s seen again and again and again. With a long, thin face and big black eyes, sometimes the head seems quite big, as in the Betty Andreas case. In others, like in my case, they seem smaller, and the beings are taller. But that basic configuration, that basic sort of non-human configuration, seems to be repeated again and again and again in experiences all over the world,” Strieber said.
Whitley Strieber
The next thing Strieber remembered was finding himself sitting in the surrounding woods with fragmented memories of what had transpired. To uncover the truth and regain his memories, he decided to undergo regressive hypnosis administered by Dr. Donald F. Klein. He recalled he had been abducted and physically assaulted by someone whom he designated as “Visitors” to keep the possibility of extraterrestrials’ involvement low.
Under hypnosis, Strieber recalled being “floated” out of his bedroom and taken aboard a UFO. During this experience, he encountered four different types of alien beings: a small robot-like being, a short and stocky type, a slender one, and a weak-looking being. Whatever he had recalled in the hypnosis became the story of his best-selling novel. Since that night, he was full of curiosity about the unknown visitors.
Strieber described that one of the beings had captivating black slanted eyes, while the last being had black button eyes. He further said that he underwent medical experiments conducted by those extraterrestrial beings. The experiments included a needle being inserted into his brain and an object being inserted into his rectum. Additionally, the beings extracted a blood sample from him by making an incision in his finger, indicating a series of invasive procedures.
As a result of the bizarre incidents described, Dr. Klein diagnosed Strieber with “temporal lobe epilepsy,” a condition known to cause hallucinations. However, Strieber did not accept this diagnosis and continued to claim that his abduction was a real experience. In fact, he went on to establish a foundation to provide support for other individuals who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, forming a support group for alien abductees.
Cover page of Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber, showing the face of an alien that resembles the famous Grey aliens
In 1998, Strieber had another strange encounter at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto. He was awakened at 2:30 in the morning by a knock at the door, expecting room service, but instead found a mysterious man. Stieber told the Huffington Post: “I got up to open the door, thinking it was the room service waiter. It was not. It was a man I described as about 5 and a half feet tall, older-looking, like someone in his 70s. He wore dark-colored clothing, a turtleneck, and charcoal slacks.”
Strieber described this encounter in his book “The Key: A True Encounter,” published in 2000. The stranger engaged Strieber in a conversation about life lessons, science, and ethics. He expressed a desire to help humanity escape from a cycle of violence and self-destruction. When asked about technology, the stranger mentioned that an intelligent machine would continually seek to enhance its intelligence for survival. The conversation touched upon various topics, including the existence of multiple universes and catastrophic events in Earth’s history.
During the 45-minute conversation, Strieber grew increasingly curious and asked many questions. However, at one point, the stranger offered him a drink, which caused him to fall asleep immediately. The stranger’s true identity remains unknown, leaving Strieber contemplating the future of humanity and the undiscovered realms of science.
While many people remain skeptical about Strieber’s claim of alien abduction, John B. Alexander, a former Green Beret Commander and weapons developer, has regarded Strieber as an intelligent and thoughtful researcher in the field.
Author Whitley Strieber approached the subject of alien abductions differently than his contemporaries in the 1980s. While others focused on the idea that extraterrestrial scientists were stealing human DNA, Strieber delved into the controversial aspects of his own experiences with what he called the Visitors. He used this term because he was not sure if his captors were truly alien in the conventional sense. Strieber believed they might represent something beyond human comprehension.
In his book “Transformation,” a sequel to “Communion,” Strieber explored traumatic encounters of abductees who believed the Visitors (also known as Greys) had the ability to extract the immortal human soul from the physical body. He received a response from the Visitors, explaining that they recycled souls and that Earth was like a school where souls learn, grow, and evolve through successive reincarnations.
Strieber’s realization that the abduction phenomenon was stranger than initially thought was shared by Harvard professor John E. Mack. Mack encountered abductees who believed the entities they encountered were soul-stealers. In Mack’s book “Passport to the Cosmos,” he recounted the story of an abductee named Greg who feared being separated from his soul, believing it would lead to the end of his consciousness and existence.
Evidence of ancient lake sediments at the base of Mars' Jezero crater offer new hope for finding traces of life in samples collected by NASA's Perseverance rover.
An illustration of Jezero Crater, the landing locale of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover as it might have appeared billions of years ago when it was perhaps a life-sustaining lake.(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Evidence of ancient lake sediments at the base of Mars' Jezero Crater offer new hope for finding traces of life in samples collected by NASA's Perseverance rover.
Perseverance touched down on Feb. 18, 2021 inside the Red Planet's 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which is believed to have once hosted a large lake and river delta. The rover has been scouring the crater in search of signs of past life and collecting and caching dozens of samples along the way for a possible future return to Earth.
Using the rover's Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) instrument, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo revealed new clues about how sediment layers formed over time on the crater floor, according to a statement.
"From orbit we can see a bunch of different deposits, but we can't tell for sure if what we're seeing is their original state, or if we're seeing the conclusion of a long geological story," David Paige, first author of the study, RIMFAX's deputy principal investigator and UCLA professor, said in the statement. "To tell how these things formed, we need to see below the surface."
As Perseverance travels across the surface of Mars, the RIMFAX instrument sends radar waves downward at 4-inch (10-centimeter) intervals and measures pulses reflected from depths of about 65.6 feet (20 meters) below the surface to create a subsurface profile of the crater floor.
The RIMFAX data showed evidence of sediment deposited by water that once filled the crater. It's possible that microbial life could have lived in the crater at this time and, if such life existed on Mars, sediment samples from this area would contain signs of their remains.
Two distinct periods of deposition occurred, creating layers of sediments on the crater floor that appear regular and horizontal, much like strata layers seen on Earth. Fluctuations in the lake's water levels caused some of the sediment deposits to form an enormous delta, which Perseverance traversed between May and December 2022, according to the statement.
Mars Perseverance Rover RIMFAX ground penetrating radar measurements of the Hawksbill Gap region of Jezero Crater. (Image credit: Svein-Erik Hamran, Tor Berger, David Paige, University of Oslo, UCLA, California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA)
The radar measurements also show an uneven crater floor below the delta, which is likely due to erosion before sediments were first deposited. After, as the lake dried up over time, the sediment layers in the crater were eroded, forming the geologic features visible on the Martian surface today.
"The changes we see preserved in the rock record are driven by large-scale changes in the Martian environment," Paige said in the statement. "It's cool that we can see so much evidence of change in such a small geographic area, which allows us [to] extend our findings to the scale of the entire crater."
Their findings were published today (Jan. 26) in the journal Science Advances.
Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley provides a guided tour of the richly detailed 360-degree panorama taken by the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument at the “Airey Hill” location in November. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS; ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin
This animated artist’s concept depicts water breaking through the rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater, which NASA’s Perseverance rover is now exploring. Water entered the crater billions of years ago, forming a lake, delta, and rivers before the Red Planet dried up.
Joseph Simonton, a poultry farmer was sixty years old at the time of his encounter with a flying saucer. He reportedly received some pancakes as a gift from the ETs who were inside that craft. The farmer lived near Eagle River, Wisconsin, United States.
On April 18, 1961, Simonton was having breakfast in the late morning in his home when he heard a confusing noise near his farm. He looked out his window and stunned after seeing a silver disc hovering over his backyard. The UFO was four meters high and 10 meters in diameter.
Joseph Simonton holding a pancake that he received from the pilots of the flying saucer
Simonton was rather curious to check on the object than shocked. When he stepped outside, a hatch on the disc opened and three dark-skinned humanoid figures appeared. According to the farmer, they were mute and looked like the Italian. The aliens were about five feet tall, dressed up in tight clothes from head to toes.
The man said that one of the aliens had some vessel (like a bucket) and signaled him to fill it with water. He took the bucket, filled it with the water from the nearby pump, and returned it to the alien. Simonton noticed that inside the ship, it was totally dark and one of the ship’s crew was busy with the dashboard while others seemed to be prepared for cooking on a flameless grill. The creatures looked nice and offered him four pancakes that had tiny holes. After that, they closed the hatch, started the ship, slowly rose it some distance from the ground, and flew away tow ard the south. Simonton, holding four pancakes, watched this amazing scene with his eyes wide open.
Interestingly, at the same time, this incident caught one more witness. Savino Borgo, an insurance agent who was driving near Simonton’s farm, also saw a flying saucer.
Simonton tasted one of the pancakes but was not impressed by the friendly aliens’ cooking. According to him, it tasted like cardboard. Normally, such stories are called fake due to their bizarre nature but this one got the attention of the US authorities. After the neighbors spotted a UFO over Simonton’s farm, they called the US Air Force. They arrived with the members of Project Blue Book.
One of the aliens’ pancakes was given to a local judge by Simonton who vouched for his honesty and reliability. The second pancake was received by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and the third one was handed over to the Food and Drug Administration by the Air Force. After some analysis, it was found out that the pancakes were made from completely earthy products.
Within a few days, this strange story turned from an interesting UFO encounter into a nationwide joke. The newspapers spoke of the incident in a derisive tone, but the people who had known Simonton for a long time believed him. When Dr. Hynek met Simonton for the first time, he was quite impressed by his behavior. He wrote in one of his Project Blue Book reports that Simonton knew that they would not believe him but he did not care. He simply assured that whatever he witnessed had happened in reality.
Two weeks after the sighting, Simonton told a United Press International reporter that “if it happened again, I don’t think I”d tell anybody about it.”
Simonton lived In the Eagle River which is surrounded by forests and lakes and is close to the Michigan border. In the following month of the incident, the area suffered a power failure and all the telephone lines were also affected. Besides, a fighter jet (B-47 bomber) crashed 60 miles from Eagle River on February 24 of the same year, and on May 2, another plane crashed near that area. The pilot in the second crash said: “I felt this weightlessness and I was hanging by my straps” just before the crash. The place had many strange UFO sightings from 1959 to 1963 but never got public attention.
The Eagle River UFO incident has been unsolved. The Air Force said that Simonton mistook a dream and considered it a reality.
A NASA-funded study that evaluated a key strategic location on the Moon with help from imagery obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has revealed the presence of moonquakes and faults in areas near the lunar south pole, which the space agency plans to utilize for future crewed space missions.
The study found that the Moon’s interior is shrinking over time as it cools, a phenomenon that is giving rise to tremors and other seismic activity occurring near the vicinity of the Moon’s south polar region.
The findings could present complications for NASA’s Artemis program, particularly its third mission which will involve crewed lunar exploration that may use the Moon’s south pole for potential landing sites.
Tom Watters, a Senior Scientist with the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution, says current models reveal shallow moonquakes resulting from fault activity that could produce violent ground shaking in the Moon’s south pole region.
Watters, an expert on tectonic landforms on the Earth and the Moon and the lead author of a paper detailing the new findings, says the potential thrust fault activity in the region “should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon.”
LRO image depicting the the Wiechert cluster of lobate scarps, as detailed with arrows pointing leftward, located near the lunar south pole
(Credit: NASA/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution)
Currently, thousands of small, relatively new thrust faults have been detected in the lunar crust, as revealed in imagery collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). LRO Deputy Project Scientist Maria Banks, also a co-author of the new study, called the imagery “a good demonstration of one of the many ways in which LRO data is being used to assist planning for our return to the Moon.”
According to the team, these thrust faults detected in LRO imagery are the result of contractions driven by factors that include the Moon’s hot interior gradually cooling over time, which breaks the crust and misaligns the separate halves, producing steep banks resembling steps on a staircase.
Shallow moonquakes have also been detected in conjunction with the formation of these thrust faults by seismometers associated with the Apollo Passive Seismic Network, the strongest of which had an epicenter that was traced to the lunar south pole.
Based on models used in the recent study, the formation of a young thrust fault scarp in the de Gerlache Rim 2, a location NASA has identified as a potential landing site for Artemis III, could have been associated with a moonquake of comparable strength.
Above: Predicted areas of surface slope instability in areas near the lunar south pole, as revealed in models produced by Watters and the team during the recent NASA-funded study (Credit: NASA/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution)
Also of concern is the potential for regolith landslides that may occur, which the recent study shows could result even from much milder seismic activity.
In the years ahead, NASA aims to work with its international and commercial partners to establish the first long-term human presence on the lunar surface under its Artemis program, in addition to landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.
However, Renee Weber with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and a co-author of the new study, says that understanding seismic hazards that may potentially impact future human lunar exploration during the Artemis missions, as well as those further in the future, will require additional seismic data from regions around the Moon, and not just its south pole.
“Missions like the upcoming Farside Seismic Suite will expand upon measurements made during Apollo,” Weber said in a statement, “and add to our knowledge of global seismicity.”
The team’s recent paper, “Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region,” was published on January 25, 2024, in The Planetary Science Journal.
A series of UFO incidents occurred between 2007 and 2009 in the town of Kumburgaz, situated near Istanbul, Turkey. The events stunned the media and UFO enthusiasts after the images and videos of the sightings went viral on the Internet. The video evidence of UFOs shared by a nightwatchman named Yalcin Yalman could be another strong evidence of non-human technology.
Back in 2008, Yalcin Yalman worked as a night watchman at the Yenikent facility from where he shot all these amazing videos of UFOs, hovering over the Marmara Sea near Kumburgaz. He even showed his second-hand camera to the media in a press conference held at the Dedeman Hotel in Istanbul.
Yalman said he started recording the strange crafts as a hobby to pass his time in the night. Due to the shaky videos, some skeptics claimed that the mysterious objects over the skies of Turkey could have been a US stealth drone or other aircraft. However, numerous experts confirmed that the videos were authentic. Besides, many people witnessed the same unknown crafts in the sky. The sightings gained attention from locals, national media, and even CNN. Several videos were recorded between June 8 and 12, 2009, showing mysterious objects and lights.
Originally, the video was analyzed and made public by the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center led by researcher Haktan Akdoğan. Haktan said the UFOs were often seen by civilians and military pilots during an International UFO Congress in 2009. (Source)
In 2009, after the conference, there were witnesses of 8-10 people including UFOlogist Dr. Roger Leir, who also witnessed and verified the Kumburgaz UFO sighting. Dr. Leir was present during the filming of one video on May 17, 2009, and confirmed that as the UAP turned, it was similar to the “Roswell” shaped craft (more boomerang-shaped) rather than a traditional disc. Dr. Leir discussed this incident that happened with him after the conference on Coast to Coast with George Knapp.
Yalcin Yalman (Left) sitting next to Akdoğan (Right), showing his camera during a press conference in Istanbul in 2009
Dr. Leir told Knapp that he, Yalman and others went to Kumburgaz to film UFOs. The group stayed up from midnight to 4 o’clock in the morning to capture any possible sightings. The conditions were ideal, with clear skies and no obstructions. During the filming, they observed a bright object below the full moon, which initially appeared as a potential star or planet. As they focused on this object, they discovered a semi-circular craft with a multitude of lights, possibly shaped like a boomerang or a cylindrical saucer.
Dr. Leir said,
“You’d think, ‘Well, gee, a bright sky, bright moon, you’re not going to see anything.’ But in this case, the moon was a big help. It essentially lit up the exterior portion of the craft, which initially, when we saw it, looked a bit like a boomerang because we weren’t seeing it straight on, so we couldn’t tell the exact shape of the craft. But then we went to full film on it, and we could see that it was either a boomerang, or we were looking at a certain portion of a cylindrical craft or a saucer.
Till this day, I don’t know, and I don’t know what the analysts said about the shape. But it was either one of the two: either a boomerang shape with a round front or a complete saucer. It did turn a couple of times, so we were able to see the side, and it looked like it could have been saucer-shaped. But then we got the biggest shock of our lives because we could see light that was emanating from the internal portion of the craft in three areas. One was directly in front, and one was on either side.
This was a full-on front view, and folks can look at the Coast website and they can not only see the video but please go to the Chilean analysis because there are some still photos there which show what we saw when we looked in the central portion. That was a big shock to look and see, not a Rorschach-type thing, but actual entities that were, whatever they were doing, looking out the front of the craft, just the same as we were looking at them.”
Video Observation
From 2007 to 2009, Yalman recorded approximately 30 videos. The footage was taken with a MiniDV Canon DM-GR1-A based on the NTSC system with a diaphragm set at a maximum of 1.8. It is a 3CCD 20x optic 100x with a teleconverter mounted on a 58 mm adapter. The tele-objective is a Sony VCL HGD 1758 model lens, x 1.7. [2007 to 2009 Original Raw Footage]
The videos were examined by two influential state-sponsored organizations in Turkey, “The Scientific and Technology Research Board of Turkey” and “The TUG National Observatory.” Their objective was to identify any evidence of forgery, but the results supported the authenticity of the videos. The original film cassettes were also studied by individuals from Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Russia, and despite several attempts, no one has been able to conclusively demonstrate evidence of a hoax, fraud, or manipulation, leaving the case unidentified.
Yalman’s camera was equipped with a zoom option which allowed him to even capture the pilots, sitting in one of the crafts. The image is shaky due to the hand movements while zooming. However, with the editing software, the video was stabilized, and the result shocked everyone. Two humanoid figures could be seen in the image with large black eyes and oversized heads.
Haktan Akdoğan noted that these are the most important images in Turkey and in the world, saying: “After doing all the necessary analysis which went on for several weeks, the board came to a definite conclusion with no doubt that these are 100% genuine videos. The objects sighted in the aforementioned footage that have a structure that is made of specific material are definitely not made up by any kind of computer animation nor are they any form of special effects used for simulation in a studio or for a video effect therefore in conclusion it was decided that the sightings were neither a mock up or hoax. It is concluded that these objects in the sightings that have physical and material structures do not belong in any category such as; planes, helicopters, meteors, Venus, Mars, satellites, fireballs, Chinese lanterns, fireballs, weather balloons, natural or atmospheric phenomenon etc. and but rather fall into the category of UFOs.”
“We see the heads of not only one UFO but also of two beings in the images. This is the first in the world.” He further added that those images would have a great impact on UFOlogy. He had been researching UFOs for 22 years and had never seen something like this. He stated: “These are the most remarkable images taken in Turkish history.”
[In translation] Akdoğan stated that “these beings are generally seen in areas rich with resources, volcanic areas, and historical places. They started to come more frequently after nuclear tests. Maybe the released radiation also harms the cosmic neighbors, we disrupt the balance in the universe. Maybe they observe this dangerous process.” (Source)
The images were recorded in digital NTSC format by the above-mentioned camera.
The date on the video indicates that the recordings were made during 2007, 2008, and 2009.
The footage images of the object that visibly have a certain configuration are not computer animations, special video effects or studio-re-created images or models. The footage is genuine.
The first observation made from the footage is that some of the images were recorded in the nighttime sky at a certain altitude from the horizon. The footage also covers images of the moon in some parts which proves that the video was shot in the nighttime and open air. But, the fact that digital date displays show AM in certain frames and PM in others, raises suspicion about the validity of the time in which the recordings were made.
Since in some parts, there is no other object that can be featured as a reference in the close-up frames and no observable differences were found on background examination, the actual location, distance, dimensions and nature of the objects could not have been determined.
Through the examination of shootings of multiple dates, it is a strong possibility that 2-3 different objects were captured. However, it is difficult to determine whether the objects are moving or not. Their movement is slow even if they do so.
The reflections of light on the objects are sometimes caused by the moon which was in a convenient location at that time, and sometimes produced by some other sources of light.
The light reflection from the left side of the object which is seen on the August 10th shootings is not produced by the moon. At that time, the moon was in a phase that was pretty close to the “new moon” phase and located approximately at a 10-degree proximity/angle to the horizon. Moreover, the image processing analysis conducted on some parts of the footage revealed that the center of the object has the same density as its background, namely is of a transparent nature.
Not Debunked
Adam Goldstack of UAP Media UK mentions that many debunkers try to explain the craft as cruise ships but according to former F-16 fighter pilot and researcher Chris Letho, it does not add up. Letho analyzed the videos and case and calculated the object’s size, horizon distance, plus visual angles from the Marmara Sea. He concluded the logistics of a cruise ship did not match the reported UAP. (Source)
Additionally, the triangulation of the UAP in most video cases was calculated to be too high to be a cruise ship or boat, by other researchers. Alternatively, in the fixed/stabilized camera videos (as shown below), we can see that the objects are motionless against a black background in the vast majority of videos. The motionless aspect of the UAP could also discount the “small-boat theory,” given that even on calm waters/oceans floating objects will still move and rock around slightly. Additionally, despite the mass mainstream media coverage in Turkey at the time, no person has ever come forward to state that the objects/boats belonged to them or that they were sailing off the coast in the middle of the night.
Goldstack writes, “From an analytical perspective, the Turkey Kumburgaz UFO case is unique with regards to the clear and multiple video footage obtained. Through this case, we also have sequential data that display behavioral patterns, times, and dates. We see all of the twenty-five video encounters/incidents at night-time/early morning (with one in the late evening), which is in keeping with the wider range of Ufology data that suggests UAP often appears at night-time.
We also see another significant pattern displaying the encounters around water – in this case, the Marmara Sea. The Sea of Marmara itself is a small sea with an area of 11,350 km2 (4,380 sq mi) and with dimensionsea of 280 km × 80 km (174 mi × 50 mi). The sea has a greatest depth of 1,370 m (4,490 ft). How significant the Sea of Marmara is to potential UAP has still not been explained. No connection to nuclr facilities or weapons has been linked in this case.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Top 10 Must See UFO Docs
Top 10 Must See UFO Docs
The enigma of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and the possibility of extraterrestrial life has always fascinated humanity. With countless theories, eyewitness accounts, and unexplained phenomena, the quest for the truth remains a topic of intrigue and debate. For those drawn to the mysteries of the cosmos and the unexplained, here is a curated list of the top 10 must-see UFO documentaries that delve into these perplexing mysteries.
Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery This documentary takes us back to 1966 in a suburb where over 200 students and a teacher witnessed an inexplicable flying object. The film revisits this iconic event through eyewitness accounts, recreating the sense of wonder and bewilderment that enveloped the community.
Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything While not exclusively about UFOs, this series explores various topics, including a fascinating episode where a viewer spots what appears to be a UFO. The series broadens our understanding of how interconnected our universe really is.
UFOs and Nukes: The Secret Link Revealed Delving into declassified documents, this film uncovers the mysterious sightings of UFOs at nuclear testing sites. It’s a thought-provoking exploration of the potential relationship between UFO sightings and nuclear technology.
Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs This documentary tells the poignant story of Christo Ropo and his encounters with UFOs, offering a humanizing perspective on the individuals who claim to have experienced these phenomena.
Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? A controversial documentary that aired in 1995, it claimed to depict a real alien autopsy. Despite later being debunked, the film played a significant role in shaping public perception and debate about extraterrestrial life.
ove and Saucers This heartwarming documentary focuses on a 72-year-old man who shares his extraordinary experiences and encounters with aliens, depicted through his own paintings. It’s a unique take on the alien narrative, blending creativity with personal testimony.
The UnXplained Hosted by the iconic William Shatner, this series explores various mysteries, including several episodes dedicated to UFO phenomena. It provides a comprehensive look at government cover-ups and hotspots for UFO activity.
Out of the Blue Renowned for its compelling narrative, this documentary offers a comprehensive overview of UFO sightings globally. It combines scientific perspectives with eyewitness accounts to present a balanced view of the UFO phenomenon.
A Strange Harvest Investigating the bizarre and unsettling phenomenon of cattle mutilations, this documentary explores theories that attribute these occurrences to extraterrestrial activities. It’s a gripping tale that blends mystery with investigative journalism.
Alien Worlds This speculative documentary uses science as a foundation to imagine what life on other planets might be like. It’s a creative blend of science fiction and factual science, expanding our perception of potential extraterrestrial life.
Each of these documentaries offers a unique lens through which we can view the enduring mystery of UFOs. Whether you’re a skeptic, a believer, or simply curious, these films provide a compelling exploration of one of the most intriguing questions of our time: Are we alone in the universe?
The Moon is Still Shrinking, Explaining Why it Still Has Landslides Although our Moon forme
Artemis mission landing locations near the South Pole of the Moon. Blue boxes indicate selected landing spots, while small red marks are locations of scarps caused by moonquakes. Credit: NASA/ LRO/ LROC/ASU/ Smithsonian Institution
The Moon is Still Shrinking, Explaining Why it Still Has Landslides
Although our Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago, it’s still evolving. The interior continues to cool and its orbit is slowly changing. As a result, the Moon has lost 150 feet of its circumference. That shrinkage contributes to near-constant moonquakes, and those trigger landslides and other surface changes. The Moon is currently uninhabited, but all that activity threatens future Artemis landing sites and missions at the South Pole.
In a recent paper, planetary scientists point out that the potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be a top consideration when NASA and other agencies are planning permanent outposts on the Moon. This is particularly true as the Artemis mission planners plot exploration of the South Pole. “Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said the study’s lead author Thomas R. Watters, a senior scientist emeritus in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. “The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active, and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon.”
The Moon is particularly vulnerable to the large-scale effects of moonquakes. That’s because its surface is very brittle and easily broken up during a quake. One of the strongest quakes in lunar history occurred in the 1970s and lasted for hours. Such a lengthy event does quite a bit of damage to the lunar surface. So, even a light moonquake could cause significant damage via landslides.
Our Shaky, Shrinking Moon
Moonquakes generally happen within a hundred miles or so of the lunar surface. On Earth, that might result in a fairly mild quake. But, since the Moon’s surface is so brittle, the effects of those “shakes” are much more noticeable. According to Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the Moon.
“You can think of the Moon’s surface as being dry, grounded gravel and dust,” he said. “Over billions of years, the surface has been hit by asteroids and comets, with the resulting angular fragments constantly getting ejected from the impacts,” Schmerr explained. “As a result, the reworked surface material can be micron-sized to boulder-sized, but all very loosely consolidated. Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur.”
An LROC NAC mosaic of the Wiechert cluster of lobate scarps in Moon’s south pole region, left pointing arrows). A scarp crosscuts a small (?1 km) degraded crater (right-pointing arrow).
Quakes affect every part of the lunar surface. Global compressional stresses deform the surface, forcing splits and cracks to occur. These scarps—steep slopes and cliffs—exist everywhere there. In their paper, the team suggests that many are close to the epicenters of geologically recent quakes. And the regions where they occurred could still be active today. That includes the lunar South Pole.
Risks to Artemis
The team led by Watters examined data and images of the lunar South Pole and linked faults there to a major moonquake in the 1970s. The region is filled with scarps, which are prime evidence for moonquakes. Although they conclude that some regions in the area are probably safe enough for the Artemis missions, others are not. The team’s computer models show that the most dangerous areas are vulnerable to landslides triggered by seismic shaking. They continue to map the Moon and track its quakes to identify the riskiest areas for Artemis astronauts to land.
A mosaic of Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole region. It shows a portion of an interior wall and floor, with arrows pointing to boulder falls likely created during seismic shaking during a moonquake. Image courtesy: NASA/KARI/ASU
That mission could take place by the end of the decade, when NASA hopes to establish long-term habitations for research and exploration. Schmerr points out that the risks to safety from even the slightest quakes can’t be overestimated. “As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment, and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said. “This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the moon—whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”
The Artemis missions essentially mark NASA’s return to human exploration of the Moon. The idea is to collaborate with both commercial partners and international agencies to make this happen. Teams of lunar astronauts will establish an Artemis Base camp, and depend on a lunar gateway to connect the mission to Earth. Eventually, what they learn there will inform the first human missions to Mars.
Watch a House-Sized Space Habitat (Intentionally) Burst
We live in an age of renewed space exploration, colloquially known as Space Age 2.0. Unlike the previous one, this new space age is characterized by inter-agency cooperation and collaboration between space agencies and the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace). In addition to sending crews back to the Moon and onto Mars, a major objective of the current space age is the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). That means large constellations of satellites, debris mitigation, and plenty of commercial space stations.
To accommodate this commercial presence in LEO, Sierra Space has developed the Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat, an inflatable module that can be integrated into future space stations. As part of the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, NASA, Sierra Space, and ILC Dover (the Delaware-based engineering manufacturing company) recently conducted a full-scale burst pressure test of their LIFE habitat. The test occurred at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and was caught on video (see below).
Commercial space has become one of the fastest-growing businesses on Earth. In the past decade, the space economy has expanded by over 60% and is currently valued at around $400 billion. This is expected to grow considerably in the coming years as launch services increase, small satellites (CubeSats) become more affordable, and orbital stations are built. As the International Space Station (ISS) nears retirement, these commercial stations will provide opportunities for research and development, orbital manufacturing, and space tourism.
Sierra Space, the developer of the Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane, has demonstrated its commitment to the commercialization of LEO and the NewSpace economy. The first iteration of their inflatable habitat, LIFE 1.0, measures 6 meters (~20 feet) long and 9 meters (~30 feet) in diameter and can be launched using conventional rockets and inflates once in orbit. With a volume of 285 cubic meters (over 10,000 ft3), it can accommodate four astronauts, with additional room for science experiments, exercise equipment, and Sierra Space’s Astro Garden® plant-growing system.
The purpose of a burst pressure test is to gauge the structural tolerances of a component, be it a fuel tank or an inflatable module. The data gained from this test will assist engineers in simulating how the module will fare in the vacuum of space. Once development and testing are complete, the module will be used on commercial space stations like Orbital Reef, a collaborative effort between Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Future versions, like Life 2.0 and 3.0, will offer additional volume and be able to accommodate larger crews and more science operations.
According to their National Strategic Plan (released in 2022), one of NASA’s strategic goals is to develop a human spaceflight economy in collaboration with the NewSpace industry. In 2021, as part of a Commercial LEO Destinations (CLDs) project, NASA Space Act Agreements with three companies to design commercial space stations. This includes the Orbital Reef proposed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, the Starlab space station by Nanoracks LLC, Voyager Space, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman’s free flyer commercial space station.
Starlab, from Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin – a continuously crewed, free-flying commercial space station in low-Earth Orbit. Credits: NanoRacks/Lockheed Martin/Voyager Space
As per NASA’s plan, creating a human spaceflight economy will ensure continued research and development in space while “allowing NASA to focus Government resources on the challenges of deep space exploration through Artemis.” Another goal is to maintain the legacy of the ISS long past its retirement:
“Since its inception, industry, academia, and our international partners have used the International Space Station (ISS) as a testbed for research and the development and maturation of state-of-the-art systems that increase access to space. NASA is supporting new space stations from which we and other customers can purchase services and stimulate the growth of commercial human spaceflight activities. As commercial LEO destinations become available, we intend to implement an orderly transition from current ISS operations to these new commercial destinations.”
Our planet sits in the Habitable Zone of our Sun, the special place where water can be liquid on the surface of a world. But that’s not the only thing special about us: we also sit in the Galactic Habitable Zone, the region within the Milky Way where the rate of star formation is just right.
The Earth was born with all the ingredients necessary for life – something that most other planets lack. Water as a solvent. Carbon, with its ability to form long chains and bind to many other atoms, a scaffold. Oxygen, easily radicalized and transformable from element to element, to provide the chain reactions necessary to store and harvest energy. And more: hydrogen, phosphorous, nitrogen. Some elements fused in the hearts of stars, other only created in more violent processes like the deaths of the most massive stars or the collisions of exotic white dwarfs.
And with that, a steady, long-lived Sun, free of the overwhelming solar flares that could drown the system in deadly radiation, providing over 10 billion years of life-giving warmth. Larger stars burn too bright and too fast, their enormous gravitational weight accelerating the fusion reactions in their cores to a frenetic pace, forcing the stars to burn themselves out in only a few million years. And on the other end of the spectrum sit the smaller red dwarf stars, some capable of living for 10 trillion years or more. But that longevity does not come without a cost. With their smaller sizes, their fusion cores are not very far from their surfaces, and any changes or fluctuations in energy result in massive flares that consume half their faces – and irradiate their systems.
And on top of it all, our neighborhood in the galaxy, on a small branch of a great spiral arm situated about 25,000 light-years from the center, seems tuned for life: a Galactic Habitable Zone.
Too close to the center and any emerging life must contend with an onslaught of deadly radiation from countless stellar deaths and explosions, a byproduct of the cramped conditions of the core. Yes, stars come and go, quickly building up a lot of the heavy elements needed for life, but stars can be hundreds of times closer together in the core. The Earth has already suffered some extinction events likely triggered by nearby supernovae, and in that environment we simply wouldn’t stand a chance. Explosions would rip away our protective ozone layer, exposing surface life to deadly solar UV radiation, or just rip away our atmosphere altogether.
And beyond our position, at greater galactic radii, we find a deserted wasteland. Yes, stars appear and live their lives in those outskirts, but they are too far and too lonely to effectively spread their elemental ash to create a life-supporting mixture. There simply isn’t enough density of stars to support sufficient levels of mixing and recycling of elements, meaning that it’s difficult to even build a planet out there in the first place.
And so it seems that life would almost inevitably arise here, on this world, around this Sun, in thisregion of the Milky Way galaxy. There’s little else that we could conceivably call home.
Another Asteroid Discovered Hours Before it Impacts the Earth
What were you doing last Saturday? As it turns out, I was doing something rather unexciting… Trying to fix my washing machine (I did – in case you are interested). At the same time, Hungarian geography teacher by day and asteroid hunter by night Krisztián Sárneczky was out observing and detected a small asteroid which it transpired was on a collision course with Earth!
Spotting asteroids is a tricky business. Not least because they are typically dark in colour against a very black sky but the sky is quite a big place and spotting a tiny dark object against a massive black sky is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack!
Unperturbed by the statistics and likelihood of actually discovering one, Sárneczky regularly scours the sky looking for asteroids and supernova at the Konkoly observatory in Budapest, Hungary. He was engaged in this very task last Saturday night (20th January) at 22:48 CET (21:48 UT) when he spotted a new asteroid using a 0.6m Schmidt Telescope. Any discovery of this sort requires swift action to get the data over to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) who co-ordinate observations from astronomers around the World.
Sárneczky only had three observations when he submitted the data but continued to observe and over the course of the following minutes secured four more observations which he passed over realising it was heading straight for Earth. The actions that follow any such discovery like this are that the MPC alert others for follow up observations. Astronomers and automated impact monitoring systems including the European Space Agency’s wonderfully named ‘MeerKAT’ system sprang into action and more observations came in.
A radio image of the central portions of the Milky Way galaxy composited with a view of the MeerKAT radio observatory. Radio bubbles and associated vertical magnetized filaments can be seen. Courtesy: MeerKAT/SARAO/Oxford University/Heywood
With more data, came more accuracy and thankfully the knowledge the the impactor was only about a metre across and due to impact just west of Berlin in Germany. It is not unusual for asteroids of this size to hit Earth indeed, we get them every couple of weeks but they generally burn up in the atmosphere and pose no threat. Larger asteroids that do pose a threat are thankfully much rarer. Larger objects are also easier to spot so the majority have already been spotted and are already being tracked but there are automated searches and individuals like Sárneczky who are always on the look out.
The asteroid, which is now known as 2024-BX1 hit the Earth’s atmosphere just a few hours after discovery at 01:32 CET (00:32 UT) on Sunday morning the 21st January, 50km to the west of Berlin. It burned up, leaving a fabulous streak across the sky which people witnessed as a fireball even being spotted over here in the UK.
Worryingly it is actually quite an unusual thing for asteroids to have been discovered before they impact our atmosphere. Only eight have been spotted with the first back in 2008. The difficulty of course is to find them early enough to give us time to understand their trajectory and size to understand what level of threat they pose to us. I should add there are no known asteroids on a collision course with Earth and fortunately there are people like Sárneczky and a number of automated search systems out there on the lookout for the next one.
US officials do not have the capabilities to defend America against a hypothetical alien invasion, internal Pentagon watchdogs have determined.
A newly declassified document found the Department of Defense (DoD) lacks comprehensive or coordinated effort to track and analyze UFOs - which have been rebranded Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) in recent years.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) made the eerie conclusion that this blindspot in the DoD's defensive capabilities 'poses a threat to military forces and national security.'
To address the issues identified in this report, the OIG has made 11 recommendations, including the enforcement of protection policies and the development of new tools in the event of an extraterrestrial attack.
A newly declassified document determined the Department of Defense (DoD) lacks comprehensive or coordinated effort to track and analyze UAP, such as one spotted by the US Navy in 2004
'However, military pilots have continued to report UAP incidents despite the sporadic efforts of the DoD to identify, report, and analyze the events'
The 2023 report was a collection of evaluations on whether the Pentagon, military branches, defense agencies and counterintelligence organizations conducted actions 'to detect, report, collect, analyze, and identify UAP.'
'The DoD has not issued a comprehensive UAP response plan that identifies roles, responsibilities, requirements, and coordination procedures for detecting, reporting, collecting, analyzing, and identifying UAP incidents,' OIG concluded.
The agency conducted the work for the evaluation from May 2021 through June 2023 and interviewed Presidential and DoD policies, directives and guidance.
Those individuals are tasked with establishing requirements for intelligence gathering, counterintelligence, force protection, and civil liberty protections for
'As a result, the DoD response to UAP incidents is uncoordinated and concentrated within each Military Department.'
In July 2022, the Pentagon set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), to handle reports of UAPs.
AARO is responsible for synchronizing and standardizing the collection, analysis, and identification of UAP incidents.
Inspector General Robert P. Storch announced the declassification of the report on Thursday, noting it was released due to the 'significant public interest in how the DoD is addressing UAPs'
However, OIG has questioned the abilities of the nation to organize and defend itself in a summary of the classified report.
OIG found that due to a lack of DoD-level guidance, AARO has not developed a formal process to detect and report on unidentified object in US skies.
UAPs are designated as 'Special Interest Items' among military officials, who require aircrews to document and report sightings within 24 hours of shutting down the engines of their own aircraft.
Some of those unexplained observations have been sent to AARO, but the reported noted that the DoD does not require military services to do so.
'DoD Components have largely excluded geographic combatant commands, which are responsible for detecting, deterring, and preventing threats and attacks against the United States and its territories, possessions, and bases in their respective areas of responsibility, in developing UAP policies and procedures,' OIG determined in the 16-page document.
In July 2022, the Pentagon set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), to handle reports of UAPs. AARO is responsible for identification of UAP incidents such as this observation in 2023 above LAX
To address the issues identified in the report, the DoD OIG said they have made eleven recommendations to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
For example, OIG recommended that the DoD issue a policy to integrate roles, responsibilities, requirements, and coordination procedures regarding UAP into existing intelligence, counterintelligence, and force protection policies and procedures,' the report reads.
The report also suggested the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issue guidance to 'the geographic combatant commanders regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena detection, reporting, collection, analysis, and identification within their area of responsibility.
'At a minimum, the guidance should include tools to help commands determine the threats posed by unidentified anomalous phenomena.'
Inspector General Robert P. Storch announced the declassification of the report on Thursday, noting it was released due to the 'significant public interest in how the DoD is addressing UAPs.'
'We are releasing this unclassified summary to be as transparent as possible with the American people about our oversight work on this important issue,' Storch shared in a statement.
A new genus and species of temnospondyl amphibian has been described by a team of paleontologists from the Universidade Federal do Pampa, the Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco, Princeton University and Harvard University.
An artist’s impression of Kwatisuchus rosai.
Image credit: Márcio Castro.
The newly-identified temnospondyl species roamed our planet during the Early Triassic epoch, some 249 million years ago.
Named Kwatisuchus rosai, the ancient animal was approximately 1.5 m (4.9 feet) in length.
It belonged to Benthosuchidae, a small group of giant crocodile-like amphibians that lived during the Triassic.
These creatures were primarily aquatic, living in rivers and lakes. They were up to 2.5 m (8.2 feet) in length and have no direct living relatives.
“Kwatisuchus rosai can be confidently assigned to the Benthosuchidae, a stereospondyl clade with a distribution previously restricted to the East European Platform,” said Universidade Federal do Pampa paleontologist Felipe Pinheiro and his colelagues.
“Phylogenetic analysis confirms the relationship of the new genus to the trematosaurian lineage, being closely related to the genus Benthosuchus.”
The skull of Kwatisuchus rosai.
Image credit: Felipe Pinheiro.
The fossilized skull of Kwatisuchus rosai was found in August 2022 in the Sanga do Cabral Formation, a sedimentary rock formation found in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
“Kwatisuchus rosai was a survivor,” said Dr. Pinheiro, led author of a paper published in The Anatomical Record.
“It lived in an environment devastated by the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.”
“Since they were animals adapted to conditions of high environmental stress, temnospondyl amphibians became abundant throughout the world.”
“They help us understand how extinctions affected the planet and how we can understand their effects today.”
“This was the most diverse group of primitive tetrapods, recorded on every continent on Earth,” said Dr. Estevan Eltink, a paleontologist at the Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco.
“Temnospondyls survived the greatest mass extinction of all time.”
“They have a broad record across geological periods, and had several pulses of irradiation over the millions of years of their existence.”
Felipe L. Pinheiro et al. Interrelationships among Early Triassic faunas of Western Gondwana and Laurasia as illuminated by a new South American benthosuchid temnospondyl. The Anatomical Record, published online January 19, 2024; doi: 10.1002/ar.25384
Professor of Religion Gives Her Take on the UFO Phenomenon
Professor of Religion Gives Her Take on the UFO Phenomenon
In a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” an intriguing dialogue unfolded, featuring Diana Walsh Pasulka, a respected Professor of Religion. The podcast delved into the enigmatic world of UFOs, offering a perspective that bridged the gap between the mystical and the empirical.
Pasulka, known for her in-depth research and scholarly approach, brought a unique lens to the topic. She emphasized the diverse nature of UFO phenomena, suggesting that these experiences, steeped in history, are more than mere sightings; they are interactions with something beyond our conventional understanding.
At the heart of Pasulka’s argument lies the idea of transformation. She posited that encounters with UFOs often lead individuals to seek justice and societal improvement. This pattern, illustrated through anecdotes from her research, points to a profound impact on human behavior and societal structures.
What stands out in Pasulka’s discourse is her holistic approach. She doesn’t shy away from considering interdimensional theories, proposing that some UFOs might be objects existing simultaneously in multiple dimensions. This hypothesis ties into the discussion of historical anomalies like the Shroud of Turin, suggesting a tangible intersection between the material world and unknown realms.
Pasulka also touched on the role of technology in shaping public perception of UFOs. With the advent of digital platforms, stories and experiences that were once isolated incidents have found a communal space, amplifying the phenomenon’s reach and impact. This digital age, as she notes, has allowed for a viral spread of information, akin to the rapid expansion seen in early religious movements.
In her conversation with Rogan, Pasulka navigated the complex web of government involvement, scientific inquiry, and public discourse surrounding UFOs. She hinted at a possible government acknowledgment of UFOs, a step that could lead to wider engagement in understanding these phenomena.
Moreover, Pasulka’s discussion ventured into the realms of historical parallels and religious implications. She drew connections between modern UFO experiences and esoteric traditions, suggesting a deeper, perhaps spiritual, dimension to these encounters.
Diana Walsh Pasulka’s appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” provided a nuanced, scholarly perspective on the UFO phenomenon. Her approach, blending historical insight with contemporary analysis, invites us to consider the broader implications of these mysterious encounters. It’s a conversation that not only piques curiosity but also encourages a thoughtful exploration of the unknown.
Unraveling the Mystery of the Cold War Era ‘Black Knight Satellite’
Unraveling the Mystery of the Cold War Era ‘Black Knight Satellite’
The Cold War era was a time of intense rivalry and technological race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Amidst this geopolitical tension, a curious incident unfolded that captured the imagination of the world: the discovery of an unidentified flying object (UFO) orbiting the Earth. This mysterious object, later known as the “Black Knight Satellite,” remains a subject of fascination and speculation even today.
Discovery and Initial Speculations
The story began in the late 1950s, a period marked by rapid advancements in space technology. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, signaling its lead in the space race. Around this time, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory was operating a radar system called Dark Fence, designed to monitor space activities. In January 1960, Dark Fence detected an unknown object in a polar orbit around Earth – an orbit that was technologically challenging at the time.
The detection of this object caused a stir within the defense and scientific communities. The United States and the Soviet Union, the only two nations capable of such a feat, both denied responsibility for the mysterious satellite. This denial led to wild speculations: Was it a covert spy satellite, or could it be something more extraordinary?
The Black Knight Legend and Tesla’s Connection
The enigma surrounding this object fueled various theories, one of which linked it to the legendary Black Knight satellite. This legend proposed that an ancient, alien spacecraft was orbiting Earth, left behind by an extraterrestrial civilization. This theory found roots in an earlier claim by the famous inventor Nikola Tesla, who, in 1899, reported receiving strange radio signals that some later speculated might have been from the Black Knight.
The Discoverer Program and Corona Spy Satellites
The truth, however, was more grounded, albeit still shrouded in secrecy. Years later, it was revealed that the United States had indeed launched a series of satellites into polar orbit as part of the Discoverer program. This program, ostensibly for scientific research, was a cover for the CIA’s Corona spy satellite project. These satellites were designed to replace the U-2 spy planes and gather reconnaissance over the Soviet Union. The object detected by Dark Fence was likely a piece of debris from these covert operations.
Impact and Legacy
The Black Knight satellite story is more than just a Cold War anecdote; it reflects the era’s atmosphere of mystery, technological rivalry, and the penchant for conspiracy theories. While the object’s true nature was likely mundane, its legacy endures in popular culture as a symbol of the unknowns in space exploration and surveillance.
VIDEO:
The UFO Discovered Orbiting Earth During The Cold War | NASA’s Unexplained Files
The Black Knight satellite mystery encapsulates a fascinating period in history where space exploration was in its nascent stages, and the line between science and fiction was often blurred. It serves as a reminder of the lengths nations went to in the name of security and dominance, and how these efforts sparked the human imagination, leading to enduring legends and myths. As we continue to explore the cosmos, stories like that of the Black Knight satellite remind us of our perpetual quest to understand the unknown.
Wetenschappers zien het nog minstens net zo somber in als een jaar geleden: de doemdagklok blijft ook in 2024 hangen op 90 seconden voor middernacht. En daarmee bevinden we ons – net als in 2023 – nog altijd dichter bij de ondergang van planeet en mensheid dan in de zeven decennia hiervoor het geval was.
Dat heeft het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists zojuist bekend gemaakt. De organisatie boog zich over de situatie in de wereld en kan niet anders dan concluderen dat deze in het afgelopen jaar nauwelijks verbeterd is en de dreiging dat we de planeet en/of onszelf vernietigen nog minstens net zo groot is als in 2023; het jaar waarin de doemdagklok (zie kader) op een ongeëvenaarde 90 seconden voor 12 werd gezet. En dus blijft de klok ook in 2024 op 90 seconden voor 12 staan.
Wat is de doemdagklok? De doemdagklok werd in 1947 in het leven geroepen om in één oogopslag weer te kunnen geven in hoeverre de mensheid erop afstevent de planeet (en misschien zelfs zichzelf) te vernietigen. Daarbij wordt de klok steevast op een aantal minuten voor middernacht gezet, waarbij middernacht dus symbool staat voor de apocalyps. In de tijd dat de doemdagklok geboren werd – kort na de Tweede Wereldoorlog – vreesde men sterk dat de inzet van kernwapens de apocalyps zou inluiden. En bij het bepalen van de tijd op de doemdagklok werd in beginsel dan ook vooral gekeken naar de ontwikkeling van die wapens en de mate waarin landen dreigden met inzet ervan. Het resulteerde erin dat de doemdagklok in het jaar van oprichting – 1947 dus – op 7 minuten voor middernacht werd gezet, maar in 1953 – de Koude Oorlog was toen in volle gang – op 2 minuten voor 12 kwam te staan. Inmiddels zijn kernwapens lang niet meer de enige dreiging die in overweging wordt genomen alvorens de wijzers van de doemdagklok worden verzet. Zo wordt sinds 2017 bijvoorbeeld ook de dreiging van de catastrofale effecten van klimaatverandering meegenomen. Waar de wijzers van de doemdagklok temidden van al het tumult in de wereld op uitkomen wordt met enige regelmaat besproken binnen een speciaal comité – het Science and Security Board van het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – waarin vooraanstaande wetenschappers zitting hebben.
2023 Vorig jaar zetten wetenschappers de doemdagklok dus op 90 seconden voor middernacht. Dat was ongeëvenaard: nog nooit hadden de wijzers zo dicht bij middernacht gestaan. Het was vooral te wijten aan de oorlog in Oekraïne en het feit dat Rusland in het kader daarvan met enige regelmaat met de inzet van kernwapens dreigt.
Oorlogen en kernwapens Met het aanbreken van 2024 hebben wetenschappers zich opnieuw over de wereldwijde situatie gebogen, om vervolgens te bepalen of de wijzers van de doemdagklok al dan niet voor- of achteruit moesten worden gezet. Die overwegingen werden opnieuw overschaduwd door de oorlog in Oekraïne, maar ook door de in oktober vorig jaar uitgebroken oorlog in Gaza, zo laat de onderzoekscommissie in kwestie weten. Die laatstgenoemde oorlog kan zomaar leiden tot een grootschaliger conflict in de regio, met alle gevolgen van dien. Daarnaast hebben de onderzoekers grote zorgen over het feit dat landen als China en en Rusland druk bezig zijn om hun nucleaire wapenarsenalen te moderniseren en uit te breiden. Een nieuwe kernwapenwedloop ligt op de loer, zo waarschuwen ze.
Klimaat en AI Maar er zijn meer zorgen. Bijvoorbeeld over ons klimaat: 2023 was het warmste jaar ooit, waarin overstromingen, natuurbranden en andere klimaatgerelateerde rampen miljoenen mensen troffen. Ook zijn de onderzoekers bezorgd over de razendsnelle opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie (KI): een ontwikkeling die de mensheid ten goede kan komen, maar voor hetzelfde geld ook kan bedreigen en op dit moment nauwelijks door overheden gecontroleerd wordt. “Vergis je niet,” zo benadrukt Rachel Bronson namens het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Dat de klok op 90 seconden voor middernacht blijft staan, wil niet zeggen dat de wereld stabiel is. In tegendeel zelfs. Het is de hoogste tijd voor overheden en samenlevingen wereldwijd om in actie te komen.”
Eerdere tijden In 2023 stond de klok op 90 seconden voor middernacht. En daarmee stond de mensheid er slechter voor dan in 2022 toen de klok op 100 seconden voor middernacht bleef hangen. Dat wetenschappers wel eens aanzienlijk optimistischer zijn geweest over het lot van de mensheid staat vast; in 1991 stond de klok nog op 17 minuten voor 12 en reflecteerde zo de rust die het einde van de Koude Oorlog had gebracht. Maar die rust was van korte duur. Want in de jaren die volgden, kropen de wijzers steeds iets dichter naar middernacht: van 14 minuten voor 12 in 1995 naar 7 minuten voor 12 in 2002. Nog eens tien jaar later staat de klok op 5 voor 12 en in 2018 komt deze op het niveau van het Koude Oorlogsjaar 1953, met een tijd van 2 voor 12. En in 2020 komt deze zelfs op een ongeëvenaarde 100 seconden voor middernacht te staan. Een droevig record dat in 2023 dus alweer verbroken wordt en ook in 2024 standhoudt.
Reële dreiging En zo schetst de doemdagklok al jaren een weinig rooskleurig beeld. Maar tegelijkertijd zijn we er gewoon nog. Het roept bij de wat sceptischer aangelegde geesten wellicht de vraag op of de angst voor de apocalyps eigenlijk wel terecht is. Wetenschappers kunnen er kort over zijn: die angst fluctueert misschien door de jaren heen, maar is zeker reëel. “Zolang kernwapens bestaan en gebruikt kunnen worden, is er ook een kans dat we onze beschaving vernietigen (…) En zolang het klimaat blijft veranderen, is er een kans dat we daar gevolgen van ondervinden die een bedreiging vormen voor de overleving van onze soort.”
Maar er is altijd hoop Maar de Doemdagklok is niet bedacht met het idee de mensheid een collectieve depressie aan te praten. Juist niet. Wetenschappers willen mensen aan het denken zetten, waarschuwen en in actie laten komen. “Mensen hebben zowel kernwapens als de door fossiele brandstoffen aangedreven machines die bijdragen aan klimaatverandering, bedacht. We weten hoe ze werken, dus is het aannemelijk dat we ook manieren kunnen vinden om de dreiging die ervan uitgaat, te verminderen,” zo is op de site van het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists te lezen.
Titanic Vooralsnog lijkt het er echter niet op dat wereldleiders echt van de ernst van de situatie doordrongen zijn, zo moet Jerry Brown, voorzitter van het Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists vaststellen. “Net als op de Titanic sturen leiders de wereld richting een catastrofe: meer kernbommen, enorme koolstofemissies, gevaarlijke ziekteverwekkers en KI. Alleen de grootmachten zoals China, Amerika en Rusland kunnen ons nog redden. Ondanks grote vijandschap moeten zij gaan samenwerken – anders zijn we verloren.”
Het klinkt weinig hoopgevend. Maar de wetenschappers houden hoop, zo laat Bronson weten. “Wat ons hoopvol stemt en inspireert is dat we zien dat jongere generaties de leiding nemen.” Over een jaar moet blijken of dat in 2025 dan misschien genoeg is om de grote wijzer wat terug te draaien.
NASA has announced that the Ingenuity helicopter has formally concluded its mission on Mars, following dozens of successful test flights during its three-year tenure on the planet.
The small helicopter, specially designed for flight in the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere, made history as the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Although initially planned as a technology demonstration that would only conduct five test flights, Ingenuity went on to perform a remarkable 72 flights, many of which provided useful aerial reconnaissance for the Perseverance rover in advance of its movement to areas of interest for potential study.
“It is bittersweet that I must announce Ingenuity… has taken its last flight on Mars,” Nelson said in a statement.
Characterizing the small aircraft as “the little helicopter that could,” Nelson said the helicopter sustained damage to one of its rotor blades while attempting a landing.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter takes off above Jezero crater
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS).
“At least one of its carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged,” Nelson said. “We’re investigating the possibility that the blade struck the ground.”
The damage occurred during a vertical flight the helicopter performed to determine its location several days ago, following an emergency landing during its previous flight.
Although the aircraft achieved a maximum altitude of 40 feet, hovering for a total of 4.5 seconds before beginning its descent, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance before reaching the ground. Several days later the rotor blade damage was revealed.
“What Ingenuity accomplished far exceeds what we thought possible,” Nelson said.
“Ingenuity demonstrated how flight can enhance operational missions, and it’s helping us in the search for life on Mars.”
Ingenuity’s first flight occurred on April 19, 2021, after arriving on the Red Planet earlier that year with the Perseverance rover.
Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said Ingenuity was “an exemplar of the way we push the boundaries of what’s possible every day.
“I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and eager to see what they’ll invent next,” Leshin added.
Comparing Ingenuity’s operations to the pioneering flights of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Nelson said the Mars helicopter has set the pace for the future use of aircraft in space exploration.
“Ingenuity has paved the way for future flight in our solar system,” Nelson said, “and it’s leading the way for smarter, safer human missions to Mars and beyond.”
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected the presence of water in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet, which astronomers say is the smallest planet of its kind to reveal such a discovery.
The planet, GJ 9827D, was initially found in 2017 by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. Roughly twice the diameter of Earth and located approximately 97 light years away, the tiny exoplanet completes an orbit around its nearest star, a red dwarf, in a little more than six Earth days.
Laura Kreidberg with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, called the discovery of water on such a small exoplanet “a landmark discovery.”
Kreidberg, co-principal investigator in the new study that revealed the discovery, said that finding water on GJ 9827D “pushes [astronomers] closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds.”
Artist’s depiction of the exoplanet GJ 9827D (Credit: NASA/Hubble)
The new discovery represents the first time that an exoplanet of this kind has been found to exist around other stars, an observation made entirely possible through atmospheric detection of water made possible by the Hubble telescope.
“This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets,” said Björn Benneke, an astronomer with the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at Université de Montréal, in a statement.
Hubble was used to observe the planet during eleven transits before its host star over three years. As the planet moves in front of its star, the light the stellar body produces is filtered through GJ 9827D’s atmosphere, which allows astronomers the ability to observe key spectra that indicated the presence of water molecules.
Right now, astronomers cannot tell whether the planet is a “water world” with an abundance of liquid, or if the atmospheric detections made possible by Hubble only point to the presence of water vapor in its hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
Pierre-Alexis Roy, also with the University of Montreal’s Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets and lead author of a new paper describing the discovery, said either of these scenarios would be exciting, “whether water vapor is dominant or just a tiny species in a hydrogen-dominant atmosphere.”
Although possessing water like Earth, GJ 9827D’s proximity to its star causes it to resemble Venus due more closely to its extreme heat. With temperatures nearing 800 degrees Fahrenheit, it seems unlikely that GJ 9827D would be a place where life could thrive, particularly if an abundance of water vapor exists in its atmosphere.
If, however, the planet still possesses an atmosphere rich in hydrogen but possesses a degree of water vapor, it could also be a mini-Neptune, or even similar to Juputer’s moon Europa, which astronomers have determined to possess roughly twice as much water as Earth has.
If there are equal parts water and rock on GJ 9827D, it could be that the water vapor exists above the planet’s smaller rock body, Benneke explains.
However, Benneke, Roy, and the team also say that if the planet initially formed farther away from its nearest star, then it could be that the water-richness of its atmosphere is residual and that the heating of the planet as it has moved closer to its stellar host has heated the water as the planet receives more radiation over time.
Thomas Greene, astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, likened the observation of water as a “gateway” toward additional discoveries, some of which may be made with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
“JWST can see much more with additional infrared observations, including carbon-bearing molecules like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane,” Greene said.
“Once we get a total inventory of a planet’s elements, we can compare those to the star it orbits and understand how it was formed,” Greene added.
The team’s new paper, by Benneke, Roy, et al, titled “Water Absorption in the Transmission Spectrum of the Water World Candidate GJ 9827 d,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
David Grusch, a key figure in the UFO mystery, has participated in consecutive interviews with mainstream media regarding the concealment of UFO information. Grusch has gained prominence following the July 2023 US Congress UAP hearings, thanks to his compelling and assertive testimony about non-human intelligence. He is consistently claiming we have alien crafts in double digits and also possess non-human biologics which implies Earth is in contact with or aware of species from other planets.
With each passing day, David Grusch is making efforts to reach a larger audience and share his story. This drew him to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a prominent figure in American media. Carlson, with over 10.9 million followers on Elon Musk’s X (formerly named Twitter), did a bombshell interview with Grusch published on December 14, 2023.
On X, Tucker Carlson posted this 66-minute interview with Grusch with the caption: “It’s becoming obvious that the US government has made contact with nonhuman beings.”
Grusch told Tucker that the U.S. government has retrieved “biologics” (bodies) from crashed UFO sites. When asked about the nature of these biologics, Grusch states that they are “non-human.” He emphasizes that this assessment comes from individuals with direct knowledge who are still part of the program. Grusch also mentions the existence of documentary evidence but suggests that details would need to be discussed in a secure location called a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).
Tucker expresses surprise at Grusch’s sudden public involvement in the UFO topic, given his extensive background in military intelligence. Grusch recounts how he first became interested in the topic after seeing a New York Times article in 2017 about Lou Elizondo and programs like AATIP and AWASAP. Tucker notes that the government never confirmed or denied Elizondo’s involvement, to which Grusch clarified that he knew about Elizondo’s role. He recalls hearing that Elizondo was considered somewhat erratic by some officials. Grusch’s curiosity deepened when he saw news reports about Elizondo’s involvement in a UFO program, leading him to realize that the program was indeed real.
Grusch explains that it was a unique experience during his time in UAP task force because he started uncovering disturbing facts. He had access to classified archives from previous UFO programs and came across foreign intelligence gathered by clandestine human sources overseas. These sources, according to him, noted that the U.S. had a retrieval and reverse engineering program for UFOs. Notably, these assessments were from other countries.
Tucker questions Grusch about how the Pentagon, an entity that serves elected officials, could deny an elected official access to information. He emphasizes that the Pentagon works for politicians who are accountable to the people and compares Pentagon employees to household staff, highlighting that they’re not an independent entity.
Grsuch acknowledged the issue and pointed out that this is one of the reasons he decided to blow the whistle. He explains that even in the normal black Special Access Program (SAP) community, elected leaders are treated as second-class citizens. He mentions instances where reporting is waived, and Deputy Secretaries of Defense (Dep SecDef) can sign orders limiting briefings to certain committees.
“I can sign an order saying we’re not going to fully brief certain committees on, you see, on programs that are in Public Law 10 US Code Section 119, and that is congressional oversight of SAPS, is the title of that part of Public Law. But the department, which I find in retrospect, very weird, where the legislators authorize and appropriate these programs, but they’re not afforded full access. And occasionally the Gang of Eight will get those kinds of briefings. But literally, they could withhold, besides notifying a program that stood up the entire Congress, that we’re doing some kind of clandestine activity.”
Grsuch mentioned there are approximately 40 people, many with firsthand knowledge, some at the same level as Harry Reid. He explains that after realizing the reality of the situation, he and his team conducted interviews with individuals who had privileged information, even comparable to a high-ranking figure like Harry Reid.
Grsuch recounts a conversation with Harry Reid, where the former senator expressed deep concern about the topic. Reid, then planning to discuss it with President Biden, highlighted the challenges even someone of his stature faced in accessing information. David Grusch emphasizes that past administrations had varying levels of knowledge about these programs, and even presidents were not always briefed on all aspects.
When Tucker specifically asks about any connection between the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan Project (which developed nuclear weapons) and UFO programs, Grusch clarifies that there isn’t an overt connection. However, he speculates that the development of nuclear weapons might have sparked interest in unidentified objects.
David Grusch mentions that he can’t discuss many retrievals, and the only one he has publicly mentioned is the 1933 Italian event. He chose this event to highlight that the UFO phenomenon is not exclusive to the United States but is a worldwide issue.
Grusch explains that the Italian event involved the recovery of an object that looked like an acorn in Magenta, Italy, by the Axis powers (Italy and Germany) in 1933. He notes that information about this event surfaced in the early 2000s through Italian researchers who uncovered documents sent by Mussolini to the Gestapo.
According to a senior intelligence officer who briefed him, the recovered object resembled a lenticular disc, but the edges broke off when it hit the Earth, giving it an acorn or bell shape. The Italians kept custody of the artifact until the end of the war, and then the Americans recovered it. He adds that the Vatican and the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) communicated with FDR about the crash. Grusch said the 1933 Italian event is the only one he has cleared through DoD security.
Tucker questions Grusch about the timeline of the U.S. government’s knowledge of UFOs, pointing out that David mentioned the government didn’t take custody until the end of the war. David clarifies that this statement specifically refers to a particular case, but the government was aware of the UFO issue in the 1930s.
Tucker then raises a common question: Why do advanced technologies like UFOs crash so often? Grusch suggests that crashes may not necessarily be intentional. He introduces the concept of von Neumann replicating probes, where advanced civilizations might send throwaway probes that could crash accidentally. Grusch emphasizes that this is not just his theory but something discussed by scientists involved in the program.
Tucker follows up by questioning whether these objects truly come from a far distance. Grusch admits the uncertainty, highlighting that even certain directors of government agencies prefer using the term “extraterrestrial.” However, he leans towards the term NHI, meaning non-human intelligence. He notes that this term is also used in the Schumer amendment called the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023. The act is part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and is currently in conference. He underscores that he’s not the only one using terms like “non-human intelligence biologics” and points out that influential figures like Chuck Schumer are pushing for transparency in the matter.
Tucker questions why there is so much secrecy, and David suggests that excessive secrecy hinders national security. He draws a parallel with nuclear physics, explaining that while details about building nuclear weapons are classified, the broader study of nuclear physics is open to the public. David advocates for a similar approach to UFOs, where the subject should be “horizontally protected,” allowing broad academic study and public access to information, with only genuinely dangerous or classified aspects kept confidential. This way, he believes 95% of the subject could be open for study worldwide.
Tucker asks David about the truth behind these abduction claims. David responds by saying that he doesn’t have any first-hand knowledge on the phenomenon of abduction. He notes that, during his interviews, none of the individuals he spoke with had direct experience or knowledge about abductions.
“I don’t know. Nobody I interviewed had any firsthand knowledge of that phenomenon. I certainly believe people have experienced things like that. At least they believe it, because you look at Dr. John Mack, who was a Harvard-trained psychologist and psychiatrist. He examined the phenomenon of abduction in the early 2000s before his death and affirmed that the people he psychoanalyzed certainly experienced something real to them. But what is the abduction phenomenon? I really don’t know. I’m not sure.”
DavidGrusch tells Tucker Carlson about Rep. Mike Turner’s efforts to block the UAP Disclosure Act and destroy Tim Burchett’s career “Mike Rogers & Mike Turner, two of the dumbest people in Washington. Pure tools of the national security state.” Additionally on Newnation, he said, “Mike Turner probably has no business being the (House Intelligence Committee) Chairman… Mike Turner has never been an intelligence officer. He’s never served in the military.” “We need to get these people out of office.”
Physical Harm
Tucker raises a sensitive issue about the potential harm or killing of individuals connected to the U.S. government’s UFO programs. He specifically asks Grusch if he has reason to believe that the government has hurt or killed anyone, particularly American citizens, in connection to these programs.
Grusch responds by acknowledging concerns that were raised by individuals who approached him, expressing worries about potential harm. He emphasizes that he took these concerns seriously and reported them to the Inspector General of the intelligence community, directing the individuals to law enforcement.
Tucker pushes further, specifically mentioning the allegation of murder, to which Grusch confirms that the concerns included both murder and physical harm. However, he refrains from providing specific details due to the ongoing investigation and potential risks to his safety.
Grusch discloses that he felt his life was in jeopardy, and he reported the threats and surveillance to a counterintelligence element and law enforcement. He reveals that these threats not only affected him but also impacted his wife. He states that he doesn’t know the identity of those involved, ruling out the possibility of it being a foreign entity.
Previously on the Joe Rogan Experience, Grusch talked about the fundamental questions related to UFOs, such as the existence of extraterrestrial life and the nature of human consciousness. Grusch asserted with confidence, based on conversations with high-level individuals like Harry Reid, that we are not alone, and the UFO phenomenon is real.
“You know for humanity. Are we alone or you know what happens when we die? Well, I don’t know about that, but are we alone? Well, the answer is we’re not alone. And I know that with 100% certainty, which as an Intel officer, you never say 100%, but all things pointed towards based on the people I talked to…The phenomenon is real. It’s been going on for thousands of years. People have been seeing strange things and not everybody’s mass hallucinating. So that’s kind of my long diatribe about what’s happening.”
The UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) has announced the successful test firing and downing of an aerial target using its high-powered DragonFire laser weapon. The exact power and range of the combat laser remain classified, but an official statement says DragonFire can hit a £1 coin-sized object from a kilometer away.
While there are no immediate plans to deliver the laser system to troops, the MoD says they are currently evaluating DragonFire and that this successful test was a critical next step toward actual deployment.
DRAGONFIRE JOINS GROWING LIST OF DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS
In the 1980s and 1990s, using lasers to down aerial targets remained firmly in the realm of science fiction. The U.S. Defense Department first tested a combat laser prototype in 1995, but that system required numerous buildings to operate and had limited target-destroying power.
In subsequent years more systems have been developed, with many sporting power ranges in the tens of kilowatts. Ranging from truck-mounted lasers and aircraft-mounted lasers to larger systems mounted directly on U.S. Navy ships, these lasers are not powerful enough to blast targets out of the sky. Instead, they have to stay locked on an incoming drone long enough to fry their electronics or burn off a wing.
More recently, advances in optical technology have allowed contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to steadily increase the power of these systems, with the most powerful coming in at 300kW. Dubbed the most powerful combat laser ever built, that system is currently undergoing an upgrade that will bring it up to as much as 500kW. It is possible that such a weapon could be strong enough to take down cruise missiles, something that smaller laser systems cannot do.
Perhaps the most well-known combat laser is employed by the Israeli armed forces. Dubbed Iron Beam, that system is mounted on the Israeli border to complement their Iron Dome system that uses conventional missiles to take down incoming drones and mortars. At 100kW, Iron Beam is the most potent combat laser in deployment anywhere in the world.
Now, it appears that the UK is joining the march toward adding lasers and other directed energy weapons that include powerful microwave emitters that can fry the electronics of a drone or missile to their arsenal. Along with the accuracy of these systems, the MoD is also hoping that laser systems can dramatically reduce costs.
SUCCESSFUL TEST SHOWS DRAGONFIRE IS MOVING CLOSER TO DEPLOYMENT
In that same statement, the MoD says, “This milestone demonstrated the ability to engage aerial targets at relevant ranges and is a major step in bringing this technology into service.” The latest test also builds on previous work that showed how DragonFire can effectively track both air and sea targets “effectively and at range.”
“These trials have seen us take a huge step forward in realising the potential opportunities and understanding the threats posed by directed energy weapons,” said Dstl’s Chief Executive, Dr. Paul Hollinshead.
The MoD also notes the potential financial advantages of using lasers instead of missiles, which can cost as much as 100,000 pounds, to counter the increasing use of low-cost drones.
“Firing it for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for just an hour,” they explain. “Therefore, it has the potential to be a long-term, low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out. The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 per shot.”
MOD FUNDING MULTI-MILLION POUND PROGRAM TO MAKE DRAGONFIRE READY FOR THE BATTLEFIELD
Following the successful downing of an aerial threat, the MoD says they are moving ahead with funding a multi-million-pound program “to transition the technology from the research environment to the battlefield.” They also say that both the Army and navy are evaluating using DragonFire and similar technologies as part of their future Air Defense capabilities.
“With our decades of knowledge, skills, and operational experience, Dstl’s expertise is critical to helping the armed forces prepare for the future,” said Hollinshead.
“The DragonFire trials at the Hebrides demonstrated that our world-leading technology can track and engage high-end effects at range,” added Shimon Fhima, Director of Strategic Programmes for the MOD. “In a world of evolving threats, we know that our focus must be on getting capability to the warfighter, and we will look to accelerate this next phase of activity.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
NASA recently revealed that a laser beam was fired from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) at a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface, in a technological first that could pave the path toward new methods of precision target location.
The American space agency says a laser beam was transmitted from the LRO’s laser altimeter instrument at a tiny device on the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Vikram lander on December 12, 2023. The transmission occurred while the LRO was more than 60 miles away as it passed over the lunar South Pole when it fired a series of laser pulses at the spacecraft.
The LRO registered light from its laser bouncing back off a tiny NASA retroreflector positioned on Vikram, confirming that the technique was a success.
Xiaoli Sun with NASA Goddard, who led the team that developed the retroreflector placed on Vikram, was enthusiastic about the achievement resulting from the cooperation between the two space agencies.
“We’ve [shown] that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon’s orbit,” Sun said.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) successfully targeted a retroreflector on the exterior of the ISRO’s Vikram lander on December 12, 2023
(Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University).
In principle, firing lasers at an object and measuring the time required for the light to bounce back to its point of origin is nothing new, and is commonly utilized for tracking Earth-orbiting satellites using ground-based laser systems.
However, the technique NASA recently demonstrated reverses this process, firing a laser from a moving satellite at a stationary object—in this case, on the surface of the Moon—and determining its precise location.
FIRING A LASER AT A COOKIE-SIZED RETROREFLECTOR
The special retroreflector NASA designed is tiny, at just two inches across. Roughly the size of an Oreo cookie, the device is formally known as a Laser Retroreflector Array and features a pattern of eight prisms fitted within an aluminum frame shaped like a tiny dome, which allows for a simple, but effective means of reflecting light coming from almost any direction.
The device also requires no power either, meaning that its durable design allows it to function for up to several decades.
This is not the first time NASA has used retroreflectors in novel ways. Since 1969, a technique known as Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) has been used to measure the Moon’s distance from Earth-based observatories using retroreflectors that were placed on the Moon’s surface during the Apollo missions, as well as the Soviet Luna program.
However, more advanced retroreflector designs currently in use allow for a greater range of potential applications than their Apollo-era predecessors. Today, the devices are also fitted to the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), which allows cargo-delivery spacecraft to measure their distance while approaching and autonomously dock with it.
In the years ahead, they may also provide several useful applications for Artemis astronauts working in locations where low light conditions would otherwise make landing next to existing spacecraft on the lunar surface difficult.
Right now there are plans for NASA retroreflectors to be carried to space on board several public and private Moon landers, including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) SLIM lander, which powered down within just three hours of making its historic landing on the Moon over the weekend.
A LOOK AT THE LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER’S LOLA
One problem that arises from the more widespread use of this technology in space exploration is that the LRO’s altimeter—currently the only laser instrument orbiting the Moon that could be used for such applications—has been operating for thirteen years longer than its original mission intended and was never designed for such applications. Because of this, the LRO’s instrument required eight attempts before it could successfully contact the retroreflector on the Vikram lander.
The laser in question is the LRO’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). This instrument is primarily designed for precision measurements of topographic features on the lunar surface, which has helped NASA produce models of the Moon that are crucial for planning safe landings and lunar exploration, as well as increasing our understanding of the lunar environment overall.
LOLA functions with a small array of five laser beams, which are fired toward the Moon. The time required for each beam to bounce back to the LRO is measured, allowing the instrument to gauge the elevation of features on the lunar surface below.
Although LOLA’s capabilities are ideal for mapping the Moon’s surface features, there are large gaps between the beams it produces, meaning that the chances of hitting a cookie-sized target are fairly slim, especially when the beam is required to strike within one-hundredth of a degree of the retroreflector.
In the future, NASA plans to produce a laser that produces no gaps in coverage, and which can continuously beam against the lunar surface as it passes to ensure that it strikes any retroreflectors with maximum precision.
Until such lasers come into use, NASA’s best—and only—bet remains the simpler laser altimeter currently on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which the December experiment has already shown to be successful when used in this manner, although it may also require a bit of trial and error.
“The next step is to improve the technique,” Xiaoli Sun said in a statement, “so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future.”
Some of the most energetic cosmic rays in the galaxy may come from a surprisingly small source.
If Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics researcher Laura Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues are right, they may have just pinpointed one of the sources of the high-energy cosmic rays that occasionally zip past Earth from the far reaches of the universe. Astrophysicists have spent years puzzling over the origin of these particles: protons carrying thousands of trillions of electron volts of energy (yes, cosmic rays are actually particles; early physicists thought they were radiation, and the name stuck). Some cosmic rays seem tocome from supernova remnants, but it turns out that at least some high-energy cosmic rays may come from the twin jets of matter being ejected from a smallish black hole.
NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory spotted the x-ray jets from SS 433 several years ago.
CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY
A COSMIC RAY CULPRIT
The astronomers used a telescope called the High Energy Stereoscopic System, or HESS, to observe gamma ray jets from SS 433, a black hole orbiting a mid-sized star at the heart of the Manatee Nebula.
Like most actively feeding black holes (whether the small ones left behind after the collapse of dying stars or the cosmic leviathans at the heart of galaxies like our Milky Way), SS 433 is ejecting twin jets of matter at nearly a quarter the speed of light. These jets glow brightly with x-rays, which is how astronomers first spotted them several years ago. But about a light year away from the black hole, in both directions, the x-ray jets seem to fade away only to reappear with a vengeance about 75 light-years away.
When Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues examined the black hole in the even shorter wavelengths of gamma rays, they saw that twin gamma ray jets flared to life at exactly the points where the x-ray jets reappeared. In other words, it looked like the jets were fizzling out somewhere between 1 and 75 light years from the black hole, and then something revved them up again.
That something, the researchers surmise, seems to be a shock wave in the gassy interstellar medium of the nebula. Shock waves act like giant cosmic versions of the Large Hadron Collider, accelerating electrons in the jets to ludicrous speeds.
The jets glow with x-rays and gamma rays because electrons crash into lower-energy photons. When that happens, the electron gives the photon part of its energy, which ramps low-energy infrared light up to the high-energy x-rays and gamma rays that light up the black hole’s jets. The faster the electrons are moving, the more energy they transfer to the photons — so fast electrons make x-rays, and even faster electrons make gamma rays.
More importantly, at least for the mystery of cosmic rays, the jets may also be accelerating protons, and even whole atomic nuclei, to the absurdly high energy that turns them into cosmic rays.
Researchers have known for a long time that “the jets of SS 433 do, in fact, contain nuclei [of elements] such as iron or nickel. And the shock that accelerates electrons would accelerate them in the same way,” Olivera-Nieto tells Inverse. However, the protons could potentially be accelerated to even higher energies than the electrons because they’re too big to shed energy in collision with photons.
Astronomers just can’t actually see these high-energy protons and nuclei because, unlike electrons, protons release radiation when they bump into dense matter, not stray photons, and there’s not a big pile of dense matter in the black hole’s jets.
A QUEST FOR MICROQUASARS
Despite having shed light on this cosmic ray mystery, black hole SS 433 isn’t actually the source of any of the cosmic rays physicists here on Earth have detected. It hasn’t been blasting its relativistic jets out into space long enough for any particles from those jets to have reached Earth. But someday, in the distant future, there’s a chance some of the protons and atomic nuclei being accelerated in those jets could reach our planet.
Meanwhile, Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues say other similar objects, called microquasars, could still be among the sources of cosmic rays that do reach Earth.
“Microquasars are intermittent sources, meaning that it is very likely that other systems were active in the past and made a contribution to what we now see,” says Olivera-Nieto.
Looking for those sources is the next step.
“Detecting gamma-ray emission from other microquasar systems and understanding how acceleration takes place in them will be critical because it will allow us to understand how common such systems are,” says Olivera-Nieto. “Answering this question will constrain how much can microquasars as a whole contribute as sources of very-high-energy cosmic rays.”
JAXA/Takara Tomy/Sony Group Corporation/Doshisha University
Last week, Japan became the fifth nation to successfully land on the Moon without crashing. Unfortunately, the historic touchdown left the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon(SLIM) positioned like a toy after a toddler is done playing with it: planted face down on the ground.
This less-than-ideal situation forced the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to power down the lander and save precious battery life. But before it did, SLIM was able to send some data back to Earth. Today, JAXA released new images that show how SLIM is situated in its new home.
The new data also confirmed Japan’s biggest hope for its SLIM project: a precise landing on the Moon within 100 meters of its target, confirming proof of concept.
JAXA rotated this image from its SLIM’s Multi-Band Camera “to align with the direction of gravity,” officials wrote on Thursday. The rover didn’t land as expected.
SLIM was designed to last just a few Earth days, JAXA officials wrote in a statement. But the mission will be drawn out for a month at least, to see if the angle of sunlight changes over time and perhaps strike SLIM’s landing site to sufficiently power its solar cells from its unintended westward orientation. The sunlight does a sort of angular reset on the Moon each Earth month (a day on the Moon lasts about one month on Earth).
While JAXA awaits those solar-cell results, SLIM’s Multi-Band Camera took a slanted image of Moon rocks nearby. In an annotated image, their names appear and seem to follow a canine theme. They have names like “St. Bernard,” “Bulldog,” “Toy Poodle,” plus Japanese breed-inspired names like “KAIKEN,” “AKITAINU,” “SHIBAINU.”
The JAXA team named several Moon rocks, and named them after dogs. The names are “with intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names,” officials wrote on Thursday.
There’ll be more, hopefully, if SLIM’s solar cells absorb enough energy, JAXA officials wrote. “Based on this landscape image, the team is sorting out rocks of interest, assigning a nickname to each of them, with the intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names,” the space agency shared. JAXA added that preparations are underway to “promptly conduct” high-resolution spectroscopy, a technique that extracts information from light, of Moon rocks once “SLIM recovers by the power generated by the solar array.”
SLIM’s peculiar position on the Moon’s surface appeared in imagery from one of its two tiny robotic passengers. Photo evidence came from JAXA’s collaboration with toy company Takara Tomy. Along with two other partners, Sony and Doshisha University in Kyoto, they created Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2).
On Thursday, Daichi Hirnao (left), associate senior researcher at JAXA's Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center, explains an image of the lunar surface robot LEV-2, also known as SORA-Q.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Also known as SORA-Q, LEV-2 looks like a rolling ball. It comes from the minds behind the popular toy Transformers and would easily sit in the palm of your hand. This small robot and SLIM’s other rover, LEV-1, are Japan’s first rovers on the Moon. LEV-1 also has other laurels, too. It achieved successful direct communication with Earth from the Moon, according to JAXA. “This is considered as the world's smallest and lightest case of direct data transmission from approximately 380,000 kilometers away,” space agency officials wrote in a recent statement.
JAXA will likely publish more updates in the near future to report the ongoing saga of SLIM’s solar cells.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) is not what many think it is. The reality of UAPs goes beyond mere flying machines and space aliens; it is turning into a rabbit hole. Every year, UFO enthusiasts and whistleblowers put more effort into unveiling the secrecy. However, instead of revealing the truth, a new branch of mystery unfolds, adding another chapter to the UFO enigma.
Missouri Republican Eric Burlison attended a classified UAP briefing this month but mentioned that it did not change his beliefs. He said, “There’s nothing that’s been said that’s changed my worldview.” He also added that he believes the claims of people who testified in public but thinks there might be more to the story.
Rep. Burlison has said that UFOs might be angels sent by God. Burlison, who heard secret information about UFOs, shared this idea on “That UFO Podcast.” He said, “They may not fit exactly the Biblical narrative, but whenever I use the term ‘angels,’ to me, it’s synonymous with an extradimensional being.”
In a podcast, Burlison shared his thoughts on UFOs, offering a detailed perspective on various theories surrounding these unidentified phenomena. Burlison discussed a theory he read in a public report by UFO whistleblower David Grusch who alleged that the government secretly recovered alien spacecraft and even dead “pilots” inside them. According to Grusch’s report, one theory suggests that what we are encountering might be beings that exist in higher dimensions, beyond our normal understanding of space and time.
Burlison used the analogy of living on a two-dimensional surface and being encountered by a three-dimensional object to explain the idea of encountering something from a higher dimension. In this case, he suggested that we live in a three-dimensional environment and could be encountering something from a higher dimension, where traditional concepts of distance might become irrelevant.
He expressed skepticism about the probability of being visited by an alien race from a distant planet, emphasizing the vast distances involved. Burlison questioned the likelihood of an advanced alien race traveling such long distances only to crash upon arrival on Earth. He leaned towards the idea that these phenomena are more likely to be extradimensional, existing beyond our usual understanding of dimensions.
Burlison explained that various scriptures, including the Bible, describe messengers of God or angels as existing in dimensions beyond our own. While acknowledging the visual evidence and testimony from pilots regarding UFO sightings, Burlison emphasized the most likely explanation, in his opinion:
“I don’t discount the visual recordings or the testimonies from pilots – I believe they are genuinely witnessing something. There is substantial evidence of these unidentified objects, and although we don’t know what they are, I think the most probable explanation might not be what everyone hopes to hear. It could very well be advanced technology under development and research, possibly involving new propulsion technology.
When discussing this topic, I often refer to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle about ten years ago. We identified the Higgs field, which essentially relates to gravity, and the particle is a wave function within that field. Looking back, shortly after the discovery of nuclear vision, scientists developed the nuclear bomb. This illustrates how scientific theories can be transformed into practical functions. I find it hard to believe that we haven’t capitalized on our knowledge of the Higgs field. It seems likely that our private sector industry and the scientific community have been working to find ways to manipulate the Higgs field for various purposes, potentially including advancements in propulsion technology.”
Burlison is not the only one suggesting a link between UFOs and religious texts. Representative Tim Burchett claimed in 2021 that UFOs were in the Bible, referring to the book of Ezekiel.
According to Mystery Wire, Rep. Burchett talked about UFOs being written about in the Bible, pointing specifically to Ezekiel. This reference is for Ezekiel 1:4-28, in which there is a description of seeing “an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings.”
“When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.”[Ezekiel 1:4-28, Ezekiel 10]
While Grusch has publicly discussed theories on UAPs that might originate from the higher-order dimensions theorized by physicists, those concepts do not appear in the unclassified version of his complaint.
The ‘extradimensional or interdimensional‘ hypothesis also does not appear in what has been made public from Grusch’s written statements first submitted for approval to the Pentagon’s Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR).
But Grusch did talk about this theory when he was under oath, answering questions from Rep. Burlison during a public UAP hearing in July 2023.
Rep. Burlison said at the hearing, “It’s a bit hard to believe that an alien species advanced enough to travel billions of light years would come here and somehow not be able to survive.” He then asked Grusch about the “interdimensional potential,” saying, “Could you explain that?”
Grusch said, “No matter how smart you are, accidents happen, like plane crashes and car crashes. A small percentage of missions may fail, as we say in the Air Force.” Talking about multidimensionality, Grusch mentioned the holographic principle. It comes from general relativity and quantum mechanics. He explained it as imagining a 3D object casting a shadow onto a 2D surface.
He said, “You can be projected, sort of projected, from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional space… It’s a scientific idea that you can actually cross dimensions, as far as I understand. But there are probably people with PhDs who could argue about that.”
There has been some speculation about UFOs being connected to religious visits or interdimensional beings since the early 20th century. This idea became more famous with the book “Passport to Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers” by Jacques Vallée in 1969. Vallée later inspired a character in Steven Spielberg’s UFO movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” He spent years studying ancient texts for his book.
Vallée states that UFOs and related events of a paranormal nature involve visitations from other “realities” or “dimensions.” The idea proposes that these alternate realities exist separately yet parallel to our own. In 1975’s The Edge of Reality, Vallée and Hynek considered the possibility of what they call “interlocking universes.”
Daniel Sheehan, a public interest lawyer and activist who was a former Chief Council for the United States Jesuit order, revealed intriguing details about his conversations with the head of the Vatican archives regarding the Vatican’s knowledge of extraterrestrial life. He shed light on his involvement in a groundbreaking initiative to address the theological and philosophical implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. (Click here to read the full article)
He proposed the formation of a task force involving all 54 major religious denominations to address the issue from a theological perspective. However, at that time, there was insufficient consensus, and the proposal was declined. Sheehan is currently working through his New Paradigm Institute to organize a global summit conference involving world religious leaders to discuss the recent recovery of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
“The United States government is in possession of biological evidence and has actually taken into custody alive an extraterrestrial person. They’re keeping this secret, interrogating the being, and distorting the information to justify massive expenditures on weapon development under the guise of a perceived threat.” – Daniel Sheehan
Sheehan highlighted the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He referenced a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church on November 10, 2009, authorized by Pope Benedict. The statement, issued by Father Jose Gabriel Alfuz, a director of the Pontifical Observatory in Rome, recognized the increasing discovery of exoplanets and called for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological implications of the imminent discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Sheehan disclosed that the government was telepathically interrogating the extraterrestrial biological entity (EBO) in custody. Despite acknowledging the bizarre nature of the revelation, Sheehan stood by the credibility of the information, having interviewed individuals directly involved in the process. The EBO allegedly conveyed that a coalition of star systems in our galaxy monitors the evolution of life on different planets, including Earth.
“Pope Benedict had a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church, saying that with the discovery of more exoplanets, it has become clear that we will be discovering life elsewhere in the universe. This prompted the need for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological questions posed by the discovery of extraterrestrial life.” – Daniel Sheehan
Since the translation of the Book of Enoch from the ancient texts discovered in Ethiopia in 1768, it has created a stir in the history of mankind that has been told for years. The Book of Enoch tells the story of the Fallen Angels called the Nephilims or the Anunnaki; it is attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah.
It is no wonder why the Book of Enoch was not included in the modern biblical version, since its content speaks of wicked angels who became fond of mortal women and mated with them, giving birth to the hybrid race of giant humanoids known throughout secular and Biblical history as the Nephilims.
The Nephilims then taught humans great technologies that made us greedy and awful until God destroyed them with a great flood in order to prevent further harm to creation. This is a massively oversimplified summary, but given these themes, the Book of Enoch has understandably grown in popularity in recent years.
So, what are UFOs? Jeremy Corbell says, “UFOs appear to be part of a larger phenomenon, meaning UFOs are kind of an auxiliary implication of a much larger reality. So this idea that what we’re seeing are machines from other planets. I’m unconvinced what we may be seeing is an alternate reality. You know, maybe it is something closer to dimensional travel.”
Former CIA officer Jim Semivan says,“Yes, there is a force out there that can control our environment.” The UFO phenomenon can be shocking, especially to children.
“You know for humanity. Are we alone or, you know, what happens when we die? Well, I don’t know about that, but are we alone? Well, the answer is we’re not alone. And I know that with 100% certainty, which as an Intel officer, you never say 100%, but all things pointed towards, based on the people I talked to… The phenomenon is real. It’s been going on for thousands of years. People have been seeing strange things, and not everybody’s mass hallucinating. So that’s kind of my long diatribe about what’s happening.”–David Grusch
Het gebeurt regelmatig dat er een asteroïde onze atmosfeer in zeilt, maar meestal zien we dat niet van tevoren aankomen. Nu wel: NASA waarschuwde afgelopen zondag voor een heldere vuurbal die op onze planeet af stormde en zou neerstorten in de buurt van Berlijn.
Normaal gesproken crashen er meerdere keren per jaar ruimtestenen op Aarde, maar wat vrijwel uniek was aan deze keer is dat wetenschappers hem zo’n drie uur voor de inslag al hadden opgemerkt. Het is pas de achtste keer ooit dat het lukt om de impact van een asteroïde op voorhand te voorspellen.
Bekende asteroïdejager had weer beet De asteroïde, die 2024 BXI is gedoopt, werd als eerste ontdekt door de zelfbenoemde asteroïdejager Krisztián Sárneczky, een astronoom van het Konkoly-observatorium in Hongarije. Hij zag de ruimterots door zijn Schmidt-telescoop in het observatorium. Vlak daarna kwam NASA met een gedetailleerde voorspelling van waar en wanneer de meteoriet zou neerstorten. “Een kleine asteroïde zal uit elkaar vallen als een onschadelijke vuurbal kort na half twee ’s nachts ten westen van Berlijn, vlakbij Nennhausen”, twitterde NASA in de nacht van 20 januari. Sárneczky is een expert. Hij ontdekte de afgelopen jaren honderden asteroïden en was de eerste die de 2022 EB5 waarnam, zo’n twee uur voor hij de atmosfeer binnenschoot. Ook toen gebruikte hij het Konkoly-observatorium voor zijn waarnemingen.
Slechts een paar seconden in beeld Een camera in Leipzig wist beelden te maken van de uitzonderlijk heldere meteoor. Daarop is te zien hoe de asteroïde binnen een paar seconden tevoorschijn komt en weer verdwijnt. Voor de inslag was de asteroïde ongeveer een meter breed. Hij begon zo’n 50 kilometer ten westen van Berlijn uit elkaar te vallen en onderweg stortten er waarschijnlijk een paar stukken steen op de grond. Daar is ook al druk naar gezocht. “We zoeken naar donker ogende stenen met een glazige buitenkant. Vind je er een, noteer dan de GPS-locatie, stop de steen in een zak en breng hem naar ons”, schreef het Duitse Sample Analysis Laboratory al op X (voorheen Twitter). Doordat de meteoor met een hele steile hoek de atmosfeer in kwam, is het zoekgebied relatief klein.
Hoe kleiner, hoe moeilijker Het is veel bijzonderder dan je misschien denkt dat we zo’n ruimterots waarnemen. Volgens het Europese Ruimteagentschap ESA is 99 procent van de asteroïden met een doorsnee van minder dan 30 meter, die in de buurt van de Aarde komen, nooit gevonden. De meeste planetoïden die onze planeet hebben getroffen, werden vele jaren na inslag pas ontdekt. Hoe kleiner een asteroïde is, hoe dichter hij bij de Aarde moet komen voor wetenschappers hem kunnen waarnemen. En dat maakt het natuurlijk erg lastig om ze van tevoren te zien aankomen.
In sommige gevallen kunnen asteroïden zich zelfs verborgen houden in het licht van de zon, zoals de meteoriet die uit de richting van de opkomende zon tevoorschijn schoot boven de Russische stad Tsjeljabinsk in 2013. Door deze asteroïde van zo’n 17 meter breed raakten zo’n 1200 mensen gewond, vooral als gevolg van gesneuvelde ruiten.
Er komt hulp Het kán dus gevaarlijk zijn, zo’n gloeiende verrassing. Daarom werken wetenschappers aan nieuwe technologie om de hemel te scannen op asteroïden, voordat ze heel dichtbij de Aarde komen. Zo gaat bijvoorbeeld de NEO Surveyor-satelliet van NASA in 2027 de lucht in, maar er is ook hulp vanaf de grond, in de vorm van het Vera C. Rubin-observatorium in Chili. Vanaf 2025 gaan ze daar het zonnestelsel in kaart brengen om zo asteroïden eerder op te merken.
“Het heeft ons tweehonderd jaar gekost om alle asteroïden die we tot nu toe kennen, te ontdekken, zo’n 1,2 miljoen stuks in totaal”, zegt astronoom Mario Jurić, die het project in het Rubin-observatorium leidt. “In de eerste drie tot zes maanden van Rubin, verdubbelen we dat aantal.”
Moeten we bang zijn voor neerstortende asteroïden? Het simpele antwoord: nee, dat hoeft niet. Van de meer dan een miljoen planetoïden die we nu in beeld hebben, zijn er een kleine 31.000 die in de buurt van de Aarde komen, schreven we eerder al. Daarvan zijn er uiteindelijk ruim 2200 als potentieel gevaarlijk bestempeld. ESA komt zelfs maar tot een lijst van iets meer dan 1400 ruimtestenen die een verhoogd risico vormen. Maar wees gerust: nader onderzoek heeft uitgewezen dat er geen enkele nu bekende ruimterots is, die in de komende honderd jaar een serieuze bedreiging voor onze planeet vormt.
De gebieden waar de vermeende Bigfoot het vaakst wordt gespot, blijken prachtig te overlappen met de gebieden waar zwarte beren veel voorkomen. En dat kan toch bijna geen toeval zijn…
De VS en Canada bedekken bijna 20 miljoen vierkante kilometer land: van bosgebieden en prairies tot kustgebieden. Met het oog op die enorme omvang en diversiteit aan landschappen lijkt het onaannemelijk dat alle zoogdiersoorten die in de VS en Canada leven, reeds beschreven zijn. “Talloze insecten en mogelijk ook kleine zoogdieren wachten nog op ontdekking,” stelt onderzoeker Floe Foxon. Maar volgens sommigen wandelt er in de VS en Canada ook een nog onbeschreven, groot, harig en mensachtig zoogdier rond dat in de volksmond als Bigfoot wordt aangeduid. Wetenschappers willen daar eigenlijk niet aan; ze achten het onwaarschijnlijk dat een organisme van deze omvang al die tijd aan de aandacht van zoölogen heeft weten te ontsnappen. En toch zijn er duizenden ooggetuigen die beweren Bigfoot ergens in Noord-Amerika te hebben gespot.
Beren Hoe is dat mogelijk? Veel onderzoekers vermoeden dat deze ooggetuigen een beer voor Bigfoot hebben aangezien. En nieuw onderzoek – verschenen in het blad Journal of Zoology – suggereert voorzichtig dat deze onderzoekers het wel eens bij het juiste eind kunnen hebben. Uit de studie blijkt namelijk dat de gebieden waarin Bigfoot wordt gezien, ook de gebieden zijn waarin de Amerikaanse zwarte beer woonachtig is.
Het onderzoek Onderzoeker Floe Floxon trekt die conclusie nadat ze naging hoeveel zwarte beren er in 2006 in Noord-Amerikaanse staten en provincies voorkwamen. Vervolgens pakte ze er waarnemingen van Bigfoot, stammend uit datzelfde jaar bij en keek ze waar mensen de vermeende harige hominide hadden gespot. Daarbij hield ze ook rekening met het aantal mensen dat in die staten en provincies woonde en het oppervlak dat bossen in die staten en provincies besloegen. Die laatste twee factoren – bosoppervlak en inwoneraantal – zijn belangrijk, zo legt Floxon uit. “Neem bijvoorbeeld Florida.” In deze staat zijn relatief weinig beren te vinden, maar wel heel veel Bigfoots gespot. Dat lijkt in strijd met de hypothese dat er een verband is tussen waarnemingen van Bigfoot en de omvang van de zwarte beren-populatie. “Maar het kan zijn dat de combinatie van minder beren en minder bos, maar meer mensen, het grote aantal waarnemingen (van Bigfoot, red.) verklaart,” aldus Floxon. “De enige manier om een mogelijk verband tussen waarnemingen van Bigfoot en zwarte beren-populaties te verkennen, is dan ook door rekening te houden met het aantal beren, aantal mensen en bosoppervlak in een gebied.”
Verband En rekening houdend met al die factoren blijkt er inderdaad een opvallend verband te zijn Bigfoot en zwarte beren. Zo wordt Bigfoot vaker waargenomen in een gebied, naarmate er in dat gebied meer zwarte beren wonen. Heel concreet blijkt het gemiddeld zo te zijn dat het aantal waarnemingen van Bigfoot voor elke 1000 beren extra in een gebied, met 4 procent toeneemt. “Dus als zwarte beren-populaties groter zijn, mag je verwachten dat ook het aantal waarnemingen van Bigfoot groter is,” aldus Floxon. En afgaand op de cijfers was er in 2006 naar schatting voor elke 5000 zwarte beren in Noord-Amerika één waarneming van Bigfoot.
En daarmee is er toch wel een sterke correlatie tussen het aantal zwarte beren in een gebied en het aantal keren dat Bigfoot in zo’n gebied gespot wordt, zo moet Floxon concluderen. Het idee dat mensen die Bigfoot gespot denken te hebben in werkelijkheid een zwarte beer hebben gezien, wordt verder onderschreven door het feit dat de uiterlijke kenmerken van een beer vrij nauwkeurig overeenkomen met die van de vermeende Bigfoot. Zo hebben Bigfoot en de beer ongeveer dezelfde omvang, dezelfde kleur en vacht. Ook verplaatsen en gedragen beren en de vermeende Bigfoot zich – opnieuw afgaand op ooggetuigenverslagen – op ongeveer dezelfde manier, zo merkt Floxon op.
Slag om de arm Al met al zijn het sterke aanwijzingen dat Bigfoot niet bestaat en in werkelijkheid gewoon een zwarte beer is. Maar dat staat nog niet helemaal vast, zo benadrukt Floxon. “Hoewel de huidige studie het bestaan van Bigfoot niet uit kan sluiten, onderschrijft deze wel de alternatieve zwarte beer-hypothese.”
Mocht Bigfoot inderdaad een zwarte beer zijn, kunnen wetenschappers daar mogelijk hun voordeel mee doen. Zo zouden waarnemingen van Bigfoot bijvoorbeeld gebruikt kunnen worden om een beter beeld te krijgen van berenpopulaties en zo bij kunnen dragen aan het beschermen daarvan, aldus Floxon. Meer onderzoek naar de ware aard van Bigfoot is daarvoor echter vanzelfsprekend noodzakelijk.
De 36-jarige stewardess Denisa Tanase is er nu helemaal van overtuigd: ufo's bestaan en ze heeft er zelf eentje gespot!
Deze stewardess die voor lagekostenmaatschappij Wizz Air vliegt, filmde het prachtige uitzicht boven Europa toen ze richting Polen vloog. Zonder het eerst zelf te beseffen, filmde ze iets heel opmerkelijks.
Ze filmde een ‘ronde vorm die roze flitste’. “Ik dacht eerst dat het de reflectie van mijn uniform was”, vertelt ze. “Maar het bewoog, je kon het zien vliegen.” De stewardess is er daarom van overtuigd dat het om een ufo gaat. “Ik dacht: hoe is dit mogelijk?”vertelt ze. “Ik heb altijd al gedacht dat aliens bestonden, nu weet ik het zeker.”
(Tagtik/Illustration: Photo by Nicole Geri on Unsplash)
There are already dozens of claims in favor of extraterrestrial visitation. Today, numerous astronauts and government officials support the UAP phenomena, and some are highly positive that they could have an alien origin. The Honorable Paul Hellyer (1923-2021), former Canadian Minister of Defense said extraterrestrials have been visiting our planet for thousands of years and it is likely that at least two of them are working with the U.S. government and sharing their highly-advanced technologies with humans.
In the 1960s, Paul Hellyer, a high-ranking official during the Cold War, asserted that he had discovered with certainty about the existence of aliens while serving in the military. He said that people from other worlds had been coming to Earth for a very long time. He insisted that a lot of the stuff that makes up our high-tech gadgetry had been gifted to us by overly-advanced ETs.
Hellyer had long expressed his views on extraterrestrials in public. He testified at the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure in May 2013 in Washington, DC. Five former members of U.S. Congress and one former U.S. senator listened to more than thirty hours of testimony from government officials, military personnel, researchers, and witnesses.
Huffington Post Canada described that, as part of his testimony, Hellyer stated that “aliens are living among us and that it is likely at least two of them are working with the U.S. government.” More specifically, Hellyer announced that at least four species of extraterrestrials had been visiting Earth for thousands of years. According to Huffington Post Canada, he also stated that some extraterrestrials originate from the “Zeta Reticuli, the Pleiades, Orion, Andromeda, and Altair star systems” and “may have different agendas.”
He first spoke openly about his belief governments are covering up an alien presence back in 2005, saying UFOs are as plentiful in our sky as airplanes. “Much of the media won’t touch it, so you just have to keep working away at it and we will get a critical mass and one day they will say Mr. President or Mr. Prime Minister, we want the truth and we want it now because it affects our lives.”
In 2013, Hellyer appeared on the RT interview show SophieCo with Sophie Shevardnadze to discuss extraterrestrials and UFOs. Shevardnadze asked Hellyer, “Why do you say that UFOs are as real as airplanes flying over our heads?” Hellyer replied, “Because I know that they are. As a matter of fact, they’ve been visiting our planet for thousands of years.” He further stated military action had brought down UFOs, and humans had adapted alien technology for use on Earth. (Source)
He said: “As far as technology is concerned, they are light years ahead of us, and we have learned a lot of things from them. A lot of the things we use today we got from them, you know – led lights and microchips and Kevlar vests and all sorts things that we got from their technology and we could get a lot more too, especially in the fields of medicine and agriculture if we would go about it peacefully. But, I think, maybe some of our people are more interested in getting the military technology, and I think that’s wrong-headed, and that’s one of the things that we are going to have to change, because we’re going to have to work together, all of us, everywhere on the planet.”
Hellyer takes us to where he saw his first UFO, and points. Credit: Motherboard
Shevardnadze asked: “Have you ever had your own encounter with aliens?” Hellyer replied: “Not encounter with aliens, no. I’ve seen a UFO, about 120 miles north of Toronto, over Lake Muskoka, where I have a cottage. Two years ago, at Thanksgiving, which is October, [my wife?] said that she wanted to go out and look at the stars, so… I’m not much of a night man… but I put on my cap and went out with her and she looked into the eastern sky and said, ‘There’s a star,’ and I turned the other way and said, ‘Oh, there’s a much brighter one over here,’ and she looked there and we watched it until our necks almost broke for about 20 minutes, and it was definitely a UFO because it could change position in the sky by three or four degrees in three or four seconds.”
Shevardnadze further asked Hellyer if shooting down those UFOs was risking an interstellar war, and, if so, “should we be creating a Star Wars force to defend ourselves from possible invasion or something like that?”
Hellyer said: “I think it’s a possibility, but it’s a possibility especially if we shoot down every UFO that comes into our airspace without asking who they are and what they want. Right from the beginning, we started scrambling planes, trying to shoot them down, but their technology was superior enough that we weren’t able to get away with it, certainly not for a long while.”
He continued: “During that period of time they could have taken us over without any trouble if they wanted to, so I think, rather than developing our own Star Wars to protect ourselves against them, we should work with the benign species that are of a vast majority and work together, and rely largely on them, of course, and cooperate, so that we would be contributing something at the same time; I don’t think there’s any point in us developing a galactic force that would tempt us to ride on our own and get into mischief, which is one of the things that some of them are concerned about.”
On countering physicist Stephen Hawking’s assertion that any alien visitors to Earth would likely be malevolent, Hellyer argued that not only have aliens already visited Earth but that they have helped contribute to humanity’s technological progress. He said earthlings owe a lot to their alien friends. “Even that computer screen on your desk,” he said, “can trace its origins to spaceships. Microchips, for example, fiber-optics, they are just two of the many things that allegedly — and probably for real — came from crashed vehicles,” Hellyer added. (Source)
Hellyer was not the only one speaking of a partnership between humans and extraterrestrial intelligence. The former head of the Israeli space security program and retired general Haim Eshed also claimed that a sort of agreement had been made between aliens and the US government to keep silent on their experiments on Earth and secret bases on Mars.
Mr. Eshed said that aliens and “Galactic federation” do exist and have been working with the US and the Israel government for years, but they keep it a secret to avoid mass hysteria. According to him, President Trump was aware of it and has already been in contact with space aliens. He further said that the aliens have been waiting for humans to evolve and reach a certain stage to actually understand space and spaceships. Besides, they signed a contract with humans to do experiments on Earth and also research with them to learn the fabric of the universe.
I don’t know if you guys remember that classic cartoon (my kids were watching it the other day), but if you don’t, it’s about a little purple dog who is always scared and always having to deal with some weird ish — like alien chickens, for example.
I bring up Courage because he’d be perfect for what the hell was seen in Charlotte, North Carolina recently, as an object that was both fiery and triangular was seen gliding through the sky and caught on a video posted on Twitter. And understandably, it has a lot of people outright confused and trying to figure out what it was, with most thinking it was a UFO.
“Y’all seeing what I’m seeing flying in the sky? What in the world is going on? Bruh, I don’t know what that is,” says the man recording.
An intriguing sight, for sure.
I can understand why people think this is a UFO sighting, but to me, the object appears to be more man-made than anything. But at the same time, we’ve all heard the stories about crashed UFOs. Maybe this is one of them?
Like I said, man, this is a case for Courage.
They really did have some strange stuff on that show.
But yeah, let’s see what Courage has to say about this UFO sighting — if it is a UFO — I don’t know what the hell it is.
Ex-Pentagon alien hunter admits that most UFOs are actually 'secret military aircraft'
Ex-Pentagon alien hunter admits that most UFOs are actually 'secret military aircraft'
Sean Kirkpatrick retired from his role as the director of the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office in December, and has made many bizarre claims in recent months
The ex-alien hunting chief made the bold claim on a podcast
(Image: YouTube)
A bloke who formerly headed up the Pentagon's alien-hunting team has admitted that most UFO sightings are actually just “secret military aircraft”.
Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, made the claim while talking to CNN's Peter Bergen. He openly admitted that “none” of the sightings people are making are actually “extraterrestrial in nature”.
And in a comment that comes off far worse than he probably thinks it does, he went on to identify exactly what kind of special military tech – not made public before – people are actually seeing.
This, if it was real, would not be alien . . . he claimed (stock)
(Image: Getty Images)
He said, speaking to the In The Room podcast: “There are a lot of observations of real, advanced US programs – but none of that is extraterrestrial in nature. There are a number of advanced technologies that are being commercialized that people don't recognize.
“There's a large number of people, pilots, and others, who you know, have said, 'Hey, I saw this giant sphere. It had a cube in it, I don't understand it, it must be an alien.' Well, actually, no'. The next generation of drones that are being built are spherical drones.
“With eight thrusters in a cube configuration, I can maneuver this drone around very accurately, and they've tried these all over the place."
UFO sightings are actually just US army tech (stock)
(Image: Getty Images)
Mr Kirkpatrick caused controversy last year when he retired without warning days after claiming that sightings over the sky in the United States were actually either “aliens or technology of rival nations” – which is very different to his latest claim.
At the time, he explained: “If we don't prove it's aliens, then what we're finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard. And that's not good."
Just days after making the comments, he announced his retirement – which came in December, 2023 – and claimed he would spend his days “wrapping up the first volume of a historical review of the unidentified anomalous phenomena issue”.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UFO investigations, debunks conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and alien technology possession.
The truth is out there, but is it extraterrestrial? Sean Kirkpatrick, the scientist who led the Pentagon's UFO investigations, spills the beans on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the quest for alien life.
A screen shows what Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan claims are extraterrestrial life forms at the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Mexican legislators held another hearing dedicated to the potential for extraterrestrial life forms and UFOs following a controversial spectacle in September in which Maussan displayed what he said were "non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)(AP)
No evidence of alien life
Despite conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and reverse engineering of crashed spacecraft, Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UAP investigations, sets the record straight: "The best thing that could have happened in this job is I found the aliens, but there's none."
The departure from UAP investigations
Kirkpatrick recently stepped down from directing the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), tasked with investigating potential UFO sightings. The departure comes amid renewed attention fueled by military testimonies suggesting government possession of alien technology.
Military testimonies & alien technology
Former military witnesses testified to the House Oversight Committee, claiming the government's awareness of non-human activity since the 1930s. Allegations included the possession of alien UFOs and bodies of "dead pilots." Kirkpatrick notes that many interviewed shared similar stories of hidden UFOs dating back to the 60s or even earlier
Lack of evidence and government conspiracy
While acknowledging stories of hidden UFOs, Kirkpatrick stresses there is "no evidence of aliens" or a government conspiracy. He mentions a push to bring alien craft materials back into government oversight around the turn of the century, alleging Congress did not know about the supposed hidden program.
Pilots' UAP sightings
Many UFO sightings are reported by pilots witnessing strange objects in the sky. Kirkpatrick explains that, often, these sightings turn out to be caused by parallax—where an object appears to change position due to a shift in the observer's point of view.
Anomalous cases and lack of data
Kirkpatrick notes that between 2 percent and 5 percent of the investigated reports had sufficient data but remained "truly anomalous." He highlights the challenge in explaining phenomena when there is a lack of data, citing the case of U.S. Navy pilots witnessing a tic-tac-shaped object off the coast of California.
Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Gliese 9827d
Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Gliese 9827d
Using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have detected water vapor in the transmission spectrum of the sub-Neptune exoplanet Gliese 9827d.
The water detection in the transit spectrum of Gliese 9827d makes it the first water world candidate with an atmospheric water detection consistent with a water-rich envelope.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI / Ralf Crawford, STScI.
Gliese 9827 is a bright K-type dwarf star some 97 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces.
Also known as GJ 9827, K2-135 or EPIC 246389858, the star hosts a trio of transiting massive exoplanet, discovered recently by NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission.
The outermost planet, Gliese 9827d (GJ 9827d), completes an orbit around its parent star every 6.2 days and has a radius of 1.96 Earth radii.
Hubble observed this planet during 11 transits — events in which the planet crossed in front of its star — that were spaced out over three years.
During transits, starlight is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere and has the spectral fingerprint of water molecules.
“This would be the first time that we can directly show through an atmospheric detection, that these planets with water-rich atmospheres can actually exist around other stars,” said Dr. Björn Benneke, an astronomer with the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal.
“This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets.”
“Water on a planet this small is a landmark discovery. It pushes closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds,” said Dr. Laura Kreidberg, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
However, it remains too early to tell whether Hubble spectroscopically measured a small amount of water vapor in a puffy hydrogen-rich atmosphere, or if the planet’s atmosphere is mostly made of water, left behind after a primeval hydrogen/helium atmosphere evaporated under stellar radiation.
“Our observing program was designed specifically with the goal to not only detect the molecules in the planet’s atmosphere, but to actually look specifically for water vapor,” said Dr. Pierre-Alexis Roy, also from the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal.
“Either result would be exciting, whether water vapor is dominant or just a tiny species in a hydrogen-dominant atmosphere.”
“Until now, we had not been able to directly detect the atmosphere of such a small planet. And we’re slowly getting in this regime now,” Dr. Benneke said.
“At some point, as we study smaller planets, there must be a transition where there’s no more hydrogen on these small worlds, and they have atmospheres more like Venus (which is dominated by carbon dioxide).”
Because Gliese 9827d is as hot as Venus, at 427 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit), it definitely would be an inhospitable, steamy world if the atmosphere were predominantly water vapor.
At present the team is left with two possibilities.
One scenario is that the planet is still clinging to a hydrogen-rich atmosphere laced with water, making it a mini-Neptune.
Alternatively, it could be a warmer version of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has twice as much water as Earth beneath its crust.
“Gliese 9827d could be half water, half rock. And there would be a lot of water vapor on top of some smaller rocky body,” Dr. Benneke said.
If the planet has a residual water-rich atmosphere, then it must have formed farther away from its host star, where the temperature is cold and water is available in the form of ice, than its present location.
In this scenario, the planet would have then migrated closer to the star and received more radiation.
The hydrogen was heated and escaped, or is still in the process of escaping the planet’s weak gravity.
The alternative theory is that the planet formed close to the hot star, with a trace of water in its atmosphere.
“Observing water is a gateway to finding other things,” said Dr. Thomas Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
“This Hubble discovery opens the door to future study of these types of planets by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.”
“Webb can see much more with additional infrared observations, including carbon-bearing molecules like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane.”
“Once we get a total inventory of a planet’s elements, we can compare those to the star it orbits and understand how it was formed.”
The results were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Pierre-Alexis Roy et al. 2024. Water Absorption in the Transmission Spectrum of the Water World Candidate GJ 9827d. ApJL 954, L52; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/acebf0
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacular image of a group of interacting galaxies known as LEDA 60847.
This Hubble image shows LEDA 60847, a group of interacting galaxies located in the constellation of Draco.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Barth, University of California – Irvine / M. Koss, Eureka Scientific Inc. / A. Robinson, Rochester Institute of Technology / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.
“Galaxy mergers are relatively common occurrences,” the Hubble astronomers said.
“Most larger galaxies are the result of smaller galaxies merging.”
“The Milky Way Galaxy itself contains traces of other galaxies, indicating it is the product of past mergers.”
“Astronomers believe somewhere between 5% and 25% of all galaxies are currently merging.”
The researchers used Hubble to observe an interacting galaxy system called LEDA 60847.
Otherwise known as RBS 1661, Ka 163 or 2MASX J17465994+6836392, the system is located in the constellation of Draco.
“LEDA 60847 is classified as an active galactic nucleus (AGN),” the scientists noted.
“An AGN has a supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s central region that is accreting material.”
“The AGN emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and shines extremely brightly.”
“By studying powerful AGNs that are relatively nearby, astronomers can better understand how supermassive black holes grow and affect galaxies.”
The color image of LEDA 60847 combines ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared data from Hubble.
Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
“The ability to see across all those wavelengths is one of the things that makes Hubble unique,” the astronomers explained.
“Different types of light across the electroagnetic spectrum tell astronomers different things about our Universe.”
“Ultraviolet light traces the glow of stellar nurseries and is used to identify the hottest stars.”
“Visible light shows us moderate-temperature stars and material, and also how the view would appear to our own eyes.”
“Last but not least, near-infrared light can penetrate cold dust, allowing us to study warm gas and dust, and relatively cool stars.”
Unraveling the Enigma: UFO Sightings Above Mount Adams in Washington
Unraveling the Enigma: UFO Sightings Above Mount Adams in Washingto
Mount Adams, situated in the picturesque landscapes of Washington State, has become a focal point for UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike. Recent investigations conducted by seasoned skeptics Phil and Jessica have shed light on mysterious nighttime aerial anomalies reported by eyewitnesses. As they ventured into the remote location known for its high UFO activity, they stumbled upon intriguing findings that might just challenge conventional explanations.
Exploring the Cave:
The investigation took an unexpected turn when the team discovered a cave near the reported sighting locations. Speculations about the lights emanating from inside the mountain prompted the duo to delve deeper into the lava tube, a geological formation left behind by past volcanic activity. As they navigated through the dark passages, a distinct smell of gas heightened the mystery.
Gas Readings and Cave Exploration:
Concerned about potential hazards, Phil and Jessica decided to conduct gas meter readings, uncovering the presence of methane or gas within the cave. The eerie flickering lights observed from a distance started to make sense, raising questions about the source and nature of these phenomena. Further exploration revealed the vastness of the cave, prompting the team to set up a 360-degree light grid equipped with infrared cameras at the entrance to capture any movement.
Base Camp Setup and Sky Observation:
Setting up base camp in the vicinity of recent eyewitness encounters, the team aimed to gather physical evidence supporting the claims. As night fell, Phil and Jessica split up to scan the skies with night vision goggles and infrared monoculars. The goal was to capture any unusual lights or movements reported by numerous witnesses.
Unveiling the Unexplained:
The night sky observation yielded unexpected results as Phil spotted a mysterious glowing object through the trees. The recorded footage showcased an object changing directions and disappearing behind the tree line, leaving the investigators puzzled. Despite extensive scrutiny, the team couldn’t categorize the phenomenon as a satellite, shooting star, or conventional aircraft, leaving the door open for further exploration.
VIDEO:
Skeptics Capture UFO Sightings Above Mount Adams In Washington | Expedition X
The UFO sightings above Mount Adams continue to baffle skeptics and believers alike. Phil and Jessica’s investigation, initially driven by skepticism, unearthed intriguing evidence that challenges traditional explanations. As technology advances and our understanding of the universe expands, Mount Adams stands as a hotspot for unexplained phenomena, inviting further research into the mysteries that surround this majestic location. The quest for answers continues, and only time will tell what secrets the skies above Mount Adams hold.
De verontrustende waarheid over klopgeesten Misschien ben je deze hinderlijke geesten wel eens tegengekomen in de filmreeks 'Poltergeist'. Wist je echter dat de cast met een reeks griezelige gebeurtenissen te maken kreeg na de opnames? Deze beruchte incidenten werden bekend als 'de vloek van Poltergeist'.
Zet je je vraagtekens bij dit fenomeen? Neem dan een kijkje in de galerij en vorm je eigen mening over klopgeesten. LEES verder, als je durft.
'Poltergeist' of 'klopgeest'? In veel talen wordt het Duitse woord 'Poltergeist' gebruikt, dat 'luidruchtige geest' betekent. In Nederland gebruiken we 'klopgeest'.
Theorie Volgens een bepaalde theorie zijn geesten verstoorde entiteiten die voor levende mensen zichtbaar worden wanneer ze de energie om hen heen gebruiken. Volgens Metro, een Britse nieuwswebsite, komen ze tevoorschijn als ze veranderingen in hun omgeving detecteren.
Verschijnselen The Atlantic Paranormal Society, een Amerikaanse organisatie die over paranormale activiteiten bericht, stelt dat elk verschijnsel zich eerst in mindere mate voordoet en zich vervolgens kan ontwikkelen tot iets intensers, bijvoorbeeld in de vorm van stemmen en verschijningen.
Wetenschap Volgens The Paranormal Society brengen bepaalde onderzoeken deze klopgeesten in verband met psychokinese, het vermogen om objecten te verplaatsen met behulp van de kracht van de geest.
Bovennatuurlijk? Volgens Live Science, een Amerikaanse organisatie die zich bezighoudt met wetenschap, zijn er mensen die geloven dat de activiteiten van klopgeesten verband houden met het verstoren van geesten.
Bezetenheid Er zijn berichten verschenen over gevallen waarin mensen, zonder dat ze dat wisten, bezeten zijn geweest door klopgeesten. Vaak gebeurt dit onopgemerkt.
Klassiekers Filmes met klopgeesten zijn bekend geworden in het horrorgenre en hebben de aandacht getrokken van het grote publiek vanwege griezelige verhalen over wat er vóór de opnames gebeurd is.
'Poltergeist' (1982) In hetzelfde jaar dat de film werd uitgebracht, vond er een tragisch incident plaats. Dominique Dunne, de actrice die Dana speelde, werd vermoord door haar vriend.
'Poltergeist II: The Other Side' (1986) Julian Beck, de acteur die dominee Henry Kane speelde, stierf aan maagkanker voordat de tweede 'Poltergeist'-film uitkwam.
'Poltergeist II: The Other Side' (1986) Ongeveer een jaar na de première van de film stierf een castlid genaamd Will Sampson op tragische wijze aan een hartaanval.
'Poltergeist III' (1988) Volgens People, een Amerikaans tijdschrift dat nieuws uitbrengt, stierf ze aan een hartaanval en een septische shock, die veroorzaakt werden door een darmbelemmering waarvan ze niet afwist.
'De vloek van Poltergeist' De tragische verhalen rond de filmfranchise werden bekend als 'de vloek van Poltergeist'. Oliver Robbins, die Robbie speelde, zegt dat de vloek niets anders is dan een broodjeaapverhaal.
Poltergeist: nieuwe versie In 2015 verscheen de remake 'Poltergeist' in de bioscopen, die werd geregisseerd door Gil Kenan. De film gaat over een gezin dat wordt achtervolgd door kwaadaardige geesten.
Space is not what we see at night or what NASA has shown us for years. Amid stars, planets, and other celestial bodies, there are much more vivid, bizarre, and strange things hidden from our eyes. Several astronauts strongly believe in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations including Gordon Cooper, Buzz Aldrin, and Story Musgrave.
Many conspiracy theorists believe that NASA knew that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong had an encounter with aliens, which is why they erased 40 rolls of film from the Apollo 11 mission. It was claimed by Bob Dean, a United States Army Command Sergeant Major.
The crew Of Sts-80, Seated (From Left-to-right) Kent V. Rominger, Pilot; Kenneth D. Cockrell, Commander. Standing (Left To Right) Mission Specialists Tamara E. Jernigan, F. Story Musgrave, And Thomas D. Jones. Photo Credit: Nasa
According to a report shared by Gaia, there is a transcript between Aldrin and Armstrong where the two had witnessed extraterrestrial activities on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission.
Apollo 11: “Those are giant things. No, no, no, this is not an optical illusion. No one is going to believe this.”
NASA: “What… what…. what? What the hell is happening What’s wrong with you?”
Apollo 11: “They’re here, under the surface.”
Apart from this, what former NASA astronaut Franklin Story Musgrave said about his experience in space would shock anyone. He claimed to have seen an 8-foot-long snake, white in color, floating through space. It is hard to explain how a snake could reach space, but Musgrave has never denied it.
Here is Musgrave’s quote from the TV series “Sightings, ” Sunday, April 9, 1995:
“On two of my missions, and I still don’t have an answer, um, I have seen, a snake out there, six seven eight feet long. It is rubbery because it has internal waves in it and it follows you for a rather long period of time. The more you fly in space the more you see an incredible amount of things out there and THAT sorta brings to you, really a certainty, that other living creatures are out there. Some incredibly primitive, more primitive, some just ah just proteins coming together, amino acids and some just single-cell organisms and other civilizations that have been around for a million years that are doing unimaginable kinds of things.”
Fig 1: Alleged Photograph of snake-like UFO captured during NASA STS-61 mission
Fig 2: Alleged Photograph of snake-like UFO captured during NASA STS-61 mission
There is even a video (see below) where a snake-like creature is floating in the Earth’s stratosphere. Musgrave said: “Some are incredibly primitive – some just proteins coming together, amino acids, and some just single-celled organisms. And other civilizations have been around for millions of years that are doing unimaginable kinds of things.”
Musgrave (85) is also a retired colonel of the United States Marine Corps, physician, and mathematician, holds six academic degrees, and is simply a legendary figure in US history. He spent a total of 1,281 hours, 59 minutes, and 22 seconds during his six space shuttle missions in space including 27 hours of spacewalk. Besides, he developed a spacesuit for space shuttle astronauts.
This is not the end of strange anomalies watched by the astronauts in space. Retired astronaut Leroy Chiao, a commander of Expedition 10, along with his crew members witnessed a set of bright lights in the formation of an upside-down tick mark in space.
The description of an unknown snake-like creature or craft given by Musgrave was also spotted in March 2019, when one of the passengers on a commercial airline flight from Phoenix to Portland captured two long dark objects, having long tails or tentacles. Some viewers compared it with the squid lime sentinels from the Matrix series, while others believe that it was possibly something from another dimension that slipped through momentarily.
Similarly, the New York Post shared a video of a UFO in 2018, shot by a passenger while cruising over the Aegean Sea that also shows a creature with a long tail. The opinions were divided into two groups, where people from one group believed it was just a hoax while others also witnessed the same encounter while flying in the plane.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
24-01-2024
Why Mars Died
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows the wrinkled surroundings of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano not only on Mars but in the Solar System. This feature, created by previous landslides and lava-driven rockfalls, is named Lycus Sulci. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
We know of Mars as the Red Planet, for its surface and atmosphere is caked in endless swirling dust of rusted iron, the rusting action provided by the always-eager oxygen. But this was not always so.
As attested by our robotic emissaries that we have sent to that planet for over half a century, Mars was once a vibrant (if not verdant) world. We see the evidence for water everywhere we look: ancient flood plains, seabeds, alluvial fans, all of it. If I were to give you two pictures, one from the surface of Mars and one from one of Earth’s deserts, you could not tell the difference.
While Mars may not have had as rich an abundance of liquid water as the Earth, we do know with confidence that the world once hosted vast oceans, long, meandering rivers, and a weekly forecast featuring rainy, overcast, dreary days.
We do not yet know if the right chemicals found the right combinations at the right times to begin climbing the ladder to life on that planet, but we do know that if you could transport yourself back billions of years, to the early days of our solar system, you would find two Earth-like planets orbiting within thehabitable zone of our star.
But Mars was born with a flaw, a crippling birth defect that fated it to snuff out any hope for life on its surface. The planet Mars, though it gleams with red anger in our nighttime skies, is small. By mass it’s roughly only 11% that of the Earth. And that small mass means that its core cooled off much faster than it should have.
All worlds are warm. Some of the heat comes from the decay of radioactive elements, elements mixed within the primordial gas cloud that condensed long ago to form our solar system. But they also retain heat from the process of formation itself. Every planet that we see today is the end result of collapsing a large, diffuse cloud of gas and dust into a relatively compact volume. That collapse causes friction, and that friction generates heat.
That heat is trapped inside the body of a planet as it forms. The only way for that heat to escape is through the planet emitting radiation into the vacuum of space. As methods of heat transport go, radiation is by far the most inefficient (for a gruesome but tangible example, if we were to toss your body into the vacuum of space far away from the Sun, it would take several hours for you to freeze). As the planets emit infrared radiation, they slowly release the heat from within and cool off.
The Earth still has plenty of heat to spare, for two reasons. One, our planet is larger than Mars, and so it acquired more heat during its formation. Second, the heat of our planet is contained within the volume of its body, but the heat can only radiate from its surface. If you double the size of a planet, its surface area quadruples, but its volume becomes eight times larger. Larger planets release heat more slowly than smaller ones. In other words, we are much more inefficient than Mars when it comes to removing our heat.
Our heat keeps the core of our planet molten, and it’s there, buried thousands of miles beneath the surface, where the complex twisting of charged elements like iron, worming against each other in a great churning fire, generate our planet’s magnetic field. That magnetic field deflects the onslaught of the solar wind, the ever-present rain of charged subatomic particles streaming from our Sun, keeping our atmosphere safe. Without that protective magnetic field, we would lose our air like dandelion seeds in the breeze.
And this was Mars’ flaw. Born too small, within a billion years its core cooled and solidified, its magnetic field becoming feeble. Without that protection, Mars lost its atmosphere. Without that atmospheric pressure, the water on its surface boiled and evaporated into gas, where it too got caught up in the solar wind and blown out of the solar system. That water has now joined its brethren in the interstellar wastes, never to be seen again.
And with that, Mars died, along with any hope of life on that world.
It’s Time to Go Back to Uranus. What Questions do Scientists Have About the Ice Giants?
It seems crazy that Uranus was discovered in 1781 yet here we are, in 2024 and we have only sent one spacecraft to explore Uranus. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have given us close-up images of Uranus (and Neptune) but since their visit in 1986, we have not returned. There have of course been great images from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the James Webb Space Telescope but we still have lots to learn about them.
The discovery of Uranus was accidental! British astronomer William Herschel was surveying stars that were too faint to see with the naked eye. One star caught his attention as it seemed to move agasinst the fixed background of stars. He assumed therefore that it was closer than the more distant, background stars. Initially he thought it was a comet but it was soon realised that it was a new planet. It was Uranus
Our knowledge of Uranus was quite limited until the advent of space exploration, in particular the Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977 via the Titan Centaur rocket. Following flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1981 respectively, it visited Uranus in 1986. Voyager 2 revealed a world with a lack of internal heat, a warmer than expected thermosphere and a magnetic field offset from the planets rotational axis. Other than that, Uranus has been sitting quitely minding its own business, being observed from afar through our best space telescopes.
This artist’s concept depicts one of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, including its high-gain antenna. Voyager 2 is out of communications until October. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
There are however, many questions and uncertainties around the seventh planet from the Sun; from the nature of its interior and the interactions with the magnetic field to the mechanisms that shape the planet we see today. Without a doubt, a dedicated Uranian mission would help to unravel some of these mysteries.
It’s not just the paper that has been recently published by Emma K Dahl and team that recommends a Uranus Orbiter and Probe but a survey compiled by the National Academies of Sciences, Egineering and Medicine (NASEM) also found the same conclusion. A mission that could monitor Uranus over the long term would be invaluable in unlocking more details about the atmosphere; how the planet formed and how it has migrated around the Solar System? how the atmosphere has contributed to the evolution of the planet?; what processes are underway in the Uranian atmosphere and much more.
Uranus as seen by NASA’s Voyager 2. Credit: NASA/JPL
Unlocking some of these mysteries will not only help us to understand the nature or Uranus but also help us to understand how the Solar System and other planetary systems form. The paper goes further though, not just discussing the key outstanding questions but also looking at the measurements needed to derive conclusions and hypotheses from temperature and pressure profiles, chemical concentrations, wind speeds, vertical convection levels and magnetic field strengths to name a few.
There is a huge level of support across the science community for a mission to Uranus and not just an orbiter, a probe that can offer long term readings and observations. The recommendations from the NASEM review highlight the areas of focus and, if addressed, will help to finally unravel some of the mysteries of Uranus.
Artist rendition of a potential water-world exoplanet that might support life. Scientists could determine whether to explore this world based on its planetary entropy production. (Credit: ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser)
Water is the most common chemical molecule found throughout the entire universe. What water has going for it is that its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen, are also ridiculously common, and those two elements really enjoying bonding with each other. Oxygen has two open slots in its outmost electron orbital shell, making it very eager to find new friends, and each hydrogen comes with one spare electron, so the triple-bonding is a cinch.
Hydrogen comes to us from the big bang itself, making it by both mass and number the #1 element in the cosmos. Seriously, the stuff is everywhere. About 75% of every star, every interstellar gas cloud, and every wandering bit of intergalactic space debris never to know the warmth of stellar fusion in 13.8 billion years of cosmic history is made of hydrogen. That hydrogen got its start when our universe was only about ten minutes old, and all the hydrogen that has ever existed (except for random radioactive decays and fission reactions, but that would come later) formed before our universe turned 20 minutes.
A dozen minutes, 13.8 billion years ago. When you quench your thirst with a healthy glass, that’s what you’re consuming.
We can understand this epoch of cosmic history, known as the nucleosynthesis era, because over the past century we’ve become rather skilled at dealing with nuclear reactions, and in one of the hallmarks of our species we have unleashed this radical understanding into the physical nature of reality and deployed it for both peacetime energy generation and wartime bombs.
Our understanding of nuclear physics tells us that earlier than the ten-minute mark, our universe was too hot and too dense for protons and neutrons to form. Instead their subatomic parts, known as quarks, were unglued in a heaving maelstrom of nuclear forces, constantly binding and unbinding in a seething rage-filled sea of gluons, the force carriers of the strong nuclear force.
Once the universe expanded and cooled enough, condensates of protons and neutrons formed like droplets on the windowpane, low-energy pockets capable of keeping themselves together despite the temperatures. Eventually, however, as soon as the party got going it fizzled out: when the universe became too large and too cool, a mere dozen minutes later, there wasn’t sufficient density to bring the quarks close enough together to perform their nuclear binding trick. Some protons and neutrons would find each other in those storm-filled days, though, forming heavier versions of hydrogen, some helium, and a small amount of lithium.
And since then those hydrogen atoms have wandered about the cosmos; most lost in the intergalactic wastes, some participating in the glorious construction of stars and planets, and a lucky few finding themselves locked in a chemical dance with oxygen.
The oxygen has another tale to tell, also a story of fusion, on its way to becoming water. But not the fusion of the first few heady minutes of the big bang, but in the dance within the hearts of stars. There, crushing pressures and violent temperatures slam hydrogen atoms together, forcing them to fuse into helium, in the process releasing an almost vanishingly small amount of energy. But that forced marriage happens millions of times every second, in every one of the trillions upon untold trillions of stars strewn about the cosmos, enough to light up the universe for all conscious observers to enjoy.
Near the end of a star’s life, it turns to fusing the built-up ash of helium piled in its core, The fusion of helium produces two products: carbon and oxygen. Now this oxygen would end up forever closed off from the cosmos, locked behind a million-kilometer thick wall of plasma, if it were not for a trick of physics that happens when the star meets its final days.
Our Sun will someday experience this fate, about four and a half billion years now. When it grows old and weary, it will swell and turn red, violently spasming as it draws its last fatal breaths. Those gargantuan shudders release material from the star, launching it into the surrounding system, billowed by gusty winds of fundamental particles streaming away at nearly the speed of light. Fit by ragged fit, the Sun will lose its own self, driving away over half its mass into a spreading nebula, the only sign that distant eyes can perceive of yet another noble star laying down its struggle against the all-consuming night.
But in that gruesome death, a miracle. The cycle born anew: the hydrogen and helium, the primordial elements of the star, now mixed with carbon and oxygen drift off into the interstellar void, someday to take part in the formation of a new star, a new solar system, a new world wet with water, and, if the chances are perfect, a new life.
Venus’ Clouds Contain Sulfuric Acid. That’s Not a Problem for Life.
A recent study published in Astrobiology investigates the potential habitability in the clouds of Venus, specifically how amino acids, which are the building blocks of life, could survive in the sulfuric acid-rich upper atmosphere of Venus. This comes as the potential for life in Venus’ clouds has become a focal point of contention within the astrobiology community in the last few years. On Earth, concentrated sulfuric acid is known for its corrosivity towards metals and rocks and for absorbing water vapor. In Venus’ upper atmosphere, it forms from solar radiation interacting with sulfur dioxide, water vapor, and carbon dioxide.
Here, Universe Today discusses this new research with Dr. Sara Seager, who is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a co-author on the study, regarding the motivation behind the study, how it builds off previous studies, and what this could mean regarding the search for life in the clouds of Venus. Therefore, what is the motivation behind this recent research?
“We are pushing forward the decades-old speculative idea that there might be some kind of microbial-type life in the clouds of Venus,” Dr. Seager tells Universe Today. “The surface of Venus is too hot for life, but just like on Earth as one climbs a mountain or goes up in an airplane, the temperature gets colder and colder above the surface. In the Venus clouds 50 km above the surface the temperature is just right for life. However, the clouds of Venus are not made of water as Earth clouds are, but sulfuric acid is a highly destructive and toxic chemical. The motivation is to explore whether or not sulfuric acid can support complex molecules needed for life.”
For the study, the researchers examined 20 biogenic amino acids within sulfuric acid concentrations that mirrored Venusian atmospheric conditions. After four weeks, the researchers discovered that 11 of the 20 biogenic amino acids didn’t react—or exhibited stability—to the sulfuric acid concentrations while the eight amino acids exhibited stability in the sulfuric acid concentrations after experiencing alteration, and one experiencing instability after alteration. This alteration specifically pertained to the amino acid’s side chain, which is the part of the amino acid that contains each amino acid’s distinctive chemical characteristics, or its uniqueness compared to other amino acids. Along with demonstrating that amino acids remain stable in sulfuric acid concentrations, the study notes how this research “…also informs the possible origins of life on Venus, if life exists there.”
“We can broadly say that biochemistry of life on Earth is composed of four different categories of compounds: nucleic acid bases, amino acids, fatty acids, and carbohydrates,” Dr. Seager tells Universe Today. “Carbohydrates are not stable, but we are working through all the others. This work relates to the June 2023 study as a continuation of working through different classes of molecules. You’ll be hearing more as we make further progress.”
In addition to the June 2023 study, this recent study comes as discussions about the potential for life in the clouds of Venus continue to gain traction, including a myriad of studies between 2020 and 2021 being published in Astrobiology outlining the potential for habitable conditions for life within Venus’ clouds. These studies included using models to determine how life could be possible, the potential presence of phosphorus within the clouds, and a potential instrument package that could be used to sample aerosols within Venus’ clouds to detect potential biogenic markers.
One such future mission that Dr. Seager mentions to Universe Today is Rocket Lab’s First Private Mission to Venus, which was outlined in a 2022 study published in Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics and which Dr. Seager tells Universe Today has a current scheduled launch date of January 2025. The mission is slated to use Rocket Lab’s configurable Photon spacecraft that will be fitted with a small, 1-kg (2.2-lb) scientific instrument whose purpose is to shine a laser into the clouds of Venus with the goal of literally lighting up potential organic molecules that might be present. But with all these studies and planned missions, will we ever find life in the clouds of Venus, and in what form?
“If there is life it is most likely simple, single-celled life,” Dr. Seager tells Universe Today. “If we can continue to send space missions to probe the Venus atmosphere directly, we can make progress in answering this question.”
What further discoveries will researchers make about the potential for life in the clouds of Venus in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
NASA Lost Contact With its Ingenuity Helicopter Briefly, but it's Back
This view of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was generated using data collected by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover on Aug. 2, 2023, the 871st Martian day, or sol, of the mission, one day before the rotorcraft’s 54th flight. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
NASA Lost Contact With its Ingenuity Helicopter Briefly, but it's Back
Imagine remotely flying a drone or small aircraft from a great distance and loosing contact with it during flight. You’d likely assume the worst, that your aircraft was probably laying in a crashed heap in some remote location.
That’s what engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory went through with the beloved Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, millions of miles away. During a recent quick pop-up flight that was supposed to last just 32 seconds, Ingenuity lost communications before it touched back down. The engineers back on Earth had no idea if the little helicopter landed safely or not.
Communications were lost on January 18 when the tiny autonomous rotorcraft was flown on a short vertical flight to test its systems after an unplanned early landing during its previous flight, NASA reported in a status update.
For some reason, the communications link was severed between Ingenuity and the Perseverance rover, which relays data between the helicopter and Earth during the flights. Data received showed that Ingenuity had climbed to its assigned maximum altitude of 12 meters (40 feet), but then the data link terminated early, prior to touchdown.
Ingenuity captured this image of Mars on December 2, 2023 (Sol 990) with its high-resolution color camera. The shadow of the helicopter can be seen near the center of the images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
But thankfully, after engineers had worked around the clock, on late on January 20 communications were able to be reestablished between the helicopter and rover, with engineers able to determine the helicopter was “power-positive” and sitting upright on Mars.
The team is now running further diagnostic checks, and commanding Ingenuity to take photos of its location on the surface to help pinpoint its location, and performing a spin test.
“Ginny is back in contact!,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin posted on X. “Thanks to our team for working the issue so quickly and effectively. Still need to understand more about what happened. After far more flights than anticipated, no matter what, the #MarsHelicopter has been an extraordinary success!”
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WATSON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
JPL did say that during the flight, Perseverance was out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, and after communications were lost, the team considered driving the rover closer for a visual inspection. They did use the rover “to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.”
This was Ingenuity’s 72nd flight at the Red Planet – which is incredible given that only four flights were planned for the plucky little helicopter, the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled extraterrestrial flight. But since becoming operational on April 19, 2021, it has blown away expectations, now completing 72 flights.
Ingenuity operates in a harsh environment that no aircraft has ever flown in before. Mars is extremely cold and dry, and Mars’ very thin atmosphere has only about 1% the density of Earth’s. The thin atmosphere makes lift more difficult to generate, although the gravity is weaker, which helps. There’s also the time delay in communications between Mars and Earth which adds a layer of complexity to every endeavor.
If we are practical, we realize that one day, Ingenuity will fly its last flight, never to be heard from again.
Professor Garry Nolan is one of the most reputable experts examining the enigma of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). He has been studying UAP materials for many months and has made numerous astonishing statements about UFOs. His contributions lend credibility to this particular mystery, which many mainstream scientists hesitate to discuss.
Dr. Nolan works at Stanford University as a professor of Immunology. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize, which is a big honor. He is known as one of the best immunologists in the world. He has many patents and has written a lot of research papers. He has also started two companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange because of his successful inventions.
In June 2022, Australian investigative journalist Ross Coulthart interviewed Dr. Nolan and learned from him shocking UAP information that the U.S. government had been investigating for the past few years. Dr. Nolan said that one thing he is sure about is that we do not know what UAPs are: “We do know that there is something here something that I think defies explanation but that something can be studied from a scientific Viewpoint.”
Although this interview was recorded in 2022, Dr. Nolan adheres to David Grusch’s statement that the U.S. government has been lying about UAPs for the last 60-70 years. He believes the reason behind this is that the U.S. government itself does not know what they are dealing with. “Absolutely, there is a cover-up,” says Dr. Nolan. “I mean, there has been both a cover-up and a disinformation campaign to make people appear as if they were crazy.”
Coutlhart questions the potential dangers of admitting one’s thoughts on these mysterious events, to which Dr. Nolan responds, “I think it’s dangerously necessary… ignoring the physics of what these things are capable of doing.” Coutlhart further asks, “Let’s talk about ‘It.’ What is it?”
Dr. Nolan replies, “You know, I wish I knew… Whatever it is appears to be so far advanced from us that it beggars understanding.” When pressed further by Coutlhart if he believes the phenomenon to be of human origin, Dr. Nolan decisively states, “I’m sure it’s not human..I think it’s whatever it is it’s been here a long time so and certainly it’s been here longer than we’ve been civilized so at the very least who really owns the planet who was here first uh I’m not sure it was.”
Dr. Nolan explained he studied the brains of pilots who claimed to have encountered the phenomena. After their UAP/ UFO encounters, they all got damaged or hurt such as buzz noises in their head, got sick, etc. Most of them have had similar kinds of bad things. He showed the MRIs of some people that revealed damage in the middle of the basal ganglia – an area responsible for motor control and other core brain functions, including intuition.
Dr. Nolan said the damage should have killed those people, yet they were alive. He obtained MRIs of some prior to their encounters and they had the damage, so they were most likely born with it. “These are all so-called high-functioning people. They’re pilots who are making split-second decisions, intelligence officers in the field, etc,” he said.
Alleged UFO material
Former Pentagon UFO official Lue Elizondo shared a truly eye-opening statement in his interview with James Iandoli of Engaging The Phenomenon on June 11, 2021. They discussed crash retrievals and materials related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). Elizondo acknowledged the sensitivity of the topic and the potential consequences of discussing it openly.
However, Elizondo expressed his belief that the US government does possess exotic materials but could not provide further details due to the lack of transparency from the government. He mentioned the three layers of analysis that can be conducted on a piece of material, namely physical, chemical, and atomic or nano-level research.
Coulthart asked the Stanford professor about this research on a peculiar material known as Bismuth magnesium. Dr. Nolan described it as a layered substance consisting primarily of bismuth, with traces of lead and magnesium. Despite his assessment of its isotope ratios showing nothing out of the ordinary, he expressed his intent to study a significantly larger sample in the future. This expanded sample size would allow him to conduct more comprehensive tests, potentially shedding light on its properties.
Terahertz Transmistter
Coulthart speculated on the material’s ability to levitate when exposed to a specific waveform. While Nolan acknowledged hearing about such claims, he had not personally witnessed or tested the phenomenon. When pressed by Coulthart about whether he had attempted any experiments, Nolan clarified that the required waveform for levitation would be “Terahertz Waves,” which he had not utilized.
Coulthart highlighted that the U.S. Army possessed the necessary terahertz transmitter for potential experiments with the Bismuth magnesium material. However, Dr. Nolan remained tight-lipped about the specifics, stating he could not discuss whether such research had been conducted.
Coulthart mentioned that Tom Delonge’s To the Stars Academy (TTSA) worked with the U.S. Army to study this material using the right equipment. Coulthart wondered why the U.S. government keeps such materials if stories about flying objects are just made up. Nolan thinks there is a lot of false information out there but believes there might be real materials that we should know about. He wants the government to tell us clearly if those special materials are real or not.
In 2019, Tom DeLonge claimed that his UFO research organization had acquired “potentially exotic materials featuring properties not from any known existing military or commercial application.” “The structure and composition of these materials are not from any known existing military or commercial application,” Steve Justice, TTSA’s COO and former head of Advanced Systems at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works said in a statement. (Source)
According to the press release, some of these materials were in the possession of investigative journalist and UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe, who, in 2004, gave a presentation at the Xcon Conference regarding these materials. In her lecture, a video of which has been on the Internet for years, she suggests that the material could become a “lifting body” with the right amount of electromagnetic static and certain RF frequency. These are undoubtedly the same materials mentioned by Tom DeLonge on his Joe Rogan interview where he stated, “if you hit it with enough terahertz, it’ll float.”
In this video, Dr. David Chester, a scientist from Quantum Gravity Research, makes several references to pulsed terahertz waves. Towards the end, he mentions that pulsed terahertz waves in a metamaterial can slow down the speed of light. He further explains that this is beneficial for anti-gravity engineering. According to him, due to the way everything couples together in the equations, a reduced speed of light requires less energy to achieve the desired anti gravitic effects.
This is some really interesting information on terahertz, thanks to Observing The Anomaly.
AAWSAP commissioned 37 scientific papers that are now public. Someone FOIA’d about UAP materials being studied and DIA responded with 5 of these papers. One paper was on spintronics and another on metamaterials. TTSA bought an alleged sample of Roswell crash material and gave it to the Army to study in 2019. According to Puthoff it appeared to be a metamaterial that acts as a waveguide at the terahertz frequency. The two papers on spintronics and metamaterials also touches on creating materials that operate at this frequency and specifically that such materials would be radiation resistant and ideal for long space travel.
Hal Puthoff also discusses the sample with UFO Joe. Notice the bolded statement below. (Source)
So the answer is, we don’t, yet, really know where it came from. And it’s true that ten years ago Linda Howe provided us with a sample. And we did a lot of tests. Got electron microscope pictures and irradiated it with various gigahertz frequencies, megahertz frequencies and so on. We couldn’t make anything out of it. So it kind of went on the shelf. And it was only after this paper on meta-materials was published, we said, “Oh my gosh. The claim here, that this could have some real utility as microscopic waveguides, would actually fit the structure, you know, that we see there.” Okay, well where do we go with that?
Well, the truth of the matter is, that piece is actually pretty mangled and what you’d really like to do is say, “Okay, well let’s have a nice, clean piece of this, and let’s irradiate with terahertz frequencies, first of all, to see if it really does act as a microscopic waveguide for terahertz frequencies. And then, if that works, we’ll iradiate it with other kinds of fields and see if there are any unexpected responses and so on.” So it is still, despite the fact it gets unbelievable publicity out there, it’s still an absolutely unknown. It does range all the way from…this was a fraud of junk material sent to us, to…no, this came off the wedge of an ET craft.
We don’t know the answer to that, and the only way we are going to get something of value is to determine its properties or maybe reproduce it under nice conditions and determine its properties. So, it is still a giant question mark out there. So even though it’s, you know, it’s like…a few percent of our effort at TTSA, it’s like 99% of our criticisms (laughs). That’s just what you get in this field. That’s the way it goes. Some of us have developed very hard skins. Another question?
Puthoff elaborates further in another interview: (Source)
Well, years later, decades later actually, finally our own science moves along. We move into an area called metamaterials, and it turns out exactly this combination of materials at exactly those dimensions turn out to be an excellent microscopic waveguide for very high frequency electromagnetic radiation terahertz frequencies. So, the wavelength is 60 microns, which is a pretty small size. But it turns out because of the metamaterial aspect of this material, those bismuth layers that act as waveguides can be one twentieth the size of the wavelength, and usually when you make a waveguide it’s gotta be about the size of the wavelength. So, in fact this turned out to be a material that would propagate sub-wavelength waveguide effects. Why somebody wants to do that we still don’t know the answer to that.
Dr. Nolan is said to have a good friendship with Jacques Vallée, Kit Green, Eric Davis, and Colm Kelleher. They all came to him to analyze the UAP materials after he had developed some wonderful instruments using mass spectrometry.
“Some of the objects are nondescript, and just lumps of metal. Mostly, there’s nothing unusual about them except that everywhere you look in the metal, the composition is different, which is odd. It’s what we call inhomogeneous. That’s a fancy way of saying ‘incompletely mixed.’ The common thing about all the materials that I’ve looked at so far, and there’s about a dozen, is that almost none of them are uniform. They’re all these hodgepodge mixtures. Each individual case will be composed of a similar set of elements, but they will be inhomogeneous,” he explained.
Dr. Nolan found out that some of the fragments from the so-called UFO crash in Brazil have extraordinarily altered isotope ratios of magnesium. He explained:
“It was interesting because another piece from the same event was analyzed in the same instrument at the same time. This is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument called a nanoSIMS – Secondary Ion Mass Spec. It had perfectly correct isotope ratios for what you would expect for magnesium found anywhere on Earth. Meanwhile, the other one was just way off. Like 30 percent off the ratios. The problem is there’s no good reason humans have for altering the isotope ratios of a simple metal like magnesium. There’s no different properties of the different isotopes, that anybody, at least in any of the literature that is public of the hundreds of thousands of papers published, that says this is why you would do that. Now you can do it. It’s a little expensive to do, but you’d have no reason for doing it.”
Dr. Vallée collected purported metal from the UFO cases dated back to 1947 and brought them to Stanford University for analysis. Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford microbiologist analyzed the 3-D atomic structure of the unknown metal with a state-of-the-art Multiparameter Ion Beam Imager (MIBI) capable of discerning the precise composition of matter at the level of its isotopes.
The result might be shocking for non-believers, as when he put the sample in the vacuum chamber of the machine, he found out that their composition was unlike any other known metal on Earth.
“If you’re talking about an advanced material from an advanced civilization you’re talking about something that I’ll just call it an ultra material right it’s something which has properties where somebody is putting it together again at the atomic scale so we’re building our world with 80 elements somebody else is building the world with 253 different isotopes,” Dr. Nolan said.
Could humans be altering the isotopes in these strange objects for unknown purposes? Dr. Nolan speculates that it is possible, but proving it requires getting down to the atomic level, possibly with a super quantum interference device (SQUID). However, neither his budget nor the budgets of the groups analyzing UFO/UAP encounters have that kind of funding yet.
An international research team has discovered what they describe as ‘anomalous’ rocks on the Moon’s surface that exhibit unique magnetic properties. Located near an area named Reiner Gamma, the small group of meter-sized rocks stood out because they are covered in a layer of dust with special reflective properties, meaning they reflect light differently than all previously known lunar rocks.
The discoveries are part of an effort to better understand the movement of dust and other processes that form and change the surface of the Moon, but they may also end up offering unexpected insights into the history of its magnetic core.
“Current knowledge of the Moon’s magnetic properties is very limited, so these new rocks will shed light on the history of the Moon and its magnetic core,” said Ottaviano Rüsch from the Institut für Planetologie. “For the first time, we have investigated the interactions of dust with rocks in the Reiner Gamma region – more precisely, the variations in the reflective properties of these rocks.”
SCANNING OVER ONE MILLION IMAGES YIELDED THE ANOMALOUS ROCKS
To make the unexpected discovery, Rüsch and his team employed artificial intelligence to scour through over one million images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which continuously orbits the Moon. The use of artificial intelligence allowed the team, which was originally looking for cracks on the Moon, to investigate such a large number of photos while scanning for expected and unexpected variances in material on the lunar surface.
“Modern data processing methods allow us to gain completely new insights into global contexts,” explained Valentin Bickel from the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern. “At the same time, we keep finding unknown objects in this way, such as the anomalous rocks that we are investigating in this new study.”
This effort led to the discovery of about 130,000 “flagged’ images, half of which were then examined by human scientists. In that group, the researchers spotted some unusual reflectivity coming off of certain rocks around Reiner Gamma, prompting them to investigate further.
“We recognized a boulder with distinctive dark areas on just one image,” said Rüsch. “This rock was very different from all the others, as it scatters less light back towards the sun than other rocks. We suspect that this is due to the particular dust structure, such as the density and grain size of the dust.”
“Normally, lunar dust is very porous and reflects a lot of light back in the direction of illumination,” adds Marcel Hess from TU Dortmund University. “However, when the dust is compacted, the overall brightness usually increases. This is not the case with the observed dust-covered rocks.”
The meter-high rocks discovered in the work are located near the Reiner K crater in the “Reiner Gamma” region, which has a magnetic anomaly.
CREDIT: NASA LRO/NAC
FUTURE ROBOTIC ROVER MISSION WILL EXAMINE THE ROCKS UP CLOSE
After publishing their findings in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, the research team says they want to spend the coming weeks and months performing additional investigations. This includes trying to better understand the underlying processes that govern interactions between dust and rocks as well as doing more study on what caused the formation of the special dust structure.
According to the press release announcing the findings, these efforts will also include investigating the process behind “the lifting of the dust due to electrostatic charging or the interaction of the solar wind with local magnetic fields.”
Fortunately, the research team notes, NASA is planning to send a robotic rover to the Reiner Gamma region “in the coming years” that will be tasked with finding similar anomalous rocks covered with the uniquely reflective dust. Having a better understanding of how dust behaves in the lunar environment will be critical for planning future manned missions, they argue, especially given how many problems moon dust caused for the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and 1970s and the bold goals of putting a permanent base on the Moon.
“Even if it is still a dream of the future, a better understanding of dust movement can help with the planning of human settlements on the Moon,” the release concludes.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
New Evidence Shows Modern Humans First Arrived in China 45,000 Years Ago
A new study presents evidence showing that Homo sapiens (modern humans) arrived in China approximately 45,000 years ago, or several thousand years earlier than previously suspected. The original human settlers to the region likely arrived from the north and east, experts believe, migrating to northern China from the adjacent lands of modern-day Siberia and Mongolia.
An international team of researchers who study human evolution, led by Paleolithic archaeologist Shi-Xia Yang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, completed a thorough re-examination of artifacts collected from a long-neglected and nearly forgotten archaeological site known as Shiyu, which is located in China’s Shanxi province. This fresh study just published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution uncovered the true age of this prehistoric human settlement, which will now be recognized as the oldest Homo sapiens site ever found on Chinese soil.
"Our new study identified an Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) archaeological assemblage from the Shiyu site of North China dating to 45,000 years ago that includes blade technology, tanged and hafted projectile points, long-distance obsidian transfer, and the use of a perforated graphite disk," Shi-Xia Yaong stated in a Chinese Academy of Sciences press release covering his teams findings.
In the context of the region as a whole, this discovery sheds new light on the migration of peoples from one territory to another over the course of several thousand years.
“The geographic expansion of Homo sapiens populations into southeastern Europe occurred by 47,000 years ago, marked by Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) technology,” the study authors explained in their Nature Ecology & Evolution paper:
“Homo sapiens was present in western Siberia by 45,000 years ago, and IUP industries indicate early entries by 50,000 years ago in the Russian Altaiand 46–45,000 years ago in northern Mongolia. Homo sapiens was in northeastern Asia by 40,000 years ago, with a single IUP site in Chinadating to 43–41,000 years ago.”
Assumptions about when the migrations that started in southeastern Europe reached China were shaped primarily by the last discovery referenced above. But it seems that Shiyu could predate this other Chinese site by as much as 4,000 years, which represents a significant divergence from the previously accepted timeline.
Excavations at Shiyu in 1963 produced more than 15,000 tools, weapons and personal items made from stone, along with thousands of animal bones that showed signs of having been touched or altered by human hands. While there was no doubt the site had been heavily used by ancient humans, the Chinese archaeologists who excavated the site were only able to recover a single piece of one Homo sapiens skull, meaning burials of the dead likely occurred elsewhere nearby.
Shiyu Initial Upper Palaeolithic Artifacts. a) Levallois points (1–3); b) other tool types including denticulate on blade (1, 2), denticulate on flake (3), and end scraper (4); c) tanged tools showing the locations of notched retouching (red) and thinning of the tangs (light blue).
Incredibly, much of this valuable evidence of prehistoric human activity was lost decades ago. Artifacts sent to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing for further study were preserved, but excavated items that were transferred to local facilities eventually disappeared, never to be seen again. About 90 percent of the stone objects recovered at Shiyu were lost, and the lone piece of skull bone was somehow misplaced as well.
The problem was that Shiyu was discovered and excavated shortly before the onset of China’s Cultural Revolution, which created intense social and political turmoil that hindered scientific exploration and study. The preservation of the past was not a priority during those times, as reformers were far more interested in building a future utopia than trying to protect an ancient cultural legacy.
The discoverers of the site knew that what they’d found was important. But the chaos and fear associated with the Cultural Revolution prevented a more exhaustive follow-up study from taking place, and that, combined with the loss of most of the artifacts that had been found, left a great deal of uncertainty about when Shiyu had been occupied and by whom.
It was only recently that a more extensive analysis of this ancient prehistorical site was finally launched, by researchers from China, France, Australia and Germany who were anxious to unlock Shiyu’s secrets and reveal more about the earliest inhabitants of the region.
If the skull piece had been preserved, modern techniques of DNA testing could have revealed its true age. But since that artifact was lost long ago, the researchers had to resort to other means to find out more about Shiyu’s ancient occupants.
Fortunately, other means were available. The researchers analyzed 15 sediment samples taken from the site using a technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), which can calculate how long grains of earth and rock found in an excavated sediment layer had been covered up and protected from sunlight. They also used carbon dating techniques to estimate the age of some of the animal bones and teeth found at the site, which were left there by the humans that had hunted and consumed the animals.
Correlating the data from these tests, the scientists determined that Shiyu would have been occupied by humans approximately 44,600 years ago. This was surprising, since up to now no evidence had emerged suggesting that Homo sapiens had arrived in China so early.
The excavation layer that produced signs of human occupation was found relatively close to the bottom of a 100-foot (30-meter) deposit of sand and soil that was dug up at the site. There was no evidence of further occupation in levels of sediment found closer to the surface, suggesting the site had been heavily used for a period of time before being abandoned tens of thousands of years ago.
Graphite disc and bone tool that was recovered from the Shiyu site.
A Complex Ancient Culture Rooted in Tradition and Innovation
The results of the analysis of animal fossils combined with use-wear analysis of stone tools showed that the prehistoric inhabitants of ancient Shiyu were horse hunters who preyed on adult horses for meat and hides. They had access to an advanced set of tools for processing the horses they harvested from local herds, including end-scrapers and awls unique to the Late Paleolithic plus highly efficient butchering tools from the Levallois industry that was first developed in the Middle Paleolithic. The occupants of Shiyu also manufactured tools from bone and graphite, and some of their stone tools were made from obsidian that would have been secured from sources located hundreds of miles away.
All in all, the variety and functionality of their tool industry makes it clear that the prehistoric residents of Shiya built a complex and sustainable culture that efficiently exploited the resources available in their region. This culture would have used a mixture of technologies and practices imported from the peoples’ original homelands in Siberia or Mongolia, physical objects acquired through trading activity, and new inventions and techniques that were unique to that time and place.
“Shiyu reflects a process of cultural creolization,” the Chinese Academy of Sciences press release states,“through contact between societies and relocated peoples, whereby inherited traits blended with novel innovations, thus complicating the traditional understanding of Homo sapiens' global expansion.
Top image: Reconstruction of Shiyu "horse-hunters", earliest known modern humans in China.
Some officials at the Pentagon have been calling for such a new classification policy for years.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California as it launches a spy satellite from California, Sept. 24, 2022.
(Image credit: MATT HARTMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) wants to declassify more space programs in order to boost the nation's military edge in space.
As the world's superpowers continue to invest in the militarization of space, some leaders at the Pentagon believe it's time to declassify some of the secretive space programs in the United States' portfolio. To that end, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks recently approved a new policy that will reduce the classification level of some highly secret space programs and technologies.
The policies that have prohibited sharing this information are outdated and are holding back the U.S. when it comes to superiority in space, according to DoD Assistant Secretary for Space Policy John Plumb. "What the classification memo does, generally, is it overwrites — it really completely rewrites — a legacy document that had its roots 20 years ago, and it's just no longer applicable to the current environment that involves national security space," Plumb said last week, according to Breaking Defense.
The policy does not mean that these programs and technologies will now be fully unclassified and revealed to the public; instead, it will lower their classification levels in order to share some technologies and programs with private industry and international allies to help the U.S. build an "asymmetric advantage and force multiplier that neither China nor Russia could ever hope to match," Plumb said in a DoD statement.
The move would allow each branch of the U.S. armed services to decide their own classification levels, rather than spread a blanket DoD policy over all military space programs and technologies.
One of the key issues driving this policy change is the use of what are known as Special Access Programs (SAPs), security protocols that severely restrict the sharing of highly sensitive and classified information. Some of these SAPs are acknowledged, meaning their existence is known to the public but their details haven't been revealed. Others, however, are unacknowledged, meaning their mere existence is even a secret.
Plumb argued that the new policy will remove SAP status from some of the Pentagon's most valuable space programs, giving the U.S. military an edge in what the Department of Defense now considers the "most essential domain" in terms of national security.
An Atlas V rocket carrying the classified Silent Barker multi-payload satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Force lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida on Sept. 10, 2023. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)
"Anything we can bring from a SAP level to a Top Secret level for example, brings massive value to the warfighter, massive value to the department, and frankly, my hope is over time [it] will also allow us to share more information with allies and partners that they might not currently be able to share," Plumb said.
Some officials at the Pentagon have been calling for such a new classification policy for years, arguing that excessive classification has prevented advanced military capabilities from deterring attacks from adversaries, which is one of the main reasons they were created to begin with.
In a rare show of disclosure, the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office revealed a set of general capabilities of the Silent Barker "watchdog" satellite launched by United Launch Alliance in September 2023.
Before the launch, NRO and Space Force officials told the public that Silent Barker was designed to keep an eye on satellites and spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit (GEO). The disclosure was designed to help deter attacks on U.S. satellites, Space Force Lt. General Michael Guetlein, commander of Space Systems Command, said at the time.
"Not only are we going to maintain custody and the ability to detect what's going on in GEO, but we'll have the indications and warnings to know there's something out of the normal occurring, and that goes a long way towards deterrence," Guetlein said.
The exact capabilities and specifications of many of the U.S. military's and intelligence community's satellites remain unknown.
The US Congress now suggests that some UFOs are non-human in origin. This is the most significant assertion made in UFOlogy to date. Several insiders have openly acknowledged the existence of UFOs over the past few decades and implied that the phenomenon is always present around us and that our limited senses prevent us from being able to see it.
A few months ago, former CIA officer Jim Semivan made a shocking statement, saying “there’s a whole other reality that surrounds us that we just simply don’t have the ability to see or interact with.” He had worked with the CIA for 25 years before joining Tom Delonge’s “To the Stars Academy” with other ex-government insiders. The “To The Stars Academy” is an organization that claims to have been responsible for the release of the now-famous Pentagon UFO videos.
He described how he joined the CIA and acquired years of specialized training in spycraft. Since the CIA operates under the “need-to-know” premise, Semivan was not specifically informed of any UFO-related study, despite the fact that CIA analyst Kit Green was well-known for exploring the paranormal.
According to him, “There is a force out there that can control our environment, that can put thoughts into our heads.” In fact, Mr. Semivan has previously stated that UFOs sighted by the Navy are from another world. He made shocking assertions regarding unidentified flying objects in an interview with James Iandoli, saying that the occurrence can be startling, especially to children.
“When we started TTSA, we had discussions about this all the time. Are we sure we want to disclose this information? I mean, you know, are we going to scare eight-year-olds?”
“I had some friends who were like, ‘Oh, my daughter wants to know all about UFOs. Can we talk to you about that?’ And I said no. I’m not going to talk to you about that. What am I going to tell her or him, these 10-, 11-year-olds? Could such a reality kill them psychologically for the rest of their lives?”
“Yes, that there is a force out there that can control our environment and put thoughts into our heads. That they can lie to you, deceive you, and that you are not in control of your life. Tell this to a 12-year-old,” while succinct, Semivan suggests that the “rabbit hole goes much deeper” when it comes to the UFO phenomenon.
Moreover, in his recent podcast appearance on “Calling All Beings,” he fiercely said that non-human intelligence is living with humans on Earth. “There’s an entity out there! There’s some kind of non-human intelligence that’s living with us on this F**KING planet,” Semivan said.
Semivan spoke about his own experiences with alien-like beings that started happening to him and his wife in their bedroom in 1990 on Coast to Coast AM. He insisted that the event was real and that it was not a hypnagogic or dream state. The couple thereafter had intermittent poltergeist activity in their home, and more recently, he claimed to have seen a hooded figure that resembled the Death Eater from the Harry Potter series, who perhaps materialized to herald the death of a close friend.
Jim Semivan with Counter Intel Agent Lue Elizondo and Bush Intel official Christopher Mellon. Credit: Twitter/Dark Journalist
Mr. Semivan said he agreed with the statement made by Colm Kelleher, a researcher at Skinwalker Ranch, that the UFO phenomenon is much more than just mechanical parts and devices because psychic and biological factors also contribute to the event’s extreme strangeness. He stated that To the Stars was still looking into “metamaterials” with unusual isotope ratios that may be connected to UFOs.
In the first half of the interview, Semivan said:
“I think they mention that the phenomenon is a natural part of our universe, and we’re living in it but we don’t recognize it. The same way that insects and animals don’t recognize the human universe. A cat and a dog could be running through a library, but they don’t have the faintest idea what the books are all about and what libraries are all about. We might be walking through our existence and there’s a whole other reality that surrounds us that we just simply don’t have the ability to see or interact with.”
“It seems to be peeking inside our little consensus reality. As I explained to somebody once, it comes close, it teases us, it cajoles us, it lies to us, but you can never take it home to meet the parents. It won’t allow you to do that. There’s no formal introduction. Add on top that there’s no ontology, which is just a fancy word, it basically means there’s no structure to even discuss this. We don’t have a common lexicon. Somebody said we have dots but no connections. I don’t even think we have dots.”
George Knapp: What about now? Upper echelons of the intelligence community? Possible reactions? Jim Semivan: Speculating here. Now people in the IC are willing to take it on. We briefed senior people on the topic. They wanted it to be out in the open. It is truly a national security issue. Don’t like – the military/government doesn’t own the topic. The phenomenon shows up everywhere. I want to know what the hell it is. Let’s take it private.
GK: Big picture stuff. Anyone know the full picture? JS: Don’t think anyone knows the true picture. Col Kelleher said it’s a lot more than nuts and bolts. There is a biological side to it – high strangeness and scary. When started TTSA we discussed this. Do we really want to know?
GK: Stories from Vallee and Nolan, stories about entire craft and bodies. Real? Someone has craft and bodies? JS: Let that go. Not going there.
GK: CRADA timeline?
JS: Don’t know. Pieces of Mg-Bi – waveguide – Some say the result of some process. You don’t have to figure it all out, just get some ideas. The story of Bob Lazar. You gave me a thumbnail sketch of Lazar. I don’t have issues. I believe what he says is accurate. Edward Snowden was a smart kid. The government hired him yet he didn’t have any degrees. Shows no sign of deception in interviews. Phone question from a listener. The hitchhiker effect. Could relate it with hauntings. Could it attach itself to an entity/company/private contractor?
In an interview with Whitley Strieber, Mr. Semivan says he refers to the UFO, UAP, and Alien Phenomena as Jinn. He does not mean that in a religious way – credibility to the inter-dimensional hypothesis. (Source)
“This phenomenon does lie to you and it is very very deceitful at times. It will tell you things that sound wonderful but also make no sense and is it toying with us or is it using some kind of you know symbols that we don’t understand?
I refer to them as a ‘Jinn’ because you know in Arab culture they’re sort of like us or they’re made out of quote-unquote fire or ether or whatever. But they also have the same kind of emotions but there’s good Jinn and there’s bad Jinn.”
Shortly after Japan made history by placing its first lander on the Moon, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) powered it down. The decision is a cork-stopper, as officials are looking for ways to keep the robot alive.
Two and a half hours after Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) turned Japan into the fifth nation to ever successfully land on the Moon, JAXA couldn’t confirm power from SLIM’s solar cells. This thin hardware is SLIM’s way of gathering renewable energy far away from Earth.
The SLIM lander coasted above the lunar landscape on Friday (the post-midnight hours of Saturday in Japan time). To safely touchdown, SLIM relied on its two navigation cameras, which tracked known lunar features while the engine and its thrusters fired in sequence. The final, nail-biting moments as SLIM hovered and descended towards the Moon ended with good news. The telemetry that reached JAXA’s mission control just 20 minutes past midnight Japan time proved that SLIM safely touched down.
JAXA officials answer questions at a SLIM press conference on January 20, 2024.
STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
SLIM’s battery life declined to just 12 percent before JAXA officials decided to power down the lander. Before they did, they downloaded images so they could determine how and where SLIM actually landed.
What they know so far is that the solar cells, designed to soak up energy from the Sun, aren’t facing the right direction. And the spacecraft cannot keep itself alive with such little sunlight.
“According to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west,” JAXA officials announced on Monday on X (formerly Twitter).
But there is some hope that the lander can power on. A day on the Moon is almost 30 Earth days. As the weeks go on, the angle of the sun will change, potentially allowing the solar cells to gather more sunlight in the current configuration.
“So if sunlight begins to shine on the lunar surface from the west, there is a possibility of generating power,” JAXA officials added on X. “We are preparing for recovery.”
De waarheid over microplastics Microplastics zijn overal. Ze zijn op de meest afgelegen plaatsen gevonden; bij zeedieren die in de diepste loopgraven van de oceaan leven, begraven in zee-ijs op Antarctica, en in drinkwater over de hele wereld. Deze fragmenten worden via een aantal verschillende kanalen verspreid en nu worden ze ook in het menselijk lichaam aangetroffen. Nu besmetting onvermijdelijk wordt, is het tijd om de effecten van deze vervuilende stof op zowel het milieu als onze fysieke gezondheid te leren kennen en volledig te begrijpen.
Klik op de volgende foto's en uitleg om de waarheid over microplasticvervuiling te ontdekken.
Kleine stukjes plastic Uit een onlangs vrijgegeven onderzoek is gebleken dat flessenwater honderdduizenden ‘nanoplastics’ bevat. Deze kleine fragmenten zijn slechts 100 nanometer (of minder) groot.
Nanoplastics zijn alomtegenwoordig in stedelijke wateren. Ze hebben verschillende kenmerken in vergelijking met microplastics, en vanwege hun omvang is het zelfs nog moeilijker om ze te analyseren.
Flessen water Een gemiddelde liter plastic fles water bevat volgens onderzoekers van Columbia en Rutgers in de VS bijna een kwart miljoen nanoplasticfragmenten.
Onderzoek De onderzoekers ontdekten dat een groot deel van de consumptie uit de waterfles zelf kwam, en het is onbekend of dit een ernstig risico voor de volksgezondheid met zich meebrengt.
WHO-bevindingen In 2019 concludeerde de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie dat er niet genoeg bewijs was om aan te tonen dat de consumptie of het inademen van microplastics een risico vormde.
WHO-bevindingen Ze waarschuwden echter dat deeltjes die kleiner zijn dan 10 micrometer meer dan waarschijnlijk biologisch zullen worden opgenomen, en riepen op tot een vermindering van de plasticvervuiling.
Microplastics in voedsel Maar onze blootstelling aan microplastics beperkt zich niet alleen tot het water dat we drinken. Ze worden ook verspreid op landbouwgrond, om uiteindelijk in het voedsel dat we eten terecht te komen.
Microplastics in landbouwgrond Uit een analyse uit 2022 bleek dat het rioolslib dat wordt gebruikt om gewassen te bemesten bijna 20 miljoen hectare Amerikaanse landbouwgrond heeft vervuild.
Riolering Het is ook bewezen dat de 'forever chemicaliën', oftewel PFA's (per- en polyfluoralkylstoffen), en microplastics die in het slib worden aangetroffen, elk jaar de Europese landbouwgronden vervuilen.
Plastic in elke hap Of we het ons nu realiseren of niet, elke hap die we nemen kan microplastics bevatten. Plastic lijkt zich het meest op te hopen in de wortels van groenten, dus wortelen, radijsjes en rapen kunnen grotere hoeveelheden bevatten dan bijvoorbeeld groene bladgroenten.
Microplastics in de longen In 2022 ontdekten wetenschappers voor het eerst microdeeltjes in menselijke longen en bloed. De ontdekking onderstreepte de urgentie van de noodzaak om alternatieven voor plastic te vinden.
Consumentenproducten De bron van de microplastics die in het menselijk lichaam worden aangetroffen varieert, maar consumentenproducten zoals plastic flessen, textielvezels (vooral in polyester) en voedselverpakkingen die in de oceaan, de lucht, zeevruchten en zelfs zout worden aangetroffen, zijn de meest waarschijnlijke bronnen.
Consumptie Er wordt aangenomen dat Amerikanen dagelijks ongeveer 126 deeltjes microplastics consumeren en 132 deeltjes microplastics inademen. Terwijl de meeste hiervan door de darmen gaan en het lichaam verlaten, blijven andere in kleine hoeveelheden achter en hopen zich op.
Afbraak van microplastics Microplastics zijn gemaakt van giftige, schadelijke verbindingen zoals weekmakers, stabilisatoren, vulstoffen en smeermiddelen die tientallen jaren lang niet worden afgebroken.
Afbraak van microplastics Er wordt uitgebreid onderzoek gedaan om te bepalen wat de langetermijneffecten van deze microplastics in het lichaam zullen zijn, gezien hun langzaam afbrekende karakter.
BPA BPA, een veel voorkomende chemische stof die in plastic wordt gebruikt, is een bekende hormoonontregelaar (hormoonsysteemverstoorder), en veel bedrijven produceren nu BPA-vrij plastic. Maar het is niet de enige.
Kankerverwekkend Veel andere chemicaliën in kunststoffen zijn ook hormoonontregelaars en kankerverwekkend. Chronische ziekten zoals hartziekten en diabetes houden verband met de uitstoot van deze chemicaliën
Sterk bewerkte voedingsmiddelen Microplastics breken af van grotere stukken plastic en komen via het productie- en opslagproces in voedsel terecht. Hoe beter het voedsel is bewerkt, hoe groter de hoeveelheid microplastics die erin zit.
PET-kunststoffen Waterflessen met PET-plastic (polyethyleentereftalaat) zijn gemeengoed geworden, maar plastic deeltjes worden uitgeloogd in de drank die erin zit, wat in je bloed terecht kan komen
Onvermijdelijk? Hoewel er stappen zijn die we als individu kunnen nemen om onze consumptie van microplastics terug te dringen, maakt de populatie microplastics het consumeren ervan in een of andere vorm onvermijdelijk.
Productiebedrijven Miljoenen tonnen microplastics worden geproduceerd door productiebedrijven, om vervolgens in watermassa’s te belanden die over de hele wereld circuleren.
Plastic vervuiling Grotere kunststoffen die in waterlichamen worden aangetroffen, worden door de zon afgebroken tot kleine kunststoffen die in de drinkwatervoorziening terecht kunnen komen.
De waarheid over recycling Het merendeel van het plastic dat voor recycling wordt verzonden, wordt niet gerecycled. Veel van de plastic flessen en tassen die worden verzonden, belanden uiteindelijk op een stortplaats.
Overmatig gebruik van plastic In het dagelijks leven is onze afhankelijkheid van plastic verpakkingen verbazingwekkend. Vooral voedselverpakkingen zijn overbodig: groenten en fruit hoeven niet in plastic verpakt te worden, maar vaak wel.
Regulatie In de VS is de afgelopen jaren bezuinigd op de regelgeving en het milieubeschermingsbeleid. Deze zullen van invloed zijn op de toekomst van de consumptie van microplastics.
Kleren Een andere mogelijke manier waarop microplastics door het lichaam kunnen worden opgenomen, is via kleding. Vaak zal goedkoper gemaakte kleding een hoger gehalte aan synthetische materialen bevatten. Hierdoor lopen mensen met een lager inkomen een groter risico op dit soort besmettingen.
Het kan lang duren voordat biologisch afbreekbare kunststoffen uiteenvallen, zelfs jaren. Meestal vallen ze uiteen in kleinere stukjes, in plaats van chemische componenten. Dit soort producten zou het plasticprobleem kunnen verergeren.
Glazen flessen Glas is gemaakt van silica, dat een grotere ecologische voetafdruk heeft dan drankkartons en aluminium blikjes. Hoewel hun recyclingpercentage hoger is, is het een complexe kwestie: de productie van glas kan leiden tot landverslechtering en verlies aan biodiversiteit.
De toekomst? Onderzoekers hebben gekeken naar bacteriën en schimmels die zich voeden met plastic en deze materialen kunnen afbreken. Er is een soort keverlarve gevonden die polystyreen verslindt. Ook worden chemische behandelingen en waterfiltratiesystemen onderzocht die microplastics kunnen verwijderen.
Dr. Roger Leir’s Account of the Varginha UFO Incident
Dr. Roger Leir’s Account of the Varginha UFO Incident
In a fascinating episode of Coast to Coast AM, the legendary Art Bell delved into the mysterious and often controversial world of UFOlogy with guest Dr. Roger Leir. Known for his interest in unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial phenomena, Dr. Leir provided a riveting account of his investigations into the 1996 UFO crash in Varginha, Brazil. This incident, shrouded in intrigue and speculation, has become a cornerstone of UFO conspiracy theories and extraterrestrial research.
Unearthing the Varginha Incident
The Varginha incident, as recounted by Dr. Leir, stands out in the annals of UFO sightings and encounters. According to his research, in 1996, an unidentified object crashed near Varginha, a small town in Brazil, leading to a series of extraordinary events involving the recovery of alien beings. Dr. Leir’s investigative journey took him to Brazil, where he interviewed various witnesses and medical professionals who had firsthand experiences related to the incident.
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence presented by Dr. Leir was his interview with a Brazilian physician who reportedly treated one of the extraterrestrial beings. This physician, promised anonymity, described a creature with distinct non-human features, including a large head, thin neck, and brown, oily skin. The being, apparently injured in the crash, was taken to a local hospital by military personnel and received medical treatment under high secrecy.
Biological Anomalies and Telepathic Communication
Dr. Leir’s account went beyond physical descriptions. He delved into the biological aspects of the creature, noting its blood’s similarity to human blood, except for an extraordinarily high platelet count. This detail, among others, suggested a complex biological makeup, both familiar and alien to human understanding.
Perhaps the most astonishing part of Dr. Leir’s narrative was the claim of telepathic communication between the alien being and the treating physician. This interaction reportedly left the doctor with migraine-like symptoms and a profound sense of information overload, as if vast amounts of knowledge were being transferred telepathically.
Skepticism and Belief in UFO Research
While Dr. Leir’s research presents a detailed and intriguing account, it’s important to approach such stories with a degree of skepticism. The field of UFOlogy is fraught with unverified claims and anecdotal evidence. Despite the lack of concrete scientific proof, incidents like Varginha continue to fuel the debate about extraterrestrial life and its potential interactions with Earth.
VIDEO:
Dr. Roger Leir talks researching on site the 1996 UFO crash in Varginha, which involved alien beings
Dr. Roger Leir’s interview with Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM offers a deep dive into one of the most intriguing UFO incidents of the late 20th century. The Varginha incident, with its blend of eyewitness accounts, medical anomalies, and claims of extraterrestrial contact, continues to captivate and puzzle enthusiasts and skeptics alike. As we continue to explore the unknown realms of our universe, stories like these challenge our understanding of life and the vast, unexplored cosmos.
Veelvoorkomende mythen over klimaatverandering Als je ooit getuige bent geweest van een discussie over klimaatverandering, persoonlijk of online, ben je waarschijnlijk een aantal dubieuze argumenten tegengekomen over wat de wetenschap zegt. Hoewel sommige van deze beweringen misschien logisch klinken, zijn ze feitelijk misleidend of volkomen onnauwkeurig. Deze onderwerpen zijn keer op keer grondig bestudeerd en ontkracht door klimaatwetenschappers, maar de mythen blijven bestaan.
Nieuwsgierig? LEES verder voor enkele van de grootste mythen over klimaatverandering.
Mythe: klimaatverandering bestaat niet Naarmate de gemiddelde oppervlaktetemperatuur van de aarde stijgt, worden extreme weersomstandigheden waarschijnlijker en ernstiger.
Mythe: klimaatverandering bestaat niet En hoe graag we het ook zouden willen, de klimaatverandering zal blijven bestaan totdat we er iets zinvols aan doen.
Mythe: Het klimaat op aarde is altijd veranderd Het is waar dat het klimaat in de loop van de 4,5 miljard jaar durende geschiedenis van de aarde veel is veranderd. De veranderingen die normaal gesproken over miljoenen jaren zouden plaatsvinden, vinden nu echter over tientallen jaren in een veel sneller tempo plaats.
Mythe: Het klimaat op aarde is altijd veranderd Deze snelle opwarming komt overeen met het kooldioxidegehalte in de atmosfeer, dat sinds de industriële revolutie is toegenomen. Dus als mensen tegenwoordig over klimaatverandering praten, bedoelen ze antropogene (door de mens veroorzaakte) klimaatverandering.
Mythe: we kunnen ons eenvoudigweg aanpassen aan de klimaatverandering Hoewel het waar is dat de soort op aarde zich kan aanpassen aan extreme veranderingen, is er helaas geen sprake van een snelle evolutie.
Mythe: we kunnen ons eenvoudigweg aanpassen aan de klimaatverandering De trieste realiteit is dat in plaats van dat soorten zich aanpassen aan de veranderende omgeving, we getuige zijn van een van de grootste massale uitstervingen in de hele geschiedenis.
Mythe: klimaatverandering is slechts een complot om geld te verdienen Veel ontkenners van de klimaatverandering zullen helaas vasthouden aan deze mythe. In 2018, kort nadat het tweede deel van de National Climate Assessment uitkwam, beweerde Rick Santorum, een voormalige Republikeinse senator, dat klimaatwetenschappers ‘gedreven worden door het geld dat ze ontvangen’.
Mythe: klimaatverandering is slechts een complot om geld te verdienen Om deze samenzwering waar te maken, zouden tienduizenden wetenschappers over de hele wereld moeten worden afbetaald, wat helemaal niet realistisch is.
Mythe: hernieuwbare energie is weersafhankelijk en minder betrouwbaar dan fossiele brandstoffen Hernieuwbare energiebronnen, zoals zonne- en windparken, worden door ontkenners van de klimaatverandering vaak beschouwd als onbetrouwbaar en een onwerkelijk alternatief voor fossiele brandstoffen.
Mythe: hernieuwbare energie is weersafhankelijk en minder betrouwbaar dan fossiele brandstoffen Hoewel het waar is dat windparken op een windstille dag geen stroom produceren, is dit niet de manier waarop een windpark optimaal functioneert. Hetzelfde geldt voor een zonnepark op een bewolkte dag. Er zijn verschillende technologieën die deze energie kunnen benutten en opslaan, zodat deze kan worden ingezet tijdens minder optimale weersomstandigheden.
Mythe: het is nog steeds koud, dus de klimaatverandering moet een hoax zijn Hoe wetenschappelijk onjuist deze bewering ook is, het is helaas een veelvoorkomend argument van ontkenners van de klimaatverandering.
Mythe: het is nog steeds koud, dus de klimaatverandering moet een hoax zijn Zoals eerder vermeld, beïnvloedt klimaatverandering het weer op een grote verscheidenheid aan manieren. Dit betekent over het algemeen zwaarder weer, waardoor het zelfs kouder kan worden dan normaal.
Mythe: het bouwen van windturbines kost meer energie dan het kan produceren Een andere mythe is dat er meer energie nodig is om hernieuwbare bronnen, zoals windturbines, te bouwen dan ze tijdens hun operationele levensduur kunnen produceren.
Mythe: het bouwen van windturbines kost meer energie dan het kan produceren Uit meerdere onderzoeken blijkt echter dat het gemiddeld slechts zes maanden duurt voordat een windturbine de hoeveelheid energie die is gebruikt om hem te bouwen, heeft "terugbetaald".
Mythe: wetenschappers zijn het oneens over de oorzaak van klimaatverandering In tegenstelling tot wat vaak wordt gedacht, zijn de meeste wetenschappers het er niet mee eens dat klimaatverandering plaatsvindt en dat deze door mensen wordt veroorzaakt.
Mythe: wetenschappers zijn het oneens over de oorzaak van klimaatverandering Verschillende analyses gedurende vele jaren hebben zelfs aangetoond dat tussen de 90% en 100% van de publicerende klimaatwetenschappers het erover eens zijn dat mensen de belangrijkste oorzaak zijn van de opwarming van de aarde.
Mythe: klimaatverandering is een toekomstig probleem In de jaren zeventig, toen de klimaatverandering wetenschappelijk relevant werd, werd er getheoretiseerd dat de gevolgen ervan pas na een paar eeuwen een grote impact op ons zouden hebben. Tegenwoordig zien we echter al de verwoestende gevolgen van de klimaatverandering.
Mythe: klimaatverandering is een toekomstig probleem Van de stijgende zeespiegel tot de stijgende temperaturen: de door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering is de grootste milieucrisis van onze tijd. En het is nu al een bedreiging voor ons.
Mythe: planten verbruiken koolstofdioxide, dus ze zullen het probleem voor ons oplossen Hoewel het waar is dat planten koolstofdioxide (CO2) nodig hebben om te leven, is het probleem dat ze maar een beperkte hoeveelheid koolstofdioxide kunnen opnemen, en deze hoeveelheid wordt steeds minder. Ze hebben CO2 nodig om het fotosyntheseproces te doorlopen, waardoor de energie ontstaat die ze nodig hebben om te groeien.
Mythe: planten verbruiken koolstofdioxide, dus ze zullen het probleem voor ons oplossen Naarmate we meer bomen kappen en planten opruimen voor landbouwdoeleinden, verminderen we de hoeveelheid CO2 die kan worden opgenomen. Dit verergert de klimaatverandering rechtstreeks en heeft ernstige gevolgen.
Mythe: het zijn de veranderingen in de zon die ervoor zorgen dat de aarde opwarmt, niet wij De zon geeft leven aan onze planeet en houdt haar warm genoeg zodat wij allemaal kunnen overleven. Het beïnvloedt ook het klimaat op aarde, maar niet zoveel als sommigen zouden denken.
Mythe: het zijn de veranderingen in de zon die ervoor zorgen dat de aarde opwarmt, niet wij De realiteit is dat de opwarming van de aarde die we de afgelopen decennia hebben gezien te snel en drastisch is om te worden gekoppeld aan veranderingen in de baan van de aarde, en te groot om te worden veroorzaakt door zonneactiviteit.
Mythe: China is het enige land dat verantwoordelijk is voor de klimaatverandering Hoewel het waar is dat China een van de grootste uitstoters van broeikasgassen is, zijn ze ook een van de grootste investeerders in hernieuwbare energie. De toename van de investeringen is een reactie op de groei van groene bedrijven en de noodzaak om de luchtvervuiling op te ruimen.
Mythe: China is het enige land dat verantwoordelijk is voor de klimaatverandering Uiteindelijk is klimaatverandering een mondiaal probleem en hebben we allemaal de verantwoordelijkheid om de klimaatcrisis het hoofd te bieden.
Mythe: het temperatuurrecord is vervalst of onbetrouwbaar Dit is een veelgehoord gespreksonderwerp onder sceptici over klimaatverandering, wat plausibel zou kunnen zijn als de wetenschap zich op slechts één of twee gegevens zou baseren.
Mythe: het temperatuurrecord is vervalst of onbetrouwbaar Er zijn echter veel verschillende temperatuurregistraties geproduceerd door verschillende onafhankelijke instanties over de hele wereld, en hun gegevens zijn feitelijk consistent met elkaar.
Mythe: klimaatverandering zal mij niet beïnvloeden Dit is een van de grootste misvattingen onder klimaatsceptici. Velen geloven dat het ook andere delen van de wereld kan treffen en dat ook dieren getroffen zullen worden, maar dat ze nog vele jaren veilig zullen blijven.
Mythe: klimaatverandering zal mij niet beïnvloeden Helaas voor hen is dat helemaal niet het geval. Nu de mondiale temperaturen stijgen, zal het weer heftiger worden, en we zijn hier nu al getuige van in alle uithoeken van de wereld.
Mythe: klimaatverandering kan niet worden gestopt; het is te laat Hoewel het duidelijk is dat we bijna geen tijd meer hebben, is er nog steeds een beperkte kans om dit decennium beleid te implementeren en actie te ondernemen om ervoor te zorgen dat we de ergste gevolgen van de klimaatverandering vermijden.
Mythe: klimaatverandering kan niet worden gestopt; het is te laat Het is nog steeds mogelijk dat de wereld het netto nulpunt bereikt (de uitstoot van broeikasgassen terugdringt) en de opwarming beperkt tot 1,5°C, maar er is dit decennium veel meer actie nodig, vooral van overheden en bedrijven.
Dark and precious asteroid dirt spent months lying hidden inside the confines of a capsule — but it has finally emerged.
Last September, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from a flyby with asteroid Bennu, where it made history on October 20, 2020, when it collected the space agency’s first-ever samples from an asteroid. The spacecraft had funneled samples into a capsule which mission scientists planned to open and analyze the inner contents once it was back on Earth. But they ran into a slight problem: Two stubborn fasteners wouldn’t budge from the head of an instrument inside the capsule called TAGSAM (short for Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism).
Officials at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston have spent the past several months designing new tools to access the goods inside. On January 11, NASA announced that they had finally pried the pair of pesky fasteners off.
The new tools designed to open the device “include newly custom-fabricated bits made from a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel,” NASA officials wrote in the update. It’s “the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation gloveboxes,” the update said.
Now, this past Friday, officials announced they had successfully opened the capsule and shared an image of the asteroid material. The blackish material harvested from Bennu, a small, carbon-rich, near-Earth asteroid, is ripe for scientific investigations about the origins of the Solar System and possibly life, too.
A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector.
In a pleasant surprise, the capsule ferried back more dirt than planned. Even before TAGSAM’s head was pried open, curators had access to more than 70 grams of extra material curators found on the outside of the sampler head.
Now, the next steps are weighing the material, cataloging, and ultimately, sharing the sample profiles with scientists and institutions around the world for experiments.
Meanwhile, OSIRIS-REx is now on its way to its next asteroid target, Apophis, which it will reach in April 2029.
Peering back into the early universe with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) over the past few months, astronomers have noticed something odd. The supermassive black holes lurking at the heart of ancient galaxies are smaller than the ones in our nearby, modern slice of the universe. However, compared to the mass of stars in their host galaxies, these black holes almost seem too big.
In a new paper, Harvard University astrophysicist Fabio Pacucci and his colleagues suggest that these early black holes were thousands of times our Sun’s mass, likely spawned by enormous clouds of gas collapsing under their own gravity. These early black holes were also relatively more massive than their galaxies, but these galaxies gained stellar mass over time. The scientists published their work in The Astrophysical Journal Lettersin October, and Pacucci presented the study at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) this week.
This image illustrates how the ratio of black hole mass to stellar mass differs between nearby (recent) and distant (ancient) galaxies.
CFA/MELISSA WEISS
“OVERMASSIVE” BLACK HOLES
We think of supermassive black holes as immense, star-swallowing leviathans lurking at the center of galaxies, but the stars in any given galaxy actually outweigh the supermassive black hole at the center by a factor of 1,000 to 1. That’s the case in our Milky Way Galaxy, and in most of the other galaxies we see in the nearby universe, but these galaxies have had billions of years to grow and evolve since the beginning of the universe.
Because JWST lets astronomers look farther back in the universe to see smaller, more distant objects, this has shed more light on how galaxies — and the supermassive black holes at their hearts — evolved. And it turns out that between 12 and 13 billion years ago, some galaxies’ stars accounted for only ten times as much mass as their supermassive black holes, meaning early galaxies sort of grew into the larger supermassive black holes at their centers as billions of years passed.
A BLACK HOLE ORIGIN STORY
While these “overmassive” black holes indicate how galaxies evolved and grew, they could also resolve a debate about what the “seeds” of modern supermassive black holes were like. The first black holes formed a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, and eventually, they evolved into supermassive black holes like the one at the heart of our own galaxy. But astronomers still don’t agree on how large a “seed” our friendly neighborhood supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, started out as — or exactly how it formed.
One option is that the first black holes formed when the first generation of massive stars burned out their fuel and collapsed, leaving behind black holes of just a few hundred times the mass of our Sun.
The other possibility is that the seeds of supermassive black holes formed even earlier in time when giant clouds of very dense gas collapsed under their own gravity. These clouds, according to the theory, would have been too enormous and too dense to form a mere star, and instead, they collapsed into black holes between 10,000 and 100,000 times more massive than our Sun. These heavy black hole seeds would have contained about as much mass as all the stars in their host galaxies.
According to Pacucci and his colleagues’ models, smaller black hole seeds couldn’t have grown quickly enough to become the “overmassive” black holes like the ones JWST sees in galaxies dating back to 12 billion years ago.
“Many studies suggest that if seeds formed heavy, then in the distant universe, the ratio between stellar mass and black hole mass should be [smaller],” says Pacucci. “This discovery suggests that black hole seeds may have formed heavy.”
AN OVERSIZED MYSTERY
So why did early galaxies’ supermassive black holes weigh so much in comparison to all the stars in the galaxy? One possibility, suggests Pacucci, is that those newborn black holes were active and voracious, and because black holes are messy eaters, that meant the young black holes were flinging radiation and electrically charged gas all over the place.
Eventually, as the black holes calmed down and spent less time feeding, they allowed more stars to form in the galaxy, tilting the balance more in the stars’ favor. Over time, smaller galaxies merged to form larger ones (a process that’s still happening today). Although those mergers would have led to larger supermassive black holes, they also would have triggered new waves of star formation, further boosting the galactic ratio we see today.
“Over cosmic time, we know that the ratio of stellar to black hole mass progressively catches up with the local 1000 to 1 ratio of the modern universe. This happens as the black hole and its host galactic system evolve together, merging with other galaxies and forming legions of stars,” says Pacucci. “What we're still working on is seeing deeply enough into the universe to piece together how this all got started.”
Is this another Chinese spy balloon moment? Famous 'cube in a sphere' UFO spotted at military bases along the East Coast may have been a high-tech ENEMY drone, says ex-Pentagon UFO investigator dubbed 'Dr. Evil'
Is this another Chinese spy balloon moment? Famous 'cube in a sphere' UFO spotted at military bases along the East Coast may have been a high-tech ENEMY drone, says ex-Pentagon UFO investigator dubbed 'Dr. Evil'
The Pentagon's first ever UFO boss pointed to a Chinese-made 'spherical' drone in an uncut version of his new interview, made available to DailyMail.com
Retired UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was called 'Dr. Evil' for his laser research
The Pentagon's former UFO chief has revealed his conclusion to one of the most famous UFO cases of the modern era: the Navy's baffling 'cube in a sphere' UFO was just a super high-tech drone.
US Navy fighter pilots had reported seeing these other-worldly craft near the Atlantic coast between 2014 and 2015, which nearly tore the wing off an F/A-18 Super Hornet that was flying with the USS Roosevelt during one incident.
Now Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Pentagon's recently retired UFO chief, says that the objects were likely 'next generation,' 'spherical' drones that move 'very accurately.'
While not confirmed, his description matches a drone-prototype made public by Chinese researchers in 2022 — a silver orb with eight thrusters configured at the tips of an internal cube, making it capable of unprecedented mid-air twists and turns.
The case highlights why UFOs must be taken seriously and not be subject to ridicule, Kirkpatrick suggested.
The Pentagon's departing UFO chief, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, cited public 'next generation' drone research by academics in Singapore in an effort to explain the Navy's 'cube in a sphere' UFO sightings. Above a 'SpICED (Cube)' drone prototype published by Chinese researchers in 2022
In an op-ed published by Scientific American last week, Dr. Kirkpatrick dismissed US Air Force veteran David Grusch as one of several 'conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers'' on UFOs. He emphasized that the Pentagon's UFO mission should be focused on US foreign adversaries
DailyMail.com was given an early draft transcript of Dr. Kirkpatrick's appearance on Fresh Produce Media's 'In the Room with Peter Bergen,' in which the physicist delved deeper into the national security risk that has come from stigmatizing eyewitness reports of UFOs.
'That gap could potentially be exploited by somebody,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told Bergen, 'put a platform in [the] continental United States that nobody knew was there.'
A longtime laser physicist, Dr. Kirkpatrick's government service took him to the Air Force Research Laboratory, the CIA and a position at America's highly secretive spy satellite agency the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) before chasing UFOs.
The physicist's Air Force colleagues once nicknamed him 'Dr. Evil' after the laser-obsessed villain in the Austin Powers series of spy film spoofs.
'One of my going away presents, as I was leaving the National Reconnaissance Office,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told CNN national security reporter Peter Bergen, 'was one of my close colleagues gave me a shark with a laser pointer strapped to its head.'
Dr. Kirkpatrick headed up the Pentagon's then-brand new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) from July 2022 until the end of December 2023, leveraging his scientific expertise toward the tricky task of investigating military UFO cases.
'This is a typical example of the thing that we see most of,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told the panel. 'We see these all over the world and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.'
It's unclear just how similar these metallic orbs may be to the UFOs first brought to public attention by former Navy lieutenant and fighter pilot Ryan Graves, who described them to Congress as 'a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.'
But Dr. Kirkpatrick told the podcast these otherworldly craft may very likely have been a foreign espionage platform.
'There's a large number of people, pilots, others, who have said, 'Hey, I saw this giant sphere. It had a cube in it,'' he said, ''I don't understand it. It must be an alien.''
Swiss-based drone maker Flyability has also been producing spherical 'gimbal' drones since at least 2015. Both Flyability and the Singapore-based makers of the SpICED drone cited collision safety as their reasoning for pursuing these aircraft's round designs - not airborne spying
DailyMail.com has been given an early draft transcript of Dr. Kirkpatrick's appearance on the 'In the Room with Peter Bergen' podcast (above) in which the physicist discussed 'spherical' drones made by researchers in Singapore, comparing them to the US Navy's UFO sightings
'Well, actually, no, there's a number of papers out,' Dr. Kirkpatrick continued in this early, uncut draft of his podcast interview with CNN analyst Peter Bergen.
'The most recent one was from, University of Singapore, I believe, where the next generation of drones that are being built are spherical.'
'They've taken about a two-meter size, inflatable, and they put a cube inside of it,' Dr. Kirkpatrick continued. 'And everywhere the corner of the cube touches the sphere, they've fused it, cut it out, and put little thrusters in.'
US Customs and Border Patrol, the agency responsible for keeping terrorists and weapons out of the country, uploaded 10 videos that appear to show craft moving in strange ways in our skies. The videos document a fighter jet pursued by an apparently baffling flying orb, as well as something that appears to be a propeller-powered hang-glider, and another apparent orb hovering near a parked 16-wheeler truck
'So, now I have eight thrusters. And I can put cameras on it and anything else I want,' the ex-AARO chief told Bergen.
'With eight thrusters in a cube configuration, I can maneuver this drone around very accurately.'
Scientists with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in China did, in fact, prototype a spherical drone along these lines, dubbed the 'Spherical Indoor Coandă Effect Drone (SpICED)' in a September 2022 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Drones.
The research team in Singapore noted that their new prototype, which benefited from an internal propulsion system with eight nozzles in a cube configuration, showed a promising 40 percent reduction in 'trajectory control error' during their test flights.
The SUTD's 'cube in a sphere' drone prototype, they wrote, proved to be more swiftly and accurately maneuverable than their past internal 'tetrahedron' configuration.
But the Chinese-made drone is not the only novel unmanned spherical craft in production: Swiss-based Flyability has been producing 'spherical' drones since at least 2015, when it won a $1 million competition in the United Arab Emirates.
The makers of Flyability's 'gimbal' drone and the SpICED balloon drone both cited collision safety as their reasoning for pursuing these unmanned aircrafts' round designs — not high maneuverability for clandestine spying.
But they are not the only actors pursuing this kind of aerospace research, according to AARO's departing director.
'They've tried these all over the place,' Dr. Kirkpatrick said.
'There are a number of advanced technologies that are being commercialized that people don't recognize,' he said. 'Why they go immediately to 'this is extraterrestrial' is another conversation.'
While playing a 2022 military UFO video taken by an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Mid East, AARO director Dr. Kirkpatrick told NASA's UFO advisory panel last May, 'We see these ['metallic orbs'] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers'
Speaking to Bergen's podcast, Dr. Kirkpatrick emphasized that he sees more terrestrial, counter-intelligence and defense-oriented tasks as AARO's primary reason for being.
'The office's mission is not to prove the existence of extraterrestrials,' he said.
'The office's mission is to minimize technical and intelligence surprise. That is the primary mission.'
The laser physicist noted that last February's Chinese spy balloon drama, when multiple objects were tracked and shot down within US and Canadian airspace, could be attributed to AARO's work focusing on anomalous aerial activities.
'Four major candidates' have been interviewed to replace Pentagon UFO boss, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick (above), an anonymous source told DailyMail.com, following heated public sparring between the former CIA physicist and UFO whistleblowers, who 'never did trust Sean,' according to one UFO whistleblower's attorney Daniel Sheehan
For years, national security reporters have speculated that the Navy's 'cube in a sphere' UFOs might be related to a 1949 patent for an 'airborne radar reflector' (schematic above) filed with the US Patent and Trade Office by Washington DC resident Leon Chromak
In the past, Dr. Kirkpatrick said, 'in the long list of things that they need to be paying attention to, this one was at the bottom of that list.'
'So, there is a gap — and no one fully, I think, appreciated until the last few years that that gap could potentially be exploited by somebody,' he explained, 'put a platform in, you know, [the] continental United States that nobody knew was there.'
But Dr. Kirkpatrick's terrestrial approach during his 18-month tenure at AARO has not been without its critics — particularly over his very public disagreements with UFO whistleblower and fellow NRO veteran David Grusch.
Dr. Kirkpatrick expanded his own criticisms of Grusch in his new interview with Bergen, describing him as someone who had 'fallen to the influence' of UFO 'True Believers' within the US military and private defense contractor Bigelow Aerospace, which investigated UFO cases on contract for the Pentagon from 2007 to 2012.
In a new op-ed published by Scientific American last week, Dr. Kirkpatrick further dismissed Grusch as one of several 'conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers.''
Daniel Sheehan, the Harvard-trained lawyer who represented UFO whistleblower Luis Elizondo in his complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General, said last year to DailyMail.com, 'really knowledgeable' UFO whistleblowers 'never did trust Sean.'
Instead, 'what they were doing is they were going straight through to the Senate Intelligence Committee,' Sheehan said.
Scientists with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in China, published their prototype spherical drone (above) in a Sept. 2022 issue of the journal Drones. The cube configuration, they wrote, showed a 40 percent reduction in 'trajectory control error'
Swiss-based Flyability entered their own spherical drone (above) into a contest launched by the Prime Minister's Office of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE competition was billed as the 'World Cup of Drones,' with over 800 submitted entries from 57 countries
Flyability won $1 million in the UAE's 'Drones for Good' competition in 2015 for their 'gimbal'
In portions of Dr. Kirkpatrick's new podcast interview, which appear to have been cut before air, the retired government scientist commented that AARO's benefit to the US Intelligence Community (IC) was its latitude to conduct domestic surveillance 'We filled a gap,' he said
In portions of Dr. Kirkpatrick's podcast interview — which appear to have been cut before air — the retired government scientist commented that AARO's benefit to the US Intelligence Community (IC) was its latitude to conduct domestic surveillance.
'We filled a gap,' Dr. Kirkpatrick said. 'The intelligence community is prohibited by law from observing [the] continental United States, right?'
'And so, the only people that actually have authority to do that, really, are FBI, Homeland Security, [and] a few other counter-intelligence elements across the IC,' he noted, 'but that's pretty much it.'
'No one fully, I think, appreciated until the last few years that that gap could potentially be exploited by somebody [...] And that's where you ended up with Chinese balloons,' he said.
When DailyMail.com reached out to Peter Bergen and a spokesperson for his podcast, the spokesperson noted that, based on conversations with the 'In the Room' team, 'those excerpts were cut for time.'
'Episodes generally don't go over 45 minutes,' they said.
Mars Express Finds New Evidence for Ice-Rich Layered Deposits in Medusae Fossae
Mars Express Finds New Evidence for Ice-Rich Layered Deposits in Medusae Fossae
Over 15 years ago, ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft studied the Medusae Fossae Formation, revealing enigmatic deposits up to 2.5 km deep. From those early observations, it was unclear what the deposits were made of, but the new research has an answer.
This image shows a height map of the Martian surface, with lowest land in blue and highest in white.
Image credit: ESA.
The Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) — a massive, unusual deposit of soft rock near Mars’ equator — is about one-fifth as large as the continental United States and 100 times more massive than the largest explosive volcanic deposit on Earth.
It consists of several wind-sculpted features measuring hundreds of km across and several km high.
Found at the boundary between the Martian highlands and lowlands, the features are possibly the biggest single source of dust on Mars.
Initial observations from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft showed the MFF to be relatively transparent to radar and low in density, both characteristics we’d see from icy deposits.
However, planetary scientists couldn’t rule out a drier possibility: that the features are actually giant accumulations of windblown dust, volcanic ash or sediment.
“We’ve explored the MFF again using newer data from Mars Express’ MARSIS radar, and found the deposits to be even thicker than we thought: up to 3.7 km thick,” said Dr. Thomas Watters, a planetary researcher at Smithsonian Institution.
“Excitingly, the radar signals match what we’d expect to see from layered ice, and are similar to the signals we see from Mars’ polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich.”
“If melted, the ice locked up in the MFF would cover the entire planet in a layer of water 1.5 to 2.7 m deep: the most water ever found in this part of Mars, and enough to fill Earth’s Red Sea.”
“Here’s where the new radar data comes in! Given how deep it is, if the MFF was simply a giant pile of dust, we’d expect it to become compacted under its own weight,” said Dr. Andrea Cicchetti, a researcher at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy.
“This would create something far denser than what we actually see with MARSIS.”
“And when we modeled how different ice-free materials would behave, nothing reproduced the properties of the MFF — we need ice.”
“The new results instead suggest layers of dust and ice, all topped by a protective layer of dry dust or ash several hundred meters thick.”
In this image, the white line on Mars’ surface (top) shows a stretch of land that was scanned by Mars Express’ MARSIS radar. The graph below shows the shape of the land and the structure of the subsurface, with the layer of dry sediments (likely dust or volcanic ash) in brown and the layer of suspected ice-rich deposits in blue. The graph shows that the ice deposit is thousands of meters high and hundreds of km wide. If all the suspected water ice in the MFF melted, it would cover Mars in an ocean of water up to 2.7 m deep.
Image credit: CReSIS / KU / Smithsonian Institution.
“This latest analysis challenges our understanding of the MFF, and raises as many questions as answers,” said Dr. Colin Wilson, ESA project scientist for Mars Express and the ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
“How long ago did these ice deposits form, and what was Mars like at that time?”
“If confirmed to be water ice, these massive deposits would change our understanding of Mars climate history.”
“Any reservoir of ancient water would be a fascinating target for human or robotic exploration.”
Unraveling the Mystery of the “Jellyfish UAP”: An In-Depth Analysis
Unraveling the Mystery of the “Jellyfish UAP”: An In-Depth Analysis
In recent times, the topic of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) has captured public imagination like never before. Among the plethora of cases, one particular sighting, colloquially termed the “Jellyfish UAP,” stands out due to its unique characteristics and the intriguing investigation surrounding it. It was filmed back in 2017 in Iraq.
Background
The Jellyfish UAP, so named for its distinctive appearance, was reportedly observed near an airbase in Iraq. The footage, believed to be captured from an aerostat balloon, shows an object with peculiar features hovering in the sky. This sighting, initially circulated among military personnel, has since garnered widespread attention.
Investigation and Analysis
A detailed analysis of the Jellyfish UAP footage was spearheaded by experts, including Mick West and a team from the Metabunk forum. Their investigative approach combined advanced geolocation techniques and image stabilization methods to deduce the object’s origin and nature.
The investigation pinpointed the exact location of the sighting to an airbase in Iraq, utilizing landmarks and structures visible in the footage. This breakthrough was achieved by meticulously matching video imagery with satellite photos from Google Earth, corroborated by first-hand accounts of personnel previously stationed at the base.
Challenges and Speculations
The Jellyfish UAP case is shrouded in mystery, primarily because of claims about the object’s behavior. It was reported to have submerged underwater for an extended period – a characteristic atypical of conventional balloons or aircraft. This claim, however, remains unverified and is a subject of ongoing scrutiny.
The analysis also addressed common misconceptions, such as the object being a mere smudge or artifact on the camera lens. Upon closer inspection, these theories were dismissed, solidifying the object’s presence as an external entity in the environment.
Technological Implications
One significant aspect of the investigation involves understanding the equipment used to capture the footage. The aerostat balloon, equipped with sophisticated imaging technology, plays a critical role in surveillance and reconnaissance. The analysis of the footage also delves into the nuances of camera gain settings, essential in interpreting aerial imagery.
VIDEO:
Chris Lehto – Marine confirms “Jellyfish UAP” video legit – Chandelier image
The Jellyfish UAP remains an enigmatic occurrence in the realm of aerial phenomena. While the investigation has made significant strides in demystifying aspects of the sighting, many questions linger. The case exemplifies the complexities involved in UAP investigations and underscores the need for rigorous scientific inquiry in unraveling these mysterious occurrences.
In summary, the Jellyfish UAP case is not just a testament to the persistent curiosity surrounding unexplained aerial phenomena but also a beacon for the methodical and scientific approach needed in their investigation. As we continue to explore these uncharted territories, the Jellyfish UAP serves as a fascinating chapter in the ongoing narrative of humanity’s quest to understand the unknown.
Naturally, these UAP videos are subjected to lots of scrutiny and discourse online. But this one's special. In this case, it doesn't really matter if you care about UFOs, or if you believe aliens are real and have been visiting Earth. The jellyfish UAP is gaining tons of attention online, and not just for conspiracy theorists or alien fans.
For the most part, it's people trying to picture exactly what the UAP looks like up close, or what it could be. Then, people redraw it, with varying degrees of detail or humor. There are the typical alien interpretations:
And then, because the other half of the internet would never take something like this too seriously, there are the more … creative interpretations or some good old-fashioned memes
Wetenschappers van een laboratorium in het Franse Marseille hebben gewaarschuwd voor de mogelijkheid van een nieuwe pandemie in de toekomst. Deze zou immers kunnen worden veroorzaakt door een virus dat al meer dan 30.000 jaar bevroren is.
Microben in het noordpoolgebied zouden de oorzaak kunnen zijn, nadat de opwarming van de aarde, de toegenomen menselijke activiteit en de aanwezigheid van schepen in de regio het ontdooi- en smeltproces versnellen.
Volgens de onderzoekers is de kans groot dat deze en andere virussen, als het ontdooiproces doorgaat, zich vrij zullen verspreiden en uiteindelijk nieuwe ziekten veroorzaken.
Dit ‘zombievirus’ werd door laboratoriumonderzoekers ontdekt in een laag Siberische permafrost die duizenden jaren bevroren was in het noordwesten van Siberië.
Het nieuws werd in The Guardian becommentarieerd door de Nederlandse viroloog Marion Koopmans, die beweerde dat “we niet weten welk virus zich in de permafrost bevindt. Maar ik denk dat er een reëel risico bestaat dat er één virus is dat een epidemie kan veroorzaken, bijvoorbeeld een oude vorm van polio. We moeten aannemen dat zoiets zou kunnen gebeuren”, waarschuwde ze.
(Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration: Pixabay)
Man op de maan Meer dan 50 jaar geleden, in juli 1969, zette Neil Armstrong als eerste mens ooit voet op de maan. De Apollo 11-missie, gelanceerd door de Verenigde Staten, markeerde een belangrijke mijlpaal in de geschiedenis van de ruimtevaart.
Ruimte race Tijdens de Koude Oorlog werd de ruimtewedloop betwist tussen de voormalige Sovjet-Unie en de Verenigde Staten. Nu, in 2023, is het landschap echter veranderd.
Missies naar de maan Er zijn zeven landen die missies naar de maan zullen plannen. Dit zal de komende jaren een nieuw keerpunt worden in de geschiedenis van ruimtevaart.
1. Verenigde Staten Het NASA-project is zeer ambitieus en is opgedeeld in verschillende fasen. Het Artemis-programma heeft als ultieme doel om niet alleen terug te keren naar de maan, maar ook om een permanente en duurzame basis te vestigen op het maanoppervlak.
Artemis I-missie Op 16 november 2022 vond de eerste lancering plaats, bekend als de Artemis I-missie. Tijdens deze missie werd het onbemande Orion-ruimtevaartuig gelanceerd en de SLS-raket bereikte de baan van de maan. Hier verbleef het zes dagen.
Europa De ESA (European Space Agency) vervult een belangrijke rol binnen het Artemis-programma, aangezien zij verantwoordelijk zijn voor de bouw van de Orion-capsule. Dit is het interplanetair ruimtevaartuig dat rond de maan zal vliegen.
Artemis II 2024 De Artemis II-missie, gepland voor 2024, is afhankelijk van het succes van Artemis I. Tijdens de tweede missie zullen er vier astronauten aan boord zijn. Het ruimtevaartuig zal een soortgelijke baan als Orion volgen.
Wandelen op de maan in 2025 Een derde missie, gepland voor 2025, staat op de agenda. Er wordt verwacht dat tijdens deze missie opnieuw mensen het maanoppervlak zullen betreden.
2. Japan Jaxa, de Japanse ruimtevaartorganisatie, lanceerde in november 2022 een module. Kort na de lancering waren er communicatieproblemen. De exacte locatie van de module is nog onbekend.
Maankraters Het doel van de Japanners is om maankraters te identificeren met behulp van gezichtsherkenningstechnologieën. Indien de landing succesvol is, betekent dit een baanbrekende prestatie vanwege de ongekende precisie. De missie staat bekend als "Slim" (Intelligent Landing Module to Investigate the Moon).
Rashid, de robot uit de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten De andere robot die het Japanse bedrijf gaat inzetten komt uit de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten en heet Rashid. Het betreft een vierwielig voertuig dat speciaal is ontworpen om de bodem van de maan te onderzoeken.
3. Rusland Rusland zal onverminderd doorgaan met zijn ruimtevaartprojecten, ondanks de aankondiging dat het in 2024 het International Space Station (ISS) zal verlaten.
Luna-25-missie Het nieuwste project van Rusland, de Luna-25-missie, heeft als doel om in juli 2023 de zuidpool van de maan te onderzoeken. Deze informatie is bevestigd door Yuri Borisov, de directeur van Roscosmos (foto).
Op zoek naar water Een van de belangrijkste doelstellingen voor Rusland, evenals andere landen, is het analyseren van de bodem van de maan. Een speciale prioriteit is het onderzoeken van gebieden waar aanwijzingen zijn voor bevroren water.
Russische bemande missie voor 2025 In 2025 is Rusland van plan een bemande missie te lanceren met het ruimtevaartuig Orel. Bovendien zijn ze van plan de modules van hun eigen ruimtestation, genaamd Ross (Russian Orbital Service Station), in elkaar te zetten.
4. China Momenteel is China de grootste tegenstander van de VS in de nieuwe ruimtewedloop. Volgens de Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CCTA) is de Aziatische gigant van plan om tegen 2030 een bemande raket naar de maan te sturen.
Een nieuwe generatie bemande raketten In juni 2022 kondigde het bureau aan dat de eerste tests van een nieuwe motor voor de volgende generatie bemande raketten succesvol waren afgerond. De volgende fase omvat de productie van de eerste prototypemodellen.
Een Chinese robot op Mars In 2019 liet China zien hoe ver ze zijn ontwikkeld op het gebied van ruimtetechnologie. Ze behaalden een belangrijke mijlpaal door als eerste land een apparaat aan de achterkant van de maan te plaatsen. Bovendien zond het land in 2021 een kleine robot naar Mars.
Investeringen China investeert volgens de krant O Globo miljarden dollars in de ontwikkeling van nieuwe ruimtetechnologieën. Het feit dat ze hun eigen ruimtestation hebben gebouwd, getuigt hun toewijding en vooruitgang op dit gebied
5. Zuid-Korea Zuid-Korea daarentegen lanceerde op 4 augustus 2022 zijn eerste maanmissie. De robotsonde staat algemeen bekend als Danuri, wat "geniet van de maan" betekent in het Koreaans. Deze sonde werd met succes gelanceerd met behulp van een SpaceX-ruimtevaartuig.
Een observatiemissie van een jaar Volgens verklaringen van het ministerie van Wetenschap van Zuid-Korea wordt verwacht dat het ruimtevaartuig in december de baan van de maan zal bereiken. Vervolgens zal het beginnen aan een observatiemissie van een jaar.
Onderzoek naar de maanomgeving Het doel van de Zuid-Koreaanse missie is om potentiële landingsplaatsen voor toekomstige missies te verkennen. Daarnaast zal er wetenschappelijk onderzoek worden uitgevoerd naar de omgeving van de maan en zullen er tests worden uitgevoerd op het gebied van internettechnologie.
6. Verenigde Arabische Emiraten De rover Rashid, die eerder genoemd werd, staat op het punt aan zijn grote reis te beginnen. Het is het vlaggenschip van de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten in hun maanverkenningsexpeditie. Deze expeditie wordt uitgevoerd in samenwerking met het Japanse bedrijf ispace Inc. en zal worden gelanceerd met behulp van een raket ontworpen door SpaceX.
Camera's met hoge resolutie en zeer lage temperaturen Rashid zal het maanoppervlak bestuderen. Het voertuig is uitgerust met camera's van hoge resolutie, evenals een sonde en andere apparaten. Rashid is ontwikkeld met technologie die bestand is tegen extreem lage temperaturen (tot -173°C.).
Het eerste land in het Midden-Oosten dat op de maan landde Als de missie slaagt, zal het land een historische mijlpaal bereiken. Het zal het eerste land in het Midden-Oosten zijn dat erin slaagt een voertuig op het maanoppervlak te laten landen. Bovendien zal het de vierde natie ter wereld zijn die deze prestatie levert, na de Verenigde Staten, Rusland en China.
7. India In 2019 probeerde India een maanlanding, maar de Chandrayaan-2-missie mislukte nadat de communicatie kort voor de afdaling werd verbroken. De Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) heeft plannen voor een nieuwe missie, genaamd 'Chandrayaan-3'.
Toekomstige verkenningen Volgens India Today heeft S. Somnath, de president van de Indiase ruimtevaartorganisatie, aangekondigd dat Chandrayaan-3 gepland staat om in juni 2023 te worden gelanceerd. Deze missie zal een robuustere maanrover aan boord hebben, wat volgens hem "cruciaal is voor toekomstige interplanetaire verkenningen".
"VS verbergt informatie over buitenaards leven": ex-officieren getuigen voor Amerikaans Congres in "UFO-hoorzitting"
archieffoto van Amerikaans ministerie van Defensie van een ongeïdentificeerd vliegend voorwerp
"VS verbergt informatie over buitenaards leven": ex-officieren getuigen voor Amerikaans Congres in "UFO-hoorzitting"
In de VS heeft een luchtmachtveteraan tijdens een hoorzitting in het parlement herhaald dat de Amerikaanse overheid al decennialang een onderzoeksprogramma naar UFO's verbergt voor de bevolking. Volgens de voormalige majoor David Grusch is het Pentagon in het bezit van bewijsmateriaal van buitenaards leven. Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie heeft die beweringen met klem ontkend.
Ludwig De Wolf
Vorig jaar bevestigde het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie dat er een onderzoek loopt naar een 400-tal geheimzinnige waarnemingen in het luchtruim van de voorbije twee decennia. Dat onderzoek wordt gevoerd door de speciale afdeling die onderzoek doet naar UAP's (ongeïdentificeerde verschijnselen in de lucht of unidentified aerial phenomena).
Vanmiddag hebben drie klokkenluiders die voor de Amerikaanse Defensie hebben gewerkt, getuigd in een hoorzitting in het Amerikaanse parlement over "ongeïdentificeerde abnormale verschijnselen in de lucht".
Hun getuigenissen roepen meer vragen dan antwoorden op. Ze beweerden over veel meer informatie te beschikken, maar wilden of konden die niet delen op de hoorzitting.
De voormalige inlichtingenofficier David Grusch verklaarde dat Defensie in het bezit is van bewijsmateriaal van buitenaards leven en UFO's, maar concrete informatie gaf hij niet. Grusch had het over "niet-menselijk biologisch materiaal". De overheid zou die informatie volgens Grusch bewust verbergen voor de bevolking.
Grusch kon niet antwoorden op vragen in de hoorzitting omdat hij gehouden is aan een geheimhoudingsplicht (non-disclosure agreement of NDA). Hij gaf mee dat hij wel meer antwoorden kan geven in een gesloten commissie.
De drie getuigen, Ryan Graves, David Grusch en David Fravor leggen de eed af voor de hoorzitting
Onderzoek naar onverklaarbare waarnemingen
Het Pentagon heeft altijd ontkend dat er geheime onderzoeksprogramma's lopen naar UFO's en buitenaards leven. Er wordt wel onderzoek verricht naar onverklaarbare waarnemingen.
Volgens Defensie is het in het belang van de strijdkrachten om de oorsprong van de fenomenen te achterhalen, omdat ze mogelijk gevaar kunnen opleveren voor piloten. Het valt evenmin uit te sluiten dat het om tot dusver onbekende systemen of tuigen gaat van vijandelijke mogendheden.
Adjunct-directeur Inlichtingen van de Marine Scott Bray meldde eerder dat zijn diensten "niet over materiaal beschikten of stralingen hadden opgepikt die zouden suggereren dat het om iets van buitenaardse oorsprong zou gaan". Geen bewijs van buitenaards leven dus, maar Defensie wil de mogelijkheid van het bestaan van buitenaards leven ook niet uitsluiten.
Rosswellincident
Radars van het Amerikaanse leger kunnen niet altijd bepalen wat er in de lucht wordt waargenomen. Dat bleek begin dit jaar nog toen ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten werden neergeschoten door het leger, na het incident met de Chinese spionageballon.
Amerika is ook altijd in de ban geweest van het Roswellincident, de vermeende crash van een UFO in het plaatsje Roswell in New Mexico. Het was in de zomer van 1947 groot nieuws in de VS en is nog altijd het bekendste UFO-incident. Sindsdien doen er om de zoveel tijd allerhande beweringen over bewijs van buitenaardse wezens de ronde, maar nooit is dat bewezen.
Sinds er in 1947 vreemde stukken metaal bij Roswell, New Mexico, neervielen, zijn er tal van ufo’s waargenomen, vooral in de VS. Wetenschappers ontkennen het bestaan van aliens niet, maar zien waarschijnlijkere verklaringen. Maar wat als we echt bezoek uit de ruimte hebben gehad?
Op 14 november 2004 stijgt de aanvalsjager Boeing F/A-18 op van het vliegdekschip USS Nimitz in de Stille Oceaan, zo’n 160 kilometer ten zuidwesten van San Diego, Californië.
Aan boord bevindt zich David Fravor.
Met 18 jaar in de cockpit van de US Navy heeft de ervaren piloot veel meegemaakt in de lucht.
Maar over een paar minuten zal David Fravor iets zien dat alle logica tart.
Sinds enkele weken observeert een ander Amerikaans vliegdekschip, de USS Princeton, een reeks onverklaarbare objecten die rondvliegen in het omringende luchtruim. Nu moet David Fravor ze nader onderzoeken.
De gevechtspiloot doorklieft de wolkeloze hemel, tot hij plotseling een van die objecten ziet waar de bemanning van de USS Princeton zich het hoofd over brak.
Uit het raam van de cockpit ziet David Fravor een wit voorwerp met een glad oppervlak dat met circa 222 km/h door de lucht vliegt. Het object is ongeveer 14 meter lang en heeft de vorm van een Tic Tac. Het heeft geen vleugels, straalt geen warmte uit en lijkt op niets wat hij ooit eerder heeft gezien.
neens zoeft de enorme Tic Tac naar zee, waarbij hij in enkele seconden bijna 2 kilometer aflegt – een manoeuvre die met de toenmalige vliegtuigtechnologie niet mogelijk is.
In de loop der jaren zijn er talloze onverklaarbare vliegende objecten gezien. Vaak zijn er natuurverschijnselen in het spel, maar wat de Amerikaanse marine de afgelopen tien jaar heeft meegemaakt, blijft een mysterie.
In 2021 bracht de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst een rapport over ufowaarnemingen uit, en misschien hebben we wel bezoek van levensvormen van elders gehad.
De video waarop de ufowaarneming van 2004 te zien is, heet FLIR1, naar de naam van de gebruikte infraroodtechnologie.
Voor David Fravor is er echter geen twijfel mogelijk.
‘Het enige wat ik kan zeggen is dat het me niet iets van deze wereld lijkt. Ik ben niet gek, en ik had niet gedronken. Na 18 jaar als gevechtspiloot te hebben gewerkt, heb ik zowat elk denkbaar verschijnsel in het luchtruim gezien, maar dit viel overal buiten,’ vertelde hij er jaren later over.
David Fravors collega-piloot Chad Underwood zag het object ook en filmde het zelfs met een infraroodcamera.
In een interview uit 2019 met het tijdschrift The New Yorker zegt hij over het vaartuig: ‘Het gedroeg zich niet volgens de bekende natuurwetten.’
Pentagon deelt ufowaarnemingen
De spectaculaire opname uit 2004 werd in 2017 gelekt naar The New York Times, en in 2020 bevestigde het Pentagon de echtheid van de video.
Ook heeft het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie twee nieuwe video’s uit 2015 vrijgegeven. Daarop staan soortgelijke onverklaarbare vaartuigen die door Amerikaanse gevechtspiloten met infraroodcamera’s zijn vastgelegd.
Net als het Tic Tac-vormige vaartuig uit 2004 lijken ook deze vliegende objecten de natuurwetten te tarten. Ze kunnen bijvoorbeeld ongekend vlug versnellen en in de lucht ronddraaien zonder uit koers te raken.
In deze video draait de ufo plotseling met hoge snelheid.
In deze video versnelt de ufo met ongelooflijke vaart.
Ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten, ufo’s, houden de mens al tientallen jaren bezig. En de vrijgave van de ufovideo’s door het Amerikaanse leger duidt op een nieuwe houding achter de muren van het Pentagon.
Na decennia van geheimhouding was het Amerikaanse leger eindelijk bereid zijn kennis over ufo’s met het publiek te delen. En onlangs kregen ufofanaten wereldwijd nog meer stof tot nadenken.
Op 25 juni 2021 landde het langverwachte rapport van het Pentagon over waarnemingen van ufo’s of ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ (UAP’s).
Dit zijn de belangrijkste bevindingen van het uforapport van het Pentagon
Het rapport is gebaseerd op 144 onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen die in de afgelopen 20 jaar door voornamelijk jachtpiloten zijn waargenomen.
Onder de 144 gevallen zijn er geen duidelijke aanwijzingen dat het ufo’s van niet-aardse oorsprong betreft. Die mogelijkheid wordt in het rapport echter ook niet verworpen.
Het rapport gaat alleen over ufo’s in de VS of in gebieden waar Amerikanen ufo’s hebben gezien. De afgelopen twee decennia zijn er elders in de wereld talrijke waarnemingen van ufo’s geweest, maar deze verschijnselen worden niet besproken.
Het gepubliceerde negen pagina’s tellende rapport geeft geen uitputtend overzicht van ufo’s die in de VS zijn waargenomen. Geclassificeerde informatie is weggelaten en verwacht wordt dat een langer verslag over de ongeïdentificeerde luchtverschijnselen op een later tijdstip zal worden gepubliceerd.
Het Amerikaanse leger geeft vijf mogelijke verklaringen voor de verschijnselen: rondvliegend puin, natuurlijk atmosferisch verschijnsel, ontwikkelingsprogramma’s van de regering of de industrie van de VS, buitenlandse vijandige systemen en de categorie ‘diverse’.
Een zeer klein deel van de ufogevallen bevat zoveel interessante gegevens dat een groep deskundigen uit verschillende disciplines alle gegevens moet analyseren om te bepalen of de gegevens betrouwbaar zijn en zo ja wat ze kunnen onthullen over de ufo’s in kwestie.
Sinds 1947 ziet iedereen ze vliegen
Dat is al door miljoenen mensen geprobeerd sinds ufo’s kort na de Tweede Wereldoorlog voor het eerst in het collectieve bewustzijn landden.
Op 24 juni 1947 vloog zakenman Kenneth Arnold met zijn privévliegtuig over de bergen Mount Rainer en Mount Adams in de staat Washington. Arnold was een ervaren piloot die tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog in het Pacifisch gebied duizenden vlieguren had gemaakt.
Toen het vliegtuig over de bergen vloog, bespeurde hij een krachtige flits.
Kenneth Arnold keek om zich heen, bang dat een ander vliegtuig te dichtbij was gekomen. Kort daarna volgde er nog een flits, en nu zag hij een formatie van negen grote, zilverachtige schijven, elk circa 30 meter in doorsnee, die tussen de bergen door vlogen.
De schijven leken door de lucht te stuiteren en zo stukjes af te steken.
De piloot volgde het vreemde schouwspel een paar minuten terwijl de toestellen tussen de bergketens door zigzagden. Hij noteerde de tijd die ze nodig hadden om tussen Mount Rainer en Mount Adams door te vliegen en stelde vast dat hun snelheid 1900 km/h was – iets wat toen ten enen male onmogelijk was.
Toen Kenneth Arnold later de pers vertelde over de waarnemingen, sprak hij van ‘vliegende schotels’ – een term die nu nog gebezigd wordt.
Het hek was van de dam, en al snel vertelden honderden ooggetuigen over soortgelijke waarnemingen.
De Amerikaanse luchtmacht was er nuchterder over. Het waren B-47-bommenwerpers die bijtankten bij een KC-97-tanker, zo luidde de verklaring.
Slechts enkele weken later stond de Amerikaanse regering echter met de mond vol tanden toen misschien wel de beroemdste ufowaarneming ooit plaatsvond in de plaats Roswell, New Mexico.
Hier zagen verschillende ooggetuigen op 2 juli 1947 een vreemd lichtgevend object door de lucht suizen. Een paar dagen later vond de boer William Brazel stukken verwrongen metaal verspreid over zijn veld aan de rand van Roswell.
Het metaal was zo dun als folie, maar zo sterk dat het niet gebogen kon worden. Op sommige stukken leken schrifttekens te staan.
De volgende dag reed William Brazel naar Roswell en vertelde hij de sheriff over zijn vondst.
Het verhaal van de neergestorte ufo werd al snel opgepikt door de media, en William Brazels akker werd overspoeld door nieuwsgierige toeschouwers.
Tegen die tijd was het gebied afgezet door het Amerikaanse leger, dat de metalen brokstukken van het mysterieuze wrak inspecteerde en verwijderde.
De officiële verklaring van de autoriteiten was dat het materiaal afkomstig was van een neergestorte weerballon.
Het Roswell-incident leidde tot allerlei complottheorieën, zoals dat het Amerikaanse leger op de legerbasis Area 51 ruimteschepen opsloeg en buitenaardse wezens gevangenhield.
In werkelijkheid was het noch een neergestorte ruimte ufo, noch een weerballon.
Na het Roswell-incident sloeg in de VS de ufohysterie toe, en het geloof in bezoeken uit de ruimte houdt de bevolking nog steeds in zijn ban.
Een onderzoek uit 2018 van de Amerikaanse Chapman-universiteit wijst uit dat rond de helft van de Amerikaanse bevolking ervan overtuigd is dat er al aliens op aarde zijn geweest – hetzij heel lang geleden, hetzij recentelijk.
Dit percentage is de laatste jaren gestegen, evenals het aantal ufowaarnemingen.
In 2020 steeg het aantal gerapporteerde observaties alleen al in New York City tot 300, het hoogste aantal ooit.
Hoewel veruit de meeste ufowaarnemingen afkomstig zijn uit de VS zijn er ook talloze voorbeelden uit de rest van de wereld.
Duizenden ufowaarnemingen onderzocht
Ondanks de vele ooggetuigen ontbreekt nog steeds het definitieve bewijs dat we inderdaad bezoek uit de ruimte hebben gehad, al is de mogelijkheid om ufo’s te observeren en te documenteren nog nooit zo groot geweest.
Van de besneeuwde ruimtetelescoop op de Zuidpool tot de ALMA-telescoop in de Atacamawoestijn in Chili, astronomen hebben hun blik tegenwoordig voortdurend op de ruimte gericht – geholpen door de ruimtetelescopen die veel van het interstellaire verkeer in de Melkweg documenteren.
Toch hebben astronomen wereldwijd met de lens van een telescoop nog geen ufo kunnen vangen.
Hoe valt dit te rijmen met het grote – en alsmaar toenemende – aantal waarnemingen van onverklaarbare vliegende objecten?
De Amerikaanse luchtmacht probeerde het antwoord op deze vraag al in 1952 te vinden met Project Blue Book.
Dit speciale programma had tot doel alle gemelde ufowaarnemingen te onderzoeken, en tegen het einde van het project in 1969 waren er 12.000 observaties doorgespit.
De conclusie was duidelijk: de meeste waarnemingen waren toe te schrijven aan astronomische verschijnselen, zoals licht dat wordt uitgezonden door satellieten, sterren, meteoren en planeten (die het zonlicht naar de aarde kaatsen).
Slechts 701 waarnemingen konden niet worden verklaard – nog geen 6 procent.
Satellieten en meteoren bewegen langs de hemel en kunnen daarom makkelijk voor ufo’s worden aangezien.
Vandaag de dag is het aantal satellieten in een baan om de aarde gestegen tot circa 6900 (waarvan er 2900 kunnen worden gecategoriseerd als ruimtepuin), wat kan verklaren waarom er de afgelopen decennia steeds meer ufowaarnemingen worden gemeld.
Sterren en planeten bewegen niet zo snel dat het menselijk oog dat kan zien. Toch geven ze vaak aanleiding tot valse ufowaarnemingen.
Dat komt doordat sterren, en vooral planeten als Venus – de helderste planeet in ons zonnestelsel – het oog misleiden.
Als je lang genoeg staart naar een lichtgevend voorwerp tegen een donkere achtergrond, zal het uiteindelijk lijken te bewegen, glijdend of in snelle schokjes.
Dit gezichtsbedrog wordt ook wel het ‘autokinetisch effect’ genoemd.
Als je lang naar een vast punt staart, raakt je oogspier vermoeid, wat resulteert in een lichte oogbeweging. Omdat al het andere zwart is en het oog geen andere visuele ijkpunten heeft, wekt de oogbeweging de illusie dat het voorwerp – in dit geval de ster of de planeet – beweegt.
Leun naar het scherm toe en staar 30 seconden naar de witte stip. Zie je hem bewegen?
Met exoplaneten meer kans op aliens
Maar hoe zit het met de laatste 5-10 procent van de ufowaarnemingen die we niet kunnen afdoen als gezichtsbedrog of een verdwaalde meteoor, zoals de Pentagon-video’s uit 2004 en 2015?
Deze ufowaarnemingen worden nu onderzocht door de pas opgerichte Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) van het Amerikaanse leger.
De ufo’s zijn echter niet noodzakelijkerwijs ontwikkeld door buitenaardse levensvormen. Het kunnen ook bewakingsdrones zijn, of luchtwapens die worden bestuurd door tot dusver onbekende technologieën van bijvoorbeeld China, Rusland of Noord-Korea, met het doel de VS in het oog te houden of misschien aan te vallen.
Het idee van buitenaardse wezens die hier in het wilde weg langsvliegen is lastiger te plaatsen dan de theorie over de ontwikkeling van schimmige luchtwapens in geheime legerfaciliteiten.
Maar dat is niet omdat onze planeet de enige zou zijn waar leven is.
Integendeel, de meeste astronomen en astrofysici zijn ervan overtuigd dat er zich tussen de sterren andere levende organismen moeten bevinden.
Sinds de ontdekking van de eerste aardachtige exoplaneet in 1995 kennen we er nu meer dan 4000 – een aantal dat elke twee jaar verdubbelt. Na berekeningen wordt het aantal bewoonbare werelden in ons zonnestelsel alleen al geschat op 300 miljoen.
Sommige van deze exoplaneten worden als bewoonbaar beschouwd, omdat ze ruwweg evenveel massa hebben als de aarde en de juiste afstand tot hun ster om vloeibaar water op het oppervlak mogelijk te maken.
TRAPPIST-1d is een van de exoplaneten die volgens onderzoekers leven kan huisvesten. NASA/JPL-Caltech
De dichtstbijzijnde exoplaneet bevindt zich op nog geen 20 lichtjaar afstand in onze kosmische ‘achtertuin.’ En dat is reden voor optimisme.
Zoals de Zwitserse astrofysicus Thomas Zurbuchen het in 2014 formuleerde tijdens een paneldiscussie over buitenaards leven op het NASA-hoofdkwartier in Washington: ‘De beantwoording van de vraag “Zijn wij alleen?” is een wetenschappelijke topprioriteit. En dat er voor het eerst zo veel planeten als deze gevonden zijn in de bewoonbare zone is een opmerkelijke stap voorwaarts in de richting van dat doel.’
Zoeken naar het bewijs
In 1950 stelde de Italiaanse natuurkundige Enrico Fermi een andere vraag: ‘Waar zíjn ze dan?’
Met de omvang van het heelal en het oneindige aantal planeten en sterren in de sterrenstelsels is de kans op het bestaan van intelligent buitenaards leven enorm groot.
Waarom is er dan nog geen contact met ons opgenomen? Deze paradox van Fermi kan ruwweg op twee manieren worden beantwoord.
Andere beschavingen nemen geen contact met ons op uit angst hun positie te verraden, óf ze hebben geavanceerdere technologie dan radiogolven ontwikkeld zonder dat wij beschikken over de technologie om de signalen op te vangen.
Tenzij het leven op aarde uniek is.
Voor ufofanaten is er geen twijfel mogelijk: buitenaardse wezens bestaan, en ze hebben de aarde ontelbare malen bezocht – en niet voor het laatst.}
Nu het Pentagon de nieuwe ufovideo’s heeft vrijgegeven, hopen ufofanaten het doorslaggevende bewijs te vinden dat voor eens en voor altijd kan uitwijzen of we alleen zijn in het heelal of niet.
Hopelijk houden ze de beroemde woorden van astrofysicus Carl Sagan in gedachten als ze zich door het bewijsmateriaal heen worstelen: ‘Het loont om een open geest te hebben, maar niet zo open dat je hersenen eruit vallen.’
Archeologen: Wereldberoemde ‘aliens’ uit Peru zijn helemaal geen aliens
Archeologen: Wereldberoemde ‘aliens’ uit Peru zijn helemaal geen aliens
Het veroorzaakte nogal wat opschudding toen de ET-achtige wezens voor het eerst in de media kwamen. In werkelijkheid hebben de twee ‘aliens’ een nogal macabere oorsprong.
De Mexicaanse journalist en zelfverklaarde ufoloog Jaime Maussan (rechts) observeert de zogenaamde niet-menselijke wezens voor een persconferentie die de dag na de openbare ufo-hoorzitting in het Mexicaanse Congres werd gehouden.
Op 14 september 2023 rolden er twee kisten het Mexicaanse Congresgebouw binnen.
De twee kisten met glazen deksels trokken wereldwijd veel aandacht, want volgens de Mexicaanse journalist en zelfbenoemd ufo-liefhebber José Jaime Maussen waren dit echte buitenaardse wezens.
Maar na een grondig onderzoek hebben forensisch archeologen in Peru nu eindelijk een einde gemaakt aan de ufo-speculaties.
De ET-achtige figuren zijn namelijk van een heel andere, verrassende afkomst.
Macabere poppen van botten
De buitenaardse wezens die op mysterieuze wijze opdoken op het vliegveld van de Peruaanse hoofdstad Lima zijn volledig van aardse oorsprong.
Het zijn objecten gemaakt van papier, metaal, lijm en botten van mensen en dieren zoals honden en vogels.
‘Het zijn geen buitenaardse wezens. Het zijn poppen gemaakt van botten van deze planeet in elkaar gezet met moderne synthetische lijm. Het is een compleet verzonnen verhaal,’ zei Flavio Estrada, archeoloog aan het Peruaanse Instituut voor Juridische Geneeskunde en Forensische Wetenschap.
De twee kleine lichamen hebben drie vingers aan elke hand, die volgens Estrada van menselijke botten gemaakt zijn.
Dit is in tegenspraak met wat de directeur van het Wetenschappelijk Gezondheidsinstituut van de Mexicaanse marine, Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, vorig jaar op basis van een DNA-analyse zei:
‘Ik kan bevestigen dat de lichamen geen relatie hebben met mensen.’
Tijdens de presentatie in het Mexicaanse Congres werd ook onthuld dat de twee lichamen naar verluidt implantaten hadden die gemaakt waren van zeldzame metalen zoals osmium. Dit lijkt nu echter ook een compleet verzinsel te zijn.
Finally, Let’s Look at the Asteroid Treasure Returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx
A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. Photo: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold
Finally, Let’s Look at the Asteroid Treasure Returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx delivered its precious cargo to Earth on September 24th, 2023. The sample from asteroid Bennu is contained inside the spacecraft’s sampling head, and it’s in safe hands at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Two stubborn fasteners delayed the opening of the sampling head, but they’ve been removed, and now we can see inside.
What looks like unremarkable dirt is primordial asteroidal material that’s billions of years old, a natural treasure trove that eager scientists can’t wait to begin studying.
The head and its sample are in the hands of the astromaterials curation team at Johnson Space Center. On January 10th, they opened the Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM.) The leading image shows what greeted them.
The sample material includes dust and rocks up to about .4 in (one cm) in size. Credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold
The next step is to remove the round metal collar and place the sample into trays. Each tray will be photographed, weighed, packaged, and stored. The final mass will be determined in the weeks ahead, including the 70.3 grams (2.48 oz) removed previously. That material was on the sampling machinery but outside of the capsule. OSIRIS-REx’s goal was to return 60 grams of material, so it’s already exceeded that amount.
The curation team will catalogue all of the samples later this year. After that, scientists from around the world can request access.
This map shows the 38 institutions that will be the first to receive Bennu samples. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.
Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid, a primitive chunk of rock that forms a link to the past when the rocky planets were forming. Scientists have already found carbon and water in the previously removed material. In fact, according to initial analysis, its carbon concentration is close to 5%. That’s among the highest non-terrestrial carbon percentages ever measured. “The OSIRIS-REx sample is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth and will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson at the time.
Once scientists get their hands on more of the material, they’ll doubtlessly find other interesting components. Maybe even some of life’s building blocks, like amino acids. Bennu’s water and carbon content could indicate that life’s building blocks originated in asteroids like Bennu.
The sample also gives researchers an opportunity to test their findings against previous observations of Bennu. Astronomers studied the asteroid’s composition with OSIRIS-REx’s instruments as it approached Bennu, and the samples will tell them how accurate their efforts were. It’s an opportunity to verify and improve spacecraft instruments and remote sensing methods.
Bennu’s boulder-strewn surface. The asteroid is a rubble pile rather than a monolithic body. Image Credit: NASA/University of Arizona.
Scientists suspect that Bennu could actually be older than our Solar System. If that’s true, then it’s a window into the distant past when only the solar nebula and the proto-Sun existed. It may contain insights into how everything formed, including the Sun.
Bennu may also be one of the remaining pieces of a much larger body. Scientists think that the parent body broke apart between 700 million and two billion years ago. Scientists hope to learn more from the Bennu sample about its parent body and how Bennu migrated to the inner Solar System.
In a notable act of foresight, 75% of the sample will be stored for the future. Instruments and analysis techniques will only improve over time, and these pristine samples will be available when they do. NASA has done the same with other materials like lunar samples, and it’s paid off.
The Bennu samples can only enhance our understanding of our Solar System and how everything came to be. From its ancient early beginnings in the solar nebula to its present-day location in the inner Solar System, Bennu is a well-travelled message-bearer. Now that we have some of that message in our labs, scientists can reveal what Bennu has to say.
Blockchain, de technologie achter cryptocurrency, zou weleens kunnen helpen om misinformatie aangewakkerd door artificiële intelligentie (AI) de kop in te drukken. Trainingsmodellen voor AI zouden eerlijker worden.
Doordat AI zich steeds verder ontwikkelt, wordt het moeilijker om nog met het menselijk oog te weten wat echt is en wat niet. Er moet dus naar andere manieren van controle gezocht worden.
In het nieuws: AI-trainingsmodellen kunnen door blockchaintechnologie makkelijker in de gaten worden gehouden.
Blockchain is de technologie die gebruikt wordt om handel in crypto te controleren. Het zorgt ervoor dat de transacties worden bijgehouden en er onherroepelijk vaststaat wie eigenaar is van welk bedrag. Dit is nodig omdat de cryptoplatformen zelf gedecentraliseerd zijn.
Maar de blockchaintechnologie kan nu ook worden ingezet om AI op echtheid te controleren. Het blockchainbedrijf Casper Labs werkt aan een dergelijke toepassing in samenwerking met computerbedrijf IBM.
AI-trainingsmodellen kunnen op de blockchain worden gezet. Zo kan er makkelijker bijgehouden worden op welke data het model wordt getraind.
Als er vervolgens wordt opgemerkt dat het model wordt gevoed met foutieve of bevoordeelde informatie, kan er worden teruggegrepen naar een vorige iteratie in het proces en kan de fout eruit gehaald worden, legt Medha Parlika, co-oprichter van Casper Labs, uit aan CNBC.
Een doorbraak?
Om te volgen: Deze toepassing zou weleens een doorbraak kunnen betekenen.
Sheila Warren, CEO van de Crypto Council for Innovation, is erg enthousiast. Volgens haar zou het reguleren van AI wel eens dé grote toepassing voor de blockchaintechnologie kunnen worden.
Computerwetenschappers zijn al een tijdje op zoek naar uitbreidingen voor blockchain. Het tracken van digitale kunstwerken in de vorm van NFT’s gebeurt door deze technologie. Sectoren als gezondheid en de industrie hebben ook projecten lopen.
“Ik denk dat de verificatie van een AI en een soort checks and balances binnenin een AI-systeem aangedreven en ondersteund zullen worden door blockchain”, is Warrens voorspelling.
There’s an incredibly ancient black hole out there that’s challenging astronomers to explain how it could exist only 400 million years after the Big Bang. It’s at the heart of a galaxy called GN-z11. Astronomers using JWST saw evidence of it gobbling up that galaxy, which is one way a black hole can grow.
In JWST observations, GN-z11 appears to be about 13.4 billion light-years away and is about 100 times smaller than the Milky Way Galaxy. Yet, it has a very bright nucleus, which tells us there’s a black hole at its heart. An accretion disk surrounds the black hole, and it feeds material into the hungry black hole. The motion of the material in the disk heats it, causing it to glow in ultraviolet light. That’s what we see as the active galactic nucleus.
Artist’s representation of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at the center of a galaxy. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
A team of astronomers, led by Cambridge University professor Roberto Maiolino, used the JWST observations to study the motions of material in the galaxy. Finding a black hole like this early in cosmic history is a giant leap forward, he said. “It’s very early in the Universe to see a black hole this massive, so we’ve got to consider other ways they might form,” said Maiolino. “Very early galaxies were extremely gas-rich, so they would have been like a buffet for black holes.”
What Does GN-z11 Tell Us About Black Holes in the Early Universe?
No one is quite sure exactly when the first black holes began to form in the early Universe. If you look at standard models about their creation, it looks like they take a while to get started. Supermassive black holes—like the ones in the hearts of galaxies—could get started as stellar-mass black holes that continue to accrete matter. If that’s how this one in GN-z11 got started, it would have been born when a supermassive star died. Then, somehow it grew to be 6 million times the mass of the Sun. But, there’s a gotcha. It would take nearly a billion years to accumulate that kind of mass. JWST observations show this black hole at a time when the Universe wasn’t even a billion years old. So, something doesn’t add up and perhaps early black holes grew faster than astronomers suspect.
Maybe there’s another way for a black hole to grow that fast. The hint lies in its enormous appetite. Very early galaxies like this one have a lot of material to form stars. However, that also provides food for black holes. As it turns out, GN-z11’s black hole is devouring matter much faster than other black holes do in their galaxies in more modern times. That’s great for the growth of the black hole, but not so great if the galaxy wants to make more stars.
Artist concept of a growing black hole, or quasar, seen at the center of a faraway galaxy. This may be how they looked in the early Universe. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The hungry black hole is actually harming GN-z11. Since it’s consuming a lot of gas, it pushes the gas away in an ultra-fast wind. That stops the process of star formation. Since stars are what galaxies produce, the black hole’s gobbling can actually “kill off” the galaxy. The bad news (at least for the black hole) is that its appetite for gas will spell its doom as it runs out of material to eat.
Going Back to the Beginning
Ultimately, astronomers want to see the “seeds” of the earliest supermassive black holes in galaxies. These seeds likely formed very early in cosmic time, perhaps no later than 200 million years after the Big Bang. The first galaxies assembled fairly quickly and harbored very massive stars that lived perhaps only a few million years. Then, they exploded as supernovae and probably left behind the first stellar-mass black holes. Some have suggested that dark matter helped form early black holes by forcing matter in dense regions to collapse.
Artist view of merging black holes in the early universe. Supermassive black holes early in cosmic time could have experienced many such “mergers and acquisitions”. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC)
However, they formed, black holes in early galaxies got swept up in early galactic mergers. Those seeds merged, too, creating ever more massive black holes. That’s probably why astronomers suspect that supermassive black holes grew by accretion, but not just with each other. They also grew by accretion of material inside their gas-rich galaxies, as GN-z11 seems to show.
Future observations using JWST (and future telescopes) should uncover evidence of those black hole “seeds”. That means GN-z11 may not be the oldest black hole for long. Studying black hole seeds should give Maiolino and other astronomers more clues to unravel the story of how these objects formed not long after the Big Bang.
NASA satellite imagery has revealed the thermal signature of volcanic activity that reawakened on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula this month, following an eruption late last year that prompted evacuations.
Following a surge that began in mid-January, new fissures opened near the town of Grindavík that released lava over 48 hours. Barriers constructed in the area helped divert the flow away from the town, which remains perilous as volcanic activity continues.
The recent eruptions were the fifth that have occurred on the peninsula since 2021.
Watching from above as the hazardous activity has unfolded in recent weeks, NASA’s Landsat 9 satellite and its Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2) instrument have collected data that reveals key areas where the volcanic activity is concentrated.
TIRS-2 can detect thermal radiation at two different wavelengths, which conveys the intense heat concentrated around areas where lava flows earlier this month made their way to the surface.
According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, which provides data, imagery, and resources related to climate, geology, as well as other Earth systems, TIRS-2 collected the thermal data as Landsat 9 passed overhead on January 16, which has now been superimposed over a digital elevation model of the affected region.
In the imagery provided by Earth Observatory below, the central warmest regions are shown in yellow, with surrounding the lightest temperatures in the region, shown in light blue, indicating cloud coverage.
(Credit: NASA/Earth Observatory)
In December, nearly 4,000 residents were evacuated from Grindavik, followed by a volcanic fissure eruption on December 18 on Sundhnúkagígaröðin, located east of Mt. Sýlingarfell, according to a statement provided by Iceland’s Meteorological Office.
The December eruption was preceded by a “powerful seismic swarm” that began at approximately 21:00 the same day.
Activity has continued since that time, with an additional fissure eruption that began on the morning of January 14, 2024, just one kilometer away from Grindavík. Although barriers constructed in the area since the recent eruptions began were able to divert some of the lava flow, a second fissure that opened shortly after noon local time erupted outside the barrier, resulting in lava flows that reached three homes on the edge of the town.
Fortunately, the volcanic activity subsided within 48 hours, according to the Icelandic Met Office. Although barriers have been used to prevent the flow of the lava from reaching residences during the recent eruptions, in decades past, efforts have included the use of millions of tons of sea water used to cool lava before it could destroy homes and infrastructure.
Based on current models, magma has moved beneath the region, causing uplift and deformation of the surrounding Earth.
“Clear signals of a continued land uplift are still being detected beneath Svartsengi,” read an update from Iceland’s Met Office on January 19. “It is yet too early to assert whether the rate of the land uplift has increased since prior to the eruption on January 14.”
The Met Office says that although it does appear that uplift has increased based on initial measurements, these readings “can fluctuate from one day to the next, and a longer timeline of measurement is needed to be able to interpret the long-term development of the land uplift.”
Fortunately, the Office says that seismic activity overall continues to decrease in the area and that current data suggests a “significant slow down of ground movement compared to previous days.”
“This information suggest[s] that magma is no longer flowing into the dyke and the eruption has ended,” the January 19 statement read.
The UFO phenomenon is known for its widespread occurrence and its impact on witnesses from diverse backgrounds. UFO sightings have been reported by individuals in various high-profile positions, and it is their accounts that capture people’s attention. One such noteworthy incident happened with Terry Lovelace whose account grabbed the attention of Lue Elizondo.
Terry Lovelace, a retired assistant attorney general and lawyer, who served as a media and EMT in the United States Air Force from 1973 to 1979, claims that an extraterrestrial craft took him. Lovelace claims to be repeatedly abducted by aliens, fitted with a tracking device and experimented on.
In 1973, Lovelace joined the U.S. Air Force immediately after graduating from high school. He received training as a medic/EMT and was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which was previously called Sedalia Air Force Base. The base served as a B-2 bomber base and missile base and was home to the 351st Strategic Missile Wing, with many Minuteman II nuclear-armed ICBM silos scattered across the rural area.
Lovelace was assigned as a base medic and drove an ambulance during the graveyard shift from 11 PM to 8 AM along with his partner, who he referred to as “Toby.” One night in January 1975, while on their regular shift, they were outside the ambulance stargazing when Toby, an amateur astronomer, pointed out the constellations and planets. Typically, their shifts were uneventful, but that night turned out to be very significant, altering the course of their lives.
Lovelace (now 69) went camping with Toby at Devil’s Den state park in northern Arkansas. While conversing near a crackling fire, they had difficulty hearing each other due to the loud sounds of crickets and tree frogs. Suddenly, an eerie silence enveloped them. “That sounds kind of clichéd – out of a movie – but that is exactly what happened to us,” he said.
As they gazed toward the horizon, three bright UFOs emerged and advanced in their direction. As the lights drew closer, the two partners could see that they were emanating from a black triangular prism as wide as two city blocks.
Alien sketch by Terry Lovelace
Terry’s re-drawn sketch originally dated Sep 4, 1977, of the massive 5-story-tall craft he and his friend “Toby” encountered in the clearing at Devil’s Den State Park in June of that year. Credit: Terry Lovelace
Lovelace noticed a blue laser beam rapidly moving across them, possibly scanning their presence. Soon after it stopped, they lost consciousness. Upon awakening, he noticed Toby gazing outside the tent, and spotted a triangle-shaped object hovering above a group of approximately twelve children who were standing in a meadow below them. Lovelace questioned, “Why are these children out here at this time of night?”
“They aren’t little kids. Don’t you remember they took us and they hurt us?” Toby answered.
According to Lovelace, when Toby uttered those words, he experienced a sudden recall of memories of being inside a UFO. In later years, he resorted to hypnosis to recover his missing memories. Through one of these sessions, Lovelace recollected an incident where he had been taken aboard a spacecraft and subjected to medical experimentation by peculiar entities.
Those entities were humanoid forms, but their characteristics were distorted and almost non-human. They communicated with each other through telepathy and seemed to be performing a medical procedure on Lovelace. During his hypnosis sessions, Lovelace experienced flashes of memory where he was on an examination table and screaming, but no sound was coming out of his mouth. He could hear telepathic messages in his head, urging him to stop screaming because they did not intend to harm him and would take him back.
Lovelace said that they had a terrible experience that left their skin red and sore like a bad sunburn all over their body, even the soles of their feet. They had to go to the hospital at the base for two days because they were very dehydrated.
While they were there, they were questioned many times by some men who said they were from the “Office of Special Investigations.” They searched his home and car for a camera that Lovelace said he did not have, but they did not believe him. They also told him not to see his partner Toby again, who was sent to another base. The whole experience made Lovelace have nightmares and affected him mentally for a long time.
Terry Lovelace was profoundly disturbed by his encounter and left with numerous unanswered queries. Subsequently, he authored a book titled “Incident at Devils Den: A True Story,” with the intention of uncovering the facts about extraterrestrial abductions and inspiring others to share their experiences.
During a routine X-ray of his leg in 2012, a foreign object was discovered in his leg above the knee. The X-ray revealed an artificial object, about the size of a fingernail, with two wires attached, which the radiologist believed resembled an “RFID compute device.” The radiologist also noticed a collection of foreign objects in his’s calf muscle and was surprised that there was no corresponding scar in the skin. This discovery led Lovelace to recall a traumatic event from 1977 that they had never intended to disclose to anyone.
X-ray shows a chip-like object Credit: Terry Lovelace
The most astonishing aspect of this discovery was that there were no signs of incision or surgery on Lovelace’s leg, and the radiologist who detected the object claimed that an absent scar would mean Lovelace was born with this thing in his leg.
“September of 2017, I was a guest speaker at a UFO event in Houston. It was my first public appearance and opportunity to speak candidly on the topic of alien abduction. This was the time when I decided to write a book. It’s an important topic. We deserve to be informed and not mislead.
I fear we’ve been desensitized about the UFO phenomena by the media especially the motion picture industry. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in November 1977. my experience happened in June that same year. Now, YouTube provides a flood of valid information mixed with confabulation and deception. Know the truth. Alien’s really exist and some live and walk among us without so much as a second look. There are probably many species from different worlds or different dimensions here on Earth today.
Terry Lovelace with former AATIP manager Luis “Lue” Elizondo, late June, 2019. Credit: Terry Lovelace
Some aliens may actually be our ‘benign space brothers’ as some have claimed. Here to join hands and walk mankind into a new era of peace and higher consciousness. Maybe so, but not the ones we met. The beings we met were monsters. They kidnap people and subject them to terror and brutality in pursuit of their agenda. They are 100% purpose-driven and void of empathy for human or animal suffering. We are their lab rats. Once you’re tagged as their specimen you’re tagged for a lifetime. Like a wild animal on the Serengeti Plane.”
Five years ago, Terry Lovelace published a book that caused significant issues, leading to a year-long harassment incident over his home outside Dallas. Lovelace reports that following the book’s publicity, military aircraft, including two and four-seaters, as well as Airbus 350s with no registered “N” numbers, flew over his house. These aircraft, which were drab-olive in color, were spotted making flyovers at least twice a week, often every day. Lovelace captured many photos of the incidents, including one that appears to show a UFO in the same frame as one of the intruding aircraft.
USAF veteran Terry Lovelace suspects a UFO photobombed this helicopter as he tried to document evidence of aerial harassment of his home in Texas. Credit: Terry Lovelace via Bill Cox
After publishing a book about his experience, Lovelace received a call from Tom DeLonge, founder of To The Stars Academy, along with General Neil McCasland and Lue Elizondo, who were interested in the X-rays of Lovelace’s leg, which had been injured during the encounter.
“I can attest to the fact that TTSA was interested in speaking with Terry regarding possible biological effects that he may have suffered,” states former AATIP manager Elizondo in an email. “Biological effects (are) a potential serious aspect of what we studied in AATIP and we now know that certain elements with the U.S. Government are equally concerned as we were. If Terry is suffering any medical consequences as a result of an alleged encounter with a UAP while serving in the military, then he deserves medical care.
“It is my experience that helicopters of unknown utility have been reported by certain individuals. It is not yet known if this is some sort of intentional harassment or simply a matter of being near a congested flight corridor. Obviously, flying a helicopter is expensive and logistically intense if this were some sort of campaign to intimidate individuals on a regular basis. We would need to do additional research to better determine the nature of these incidents,” he added, “before making any sort of proclamation.
“Terry is a good person who is also credible. I believe Terry and others are convinced their experiences are legitimate.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Private Axiom Mission 3 is Off to the Space Station
Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3), the third all private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, lifted off at 4:49pm EST on Thursday Jan 18 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA
Private Axiom Mission 3 is Off to the Space Station
A few decades ago, the idea of private individuals travelling to the International Space Station was as much science fiction as a time travelling police box. Yet here we are, in 2024 and a crew of four private astronauts are on board the ISS. The team will spend about two weeks undertaking various experiments, commercial activities and outreach tasks.
Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini and Kam Ghaffarian. Their goal, to arrange private missions into space, chiefly the ISS but they are also developing spacesuits for NASA’s future missions to the Moon. In realisting these goals, the team at Axiom Space have the wonderful dream ‘We are on a mission to reveal it [space] to as many humans as possible’.
On the 18th January four private astronauts were launched to ISS on the Dragon spacecraft, propelled by the Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket. The private mission was the third such enterprise by Axiom Space, the first mission flew in April 2022 and the second in May 2023. The crew for this mission composed of Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravci.
An illustration shows SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station. (Credit: SpaceX)
The crew arrived at the ISS on Saturday 20th January when the Dragon module autonomously docked with the Harmony module. When the hatch opens the Axiom crew will be welcomed by the Expedition 70 crew including NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA astronaut Furukawa Satoshi and cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
AX-3 (as this mission is called) is due to depart from the ISS on Saturday 3rd February, weather permitting. They will have spent two weeks on board before returning to Earth, touching down to a wet arrival off the coast of Florida.
Axiom Space, and their partnership with NASA are doing great things, opening up low Earth orbit to more and more people. In the 1950’s and 1960’s we saw the space race where America and Russia were in a battle to become the first to get into space and to put a human on the Moon. Now the landscape for space travel and exploration has changed. Partnerships between large space organisations like NASA and private enterprises like Axiom are driving a thriving commercial space economy that may once and for all, open up space to us all.
Now We Know Why Starship’s Second Flight Test Failed
SpaceX is often in the headlines, unfortunlatey its not always good news. On 18th November we saw the second of the Starship and SuperHeavy booster get off the launchpad successfully, it failed before reaching orbit. In a recent event, Elon Musk explained how a fuel venting near the end of the burn was responbie but entirely avoidable next time!
The Starship and SuperHeavy booster are an impressive combination. Standing at over 120 metres tall together they are one of the most powerful and versatile rocket systems ever built. It can produce 16,700,000 pound force of thrust making it twice as powerful as Saturn V that took the Apollo astrnauts to the Moon.
The Apollo 10 Saturn V during rollout. Credit: NASA
The first launch attempt failed when the rocket spun out of control, exploding about four minutes from liftoff. Following the disaster, the team identified that the flight termination system which was supposed to destroy the vehicle if it went out of control, failed to do its job.
Musk reported on the second launch test from an event at Boca China in Texas where he explained that the lack of a payload meant that it needed to vent some of the liquid oxygen propellant. It almost made it to orbit and would have succeeded if it had a payload. The liquid oxygen would have been consumed by the mighty Raptor engines instead of being vented which was as per design. Musk however did not elaborate on how this all led to a fire.
Elon Musk on stage at his September 27th presentation at the IAC. Image: SpaceX
The third test flight is slated for February and Musk is confident it will reach orbit this time. On the assumption of a succesful launch they plan to test the de-orbit process, the payload door operations and transferring propellant from header tank to main tank. This latter test is part of the NASA Tipping Point program to test fuel transfer from one vehicle to another.
Whether its the third or even the fourth test launch that brings success for SpaceX their long term goals remain unchanged. They still hope to be able to carry up to 100 people on interplanetary missions and become a pivotal part of the return to the Moon.
Sinister Secrets of Advanced Extraterrestrials Revealed: The Ongoing Debate About Alien Influence on Earth
Sinister Secrets of Advanced Extraterrestrials Revealed: The Ongoing Debate About Alien Influence on Earth
In recent times, the topic of extraterrestrial presence on Earth has been the subject of much debate and speculation. While mainstream science continues to seek definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life, a growing body of anecdotal reports, whistleblowers’ testimonies, and conspiracy theories suggest a more profound and potentially sinister aspect of alien interaction with our planet.
The Assertion of Alien Presence in Ancient Times and Today
The theory posits that an advanced extraterrestrial race has been present on Earth since ancient times. According to ancient texts like the Sumerian clay tablets, these beings, often referred to as the Anunnaki, allegedly came from the stars and played a pivotal role in shaping early human civilization. These accounts suggest that humans were initially created as a labor force for these beings, leading to the development of agriculture, culture, and even religion under their guidance.
In modern times, the suggestion is that the influence of these extraterrestrial entities persists, albeit in a more covert manner. Conspiracy theories speculate that aliens have continued to manipulate human society, potentially with a long-term agenda that goes beyond mere observation or benign interaction.
Whistleblowers and Their Startling Claims
One of the most notable figures in this debate was Phil Schneider, a former government geologist and engineer, who claimed to have had direct encounters with hostile extraterrestrial beings. Schneider’s allegations, made public in the mid-1990s, included descriptions of underground bases, secret government deals with aliens, and advanced alien technology being used by hidden factions within the U.S. government. His untimely and suspicious death further fueled speculation about the truth and potential cover-ups of his claims.
Alien-Human Hybrids and the New World Order
A particularly disturbing aspect of these theories is the idea of creating alien-human hybrids. The purpose of these hybrids, as some theorists suggest, is to create beings with the resilience of humans and the advanced mental capabilities of aliens. This hybridization is believed to be part of a larger agenda to implement a New World Order – a totalitarian world government controlled by or heavily influenced by these extraterrestrial forces.
The Role of Governments and Secret Agendas
It is alleged that various global events and political shifts are steps towards establishing this New World Order. These include the formation of international organizations and agreements that supposedly erode national sovereignty and individual freedoms. Theorists argue that the ultimate goal is to replace national governments with a singular, authoritarian world government.
Skepticism and the Need for Critical Analysis
While these theories are compelling to many, they are met with skepticism by the scientific community and mainstream society. The lack of tangible evidence, the often fantastical nature of the claims, and the reliance on anecdotal testimonies make it challenging to accept these theories at face value.
VIDEO:
Sinister Secrets of Advanced Extraterrestrials Revealed | Aliens Among Us | Absolute Documentaries
The debate over extraterrestrial influence on Earth raises significant questions about our place in the universe and the unseen forces that may be shaping our destiny. Whether these theories are grounded in reality or are the product of imaginative speculation, they reflect deep-seated human concerns about control, freedom, and the unknown aspects of our existence.
As the search for extraterrestrial life continues both within our solar system and beyond, the discourse around alien influence on Earth reminds us of the vast, unexplored mysteries of the cosmos and our ongoing quest to understand our place within it.
Astronomers using a telescope array in South Africa have spotted a mysterious yet massive object within what astronomers term the “mass gap” between neutron stars and black holes, that also shares a binary orbit with a neutron star.
The fact that the mysterious object lies in this mass gap leads them to believe it is either the largest neutron star ever observed, the least massive black hole, or something else entirely. The discovery could have significant applications for understanding the “uncertain physics” underlying a range of massive cosmic objects.
The team used the sensitive MeerKAT radio telescope, located in the Karoo semi-desert in South Africa. CREDIT: SARAO
Objectsof this size are typically categorized as “astrophysical compact objects,” and they generally come in one of two varieties: black holes or neutron stars. Still, there is an enormous mass gap between the smallest black hole and the largest neutron star. For example, the largest neutron stars range between 2.2 to 2.5 solar masses, while black holes smaller than 5 solar masses are considered extremely rare. The result is a mass gap where these objects simply should not be.
As a result, discovering a compact astronomical object situated within this gap is a major event. Astronomers Ewan Barr and Arunima Dutta from the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, who made the discovery, say that previous objects in this mass gap have also been spotted, but “the nature of these objects and the mechanisms through which they formed remain unknown.”
The astronomers made the discovery while scanning a globular cluster known as NGC 1851 using the Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) in South Africa. There, they spotted a pulsar in a binary orbit with an unknown compact object with a mass that landed in the lower range of the mass gap.
“The nature of these mass gap objects is unknown, as is the formation of their host binary systems,” the researchers write in the study detailing their findings. They also point out that the companion’s mass of 2.09 to 2.71 (solar masses) is in the mass gap, “indicating either a very massive NS (Neutron Star) or a low-mass BH (Black Hole).”
FINDING COULD HAVE MAJOR IMPLICATIONS FOR UNKNOWN PHYSICS
The research team theorizes that these types of systems evolve from collisions between neutron stars that result in a binary system with a millisecond pulsar (MSP) and a Neutron Star. However, they think that given the correct conditions, “the same exchange process could also produce an MSP–black hole (BH) binary system.”
“We propose that the companion formed in a merger between two earlier (Neutron Stars),” they explain.
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics researcher Maya Fishbach, who wrote a perspective piece to accompany the published study outlining the finding, says that even though the object’s origin is still unknown, the fact that it lies within this huge gap is incredibly significant.
“Regardless of its origin … the discovery of a compact object with a mass between 2.09 and 2.71 solar masses in a globular cluster has fascinating implications,” Fishbach explained.
Potential formation history of the radio pulsar NGC 1851E and its exotic companion star (see text for details). CREDIT: Thomas Tauris (Aalborg University / MPIfR)
For example, the researchers involved feel that studying these types of systems could have numerous help unravel some of the remaining unsolved mysteries in astrophysics. “Observing such systems allows their component masses to be measured and can test theories of Gravity,” they explain.
“It could inform understanding of the uncertain physics of extremely dense nuclear matter, of supernova explosions, or of dynamical interactions such as neutron star mergers inside globular clusters,” adds Fishbach.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
A groundbreaking initiative has been spearheaded by Dr. Steven M. Greer, a renowned founder of the Disclosure Project and a respected authority on UFO/UAP phenomena. Dr. Greer made an exceptional presentation on June 12, 2023, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., unveiling compelling evidence pertaining to covert and unauthorized black budget projects associated with UFO/UAP operations.
For over 33 years, he has been working as a volunteer on the Disclosure Project, and the last time he conducted an event was 22 years ago on May 9, 2001, which 22 individuals from different government sectors joined. In a recent 3-hour-long event, Dr. Greer presented his investigations on the secret programs and was joined by six courageous whistleblowers who shared compelling information about covert operations.
In this long event, the most compelling testimony comes from Eric Hecker, a former Raytheon contractor who spent a year at the South Pole. He revealed astonishing information about a secret space program being conducted in Antarctica. Hecker’s unique experience and access to advanced technology at the South Pole station have provided him with crucial insights that he believes should be shared with the world.
Eric Hecker
Note:
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitalization, as well as one of the largest providers of intelligence services.
Neutrino Light Array and Directed Energy Weapons
Hecker began his testimony by explaining his role as a tradesman and firefighter at the South Pole station. He emphasized that the technology there, particularly the IceCube neutrino detector, serves purposes beyond what is publicly disclosed. He says he was selected to go down to the South Pole station in Antarctica in 2010, where he spent an entire year by Raytheon Polar Services as an employee of a third-party contractor for the National Science Foundation.
He presented documentation indicating that there are 5,160 embedded DOMs (Digital Optical Modules) in the ice that can transmit at 2047 volts each. This revelation suggests that the neutrino detector possesses capabilities far beyond passive listening, effectively functioning as a multi-faceted directed energy weapons platform. Its size and power suggested it could be used for Deep Space (quantum) communications with spacecraft traveling throughout our solar system and beyond.
Hecker revealed to Dr. Michale Salla in an interview that “each DOM has the capacity to transmit at 2047 volts, which, in my opinion, makes it the world’s largest phased array transmitter. This discovery led me to research and connect with Dr. Greer, as it aligns with the concepts he presents regarding directed energy weapons and communication devices for ships traveling faster than the speed of light. I believe this detector serves as the communication device for intergalactic communication.”
Credit: Dr Steven Greer/YouTube
Credit: Dr Steven Greer/YouTube
During the interview, Dr. Salla expresses his fascination with the topic of communication and acknowledges that traditional electromagnetic communication can be inefficient for long-distance spacecraft communication due to the time delay. He asks Hecker if he is suggesting that the IceCube Neutrino Detector could be used for quantum communication. In response, Eric Hecker explains that based on the research and documentation he has gathered, it seems to lean more toward quantum communication. He emphasizes that he provides the supporting documentation on his website to substantiate these findings. Hecker further notes that his goal is to present the facts and support the concerns that others have already raised. As someone who experienced the facility firsthand, he affirms that something is happening, and he aims to raise awareness and provide a path toward uncovering the truth.
Functions of the South Pole Station
Hecker further elaborated on the various functions of the South Pole station, stating that it acts as an air traffic control station for off-world craft, including extraterrestrial and human-made vehicles emitting neutrinos. He also claimed that the facility enables faster-than-light communications, which is crucial for interstellar travel. He referenced Gary McKinnon’s past hacking of NASA, revealing the existence of an off-world fleet, and proposed that the South Pole station is instrumental in facilitating such communications.
“In addition to the ability to detect neutrinos and exotic vehicles, I’ve provided documentation that shows that this is also a system for faster-than-light communications. In the past, Gary McKinnon has hacked NASA, found the off-world fleet, the list of captains, and it’s apparent that if we have faster-than-light vehicles moving throughout the system, we’re going to need faster-than-light communications. This is that facility,” Hecker explains.
Earthquake-Generating Device and ELF System
Continuing his testimony, Hecker disclosed a disturbing aspect of the South Pole station. He asserted that during his time there from 2010 to 2011, seismic activity occurred when the IceCube neutrino detector was first activated, indicating its potential to generate earthquakes. Additionally, he claimed that the South Pole station houses an ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) system, initially believed to be deactivated but later discovered to be fully operational. He suggested that this system, along with other technologies, serves nefarious purposes.
“There’s an ELF system at the South Pole station. When I arrived, I was told it was off, dismantled, and completely defunct. In my work, I had to figure out the circuitry for certain other repairs, and I found that this system is, in fact, completely energized, up and running, and being utilized with the other systems for nefarious purposes as well,” Hecker said.
Secondary Long-Range Communications and Power Supply
Hecker discussed another intriguing aspect of the South Pole station, namely the Atmospheric Research Observatory located in the Clean Air sector. He claimed to have witnessed a powerful green laser emanating from this facility, speculating that it could be used for long-range communications or as a defense system.
Furthermore, he raised concerns about the power supply at the South Pole station, noting that the energy demands of the advanced technologies he encountered exceeded what was publicly acknowledged. He theorized the presence of either a hidden nuclear power supply predating the Antarctic Treaty or an undisclosed exotic power system.
In his brief testimony, Eric Hecker shed light on a secret space program operating within the confines of the South Pole station in Antarctica. His statements and supporting documentation suggest that the IceCube neutrino detector possesses capabilities beyond its stated scientific objectives, functioning as a directed energy weapons platform, an air traffic control station, and a facility for faster-than-light communications. Hecker also raised concerns about the earthquake-generating potential of the detector and the presence of an operational ELF system. Moreover, he questioned the power supply arrangements at the station. For those seeking more detailed information, Hecker directed them to his website, deciphering.tv, where he has documented his findings and made additional information available to the public.
Japan has successfully landed on the Moon, becoming only the fifth country to nail the often-perilous maneuver.
The accomplishment comes one day after Astrobotic’s highly-anticipated Peregrine lander careened into Earth’s atmosphere for controlled self-destruction. Peregrine had to chart this course because, shortly after launch, it suffered a propulsion anomaly that erased Astrobotic’s dreams of becoming the first private company to land on the Moon. But the week would end with some good news, albeit for another organization.
On Friday at 10:00 a.m. Eastern (midnight in Japan), the descent phase began for the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission’s landing procedure started 15 km above the lunar surface, and it then spent five minutes ascending to reach a brief coasting mode at an altitude of 25 km.
An illustration of JAXA’s SLIM spacecraft on the Moon’s surface.
SLIM scanned the Moon’s surface for features whose locations are highly familiar to astronomers and preexisting spacecraft. This is the mission’s major feature: tracking known landmarks using its onboard navigation system to bring its small spacecraft down for a precise landing within 100 meters of its target.
SLIM traveled accurately along the planned trajectory, an English translator for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said during Friday’s landing live feed. At 10:08 a.m. Eastern, SLIM began its approach towards the lunar surface.
SLIM’s vertical descent phase officially started at 10:16 a.m. Eastern, when the lander had reached a 5-km altitude. The descent procedure included a few hovering maneuvers, first at 500 meters above the Moon, then 50 meters, and then at just two meters from the ground.
Japan realized it had made history at 10:21 a.m. Eastern, when SLIM telemetry showed the lander safely touched down. The major win, however, is still a month away. That’s when JAXA officials will learn how accurately SLIM got to its target landing spot.
Japan is now the fifth country to successfully land on the Moon. It’s preceded by India, which became the fourth country to land on the Moon just last year. China became the third to do so in 2013. The U.S. was the second country on the Moon in 1969 with Apollo 11, and Russia placed the first robotic lander on the Moon in 1959.
A stone disk bearing peculiar markings could be an ancient star map representing one of the world’s oldest depictions of the night sky, according to recent findings that have prompted debate among experts.
The stone, which features close to 30 carvings on its front and back, was found several years ago near the ancient Rupinpiccolo protohistoric hill fort in northeastern Italy. According to research published in the journal Astronomical Notes, the markings may indicate the locations of the brightest stars that were visible to the ancient night sky observers who carved it at least as far back as 2,400 years ago.
THE ENIGMA OF RUPINPICCOLO’S CURIOUS STONE DISKS
Located close to the border between northwestern Italy and Slovenia, the sprawling ruins of the castelliere of Rupinpiccolo were first documented toward the end of the 19th century. A massive ancient defense structure protected by huge, seven-meter-wide ramparts, archaeological excavations did not occur there until almost a century after its initial discovery.
Along with the stones used in the fortification’s construction were smaller, round stone artifacts that were later discovered in the collections sent to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia.
The Rupinpiccolo disk features a series of markings that could represent an ancient star map (Credit: Bernardini et al.).
Among the rounded artifacts, a pair of limestone disks were discovered close to the southeastern entrance of the castelliere. Although one of the disks bears no markings, the other is covered in a crude pattern of chiseled etchings, the meaning of which remained a puzzle at the time the disks were discovered.
Now, according to Paolo Molaro, an astronomer and former director of the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, and archaeologist Federico Bernardini with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Italy, nine of the 29 markings on the enigmatic stone appeared to be good matches for constellations that would have been visible in the sky at the time they were carved
“Nine marks are found to match the Tail of Scorpius and five the Orion’s Belt, together with Rigel and Betelgeuse,” Molaro and Bernardini write in their recent paper. Additionally, nine of the etchings on the same side of the stone appear to be a close match for the location of the Pleiades, while on the artifact’s opposite side, there are a series of marks the researchers associated with Cassiopeia.
The stone’s markings, according to Molaro and Bernardini, are consistent with how constellations like Scorpius and Orion would have appeared in the night sky during the period the fort was constructed, which is believed to have been sometime between 1800 and 400 BCE.
Altogether, 28 markings covering the stone “show a Pearson correlation coefficient with stellar positions higher than 0.99,” denoting the correlation coefficient used by statisticians to measure linear correlations between two data sets, adding that the probability of a wrong correlation is “lower than 0.001.”
AN UNIDENTIFIED CELESTIAL OBJECT IN AN ANCIENT STAR MAP?
However, there are other markings on the back side of the stone that are not as easily identifiable with known celestial features.
“One mark slightly North of Orion cannot be identified,” the researchers write, admitting that this solitary unidentified marking “challenges the whole picture.”
Overlay depicts the positions of stars that purportedly align with chiseled features on the stone disk, which Molaro and Bernardini contend to be an ancient star map (Credit: Bernardini et al.).
As a possible solution, they conclude that this out-of-place celestial feature, if that is indeed what it would have represented to its carvers thousands of years ago, “could have been the progenitor of a failed supernova, thus offering also the possibility of a verification.”
While the authors present several compelling possibilities in their paper, the argument that the Rupinpiccolo stone may represent one of the world’s oldest star maps has received pushback from other experts.
ANCIENT STAR MAP OR SPECULATION?
Dr. Ed Krupp, Director of the Griffith Observatory, is regarded as a leading expert in the discipline of archaeoastronomy, which studies the intersection of archaeology and astronomy through research into how ancient cultures viewed the sky. Recently, Krupp had already expressed doubts about the argument Molaro and Bernardini present in their paper.
“The authors’ own remarks inform us the matches between marks on the stone and stars in the sky are not very good, despite their assertion of Pearson correlation coefficient support for the notion,” Krupp told The Debrief in an email. “I am not able to argue about the statistical case here, but I don’t think it is either necessary or relevant.”
“The statistical argument suggests something is there that doesn’t really seem to be there, and that can happen with such analyses,” Krupp added.
Responding to Dr. Krupp’s assertions, Molaro told The Debrief that he felt Krupp’s assessment of their research “does not go into the merits of the statistical analysis on which the result is based” and that beyond this aspect of their paper, he and Bernardini have offered more than just statistical results as evidence for their conclusions.
“Why on earth do the asterisms of Orion and the Scorpion’s tail have the same scale despite having been reproduced at different times?” Molaro said. “Why do they have the same orientation in the sky? How come they are complete for all and only the brightest stars?”
“Why are only the most popular asterisms and those traditionally found in many of the planet’s cultures reproduced?” Molaro added. “We have indicated a possible explanation supported by statistics and further considerations.”
While Krupp concedes that several of the chisel marks do resemble star patterns that are present in the constellations of Orion and Scorpius as Molaro contends, he also points out that there are a few outliers beyond the unexplained marking that the authors themselves say they could not match with any known celestial object.
“In the Scorpius marks, there are at least four marks that don’t match any of the brighter stars, which seems odd,” Krupp told The Debrief. “And you would expect that Antares, not only the brightest star in Scorpius but one of the brightest stars in the sky, would be unambiguously marked. It isn’t.
“There are two stars that could represent a misplaced Antares, but why is that? It’s actually a problem.”
“If we have a representation of a key piece of the real estate of Scorpius, Antares should be obvious,” Krupp said.
THE DEBATE—AND THE SCIENCE—CONTINUES
Although Krupp raised several points of contention with the findings Molaro and Bernardini present in their paper, he conceded that “a rather robust statistical argument is made for the chisel marks matching actual formations of stars in the sky,” though maintaining Molaro and Bernardini’s resulting assessment “doesn’t really square with what just looking at the disk reveals
“It is fair to say the paper is a serious study,” Krupp contends. “It provides plenty of disciplined archaeological context and makes the data and the method of analysis very clear. I don’t have any quarrel with the authors’ serious intent.”
“I believe, however, the possibility of celestial representations in the chisel marks was just too tempting for them.”
Given Krupp’s position on their findings, Molaro told The Debrief that, to an extent, he could understand some of the pushback he and Bernardini have received from the archeoastronomy community.
“It does not surprise me that, considering the total absence of information on the cultural level of these populations who inhabited the hillforts between 2000-400 BC, the discovery could raise many doubts in astro-archaeology circles,” Molaro said, though maintaining that the unique features on the disk point to the significance it must have had to its makers.
“The fact remains that the pair of discs found near the entrance to the castle were made by human hands and not natural and must have had a particular meaning for these populations,” Molaro said.
“The incisions on one of the discs are not random or made to flatten the stone as their distribution demonstrates.”
“So they also had a special meaning,” Molaro said.
Despite the pushback he has offered on Molaro and Bernardini’s paper, Krupp shares the authors’ interest in the potential identification of asterisms in ancient rock art, a subject which Krupp says he is presently exploring in a new paper he soon plans to publish. However, at the end of the day, Krupp maintains that a compelling argument will require more than just similarities.
“We need more than similar patterns,” Krupp told The Debrief.
“We are pattern-seeking creatures, but we are not always rigorous in our efforts to determine whether the patterns we see are meaningful.”
“That goes beyond how well they match,” Krupp said.
Molaro and Bernardini’s paper, “Possible stellar asterisms carved on a protohistoric stone,” appeared recently in Astronomical Notes and can be read in its entirety here.
Lue Elizondo’s Attorney Claims Vatican Knows Aliens Are Here & They Come From Different Star Systems
Lue Elizondo’s Attorney Claims Vatican Knows Aliens Are Here & They Come From Different Star Systems
This year, a lot has been happening in the UFO community. Following the July 2023 UAP hearings, the UFO buzz is spreading across the United States. Many people are discussing the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), which has led to the release of information never shared before. The Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch has drawn serious attention to the UFO enigma, motivating some important individuals to escalate the matter in the US Congress.
Daniel Sheehan, an attorney who represented Lue Elizondo, spills the beans and speaks of things he has never shared before. He blames these five officials for putting up resistance to the UAP legislation (the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023, put forth by Senate leader Chuck Schumer): Senators Wicker and Mitch McConnell (Minority Leader of the Senate), and Representatives Mike Turner, Mike Rogers, and Mike Johnson (Speaker of the House).
Sheehan, a public interest lawyer and activist, has a long history of taking on the federal government on behalf of high-profile clients, including defending The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case as well as one of the Watergate burglars. He is also widely viewed as a provocateur who has an abiding interest in UFOs and has spoken publicly about alien visitations. He also served as a counsel for the Disclosure Project, led by ufologist Steven Greer, which has sought to force more government transparency on UFOs.
Journalist Christopher Sharp writes that Sheehan told Liberation Times that “the resistance against the UAP language is headed by Representatives Mike Rogers and Mike Turner, Chairs of the House’s Armed Services Committee and Intelligence Committee. Sheehan and other sources revealed that both individuals have faced pressure from private defense contractors and the intelligence community, influencing their opposition.”
According to Sheehan, certain entities, such as private aerospace companies (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Radiance Technologies), and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, are pressuring Representatives Turner and Rogers, possibly through campaign contributions or threats. He highlighted the CIA’s involvement in covert operations, especially related to non-human materials and UFO technology.
Sheehan’s Wild UAP Statements
Sheehan is actively giving interviews where he reveals some of the UFO information that would come as shocking to the people who are not aware of what is happening with the UFO subject. In the recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” Sheehan said 40 witnesses have come forward with compelling evidence supporting the existence of UFO crafts. These witnesses, he claims, are aware not only of the existence of such crafts but also of the aerospace industry’s involvement in reverse engineering them for weapon development purposes. Sheehan stressed the gravity of the situation, labeling it an “extraordinarily serious problem.”
The proposed bill, as described by Sheehan, seeks to establish an international treaty that prohibits any country from using UFO technology to gain a military advantage. The overarching goal is to prevent the development of weapon systems based on UFO technology. Despite widespread bipartis an support, Sheehan revealed obstacles encountered during the legislative process.
“The individual head of the intelligence committee on the house side, the Republican head Michael Turner, intervened. He comes from the second congressional district in Ohio, where the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is located,” Sheehan explained. He noted that Turner’s ties to the area, home to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, may have influenced his stance on UFO disclosure.
Sheehan next pointed to Michael Rogers from the second congressional district in Alabama, a head of the armed services committee, linking his involvement to the Redstone missile base. Allegedly, this base is a key location where efforts are underway to utilize UFO technology for the development of more effective missiles, including nuclear missiles.
According to Sheehan, the term “catastrophic disclosure” varies in definition among different individuals. Some interpret it as the revelation of criminal acts committed against those attempting to disclose information, resulting in potential criminal liability for various people. Drawing parallels to historical cases, Sheehan points to the Pentagon Papers incident during the Nixon Administration.
In the Pentagon Papers case, the government argued that disclosing information from the classified documents would irreparably damage national security. Sheehan underscores the importance of distinguishing between genuine concerns for national security and potential abuses of power. He recalls a similar refusal by officials to divulge specific details in court during the Pentagon Papers case, emphasizing the abuse of discretionary power within intelligence agencies.
One of Sheehan’s major concerns is the secrecy surrounding information related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the potential existence of an extraterrestrial civilization. He criticizes the idea that a select few have the right to withhold such information from the public, labeling it as preposterous, fundamentally unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and, in his professional opinion, criminal.
During the discussion on the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, Sheehan was asked by the show host, Andy, “You’ve used ‘extraterrestrial civilization’ a few times, and you’re a careful lawyer. Why do you say ‘civilization’ and not ‘civilizations’? Do you think there’s only one, or are you saying there might not be more than one interacting with us?”
Sheehan confidently replied, “Oh yeah, there are definitely different species here. About half a dozen have been identified, and they probably come from different star systems…We don’t know if they have some kind of coalition or federation, or how they cooperate among themselves. We just don’t have the answers.”
Sheehan expressed concern about possible communication between government individuals and these beings, with important information being kept secret. He stated, “There’s evidence that there’s been communication with these extraterrestrial beings, and we’re being kept in the dark. That goes against our Constitution.”
Vatican’s involvement in UAPs & Alien life
In his other interview with James Landoli on “Engaging The Phenomenon,” Sheehan, who was a former Chief Council for the United States Jesuit order, revealed intriguing details about his conversations with the head of the Vatican archives regarding the Vatican’s knowledge of extraterrestrial life. Sheehan shed light on his involvement in a groundbreaking initiative to address the theological and philosophical implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence.
During the interview, James raised the topic of David Grusch‘s claim that the Vatican possessed knowledge of extraterrestrial phenomena. Sheehan discussed his access to the classified files of the Project Blue Book, where he encountered photos of UFO crash retrievals and concrete evidence of non-human piloted vehicles. (Click here to read the full article on it)
He proposed the formation of a task force involving all 54 major religious denominations to address the issue from a theological perspective. However, at that time, there was insufficient consensus, and the proposal was declined. Sheehan is currently working through his New Paradigm Institute to organize a global summit conference involving world religious leaders to discuss the recent recovery of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
“The United States government is in possession of biological evidence and has actually taken into custody alive an extraterrestrial person. They’re keeping this secret, interrogating the being, and distorting the information to justify massive expenditures on weapon development under the guise of a perceived threat.”
– Daniel Sheehan
Sheehan highlighted the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He referenced a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church on November 10, 2009, authorized by Pope Benedict. The statement, issued by Father Jose Gabriel Alfuz, a director of the Pontifical Observatory in Rome, recognized the increasing discovery of exoplanets and called for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological implications of the imminent discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Sheehan disclosed that the government was telepathically interrogating the extraterrestrial biological entity (EBO) in custody. Despite acknowledging the bizarre nature of the revelation, Sheehan stood by the credibility of the information, having interviewed individuals directly involved in the process. The EBO allegedly conveyed that a coalition of star systems in our galaxy monitors the evolution of life on different planets, including Earth.
“Pope Benedict had a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church, saying that with the discovery of more exoplanets, it has become clear that we will be discovering life elsewhere in the universe. This prompted the need for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological questions posed by the discovery of extraterrestrial life.”
– Daniel Sheehan
The Hill reported that on the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer stated that “House Republicans are also attempting to kill another commonsense, bipartisan measure passed by the Senate, which I was proud to cosponsor… to increase transparency around what the government does and does not know about unidentified aerial phenomena.”
Japanse verkenner SLIM succesvol geland op de maan, maar zonnepanelen wekken geen stroom op
De Japanse maanlander SLIM is succesvol geland op de maan, maar de zonnepanelen wekken geen stroom op. “Het was een minimaal succes”, zei Hitoshi Kuninaka, de baas van het ruimtevaartagentschap JAXA tijdens een persconferentie. Het controlecentrum is erin geslaagd om te communiceren met het ruimtetuig.
Japan is het vijfde land dat succesvol een maanlander landt op de maan, na de voormalige Sovjet-Unie, de Verenigde Staten, China en India. Omdat de zonnepanelen niet werken, moet de SLIM momenteel gebruik maken van de ingebouwde batterijen.
Het is nog onduidelijk of dat voor verdere problemen zal zorgen. “We doen ons best om wetenschappelijke prestaties te maximaliseren”, aldus Kuninaka. Hij hoopt dat een andere stand van de zon tóch voor zonne-energie kan zorgen.
Eerste maanlanding van Japan
De lander is in september gelanceerd vanuit Japan. SLIM staat voor ‘Smart Lander for Investigating Moon’. Het is de eerste missie van de Japanse ruimtevaartorganisatie JAXA naar het oppervlak van de maan. Japan had eerder wel twee satellieten in een baan rond de maan gebracht.
De SLIM is vooral gebouwd om een nieuwe technologie voor het landen te testen. Dankzij een soort automatische herkenning moet hij de kraters op de maan herkennen. Daarmee bepaalt hij waar hij is. Ook zoekt hij naar gevaarlijke rotsen op het oppervlak. Vervolgens kan hij zelf beslissen om bij te sturen.
Japan hoopte dat de maanlander daardoor extra nauwkeurig is: hij moet binnen 100 meter van de aangewezen landingsplek neerkomen. “Geen enkel land is daarin geslaagd”, stelt JAXA. Andere vaartuigen landden soms op tientallen kilometers van de beoogde plek. Vrijdagavond was het nog onduidelijk of die nauwkeurigheid werd behaald. Die analyse kan nog tot een maand duren. JAXA-baas Kuninaka zei wel optimistisch te zijn over toekomstige missies.
Het is een grote uitdaging om succesvol te landen. Ruim de helft van de geplande maanlandingen eindigt met een mislukking. De voorbije vijf jaar mislukten onder meer missies van Israël (Beresheet), India (Vikram), Rusland (Loena-25) en de Verenigde Staten (Peregrine).
KIJK.
Japan lanceerde in september de raket met maanlander SLIM.
Wetenschappers vinden ijs op evenaar van Mars: “Hiermee kan je hele planeet bedekken met laag water tot 2,7 m diep”
Ook op de evenaar van Mars bevindt er zich water in de vorm van ijs. Dat heeft het Europese ruimtevaartagentschap ESA vandaag bekend gemaakt. Met hun Mars Express ruimtesonde hebben ze bepaalde structuren onderzocht op het oppervlak van de rode planeet waarvan men niet wist of het nu om verwaaid stof ging of om lagen ijs. De nieuwe resultaten, gepubliceerd in Geophysical Research Letters, tonen aan dat het effectief om ijs zou gaan dat zich kilometers onder de grond zou uitstrekken. Nog nooit vond men zoveel water in dit deel van de planeet.
Martijn Peters
Meer dan 15 jaar geleden bestudeerde Mars Express voor het eerst de Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) op de evenaar van Mars. De Medusae Fossae Formation is honderden kilometers breed en enkele kilometers hoog. Het bevindt zich op de grens tussen de hooglanden en laaglanden van Mars. Tijdens dit onderzoek onthulde de ruimtesonde massieve afzettingen tot 2,5 km diep.
Uit deze vroege waarnemingen was echter onduidelijk waaruit die afzettingen precies bestonden. Men zag dat de structuur relatief doorzichtig was op de radar en een lage dichtheid had, beide kenmerken die je ziet bij ijzige afzettingen. Echter konden de wetenschappers een “drogere” mogelijkheid uitsluiten waarbij het ging om gigantische ophopingen van door de wind geblazen stof, vulkanische as of sediment. Maar nieuw onderzoek heeft dus nu een antwoord op die prangende vraag.
“We hebben de MFF opnieuw onderzocht met behulp van nieuwere gegevens van de MARSIS-radar van Mars Express. We weten nu niet alleen waaruit de afzettingen bestaan maar ook dat ze nog dikker zijn dan we dachten: tot 3,7 km dik,” zegt Thomas Watters van het Smithsonian Institution. Hij is hoofdauteur van zowel het nieuwe onderzoek als de oorspronkelijke studie uit 2007. “Opwindend genoeg komen de radarignalen overeen met wat we zouden verwachten te zien van gelaagd ijs. Zo zijn ze vergelijkbaar met de signalen die we zien van de poolkappen van Mars, waarvan we weten dat ze zeer rijk zijn aan ijs.” Als het ijs in de MFF zou smelten, zou het de hele planeet kunnen bedekken met een laag water van 1,5 tot 2,7 m diep, genoeg om de Rode Zee hier op aarde te vullen. Dit is dan ook het meeste water ooit gevonden in dit deel van Mars.
Ondanks dat Mars er nu uitziet als een droge wereld, laat dit nieuwe onderzoek nog maar eens zien dat het oppervlak van de planeet vol zit met tekenen dat water ooit overvloedig was. Er zijn al opgedroogde rivierkanalen, oude oceaan- en meerbeddingen, en door water uitgesleten valleien gevonden. Wetenschappers hebben ook significante hoeveelheden ijs op Mars gevonden, zoals de enorme poolkappen, begraven gletsjers dichter bij de evenaar en ijs vlak onder het oppervlak dat de bodem van Mars doorweeft.
“Deze laatste analyse helpt ons om de Medusae Fossae Formation beter te begrijpen maar roept tegelijkertijd ook eveneel vragen op als antwoorden,” zegt Colin Wilson, ESA-projectwetenschapper voor Mars Express en de ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). “Hoe lang geleden hebben deze ijsafzettingen zich gevormd, en hoe was Mars toen?” Als er nog meer bevestiging komt dat het om waterijs gaat, dan zouden deze enorme afzettingen ons begrip van de klimaatgeschiedenis van Mars kunnen veranderen.
Elk reservoir van oud water is daarnaast ook een interessant doelwit voor menselijke of robotverkenning in de toekomst. Missies naar Mars moeten landen in de buurt van de evenaar van de planeet, ver weg van de ijsrijke poolkappen of gletsjers op hoge breedtegraden. En ze hebben water nodig als hulpbron, dus het vinden van ijs in deze regio is bijna een noodzaak voor menselijke missies naar de planeet. “Helaas zijn deze MFF-afzettingen bedekt met honderden meters stof, waardoor ze minstens de komende decennia ontoegankelijk zijn. Maar elke hoeveelheid ijs die we vinden, helpt ons een beter beeld te krijgen van waar het water van Mars eerder heeft gestroomd en waar het vandaag te vinden is als we het nodig hebben in de toekomst.”
Noordwest-Europa zet zich schrap voor nieuwe storm: waar, wanneer en hoe hard zal ‘Isha’ toeslaan? En zal dit ook bij ons zijn?
Na sneeuw komt .... storm, zo blijkt uit de weerkaarten voor het noordwesten van Europa. In een mum van tijd schakelen we over van winterweer naar een onstuimig herfstachtig weertype. Want een heuse stormdepressie, die intussen officieel de naam ‘Isha’ kreeg, ontwikkelt zich momenteel over de Atlantische oceaan. Meteorologen waarschuwen nu al voor de zware windstoten waarmee Isha gepaard zal gaan. De Britse en Ierse weerdiensten hebben code oranje voor wind afgekondigd en code geel voor de vele regen die zal vallen. Maar hoe zwaar zal de storm precies uitpakken? Waar en wanneer mogen we de meeste wind verwachten? En moeten ook wij vrezen voor Isha?
Samuel Helsen
“Een dooi zonder regen of wind, is niet waard dat ‘t eraan begint”, luidt een alom bekende weerspreuk. En actueler kan zo'n weerspreuk niet zijn. De weerkaarten zijn onverbiddelijk: de winterprik van afgelopen week wordt de komende dagen letterlijk weggewaaid en weggespoeld. We lijken over te schakelen van winter naar herfst.
De luchtstroming draait naar het zuidwesten en vanuit die hoek krijgt West-Europa de komende dagen te maken met aanvoer van zeer zachte zeelucht van over de Atlantische Oceaan. Op die manier zal de ene na de andere depressie richting onze contreien worden gestuurd die de nodige wind en regen met zich mee zullen brengen.
Het is vooral zondag en maandag uitkijken voor stormdepressie ‘Isha’. Deze storm bereikt zondag de westkust van Ierland en trekt vervolgens via de Britse Eilanden en Schotland de Noordzee op. Zondagnacht en maandag zal de storm ook de Benelux bereiken en vervolgens doorstoten naar Duitsland en Scandinavië.
Waar komt deze storm zo plots vandaan?
Het aankomende stormweer wordt veroorzaakt door een zeer sterke straalstroom. Dit is een grote luchtrivier op een hoogte van zo’n 10 tot 12 kilometer die depressies meesleurt in z’n kielzog en deze verder doet uitdiepen. De komende dagen is de straalstroom erg actief en bereikt deze windsnelheden tot tussen 240 en 280 kilometer per uur. Een sterke straalstroom staat bij ons garant voor onstuimig weer met veel wind.
De verhoogde activiteit van de straalstroom hebben we deels te danken aan de uitbraak van barre winterkou in delen van de VS en Canada. De uitstulping van de poolwervel met ijskoude lucht nabij de VS en Canada aan de andere kant van de oceaan staat in schril contrast met de nog steeds erg hoge temperaturen in de Atlantische oceaan en de bijhorende zeer zachte luchtmassa die zich boven de oceaan bevindt.
Dit scherp contrast tussen de erg koude en erg zachte lucht is de drijfveer voor het aansterken van de straalstroom, die op zijn beurt de motor is voor het ontstaan van de stormdepressies.
Hoe fel zal de storm tekeer gaan en waar mag men de meeste wind verwachten?
Storm Isha is een zuidwesterstorm en zal gepaard gaan met zware tot zelfs zeer zware windstoten op veel plaatsen in Noordwest-Europa. De storm bereikt als eerste de westkust van Ierland op zondag, waar de hoogste windstoten verwacht worden. Gemiddeld komt er zo’n 8 tot 10 beaufort te staan op zee en in de kustregio’s. Op dit moment wordt uitgegaan van windstoten die kunnen pieken tot 120 km/u. Een uitschieter naar 130 km/u is zelfs niet onmogelijk volgens sommige weermodellen.
Daarna raast het stormveld in de loop van de dag verder over het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Schotland. Ook daar is het vooral in de westelijke kustgebieden alsook in de hoger gelegen gebieden uitkijken voor windstoten tot 120 km/u. In het binnenland worden veelal windstoten verwacht tot 100 km/u. Daar waait de wind krachtig tot hard en in sommige gebieden stormachtig.
Zowel de Ierse als de Britse weerdienst kondigden al code oranje af op zondag en maandag voor de felle windstoten. “Er bestaat een kans dat er stroomuitval zal zijn”, luidt het. De storm zou ook een impact kunnen hebben op het verkeer. Er worden dan ook heel wat vertragingen en schrappingen verwacht bij het openbaar vervoer, het luchtverkeer en de ferrydiensten. Naast stormschade door wind is het ook opletten voor stormvloed met hoge golven. Op volle zee kunnen de golfhoogtes pieken tot wel 10 meter hoog en ook langs de westkusten zijn golfhoogtes mogelijk tot wel 7 meter hoog.
Tijdens de nacht van zondag op maandag trekt storm Isha dan de Noordzee op als een zware zuidwesterstorm met nog steeds gemiddeld 8 tot 10 beaufort. Vervolgens zal het windveld ook het vasteland bereiken van de Benelux, West-Duitsland en Scandinavië. Vooral op de Waddeneilanden en ook langs de kusten van Denemarken mogen ze ook windstoten verwachten tot 120 km/u volgende de laatste weerkaarten. Elders lijken de windstoten beperkt te blijven tot maximale waarden tussen 90 en 110 km/u. Tegen maandagavond lijkt het ergste gepasseerd en trekt de storm al afzwakkend verder het Europese binnenland in.
Het is trouwens niet alleen oppassen voor wind, want Storm Isha zal ook gepaard gaan met veel regen. Op sommige plekken langsheen de westkusten van Schotland, het VK en Ierland, alsook in het westen van Noorwegen kan er in totaal tot meer dan 100 liter water per vierkante meter vallen tussen zondag en woensdag. Hierdoor is er kans op wateroverlast.
Zal het ook bij ons stormen?
Ook wij mogen ons opmaken voor een onstuimige periode. Vooral zondagavond en tijdens de nacht naar maandag zal de wind fors in kracht toenemen met de doortocht van storm Isha. Zondag overdag staat er al een vrij krachtige wind. ’s Avonds en ’s nachts wakkert de wind verder aan tot zo’n 6 of tijdelijk zelfs 6 à 7 beaufort.
Dinsdag dient zich mogelijk al een volgende storm aan op de weerkaarten, genaamd Jocelyn
Daarmee zal het krachtig tot soms hard waaien. Momenteel wordt er uitgegaan van windstoten tot 90 km/u, maar sommige weermodellen berekenen tijdens het hoogtepunt van de storm zondagavond en maandagnacht zelfs windstoten tot 110 km/u. De kans bestaat dat ook het KMI hiervoor een code oranje zal afkondigen in ons land als deze voorspellingen aanhouden. Bij windstoten onder 100 km/u gaat het om code geel. Aangezien het om een zuidwesterstorm gaat zal de impact op onze kust gelukkig eerder beperkt zijn. Door de oriëntatie moeten we niet meteen vrezen voor stormvloeden. Wel is er een aanzienlijke kans op windschade door de stevige windstoten mogelijk.
Zondag nemen we ook afscheid van het zonnige en koude weer. Met de aanwakkerende zuidwestenwind zal de dooi razendsnel z’n intrede doen en mogen we opnieuw erg zachte temperaturen verwachten. We krijgen zelfs te maken met een heuse temperatuurschok. Op zondag schakelen we abrupt over naar zeer zachte subtropische lucht afkomstig van de Azoren. In de ochtend vriest het mogelijk nog licht, maar tegen de avond zal de temperatuur opnieuw dubbele cijfers bereiken. We halen dan rond 10 °C. Een temperatuurstijging van meer dan 10 °C in minder dan 24u. Dat is best opmerkelijk.
Is er nog stormweer op komst de komende dagen?
De komende dagen zal de winter ver te zoeken zijn. De maxima liggen met 12 of 13 °C rond zeer hoge waarden voor deze tijd van het jaar. Bovendien blijven we te maken hebben met een herfstachtig en vrij onstuimig weertype met regelmatig regenzones die de revue passeren en een stevig windveld.
Dinsdag dient zich mogelijk al een volgende storm aan op de weerkaarten. Deze zal de naam ‘Jocelyn’ dragen. Vooral Ierland, het VK en Schotland mogen zich dan opnieuw opmaken voor stevige windstoten. Volgens de laatste prognoses zou de storm zich vooral richten op de noordelijke delen van Ierland, het VK en Schotland met opnieuw potentiële windstoten tot 130 km/u. Ook bij ons blijft het onstuimig. Na een korte adempauze dinsdagochtend zal de wind dinsdagavond en woensdag opnieuw aanwakkeren met windstoten tussen 70 en 90 km/u.
Na woensdag lijkt het weerbeeld zich stilaan terug wat te stabiliseren. De onstuimige periode lijkt op het eerste zicht van korte duur. Mogelijk schakelen we later in de week over op stabieler weer onder invloed van een hogedrukgebied met ’s nachts lichte vorst en overdag ruim positieve temperaturen.
These patent applications relate directly to UAP observables, in that UAPs seem to defy the known laws of physics precisely by appearing to deploy unthinkable amounts of energy in small regions of space, manipulate gravity at will, and have little to no inertial mass. For this reason, many—such as Ariel Cohen, writing for Forbes—have speculated that Pais’s ostensible inventions may be a cover for reverse-engineered UAP technology, and the associated patents an attempt by the US Navy to stay ahead of China and Russia in the new arms’ race.
In this essay, I will argue that these speculations are based on a fundamentally wrong understanding of how the game of Intellectual Property Rights—or ‘IPR’ in short, which includes patents—is played. Whatever NAWCAD’s inventions are, they aren’t reverse-engineered UAP technology and almost certainly have no defense significance.
Although I am best known as a philosopher and scientist, I have spent almost 25 years in the high-tech industry doing technology strategy. I have been deeply immersed in the world of high-tech IPR, having even once co-founded a computer company—Silicon Hive, now part of Intel—that dealt in IPR licensing. As such, despite not being a lawyer myself, I am qualified to opine on patent matters.
A patent is a legal monopoly: it gives an individual or a company the right to be the exclusive exploiter of the patented idea for a limited period—usually 20 years—unless the individual or company in question chooses to license the patent to a third-party. The goal is to give companies an incentive to invest in Research and Development (R&D) without fear that its competitors will immediately benefit from the fruits of that R&D without having invested in it. Patent law is at the foundation of high-tech entrepreneurship for this reason. Without it, which company would invest billions in, say, inventing a new drug, just to see its key competitors reverse-engineer the drug and commercialize an identical, cheaper alternative within months?
But patents represent a trade-off. While giving their holders temporary monopoly power, they also force the inventors to publicly disclose the ideas in question. Indeed, patents—and even patent applications—are public documents by law, available on multiple searchable databases such as Google Patents. Moreover, not only do the inventors have to publicly describe their inventions, they must also do so in a manner that a “person skilled in the art”—that is, a minimally competent practitioner in the field in question—can, based on a patent’s text and diagrams alone, implement a working embodiment of the corresponding invention.
As such, patents are the opposite of industrial secrets. Before deciding whether to patent an idea, a company needs to weight its monopoly benefits against giving the competition a head-start; for this is exactly what a patent application does: it broadcasts to the world the lines along which a company is developing its technology.
Sometimes, the decision of whether to patent an invention or keep it a secret is straightforward. For instance, it may be impossible to hide an idea, either because it is a visible and advertised product feature—such as a fingerprint reader or facial scanner to unlock your phone—or because the product can be easily bought from a shop and reverse-engineered. In these cases, it’s best to patent the whole thing in advance, as the secret cannot be kept.
The opposite decision can also be straightforward: if the idea is not discernible in the end-product—for instance, when the invention is about a particular manufacturing method, as opposed to a product feature—it becomes very difficult to prove that the competition is illegally using it, and the patent cannot be enforced in practice. It’s then best to protect the method as an industrial secret instead.
Now, which of these scenarios applies best to military hardware and associated inventions? Well, unlike a mobile phone with advertised facial recognition technology, the key features of military hardware aren’t publicly announced or trivially discoverable; you can’t purchase a Chinese J-20 stealth fighter from a shop down the street to see how it is put together. So, if the Chinese were to steal the key inventions behind, say, the American F-22 fighter and use them in their J-20, we wouldn’t be able to take a J-20 apart to prove that it infringes American patents, would we? There is thus no reason to patent these inventions, even if we were to naively assume that Chinese courts—or the courts of any other state, for that matter—would enforce international IPR law above their national security interests and defense industry.
Indeed, the value of patents is entirely based on their enforceability—i.e., the assurance that patent infringers will be prosecuted and the IPR law adequately applied. This holds, by and large, in the corporate world, as companies can incur large financial penalties for infringing IPR.
But such is not the case in the defense world. Do you believe that China would prosecute their own defense contractors if the latter were to use more advanced, patented American technologies in their missiles and aircraft? Do you believe that, if the key inventions behind, say, the F-35 or the B-21 were laid out neatly, explicitly, and very publicly in the “preferred embodiment” section of a patent application, other countries wouldn’t immediately leverage that free knowledge in their own aircraft and air defense systems? Countries routinely break international law by spying on each other so to steal each other’s military secrets; do you think they would abide by international IPR law in the case of patents?
When it comes to defense, the way to protect technology is through industrial secrecy, not patents. The latter are public how-to books on the implementation of key ideas, which would just hand over to the competition one’s key military secrets. As such, the US Navy is not procuring patents for Pais’s inventions to prevent the Chinese from using them; to think so is preposterously naïve. If anything, the patent applications do precisely the opposite: they tell the Chinese, step by step, how to implement the inventions.
Patents can, in principle, be used by American defense contractors as legal weapons against each other, in their mutual competition for government contracts, under the overarching jurisdiction of US law. The Navy, too, could conceivably use patents as pricing leverage against defense contractors. But even in these cases, the more consequential and game-changing ideas would not be patented because, again, patents are public documents that broadcast to the world how key (military) technology can be advantageously implemented; one just doesn’t do that for ideas that could change the outcome of a war.
If I know this, then so do the Chinese and any other minimally competent state actor. As such, Pais’s patents aren’t a ruse to throw the Chinese or the Russians off course either. For both the Chinese and the Russians will know that, if the Americans are filing for patents on, say, a certain gravity drive technology, then that’s a blind alley. No player will broadcast a how-to document on the implementation of their key military technologies to the world, and all players know this.
I have heard some speculate that, by filing for those patents, the Navy is preemptively stopping others—Chinese, Russian, or otherwise—from being granted similar patents. Let us pretend for a moment that any third-party patent would place a limit on what the American defense industry is allowed to pursue in the interest of national security; even then, this hypothesis, too, betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of patent law.
To get a patent, a party indeed needs to show that it was the first to come up with the idea in question (the so-called “priority date” in patent law). Any previous publication of the idea (called “prior art” in patent law) invalidates a patent application and can even invalidate the patent itself, even after it has been granted. However, any publication can constitute prior art, not only previous patents. In other words, for the Navy to preempt third-party patents on Pais’s inventions it didn’t need to file for patents; it could have simply published those ideas in any form, which would have been much easier than pursuing patent applications.
Indeed, companies often use specialized “defensive publication” journals, such as Questel, to dump inventions they don’t consider valuable enough to patent, but which they still want to be free to use themselves, and thus want to prevent others from patenting. Doing these defensive publications is much faster, simpler, and cheaper than filing for a patent, as the former entails no examinations, no need for viable embodiments, proof of feasibility, lawyer fees, recurring taxes, etc.
The case of Danish inventor Karl Krøyer, often featured in patent lore, is very illustrative of the point I’m trying to make. Mr. Krøyer invented a method for raising sunken ships by pumping buoyant bodies into the wreck until it becomes buoyant enough to float back to the surface on its own. He proceeded to file for a patent on this method. But, as it turns out, in a 1949 issue of the Donald Duck comic book, in a story called “The Sunken Yacht,” a wreck is raised by stuffing it with ping pong balls. That comic book thus constitutes prior art that can invalidate Mr. Krøyer’s patent. Whether the Donald Duck story was actually used by the patent office to refuse the patent application or not is immaterial; the fact is, it could be used, for legally any publication—even a Donald Duck comic book—featuring the idea in question constitutes prior art. Therefore, no one files for a patent just to prevent others from getting that patent; it’s just not how the game works and NAWCAD obviously knows this.
Which leaves us with the question: Why, then, is the Navy pursuing Pais’s patent applications? It can’t be because they have military significance (if they did, the Navy would be keeping them a secret) and it can’t be because the Navy cares about what other countries are patenting (when it comes to national security, international IPR law matters not). What is left then?
It could be for something as simple as highlighting the relevance and potential value of NAWCAD’s work—making it visible through the media attention those unusual patent applications did get—to increase or protect funding. It could also be because of less-sensational but practical applications of some ancillary embodiments of the inventions outside defense—think of the energy industry, for instance—where patents do make commercial sense.
If you think these are too trivial or implausible reasons to justify the significant reputation risk the Navy has taken on by claiming the invention of gravity drives and inertial mass inhibitors, you will have to enter some tricky speculative territory. I prefer to refrain from that myself. What I am willing to do is to briefly comment on the effects the Navy’s claims have had, for such effects are observable facts, not speculation. And they may provide some hint about the goals of the patent applications to begin with.
As discussed in the foregoing, Pais’s patents are very unlikely to have had any effect on state actors such as China and Russia; both are very well aware of what I discussed above—none of which is polemical or disputed—and will entirely disregard the whole affair as a silly American sci-fi stunt meant for domestic consumption.
Where the patent applications clearly did have an effect is among people in the West who are not familiar with patent law and IPR practice; in other words, the regular folks on the streets of our towns. Many of those people may now be thinking that the UAP observables are not as magical and absurd as they seemed to be at first, for even we, mere human beings, are now producing seemingly credible inventions—endorsed by the Navy!—that can ostensibly replicate at least some of those observables. So maybe the UAP stories aren’t implausible after all, huh? Maybe there is something to them; something that makes good scientific sense and doesn’t force us into tricky mystical ideation.
Now that is a factual, culture-level effect of Pais’s patent applications. Was it deliberate? I don’t know, but I do know this: by choosing patent applications—which are intrinsically associated with technological breakthroughs in the popular psyche—the Navy ensured that they would get a lot of media attention; as they, in fact, did. Could the underlying goal of doing so be the benign wish to help prepare the collective psyche of Western societies for disclosure? Again, I don’t know, but this seems to be a less implausible explanation for such an unusual step than the alternatives.
Bernardo Kastrupis a Dutch philosopher, computer scientist, and the executive director of the Essentia Foundation. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another in computer engineering, and has worked as a scientist in some of the world’s foremost scientific laboratories. His main interests are metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He lives in Veldhoven, Netherlands. You can follow the authoron his personal website.
As we look up at the starry sky, countless celestial bodies silently peer down upon us. Most of these have been there for billions of years as stellar processes slowly unfold, starting from their birth until their final demise. Light from other celestial objects, though long vanished, has only recently reached us. In other instances, swift changes in the sky occur at timescales as short as seconds or minutes, like when a dwarf star momentarily flares up or when a human satellite crosses the field of view.
My team has been searching for objects that may have vanished. As an unexpected result of our searches, we found cases where multiple star-like objects (transients) appeared and vanished in a small image within an hour, and even more peculiarly, two of our brightest cases happened in July 1952, coinciding in time with the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO flyovers. But what have we actually found, and how do these two events potentially link to one another?
In the Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project, our team has been dedicated to the search for celestial objects that vanished over the span of 70 years. In the grand scheme of cosmic time and the billions of years needed for a low-mass star to turn into a white dwarf, seventy years is only a fleeting moment in cosmic time. But 70 years is also much longer than the time needed for a satellite to pass through the telescope’s field of view. Our original objective was to search for a star that had vanished, with the hope of detecting instances where a star directly collapses into a black hole (failed supernova), an event predicted by supernova theoreticians. Alternatively, we were intrigued by the prospect of finding a star that vanishes entirely without a trace or explanation; a signature of a highly advanced civilization.
However, this task was far from straightforward. My colleague spent two years developing powerfulmethods [5] for sifting through the vast terabytes of image data involved. In parallel, we were (and still are) running a citizen science project together with scientists, amateur astronomers, and students primarily in Algeria and Nigeria, to search for these vanishing stars.
For our searches, we employed an object catalog sourced from the US Naval Observatory (USNO) together with archival images dating back to the early 1950s, captured at the Palomar Observatory in California. The images from Palomar predate the dawn of human space exploration. This night sky was pristine, and a far cry from today’s sky that is littered with tens of thousands of debris pieces from human satellites in orbits around the Earth, many producing flashes lasting fractions of a second as they reflect sunlight and tumble through space. These images we compared to the modern databases from Palomar Sky Survey, PanSTARRS, and the Gaia satellite in our quest to find disappearing objects.
We still haven’t found a single failed supernova candidate. However, our exploration has led us to a more intriguing discovery: several images where multiple star-like objects appear in a single snapshot of the sky, never to be seen again. In a specific instance [1], nine faint objects looking like stars were visible in an image captured on April 12, 1950, during a 50-minute exposure. However, they were absent in the image taken just 30 minutes earlier and in another image from six days later. We searched through all available archives in an attempt to locate the nine objects. We directed the world’s largest optical telescope, the Gran Telescopio Canarias, with its 10.4-meter aperture, to the locations where the transients had been. Nothing was found. The objects had simply vanished.
Given the faint nature of these objects and how close to the detection limit they were, we wondered whether these were spurious objects caused by some rare contamination with coincidentally star-like shapes (plate defects), possibly caused by secret atomic bomb tests, or if these phenomena were authentic observations. Artificial objects situated in high-altitude orbits, tens of thousands of kilometers above the Earth’s surface could potentially generate similar flashes as they tumble and reflect sunlight. But a flash could also be produced by the intrinsic light of an object.
To find further evidence of artificial objects outside Earth’s atmosphere, one can search for multiple transients that, additionally, are also aligned [2]. Satellite reflections can manifest as either a single flash or a sequence of consecutive flashes falling on a line, depending on variables like geometry, rotational speed, and the dimensions of our field of view. The exclusive use of pre-Sputnik catalogs further ensures that only non-human objects are included. A white paper describing this search for technosignatures in detail, including the accompanying statistical analysis, has undergone peer review and was published in Acta Astronautica in 2022.
Then we executed the search. We identified two candidates that were statistically significant and had unlikely alignments of transients and an additional three statistically weaker candidates (in total 5 candidates). Our best candidate, Candidate 5, had a probability of p ~ 0.0001 to exist by chance (see Figure 1 below). Regrettably, one journal after another declined to send our paper for peer review, informing us that the topic of the paper consistently fell ‘outside the scope of the journal’. Only one journal sent the paper to referees, which ended up being rejected after several confusing rounds. The paper remains on the arXiv preprint server.
Figure 1. The left image shows five transients on the 27th of July 1952 in the First Palomar Sky Survey. The right image shows the same star field in the Second Palomar Sky Survey, about 30 years later. From Villarroel, Solano et al., 2022, arXiv. (Note: In the article, the date is wrongly stated to be the 28th of July 1952.)
Meanwhile, our team continued its search efforts. One year ago, my colleague presented the team with a case that he had uncovered during the automated searches[5]. The image showed three bright and beautiful objects looking just like stars in a POSS-I image from the 19th of July 1952 that appeared and vanished within a plate exposure [3] (see Figure 2 below). The three bright objects seemed as real as Betelgeuse itself. We explored a gravitational lensing hypothesis, considering the possibility that a massive foreground object could bend the passing light so that three images appear only to vanish moments later. Perhaps, a supermassive black hole located just a few light-years from Earth, with a mass ten times that of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, could explain the triple transient? We were not convinced. The article was recently published in MonthlyNotices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Figure 2. The left image shows three transients on the 19th of July 1952 in the First Palomar Sky Survey. The right image shows the same star field in the Second Palomar Sky Survey, about 30 years later. This image is an adaption of the images in Solano, Marcy et al., 2023.
Let us have a closer look at the time period of the observations. July 1952 was a very special month in Washington D.C. Between July 12th and July 29th, 1952, a multitude of UFO sightings occurred over Washington D.C. in the United States involving radar-visual sightings in simultaneous observations, and even circumstances where aNavy pilot wasauthorizedto shoot down an object (with some debris collected). The highest number of sightings took place during two weekends: July 19th – 20th and the weekend of July 26th – 27th, 1952.
An official record from the National Archives of Australia reveals that while the average monthly number of UFO reports of sightings between 1948 and 1951 was 15 per month, there were approximately 536 reports in July 1952. The US Air Force held a largepress conference at the Pentagon (the largest press conference since the end of World War II), claiming that the radar observations were caused by temperature inversions, citing a theory produced and promoted [6,7] by the astronomer and UFO skeptic Donald Menzel, who had the highest clearances within the National Security Agency in the United States. Further work cast serious doubts on Menzel’s explanation. Also, the US Air Force failed to explain the numerous eyewitness reports.
This is where things get fun. The three transients we found were, indeed, observed on the night of July 19th, 1952, which coincided with the first weekend of the Washington UFO flyovers – a coincidence first noticed by my friend David Altman. As scientists, we recognize that coincidences will occur from time to time, no matter how remarkable they may seem. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder about whether any of the five top candidates in our previous 2022 arXiv paper could have been observed during the Washington flyovers.
Indeed, our absolute top candidate (Candidate 5, with a mere 0.0001% probability) was observed on July 27th, 1952, aligning with the second weekend (Author’s Note: In the arXiv paper and all presentations, including one I presented at the Sol Foundation event at Stanford University in October, 2023, and up until December 2023, I have quoted the wrong date of 28th of July 1952. The correct date for the XE141 plate, according to the STScI plate archive, is the 27th of July 1952). Ironically, our two most prominent and brightest cases of multiple transients coincided in time with the two weekends of the renowned Washington UFO flyovers.
What types of events might lead to the detection of multiple transients in plates from the same period? One possible explanation is that these transients are indeed UFOs. Another hypothesis is that high-altitude atomic bomb tests could have generated aurora-like phenomena over Washington. These events might have produced nuclear fallout in other regions of the vast country, which–perhaps–could be detected as false stars on the photographic plates. Perhaps, in this instance, Occam’s razor suggests that the first hypothesis requires less of a stretch.
A dataset that possibly could help to solve the mystery is the Digital Access to a Sky Century @Harvard (DASCH) project, which comprises digitized portions of HarvardCollegeObservatory’s photographic plate collection. The observatory’s plate collection consists of 550,000+ plates that played a pivotal role in cutting-edge astronomy research spanning over a century. Given that the Harvard Observatory is considerably closer to Washington D.C. than Palomar, it might possess valuable records from the time of the Washington D.C. UFO flyovers. As recently as a few weeks ago, the DASCH project came back online after a several years-long hiatus; a blessing to many astronomers.
Despite its numerous successes, Harvard’s photographic plate collection faced many challenges during its history. In the early 1950s, Harvard University chose to destroy a portion of its ownphotographic plate collection under the directive of its Director Donald Menzel who entered office in 1952. This story is carefully retold in the astronomer Dorrit Hoffleit’s autobiography, Misfortunes as Blessings in Disguise. Furthermore, Donald Menzel stopped Harvard’s observatory from conducting further photographic plate surveys of the sky in 1953. The latter event is now commonly referred to as the ‘Menzel gap‘. Constraints related to storage space and budgetary limitations were cited. Only fifteen years later, Harvard resumed its surveillance of the sky upon Menzel’s retirement.
This remarkable sequence of unusual events suggests that we investigate more photographic plates from the summer of 1952 to see whether there was a higher incidence of anomalous transients than in previous summers. We can also examine the sky as it looks today. With our new endeavor, the ExoProbe project, we will search for similar types of transient events in the modern sky; the hope is to find a case of such anomalous transients that can be carefully studied with today’s instrumentation. We will use a network of small telescopes equipped with high-resolution cameras that permit us to validate the finding in multiple telescopes immediately, locate the object in 3D (if inside the Solar System), and characterize it with a spectrum. Discovering such anomalous transients in modern data helps to circumvent the challenges posed by photographic plate surveys, including the inherent difficulty of tracking and locating these objects once they vanish.
There is undoubtedly a compelling necessity for exploring this mystery. With a bit of luck, maybe we can find statistical support for a connection between historical UFO sightings and multiple transients in photographic plates. If not, these peculiar coincidences may have to remain as intriguing anecdotes in our documentation of stellar history… and maybe that is just fine.
Beatriz Villarroel is the leader of the VASCO project, which incorporates more than 40 members in different countries. She is a researcher at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) in Stockholm.
Andruk, Matthew E. Shultz, Alok C. Gupta, Lars Mattsson,“Exploring nine simultaneously occuring transients on April 12th 1950”, 2021, Scientific Reports, 11, 12794.
Beatriz Villarroel, Enrique Solano, Hichem Guergouri, Alina Streblyanska, Lars Mattsson, Rudolf Bär, JamalMimouni, Stefan Geier, Alok C. Gupta, Vanessa Okororie, Khaoula Laggoune, Matthew E. Shultz, Robert A. Freitas Jr., Martin Ward,“Is there a background population of high- albedo objects in geosynchronous orbits around Earth?”, 2022, arXiv: 2204.06091
Enrique Solano, Geoffrey Marcy, Beatriz Villarroel, Stefan Geier, Alina Streblyanska, Gianluca Lombardi,Rudolf E. Bär, Vitaly N. Andruk, “A Bright Triple Transient that Vanished within 50 Minutes”, 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 527, 6312
Beatriz Villarroel, Kristiaan Pelckmans, Enrique Solano, Mikael Laaksoharju, Abel Souza, Onyeuwaoma Nnaemeka Dom, Khaoula Laggoune, Jamal Mimouni, Hichem Guergouri, Lars Mattsson, Johan Soodla, DiegoCastillo, Matthew Shultz, Rubby Aworka, Sébastien Comerón, Stefan Geier, Geoffrey Marcy, Alok C. Gupta, Josefine Bergstedt, Rudolf E. Bär, Bart Buelens, Christopher K. Mellon, M. Almudena Prieto, Dismas Simiyu Wamalwa, Martin J. Ward, “Launching the VASCO citizen science project”, 2022, MDPI’s Universe, 8, 561
Enrique Solano, Beatriz Villarroel, Carlos Rodrigo, “Discovering vanishing objects in POSS I red images using the Virtual Observatory”, 2022, Monthly Notices of the Royal AstronomicalSociety, 515, 1380
CHRIS SHARP: Get over it, UFOs DO exist… as the latest extraordinary sighting proves. Now the terrifying question: which power has the technology that has us baffled - and beaten?
CHRIS SHARP: Get over it, UFOs DO exist… as the latest extraordinary sighting proves. Now the terrifying question: which power has the technology that has us baffled - and beaten?
Is there anything social media naysayers won't conjure up to dismiss new footage of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) flying above an overseas U.S. airbase in 2017?
Video of the mysterious floating object – dubbed the 'jellyfish' for its dangling tentacle-like appendages – was published last week by investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp.
The release has since unleashed a torrent of wild speculation from armchair debunkers. But there's good reason not to dismiss this disclosure so easily.
As a journalist covering the UFO beat, I regularly work with Corbell and Knapp who have been behind much of the groundbreaking reporting in this field.
Knapp is a two-time winner of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow journalism award.
In 1989, he famously revealed the still-controversial allegations of Bob Lazar, who claimed he was hired to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology at a secret Nevada site near a U.S base – a facility that has come to be known as Area 51.
Corbell, too, has earned his place among pioneering UFO reporters.
In 2021, Corbell published leaked footage of a spherical object - filmed by the crew of the U.S.S. Omaha - off the coast of Southern California. The oblong orb is seen flying into stiff headwinds before disappearing into the ocean.
Video of the mysterious floating object – dubbed the 'jellyfish' for its dangling tentacle-like appendages – was published last week by investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell (left) and George Knapp (right).
The duo have now released six pieces of footage showing potentially unexplainable UFOs over conflict zones in the Middle East.
For decades, the U.S. government has dismissed this journalism as conspiracy until 2017 when the Pentagon confirmed the existence of long-running secret programs that studied these strange occurrences.
Now as more and more UFO evidence surfaces, the government has no choice but to be more transparent. And it is in this spirit of openness that Corbell and Knapp step forward.
They hold no theories on what the 'jellyfish' UFO is, and - yet again - as no plausible explanations have emerged others have rushed to judgment.
Some proclaim the allegedly military-grade infrared footage recorded from a surveillance blimp shows a smudge on the camera lens - bird poop, perhaps.
The 'smudge theory' was soon rubbed out by sleuths who zoomed in on the object revealing that it rotated as it passed over Al-Taqaddum Airbase in central Iraq in 2017.
A lens smear would exhibit two dimensions. Only three-dimensional objects can appear to spin on video.
Another conjecture was that the 'jellyfish' is a cluster of balloons. An expert on infrared videos, Dave Falch, has seemingly burst that bubble.
Some proclaim the allegedly military-grade infrared footage recorded from a surveillance blimp shows a smudge on the camera lens - bird poop, perhaps.
Another conjecture was that the 'jellyfish' is a cluster of balloons. An expert on infrared videos, Dave Falch, has seemingly burst that bubble.
Falch's analysis is also supported by the accounts of anonymous first-hand military witnesses, who have reportedly spoken with Corbell and Knapp.
These witnesses, who have been trained to differentiate between harmless balloons, surveillance aircraft, and other, potentially dangerous, airborne objects, to this day cannot explain what they saw.
The world is left with no concrete answers, which can be an uncomfortable position for some. But if solving UFO mysteries were straightforward, the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence apparatus wouldn't have found it necessary to create an entirely new unit in July 2022 - the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (ARRO) – to investigate them.
UFOs exist. Get used to it.
There are things in our skies, oceans and outside the atmosphere, which cannot be explained.
What the 'jellyfish' UFO footage doesn't show is what witnesses have reported to Corbell and Knapp: that the UFO is said to have descended into the nearby Habbaniyah Lake for 17 minutes, then re-emerged from the water and accelerated rapidly at a 45-degree angle until it disappeared from the frame.
If those claims are proven true, then the 'jellyfish' footage will be another piece of sobering evidence suggesting that the most powerful nation in history is not its most technologically sophisticated.
In 2021, Corbell published leaked footage of a spherical object - filmed by the crew of the U.S.S. Omaha - off the coast of Southern California. The oblong orb (above) is seen flying into stiff headwinds before disappearing into the ocean.
The duo have now released six pieces of footage showing potentially unexplainable UFOs over conflict zones in the Middle East. (Above) A metallic-looking orb flying over an Iraqi city was allegedly caught on video by a US spy plane.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe implied as much last year when he conceded that the U.S. government has a responsibility to scrutinize 'objects that demonstrate technologies that seem to defy the law of physics and capabilities that we don't have as the world's superpower.'
The situation is so concerning that Five Eyes – the intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States report – has published a classified report on the increased frequency of UFO encounters, according to Corbell's reporting.
Many in Congress, even Democratic Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have demanded more disclosure. But worryingly, some in the U.S. government may be turning back the clock on secrecy.
Following the declassification of three UFO videos in 2020, the U.S. Navy has explicitly stated that it will not declassify any more footage over 'national security' concerns. This week the Pentagon issued a statement on the 'jellyfish' UAP refusing to confirm or deny the authenticity of the video or whether it has been reported to AARO.
The public should push harder for answers. Whatever the 'jellyfish' is - it is, without a doubt, part of a broader discussion about transparency and trust.
As much as the doubters and government censors might wish it away as a smudge, the issue won't be wiped up so easily.
Author Christopher Sharp is the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Liberation Times
Inside secret UFO briefing in DC: Congress finds 'many' claims about US government harboring aliens and spaceships 'have merit' after grilling top US spy watchdog
Inside secret UFO briefing in DC: Congress finds 'many' claims about US government harboring aliens and spaceships 'have merit' after grilling top US spy watchdog
America's top spy watchdog gave Congress a top secret UFO briefing Friday
'We've now made, I would say, progress on some of the claims Mr. Grusch has made in his complaint,' Democratic Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz told reporters.
'Based on what we heard,' Rep. Moskowitz said, 'many of Grusch claims have merit!
America's top spy watchdog met with members of the House Oversight committee on Capitol Hill today (above). The meeting aimed to get to the bottom of last year's explosive charges alleging the existence of an illegal UFO crash retrieval program
Grusch's allegations were first made in detail via this classified formal complaint, a 'Disclosure of Urgent Concern(s); Complaint of Reprisal' filed to the office of the US Intelligence Community's Inspector General (IC IG) in May of 2022.
'I think this one [today's briefing] is going to lead to a lot of things,' Rep. Moskowitz said. 'There's a lot of new questions and a lot of new areas to ask and poke in.'
'I think everybody left there thinking and knowing that Grusch is legit,' said Republican Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett, Rep. Moskowitz's colleague on the House Oversight Committee, which spearheaded today's secret UFO conclave.
Burchett added, 'if they didn't think that before.'
The Tennessee legislator, who has become a strong voice calling for transparency on what officials now call 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' or UAP, did retain some of his criticisms, telling reporters 'by design this issue is very compartmentalized.'
'We've now made, I would say, progress on some of the claims Mr. Grusch has made in his complaint,' Democratic Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz told reporters. 'Based on what we heard,' Rep. Moskowitz said, 'many of Grusch claims have merit!'
'It's not about little green men in flying saucers,' Burchett said steps from a 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility' or SCIF where the classified meeting was held.
'The issue is tens of millions of dollars,' he emphasized, 'on an issue that we've been told does not exist since 1947.'
Rep. Moskowitz, who has joined Rep. Burchett and others in the House UAP Caucus on what has become an bipartisan effort to get to the truth on these airborne mysteries, also acknowledged continuing bottlenecks with over-classification.
'Well, obviously, look: the process is extremely frustrating,' Rep. Moskowitz told reporters assembled outside the SCIF.
'But actually this is the first real briefing that we've had,' the congressman said, 'the first time we kind of got a ruling on what the IG thinks of those [Grusch's] claims.'
'I think everybody left there thinking and knowing that Grusch is legit,' said Republican Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett (left), Rep. Moskowitz's colleague on the House Oversight Committee, which spearheaded today's secret UFO conclave
'It's not about little green men in flying saucers,' Burchett said steps from a 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility' or SCIF (above) where the classified meeting was held
Republican Representative of Arizona Andy Biggs (above) arrives to attend today's closed-door intelligence briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)
The revelations came amid an invite-only UFO gathering at Stanford University. But, many speakers at the exclusive event expressed worry over the risk of social and economic upheaval. One former CIA scientist said that Washington insiders had deeply weighed both the positive and negative ramifications of declassifying America's top-secret UFO programs in 2004. They came to believe that the risks of UFO 'disclosure' were just too great.
'So this meeting, unlike the one we had previously [with the Department of Defense's office of the Inspector General], this one actually 'moved the needle.''
Despite these promising statements of forward momentum, it is unclear whether or not members of House Oversight were actually permitted to review Grusch's official classified IC IG complaint, or what hard facts they learned behind closed doors.
Last week, a source with direct knowledge of standard operations inside the US Intelligence Community's Inspector General's office (IC IG) told DailyMail.com that a review of the complaint would be unlikely.
'I do not expect that to occur,' the source told DailyMail.com.
According to the DailyMail.com's well-placed US intelligence community source, IC IG would likely endeavor to satisfy lawmakers while telling them as little as possible.
'The IG, when he goes and briefs Oversight, his job, between you and I, is going to be to make them feel as though they're getting information,' this source said, 'and basically tell them nothing.'
This source believes Attorney Thomas Monheim, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, and his staff would be forced to juggle the expectations of multiple competing congressional committees.
'He's in charge of what he's going to tell them,' the source told DailyMail.com.
'I would be very shocked if they hear the same things the Intel committees heard,' the source elaborated, 'not because he doesn't want to tell them — because they're Congress.'
'But because HPSCI [the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and SSCI [the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] have probably said to him, 'Hey! We are your committees of jurisdiction, not Oversight,'' so this source advised.
Nevertheless, Rep. Moskowitz presented a carefully worded comment on the progress made by the committee and the roadmap ahead in their quest for answers about the govenment's closely held, long-rumored UFO portfolio.
'Let me just give you a hypothetical, because I am not going to share anything from a classified briefing,' the Florida congressman began.
'If someone makes ten claims, and then someone says, 'Well, we didn't look into all ten, because they weren't all in the report. But, hey, we found these six very credible,'' Rep. Moskowitz said, 'well, then you'd wanna go attack those six.'
Mysterious Burning Object seen over Charlotte, NC last night. Jan 19, 2024, UFO Sighting News. Whats going on In North Carolina?
Mysterious Burning Object seen over Charlotte, NC last night. Jan 19, 2024, UFO Sighting News. Whats going on In North Carolina?
Burning UFO making a hard right turn.
UFO in below screenshot over contrail of the other UFOs.
Date of sighting: Jan 19, 2024
Location of sighting:Charlotte, NC, USA
Source:Twitter
Guys this just in. A huge burning object was seen with long flames coming out of it over a city in North Carolina last night. The object or objects were seen flying low and leaving a smokey trail behind them. Very odd indeed. Clearly this is a burning UFO that is barely making back to an underground base somewhere in North Carolina. The object is one large object breaking apart. As of yet, the Carolina news has not talked about it or explained what it might be.
The Enigma of Post-WWII Alien Aeronautics: Unraveling the Secrets of Operation Paperclip
The Enigma of Post-WWII Alien Aeronautics: Unraveling the Secrets of Operation Paperclip
In the aftermath of World War II, amidst the ruins and reckoning, a new chapter of intrigue and technological pursuit began to unfold. This chapter, steeped in secrecy and speculative theories, revolves around the clandestine Operation Paperclip and its alleged connection to extraterrestrial technology and aeronautics.
Operation Paperclip: A Covert Endeavor
At the core of this enigmatic period was Operation Paperclip, a top secret program initiated by the United States government. Its primary objective was to recruit and leverage the expertise of former Nazi scientists, particularly in the fields of aeronautics, rocketry, and various other scientific disciplines. This strategic move was aimed at ensuring that the U.S. did not fall behind in the burgeoning Cold War technological race.
The Roswell Incident: A Catalyst for Conjecture
The narrative takes an intriguing turn with the 1947 Roswell incident, where a mysterious object crashed in the New Mexico desert. This event, reported by the Roswell Daily Record, sparked widespread speculation. While many believed the object to be of extraterrestrial origin, an alternative theory proposed that it was a product of the advanced aeronautical experiments stemming from Operation Paperclip.
Nazi Innovations and UFO Sightings
The theory gains traction from the fact that Nazi Germany was known for its unconventional aircraft designs. Notably, the Horten 229, a flying wing bomber, exhibited design elements that strikingly resembled descriptions of UFOs reported around the same period. This parallel has led some to speculate that what were perceived as extraterrestrial UFOs might actually have been misidentified experimental aircraft, developed by the very scientists recruited through Operation Paperclip.
Speculations and Unanswered Questions
The hypothesis that Operation Paperclip might have been instrumental in analyzing and possibly reverse-engineering recovered alien technology adds another layer of mystery. The notion is that if any alien crafts were obtained, the most adept minds in aeronautics and rocketry at the time – many of whom were part of Operation Paperclip – would have been called upon to study and understand these advanced technologies.
VIDEO:
The UnXplained TOP SECRET Alien Aeronautics Program Launched After WWII (Season 6)
While the narrative connecting Operation Paperclip to alien aeronautics is compelling and intriguing, it remains largely speculative. The lack of concrete evidence and reliance on anecdotal accounts means that these theories continue to float in a realm between documented history and the corridors of conspiracy theories. The true extent of Operation Paperclip’s involvement in post-WWII aeronautics, and its possible intersection with extraterrestrial technologies, remains an enigmatic topic that continues to fascinate and provoke discussion.
The Beijing Sky Mystery: Unraveling the Truth Behind the Recent UFO Sighting
The Beijing Sky Mystery: Unraveling the Truth Behind the Recent UFO Sighting
The evening skies over Beijing and several other regions in China recently became the canvas for an extraordinary and mysterious spectacle. Residents were captivated by the sight of an unidentified flying object (UFO), leading to a whirlwind of discussions, theories, and intrigue. This article delves into the details of this enigmatic occurrence, exploring eyewitness accounts, expert analyses, and the eventual explanation that demystifies this celestial event.
The Sighting:
On a clear Sunday evening, just after 6 PM, residents across Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, and Shandong provinces witnessed an unusual phenomenon in the sky. Described as a glowing, isosceles triangle-shaped object with three distinct light sources, this UFO moved rapidly from west to east. The object stood out for its silence and the absence of flashing lights typical of aircraft. Eyewitnesses reported that it eventually dissipated like mist and disappeared without leaving a trace.
This event quickly escalated in prominence, becoming a hot topic on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo. With over 900,000 threads, people shared images and descriptions of the object, each adding to the tapestry of this aerial mystery.
Speculations and Theories:
The lack of immediate explanation led to a flurry of speculations. Some hypothesized extraterrestrial involvement, while others pondered secret military technology. The diverse descriptions – ranging from a “moving cloud-like object” to a luminous, non-flashing entity – only fueled the public’s curiosity and diverse theories.
Scientific Explanation:
The mystery began to unravel with insights from Wang Zhuoxiao, a researcher at Tsinghua University’s Centre for Astronomy Technology. He proposed that the sighting was likely the result of a SpaceX rocket launch, specifically for the Starlink satellite mission. This mission involved the deployment of 22 satellites into low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Wang explained the rocket’s trajectory, inclined at 53 degrees to the south, would have made it visible in northern China during sunset or before sunrise. Following the deployment of satellites, the rocket was programmed to jettison its excess fuel. This process can create a scattering of light around the rocket, forming a cloud-like appearance. The tumbling motion of the rocket for fuel disposal might also explain the changing shapes observed by the witnesses.
Supporting Wang’s explanation, an anonymous astronomer from the Beijing Planetarium agreed that the UFO was likely a rocket launched from the US. This theory was consistent with similar past events in northern China, where rocket clouds formed after spacecraft launches had been mistaken for UFOs.
The UFO sighting over Beijing and neighboring regions, initially shrouded in mystery and excitement, turned out to be an extraordinary display of human technological prowess rather than extraterrestrial visitation. This incident underscores the importance of scientific inquiry and critical thinking in interpreting unusual phenomena. While the allure of a UFO sighting captivates many, often the truth lies in the realms of our expanding technological and scientific understanding. The Beijing sky mystery, now solved, serves as a fascinating reminder of the wonders of our universe and human ingenuity in exploring it.
The exploration of Mars continues, with many nations sending robotic missions to search for evidence of past life and learn more about the evolution of the planet’s geology and climate. As of the penning of the article, there are ten missions exploring the Red Planet, a combination of orbiters, landers, rovers, and one helicopter (Ingenuity). Looking to the future, NASA and other space agencies are eyeing concepts that will allow them to explore farther into the Red Planet, including previously inaccessible places. In particular, there is considerable interest in exploring the stable lava tubes that run beneath the Martian surface.
These tubes may be a treasure trove of scientific discoveries, containing water ice, organic molecules, and maybe even life! Even crewed mission proposals recommend establishing habitats within these tubes, where astronauts would be sheltered from radiation, dust storms, and the extreme conditions on the surface. In a recent study from the University Politehnica Bucuresti (UPB), a team of engineers described how an autonomous Martian Inspection Drone (MID) inspired by the Inginuity helicopter could locate, enter, and study these lava tubes in detail.
The study was conducted by Daniel Betco and Sabina Ciudin, two aerospace engineers at the University of Bucharest Polytechnic, with the support of Petrisor Valentin Parvu, an associate professor with UPB’s Department of Aerospace Sciences. The paper that details their concept, “Autonomous Navigation for the Martian Inspection Drone,” recently appeared in Acta Astronautica. In it, they describe how guidance, navigation, and control operations could be developed for their MID concept, which would rely on a convolutional neural network (CNN) to ensure autonomy.
Martian lava tubes were first noticed by the Viking orbiters, that studied Mars between 1976 and 1980. The images acquired by these missions revealed many features that showed how Mars was once a very different place. These included flow channels, basins, and alluvial deposits that indicated Mars once had flowing water on its surface. The presence of these lava tubes was confirmed by subsequent orbiters like the Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which indicated that it was geologically active in the past as well.
As Betco and his colleagues told Universe Today via email, there are many things that make Martian lava tubes appealing to scientists. Much like lava tubes on the Moon, which are similarly large enough to accommodate entire planetary bases (or even whole cities), this includes natural radiation shielding and protection against the elements:
“In some instances, predicted surface values are reduced by as much as 98%. These lava tubes are of particular interest to astrobiology as they may preserve evidence of life on Mars by offering protection from UV radiation. Additionally, the caves could serve as a refuge for future human missions exploring Mars. Deeper locations within the caves could be utilized as a shield against micrometeoroids or as a heat insulator.”
There is also considerable research that suggests that lava tubes may contain water ice and even be a haven for Martian life (most likely in the form of hardy bacteria). This makes lava tubes a viable location for astronaut habitats, astrobiology research, and possibly permanent settlements. Many mission concepts have been proposed for exploring these lava tubes, including networked rovers and robotic snakes. However, the Ingenuity helicopter – a technology demonstrator that accompanied the Perseverancerover to Mars – effectively demonstrated that aerial vehicles could be the best option for exploring Mars.
As Betco and his colleagues indicated, this includes the lava tubes that run beneath its surface, which would be tricky for rovers to navigate. “Aerial vehicles are well-suited for lava cave exploration as they can move in any direction in three-dimensional space, allowing them to enter the lava tube for inspection,” they said. “In comparison, a rover is limited to two dimensions and would require a highly complex configuration to enter and navigate within a lava tube.”
Artist illustration of NASA’s Ingenuity (upper right), a Sample Recovery Helicopter for the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission (foreground), and a future Science Helicopter (upper center). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Using the Ingenuity helicopter as their touchstone, the team produced a design for their Martian Inspection Drone (MID). But whereas Ingenuity relies on two coaxial rotors, their vehicle has an octocopter configuration with eight. The vehicle will also have a suite of advanced scientific instruments for inspecting the cave and lava tube interiors. It will weigh a maximum of 15 kg (33 lbs), making it significantly heavier than Ingenuity – which weighs just 1.8 kg (4 lbs). As they describe it, the MID will also rely on an autonomous navigation system and AI to ensure it can make decisions without human controllers:
“A foldable mechanism is proposed to occupy a smaller volume during launch. Its autonomous navigation relies on acquiring data from sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, altimeters, and cameras, processing them to determine the position and attitude of the drone during flight. Another layer of autonomy is implemented through MID’s capability to make decisions regarding the next steps based on a trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. This model offers the possibility to detect and inspect lava-tube entrances (pits).”
Looking to the future, it is clear that aerial vehicles will play a significant role in exploring extraterrestrial environments. This includes NASA’s Dragonflymission, the nuclear-powered quadcopter that will explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan (starting in 2034). Other concepts, like solar-powered aircraft and fleets of balloons, are being considered as a possible means of exploring the cloud tops of Venus and deploying sample-return drones to the surface. An autonomous helicopter, said Betco and his colleagues, could drastically expand future exploration efforts on Mars:
“Our work’s potential implications lie in the efficient exploration of the Martian planet, as the drone offers the possibility to survey and inspect areas of interest without requiring constant human intervention. The development of MID contributes to the integration of artificial intelligence in Martian missions. Even though the technology is not quite ready for this, the lessons learned and technologies developed now will drastically benefit future exploration of the Red Planet.”
The team is currently working on implementing new capabilities that will allow their concept to inspect the insides of lava tubes using Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) techniques. If realized, similar concepts could be used to explore lava tubes and recesses on the Moon, Mercury, and anywhere else in the Solar System they are found.
Japan’s Moon Lander Touches Down, But Power Problem Mars Its Mission
Japan has become the fifth nation to land a functioning robot on the moon, but the mission could fall short of complete success due to a problem with the lander’s power-generating solar cells.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, was launched along with an X-ray space telescope called XRISM from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in early September — and after weeks of in-space maneuvers, SLIM touched down today at 1520 GMT (10:20 a.m. ET Jan. 19, or 12:20 a.m. JST Jan. 20).
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency reported that the landing was successful. During a news briefing, Hiroshi Kuninaka, director general of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, said the achievement marked “a major milestone” in Japan’s effort to send spacecraft to the moon, and eventually to Mars.
Kuninaka said SLIM was able to communicate with Earth and respond to commands. “However, it seems that the solar cells are not generating electricity at this point in time,” he said. “And since we are not able to generate electricity, the operation is being done using batteries alone.”
Mission controllers prioritized efforts to transmit the data stored on the lander back to Earth before the batteries ran out. SLIM was expected to lose power within hours if the solar panel problem couldn’t be fixed.
Kuninaka said the problem could have arisen because the solar cells weren’t properly aligned toward the sun. “We are trying to analyze the data that we’re gathering at this point in time and analyzing the status,” he said.
The lander was designed to make a precision touchdown near Shioli Crater, in a region of the moon not far from where the Apollo 11 and Apollo 16 landings took place more than 50 years ago. SLIM’s objective was to land within 100 meters (330 feet) of the targeted landing spot. The plan for an ultra-accurate moonshot explains why SLIM came to be called “Moon Sniper.” Kuninaka said mission managers would need “a little more time” to confirm how close SLIM came to the target.
He also said two mini-rovers, known as LEV-1 and LEV-2, were successfully deployed during SLIM’s descent to the surface. LEV-1 is built to capture imagery and record temperature and radiation levels as it hops around the surface. LEV-2 has the shape of a deformable sphere, and is designed to roll around the surface to take pictures.
“If LEV-1 and LEV-2 are functioning properly, then SLIM’s photos and images have been taken by LEV-1 and LEV-2. I believe such data is now being sent to us,” Kuninaka said.
Despite the power problem, SLIM’s successful landing was a welcome development for JAXA’s space exploration program. It added Japan to a short list of countries that have guided robotic spacecraft to soft landings on the moon — a list that also includes the U.S., Russia, China and India.
Other recent developments have demonstrated that putting a robot on the moon isn’t easy. This week, for example, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander fell back to Earth after a propellant leak ruled out a moon landing.
What Future Propulsion Technologies Should NASA Invest In?
Researchers consistently complain about how difficult it is to fund breakthrough research. Most funding agencies, especially governmental ones, think funding incremental, evolutionary technological steps is the way to go, as it has the most significant immediate payback. But longer-term, higher-risk research is necessary to provide those incremental steps 20-30 years in the future. And in some cases, they are required to underpin completely new things that other researchers want to do.
That is the case with space propulsion systems. Current mature technologies, mainly derived from chemical rockets, cannot provide the necessary force to allow for a gravitational lens telescope out in the Oort cloud, an interstellar probe, or a round trip to Mars that would take less than a year. But other technologies on the horizon could if only we spent more time and resources developing them. So a group of NASA and DoE engineers recently released a paper detailing some of those and where they think America’s space agency should direct its funding when developing new propulsion systems.
At the beginning of the paper, the authors lament that there hasn’t been any large-scale NASA investment in breakthrough propulsion technologies since the 1970s. And they’re right; the last significant effort was the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project, which wound down in the 1970s. Despite the lack of prototyping, plenty of ideas were put forward then. Just none have made them into hardware.
Novel propulsion systems are always fun to talk about – as Fraser proves int his interview.
Those ideas can be broadly categorized into four different groups of systems: chemical propulsion, nuclear thermal propulsion, solar electric propulsion (SEP), and nuclear electric propulsion (NEP). The rest of the study aimed to determine what if any, significant advancements could be made in those four systems that could lead to them lowering the round-trip time to Mars to less than one year.
The authors discard chemical propulsion and nuclear thermal propulsion, stating that they are simply not cut out for the rapid technological changes that could enable their use for these game-changing propulsion systems. Chemical propulsion suffers from “the tyranny of the rocket equation,” as Isaac Arthur puts it. But nuclear thermal propulsion suffers from the same underlying problem – they must carry too much weight in propellants to be viable for truly ground-breaking speed increases.
That leaves solar electric propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion. The authors break down the current state-of-the-art technologies for each technology and calculate the weight per kilowatt of energy they produce. Neither looks particularly promising at the state of the art – with NEP coming in at 51 kg/kWe and various solar arrays that could drive a SEP system ranging from 5 kg/kWe up to 22.73 kWe. None of those weight/power tradeoffs would result in anything approaching a sub-one-year time to Mars.
Ion engines could potentially be scaled to the point where we could get to Mars quickly – if we fund them enough.
But why stop there? The authors do a deep dive into potential technologies on the horizon, ranging from materials to photovoltaics, that could dramatically impact those calculated ratios. The paper concludes with “transformative” technologies that could decrease the kg/kWe to below one. In that case, an extensive enough power system can reasonably transport humans to Mars in between 50 and 100 days.
The researchers also looked at some early-stage propulsion concepts from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts – including the ever-popular “pulsed nuclear” propulsion system, where a nuclear explosion is intentionally initiated behind the spacecraft to push it forward. These technologies are too early to be included in a deep-dive analysis, but they could lead to some promising alternative technologies.
To invest in those alternative technologies, the authors suggest NASA commit 1% of its Space Nuclear Propulsion budget to developing breakthrough technologies. At $45 million for FY2023, the whole budget isn’t exactly breaking the bank, and a mere $450,000 probably wouldn’t make too big of waves in the industry. But, it is undoubtedly better than what is currently allotted toward maturing these transformative propulsion technologies.
Early Galaxies Looked Nothing Like What We See Today
Though an estimated 100 million black holes roam among the stars in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have never identified an isolated black hole – until now. Following six years of meticulous observations, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided, for the first time ever, strong evidence for a lone black hole plying interstellar space. The black hole that was detected lies about 5,000 light-years away, in the Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm of our galaxy. However, its discovery allows astronomers to estimate, statistically, that the nearest isolated black hole to Earth might be as close as 80 light-years. Black holes are born from rare, monstrous stars (less than one-thousandth of the galaxy’s stellar population) that are at least 20 times more massive than our Sun. These stars explode as supernovae, and the remnant core is crushed by gravity into a black hole. Because the self-detonation is not perfectly symmetrical, the black hole may get a kick, and go careening through our galaxy like a blasted cannonball. Hubble can’t photograph the wayward black hole because it doesn’t emit any light, but instead swallows all radiation due to its intense gravitational pull. Instead, Hubble measurements capture the ghostly gravitational footprint of how the stealthy black hole warps space, which then deflects starlight from anything that momentarily lines up exactly behind it. Ground-based telescopes, which monitor the brightness of millions of stars in the rich star fields in the direction of the central bulge of our Milky Way, look for the tell-tale sudden brightening of one of them when a massive object passes between us and the star. Then Hubble follows up on the most interesting such events. Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, along with his team, made the discovery in a survey designed to find just such isolated black holes. The warping of space due to the gravity of a foreground object passing in front of a star located far behind it will momentarily bend and amplify the light of the background star as it passes in front of it. The phenomenon, called gravitational microlensing, is used to study stars and exoplanets in the approximately 20,000 events seen so far inside our galaxy. The signature of a foreground black hole stands out as unique among other microlensing events. The very intense gravity of the black hole will stretch out the duration of the lensing event for over 200 days. Also, If the intervening object was instead a foreground star, it would cause a transient color change in the starlight as measured because the light from the foreground and background stars would momentarily be blended together. But no color change was seen in the black hole event. Next, Hubble was used to measure the amount of deflection of the background star’s image by the black hole. Hubble is capable of the extraordinary precision needed for such measurements. The star’s image was offset from where it normally would be by two milliarcseconds. That’s equivalent to measuring the diameter of a 25-cent coin in Los Angeles as seen from New York City. This astrometric microlensing technique provided information on the mass, distance, and velocity of the black hole. The amount of deflection by the black hole’s intense warping of space allowed Sahu’s team to estimate it weighs seven solar masses. The isolated black hole is traveling across the galaxy at 90,000 miles per hour (fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in less than three hours). That’s faster than most of the other neighboring stars in that region of our galaxy. “Astrometric microlensing in conceptually simple but observationally very tough,” said Sahu. “It is the only technique for identifying isolated black holes.” When the black hole passed in front of a background star located 28,000 light-years away in the galactic bulge, the starlight coming toward Earth was amplified for a duration of 265 days as the black hole passed by. However, it took several years of Hubble observations to follow how the background star’s position appeared to be deflected by the bending of light by the foreground black hole. The existence of stellar-mass black holes has been known since the early 1970’s, but all of them—until now—are found in binary star systems. Gas from the companion star falls into the black hole, and is heated to such high temperatures that it emits X rays. About two dozen black holes have had their masses measured in X-ray binaries through their gravitational effect on their companions. Black hole masses in X-ray binaries inside our galaxy range from 5 to 20 solar masses. Black holes detected in other galaxies by gravitational waves from mergers between black holes and companion objects have been as high as 90 solar masses. “Detections of isolated black holes will provide new insights into the population of these objects in our Milky Way,” said Sahu. He expects that his program will uncover more free-roaming black holes inside our galaxy. But it is a needle-in-a-haystack search. The prediction is that only one in 1500 microlensing events are caused by isolated black holes. NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will discover several thousand microlensing events out of which many are expected to be black holes, and the deflections will be measured with very high accuracy. In a 1916 paper on general relativity, Albert Einstein predicted that his theory could be tested by observing the sun’s gravity offsetting the apparent position of a background star. This was tested by astronomer Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse on May 29, 1919. Eddington measured a background star being offset by 2 arc seconds, validating Einstein’s theories. Both scientists could hardly have imagined that over a century later this same technique would be used – with unimaginable precision of a thousandfold better — to look for black holes across the galaxy.
Early Galaxies Looked Nothing Like What We See Today
Talk to anyone about galaxies and it often conjurs up images of spiral or elliptical galaxie. Thanks to a survey by the James Webb Space Telescope it seems the early Universe was full of galaxies of different shapes. In the first 6 billion years up to 80% of the galaxies were flat, surfboard like. But that’s not it, there were others like pool noodles too, yet why they looked so different back then is a mystery.
Galaxies were first identified back in the 17th Century by French astronomer Charles Messier. He was a comet hunter who identified a number of fuzzy objects which he realised were not comets. He catalogued them in his famous catalogue of deep sky objects but it wasn’t until Edwin Hubble measure the distances to some of them in the 1920’s that they were recognised as galaxies.
The bluish-white spiral galaxy NGC 1376 hangs delicately in the cold vacuum of space. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Analysing images from the JWST survey known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey, the team studied galaxies from a time when the universe was between 600 million and 6 billion years old. To their surprise they did not see the usual cosmic zoo of galaxies like spiral, elliptical and irregular galaxies. Instead they found that between 50 and 80% of the galaxies seem to be glattened in two dimensions.
Illustration of James Webb Space Telescope
Instead, the team found galaxies shaped like surfboards, pool noodles, frisbees and volleyballs. Among these new types, the surfboard shape was most common with the least common being the volleyball, sphere shaped galaxies. Interestingly too they foudn that the frisbee and noodle shaped galaxies became more common in the later era around 6 billion years.
The mass of the early galaxies seemed to be far less than the mass of galaxies we see today. It seems they had far less time to grow when compared to today’s galaxies which are far more massive. The team would have not been able to complete their work without the incredible sensitivity and resolution of the JWST.
The paper was authored by Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University. They went further to explore what category our own Milky Way galaxy would fall into if we could hop in a time machine and wind back time. They concluded it was likely to have been surfboard shaped galaxy, not too dissimilar to the spiral structure familiar to us today.
We have learned lots about galaxies over the years and images from Hubble has most certainly helped. The latest set of images from JWST have shown us that we still have lots to learn and as we delve deeper and deeper into space and further and further back into time we are only just starting to scratch the surface.
The Ice Sheet on Mars is Even Thicker Than Previously Believed
Maybe Mars isn’t as dry as we thought. ESA’s Mars Express has revealed new details about a region near Mars’ equator that could contain a massive deposit of water ice several kilometers deep. If it is indeed ice, there is enough of it in this one deposit that if melted, water would cover the entire planet up to 2.7 meters (almost 9 feet) deep.
But ice is just one explanation for the unusual features detected by the orbital spacecraft. Another is that this is a giant pile of dust several kilometers deep — although the dust would still need to have some ice mixed in.
Mars Express has been orbiting Mars since December of 2003 and back in 2007, the spacecraft studied the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF), a large geological formation that includes wind-sculpted ridges and grooves, abrupt mesas, interspersed with smooth and gently undulating areas. The region extends intermittently for more than 5,000 km (3,100 miles) along the equator of Mars, extending from just south of Olympus Mons to Apollinaris Patera, with a smaller additional region closer to Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover is exploring.
This image shows a height map of the Martian surface, with lowest land in blue and highest in white. Standing at an impressive 22 km, Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano in the entire Solar System. The Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) is shown near the equatorCredit: ESA
Various spacecraft in addition to Mars Express, such as NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, have also detected subsurface ice, as much as 2.5 km (1.5 miles) deep.
Now, new data from Mars Express suggest layers of water ice stretching even further underground – the most water ever found in this part of the planet.
“We’ve explored the MFF again using newer data from Mars Express’s MARSIS radar, and found the deposits to be even thicker than we thought: up to 3.7 km (2.3 miles) thick,” said Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution, USA, lead author of both the new research and the initial 2007 study, in an ESA press release. “Excitingly, the radar signals match what we’d expect to see from layered ice, and are similar to the signals we see from Mars’s polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich.”
Watters and his team say that if melted, the ice contained within the MFF would cover the entire planet in a layer of water 1.5 to 2.7 m deep, enough to fill Earth’s Red Sea.
An isolated hill in the Medusae Fossae Formation. The effect of wind erosion on this hill is evident by its streamlined shape. Credit: High Resolution Stereo Camera/European Space Agency
But MFF’s windswept landscapes contains one of the most extensive deposits of dust on Mars, which is possibly the biggest single source of dust on Mars. Some studies determined the strange features in this landscape could have been formed by explosive volcanoes.
In the 2007 observations with Mars Express, the radar data showed the MFF to be relatively transparent to radar and low in density – two characteristics which would reveal icy deposits. However, scientists couldn’t rule out a drier possibility: that the features are actually giant accumulations of windblown dust, volcanic ash or sediment.
But the beauty of long-lasting spacecraft is that it provides the opportunity for multiple observations of a single region on Mars over many years, providing additional follow-up data for study.
At the top is an image of Mars’s surface. A white line crosses the surface diagonally, with a black arrow coming down from the white line to point at a graph below. The graph shows the shape of the surface and subsurface. It indicates that under the surface is a thin layer of dry sediments then a thick layer of ice deposit. The x axis of the graph shows distance, indicating that the diagonal white line covers a distance of 1000 km. The y axis of the graph shows elevation, indicating that the ice deposit is up to 3000 m thick. Credit: CReSIS/KU/Smithsonian Institution.
“Here’s where the new radar data comes in! Given how deep it is, if the MFF was simply a giant pile of dust, we’d expect it to become compacted under its own weight,” said co-author Andrea Cicchetti of the National Institute for Astrophysics, Italy. “This would create something far denser than what we actually see with MARSIS. And when we modelled how different ice-free materials would behave, nothing reproduced the properties of the MFF – we need ice.”
The new results instead suggest layers of dust and ice, all topped by a protective layer of dry dust or ash several hundred meters thick.
We do know that massive stores of ice near the equator could not have formed in the planet’s present climate.
“This latest analysis challenges our understanding of the Medusae Fossae Formation, and raises as many questions as answers,” says Colin Wilson, ESA project scientist for Mars Express and the ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). “How long ago did these ice deposits form, and what was Mars like at that time? If confirmed to be water ice, these massive deposits would change our understanding of Mars climate history. Any reservoir of ancient water would be a fascinating target for human or robotic exploration.”
If this does turn out to be large stores of water ice, the MFF deposits would be an incredibly valuable resource for any future human exploration of Mars. These types of missions would need to land near the planet’s equator, due to landing constraints, and resources like abundant solar power, and more moderate temperatures. The presence of equatorial water ice could provide a steady supply of water for a future base on Mars.
US government responds to 'jellyfish UFO' filmed over base before submerging into water
US government responds to 'jellyfish UFO' filmed over base before submerging into water
Footage recently emerged showing a 'jellyfish UFO' supposedly flying over a US military base in Iraq in 2018 - and now the Pentagon has issued a statement in response
The 'jellyfish' UFO, supposedly filmed in Iraq in 2018
(Image: @JeremyCorbell/Twitter)
The US government has issued a statement in response to a video showing what has been dubbed the "jellyfish" UFO.
The video was shared by journalist Jeremy Corbell and appears to show a jellyfish-shaped object floating over a military base.
Corbell claims it was recorded over a US base in Iraq and dates back to 2018. He also said the object was officially designated as an "unidentified aerial phenomenon" (UAP) by the Pentagon.
Corbell claims the object was officially designated as a UAP by the Pentagon
(Image: @JeremyCorbell/Twitter)
Corbell said on X/Twitter: "An incursion by an object of unknown origin was filmed at a United States joint operations base in Iraq. The object was designated UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), and was tracked for a durational period. The object moved through a sensitive military installation - and eventually traversed over a body of water, where it actuated a controlled descent - submerging into the water.
"After an observational period of about seventeen minutes - the UAP re-emerged from the body of water and shot-off at an extreme rate of speed - beyond the optical scope of the observation platform. The origin, intent and capability of the Anomalous Aerial Vehicle remains unknown. Official designation remains UAP."
The US Department of Defence has now responded, but refused to share details on "material that may have been leaked". The statement from spokeswoman Sue Gough reads: "We do not comment on the authenticity of alleged DOD material that may have been leaked. DOD takes public interest in unidentified anomalous phenomena seriously and is committed to openness and accountability to the American people.
"This commitment must be balanced with the department’s obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods. To that end, AARO will provide updates to the public via its website as it resolves UAP cases, including sharing the analytic approach and method used for each case, as well as imagery, when approved for public release."
The Pentagon refused to share details on 'material that may have been leaked'(Image: @JeremyCorbell/Twitter)
The Pentagon has previously released other videos leaked by Corbell and confirmed they were UAPs
Expert Ross Coulthart, special correspondent for NewsNation, said the Pentagon's response this time around was "very revealing for what it doesn't say".
"It doesn’t reveal a categorical denial," he told the news station. "It’s the last resort of governments and intelligence services when they don’t want to answer a question." He added that the video has proved to be a "very big issue" for the Pentagon.
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected a small and vigorous black hole in GN-z11, an exceptionally luminous galaxy that existed just 420 million years after the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago. That this black hole with a mass of a few million solar masses even exists so early in the Universe challenges current assumptions about how black holes form and grow.
GN-z11, shown in the inset, is seen as it was 13.4 billion years in the past, just 400 million years after the Big Bang.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. Oesch, Yale University / G. Brammer, STScI / P. van Dokkum, Yale University / G. Illingworth, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the centre of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years.
But the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways: they might be ‘born big’ or they can eat matter at a rate that’s five times higher than had been thought possible.
According to standard models, supermassive black holes form from the remnants of dead stars, which collapse and may form a black hole about a hundred times the mass of the Sun
If it grew in an expected way, this newly-detected black hole would take about a billion years to grow to its observed size.
However, the Universe was not yet a billion years old when this black hole was detected.
“It’s very early in the Universe to see a black hole this massive, so we’ve got to consider other ways they might form,” said Dr. Roberto Maiolino, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge.
“Very early galaxies were extremely gas-rich, so they would have been like a buffet for black holes.”
Like all black holes, the young black hole in GN-z11 is accreting material from its host galaxy to fuel its growth.
Yet, this ancient black hole is found to gobble matter much more vigorously than its siblings at later epochs.
GN-z11 is a compact galaxy, about one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but the black hole is likely harming its development.
When black holes consume too much gas, it pushes the gas away like an ultra-fast wind.
This ‘wind’ could stop the process of star formation, slowly killing the galaxy, but it will also kill the black hole itself, as it would also cut off the black hole’s source of ‘food.’
“It’s a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo’s telescope to a modern telescope overnight,” Dr. Maiolino said.
“Before Webb came online, I thought maybe the Universe isn’t so interesting when you go beyond what we could see with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.”
“But that hasn’t been the case at all: the Universe has been quite generous in what it’s showing us, and this is just the beginning.”
“The sensitivity of Webb means that even older black holes may be found in the coming months and years,” he added.
“We are hoping to use future observations from Webb to try to find smaller ‘seeds’ of black holes, which may help them untangle the different ways that black holes might form: whether they start out large or they grow fast.”
A paper on the findings was published in the journal Nature.
R. Maiolino et al. A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe. Nature, published online January 17, 2023; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07052-5
Want volgens ons huidige begrip omtrent het ontstaan en de evolutie van zwarte gaten zou dit exemplaar eigenlijk niet moeten bestaan.
Dat is te lezen in het blad Nature. De studie handelt over een zwart gat dat wetenschappers met behulp van ruimtetelescoop James Webb hebben ontdekt. Het zwarte gat dateert uit de periode kort na de oerknal; de astronomen zien het zoals het er slechts 400 miljoen jaar na het ontstaan van het universum uitzag. En daarmee gaat het zwarte gat de boeken in als het oudste zwarte gat dat astronomen tot op heden hebben gedetecteerd.
Hoofdbrekens Wat opvalt, is dat dit zwarte gat, dat al zo kort na de oerknal moet zijn ontstaan, vrij zwaar is: enkele miljoenen keren zwaarder dan onze zon. En dat leidt toch wel tot hoofdbrekens bij astronomen. Aangenomen wordt namelijk dat dergelijke superzware zwarte gaten – zoals we die vandaag de dag ook in het hart van onze eigen Melkweg vinden – miljarden jaren nodig hebben om zo zwaar te worden (zie kader). Maar zoveel tijd heeft het superzware zwarte gat dat nu in het jonge universum is ontdekt overduidelijk niet gehad. “Dus we moeten andere manieren gaan bedenken waarop superzware zwarte gaten kunnen ontstaan,” concludeert onderzoeker Roberto Maiolina nuchter.
Het ontstaan van superzware zwarte gaten Superzware zwarte gaten zijn zwarte gaten met een massa die honderdduizenden, miljoenen of zelfs miljarden keren groter is dan de massa van onze zon. Volgens de huidige standaardmodellen zien dergelijke zware zwarte gaten het levenslicht wanneer zware sterren aan het einde van hun leven ineenstorten. Een dergelijke gebeurtenis zou resulteren in een zwart gat dat ‘slechts’ enkele honderden malen zwaarder is dan onze zon. Maar gaandeweg kan zo’n zwart gat – bijvoorbeeld door omringende materie op te slokken – steeds zwaarder worden en uiteindelijk uitgroeien tot een superzwaar zwart gat. Maar dat kost tijd. Zo zou het zwarte gat dat wetenschappers nu met behulp van James Webb in het jonge universum hebben ontdekt, volgens deze theorie zo’n 1 miljard jaar nodig hebben gehad om zijn huidige massa te verkrijgen. Maar dat klopt duidelijk niet, want het zwarte gat was 400 miljoen jaar na de oerknal al superzwaar.
De ontdekking van dit superzware zwarte gat in het jonge universum dwingt wetenschappers duidelijk om na te gaan denken over andere manieren waarop superzware zwarte gaten kunnen ontstaan of evolueren. Misschien zijn sommige superzware zwarte gaten bijvoorbeeld bij hun ‘geboorte’ al wel groter dan tot voor kort voor mogelijk werd gehouden. Een andere mogelijkheid is dat sommige superzware zwarte gaten gewoon veel sneller kunnen groeien dan onderzoekers dachten.
Hongerig Dat het zwarte gat dat wetenschappers nu gedetecteerd hebben, hongerig is, staat vast (zie kader). Onderzoek heeft namelijk al uitgewezen dat het zwarte gat veel sneller materie opslokt dan zwarte gaten in latere tijden.
Hongerig zwart gat Het zwarte gat is misschien wel één van de meest mysterieuze en fascinerende fenomenen in het universum. Door de intense zwaartekracht van zwarte gaten kan niets aan hun greep ontsnappen. Zelfs licht niet. Hierdoor zijn zwarte gaten volslagen donker en in feite dus onzichtbaar. Dat wetenschappers ze toch kunnen detecteren, is te danken aan het feit dat de intense zwaartekracht van zo’n zwart gat van invloed is op de omgeving. Zo is het zwarte gat dat wetenschappers nu in het jonge universum hebben ontdekt, druk bezig om materie (gas) naar zich toe te trekken. Alvorens dat gas daadwerkelijk in het zwarte gat verdwijnt, begeeft het zich in een baan rond het zwarte gat en vormt daar een zogenoemde accretieschijf. Het gas in die schijf wordt heel heet en begint te gloeien. En die gloed hebben onderzoekers nu met James Webb gedetecteerd. En uit die gloed kunnen ze afleiden dat zich hier een zwart gat bevindt (dat vrij druk bezig is om gas naar zich toe te trekken).
In eerste instantie zorgt die vraatzucht ervoor dat het zwarte gat lekker kan groeien. Maar op lange termijn kan de zucht naar meer dit zwarte gat zomaar fataal worden, zo merken de onderzoekers op. Want als het zwarte gat te veel gas consumeert, gaat deze ook krachtige ‘winden’ – in feite een uitstroom van straling en geladen deeltjes – produceren die gas juist van het zwarte gat vandaan duwen. En daarmee duwt het zwarte gat zijn ‘voedsel’ als het ware weg, waardoor het zichzelf langzaam uithongert. Ook op het sterrenstelsel waar het zwarte gat deel van uitmaakt, heeft dit proces overigens een enorme impact. Want de krachtige ‘winden’ die het zwarte gat genereert, remmen de stervorming. Hierdoor worden er minder nieuwe sterren geboren, ‘vergrijst’ het sterrenstelsel en sterft het uiteindelijk een langzame dood.
Vervolgonderzoek Hoewel er dus aanwijzingen zijn dat het zwarte gat dat onderzoekers nu in het jonge universum hebben gevonden, actief en ook vrij snel aan het eten is, is daarmee zeker nog niet helemaal te verklaren hoe het zwarte gat in zo’n korte tijd zo zwaar is geworden. Meer onderzoek is nodig om uit te vogelen hoe een superzwaar zwart gat zo vroeg in de ontstaansgeschiedenis van ons universum kan bestaan. James Webb kan daar zeker bij helpen, zo verwacht Maiolino. Met deze zeer scherpe en gevoelige telescoop is een nieuw tijdperk in de astronomie aangebroken, zo stelt hij. “Voor Webb online kwam dacht ik dat het universum dat voorbij het gezichtsveld van ruimtetelescoop Hubble ligt, misschien niet zo interessant zou zijn. Maar dat blijkt helemaal niet het geval te zijn.”
Maiolino denkt dat James Webb gevoelig genoeg is om in de komende maanden en jaren nóg oudere zwarte gaten te spotten. Oftewel: zwarte gaten die nog korter na de oerknal zijn ontstaan. De hoop is dat James Webb daarbij ook op superzware zwarte gaten in wording (of in de groei) stuit en zo meer inzicht kan gaan geven in hoe sommige zwarte gaten in verbazingwekkend weinig tijd superzwaar kunnen worden.
Tegenwoordig kunnen we ons nauwelijks voorstellen dat er op Mars ooit rivieren stroomden. Maar de dorre, rode planeet zag er lang geleden heel anders uit. Astronomen hebben nu in kaart gebracht hoe lang het duurde voor dit water de Martiaanse valleien kon vormen.
“Mars is nu één grote woestijn, maar zijn oppervlak zit vol met bewijs dat er vroeger stromend water was. Er zijn bijvoorbeeld een soort rivierbeddingen zichtbaar. Hoe lang het duurde voor deze valleien zijn gevormd, zegt iets over de leefbaarheid op het vroege Mars, aangezien lange periodes van stabiel vloeibaar water meer bevorderlijk zijn voor leven”, zegt onderzoeker Alexander Morgan van het Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
De kraters als bewijs De valleien op Mars zijn meer dan 3 miljard jaar geleden ontstaan en vormen al lange tijd zo ongeveer het sterkste bewijs dat er ooit vloeibaar water was op de rode planeet. Eerdere studies toonden al aan dat er minstens tienduizenden jaren aan erosie nodig was voor er sprake was van zoiets als valleien, maar het aantal keer dat er water doorheen stroomde en dus de totale periode waarin de rivierbeddingen zich konden vormen, is nooit vastgesteld.
Om daar achter te komen keek Morgan naar de kraters op de rode planeet. “Ik gebruikte kraters die voor en na de valleisystemen zijn ontstaan om grenzen te kunnen stellen aan de periode waarin deze systemen zijn gevormd, dus deze nieuwe resultaten leveren een bovengrens van de tijdschaal op, waarin de Martiaanse valleien actief waren”, legt de wetenschapper uit. Hij komt tot een periode van honderden miljoenen jaren. “Uitgaande van wat we weten over de erosie op het vroege Mars, wijzen langere tijdschalen erop dat de condities die rivieren mogelijk maken alleen met grote tussenpozen bestonden, waarbij lange droge periodes werden afgewisseld met korte episodes van stromend water.”
Een valleinetwerk op Mars met rood en blauw omcirkeld de kraters. De kraters in blauw zijn van voor de valleien ontstonden en de rode zijn van erna. Afbeelding: MOLA MEGDR, NASA/USGS; THEMIS mosaic, ASU/NASA/USGS; CTX, NASA/MSSS.
Twee kampen Wetenschappers die het vroege Mars bestuderen zijn het overigens niet allemaal met elkaar eens. Er zijn twee kampen: de ene groep gaat ervan uit dat het er toen warm en nat was met een oceaan. Anderen denken dat het er koud en ijzig was met grote ijskappen. “In de afgelopen tien jaar zijn we er achter gekomen dat deze beschrijvingen veel te algemeen zijn. Het is niet echt logisch om te proberen om honderden miljoenen jaren aan klimaatgeschiedenis samen te vatten in twee woorden”, aldus Morgan.
Zoals er op de vroege Aarde ook ijstijden werden afgewisseld met warmere periodes, was ook op Mars het klimaat niet altijd hetzelfde. “Net als op onze planeet was Mars vroeger complex en varieerden de omstandigheden waardoor oppervlaktewater kon ontstaan. De Aarde heeft in zijn geschiedenis enorme klimaatveranderingen doorgemaakt. Twintigduizend jaar geleden nog lag wat nu Chicago is onder een halve kilometer ijs. Zo kwamen en gingen waarschijnlijk ook de omstandigheden die nodig waren voor stromend water op Mars”, legt de planeetwetenschapper uit.
Beetje warmte nodig De resultaten wijzen uit dat de rivieren op Mars maar heel langzaam erodeerden, vergelijkbaar met delen van de Atacama-woestijn in Chili. Een verklaring daarvoor is dat de erosie mogelijk werd tegengehouden door grote stenen in de rivierbedding, die niet verder afgebroken konden worden. Een andere verklaring is dat de rivieren erg onregelmatig stroomden, misschien maar 0,001 procent van de tijd. De rivieren op Mars zouden dan een groot deel van de tijd kurkdroog zijn geweest, maar actiever worden tijdens vulkanische activiteit of als de planeet dichterbij de zon stond, waardoor het er warmer werd. Dit soort lange termijnveranderingen kennen we ook op Aarde. Hier worden ze Milankovitch-cycli genoemd. Ze zijn bijvoorbeeld verantwoordelijk voor de laatste ijstijden op onze planeet.
“Op de korte termijn wordt de stroming van rivieren bepaald door neerslag of sneeuw die smelt. Maar over langere periodes worden ook de rivieren op Aarde beïnvloed door klimaatverandering”, legt de wetenschapper uit. “20.000 jaar geleden bijvoorbeeld waren er grote meren en rivieren in wat nu Nevada is. Martiaanse rivieren zouden op dezelfde manier hebben bestaan met variaties op de korte termijn door stormen of neerslag en op de lange termijn door veranderingen in de rotatie van de planeet en wijzigingen in zijn baan rond de zon.”
Wat zijn Milankovitch-cycli? Milankovitch-cycli zijn periodieke veranderingen van het klimaat doordat de baan van de Aarde en de positie ten opzichte van de zon ieder jaar een klein beetje verandert. Daardoor komt er meer of minder zonlicht op de Aarde, wat invloed heeft op de temperatuur.
De structuur – die voorlopig de veelzeggende naam ‘The Big Ring on the Sky‘ heeft gekregen – heeft een diameter van ongeveer 1,3 miljard(!) lichtjaar en een omtrek van 4 miljard lichtjaar.
De bizar grote structuur bestaat onder meer uit sterrenstelsels en is ontdekt door een studente aan de University of Central Lancashire, Alexia Lopez. Met de ontdekking van The Big Ring on the Sky is ze op een groot kosmologisch mysterie gestuit. Want structuren zo groot als The Big Ring on the Sky zouden eigenlijk – volgens de huidige theorieën – niet moeten bestaan.
Er is meer Wat het nog een tikje meer bizar maakt, is dat The Big Ring on the Sky niet de eerste bizar grote structuur is die Lopez ontdekt heeft. Twee jaar eerder ontdekte de studente namelijk al de Giant Arc on the Sky; een object dat 3,3 miljard lichtjaar breed is. En om het allemaal nog vreemder te maken, bevinden zowel The Big Ring on the Sky als de Giant Arc on the Sky zich in hetzelfde deel van het universum; ze bevinden zich op ongeveer dezelfde afstand van de aarde, in dezelfde tijd en staan slechts op 12 graden afstand van elkaar aan de hemel.
Deze artistieke impressie laat zien hoe de Big Ring (blauw) en de Giant Arc (rood) er aan de hemel uit zouden zien. De Big Ring is onlangs ontdekt en lijkt zo op een bijna perfect ringvormige verzameling sterrenstelsels, maar volgens onderzoek van Lopez heeft de structuur in werkelijkheid een meer kurkentrekker-achtige vorm waar we van de aarde gezien in kijken. Beide structuren bevinden zich op dezelfde afstand van ons; op zo’n 9,2 miljard lichtjaar. Het betekent dat ze beiden bestonden toen het universum nog vrij jong was. Afbeelding: Stellarium.
Onverklaarbaar “Geen van deze twee ultragrote structuren is met ons huidige begrip van het universum gemakkelijk te verklaren,” aldus Lopez. “En hun ultragrote omvang, opvallende vorm en het feit dat ze relatief dicht bij elkaar staan, moet ons iets belangrijks vertellen. Maar wat precies?”
Kosmologisch Principe Het is een raadsel. Allereerst natuurlijk omdat structuren van deze omvang volgens de huidige theorieën niet zouden moeten bestaan. Zo is daar het Kosmologisch Principe dat dicteert dat het universum isotroop en homogeen is. Volgens dit principe ziet het heelal er in alle richtingen hetzelfde uit en heeft het op iedere plek ook dezelfde eigenschappen. “Het Kosmologisch Principe neemt aan dat het deel van het universum dat we kunnen zien een vrij goed beeld geeft van wat we in de rest van het universum mogen verwachten aan te treffen. We verwachten dus dat materie als we het universum op een grotere schaal bekijken op een vergelijkbare manier verdeeld is.” Volgens dit principe ligt het niet in de lijn der verwachtingen om op één plek in het universum veel grotere structuren aan te treffen dan elders denkbaar worden geacht. Laat staan dat wetenschappers verwachten er twee te vinden, in hetzelfde deel van het heelal.
Limiet overschreden “Kosmologen hebben berekend dat de huidige theoretische limiet die aan de omvang van structuren gesteld kan worden, 1,2 miljard lichtjaar is,” vertelt Lopez. “Maar beide structuren zijn veel groter: De Giant Arc is bijna drie keer groter en de omtrek van de Big Ring is vergelijkbaar met de lengte van de Giant Arc. Afgaand op de huidige kosmologische theorieën hadden we niet verwacht dat structuren op deze schaal konden bestaan,” concludeert Lopez. En nu blijken er dus twee te zijn. “De Big Ring en de Giant Arc zijn twee enorme structuren en zelfs kosmologische buren, wat bijzonder fascinerend is.”
Hoe het bestaan van beide enorme structuren verklaard moeten worden, is dus volstrekt onduidelijk. “De identificatie van twee uitzonderlijke, ultragrote structuren die zo dicht bij elkaar staan, doet vermoeden dat ze samen een nog uitzonderlijke kosmologisch systeem vormen,” aldus Lopez, die de ontdekking van de Big Ring vorige week aankondigde tijdens een bijeenkomst van de American Astronomical Society. “De Big Ring en de Giant Arc vormen – zowel individueel als samen – een groot kosmologisch mysterie.”
Welcome to this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief… here within the first weeks of 2024, we are already hearing about tantalizing hints that a major scientific discovery may be on the way. In our analysis, we’ll be looking at 1) why many experts seem very certain that the discovery of alien life will be confirmed sometime in 2024, 2) what we know about the potential evidence currently in-hand, and 3) why some aren’t so sure that it’s aliens… but there is more than enough reason to remain open to the possibility.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
Podcasts: In podcasts from TheDebrief, this week on The Micah Hanks Program I provide a complete breakdown of what we know about the recent classified briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill received from members of the Intelligence Community about UAP. Elsewhere, on The Debrief Weekly Report, MJ, Steph, and Kenna Castleberry look at blue light technology that can help you fall asleep, why you probably hate vegetables, and new research into dark energy. You can get all of The Debrief’s podcasts by heading over to our Podcasts Page.
Video News: In the latest installment of Rebelliously Curious, Chrissy Newton is joined by Paul Root Wolpe as they delve into the world of genetic engineering and the fascinating intersection of science, ethics, and the future of life. Also, check out the latest episode of Ask Dr. Chanceand all the other great content from The Debrief on our official YouTube Channel.
And now, it’s time that we shift our attention over to one of the most tantalizing questions humans have ever asked about the universe and our place in it… and whether an answer could finally be on the horizon.
ALIEN MUSINGS
“Have we just discovered aliens?” read the title of an eye-grabbing piece published by The Spectator on January 8, 2024.
Quoting respected members of the scientific community that included UK astrophysicists Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Becky Smethurst, as well as astronaut Tim Peake, all of whom seemed to strongly allude to a discovery currently still on the path toward peer review
“I think we are going to get a paper that claims to have strong evidence for a biosignature in an exoplanet’s atmosphere very, very soon,” Smethurst was quoted saying. “Let’s just say it’s on my bingo card for 2024.”
(NASA/STScI/James Webb telescope)
Peake had been even less ambiguous while speaking during a CNBC interview in the first days of the new year, where he said the prospects that alien life might have been discovered were looking increasingly good.
“Potentially, the James Webb telescope may have already found [it],” though also emphasizing that nothing conclusive had been released yet since scientists involved in the prospective discovery “don’t want to release or confirm those results until they can be entirely sure,” though adding cryptically that “we found a planet that seems to be giving off strong signals of biological life.”
In other words, if these observations are what they appear to be, then it seems like there’s a good chance that we may already be on course for a tremendous discovery this year; one that could potentially offer the most convincing evidence to date that life may exist on worlds beyond our own.
A POSSIBLE BIOSIGNATURE OF ALIEN LIFE?
In the Spectator article, author Sean Thomas offered that the intriguing series of statements “suggests they are referring to the same thing: namely a scientific paper, probably British in origin… which will provide firm evidence of alien life on an exoplanet”.
Thomas sensibly guesses that the discovery—if such a discovery has indeed been made—will involve biosignatures detected in the atmosphere of an alien world that strongly points to the presence of conditions where life could thrive.
“These biosignatures might be combinations of methane and oxygen, or methane and CO2, and so on,” Thomas wrote, adding that speculations (apart from his own) were already being aired on social media, where UAP enthusiasts were already “claiming that this is merely stage one of ‘disclosure’,” and part of a bigger role-out we’re all destined to see in the months ahead as the powers that be finally clue the rest of us in on the reality that we are not alone.
However, as promising as the collection of cryptic statements curated by Thomas for The Spectator article had been, it wasn’t long before others were chiming in with what seemed to be far less enthusiasm about the idea that a revelation about strong evidence supporting the existence of alien life was on the near horizon.
LIFE ON DISTANT WORLDS? NOT YET… WELL, SORT OF
Wasting no time weighing in on the matter, Eric Berger, the stalwart senior space editor at Ars Technica, was quick to pour some cold water on the alien life claims.
Reaching out to NASA about whether its James Webb Space Telescope had indeed made a discovery involving tantalizing biosignatures, Berger reported that the answer was essentially no, “But it was not a hard no.”
According to Knicole Colón, deputy project scientist for exoplanet science with the James Webb Space Telescope team, “JWST has not found definitive evidence of life on an exoplanet,” but it appears to be anticipated that observations made by the telescope could lead to “the initial identification of potential biosignatures that could make habitability more or less likely for a given exoplanet.”
Artist’s rendering of K2-18 b, an exoplanet suspected of being a location where alien life may soon be discovered
(Credit: ESA/Hubble/M. Kornmesser).
Adding a touch of context to the admittedly vague statement, Berger mused that “Colón is certainly referring to K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth that is 120 light years from our Solar System,” an exoplanet which is likely to possess oceans similar to ours, and an atmosphere rich in hydrogen and, even more intriguing, dimethyl sulfide.
Why is the presence of dimethyl sulfide of such interest? Primarily because it is a compound that, as far as any Earthling know, is only produced in the presence of living organisms. So even in the absence of definitive proof of life on another world, if dimethyl sulfide has been found on K2-18 b, it’s the surest bet we currently have in terms of places where alien life is likely to be found… and that discovery—if confirmed—would truly be a game changer.
So while the answer to the question “have we just discovered aliens?” officially still remains inconclusive, it is certainly sounding like much closer to being “maybe” than a flat-out “no”… and if the current speculations we’re seeing are any indication, then 2024 is indeed already shaping up to be a historic year in terms of our understanding of the universe, our place in it, and answers to some of the greatest questions we have about the cosmos.
The entire reality of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) is extremely complicated, spread across numerous branches, and consciousness is somewhere entangled in this enigma, playing a significant role in understanding the phenomena. Human consciousness has become the subject of experiments, leading experts to believe that it is connected to UFOs.Astronomer Jacques Vallée developed an alternative hypothesis, suggesting that UFOs are part of a mechanism for controlling mankind.
In simple terms, “consciousness” is just an awareness of the human mind about its internal and external environment. For millennia, many have explained consciousness in psychology and scientifically. However, it is not entirely known how and where consciousness occurs and where it goes after life ends.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander believes there is a scientific revolution happening that will completely change how we see the world. According to him, the brain is not the creator of consciousness but acts more like a filter that lets consciousness in. He argues that the brain does not control consciousness; instead, consciousness is the fundamental force that creates and governs the entire universe.
Dr. Alexander mentions evidence for things like reincarnation and past-life memories, suggesting that if you believe the brain produces consciousness, it can not explain these phenomena. He points out the mystery of quantum physics, where experiments show that consciousness plays a fundamental role, and our free will affects outcomes, challenging the idea that everything is determined by chemical reactions and the laws of physics.
He introduces the concept of the brain being a “reducing valve,” allowing certain conscious states to exist. According to him, quantum physics emphasizes the importance of the observer, suggesting that awareness of existence is a deep mystery. In essence, he believes that we are conscious despite our brains, and when our physical bodies die, our conscious awareness expands significantly.
Leslie Kean, a respected journalist says that there is a bundle of evidence that posits that the UFO phenomena are linked with an “Alternate dimension.” She believes UFOs could be connected to “the afterlife” and “near-death experiences” and could come from another “dimension.”
In a podcast with Chris Letho, Leslie said that there are two distinct aspects of the UFO phenomenon. The first one is the physical aspect, involving UFOs being detected on radar and approached by the military in a traditional, empirical manner. However, Kean also highlights the second, more enigmatic layer of UFO experiences.
Leslie told Lehto that she is increasingly sure there is a connection between the supernatural, near-death experiences, and unexplained sightings. She said, “Certainly, the more paranormal elements of the UFO phenomenon seem to have some relationship to what people describe in near-death experiences and other types of activities that take place in terms of just consciousness-related anomalous experiences that people have, which are very varied. There just is some kind of crossover air, and I don’t know what it is. I mean, there is the whole component of UFOs, which is just purely physical.”
Leslie speculates that there might be a connection between UFOs and some form of alternate dimension that exists beyond the boundaries of our five senses. This dimension, she suggests, may overlap with our own, providing a possible explanation for the mysterious and often inexplicable aspects of UFO phenomena.
CIA Experimented on Human Consciousness
CIA was profoundly interested in understanding human consciousness. Below is the shocking official CIA document on human consciousness that states: Consciousness is not a part of our body at all; it is stored in our brain but not considered a part of it. Our consciousness, or “us,” is its own being — a ghost version of ourselves.
The document discussed the technique dubbed “the Gateway Experience,” which was essentially described as a training system to bring enhanced strength, focus, and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres that would alter the consciousness, pushing it outside the physical space, escaping restrictions of time and space.
Basically, it was seen as a way to put minds in a different state of consciousness, controlling the human brain with the motive of interacting with non-physical aspects of reality. According to the CIA report, ranged from converting energy to heal one’s body to traveling across space and time to learn and access new information.
CIA approved testing for this under the eyes of US Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M McDonnell. The project was classified by the CIA until 2003, which allowed it to be accessed by anyone. In the 1980s, McDonnell was asked to work on the Gateway Experience project. This happened during a time when the United States was very curious about psychic research. The interest grew because the Soviet Union was also exploring things like psychokinesis and extrasensory perception (ESP) for their spy missions in the Cold War.
To test his new method, independent brain specialists studied people who tried it. Surprisingly, the results showed up clearly on brain scans. Both sides of the brain were working at the same strength and speed. This showed that Monroe’s work was helping people reach different states of awareness.
Bigelow: UFOs & Consciousness Are Linked
In this interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, American billionaire Robert Bigelow talks about the possibility of having out-of-body experiences, which can be artificially induced. He learned about this from an Air Force general who experienced it while undergoing a process called centrifuge training. In this training, individuals get into a device called a G-LOC at around 7 to 7.5 Gs (gravitational force) without any other equipment. They try to hold their breath and stay conscious before passing out.
According to the Air Force general’s account, he had an out-of-body experience during one of these sessions. After completing twelve sessions (although there are now rules limiting it to three), he stepped out of the centrifuge capsule, and instead of being in his body, he found himself above it. He could see his body getting out and walking down a hallway, being aware of activities in adjacent rooms and hearing conversations he should not normally be able to hear. This was not a near-death experience but an artificially induced one.
The general continued his out-of-body journey, going down the hallway to his office. He passed through walls, hovered near the ceiling, and observed his body opening doors and performing actions. The out-of-body experience ended when his body sat in the chair at his desk, and at that moment, his consciousness slammed back into his body.
“A related event occurs to modern fighter pilots when they experience intense G forces during extreme combat maneuvers. It has been reported that pilots will lose consciousness during maximum G forces and undergo a brief out-of-body state of consciousness. The U.S. military has conducted extensive research into this potentially dangerous phenomenon and has officially named the experience “G-LOC.” The popular television show Sightings did an entire segment on G-LOC-induced OBEs that was titled “Simulated Out-of-Body Experiences.” Several U.S. military pilots participated in an experiment where G-LOC was created in a NASA centrifuge. Each interviewed pilot reported that he had passed out and then described a detailed out-of-body state of consciousness.”
Bigelow is absolutely convinced that there is a presence of non-human intelligent life among us, perhaps there are other dimensions where such entities exist. He spent millions of dollars on this subject which allowed him to believe that [aliens] are here right in front of people. He even has his own close encounters.
In an interview with award-winning journalist George Knapp, Mr. Bigelow shared his own experiences that got him interested in life after death and UFOs. He discussed the possible connection between studying consciousness and UFOs, as well as the risks of trying to communicate with the unknown.
“That’s been mainly what I’ve been doing except for the skinwalker ranch thing for 20 years as the space world has been huge in my life to pursue the legitimate parochial kind of you know using fire engines rockets to get you there. We didn’t expect anything like this to happen and so there this is different. This is the holy grail and is different than the second holy grail. If the second one is ‘Beings’ (E.T.), then the first one: Is there any part of your consciousness that survives your bodily death? That’s a big deal. That’s a huge story. That’s gigantic.”
“Be a little careful about what you wish for. So on the face of it, communication sounds great and that by the way has been tried forever ever since the oracle of Delphi. I mean you can go back thousands of years and that’s been attempted. So It’s not now you know the last 100 years through electronics and using some kind of electrical apparatus to try to have some kind of communications. And you know communication can be at all different kinds of levels. There might be communication that just causes you an awareness.”
Mr. Bigelow’s investigative team, headed by Colm Kelleher, the institute’s scientific administrator and biochemist, documented their own paranormal events, according to a 2005 book “Hunt for the Skinwalker,” by Dr. Kelleher and Mr. Knapp.
Mr. Bigelow said he saw “interdimensional” forces at play through portals at certain paranormal hot spots like Skinwalker. But he also said he had frequently visited the ranch without experiencing the kind of chilling events others reported, as if some intelligence were selecting the people to act upon. “I slept like a log every single night,” he said. And no human was physically harmed, but he said he and other visitors often carried strange things home, like a sulfurous stink in a certain part of his house. His wife felt the presence of a faceless creature pressing down on her side of bed.
David Grusch made significant assertions regarding the NHI, stating that these entities might be extraterrestrial or interdimensional, or possibly both. Astronomer and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée states that UFOs and related events of a paranormal nature involve visitations from other “realities” or “dimensions.” The idea proposes that these alternate realities exist separately yet parallel to our own. In 1975 book “The Edge of Reality,” Vallée and Hynek considered the possibility of what they call “interlocking universes.”
The enigma of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) has long intrigued humanity, with various accounts and sightings sparking debates and theories. Among the most compelling of these are the encounters documented by NASA, an agency at the forefront of space exploration. These incidents, scattered throughout NASA’s history, offer tantalizing glimpses into the possibility that we might not be alone in the universe
1. The X-15 Encounter: Major Robert White’s Unexplained Experience
In the early days of space exploration, Major Robert White, piloting the X-15, reported an unexplained encounter at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. During a high-speed flight, White observed multiple unidentified objects, with one in particular shadowing his aircraft. Despite the speed and altitude, the object kept pace, raising questions about its origin and technology. NASA’s explanation involving ice crystals from the X-15’s propulsion system has been met with skepticism, given the detailed account by White, a seasoned and credible pilot.
2. The Mysterious Sounds of the Aurora Borealis
In 2012, an unusual auditory phenomenon linked to the Aurora Borealis puzzled scientists and civilians alike. Reports of eerie sounds emanating from the skies were recorded globally, coinciding with the Northern Lights. NASA’s investigation into these “space quakes” revealed that although the electromagnetic waves generated could be detected, the actual sounds couldn’t penetrate the lower atmosphere. This left the public wondering about the nature of these cosmic noises and their possible extraterrestrial links.
The phenomenon of mysterious purple blobs, witnessed in different locations decades apart, further fuels the UFO discourse. From the Philadelphia mass in 1950 to the Texas incident in 1979, these gelatinous sightings were initially thought to be of extraterrestrial origin. NASA’s analysis pointed towards earthly explanations, but the stark difference in the substance’s consistency compared to industrial waste left room for doubt about their true nature.
4.The Enigma of the 2010 KQ Asteroid
The discovery of the 2010 KQ asteroid, which shared an eerily similar orbit to Earth, sparked a flurry of speculation. Initially thought to be a natural asteroid, further study revealed its unnaturally bright color and small size, suggesting it might be man-made. Eventually, NASA identified it as a part of a Russian lunar mission, but not before igniting theories about alien probes observing Earth.
5. The Bizarre Orbital Movements of 2010 KQ
The movements of 2010 KQ, closely tracking Earth’s orbit, added to its mystery. Such a trajectory was unprecedented for a natural celestial body, leading to theories about alien technology. NASA’s conclusion, attributing the orbit to the influence of the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange Point, offered a scientific explanation but did little to quell the public’s fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial monitoring.
VIDEO:
UFO Encounters That Leave Us Believing We’re Not Alone | NASA’s Unexplained Files
The incidents documented by NASA, from Major White’s high-altitude encounter to the puzzling trajectory of 2010 KQ, continue to fuel public curiosity and debate about extraterrestrial life. While scientific explanations exist, the extraordinary nature of these occurrences keeps the door open to the possibility that we might not be alone in the cosmos. As we continue to explore the vastness of space, the line between science fiction and science fact becomes ever more blurred, leaving us to wonder what mysteries the universe still holds.
De hoeveelheid gevonden water is gigantisch, klinkt het bij ESA. Volgens de wetenschappers zou het, in vloeibare toestand, genoeg zijn om de hele planeet 1,5 tot 2,7 meter onder water te zetten. Genoeg ook om de Rode Zee tussen Afrika en Azië volledig mee te vullen.
De ontdekking is gedaan met de Europese ruimtesonde Mars Express die al 20 jaar rond Mars cirkelt. Die had 15 jaar geleden al gevonden dat er een dikke laag afzettingen verborgen lag onder een gebied rond de evenaar, de Medusae Fossae Formation.
Dat is een geologische formatie die zich uitstrekt over meer dan 5.000 kilometer en vroeger vulkanisch moet zijn geweest. Het gebied bestaat uit een reeks door de wind gevormde afzettingen van honderden kilometers breed en enkele kilometers hoog.
Foto van een deel van de Medusae Fossae Formation op Mars
Uit eerdere waarnemingen bleek al dat de laag afzettingen onder het oppervlak tot 2,5 kilometer dik was. Maar veel meer duidelijkheid was er niet.
"Daarom hebben we het gebied opnieuw bestudeerd, aan de hand van nieuwe waarnemingen van Mars Express", zegt hoofdonderzoeker Thomas Watters van het Amerikaanse Smithsonian Instituut.
"We hebben ontdekt dat de laag nog dikker was dan verwacht, tot zelfs 3,7 kilometer dik. De resultaten kwamen overeen met wat we verwachten te zien bij ijslagen. Er waren ook verrassend veel gelijkenissen met wat we eerder al zagen op de poolkappen van Mars. Daarvan weten we dat ze rijk zijn aan ijs."
Kaart van de Medusae Fossae Formatie op Mars. Hoe warmer de kleur, hoe dikker de mogelijke ijslaag.
Met wiskundige modellen werden alle eigenschappen nog eens volledig doorgerekend. "Mochten het simpelweg gigantische hoeveelheden weggewaaid stof zijn, dan zouden we een veel hogere dichtheid moeten zien", zegt co-auteur Andrea Cicchetti van het Italiaanse Nationale Instituut voor Astrofysica. "Er bleef maar één optie over: het moet ijs zijn."
Belangrijk voor astronauten op Mars
Hoewel Mars nu op een dorre, droge wereld lijkt, moet er ooit overvloedig water zijn geweest. Het oppervlak is bezaaid met overblijfselen daarvan, zoals opgedroogde rivierkanalen, beddingen en valleien. Er zijn ook al grote hoeveelheden waterijs gevonden op de poolgebieden en ook dichter bij de evenaar zijn er al gletsjers gevonden onder het oppervlak.
Maar volgens ESA is het nu de eerste keer dat er zo'n grote hoeveelheid water in de buurt van de evenaar is gevonden. En dat kan belangrijk zijn voor als er ooit mensen naar Mars willen reizen.
Want zij komen wellicht terecht dicht bij de evenaar, waar het zonniger en warmer is dan op de polen. Omdat het onmogelijk is om van op aarde voldoende water mee te nemen, moet er op Mars water worden gemaakt, of gevonden.
"Helaas ligt het gevonden ijs op honderden meters onder het stof, waardoor het de komende decennia zeker niet toegankelijk zal zijn", zegt ESA-wetenschappers Colin Wilson.
"Maar elk stukje ijs dat we vinden helpt ons wel om een beter beeld te krijgen van waar het water op Mars ooit moet hebben gestroomd. En waar het vandaag de dag nog te vinden is."
Mars moet ooit veel op onze aarde hebben geleken. Maar dé vraag blijft: is er leven geweest op Mars? Een sluitend antwoord hebben wetenschappers nog altijd niet.
A second Republican congressman has publicly floated the idea that UFOs may be angels sent by God.
Missouri lawmaker Eric Burlison, who has been privy to classified briefings on the phenomena, advanced the sensational theory on an amateur podcast this week.
'They may not fit exactly the Biblical narrative, but whenever I use the term "angels,"' as he told That UFO Podcast Tuesday, 'to me, it's synonymous with an extradimensional being.'
He added: 'In a lot of different scriptures, including the Bible and others, that's really the way that you describe messengers of God or angels.'
Rep Burlison's comments echo statements by fellow GOP Congressman Tim Burchett, who told reporters last year that he believes 'the first chapter of Ezekiel is pretty clear of a UFO sighting.'
Above, Rep. Tim Burchett (left) next to fellow 'UAP Caucus' member Rep. Eric Burlison during a press conference held by members of the House Oversight committee last July ahead of the committee's public UFO hearing
Congressman Eric Burlison told 'That UFO Podcast' Tuesday he believes 'non-human intelligences' described by UFO whistleblower David Grusch might be angelic: 'Whenever I use the term 'angels,' he said, 'to me it's synonymous with an extradimensional being'
Their comments highlight the frenzy of UFO speculation in Washington D.C. over the past seven months — provoked by whistleblower David Grusch's testimony that the Government is in possession of off-world craft.
Congressman and Marine veteran Mike Gallagher, who also serves on the House Oversight committee with Reps. Burlison and Burchett, suggested last June that UFOs might be time-traveling craft piloted by humans from the future.
The Wisconsin Republican also floated his hypothesis that UFOs 'could actually be [from] an ancient civilization that's just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself,' in this same June appearance on ESPN analyst Pat McAfee's sports talk show.
Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, who serves on the House Oversight committee, told reporters last year 'the first chapter of Ezekiel is pretty clear of a UFO sighting'
UFOs and the Bible? Rep. Burchett claimed UFOs are mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel, citing the King James version of the Bible for his analysis (right)
Congressman Burlison made his statements Tuesday on a program devoted to the subject of these unsolved aerial mysteries, 'That UFO Podcast' hosted by Andy McGrillen in the United Kingdom.
'When I read Grusch's report, that's public, that anyone can read,' Rep. Burlison told McGrillen and his listeners, 'he described that one of the theories is that what we're encountering are beings that are extradimensional or interdimensional.'
While Grusch has publicly discussed theories that what are now called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, might originate from the higher-order dimensions theorized by physicists, those concepts do not appear in the unclassified version of his complaint.
President Biden signed into law a December 2022 amendment to investigate a UFO case from 1945. The 1945 UFO sighting was dubbed the 'Roswell before Roswell' and involved an 'avocado-shaped' craft that crashed in New Mexico. Jaques Vallée, a former contractor for the government's UFO office, wrote a book about the case and described the August 1945 crash to DailyMail.com. Vallée and his co-author interviewed witnesses who were just young children at the time of the crash, on the edge of the atomic bomb testing site near San Antonio, New Mexico - about 100 miles from the infamous Roswell crash two years later.
The 'extradimensional or interdimensional' hypothesis also does not appear in what has been made public from Grusch's written statements first submitted for approval to the Pentagon's Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR).
Nevertheless, Grusch did answer Rep. Burlison's questions on this theory under oath, during the House Oversight committee's public UAP hearing last July.
'An alien species that is technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive, is something that I find a little bit farfetched,' as Rep. Burlison opined at the hearing.
'You have mentioned that there is interdimensional potential,' he continued, asking, 'Could you expound on that?'
Grusch noted first that 'regardless of your level of sentience, you know, planes crash, cars crash, and a number of sorties [...] a small percentage are going to end in "mission failure," if you will, as we say in the Air Force.'
'In terms of multidimensionality,' the UFO whistleblower said, 'the framework that I am familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle.'
'It derives itself from general relativity and quantum mechanics and that is if you want to imagine a 3D object such as yourself casting a shadow onto a 2D surface that is the holographic principle.'
'So, you can be projected — quasi projected — from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional [space],' Grusch explained.
'It is a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally, as far as I understand, but there's probably guys with PhDs that could probably argue about that.'
Speculation linking UFOs to religious visitations and/or theories about interdimensional beings have been recurring features within the discourse on the topic since the early 20th Century.
The concept gained its highest and arguably most reputable profile with the publication of the book 'Passport to Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers' by the astronomer and Internet pioneer Jacques Vallée in 1969.
Vallée, who later served as the inspiration for François Truffaut's character in Steven Spielberg's UFO blockbuster 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' had spent years pouring over volumes of ancient texts for the groundbreaking tome.
He paired 1180 encounters with 'luminous' flying 'earthenware vessels' reported over Japan, Roman accounts of hovering 'shields' and Native American stories of 'baskets from heaven' to argue a continuity with modern 'flying saucer' cases.
In more recent years, Vallée, now a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and computer scientist, published a study of physical evidence from a UFO crash in a peer-reviewed science journal, Progress in Aerospace Sciences.
As he told Wired, Vallée hopes that research will become 'a template [...] for what serious UFO research could be in the future, if one plays by the rules.'
But similar arguments, linking UFOs to demonic entities or angelic miracles, have also been made in less scholarly form on cable TV shows like 'Ancient Aliens,' and online by conspiracy theorists and evangelical Christians, among others.
The editor for Phenomena Magazine, Brian Allan, to cite one account, spoke to Anglican Pastor Ray Boeche who claims that a faction within the Pentagon deeply believes that UFOs are the product of demonic forces.
'The Defense Intelligence Agency were looking at this demonic element, and they labelled these sorts of aliens as 'non human entities,' Allan said.
'They believed that there was a demonic component to the UFO phenomenon: they are not invading us, it's Biblical.'
A second Republican congressman has publicly floated the idea that UFOs may be angels sent by God. Missouri lawmaker Eric Burlison, who has been privy to classified briefings on the phenomena, advanced the sensational theory on an amateur podcast this week. 'They may not fit exactly the Biblical narrative, but whenever I use the term "angels,"' as he told That UFO Podcast Tuesday, 'to me, it's synonymous with an extradimensional being.' He added: 'In a lot of different scriptures, including the Bible and others, that's really the way that you describe messengers of God or angels.'
Rep Burlison's comments echo statements by fellow GOP Congressman Tim Burchett, who told reporters last year that he believes 'the first chapter of Ezekiel is pretty clear of a UFO sighting.' Their comments highlight the frenzy of UFO speculation in Washington D.C. over the past seven months — provoked by whistleblower David Grusch's testimony that the Government is in possession of off-world craft. Congressman and Marine veteran Mike Gallagher, who also serves on the House Oversight committee with Reps. Burlison and Burchett, suggested last June that UFOs might be time-traveling craft piloted by humans from the future. Rep. Gallagher compared the scenario to the plot of the 1984 film 'The Terminator.'
The Wisconsin Republican also floated his hypothesis that UFOs 'could actually be [from] an ancient civilization that's just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself,' in this same June appearance on ESPN analyst Pat McAfee's sports talk show. Congressman Burlison made his statements Tuesday on a program devoted to the subject of these unsolved aerial mysteries, ' That UFO Podcast ' hosted by Andy McGrillen in the United Kingdom. Rep. Burlison had appeared for a 'special update pod' following House Oversight's classified UFO briefing last Friday , which covered a series of allegations made by former intelligence officer Grusch - who testified under oath that both the US military and its defense contractors are stonewalling on evidence of crashed UFOs, recovered 'beings,' and even UFO-related deaths.
'When I read Grusch's report, that's public, that anyone can read,' Rep. Burlison told McGrillen and his listeners, 'he described that one of the theories is that what we're encountering are beings that are extradimensional or interdimensional.' While Grusch has publicly discussed theories that what are now called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, might originate from the higher-order dimensions theorized by physicists, those concepts do not appear in the unclassified version of his complaint . The 'extradimensional or interdimensional' hypothesis also does not appear in what has been made public from Grusch's written statements first submitted for approval to the Pentagon's Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR).
Nevertheless, Grusch did answer Rep. Burlison's questions on this theory under oath, during the House Oversight Committee's public UAP hearing last July. 'An alien species that is technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive, is something that I find a little bit farfetched,' as Rep. Burlison opined at the hearing. 'You have mentioned that there is interdimensional potential,' he continued, asking, 'Could you expound on that?' Grusch noted first that 'regardless of your level of sentience, you know, planes crash, cars crash, and a number of sorties [...] a small percentage are going to end in "mission failure," if you will, as we say in the Air Force.'
'In terms of multidimensionality,' the UFO whistleblower said, 'the framework that I am familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle.' 'It derives itself from general relativity and quantum mechanics and that is if you want to imagine a 3D object such as yourself casting a shadow onto a 2D surface that is the holographic principle.' 'So, you can be projected — quasi projected — from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional [space],' Grusch explained. 'It is a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally, as far as I understand, but there's probably guys with PhDs that could probably argue about that.'
Speculation linking UFOs to religious visitations and/or theories about interdimensional beings have been recurring features within the discourse on the topic since the early 20th Century. The concept gained its highest and arguably most reputable profile with the publication of the book 'Passport to Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers' by the astronomer and Internet pioneer Jacques Vallée in 1969. Vallée, who later served as the inspiration for François Truffaut's character in Steven Spielberg's UFO blockbuster 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' had spent years pouring over volumes of ancient texts for the groundbreaking tome.
He paired 1180 encounters with 'luminous' flying 'earthenware vessels' reported over Japan, Roman accounts of hovering 'shields' and Native American stories of 'baskets from heaven' to argue a continuity with modern 'flying saucer' cases. In more recent years, Vallée, now a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and computer scientist, published a study of physical evidence from a UFO crash in a peer-reviewed science journal, Progress in Aerospace Sciences. As he told Wired, Vallée hopes that research will become 'a template [...] for what serious UFO research could be in the future, if one plays by the rules.' But similar arguments, linking UFOs to demonic entities or angelic miracles, have also been made in less scholarly form on cable TV shows like 'Ancient Aliens,' and online by conspiracy theorists and evangelical Christians, among others.
The editor for Phenomena Magazine, Brian Allan, to cite one account, spoke to Anglican Pastor Ray Boeche who claims that a faction within the Pentagon deeply believes that UFOs are the product of demonic forces. 'The Defense Intelligence Agency was looking at this demonic element, and they labeled these sorts of aliens as 'non human entities,' Allan said. 'They believed that there was a demonic component to the UFO phenomenon: they are not invading us, it's Biblical.'
Guys, this is odd, a UFO was seen in a cloudless sky in China a few days ago. The object soon broke into three separate objects. With all this happening apparently it didn't show up on radar because no military jets were seen trying to investigate the UFOs. Now thats strange. Yes Musk does launch a lot of rockets, but over China? I guess only Elon Musk could answer that big mystery. To me this looks, acts and moves like an alien craft. It doesn't look at all like a rocket. It's an interdemensional craft, which phases in and out.
Scott C. Waring
News states:
People in the capital and other parts of China saw ‘glowing object’ that flew rapidly from west to eastResidents of Beijing and other parts of China reported seeing a UFO on Sunday evening, The unusual sighting caused a stir on Chinese social media – by noon on Monday it was the fifth most searched topic on Weibo, with more than 900,000 threads about it. Posts started appearing on social media after people saw and photographed an unidentified flying object in the sky just after 6pm on Sunday.Another gave a more detailed description, saying the weather in Beijing was “very clear, with no clouds, and then I saw a glowing object looming, but the light was not flashing”. The luminous object “had three light sources and was shaped like an isosceles triangle”, the person wrote, adding that it eventually “dissipated like a mist and disappeared without a trace”. The UFO was reported by people in a number of places in China, including the nearby city of Tianjin, as well as in the central province of Shanxi and Shandong in the east. They described the object as “a misty ball of light” that flew rapidly from west to east and made no sound. Many who saw it noted that there were no flashing lights so it was not likely to be a plane.
Searching for anomalies in Antarctica using Google Earth I found an unidentified device measuring 4 meters by 4 meters by 2 meters in height in a remote area near Rothschild Island in Antarctica. It appears that some form of energy is being released from the device leading to the observed emission of light.
A remarkable detail is that the device is placed directly in front of what appears to be two stone walls.
Rothschild Island is an island which is surrounded by mystery, with rumors suggesting covert operations occurring in the vicinity. Interestingly, Google Earth has blacked out the island by overlaying simulated snow.
I don't know what the object could be, but is it plausible that it serves as a power generator providing electricity to operate an unknown underground (alien) device or system in Antarctica, as it appears as if the device is placed above a large opening in the ice crust, and that this supposed power generator plays a role in an operation managed from the island?
Accounts of Alleged UFO Abductions and Hybridization Theories
Accounts of Alleged UFO Abductions and Hybridization Theories
In recent times, a rather extraordinary claim has emerged in the realm of UFOlogy and extraterrestrial studies. Various individuals have come forward with personal narratives suggesting that they were victims of alien abductions, purportedly for a purpose as bizarre as it is fascinating: the creation of hybrid human-alien offspring.
Among these individuals are two women whose stories, though unique, share eerie similarities. They recount experiences of being taken aboard spacecrafts, subjected to medical procedures, and the sensation of information being implanted in their brains. These accounts often involve descriptions of stark, sterile environments, advanced technologies, and encounters with beings of otherworldly origin.
One of the women describes her ordeal as lasting approximately three hours, during which she was exposed to an intense information transfer. The narrative takes an even more intriguing turn with the claim that her father, a man with a background in aeronautics and connections to government projects, was also part of this so-called hybridization program. This connection to her father’s work suggests a multi-generational aspect to the abductions, weaving in elements of deep government involvement and secret experiments.
The entities reportedly behind these abductions are identified as the Pleiadians, a group often mentioned in UFO circles. The Pleiadians are described as humanoid with distinctive physical features, and they are alleged to be conducting these abductions as part of an interspecies hybridization initiative.
What could be the motive behind such a program? The answer remains shrouded in mystery and speculation. Some suggest that these extraterrestrial beings view humans as a lesser species, useful only for their genetic material, similar to how humans might view animals used in agricultural breeding. Others ponder the possibility of a more benevolent agenda, perhaps an attempt to enhance human evolution or to create a new species altogether.
VIDEO:
UFO Witnesses Claim They Were Abducted To Make Hybrid Human/Alien Babies | UFO Witness
Further complicating the narrative are accounts of collaboration between different alien species, such as the Pleiadians and the Greys, another commonly cited group in alien abduction stories. This cooperation, if true, hints at a much larger and more complex interstellar agenda involving multiple extraterrestrial civilizations.
Despite the compelling nature of these accounts, they remain controversial and largely unverified. The scientific community requires empirical evidence and rigorous methodology to substantiate such claims, which these abduction stories lack. Nonetheless, they continue to intrigue and bewilder, occupying a significant space in the study of paranormal phenomena and the search for extraterrestrial life.
In conclusion, while these tales of alien abductions and hybridization programs captivate the imagination, they also underscore the vast unknowns of our universe and the ongoing quest to understand our place within it. Whether these stories are grounded in reality or are the products of human imagination, they undeniably contribute to the ever-evolving narrative of humanity’s relationship with the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Reports of aUFO in China are circling the web, with residents of Beijing and nearby towns claiming to have seen 'a moving cloud-like object' with three light sources.
Images and videos of the observation flooded Chinese social media platforms Monday, with many users commonly describing it as a 'misty ball of light' that moved from west to east without emitting any sound.
More than 900,000 threads about the sighting surfaced online Monday afternoon.
One person shared on Weibo that the weather was clear in Beijing when they witnessed 'a glowing object looming' and determined it was not an aircraft because there were no flashing lights.
Reports of a UFO in China are circling the web, with residents of Beijing and nearby towns claiming to have seen 'a moving cloud-like object' with three light sources.
The ball of light appeared Monday morning above the nation's capital and as far as Tianjin and the central province of Shanxi and Shandong in the east.
One user shared the object had three light sources and [being] shaped like an isosceles triangle' and disappeared 'like a mist and disappear without a trace.'
Another posted on Weibo: 'There were three light sources flying very fast.
'At the same time, there was a large halo on the east side of the light group. There was no sound.'
Images and videos of the observation flooded Chinese social media platforms Monday, with many users commonly describing it as a 'misty ball of light' that moved from west to east without emitting any sound
One person shared on Weibo that the weather was clear in Beijing when they witnessed 'a glowing object looming' and determined it was not an aircraft because there were no flashing lights
A Beijing resident commented: 'What is this thing? And it flies very fast, and it is in front of me all of a sudden.'
An astronomer also weighed in on the sightings, theorizing the UFO could have been a Space rocket used to launch SpaceX's Starlink satellites on Sunday - but the suggestion has yet to be confirmed.
Wang Zhuoxiao, a researcher at the Centre for Astronomy Technology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, also posted online with his speculation, according to the South China Morning Post.
Zhuoxiao suggested the glowing object was excess fuel released by a SpaceX rocket that launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Sunday at 3:59am ET.
The statements align with what is known as the 'Twilight phenomenon,' which is produced when unburned particles of propellant and water left in the vapor trail of a launch vehicle condenses, freezes and then expands high up in the less dense upper atmosphere.
Zhuoxiao noted that the circular shape was likely formed as the rocket was performing a tumbling motion to release unneeded fuel to help it climb to orbit,
The ball of light appeared Monday morning above the nation's capital and as far as Tianjin and the central province of Shanxi and Shandong in the east. More than 900,000 threads about the sighting surfaced online by Monday afternoon
New Zealanders witnessed a nearly identical event in 2022 when a glowing blue swirl appeared in the night sky, which was created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster
A witness uploaded the bizarre video of the sighting on Reddit and described the large cluster of lights as 'spinning and darting back and forth.'
An anonymous astronomer from the Beijing Planetarium also said it could have been a rocket launched from the US.
The astronomer mentioned a similar sighting in China on September 13, 2023 that was later found to be linked to a rocket cloud formed by a previous SpaceX launch.
The rocket spun to vent its fuel, it created a vapor trail that reflected the sunlight and produced a visible blue swirl that eyewitnesses said moved 'serenely' across the night sky.
The plume lit up the sky over Nelson, a city at the tip of New Zealand's south island, and travelled 466 miles (750km) south to Stewart Island by about 7:30pm.
The two-stage rocket had been launched on Sunday morning from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
It was carrying a communications satellite for the Louisiana-based company Globalstar, which SpaceX said was deployed about 1 hour and 50 minutes after launch as planned.
After dispatching its payload, the Falcon 9 began venting its fuel, while the rocket's first stage returned to Earth for a vertical landing on SpaceX's droneship.
However, the recent event in China has not been confirmed to be linked to a SpaceX rocket just yet.
DailyMail.com has obtained a stunning clear video of a dark orb UFO floating outside an airfield used by the maker of the infamous Reaper drone.
Contractor Andy Segobia, 52, was driving to work at El Mirage airfield near Adelanto, California, in August 2020 when he saw a 10ft sphere hanging in the air.
He took out his iPhone 7 and started filming the object that was no more than 50 ft in the air, shooting a surprisingly clear video compared to many grainy or blurry UFO footage.
Segobia told DailyMail.com that to the naked eye the object looked like dark tinted glass, was the size of the top of a palm tree, about six to 10 feet in diameter, and was completely silent.
'I thought it was a balloon at first. As I got closer, I could see it wasn't tethered to anything,' he said.
'There was no sign of propulsion, there was no noise, it was just sitting there.'
Andy Segobia, 52, shared footage of what appeared to be a dark orb UFO floating outside El Mirage airfield near Adelanto, California, in August 2020
Segobia told DailyMail.com the spherical object looked like dark tinted glass, was about six to 10 feet in diameter, and was completely silent
At the time he was doing building maintenance work for General Atomics, a military contractor that makes the MQ-9 Reaper drone.
After filming the 90-second video of the stationary object, he said he had to go inside a building to take some measurements, and emerged less than a minute later to find it had disappeared.
'We went into this building 15 feet away and took one measurement, walked back out the door and it was gone. It had been maybe 30 seconds,' he said.
'I looked everywhere, it was a clear day, I would have seen it float away. It either disappeared or just shot out of there. I was bummed I didn't get that footage.'
Segobia's foreman, Juan Valdez, was with him that day. Valdez confirmed to DailyMail.com that he saw the object too, but did not comment further.
'I looked around, I even walked over to see if it came down to the ground,' Segobia said.
'It was gone, nowhere to be seen. If I'd just stayed there another minute I would have seen it zoom away or disappear.'
Segobia said he would regularly see plane-shaped unmanned drones taking off and landing at the El Mirage airstrip, and that General Atomics worked on building and repairing drones there.
But he said the orb was unlike anything he'd ever seen.
'It came out silver when I shot the video. But it was a black tinted ball. It was giving off some kind of heat or something, some kind of wave where I couldn't see inside the ball.
Segobia, a contractor, was doing building maintenance work for General Atomics, a military contractor that makes the MQ-9 Reaper drone, when he spotted the unusual object
Metadata from the video shows it was filmed using an iPhone 7 Plus at 7:08am on August 4, 2020, with coordinates at El Mirage Field near Adelanto, north east of Los Angeles. Weather data for Adelanto at that time shows winds of around 7mph blowing south
'When you're driving to Vegas and it looks like there's water in the street, it was kind of like that. It was giving off some kind of wave, I'm assuming it was a heat of some type.
'I saw it up close. There was only a fence and a little piece of dirt dividing us. It was off their property in the middle of the desert. I don't know what it was doing there.
'It struck me as odd because it was floating there off the property.
'It's very quiet out there, in the middle of nowhere. It was a clear day.'
Metadata from the video shows it was filmed using an iPhone 7 Plus at 7:08am on August 4, 2020, with coordinates at El Mirage Field near Adelanto, north east of Los Angeles.
According to WeatherSpark.com, weather data for Adelanto at that time shows winds of around 7mph blowing south.
In testimony to the Senate in April last year, then-AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick showed some of the 'metallic orb' footage and revealed statistics showing that 34% of 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' (the government's term for UFOs) are spherical or orb-shaped.
The object filmed by Segobia in 2020 appears similar to silver orbs caught on camera by Reaper drones in the Middle East (shown during a Senate hearing on the Pentagon's Anomaly Resolution Office in April)
Then-AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick showed video of an 'unresolved' case in the Middle East, where a drone picked up a 'metallic orb'
El Mirage Field is about 25 miles southeast of Edwards Air Force Base, which has been a focus of extraordinary UFO stories dating back to 1957.
Decorated Project Mercury astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper claimed he caught on camera a flying saucer hovering above the ground and landing in a dry lake bed at Edwards in 1957.
The late Air Force veteran said when approached the object lifted off, retracted its landing gear, and shot off at high speed.
Cooper said he gave the footage to his commanding officers, and never saw it again.
The tapes revealed the base had a 'UFO officer' that the case was referred to, with 'plenty of live data and visuals'.
An F-106 plane was scrambled to check out the objects, but it couldn't catch them as they shot up above 40,000 feet.
Radar man Chuck Sorrels told 1996 documentary 'UFO Sightings' that he knew they were not helicopters or airplanes, but couldn't identify what they were.
In an unprecedented turn of events, Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison and fellow Republican, Congressman Tim Burchett, have publicly connected unidentified flying objects (UFOs) to religious and extradimensional theories. Their statements, which have stirred considerable interest, were made amidst a surge of UFO interest in Washington D.C.
Religious and Extradimensional Theories
Speaking on ‘That UFO Podcast,’ Congressman Burlison proposed that UFOs could be angels or extradimensional beings. His theory, an amalgamation of religion and science, leaned heavily on various scriptures as a basis. Burlison also referenced the controversial testimony of whistleblower David Grusch, who claimed that the U.S. government is in possession of off-world craft. Burlison extrapolated on this, suggesting that these UFOs could potentially be from higher-order dimensions.
UFOs and Biblical Events
In a separate statement, Congressman Burchett drew parallels between UFOs and a biblical event described in the Book of Ezekiel. His interpretation fits a pattern of increasing attempts to relate modern UFO phenomena with ancient religious texts and symbols.
Ancient Relics or Time-Traveling Crafts?
Meanwhile, Congressman Mike Gallagher, a member like Burlison and Burchett of the House Oversight committee, proposed an alternative theory. Gallagher suggested that UFOs might be time-traveling crafts from the future or even relics from an ancient civilization revealing itself. His statement has added yet another layer of complexity to the ongoing UFO discourse.
Increased UFO Interest in Washington D.C.
These statements from Burlison, Burchett, and Gallagher come in the context of heightened UFO interest in the nation’s capital, particularly following Grusch’s allegations of stonewalling by the military and defense contractors regarding evidence of crashed UFOs and related phenomena. In December 2022, President Biden lent credibility to these discussions by signing a law to investigate a 1945 UFO case, known as the ‘Roswell before Roswell,’ involving an avocado-shaped craft that crashed in New Mexico.
Machine Learning Could Find all the Martian Caves We Could Ever Want
Examples of potential cave entrances (PCEs) on Mars and their assigned category from the Mars Global Candidate cave Catalogue (MGC3). Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/The Murray Lab.
Machine Learning Could Find all the Martian Caves We Could Ever Want
The surface of Mars is hostile and unforgiving. But put a few meters of regolith between you and the Martian sky, and the place becomes a little more habitable. Cave entrances from collapsed lava tubes could be some of the most interesting places to explore on Mars, since not only would they provide shelter for future human explorers, but they could also be a great place to find biosignatures of microbial life on Mars.
But cave entrances are difficult to spot, especially from orbit, as they blend in with the dusty background. A new machine learning algorithm has been developed to quickly scan images of the Martian surface, searching for potential cave entrances.
Researchers Thomas Watson and James Baldini from Durham University in the UK used a convolutional neural network (CNN), trained to identify potential cave entrances (PCEs) from images of the Martian surface to locate new potential caves. It was able to identify 61 new cave entrances from images in four different regions on Mars.
Previously, most detections of Martian PCEs have come from a manual review of visible satellite imagery, with images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) and High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) cameras. A database from that manual review called the Mars Global Candidate Cave Catalogue (MGC3) contains the coordinates and brief descriptions of over one thousand identified PCEs on Mars.
The circular black features in this 2007 figure are caves formed by the collapse of lava tubes on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/USGS
“Manual review of satellite imagery for Martian cave detection is far from efficient on a planet-wide scale,” wrote Watson and Baldini in their paper, published in the journal Icarus, “due to the time constraints associated with reviewing such a large dataset. Machine learning presents an intriguing solution to this problem, reducing the dataset to only include imagery computationally determined to contain a PCE.”
The caves on Mars are created by lava tubes, which were formed by flowing lava on ancient Mars. As the outside of the flowing lava cooled and solidified into a ceiling and walls, the interior stayed molten and kept flowing. Eventually, the lava flowed out of the tube in a downslope direction, leaving the tube intact and open. Sometimes these lava tubes are apparent from linear pit chains on the surface – many of which are likely connected linearly underground. But more commonly, they are found by locating a “skylight” or collapsed lava tube ceiling in an orbital image. That skylight provides an entrance to the underground cave.
This is a collapsed ceiling of a Martian lava tube. It measures 50 meters (150 ft) across, much larger than any Earth lava tubes. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Lava tubes can be found on Earth, the Moon, and Mars. Even though Earth is larger than Mars, some incredibly large lava tubes have been found on Mars, bigger than those found on Earth. On Earth, lava tubes are usually only as large as 14–15 meters (46–49 ft) wide – and typically much narrower. In 2020, the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) took a picture of a collapsed lava tube ceiling that is pit crater is 50 m (150 ft) across. The subsurface lava tube cave is likely larger than that.
Regular neural networks are commonly used for natural language processing and speech recognition. But CNNs or ConvNets are more often utilized for classification and computer vision tasks. CNNs can recognize patterns in images and provide image classification and object recognition to projects both large and small. For example, in a previous study, CNNs were trained to recognize Martian surface features, such as craters, and achieved accuracies of more 90%
Watson and Baldini created and trained their CNN model, called CaveFinder by having it look at images from the MGC3 catalog from the Tharsis and Elysium regions on Mars, which has the highest concentrations of volcanoes.
Elevation map of Martian surface with five survey regions highlighted. The Tharsis and Elysium Bulges and the Hellas Basin are also highlighted. Map created using MOLA Shaded relief/ colorized digital elevation map from JMARS. Credit: Watson and Baldini/Icarus.
After the training period, CaveFinder achieved a test accuracy of 77%. It found four PCEs that Watson and Baldini highlighted for having specific qualities that make them interesting for further research, including one PCE nicknamed Marvin, which was the largest PCE identified, as well as another they called Emily, whose low altitude could enable surveyance by drone. Additionally, CaveFinder identified twelve regions that appear to have multiple PCEs, which the authors say be a great place to explore multiple caves with a future mission, due to the proximity and abundance of PCEs.
But the researchers say that CaveFinder needs more work before being used on a large, planet-wide database. It had a large number of false positives, and it appears to have a limited ability to identify “lone small cave types, such as skylights and pinholes.”
“CaveFinder is still not considered appropriate for detection on a planet-wide scale, due to the high number of false positive outputs requiring manual assessment,” Watson and Baldini wrote. “However, it could prove effective in smaller regions perhaps already known to contain PCEs.”
For future tests, they plan to increase the size of the training dataset used. Other ideas for improving CaveFinder’s accuracy is to use thermal imagery alongside the visible data. Higher resolution images from a future Mars orbiter would also be beneficial for CaveFinder’s increased detection and accuracy.
“Overall, this survey’s findings indicate that, with these additions, machine learning has a great potential to advance remote cave detection, which is key to future Martian exploration,” the researchers concluded.
NASA Confirms that 2023 was the Hottest Year on Record
This map of Earth in 2023 shows global surface temperature anomalies, or how much warmer or cooler each region of the planet was compared to the average from 1951 to 1980. Normal temperatures are shown in white, higher-than-normal temperatures in red and orange, and lower-than-normal temperatures in blue. Image Credit: NASA SVS
NASA Confirms that 2023 was the Hottest Year on Record
After analyzing the temperature data from 2023, NASA has concluded that it was the hottest year on record. This will surprise almost nobody. If you live in one of the regions stricken by drought, forest fires, or unusually powerful weather, you don’t need NASA to confirm that the planet is warming.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies produced the analysis that led to this conclusion. They looked at temperature anomalies rather than strictly at temperatures. Temperature anomalies show how much hotter or colder than normal it is at a specific place and time. In this case, normal means the average over a 30-year period between 1951 and 1980 for a time and place.
The analysis, which makes use of extensive satellite data, showed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. In fact, every month from June to December 2023 was the hottest month compared to the same months in previous years. Not only that, but July was the hottest month ever recorded.
This image shows the global temperature anomalies for July 2023. 3Image Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
How much hotter was 2023? “Global temperatures in 2023 were around 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980),” NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said.
Anyone who follows news from around the world knows the world is facing more severe weather. In the USA, a mega-drought meant that parts of the Southwest suffered from a water shortage. Reservoirs were reduced to historically low levels.
In Canada, massive, numerous, and stubborn forest fires dominated the summer, with smoke moving south and enshrouding some of America’s largest cities for days. Many of those fires are still burning as zombie fires that will spring back to life after this winter.
The Donnie Creek fire of 2023 in British Columbia, Canada, was the largest-ever fire in that province. It covered over 600,000 hectares. Image Credit: BC Wildfire Service.
In Asia, a record-breaking heat wave struck India, China, Vietnam, and other countries. In India, major cities exceeded 45 Celsius, schools and other places were shutdown, and rolling blackouts, triggered by air conditioner use, made things even worse.
In the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the temperatures reached 49 C in some places. In Europe, the Cerberus Heatwave brought temperatures above 40 C to many countries, including Spain, where temperatures reached 45 C.
Hundreds of millions of us faced extreme temperatures during the summer of 2023. Millions of us watched helplessly as forest fire smoke clouded our skies and damaged our lungs. Farmers struggled, and food prices rose.
But climate change isn’t just about heat, smoke, and fire. It’s also about extreme rainfall, flooding, and hurricanes. Whatever the consequences, it’s not something humanity has seen before.
“The exceptional warming that we’re experiencing is not something we’ve seen before as a species,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. “It’s driven primarily by our fossil fuel emissions, and we’re seeing the impacts in heat waves, intense rainfall, and coastal flooding.”
Most of what the Earth is going through is due to human-caused climate change. But other things still contribute to the climate, like El Nino and El Nina. Climate scientists consider all these things when trying to understand what’s happening.
This image shows how the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects global temperatures. There are three phases in the South Pacific’s ENSO: El Niño, La Niña, and neutral, or average. El Nino is a weakening of trade winds that blow from east to west in the South Pacific, allowing the sea surface to warm up and rise. La Nina is the opposite: the winds become stronger, and sea temperatures become cooler than normal. La Nina can help offset some of the effects of climate change, but only temporarily. Image Credit: NASA
But we have no control over El Nino. Our carbon emissions are the only thing we have control over. Vegetation and the oceans only absorb about 50% of our emissions, and the rest persists in the atmosphere.
This visualization shows the atmosphere in three dimensions and highlights the accumulation of CO2 during a single calendar year.
It’s not just Earth’s atmosphere that warms. Our oceans absorb most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, about 90% of it. The oceans are a gigantic heat sink, and they’ll continue to warm as the atmosphere does. That changes the biochemistry and the overall health of the oceans and also accelerates the melting of our major ice sheets.
“Just like global temperatures, ocean temperatures are on the rise,” said Josh Willis, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “They have been rising for the last century or more, and they are not slowing down. If anything, they are speeding up.”
This image shows anomalies in the sea surface temperature. These temperatures reached new record highs in 2023. Image Credit: NASA.
The world will keep warming for the next several decades or more, no matter what changes we make today. But the future is still in play. Scientists still need as much detailed climate data as we can gather, even though we know we’re responsible for the warming world. We can still prepare for the worst of it while developing and implementing solutions.
“We are very interested in the weather and extremes of any particular year because those are the things that impact us,” said GISS Director Schmidt. “But the key difference between this decade and the ones before is that the temperatures keep rising because of our activities, principally the burning of fossil fuels.”
NASA’s results show the future we face. More heatwaves, more devastating forest fires, more pressure on agriculture and food prices, and a bleak future for some of the world’s poorest people.
But it’s not foreordained. There are solutions, and they’re being implemented. Renewable energy use is on the rise, for example, and people around the world are demanding that governments implement more changes. And while arcane scientific arguments about atmospheric chemistry and physics are not that impactful for many people, extreme heat is a much more effective alarm bell. So are the things that extreme heat brings, like flooding, fire, smoke, heat waves, rising sea levels, and higher food prices.
Let’s hope the next generations and the politicians that accompany them don’t keep pressing the snooze button like we have.
Engineers Finally Open OSIRIS-REx’s Sample Container
OSIRIS REx curation team attempting to remove the two stuck fasteners that are currently prohibiting the complete opening of the TAGSAM head. Photo Date: January 10, 2024. Location: Bldg. 31 - 2nd Floor - OSIRIS-REx lab. Photographer: Robert Markowitz
Engineers Finally Open OSIRIS-REx’s Sample Container
We have all been there, had that one stubborn jar of jam that we just can’t open. Maybe you grab a rubber band or run it under warm water and its an easy fix but just imagine when the jar is a module from a $1.16 billion interplanetary probe! That’s what happened to NASA engineers when they were trying to recover samples from the OSIRIS-REx module when they discovered the clamps had cold welded shut!
OSIRIS-REx is a NASA mission to retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth. The probe launched in September 2016 in what was a complex and audatious mission. In order to collect the samples the probe ‘kissed’ the surface at just the right trajectory and velocity so not to be destroyed and to return them, OSIRIS-REx completed a flyby manouvre of Earth and dropped them off before continuing on to a new destination. Impressive stuff.
An artist’s illustration of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approaching asteroid Bennu with its sampling instrument extended. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The samples were successfully returned to Earth on 24 September 2023 having been deployed high above the Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule then gracefully floated down under a parachute to the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The samples that were contained within will help us to better understand how the planets formed, how life began and to improve our knowledge of asteroids and just how we might be able to defend ourselves from future potential impacts.
Having successfully completed the sample collection and recovery, it seems that getting the samples out of the capsule was destined to be the more challenging aspect. When the engineers tried to open the sample head of the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism they quickly learned that two of the 35 fastenings had cold welded themselves shut!
Unfortunately, the team did not have any ready made tools for such a situation so they had to improvise and created their own new tool from a special non-magnetic stainless steel. If this wasn’t hard enough, the team’s challenge was exaserbated because of the lack of space in the container that the samples and the capsule were stored within. This process was a laborious one though as the team had to test and refine the tool and instrument many times to minimise risk of damage and contamination.
Success was limited as the team were only able to recover 70 grams of the asteroid sample although this was in excess of the target 60 grams. The science teams are now working with some of the samples and have hermetically sealed the rest for future studies.
Astronomers Have Mapped the Milky Way's Magnetic Fields in 3D
Our galaxy is filled with magnetic fields. They come not just from stars and planets, but from dusty stellar nurseries and the diffuse hydrogen gas of interstellar space. We’ve long known of this galactic magnetic field, but mapping it in detail has posed a challenge. Now a new study gives us a detailed 3-dimensional map of these fields, with a few surprises.
Magnetic fields don’t emit light on their own, so we can’t simply scan the sky with optical telescopes to see where they are. Instead, we must look for ways in which magnetic fields cause charged particles to emit light, or how distant light is affected by interstellar gas within the magnetic field.
For objects such as stars and planets, we mostly map their magnetic fields by charged particles. Ions can become trapped by magnetic field lines, spiraling along them as they emit light. It’s how we first mapped the magnetic field of Jupiter, and how we can study the magnetic fields of the accretion disks of black holes. But galactic magnetic fields are much weaker and diffuse. While charged particles can spiral along galactic magnetic fields, the light they emit is often too faint for us to detect. So instead we use a trick of polarized light.
Polarized light is light where its waves oscillate in a particular direction, rather than randomly in various directions. It’s often used in things like polarized sunglasses, which filter out light scattered off shiny objects, and water, which helps to eliminate glare. There are lots of things in space that emit polarized light, such as pulsars and matter within accretion disks. Radio telescopes in particular can detect the polarization of this light, which gives astronomers more information than they’d otherwise have.
One of the properties of polarized light is that different frequencies move through ionized gas at slightly different speeds. This gives a beam of polarized light and effective rotation depending on how much ionized gas it travels through. Since ionized gas is caught by magnetic fields, we can map the magnetic fields by looking at the polarization of various light sources.
White lines show the complex structure of magnetic fields in our galaxy. Credit: Doi, et al
This has been done before, and it has given us a rough map of magnetic fields in our galaxy. What these studies found was that the magnetic fields of the Milky Way tend to fall uniformly along the disk shape of the galaxy. This new study took this one step further. Using data from the Gaia spacecraft, the team had a detailed map of the distribution of stars and nebulae in the local region of our galaxy. They then combined this with polarization observations of the Sagittarius spiral arm. Together this gave them a detailed 3-dimensional magnetic field map of the region.
They found that the magnetic fields aren’t uniform, and don’t simply lie along the galactic plane. Even within the diffuse regions of interstellar space galactic magnetic fields can take complex forms. Many of their field lines diverge significantly from the galactic plane. They also found that these galactic magnetic fields can strongly interact with stellar nurseries, penetrating them and affecting the motion of gas and dust. This could explain how some stellar nurseries have regions of star formation that could not have formed from gravity alone.
As we capture a more detailed view of magnetic fields, we will better understand how they interact with the galaxy as a whole. They not only affect the formation of new stars but could impact the structure of galaxies and how they evolve over time.
In Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy, the famous words “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” adorn the gates of hell. Interestingly enough, Dante’s vision of hell is an apt description of what conditions are like on Venus. With an average temperature of 450 °C (842 °F), atmospheric pressures 92 times that of Earth, and clouds of sulfuric acid rain to boot, Venus is the most hostile environment in the Solar System. It is little wonder why space agencies, going all the way back to the beginning of the Space Age, have had such a hard time exploring Venus’ atmosphere.
Despite that, there are many proposals for missions that could survive Venus’ hellish environment long enough to accomplish a sample return mission. One such proposal, the Sample Return from the Surface of Venus, comes from aerospace engineer and author Geoffrey Landis and his colleagues at the NASA Glenn Research Center. Their proposed concept was selected for this year’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. It consists of a solar-powered aircraft that would fashion propellant directly from Venus’ atmosphere and deploy a sample-return rover to the surface.
The concept of a solar-powered airplane exploring Venus is one Landis and his colleagues have been developing for roughly twenty years. In his first paper, released in 2001, “Exploring Venus by Solar Airplane,” Landis indicated how a solar-powered airplane could safely explore above the cloud deck on Venus – roughly 60 km (37 mi) above the surface. At this altitude, he claimed, the solar intensity is “comparable to or greater than terrestrial solar intensities,” and the atmospheric pressure makes flight easier than on Mars.
He also noted how Venus’s slow rotation would ensure that the airplane would be exposed to continuous sunlight and wouldn’t require stored energy for night-time flight. In a paper released in 2003, “Atmospheric Flight on Venus: A Conceptual Design,” Landis and colleagues from NASA Glenn and the University of Illinois shared specifications for a potential fleet of solar-powered aircraft. Two years later, This was followed by “Venus atmospheric exploration by solar aircraft” in 2005, where Landis and these same colleagues advocated for a mission to explore Venus’ atmosphere 50 to 75 km (31 to 47 mi) from the surface.
This region is part of Venus’ “middle atmosphere,” where temperatures range from -100 °C (-148 °F) to about 30-70°C (86-158 °F), and exposure to sulfuric acid rain would be minimal. What’s more, thanks to Venus’ slow rotational period (243 days), a solar-powered aircraft flying above the cloud deck would also be exposed to perennial daylight. As Landis told Universe Today via email:
“The middle atmosphere of Venus is nearly the most unknown region of the planet, and simply flying an airplane in this region could lead to some interesting science. Aircraft have the advantage that they have complete control over flight; you go where you want to go, not where the wind sends you. For the sample return, the airplane gives us the option to do a controlled rendezvous with the return rocket.”
In a subsequent paper released in 2004, “Robotic Exploration of the Surface and Atmosphere of Venus,” Landis presented a mission architecture that included both surface robots and a solar-powered airplane. Whereas the robots would explore the surface for 50 days (their full lifetime), the aircraft would probe Venus’ atmosphere between 100 km (62 miles) and 60 km (37 mi) above the surface – i.e., just above the cloud deck. From this point onward, Landis and his colleagues at NASA’s Glenn began to consider how advances in materials science would enable a mission to the surface.
Slide from a 2008 presentation to NASA’s STDT for Venus. Credit: Geoffrey A. Landis/NASA
In 2008, Landis and his team presented their concept to NASA’s Science and Technology Definition Team (STDT) for Venus. As they revealed, the concept would have a wingspan of 9 meters (29.5 feet) and measure 7 m (23 ft) long, with a foldable design that would allow it to fit inside an aeroshell. The aircraft would unfold once it reached Venus and would have many advantages over other airborne concepts – such as balloons and solar-powered airships. Several studies by Landis and his team followed, and the design has evolved with time.
Suffice it to say the concept has evolved considerably over the past twenty years and owes its existence to many different sources. In its latest version, which was selected for Phase I NIAC development, the aircraft relies on carbon monoxide rocket technology and generates its own propellant directly from Venus’ atmosphere. As Landis told Universe Today, this concept is still in line with the original idea and could enable the first sample-return mission from Venus:
“[T]he first paper I did, looking at Venus airplanes, was back in 2001, when we were still hoping it would be exciting to celebrate the centenary of the Wright Flyer with the first flight on another planet. The solar airplanes we looked at in the past, though, were for flight in the upper atmosphere, not in the hot near-surface atmosphere. But high-temperature electronics are being developed at NASA Glenn and elsewhere, and it was reasonable to start thinking whether it’s possible to actually fly all the way to the surface and back up.”
“Separately, we were looking at in-situ propellant production for other missions, and I started thinking, where else could we think to apply in-situ propellant production that hasn’t already been analyzed, and particularly, where could it make a real difference in an otherwise nearly impossible mission?” said Landis.“The Venus sample return stemmed from that kind of thinking.”
The aircraft would be paired with a surface element that takes advantage of high-temperature surface systems. As explored in previous articles, scientists have spent years working on concepts that could operate in Venus’ hellish environment. This has led to a diverse range of proposals that incorporate “steampunk” technology, a wind sail, or special electronic systems that can withstand the extreme heat and pressure of Venus’ atmosphere. In addition, the aircraft could also obtain atmospheric samples, perhaps settling the debate on whether there could be life in Venus’ clouds.
“For the surface sample, this would be primarily a geology and mineralogy mission,” said Landis. “An atmospheric sample would also have tremendous scientific value for astrobiology and would be a good stepping stone to the more difficult surface sample mission. The recent discovery of phosphine in the clouds of Venus makes the idea of a cloud sampler even more exciting.”
With Phase I funding secured, Landis and his colleagues are now focused on turning the conceptual mission architecture into detailed designs. As Landis explained, this will consist of a step-by-step concept of operations (CONOPS), where all the mission components will be combined to create a mass budget, produce some hard numbers, and show that it is feasible. Looking to the future, Landis and his colleagues hope that their proposal will lead to applications for aerial vehicles and exploration that go far beyond Venus and Mars:
“I do think that the next big step in planetary exploration, pioneered by the Mars ‘Insight’ helicopter, is flight. In-situ resource utilization, although talked about extensively, has yet to be attempted on any solar system body (other than Earth). Putting these together should open doors to the exploration of many planetary bodies.”
Astronomers Rule Out One Explanation for the Hubble Tension
Perhaps the greatest and most frustrating mystery in cosmology is the Hubble tension problem. Put simply, all the observational evidence we have points to a Universe that began in a hot, dense state, and then expanded at an ever-increasing rate to become the Universe we see today. Every measurement of that expansion agrees with this, but where they don’t agree is on what that rate exactly is. We can measure expansion in lots of different ways, and while they are in the same general ballpark, their uncertainties are so small now that they don’t overlap. There is no value for the Hubble parameter that falls within the uncertainty of all measurements, hence the problem.
Of course, most of the results depend on a long chain of observational results. When we measure cosmic expansion using distant supernovae, for example, the result depends on the derived distances of these supernovae as found through the cosmic distance ladder, where ever greater distances are determined based on the distance of closer things. So, from parallax we measure nearby stellar distances, use that to calibrate a type of variable star known as Cepheid variables, use Cepheids to measure galactic distances in our local group, use that to standardize the brightness of Type Ia supernovae, and finally use those supernovae to measure the most distant galaxies.
Each step in the cosmic distance ladder has a certain amount of uncertainty and this carries on to the next level. So, if one kind of distance measure happens to be really off, that would throw off our measure of cosmic expansion for any method that depends upon the distance ladder. As a result, astronomers have started to take a very close look at various ladder steps, looking for an error that would solve the tension problem. Much of that has focused on Cepheid variable stars.
Cepheid variables are a type of variable star that varies in brightness at a rate proportional to its overall luminosity. This period-luminosity relation was first discovered by Henrietta Leavitt in the 1800s, and has been central to cosmology ever since. If you measure the period of a Cepheid, you know its actual brightness and compare it to its apparent brightness to determine its distance. Cepheids were used by Edwin Hubble to discover cosmic expansion in the first place, and the method has proven quite reliable.
But over the years we found that Leavitt’s period-luminosity relation is a bit more subtle than originally thought. For example, we now know that the period of a Cepheid is slightly different based upon its metallicity and other factors. Perhaps there’s some variation in the data we’ve missed.
Comparison of Cepheid period-luminosity relations used to measure distances. The red points are from Webb and the gray points are from Hubble. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Kang (STScI)
A few years ago Cepheid observations from Hubble were used to see if adjustments in the period-luminosity relation could account for the Hubble tension, but the results didn’t look promising. Now a study using JWST observations has been released. One advantage of JWST over Hubble is that Webb observes Cepheids in infrared light, which penetrates interstellar dust more readily. The Webb observations are also better at addressing the issue of “crowding,” where light from the Cepheid can be overwhelmed a bit by the light of stars in the same cluster. So these latest results are the most accurate Cepheid observations we have. In this new study, the team looked at more than a thousand Cepheid variables and was able to pinpoint the distance relation for Cepheids with extreme precision. From this, they proved that Cepheid variable error can’t account for the Hubble tension.
The Cepheid solution to the tension problem is ruled out at a statistical level of 8-sigma. In science, a 5-sigma result is considered “certain,” so the Hubble tension is very, very real. Whether it’s spacetime structure, dark energy, or something we haven’t yet discovered, there is something we simply don’t understand about cosmic expansion.
This Day in UFO History: The 1957 Yokohama UFO Sighting Photo
This Day in UFO History: The 1957 Yokohama UFO Sighting Photo
1957 Yokohama UFO photo
January 17th marks a significant date in UFO history, particularly recalling a fascinating event from 1957 in Yokohama, Japan. On this day, an extraordinary sighting was reported, capturing the attention of UFO enthusiasts and researchers globally.
The Sighting
In the early hours of the morning, UFO researcher Yusuke J. Matsumura, affiliated with the Flying Saucer Research group in Japan, experienced something unprecedented. He was about to leave his residence in Yokohama for Tokyo when a sudden, metallic flash caught his eye. This flash emanated from above his house, drawing his immediate attention.
The Encounter
Matsumura, equipped with his Primoflex Automatic camera, managed to photograph a mysterious object. This object, described as a UFO, was estimated to be around 20 to 30 feet in diameter. Hovering at a height of about 60-70 feet, the UFO presented a mesmerizing spectacle, reflecting the morning sun with its metallic surface.
The Departure
The UFO remained in sight for approximately one to two minutes, offering Matsumura a brief window to document this momentous event. The object is reported to have ascended at an astonishing speed, estimatGezondheided to be Mach 152, in a 70-degree elevation, heading in the southeast direction toward Tokyo Bay.
The Aftermath
The incident, taking place near 1687 Hama Isogo Ku in Yokohama, became a topic of considerable intrigue. The photograph taken by Matsumura has been subjected to numerous analyses over the years. Experts in the field have scrutinized the image, finding no evidence of manipulation or tampering, further adding to the mystery and credibility of the sighting.
The Legacy
This event remains one of the most credible and well-documented UFO sightings in history. It continues to be a subject of study and fascination among UFO researchers and enthusiasts. The Yokohama UFO sighting of January 17, 1957, stands as a testament to the enduring mystery and intrigue surrounding unidentified flying objects and their possible implications.
There don’t appear to be any recent updates or new developments specifically related to the UFO sighting in Yokohama, Japan, on January 17, 1957, by UFO researcher Yusuke J. Matsumura. The incident, where Matsumura captured a photograph of a metallic UFO, remains one of the more credible sightings in UFO history, with experts having analyzed the photo and found no evidence of manipulation or tampering.
However, interest in UFOs and extraterrestrial life continues in Japan and around the world. For instance, a rural community in northeastern Japan, known for numerous UFO sightings, has been promoting itself as a “home to aliens” to revitalize its local economy. This area in Fukushima has become a hub for UFO enthusiasts, featuring a UFO museum and various UFO-themed events and paraphernalia. The International UFO Lab, established in 2021 in this region, collects and disseminates UFO sighting reports globally, indicating an ongoing global interest in UFOs, especially after the U.S. Department of Defense released video footage of unidentified aerial phenomena in 2020.
In the 1940s, the CIA first became involved in UFOs. Since then, a number of former US military personnel and CIA officers have advanced UFOlogy by making stunning remarks. Former CIA and US military officials including R. James Woolsey, John Brennan,Jim Semivan, Lue Elizondo, and others have described how the existence of reality all around us that we are unable to perceive could be a major aspect of the UFO phenomenon.
Since 2021, John Ramirez, who spent 25 years in the CIA, has been providing truthful insights into the UAPs that he learned in his career. He is a highly intelligent individual who has an immense amount of knowledge and experience regarding the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the UAP subject. He has made an impressive social media presence after he revealed many UAP-related mysteries that had never been discussed in public by any government official.
CIA retired John Ramirez, who specialized in ballistic missile defense systems, worked for the CIA from 1984 to 2009, holding positions in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Directorate of Science and Technology, and the Directorate of Intelligence. He attained GS-15 grade, which indicates that he worked for the agency in a relatively senior capacity.
His appearance on the highly acclaimed Witness Citizen podcast on October 17, 2021 created a huge burst in the UFO community. Later, Ramirez made an appearance on Project Unity, where he delivered a series of slides to assist researchers in navigating the FOIA process. Ramirez was particularly helpful in identifying the appropriate agencies to contact when requesting particular types of information.
The slides, which are available online, also include historical information about UFOs and current statements made by prominent former U.S. intelligence officials, including John Ratcliffe, a former director of national intelligence. He stated a schematic on how to investigate a UFO in the CIA style:
Establish a group to investigate and evaluate sightings;
Determine the objectives of your investigation;
Consult with experts;
Create a reporting system to organize incoming cases;
Eliminate false positives;
Develop a methodology to identify common aircraft and other aerial phenomena often mistaken for UFOs;
Examine witness documentation;
Conduct controlled experiments;
Gather and test physical and forensics evidence and Discourage false reporting.
Ramirez made assumptions regarding the current UFO disclosure procedure, and it appears that his opinions may have been influenced by members of the intelligence community, either current or former, or perhaps by individuals connected to the Department of Defense. During his interview with Project Unity, Ramirez claimed that the US government does not currently discuss the UFO craft’s occupants. This is a significant comment from Ramirez, who has asserted his opinion that UFOs may indeed represent a form of non-human intelligence.
John Ramirez retired from the agency recently as an officer with GS-15 status.
Ramirez is not the first CIA agent to make the assertion that UFOs might be non-human intelligence. John Brennan, a former CIA director, suggested that UFOs might be “a different form of life.” Brennan said: “You try to ensure that you have as much data as possible in terms of visuals and also different types of maybe technical collection of sensors that you have at the time. (Source)
Also, I believe, it’s important to reach out into other environments and find out, were there any type of weather phenomena at that time that might have, in fact, created the appearance of the phenomenon that you’re looking at? Were there some things that were happening on the ground, or other types of phenomena that could help explain what seems to be quite a mystery as far as what is there? You really have to approach it with an open mind, but get as much data as possible and get as much expertise as possible brought to bear.”
Some speculated that Ramirez suggests that the USAF may be responsible for sightings of triangular aircraft, which some have dubbed the TR3B. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Tom Delonge implied that the United States government owned such vessels, but also said that some of them belonged to other intelligence. Delonge claimed that triangle-shaped craft, assuming they contain tail fins, symbolize human technology.
According to a member of the US House of Representatives Tim Burchett, it may all have started after the government recovered crashed alien vehicles. During an interview for On Balance With Leland Vittert, Burchett was asked about the Navy’s possession of more videos of UFOs that it is not willing to release to the public for reasons of National Security.
If anti-gravitic crafts exist, then potentially, such technology will be disclosed throughout the disclosure process. Former senator Harry Reid has already asserted that Lockheed Martin may have UFO materials, thus perhaps technology does exist. According to Lue Elizondo, the disclosure procedure and potential international collaboration (including with China) may lead to amazing technological advancements. (Source)
Ross Coulthart, an investigative journalist, in histweetshared a link to a YouTube video (which is now private), stating John Ramirez tells IUFOC the agency’s weird desk investigations into UAP never stopped from the 1940s. “These are ongoing programs from the very beginning. They are still there.” It’s “more than” just the Pentagon’s AAWSAP-AATIP. Check the below Twitter thread to understand the context Coulthart is trying to explain
“There for them to ask me questions. But it was very clear to me that AATIP was not the first of its kind effort. There was an organized effort back in the 80s to do exactly this as well. Now how far they got, I don’t know because what was told to me, verbatim,” Elizondo said.
Ramirez also experienced what might be considered alien abduction-type experiences, including being placed on an examination table in a circular craft. Interestingly, a number of his counterparts in the CIA and NSA also had UFO experiences, he revealed. In his job related to missile defense, he became aware of times when Russian radar would detect unusual craft, and in one instance, he said they tried to lure a UAP into landing.
Ramirez noted that CIA historian Gerald Haines wrote about the agency’s study of UFOs from 1947 through the 1990s, for a division that was initially called the Office of Scientific Intelligence. What was particularly intriguing to Ramirez is that the division had life sciences and medical people on staff, indicating possible interest in alien bodies.
He also described how an Air Force pilot on the plane that flew near Kamchatka to monitor Russian tests observed a massive “milky white wall” of light flying toward him at 6,200 mph, though the Air Force assumed it was some kind of countermeasure by the Russians. Regarding the military sightings of “trans-medium” UAP like the Tic Tacs, Ramirez said he does not believe that Russia or any other foreign country has the capabilities to produce this kind of antigravity technology.
Elizondo made these points in several interviews, but in this one, he was asked to elaborate on his comments about how our senses are reductive and limit our reality, and how this might be relevant to the phenomenon.
In his interview with Project Unity, Ramirez opined that Humans are hybrids. According to him, Elizondo is unable to use the word “hybridization,” but the Pentagon employees are counting on him to do so eventually. Elizondo discussed the possibility that non-human intelligence have been in contact with humans for a very long time on the Theories of Everything podcast. This would imply that we have all forgotten about our own past, which would hide the possibility that we are hybrids of humans and extraterrestrials.
Something is coming in 2027
On Podcast UFO with Martin Wills, Ramirez claimed that government is aware of an impending event in 2027 which will reveal something quite significant so people are being prepared. He has been stating that there is a presence on Earth (which he refers demonic) who are just projecting their own belief systems to make us disbelieve in what we believe. Wills asked Ramirez what would happen if there was mass Landing? would we just simply prepare for a conflict or would we actually initiate something? (Source)
Former CIA replied:
“I think the dialogue we have now in this country, even with the recent legislation that passed through the legislature and is on its way up to the president’s desk, is preparing the U.S population, and by extension the world population, for the reality that there is a presence here that we need to explain. If they show up and we continue to do what we did before in previous decades, there will be mass panic. However, if we understand that these are real and we have five years from 2022, or maybe now four years, if they come in 2027, for the US government to prepare the people about what is up there.
In many ways, I think the word got out within the government that they’re showing up in 2027, and we better be prepared. If not, there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do. So, I think that dialogue has happened within certain areas inside the government, that we need to prepare.
That’s why in 2017, that set a clock of 10 years, and why Lou Elizondo earlier in this year said, “Just find a hobby for five years, and it’ll all be out in five years,” and he said that this year, so that was 2027. I’ve heard 2027 in an official capacity, and I can’t reveal, so I would say that people in the government are aware of something happening, and there’s limited time, a few more years to prepare the people. That’s what’s wrapping up this acceleration from the previous seven decades of not even acknowledging it to now acknowledging it at a faster and faster pace.”
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REVEALED: Peruvian ‘aliens’ forensic analysis
REVEALED: Peruvian ‘aliens’ forensic analysis
In a world where the lines between science fiction and reality often blur, the discovery of what appeared to be alien mummies in Peru grabbed headlines and captivated imaginations globally. These seemingly otherworldly specimens, unearthed in the hustle of Lima’s airport within a DHL office, sparked a flurry of UFO sightings theories and extraterrestrial speculations. However, the recent forensic analysis has unveiled a truth much closer to home, turning a story of potential alien life into a fascinating case study of human creativity and scientific inquiry.
The journey of these ‘Peruvian aliens’ began when customs agents intercepted a package containing diminutive, mummified figures and a separate three-fingered hand. The package, destined for Mexico, raised immediate questions about its contents. Were these the remnants of an unknown, alien species, or was there another explanation? The intrigue only deepened with Mexican journalist and self-proclaimed UFO expert Jaime Maussan’s presentation to Mexico’s Congress, claiming these were ancient extraterrestrial beings.
However, science, the ever-reliable arbitrator of truth, stepped in to demystify the enigma. The forensic analysis, conducted at the behest of Peru’s prosecutor’s office, was led by forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada. His findings were conclusive and surprisingly mundane. The ‘alien’ figures were not visitors from another planet but rather intricate assemblages of animal bones, artfully crafted and bound together with modern synthetic glues. These were not relics of an undiscovered alien civilization but earthly creations, dolls fabricated with a blend of creativity and deception.
Estrada’s revelation at the press conference in Lima was a sobering reminder of the fine line between fact and fiction. It also highlighted the human penchant for weaving extraordinary narratives around unexplained phenomena. Estrada emphasized the distinction between grounded scientific evidence and the realm of pseudo-science, often fueled by economic or other less scholarly interests.
Jaime Maussan on the right
While Estrada did not explicitly link the findings in Peru with Maussan’s presentation in Mexico, the implications were clear. Both instances involved objects that, despite their initial presentation as potential evidence of extraterrestrial life, were ultimately rooted in earthly materials and human ingenuity.
This episode serves as a captivating narrative about our collective fascination with the unknown, particularly the enduring allure of aliens and UFO sightings. It underscores the vital role of scientific rigor and forensic analysis in dispelling myths and unearthing truths, no matter how mundane they may be compared to the mysteries of outer space. As we continue to gaze at the stars and wonder about life beyond our planet, the Peruvian ‘aliens’ remind us that sometimes, the answers we seek are much closer to home.
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UFO Revolutions docuseries 'blow up decades of conspiracies' and introduces key figures who helped force Congress and the Pentagon to investigate if extraterrestrial crafts exist
UFO Revolutions docuseries 'blow up decades of conspiracies' and introduces key figures who helped force Congress and the Pentagon to investigate if extraterrestrial crafts exist
A new docuseries called UFO Revolutions has introduced key figures who helped force Congress and the Pentagon to look into extraterrestrial crafts
Jeremy Corbell, a documentary filmmaker involved in the series said the series shows 'How the American people have been lied to' about UFOs
Whistleblowers, including US government officials have also supported claims of UFO activity
A new docuseries called UFO Revolutions has introduced key figures who helped force Congress and the Pentagon to investigate if extraterrestrial crafts exist.
The series has gone on to 'blow up decades of conspiracies' about the cover up of UFO's threatening national security in the US.
Investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who is featured in the three-part series said that video of a UFO captured in Iraq by US military 'was treated with spectacular secrecy.'
Corbell has long followed extraterrestrial activity on the planet and the movement of UFOs as they approach the earth. The US government has been under constant scrutiny that they are concealing key evidence of UFOs flying into the county and around the world.
'It's really powerful, man. This is more than just a docuseries. It really peels back the veil and lets people see how many people are fighting for this. How the American people have been lied to. It just blows up decades of conspiracies,' Corbell told Fox News Digital.
Investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who is featured in the three-part series said that it 'is more than just a docuseries' and that it shows 'How American people have been lied to'
The Pentagon explained the previously released video of green triangles that looked like alien spacecraft were simply drones photographed through night-vision lenses
He noted that he and everyone else involved in this production took 'big risks coming forward,' as whistleblowers attacked the US government for concealing information on the topic.
David Grusch, a United States Air Force Officer and former intelligence official is one of the whistleblowers who decided to testify under oath in front of Congress.
Grusch revealed at a Cognresssional hearing that his life was in danger after he came forward about a secretive government-run crashed UFO retrieval program that he claimed was used to reverse engineer UFO technology.
Included it the docuseries is a video of a 'jellyfish' or 'chandelier' shaped UFO that was captured on raw footage in 2018 as it flew over a military base.
Corbell said that the UFO 'was filmed over the Persian Gulf' and has officially been designated as a UAP, also known as an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
US Marine veteran Michael Cincoski, who was stationed at the base when the obscure object flew over, said that he and other crew members saw what they described as a 'spagehetti monster.'
'Seeing a portion of the video again after 6 years is very exciting, especially now that it's available to the public,' Cincoski said.
The veteran also added that since then, he has spoken to his fellow team members who have said that there were multiple videos of the mysterious floating object in various durations.
In 2021 the US Navy filmed 'pyramid-shaped' UFOs as they hovered over USS Russell Navy ship off the coast of California.
The Pentagon later explained that the green triangle were simply drones photographed through night-vision lenses.
Included it the docuseries is a video of a 'jellyfish' or 'chandelier' shaped UFO that was captured on raw footage in 2018 as it flew over a military base
This metallic-like orb was the first time that the public saw a UFO in an active war zone.
'This is a problem, because if we get two nations firing upon these unknowns, these unidentified flying objects, then what we have is a potential for crossfire and a potential for each country thinking it's the other's asset,' Corbell said in an interview with Fox Digital in February.
Another person who has gone on to warn the American public of these designated UFOs was Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett.
Burchett has been outspoken about the threat and is featured in the docuseries. In July, he warned the public that humanity 'can't handle' the technology that he's witnessed in these shocking videos.
'If they're out there, they're out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,' the Congressman admitted.
A witness uploaded the bizarre video of the sighting on Reddit and described the large cluster of lights as 'spinning and darting back and forth.'
The user said the multicolored lights were flying 'very high' above the city.
Footage of the peculiar sighting was very shaky, which the witness said was because their wife couldn't stop the car, so the mysterious objects were unclear.
A different Reddit user joked 'next time you see UFO's in the sky, please, politely, tell your wife to STOP THE F***ING CAR!'
Despite the shaky footage - the group of strange lights were obviously seen floating amid the bright blue sky in the middle of the day.
Mysterious footage shows a group of UFOs flying above Philadelphia - with two of the crafts even strangely merging together
The fake alien twins that sparked an out-of-this-world search for the truth: How 'UFO experts' led the world to believe 'alien corpses' found in Peru were real
The fake alien twins that sparked an out-of-this-world search for the truth: How 'UFO experts' led the world to believe 'alien corpses' found in Peru were real
Images of the pint-sized extraterrestrial pals triggered a bout of mass ET hysteria
In the annals of cosmic curiosity, the unveiling of two alien like figures in South America last year stands out as a moment which sparked unbridled joy among believers - and even caused some sceptics to sit up and take notice.
Emergent images of the pint-sized extraterrestrial pals triggered a bout of mass ET hysteria in September, when Mexican journalist José Jaime Maussan stood before the nation's Congress and declared they were 'non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution'.
Cue months of congressional hearings which saw researchers make a string of astounding claims - including that they couldn't identify 30% of the hybrid being's DNA - prompting Maussan to allege the supposedly fossilised lifeforms would 'rewrite history' and 'were intelligent and lived with us'.
Now, it seems, the game is up.
Forensic scientists in Peru revealed last week the public had been duped, declaring that two near-identical figures seized by customs agents in a shipment destined for Mexico were nothing more than dolls glued together using animal bones, paper and chunks of metal.
But the question remains - how was Mexico's Congress, and much of the scientific community, seemingly caught out by a pair of papier-mâché imposters?
And why did it take so long for the scientific community to establish what the sceptics had said all along - that this had to be a hoax?
Here, MailOnline recaps this calamitous cosmic comedy in its entirety.
The emergence of images of the pint-sized extraterrestrial pals - discovered by Peruvian customs agents intercepting a suspicious package en-route to Mexico - triggered a phase of mass ET hysteria
Flavio Estrada (R), forensic archaeologist of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Lima of the Public Ministry
The mystery of Mexico's 'aliens' has been solved... and they're not extraterrestrials
Peruvian archaeologist Flavio Estrada, member of the Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences Institute, shows what has been believed to be remains of an extraterrestrial alien during a press conference where forensic experts rule out the existence of alleged extraterrestrial mummies
A tiny body of a specimen, that Mexican journalist and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan says is not related to any known Earthly species, undergoes a CT scan, at Noor Clinic, in Huixquilucan, Mexico September 18, 2023
This celestial caper began on September 12 when Mexico announced it was holding its first ever congressional hearing on UFOs.
The announcement prompted widespread speculation that was exponentially compounded when the first images emerged of what was billed as 'the face of an extraterrestrial being'.
Shocked viewers were greeted by a chalky grey face peeking out from a dark, wooden casket in which the 'alien' had been laid.
Sporting slit-like eyes, a misshapen nose and a small coin-slot mouth, the figure's head and neck were not too dissimilar to that of Steven Spielberg's ET - but were accompanied by a tiny, wafer-thin body with spindly limbs and three digits on each hand.
And there were two of them.
Many immediately dismissed the figures as fakes - but the dramatic reveal was followed in short order by a series of convincing testimonies to the seeming authenticity of the specimens.
Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Maussan led the testimonies, claiming the childlike bodies lying before Congress were not related to any life on Earth.
Maussan said the bodies were actually unearthed in Peru near the ancient Nazca Lines in 2017.
'This is the first time extraterrestrial life is presented in such a form and I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world and that any scientific institution can investigate it,' Maussan said.
'We are not alone,' he concluded.
Moments later, Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, Director of the Scientific Institute for Health of the Mexican navy, said X-rays, 3-D reconstruction and DNA analysis had been carried out on the remains.
'I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings,' he said.
This seemingly official stamp of authenticity caused many to reexamine their preconceived notions, and was perhaps reinforced by a recent reduction in the stigma that has long been associated with reporting UFOs.
Mexico's Congress also heard testimony from former US Navy pilot Ryan Graves, one of the leading figures pushing for research into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) who has participated in US Congressional hearings about his personal encounters with unidentified craft while serving.
The Pentagon has been actively investigating reported sightings in recent years by military aviators, and NASA announced the creation of a new panel studying UFOs - the first of its kind by the space agency.
A group of international experts hold a hearing in Mexico's lower house to discuss extraterrestrial sightings, with Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan (C) presenting alleged bodies of 'non-human' beings, in Mexico City, Mexico on September 13, 2023
Mexican legislators held another hearing dedicated to the potential for extraterrestrial life forms and UFOs in November
A screen shows what Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan claims are extraterrestrial life forms
One of the two 'non-human' beings displayed to the media is seen during a press conference of Mexican journalist and UFO expert, Jaime Maussan, at the Camino Real hotel, in Mexico City
Two months after Maussan's bombshell claims before Congress, Mexico held another hearing on November 7 which only served to further complicate the saga.
In this hearing, Maussan ushered in a team of researchers who performed a DNA analysis on the figures.
They claimed at least 30% of the bodies' DNA was 'not from any known species' and declared without caveat that each figure was 'authentic' and complete with its own skeletal structure.
'This is the first time extraterrestrial life has been presented in this manner, Maussan said to Congress.
'We have a clear example of non-human specimens unrelated to any known species on our planet.
'The public has the right to know about non-human technology and beings. This reality unites humanity rather than dividing us. We are not alone in this vast universe; we should embrace this truth.'
Maussan added that the two corpses had sturdy bones, were toothless, and contained implants made of the soft, slivery-white metal cadmium and the bluish-white metal osmium - rare elements on Earth.
A squad of medical experts later carried in a letter signed by 11 researchers from San Luis Gonzaga National University in Ica, Peru, declaring the same.
One anthropologist from the university, Roger Zuniga, claimed: 'There was absolutely no human intervention in the physical and biological formation of these beings.'
The scientists' letter made clear the team was not implying the bodies were 'extraterrestrial' - though it also said they could not say where the figures had originated from.
But Argentine surgeon Celestino Adolfo Piotto ramped up speculation even further when he said he believed, after reviewing test results and images of the bodies, the figures were actually an evolved version of today's human beings, calling them 'our descendants'.
These claims came after two near-identical figures were seized by Peruvian customs authorities when they were sent in a shipment destined for an unnamed recipient in Mexico, only adding to the mystery surrounding their origin and the details of their ownership.
Two pieces that look like small mummies that were seized in October 2023 at the Lima airport and that were going to be sent to Mexico
One of the two pieces that look like small mummies that were seized in October 2023 at the Lima airport and that were going to be sent to Mexico, is presented by the Ministry of Culture of Peru with the results of an expert opinion, in Lima, Peru, 12 January 2024
Different experts from the Ministry of Culture and the Peruvian Prosecutor's Office described as 'fraud' some alleged extraterrestrial mummies very similar to those presented by the 'ufologist' Jaime Maussan
On January 12, authorities in Lima held a press conference in which its scientists firmly rained on the ET-lovers' parade.
Speaking on the two figures seized by customs authorities in October, lead forensic expert Flavio Estrada said flatly: 'They are not extraterrestrials, they are not intraterrestrials, they are not a new species, they are not hybrids.'
Estrada explained his team of experts from the Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences Institute had painstakingly analysed the figures and concluded they were simply dolls that had been pieced together with paper, glue and metal over a frame composed of human and animal bones.
'The conclusion is simple: they are dolls assembled with bones of animals from this planet, with modern synthetic glues, therefore they were not assembled during pre-Hispanic times,' Estrada told reporters.
'They are not extraterrestrials; they are not aliens.'
It must be said that the figures analysed by Estrada's team are not the same as those presented to Mexico's Congress by Maussan.
But they appeared to be almost exactly the same in size, appearance and weight.
Estrada was plain in his condemnation of what he called 'pseudo-science' on the part of Maussan and his researchers, accusing them of trying to peddle claims with no scientific backing.
'[The figures] are none of those things that this group of pseudo-scientists who for six years have been presenting with these elements,' he said.
It has since transpired that Maussan has been disproven before.
In 2015, the self-confessed UFO enthusiast reported on the discovery of what was then billed as an extraterrestrial life form - which was later revealed to be the remains of a human child.
While there very well may be extraterrestrial life, it seems safe to assume that those little grey figures in Mexico's Congress are very much a product of earthly deception.
Reports surfaced Tuesday of a UFO flying incredibly close to a Wizz Air flight from Luton, England, to Syzmany, Poland.
Flight attendant Denisa Tanase, 36, captured a video of what appears to be a bright pink UFO not too far outside of the aircraft, according to Luton Today. Tanase was trying to snap a video of the view from the aircraft, as seen in photographs shared on social media, and a video shared by Metro UK.
She apparently thought nothing more of the video until she came to review it 20 minutes later, and saw something that was quite amiss. In the 30-second-ish clip, a bright pink series of swirls can easily be seen outside the window, taking up a huge portion of the skies ahead of her.
The strange object appeared and reappeared in the shot, almost like a reflection on the glass of the plane window. It’s almost like a burning ball in the middle of the sky … the same color as the Wizz Air planes.
“I’ve been a flight attendant for a year and have never seen anything like this. I couldn’t see anything with my bare eyes. But when I checked the video 20 minutes later I spotted it and I spoke to the pilot to ask if they knew anything,” she told Metro UK. “Everyone was confused – they hadn’t seen anything while flying and there had been no turbulence. It was a weird shape, like a circle flashing pink. At first we thought maybe it was a reflection of our pink uniform but on the video you can see the motion – you can see it’s flying.”
Reports of airline pilots and flight attendants spotting UFOs have risen significantly over the last few years, largely due to the drop in stigma around the topic. But will we ever know the full truth of what’s out there? No, not unless these beings tell us themselveS.
Air stewardess films pink 'UFO'… during Wizz Air flight from Luton to Poland: Mother-of-two says 'I've never seen anything like it…the pilot was so confused'
Denisa Tanase, 36, was working on a flight when she spotted a stunning view
She took video but only noticed interesting detail when she reviewed footage
A stewardess believes she has filmed a pink UFO during a flight from Luton to Poland.
Denisa Tanase, 36, was working on the Wizz Air flight when she spotted a stunning view out of the window.
The mother-of-two grabbed her phone and took a video, but thought nothing more of it.
When she reviewed the footage 20 minutes later, she saw an unidentified flying object.
Ms Tanase, from Corby, Northamptonshire, said: 'I've been a flight attendant for a year and have never seen anything like this.
Denisa Tanase, from Corby, Northamptonshire, grabbed her phone and took a video, but thought nothing more of it. But when she reviewed the footage 20 minutes later, she saw an unidentified object
The Wizz Air stewardess, 36, was working on a flight from Luton to Poland when she spotted a stunning view out of the window
'I couldn't see anything with my bare eyes.
'But when I checked the video 20 minutes later, I spotted it and I spoke to the pilot to ask if they knew anything.'
She added: 'Everyone was confused. They hadn't seen anything while flying and there had been no turbulence.
'It was a weird shape, like a circle flashing pink.
'At first we thought maybe it was a reflection of our pink uniform but on the video you can see the motion – you can see it's flying.'
Despite being confused by what she caught on film, Denisa was not concerned by the footage.
A close-up of the purple 'UFO'. Denise said: 'At first we thought maybe it was a reflection of our pink uniform but on the video you can see the motion - you can see it's flying'
She had always wondered about whether alien life could exist, but she is now sure that it does.
Ms Tanase said: 'I was just happy that I got something on film. I thought: "How is this possible?"
'I've seen stuff before on the internet and thought, "hmm this could be Photoshop", but I had it on video myself.
'Now I definitely believe more than before.
'My family and friends think it is definitely aliens. My husband said: "You're my wife, I believe you."'
Ms Tanase, who has travelled all over Europe with Wizz Air, has not seen any other UFOs since the incident last week and continues her job as normal.
New research from the University of Bristol sheds light on the origin of titanium-rich basaltic magmas on the Moon.
A map of the titanium abundances of the Moon’s surface, obtained from NASA’s Clementine spacecraft; the red parts indicate extremely high concentrations compared to terrestrial rocks.
Image credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute.
Surprisingly high concentrations of the element titanium (Ti) in parts of the lunar surface have been known since NASA’s Apollo missions, back in the 1960s and 1970s, which successfully returned solidified, ancient lava samples from the Moon’s crust.
More recent mapping by orbiting satellite shows these magmas, known as high-Ti basalts, to be widespread on the Moon.
In a series of high temperature lab experiments with molten rocks and sophisticated isotopic analyses of lunar samples, University of Bristol’s Professor Tim Elliott and his colleagues identified a critical reaction that controls the composition of these distinctive magmas.
This reaction took place in the deep lunar interior some 3.5 billion years ago, involving exchange of the element iron in the magma with the element magnesium in the surrounding rocks, modifying the chemical and physical properties of the melt.
“The origin of volcanic lunar rocks is a fascinating tale involving an ‘avalanche’ of an unstable, planetary-scale crystal pile created by the cooling of a primordial magma ocean,” Professor Elliott said.
“Central to constraining this epic history is the presence of a magma type unique to the Moon, but explaining how such magmas could even have got to the surface, to be sampled by space missions, has been a troublesome problem. It is great to have resolved this dilemma.”
“Until now models have been unable to recreate magma compositions that match essential chemical and physical characteristics of the high-Ti basalts,” said Dr. Martijn Klaver, a researcher in the Institute of Mineralogy at the University of Münster.
“It has proven particularly hard to explain their low density, which allowed them to be erupted some three and a half billion years ago.”
“We managed to mimic the high-Ti basalts in the process in the lab using high-temperature experiments,” the researchers said.
“Measurements of the high-Ti basalts also revealed a distinctive isotopic composition that provides a fingerprint of the reactions reproduced by the experiments.”
“Both results clearly demonstrate how the melt-solid reaction is integral in understanding the formation of these unique magmas.”
The findings appear today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
M. Klaver et al. Titanium-rich basaltic melts on the Moon modulated by reactive flow processes. Nat. Geosci, published online January 15, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01362-5
Now this is a strange one and the rarest of the rare encounters. A person was is a desolate location in Utah where there are only a few dirt roads when they looked up on the hill and saw a tall person with a very large head. When I added light to the photo, it reveled a violet thin robe and an almost religious stance...like Jesus. Also the neck is very long and thin. No face can be made out, however we may be looking at it from behind.
Also know, this is Utah, my current home since Taiwan is in jeopardy of being taken over by China. Right now it's snowing in Utah out my window...as I write this and yesterday was colder than today at 26-34F temperatures.
This has all the signs of being a real alien. Also know, there were a few other alien sightings this week, aliens may be deciding on revealing themselves very soon. Remember the alien video from Miami, Florida last week? Or the video from a Brazil island? Yeah...I see a pattern, they are pushing a big reveal soon.
Scott C. Waring - Utah
Eyewitness states:
You guys! I'm not big on ufos or aliens buy wth do you think this is?! We were out at baker hot springs (very desolate area) and were hiking around and saw this. My husband wouldn't let me hike up the mountain to see haha. Creepy af and I'm wondering if someone just set it up.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
UAP Disguised As Meteor, Northford, Connecticut Jan 7, 2024, UFO Sighting News.
UAP Disguised As Meteor, Northford, Connecticut Jan 7, 2024, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Jan 7, 2024 Location of sighting: Northford, Connecticut, USA
Watch carefully and you will notice a dark disk with a hump at the center of the meteor. The closeup I made shows that there really is a UFO trying to disguise itself as a meteor. This is the first time I had ever seen a dark round center of a meteor as it falls and I had to make an enlargement and slow motion to be certain of my suspicions. This is 100% proof UFOs come and go and do disguise themselves so humans will dismiss what they see.
Does Lockheed Martin have its own Alien Recovery Team? Yes you heard me right... a team that gets a phone call and goes out and recovers downed UFO's?
A whistleblower at Lockheed Martin has come forward with details about a Lockheed's secret alien recovery program and reverse engineering program.
The whistleblower said that Lockheed Martin already created its own nonhuman intelligent craft in the 70s and that such a Lockheed reproduction alien craft crashed in Nevada in 2004.
The whistleblower's claim fits well with the statement of Ben Rich the former second Director of Lockheed's Skunk Works who passed away in 1995.
During a presentation Ben Rich gave at Wright Patterson airbase and also at the UCLA School of Engineering Alumni speech on March 23, 1993 he made several groundbreaking statements.
One of his statements was that they already have the technology enabling interstellar travel, but these "alien" technologies are locked up in black projects.
He was telling about a whole new level of craft, spacecraft, advanced propulsion systems, technologies that are already 50 years ahead, that anything you can imagine they already know how to do.
Given the recent revelations by the whistleblower that Lockheed Martin already created its own nonhuman intelligent craft in the 70s and the three-decade span since Rich's disclosures, we can bet that today's advancements in Lockheed's secretive "alien technology" projects likely extend far beyond our current understanding.
And don't hope they make this technology available for use in the private sector, more likely they use this technology, among other things, in a covert space program that none of us have a clue about.
Ben Rich's statement during his presentation in 1993; "The U.S. Air Force has just given Lockheed a contract to take ET back home" says a lot!
In the video below Clayton Morris from Redacted interviews Lockheed's whistleblower.
In recent years, the topic of UFO sightings has captivated the public imagination like never before. With a history shrouded in mystery and intrigue, these sightings pose questions that challenge our understanding of the universe and our place within it. This article delves into the fascinating world of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the possibility of alien life, drawing insights from various sources including the groundbreaking work of Dr. Michael Wolf.
The Enigma of UFO Sightings
UFO sightings have been recorded throughout history, but it’s the modern era that has seen a significant surge in these mysterious occurrences. Witnesses describe seeing objects with extraordinary aerodynamic capabilities, far beyond our current technology. These sightings often come with detailed descriptions, leading to widespread speculation and debate about their origins and intent.
The Controversial Figure of Dr. Michael Wolf
Central to the discussion about UFOs is Dr. Michael Wolf, a figure who reportedly spent over 30 years engaged in U.S. military and government projects studying alien entities. Wolf’s claims are controversial and have been met with skepticism, yet they offer a unique perspective into the clandestine world of extraterrestrial research. According to Wolf, his work involved studying the technology and biology of alien beings, including the infamous ‘gray aliens‘.
Secret Government Projects and Extraterrestrial Technology
Dr. Wolf’s narratives describe secret government projects aimed at harnessing extraterrestrial technologies. These include ‘Project Sentinel,’ an initiative to create super soldiers devoid of human conscience and emotions, eerily reminiscent of science fiction. Such projects, if true, indicate a profound and hidden impact of extraterrestrial technologies on military and scientific advancements.
The Role of Majestic 12 and Government Secrecy
An intriguing aspect of Dr. Wolf’s story involves his alleged association with Majestic 12, a secret government group purportedly formed in 1947, coinciding with the Roswell incident. This group, according to Wolf, plays a crucial role in managing UFO information and extraterrestrial interactions. The secrecy and alleged disinformation campaigns surrounding this group add a layer of complexity to the UFO phenomenon.
The Human Connection: Genetic Ties and Cultural Influence
Dr. Wolf’s revelations extend into the realm of genetics, where he suggests the discovery of extraterrestrial genes within human DNA. This assertion leads to the tantalizing possibility that human evolution and culture have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by extraterrestrial beings. Such claims, while controversial, invite us to reconsider our origins and the broader connections we might share with the cosmos.
The Ethical and Existential Implications
The narrative of UFOs and aliens among us is not just a tale of scientific and technological intrigue; it also carries profound ethical and existential implications. The alleged experiences and technologies described by Dr. Wolf challenge our understanding of consciousness, ethics, and our very nature as human beings. They compel us to ponder the broader implications of our place in the universe and the possibility of other intelligent life forms.
The topic of UFO sightings and the possibility of alien life among us opens doors to uncharted territories of knowledge and understanding. While skepticism is natural, the continued reporting of UFO sightings and the intriguing claims of figures like Dr. Michael Wolf ignite our imagination and curiosity. As we stand at the frontier of this cosmic mystery, it beckons us to explore, question, and perhaps one day, understand the true nature of our universe and our place within it.
Unveiling the Mystery: The Falcon Lake Incident and Its Place in UFO Sightings
Unveiling the Mystery: The Falcon Lake Incident and Its Place in UFO Sightings
In the realm of UFO sightings, few incidents have captivated the imagination and spurred as much debate as the Falcon Lake Incident. This enigmatic event, which unfolded on May 20, 1967, near Falcon Lake, Canada, has remained a cornerstone in UFOlogy, offering a blend of intrigue, skepticism, and enduring mystery.
The Encounter of Stefan Michalak
The central figure of this incident, Stefan Michalak, an immigrant from Poland and an amateur geologist, ventured into the wilderness of Falcon Lake for a day of prospecting. His routine excursion took an extraordinary turn when he encountered what he described as two cigar-shaped, glowing objects in the sky. As one of the objects descended and transformed into an oval shape, Michalak’s curiosity was piqued, leading him to an experience that would impact the rest of his life.
A Close Encounter and Its Aftermath
Approaching the landed craft, Michalak noted its metallic surface, changing colors, and the intense heat radiating from it. His encounter took a harrowing turn when a blast of hot gas from the craft inflicted burns on his body, leaving grid-like patterns. This physical evidence, coupled with Michalak’s declining health following the incident – marked by nausea, headaches, and weight loss – added a tangible dimension to his otherwise fantastical tale.
Investigations and Skepticism
The Falcon Lake Incident sparked a flurry of investigations by various authorities, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and even the United States Air Force. Despite extensive searches and analyses, the incident remained shrouded in mystery. Skeptics pointed to the possibility of hallucinations or a fabricated story, perhaps influenced by alcohol or a desire for attention. However, Michalak’s consistent accounts and the physical evidence of burns and radiation at the site challenged these dismissals.
The Legacy of Falcon Lake
What makes the Falcon Lake Incident particularly compelling in the history of UFO sightings is its detailed documentation, the physical aftermath experienced by Michalak, and the inconclusive nature of the investigations. Unlike many UFO sightings characterized by fleeting visuals and lack of physical evidence, Falcon Lake presents a case where the impact transcended the immediate encounter.
Broader Context of UFO Sightings
The incident fits into a larger pattern of UFO sightings, which often leave more questions than answers. Each year, numerous sightings are reported, with a small percentage defying conventional explanations. These instances fuel the ongoing debate between believers, who see them as evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, and skeptics, who seek more mundane explanations.
Today, the Falcon Lake Incident stands as a significant chapter in the annals of UFO sightings, a testament to the enduring human quest for understanding the unknown. While definitive answers may elude us, stories like Michalak’s keep the door open to possibilities, inviting us to explore, question, and ponder the mysteries of our seemingly boundless universe. Whether viewed through the lens of skepticism or belief, the Falcon Lake Incident reminds us that the sky above is a canvas of infinite mysteries, continuously igniting our imagination and curiosity.
Deze vondst zou onze geschiedenisboeken kunnen veranderen
Het verhaal van de oude menselijke geschiedenis is de afgelopen jaren langzaam bij elkaar gebracht uit een handvol verkalkte botten die op interessante plaatsen zijn gevonden en van elkaar gescheiden zijn door enorme tijdsverschillen.
Het herschrijven van menselijke geschiedenis Maar de ontdekking van een enkele prehistorische kies in een tamelijk oninteressante grot zou wel eens de belangrijkste sleutel kunnen zijn om alles wat we dachten te weten over de prehistorie van de mensheid te herzien.
Grotte Mandrin De tand in kwestie werd opgegraven in de Grotte Mandrin in Frankrijk, een grot in de Rhônevallei en een gebied dat volgens het Smithsonian Magazine ooit een bloeiend ecologisch centrum was.
Een aantrekkelijk thuis voor Neanderthalers Grotte Mandrin was zo bijzonder dat er tienduizenden jaren lang migrerende neanderthalers woonden, maar zij waren misschien niet de enige levende primaten.
Er was leven in Europa 10.000 jaar voordat we dachten In 2022 publiceerden onderzoekers nieuw bewijs over een menselijke tand die mogelijk bij Grotte Mandrin was gevonden en die suggereerde dat homo sapiens 10.000 jaar eerder in Europa leefde dan eerder werd gedacht, zo schreef de New York Times.
"Dit is echt interessant en spannend" "Dit is echt interessant en spannend", verklaarde Katerina Harvati van de Eberhard Karls-Universiteit Tübingen in een e-mail van toen haar studie over de tand werd gepubliceerd in de New York Times.
"De complexiteit van de verspreiding van de moderne mens" "Het illustreert de complexiteit van de verspreiding van de moderne mens op het Europese continent en de uiteindelijke vervanging van neanderthalers", voegde Harvati eraan toe. Maar de vondst bleek nog meer te onthullen.
Geen vaststelling Helaas konden de onderzoekers door mislukte pogingen om DNA-monsters te onttrekken aan dierlijke tanden die in de grot waren opgegraven, ook niet vaststellen dat de kleine melktand die ze vonden menselijk was, aldus de New York Times.
Slechts een theorie Zonder gedegen bevestiging bleef de theorie dat de mens veel eerder naar Europa migreerde dan we eerder dachten gewoon een theorie. Maar meer dan een jaar nadat de oorspronkelijke studie over de tand was gepubliceerd, beweerde een van de auteurs ervan iets nieuws.
De werktuigen die bij de tand werden gevonden Tussen de andere voorwerpen die in Grotte Mandrin samen met de oude tand werden ontdekt, zaten stenen werktuigen waarvan onderzoeker Ludovic Slimak het vermoeden had dat ze door vroege mensen gemaakt zouden kunnen zijn.
Het bewijs dat onderzoekers nodig hadden Slimak publiceerde onlangs een predictieve studie die suggereert dat de verfijnde werktuigen gevonden in Grotte Mandrin gemaakt zijn met een soortgelijke techniek die door mensen in Libanon werd gebruikt en dat de parallellen niet louter toeval konden zijn.
Gereedschap uit Ksar Akil Smithsonian Magazine bericht dat Slimak in The Peabody Museum een schat aan stenen werktuigen uit de oude prehistorische site Ksar Akil dat niet ver van Beiroet ligt, aantrof, en hij besefte dat de methode om die voorwerpen te maken identiek was aan die van Grotte Mandrin.
"Een vuursteen kun je lezen als een boek" "Een vuursteen kun je lezen zoals je een boek kunt lezen", liet Slimak weten aan Smithsonian Magazine. "Het is niet zomaar een eindproduct, je kunt de technische fasen van de productie zien."
Hetzelfde vervaardigingsproces "Toen ik die dozen opende," zei Slimak, "stuitte ik op een zeer grote verrassing: het was hetzelfde technische proces. Alle fasen van de vervaardiging waren dezelfde als bij Grotte Mandrin."
Geen toevalligheden in gereedschapstechnieken Slimak legde verder uit dat er verschillende manieren waren om vuurstenen werktuigen te maken, maar benadrukte dat de kans dat twee groepen dezelfde technieken gebruikten zeer onwaarschijnlijk was.
Dezelfde bevolkingen "Dat is iets wat bijna onmogelijk is, tenzij je gewoon dezelfde mensen bent", zei de Franse archeoloog. "Het was voor mij heel duidelijk dat ik te maken had met dezelfde bevolkingen en dezelfde cultuur".
Een nieuwe migratietheorie Aan de hand van deze gegevens stelde Slimak vast dat de menselijke migratie naar Europa in drie verschillende fasen heeft plaatsgevonden en dat de in Grotte Mandrin gevonden tanden en werktuigen vondsten zijn van de eerste golf, die 10.000 jaar eerder plaatsvond dan we eerder dachten!
Solar Electric Propulsion Systems are Just What we Need for Efficient Trips to Mars
There are many different ways to get to Mars, but there are always tradeoffs. Chemical propulsion, proven the most popular, can quickly get a spacecraft to the red planet. But they come at a high cost of bringing their fuel, thereby increasing the mission’s overall cost. Alternative propulsion technologies have been gaining traction in several deep space applications. Now, a team of scientists from Spain has preliminary studied what it would take to send a probe to Mars using entirely electric propulsion once it leaves Earth.
Electric propulsion systems have several advantages over chemical rockets. While they will never be able to be scaled up enough to lift anything heavy into orbit, once in space, they are extraordinarily efficient at moving payloads where they need to go. While a typical chemical rocket requires 70-90% of its launch mass to be used as fuel, an electric propulsion system can get by with just 10-40% of its launch mass as fuel.
The tradeoff to be made is in thrust. Electric propulsion systems typically have a thrust at least four orders of magnitude smaller than that created by chemical rockets. Meanwhile, in space, its significant impact is that electric propulsion systems are much slower. But that might not be as much of a concern for uncrewed missions.
Fraser describes the underlying mechanics of an ion engine.
So far, no one has spent the time to consider just how much difference there would be between a Mars mission driven by electric rather than chemical propulsion. The closest study was one drawn up for a visit to Mars’ moons – Phobos and Deimos – that relied entirely on electric propulsion. In that study, the researchers found that the chemical propulsion option would require 2.5 times as much mass as the electric propulsion option. That would significantly decrease the overall cost of the mission.
In this new study, the researchers focused on a trajectory that would place a 2000 kg spacecraft into a polar orbit around Mars between 300 km and 1000 km. The 2000 kg weight limit was selected as a package that could contain equivalent scientific packages to the ExoMars orbiter that ESA worked on.
With those mission constraints, the researchers considered several different types of electric propulsion systems. They came up with an additional requirement – it must operate at the upper thrust range of many electric propulsion systems. A thrust of .1 N is the minimum required to enter into orbit around Mars successfully.
Electric Drives can be used for some pretty incredible thing, as described in this video with Dr. Sonny White.
This constraint led to the selection of the BHT-6000 as the mission’s primary propulsion system. It’s a Hall Effect thruster that operates with between 2 and 6kW of power and can use relatively common electrical propulsion propellants such as Xenon and Krypton. With this selection of propulsion, it was time to get to every astrodynamist’s favorite activity – modeling.
The researchers used a multi-body model to map out the gravitational impact of their selected trajectory. Then, they ran simulations of a mission with a standard chemical propellant and the BHT-6000. What they found seemed in line with general expectations of the advantages of electric propulsion.
In terms of speed, the chemical rocket was faster, but not egregiously so. A chemical rocket could make the journey in a little under a year, while a BHT-6000-powered mission would take approximately 3.2 years from launch. However, the weight of the chemical propulsion system would be 2.4 times that of the electric propulsion system. Even at a relatively conservative launch cost of $10,000 / kg, that would put the cost saving of an electric propulsion system at almost $30 million over the chemical alternative. All at the cost of a few more years of travel time to get the mission on station.
That is a tradeoff many space exploration agencies would gladly pay due to constrained budgets. But, so far, this is only a model as there is no planned deep space mission that would use this electric propulsion method as its primary propulsion system, though a few deep space missions, such as Hayabusa-2, already have. As the technology advances, though, it’s becoming more and more likely that future deep space missions, especially unmanned ones, will go to Mars.
There are Mysteries at Venus. It’s Time for an Astrobiology Mission
When scientists detected phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere in 2020, it triggered renewed, animated discussions about Venus and its potential habitability. It would be weird if the detection didn’t generate interest since phosphine is a potential biomarker. So people were understandably curious. Unfortunately, further study couldn’t confirm its presence.
But even without phosphine, Venus’ atmosphere is full of chemical intrigue that hints at biological processes. Is it time to send an astrobiology mission to our hellish sister planet?
While the phosphine discussion petered out pretty quickly, there are other, more long-lived indications that Venus’ atmosphere contains chemical anomalies, some of which might relate to life. Some of the atmospheric gases appear to be out of thermodynamic equilibrium, for example. Adding to the complexity, scientists aren’t certain what the composition of large particles in the lower atmosphere is.
The authors of a new paper illustrate why Venus captures our chemical curiosity and suggest that it’s time for an astrobiological mission to satisfy it.
“Scientists have been speculating on Venus as a habitable world for over half a century,” the authors write, “based on the Earth-like temperature and pressure in Venus’ clouds at 48–60 km above the surface.”
Most space-interested people know that Venus’ atmosphere is extremely dense ant hot. We also know that it’s dominated by carbon dioxide, that its other main component is nitrogen, and that it supports dense clouds of sulfuric acid. Other chemicals are present in only tiny, trace amounts.
There’s not much else to Venus’ atmosphere beyond CO2 and a small component of nitrogen. The trace elements add up to less than one percent of the atmosphere. Image Credit: By Junkcharts – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31595105
The atmospheric region between 48 to 60 km above the surface is particularly interesting. At that altitude, both the pressure and the temperature approach near Earth-like levels. Between about 52.5 km and 54 km, the temperature is between 20 °C and 37 °C.) At about 49.5 km above the surface, the pressure is the same as at Earth’s sea level. There’s no way that liquid water could be present on Venus’ surface, but in the atmosphere it’s possible.
That’s the backdrop for considering Venus’ potential habitability.
But there are ample chemical considerations, too, and in their paper, the authors outline one long-standing mystery in the planet’s atmosphere.
“In this paper, we review and summarize Venus’ long-lasting, unexplained atmospheric observations, which have been acquired over the span of the last half-century,” they write.
A lot of the mystery around Venus concerns the so-called “unknown absorber(s).” As far back as the 1920s, ultraviolet observations showed unusual high-contrast features that move in conjunction with Venus’ upper cloud deck’s four-day rotation. Something is absorbing the UV light. “Much effort has gone into attempting to identify the substance(s) responsible for the absorption between 320–400 nm, but no proposed candidate satisfies all of the observational constraints, leading to the oft-used descriptive term ‘unknown UV absorber,'” the authors write.
Researchers have made a prolonged effort to understand what the absorber or absorbers might be, and some have made progress. Research has shown that sulphur allotropes and sulphur compounds could be responsible, and researchers have uncovered new pathways for their formation in Venus’ atmosphere. But these pathways are the result of simulations, not exploration. Not everyone agrees with these findings. There’s no consensus.
“Despite decades of effort and observations by two orbiting spacecraft in the 21st century (Venus Express by ESA and Akatsuki by JAXA), none of the proposed candidate molecules have been found to entirely fit the observational data,” the authors explain. The candidates either don’t match the profile well, or they’re not abundant enough. Some of the proposed candidates aren’t stable, either.
But it’s critical that we figure out what it is. “The unknown absorber is remarkably efficient, capturing more than 50% of the solar energy reaching Venus, with consequent effects on atmospheric structure and dynamics,” write the authors. Though the mystery persists, it’s a huge missing piece that stymies our efforts to understand the planet.
Some researchers propose that the UV absorber is a sign of cloud-based biological activity. “The spectral characteristics of the Venus clouds, including the strong UV absorption, are consistent with the spectrum of certain types of terrestrial bacteria,” the authors explain.
A composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: JAXA/Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
Another of the mysteries concerns lower clouds. A subset of cloud particles larger than 7 µm is unknown. Adding to the mystery is that some of them aren’t round. We know this from NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission. Since the particles, called Mode 3 particles, are non-spherical, they can’t be liquid droplets. “The nature and composition of the Mode 3 particles is debated with data presently in hand,” the authors write, making it clear that we need more data from a modern mission.
Some have proposed that the particles could be sulfuric acid, but the authors say data rules that out. If they’re not sulfuric acid, that works in favour of the idea that life could persist in the clouds. “This result could indicate unknown chemistry and is intriguing with regard to the possible presence of ‘life as we know it,’ which cannot withstand a concentrated sulfuric acid environment,” the authors explain.
It should be noted, however, that not all scientists agree that the large particles even exist and that calibration errors could be responsible for their detection instead.
The authors outline other reasons why only a biological mission to Venus can solve these mysteries. In-situ measurements from the Venera program and the VeGa balloons suggested that the atmosphere hosted non-volatile compounds necessary for life. Life as we know it requires metals, including iron. Venera found iron, while VeGa didn’t. More mystery waiting to be solved.
There are other unexplained components in Venus’ atmosphere. There are trace gases with abundance profiles that scientists can’t explain. Venera and Pioneer also found oxygen there. Nobody knows where it came from, and it’s a subject of frequent discussion. Other chemical detections add to the mystery and complexity.
The maddening thing about studying Venus from afar is that many of the observations could be explained by either biotic or abiotic processes. That’s why we need a biological mission.
NASA’s upcoming DAVINCI mission will send an orbiter and an atmospheric probe to Venus sometime in the 2030s. Image Credit: NASA
“The habitability of the Venusian clouds should also be explored by new in situ missions,” the author explains. Lots of scientists agree with them, including renowned planetary scientist Sara Seager. In fact, Seager goes even further, suggesting that a sample-return mission is needed.
There are missions to Venus coming in the future. NASA’s VERITAS mission and DAVINCI mission will both head to Venus, but not for several more years. DAVINCI will send a probe into Venus’s atmosphere for in situ observations, while VERITAS will map the surface in more detail.
In the meantime, the data we have is all the data scientists have to work with. While scientists are resourceful and determined, that’s not enough.
Only a mission to Venus that’s solely focused on biology and chemistry can solve the planet’s mysteries.
The Meteorites That Made Earth Were Filled With Water
According to the most widely accepted scientific theory, our Solar System formed from a nebula of dust and gas roughly 4.56 billion years ago (aka. Nebula Theory). It began when the nebula experienced gravitational collapse at the center, fusing material under tremendous pressure to create the Sun. Over time, the remaining material fell into an extended disk around the Sun, gradually accreting to form planetesimals that grew larger with time. These planetesimals eventually experienced hydrostatic equilibrium, collapsing into spherical bodies to create Earth and its companions.
Based on modern observations and simulations, researchers have been trying to understand what conditions were like when these planetesimals formed. In a new study, geologists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) combined meteorite data with thermodynamic modeling to better understand what went into these bodies from which Earth and the other inner planets formed. According to their results, the earliest planetesimals have formed in the presence of water, which is inconsistent with current astrophysical models of the early Solar System.
The research was conducted in the laboratory of Paul Asimow, the Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Geology and Geochemistry at Caltech. The team was led by assistant professor Damanveer Grewal, the leader of the CosmoGeo Lab at Arizona State University (ASU) and a former postdoctoral scholar with the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech. Grewal and Asimow were joined by planetary scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and Rice University.
Sample from a rare meteorite family revealing that its parent planetesimal had a layered structure with a molten core and solid crust (similar to Earth). Credit: Carl Agee, Institute of Meteoritics UNM/MIT
Grewal and his colleagues specialize in studying the chemical signatures of iron meteorites to gather information about the early Solar System. These meteorites are remnants of the metallic cores of the first planetesimals that did not accrete to form a planet and continue to orbit within our Solar System today. Over many eons, some of these objects fell into Earth’s gravity well and ultimately crashed to the surface. The chemical composition of these meteorites is of particular interest since it reveals a great deal about the environments in which they formed.
For one thing, the composition of planetesimals can reveal whether they (and Earth) formed closer to or farther away from the Sun. If the former scenario were the case, cooler conditions would have allowed Earth to retain water ice as a building block. If the latter is correct, Earth would have formed dry and obtained its water by some other means later on, which is what current astrophysical models suggest. According to these models, water was delivered to the inner Solar System via comets and asteroids billions of years ago, a period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment.
While water is no longer present in these meteorites, scientists can infer its existence from the presence of other elements. These include iron oxide (FeO), which occurs when iron is oxidization by exposure to water. A sufficient excess of water will drive the process further, creating ferric oxide (Fe2O3) and ferric oxyhydroxide, or FeO(OH) – the ingredients of rust. While the earliest planetesimals would have lost all traces of iron oxide long ago, Grewal and his team were able to determine how much was present by examining the metallic nickel, cobalt, and iron contents of these meteorites.
These three elements should be present in roughly equal ratios relative to other materials in the meteorite, which means that any “missing” iron would have been depleted through oxidation. As Asimow explained in a Caltech news release:
“Iron meteorites have been somewhat neglected by the planet-formation community, but they constitute rich stores of information about the earliest period of Solar System history, once you work out how to read the signals. The difference between what we measured in the inner solar system meteorites and what we expected implies an oxygen activity about 10,000 times higher.”
Artist concept of Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment period.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The team’s results indicate that meteorites believed to have originated in the inner Solar System had roughly the same amount of missing iron as meteorites from the outer Solar System. This suggests that both groups formed in a part of the Solar System where conditions were cool enough for water. It further implies that planets accreted water from the beginning, which could have profound implications for theories of how life emerged on Earth. “If water was present in the early building blocks of our planet, other important elements like carbon and nitrogen were likely present as well,” said Grewal. “The ingredients for life may have been present in the seeds of rocky planets right from the start.”
This represents a significant challenge for our current models for how the Solar System formed and evolved, which could indicate that conditions in the early inner Solar System were much cooler than previously thought. The results could also mean that Earth and its fellow rocky planets formed farther from the Sun and gradually migrated to their current orbits. However, as Asimow acknowledged, there is a degree of uncertainty when it comes to the study of ancient planetesimals, which means the results may not contradict current astrophysical models:
“However, the method only detects water that was used up in oxidizing iron. It is not sensitive to excess water that might go on to form the ocean. So, the conclusions of this study are consistent with Earth accretion models that call for late addition of even more water-rich material.”
The Baltic Sea Anomaly and Theories of Underwater Alien Bases
The Baltic Sea Anomaly and Theories of Underwater Alien Bases
In the realm of oceanic mysteries, the Baltic Sea Anomaly and the concept of underwater alien bases stand out as topics that ignite the imagination and provoke curiosity. With vast expanses of our oceans unexplored, these subjects represent a frontier of unknowns, blending the lines between scientific inquiry and the allure of the unexplained.
The Baltic Sea Anomaly: A Mysterious Discovery
In 2011, the Baltic Sea Anomaly captured global attention when Ocean X, a team of Swedish treasure hunters, discovered a strange, 60-meter long, and 40-meter wide object at the bottom of the Northern Baltic Sea. Initially, sonar images revealed an object with an appearance reminiscent of a spacecraft, stirring up a whirlwind of speculation and excitement.
Scientific Analysis and Theories:
The initial excitement gave way to a range of theories. Geological experts suggested the anomaly could be a glacial deposit or a natural geological formation. The structure’s composition, primarily volcanic rock, further supported non-extraterrestrial origins. However, alternative theories persisted, fueled by the object’s peculiar shape and the enigmatic trails leading up to it, suggesting an unnatural descent to its current resting place.
Underwater Alien Bases: A Theoretical Possibility
Parallel to the Baltic Sea Anomaly, the concept of underwater alien bases has been a subject of intrigue. This theory posits that intelligent extraterrestrial beings could be using the Earth’s vast and unexplored underwater regions as bases. Proponents of this idea point to numerous historical accounts and modern-day sightings of Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs) as potential evidence.
Evidence and Speculation:
While the idea of underwater bases is largely speculative, it draws on various incidents and eyewitness accounts. These include anomalous readings and unexplained phenomena in areas like the Bermuda Triangle, reported sightings of underwater crafts by naval personnel, and historical accounts of mysterious lights and objects emerging from the sea. However, concrete evidence supporting the existence of such bases remains elusive.
VIDEO:
The Why Files – Baltic Sea Anomaly, Atlantis, and Underwater Alien Bases
The Baltic Sea Anomaly and theories of underwater alien bases represent a fascinating intersection of science and the uncharted territories of our oceans. As we continue to explore and understand our oceans, it’s possible that these mysteries will either be unraveled or deepen, reminding us of the vast unknowns that still lie beneath the waves. The quest for knowledge and understanding of these phenomena continues, as does the allure of the great unknown beneath the seas.
NASA stelt "opvolger van de Concorde" voor: vliegen door de geluidsmuur, zonder storende luide knal
NASA stelt "opvolger van de Concorde" voor: vliegen door de geluidsmuur, zonder storende luide knal
Artikel door Wim De Maeseneer
De X-59 is vanavond voor de eerste keer voorgesteld aan het grote publiek tijdens een officiële ceremonie. Het was vooral uitkijken naar het moment dat het nieuwe, supersonische vliegtuig uit de hangar reed van Lockheed Martin in Palmdale in Californië.
De X-59 is 30 meter lang, 9 meter breed en kan tot 1.500 kilometer per uur vliegen, op een hoogte van 16,7 kilometer. De lange neus heeft tot gevolg dat de piloot geen zicht heeft op de voorkant van het vliegtuig.
De voorruit van de cockpit is dan ook vervangen door een scherm. Daarop wordt het beeld getoond van een camera die aan de neus hangt samen met grafische elementen.
NASA stelt "opvolger van de Concorde" voor: vliegen door de geluidsmuur, zonder storende luide knal
De X-59 is nog een prototype. Het is dus niet bedoeld om er ooit echt passagiers mee te vervoeren. Het vliegtuig moet bewijzen dat sneller vliegen dan het geluid ook kan zonder de luide knallen die daarbij horen.
Als een vliegtuig sneller vliegt dan het geluid (zo'n 1.200 kilometer per uur) dan haalt het de geluidsgolven in die het zelf produceert. De golven kunnen zich niet meer verspreiden en verzamelen zich voor het vliegtuig, tot het moment dat er een schokgolf en bijhorende luide knal ontstaat.
De oplossing zit in de neus. De X-59 heeft een lange, scherpe neus van wel 11 meter lang. Die zou de knal zodanig verminderen dat je aan de grond enkel nog het geluid van een dichtslaande autodeur hoort.
Het is nog wachten op de eerste testvlucht, maar eens die achter de rug is, wil NASA het vliegtuig over woonwijken laten vliegen om te onderzoeken of inwoners het geluid effectief als minder storend ervaren. Dat zou kunnen helpen om ooit weer supersonische passagiersvliegtuigen over bewoonde gebieden te laten vliegen, iets wat momenteel in veel landen verboden is.
Brussel - New York in minder dan 4 uur?
Sneller vliegen dan het geluid is iets waar luchtvaartmaatschappijen en reizigers wel vaker van dromen. Een vlucht van Brussel naar New York zou geen 7 of 8 uur meer duren, maar 4 uur of zelfs minder. Toch is er tot op vandaag slechts één commercieel passagiersvliegtuig die dat ooit gekund heeft: de legendarische Concorde.
Die vloog sinds 1976, kon twee keer sneller vliegen dan het geluid, maar maakte nooit winst. De vluchten waren enorm duur en door de luide knallen mocht de Concorde ook enkel boven de zee supersonisch vliegen. Er werden uiteindelijk maar 20 toestellen gebouwd, waarvan een kwart prototypes.
De doodsteek voor Concorde kwam op 25 juli 2000, toen een toestel van Air France met 100 passagiers crashte tijdens het opstijgen.
Sindsdien is een opvolger voor de Concorde al vaak aangekondigd en even vaak zijn de plannen weer in de koelkast beland. Toch is het iets waar verschillende vliegtuigfabrikanten nog steeds mee bezig zijn. Misschien kan de X-59 een doorbraak betekenen.
Op 25 juli 2000 vatte een Concorde van Air France vuur tijdens het opstijgen in Parijs. Alle 100 passagiers en 9 bemanningsleden kwamen om het leven
Bizarre footage shows several UFOs hovering above Philadelphia in a cluster as two craft are seen 'merging together' - days after Miami '10ft alien' sighting incident forced police to respond to conspiracy claims
Bizarre footage shows several UFOs hovering above Philadelphia in a cluster as two craft are seen 'merging together' - days after Miami '10ft alien' sighting incident forced police to respond to conspiracy claims
New footage shows a cluster of UFOs floating in the sky
The video was captured in Philadelphia
Two of the mysterious flying objects were caught 'merging together'
Mysterious footage shows a group of UFOs flying above Philadelphia - with two of the crafts even strangely merging together.
A witness uploaded the bizarre video of the sighting on Reddit and described the large cluster of lights as 'spinning and darting back and forth.'
The user said the multicolored lights were flying 'very high' above Philadelphia.
Footage of the peculiar sighting was very shaky, which the witness said was because their wife couldn't stop the car, so the mysterious objects were unclear.
A different Reddit user joked 'next time you see UFO's in the sky, please, politely, tell your wife to STOP THE F***ING CAR!'
Mysterious footage shows a group of UFOs flying above Philadelphia - with two of the crafts even strangely merging together
A witness uploaded the bizarre video of the sighting on Reddit and described the large cluster of lights as 'spinning and darting back and forth'
The user said the multicolored lights were flying 'very high' above Philadelphia
Despite the shaky footage - the group of strange lights were obviously seen floating amid the bright blue sky in the middle of the day.
The Pennsylvania sighting comes amid a flurry of UFO sightings all over the country, and in the middle of a series of congress hearings about what the government knows about aliens.
Eerie footage captured of Miami police's response to an incident on New Year's Day appeared to show an alien-type creature floating around.
It was widely shared by conspiracy theorists on social media who claimed a 10-foot-tall silhouette walking near cop cars was from another planet.
One user claimed a 'glowing figure' was walking through smoke during the chaotic scene.
Shocking recently-released UFO footage revealed a 'jellyfish' craft that isn't visible to the naked eye - which was allegedly buried by the intelligence community.
Leaked US military footage of a mysterious flying object was unveiled by expert Jeremy Corbell.
Two different angles of the aircraft show the mysterious entity as it flies over the land and water of a military base.
The UFO can only be seen on thermal camera and the object switches between black and white - indicating a change in temperature from hot to cold.
Corbell revealed that troops in 2018 were instructed to 'hunt it down'.
UFO sightings are also being reported internationally. Hikers in Brazil managed to get a video of two creatures they claimed are aliens.
Eyewitness Sara Dalete of Brasília spotted the bizarre figures while she was with her family in Ilha do Mel.
Footage of the elongated 10-foot-tall figures has gone viral on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
The mysterious figures stood on a hilltop that Dalete said 'wasn't possible to reach the top.'
Both of them were moving their arms quickly but remained standing on the hilltop during the entire video.
This is the first suspected sighting of aliens in Ilha do Mel in Brazil history.
The New York Times in 2020 exposed the Pentagon's ongoing U.F.O unit - where officials continue to study mysterious interactions between UFOs and military pilots.
Following the groundbreaking revelation - a House Oversight subcommittee held a hearing on UFOs in July 2023.
Three former military officials told congress in the hearing that the government knows much more about UFOs than they let on to the public.
During the hearing - a former intelligence officer suggested people have been murdered by the US government as part of the conspiracy to keep UFOs a secret in a bombshell hearing held by Congress.
David Grusch - a former high-ranking intelligence official - is one of three military whistleblowers who testified under oath that they had firsthand encounters or knowledge about secret government programs involving technology that is 'non-human.'
He claimed that the US has been in possession of UFOs since 'the 1930s' and has been secretly back-engineering them and carrying out a public disinformation campaign to prevent the details from leaking publicly.
At one point during the first-of-its-kind hearing, Representative Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) asked Grusch: 'Personally, have you heard anyone [has] been murdered?' Grausch said: 'I have to be careful answering that question. I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.'
House Oversight Committee members are set to undergo a classified briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs, this week.
The covert meeting, shrouded in mystery, underscores a surging interest among lawmakers from both ends of the spectrum that are demanding increased government transparency on the extraterrestrial front.
The briefing, scheduled for Tuesday morning in the Office of House Security, will be conducted by the Office of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Thomas A. Monheim.
Floating 'Jellyfish' UFO haunted US military base in Iraq for years, says former US Marine intelligence analyst shown infrared video by colleagues ex-Marine broke his silence on a 2017 UFO that became 'ghost story of the base' The ex-intel analyst stated
Floating 'Jellyfish' UFO haunted US military base in Iraq for years, says former US Marine intelligence analyst shown infrared video by colleagues
ex-Marine broke his silence on a 2017 UFO that became 'ghost story of the base'
The ex-intel analyst stated that 'the theories that we had ... didn't fully explain it'
A former intelligence analyst with the United States Marine Corps has revealed how a jellyfish UFO terrorized military personnel for years in Iraq.
Video emerged this week showing what looked looked like a craft with dangling appendages gliding invisibly over the secure facility, where it could only be seen on infra-red cameras.
'It kind of just ended up being like the ghost story of the base,' Michael Concoski, then stationed at a base in Iraq, told cable channel News Nation last evening.
'It didn't seem to be posturing to threaten us at all,' Cincoski said, but added that the base was not taking any chances during this highly unusual nighttime encounter.
And, today, Cincoski revealed that he has heard from a fellow Marine 'team member' who saw 'multiple recordings of the 'Jellyfish UAP' with different durations' in Iraq.
United States Marine Corps veteran Michael Cincoski (above), who had been an intelligence surveillance reconnaissance tactical controller in Iraq at the base where the 2017 'jellyfish' UFO sighting took place, came forward to discuss the incident with News Nation last night
Cincoski revealed today that he has heard from a fellow Marine 'team member' in Iraq about more cases - saw 'multiple recordings of the 'Jellyfish UAP' with different durations'
'Some of the Marines were tasked to try to find it on night vision,' he said. 'They were looking for it with their other sensors and everything else that we had.'
Cincoski also revealed that he had seen the full 17-minute version of the thermal imaging video which tracked the 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' (UAP), as UFOs are now more accurately known, as it appeared to glide over the base toward Lake Hibernia in Iraq's Anbar province.
Top spy watchdog Thomas Monheim (above), the US Intelligence Community's Inspector General, is slated to brief the House Oversight Committee on UFOs today
'They were watching it to make sure that it wasn't a threat,' said Cincoski, who'd been an intelligence surveillance reconnaissance tactical controller at the base, in an interview with journalist Brian Entin of News Nation's Elizabeth Vargas Reports.
The former marine told Entin that the infrared video was captured in 2017 and had been shown to him by fellow USMC servicemen when he arrived at the base in 2018.
Cincoski told Entin that the leaked video had been taken with an aerostat, a blimp-like craft equipped with cameras and other sensors to look out for potential threats over the base.
Tethered Aerostat Radar Systems are used by the US military to hunt for drug traffickers, beam US television signals into Cuba, conduct reconnaissance and more, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
After 17 minutes, Cincoski said, the 'jellyfish' or 'spaghetti monster' UAP vanished over Lake Hibernia.
'They couldn't find it,' Cincoski told News Nation in a remote interview.
'They kept an eye out,' he said, 'but it wasn't like we were scrambling to our defensive positions or anything like that.'
From then on, as the story circulated across the US Marine base in Iraq, the ghostly sighting remained, as he put it, 'a big unknown.'
'The theories that we had [...] didn't fully explain it,' Cincoski confessed.
Senior national correspondent for News Nation, Brian Entin, reported that the cable network had reached out the Pentagon for comment multiple times over several days.
'We were able to confirm that that Marine is who he says he is,' Entin said.
'They [the Pentagon] acknowledge that we have been reaching out but have not responded with specifics about this video or confirmed the video in any way,' he told viewers
Shocking new UFO footage has revealed a 'jellyfish' craft that isn't visible to the naked eye, which was allegedly buried by the intelligence community
The UFO was supposedly submerged in water for 17 minutes in the footage - before it's launched out of the water at rapid speed, according to documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell
Two different angles of the Jellyfish UFO show the mysterious entity as it flies over the land and water of a military base, according to sources who Corbell reports 'risked getting it' to him
The leaked USMC footage of what some have called the 'jellyfish' craft, was first made public by UFO documentary filmmaker and cohost of the Weaponized podcast Jeremy Corbell.
Corbell said that the legitimacy of the footage was confirmed to him by sources who 'risked getting it' to him.
Two different angles of the apparent aircraft, according to Corbell's sources, show a mysterious entity as it flies over the land and water of a military base.
The 'jellyfish' craft, these sources said, could only be seen on thermal camera.
Corbell's bombshell revelations came as part of his exposé - TMZ Presents: UFO Revolution. In the documentary, Corbell spearheads the investigation which believes will 'lift the lid on the biggest cover-up in the history of the world.'
The filmmaker is 'passionate about getting to the bottom of what UFOs mean to humanity.'
TMZ's documentary is propitiously times, coming just ahead of House Oversight Committee members' plans for a classified briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) today in Congress.
The covert meeting, shrouded in mystery, underscores a surging interest among lawmakers from both ends of the spectrum that are demanding increased government transparency on the extraterrestrial front.
The briefing will be conducted by the Office of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Thomas A. Monheim.
Record-Breaking Fast Radio Burst Localized to Extremely Distant Galaxy Group
Record-Breaking Fast Radio Burst Localized to Extremely Distant Galaxy Group
A fast radio burst event called FRB 20220610A flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of at least seven galaxies that existed when the Universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous fast radio bursts have been found in isolated galaxies.
This Hubble image shows the host galaxy of the exceptionally powerful fast radio burst FRB 20220610A.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Alexa Gordon, Northwestern University.
FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia.
ESO’s Very Large Telescope confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The FRB was four times more energetic than closer FRBs.
“It required Hubble’s keen sharpness and sensitivity to pinpoint exactly where the FRB came from,” said Dr. Alexa Gordon, an astronomer at Northwestern University.
“Without Hubble’s imaging, it would still remain a mystery as to whether this was originating from one monolithic galaxy or from some type of interacting system.”
“It’s these types of environments — these weird ones — that are driving us toward better understanding the mystery of FRBs.”
Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to trace a fast radio burst back to a compact group of at least seven galaxies.
Space Telescope Science Institute
Hubble’s crisp images suggest FRB 20220610A originated in an environment where there may be as many as seven galaxies on a possible path to merging, which would also be very significant.
“We are ultimately trying to answer the questions: What causes them? What are their progenitors and what are their origins?” said Northwestern University astronomer Wen-fai Fong.
“The Hubble observations provide a spectacular view of the surprising types of environments that give rise to these mysterious events.”
Despite hundreds of detected FRBs, their progenitors are uncertain; one leading candidate is magnetars.
They have a magnetic field that is so strong that, if a magnetar was located halfway between Earth and the Moon, it would erase the magnetic strip on everyone’s credit card in the world.
Much worse yet, if an astronaut traveled within a few hundred miles of the magnetar, they would effectively be dissolved, because every atom in their body would be disrupted.
Possible mechanisms involve some kind of jarring starquake, or alternatively, an explosion caused when a magnetar’s twisting magnetic field lines snap and reconnect.
A similar phenomenon happens on the Sun, causing solar flares, but a magnetar’s field is a trillion times stronger than the Sun’s magnetosphere.
The snapping would generate an FRB’s flash, or might make a shock wave that incinerates surrounding dust and heats gas into plasma.
There could be several flavors of magnetars. In one case, it could be an exploding object orbiting a black hole surrounded by a disk of material.
Another alternative is a pair of orbiting neutron stars whose magnetospheres periodically interact, creating a cavity where eruptions can take place.
It’s estimated that magnetars are active for about 10,000 years before settling down, so they would be expected to be found where a firestorm of star birth is taking place. But this doesn’t seem to be the case for all magnetars.
In the near future, FRB experiments will increase their sensitivity, leading to an unprecedented rate in the number of FRBs detected at these distances.
“We just need to keep finding more of these FRBs, both nearby and far away, and in all these different types of environments,” Dr. Gordon said.
The astronomers presented the findings at AAS243, the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States.
Alexa Gordon et al. 2024. Revealing the Environment of the Most Distant FRB with the Hubble Space Telescope. AAS243, abstract #3679
A significant surge of interest has surrounded the UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) enigma, drawing widespread attention to the recently released “JELLYFISH” UAP footage. Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell unveiled this captivating footage of a peculiarly-shaped UAP, captured at a United States joint operations base in Iraq. Corbell remarked that while the object’s shape is unusual, such sightings have been reported since the beginning of the UFO phenomena. Confirming its authenticity, the Pentagon has officially stated that the object in the video is not a hoax.
Corbell released FLIR infrared footage depicting an incursion by an unidentified object, tracked over a significant duration in October 2018. He elaborated, stating, “The object navigated through a sensitive military installation, eventually moving over a body of water where it executed a controlled descent, submerging beneath the surface. After an observation period of approximately seventeen minutes, the UAP resurfaced from the water and rapidly accelerated, surpassing the capabilities of the observation platform’s optical scope. The origin, intent, and capabilities of this Anomalous Aerial Vehicle remain shrouded in mystery. It retains its official designation as a UAP.”
The UAP shows transmedium capabilities: It flew over the military base and then moved over water. It descended into the water in a controlled manner and disappeared for about seventeen minutes. After that, it came out of the water and quickly flew away at an incredibly high speed that the observers could not keep up with.
The eyewitness explained that the object was hard to see with normal night vision equipment, and it seemed to block the camera’s ability to focus on it. Even though it did not look like it had typical engines or wings, it could stay in the air and move around.
When Matthew Szydagis, a professor in the Physics department at University at Albany first observed the footage, he was struck by the unusual shape of the UAP. He likened it to a Star Wars droid, emphasizing that “It is not a standard or common shape of UAP.” Dr. Szydagis published his new paper, “Initial Results From the First Field Expedition of UAPx to Study Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” and provided scientific expertise on speculation about UAP propulsion systems. (Source)
According to Dr. Szydagis, one of the most intriguing aspects of the object in the footage is the rapid change in the object’s color, suggesting a swift alteration in temperature. He points out that known objects do not change temperature so quickly. This phenomenon raises a couple of possibilities.
Some might argue that the rapid temperature change merely results from an issue with the camera, like a smudge or distortion on the lens. However, Dr. Szydagis dismisses this possibility after closely examining the footage. He notes that the object’s size changes as the camera zooms in and out, and the camera reticle shifts relative to the object. The other possibility Dr. Szydagis considers is that the object might have capabilities to manage its signatures. This leads to further questions about why such an entity would choose to reveal itself in such a manner.
Newsnation writes, “The object moved through a sensitive military installation before moving over water, where it began what Corbell describes as a controlled descent before submerging. After 17 minutes, the UAP reemerged from the water and disappeared at a high rate of speed. The video released by Corbell did not include that.”
While Dr. Szydagis acknowledges that initial impressions might suggest a simple explanation, like a smudge on the camera lens, he stresses the importance of considering all available evidence. He emphasizes that without additional context, including more footage from various angles and a deeper understanding of the event’s circumstances, drawing definitive conclusions remains challenging.
“Well, the change in color, which normally could represent a temperature change, may be an artifact of the camera and the system. We don’t know yet what this is. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that have yet to be confirmed. This is very early days, so I don’t want to say about the temperature change. And again, with the transmedium travel so far, the only bit of this video that I’ve seen is the bit that you’re showing now. I have yet to see the part where it apparently goes into the water and comes out, but if that is what people are saying it is. That is certainly something to watch. And it’s one of these so-called five observables, this apparent ability to move seamlessly between water and air that we hear about. And that is noteworthy for sure if it’s verified. Right.”- Nick Pope, Former MoD ‘UFO adviser’ (Source)
Corbell had a conversation with the sources from where he learned that the UAP considered potentially hostile due to a potential payload, could not be locked onto, and the platform appeared to have been jammed.
He told Liberation Times, “If UAP are able to penetrate our sensitive military installation with impunity – disabling our primary targeting and defense platforms – we must consider the role stigma and secrecy have played in corroding our ability to acknowledge and respond to such threats.”
Jellyfish UAP is not a traditional shaped UAP but there are sightings of such unusual objects. In 2020, Captain Kate McCue of the Celebrity Edge cruise ship saw a similar UFO hover over her ship for a few moments, then described as the jellyfish-shaped UFO plunged directly into the ocean. (Source)
“. . . and I have a drone on board, so I thought it would be a good night to catch a sunset. I had a drone in my hand, and someone said: ‘what’s that?’ and we look up and there was – I put it on TikTok – it looked like a black jellyfish, a gigantic back jellyfish, and it sailed right over the retreat, directly through the center-line of the ship, right through the center line of the ship, right through our “X” in our stack and just floated though. The thing is, we had no wind, maybe 5 knots at the time, but this thing was cruising along about 10-15 miles per hour, just cruised right over, and as its passed the stern of the ship, it went a couple hundred meters, maybe three or four hundred meters, and then it started to descend into the water. But because it was sunset we couldn’t put a rescue boat down to see what it was, but it disappeared into the water, and we had no idea . . . it wasn’t a drill, there was no noise associated with it. So if you want to see our UFO, it was on TikTok.”
According to an earlier report by the Scotsman, Harrier jets engaged in a dogfight with a “bright light” above the Queen’s Highland home at Balmoral, and a glowing white ball “like a flying jellyfish” was spotted over East Kilbride. These sightings were reported in 2002 and 2006.
Corbell has been talking about UFOs being shot down by the militaries around the globe. He said that people often get upset with him when he says that UAPs are continuously being fired upon. During his podcast with Joe Rogan, Corbell revealed a lot of shocking information about UFOs that have been monitored by the US military over their airspace.
The jellyfish UAP constitutes the fourth piece of footage provided by Corbell and Knapp, showcasing objects of unknown origin captured by military platforms in Syria and Iraq. Other instances include the Baghdad Phantom, the Mosul Orb, and the Syria ‘Dome’ UAP.
Corbell told Liberation Times, “The UFO reality is an uncomfortable truth – and it’s time to bring this issue fully into the light. The public has an inherent right and need to know – the truth about what UFOs represent to humanity and we must approach it head-on.”
According to Corbell, the Five Eyes report was published months after the incident occurred and indicates that on 14 December 2021, an RAF Typhoon jet shot at one UAP using an ASRAAM missile. At the time, the incident was reported as the first enemy aircraft shot down by the RAF since the Falklands War in Argentina more than 40 years ago.
Corbell stated that Centcom (United States Central Command) has been tracking UAP for over 15 years, and the frustration lies in the lack of proper reporting and handling of these incidents within the chain of command. He noted that in conflict zones, there is a tendency to shoot at anything within a certain proximity to ground troops or bases, especially if it appears to have a payload. However, the issue arises in the lack of recovery or proper handling after such engagements.
Look carefully at this hill top and you will notice that an ancient face of an intelligent alien species is looking upward. The detail is so-so, but I've seen much worse sculptures of faces in museums and paintings. This is however on Mars, so it's more important. Faces tell us who made them. Faces tell us what they looked like and when we see the face we quickly realize...they are not so different from us. Not so scary as the movies and gov would like to make us believe. They look relaxed, calm, majestic and proud. Reminds me us.
Have you all heard about all the pentagon meetings and discussions about UFOs and aliens in the news recently? They are calling the most important eyewitnesses in the world, however, they are avoiding me. They know that my site, my decades of hands on research is too much for congress, the pentagon or any NASA meeting. They only want to ask UFO researchers that are a joke, and not hard core serous like me. So no...don't expect any real answers from the US gov anytime soon.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Four billion years ago 'Humans' of the Lyran System came to Earth
Four billion years ago 'Humans' of the Lyran System came to Earth
Not only Lyrans but also Dracos, Pleiadians, Martians, Venusians, Agarthans and Nibiran Anunnaki came to Earth.
Below is an excerpt from “MARDUK: ANUNNAKI KING OF EARTH”
By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology) & Janet Kira Lessin CEO, Aquarian Radio
In Blue Blood, True Blood, Stewart Swerdlow writes that some four billion years ago the Humans of the Lyran System (except Plieadian Atlans) fled then created the Galactic Federation of 110 scattered planets to fight Reptilians from the Draco System. The androgynous Draco Reptilians energize themselves with human flesh and fear hormones.
Survivors of the initial Draco attacks rocketed to Mars and a (now extinct) planet called Maldek in the Solaris System and "to Orion, Tau Ceti, Pleiades, Procyon, Antares, Alpha Centauri, Aquarius and dozens of other solar systems." One group of Lyran refugees to the Pleiades, the Atlans, refused to join the Federation and fight the Dracos. Atlans wanted, instead of a federation of refugees, to restore the ancient civilization in Lyrans enjoyed before the Dracos invaded. Atlans, like most Lyrans, were blue-eyed and blond or green-eyed and red-haired.
Dracos lived within and controlled a hollowed-out, planet-sized comet with a rock core. They guided to kill the Lyrans who fled to Maldek and Mars. "Gravity on Maldek was denser than Mars" so Maldekians "developed a thicker frame and a more aggressive attitude." The Maldekians threatened the Martians. The Martians got a defense shield machine from the beings of Khoom a planet of Sirius A to defend themselves against the Maldekians and the Draco comet heading for our sun.
The Dracos within intended for the comet to end up as Venus, between Mercury and Earth. From Venus they’d control the whole Solaris System.
Maldekians tracked the Draco comet heading for them and Mars and convinced the Martians to let them, albeit reluctantly, join them underground on Mars where they secured themselves and the shield device the Khooms gave them.
Dracos who rode inside the comet shattered Maldek with a weapon or the comet's gravitational force. Maldek’s fragments now make up the Kuiper Belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.
After the comet killed Maldek it neared Mars. The comet’s gravity pulled most oxygen, surface ice and water off Mars and into space. Under the Martian surface Maldekian refugees and Martians quarreled.
As the comet continued toward the sun, it neared Earth. Earth, then entirely ice- and ocean-covered; its only intelligent lifeforms were nontechnological and aquatic. The comet’s gravity melted enough of Earth’s ice and drew off enough of its water-cover to raise two continents--Lemura (Mu) centered on what would become the Pacific Basin and Atlantis, centered on what would become the Atlantic Ocean Basin.
The Draco comet moved on past the Earth toward the Sun and settled into an orbit between Earth and Mercury. The sun vaporized the comet’s ice into a cloudy cover for the ex-comet, which now orbited as the planet Venus. The Reptilians within Venus surfaced and built seven domed cities on the Venutian surface from which to launch their conquest of the Solar System and annhiliation of its Lyran Refugees.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Marine Veteran Reports Witnessing ‘Jellyfish’ UAP Footage in Iraq
Marine Veteran Reports Witnessing ‘Jellyfish’ UAP Footage in Iraq
In a world increasingly curious about aerial mysteries, a recent account by a Marine veteran adds a new chapter to the annals of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). The story revolves around a peculiar sighting, commonly referred to as the ‘Jellyfish’ UAP, witnessed during a deployment in Iraq.
The Discovery of the Unusual
The ‘Jellyfish’ UAP, a name coined due to its unique appearance, was first brought into the spotlight by UFO journalist Jeremy Corbell. He released footage showcasing an enigmatic object in the skies of Iraq. This footage, while intriguing, remains unverified. However, its existence and the buzz it created cannot be overlooked.
The narrative gains substance with the testimony of Michael Cincoski, a former Marine. Stationed at an Iraqi base in 2018, Cincoski reports that he, along with his colleagues, viewed the entire footage of this mysterious object. This object was not perceived as a threat but rather as a profound mystery by those on the base.
The Spaghetti Monster
Interestingly, the Marines stationed at the base had nicknamed the object the ‘Spaghetti Monster’. Their initial encounters with the phenomenon involved monitoring it to ensure it posed no immediate threat. Despite employing various sensors and night vision equipment, the Marines could not conclusively identify or locate the object, adding to its enigmatic nature.
Technical Insights
According to Cincoski, the footage of the ‘Jellyfish’ UAP was captured in 2017 by an aerostat – a large balloon-like structure equipped with surveillance cameras. This aerostat, hovering over the base, allowed for an extended observation of the object as it traversed near the base and over Lake Hahave in the Anbar Province of Iraq.
The Unseen Footage
The Marine veteran mentioned seeing the full 17-minute video, which remains largely unseen by the public. He described the object as moving off into the distance, getting smaller until it was no longer visible. Whether it descended into the lake or simply flew away remains a subject of speculation.
An Unresolved Enigma
The ‘Jellyfish’ UAP, as described by Cincoski, did not display any aggressive postures or threaten the base. This led to it becoming more of a ghost story among the Marines, a mysterious encounter that sparked curiosity but never escalated to a security concern.
Official Stance
Despite repeated inquiries, the Pentagon has not provided specific confirmations or denials regarding this video. This silence adds another layer of intrigue to the already mysterious sighting.
VIDEO:
Marine confirms he saw ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video during Iraq deployment | Vargas Reports
The ‘Jellyfish’ UAP sighting in Iraq, as recounted by Marine veteran Michael Cincoski, is a compelling addition to the growing list of unexplained aerial phenomena. While it raises more questions than answers, it undoubtedly fuels the curiosity and debate surrounding the existence and nature of UAPs
UFO Expert Suggests ‘Jellyfish’ UAP Video Could Be Authentic
UFO Expert Suggests ‘Jellyfish’ UAP Video Could Be Authentic
In the world of UFO sightings and unexplained aerial phenomena, there is always a fine line between skepticism and belief. However, a recent video released by UFO journalist Jeremy Corbell has sparked intense debate among experts and enthusiasts alike. This video, which Corbell describes as a “jellyfish” UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon), was reportedly captured in Iraq in 2018, and its authenticity has become a subject of fascination and scrutiny.
While it’s important to emphasize that NewsNation has not independently verified this footage, the discussion surrounding it has attracted the attention of UFO expert Nick Pope, who recently joined a discussion on the subject.
The UFO community is no stranger to claims and sightings, but this particular video has piqued the curiosity of many for several reasons. Let’s delve deeper into the context and perspectives surrounding the ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video.
The Universe of Possibility:
In the world of UFO research, the possibilities are endless. Nick Pope, in his interview with “Banfield,” highlighted the vast universe of possibilities when it comes to discussing UFOs. He stressed that the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community has been briefed on these matters and has access to significant information. This underscores the seriousness with which the government has approached the subject.
The Reality of Threats:
One striking aspect of Corbell’s interview is his acknowledgment of the threats he has received due to his involvement in UFO research. Regardless of personal belief in the phenomenon, it’s clear that individuals who delve into this field face significant challenges, including harassment and threats. Corbell’s commitment to uncovering the truth underscores the passion that drives many in the UFO community.
Transparency and National Security:
The interview touches upon a critical issue – the balance between transparency and national security. It is a challenge to maintain both in a world where classified information regarding UAPs exists. The secrecy surrounding these matters is of great concern, and there is growing pressure from the public and lawmakers for more transparency.
The Race to Reverse Engineer Technology:
One of the most intriguing aspects of the interview is the idea that the UAP phenomenon might involve technology beyond our comprehension. Nick Pope emphasized that it’s not just about the presence of UAPs but also the potential for reverse engineering programs and holding facilities with full crafts. This suggests a race to understand and harness advanced technology that could have far-reaching implications.
Seeking Answers:
Throughout the interview, Jeremy Corbell and Nick Pope share a common goal – the quest for truth. Regardless of whether the ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video proves to be genuine, the desire to uncover what is real and to inform the public remains a driving force behind their work. They advocate for responsible disclosure and treating whistleblowers with respect and protection.
VIDEO:
NewsStation – ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video is likely the ‘real deal’: UFO expert
The ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video serves as another intriguing chapter in the ongoing exploration of unexplained aerial phenomena. It highlights the passionate commitment of researchers and experts like Jeremy Corbell and Nick Pope to shed light on these mysterious occurrences. While skepticism is natural in such matters, the quest for truth and transparency should continue to guide our exploration of the unknown.
As we navigate the universe of possibilities and delve deeper into the realm of UAPs, it’s essential to approach this topic with an open mind and a commitment to responsible investigation. The ‘Jellyfish’ UAP video may or may not be the ‘real deal,’ but it undoubtedly adds to the growing body of evidence that invites us to explore the unknown and challenge our understanding of the world beyond our own.
Dark Disk Over Medellin, Colombia is back again! Jan 2024, UFO Sighting News Video.
Dark Disk Over Medellin, Colombia is back again! Jan 2024, UFO Sighting News Video.
Date of sighting:January 2024
Location of sighting: Medellin, Colombia
Watch and you will see a dark thick disk over the city of Medellin, Colombia this week. The object caused people to pull over along the road, stop and record this strange dark craft in the sky. This is not the first time this UFO was ever seen in Medellin, its actually been recorded three other times and once by an airliner pilot a few years ago. Something special below Medellin, and I think there is an alien city 5km below the surface.
I found another alien anomaly on Asteroid Eros. It's an alien ship that measures 6km in diameter. The spaceship is near the astroid Eros and I also show 5 other discoveries that I have made over the years. This UFO is similar in size and shape of a few others that I have found in the past. Please watch the video and tell me your thoughts on my youtube channel video. The evidence that us the public is release is overwhelming the US gov and forcing them to release evidence of their own, so that they can say...we too are trying to reveal the truth about aliens and UFOs. But the truth is they don't want anyone to know yet, but the US gov is afraid, afraid that the pubic will expose the truth before the US Gov wants it released. I am forcing the US gov to reveal the truth.
Komen deze voorspellingen van Stephen Hawking daadwerkelijk uit? Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) stond bekend om zijn werk op het gebied van zwarte gaten en de algemene relativiteitstheorie. Maar de beroemde natuurkundige stapte vaak buiten zijn eigen onderzoeksveld en gebruikte zijn erkenning om te benadrukken wat hij zag als de grote uitdagingen en existentiële bedreigingen voor de mensheid in de komende decennia. Variërend van onderwerpen als buitenaardse wezens tot het einde van de wereld, haalden zijn uitspraken de krantenkoppen en bleken ze soms controversieel.
Nieuwsgierig? Lees hieronder enkele van zijn beroemdste voorspellingen.
De aarde verlaten Al tientallen jaren vertelt de theoretische natuurkundige de mensen dat ze moeten beginnen met het proces om zich permanent op andere planeten te vestigen.
De aarde verlaten Hawking beweerde dat de mensheid uiteindelijk het slachtoffer zou worden van een ramp die zo groot was dat we zouden uitsterven, misschien wel eerder vroeger dan later.
De aarde verlaten In 2016 vertelde hij de BBC het volgende: "Hoewel de kans op een ramp voor de planeet Aarde in een bepaald jaar vrij klein kan zijn, wordt het in de loop van de tijd steeds groter en wordt het een bijna zekerheid in de komende duizend of 10.000 jaar.
Andere planeten en zonnestelsels koloniseren Om het voortbestaan van de mensheid te garanderen, geloofde Hawking dat we andere planeten en zonnestelsels zouden moeten koloniseren.
Andere planeten en zonnestelsels koloniseren "Verspreiding is misschien het enige dat ons van onszelf redt. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat de mens de aarde moet verlaten", zei hij in 2017 op een Noors wetenschaps- en kunstenfestival.
De opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie Hawking zag de kansen van de vooruitgang op het gebied van kunstmatige intelligentie, maar waarschuwde ook voor de gevaren.
De opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie In 2014 vertelde hij de BBC dat "de ontwikkeling van volledige kunstmatige intelligentie het einde van het menselijk ras zou kunnen betekenen".
De opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie Hawking geloofde dat de kunstmatige basisintelligentie die tot nu toe was ontwikkeld al heel nuttig was gebleken. De technologie die hij gebruikte om te communiceren bevatte bijvoorbeeld een basisvorm van AI.
De opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie Maar Hawking vreesde de gevolgen van geavanceerde vormen van machine-intelligentie die mensen zouden kunnen evenaren of overtreffen.
Genbewerking In zijn postume verzameling artikelen en essays 'Brief Answers to the Big Questions' voorspelde Hawking dat genetische manipulatietechnieken zullen leiden tot een ras van "supermensen".
Genbewerking "Ik ben er zeker van dat mensen in de loop van deze eeuw zullen ontdekken hoe ze zowel intelligentie als instincten zoals agressie kunnen veranderen," schreef hij.
Genbewerking "Zodra zulke supermensen verschijnen, zullen er aanzienlijke politieke problemen zijn met niet-verbeterde mensen, die niet in staat zullen zijn om te concurreren," schreef hij. "Vermoedelijk zullen ze uitsterven of onbelangrijk worden. In plaats daarvan zal er een ras zijn van zelfontwerpende wezens die zich steeds sneller verbeteren."
De grootste bedreiging voor de aarde In hetzelfde boek voorspelde Hawking dat de grootste bedreiging voor de aarde een botsing met een asteroïde is, net zoals de asteroïde die de dinosauriërs doodde.
De grootste bedreiging voor de aarde Daar hebben we echter "geen verdediging" tegen, schreef Hawking. Aan de andere kant zag hij de opwarming van de aarde als een meer directe bedreiging.
Klimaatverandering "Trump's actie [het terugtrekken uit het Akkoord van Parijs] kan de aarde over de rand duwen, om te worden zoals Venus, met een temperatuur van 250 graden en zwavelzuurregens," vertelde Hawking aan de BBC.
Klimaatverandering De Intergouvernementele Werkgroep inzake klimaatverandering (IPCC) van de VN waarschuwt ook voor het potentiële risico op het bereiken van omslagpunten in het klimaat, naarmate de temperaturen stijgen.
De aarde zal in een vuurbal veranderen Hawking theoretiseerde dat de planeet tegen 2600 in een gigantische vuurbal zou veranderen door overbevolking en energieverbruik. Dit zou de aarde onbewoonbaar maken.
De aarde zal in een vuurbal veranderen "Met de klimaatverandering, de dreigende inslagen van asteroïden, epidemieën en de bevolkingsgroei wordt onze eigen planeet steeds precairder," vertelde hij de BBC in 2017.
De aarde zal in een vuurbal veranderen Dit was een van de redenen waarom Hawking het idee verdedigde dat mensen zich permanent op andere planeten zouden vestigen.
Buitenaards contact Aangezien Hawking het grootste deel van zijn leven naar de ruimte heeft gekeken, is het niet verwonderlijk dat hij nadacht over de vraag of er andere levensvormen bestaan.
Buitenaards contact Er is zelfs een hele tak van wetenschap, SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) genaamd, die zich bezighoudt met het luisteren naar signalen van intelligente wezens elders in het universum.
Buitenaards contact In 2010 vertelde hij Discovery Channel: "Als buitenaardse wezens ons bezoeken, zou de uitkomst hetzelfde zijn als toen Columbus in Amerika landde, wat niet goed afliep voor de inheemse Amerikanen."
Het beste idee dat de mensheid zou kunnen uitvoeren Toen het tijdschrift Time hem in 2010 vroeg welke wetenschappelijke ontdekking of vooruitgang hij tijdens zijn leven zou willen zien, antwoordde Hawking met "kernfusie". Dit zou een nieuwe bron van koolstofvrije energie zijn, waarbij twee waterstofatomen samensmelten om een heliumatoom en veel energie te produceren.
Het beste idee dat de mensheid zou kunnen uitvoeren "Ik zou graag zien dat kernfusie een praktische energiebron wordt. Het zou een onuitputtelijke energiebron zijn, zonder vervuiling of opwarming van de aarde," zei hij.
NASA satellite images obtained late last year captured an odd-looking occurrence in the skies off the coast of eastern Russia, coinciding with an “anomalously low” temperature drop, the agency reported in a recent online posting.
Captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, a series of odd parallel lines could be seen taking shape in cloud formations just east of Sakhalin Island, Russia’s largest island which separates the Sea of Okhotsk to its east and the Sea of Japan, which lays to the southwest.
Roughly the size of a school bus, the Terra satellite, launched in 1999, studies Earth’s climate through connections between the atmosphere and a range of planetary features that include land and sea. Equipped with five instruments capable of measuring different features of the Earth, Terra collects data that helps scientists gauge the impact of human activity on our planet, as well as how natural disasters impact human population centers and ecosystems.
Through the lens of its camera eye, the MODIS instrument visualizes every point on Earth every 1-2 days from its position in orbit, recording what it observes in 36 spectral bands, making it the most comprehensive of all the sensors on board the Terra satellite and tracking the largest array of our planet’s vital signs.
On December 28, 2023, Terra’s MODIS detected the odd formation of parallel lines of cumulus clouds over the Sea of Okhotsk. Striking in appearance, these unusual cloudy structures are a phenomenon well-known to atmospheric scientists.
Above: Cloud streets visible in the cumulus cloud formations off the eastern coast of Russia on December 28, 2023
(Credit: Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/EOSDIS LANCE/GIBS/Worldview).
Horizontal convective rolls, more commonly known as “cloud streets,” these odd-looking structures take shape in the troposphere as cool dry pockets of air make their way out over warm coastal waters, where they begin to acquire moisture rising from the sea. The resulting vapor condensation gives rise to cloud formation, whereas cooler portions of the surrounding air sink.
The atmosphere above Russia’s eastern coast is ideal for the formation of features like these, which generally appear in the same direction as the prevailing wind. Over the Sea of Okhotsk, the exceptionally cold northwest winds emerging from Siberia have been likened to a “factory” of ice and cloud formation, where temperatures on Sakhalin Island this time of year often plummet to as low as -6 degrees Fahrenheit (-21 degrees Celsius).
In the photos made available at NASA’s Earth Observatory page, Arctic stratospheric conditions were producing clouds featuring striking iridescent coloration.
“These ethereal polar stratospheric clouds develop in extremely cold conditions and were recently visible to observers at lower latitudes than usual,” wrote Lindsey Doermann in an entry on the Earth Observatory website describing the phenomenon in the NASA satellite images.
Data collected by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) conveyed what it described as “anomalous” low temperatures coinciding with the appearance of the cloud streaks over the eastern Russian coast in recent weeks (Credit: P. Newman (NASA), L. Lait (SSAI), S. Pawson (NASA)).
At the time the cloud streets appeared off the Russian coast, Arctic stratospheric temperatures had dropped extremely low (see above), according to data models produced by the space agency’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).
Supporting NASA’s Earth Science mission, the GMAO provides modeling and data assimilation to help strengthen the information obtained from NASA satellite images, and to provide additional analysis and predictions about events occurring in the atmosphere, as well as on land and in the oceans.
Additional information about the formation of cloud streets can be found here, and further information about NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office can be found at the GMAO Research Site.
NASA has delayed humanity’s highly-anticipated return to the Moon, its Artemis II mission, to September 2025 from an original target launch of November 2024, citing the need for extra time to analyze why the space capsule’s heat shield created hazardous, burning debris upon re-entry to Earth during the Artemis I mission.
Hellish heat of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit engulfed NASA’s Artemis I Orion capsule on December 11, 2022, as it careened through Earth’s atmosphere at more than 24,000 miles per hour after visiting the Moon. But charred material unexpectedly flaked off Orion’s heat shield during a maneuver to slow the vehicle down. NASA officials say they didn’t expect the heat shield to burn and fall apart as much as it did.
At high speeds and high heat, debris can become a safety hazard. The space agency spent this past year analyzing the potentially hazardous debris, Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Moon to Mars Program, said during a media teleconference call on Tuesday. If the Artemis I Orion had a crew onboard, they wouldn’t have been in harm’s way, officials said on Tuesday. However, it could have posed a hazard if there was a crew onboard and it happened to be oriented in a different way. Because of this, Kshatriya said the team wants to fully understand why this debris happened in the first place and prevent it from occurring on future missions.
Hazardous debris is a known major safety risk for space launches. About a minute after the Space Shuttle Columbia launched in January 2003, the external tank released foam insulation. The debris struck the shuttle’s left wing, leaving a wound that likely contributed to the Columbia reentry disaster on February 1, 2003, which killed all seven crew members onboard.
The Artemis missions are NASA’s major push to establish an ongoing human presence on the Moon. Artemis II will be the first test of the vehicle that will send four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — around the Moon’s farside and back. Artemis III is set to be the first Moon landing since Apollo (as long as no other country beats us to it). But that, too, is delayed. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Artemis III won’t fly earlier than September 2026, a year later than originally planned.
“Safety is our number one priority,” said Jim Free, NASA Associate Administrator, at the press conference. “We will launch when we are ready.”
Samengevat. China kondigt plannen aan voor een eigen satelliet-internetnetwerk, vergelijkbaar met StarLink, met de bedoeling om wereldwijde dekking te bieden door 26.000 satellieten te lanceren, een onderneming geleid door staatsbedrijven.
Deze stap markeert een belangrijke ontwikkeling in de wereldwijde ruimtewedloop, waarmee China zichzelf als een dominante ‘ruimtemacht’ positioneert, in directe competitie met de Verenigde Staten. Die tonen bezorgdheid over China’s ruimteambities, wat leidt tot geopolitieke spanningen en concurrentie.
In het nieuws. China begint dit jaar met de bouw van een satelliet-internetconstellatie die de concurrentie wil aangaan met Starlink van Elon Musk.
Plannen omvatten de lancering van ongeveer 26.000 satellieten om wereldwijde dekking te bieden.
Staatsbedrijven leiden deze ontwikkeling, wat het militaire en commerciële belang van dit project onderlijnt.
Zoom in. Een specifieke lanceerlocatie is in aanbouw nabij de Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan.
Het plan is om ongeveer 1.300 satellieten, of 10% van het geplande aantal, te lanceren tussen 2024 en 2029.
De focus ligt op het ondersteunen van hoge snelheid 6G-communicatiesystemen, met een doelstelling om het project tegen 2035 te volooien.
Zoom out. Dit project is onderdeel van China’s bredere ambitie om tegen 2030 een ruimtemacht gelijkwaardig aan de VS te worden.
Naast satellieten omvat het plan ook het ontwikkelen van een eigen ruimtestation en Marsverkenningen.
Andere landen en bedrijven tonen bezorgdheid over China’s ruimteambities, wat leidt tot geopolitieke spanningen en concurrentie.
De Duitse overheid blokkeerde een ruimtevaartbedrijf in Shanghai – een grote aandeelhouder in een Berlijnse satelliet startup – om aandelen van andere houders te kopen.
De Amerikaanse lucht- en ruimtevaartgigant Boeing annuleerde een contract voor de verkoop van satellieten met een Amerikaanse startup nadat bekend werd dat een door de Chinese overheid gesteunde entiteit in het bedrijf had geïnvesteerd.
EXCLUSIVE - UFO whistleblower held secret talk with 'Wall St bigwigs' and CIA officials in Manhattan - where he claimed US was in possession of 40ft Tardis-like craft that was 'the size of a football field when you stepped inside'
EXCLUSIVE - UFO whistleblower held secret talk with 'Wall St bigwigs' and CIA officials in Manhattan - where he claimed US was in possession of 40ft Tardis-like craft that was 'the size of a football field when you stepped inside'
Former US intelligence officer David Grusch held a secrete UFO presentation
He revealed new details about the US's UAP retrieval program to 60 people
A UFO whistleblower shared new details of a Tardis-like craft in government possession during a secret meeting in New York City.
Decorated former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch claims his sources worked on a 40-foot UAP that 'was the size of a football field' when they stepped inside, according to an attendee at the event.
The object could manipulate both space and time and use and could harness enough energy to power 70,000 homes a year, the source said.
DailyMail.com understands that guests included officials from the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, tech entrepreneurs and Wall Street 'bigwigs.'
All in, Grusch gave the talk to 60 people at a penthouse in Manhattan, and photos were banned from the event.
David Grusch spoke to scientists, former military officials and current FBI members about the US's long-held UAP retrieval program, including a 40-foot-long UAP that 'was the size of a football field' when he stepped inside
The only information about the meeting was leaked by an anonymous attendee who took pictures of Grusch.
DailyMail.com has since verified that the meeting took place and was told by sources that Coinbase advisor John D'Agostino and high-powered attorney John J. Altorelli hosted the event.
Coinbase is a publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform.
The two men are said to host monthly events at the penthouse apartment, focusing on different topics.
The leaker said: 'It was hosted by a Wall Street bigwig and his lawyer friend.
'It was sort of a small saloon-style talk. David also did it for free. Even went as far as to fly into NYC just for this.
'He had arrived only a few hours beforehand and then left 1st thing the next day.
'The idea was to get a group of both skeptics and believers from all these different walks of life for a talk regarding David and the things he has said.
'Most of the people who left had left as believers.'
The only information about the meeting was leaked by an anonymous attendee who took a chance by taking pictures of Grusch standing in front of the room and sharing slides on a television screen - photos were banned from the event
The former intelligence official then gave sworn testimony in front of Congress in July, where he and two other military whistleblowers shared details about firsthand encounters or knowledge about secret government programs involving technology that is 'non-human'
Grusch has made headlines since June 2023, when he claimed the Vatican is aware of the existence of non-human intelligences (NHIs) and helped the US retrieve a downed UFO from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini at the end of the Second World War.
The former intelligence official then gave sworn testimony in front of Congress in July, where he and two other military whistleblowers shared details about firsthand encounters or knowledge about secret government programs involving technology that is 'non-human.'
At the hearing, Grusch claimed the US has been in possession of UFOs since 'the 1930s' but said in New York that the government has taken 'part in a fair amount of crash retrievals before 1933,' according to the attendee's summary.
Grusch is also believed to have said that no more than 50 people know the full scale of the phenomenon.
During July's hearing, the former intelligence officer also suggested the US government has murdered people as part of the conspiracy to keep UFOs a secret.
And those claims were repeated during the recent presentation.
'Multiple people involved in not only his investigation but also his fellow peers in the UAP task force, such as Jay Stratton, were also threatened,' reads the post.
'He wouldn't go too much into it since it's an open investigation, but these people pretty much showed him that they could touch him or his family any time they wanted.'
'Multiple people involved in not only his investigation but also his fellow peers in the UAP task force, such as Jay Stratton (pictured), were also threatened,' reads the post
Stratton is the former head of the US government UFO task force. He and his chief scientist, Travis Taylor, spilled the secrets of their official probe into a swarm of objects (pictured) that buzzed around a fleet of eight Navy ships off the US West Coast in July 2019
Stratton is the former head of the US government UFO task force.
He and his chief scientist, Travis Taylor, spilled the secrets of their official probe into a swarm of objects that buzzed around a fleet of eight Navy ships off the US West Coast in July 2019.
Speaking at AlienCon in Pasadena on March 5, Stratton and Taylor said their investigation left them fearing Russia or China could have achieved incredible drone battery technology – but ruled out quadcopters launched from submarines that somehow evaded the Navy's best radar just miles from the mainland.
Grusch is also claimed to have revealed that one of the US's adversaries was set to disclose their non-human intelligence to beat America to the punch.
Attendees of the secret event were also allowed to ask questions following the presentation.
While the exact questions are not known, it is believed they asked what aliens may look like and where they are from in the universe.
Grusch shared that the world would not be surprised to hear extraterrestrials look the typical gray and that 'there is also a chance that they are extra-dimensional,' according to the anonymous attendee's post.
'That it could also just seem this way because of the technology they use rather than them being actual extra-dimensional beings,' they continued.
Grusch is also said to have revealed he and other officials were taught how to track UAPs in the atmosphere - there is a unique frequency or signature that the craft gives off.
'Apparently, it was the only private non-government talk he had done so far,' the individual shared in the Reddit post that has since been deleted, likely due to cameras being barred.
'As for how I feel about everything after hearing him speak.
'He is extremely smart, I mean, he has an almost unbelievable memory and knowledge about intel laws and other things that have to do with UAPs.
'My opinion is that he is the real deal.
'Almost everyone left that night fully believing what he was saying or, at the very least, that HE believed what he was saying as the truth.'
‘It would take about a billion years to cross from one side of the Milky Way galaxy to the other,’ Loeb said
Harvard Professor of Science Avi Loeb talks about alleged alien, UFO sightings
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has called the bluff on alien sightings on Earth. In a recent interview with GB News, the expert explained that almost all biological creatures would not be able to complete the journey to our planet from afar. “It would take about a billion years to cross from one side of the Milky Way galaxy to the other,” Loeb said, adding, “Given that, I don’t think any spacecraft that would arrive to us from another star would carry biological creatures.”
This comes after the many alleged UFO sightings in recent years. Delving further into the topic, Loeb explained that it would be next to impossible for an extraterrestrial being to survive the innumerable grim conditions in space. “They wouldn’t survive the journey being bombarded by very energetic particles in interstellar space for so long,” Loeb said.
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“It’s more likely, if they are autonomous, they have an artificial brain, artificial intelligence. We have already developed that on Earth, we haven’t launched it to space, but that would be the next step,” Loeb added.
Drawing a link between AI and travelling through space, the Bull Moose Project policy director, Ziven Havens, said, “There is a possibility that AI will open up space travel both for manned and unmanned vehicles by reducing costs and increasing safety,” as per Fox News. “The possibilities are truly endless, and that makes the future of AI more exciting.”
However, Loeb also stressed that the government should be more open with their data on UFOs with scientists, allowing for intensive research. “The government monitors the sky for national security purposes,” he said. “Whereas scientists [and] astronomers, for example, look at small regions of the sky at very distant sources of light. If something flies overhead, astronomers ignore it. If there is something over there, it’s the government that would be the first to notice it,” Loeb continued.
“As a scientist, I respond to evidence. That’s what we are waiting for: the government to disclose what it knows. … It’s really important for me because I’m trying to find the evidence myself, but the government can save me a lot of time,” he added. “Why should I spend decades of my life looking for something when the government already has it?”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Coast to Coast AM Delves into UFO Phenomena with Garrett M. Graff
Coast to Coast AM Delves into UFO Phenomena with Garrett M. Graff
Coast to Coast AM, a night-time radio talk show, is renowned for its in-depth exploration of paranormal and unexplained phenomena, often featuring experts and researchers from various fields. In a recent episode, the show delved deep into the world of UFOs and national security with journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff, a Pulitzer Prize finalist known for his meticulous research and insightful analysis.
Graff, in his discussion on Coast to Coast AM, brought to light the intricate web of congressional hearings, governmental actions, and the renewed investigations into Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) by the Pentagon. One of the key highlights of his exploration was the attention given to a statement made in 2020 by former CIA director John Brennan. Brennan’s remarks about unexplained sky phenomena underscored the complexity and seriousness with which these incidents are now being regarded, moving beyond the realm of adversarial technology and entering a space of greater unknowns.
In an era where the existence of extraterrestrial life is a subject of growing interest and debate, Graff’s reflections on the mathematical probability of such life forms bring a new perspective. He points to the abundance of habitable planets as a statistical backing for the potential of extraterrestrial life, suggesting that the odds may be more in favor of alien life than previously thought.
VIDEO:
UFOs and National Security: Beyond Adversarial Technology
The conversation on Coast to Coast AM also revisited some of the most credible UFO cases in history. Graff discussed the famous 1964 encounter of police officer Lonnie Zamora, an incident that has stood the test of time as a significant and unexplained UFO sighting. Additionally, he delved into the intriguing case of Capt. Thomas Mantell in 1948, whose pursuit of a supposed UFO ended tragically, with later revelations connecting the incident to a Navy research balloon, as reported in Project Blue Book.
Graff’s insights offered to the Coast to Coast AM audience a blend of historical perspective and current developments in the field of UFO research. His analysis presents a world where the lines between national security, scientific inquiry, and the search for extraterrestrial life are increasingly intersecting. This episode of Coast to Coast AM not only illuminated the past but also shed light on the ongoing efforts to understand and confront the mysteries that continue to hover in our skies.
Strange 'Ebani-Jellyfish' UFO seen on thermal camera
Strange 'Ebani-Jellyfish' UFO seen on thermal camera
Investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp obtained and are revealing for the first time - footage of a military filmed UAP incursion within a United States joint operations base. This UAP of unknown origin displayed transmedium capability - and has been officially designated by the United States intelligence agencies as a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).
Event description: An incursion by an object of unknown origin was filmed using Thermographic / Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) for a durational period at a United States joint operations base in Iraq on October 2018 (night).
The object moved through a sensitive military installation - and eventually traversed over a body of water, where it actuated a controlled descent - submerging into the water.
After an observational period of about seventeen minutes - the UAP reemerged from the body of water and shot-off at an extreme rate of speed - beyond the optical scope of the observation platform.
The UAP displayed transmedium capability:
The UAP was filmed entering the water with a controlled descent. The UAP emerged from the water about seventeen minutes later and orientated into a sudden and rapid directional flight - beyond the optical range of the platform monitoring it.
The UAP displayed low observability:
The UAP was not visible with Night Vision (IR) and appeared to jam the targeting capability of the optical platform.
The UAP displayed:
Positive lift - without the normally associated aerodynamic means for lift and thrust. The signatures typically associated with the propulsion maneuvers observed - were absent.
Note: Could it be an Ebani?
Limited information exists regarding these UAP types. Could the unidentified object possibly be an Ebani? An Ebani is an organic (biological) entity that resides in our atmosphere. It seemly remains invisible to the naked eye, which could account for its detection solely on thermal cameras. The fact that the entity not only flies through the air but also submerges underwater for approximately 17 minutes before resurfacing and swiftly soaring away, indicating intelligent and deliberate movement.
Video 1: The Jellyfish UFO.
Video 2: On Twitter (X) Jeremy Corbell discusses the strange 'Jellyfish' UFO.
Metallic sphere filmed near George Air Force Base – 2024 UFO sighting
Metallic sphere filmed near George Air Force Base – 2024 UFO sighting
In the quiet expanse of Adalanto, California, a recent UFO sighting has captured the attention of enthusiasts and skeptics alike. The event, strikingly captured in a daytime video, presents a compelling case for unidentified aerial phenomena in proximity to George Air Force Base, a detail that adds an intriguing military angle to the narrative.
The video, posted online by a local resident, showcases what appears to be a metallic sphere gliding effortlessly through the sky. According to the uploader, his father, who witnessed the event firsthand, estimated the object to be approximately 8 to 12 feet wide (nearly 3 meters in diameter). This size estimation, while seemingly small, aligns with a growing number of reports involving metallic spheres.
What sets this sighting apart is not just its proximity to a military base but also the object’s behavior. Witnesses describe the sphere moving with a freedom that defies conventional aircraft capabilities. This observation culminated in a breathtaking moment where the object reportedly “shot off in the blink of an eye,” a characteristic movement pattern reported in other UFO incidents.
This Adalanto sighting draws parallels to other famous cases of metallic spheres in the sky. Recent years have seen a surge in such reports, with similar incidents recorded globally. Notably, these objects often demonstrate advanced aerial capabilities, such as abrupt acceleration and sudden changes in direction, challenging our understanding of current aviation technology.
The proximity to George Air Force Base raises inevitable questions about the possibility of military involvement or knowledge. Historically, UFO sightings near military installations have led to speculation about secret aircraft testing or advanced surveillance technology. However, the erratic nature and speed of this object seem to push the boundaries of known military capabilities.
As with many UFO sightings, the lack of definitive answers leaves room for speculation and debate. The Adalanto incident, recorded in broad daylight and near a military site, provides a unique case study in the ongoing investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena. Whether these sightings are evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, undisclosed military technology, or something else entirely, remains one of the modern era’s most compelling mysteries.
Latest UFO sightings, this event marks another intriguing addition to a growing database of unexplained aerial occurrences. As we continue to explore the skies, the quest for understanding these mysterious sightings becomes ever more fascinating and complex.
30 van de oudste dingen op aarde Wist je dat de oudste religie ter wereld 5000 jaar oud is? Of dat het oudste land van Europa te vinden is? En hoe zit het met het oudste nog in gebruik zijnde schip, of het oudste schoenenbedrijf? Ja, je zou verbaasd zijn over de leeftijd van sommige dingen op onze planeet, waarvan sommige zelfs miljarden jaren bestrijken. Wat is er nog meer echt geavanceerd voor zijn leeftijd?
KIJK verder en ontdek waarom een tijdperk geen barrière is.
Oudste persoon in de Bijbel Methusalem, genoemd in Genesis 5:21–27, is de oudste persoon in de Bijbel en stierf op 969-jarige leeftijd. Hij wordt hier afgebeeld op een glas-in-loodraam uit het zuidwestelijke transept van de kathedraal van Canterbury in Engeland.
Oudste beschaving Mesopotamië wordt algemeen beschouwd als de eerste stedelijke beschaving, die een tijdperk beslaat van ca. 8000 v.Chr. tot 2000 v.Chr. De Sumeriërs en Akkadiërs domineerden Mesopotamië vanaf het begin van de geschreven geschiedenis (ca. 3100 v.Chr.) tot de val van Babylon in 539 v.Chr. Afgebeeld is een vrouwenbeeldje van beschilderd aardewerk uit Aleppo, Syrië, ca. 5000 v.Chr.
Oudste religie Het hindoeïsme wordt vaak beschouwd als de oudste bestaande religie die nog steeds wordt beoefend. Het is ook het meest complexe van alle gevestigde geloofssystemen, met een oorsprong die meer dan 5000 jaar teruggaat in India.
Oudste monarchie Het koninkrijk Zweden is de oudste monarchie ter wereld, waarbij Erik de Overwinnaar (ca. 945 – ca. 995) wordt beschouwd als de eerste Zweedse koning.
Oudste land Het oudste land ter wereld is San Marino. Deze kleine enclave in het midden van Italië, gesticht op 3 September 301 CE, heeft sinds zijn onafhankelijkheid van het Romeinse Rijk zijn status als een ononderbroken soevereine staat genoten.
Oudste ruïnes De oudste ruïnes zijn die gevonden in de Theopetra-grot in Griekenland, met name de stenen muur bij de ingang van de kalkstenen grot. Geschatte datum terug tot c. Het is het oudst bekende voorbeeld van een door de mens gemaakt bouwwerk en zou tijdens de laatste ijstijd als windscherm hebben gediend voor de bewoners van de grot.
Oudste stad van Amerika Eerste bewoond c. 1500 BCE, Tepoztlán, nabij Mexico-Stad, is de oudste stad van Amerika. Het is beroemd om de El Tepozteco-tempel.
Oudste boomsoort De Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) is de oudste boomsoort die er bestaat en bereikt een leeftijd van meer dan 5.000 jaar oud. De bomen zijn te vinden in de hogere bergen van Californië, Nevada en Utah.
Oudste liedje De Hurritische 'Hymn to Nikkal' wordt beschouwd als het oudste lied ter wereld. Het lied, ook bekend als 'h.6', maakt deel uit van ongeveer 36 hymnen die in spijkerschrift zijn geschreven op kleitabletten die zijn ontdekt in de oude stad Ugarit in het noorden van Syrië. De Hurrieten waren een volk dat tijdens de bronstijd het oude Nabije Oosten bewoonde. Nikkal was een Semitische godin van fruit en vruchtbaarheid.
Oudste circus Circus Maximus uit het oude Rome is het oudste bekende circus dat ooit heeft bestaan. Het werd gesticht in de 1e eeuw na Christus en was een enorme arena waar wagenrennen en verschillende optredens werden gehouden. De site is nu een openbaar park.
Oudste stripfiguur De Katzenjammer Kids zijn waarschijnlijk de oudste stripfiguren die ooit hebben bestaan. Een Amerikaanse stripverhaal gemaakt door Rudolph Dirks in 1897 en debuteerde in December van dat jaar. De strip bestaat nog steeds in syndicatie, waardoor het ook de langstlopende in zijn soort is.
Oudste examen Het oudste examen ter wereld is het Gaokao. Het model komt voort uit het imperiale examen, een examensysteem voor ambtenaren dat in 581 CE in China werd ingevoerd. In 1952, na de oprichting van de Volksrepubliek China, werd het Gaokao-examen omgevormd tot het nationale toelatingsexamensysteem voor universiteiten. Afgebeeld is een kunstwerk uit 1540 waarop kandidaten zijn afgebeeld die zich verzamelen rond de muur waar de examenresultaten worden opgehangen.
Oudste schoenenbedrijf Het oudste schoenenbedrijf ter wereld is Berluti. Opgericht in 1895 in Parijs door Alessandro Berluti, worden de op maat gemaakte handgemaakte schoenen voornamelijk aan mannen verkocht. Afgebeeld is de oorspronkelijke winkel aan de Rue Marbeuf in het 8e arrondissement van de stad.
Oudste graan Eenkoorntarwe werd voor het eerst 30.000 jaar geleden in Turkije verbouwd en wordt algemeen erkend als het oudste graan ter wereld. De domesticatie ervan gaat echter nog verder terug: er werden overblijfselen van eenkoorn gevonden bij de ijsmanmummie Ötzi, die dateren uit 3100 v.Chr.
Oudste recept Het oudste recept ter wereld is voor brandnetelpudding. Een eeuwenoude delicatesse, afkomstig uit het prehistorische Groot-Brittannië in 6000 v.Chr., en werd een hoofdbestanddeel van het Engelse dieet in de 18e eeuw. Naast brandnetelbladeren zijn andere ingrediënten zuring, waterkers, bieslook, paardenbloembladeren, gerstemeel en zout.
Oudste niet-zelfbesturende kolonie Montserrat in het Caribisch gebied is de oudste niet-zelfbesturende kolonie ter wereld, gesticht in 1632. Montserrat, een Brits overzees gebied, werd in 1995 grotendeels verwoest door een vulkaan. Het zuidelijke deel van het eiland blijft een uitsluitingszone.
Oudste nationale park Het Bogd Khan Uul-biosfeerreservaat in Mongolië is het oudste nationale park ter wereld. Het werd opgericht in 1778, 94 jaar vóór de oprichting van het Yellowstone National Park in de Verenigde Staten, dat vaak wordt aangezien als het eerste in zijn soort (hoewel het het oudste nationale park in de VS is). Afgebeeld is een satellietbeeld van de Bogd Khan-berg (midden) met Ulan-Bator linksboven.
Oudste actieve vulkaan De oudste actieve vulkaan ter wereld is Mount Unzen in Japan. De vulkaan is naar schatting 2,5 miljoen jaar oud, maar is pas in 1991 uitgebarsten, toen een grote uitbarsting een pyroclastische stroom veroorzaakte waarbij 43 mensen omkwamen.
Oudste meer Het Zaysan-meer in Kazachstan is misschien wel het oudste meer ter wereld, mogelijk daterend uit het Krijt-tijdperk, met een potentiële leeftijd van meer dan 66 miljoen jaar oud. Het Baikalmeer in Rusland beweert ook het oudste meer ter wereld te zijn, aangezien duidelijk bewijsmateriaal aantoont dat het 25 tot 30 miljoen jaar oud is.
Oudste bergketen Het Makhonjwa-gebergte, onderdeel van de Barberton Greenstone Belt die Zuid-Afrika en Swaziland overspant, vormt de oudste bergketen ter wereld. Het gebied, vaak omschreven als de ‘Genesis van het leven’, omvat de oudste blootliggende rotsen op aarde, die naar schatting tussen de 3,2 en 3,6 miljard jaar oud zijn.
Oudste haven De haven van Byblos in Libanon wordt beschouwd als de oudste bestaande haven, die al meer dan 3000 jaar in gebruik is. Het was het belangrijkste houttransportcentrum in het oostelijke Middellandse Zeegebied en werd door de Feniciërs gebruikt om hun lokale wijn te verschepen en om hout te exporteren naar de farao's van het oude Egypte.
Oudste schip dat nog in gebruik is De USS Constitution, gelanceerd in 1797, is het oudste schip dat nog in gebruik is. Het schip ligt afgemeerd in de haven van Boston en doet nu dienst als museumschip, maar vaart af en toe, meestal ter herdenking van de Onafhankelijkheidsdag.
Oudste regenwoud Het Daintree Rainforest aan de noordoostelijke kust van Queensland, Australië, is het oudste regenwoud ter wereld. Er wordt geschat dat het ongeveer 180 miljoen jaar oud is – bijna 10 miljoen jaar ouder dan het Amazonegebied van Zuid-Amerika.
Oudste oceaan De Stille Oceaan is het oudste van de bestaande oceaanbekkens. De oudste rotsen zijn gedateerd op ongeveer 200 miljoen jaar. Het is ook groter dan het hele landoppervlak van de aarde bij elkaar.
Oudst bekende graf De Tumulus van Bougon, een groep van vijf neolithische grafheuvels in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Frankrijk, is het oudst bekende grafcomplex ter wereld. Archeologen hebben de site gedateerd op ongeveer 4800 v.Chr.
Oudste jeansmerk Levi Strauss & Co. is het oudste jeansmerk ter wereld. Levi, opgericht in 1853 door Levi Strauss in San Francisco, blijft een iconisch Amerikaans merk dat wereldwijd wordt erkend vanwege zijn denimjeans.
Is the remote viewing real? The subject is very controversial for scientists to study but James H. Lee, an award-winning financial advisor suggested that it has the potential to make a meaningful contribution to the professional futurist′s toolbox. This particular technique is well-discussed in the declassified CIA files where psychic abilities were used to spy on Soviet Russia and track down its military activities under Project Stargate.
RV was real, CIA admitted it
The first test of the project was conducted in the 1970s at the US Army base in Maryland. Basically, this highly classified project was about the mind-reading of the enemies, so the CIA started recruiting people who claimed to “have powers of extrasensory perception (ESP) to help uncover military and domestic intelligence secrets.” (Source)
In the CIA declassified file, it was detailed how Uri Geller could replicate things drawn by a researcher in another sealed room. As the US government was getting benefits from this program, they continued funding it.
In one experiment for the CIA, Geller replicate images drawn by a researcher, sitting in another sealed room.
Uri Geller replicated images drawn by a researcher
One of the remote viewers named Angela Dellafiora Ford revealed her physics powers on the CBS News program “48 Hours.” In 1989, she was asked by the army to psychically track down the location of one man. She located the man in Lowell, Wyoming, and then he was arrested 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.
In 2021, John Greenewald, Jr.’s Blackvault published approximately 2,700 pages of the declassified documents provided by the CIA, involving UAP/UFO information. One document that staggered ET hunters was about Mars.
The document titled “Mars Exploration May 22, 1984,” basically centers around a subject that made use of astral projection which helped him observe ancient alien life on Mars. In this document, there is a transcript, where a subject named Joseph McMoneagle, a retired US Army veteran was given an envelope prior to the interview and asked not to open it until the interview ended. According to the CIA’s own documents, the unnamed psychic described “The planet Mars. Time of interest approximately 1 million years B.C.” (Source)
He claimed to identify that he saw pyramid-like structures on the Red Planet. The subject also added that he witnessed alien life forms on the Martian surface.
[Subject]: I’m seeing, ah… It’s like a perception of a shadow of people, very tall… thin, it’s only a shadow. It’s as if they were there and they’re not, not there anymore. [Monitor]: Go back to a period of time where they are there. Sub:Um… (mumble) It’s like I get a lot of static on a line and everything, it’s breaking up all the time, very fragmentary pieces. Mon: Just report the data, don’t try to put things together, just report the raw data. Sub: I just keep seeing very large people. They appear thin and tall, but they’re very large. Ah… wearing some kind of strange clothes.
According to the date specified in the “Mars Exploration” memo, it was approved to be published only in 2000 although it was recorded in 1984, and McMoneagle was the only remote viewer to be working at that time. He wrote in his book “Mind Trek” about a similar incident mentioned in that memo.
Jacob Brogan, an assistant editor at the Washington Post tracked down and called McMoneagle. According to Brogan, McMoneagle told him that the request to visit Mars was not made by the CIA but by some unknown army person to him. (Source)
“Neither of us knew what we were working on. Our assumption at the time was that I was working on targets on Earth. I was not familiar with any pyramids on Earth that had such large rooms,” McMoneagle told him.
McMoneagle was confused why he had been asked by the army to explore Mars. He had no clue. He remembered one more incident when he was asked to examine the UFO. “The problem that I have with targeting UFOs and Mars and things like that is that there’s no real way to validate the information,” he said.
In an interview with Richard Thieme, a founder of ThiemeWorks, McMoneagle shared his experience on Project Stargate, UFOs, and ETs. He shared his encounter with the UFO in 1966, in which he got a radiation burn.
Richard Thieme asked him: “Is it all one thing, though? These are complex psychological processes – and you were burned physically in 1966. Is it all one thing? Do scriptural texts of folk documents about people encountering entities – can we connect that experience with an experience of the lights going on at night and you seeing a physical craft?”
McMoneagle replied: “I did a remote viewing in early 1980s, 82 or 83, where a UFO target was mixed in with other targets, so I had no idea it was a UFO target.” Over the years, as McMoneagle said, he was involved in about 450 missions. One of his favorites was in 1980 when CIA personnel captured a suspected KGB agent in South Africa. They wanted to know how the agent was communicating with the Soviet military. They put an envelope on McMoneagle’s desk, and without knowing anything of the man, McMoneagle told the CIA that the man liked to use a small pocket calculator. The calculator turned out to be a disguised short-wave radio. He retired from the Army in 1984 but continued to work as a Stargate consultant.
CIA Interdimensional Experiemnt
Robert Monroe (1915 –1995), another RV that had a striking history of remote viewing was probably the first RV hired by the CIA. One day in 1978, the CIA representatives contacted him. They wanted to implement his mind-expanding practice in attempt of sending soldiers into deep remote viewing sessions. Given Monroe’s extensive background and various patented applications, he was the perfect choice for this trailblazing operation. Hoping to obtain further credibility in the study of paranormal phenomena, he agreed to join them. (Source)
Since those involved were opening portals to other dimensions, researchers aptly named the assignment Gateway Process. According to declassified files, the program is “a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space. (Source)
The participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge the universe offers.” Discoveries listed in Commander Wayne M. McDonnell’s final analysis paper included detailed information about the nature of reality. Investigators ascertained we live in a holographic universe and waking life is a projected electromagnetic matrix.
To enter the unearthly realms, headphone-donning voyagers sat in isolated darkness while listening to various tones at specific hertz. The participants had no contact or communication with one another. After their journey was finished, the volunteers would report what they experienced with staff members.
According to Robert, subjects would often encounter interdimensional entities. Most frequently, they witnessed reptilian humanoids. The viewers referred to the uncanny creatures as “the alligators” due to their crocodilian features. Curiously, Monroe was already quite familiar with the unsettling breed. During countless expeditions, he observed identical saurian creatures. For over thirty-five years, the etheric investigator gathered insight about these startling beings.
It's the first time written slips linked to the ancient calendar have been found in a tomb.
Each of the wooden slips is marked with Chinese characters that relate to the traditional Tiangan Dizhi astronomical calendar. Perforations on their edges suggest they were once tied together.
(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
Archaeologists in China have unearthed a mysterious set of rectangular wooden pieces linked to an ancient astronomical calendar. The artifacts were discovered inside an exceptionally well-preserved 2,000-year-old tomb in the southwest of the country.
Each of the 23 wooden slips is about an inch (2.5 centimeters) wide and 4 inches (10 cm) long and displays a Chinese character related to the Tiangan Dizhi, or "Ten Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches" — a traditional Chinese astronomical calendar established during the Shang dynasty, which ruled from about 1600 B.C. to about 1045 B.C.
Archaeologists think one of the slips may have represented whatever was the current year and that the other 22 slips could have been used to specify any particular year in the ancient calendar, according to a translation of a story on the China News website, an agency run by the Chinese government.
The artifacts were found in a well-preserved tomb, dated to about 2,200 years ago, unearthed earlier this year in the Wulong district of China's Chongqing municipality.(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
Circular perforations at the edges of each slip suggest they were once tied together.
However, it's not yet clear how the set of calendrical wooden slips would have functioned, an expert told Live Science.
This is the first time such objects have been found in an ancient tomb, although the practice of writing characters on strips of wood or bamboo was common in China before the invention of paper.
The wooden slips and many other artifacts were discovered earlier this year in a tomb in the Wulong district, about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) southwest of Beijing, archaeologists from the Chongqing municipal government told the Global Times — which is also run by the Chinese government.
The tomb contains a written list of all the burial items, which also states that it was built in 193 B.C. That places the tomb during the time of the Western Han dynasty, which ruled much of China from 206 B.C. to A.D. 9; it was followed by the Eastern Han dynasty, which ruled until A.D. 220, and together they are considered a "golden age" when many Chinese traditions were established.
Archaeologists and university students started working at the site in the Wulong district in March this year.(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
Archaeologist Wang Meng said the tomb was the best-preserved wooden-chamber tomb ever found in China's southwest.
Project leader Huang Wei told the Global Times that the tomb also contained more than 600 cultural artifacts, including lacquerware bowls, boxes, jars and plates. It also held bamboo utensils and musical pipes, spears and cooking tripods made from copper, wooden figurines, as well as pottery and bronze objects.
Calendar mystery
Astronomer Ed Krupp, the director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and author of "Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations" (Dover, 2003), who was not involved in the Wulong discovery, told Live Science that while the Tiangan Dizhi calendar is mainstream — it is used in Chinese astrology, for example — the wooden slips found in the Wulong tomb were unusual.
As well as the mysterious wooden slips, more than 600 cultural artifacts were found inside the tomb and indicate that a high-status person had been buried there.
(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
The hundreds of artifacts buried in the tomb include ornate objects of pottery, copper, bronze, wood, bamboo and lacquerware, such as this plate.
(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
Archaeologists said the tomb was undisturbed and most of the artifacts are undamaged, although they needed cleaning after so long underground.
(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
As well as recovering the artifacts buried in the ancient tomb, archaeologists have carefully mapped and photographed its interior.(Image credit: Chongqing Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)
"The wooden slips with calendric notations are significant as the first and only known example of that kind of inscription on that kind of object," he said in an email.
But it doesn't appear that the set of wooden slips could have functioned as a calendar; instead, it seems they could have been used to reference any year of the 60-year calendrical cycle, he said.
"If so, they are not 'books,' but objects used to highlight a particular year," he said. He noted the similarity to a practice followed at a Taoist temple in the Chinese city of Suzhou, where each year in the cycle is represented by a statue that is specially marked when it becomes current.
Krupp said that the finds from the Wulong tomb showed that a person of high status had been buried there. "The artifacts interred with the deceased are numerous and very, very fine," he said. "This is rich, expensive material."
An “anomaly” that followed shortly after a successful launch on Monday–one that seemingly set the stage for the first soft landing of a spacecraft on the Moon in more than 50 years–brought an ambitious space mission carrying human remains to a premature end yesterday.
Shortly after separating from a United Launch Alliance (ULA) rocket early Monday morning, Peregrine, a lunar lander built by Pittsburgh-based space company Astrobotic, began to receive telemetry data from NASA’s Deep Space Network, as its avionics, propulsion, and control systems all began to power on.
As Peregrine reached its fully operational state, everything appeared to be on track for the spacecraft as it began its ascent toward the Moon.
Then, something unexpected happened.
Shortly after entering its operational state, “an anomaly occurred” as the Peregrine team became aware of a system malfunction that prevented them from being able to control the spacecraft’s ability to achieve a stable sun-pointing orientation.
“The team is responding in real time as the situation unfolds,” read a mission update posted on the company’s X account, “and will be providing updates as data is obtained and analyzed.”
As the Peregrine team worked to try and determine the cause of the problem, the situation began to look increasingly dire. All indications pointed to a complication arising from the spacecraft’s propulsion system which, if confirmed, would likely end Peregrine’s mission before it ever came close to landing on the lunar surface.
“As the team fights to troubleshoot the issue, the spacecraft battery is reaching operationally low levels,” the company wrote in a subsequent update yesterday at 11:04 AM. As the spacecraft was nearing a brief communication outage, an improvised attempt to reorient the spacecraft’s solar panels was undertaken, aiming to point them toward the Sun.
Following the reestablishment of communication with the spacecraft, the team learned that their attempt to point Peregrine’s solar array toward the Sun had been successful, allowing the spacecraft’s battery systems to charge as the Peregrine team’s Mission Anomaly Board worked to try and determine what was affecting the spacecraft.
Soon, it became evident that the anomaly had occurred due to a failure within the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of support we’re receiving,” Astrobotic wrote in another candid mission update, thanking the community of professionals within the space industry who “unite in the face of adversity.”
Hours later at 4:12 PM, Astrobotic released an image from Peregrine, captured from the camera positioned above the spacecraft’s payload deck which provided additional confirmation that a propulsion system anomaly was the root cause behind the lander’s precarious condition.
With its solar array pointing toward the Sun, the spacecraft nonetheless was able to charge its battery, and the Peregrine team continued to carry out payload and spacecraft operations with the existing power stores.
“At this time, the majority of our Peregrine mission team has been awake and working diligently for more than 24 hours,” Astrobotic wrote in a subsequent update. “We ask for your patience as we reassess incoming data so we can provide ongoing updates later this evening.”
Shortly after 9:15 PM Eastern Time, Astrobotic shared what would be its final mission update of the day, confirming that an “ongoing propellant leak” had been causing Peregrine’s Attitude Control System (ACS) to malfunction, pushing its thrusters “to operate well beyond their expected service life cycles to keep the lander from an uncontrollable tumble.” Peregrine was given a best-case scenario of being able to maintain operations within a stable sun-pointing state for around 40 hours.
With the mission now effectively doomed, Astrobotic announced its aim was to continue to move Peregrine as close to the Moon as possible. However, once the spacecraft lost its ability to maintain its sun-pointing position, it would lose power at some point well before it reached its intended destination.
Still aboard the ill-fated spacecraft are several payloads that rank among some of the most unique ever to be sent to space. The cremated remains of humans that include several cast members from “Star Trek,” as well as DNA from former U.S. presidents, were all on board at the time the anomaly occurred, and presumably will remain adrift in space after Peregrine ceases operations.
The failed mission also raises significant questions for NASA, casting doubts on whether the American space agency will be able to safely rely on commercial partners to aid in reaching its scientific goals, particularly in advance of its plans to send humans back to the Moon in the years ahead.
Despite the mission failure, many took to social media to thank the company for its transparency on Monday as the propulsion system anomaly removed any possibility that Peregrine’s fuel stores would allow it to reach the Moon.
“Appreciate the prompt and transparent updates!” wrote another of the company’s followers on X, who added that it was “unfortunate that we have approximately 40 hours left but nevertheless, to get to this point is still a great accomplishment!”
As of Tuesday morning, no additional updates had been shared by Astrobotic on the company’s website or on social media.
There is a series of shooting down unidentified objects around the world that involves the United States. The military 2023 February UAP events are among the recent cases. Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, along with investigative journalist George Knapp, has revealed a photograph of an object initially labeled as a “hostile drone” by the media. However, official statements from the United States, the UK, and allied intelligence agencies now confirm their inability to ascertain its origin, designating it as “unidentified.”
In episode 41 of Weaponized, Corbell and Knapp discuss UFO shootdowns covering both current events and historical perspectives. Corbell discusses events in 2019, specifically mentioning attempts to bring down over 100 UAPs on Navy warships using electromagnetic systems like the DRAKE (Drone Restricted Access Using Known Electromagnetic Warfare) Anti-Drone System.
In the episode, Jeremy Corbell provides details about a UAP event that took place in late summer 2021 off the coast of Japan involving the USS Milius. The USS Milius experienced a series of encounters with UAPs that exhibited similar behavior to the previously mentioned incidents near Navy warships. However, in this case, the UAPs were observed in a vast 300-mile radius of sea, with no other ships around.
Corbell further describes the frustrating attempts to take down the UAPs using electromagnetic techniques, noting that these efforts were once again ineffective. The UAPs displayed extreme maneuverability over four or five consecutive nights, with multiple objects present during a 5-hour window from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. or midnight to 4:00 a.m. The ship’s captain, out of frustration, reportedly instructed the crew to stop reacting to the UAPs and creating reports since there seemed to be no viable solution.
It’s a UFO, not a Hostile Drone!
Corbell and Knapp discussed an incident that happened in the Middle East, specifically in Syria on December 14, 2021. Corbell describes how the Royal Air Force, using a Typhoon fighter plane, reported shooting down a hostile drone, marking the first air-to-air firing by the Royal Air Force in 40 years. The media initially reported it as a terrorist drone, but there was a subsequent shift to calling it a “Mystery drone” as no terrorist group or nation claimed responsibility.
Corbell notes a significant discrepancy between public reporting and intelligence community products. He introduces an image, referred to as the “Syria Dome UAP,” associated with the event, and mentions that internally, the intelligence community labeled it as an UAP. Corbell emphasizes the importance of transparency and accurate reporting, pointing out that what is publicly disclosed differs from the information shared among allied nations within the intelligence community.
Corbell posts on X (formerly Twitter), “In a joint operation, a Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jet engaged an unidentified aerial vehicle using an Advanced Short Range Air to Air Missile (ASRAAM). Initial media reports labeled the unidentified as a ‘hostile drone’ – however – internal intelligence products officially classify the aerial vehicle of unknown origin as a UAP – and maintain this designation. The UAP was not recovered.”
Liberation Times writes, “According to Corbell, the Five Eyes report was published months after the incident occurred and indicates that on 14 December 2021, an RAF Typhoon jet shot at one UAP using an ASRAAM missile. At the time, the incident was reported as the first enemy aircraft shot down by the RAF since the Falklands War in Argentina more than 40 years ago.”
Corbell continues, stating that Centcom (United States Central Command) has been tracking UAP for over 15 years, and the frustration lies in the lack of proper reporting and handling of these incidents within the chain of command. He notes that in conflict zones, there is a tendency to shoot at anything within a certain proximity to ground troops or bases, especially if it appears to have a payload. However, the issue arises in the lack of recovery or proper handling after such engagements.
Further, in the episode, Corbell reveals the image of an object that he called the “Syria Dome UAP.” He says, “This image… is the one that was historically fired upon. It is referred to as a ‘terrorist drone,’ exhibiting a peculiar appearance. Whatever it may be, it is classified as a UAP within the intelligence community. This is not something that has been identified.”
Corbell notes that there were two of these unidentified devices, and when the Royal Air Force engaged with them, firing an Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), one of the objects managed to evade and escape the scene. Corbell emphasizes the intelligence control exhibited by these objects, suggesting that they were not under random or autonomous flight.
Corbell admits uncertainty about whether the fired missile hit the object or if it made contact with the ground. He underscores the discrepancy between the public narrative, which presented the incident as involving a terrorist drone, and the internal classification within the intelligence community, where it is recognized as a UAP. The point is reiterated that the public is not receiving the full and accurate information about these encounters.
George Knapp shares his perspective on the image, stating that, in his extensive experience, he has seen various images of drones, both military and private, but finds the appearance of this particular object unique. He likens it to resembling a mushroom cloud, highlighting its distinctive and unconventional design.
Corbell said that the Five Eyes report indicates that the USAF militarily engages such craft if they are within a radius of ground troops and appear to carry a payload.
He told Liberation Times: “Unless observed with a possible payload, UAPs largely go ignored, as they are not part of the mission – this means that we lose the opportunity to study the phenomena and answer key questions, including 1) Who are the operators 2) Where do they originate from 3) How do they work? And 4) What is their intent?”
“I can confirm that there is frustration within the ranks of the U.S. military that UAPs with unique flight characteristics are being ignored. Worryingly, this critical information is not being reported up the chain of command properly – causing vulnerability to our troops and those of other nations.”
Previously on the Joe Rogan show, Corbell claimed that based on information from documents, the military fires upon UAPs within a certain proximity to ground troops, typically within 27 to 30 miles. The decision to engage is reportedly based on the perceived threat, with the military firing upon objects that appear to have a payload. The text also mentions that UAPs resembling cubes surrounded by spheres are not targeted, as they do not appear to have a payload.
Corbell suggests that the military has been firing Hellfire missiles at these UAPs, and there are reports of similar actions by countries like Russia and Syria. The text raises questions about the origin of these UAPs, as they are not believed to be assets of the countries engaging with them. Some UAPs are described, such as one resembling a jellyfish about the size of a coffee table.
“One of the UAPs that was fired upon looked like a jellyfish, about the size of a big coffee table, and domed. There is no known retrieval program in these war zones, and even if they did hit something, it’s unknown if they would be able to take it down. It’s possible that these UAPs could be balloons used by drug smugglers, but they have controlled flight, which is not a new phenomenon. There have been similar sightings of metallic spheres outpacing planes during World War II, with both sides thinking it was the other side’s technology.”
A while ago, Lue Elizondo, the former head of AATIP shared his thoughts on the UFO/UAP and how the Pentagon approaches the phenomenon from strictly national security perceptive. In an interview with Curt Jaimungal and Sean Cahil, Elizondo provides deeper insight into the Pentagon’s theories on why UFO/UAPs are routinely spotted around American, Russian, Chinese, and other nuclear-armed nations’ most secretive and sensitive nuclear assets.
Altijd al gedroomd van eens in de ruimte te verblijven? Dat kan waarschijnlijk al in 2027!
Het eerste commerciële ruimtehotel ooit, Voyager Station, wil in 2027 haar deuren openen. Het project biedt plaats aan 280 gasten en 112 bemanningsleden en wordt gepland door Orbital Assembly Corporation, een bouwbedrijf gerund door John Blincow. Het station wordt het eerste grote project van OAC en het eerste commerciële ruimtestation met kunstmatige zwaartekracht.
De bouw van de 50.000 vierkante meter grote Voyager-faciliteit zal in 2026 van start gaan, en OAC streeft ernaar om de eerste passagiers in 2027 in het hotel te verwelkomen. Het team legt uit dat het project mogelijk wordt gemaakt door een lage baan om de aarde.
Wat eet je in de ruimte?
OAC is van plan om traditioneel ‘ruimtevoedsel’ zoals gevriesdroogd ijs te serveren, terwijl ze ook streven naar recreatieruimtes voor activiteiten zoals basketbal, waarbij ze profiteren van de gewichtloosheid in de ruimte. Er zijn geen kamerprijzen bekendgemaakt, maar het team hoopt op een dag de kosten vergelijkbaar te maken met die van een cruiseticket. Het eerste element van het roterende hotel dat zal worden gebouwd, zal een centrale drukloze ringstructuur zijn die de docking hub zal bevatten. Een buitenste ringspant zal via een netwerk van spaken verbonden worden met de centrale ring en van daaruit zullen 24 woonmodules ontstaan.
One of the fascinating things about being a human in this age is that we can do more than wonder about other life and other civilizations. We can actually look for them, although there are obvious limitations to our search. But what’s equally fascinating is that we can wonder if others can see us.
Assuming that all civilizations who have begun to explore their surroundings are interested in finding other civilizations, then the question of who can detect who comes down to technology. It takes advanced technological tools to search for the technosignatures of other civilizations. It also takes technology to produce most of them. But what level of technology is needed on both sides of that equation?
The technology needed to produce technosignatures is not complex. We’ve had that technology for thousands of years. The Great Pyramids are proof of that. But what technology is needed to see them? And from how far away?
In new research published in the journal Acta Astronautica, a researcher associated with SETI poses the question, “Are we visible to advanced alien civilizations?” His name is Z. Osmanov, and he’s the author and co-author of multiple studies and articles on SETI and related topics.
“We considered the question of how our artificial constructions are visible to advanced extraterrestrial civilizations,” Osmanov writes. Osmanov explains how the universal laws of physics set the limits for detection and how more advanced civilizations can solve this problem. The maximum distance for detections is about 3,000 light-years, according to Osmanov, adding that “under certain conditions, Type-II advanced alien societies might be able to resolve this problem.”
What technologies are needed to receive our technosignatures?
The background for Osmanov’s work is the classification of civilization types called the Kardashev Scale, which is familiar to many readers. It’s the work of Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, and it describes three types of hypothetical civilizations:
Type I Civilizations harvest, use and store all the energy on their planet.
Type II Civilizations directly consume their star’s energy with a Dyson sphere or something similar.
Type III Civilizations can capture all the energy available in their entire galaxy.
(Note that in the Kardashev Scale, humanity is about 0.75.)
A Type II civilization is one that can directly harvest the energy of its star using a Dyson Sphere or something similar. Credit: Fraser Cain (with Midjourney)
In his research, Osmanov ignores Type III civilizations and focuses on Types I and II. He asks a relatively straightforward question: “Can the artifacts of our technological society be visible and potentially detectable by the telescopes of ETs?”
Our technological artifacts are things like large engineering projects and satellites. A Type I or II civilization would recognize these things as technological artifacts if they could see them. According to Osmanov, the best way for an ETI to detect them is with reflected light, and that means high-powered optical telescopes with extreme angular resolution.
We’re busy building more powerful telescopes with greater angular resolution, and ETIs are probably working on it, too. ETIs more advanced than us are way ahead of us. “In this paper, we analyze how visible we are to advanced ETs, depending on their technological level.”
Osmanov says that ETIs will make use of interferometry to detect us. Astronomical interferometry uses two or more individual telescopes separated by distance to observe the same object at the same time. The data from the detectors is combined and processed. So rather than viewing something with the limited angular resolution of a single telescope, interferometry basically builds a “virtual” telescope—a telescope array—that is much larger than any physical telescope could be.
This aerial view shows the ESO’s VLTI, the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. It has a total of eight separate, movable telescopes that can all look at the same object, increasing the interferometer’s angular resolution. Image Credit: ESO
Osmanov calculates that for an alien civilization to detect the Great Pyramids of Giza, for example, the civilization would have to be no further away than about 3,000 light years. Because of the number of photons that would have to be sensed to see the Pyramids, the telescope would have to be extraordinarily huge. Only an interferometer could do it. “It is clear that the diameter of the telescope should be on the order of several million kilometres,” the author explains.
That eliminates Type 1 civilizations. “Such huge megastructures might be built only by Type-II civilizations but not by Type-I alien societies,” Osmanov writes.
But how can we know if any ETIs of Types II or III are within the 3,000 light-year range? Osmanov uses the well-known Drake Equation to determine that number. The Drake Equation is a probabilistic argument that thinkers can use to try to understand how many ETIs there might be in the Milky Way, but of course, there’s no absolute way of verifying its answers. It’s a thought experiment tool that keeps everyone on the same page when thinking about the question of ETIs.
In his calculations, the author determines the average distance among advanced civilizations. “As an order of magnitude, we assume that the civilizations are uniformly distributed over the galactic plane,” Osmanov writes. There would have to be something like 650 ETIs in the Milky Way for one of them to be close enough to detect our large engineering projects from the ancient world up to our medieval times. That includes things like the Pyramids and maybe other large constructions.
JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata captured this image of the Great Pyramids from the ISS in February 2023. The most visible one is the Great Pyramid of Giza, built in the 23rd century B.C. Image Credit: Koichi Wakata.
The numbers are different when it comes to ETIs detecting our modern structures, because there hasn’t been enough time for the reflected light from these modern structures to propagate as far into space. There would have to be vastly more ETIs for one to be close enough to detect our modern structures, including satellites. “They can detect our modern constructions only if their total number in the MW is of the order of 106, which has been hypothesized by <Carl> Sagan,” Osmanov writes.
Of course, we have no way of knowing if there are any other ETIs or if one might have found our technosignatures. But the study does give context to the question and to thought experiments.
Barring first contact, all we have is thought experiments.
Hoe het klimaat op aarde verder ontspoorde in 2023: zes opvallende vaststellingen over een uitzonderlijk weerjaar
Hoe het klimaat op aarde verder ontspoorde in 2023: zes opvallende vaststellingen over een uitzonderlijk weerjaar
Artikel van Michaël Torfs
Al lang op voorhand konden we met zekerheid zeggen dat 2023 het warmste jaar ooit zou worden. Als een wielrenner die zo'n grote voorsprong heeft dat hij nog lang voor de aankomst al zegezeker is. Alleen is het in dit geval iets wat we liever niet zien.
"We hebben heel wat extreme situaties meegemaakt in 2023", weet klimatoloog Niels Souverijns (VITO). "De vingerafdruk van de klimaatopwarming wordt steeds duidelijker. Het is iets wat we misschien normaal gaan vinden, maar we moeten ons heel goed realiseren dat dit niet normaal is."
"We wisten dat dit rapport geen goed nieuws zou brengen", zegt Mauro Facchini van het klimaatobservatorium van de Europese Unie daarover. "De EU wil tegen 2030 55% minder broeikasgassen uitstoten. We weten wat ons te doen staat."
Als het gaat over de marges van het klimaat wereldwijd, rekenen we doorgaans met tienden van een graad of minder. In 2023 werden er verschillende nieuwe mijlpalen gezet met behoorlijk grote marges. In het jaarrapport staan heel wat details over 2023, dat op klimaatvlak een heel bewogen jaar was mede door het weerfenomeen El Niño. Wij pikken er 6 voor je uit.
1. Net geen anderhalve graad extra (maar het komt eraan)
2023 bleek uiteindelijk 1,48 graden Celsius warmer dan het gemiddelde van 1850-1900, de referentieperiode voor de VN-klimaatconferentie en het VN-klimaatpanel IPCC. Het was 0,17 graden warmer dan het vorige warmste jaar uit onze moderne geschiedenis, 2016.
Vorig jaar was het 12 maanden na elkaar dus net geen anderhalve graad warmer, maar eind januari of eind februari kunnen we wél aan 12 opeenvolgende maanden zitten die de drempel overschrijden.
Dat ligt symbolisch gevoelig, want de wereldleiders houden op de klimaatconferenties nog altijd vast aan een beperking van de opwarming tot die anderhalve graad - het gaat dan over een structurele opwarming op langere termijn (over verschillende jaren).
Door de opwarming onder anderhalve graad te houden, kunnen we de ergste gevolgen van de klimaatverandering proberen te voorkomen.
2. Twee dagen naar 2 graden extra (en dat is ongezien)
Vorig jaar was het op ongeveer de helft van de dagen minstens anderhalve graad warmer. Midden november waren er 2 dagen waarop het meer dan 2 graden warmer was. Dat is nog nooit eerder gebeurd en opnieuw een alarmsignaal.
Hoe meer de planeet opwarmt, hoe groter de weersextremen kunnen zijn - denk aan hevige regen, stormweer, of grote hitte met lange droge periodes.
Het hele jaar door kregen we berichten over hittegolven, overstromingen, droogtes en bosbranden uit verschillende hoeken. In Canada waren er grootscheepse en aanhoudende bosbranden. De CO₂-uitstoot door bosbranden lag vorig jaar 30 procent hoger dan het jaar daarvoor. Dat komt onder meer door de ongeziene natuurbranden in Canada waar het "worstcasescenario overtroffen werd".
Bovenstaande grafiek toont hoeveel warmer elke dag in 2023 verliep tegenover de pre-industriële referentieperiode. Tijdens de tweede helft van het jaar zaten we gemiddeld bijna constant boven de anderhalve graad (zie de iets donkerder band in het midden). In november waren er zelfs twee pieken boven de 2 graden.
"Die anderhalve graad die we in 2023 hadden en die enkele dagen met 2 graden zijn symbolische grenzen, omdat het drempels zijn die zijn afgesproken in het klimaatakkoord van Parijs, met de bedoeling om daaronder te blijven", zegt klimatoloog Niels Souverijns.
3. Tweede jaarhelft brak alle records, maand na maand (en dat kan blijven duren)
Vooral de tweede helft van het jaar brak alle records, mede door het losbreken van het weerfenomeen El Niño. Vanaf juni werd er elke maand opnieuw een warmterecord gevestigd.
De maanden september en oktober sprongen eruit met een bijzonder grote afwijking. Klimatoloog Wim Thiery (VUB) maakte voor oktober (+0,40 graden warmer dan warmste oktober voorheen) de vergelijking met de sprint in de atletiek, "alsof het wereldrecord op de 100 meter ineens met een volle seconde gebroken zou worden".
De voorbije maand december was ook weer de warmste ooit gemeten. De maand bleek maar liefst 1,78 graden Celsius warmer dan een gemiddelde december 150 jaar geleden.
Klimatologen verwachten dat El Niño zich nog zal doorzetten tot het einde van de lente, waardoor 2024 nog warmer zou kunnen uitvallen dan het voorbije jaar en een nieuw record zou kunnen vestigen. "2024 gaat zeker geen afkoeling kennen tegenover vorig jaar. De trend gaat zich doorzetten, en we mogen dus nog meer extremen en nog meer records verwachten", schetst Souverijns.
4. Oceanen waren nooit warmer (en dat heeft grote gevolgen)
Grote delen van de oceanen waren nooit warmer dan vorig jaar. Ook dat is een teken van de verdere opwarming. "We zien al een paar jaar een trend naar warmere oceanen, en dit jaar heeft het weerfenomeen El Niño (waarbij een deel van de Stille Oceaan warmer is dan anders, red.) er zeker niet bij geholpen", zegt Souverijns.
Oceanen slaan een groot deel van de extra warmte van de klimaatopwarming op, maar dat blijft niet zonder gevolgen. Boven de oceaan kunnen intense stormdepressies ontstaan. Warmer zeewater kan ook een intensere regenval veroorzaken, zoals vorige week nog bleek tijdens de overstromingen in ons land.
Dat het zeewater nooit zo warm was, bleek ook uit de verschillende mariene hittegolven in o.a. de Middellandse Zee, de Golf van Mexico en het Caraïbische gebied, de Indische Oceaan, het noorden van de Stille Oceaan en het noordelijke deel van Atlantische Oceaan.
"In Libië hadden we zware schade als gevolg van de "medicane" (de plaatselijke cycloon boven de Middellandse Zee, gevoed door het ware zeewater daar, red.) en bij ons hadden we de zware neerslaghoeveelheden van de voorbije twee maanden", zegt Souverijns.
Uit een studie in Nature bleek onlangs dat het aantal mensen dat is blootgesteld aan tropische cyclonen, zowat verdubbeld is tussen 2002 en 2019 (van 408 miljoen naar 792 miljoen). Dat komt voor het grootste deel door de klimaatverandering. Het gaat om 6 tot 12 procent van de wereldbevolking, onder meer in China, Japan, de Filipijnen, Taiwan en de VS.
De Duitse herverzekeraar Munich Re liet vandaag weten dat de schade door onweders in de Verenigde Staten vorig jaar op 66 miljard dollar ligt (ongeveer 60 miljard euro). In Europa ging het om 10 miljard dollar. Telkens gaat het om een absoluut record.
5. Nooit was het zee-ijs op Antarctica er zo slecht aan toe
De gevolgen van de opwarming zien we ook in de omvang van het zee-ijs aan de Zuidpool. Tijdens 8 verschillende maanden bereikte de omvang van het zee-ijs een laagterecord voor de tijd van het jaar.
De CO₂ blijft zich opstapelen in de lucht door de hoge menselijke uitstoot, en is nu naar 419 ppm (deeltjes per miljoen) geklommen, wat de steile klim van de vorige decennia bevestigt.
Voor methaan kwamen er 11 ppb (deeltjes per miljard) bij tot 1.902 ppb. Die stijging is hoog maar ligt iets lager dan de voorbije jaren. Methaan is een sterker broeikasgas dan CO₂, maar CO₂ blijft dan weer veel langer hangen en doorwerken, tot honderden jaren en meer.
De broeikasgassen: hoogste waarde in 800.000 / 2 miljoen jaar
Ook de concentratie van broeikasgassen in de wereldwijde atmosfeer bleef stijgen. Het gehalte aan CO₂ (koolstofdioxide) steeg verder door met 2,1 ppm (parts per million of deeltjes per miljoen). Het jaargemiddelde voor CO₂ (los van de seizoensvariaties) in de atmosfeer bedraagt nu 417 ppm. Dat is het hoogste niveau ooit gemeten door de mens en het is volgens Copernicus het hoogste in ruim 2 miljoen jaar tijd. De stijging tijdens het voorbije jaar ligt ongeveer op de gemiddelde koers, terwijl ze eigenlijk zou moeten afnemen als we de klimaatopwarming willen afremmen.
Onderstaande balkjes tonen hoe de gemiddelde jaartemperatuur op aarde in de voorbije 60 jaar afweek van het gemiddelde tussen 1850 en 1900 - de graad van opwarming valt op de verticale as aan de linkerkant af te lezen. Daar waar we rond het jaar 2000 nog aan een opwarming zaten van 0,6 tot 0,8 graden, was dat vorig jaar dus ongeveer 1,2 graden. (data Copernicus)
Noot:als we het hebben over de klimaatopwarming, kijken we naar een periode van 20 tot 30 jaar, omdat klimaat nu eenmaal een foto is van de langere termijn. Daarom spreken we van een klimaatopwarming van 1,1 graden Celsius momenteel, hoewel de realiteit van de voorbije vijf jaar toont dat we (voor die vijf jaar gemiddeld) al aan ongeveer 1,2 graden extra zitten.
United States government has UFOs of 'non-human origin' in its possession - whistleblower
United States government has UFOs of 'non-human origin' in its possession - whistleblower
Rachel Sadler
Photo credit: Getty Images
A whistleblower alleges the United States government has UFOs of "non-human origin" in its possession.
David Grusch, who is a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), claimed this information about "deeply covert programmes" has been hidden and that it's about "retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin".
"The existence of complex historical programs involving the coordinated retrieval and study of exotic materials, dating back to the early 20th century, should no longer remain a secret," he told The Debrief.
A claim he previously made to the US Congress was the existence of a decades-long "publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material". This included a competition with "near-peer adversaries" over the years to identify UFO crashes or landings and retrieve the material for exploitation or reverse engineering to "garner asymmetric national defence advantages".
In 2022, Grusch gave Congress hours of recorded classified information that included specific data about the materials recovery programme.
His investigation relied on extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials, some of whom were directly involved with the programme. But Grusch claimed the operation was illegally shielded from proper Congressional oversight and he was targeted and harassed because of his investigation.
He said the craft recovery operations are still going on at various levels of activity and he knows the specific people involved.
"Individuals on these UAP [unidentified anomalous phenomena] programmes approached me in my official capacity and disclosed their concerns regarding a multitude of wrongdoings, such as illegal contracting against the Federal Acquisition Regulations and other criminality and the suppression of information across a qualified industrial base and academia," Grusch told The Debrief.
The US also has "non-human origin technical vehicles", with Grusch telling News Nation: "Call it spacecraft, if you will. It's probably not the right parlance. But no kidding, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed."
He said the are "quite a number" of spacecraft from other species.
He isn't alone either. Intelligence officer Johnathan Grey told The Debrief that the "non-human intelligence phenomenon is real".
"Retrievals of this kind are not limited to the United States. This is a global phenomenon, and yet a global solution continues to elude us."
Grusch believes it was dangerous for this "80-year arms race" to continue in secrecy because it "further inhibits the world populace to be prepared for an unexpected, non-human intelligence contact scenario".
Grusch's claims come just days after a Pentagon chief admitted that unidentified "metallic orbs" have been found "all over the world".
Sean Kirkpatrick, director of a new UAP analysis office, said these objects are making "very interesting apparent manoeuvres".
"While we are still looking at it, I don’t have any more data other than that," he said.
"Being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time until we can get better-resolved data on similar objects that we can then do a larger analysis on."
The US government has recently centralised its system for reporting UFOs, and now the Pentagon receives between 50 and 100 reports a month. Although Kirkpatrick said just 2 to 5 percent of these are "really anomalous".
"For the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO [All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office] is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigour," he said.
"AARO has shared these cases with the appropriately cleared NASA team members in order to discuss and help recommend potential scientific areas of study that NASA may want to take lead on."
Kirkpatrick added that AARO plans to deploy "dedicated sensors for typical UAP" sightings. This is equipment that is independent of the existing military defence sectors that have picked up evidence during their normal duties.
A flight recording apparently capturing a pilot reporting a UFO to air-traffic controllers has captured the public's imagination after it was shared on an aviation social-media channel.
The audio clip was published on a YouTube account called You Can See ATC, which uploads videos featuring pilots' accounts of emergencies or unusual situations during flights, such as equipment failures or fights on board. Most of the channel's viewers seem to be those working in the industry. However, a video published on the site two weeks ago has received more than 22,000 views so far, as a pilot describes seeing a 30-foot triangular object moving at speed from his cockpit window as he flew about 50 miles northwest of Frederick, Maryland, on December 20.
Just last week, the Miami Police Department was forced to release a video statement to reassure residents that an alien invasion was not underway after aerial footage of a crime scene went viral online. Some viewers said it showed a 10 foot-tall gray alien walking past squad cars.
The video currently garnering thousands of views on YouTube shows a graphic of the flight path of a private Piper Cherokee Arrow (P28R) aircraft, registration N30024, en route from Pittsburgh's Allegheny County Airport, Pennsylvania, to Maryland's Frederick Municipal Airport.
An audio clip plays simultaneously, which is said to be a recording of a conversation between the pilot and an air-traffic controller while the aircraft was at about 6,500 to 6,800 feet and about 50 miles away from its destination. A shorter version of the clip was released by You Can See ATC on X (formerly Twitter). Newsweek has reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration by email, seeking comment.
The audio begins with the pilot's voice, as he says: "30024... passed to the northwest... We observed something approximately 30 feet tall. Not sure what it is. At about 6,500 to 6,800 feet."
Incredulity can be heard in the voice of the official replying to him: "You said it was 30 feet tall?"
"It was pretty tall, probably about 30 feet tall. It was going opposite direction of us," the pilot says.
"NO25, was it moving at a fast pace?" the controller replies.
"It was moving away, affirmative, for 30024," says the pilot.
The pair then begin to discuss the plane's scheduled descent, before the official asks: "Arrow 024, what does the object look like?"
The pilot replies: "Er, it's kind of hard to describe. It was just tall and, er, pointy."
"Like a triangle?"
"It was in the shape of a triangle. It was bottom and flat on top. I'm not sure what it is. I do have a picture of it. And 30024 did not appear to be any danger," the pilot says.
"Cherokee 024, and that object was about 300 feet from you?"
"It was pretty far away form us. Just noticeable enough for caution to other aircraft," the pilot says.
The controller then asks for the pilot's number so he can ask his supervisor to call him if necessary, before giving the pilot his supervisor's number instead. Later, he comes back on the radio to say: "NO24, yeah, my supervisor said [inaudible] talk to you. Just wanna make sure everything is safe up there for future aircraft flying through that. So give him a call once you're on the ground safely please."
"Roger, will do, thanks, 30024," the pilot replies.
The video sparked plenty of discussion among the viewers of the YouTube channel.
Some were sceptical, with one saying: "If you saw it you should be able to describe it."
Given the timing—the audio was reportedly from December 20, and it was published on the site on Christmas Eve—several people wrote that it was more likely to have been Santa Claus rather than aliens.
Others offered more mundane ideas for what the triangle could have been. One viewer wrote, "Haha. I live right near there. I see Canadian geese all the time," with another agreeing that "flocks of geese are triangle in shape."
Some thought, "30 feet tall and pointy at the bottom is a helium balloon," with several also saying that they thought it could have been a weather balloon.
Others posted that it could have been another plane, such a new model being tested by the military. One wrote: "I'm old enough to remember when the stealth fighter was still a secret and there was all sorts of UFO reports due to it's funky shape."
Many of those commenting wished they could see the photo the pilot mentioned, but the channel did not have access to the image.
Steven Greer, ufologist, makes a speech under an artist's rendering of an alleged UFO incident, during a press conference on June 12, 2023, in Washington, DC. An audio clip purporting to be of a pilot describing a UFO he saw mid-flight has captured the public's imagination over the past two weeks.
The clouds of Venus are believed to be composed of sulfuric acid and minor constituents including iron-bearing compounds. Respective concentrations of these compounds vary with height in the thick atmosphere of our neighboring planet. In a new study, researchers at the University of Cambridge synthesized iron-bearing sulfate minerals that are stable under the harsh chemical conditions in the Venusian clouds. Their spectroscopic analysis revealed that a combination of two minerals, rhomboclase and acid ferric sulfate, can explain the mysterious ultraviolet (UV) absorption feature in the Venusian atmosphere.
Jiang et al. hypothesize a rich and largely unexplored heterogeneous chemistry in the cloud droplets of Venus that has a large effect on the optical properties of the clouds and the behavior of trace gas species throughout Venusian atmosphere.
Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.
The clouds of Venus hold several mysteries. They extend from 48 km to roughly 65 km and provide a transition region between the lower atmosphere (<48 km) that is dominated by thermochemistry and dynamics and the upper atmosphere (>65 km), for which photochemistry and dynamics are relevant.
To understand the chemical cycles between the Venusian atmosphere and its volcanic surface, and to correctly interpret potential biosignatures, an increasing research effort has been dedicated to generating a complete model framework of Venusian atmosphere.
“The only available data for the composition of the clouds were collected by probes and revealed strange properties of the clouds that so far we have been unable to fully explain,” said Dr. Paul Rimmer, a researcher with Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
“In particular, when examined under UV light, the Venusian clouds featured a specific UV absorption pattern.”
“What elements, compounds, or minerals are responsible for such observation?”
Formulated on the basis of Venusian atmospheric chemistry, Dr. Rimmer and colleagues synthesized several iron-bearing sulfate minerals in an aqueous geochemistry lab.
By suspending the synthesized materials in varying concentrations of sulfuric acid and monitor the chemical and mineralogical changes, they narrowed down the candidate minerals to rhomboclase and acid ferric sulfate, of which the spectroscopic features were examined under light sources specifically designed to mimic the spectrum of solar flares.
In an attempt to mimic the even more extreme Venusian clouds, the authors measured the UV absorbance patterns of ferric sulfate under extreme acidic conditions.
“The patterns and level of absorption shown by the combination of these two mineral phases are consistent with the dark UV-patches observed in Venusian clouds,” said Dr. Clancy Zhijian Jiang, a researcher at the University of Cambridge.
“These targeted experiments revealed the intricate chemical network within the atmosphere, and shed light on the elemental cycling on the Venusian surface.”
“Venus is our nearest neighbor, but it remains a mystery,” Dr. Rimmer said.
“We will have a chance to learn much more about this planet in the coming years with future NASA and ESA missions set to explore its atmosphere, clouds and surface.”
“This study prepares the grounds for these future explorations.”
The team’s paper appears in the journal Science Advances.
Clancy Zhijian Jiang et al. 2024. Iron-sulfur chemistry can explain the ultraviolet absorber in the clouds of Venus. Science Advances 10 (1); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adg8826
The UFO enigma is garnering increasing attention, particularly after David Grusch’s historic testimony during the 2023 UAP hearing. The United States government is deeply concerned about UAPs, especially since many individuals, including Rep. Tim Burchett, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, and Senator Chuck Schumer, believe that the American public has been kept in the dark about this issue for decades.
What is preventing the US government from telling the truth? The answer is far more complicated than most people believe. A month ago, on Redacted, Tucker Carlson discussed the UFO issue with hosts Clayton and Natali Morris. He said, “The second thing that bothers me is the UFO story… If you talk to people who have firsthand knowledge, there are aspects of that narrative that I find deeply perplexing and disturbing… There’s a spiritual component that eludes my understanding.”
When we jump into phenomena like UFOs, NHI, or E.T., it suggests that humanity is on the brink of self-destruction, and time is running out. This chilling and unsettling aspect of the UFO issue is deeply concerning. Former CIA John Ramirez claimed that the government is aware of an impending event in 2027 that will reveal something quite significant, so people are being prepared. He has been stating that there is a presence on Earth (which he refers demonic) who are just projecting their belief systems to make us disbelieve in what we believe.
Clayton Morris, a former Fox News host, along with Tucker, hinted at possessing knowledge about a similar UFO-related story. They mentioned that this particular story is something they have not discussed with their families. “It’s so unsettling. I haven’t even shared it with my wife,” Tucker remarked. “And this isn’t merely something I stumbled upon online; it’s profoundly disturbing information.”
A while back, on the “Full Send” podcast, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson recounted a study conducted by a Stanford professor 11 years ago. Interestingly, the US Defense Department tasked Dr. Garry Nolan (which he publicly confirmed) with investigating numerous cases where pilots’ brains were seriously damaged after encountering UFOs. However, Dr. Nolan never publicly said whether these injuries led to fatalities. Tucker said that hundreds of servicemen had been killed.
According to Tucker, “[In] several cases, these unidentified objects have landed on military bases. Servicemen who approached them either suffered traumatic brain injuries or were killed. I wonder, why isn’t this making headlines in the New York Times. I don’t know.”
Later, Susan Gough, a Defense Department spokesperson, told Military Times that the story was false and the Pentagon declined to comment further. (Source)
Tucker did not stop there and raised a sensitive issue about the potential harm or killing of individuals connected to the U.S. government’s UFO programs during his interview with David Grusch. He specifically asked Grusch if he had a reason to believe that the government had hurt or killed anyone, particularly American citizens, in connection to these programs. (Click here to read the full article)
Grusch responded by acknowledging concerns that were raised by individuals who approached him, expressing worries about potential harm. He emphasized that he took those concerns seriously and reported them to the Inspector General of the intelligence community, directing the individuals to law enforcement.
Tucker pushed further, specifically mentioning the allegation of murder, to which Grusch confirmed that the concerns included both murder and physical harm. However, he refrained from providing specific details due to the ongoing investigation and potential risks to his safety.
Grusch disclosed that he felt his life was in jeopardy, and he reported the threats and surveillance to a counterintelligence element and law enforcement. He revealed that the threats not only affected him but also impacted his wife. He stated that he did not know the identity of those involved, ruling out the possibility of it being a foreign entity.
Do fatalities occur in the UFO subject?
Many UFO researchers investigating these incidents have uncovered truly disturbing information from witnesses and victims about their UFO encounters.
Stefan Michalak’s case is the most discussed UFO encounter that happened in 1967 near the famous Falcon Lake in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Not only are we talking about seeing an extraterrestrial flying craft but also about contact made between the victim and the craft that resulted in serious burns.
A picture below shows severe burns on his chest after encountering a UFO near Falcon Lake, Canada. At first, he thought that the object was an American experimental test vehicle, so he sarcastically said: “Okay, Yankee boys, having trouble? Come on out and we’ll see what we can do about it.” Having received no answer, he tried greeting in different languages but still got no response. Therefore, without any second thought, he put his head into the half-open hatch and saw something like a dashboard and a huge number of glowing lights.
Stefan Michalak with burns on his chest after encountering UFO near Falcon Lake, Canada
Stefan’s clothes that were burnt during his contact with the UFO
As Michalak was examining quartz rocks, fortunately, he was wearing safety goggles so that the bright light could not blind him. But then, the hatch suddenly closed again, and he quickly recoiled not to be pinched. At the same time, he touched the outer surface of the mysterious spaceship which burned his glove, so he received a burn on his hand. After that, the craft changed its position and a gridlike exhaust vent was facing toward him. A hot gaseous substance was thrown out of it in his direction. His clothes immediately caught fire, and only with great difficulty, he managed to extinguish the fire. The UFO flew into the air and disappeared, leaving Michalak alone with severe pain and nausea.
“I’m not so close-minded that I can’t entertain the possibility that it’s otherworldly. I can’t discount that. But without specific evidence to show me that it is, I don’t know. What I can tell you is that I’m an aviation fanatic, a huge aviation buff, and I am very familiar with how aviation technology has advanced in the past 50 years. And there was nothing even close to that in the works anywhere at that time,” Michalak said.
During a subsequent medical examination, doctors found burns on his chest in the form of a mesh pattern, which fully corresponded to his story. In the following months, he had to contend with health problems such as loss of appetite, weight loss, swelling, and fainting. Michalak died in 1999 at the age of 83.
A sketch by Stefan Michalak
Stefan Michalak and his alleged encounter with the alien craft at Lake Falcon have been the subject of big research, and Canadian UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski, who co-authored the book “When They Appeared” with him, spent many years studying and collecting countless documents, statements, photographs and personal belongings of Michalak.
Rutkowski told the reporters that Michalak had been treated at the Misericordia Hospital, where he was examined by doctors for the first time. Then he was transferred to the Mayo Clinic. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Canadian Air Force, who were investigating, admitted that they had no explanation for what had happened.
During the investigation, Michalak’s welding gloves and shirt were examined but nothing could be found in the analysis. A circle of 4.5 meters was left at the landing site and the area was declared radioactive. More than 50 years after the incident, Rutkowski transferred all documents and items related to this case to the archives of the University of Manitoba.
What is also interesting to note about the UFO phenomenon is that we see critical instrumentation failure of our aircraft when in the vicinity of some of these objects.
The former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who ran the agency from 1993 to 1995, has recently spoken about the most classified cases in the history of the United States. In an interview with the Black Vault, Woosley said that a lot of examination is going on the UFOs over the years. He also shared one incident that happened to one of his friends, when his aircraft paused at 40,000 feet and stopped operating as a normal machine.
Former CIA director named R. James Woolsey. He headed the Central Intelligence Agency from February 5, 1993, until January 10, 1995.
“But there was one case in which a friend of mine was able to have his aircraft stop at 40,000 feet or so and not continue operating as a normal aircraft,” Woolsey said. He was invited by the host of Black Vault on his YouTube channel, where he discussed the instances from his newly released book “Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin’s Secret War on America.” He talked about the Russian involvement in the continuation of the Cold War, then he was asked about the assassination of JFK, and also discussed the UFOs.
“I’m not as skeptical as I was a few years ago, to put it mildly. But something is going on that is surprising to a series of intelligent aircraft, experienced pilots,” he said. “And we will just have to see what it is.” (Source)
Next, we have the case of the Tordesillas boys, which is not well-known outside Spain. It is a perfect example of the consequences of the UFO’s interaction with the human body. Martin Rodríguez witnessed how a beam of light, arising from a UFO, pierced his chest and supposed numerous neurological operations.
It happened on the evening of October 1, 1977, on the outskirts of the city of Tordesillas, Spain. Martin Rodríguez and some friends were playing hide-and-seek in a vacant lot near the road and next to abandoned farm buildings.
At some point, Martin and Fernando Caravelos (both 7 years old) decided to hide somewhere so that no one could find them. The two boys ran to an abandoned corral that stood far away from the place where the children were playing. The boys knew that vagrants took shelter in that corral, so they decided to first check if there were any strangers inside.
Martin took the rock and threw it through the broken window, only to hear a loud metallic clang as if the rock hit what looked like a huge steel cauldron. The sound sparked their curiosity, as they had climbed inside the corral several times before and knew that there was nothing that could emit that sound. So, the two went in to investigate.
Inside the old corral, they were amazed at the sight of a strange metal object standing in the corner. It was shaped like a drop of water and stood on three supports. It was about 3 meters high and 2 meters wide with three circular windows as if they were intended for portholes.
A few moments later, the boys got closer to the object and it began to vibrate and rise. The first instinct of safety worked for Fernando, he jumped back and grabbed Martin’s arm to pull him away from the object. But it was too late, Martin stood frozen as if paralyzed, and a strange glow of light came out of the object and ended up hitting Martin’s chest.
The studies carried out concluded that the soil samples collected that day were subjected to a temperature of approximately 600°C. These studies were conducted by a local journalist and UFO researcher Iker Jimenez, 20 years after the event. Meanwhile, Jimenez published a book called “Enigmas Sin Resolver,” where he presented these facts. Martin also appeared on an episode of a TV show hosted by Jimenez, Cuarto Milenio.
In the following years, Martin Rodriguez, who had always been in good health, began to suffer from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness, and loss of vision. He was admitted to the Redondo Onésimo Hospital in the city of Valladolid, and from that moment on, he underwent 14 surgeries.
Over the years, Martin suffered numerous relapses that led to routine comas, and many of his family and friends thought he could die at any time. But Martin’s life continued more or less normal, despite his illness and suffering from the operations performed. Martin’s case is considered one of the most important ufological cases in Spain, both for the witnesses who saw the object flying and for the consequences that such interaction had on Martin.
The Varginha case revolves around a reported crashed UFO in Varginha, Brazil that happened in 1996, where many locals claimed to have seen two alien creatures, captured by the Brazilian military. According to Investigative journalist Lelsie Kean, one creature was dead while the other one was still alive. (Click here to read the full article)
Filmmaker James Fox (Left, )Marco Chereze (in photo shown by his sister) died after one of the creatures scratched him
According to the report, the encounter involved two military police officers, who came across a creature running in front of their vehicle. One of the officers, Marco Chereze, supposedly captured the creature with his bare hands but later suffered from an infection that turned out to be fatal.
Kean revealed that she spoke with the doctors who had treated the police officer before his tragic demise. She said: “The circumstances of his death are shocking. He had this little cut on his shoulder from having grabbed this entity when it was alive, and it cut him. Then he got a horrific infection, and no antibiotics would work.” The veteran Brazilian doctor she spoke to, known for his expertise in autopsies, had never encountered anything like that, indicating the severity and uniqueness of the situation.
These are some of the known incidents where life-threatening injuries occurred, as well as fatalities in rare cases, during the UAP phenomena. So, when Tucker Carlson says the UFO truth is dark, could these cases be the reason behind it, or is there something more sinister?
Here are a few alien structures that I found on the south polar region of our moon. The structures are hidden within craters and each structure is truly alien in design. We as humans assume structures have to look a certain way, however, we develop this from our past experience...on Earth, where aliens past experiences are much different and from a different planet or planets. Thus, structures are often bewildering in design and hard to interpret its usage. The question is not...are alien structures on the moon, because of course we know there are many. The pertinent question is...are those structures still inhabited by the aliens who built them or moved into them?
Now for the size, the top screenshot shows a structure in a crater, that crater being close to 8 miles across, making the structure 4 miles long.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Unraveling the Mystery of the Jellyfish UFO: A Fascinating Encounter Over Iraq
Unraveling the Mystery of the Jellyfish UFO: A Fascinating Encounter Over Iraq
In 2018, a peculiar event over the skies of Iraq captured the attention of UFO enthusiasts and experts alike. Dubbed the “Jellyfish UFO,” this incident stands out not just for its intriguing visual characteristics but also for the numerous questions it raises about our understanding of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). This article delves into the details of this extraordinary sighting, exploring the aspects that make it a standout case in UAP studies.
The Thermal Anomaly
At the heart of this encounter is the manner in which the Jellyfish UFO was captured – through thermal imaging on a military-grade weapons platform. Unlike standard visual recordings, this thermal footage revealed a fascinating play of temperature changes, with the object fluctuating between stark white and deep black. This alternating thermal signature suggests that the UFO was undergoing rapid heat variations, a feature not typically associated with conventional aircraft or known natural phenomena.
Optical Jamming: A Technological Conundrum
One of the most baffling aspects of the Jellyfish UFO sighting was its apparent ability to jam the optics of a highly sophisticated targeting system. These systems, designed for precision operations such as hitting a target several miles away, were rendered ineffective in locking onto this enigmatic object. This disruption of advanced military technology points to either an unknown natural phenomenon or a technological capability far beyond our current understanding.
Physical Characteristics: Beyond the Ordinary
Witnesses and analysts have described the Jellyfish UFO as having stiff, unmoving appendages with a geometric, scale-like appearance, akin to armor. This description deviates significantly from the typical disc-shaped or spherical UFOs often reported. The distinct physical structure of this object adds a layer of complexity to its analysis, prompting questions about its origin and purpose.
Invisible to Night Vision, Visible in Thermal Spectrum
Intriguingly, the Jellyfish UFO was not detectable through standard night vision equipment, yet it was clearly visible in the thermal spectrum. This selective visibility challenges our perception of UAPs and suggests that the object may operate using a form of energy or technology that is detectable only through specific wavelengths.
International Response and Secrecy
The incident reportedly involved responses from multiple nations, and the abrupt shutdown of surveillance feeds points to a high level of concern and secrecy surrounding the encounter. This international involvement and the subsequent suppression of information hint at the potential significance of the sighting on a global scale.
Water Interaction and Nuclear Facility Link
Perhaps one of the most startling characteristics of the Jellyfish UFO was its interaction with water. Described as stopping abruptly over a body of water, descending into it, and then re-emerging to shoot off at an angle, this behavior is reminiscent of other UAP sightings near nuclear facilities, raising questions about the object’s intentions and capabilities.
The Quest for Understanding
The Jellyfish UFO case, with its unique characteristics and elusive nature, continues to be a subject of fascination and investigation. The involvement of military and intelligence agencies, coupled with eyewitness accounts and thermal imaging evidence, provides a compelling narrative that challenges our understanding of what may be traversing our skies.
TheJellyfish UFO sighting over Iraq in 2018remains an enigmatic event in the annals of UAP research. Its distinct features and the questions it raises about technology, surveillance, and international security continue to intrigue both the scientific community and the public. As we strive to understand these unexplained phenomena, cases like the Jellyfish UFO serve as a reminder of the vast unknowns that still await our exploration.
De medeoprichter van OceanGate wil tegen het jaar 2050 zo'n 1.000 mensen naar een drijvende kolonie op Venus sturen en zegt dat we absoluut niet moeten stoppen met het verleggen van de grenzen van innovatie.
Guillermo Söhnlein is onverwachts in de schijnwerpers gezet in de nasleep van de ramp met de onderzeeër Titan. De mede-oprichter van OceanGate Expeditions worstelt met heel wat vragen over de noodlottige reis van het bedrijf naar het scheepswrak van de Titanic op 18 juni, waarbij vijf mensen om het leven kwamen, onder wie voormalig collega en vriend Stockton Rush. Er wordt aangenomen dat de onderzeeër binnen enkele uren na zijn afdaling is geïmplodeerd. Dat zorgt alvast voor heel wat bezorgdheid omtrent OceanGate's benadering van innovatie en veiligheid.
Maar OceanGate is niet de enige onderneming van Söhnlein. De zakenman wil immers tegen 2050 zo'n 1.000 mensen naar de atmosfeer van Venus sturen. Hij beweert dat zijn plan niet zo gek is als het lijkt. "Ik denk dat het minder ambitieus is dan tegen 2050 een miljoen mensen op het oppervlak van Mars te hebben", zei hij tegen Insider.
Mensen naar de boosaardige tweeling van de aarde sturen
Hoewel venus vaak "de tweeling van de aarde" wordt genoemd, lijkt Venus niet de ideale plek voor mensen om te gedijen. Zelfs Söhnlein is het daarmee eens. "Je hebt helemaal gelijk dat als je het over Venus hebt, de wenkbrauwen gaan fronsen buiten de ruimtevaartindustrie. En het doet zelfs wenkbrauwen fronsen binnen de ruimtevaartindustrie", zei hij.
Venus is immers de warmste planeet in het zonnestelsel. De atmosfeer zit boordevol koolstofdioxide, de oppervlaktetemperatuur zou lood kunnen doen smelten en zwavelzuur regent uit de wolken. De atmosferische druk is verpletterend - meer dan 90 keer die van de aarde, volgens NASA.
Desondanks ziet Söhnlein niet in waarom de mensheid niet zou moeten proberen op de planeet te leven. Hij wijst op onderzoek dat suggereert dat er een strook van de Venusiaanse atmosfeer ongeveer 30 mijl van het oppervlak is waar mensen theoretisch zouden kunnen overleven omdat de temperaturen er lager zijn en de druk minder intens.
Als een ruimtestation ontworpen zou kunnen worden om het zwavelzuur in de wolken te weerstaan, zegt Söhnlein, zouden er op een dag honderden tot duizenden mensen in de atmosfeer van Venus kunnen leven.
Hij zegt dat een drijvende kolonie tegen 2050 1.000 mensen in de Venusiaanse atmosfeer zou kunnen doen leven. Hoe hij dit precies ziet, is nog niet geheel duidelijk.
Wordt ongetwijfeld vervolgd!
Skwadra by Tagtik
Source: Business Insider/Illustration picture: Pixabay)
The space industry growth is booming and Morgan Stanley’s Space Team estimates that the roughly $350 billion global space industry could surge to over $1 trillion by 2040. Such advancement has given new opportunities for scientists to sneak deep into the dark valleys of space. This led to more people supporting the existence of intelligent species other than humans in the universe. There are many occasions when the NASA workers claimed to have seen unnatural phenomena, objects, and even beings in space. Dr. Norman Bergrun, who had worked for NASA, claimed that there were massive alien spacecraft proliferating in the rings of Saturn.
Dr. Bergun is the author of the books “Ringmakers of Saturn” and “Tomorrows Technology Today,” which document the existence of extraterrestrial vehicles of immense power. A scientist who pioneered the methodology of thermal ice prevention design, he is also credited with roll-stability laws for airplanes and missiles.
Dr. Bergrun was manager of test planning and analysis for the Polaris Underwater Launch Missile System and evaluated satellite system applications. Also a director of Information Systems, he founded his own company in 1971 and is cited in “Who’s Who in the World” and other reference works. He was an alumnus of Ames Research Laboratory, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), predecessor of Ames Research Center, NASA where he worked for 12 years as a research scientist.
Dr. Norman Bergrun. Image credit: Legacy.com
There has been a theory that NASA employees cannot talk too much. A few former NASA employees shared some details that they could not have given out because of the confidentiality agreement. Dr. Bergrun said that it is Saturn that can be the refuge of an alien civilization, and NASA just hide their evidence, using it for their own purposes.
Dr. Norman Bergrun played a key role in the Voyager missions, the probes that were sent out and tasked with photographing Saturn, its rings and moons. There is a photo shown below from that mission he was able to obtain from the agency of a large unidentified flying object hovering just outside Saturn’s rings. It is huge, approximately the size of Earth, and is published in his book, “Ringmakers of Saturn.”
A UFO The Size Of Planet Earth Seen Hovering Near Saturn. Credit: Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Bergrun said: “What I found out is, these things inhabit Saturn, that’s where I first discovered them, and they’re proliferating. You can find them around Uranus and Jupiter. Wherever you see some rings, that’s where I see the aircraft, I call them a ring maker. I say that it is electromagnetic because I can identify streamline patterns with respect to it that I knew were what we called ‘potential lines’ and that says it was electrical.”
In that book, Dr. Bergrun analyzed photographs of Saturn’s rings taken by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1980 and 1981. He detailed his theory that the rings were formed by giant Electro-Magnetic Vehicles (EVMs), which are possibly being controlled by intelligent beings. He stated that the 7000-mile-long elliptical ships are currently orbiting Saturn within the rings and emitting visible exhaust. Later, analysis by Bergrun and others suggested the same or similar ships are in orbit around the Sun, Jupiter and Uranus.
Infrared photograph of one of the gigantic cylindrical objects taken by Hubble in the Saturn’s rings
A strange bend was spotted in Saturn’s two outermost rings as they passed behind the planet in this view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Cassini took the image on June 9, 2016, and NASA released it on July 25. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Some point to this break in Saturn’s rings as signs of alien activity. Credit: NASA
Dr. Bergun claimed that he had to go through a lot of trouble in publishing his book, according to retired U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major Bob Dean. Below is the transcription of the interview between Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot and Dr. Bergun:
Kerry Cassidy: “Have you heard that NASA alters their footage, coming from the moon, etc?
Bergrun: “I know some of the things they do with it, yeah”
Kerry: “Okay, so even their footage is not always dependable right, although I guess it’s dependable to begin with, it’s just that they start altering it later?”
Dr. Bergun: “I have been told by a very reliable source, he asked me, what camera did I get that image from on the moon, I said ‘Hasselblad,’ and he said, ‘That’s right.’ He says, ‘I thought we darkened that enough that you wouldn’t find it.’”
Kerry: “So you were finding things they thought they covered up? Incredible.”
Dr. Bergun: “Yeah, and this guy says, ‘Well I suppose you want me to go out and tell everybody about that?’ I said ‘No, I don’t want to embarrass you, that doesn’t make any difference to me, whatever you want to do is fine with me, I’m just saying I found what you saw.’ “
He died on July 1, 2018, at Tracy Nursing and Rehabilitation Center at the age of 96. Unfortunately, Dr. Bergun was just another name on the list of NASA whistleblowers who is forgotten and ignored due to a lack of followers and media attention.
A piece of string-like material photographed on Mars by the Perseverance Rover just last week has suddenly disappeared, according to recent NASA photos obtained by its rover on the Red Planet.
The wiry-looking substance many likened to a piece of string or thin pasta first appeared in photographs taken by the rover on July 12th, photos that were shared by NASA earlier this week. However, a photo taken four days later shows the string has somehow disappeared.
Photo taken by Perseverance on July 12 shows Martian “string”
Image Credit NASA/JPL-CalTech
Photo taken by Perseverance on July 16 reveals the “string” has disappeared.
Image Credit NASA/JPL-CalTech
Since landing on the red planet, humanity’s various rovers have made a habit of taking odd, unusual, often perplexing photos. In some cases, like the “flower” or recently discussed “door” on Mars, the photos ultimately proved to be natural formations instead of foreign objects.
Of course, Martian rovers bring their own junk with them. And many of the more infamous photos sent back from those rovers are of their own pieces of human-made debris.
NASA’s experts told the media the recent photograph is likely something artificial and not a natural formation masquerading as a manufactured object. However, rather than a remnant of a kite flown by E.T. on his Martian holiday, the same experts say this string was also probably a piece of material from the rover’s landing rocket.
“The string could be from the rover or its descent stage, a component similar to a rocket-powered jet pack used to lower the rover to the planet’s surface safely,” a Perseverance mission spokesperson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory toldCNN.
The same spokesperson concedes that the string was photographed in an area not previously visited by Perseverance but guessed that the string likely blew there on its own.
Either that. Or it has a completely different origin.
Adding more mystery to the mystery, when the rover passed over the same spot on July 16th, the string had magically disappeared. Once again, most suggest that the string left the same way it arrived, on a gust of wind.
Still, given the incredibly thin Martian atmosphere and the great lengths designers had to go through just to get the Ingenuity helicopter to grasp that atmosphere and take flight, it would take some mighty gusts of wind to send that string into and out of the same spot within a four day period. So, for now, at least, the mystery of the Martian string remains.
Follow and Connect with Author Christopher Plain on Twitter @plain_fiction
Uranus and Neptune are Actually Pretty Much the Same Color
Scientists reprocessed Voyager 2 images to get the "true" colors of Uranus and Neptune. Turns out they're a pretty blueish-green. Courtesy NASA/Irwin, et al, Anton Pozdnyakov.
Uranus and Neptune are Actually Pretty Much the Same Color
In the late 1980s, the Voyager 2 spacecraft snapped the “canonical” up-close images of Uranus and Neptune. In those views, Uranus was a pretty greenish-blue and Neptune appeared a deep azure color. It turns out that both planets are pretty close in color: a greenish-blue more akin to Uranus’s appearance.
No, Uranus and Neptune haven’t swapped color values. It turns out that those images aren’t precise recordings of their actual colors. Planetary scientists re-examined the Voyager 2 images and compared them to more recent observations made with both space-based and ground-based observatories. Then they created a model of what the colors should be. After that, they re-processed the images to come up with a more “true color” view of each planet. The result is a more realistic view of both worlds.
Having a better sense of each planet’s true color allows scientists to better understand actual changes in their atmospheres due to internal activity and seasonal shifts in position and temperature. In particular, the observations and color redefinitions help reveal something about the mysterious color changes that Uranus undergoes during its 84-year orbit.
Voyager 2/ISS images of Uranus and Neptune were released shortly after the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively. They’re compared here with a reprocessing of the individual filter images to determine the best estimate of the true colors of these planets. Credit: Patrick Irwin, University of Oxford.
What Voyager 2 Saw at the Ice Giants
The Voyager 2 spacecraft whizzed past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989, respectively. It was on a lightning-fast visit to each planet. Both close approaches lasted less than a day apiece. That gave the spacecraft a finite amount of time to gather as much information as possible. To get good pictures of the planets, Voyager’s cameras took images through different filters. The imaging team was under tremendous time constraints, with press conferences to prepare for nearly every day. They combined the single-color images and processed them to make the “press release” views we all know and love.
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft captured these views of Uranus and Neptune (l, r, respectively) in the 1980s.
Think of it like taking a landscape image with your smartphone in black-and-white mode. Then you take the same one with different-colored filters. After that, you’d drag them into an image-processing software package and combine them. Depending on how they look, you might tweak them a bit in the contrast. Or you could enhance some colors to bring out specific features.
That’s what the Voyager imaging team did. For Neptune, they cranked up the image contrast to bring out specific clouds, cloud bands, and storms. That meant applying a bit more blue to increase the contrast. The resulting image was pretty and certainly did showcase those odd features—which caught everyone’s attention during the flybys. But, did the images reflect reality?
Neptune, as seen by Voyager 2 in 1989. The deep blue color applied helped enhance the view of features in the atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/JPL
The same question gets asked about Uranus’s color, especially since its appearance has changed slightly from the canonical Voyager 2 image in the intervening decades. The Voyager 2 mission took spectra of Uranus as it flew by and confirmed that the planet’s atmosphere is mainly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane. That composition was well-known from ground-based observations and spectra since the early part of the 20th century.
Determining True Planetary Colors of Uranus and Neptune
Professor Patrick Irwin and a team of scientists at Oxford University in the UK set out to answer questions about the actual colors of Uranus and Neptune. They analyzed the Voyager 2 images, plus studies made by the Hubble Space Telescope, ESO’s Very Large Telescope, and others, to come up with a model of the planets’ actual colors.
“Although the familiar Voyager 2 images of Uranus were published in a form closer to “true” color, those of Neptune were, in fact, stretched and enhanced, and therefore made artificially too blue,” said Irwin. “Even though the artificially saturated color was known at the time amongst planetary scientists – and the images were released with captions explaining it – that distinction had become lost over time. Applying our model to the original data, we have been able to reconstitute the most accurate representation yet of the color of both Neptune and Uranus.”
A reconstruction by Irwin, et al, of the visible colors of Uranus and Neptune from Voyager 2/ISS NAC observations, using their processing model to even out the colors. Courtesy: Irwin, et al.
Essentially, the team “rebalanced” the colors of both planets. The result is that both are similar shades of greenish-blue, although Neptune still has a bit more blue to it than Uranus does. However, Uranus sometimes develops a bit more green over its poles.
These colors seem to better match long-stand observations of both planets made at Lowell Observatory between 1950 and 2016. According to Heidi Hammel, a scientist who has studied the two planets for years, rebalancing the colors in Uranus and Neptune imagery is a good thing. “The misperception of Neptune’s color, as well as the unusual color changes of Uranus, have bedeviled us for decades,” she said. “This comprehensive study should finally put both issues to rest.”
What Causes Color Changes on Uranus?
Scientists may be happy with the colors of these ice giants now, although they do still note some slight seasonal color shifts in both planets throughout their orbits. In particular, the changing appearance of Uranus over time remains something of a mystery to be solved. For example, the Lowell observations show something intriguing: Uranus appears a little greener at its winter and summer solstices. That’s the point in its orbit when one of the planet’s poles is pointed towards our star. Things change during the equinoxes when the Sun is over the equator. Then, it has a somewhat bluer tinge.
Part of that change is due to Uranus’s unusual spin. It rolls around the Sun on its side, pointing one or the other of its poles at the Sun during the solstices. (Recently, JWST took advantage of that positioning to grab a look at its northern polar region.) The “tipped” position of Uranus likely forces some changes in its reflectivity at those times, making it look brighter to us here on Earth. Now the big question is, do those changes indicate something else happening in the atmosphere?
Uranus was imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986. Its rotational axis is tipped over 89 degrees from the plane of the Solar System. During its “year” one pole or the other points toward the Sun at the solstices. Credit: NASA
In the paper they published about this work, Irwin and the team suggest that the changes that Lowell Observatory saw could be caused by Uranus’s distance from the Sun. That affects the production of a dark haze—a sort of “polar hood”. It settles over the upper atmosphere at the poles. Production would be more intense when Uranus is closest to the Sun. That would explain a change in reflectivity and brightness. The team modeled a hood that produced a steadily thickening haze, probably consisting mostly of methane ice. The model simulation showed that the ice particles increased reflection at green and red wavelengths at the poles. That could explain the greenish tint astronomers see at solstice.
Tracking Changes on Uranus
The modeling and re-jiggering of imagery of Uranus, in particular, go a long way toward explaining Uranus’s color changes. “This is the first study to match a quantitative model to imaging data to explain why the color of Uranus changes during its orbit,” said Irwin.
At the moment, Uranus is heading into its high summer season. That should cause its northern polar hood to thicken and grow. It may end up looking more like the hood seen in the Voyager 2 images and the team’s model. Irwin suggests that the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope should focus on spectroscopic studies of the planet to watch it change. Future Hubble observations should also use filtering methods that correlate with the Voyager imaging system filters to make better comparisons. It’s likely that future studies should be able to replicate the work Irwin and his team have done, and do more to explain the changes that Uranus’s atmosphere appears to experience as it moves through its seasons.
NASA Selects the MAGGIE Solar-Powered Aircraft for the 2024 NIAC Program
Since 1998, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program has fostered innovation by accepting new and unconventional proposals from the scientific community. Those selected are awarded funding to conduct early-stage technology studies that could lead to applications that help advance the agency’s scientific and exploration objectives. In a recent press statement, NASA announced the 13 concepts it has selected for Phase I development, which will receive a combined award of up to $175,000 in grants to assess the concepts’ feasibility and develop the technology further.
This year’s selectees range from a sample return from the surface of Venus, a fixed-wing aircraft for Mars, a swarm of probes to travel to Proxima Centauri and explore its system of exoplanets, and more. One of the more eye-catching is the Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE) proposed by Ge-Cheng Zha, a Professor of Aerodynamics at the Univeristy of Miami and the President of Coflow Jet LLC. The concept calls for a compact, fixed-wing, solar-powered aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL).
A collage of illustrations highlighting the novel concepts proposed by the 2024 NIAC Phase I awardees. Credit: (clockwise, from upper right) Benner/Zhang/McQuinn/Romero-Calvo/Eubanks/Carpenter/Bickford/Romero/Calvo/Cabauy/ Landis/Rothschild/Zha/NASA
Through the NIAC, NASA maintains a strong tradition where game-changing proposals submitted by the public became missions that made crucial contributions. As NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said in the statement:
“The daring missions NASA undertakes for the benefit of humanity all begin as just an idea, and NIAC is responsible for inspiring many of those ideas. TheIngenuity helicopter flying on Mars and instruments on the MarCO deep space CubeSats can trace their lineage back to NIAC, proving there is a path from creative idea to mission success. And, while not all these concepts will fly, NASA and our partners worldwide can learn from fresh approaches and may eventually use technologies advanced by NIAC.”
According to Zha’s proposal paper, the inclusion of the CoFlow Jet (CFJ) deflected slipstream technology means that MAGGIE will be capable of cruising at Mach 0.25 (~300 km/h; 190 mph) with a cruise lift coefficient (CL) of 3.5 – nearly an order of magnitude higher than conventional subsonic aircraft in Mars’ thin atmosphere. A fully charged battery would last 7.6 Martian days (sols), giving MAGGIE a range of 179 km (111 mi) at an altitude of 1,000 m (3280 ft). The total range of MAGGIE for an entire Martian year – which works out to 668 sols or 687 Earth days – is 16,048 km (9972 mi). As Zha told Universe Today via email, the proprietary CFJ technology consists of three elements:
“First, CoFlow Jet (CFJ) active flow control enhances lift coefficient, which is needed to overcome the low air density on Mars (1% of that on Earth). Conventional lift coefficient will not be able to lift a useful payload. Second, CFJ removes flow separation or stall. Due to the low air density on Mars, the Reynolds number is very low, which makes the Aircraft prone to flow separation and stall. If the aircraft stalls, the aircraft will crash, and the game is over.
“Third, CFJ enables deflected slipstream, which is the flow pulled by the propeller. It can turn the flow 90 deg downward so that the VTOL aircraft does not need to tilt the propellers upward at hover. The propeller will remain at the forward-facing position like the at cruise. The CFJ is used in the flap to turn the flow. It makes the VTOL aircraft much simpler than conventional aircraft.”
Image of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.
Credit: NASA
The mission profile envisioned here would consist of three atmospheric and geophysical investigations. These would explore how long Mars had a magnetic field, the source of methane signals detected by the Curiosity rover in the Gale Crater, and in-depth mapping of the subsurface water ice observed around Mars’ mid-latitudes.Its reliance on solar energy also means that the mission (barring an accident) could remain operational indefinitely. In short, MAGGIE would be able to perform the first global-scale atmospheric mission of Mars and would be the first concept to enable the ongoing exploration of the Red Planet.
“It has a global scale range. It can go anywhere on Mars,” said Zha. “All the previous rovers can only explore a point on Mars. Their ranges are very limited. MAGGIE can not just do the examination on the ground surface, but also examine the atmosphere since it flies.”
The professor also noted how his concept pays homage to the Ingenuity helicopter, which effectively demonstrated the potential for airborne missions on Mars. MAGGIE, he claims, would be similarly engaging to the public because of its audacious nature and the variety of environments it could explore, study, and image. In keeping with the proud tradition of NASA Spinoff, Zha also noted how developing this concept for investigating extraterrestrial environments will have applications for VTOL technologies here on Earth:
“Currently, there is a big movement on Earth to develop eVTOL for urban air mobility. They all need to use tilt rotors, tilt wings, and lift-plus-cruise. It is heavy, draggy, and inefficient. Using the same technology of CoFlow Jet deflected slipstream of MAGGIE, we can improve the efficiency of the eVTOL on Earth significantly.”
Titan’s “Magic Islands” Could Be Floating Blobs of Organic Solids
When the Cassini spacecraft returned radar scans of the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, the results were mindblowing. It revealed giant lakes or seas of liquid methane, a complete absence of waves and what seemed to be islands in the giant bodies of water. Now a team of scientists think they may be blobs of organic molecules that form in the atmosphere, collect in the lakes and float around!
The bus sized space probe Cassini was launched in October of 1997. The journey took the craft 3.5 billion km using gravitational slingshots following launch from Venus (twice), Earth and Jupiter before arriving in July 2004. The mission at Saturn lasted for 14 years when Cassini dived into the atmosphere of Saturn on 15 September 2017. While it was there it orbited Saturn a total of 290 times, explored many of its moons and discovered seven more.
Artist impression of Cassini Space Probe
A particularly interesting part of the mission was the Huygens probe that hitched a ride aboard Cassini with Titan as its destination. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, the second largest moon in our Solar System and larger even than our own Moon and the planet Mercury. It’s also the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere and large, stable bodies of water on its surface.
Natural color image of Titan taken by Cassini in January 2012. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
The atmosphere of Titan has a neat trick, it transforms gasses like methane and nitrogen (of which there is plenty in the atmosphere) into organic compounds. The team, led by Xinting Yu from the University of Texas studied what happens to those compounds when they reach the surface of the Moon.
Surpisingly, they found that the compounds reach the surface as solids, even on the lakes. Just what happens then was what the team were interested to explore. If they were structured like a sponge, mostly full of empty space then they would simply float. If on the other hand they were solids, they may still float depending on their composition, otherwise they will just sink to the lake bed.
One mysterious feature of the Titanian (if that’s even a word) lakes that was picked up ws temporary bright spots seen by radar. They were dubbed ‘magic islands’ because they seemed to be only temporary features. The team found that the only plausible explanation for the observations was that the solid material landing on the surface.. and by chance, in the lakes, must be porous in nature giving it the ability to float.
Supernova remnant N132D lies in the central portion of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy about 160,000 light-years away. XRISM’s Xtend captured the remnant in X-rays, displayed in the inset. Although bright in X-rays, the stellar wreckage is almost invisible in the ground-based background view taken in optical light. Credit: Inset, JAXA/NASA/XRISM Xtend; background, C. Smith, S. Points, the MCELS Team and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
XRISM, the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, is a joint NASA/JAXA mission led by JAXA. The X-ray space telescope began its mission in low-Earth orbit on September 6th, 2023. Science operations won’t begin until later this year, but the satellite’s science team has released some of the telescope’s first images.
XRISM is a stop-gap telescope. Our existing X-ray observatories, XMM Newton and Chandra, are aging, and their missions will end soon. Their replacement, the European Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics (ATHENA), won’t launch until 2035, leaving a years-long gap with no X-ray telescope coverage. Japan’s Hitomi X-ray observatory was meant to succeed XMM Newton and Chandra, but it failed a few weeks after launch.
Even though XRISM is intended as a fill-in mission, it’s still very powerful and will deliver robust scientific observations.
“XRISM will provide the international science community with a new glimpse of the hidden X-ray sky,” said Richard Kelley, the U.S. principal investigator for XRISM at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll not only see X-ray images of these sources but also study their compositions, motions, and physical states.”
Some new images from the telescope show just how powerful this ”stop-gap’ observatory is.
XRISM has two instruments: Resolve and Xtend. Resolve is a microcalorimeter spectrometer, a cryogenic instrument that’s kept at barely above absolute zero. When a photon hits it, it warms the detector by a specific amount related to its energy. “By measuring each individual X-ray’s energy, the instrument provides information previously unavailable about the source,” NASA explains.
Xtend is an X-ray CCD camera with a higher resolution than its predecessor on the failed Hitomi observatory.
The first image from XRISM at the top of the page is of a supernova remnant (SNR) in the Large Magellanic Cloud called N132D. The remnant is almost unseeable in the optical light image but is bright in X-rays. XRISM is a spectrometer and it created the most detailed X-ray spectrum of N132D ever.
XRISM’s X-ray spectrum of N132 reveals the presence of Silicon, Sulfur, Argon, Calcium, and Iron. The numbers indicate the number of electrons lost, or the ionization state, required to produce each peak. These elements originated in the remnant’s progenitor star and blasted out into space when it exploded as a supernova. Image Credit: JAXA/NASA/XRISM Resolve and Xtend
The progenitor star was about 15 times as massive as the Sun and exploded when it depleted its hydrogen and collapsed in on itself. The wreckage, the supernova remnant, is about 3,000 years old and is still expanding. These remnants are important because they spread heavy elements throughout the galaxy, heat the interstellar medium, and accelerate cosmic rays. Their shockwaves can even compress nearby gas and trigger new star formation.
Brian Williams, NASA’s XRISM project scientist at Goddard, explained how XRISM will help us understand SNRs.
“These elements were forged in the original star and then blasted away when it exploded as a supernova,” said Williams. “Resolve will allow us to see the shapes of these lines in a way never possible before, letting us determine not only the abundances of the various elements present but also their temperatures, densities, and directions of motion at unprecedented levels of precision. From there, we can piece together information about the original star and the explosion.”
Measuring the chemical composition of objects is important in astrophysics, and XRISM is proving to be even better than expected at that task.
“Even before the end of the commissioning process, Resolve is already exceeding our expectations,” said Lillian Reichenthal, NASA’s XRISM project manager at Goddard. “Our goal was to achieve a spectral resolution of 7 electron volts with the instrument, but now that it’s in orbit, we’re achieving 5. What that means is we’ll get even more detailed chemical maps with each spectrum XRISM captures.”
Xtend, XRISM’s X-ray imager, plays an important role in the observations. Its large field of view means it can observe an area about 60% larger than the full Moon. The science team released an Xtend X-ray image of Abell 2319, a nearby galaxy cluster that’s the object of frequent study.
XRISM’s Xtend instrument captured galaxy cluster Abell 2319 in X-rays, shown here in purple and outlined by a white border representing the extent of the detector. The background is a ground-based image showing the area in visible light. The pink is X-ray light from gas that permeates the cluster heated to millions of degrees. By measuring it with XRISM, astronomers can measure the mass of the entire cluster, an important point in understanding it. Image Credit: JAXA/NASA/XRISM Xtend; background, DSS
The purple in the image is gas that is leftover from billions of years of star birth and death. XRISM will tell astronomers what elements are present and how abundant they are, especially elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, called ‘metals’ in astronomy. These XRISM observations will help us understand how the Universe has become enriched in metals over its 13+ billion-year history.
Astronomers have observed Abell 2319 with the Chandra and identified different substructures in the intracluster medium (ICM.) They found cold fronts between masses of cooler and warmer gases and even finer substructures within the fronts. It all hints at more complexity than previously thought, triggered by mergers between galaxies and groups and interactions with the cluster’s AGN. Abell 2319 is currently undergoing a major merger event, and since XRISM is more powerful than Chandra, it should reveal even more details about the merger.
But alongside the success represented by these first images, XRISM is facing its first challenge. An aperture door that protects the Resolve detector before launch hasn’t opened. This means that photons below 1,700 electron volts can’t reach the detector. XRISM personnel have made several attempts to open it but haven’t yet been successful. If it remains closed, then the mission won’t detect photons below 1,700 electron volts, while it’s designed to measure photons as low as 300 electron volts. This problem, however, doesn’t affect Xtend, and the XRISM team is still working on a solution.
Though the XRISM mission is primarily a partnership between NASA and JAXA, the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency are also involved.
An aperture that protects the Resolve instrument is stuck closed, meaning XRISM can’t operate at its full electron volt detection range. Xtend, which has its own aperture, is unaffected. Image Credit: By ESA – https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2023/08/XRISM_in_a_nutshell, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo
“It’s so exciting to see XRISM already carrying out such marvellous scientific observations, even though it is not yet fully calibrated,” says ESA Director of Science Carole Mundell. “It shows the potential this mission offers to our science communities for groundbreaking discoveries in the study of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe.”
Project 8200 Exposed: Unearthing the CIA’s Psychic Quest for Alien Base
Project 8200 Exposed: Unearthing the CIA’s Psychic Quest for Alien Base
In the shadowy corridors of Cold War espionage, where the United States and the Soviet Union vied for global supremacy, a lesser-known but equally intriguing battle was waged. This battle didn’t involve traditional weapons or soldiers but the human mind’s uncharted territories. Project 8200, a clandestine CIA initiative, epitomized this era’s peculiar mix of hard science and fringe exploration as it sought to employ psychic abilities to uncover alien bases purportedly hidden deep underground.
The Genesis of Psychic Spying
The 1970s marked a period when America, reeling from the cultural and political upheavals of the ’60s, was willing to explore unconventional military and intelligence tactics. The CIA, intrigued by reports of Soviet experiments in psychic espionage, initiated its own program to explore remote viewing — the practice of projecting one’s consciousness to remote locations to gather intelligence.
This initiative, which would later evolve into Project 8200, recruited individuals with purported psychic abilities. These individuals were tasked with using their powers to spy on Soviet installations and, quite accidentally, stumbled upon something even more extraordinary — alien bases concealed within Earth’s remote landscapes.
Mount Hayes: The Psychic Revelation
The turning point for Project 8200 came when one of the remote viewers, by a twist of fate, found himself projecting his consciousness to Mount Hayes in Alaska. This remote mountain, far from any civilization, was not just an ordinary peak but allegedly a covert extraterrestrial base. As the psychic delved deeper, he claimed to see non-human-built structures and sophisticated technology, far beyond human capabilities.
VIDEO:
The Why Files – Project 8200 Exposed | CIA Psychics Find Alien Bases Underground
This revelation was just the beginning. Further psychic investigations purportedly uncovered additional alien bases in Mount Perdido in Spain, Mount Inyangani in Zimbabwe, and Mount Ziel in Australia. These sites were described as hubs of high technology and energy, possibly serving as monitoring stations or relay points for an unknown extraterrestrial purpose.
The Science and Skepticism
Skeptics might dismiss Project 8200’s findings as fanciful at best. After all, remote viewing is a highly contested field, with many scientists questioning its validity. However, proponents argue that the consistency of psychic reports and the detailed descriptions of technology and locations lend some credence to the claims. Furthermore, the project’s existence reflects a period when the boundaries of science and pseudoscience were fluid, and the hunger for any strategic advantage in the Cold War led to some of the era’s most outlandish and fascinating explorations.
The Legacy of Project 8200
The supposed discovery of alien bases by CIA psychics is more than just a tale of Cold War eccentricity. It’s a narrative about the human quest for understanding, the desire to know what lies beyond our current capabilities, and the eternal question of whether we are alone in the universe. Project 8200 may not have provided definitive answers, but it certainly expanded the dialogue around these profound questions.
As we continue to explore space and the potential for extraterrestrial life, the legacy of Project 8200 reminds us that sometimes the search for the unknown takes us to the most unexpected places — even within the depths of our own minds. Whether or not alien bases exist tucked away in Earth’s remote landscapes, the very idea challenges us to keep an open mind about the possibilities of the universe and our place within it.
Five UFOs Over Area 51 Military Firing Range! Gov Release, UFO Sighting News.
Five UFOs Over Area 51 Military Firing Range! Gov Release, UFO Sighting News. 👽👀🛸
If you ever see an airliner jet flying at this angle, get out of the way, its about to crash, these 5 UFOs identified by the US gov as passenger jets are not, I debunked the US gov theory.
Date of recording: May 31, 2023
Location of sighting: Area 51 old military firing range
Now this video release by the US gov just came out this week and it shows five cigar UFOs flying at the same angle, side by side in military formation over a western US military firing range, and guess what? The screams out Area 51! Thats right, it's the biggest and oldest firing range in that area. Also I believe that these UFOs are alien technology in the hands of the USAF. Why? Because Area S4 is within Area 51, and Area S4 is where they learn to use alien technology and scientist Bob Lazar said he saw 8 UFOs and he worked on one of them personally. Apparently some military person recorded this video and everyone else in the military tried to dismiss it as passenger jets. Guys, this is 100% proof that the USAF has whole fleets of alien built spaceships in that hands of USAF pilots.
UFO that's shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars leaves experts baffled
UFO that's shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars leaves experts baffled
Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting in the village of Brandon, northeast of Bishop Auckland, Co Durham with boffins labelling it an 'unidentified object of some sort'
ByIsobel Dickinson
Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting
(Image: Jam Press)
A UFO shaped like the Millennium Falcon could actually be from a galaxy far, far away, experts say.
They launched an investigation after Christine Iskander, 63, spotted the bright object and took a snap on her iPhone. Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting in the village of Brandon, north east of Bishop Auckland, Co Durham in 2017.
Philip Mantle, a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, drafted in top experts to probe the sighting. He said: “Although on the surface this photo doesn’t look like much, when it has been enlarged it almost looks like the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars.
“Add to this the witness’ description you have to label this as a genuine UFO.
Jason Gleaves, an ex-RAF and BAE Airbus division employee, who studied the photo in depth, said: “Upon analysing the original image, it appears to have defined structure.
Christine Iskander grabbed her phone and took a picture(Image: Jam Press)
“No known conventional aircraft can accelerate vertically from a standing hovering position without sound.”
Speaking at the time, Christine said: "It was blinding, looking at it directly. It looked like a very brilliant white star to the naked eye.
"I thought it may be a helicopter at first but there was no sound...Seconds after taking the photo the object shot straight up and then disappeared before I could get another photo.
It was compared to the Millennium Falcon(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
"The picture shows something quite different to what my eyes saw."
To her amazement when she enlarged the picture, the object appeared to resemble Han Solo's famous smuggling starship from the hit Star Wars movies, starring Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.
It first appeared in the original Star Wars film in 1977, and re-appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi.
UFO that's shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars leaves experts baffled
UFO that's shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars leaves experts baffled
Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting in the village of Brandon, northeast of Bishop Auckland, Co Durham with boffins labelling it an 'unidentified object of some sort'
ByIsobel Dickinson
Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting
(Image: Jam Press)
A UFO shaped like the Millennium Falcon could actually be from a galaxy far, far away, experts say.
They launched an investigation after Christine Iskander, 63, spotted the bright object and took a snap on her iPhone. Boffins have spent six years probing the sighting in the village of Brandon, north east of Bishop Auckland, Co Durham in 2017.
Philip Mantle, a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, drafted in top experts to probe the sighting. He said: “Although on the surface this photo doesn’t look like much, when it has been enlarged it almost looks like the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars.
“Add to this the witness’ description you have to label this as a genuine UFO.
Jason Gleaves, an ex-RAF and BAE Airbus division employee, who studied the photo in depth, said: “Upon analysing the original image, it appears to have defined structure.
Christine Iskander grabbed her phone and took a picture(Image: Jam Press)
“No known conventional aircraft can accelerate vertically from a standing hovering position without sound.”
Speaking at the time, Christine said: "It was blinding, looking at it directly. It looked like a very brilliant white star to the naked eye.
"I thought it may be a helicopter at first but there was no sound...Seconds after taking the photo the object shot straight up and then disappeared before I could get another photo.
It was compared to the Millennium Falcon(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
"The picture shows something quite different to what my eyes saw."
To her amazement when she enlarged the picture, the object appeared to resemble Han Solo's famous smuggling starship from the hit Star Wars movies, starring Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.
It first appeared in the original Star Wars film in 1977, and re-appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi.
Allow me to start with a confession: although the topic of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, previously called UFOs) has always fascinated me, my reaction to confronting much of the related literature—beyond the safe harbour of a few serious authors—has been one of considered dismissiveness. In my view, a significant portion of the published material could benefit from greater rigor, empirical grounding, theoretical clarity, and logical reasoning. This field often appears to diverge from the standards of intellectual precision and level-headed analysis that hold in academia. However, recent developments over the past six or seven years invite us to re-examine the subject from a more open and inquisitive perspective.
Because there are so few—if any—consensus launchpads for such a polemical topic, I must explicitly justify each step of my thinking and, thus, cover a lot of ground in this long essay. I shall start, below, by motivating the validity of the mystery: UAPs are no longer just tall and questionable tales shared on social media, accompanied by grainy, out-of-focus cellular phone footage. Enough has been officially acknowledged since 2017 that the topic is now undoubtedly deserving of serious treatment. After laying foundations for my argument, I will then proceed to elaborate on what I currently consider to be the most level-headed and plausible account of the phenomenon. And to anticipate a question you are bound to be already asking, no, I don’t think it is aliens from Zeta Reticuli; the facts may be a lot more surprising and closer to home than that.
SURPRISINGLY MUCH HAS RECENTLY BEEN DISCLOSED
In 2017, several videos of UAPs—soon to become known as the ‘Pentagon UFO videos,’ as they were recorded by infrared cameras in military aircraft—were circulating widely on the Internet. At around the same time, the story behind the videos was covered in a now-seminal report by The New York Times.
Years later, in the summer of 2023, US Navy pilots involved in these incidents provided public testimony to Congress, under oath, adding detail and background to the odd images. Asked whether the UAP he saw with his own eyes moved in a way that defied the laws of physics, Commander David Fravor replied: “The way we understand them [i.e., the laws of physics], yes.” He then confirmed that the UAPs were not only captured on camera, but also tracked by radar from three different vessels: “The Princeton tracked it. The Nimitz tracked it. The E2 tracked it.” Asked to describe how the UAP maneuvered, CDR Fravor said, “Abruptly, very determinant. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was aware of our presence and it had acceleration rates—I mean, it went from zero to matching our speed in no time at all.” Finally, asked if any human technology could emulate the UAP’s flight characteristics he observed, he said: “No, not even close.” Navy F-18 pilot Ryan Graves—another military witness giving sworn testimony—described a UAP sighted from 50 feet away as “A dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere,” something that cannot be conflated with a drone or ordinary aircraft.
Still in 2023, United States Air Force officer and former intelligence official David Grusch became a UAP whistle-blower. In interviews with various media outlets, he claimed that several defense officials had confirmed to him that the US government maintains a secretive UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program, and is in the possession of several technological craft with Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) provenance.
Mr. Grusch, too, provided sworn testimony during the congressional UAP hearing of July 2023. Asked whether the US has the bodies of the pilots of the recovered UAPs, he said: “As I have stated publicly already … biologics came with some of these recoveries.” Pressed on whether these “biologics” were nonhuman, he confirmed without ambiguity: “Nonhuman, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.” Mr. Grusch understands that the penalty for lying under oath is jail, and offered several times during his testimony to confidentially—as required by law—provide specific details to lawmakers.
Up until 2017, the profitable UAP rumor mill was fed mainly by ‘anonymous sources,’ filmed with their faces and voices concealed, and telling vague stories largely impossible to verify independently. Even when one of those anonymous sources eventually identified himself—Mr. Robert Lazar—his credentials and even college education could never be verified. This has changed now: the names and credentials of the individuals mentioned above are not in doubt; they are who they say they are. And their ranks and roles put them in a position to plausibly know what they claim to know. These individuals are willing to testify under oath in public hearings and confidentially provide evidence to members of Congress. All this, while notprovingthat UAPs are of exotic origin, does lend credibility to UAP speculation.
Even the former head of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office of the US Department of Defence—Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, a man widely reviled in the UAP community as a prejudiced gatekeeper working against UAP disclosure—has made very consequential revelations during an official NASA press briefing: there are seemingly metallic spheres out there that, somehow, move and maneuver without any signs of propulsion or flight control surfaces. He proceeded to show a declassified video of one such a sphere, as recorded by an MQ-9 ‘Reaper’ military drone, one of the most sophisticated sensor platforms in the world today. The sphere shown moves fast, in a controlled, non-ballistic trajectory. Dr. Kirkpatrick then stated that this is just “a typical example of the thing we see most of; we see these all over the world.” That the spheres are described as making “very interesting apparent maneuvers” is significant, as it rules out balloons and ordinary drones. That they are seen frequently and all over the world also rules out elaborate, expensive hoaxes.
Prejudiced gatekeeper or not, Dr. Kirkpatrick has thus officially acknowledged that there are concrete UAPs “all over the world,” for which there is no prosaic account thus far. They have been recorded by a variety of military-grade sensors, not just cell phones. That Dr. Kirkpatrick’s revelations have not become headline news in every mainstream media platform across the world is emblematic of the apathy and cynicism—the ‘don’t-look-up syndrome’—that has been assailing Western societies in recent years.
CROSSROADS
As a culture, we’ve thus reached an impasse. On the one hand, the meager amount of data that has been declassified or leaked isn’t enough for us to derive any firm conclusions regarding the nature of the phenomenon. On the other hand, enough has been begrudgingly but officially acknowledged that we can’t dismiss the phenomenon under prosaic accounts either. The best we can do is thus to take the data seriously, but not extrapolate from it without basis.
In this spirit, I submit to you that the following tentative premises are justifiable: firstly, there is an engineered technology in our skies and oceans that is not human. The counterargument to this is, of course, that UAPs may be top-secret but very human military devices, often called ‘black technology.’ Yet, this seems to contradict much of what has been disclosed since 2017. The following passage from the testimony of CDR Fravor to Congress illustrates the point: Representative Ms. Nancy Mace asked, “Many dismiss UAP reports as classified weapons testing by our own government. But in your experience as a pilot does our government typically test advanced weapons systems right next to multimillion-dollar jets without informing our pilots?” To which CDR Fravor responded: “No. We have test ranges for that.”
Moreover, if UAPs such as the metallic spheres were black technology the US Department of Defence were trying to keep secret, it is hard to imagine why Dr. Kirkpatrick—an official of that very department—would publicize their existence and even declassify a video showcasing their size, form, flight capabilities, etc. Also, the fact that UAPs often seem to defy our understanding of physics doesn’t line up with the black-technologies hypothesis, as it would require not only the engineering to be secret, but also the very advancement of the human understanding of physics. This isn’t impossible, but isn’t very plausible either. Finally, it is difficult to imagine why such game-changing black technologies—which would have to have been around for at least as long as the UAP phenomenon itself—were never used in large and conspicuous scales to advance the geopolitical interests of any nation.
Secondly, if there is non-human technology in our skies and oceans, then there must be Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs) active on our planet, engineering and controlling the UAPs. This does not imply that the NHIs are extra-terrestrial; it means simply that they aren’t human.
As implausible as these two premises may sound in this particular historical junction, the data, if taken seriously, does not seem to allow for prosaic alternatives. So whatever hypotheses we entertain, they will perforce stretch our credulity. Indeed, to insist on prosaic explanations we must disregard the data. The latter is not necessarily invalid—it isn’t incoherent to imagine that all the data are the spurious fabrications of some sprawling disinformation campaign stretching over decades—but it certainly doesn’t advance the discussion. It thus seems more productive, at this point, to bite the bullet of what the data suggests—at least hypothetically—and then check whether we can make sense of it in a manner that renders the data less vexing.
Before we can try that, however, we first need to understand the key characteristics of the phenomenon we are trying to account for.
THE HALLMARKS OF THE PHENOMENON
Although the disclosure process is relatively young, having publicly started only in 2017, the phenomenon itself seems to be at least as old as humanity. Ancient mythology, religious and otherwise, contains narratives largely consistent with today’s UAP observations. And serious researchers—the most prominent, competent, and reliable of which, in my view, is French astronomer and computer scientist Dr. Jacques Vallée—have been collecting data on it, applying statistical analyses to such data, and deriving conclusions from such analyses for decades now.
Two key conclusions from Dr. Vallée’s work are particularly pertinent to our challenge here. The first is that, based on countless witness reports, the phenomenon does not seem to make any distinction between physical and psychological effects; it produces both, as if they were mere facets of one and the same causative mechanisms. The boundaries we draw between the mental and the physical don’t seem to be observed by the phenomenon, which transits casually back and forth across the dividing line. Dr. Vallée acknowledges the undeniable physical aspect of the phenomenon—it can be filmed, tracked by radar and other sensors, emits measurable energy, often leaves physical footprints and vestiges behind, etc.—but adds that at least part of what the witnesses experience is “staged”: the UAP sometimes evokes archetypal, symbolic imagery directly in the witness’ mind to convey a feeling-laden metaphorical message, which transcends the objectively measurable characteristics of the phenomenon.
Though Dr. Vallée had already come to this conclusion decades ago, recent investigations into secret US Department of Defence programs on UAPs, by journalist Ross Coulthart, seem to confirm it (see pages 265-267 of Mr. Coulthart’s 2021 book,In Plain Sight). Stanford Professor Dr. Garry Nolan, perhaps the most respectable scientist to actively research the phenomenon, acknowledged Mr. Coulthart’s reporting on the matter. He went on to recount a specific UAP case that illustrates, perhaps better than any other, the UAPs’ ability to directly manipulate human perception: “[this is a] story that Jacques Vallée brought to me, of a family in France, driving down the highway. This was like in the last five or ten years [from June of 2022]. And they had a glass-topped car. They look up and they see a UFO, you know, basically paralleling them down the highway. The mother looks around and sees that no other individuals nearby are freaking out about this thing above them. The children in the back take out their cell phones, take a picture of it. They get home and they look at the pictures on their camera, and they don’t see an object [of the kind they thought they had witnessed]; they see a little star-shaped thing about thirty or so feet above, and I have the picture. That doesn’t look anything like a drone. … I think it has like seven spokes and a central hole of some sort. So, you’re left with this: they saw a giant craft, but the picture shows that it was nothing [like it] there. Nobody else could see it. So, even if it was an object that was there, others weren’t capable of seeing it, so it was manipulating vision” (my emphasis).
behavior of UAPs is not consistent with the extra-terrestrial hypothesis (see chapter 9 of his book, Dimensions). Dr. Vallée estimated that, in a period of just twenty years, there have been about three million UAP landings. This is not consistent with visitations by beings from another planet for the purposes of surveying the Earth or researching its inhabitants (orders of magnitude fewer visits would have sufficed for these purposes); instead, the UAPs’ behavior is precisely what one would expect if they were from here—and were simply going about their business. After all, there are many rare—and some not-so-rare—animal and plant species that human beings encounter a lot less frequently than 150.000 times per year, and they are undeniably terrestrial. In his interview with Mr. Coulthart, also Dr. Nolan expressed the view that UAPs are not extra-terrestrial.
TWO DISTINCT PHENOMENA?
Although the two characteristics discussed above generally apply to most of what we colloquially label ‘UAP,’ ‘UFO,’ or ‘alien’ encounters, there are reasons to entertain the possibility that we are dealing with at least two distinct phenomena here. If so, it is crucial that we do not conflate the two, otherwise, any viable account of one phenomenon may be discarded merely because it is not suitable for—or even contradicts—the other, leading to an insoluble impasse.
One clearly discernible class of observations, which I shall henceforth refer to as ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs, entails physical craft that can not only consistently be seen, filmed, and tracked by radar, but also—if we are to believe Mr. Grusch’s informants and other sources in a position to plausibly know—stored in hangars for decades, drilled into, analyzed under a scanning electron microscope, etc. The bodies of their occupants can also—again, if we are to believe the sources—be kept in freezers and harvested for biochemical analysis. This means that the phenomenon in question has a physical aspect as consistent and stable as our own body and the car in our garage. Moreover, these ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs are more frequently observed in the proximity of military exercises and installations, particularly nuclear installations (this has been the case for decades, the recent Pentagon UFO videos simply reiterating the pattern). They don’t seem to be interested in teaching us anything, but simply in monitoring human activity that could lead to large-scale destruction and compromise the planet’s habitability (incidentally, this is exactly what one would expect if the NHI in question is terrestrial).
Unlike the above, another class of observations entails encounters in one’s bedroom, at school, during one’s commute back from work, and other ordinary, random situations unrelated to military activity. These are the so-called ‘high strangeness’ events, encompassing the ‘alien contactee’ and ‘alien abduction’ cases. The craft and beings observed don’t have a consistent physical aspect but are, instead, elusive, appearing and disappearing, taking on an absurd variety of incongruous forms and behaviors. They leave either none or scarce, ambiguous physical traces, such as spontaneous nose bleeds, ordinary cysts found in places where the witness claims to have been implanted with alien technology, marks on the ground consistent with a variety of causes, and so on. This ambiguous physical evidence is better described as synchronistic—i.e., coincidental in a meaningful way—as opposed to causal. The observations are elusive, illogical, and shapeshifting like a dream. They seem focused on a form of deliberate, symbolic communication with the witness, aimed at conveying a teaching of some kind, as opposed to arising from chance encounters. Like a vision, they can’t be photographed.
I am not dismissive of this ‘high strangeness’ class of observations. As a matter of fact, I have written an entire book—Meaning in Absurdity—in which I try to account for it. I believe these visions are real as such; they are part of a natural feedback mechanism intrinsic to the human mind, which seeks to dislodge it from ossified worldviews that, despite having become stable, no longer serve the advancement of our understanding of ourselves and nature. The visions in question emerge from collective, phylogenetically ancient layers of the human mind shared by all of us, which, for being incapable of language and conceptual reasoning, communicate to the executive ego through dream-like, immersive metaphors. They should be taken seriously, just not literally.
But I do not think that the ‘high strangeness’ phenomenon is the same as the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs. Conflating the two, in my opinion, may make it impossible to account for either, as no one account will be consistent with the sometimes mutually contradictory characteristics of both. For this reason, and because I have explored the ‘high strangeness’ phenomenon in previous work, I shall henceforth exclusively discuss the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon.
IF TERRESTRIAL BUT NOT HUMAN, THEN WHO?
The idea that the intelligence behind the UAPs is terrestrial and ancient is itself not new. Dr. Hal Puthoff calls it the “ultra-terrestrial” hypothesis. He raises the possibility that remnants of a pre-Diluvial high-tech human civilization—think of the Atlantis myth—may have survived at the end of the last ice age and remain active today, though discreet in their activities.
The problem with this hypothesis is that any truly high-tech civilization—unless it has moved underground very early, which may not be plausible due to difficulties related to the space required for industrial and logistical infrastructure, difficulties with waste management and pollution, etc.—leaves vast and long-lasting footprints on the terrain and environment, such as mining holes, landfills, urban infrastructure, artificial pollutants such as microplastics, etc. These footprints, though degraded, would have remained conspicuous enough over the period of only several thousand years since the last ice age. Yet, we find no such traces predating our own civilization.
Because high technology development requires—at least at first—extensive industrial infrastructure, any ancient civilization capable of technology as advanced as that in UAPs will almost inevitably have had to go through steps of industrialization and resource extraction analogous to ours, and then some. It will have had to go through phases of urbanization, mining of metals and burning of hydrocarbons, the construction of vast industrial parks, logistical/transport infrastructure, and so on. If the intelligence behind UAPs is terrestrial, it will thus need to be ancient enough for the associated footprints to have been almost completely erased by natural weather and geological processes. Yet, it will also need to be recent enough to already have had access to fossil hydrocarbons to fuel the early stages of its industrialization process. Are these seemingly conflicting constraints reconcilable?
They are, as per the so-called “Silurian Hypothesis” first proposed by Gavin Schmidt and Adam Frank in a 2018 paper on the International Journal of Astrobiology. The idea is as follows: our planet has existed for about 4.5 billion years, with life on it for about 4 billion years. The genus Homo, to which we belong, has been around for less than 3 million of those 4 billion years; the blink of an eye in geological terms. And modern humans—Homo sapiens—for just 2 or 3 hundred thousand years. There is, thus, plenty of time and opportunity for other non-human species to have arisen on Earth, developed to a level of technology far beyond ours (imagine where our own science and technology will be in a mere thousand more years, if we don’t kill ourselves before that), and then to have effectively vanished due to one or more of the myriad possible civilisation-ending cataclysms that could end our own (climate change/collapse, comet/asteroid impact, pandemics, solar storms, thermonuclear war, etc.).
Any sign of abandoned urban and industrial infrastructure is unlikely to survive a period of only a few million years, due to weather erosion. Synthesized chemicals, alloys and other compounds, technological artifacts, as well as terrain signatures such as mining holes, are ultimately unlikely to survive the constant recycling of the Earth’s crust through plate tectonics. What is now the Earth’s crust will eventually sink into the molten asthenosphere and mantel beneath, where it will be reforged, just to eventually re-emerge through volcanic activity as a brand-new crust. As a rough estimate, if we assume an average plate movement of a few centimeters per year, it could take only tens of millions of years for large swathes of the Earth’s crust—especially the ocean crust but, to a more limited degree, also the continental crust—to be recycled in this manner. No conspicuous remnants of an ancient, technological, nonhuman civilization would likely survive all this.
The question now is, when were fossil hydrocarbons first available in large enough quantities to fuel the initial growth of an ancient industrial civilization? Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Frank estimate that this was already the case in the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago, which leaves us with a window of hundreds of millions of years for industrial NHIs—multiple different ones—to have developed on Earth.
Notice that my claim here is not that it is likely that high-tech nonhuman civilizations have emerged on Earth before us; I cannot evaluate the probabilities involved. My claim is that, based on what we know, such civilizations are not impossible or inconsistent with the geological record. On the contrary: as Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Frank point out, the record shows several periods of global warming consistent with large-scale industrialization.
Now, since we cannot visit an NHI city today, it is necessarily the case that, if such ancient terrestrial civilizations ever existed, they have largely died out—at least as far as the surface of the planet is concerned. This, however, is not implausible: as we know from our own case, civilizations can start, reach high-tech levels, and then be annihilated in a mere few thousand years. Indeed, although our civilization is still going, we are painfully aware of how easily and quickly it can be brought to a swift end tomorrow, in a thermonuclear war, asteroid impact, climate collapse, or a more deadly pandemic than the one we have just survived, etc.
Yet, it is unlikely that all members of our species would die in a planetary catastrophe. There is a good chance that few but enough of us would survive in shelters and preserve a minimum level of knowledge to keep some of our technology going, especially if we get some advance notice of the impending doom. In as little as a decade or two from now, for instance, we will likely have mastered the technology of small-scale, portable, clean nuclear reactors that can be buried in a backyard (or a cave) and provide effectively unlimited energy. Portable 3D printing technology is reducing our reliance on centralized, large-scale manufacturing facilities. Our computers, which were once the size of buildings, now live in our pockets. If we extrapolate these trends for another mere century or two, it is reasonable to imagine that technological miniaturization and portability will allow our civilization to survive at a reduced scale in, for instance, underground shelters. It is thus not unreasonable to imagine, purely speculatively, that the same could have been the case for ancient NHIs hypothetically behind today’s UAPs.
Any culture once exposed to the magnitude of a planetary catastrophe will have a historical trauma transmitted down the generations through myth and storytelling, similarly to—but much more acutely than—how flood stories have survived since the end of the last ice age. Such a culture will be wary of the planet’s surface, for the latter is a notoriously exposed and volatile region: it undergoes far more extreme temperature swings than, say, the deep oceans and underground caves; it is prone to severe weather that can ruin crops and flood entire cities; it is exposed to irradiation from solar storms and other cosmic events, which can ruin technology and life; it is extremely vulnerable to comet and asteroid impact, as the dinosaurs found out; etc. And since such a post-apocalyptic culture would have been reduced to relatively few members, their requirements for living space would also be relatively modest. Depending on the surviving level of their technology, they could have made a home for themselves underwater or underground. A few generations of (directed) adaption—genetic and cultural—to such an environment would render the planet’s surface perhaps as alien and inhospitable to them as the Mariana Trench is to us. They would be okay with allowing the monkeys to run amok on top of the roof (provided that the monkeys don’t start a thermonuclear war and compromise the entire house), but would rather stay safely indoors.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WEIRD MIND MANIPULATION STUFF?
Science fiction has inculcated in our culture the notion that communication with another, completely different species is a matter of translation or word-swapping; something akin to what we do to convert Chinese text into English. Indeed, we now have a completely manufactured sense of the plausibility of such an idea. But it is naïve.
Ordinary translation presupposes two important things: a shared cognitive structure (templates of thinking) and shared empirical references. The latter is easy to see: if both you and I have already had the experience of seeing and driving a car, then to understand each other we just need to learn what word the other uses to denote that experience. However, things are more subtle when it comes to shared cognitive structures, as they operate based on abstractions, not direct empirical experiences. For instance, think of the concept of ‘flow’: it can be used to denote a concrete empirical experience, such as watching a river flow. But it is also used in much more abstract ways: we say that ‘time flows’ even though we can’t see time, let alone its flow; we speak of the ‘flow of ideas’; we say that ‘we are in the flow’; and so on. ‘Flow’ is an abstraction that refers to sequential, somewhat ordered changes of state, something entirely bound to our human mode of cognition. To understand ‘flow’ one needs to share the basic cognitive templates that gave rise to the concept in us to begin with. Without these shared templates, it is impossible to merely translate the word.
All humans share these basic cognitive templates by the mere fact of being members of the same species. In other words, we think alike because we are alike. Some linguists—such as Noam Chomsky—go as far as to say that the basic structure of all human languages, which he refers to as the ‘Universal Grammar,’ is biologically encoded in the human cognitive system. Although Chomsky’s opponents argue that language is merely invented and shared by convention, it is still necessarily the case that the underlying foundations of whatever is invented reflect cognitive modalities the inventor shares with all other members of their species. It is this commonality that enables what we call ‘translation’ across human languages, and we tend to take it entirely for granted.
But NHIs, by definition, don’t share such commonality with us. After all, they belong to a different species. Their cognition will almost certainly unfold with vastly different patterns and modalities. Even their logic may bear little resemblance to our own Aristotelian axioms. Moreover, their cultural context is bound to be entirely different from ours, leading to different empirical references: originally, they may not have had a cognitive category for, say, ‘car’ or understand the concept of a wheeled vehicle (for instance, if they are an aquatic species). It is naïve to expect that NHIs could learn our language as easily as a Chinese person can learn English. The underlying cognitive structures and references won’t line up; why should they?
Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that we and NHIs can never communicate. What it does mean is that achieving this feat will require an effort to enter each other’s cognitive inner space—literally. In other words, before they could communicate with us, they would have to gain direct access to, and manipulate, our abstract mental processes. This is not something that can be casually achieved in the way I can pick up Italian during a holiday.
To really appreciate the difficulties we have to go beyond whales—close relatives of ours—and imagine that, say, praying mantises—ancient insects much less related to us than whales—would have some form of language, and that we would try to communicate with them. Now we’re getting closer to the mark, for the cognitive templates and inner logic of insectoids are bound to be very largely incommensurable with ours. The challenge here is not mere translation; to speak ‘Insectoidish’ one would have to enter the cognitive space of insectoids—i.e., enter their mind.
Intellectual-level communication between more advanced terrestrial NHIs and us will require direct access to our cognitive processes. They will have to directly modulate our own abstract references and modes. In other words, they will have to convey their ideas to us by prompting our own mind to articulate those ideas to itself, using its own conceptual dictionary and grammatical structures. And because their message—a product of their own cognition, incommensurable with ours—is bound to not adequately line up with our grammar and conceptual menu, this articulation will perforce have to be symbolic, metaphorical; it will have to point to the intended meaning, as opposed to embodying the intended meaning directly, or literally.
There is plenty of clinical precedence for this in the literature of depth psychology. Analytical Psychology, for instance, maintains that the deeper, evolutionarily ancient, instinctive layer of our mind, for not having the language capabilities of the executive ego, speaks to us in dreams and visions through symbols, and metaphors. It can’t tell us in English, for instance, that time is flowing while we procrastinate, prompting us to act. So it may, instead, trigger and modulate a dream in which we, say, accidentally drop our backpack in a fast-flowing river and watch helplessly as it floats away. If the deeper layer of our mind, for being phylogenetically primitive, is incapable of articulating the conceptual abstractions ‘time,’ ‘flow,’ and ‘procrastination,’ it can still point symbolically to its intended meaning; it can still confront us with imagery that evokes the same underlying feeling—a sense of urgency—that would have been evoked by the statement, “time is flowing while you procrastinate.” This is what intellectual-level communication looks like when the interlocutors do not have commensurable cognitive structures. And this is how we may expect NHIs to communicate with us, if they have the technology required to reach directly into our minds and manipulate our cognitive inner space.
Notice the similarity between this and the ‘high strangeness’ class of observations: both entail symbolic communication by means of direct manipulation of our inner cognition. In the latter case, the communication is between deeper and shallower—primitive and modern, respectively—layers of our mind, taking place naturally and spontaneously. In the former case, the communication—likely mediated by technology—is between an NHI and a human, taking place in an artificial and deliberate manner. But both are metaphorical, akin to dreams and visions. This similarity is part of the reason why we feel tempted to conflate the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ and ‘high strangeness’ classes of observations.
In conclusion, I submit the hypothesis that, when UAPs manipulate our perceptions during an encounter, they are, in fact, attempting to communicate in the only way they can. Analogously, if you are hiking on a remote trail and come across a wild bear—another terrestrial species with a cognitive structure different from ours, which we encounter by chance as they go about their business in their own habitat—the bear, too, will communicate with you in the only way it can: through meaning-evoking body posture and sounds; and you will even understand it. The difference is that UAPs are better, more nuanced, and more sophisticated at the task.
HOW CAN WE CONFIRM THIS HYPOTHESIS?
For every useful, truly scientific hypothesis, there must be an experiment or a passive observation under controlled conditions that can either confirm or contradict it. As we’ve seen in the foregoing, the hypothesis in question is that the NHI—or NHIs—behind the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon is(are) ancient but terrestrial. We’ve discussed the characteristics of the phenomenon that motivated the hypothesis to begin with: (a) the frequency of UAP encounters, which suggests that they are from here and we meet them as they go about their business, just as we meet a bear in a trail; and (b) their interest in human activities that may jeopardize the habitability of this planet, such as nuclear installations and military exercises. But these characteristics aren’t conclusive. So just what could be conclusive?
If it is true, as Mr. Grusch claimed in his testimony to Congress in July 2023, that the US government has “biologics”—that is, the bodies of crashed UAP pilots—then a biochemical analysis of these biologics, if not conclusive, would at least be very indicative of whether they are terrestrial or not.
All terrestrial life we have studied in detail thus far, despite their drastic morphological differences—think of the differences between an amoeba, a praying mantis, and a cat—share the exact same biochemistry: they have two-stranded DNA with sugar-phosphate backbones and four nucleobasis (cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine) that form two possible base-pair configurations. Despite their extreme morphological differences, all terrestrial life thus looks the same when observed ‘under a microscope with sufficient magnification,’ so to speak.
Yet, the functions performed by this very specific biochemistry are multiple-realizable: there are many other conceivable ways in which these functions could be performed based on different biochemistry. The fact that all life we’ve studied thus far shares such specific biochemistry means simply that we all have a common ancestor dating back to an abiogenesis event: the rise of life from non-life. That event has defined the biochemistry we have all inherited. But it could just as well have been quite different; there is no a priori reason why biochemistry must be the way it is in us.
Indeed, a different event of abiogenesis—there is no a priori reason why life must have arisen from non-life only once on Earth either—could have set a different biochemistry; one still capable of storing the organism’s body plan, of constructing the organism’s building blocks (proteins, in our case), of metabolizing, and of passing the organism’s body-plan to the next generation via reproduction; yet one different from ours. This is acknowledged in biology in the hypothesis of a “shadow biosphere”: there may, in fact, be organisms on Earth with biochemistry different from ours, because they may be descendants from a different abiogenesis event; we haven’t detected them yet because we haven’t done a detailed biochemical analysis of most organisms on the planet.
If even terrestrial organisms, which arose and evolved on this very planet, could have biochemistry distinct from ours, it stands to reason that organisms evolved on another planet, with different environmental conditions and chemical composition, are very unlikely to have the exact same biochemistry we do. That would require an implausible coincidence of literally cosmic proportions, even under the assumption of convergent evolution at the level of the phenotype (i.e., body form).
Therefore, if the biologics in the freezers of the powers-that-be have the same biochemistry we do, I believe it is safe to assume that they are terrestrial; they are our older cousins—likely forever traumatized by earlier planetary cataclysms—and certainly not aliens.
Another prediction of the ‘ultra-terrestrial’ hypothesis is this: the materials—say, the metals—used in the UAP craft should have isotope ratios compatible with an earthly origin, as opposed to one outside the solar system. If the powers-that-be are in possession of such craft, this shouldn’t be a difficult test to perform.
Together, the two test results suggested above, if mutually consistent, should be conclusive.
CONCLUSIONS
The hypothesis I put forward is that, if the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon and the Non-Human Intelligence(s) behind it are real, they are unlikely to be extra-terrestrial. Instead, they may consist of remnants of industrial, technological NHIs that evolved on Earth up to 350 million years ago. We cannot find conspicuous archaeological or geological footprints of such civilizations because, according to the so-called ‘Silurian Hypothesis,’ not only weather erosion but also the regular recycling of the Earth’s crust through plate tectonics, erase them. The anthropocentric notion that nothing intelligent has arisen on our planet in the billions of years for which no conspicuous evidence would have remained on the geological record is unjustified. There has been plenty of time and opportunity for many technological, industrial, but non-human civilizations to have arisen and disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
Though I understand that many may consider this hypothesis disturbing at some level, it does not require anything fundamentally beyond natural processes we know to exist: we know that intelligent life can arise on this planet, given its environmental conditions; we know that industrial civilizations can arise, develop, and go extinct in a period no longer than a few thousand years, which is the blink of an eye at a geological scale; we know that our own technology today would have looked like magic to the Great Goethe, only 200 years ago; we know that intelligent species that evolved the ability to act according to an abstract ethical code can operate under a policy of non-interference towards less evolved life (just think of human wildlife researchers); and so on. The present hypothesis requires nothing more than the foregoing. As such, there is nothing unnatural or truly extraordinary about it. If it violates our sensitivities, then this informs us about our sensitivities, not about the plausibility of the hypothesis in a naturalist framework.
Notice, however, that the hypothesis proposed here presupposes the UAP data disclosed thus far to be authentic, and not the result of a sprawling disinformation campaign. In the latter case, the key motivations and empirical ground for the speculations in this essay would be void, and the hypothesis should be disregarded in its entirety.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to Dr. Hal Puthoff, Dr. Garry Nolan, Rob van der Werf, and Paul Stuyvenberg for the generous feedback provided on earlier drafts of this essay.
Bernardo Kastrup is a Dutch philosopher, computer scientist, and the executive director of the Essentia Foundation. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another in computer engineering, and has worked as a scientist in some of the world’s foremost scientific laboratories. His main interests are metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He lives in Veldhoven, Netherlands. This essay originally appeared on Kastrup’s personal website.
Historic color photos of Uranus and Neptune are actually the wrong colors, and a recent study used new data and a lot of math to set the record straight.
In Voyager 2’s full-color photos of the ice giants, Uranus looks pale blue, while Neptune has a deeper, more vivid shade. That’s because Voyager 2’s cameras actually photographed each planet several times, each in a single color, and NASA teams here on Earth combined those single-color shots into the multi-hued composite images we see today. In the process, they enhanced the images to make certain features, like Neptune’s bands of clouds, stand out more. As useful as that was for planetary scientists, it also skewed our perception of what these two long-neglected worlds actually look like.
“Even though the artificially saturated color was known at the time among planetary scientists – and the images were released with captions explaining it — that distinction had come lost over time,” says Irwin in a recent statement to the press.
Irwin and his colleagues used data from Hubble and the VLT to correct the images — a little like space-age art restoration — and solve a decades-old mystery about why Uranus changes colors (stop laughing). They published their work in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
This figure shows the original Voyager 2 images, with Neptune in deep, high-contrast blue, and the actual appearance of the two ice giants.
PATRICK IRWIN
ICE GIANTS SHOW THEIR TRUE COLORS AT LAST
Irwin and his colleagues used data from a spectrograph (an instrument that splits light into the individual wavelengths that make it up) on the Hubble Space Telescope and one on the evocatively-named Very Large Telescope, perched on a mountaintop in Chile. The spectrograph data basically provided a list of which specific wavelengths, or colors, were present in every pixel of their images of Uranus and Neptune. By comparing that data to the [date] Voyager 2 images of the ice giants, the team managed to rebalance the historic images, creating versions that show the planets in more realistic colors.
The two worlds turn out to be close to the same color: a light greenish blue. Neptune has a slightly bluer tint thanks to a thinner layer of haze in its upper atmosphere, but not nearly as blue as it looks in the composite images from Voyager 2.
“Although the familiar Voyager 2 images of Uranus were published in a form closer to ‘true’ color, those of Neptune were, in fact, stretched and enhanced, and therefore made artificially too blue,” says Irwin.
When NASA crews processed the Voyager 2 data, they turned the contrast on Neptune’s image all the way up to make bands of clouds and storms easier to see. That’s a bit like turning up the contrast in a video game so you can see better in weird lighting; you spot details you might otherwise have missed, but you’re not seeing anything in its “true” color. In Neptune’s case, turning up the contrast also turned our image of the planet a deep, vivid blue. It’s a very pretty blue, but it’s not what Neptune would really look like if you were peering out the window of a passing spaceship.
WHY DOES URANUS TURN GREEN?
In the process of working out what color the ice giants actually were, Irwin and his colleagues also solved a decades-long mystery about Uranus. They now know why Uranus sometimes turns green (seriously, stop laughing; we mean it).
Earth’s axis is tilted at about a 23-degree angle, which is why we have seasons. Uranus, on the other hand, is at closer to a 90-degree angle; it’s basically lying on its side while it spins. The planet's 98-degree axial tilt means that each pole points directly at the Sun during its summer solstice and directly away from the Sun during its winter solstice (instead of just sort of leaning one way or the other, as our relatively well-behaved planet does).
At each solstice, Uranus looks greener than it does during the rest of its 84-Earth-year-long Uranian year. And for decades, planetary scientists have been trying to work out why.
Irwin and his colleagues noticed that, based on the spectra from Hubble and the VLT, there’s less methane in Uranus’s atmosphere at the poles than near the equator. But what methane is floating around at Uranus’s poles tends to be ice crystals, drifting in a chilly (and smelly) haze in the upper atmosphere. And those ice crystals reflect a lot of light, which accounts for the seasonal color change.
Methane absorbs red light and reflects blue-green light. So for the parts of the long Uranian year when one pole, swathed in sparkly methane ice clouds, is pointed at the Sun, the whole planet seems to sparkle with greenish reflected light.
And that’s why Uranus turns green (and smells like farts)
Zijn mythen gewoon fantasieverhalen? Mensen hebben een grote verbeeldingskracht. Toch ontstaan verhalen, mythen en legendes niet altijd simpelweg uit de creativiteit van een bevoorrechte geest.
Wat als het waar is? In het geval van oude legendes en mythen is het mogelijk dat de verbeelding met de werkelijkheid speelde. Fenomenen en gebeurtenissen die destijds niet zo gemakkelijk te verklaren waren, werden anders geïnterpreteerd. Laten we samen uitzoeken wat de wetenschappelijke en historische basis is achter enkele (zeer bijzondere) legendes uit de oudheid.
De zondvloed Niet alleen in de Bijbel, maar ook in tal van andere mythische tradities in het Oosten en de klassieke wereld, waren er verhalen over een vreselijke storm die de aarde 40 dagen lang hevig deed schudden.
Hoe verklaart de wetenschap het? Dit verhaal is het onderwerp geweest van verschillende hypothesen. De meest erkende is dat het verwijst naar een overstroming die in 5000 voor Christus het gebied trof dat overeenkomt met de huidige Zwarte Zee.
De ark van Noach De zondvloed, volgens de bijbelse traditie, werd door God gestuurd om mensen te straffen. Slechts één van hen kon worden gespaard, Noach. Dankzij Gods wil, bouwde hij een groot schip waarin hij een mannetje en een vrouwtje van alle levende dieren verzamelde. Die zouden de planeet opnieuw bevolken zodra de vloed voorbij was.
Wat zit er achter dit verhaal? Mensen gaven zichzelf in die tijd verklaringen voor dingen die ze nog niet konden begrijpen. Bijvoorbeeld voor de ontdekking van visfossielen op hoge bergtoppen. In de oudheid kon dit alleen maar het werk van een god zijn geweest. Wie weet kwamen mensen daarom met het verhaal van Noach op de proppen? Nu weten we echter dat het vinden dan visfossielen op bergtoppen het resultaat is van aardplaten tektoniek.
De Chimaera De Ilias is een epos dat wordt toegeschreven aan de Griekse dichter Homerus. Hierin werd ook de de mythe van de Chimaera vereeuwigt. Een vuurspuwend monster met een slangenstaart en een leeuwenkop. Het monster werd verantwoordelijk gehouden voor de periodieke verwoesting van de kusten van het huidige Turkije.
De realiteit die waarschijnlijk op deze mythe is geïnspireerd Achter de mythe van een vuurspuwend monster, kunnen volgens sommige geleerden de eeuwige vuren schuilgaan die vandaag de dag nog steeds te zien zijn op de berg Chimera in Turkije. De vuren worden aangedreven door methaangas dat uit de rotsen gutst vlakbij de archeologische opgravingen van Yanartaş. Hoogstwaarschijnlijk werden de vuren in de oudheid door zeelieden gebruikt als oriëntatiepunt. Als ze dit vanaf hun boten zagen, zou dit hebben bijgedragen aan het ontstaan van de mythe.
Orakel van Delphi Pythia was de priesteres die verantwoordelijk was voor het reciteren van de antwoorden van het orakel van Delphi. Ze kon dit alleen doen toen ze een staat van mystieke extase bereikte. Dit werd veroorzaakt door de dampen die uit een rots ontsnapten, althans dit is wat de Griekse historicus en filosoof Plutarchus ons vertelt.
De meest erkende hypothese over de oorsprong van de 'zoete dampen' De 'zoete dampen' die Plutarchus noemde, zijn het onderwerp geweest van talrijke studies en verhitte debatten. Wat bekend is, is dat de tempel gewijd aan Apollo in Delphi zich in een actief seismisch gebied bevindt. Er zijn twee breuklijnen onder gevonden. De meest erkende hypothese is dat een aardbeving langs de breuklijn de gassen veroorzaakte waarnaar de Griekse auteur verwijst.
Maar wat voor gas? Wat voor soort gas het was en of het hallucinogene eigenschappen had, daar zijn wetenschappers het niet over eens. Degenen die de aardbevingshypothese ondersteunen, geloven dat deze gassen de gassen waren die normaal in deze gevallen worden uitgestoten, zoals koolstofdioxide en zwavelzuur. Andere wetenschappers spreken van een mix van methaan en ethyleen.
De mythe van Atlantis Volgens de mythe, 'achter de Zuilen van Hercules' (die voor de Grieken het einde van de wereld vertegenwoordigden) werd een legendarisch eiland bewoond door zeer machtige halfgoden: Atlantis. Het einde van dit koninkrijk zou echter op één dag komen. Het zou vernietigd worden door een catastrofe nadat het tevergeefs had geprobeerd de stad Athene binnen te vallen.
Wat zou de inspiratie zijn voor deze legende? Velen zijn het erover eens dat dit verhaal geboren zou kunnen zijn na de uitbarsting van een vulkaan, Thera, in het gebied waar Santorini tegenwoordig staat.
Van Griekenland naar Hawaï Volgens de mythe werd de Kilauea-vulkaan bewoond door de vuurgodin Pele. Een onstuimige, opvliegende en wraakzuchtige godheid. Wraak zou het motief zijn geweest voor een van haar meest extreme acties: een heel bos in brand steken en een man in de vulkaan gooien, omdat hij niet voor haar koos, maar haar zus. De zus van de godin Pele was wanhopig en groef onvermoeibaar in de vulkaan om haar geliefde te vinden terwijl ze de lucht vulde met vonken en vulkaansteentjes.
De gevolgen van de uitbarsting van Thera Deze natuurramp, die ongeveer 3500 jaar geleden plaatsvond, was verantwoordelijk voor de ineenstorting van een deel van het eiland. Het veroorzaakte verschrikkelijke tsunami's en een gaswolk die hoogstwaarschijnlijk leidde tot het verval van de Minoïsche beschaving van het nabijgelegen Kreta.
Uitleg De historische hypothese en het ontstaan van deze oude 'soapserie' verwijst naar de eindeloze uitbarsting in de 15e eeuw. Uiteindelijk werd 430 vierkante kilometer bos op het eiland getroffen en duurde het 60 jaar. Het wanhopige graven van Pele's zus zou de verklaring zijn die mensen zichzelf gaven over de vorming van de Kilauea-caldera vulkaan.
Namazu, de aardbevingsmeerval Een populaire Japanse legende betreft een gigantische meerval genaamd Namazu. Hij ligt verborgen onder de oppervlakte van Japan. Vastgehouden door de god Kashima, dankzij een gigantische steen op zijn kop. De gewelddadige aardbevingen die Japan doen schudden, zouden plaatsvinden wanneer, Namazu fladdert en zijn vinnen schudt als hij wil ontsnappen aan de controle van Kashima.
Wat is de wetenschappelijke basis van de legende? Het is bekend dat Japan op de verbindingslijn van verschillende tektonische platen ligt. Het land heeft talrijke vulkanen en wordt doorkruist door breuklijnen met een hoge mate van seismische activiteit. De meerval zou, volgens de populaire traditie, een dier zijn dat in staat is aardbevingen te voorspellen. Al deze oorzaken hebben hoogstwaarschijnlijk geleid tot het ontstaan van de legende.
Het meer dat doodt Een Kameroenese legende zegt dat, tijdens een tijdperk waar veel mensen het land verlieten, de mensen van de Bamessi besloten om andere mensen te verwelkomen. Mensen van de Kom, een andere stam die ze voor een periode bij hen lieten wonen. De mensen van de Kom waren echter te vruchtbaar. Na verloop van tijd waren er te veel. Daarom overtuigde de koning van de Bamessi zijn volk ervan dat ze een bedreiging vormden. Ze smeedden een complot om alle mannetjes van de Kom te doden.
De wraak van de koning en de betovering Uit wraak zei de leider van de Kom tegen zijn zus dat hij zelfmoord zou plegen. Zijn bloed zou een meer vol vissen vormen. Hij waarschuwde dat de mensen van de Kom daar uit de buurt moesten blijven. De mensen van de Kom verlieten het land. Het meer bleef bij de Bamessi. Op de visdag explodeerde het meer en doodde de mensen die in de buurt waren.
Het is echt gebeurd Op 21 augustus 1986 werden meer dan 1.700 mensen en 3.500 dieren gedood in de buurt van het vulkanische meer Nyos. Dit als gevolg van de uitdijing van een dodelijke wolk van kooldioxide. De vulkaan waar het meer in ligt, is een slapende vulkaan. Het is waarschijnlijk dat onder normale omstandigheden het water de CO2 afremt, maar onder specifieke omstandigheden stijgt het gas bij het bereiken van een kritiek punt. Dan verspreid het zich in de vorm van een enorme wolk van giftig gas. Of nu eerst de mythe werd geboren en het daarna realiteit werd? We zullen het nooit weten.
Kratermeer in Oregon (VS) Een andere legende over een meer is die van Crater Lake. Een vulkanisch meer gelegen in de caldera van Mount Mazama. Volgens de mythe zou dit het toneel zijn geweest van een bloedige strijd tussen de god van de onderwereld, Llao, en die van de lucht, Skell. Het gevecht tussen de twee goden zou, na aanvallen met stenen en vlammen, geëindigd zijn met het instorten van de vulkaan en de val van Llao. Dankzij de daaropvolgende regens zou het huidige meer zijn gevormd.
De realiteit Als we de strijd tussen de goden buiten beschouwing laten, wordt in de legende herhaalt wat er bijna 8000 jaar geleden gebeurde: er was een angstaanjagende vulkaanuitbarsting, de krater van de vulkaan stortte in en de regen vulde het bassin.
De legende van Rapuanate Volgens een legende op de Salomonseilanden werd een jongeman genaamd Rapuanate smoorverliefd op een vrouw van het eiland Teonimanu. Helaas werd zijn broer ook verliefd op haar en koos ze voor hem. Om wraak te nemen, stortte Rapuanate het land van zijn geliefde met een spreuk in zee
Historische waarheden Het was een aardbeving die het eiland Teonimanu deed zinken. Het is een van de vele verzonken eilanden in dit deel van de Stille Oceaan. Door de aardbeving zou het eiland in de oceanische diepte van de Filipijnen zijn verdwenen. Toch is het verhaal van de familie-soap misschien interessanter om door te geven.
EXCLUSIVE: Marine vet breaks 14-year silence to make astonishing claim that his six-man unit saw a hovering octagonal UFO being loaded with WEAPONS by unmarked US forces who threatened them at gunpoint while serving in Indonesia in 2009
EXCLUSIVE: Marine vet breaks 14-year silence to make astonishing claim that his six-man unit saw a hovering octagonal UFO being loaded with WEAPONS by unmarked US forces who threatened them at gunpoint while serving in Indonesia in 2009
Former Marine Michael Herrera tells DailyMail.com that he saw a UFO being loaded with weapons while serving in Indonesia in 2009
Herrera claims an Air Force lieutenant colonel told him, 'You're not allowed to talk about what happened. You will go to prison, or you will die'
He says he was emboldened to break his 14-year silence by new UFO whistleblower protections and in April testified under oath about his wild story
A former Marine claims he and five comrades saw a flying saucer being loaded with weapons while serving in Indonesia in 2009 – and was threatened at gunpoint by unmarked US forces at the scene.
The wild story comes after an Air Force whistleblower from the government's UFO office joined growing numbers of intelligence officials claiming the US has recovered and is even reverse-engineering crashed or landed 'non-human' spacecraft.
Michael Herrera was a 20-year-old rifleman sent on a Navy humanitarian mission during the 2009 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, he claims that while guarding an airdrop of aid supplies outside the city of Padang in October that year, his six-man unit stumbled across a hovering octagonal craft in apparent use by clandestine US forces.
Former Marine Michael Herrera tells DailyMail.com that he saw a UFO being loaded with weapons while serving in Indonesia in 2009. He was just 20 at the time
'The craft was rotating in a clockwise motion while changing colors. It had an audible hum to it, like the sound of a transformer or a guitar amp. It was an octagonal shape with a pyramid at the top of it that was black,' Herrera said
After 14 years of silence, Herrera was emboldened by new UFO whistleblower protections and in April testified under oath to the government's UFO investigation team, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), as well as a Senate committee.
He provided his unblemished four-year service record, and texts about the incident with an alleged fellow witness – who refused to talk, saying it was 'not worth my life or jeopardizing my family'.
Peripheral aspects of his account were verified by DailyMail.com using military sources. But Herrera, 33, does not have documentation or photos of the incident itself.
Herrera says he was emboldened to break his 14-year silence by new UFO whistleblower protections and in April testified under oath about his wild story
The Denver native joined the Marines fresh out of high school. He had been serving for less than two years when he was deployed to the Philippines as a member of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to help distribute aid in the wake of a typhoon.
When a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Sumatra on September 30, 2009, his 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, Echo Co. 2nd Platoon was rerouted to help guard helicopter aid drops around Padang City, beset by violence from local insurgents.
Around October 8 he and five marines were dropped off at a clearing in the north eastern part of the city by a CH-53 chopper, and hiked 900ft up a ridge to take their positions for the incoming supply drop, Herrera said.
It was then he spotted a strange object in the jungle on the other side of the hill.
'I could see something moving and rotating. It was changing colors between a very light matte gray to a very dark matte black,' he said. 'It stuck out like a sore thumb.'
Oddly, he said, they had not been given radios, so instead of calling it in they edged down the hill in formation to investigate, while Herrera snapped photos and video on his Panasonic camera.
'The thing was massive, the size of a football field,' Herrera told DailyMail.com.
'The craft was rotating in a clockwise motion while changing colors. It had an audible hum to it, like the sound of a transformer or a guitar amp. It was an octagonal shape with a pyramid at the top of it that was black.
'It had 'scales' that were on the outside of the craft that covered the whole craft. It had seams and sharp edges which I suspect to be man-made. Nothing on it was smooth. It had some panels on the vertical edges that were like Vantablack.'
He claims that his six-man unit stumbled across a hovering octagonal craft and they were threatened at gunpoint by unmarked US forces at the scene. A rendering of the scene is above
Herrera claims an Air Force lieutenant colonel told him, 'You're not allowed to talk about what happened. You will go to prison, or you will die'
An aerial view of the damage from a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck Sumatra, Indonesia, on September 30, 2009,. Herrera's unit was rerouted to help guard helicopter aid drops around Padang City, beset by violence from local insurgents
According to AARO's statistics of UFO reports between 1996 and 2023, only 1% are polygons (like an octagon), 2% disk-shaped, while 52% are orbs or spherical.
However, an object shot down in February over Lake Huron, Michigan by F-16 fighter jets – after their first missile missed – was described as 'octagonal' by congress members briefed on the incident.
Herrera claimed that when he and his five comrades got within 150 feet of the craft, they were ambushed by eight men wearing all-black camouflage, bullet-proof vests, wielding M4 rifles with high-end night vision attachments given to elite US troops.
'They had their weapons drawn on us,' he said. 'We could audibly hear their weapon safety levers flipping off safe.'
'Who the f*** are you guys? What are you doing here?' two of them yelled with American accents, he said.
'They said we weren't supposed to be there, and that they could kill us.'
As the men continued to threaten them, took the marines' weapons, dumped their ammunition and scanned their military IDs, Herrera said he saw others loading 'large weapon cases' and other containers from modified Ford F350 trucks onto a platform beneath the craft.
'When the last two trucks finished unloading and drove off, the lower part of the platform rose off the ground to about 10 feet and the craft lowered to meet it and it came together into one piece,' he said.
'On the corners of the craft, it had lights that were changing between blue, red, yellow and green.
'It rose off the ground and a little past the trees, then shot off to our left towards the ocean at around 4,000mph.
'We can't believe this is f***ing happening. From a dead stop, it didn't make any sound like a sonic boom, it didn't disturb the trees like rotor wash would. We could see coconuts on the trees and none of them were disturbed.'
Herrera said the eight unmarked soldiers gave them back their unloaded guns and marched them back over the hill, 'still telling us how they could kill us.'
'Once we got over the hill they told us to get the f*** away from here and don't look back.'
Herrera left the Navy in October 2011, his certificate of release showing four years of active duty and medals for 'national defense service', 'global war on terrorism service', 'humanitarian service', 'sea service deployment' and a 'sharpshooter rifle badge'
The six marines ran back to the aid drop site and were scolded by their gunnery sergeant for returning early, Herrera said, adding that they all kept quiet about the disturbing encounter.
'I was f***ing scared,' the veteran said. 'I was thinking: I could have been killed, how the hell am I going to explain this?'
Back on the USS Denver, Herrera's unit were debriefed by a rear admiral he didn't recognize. He said it was odd to have such a high-ranking officer there, and again none of them mentioned the saucer and unmarked troops.
A few days later they were docked in Subic Bay in the Philippines, the marine said. After an evening of drinking with his colleagues, he returned to find his camera's card and battery removed from his locked locker, along with his five comrades' phones missing.
In early December 2009 he was back at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, Japan. He was told to report to the office, where he found an Air Force lieutenant colonel in full uniform but no name tag.
'He starts telling me, 'You're not allowed to talk about what happened, not to your chain of command, not even a general,' Herrera said. 'You will go to prison, or you will die.'
'He told me to keep my mouth shut and slid a paper to me which was an NDA. The only thing I can recall is that it said 'TS/SCI', Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. And it had Indonesia on it.'
The rifleman said he signed and was told to 'get the f*** out of there'.
'I ran back to the barracks and haven't talked about it ever since. It's something I've kept secret for almost 14 years. But I've thought about it every single day.'
He left the Navy in October 2011, his certificate of release showing four years of active duty and medals for 'national defense service', 'global war on terrorism service', 'humanitarian service', 'sea service deployment' and a 'sharpshooter rifle badge'.
Herrera made several million dollars as an entrepreneur and now runs a private security company called Valkyrie Eye.
New UFO whistleblower protections enacted in December prompted the ex-marine to finally tell his story.
Former senior Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch gave an on-camera interview alleging that the US government possesses multiple crashed 'non-human' craft
New UFO whistleblower protections enacted in December prompted the ex-marine to finally tell his story. A Pentagon chief told a first-of-its-kind NASA hearing that unidentified metallic orb UFOs have been spotted 'all over the world'
Last year's annual military funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), included a new clause allowing whistleblowers to report previously undisclosed UFO 'material retrieval, material analysis, [and] reverse engineering' programs to the Pentagon's AARO team without fear of prosecution for violating their security oaths and non-disclosure agreements.
Herrera said in 2017 he met UFO activist Dr. Steven Greer at a conference, and Greer helped persuade him to talk and connected him with congressional and AARO staffers earlier this year.
Herrera is also planning to tell his story at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC on Monday organized by Greer, alongside four other UFO witnesses.
The ex-marine claims his five former comrades are too scared to come forward.
In a May 3 text message, one wrote: 'this is asking to[o] much of me and it's not worth the risk.'
'It's not worth my life or jeopardizing my family. I know we go way back, but this is asking to[o] much. You need to get out of whatever you are in and don't get me involved with this mess. My career isn't worth helping you. Don't ask me to do this s**t ever again.'
DailyMail.com verified the sender was a marine serving in the same unit in 2009.
'It sounds a bit like science fiction, but it actually is science fact,' Greer told DailyMail.com. 'These breakthroughs have been kept very, very secret, much to the detriment of the American people and the planet.
'We feel it's very important that the public understand this is not just a silly story about Little Green Men. This has very significant implications for the environment, for energy independence, for global poverty.'
Greer and his organization, the Disclosure Project, gained international attention as well as derision in 2001 when he gathered 20 retired Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration and intelligence officers at the National Press Club to tell their stories of extraordinary UFO and alien encounters.
The 2001 conference did not spark congressional hearings as Greer hoped.
Leslie Kean, an investigative journalist who was the first to bring Air Force whistleblower David Grusch forward to make his bombshell claims in her story in engineering news site The Debrief this week, said she was skeptical of Greer's approach in an interview with the New Yorker in 2021.
'There were some good people at that conference, but some of them were making outrageous, grandiose claims,' Kean said. 'I knew then that I had to walk away.'
Grusch has also reportedly released a statement distancing himself from Greer, after Greer claimed that he met with the senior military intelligence official in March 2022 in Culpeper, Virginia.
'I took my job very seriously, and early on, I allowed various individuals that alleged they had information to speak their truth as part of my evaluation process,' Grush reportedly said in a statement published on Twitter by UFO researcher Vinnie Adams this week.
'I emphatically request that Steven Greer cease using my name to promote his personal agenda.'
The former ER doctor spent the two decades following his 2001 press conference collecting UFO witnesses, and has now assembled a database of 746 people in or related to the US government.
Some have detailed and compelling stories and have even testified to AARO. Others are merely senior officials who made public statements acknowledging the possibility of UFOs having non-human origins. According to the database, 76 have passed away.
He will also be unveiling a 'Disclosure Project Intelligence Archive' with 'over 5 terabytes of government documents, whistleblower testimony and specific locations of illegally operated UFO projects,' according to a press release.
Greer has become a controversial figure even among UFO enthusiasts, making disputed claims and charging up to $3,500 for group sessions where he purports to teach and perform summonings of extraterrestrials using psychic powers.
A video of one of his 'contact' events in Vero Beach, Florida on January 27 2015 shows a light appearing over the Atlantic ocean which Greer attributed to aliens.
A July 2020 article by the Washington Examiner questioned whether it was in fact faked with a flare dropped from a Beech 76 Duchess plane that was flying offshore at that time.
Prominent figures have chided Greer over his statements, including late sixth man on the moon Edgar Mitchell who said Greer would 'overreach his data continuously', and former CIA director James Woolsey who wrote that a 1993 'briefing' Greer claimed he gave Woolsey was merely a 'distorted account of a dinner party'.
Greer called the allegations 'ridiculous and untrue', and said his Monday press conference was about the witnesses, not him.
'I would give anything to have someone else do this so I don't have to. But I don't see that happening,' he said.
'I just say the track record of what we've done over 30 years stands on its own.'
On June 12, 2023, Dr. Steven M. Greer, a renowned founder of the Disclosure Project, presented a compelling three-hour UFO conference. This conference featured whistleblowers who shared their astonishing testimonies. For 33 years, Dr. Greer has dedicated himself as a volunteer to the Disclosure Project. His most recent event before this was held 22 years ago on May 9, 2001, where 22 individuals from various government sectors participated.
In this long disclosure event, Dr. Greer presented his investigations on secret programs, and he was joined by six courageous whistleblowers who shared compelling information about covert operations. Among them was Michael Herrera, a former United States Marine, who shared an astonishing account from 2009 where he and five comrades saw a giant UFO being loaded with weapons while serving in Indonesia. During this incident, they were threatened at gunpoint by unmarked US forces at the scene.
Herrera was assigned to the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines, described as the most decorated infantry battalion within the Marine Corps. This battalion was part of Operation Ketsana, a humanitarian mission in the Philippines in 2009. Herrera’s unit was affiliated with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, primarily conducting maritime operations across Southeast Asia in partnership with the seventh naval fleet.
Herrera was on the USS Denver and went to help after a big tsunami and earthquake hit Padang City in Indonesia. It was surprising because it was Herrera’s first time doing a mission like this. When Herrera and his team got there on October 8, they got some important information. They found out that some of President Obama’s family might be there. They knew it was a dangerous place because of the threat from terrorist activities prevalent in Indonesia.
Their job was to keep the area safe and give people things they needed like medical supplies, food, water, and shelter. Herrera was picked to be one of the main people for this job. When they landed in Padang, it was all broken and damaged. Everything looked bad with fires and floods everywhere. They quickly went to a higher place so they could see better and plan. They had to be ready for anything.
Herrera and his team, armed with M16A4 rifles, advanced about 300 meters, maintaining a tactical column formation. Their primary goal was to maintain situational awareness, be prepared for potential engagements, and execute their mission amidst the harrowing conditions.
The Mystery Craft in the Jungle
Herrera had a camera and was taking pictures of a damaged area from a high spot. But he noticed something strange: a weird object in the jungle. This thing looked different from the trees around it. It changed colors from light gray to dark black and spun around. This was so memorable for Herrera that he could not forget it for 14 years. He and his team took pictures and videos of this odd object.
‘The craft was rotating in a clockwise motion while changing colors. It had an audible hum to it, like the sound of a transformer or a guitar amp. It was an octagonal shape with a pyramid at the top of it that was black,’ Herrera said
As they got closer to the strange object, Herrera and his team saw a group of soldiers. These soldiers looked American — a group of soldiers or, as Herrera described them, a “Rogue military force.” What made this encounter even more unsettling was their distinctly American appearance and gear. These were not just any soldiers; they were equipped similarly to elite Special Operations units, dressed in black camouflage and donning OTVs.
Finding these soldiers made things even more confusing. Why were they there? Were they part of a secret mission? Or something even stranger? Herrera’s story made people think a lot about what really happened that day. His story mixed a strange flying object, its odd behavior, and meeting mysterious soldiers. This made people wonder about secret things happening in the world.
As the tension escalated, Herrera and his team were on high alert. These soldiers looked like U.S. Special Forces but acted differently. Their clothes, weapons, and tools showed they were well-trained. Even though Herrera and his team were outnumbered, they stayed calm. They did not talk to the strange soldiers and moved away carefully. Their main goal was to keep safe and learn more about the unknown flying object and the mysterious soldiers.
Many questions arise about this strange meeting. Maybe these soldiers were doing secret missions without permission? Or were they guarding the strange flying object? Herrera thought maybe they were there to protect the craft and was curious about where it came from.
The flying object Herrera saw had unique features. He noticed its color changes and its pyramid-like top. It also made a sound like a guitar amp or a machine.
“They had no insignias on, they had no ranks,” Herrera began, describing the unidentified soldiers who confronted him and his team. The soldiers’ attire and equipment far surpassed the standard-issue gear Herrera and his unit possessed. Their M4A4 rifles were enhanced with Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights (ACOGs) and PEC 16 IR illumination devices, indicating advanced capabilities and possibly specialized training.
Things got intense quickly. Herrera remembered these soldiers yelling at him and his team. They made scary threats, suggesting they could harm them severely or even make them disappear. The soldiers were very thorough. They checked everyone’s identity carefully, using devices that looked like they were scanning their military cards. This made Herrera believe they were very organized and knew what they were doing.
Herrera also saw some trucks that looked suspicious. The trucks had special containers, and there were rumors that these might be used for illegal activities, like smuggling people. This worried Herrera because the area was already facing many problems.
The strangest part was when Herrera saw an odd flying object. It appeared suddenly and then left quickly without making any noise or causing any disturbance. Herrera and his team were shocked and did not know what to make of it.
“So as we’re going back between these guys, as well as what’s going on in the background at that time, there were four of these trucks which were f-350s.” However, it was what these trucks were transporting that took center stage in Herrera’s recounting.
He described the craft in vivid detail: “It floated right above the tree line.” He emphasized its unique shape, stating, “On each corner, it emanated a light. It was either red, yellow, green, or blue – only those four colors. I can distinctly remember.” This octagonal craft, with its mesmerizing lights, seemed to defy conventional understanding, as Herrera continued to describe its departure.
“As soon as it was able to break that tree line,” Herrera recounted, “it shot over to the left, basically where the ocean was, at a speed so fast I would estimate probably three, four, five thousand miles an hour – instantaneous like that.” The craft’s rapid movement, devoid of any discernible sonic boom or disturbance, left Herrera and his team in a state of shock and bewilderment.
From Herrera’s story, it sounded like he saw something very strange and unexpected. He did not understand what it was, and it left him with many questions. His story highlights the mystery of what he saw and suggests that there is a lot more to learn about such strange occurrences.
After this weird encounter, Herrera was approached by someone from the Air Force. This person, even though not wearing a name tag, made Herrera sign a paper promising not to talk about what happened. The paper had confusing terms on it, and Herrera was left puzzled and scared about what might happen if he spoke up.
As Herrera concluded his account, he made a compelling plea to Washington, urging political figures to address the situation. “There are people who are either being hurt or killed by this,” he emphasized, highlighting the gravity of the events he witnessed.
According to DailyMail, Herrera left the Navy in October 2011, his certificate of release showing four years of active duty and medals for “national defense service,” “global war on terrorism service,” “humanitarian service,” “sea service deployment” and a “sharpshooter rifle badge.” He made several million dollars as an entrepreneur and now runs a private security company called Valkyrie Eye.
Video/Photo Evidence
In this interview with Jimmy Chruch on FADE TO BLACK Radio, Herrera said that during the operation, he had a Panasonic camera capable of capturing both stills and videos. Throughout their mission, he took several photographs and videos, capturing the devastation and potentially more. Herrera concealed this vital evidence in his dump pouch, which seemed to go unnoticed by the individuals overseeing the mission.
When Herrera and his team got back to their ship, strange things started happening. As they gave back their weapons, they felt worried. They were scared about what might happen if their bosses found out about their strange experiences.
After their tough trip, Herrera and his team went to Subic Bay in the Philippines for a break. They tried to relax and have fun. But when Herrera went back to his ship, he found his camera in his locker. Sadly, the battery and memory card were gone. When he tried to use it again, it did not work. Herrera felt upset because he realized how important the missing camera parts were to his story.
Herrera shared more about what he learned from his experience. He talked to people who told him about secret groups that do bad things. These groups hurt people and try to keep their actions hidden. But Herrera also met some good people who wanted to tell the truth about these secret operations.
During an event with Dr. Greer, Herrera thought the containers they saw might have drugs. But someone from the group told him they were not drugs. This new information made everyone wonder: What were they really hiding? Why was it so secret? And how does this affect Herrera and his team?
Herrera said that these mysterious people have been doing secret stuff since the 1990s. Most of them come from JSOC, which is like the top experts in the military. He was careful when talking about them to keep things secret and protect people’s identities.
He remembered when these mysterious folks reached out to him. Instead of asking for his contact details, they gave him theirs. This made Herrera curious. He wanted to know why they did not harm him during a mission in 2009.
Herrera met these secretive people in a safe place out West. When he got there, they had strict rules to make sure no one was listening in on their talk. What Herrera learned surprised him.
He originally thought their main thing was illegal drug deals. But it turned out to be something even stranger. They seemed interested in people from certain backgrounds or groups, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These people were seen as spiritually wise and not influenced by mainstream beliefs, making them important for what the group was doing.
“They screen individuals with specific conscious abilities and higher consciousness. They particularly focus on people from third-world countries since these individuals haven’t been indoctrinated by television and lack certain resources. Consequently, their minds aren’t as clouded, making them more spiritually adept. Additionally, they recruit individuals from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for similar reasons: these individuals are spiritually more adept and have a higher level of consciousness, making them suitable participants for these programs.”
Herrera describes a group that works everywhere, not just in one country. They keep their actions hidden and use very advanced machines. To most people, these machines might look like they come from outer space, but they’ are made by humans. Because no one knows much about them, they can act fast and quietly.
A surprising thing Herrera says is that this group sometimes shoots down crafts that seem to be from outer space. They do this a few times every year. They also have strong weapons that can destroy other countries’ copied machines. Herrera tells stories of private planes that accidentally go into their area and get shot down. No one knows what happened to these planes or the people inside.
“They shoot down two to three ET crafts a year, retrieve them, and then take them away for analysis or whatever they do with them. Additionally, they shoot down aircraft from other agencies for reverse engineering purposes. Most of the time, these retrieved crafts are destroyed; they don’t return them. They often blow them up or discard them.
The airspace isn’t always open 24/7; it’s restricted, especially during operations or testing. When restricted, it’s limited up to 60,000 feet. Regrettably, some private aircraft have suffered tragic consequences because they didn’t divert their course. These planes were targeted with advanced weapons, which aren’t just experimental — they’re regularly used. After such incidents, they dispose of the wreckage, and bodies, and issue missing persons reports. They are adept at keeping their secrets, and that’s how their operations function.”
Herrera talks about a building that looks normal from the outside but is full of secret work inside. Even though it looks old and worn out, inside, it is busy with top-secret tasks. Most people working there come from places with lots of problems, like war or poverty. For them, the place might seem like a dream compared to what they had before.
The Quest for the Unknown: Congress’s Top Secret UFO Meeting
The Quest for the Unknown: Congress’s Top Secret UFO Meeting
In the hallowed halls of Congress, where history is made and secrets are often kept, a gathering like no other is set to occur. A select group of lawmakers will step away from the public eye into the shadowy realm of the classified, diving into an issue that has long captured the imagination and skepticism of many: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs.
Behind closed doors, away from the bustle of Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Committee is preparing for a briefing that promises to peel back layers of mystery surrounding alleged UFO crash retrievals and reverse-engineering programs. This isn’t just another meeting; it’s a moment that could redefine our understanding of the unknown.
At the center of this intrigue is Thomas Monheim, the US Intelligence Community’s Inspector General, tasked with the weighty responsibility of shedding light on allegations so explosive that they sound like the plot of a science fiction novel. Yet, for the committee members, this is no fiction. It’s a quest for truth in a saga that has spanned decades.
Imagine the scene: a room secured for top-secret discussions, where the air is thick with anticipation. Representatives, usually seen debating policies and laws, are now on the edge of their seats, waiting to confront the enigma of UFOs. They are not just politicians in this moment; they are representatives of humanity’s insatiable curiosity, standing on the precipice of potentially groundbreaking revelations.
The story leading up to this moment is as intriguing as the meeting itself. David Grusch, a former high-ranking US intelligence official, has hurled accusations that sound like they belong in a blockbuster movie: crashed UFOs, recovered non-human beings, and a government seemingly more interested in secrecy than discovery. These allegations have set the stage for a confrontation between the desire for transparency and the impenetrable world of classified intelligence.
But skepticism looms large. Voices from within the intelligence community suggest this briefing might be more about the appearance of disclosure than the revelation of earth-shattering secrets. An insider’s perspective, as reported by DailyMail.com, hints at a carefully choreographed dance of information sharing, where the real truth remains just out of reach.
As the date of the briefing approaches, the air in Washington is electric with speculation and hope. Will this meeting blow open the doors of secrecy, or will it leave more questions than answers? The representatives, each with their own beliefs and doubts, know the weight of the responsibility they carry. They are not just seeking answers for themselves but for a public hungry for the truth.
In the end, this top-secret UFO meeting is more than just a discussion about unexplained aerial phenomena. It’s a testament to humanity’s unending quest to understand the unknown, to look beyond our Earthly confines and ponder our place in the cosmos. Whether the outcome is revelation or frustration, this meeting will undoubtedly add another fascinating chapter to the ever-evolving story of our search for the truth about UFOs.
As the world watches and waits, one thing is clear: the quest for knowledge and the courage to confront the unknown are, in themselves, a journey worth taking.
ESA Gives Us a Glimpse of its Future Space Exploration Plans with a Cool New Video
The European Space Agency (ESA) has made incredible contributions to space exploration and space-based science. Last year, the agency launched the Euclid space telescope, which will survey the Universe back to 3 billion years after the Big Bang to measure cosmic expansion and the influence of Dark Energy. After more than a decade of development, theAriane 6 launch vehicle conducted its first full-scale dress rehearsal, which included an engine fire test. In arecent video, the ESA showcased its plans for the future, which include some new launch vehicles and engine technology.
As the ESA describes it in the statement accompanying the video’s release, “brand-new rockets are set to take flight, some reusable, some carbon-neutral, with hybrid propulsion, two and three stages, small, large, crewed and uncrewed, to Earth orbit and deep space, the journey continues.” The video provides a rundown of the technologies the ESA has in the works, which includes footage of hot fire tests and other milestones being accomplished at ESA facilities and those of their commercial partners.
Upon review of these new concepts and technologies, some priorities become apparent. Looking to the next decade and beyond, the ESA is committed to ensuring independence in design, manufacture, and launch capabilities. They are also pursuing reusable rocket technology for both engines and launch vehicles, reducing the carbon footprint of spaceflight and servicing the commercial space sector (especially where constellations of small satellites are concerned).
In-House Assembly
SPECTRUM:This two-stage orbital launch vehicle, developed by Isar Aerospace, is specifically designed for small and medium satellites. The vehicle is manufactured at the Isar facility to allow for flexibility with the design and mission profiles. Spectrum has nine ISAR Aquila engines on its first stage and a single Aquila on its second. These engines rely on a combination of liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid propane fuel. The rocket can reportedly transport 1000 kg (2200 lbs) to LEO and 700 kg (~1545 lbs) to Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO).
Space Rider: This reusable uncrewed robotic laboratory, currently being developed by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), Switzerland, and the Portuguese Space Agency, will allow for technology demonstrations and research in pharmaceutics, biomedicine, biology, and physical science. It will be launched to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) using the new four-stage Vega-C, where it will remain for up to two months conducting experiments within its cargo bay. At the end of its mission, it will return to Earth and land on a runway to be refurbished for its next flight.
MIURA-1:Next up is the suborbital launch vehicle fully designed and developed in-house by Spanish aerospace provider PLD Space. Designed for microgravity research, this rocket can transport up to four experiments to space and return them to Earth, with a total payload capacity of 100 kg (220 lbs). The vehicle relies on a single TEPREL-B liquid bipropellant engine that burns kerosene and LOX propellant.
RFA One:This 3-stage rocket is another launch vehicle entirely developed in-house by Austrian aerospace company Rocket Factory Augsburg. The first stage relies on nine Helix ORSC engines optimized for sea level that rely on LOX and RP1 fuel and are equipped with thrust-vector control (TVC). The second stage relies on a single Helix Vac engine built in-house using additive manufacturing. The launch system also has a Redshift Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) that ensures accurate delivery to the desired orbit, with payloads of 1300 kg (2866 lbs) to SSO and 300 kg (660 lbs) to a Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO).
Susie with cargo bay open @ArianeGroup
Reusability
Prometheus and Themis:Next up is the Prometheus engine and Themis launch stage, both courtesy of ArianeGroup. The former is being developed as part of an ESA program in collaboration with the French Space Agency (CNES) with support from the German Aerospace Agency (DLR). This low-cost, potentially reusable engine runs on LOX and liquid methane and will serve as a precursor for next-generation European launchers used in the post-2030 time frame. Similarly, Themis is an ESA rocket prototype and demonstrator that will test retrieval and reuse technologies.
SUSIE:Short for Smart Upper Stage for Innovative Exploration, SUSIE is a reusable upper stage concept capable of autonomously transporting cargo to LEO or performing crewed missions with up to 5 astronauts. ArianeGroup is currently developing the vehicle to be launched with the Ariane 6 rocket on future ESA missions.
Propulsion
M10 Engine: This engine is under development by a consortium led by the Italian space propulsion company Avio with the help of commercial partners from Belgium, Czechia, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Romania. The M10 will be Europe’s first LOX/methane engine and stage that will help pave the way for next-generation launchers (like the Vega-E), thus ensuring increased competitiveness by European small launchers.
SL1: The Small Launcher-1 is being developed by HyImpulse, a German aerospace company specializing in hybrid propulsion. The three-stage smallsat launch vehicle is equipped with twelve hybrid rocket motors that rely on a combination of LOX and Paraffin wax, a low-cost option that allows for greater safety and flexible launch operations. The SL1 will be the first European launch vehicle capable of launching satellites with a payload of up to 500 kg (1100 lbs) to dedicated Earth orbits.
Green Technology
Orbex Prime: This two-stage launch system is the work of Orbex, a UK-based orbital launch services company specializing in low-carbon, high-performance micro-launch vehicles. This two-stage micro-launcher is carbon-neutral, relying on bio-liquid natural gas (BioLPG) to power its seven engines. Most of its propulsion subsystem is built using additive manufacturing (3D printing), while the main structure and tanks are composed of carbon fiber/graphene composites. With a payload capacity of 180 kg (~400 lbs), this micro-launcher will service the growing small satellite (smallsat) market.
XL: Developed by UK-based launch vehicle manufacturer Skyrora, the XL is a three-stage, light-class launch vehicle intended to send payloads to SSO or Polar Orbit. Powering the first and second stages are nine and one Skyforce engines (respectively) that run on LOX and a kerosene fuel made from waste plastic (Ecosene).
These concepts align with several emerging trends, cutting-edge technologies, and priorities that characterize the modern space age. In addition to reducing costs and increasing access to space, there is the growing role of commercial space and the need for collaboration between the public and private sectors. On top of that, there are significant concerns that so many launches per year will mean more emissions, thus significantly contributing to climate change – hence the need for carbon-neutral manufacturing and fuel options.
De Indiase ruimtesonde Aditya-L1 heeft zaterdag de baan rond de zon bereikt na een reis van vier maanden. Premier Narendra Modi sprak op sociale media van een "mijlpaal" voor het ruimtevaartprogramma van zijn land.
Een Indiaas ruimtevaartuig dat de zon moet observeren, heeft na een maandenlange vlucht door de ruimte zijn bestemming bereikt. Premier Narendra Modi van India presenteerde dat op sociale media als een nieuwe mijlpaal voor het ruimtevaartprogramma van zijn land.
(ANP / Associated Press)
De Aditya, "zon" in het Hindi, werd in een zogenaamde 'halo-baan' geplaatst in een sector in de ruimte die ongeveer 1,5 miljoen kilometer van de aarde is verwijderd.
De sonde werd in september gelanceerd en heeft een reeks instrumenten aan boord om metingen en observaties uit te voeren aan de buitenste lagen van de zon. Aditya moet voortdurend heldere beelden van de zon doorsturen, om zo meer te weten te komen over de eigenschappen van zonnevlammen, de straling van de zon en de dynamiek van zonnewinden.
De Indiase minister van Wetenschappen en Technologie Jitendra Singh schreef op de sociale media dat de sonde zijn einddoel bereikt had "om de mysteries van de band tussen de zon en de aarde te ontrafelen".
"Dit is een bewijs van de niet aflatende toewijding van onze wetenschappers", schreef ook premier Modi. "We zullen nieuwe wetenschappelijke grenzen blijven verkennen om de mensheid te helpen".
De Amerikaanse Nasa en het Europese ESA hebben al eerder ruimtesondes gelanceerd om de zon te bestuderen, maar voor India gaat het om een primeur. India is ook het eerste Aziatische land dat zijn sonde in een baan rond de zon brengt. Ook Japan en China lanceerden dergelijke missie, maar hun sondes hebben hun doel nog niet bereikt.
Het Indiase ruimtevaartprogramma ISRO heeft al eerder successen geboekt. India werd vorig jaar het eerste land dat met succes een ruimtevaartuig liet landen op de zuidpool van de maan. Rusland deed toen ook een poging om daar een onbemand toestel te laten landen, maar die mislukt.
EXCLUSIVETop secret UFO meeting in Congress to reveal 'classified' details of illegal crash retrieval program - and US intelligence insider tells DailyMail.com what they believe will really happen behind closed doors
EXCLUSIVE - Top secret UFO meeting in Congress to reveal 'classified' details of illegal crash retrieval program - and US intelligence insider tells DailyMail.com what they believe will really happen behind closed doors
Top spy watchdog Thomas Monheim, the US Intelligence Community's Inspector General, is slated to brief the House Oversight Committee on UFOs this Tuesday
The 'members only' UFO briefing will reportedly require 'Top Secret' clearances
But a source familiar with operations at the IC IG's office tells DailyMail.com, 'I would be very shocked if they hear the same things the Intel committees heard'
While Americans wait in anticipation for possible new details, a source with direct knowledge of standard operations inside the US Intelligence Community's Inspector General's office (IC IG) told DailyMail.com that the meeting will be 'only for show.'
'The IG, when he goes and briefs Oversight, his job, between you and I, is going to be to make them feel as though they're getting information,' this source said, 'and basically tell them nothing.'
Although some House Oversight members intimated last November that they have now acquired 'permission' to view the classified version of Grusch's formal IC IG complaint, this source said: 'I do not expect that to occur.'
Tuesday's secret briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) will be conducted by the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), headed by Thomas Monheim (above). An intel insider told DailyMail.com the hearing will amount to 'nothing'
While Tuesday's Oversight hearing will be held at the 'Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information' (TS/SCI) level, inside a 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility' (SCIF), DailyMail.com understands that a direct look at Grusch's classified IC IG complaint is unlikely
Grusch's allegations were first made in detail via this classified formal complaint, a 'Disclosure of Urgent Concern(s); Complaint of Reprisal' filed to the IC IG's office in May of 2022, according to The Debrief.
But this past June, Grusch made public the unclassified, broad strokes of his charges in an explosive series of interviews, first with The Debrief, then cable news channel News Nation and soon after in sworn testimony to the House Oversight committee.
'I made the decision, based on the data I collected, to report this information to my superiors and multiple inspectors general,' Grusch continued, under oath, 'in effect becoming a whistleblower.'
'Given the significant penalties for making false statements to an inspector general,' as ex-Defense Department official Marik von Rennenkampff, wrote in The Hill, 'it is extremely unlikely that multiple high-level, highly-cleared officials would falsely claim to have first-hand knowledge of myths and rumors.'
Explosive charges, made by former high-ranking US intelligence official David Grusch (center) before Congress, have accused both the US military and its defense contractors of stonewalling on evidence of crashed UFOs, recovered 'beings,' and even UFO-related deaths
But the classified details of that whistleblower complaint, while disclosed to cleared lawmakers on the House and Senate's intelligence committees, has yet to be made available to lawmakers with the House Oversight committee.
DailyMail.com's US intelligence community insider said this is to be expected.
'The statute doesn't give their committee cognizance over David [Grusch]'s complaint,' this source said. 'Oversight, they have nothing to do with Intel.'
'The statute gives HPSCI [the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and SSCI [the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] cognizance,' this source explained in a telephone interview.
Attorney Daniel Sheehan says whistleblowers with knowledge of a classified UFO 'reverse-engineering' program have opted to testify to the Senate intelligence committee, in part over their reported mistrust of the Pentagon's dedicated UFO office and its first director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick. Above, a page from the US Air Force's Project 1794, declassified in 2012
The revelations came amid an invite-only UFO gathering at Stanford University. But many speakers at the exclusive event expressed worry over the risk of social and economic upheaval. One former CIA scientist said that Washington insiders had deeply weighed both the positive and negative ramifications of declassifying America's top secret UFO programs in 2004. They came to believe that risks of UFO 'disclosure' were just too great.
'So that's kind of an internal 'food fight' for Capitol Hill,' according to this intelligence community insider. 'That's not really our problem, you know? That's theirs — and they're very territorial.'
Nevertheless, Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna told assembled reporters late last November that plans were in place for she and other House Oversight members to finally review the classified details of Grusch's IC IG complaint.
'Referencing Grusch, I know that there was many questions in regards to what was happening with his current IG report,' Representative Luna said, 'and whether or not we were able to receive access to that information.'
'We were previously denied this,' Rep. Luna continued, stating, 'we have now received permission from him directly to go back into the SCIF to review that information.'
But while Tuesday's Oversight hearing will be held at the 'Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information' (TS/SCI) level, inside a 'Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility' (SCIF), DailyMail.com understands that a direct look at Grusch's classified IC IG complaint is unlikely.
'I don't think there's going to be a whole lot to come out of this,' the anonymous IC IG insider told DailyMail.com.
'What I expect to occur — and I could be completely wrong — is you're going to see those people [House Oversight] walk out into the hallway and give a press conference saying that they're mad that they can't get access to it.'
Over the past year, a bipartisan group of Oversight Committee members, led by Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett has sought more details on UFOs: activities that included last July's open hearing and a closed-door meeting this fall with representatives of the Department of Defense's own Office of the Inspector General.
Reps. Luna and Burchett have joined other lawmakers in what's been called the 'Congressional UAP Caucus,' in reference to the more contemporary term-of-art for UFOs: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
Few from House Oversight or the UAP caucus, however, which includes reps Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Jaimie Raskin (D-Md.) and others, have gone into detail on the expected material to be covered in Tuesday's top secret UFO hearing.
For his part, Rep. Burchett said via a spokesperson that 'the event,' which was originally scheduled for January 12, 2024, 'will be a classified members-only briefing with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG), Thomas Monheim.'
'It is open to members of the House Oversight Committee, but if other House members or senators are interested they may notify the Committee and would be welcome to attend.'
'David Grusch will not be in attendance,' Rep. Burchett's spokesperson told UFO researcher Douglas Dean Johnson. 'We do not have a SCIF scheduled for a briefing with David Grusch currently, but the UAP Caucus is continuing to push for one.'
A source with direct knowledge of standard operations inside the IC IG's office told DailyMail.com that Tuesday's meeting will only help lawmakers 'feel as though they're getting information.' Above, another page from the US Air Force's Project 1794, declassified in 2012
Whether it proves to be momentous or not, Tuesday's classified hearing follows months of pitched backroom battles on the Hill over a bipartisan bill that would have formalized a 'controlled disclosure plan' to release the US government's UFO secrets.
Ohio representative and UFO skeptic Mike Turner told News Nation the original 64-page bill was 'poorly drafted' complaining that 'no one has even raised it' with him.
But, in an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Grusch called out Turner, accusing him of 'blocking' the bill on behalf of his defense contractor donors.
The legislation was originally to be modeled on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, passed in response to public debate following Oliver Stone's 1991 film about the daylight killing of a sitting US president.
But the work of that Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was itself stonewalled and remains incomplete, suggesting that even a robustly proposed UFO panel modelled on that board would have faced similar limitations.
Late in the debate on this Schumer-Rounds UAP Amendment, Reps. Luna, Burchett and other members of the 'UAP Caucus' criticized the bill, with Rep. Burchett ultimately proposing an alternative bill that was curiously only one-page long.
Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, who serves on the House Oversight committee, led this past summer's open UFO hearing on July 26th - which he said had been undermined by Pentagon and US Intelligence Community efforts to 'continuously block things'
According to the DailyMail.com's well-placed US intelligence community source, who is intimately familiar with the policies and mandates of the IC IG's office, House Oversight's Tuesday hearing will likely be marred by similar curiosities.
'I don't know what they're doing,' the source told DailyMail.com.
Attorney Thomas Monheim, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, this source believes, will likely feel compelled to walk a tightrope between keeping multiple competing congressional committees satisfied.
'He's in charge of what he's going to tell them,' the source said.
'I would be very shocked if they hear the same things the Intel committees heard,' the source elaborated, 'not because he doesn't want to tell them — because they're Congress — but because HPSCI and SSCI have probably said to him, 'Hey! We are your committees of jurisdiction, not Oversight.''
The US intel community insider suggested that the House UAP caucus, and others interested in transparency on UFOs and 'non-human intelligences,' would be better served by redirecting their attention toward lawmakers on those intel committees.
'David [Grusch] briefed HPSCI and SSCI because that's what the statute allowed him to do,' the source told DailyMail.com
'David spent hours and hours and hours and hours with SSCI,' the source said. 'And then hours and hours and hours and hours with HPSCI.'
'All the staffers that he briefed were all cleared TS/SCI. They all had to have compartmented read-ins. It was a big deal.'
'It's not [House] Oversight that's going to do anything, you know? It's 'What is SSCI doing?' and 'What is HPSCI doing?'' the intel insider opined.
'Who's going to hold their feet to the fire?'
Have details about Tuesday's UFO hearing? Please get in touch with the author at matthew.phelan@mailonline.com or matthew.d.phelan@protonmail.com
The world's UFO hotspots are revealed - as Pentagon admits hundreds of objects have been spotted 'all over the world'
The US government is notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.
But in a possible bid for transparency, the Department of Defense has released a new document disclosing the 'world's UFO hotspots'.
It includes a map disclosing where the most sightings of unidentified objects have been recorded, based on reports between 1996 and 2023.
The map discloses where the most sightings have been recorded based on reports between 1996 and 2023 - naming Japan and the coasts of the US as particular hotspots
Among them Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the east and west coasts of the US including California, as well as parts of the Middle East.
Uranus and Neptune Are in Fact Similar Shade of Greenish Blue, New Color-Corrected Images Reveal
Uranus and Neptune Are in Fact Similar Shade of Greenish Blue, New Color-Corrected Images Reveal
Uranus and Neptune, the so-called ice giants, are the most distant giant planets in our Solar System. Our knowledge of these worlds was revolutionized by the flybys of NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft on January 24, 1986 and August 25, 1989, respectively. Since these Voyager encounters, our perception of the visible appearance of these worlds comes primarily from images reconstructed from observations from Voyager 2’s Imaging Science System (ISS), which recorded images in several separate filters, running from ultraviolet to orange. In those images, Uranus appears pale green, while Neptune appears darker blue, and this perception of the relative colors of these planets has become commonly accepted. But a new study has revealed that the two ice giants are actually far closer in color.
Voyager 2/ISS images of Uranus and Neptune released shortly after the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively, compared with a reprocessing of the individual filter images in this study to determine the best estimate of the true colors of these planets.
Image credit: Irwin et al., doi: 10.1093/mnras/stad3761.
“Although the familiar Voyager 2 images of Uranus were published in a form closer to ‘true’ color, those of Neptune were, in fact, stretched and enhanced, and therefore made artificially too blue,” said University of Oxford’s Professor Patrick Irwin.
“Even though the artificially-saturated color was known at the time amongst planetary scientists — and the images were released with captions explaining it — that distinction had become lost over time.”
“Applying our model to the original data, we have been able to reconstitute the most accurate representation yet of the color of both Neptune and Uranus.”
This means that STIS and MUSE observations can be unambiguously processed to determine the true apparent color of Uranus and Neptune.
The astronomers used these data to re-balance the composite color images recorded by the Voyager 2 camera, and also by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
This revealed that Uranus and Neptune are actually a rather similar shade of greenish blue.
The main difference is that Neptune has a slight hint of additional blue, which the model reveals to be due to a thinner haze layer on that planet.
The study also provides an answer to the long-standing mystery of why Uranus’ color changes slightly during its 84-year orbit of the Sun.
The authors came to their conclusion after first comparing images of the ice giant to measurements of its brightness, which were recorded by the Lowell Observatory in Arizona from 1950 to 2016 at blue and green wavelengths.
These measurements showed that Uranus appears a little greener at its solstices (i.e. summer and winter), when one of the planet’s poles is pointed towards our star.
But during its equinoxes — when the Sun is over the equator — it has a somewhat bluer tinge.
Part of the reason for this was known to be because Uranus has a highly unusual spin.
It effectively spins almost on its side during its orbit, meaning that during the planet’s solstices either its north or south pole points almost directly towards the Sun and Earth.
This is important because any changes to the reflectivity of the polar regions would therefore have a big impact on Uranus’ overall brightness when viewed from our planet.
What astronomers were less clear about is how or why this reflectivity differs.
This led the researchers to develop a model which compared the spectra of Uranus’ polar regions to its equatorial regions.
It found that the polar regions are more reflective at green and red wavelengths than at blue wavelengths, partly because methane, which is red absorbing, is about half as abundant near the poles than the equator.
However, this wasn’t enough to fully explain the color change so the researchers added a new variable to the model in the form of a ‘hood’ of gradually thickening icy haze which has previously been observed over the summer, sunlit pole as the planet moves from equinox to solstice.
Astronomers think this is likely to be made up of methane ice particles.
When simulated in the model, the ice particles further increased the reflection at green and red wavelengths at the poles, offering an explanation as to why Uranus is greener at the solstice.
“This is the first study to match a quantitative model to imaging data to explain why the color of Uranus changes during its orbit,” Professor Irwin said.
“In this way, we have demonstrated that Uranus is greener at the solstice due to the polar regions having reduced methane abundance but also an increased thickness of brightly scattering methane ice particles.”
“The misperception of Neptune’s color, as well as the unusual color changes of Uranus, have bedevilled us for decades. This comprehensive study should finally put both issues to rest,” said Dr. Heidi Hammel, a researcher at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).
The results appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Patrick G.J. Irwin et al. 2024. Modelling the seasonal cycle of Uranus’s colour and magnitude, and comparison with Neptune. MNRAS 527 (4): 11521-11538; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stad3761
Exposed: Four underground alien bases found by remote viewer
Exposed: Four underground alien bases found by remote viewer
During the 1960s and 70s, the United States and the Soviet Union fought the Cold War on many fronts. In the 1970s, America and Russia engaged in a new type of warfare: psychic warfare. During this period, the CIA was actively recruiting and training people with a natural talent for remote viewing. Remote viewing is projecting your consciousness to anywhere on Earth and beyond.
In 1973, prior to going to work for the CIA, remote viewer Pat Price, who was “discovered” by SRI International in the early days of Stargate, a US government sponsored remote viewing research and intelligence-collecting program, provided a lengthy unsolicited report regarding what he believed to be underground UFO bases.
Pat Price, entirely by accident, found himself at Mount Hayes in Alaska. Mount Hayes is in the middle of nowhere. There's no civilization for miles. But something was calling him to the mountain.
Then he looked inside the mountain. There was a base hidden inside Mount Hayes. Then he saw - this was not a base built by humans.
Mount Hayes was one of four mountains that Pat Price said contained a secret alien UFO base. The others are Mount Puro in Spain, Mount Inyan Gani in Zimbabwe and Mount Zeal in Australia.
Now, Project 8200 was a remote-viewing effort conducted in 1982 and 1983 that attempted to corroborate information provided by Pat Price a decade earlier.
Several of the next generation Stargate remote viewers working for Project 8200 that time, saw or felt the presence of extraterrestrials and subsequently provided with information from other sources, project 8200 confirmed the bases are real and are intentionally hidden and working together. The bases are occupied but not always and they're used for observation and relaying information and energy to an object in deep space.
Not only Pat Price provided the CIA with surprisingly accurate intelligence information until his (suspicious) reported death in 1975, but also the results of project 8200 were never officially reported to higher authorities.
But some of the information has been available in public domain.
In a recent investigative report, a team of UFO experts and forensic analysts embarked on a global journey to shed light on some of the most perplexing and unexplained UFO encounters. With a focus on several shocking pieces of video footage, these professionals used cutting-edge technology and forensic techniques to determine the authenticity of these sightings and to understand the characteristics of the mysterious objects captured on film.
At the heart of the investigation is the detailed analysis of high-definition video footage provided by individuals like Michael, the camera operator. The team, equipped with advanced software, meticulously dissected each frame, examining the motion and behavior of the pixels to create visual maps. These maps were instrumental in identifying any inconsistencies in the objects’ movements, with motion vectors indicating the direction and speed of the supposed UFOs. Such rigorous analysis aimed to rule out any possibility of manipulation or fabrication in the footage.
The report highlighted several intriguing encounters, including one where an object performed an astonishing barrel roll around a military aircraft before shooting down to the ocean’s surface and then re-emerging at an incredible speed. In another instance, experts analyzed footage from a Chilean Navy helicopter, revealing an object emitting a turbulent trail, the nature of which sparked controversy and debate among the investigators.
VIDEO:
The Most Shocking UFO Video Footage Revelations | Contact
The involvement of military personnel and references to government agencies like Chile’s CEPFA (Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena) underscored the global and serious nature of UFO investigations. These agencies, dedicated to unraveling the mystery of UFO sightings, collaborate with experts to scrutinize every detail, seeking to understand whether these unidentified objects pose a threat or might be evidence of extraterrestrial existence.
As the investigation unfolded, the experts confronted the challenge of distinguishing between advanced human-made technologies and genuinely unexplained phenomena. With each piece of analyzed footage, they moved closer to understanding the incredible speeds and maneuvers that these objects demonstrated, far beyond the capabilities of known human-made aircraft.
The report concluded with a call for continued investigation and vigilance. While the forensic analysis provided valuable insights, many questions remained unanswered. The experts acknowledged the need for more advanced tools and collaborative efforts to explore these mysterious sightings further. As the quest for understanding continues, the intriguing possibility that we are not alone in the universe seems ever more plausible.
De NASA werkt al een tijdje aan de Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). Die nieuwe, efficiëntere raketmotor moet ruimtereizen veel goedkoper maken.
De ontwikkeling van een nieuw soort aandrijving, de Rotating Detonation Combustion, kan echt bruikbare hypersone raketten een stap dichterbij brengen. De NASA heeft nu nieuwe tests uitgevoerd met een motor die grofweg dezelfde techniek gebruikt; niet om vijanden genadeloos uit te schakelen, maar om een trip naar Mars flink te verkorten.
Explosiereeks
De test met die Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) werd uitgevoerd op het NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. De nieuwe raketmotor werkt op basis van een serie brandstofexplosies die zich rond een cirkelvormig kanaal (annulus) bewegen. Brandstof en een oxidatiemiddel worden daarbij via kleine openingen of smalle spleten in dat kanaal gespoten en tot ontbranding gebracht. De energie die daardoor vrij komt brengt de volgende brandstofexplosie op gang. De hete gassen worden door de inkomende brandstof en oxidator uit het kanaal geduwd en zorgen voor de voortstuwing.
Als de motor eenmaal is gestart, houden de detonaties zichzelf dus in stand. Een mooi en simpel ontwerp dat gebaseerd is op de pulse jet of pulse detonation engine. Dat ontwerp is eind negentiende eeuw al door de Rus Nikolai Afanasievitsj Telesjov bedacht. De Duitsers werkten dat idee vanaf 1934 verder uit en dat leidde tot de Argus As 109-014, de pulsmotoren waarmee V1-raketten werden aangedreven.
Nadeel van zo’n pulserende straalmotor is dat hij bijzonder lawaaiig is, dat hij flink wat trillingen veroorzaakt, veel brandstof verbruikt en niet geschikt is voor supersone snelheden. Prima dus voor een soort domme kruisraket in oorlogstijd, maar niet voor veel andere, vreedzamere toepassingen.
Stuwkracht
Die problemen zijn kennelijk met RDRE opgelost en het resultaat is een motor die tijdens de meest recente test 251 seconden lang een vermogen van 25.810 newton leverde, een flinke verbetering van een test uit het begin 2023 toen de stuwkracht nog bleef steken op 17.800 newton.
Doordat de aandrijving een stuk zuiniger is, wordt het goedkoper om de ruimte in te gaan en wordt het bovendien mogelijk om daar grotere afstanden af te leggen. De NASA wil uiteindelijk toe naar een volledig herbruikbare RDRE met een vermogen van 44.000 newton. Die zou er dan voor moeten zorgen dat de eerste Amerikanen ergens in 2030 voet op Mars kunnen zetten.
During the early 1980s, numerous people reported sighting colossal, sluggish V-shaped crafts silently hovering through the night sky above the Hudson Valley in New York. On March 13, 1997, a massive and noiseless aircraft was witnessed by thousands of people throughout Arizona, Nevada, and northern Mexico in the “Phoenix Lights” event.
While there are conflicting reports, some people claim that there were two distinct groups of lights amalgamated into one incident, but the majority of observers claimed to have seen an immense, silent object that was either V-shaped or triangular, gliding low over the area. According to a Rocky Mountain Poll conducted at the time, as well as the commotion that ensued, around 10% of Arizonans claimed to have witnessed the incident.
Despite the United Air Force’s identification of one of the groups of lights seen as flares dropped by A-10 Warthogs during training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range, Arizona’s then-governor Fyfe Symington firmly believed that he saw something entirely different. In fact, he was a witness to the incident himself and later informed reporters of his stance.
“I witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona. It was truly breathtaking. I was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for the distant Phoenix Lights… (Source)
As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I’d ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don’t fly in formation.”
Former Director of The Pentagons UFO Program (AATIP), Luis Elizondo explained many people are confused about the flares from the A10s, but the lights were a separate event and were witnessed by hundreds or thousands of people at the same time. There is a theoretical technology that if you can master it, all 5 observables (what we see the UAPs doing) are possible. If you know how to manipulate spacetime, all of these observables are possible. (Source)
Although there are many accounts of witnessing the Phoenix lights, Tim Ley and his family had a close look at the object hovered over the city in the V-formation. Ley, his wife Bobbi, and their son Hal saw a massive V-shaped object with five lights slowly and silently flying over their heads. The craft was so large that it spanned the entire length of the street.
For Tim Ley and his family, the experience was life-changing. They had never imagined they would witness such a bizarre and unexplainable phenomenon, and it has left an indelible mark on their lives. They continue to share their story, hoping that someday, the truth about the Phoenix Lights will be revealed.
We watched these lights, and I’d say the time it took from when we first spotted them until this thing actually went over a house was about 10 or 12 minutes. This thing never wavered once; it always came directly straight at us.
After a few minutes, maybe six or eight minutes, all of a sudden, instead of being five lights in a round arc shape, the lead light seemed to come out in front, and now it looked like a V formation flying towards us. I remember talking with Bobby as we were watching it, saying, “What could that possibly be?”
I said, “Well, maybe it’s a formation of helicopters.” But as the lights were getting further and further apart, the relationship between the lights never changed. They got further apart, but the individual distance between the lights always remained in the same relationship. They were perfectly even, and they didn’t move up or down. I said, “Wow, if this is a formation of aircraft, whoever’s flying this, I don’t know how they’re staying so tight in formation.”
And this last light came down and Bobbi and I were just standing there, and it went right over us. It looked like this big circular hole of pure white light. It looked… almost like little particles of light, and the light was stuck up inside. It was almost like it was being held inside.
There was no glass on it, and there was no light that I noticed around us on the ground, but it was really, really, really bright. Then the tail end of this thing went by like that, and I saw a very absolute sharp edge went by, and as it did, the stars unfolded after it.
We live up and about probably about 1200 feet above sea level. We’re in a little valley above Phoenix, and surrounded by this valley are like little mountain peaks. And there’s this one, two peaks, and in the middle of it, a little hill. This thing went right through the crack in the mountain.
It flew right through there, didn’t go over the top. It just barely fit. It was in such a way. Now it was probably just going straight because now I could see the lights from the backside underneath. It went out straight over towards the airport, right to the right side of peak, and then I lost the lights in the whatever lights were flying around in the atmosphere disturbance.
Below is the only known video recorded on March 13, 1997, around 8:30 PM that shows the V-shaped object (according to user Tom King). The video was captured by a man in the AZ area who wants to stay anonymous.
As you are watching the video, you can see one of the lights falling back from the group. This was reported by various people of the lights undocking and going out of formation. This happened during the video taken in Carefree, Arizona. That was also reported from Prescott, AZ.
Moreover, a man named Richard Curtis, who witnessed the incident and had compelling evidence, reached out to Councilwoman Frances Barwood from Arizona. However, after encountering MIB and exposing the incident to the media, he disappeared.
Frances Barwood, a member of the city council, opened an investigation into the incident. Since the military and local authorities had already managed to claim that the lights seen by the eyewitnesses were only flares, her coworkers thought her behavior was ludicrous.
Barwood received a call from Richard Curtis a few months later. He said right away that he had extremely detailed footage of the Phoenix Lights despite being an injured former soldier. He claimed that he had personally captured them using high-quality equipment. (Source)
Richard Curtis
Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood sits in her north Phoenix home with a copy of The Arizona Republic which touts “UFO Mania” on its front page June 20, 1997. Barwood didn’t see the lights, but many people called her about them demanding an explanation.
(AP Photo/Scott Troyanos, File)
Since the majority of the Phoenix Lights video footage up until this point had been merely specks of light on a dark background, Barwood was intrigued by this message. Curtis agreed to provide copies of the footage to Barwood’s office after she urged him to do so. However, days passed, and she did not receive films either by mail or by courier. “I thought he made this up. He didn’t have video, you know, all this stuff,” she said.
A week later, Curtis telephoned Barwood at her house and inquired about her thoughts on the films. Barwood informed him that she had not received them and expressed her amazement. Curtis continued by telling her that following their phone call, two men from her workplace stopped up at his home.
Curtis inquired if they were from Barwood’s office, and upon receiving confirmation, they asked about the Phoenix Lights videos, specifically questioning if Curtis had made copies. Curtis denied this and they offered to make copies for him themselves. He then gave them his videos and they departed in a black sedan.
Barwood was shocked to hear about the incident, as all her staff workers were female and she had no knowledge of the men. Curtis was angry and felt misled by the authorities. He spoke about the strange encounter and how the “Men in Black” took his videos in an interview with Phoenix TV.
Richard Curtis disappeared after supposedly taking a faulty medication and being transported to the hospital. There were no records of his admission, and when a professional checked Barwood’s phone lines, he confirmed that they were tapped by the government. This was surprising to Barwood, as authorities claimed the Phoenix Lights were just flares. Curtis’ disappearance became a major UFOlogy case, the second biggest one after Roswell.
Spending Time in Space? Maximize Your Health with this Space Salad
This salad made up of soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, kale, peanuts, sweet potato and sunflower seeds could be the optimal meal for men on long-term space missions.
Spending Time in Space? Maximize Your Health with this Space Salad
Space exploration carries with it many challengs and one of them is eating, or more accurately the provision of food. During short duration missions then its reasonable to take pre-packaged meals that have been provided from Earth. For long germ missions its a different story, not only will the fearless space explorers crave fresh food its also more of a logistical challenge to take enough food for a trip spanning many years. Researchers have now developed a healthy ‘space salad’ from ingredeints that could be grown in space.
Travelling in space is a demanding activity and astronauts burn many more calories than those of us safely down here on the surface. Not only is it more demanding but the long term exposure to microgravity means that extra nutrients are required such as calcium to help keep bones strong (astronauts have a rigorous daily exercise regime to help keep their bones and muscles strong) To sustain this, a way must be found to grow food during the mission.
Expedition 38/39 astronaut Koichi Wakata (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) uses the advanced Resistive Exercise Device (aRED) in the Tranquility node of the International Space Station in February 2014. Credit: NASA
A team, led by Volker Hessel has now developed a space meal that takes all of those requirments but also looks and tastes great. This wasn’t as easy as nipping to the supermarket and reading the labels of multiple foods, instead the team used a method called linear programming to construct the perfect meal with the right combination of fresh ingredients.
The use of fresh ingredients is important so that future crews can grow their own food using minimum amounts of water too. They also had to ensure the food identified was sustainable, meaning it used as little fertiliser as possible to maximise yield using as little space as possible and even be recyclable if not used.
Of all the combinations they found that a vegetarian meal made from soya beans, poppy seads, barley, kale, peanuts, sweet potato and sunflower seeds was the best at providing maximum nutrients with minimal effort and overhead from the astronauts. This combination didn’t provide absolutely everything an astronaut needed but any shortfall in nutrients could be topped up with suplements.
The team didn’t stop there though and just identify the right ingredients, they even knocked up a recipe for the perfect space sald for four people. Even going for taste tests here on Earth although mixed reviews were received. One tester said they would be happy to eat it all week as an astronaut while others seemed less enthralled but still went for more.
There is one problem in particular that the team had to overcome, strong flavours. In space, more especially in microgravity liquids tend to equalise around the body so that sinuses can become blocked. If you have ever had a cold and a blocked nose you will know how your experience of taste can be diminished – it’s thought as much as 80% of the sense of taste comes from smell. So it is with astronauts, they like strong, flavoursome food. Some of the ingredients in the all new space salad carry strong tastes to satisfy the appetite. The team are now looking to shape up more meal options so that future space travellers can enjoy cullinary delights across space.
Want to Find Life? See What's Missing in an Atmosphere
The world runs on carbon. Not just fossil-fuel-driven human society, but all life on Earth. Carbon-based organic molecules are a part of every living thing on Earth. Along with oxygen, nitrogen, and water, carbon is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it. So one way to look for life on other worlds could be to look for carbon in its atmosphere. But a new study shows that it’s actually a lack of carbon that could be the best clue to life on another world.
One of the more common carbon molecules for terrestrial planets is carbon dioxide or CO2. Although its rising levels in Earth’s atmosphere pose serious environmental challenges, it has existed in our atmosphere for most of Earth’s history. Carbon dioxide is also the primary component of both the Martian and Venusian atmospheres. So we can expect CO2 to be present in the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.
Of course, of the Sun’s three potentially habitable worlds, only Earth has abundant life. It also happens to be the only one of the three where carbon dioxide is a trace atmospheric component, not the dominant one. It turns out that’s not a fluke. Earth is not only rich with life, it’s also rich with water and water-rich minerals, and these are really great at absorbing carbon dioxide. Our vast oceans hold much of the carbon dioxide that was once in our atmosphere, which is why it is so lacking in our atmosphere.
In this new study, the authors demonstrate that this is a likely outcome for water-rich worlds. It’s not an easy thing to prove. Just because Earth’s oceans absorb lots of carbon, that doesn’t mean every water-rich planet will. The authors had to comb through troves of research on everything from biology, chemistry, and carbon sequestration to make their case. One key question focused on whether a deficit of atmospheric carbon is a biosignature or merely a habiosignature. In other words, is it primarily the living organisms on a wet Earth-like world that drive carbon sequestration, or is merely the presence of large oceans enough to get the job done?
How carbon deficits can indicate habitable worlds. Credit: Triaud, et al
The answer seems to be that while life helps sequester carbon, it could also happen on a lifeless hycean world. So if we look at the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets, those with only traces amount of CO2 are the ones likely to be the most like Earth. This doesn’t mean that these exoplanets harbor life, but it does mean that they have all the necessary ingredients for life, with heat, water, and the kind of complex molecules that form the foundation of life.
The team went on to show that this carbon deficit in exoplanet atmospheres can be detected by the James Webb Space Telescope for nearby systems. An excellent candidate for this kind of search is the Trappist-1 system, which is only 40 light-years away. So we might find evidence of potential neighbors in the near future.
This Shocking Footage Should Worry You! It's Too Late..
This Shocking Footage Should Worry You! It's Too Late..
The landscape of artificial intelligence is undergoing a seismic shift, fundamentally altering our interaction with technology. AI’s evolution is not just incremental; it’s exponential, challenging our understanding of intelligence and consciousness.
Today’s AI systems are not mere tools; they’re entities that learn, adapt, and evolve. They’re mastering tasks in ways that blur the lines between human and machine capabilities. For instance, AI’s ability to understand and process not just text but also images, video, and audio signals a leap into a realm where machines perceive the world with a depth and complexity that rivals human cognition.
When NASA decided to send the little Ingenuity rotorcraft to Mars on the belly of the Perseverance rover, they weren’t certain of success. Nothing like it had ever been attempted in Mars’ extremely thin atmosphere. Mission planners hoped and planned for a total of five flights, enough for a technology demonstration.
But now, as almost everyone knows, Ingenuity has wildly exceeded NASA’s initial expectations.
NASA’s Ingenuity has racked up important milestones since it detached itself from the Perseverance Rover’s underbelly in April 2021 and got to work. On April 19th, 2021, it became the first aircraft to complete a powered, controlled extraterrestrial flight. Since that day, it has blown away expectations and completed 70 flights.
Its most recent flight was its 70th, far exceeding its planned five flights. But the previous flight, number 69, was the helicopter’s longest. On December 21st, Ingenuity flew about 706 meters, or 2315 feet. That surpassed its previous longest flight, which was 704 meters, or 2,310 feet, in April 2022.
This video shows Ingenuity during its 54th flight on August 3rd, 2023. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/j. Roger
Five feet further might not seem like much. But Ingenuity is operating in a harsh environment that no aircraft has ever flown in before. Mars is extremely cold and dry, which can be good for aircraft on Earth. But it’s not on Earth; it’s flying in Mars’ very thin atmosphere, only about 1% the density of Earth’s. The thin atmosphere makes lift more difficult to generate, though the gravity is weaker, which helps. Not to mention the time delay in communications between Mars and Earth that adds a layer of complexity to every endeavour.
In that context, a 706-meter-long flight is a serious achievement.
The Perseverance Rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument captured this image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on June 15, 2021, the 114th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The location, “Airfield D” (the fourth airfield), is just east of the “Séítah” geologic unit. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.
In total, the 1.8 kg (4 lb) 10 cm (19 inch) tall rotorcraft has flown just under 17 km (10.5 miles) over the Martian surface. It’s spent 127.7 minutes in flight and has climbed as high as about 24 meters (79 ft.) Its 69th and longest flight lasted 135 seconds at speeds as high as 35 km (22 mi) per hour.
These numbers signify a rousing success. Ingenuity has proven the value of having an airborne companion for Mars rovers. An eye in the sky can help plan a rover’s path and can identify intriguing features in need of exploration. Ingenuity is no longer a technology demonstration. Now, NASA is using it as a scout for Perseverance, and the goal is to keep the rotorcraft ahead of the rover. But the successful scouting has led to communication disruptions.
NASA lost contact with Ingenuity back in April 2023 during its 52nd flight. The flight was successful, but NASA lost contact with the tiny rotorcraft as it descended back to the surface to land. The dropout in communications was expected due to an interfering hill between Ingenuity and Perseverance, which handles all of the craft’s communications. Perseverance was busy working on one side of the hill while Ingenuity sat on the other side. After 63 days, the rover crested the hill and could see Ingenuity again, and communications were restored, just as planned.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen here next to Perseverance’s tracks in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Ingenuity was never meant to be a working scout, so it’s well outside of its planned mission parameters now. In future missions, these communication dropouts will be avoided as much as possible.
Ingenuity suffered another setback, too, on May 3rd, 2022. Seasonal dust blocked the rotorcraft’s solar arrays, and Ingenuity was unable to fully recharge its batteries. One of the machine’s instruments went into a low-power state and reset its clocks. “When the sun rose the next morning and the solar array began to charge the batteries, the helicopter’s clock was no longer in sync with the clock aboard the rover,” NASA wrote in a statement. “Essentially, when Ingenuity thought it was time to contact Perseverance, the rover’s base station wasn’t listening.”
That communications drop-out didn’t last long, though. NASA personnel instructed Perseverance to continually listen for Ingenuity’s signal until communications were re-established a couple of days later on May 5th.
These hiccups are expected in a technology demonstration mission. By lasting this long and flying so much, and by dealing with communication problems and dust problems, NASA’s learning a lot more than they hoped for. Failures and problems are all a part of it.
And Ingenuity isn’t done yet. It’s survived everything Mars has thrown at it for almost two years. Each successful flight is a huge bonus now.
As the first aircraft on Mars, Ingenuity is a technological trailblazer. Its successors will be based on the many lessons NASA has learned from the little rotorcraft. And if rover design is any template, the aircraft that follow in Ingenuity’s footsteps will be larger, more robust, and more capable.
Mars exploration will never be the same again.
There are plans to send a pair of rotorcraft to Mars in the Mars Sample Return mission. And engineers are already thinking about a Mars Science Helicopter to accompany a future rover mission. It would be much larger and more capable than Ingenuity. It’ll have six rotors and be able to carry several kilograms of scientific payload to study areas inaccessible to rovers.
Artist illustration of three solar-powered Mars helicopters from NASA: Ingenuity (upper right), along with the proposed design for a Sample Recovery Helicopter to be used on the future NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return Mission (foreground) and a concept for a future Science Helicopter (upper center). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Ingenuity’s success, including its 69th and longest flight, is directly responsible for the future success of other rotorcraft on Mars. And each successive flight creates more data that’ll be used to improve future rotorcraft.
This artist’s impression shows NASA’s Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. NASA has authorized the mission team to proceed on development toward a July 2028 launch date. Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
MUFON’s long awaited Project Aquarius Library is now open!
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the longest-serving scientific UFO investigative and research organization, is pleased to announce the pre-sale and launch of Project Aquarius, an extensive digital library of UFO content. Pre-sale began December 20, 2023 and the official launch was December 31, 2023. read MORE
STATES OF THE USA
California 29
Texas 20
Florida 18
Illinois 16
Michigan 16
Arizona 12
New York 12
Pennsylvania 12
Ohio 10
Virginia 9
Maryland 8
Oklahoma 8
Washington 8
Colorado 7
Kentucky 7
Minnesota 7
North Carolina 7
South Carolina 7
Wisconsin 7
Indiana 6
Louisiana 6
New Mexico 5
Oregon 5
Connecticut 4
Wyoming 4
Alabama 3
Georgia 3
Maine 3
Massachusetts 3
Missouri 3
New Jersey 3
Utah 3
Alaska 2
Arkansas 2
Iowa 2
New Hampshire 2
Tennessee 2
West Virginia 2
Delaware 1
Hawaii 1
Idaho 1
Rhode Island 1
South Dakota 1
DISTANCE FROM THE WITNESS
< 100 ft 41
101-500 ft 51
501 ft - 1 Mile 69
Over 1 Mile 75
Unknown 70
NO VALUE 15
Most impressively there were 13 Landings, Hovering, or Takeoffs reported and 33 Entities observed.
Tom Delonge Has UFO Secrets That Kept Him Up For 3 Nights: ‘These Beings Have Been Around Forever’
Tom Delonge Has UFO Secrets That Kept Him Up For 3 Nights: ‘These Beings Have Been Around Forever’
There are many things happening within the UAP phenomenon. With the recent Mexican UAP hearings, the entire world has come to learn about how governments worldwide are earnestly investigating this phenomenon. It is not solely about alien objects flying at supersonic speeds; the UAP phenomenon is intricately connected to our reality. Such like-minded individuals as Jacques Vallee and Michio Kaku propose the existence of other dimensions, also known as parallel universes, coexisting alongside our own reality. Within these dimensions, it is plausible that there are beings or entities living alongside us, despite our inability to perceive them.
Interestingly, Tom DeLonge, the former lead vocalist and guitarist of the popular band Blink-182, has always had a keen interest in UFOs. He has spent many years researching and studying the topic. He has even formed a company, To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (or To The Stars) to investigate and promote research on UFOs and other related phenomena.
DeLonge even paid a visit to Rome with former Pentagon UFO official Luis Elizondo, where they discovered shocking details about the 2004 Sicily UFO attack. His “To The Stars” is behind publishing the three footages (captured in 2004 and 2015 by the US Navy) that were released in 2017 and 2018. They depict UFOs and include audio recordings of the pilots. These videos gained a lot of attention when they were released.
Tom’s fondness for UFOs began at a young age. As a child, he was fascinated by stories of alien encounters and sightings. He used to spend hours reading books and watching documentaries about unidentified flying objects and was particularly interested in the 1947 Roswell crash. Furthermore, his research led him to conclude that UFOs are not only real but that they have alien origins. He believes that there is a wealth of evidence to support this conclusion, including reports of sightings and encounters, as well as physical evidence such as radar tracks and photographs.
In this podcast with Dr. Brian Keating, Tom DeLonge shared several insights and personal experiences related to his involvement in UFO research. He was asked by TOE host Curt Jaimungal what it was that kept him up for three days.
DeLonge at first hesitates to delve into this topic but continues to talk about his communication with Jim Semivan (who is a co-founder of TTSA) and their unique way of thinking. Tom notes that Semivan and others have taught him how to analyze information more critically and avoid jumping to conclusions. They emphasize the importance of forming patterns and analyzing data over time.
Tom then touches on the idea of not fully grasping the stakes involved in the UAP phenomenon. He explains that initially, he struggled to accept the reality of it, despite encountering videos and books on the subject. He emphasizes the importance of verifying the authenticity of such evidence, especially when it comes to videos with a chain of title traced back to the Department of Defense (DOD).
“That’s why it was so important with the ones we brought out had chain of title all the way back to the DOD. So we knew those were real, it wasn’t just like it was on YouTube and leaked. So it’s, it’s the idea of bringing for things that you know, where they come from, and and you really take it from that point forward, and start getting really good data and evidence on people’s encounters, and the stakes that come with that. And that when when I’ve talked about this, as a threat, you know, this, that’s just my words, right? I mean, I would never know the way that government treats that that’s not my zone, obviously.
But for me, in my own personal research, if something’s been here for a long period of time, and it really is showing up in people’s bedrooms, or in front of an F 18, or on a petroglyph wall, or in an ancient text down in archives of the Vatican, or whatever it might be, it’s obviously doing something. And it’s obviously having an influence, and it might only be an influence on where we end up as mankind, or it might be an influence, to keep us suppressed in a weird way to where they can take advantage of something, who knows, um, but it’s here for a reason. And it’s not really being, you know, forward about its intent. But we do know that we’ve been dealing with it for a long period of time.”
Tom then recalls a personal experience when he had a meeting with a couple of generals in Colorado Springs. During the discussion, they talked about things that people were experiencing or witnessing related to the UAP phenomenon. This conversation left him feeling uneasy and made him question the safety of his environment, similar to how his religious mother might feel if she encountered something that contradicted her beliefs. He emphasizes that the phenomenon’s impact becomes more significant when it is perceived as real rather than just a belief.
He shares his personal belief that as humanity advances in its understanding of consciousness and the UAP phenomenon, it will merge metaphysical consciousness science with conventional science. He suggests that this merging might lead to a more harmonious coexistence of various religious beliefs, as the core principles of many religions focus on the individual’s connection to a higher consciousness. Tom hopes that instead of crumbling, religions will adapt and find common ground in this new understanding of reality.
“You know, I look at the taskforce report, and I look at what’s going on now. And if I if there was such a thing, like bodies are great After whatever, um, and they’re so advanced, and they’re somehow influencing the, you know, mankind and the way we are engineered to evolve or something crazy. I mean, because I look at us now it’s like, first we, we got into the biology of our bodies, and then we got deeper and we got into like, you know, DNA and what that’s doing. And every time we master parts of the body and parts of, you know, the world, we see and touch and feel like, what’s the next thing?
Well, I think the next thing is going to be discovering consciousness, and then we’re going to go how do we manipulate consciousness? And how do we capture it? And how do we are you know, so I’m kind of thinking of this, these beings have been around for so long, they must be in, they must be so far beyond like, wondering about our DNA, or wondering about like, what our spleen does, I think it’s going to be probably unnerving, probably complicated, probably a lot that we don’t know. And so the idea of the government just coming out and saying, Hey, look, what we got, before they know what it is, doesn’t make any sense to me.”
For some reason, Tom could not boldly speak about what he had discussed with those generals that kept him up for three days. In the same context, the case of former NASA researcher Ed Harris might shed some light on what Tom was trying to say.
Ed Harris claimed that serious researchers on the subject believe the story of former President Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified UFO information to be true. According to the story corroborated by multiple witnesses, the U.S. presidents are given only a brief overview of the subject by the CIA, and presidential curiosity is not considered a sufficient need to know. (Click here to read the full article)
After being repeatedly stonewalled, Carter was given “the talk,” which reportedly left him deeply sobbing and visibly disturbed for weeks. He was told that major religions, including Christianity, were created by extraterrestrials to prevent humans from destroying themselves while they ran experiments on us, and that they made us. Carter, a deeply religious man who had witnessed a UFO with six other people, realized that releasing such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval.
Richard Dolan also covered this incident in his book, “UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed.” He wrote that President Carter was given a UFO briefing at the White House on June 14, 1977, which he was then bound to secrecy about.
Astronomer Jacques Vallée developed an alternative hypothesis that UFOs are part of a mechanism for controlling mankind. He is one of the few people who added credibility to the UFOlogy. When others called the UFO encounters a hoax, Vallée explained it scientifically. During his interview in 1986, he said that UFOs are a “physical object that interacts with the environment that causes effects on the witnesses on the psychology and the physiology and leaves traces on the ground and yet are capable of appeared to be manipulating time and space in ways that go beyond what our physics understands.” (Click here to read the full article)
Dr. Vallée argued that when investigating a UFO encounter, the focus should be on the witness, how he/she interpreted the event, and how it affected their life (he noted that many people tend to emotionally react to a UFO sighting as a spiritual or religious experience).
Former US intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress during the July 2023 UAP hearing, stating that we have numerous spacecraft of non-human origin. If this is the case, one might wonder if any contact has been established between humans and these extraterrestrial species. There have been persistent rumors suggesting that the US government may have signed treaties with these extraterrestrials and has been engaged in collaborative efforts with them over an extended period.
According to a rather extraordinary claim made by former US government consultant Timothy Good, it is alleged that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had three clandestine meetings with extraterrestrials. Good claimed Eisenhower met aliens at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954. In more recent times, former Israeli Space Head Haim Eshed stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars. Eshed went on to claim the existence of a “Galactic Federation” and implied that then-President Trump was on the brink of making significant revelations in this regard.
Video Evidence
During a podcast with former Fox News anchor Clayton Morris on his show Redacted, Joshua Reid, a former United States Navy serviceman with a background in missile weapons defense systems, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. He opened the conversation by referencing his personal experiences in the Navy, specifically during the years 2004 to 2006. Reid’s background made him intimately familiar with topics related to secret space projects, a subject that has piqued his interest for over two and a half decades.
It is worth noting that Joshua Reid’s extensive research in the field of UAPs and classified information has led him to the inner workings of certain government activities. His extensive four-year investigation revealed a disconcerting pattern. It appeared that military technology, particularly in special access programs, was unintentionally making its way to foreign adversaries, including China. This exchange of classified information seemed to involve universities and professors who were receiving grants to reverse engineer technologies from these programs.
The remarkable twist in this story was that Hillary Clinton’s emails were potentially facilitating the sale of this classified information to China and other foreign entities. China would fund universities, enticing professors to divulge information on special access programs. This enabled them to advance their technology rapidly, potentially reaching parity with the United States.
Former Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III, well-versed in these special access programs, played a crucial role in this unfolding drama. He represented David Grusch and became a central figure in the whistleblower saga. According to Reid, multiple whistleblowers were involved, with two possessing firsthand information and tangible evidence. The fear of repercussions led these individuals to testify in front of congressmen, notably, Indiana Congressman André Carson. However, it was not until these whistleblowers presented video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials that congressmen took their claims seriously.
The impact of these videos was profound. Congressmen were visibly shaken, with one trembling and another drinking water profusely. This sudden shift in demeanor signified that the evidence was both extraordinary and unsettling. The whistleblowers were introduced to Inspector General McCullough, who had an extensive background in the very special access programs at the center of the controversy.
“I’ve heard that we can confirm this later, but from what I’m hearing, André Carson is this Congressman that they testified in front of, along with a few others. The Congressman didn’t take these guys seriously, but what ended up happening is they pulled out the evidence, a DVD, and they showed these congressmen video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials. After these videos were shown to congressmen, they were noticeably shaken in fear. One of them was holding a piece of paper and could not stop shaking. Another was drinking water profusely, and this is when they began to take this very, very seriously and introduce these gentlemen to the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, McCullough. Hence, he enters the picture as someone who understands these SAP programs, has been read into these programs from back in the day, and is now representing these gentlemen.”
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He posed the question of where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He asked Reid where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
One of the prominent UFO researchers who has been sharing insider knowledge on UAPs is investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. It is quite uncertain if Coulthart possesses this DVD evidence but he did reveal that there exists a huge UFO in the possession of the United States that cannot be moved, and he knows the location of the craft. Ross mentioned the existence of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth for a long time and the recovery of certain objects, but he could not disclose specific details due to concerns about revealing advanced technologies.
In a recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” host Andy engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Ross. The discussion centered around the secrecy surrounding UFO sightings and government knowledge. Ross, who has deep insights into the matter, shared his perspective on why certain details remain undisclosed.
Andy began by addressing a critical question that has been on the minds of many UFO enthusiasts: the location of the mysterious craft. He asked Ross whether he could reveal where the craft was being held.
Ross responded: “Let me tell you, I can’t tell you the country it’s in; it’s not America. But what I can tell you is that the place where it is kept is used for another purpose that is a laudatory purpose that’s as much in your interests in your country in the UK as it is in mine in Australia and as it is in America. The simple reasons are that there are other uses for the place where this object is stored, and we could end up with a storm Area 51-type scenario if you came out and announced it.”
Ross went on to explain the potential consequences of revealing such information, including international incidents and threats to the safety of personnel at the facilities. He also emphasized the importance of protecting sources, drawing on his experience as a journalist dealing with sensitive intelligence.
Interestingly, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the July 2023 Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company, which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology.
According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.
The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.
Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.
Sprague wrote,“Date 4 – May 19, 2022, Biden is now in Alaska and stopped off to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This video is the most incredible of all. Biden meets with three of the Ganzi. Biden puts a small device in his ear and a conversation occurs without sound. The video lasts for nine minutes and then four people enter the area. One of the people is John Podesta. The other three are unknown. The beings leave and the video ends. In September of 2022, Biden names Podesta as the Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. December 14, 2022, America has a breakthrough in fusion. To achieve this scientific feat – a laser is used. This laser has ‘unique’ properties.” (Source)
Sprague’s claims cannot be verified; however, it is certain that there exists an alien craft, and the United States has successfully accessed its interior. Dr. James Lacatski, a retired DIA intelligence officer who established the UFO program that operated from 2008 to 2010, has confirmed this. He stated that the craft possesses a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but lacks conventional features such as an engine, wings, intakes, exhaust, or fuel tanks.
Falcon Heavy Launches Space Force’s Mysterious X-37B Space Plane
Rocket launches seem to have become a bit mundane for many these days yet the odd launch captures peoples imagination. One such launch took place on 29th December when a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carried an uncrewed and autonomous craft into orbit. The configuration of the Falcon Heavy was such that the boosters landed safetly but the central booster was setup as expendable to carry the plane to its heighest altitude yet but its mission remains a mystery.
The Falcon Heavy lifted off from NASA’ Kennedy Space Centre on Friday morning at 01:07 GMT, its payload, the US military X-37B space plane. It resembles a space shuttle but with one rather obvious visual difference, there are no windows. This space plane was never designed to carry passengers indeed it is entirely automated.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle taxiing on the flightline on March 30th, 2010, at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, Florida. Credit: USAF
Besides its strange appearance, the X-37B’s missions have been shrouded in mystery with much speculation about its activities. Previous flights have seen research into collecting solar energy from space and relaying it to Earth and studying how radiation effects seeds to inform future space travel logistics.
This latest mission looks to be even more intriguing due to the use of the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful of all rockets. With its extra lift capability there is even speculation that the space plane might be destined for the Moon or maybe even Mars. Unfortunately with the higher altitude destination it is going to be more difficult for sky watchers like the team at COMSPOC who track space objects to determine what its up to.
Regardless of its purpose, X-37B gives the US the opportunity to test space operations to inform future missions. One such test enables NASA to develop ways to sustain astronauts on long duration deep space trips. If humans are ever to conquer deep space, even long term planetary exploration then we must learn how to grow food successfully in the soilless environment of space. Called ‘Seeds-2’, seeds will be exposed to the radiation and harsh environment of long term space flight.
Just how long this latest mission will last or what altitude it is destined for is unknown but one thing is for sure, whatever it is up to, some exciting developments in space exploration can be expected.
‘Giant’ Predatory Worms Lived in Greenland Waters 518 Million Years Ago
‘Giant’ Predatory Worms Lived in Greenland Waters 518 Million Years Ago
Adorned with fins down the sides of its body, a distinct head with long antennae, massive jaw structures inside its mouth and growing to more than 30 cm (11.8 inches) in length, Timorebestia koprii was one of the largest animals in the Early Cambrian oceans.
Reconstruction of Timorebestia koprii in the pelagic ecosystem preserved in Sirius Passet; other species shown in the foreground are Kiisortoqia, Siricaris, Kerygmachela, Pauloterminus, Kleptothule, and Isoxys; further in the background are two radiodonts: Tamisiocaris and an amplectobeluid.
Image credit: Robert Nicholls / BobNichollsArt.
Timorebestia koprii lived in the Early Cambrian oceans, more than 518 million years ago.
“We have previously known that primitive arthropods were the dominant predators during the Cambrian, such as the bizarre-looking anomalocaridids,” said Dr. Jakob Vinther, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol.
“However, Timorebestia koprii is a distant, but close, relative of living arrow worms, or chaetognaths. These are much smaller ocean predators today that feed on tiny zooplankton.”
“Our research shows that these ancient ocean ecosystems were fairly complex with a food chain that allowed for several tiers of predators.”
“Timorebestia were giants of their day and would have been close to the top of the food chain. That makes it equivalent in importance to some of the top carnivores in modern oceans, such as sharks and seals back in the Cambrian period.”
Inside the fossilised digestive system of Timorebestia koprii, Dr. Vinther and colleagues found remains of a common, swimming arthropod called Isoxys.
“We can see these arthropods was a food source many other animals,” siad Dr. Morten Lunde Nielsen, a paleontologist at Korea Polar Research Institute, the University of Bristol and British Geological Survey.
“They are very common at Sirius Passet and had long protective spines, pointing both forwards and backwards.”
“However, they clearly didn’t completely succeed in avoiding that fate, because Timorebestia munched on them in great quantities.”
Holotype of Timorebestia koprii.
Image credit: Park et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi6678.
“Arrow worms are one of the oldest animal fossils from the Cambrian. While arthropods appear in the fossil record about 521 to 529 million years ago, arrow worms can be traced back at least 538 million years back in time,” Dr. Vinther said.
“Both arrow worms, and the more primitive Timorebestia, were swimming predators. We can therefore surmise that in all likelihood they were the predators that dominated the oceans before arthropods took off.”
“Perhaps they had a dynasty of about 10-15 million years before they got superseded by other, and more successful, groups.”
“Timorebestia is a really significant find for understanding where these jawed predators came from,” said Oxford University’s Dr. Luke Parry.
“Today, arrow worms have menacing bristles on the outside of their heads for catching prey, whereas Timorebestia has jaws inside its head.”
“This is what we see in microscopic jaw worms today — organisms that arrow worms shared an ancestor with over half a billion years ago.”
“Timorebestia and other fossils like it provide links between closely related organisms that today look very different.”
“Our discovery firms up how arrow worms evolved,” said Dr. Tae Yoon Park, a palentologist at the Korean Polar Research Institute.
“Living arrow worms have a distinct nervous centre on their belly, called a ventral ganglion. It is entirely unique to these animals.”
“We have found this preserved in Timorebestia and another fossil called Amiskwia.”
“People have debated whether or not Amiskwia was closely related to arrow worms, as part of their evolutionary stem lineage.”
“The preservation of these unique ventral ganglia gives us a great deal more confidence in this hypothesis.”
The team’s work was published in the journal Science Advances.
Tae-Yoon S. Park et al. 2024. A giant stem-group chaetognath. Science Advances 10 (1); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi6678
De marsrover Curiosity heeft stilstaand een opname van 12 uur gemaakt, waarbij je zowel de zonsopgang als zonsondergang kan zien. De beelden bieden een uniek inkijkje op hoe een dag op Mars eruitziet.
Normaal scheurt de rover Curiosity rond op Mars in de naam van de wetenschap. Echter komt het af en toe voor dat de zon tussen de aarde en de rode planeet gaat staan, waardoor signalen verstoord kunnen raken door geïoniseerde gassen van onze moederster. Dit evenement heet ook wel de zonneconjunctie en is de grootste reden dat wetenschappers één keer in de twee jaar een ‘pauze’ van twee weken inlassen om er zeker van te zijn dat apparatuur op Mars geen wilde dingen gaat doen. Voor het racemonster Curiosity betekent dit dus vooral parkeren en wachten totdat het evenement voorbij is. Tijdens deze geforceerde pitstop heeft de rover echter nog wel werk verricht. Zo heeft Curiosity op acht november een opname gemaakt van zonsopgang tot zonsondergang.
Beelden van de voorkant van de rover.
Credit: NASA
Hazcams De wetenschappers hadden gehoopt om een uniek weerfenomeen vast te leggen, maar helaas is dat niet gelukt. Wat we wel goed kunnen zien, is hoe een normale dag er op Mars uitziet. Zo zien we de schaduw van de rover over het oppervlak kruipen en zien we de zon in de lucht haar weg vervolgen. Helaas zijn de beelden in zwart-wit. Dit is omdat de zogenoemde ‘Hazcams’ zijn gebruikt voor de opname. Deze hazcams maken ‘slechts’ zwartwitfoto’s en hebben de belangrijke functie om ervoor te zorgen dat de rover niet over gevaarlijk terrein gaat rijden. Zo heeft Curiosity eerder rechtsomkeert moeten maken vanwege een enorme verzameling aan windkeien. Het grootste probleem hierbij is vooral de slijtage die passage door een met windkeien – of met andere gevaren – bezaaid gebied aan de wielen oplevert.
De achterste Hazcam van Curiosity legde de schaduw van de achterkant van de rover vast in deze 12 uur durende opname, kijkend naar de bodem van de Gale-krater. Een verscheidenheid aan factoren veroorzaakte verschillende beeldartefacten, waaronder een zwart stipje, het vervormde uiterlijk van de zon en de rijen witte pixels die uit de zon komen.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stoffig scherm De bovenstaande beelden zijn afkomstig van de voorkant van de rover. De onderstaande beelden zijn afkomstig van de achterkant van de rover. Het zijn vooral deze beelden waar de wetenschappers van NASA een aantal kanttekeningen bijzetten. Zo is het ten eerste goed om te onthouden dat de beelden enigszins ‘stoffig’ over kunnen komen. De grootste reden hiervoor is dat er (helaas) nog niemand langs is geweest om de lenzen op te poetsen, en er dus elf jaar aan stof op de buitenkant van de rover zit. Ten tweede valt het op dat tijdens de zonsondergang er een soort van ‘witte sneeuw’ in de lucht lijkt te hangen. Dit heeft te maken met de camera’s die zichzelf proberen af te stellen op het licht en hierbij een gek effect lijken te veroorzaken, een effect dat ook wel te boek staat als ‘hot pixels’. Als laatste wijzen de wetenschappers op een willekeurig zwart vlekje dat vlak voor de zonsondergang op het beeld verschijnt. Dit vlekje is het gevolg van een kosmische straal die toevallig op dat moment de hazcams terroriseerde.
Alien Encounter Triggers Shocking Halving of Witness’s Bodyweight
Alien Encounter Triggers Shocking Halving of Witness’s Bodyweight
In the tranquil expanse of Salinas, California, Rob Foynton’s life took an extraordinary turn one fateful 4th of July night in 2009. As the rest of the country celebrated independence, Rob faced an unimaginable ordeal that would challenge the very fabric of reality. This is a tale not just of alien abduction but of a profound transformation that left a man half the person he used to be, quite literally.
Rob, like many others, never suspected the skies held such secrets until he witnessed a massive glowing disc hovering ominously above his backyard. What started as a casual cigarette break spiraled into a nightmarish experience of abduction and experimentation. Rob recounted being rendered helpless, succumbing to an unknown force, and blacking out, only to awaken with no memory of the intervening hours.
The phenomenon known as ‘missing time’ is common in abduction narratives, yet each story bears its unique horror. For Rob, it was the vivid recollection of seeing his brain exposed while strapped helplessly to a chair aboard an alien craft. Surrounding him were beings of humanoid form, performing inexplicable and invasive procedures.
VIDEO:
UFO Witness Loses Half His Bodyweight After Traumatic Incident | UFO Witness
The aftermath of this encounter was as bizarre as it was devastating. Rob’s health spiraled inexplicably. He faced constant sickness, unexplained injuries, and a dramatic weight loss, shedding nearly half his bodyweight within months. The medical community stood baffled. Despite extensive tests, no conventional explanation could be found for his condition.
In his desperate search for answers, Rob turned to hypnotherapy, a common recourse among those claiming alien encounters. He believed these unearthly beings had inflicted damage beyond the scope of human medicine. The physical and emotional toll was immense, leading to isolation and disbelief from those around him.
This story isn’t just about Rob or the eerie parallels with historic cases like Barney and Betty Hill’s in 1961. It’s about the broader, enduring fascination with the unknown. It reflects a collective quest for understanding in a universe that continually reminds us of our limitations.
The skies above us hold wonders and terrors beyond our comprehension. Rob’s harrowing experience serves as a stark reminder that sometimes, truth can be stranger than fiction, and sometimes, it can be downright otherworldly.
The James Webb Space Telescope filled us with awe this year. Here's a look back on how.
An artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope.
(Image credit: Northrop Grumman)
On Christmas morning two years ago, astronomers and space fans received the gift they'd been waiting on for 30 years: the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope(JWST), the world's biggest, most daring endeavor to probe the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe.
This year, the space observatory has continued to deliver breathtaking and scientifically valuable images of the cosmos. Here's a look back at the JWST discoveries that altered our understanding of the universe in 2023.
1. THE JWST TAKES A FRESH LOOK AT OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
(Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ricardo Hueso (UPV), Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouchet (Observatory of Paris), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley), Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
Although the JWST's purpose is to see some of the first stars and galaxies in the universe, its fresh look at our own solar system has been nothing short of breathtaking.
Take this image, which, in October, revealed a high-speed jet stream on Jupiter, previously unseen despite being over 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide and traveling at about 320 mph (515 km/h).
2. NEARBY EXOPLANET HAS ABUNDANT LIFE-SUPPORTING MOLECULE
An artist's concept of K2-18 b. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser)
In September, the JWST discovered methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a fairly nearby exoplanet named K2-18 b, which circles a cool star 120 light-years from Earth and is larger than our planet but smaller than the giant planets in our solar system.
Previous observations with the Hubble Space Telescope had indicated that K2-18 b may be s a "Hycean world," an exoplanet that hosts thick, hydrogen-rich atmospheres with oceans of liquid water underneath. Recent observations with the JWST support that hypothesis, as the new data shows evidence for abundant methane and carbon dioxide but little ammonia.
"These results are the product of just two observations of K2-18 b, with many more on the way," study co-author Savvas Constantinou, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. "This means our work here is but an early demonstration of what Webb can observe in habitable-zone exoplanets."
An artist's impression of an irregularly shaped asteroid in deep space. (Image credit: N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger (skysurvey.org))
In February, scientists were thrilled with the JWST's unexpected discovery of a small asteroid embedded in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Like most residents of that region, the space rock, which is about as tall as the Washington Monument, is thought to be a remnant of the formation of the solar system and thus contains tantalizing history about its evolution.
Asteroids less than a mile long are difficult to spot with other telescopes, so the find underscored the telescope's usefulness closer to home.
4. THE JWST FINDS MASSIVE, MYSTERIOUS GALAXIES IN THE INFANT UNIVERSE
These six galaxies may force astronomers to rewrite cosmology books. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. LABBE)
In February, scientists announced the discovery of galaxies as massive as the Milky Way sprinkled across the JWST's images of the universe just 500 million to 700 million years after the Big Bang. From what existing theories and models tell us, the galaxies the JWST found are too big, and the mature red stars in them too old, that the study authors said the find "creates problems for science."
"It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question," study co-author Joel Leja, an astronomer at Penn State, said in a statement.
5. AN INTENSIFYING DEBATE OVER THE UNIVERSE'S EXPANSION RATE
Combined observations from NASA’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s WFC3 (Wide Field Camera 3) show spiral galaxy NGC 5584, which resides 72 million light-years away from Earth. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and A. Riess (STScI))
We know that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, but we don't know precisely how fast. The issue has become a debate centered on resolving the correct value of the Hubble constant, an important number for estimating the universe's expansion rate. Right now, model estimates for the Hubble constant don't agree with values based on telescope observations.
This year, the JWST observed a class of stars known as Cepheid variables, which are usually humongous stars some 100,000 times brighter than the sun and the most reliable source to measure cosmic distances (and thus to tease out the universe's expansion rate). But instead of resolving the debate, the JWST's data only deepened the ongoing debate over the Hubble constant.
"I don't care what the value of the Hubble constant comes out to be," said Adam Riess, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and a Nobel laureate. "I want to understand why our best tools — our gold standard tools — are not agreeing with each other."
6. SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON THE FIRST SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES
The quasar HSC J2236+0032 as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Image credit: Ding, Onoue, Silverman, et al.)
This year, the JWST helped astronomers see starlight from two early galaxies where they think one of the first supermassive black holes emerged. The JWST observed the galaxies as they were when the universe was younger than 1 billion years, showing how, over time, black holes gain unfathomable masses — often millions or billions of times that of the sun.
7. COMPLEX ORGANIC MOLECULES IN A PRIMORDIAL GALAXY
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in the distant galaxy shown here. In this false-color image, the foreground galaxy is shown in blue, while the background galaxy is red. The organic molecules are highlighted in orange. (Image credit: J. Spilker / S. Doyle, NASA, ESA, CSA)
In June, astronomers revealed that the JWST had detected intriguing carbon-based molecules, similar to the ones found in oil and coal deposits on Earth, from over 12 billion years ago, when the universe was just 10% of its current age. In space, these molecules link to minuscule dust grains. Detecting them had been challenging because of the limits of our telescopes. However, "Webb really makes looking for organic molecules look too easy," Justin Spilker, an astronomer at Texas A&M University, told Space.com.
8. YUP, MAISIE'S GALAXY IS AMONG THE EARLIEST EVER SPOTTED
Maisie's galaxy, as captured by the JWST earlier this year. (Image credit: NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/ University of Texas at Austin/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley)
This blurry orange blob, imaged by the JWST in summer 2022, is known as Maisie's galaxy, and in August 2023, astronomers announced that it's one of the earliest galaxies ever discovered. The galaxy seems to have existed when the universe was only 390 million years old, making it one of the four earliest galaxies ever seen.
"This was the undiscovered frontier where we really didn't know how the galaxies formed or what they looked like until we went and looked for them with the JWST," study author Steven Finkelstein, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, told Space.com.
9. THE MOST DISTANT SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE EVER SEEN
A panoramic vista of over 100,00 galaxies known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey. (Image credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin).Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI))
In July, astronomers announced that the JWST had detected the most distant active supermassive black hole ever seen, whose host galaxy formed just 570 million years after the Big Bang. However, this ancient black hole has puzzlingly low mass — just 9 million times that of the sun. For comparison, most of these cosmic beasts weigh over 1 billion solar masses. "It is still difficult to explain how it formed so soon after the universe began," the researchers said.
10. THE JWST REDISCOVERS AN ANCIENT GHOSTLY GALAXY
The galaxy AzTECC71 as imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Image credit: J. McKinney/M. Franco/C. Casey/The University of Texas at Austin)
The JWST's sighting of a fuzzy galaxy embedded deep inside a dust cloud has been of recent interest to astronomers, in part because it is seen as it appeared just 900 million years after the Big Bang, when the very first stars were appearing. But astronomers are also interested in the science lessons this galaxy is waiting to reveal, "potentially telling us there's a whole population of galaxies that have been hiding from us," Jed McKinney, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement.
"When we look at the James Webb data, there are two competing possibilities for these objects," Katherine Freese, a professor of physics at The University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement. "One is that they are galaxies containing millions of ordinary, population-III stars. The other is that they are dark stars. And believe it or not, one dark star has enough light to compete with an entire galaxy of stars."
Astronomers think these types of stars are powered by dark matter, the elusive substance that makes up 85% of the matter in our universe but is invisible to telescopes. If dark stars really do exist, their presence would help solve the puzzling observations of how a very young universe grew to host so many large galaxies as observed by the JWST, researchers say.
12. THE EARLIEST GALAXIES LOOKED SURPRISINGLY SIMILAR TO OUR MILKY WAY
Images from JWST of the newly discovered Milky Way-like galaxies seen in the early universe. Each row shows a different galaxy as observed in the different infrared wavelengths where JWST takes imaging data. (Image credit: L. Ferreira, C. Conselice)
"Based on our results astronomers must rethink our understanding of the formation of the first galaxies and how galaxy evolution occurred over the past 10 billion years," study co-author Christopher Conselice, a professor of astronomy at the University of Manchester in the U.K., said in a statement.
Helicity Space, a startup founded in 2018, is developing a fusion drive poised to transform space travel. With a fresh round of investment, the company is developing a proof-of-concept for a fusion-powered propulsion system that can get from Earth to Mars in two months.
In a recent press release, the space-based startup recently secured $5 million in seed funding from Airbus Ventures, TRE Ventures, Voyager Space Holdings, E2MC Space, Urania Ventures, and Gaingels.
Unlike traditional rockets that rely on chemical reactions, Helicity’s fusion drive operates on a magneto-inertial fusion method. This involves fusing two hydrogen isotopes into helium, releasing immense energy – ten million times more per unit mass than chemical fuels.
According to Helicity, the core technology behind their fusion drive efficiently converts electricity into plasma heating, using a unique approach to scale fusion conditions and directly produce thrust. Their method, distinct from conventional magnetic or inertial (laser) fusion, employs self-organized Taylor relaxation and magnetic reconnection physics, combined with a peristaltic magnetic compression scheme.
In very simple terms, the engine uses hot ionized plasma gas heated by magnetic fields that are constantly forced together to the point where they must then break apart. It is this seesaw of magnetic forces that generates vast amounts of energy, heating the plasma to the point where fusion occurs, forcing the nuclei so close that they overcome their electrostatic repulsion and fuse together. To simplify this even more, the energy created by that fusion is aimed out of the tailpipe of the Helicity Drive, and you generate a helluva lot of thrust.
So much so that it cuts the current seven or eight-month trip to Mars down to two, or the six-year trip to Jupiter down to just one.
One of the key advantages of Helicity’s fusion drive is its fuel and propellant efficiency. It enables faster travel over interplanetary distances, with less exposure to space radiation and the agility to alter trajectories or abort missions if necessary. The Helicity Drive creates short bursts of fusion conditions in a design optimized for propulsive plasma exhaust, thus providing acceleration with each pulse. You proverbially slam on the gas pedal, accelerate, and then take your foot off the gas letting momentum do the work. This propulsion method can be deployed before achieving continuous power generation, significantly advancing the feasibility of fusion propulsion in space.
Helicity’s efforts are part of a larger movement to leverage fusion technology in space exploration. Fusion power, unlike fission, merges atoms together, releasing vast energy amounts with safer byproducts. This contrasts starkly with fission’s splitting of atoms, which leads to radiation issues and the complex disposal of irradiated waste. Helicity’s fusion engines use multiple magnetically-controlled, super-heated plasma jets to propel spacecraft, marking a substantial shift from conventional rocket technology, which requires large amounts of super-cold or highly explosive fuel.
“Fusion propulsion can contribute to Earth’s environmental goals indirectly by enabling offworld mining and industry, reducing terrestrial resource consumption and ecological impact,” explained Helicity co-founder Dr. Setthivoine You in an interview. “Ultimately, we see our technology playing a significant role in both space exploration and Earth’s sustainable future.”
The company’s vision extends to catalyzing humanity’s spacefaring ambitions, boosting both human and robotic exploration, and possibly leading to ventures like asteroid mining. The technology’s scalability and practical use in space, even before establishing self-sustaining reactors, demonstrate its potential for early testing and gradual scaling up.
Helicity Space collaborates with top scientific institutes globally, including the California Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo. Supported by entities like the U.S. Department of Energy’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy, these partnerships underscore the scientific community’s interest in and support for Helicity’s groundbreaking work.
“We’re currently focused on proving the technology for space propulsion. Once we achieve this, we anticipate drawing more substantial interest and investment, including from energy companies, for broader applications,” said Dr. You.
While building a working fusion drive will require more than their current $5 million dollar investment, the fact that there was funding clearly shows there is a hard push for novel space technology. While still in development, the potential applications of this technology in enhancing human and robotic space exploration are immense.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. He is the host of The Debrief Weekly Report. You can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
On February 25, 1942, around 2:30 in the morning, the people of Los Angeles were abruptly awakened by air raid sirens. The city was instructed to blackout and prepare for a possible attack. Searchlights illuminated the sky, searching for enemy aircraft. Eventually, the lights converged on a single object, causing frightened citizens to step outside to observe. The sky was filled with hundreds of explosions and smoke as the Battle of Los Angeles began.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the entire west coast of the United States was on high alert. Blackouts and curfews were common, and rumors circulated about Japanese battle groups invading the coast and enemy spies infiltrating the population. The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, warned that American cities should be prepared for enemy attacks.
On February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine off the coast of Santa Barbara fired 25 explosive shells at an oil field, causing minor physical damage but sending a clear message that America’s coast was vulnerable to attack at any time.
In the early morning of February 25, a radar station picked up a strange object in the sky over the Pacific about 200 miles from Los Angeles. By 2 am, two other radar stations confirmed the object, now only 120 miles off the coast, and headed directly for the city. At 3 am, the object was reported to be 25 planes flying at 12,000 feet, just off the coast of Santa Monica.
Suddenly, the object vanished from the radar. The city was ordered to blackout, and anti-aircraft batteries were loaded and ready to shoot on sight. Visual sightings continued, with some reporting one large ship and others multiple aircraft in formation. Anti-aircraft explosions lit up the sky as shrapnel rained down on the city for the next hour. The object eventually disappeared over Long Beach, and the situation was already under control by 4:14 am.
The incident was front-page news along the West Coast and across the nation. Over 1400 high-explosive shells and countless 50-caliber rounds were fired, but there was no evidence of any downed aircraft or bombs. Shell fragments damaged several buildings and vehicles, and five civilians died as an indirect result of the anti-aircraft fire: three were killed in car accidents in the ensuing chaos, and two heart attacks attributed to the stress of the hour-long action.
The Battle of Los Angeles has been the source of numerous UFO sightings, with some of these reports coming from credible military sources. Project Blue Book investigated over 12,000 UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969 and was able to explain most of these sightings, but the object over Los Angeles in 1942 remains unsolved and unexplained. Despite numerous investigations and explanations, some still question what was fired upon that night.
Out of the 12,000 cases, there are still 701 unsolved, unexplained objects documented in Project Blue Book. Of the 700 cases, the object over LA in 1942 remains unexplained.
The most logical explanation for the LA object was a Japanese air attack, although 250 anti-aircraft guns filled the sky with explosions and shrapnel, there were no confirmed hits or downed targets. After the war, the Japanese military claimed they had no aircraft in the area at that time.
A local police officer claimed he saw two planes shot down, but there was no evidence of that on the ground. Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt, said it was just a false alarm and an overreaction due to jitters, but the army disagreed. They said the alert was absolutely real, and the army report said that as many as 15 planes might have been involved flying at various speeds and altitudes.
Despite the numerous military reports of something in the sky, skeptics say it was just jitters, but what about the eyewitness accounts and the three separate radar hits? The supporters of the UFO theory say the radar hits are absolute proof of a UFO, but it is important to note that radar technology in 1942 was not perfect.
Upon asking his opinion on the UFO sightings, Major Donald Keyhoe said, “With all due respect to the air force, I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin. During a three-year investigation, I found that many polishes have described objects of substance and high speed. In one case, the polish reported their plane was buffeted by an object which passed them at 500 miles an hour. Obviously this was a solid object that I believe was from outer space.”
Original Photograph
However, the famous photograph of the object over LA has been discovered to be doctored and possibly retouched. One can see the searchlights converging on something in the sky that is shaped like a saucer or football. However, the photo was enhanced and possibly retouched.
Image credit: David Marler
Image credit: David Marler
This was a common practice in the past to make photos more visible in newsprint, but the original photo was very different. It was underexposed and barely showed anything except for the faint lights. It was previously thought the original negative had been lost, and the one in the LA Times photo archives is not the original. The LA Times could not track down the original after working with investigators.
Interestingly, UFO researcher David Marler presented an original photo of the object over LA at the 2017 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference. He has actively investigated and researched the subject for 32 years. He joined The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in 1990 as a Field Investigator Trainee. (Source)
The story of how Marler got the original photo is really interesting. He claimed he bought it on eBay back in September 2012. The famous photograph was possibly not taken by an LA Times photographer, and the source of the original negative is in doubt. If it didn’t come from the LA Times, where did it come from?
Marler claimed that he traced it back to the Associated Press. So, all the photographs of 1942 objects over Los Angeles on the internet are doctored image published by the LA times. The authenticity of his photo can be confirmed after Ben Hansen, a former FBI agent, showed him a clip he shot with Simon Eliot, Archivist of the LA Times Collection at UCLA, where Eliot showed Hansen the original negative that an LA Times photographer did not take.
Below is the explanation given by David Marler:
“This is the original negative, and I’m viewing it as a positive because it just plays havoc with your eyes when you’re looking at things in reverse. So I wanted you to be able to see what the actual original image before it was doctored looks like. Here you can see all the writing on the side of the negative and again that typical notch pattern that’s not typical for the LA Times. If we blow this up, here’s what we’re looking at. This right here, and you can see these little blobs of light. These are all anti-aircraft explosions captured at the moment the photographer clicked the shutter…
I know what the original photos look like and the characteristics they need to have. One interesting thing is that not only is it a photo, but on the back, it has a stamped property of Associated Press dated February 25, 1942. I have other examples to show you from the collection that have the original news teletype glued to the back with one of the original descriptions of the event.
Here’s a blow-up and it’s very blurry, but there is a note to the editor dated February 25, 1942. This means that it was published that morning in preparation to be disseminated across the newswire as an Associated Press photo. It says ‘caution, use credit if you use this photo.’ I have many other similar photos, so I know the characteristics to look for.
The original news teletype says ‘Associated Press Photo, not LA Times.’ It says ‘caution, use credit from Los Angeles, how any aircraft barrage looked to Los Angeles.’ This picture shows how the early morning anti-aircraft guns shooting shells into the sky appeared to the average Los Angeles resident who got up to watch it. The small round white dots were made by the exploding shells.
Many people thought that a slow-moving object was the target of the guns, but hours later, the army still had not identified it. And again, Associated Press Photo, February 25, 1942. This is a nice piece of history to have in regards to the case.
Now we’re talking about a case that is 75 years old this year, and I think it’s interesting because as UFO researchers, we can never close a case unless we can rule out the possibility of a prosaic explanation. If you have an open case and you know it’s not a satellite or aircraft, it’s truly an anomalous case, and you can never close it.”
Some people claim that the object was shot down by the ordinance in the air that night, but others believe it was just a weather balloon that anti-aircraft gunners launched. There are reports of planes, bombers, and a crashed aircraft in the middle of the city, but the government claimed that it was likely shrapnel and burnt embers from exploding shells.
Dr. Robert Wood, an aerospace engineer who worked for Sikorsky, Hughes, McDonald Douglas, and Lockheed, believed there was a cover-up and exposed secret government projects. After retiring, Dr. Wood researched and exposed the Majestic 12 and other secret government projects. He received five leaked documents about the Battle of Los Angeles; at least one has been authenticated.
One of the documents is a memo between FDR and George Marshall, the army’s chief of staff. It is dated one week after the incident. It reads, “This headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are not of earthly origin and according to secret intelligence sources, they are in all probability of interplanetary origin.”
However, the government denied the memo, and Dr. Wood only received photocopies, not originals, so there is no way to test the paper to authenticate them as genuine. Nevertheless, this case, 80 years later, remains unsolved, and if there was a flying object in the skies above Los Angeles in February 1942, it remains unidentified.
Deep beneath arctic permafrost on a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, scientists have detected the migration of natural gases that they say could potentially impact the environment if they escape into the atmosphere.
Under Svalbard’s frozen surface, there are an estimated several million cubic meters of trapped methane. Based on new findings, scientists say that this colorless but highly flammable gas also appears to be able to migrate beneath the High Arctic permafrost.
Now, a new study published in Frontiers in Earth Science proposes that the methane located beneath Svalbard’s highland regions poses a significant risk of escaping due to the presence of diminishing ice coverage, which could lead to greenhouse gas emissions that may contribute to rising temperatures.
PERMAFROST IN THE HIGH ARCTIC
In the High Arctic, permafrost is ubiquitous, although the subtle relationship between it and the region’s underlying geology is less well characterized. What scientists do possess a large degree of knowledge about is the accumulations of natural gas the permafrost contains, revealed over the decades by drilling both for scientific research, as well as the extraction of commodities like coal.
Throughout Svalbard, natural gas accumulations are present in distinct layers, which reveal more to scientists than merely their origins; they also provide evidence of the migration of these gases throughout the archipelago.
The Svalbard archipelago in Northern Norway
(Credit: Vince Gx/Unsplash)
According to the new study, led by Thomas Birchall with the Department of Arctic Geology at the University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway, the size of the trapped gas beneath Svalbard is presently unknown. However, one case he and his colleagues studied was able to produce several million cubic meters of gas in less than a decade.
Given that past studies have continually shown the steady thawing of arctic permafrost, Birchall and his colleagues warn that the escape of methane currently trapped under permafrost in regions like Svalbard could have a significant impact on rising temperatures and other effects on the climate.
METHANE ESCAPES COULD MEAN RISING TEMPERATURES
More specifically, the escape of large amounts of methane from its permafrost containment in Svalbard could instigate a warming cycle that would potentially spike methane emissions that, in turn, would lead to more permafrost thawing, and potentially the release of more methane.
“Svalbard shares a similar geological and glacial history with much of the Circum-Arctic, suggesting that sub-permafrost gas accumulations are regionally common,” the researchers write in their recent study. Given the location’s similarity to other arctic regions, the team’s findings mean that similar leaks of methane and other natural gases could easily occur in other regions.
“At present the leakage from below permafrost is very low,” Birchall said in a statement, “but factors such as glacial retreat and permafrost thawing may ‘lift the lid’ on this in the future.”
During their research, Birchall and the team found that gas accumulations at 18 hydrocarbon exploration wells they drilled in Svalbard were much higher than expected, with eight of them containing permafrost, and four revealing gas accumulations during drilling.
“All the wells that encountered gas accumulations did so by coincidence,” Birchall said. “[B]y contrast, hydrocarbon exploration wells that specifically target accumulations in more typical settings had a success rate far below 50%.”
Longyearbyen, Svalbard (Credit: James Padolsey/Unsplash).
In one harrowing circumstance, Birchall says drillers close to the Longyearbyen airport, where a bubbling sound was heard emanating from the well the drillers had produced. Birchall and his colleagues decided to examine the location with basic detection equipment capable of discerning when explosive levels of methane are present.
According to Birchall, the team’s alarms “were immediately triggered when we held them over the wellbore.”
Currently, scientists like Birchall and his colleagues hope to broaden their understanding about changes in permafrost, which undergoes periodic thawing and re-freezing phases each year. Over time, this uppermost active layer of permafrost has shown a general expansion in response to a warming climate, which also affects the movement of natural gases it contains.
“With permafrost thawing in the Arctic, there is a risk that the impacts of releasing of methane trapped beneath permafrost will lead to positive climatic feedback effects,” the team writes in their new paper, indicating the potential for an acceleration of warming both in the High Arctic, as well as in other regions around the world.
The team’s recent study, “Permafrost trapped natural gas in Svalbard, Norway,” was published last month in Frontiers in Earth Science.
NASA’s exploration of our skies and space will continue in 2024. Here are some of the high-profile missions that are currently underway, and some events are just a few weeks away, including NASA’s newest stride toward the Moon.
The first flight for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is scheduled to launch on January 8. NASA’s Artemis II mission, where humans would return to lunar orbit for the first time since Apollo, could fly as early as November 2024.
There’s plenty to watch from Earth’s surface, too. NASA is debuting a supersonic plane in 2024. There’s also a major astronomical event on April 8: a total solar eclipse.
Far beyond the Earth and the Moon, NASA will send its Europa Clipper spacecraft as early as October 10, which will explore a possible life-sustaining moon around Jupiter.
Here’s a closer look at five major NASA goals for the new year.
Europa intrigues astrobiologists. The Jupiter moon is coated in ice and cracks along the surface as well as jumbled features called chaos regions, hint that it might be geologically active. Jupiter could be stretching and pulling on Europa to the point that it warms it up inside, allowing ice to remain as liquid water below the surface.
An abundance of salt in this hidden ocean would explain why NASA data shows Europa conducting some of Jupiter’s magnetic field. And in the depths, hydrothermal vents may be erupting in a manner like the “black smokers” at the bottom of Earth’s oceans. Dark, salty, deep aquatic regions on Europa might have the recipe for microbial life. But finding out if this is true will be hard. Jupiter has a mighty influence. To evade the danger of Jupiter’s high radiation, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will take data as it flies by the moon, “clipping” it. Europa Clipper could launch as early as October 10, 2024, though it won’t arrive at Jupiter until 2030.
2. NASA INSTRUMENTS WILL FLY TO THE MOON ONBOARD ASTROBOTIC’S PEREGRINE LANDER
ANDREW MERRY/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES
Pittsburgh-based private space company Astrobotic, is on track to become the first commercial company to successfully land a craft on the surface of the Moon. Their stout, six-foot-tall Peregrine lander will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket on January 8, 2024. If Peregrine successfully lands on the Moon on February 23, it would usher in NASA’s partnership with private companies for ongoing delivery services to the Moon instead of building carriers themselves. Once on the lunar regolith, a handful of NASA payloads will begin collecting data about the lunar environment that could give NASA a leg-up on how to approach longer-term Moon exploration with crewed missions.
3. A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE WILL BE SEEN ACROSS NORTH AMERICA
Photo taken on Dec. 14, 2020 shows a total solar eclipse witnessed in Freire, La Araucania Region, Chile.
On April 8, 2024, the Moon’s shadow will block the entire disk of the Sun, hiding all but the star’s outer corona. The event is like a sequel to the 2017 Great American total solar eclipse: The lunar shadow will align with the Sun over a stretch of North America. The total solar eclipse begins in the Pacific Ocean, makes landfall in western Mexico, and then moves northeast across the continent, from Texas through Vermont, then out towards eastern Canada, and ending in the northern Atlantic Ocean. NASA officials will be watching from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana.
4. QUESST SONIC PLANE
Artist illustration of NASA’s X-59 Quesst aircraft.
In 2024, NASA will seek to fly its Quesst mission for the first time. The X-59 plane would fly over American land at supersonic speed, hopefully minus the harsh noise. X-59 will fly over several communities, whose members would then report back to the space agency how they perceived the plane’s sound. National and international regulators currently prohibit commercial supersonic flight over land because of the boom noise. Quesst’s success could revolutionize commercial air travel by clearing the sonic obstacle, allowing for supersonic flights, and thus significantly reducing travel time.
5. ARTEMIS II, WITH ITS FOUR-PERSON CREW, COULD ORBIT THE MOON
Left to right, Artemis II astronauts Pilot Victor Glover, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Mission Specialists Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen stand in front of the Artemis II Orion Crew Module.
NASA’s Artemis program has repeatedly faced delays, so it’s possible that the follow-up to 2022’s Artemis I mission might not happen by their 2024 target. But the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission have already begun training to ready themselves for that historic launch date when they could become the first humans to fly to the Moon in more than 50 years. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen could fly as soon as November 2024 on a nine-day mission around the Moon and back and come in faster and hotter into Earth’s atmosphere than any crew has ever done before.
Are we on the verge of a catastrophic UFO disclosure? The year 2023 has witnessed significant progress in bringing the UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) matter to the attention of the United States Congress. Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch has dominated discussions throughout the year. His testimony before Congress has raised numerous questions about the secrets the U.S. government has allegedly kept since the dawn of UFO sightings. Grusch is convinced that the world has been kept in the dark about this phenomenon for the past 80 to 90 years.
In November 2023, the Daily Mail published a bombshell story discussing the impending UAP Disclosure. Retired US Army Colonel Karl E. Nell was invited to a Stanford University conference to present a “campaign plan” aimed at achieving greater transparency. He also discussed a “Manhattan project,” dedicated to reverse-engineering recovered UFOs/UAPs.
During the conference, Nell showcased slides indicating his hope for disclosure by October 1, 2030. In the slides, he argued his plan, if achieved, would see “Proper Oversight Restored,” “Catastrophic Disclosure Avoid,” and “Scientific Understanding Advanced.” More specifically, Nell advocated for “restoration of proper Federal government oversight over all UAP legacy (and ongoing) program efforts” and “transformative” research and technology programs.
Daily Mail information was based on the first-ever symposium of the new nonprofit Sol Foundation, a group that wants serious research into UFOs and their effects on the world. In 2004, in response to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s decision not to release classified information about UFOs due to the perceived threat to national security, the Sol Foundation was formed.
At this meeting, both Colonel Nell and a former CIA scientist named Hal Puthoff spoke. Puthoff said that in 2004, these important groups chose not to share information about UFO research with the public. Among the Sol Foundation’s other speakers were former U.S. Air Force veteran David Grusch, who testified before Congress earlier this year under oath that “the U.S. government is operating with secrecy—above Congressional oversight” over UAP.
Grusch told the symposium: “Let us advocate for transparency, not for ourselves, but for the generations to come, as we embark on a journey toward a more enlightened and interconnected world.”
At the Sol Foundation UFO symposium, Karl Nell called for a ‘UAP campaign plan’ to compel transparency as well as ‘a Manhattan Project’ to more successfully reverse-engineer recovered UAP craft
Grusch has the support of many individuals in authority who believe he is an authentic person. In the June 2023 edition of the Debrief, authors Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal mention Karl Nell, the retired Army Colonel and aerospace executive who worked with David Grusch and characterized Grusch as “beyond reproach.” Nell speaks highly of Grusch’s integrity and credibility in his role as the Army’s liaison for the UAP Task Force from 2021 to 2022.
Grusch left the government on April 7, 2023, in order, he said, to advance government accountability through public awareness. He remains well-supported within intelligence circles, and numerous sources have vouched for his credibility.
“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence,” Karl Nell said.
Ross Coulthart’s insights into UAP disclosure present a compelling narrative, suggesting that there’s more to this phenomenon than meets the eye. With mounting pressure from various quarters, including politicians and the media, the quest for truth regarding UAPs seems poised to intensify in the coming days.
The urgency for UAP disclosure has persisted for a very long time. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the third CIA director, wrote to Congress in 1960, pleading for UFO disclosure. This confirmed a cover-up and a government disinformation campaign aimed at ridiculing and stigmatizing the topic. (Source)
Perhaps Hillenkoetter’s best-known statement on the subject was in 1960 in a letter to Congress, as reported in The New York Times: “Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”
In his interview with NewsNation, journalist Ross Coulthart shed light on the Office of Global Access (OGA), a key entity where much of the coordination regarding the retrieval of unidentified crafts seems to be happening. He emphasized the seriousness of the matter, stating, “You’ve got to have an office to coordinate the retrieval of these craft.” While some may dismiss these claims as mere science fiction, his recent interactions with credible intelligence sources have solidified his stance that operations related to UAPs are steered from within the CIA and OGA.
However, the scale of this phenomenon might be more extensive than what has been previously reported. Ross refuted claims that the U.S. only possesses nine such crafts. “I’m told that the United States has far more than nine craft,” he remarked, indicating that not all of them are intact. He further elaborated that JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) operators, primarily sourced from t he US Air Force special forces, are actively involved in retrieval missions.
A significant revelation from Ross’ sources is the recovery of what he terms as “biologics” — in simpler terms, Non-human Bodies. He shared, “We have recovered what David Grush euphemistically referred to as biologics. Alien bodies, non-human bodies.” This raises pressing concerns about the extent of knowledge the U.S. government possesses regarding non-human life forms.
Ross expressed fears of a potential “catastrophic disclosure” if the government remains tight-lipped. He believes that withholding such crucial information from the public and Congress might lead to unforeseen consequences. He stated, “I think it’s incumbent on the president and members of the executive to start thinking seriously,” emphasizing the urgency of the matter.
When posed with alternate explanations, like the involvement of foreign adversaries, Coulthart was quick to debunk such theories. He clarified that the evidence and statements from government officials indicate that these phenomena are not associated with known foreign technologies. This assertion raises eyebrows and places the focus squarely on what exactly the U.S. government knows but is not sharing.
Ross pointed out the notable shift in stance by certain senior Republican politicians. He questioned their motivations behind opposing legislation that seeks transparency regarding non-human intelligence technology. Coulthart’s skepticism was evident when he questioned, “If this is all nonsense, why would somebody of the incredible reputation and seniority of Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio, associate themselves with legislation that specifically talks over 20 times about NHI nonhuman intelligence technology?”
Danny Sheehan has been publicly pushing for the disclosure or revelation of information related to UAPs. In other words, he believes that there should be more transparency from governments or other relevant authorities about these unidentified phenomena.
In his other interview with James Landoli on “Engaging The Phenomenon,” Sheehan, who was a former Chief Council for the United States Jesuit order, revealed intriguing details about his conversations with the head of the Vatican archives regarding the Vatican’s knowledge of extraterrestrial life. Sheehan shed light on his involvement in a groundbreaking initiative to address the theological and philosophical implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence.
During the interview, James raised the topic of David Grusch‘s claim that the Vatican possessed knowledge of extraterrestrial phenomena. Sheehan discussed his access to the classified files of the Project Blue Book, where he encountered photos of UFO crash retrievals and concrete evidence of non-human piloted vehicles.
He proposed the formation of a task force involving all 54 major religious denominations to address the issue from a theological perspective. However, at that time, there was insufficient consensus, and the proposal was declined. Sheehan is currently working through his New Paradigm Institute to organize a global summit conference involving world religious leaders to discuss the recent recovery of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
“The United States government is in possession of biological evidence and has actually taken into custody alive an extraterrestrial person. They’re keeping this secret, interrogating the being, and distorting the information to justify massive expenditures on weapon development under the guise of a perceived threat.”
– Daniel Sheehan.
Sheehan highlighted the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He referenced a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church on November 10, 2009, authorized by Pope Benedict. The statement, issued by Father Jose Gabriel Alfuz, a director of the Pontifical Observatory in Rome, recognized the increasing discovery of exoplanets and called for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological implications of the imminent discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Sheehan disclosed that the government was telepathically interrogating the extraterrestrial biological entity (EBO) in custody. Despite acknowledging the bizarre nature of the revelation, Sheehan stood by the credibility of the information, having interviewed individuals directly involved in the process. The EBO allegedly conveyed that a coalition of star systems in our galaxy monitors the evolution of life on different planets, including Earth.
“Pope Benedict had a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church, saying that with the discovery of more exoplanets, it has become clear that we will be discovering life elsewhere in the universe. This prompted the need for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological questions posed by the discovery of extraterrestrial life.”
– Daniel Sheehan.
Meanwhile, Lue Elizondo expresses support for efforts to increase transparency around UAPs. He indicates that there are ongoing efforts behind the scenes to achieve this transparency and that even if certain official channels face challenges or opposition, there are alternative methods and backup plans in place for disclosure. Elizondo emphasizes the importance of understanding the vulnerabilities and challenges faced in these efforts, suggesting a comprehensive strategy is in play.
Uri Geller posts pic of UFO in Israel, social media says it's a lamppost
Uri Geller posts pic of UFO in Israel, social media says it's a lamppost
Israeli psychic and mystifier Uri Geller shared a photo of a UFO in Israel he says was sent to him by a senior IDF officer, but social media users dubbed it a streetlight.
Israeli psychic and mystifier Uri Geller shared a photo allegedly taken by a senior IDF officer depicting what seemed to be an unidentified flying object (UFO) hovering over a road in southern Israel.
"This photograph was taken by an Israeli Lieutenant Colonel who is a close friend, he was driving today by a sensitive installation in Southern Israel when he photographed this strange-looking object simply hanging in the sky," Geller wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The picture in question seems to depict a gray object along the side of an unidentified road in Israel.
In his post, Geller linked the photo to possibilities of aliens, writing "A draft paper by a Harvard scientist and the head of the Pentagon's UFO office has raised the idea an alien mothership could be in the solar system, sending out tiny probes dubbed "dandelion seeds" to explore the planets within.
"Please all of you try to decipher this strange object in the photo and let me know what YOU think it is."
Social media fact checks claim of mysterious UFO in Israel
Users on X were quick to respond to the post, which was also hit with a community note for context.
"It's just a streetlight, with the base digitally erased," the community notes post read.
Other posts indicated that the UFO was almost identical to the nearby lampposts, with some suggesting it was made with a panoramic image.
Geller, however, is aware of the issues with the photo, telling The Jerusalem Post that he "found the photo strange myself, almost like it was two photos put together."
He continued: "I'm asking people to tell me their opinion, to tell me what they think it is."
Geller further elaborated on a follow-up post he made, which highlighted two sections of the photo that seem distorted.
"What's going on here????" Geller wrote on X.
Regarding the photo's authenticity, Geller says he was skeptical, but that the senior IDF officer who took it insisted it was legitimate
"I found it very strange, it was definitely manipulated by something," Geller said, adding that he didn't think anyone in Israel would have time to photoshop anything due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. "I, personally, do not think it's a lamppost. Something happened to this photo, and that's what I find bizarre."
Artist's rendering of DARPA's experimental X-65 CRANE aircraft being build by Aurora Flight Sciences.
(Image credit: DARPA)
DARPA and Aurora Flight Sciences have begun building the first full-scale X-65 aircraft to demonstrate a new method of flight control that uses no external moving parts.
The X-65 is an experimental jet being developed by the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program overseen by DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Pentagon's research and development agency. Since the first aircraft were invented, they have been controlled by moving surfaces such as rudders, flaps, elevators and ailerons.
The CRANE program aims to do away with these entirely and develop an aircraft controlled fully by jets of pressurized air that alter how the surrounding air flows over the aircraft while in flight.
However, in order to minimize risk, the first X-65 demonstrator will feature both conventional moving control surfaces and what are known as active flow control (AFC) actuators, the jets of pressurized air.
"The X-65 conventional surfaces are like training wheels to help us understand how AFC can be used in place of traditional flaps and rudders," Richard Wlezien, program manager for CRANE, said in a DARPA statement. "We'll have sensors in place to monitor how the AFC effector's performance compares with traditional control mechanisms, and these data will help us better understand how AFC could revolutionize both military and commercial craft in the future."
The X-65 will feature a 30-foot (9-meter) wingspan and weigh 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg), making it roughly the size of the T-38 trainer aircraft used by NASA astronauts and the U.S. military. It will be able to reach speeds of up to Mach 0.7, which DARPA says will "make the flight-test results immediately relevant to real world aircraft design."
"The X-65 conventional surfaces are like training wheels to help us understand how AFC can be used in place of traditional flaps and rudders," Wlezien said in the statement. "We'll have sensors in place to monitor how the AFC effectors' performance compares with traditional control mechanisms, and these data will help us better understand how AFC could revolutionize both military and commercial craft in the future."
The X-65 will even feature a modular design, meaning its wings and active flow control systems will be able to be swapped out in the future, allowing it to be used for additional testing in the future after the conclusion of the CRANE program.
In the statement, DARPA says the X-65 could be completed and unveiled as soon as early 2025, with the first flight occurring as soon as summer of 2025.
Alien City On The Moon Found, Google Map, Jan 2024, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Alien City On The Moon Found, Google Map, Jan 2024, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: Jan 2024
Location of discovery: Earths moon
1. 28° 9'44.30"N 22°40'41.62"W
2. 28°13'25.95"N 21°56'0.01"W
3. 21°34'45.41"N 8°43'37.53"E
4. 28°20'3.25"N 18°56'9.64"W
5. 28°21'32.05"N 17°48'28.40"W
Check out these amazing structures on Google Moon map. The structures are massive, and really stand out. The structures have many right angles and have a glistening look of dull silver metal to them. The structures are mostly covered up with some poor photoshop on behalf of NASA to keep the public in the dark about the truth, but hey, thats why I'm here. To help you see the truth.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
I just did an interview with Jaime Maussan, UFO researcher from Mexico, UFO Sighting News.
I just did an interview with Jaime Maussan, UFO researcher from Mexico, UFO Sighting News.
We had a face to face meeting with the famous Jaime Maussan, who just a few months ago stood in front of the Mexico congress and showed evidence of alien bodies.
We talked about the UFO I found at the Arecibo radio telescope website. I found a gif which is many photos put into a movie form, the very last photo in the gif was very clear and focused. The one that is undeniable proof that UFOs and alien exist. It had a 800 meter disk (Arecibo stats tell size) and it had two smaller rectangle UFOs orbiting around it. It had no rotation data which is strange since all the doppler radar images have rotation data except this one. I believe the UFO is too smooth to allow rotation to be recorded.
Steen van Rosetta De Rosetta-steen, die in 1799 werd opgegraven door een Franse soldaat tijdens de Egyptische expeditie van Napoleon Bonaparte, is een plaat van granietachtige steen met drie versies van een schriftelijke opdracht dat in 196 v.Chr. werd uitgevaardigd door een groep Egyptische geestelijken. De bovenste en middelste teksten zijn in het Oud-Egyptisch en gebruiken respectievelijk hiërogliefen en demotische schriften (een schrift afgeleid van het hiëratisch), terwijl de onderkant in het Oud-Grieks is. Dit ensemble hielp wetenschappers eindelijk de code van hiërogliefen te kraken.
Dode Zeerollen De Dode Zeerollen zijn oude joodse en Hebreeuwse religieuze manuscripten van leer, papyrus en koper. Ze werden tussen 1947 en 1956 ontdekt in 11 grotten in de buurt van Khirbet Qumran, aan de noordwestelijke oever van de Dode Zee. Ze zijn ongeveer 2000 jaar oud.
Terracotta Leger In 1974 graafden een groep boeren een put bij de grafheuvel van de Qin Shi Huang-keizer op de berg Li in de Chinese provincie Shaanxi. Ze deden daarbij een van de meest gevierde archeologische ontdekkingen in de geschiedenis: het 8.000 man sterke terracottaleger dat was opgericht om de keizer in zijn hiernamaals te beschermen. De figuren omvatten krijgers, strijdwagens en paarden, die allemaal 2000 jaar in het graf verbleven.
De tombe van Toetanchamon Een van de belangrijkste archeologische vondsten van de 20e eeuw vond plaats op 4 november 1922. Een team, onder leiding van de Britse egyptoloog Howard Carter (1874-1939), ontdekte het graf van Toetanchamon in de Vallei der Koningen. Het gouden masker van de jonge farao werd later, in 1925, ontdekt. Het is een van de bekendste kunstwerken ter wereld.
Steen van Rosetta De Rosetta-steen, die in 1799 werd opgegraven door een Franse soldaat tijdens de Egyptische expeditie van Napoleon Bonaparte, is een plaat van granietachtige steen met drie versies van een schriftelijke opdracht dat in 196 v.Chr. werd uitgevaardigd door een groep Egyptische geestelijken. De bovenste en middelste teksten zijn in het Oud-Egyptisch en gebruiken respectievelijk hiërogliefen en demotische schriften (een schrift afgeleid van het hiëratisch), terwijl de onderkant in het Oud-Grieks is. Dit ensemble hielp wetenschappers eindelijk de code van hiërogliefen te kraken.
Pompeï Een catastrofale uitbarsting van de Vesuvius in 79 n.Chr. begroef de oude Romeinse stad Pompeii onder vulkanische lava en as . De plek werd voor het eerst opgegraven in 1592, maar pas in de jaren 1920 legden georganiseerde archeologische opgravingen de verbazingwekkend goed bewaarde ruïnes en de daarin begraven schatten bloot.
Grot van Altamira Een grottencomplex dat in 1868 werd ontdekt in de buurt van de historische stad Santillana del Mar in Cantabrië in Spanje. Het onthulde een verbazingwekkende reeks prehistorische rotstekeningen met houtskooltekeningen en polychrome schilderijen van de hedendaagse lokale fauna en menselijke handen, waarvan de vroegste 36.000 jaar oud zijn
Schat van Staffordshire Het is de grootste schat aan Angelsaksisch goud- en zilvermetaal dat ooit is gevonden. Het werd in 2009 ontdekt door een metaaldetectorist in een veld nabij het dorp Hammerwich, in Staffordshire, Engeland. Archeologen geloven dat de meer dan 4.000 voorwerpen, waaronder dit gevouwen kruis, verborgen lagen sinds 700 v.Chr.
Stonehenge Het is zonder twijfel 's werelds beroemdste prehistorische steencirkel en zeker de meest architectonisch geavanceerde. Stonehenge heeft historici en archeologen eeuwenlang in verwarring gebracht. De eerste bekende opgraving in Stonehenge werd in de jaren 1620 uitgevoerd door de hertog van Buckingham. Het eerste echte archeologische onderzoek van het gebied vond echter plaats in de late jaren 1660, toen de antiquair John Aubrey (1626-1697) het mysterieuze monument inspecteerde.
Grafveld van Varna De Varna Necropolis in Bulgarije, ontdekt door archeologen in 1974, wordt internationaal beschouwd als een van de belangrijkste archeologische vindplaatsen in de prehistorie van de wereld. Het werd het rijkste graf van het 5e millennium v.Chr. genoemd, waarbij talloze goudartefacten werden opgegraven, die dateren uit 4560-4450 v.Chr. Het is het oudste bewerkte goud ter wereld.
Tombes van de piramidebouwers in Egypte De piramides van Gizeh behoren tot de grootste archeologische schatten op aarde. Er wordt al lang gespeculeerd dat ze werden gebouwd met behulp van slavenarbeid. Door een ontdekking in 2010 van oude graven, naar verluidt meer dan 4.000 jaar oud, wordt er aan deze veronderstelling echter getwijfeld. Archeologen geloven namelijk dat de graven toebehoren aan de arbeiders die de piramides van Khufu en Khafre hebben gebouwd. Als vrije individuen kregen ze de eer om begraven te worden in de schaduw van de heilige piramides waaraan ze werkten.
Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is de locatie van twee vroeg-middeleeuwse begraafplaatsen uit de 6e tot 7e eeuw in Suffolk, Engeland. In 1939 ontdekte amateurarcheoloog Basil Brown (1888-1977) een spectaculair lang begrafenisschip boordevol oogverblindende rijkdommen, waaronder vier complete Angelsaksische helmen.
Machu Picchu Toen de Amerikaanse ontdekkingsreiziger Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956) in 1911 Machu Picchu in Peru tegenkwam, was hij op zoek naar een andere stad, bekend als Vilcabamba. Onder begeleiding van lokale inheemse boeren stuitte hij op de Inca-citadel.
Ötzi De goed bewaarde natuurlijke mummie van een man die volgens wetenschappers tussen 3350 en 3105 v.Chr leefde, werd in september 1991 bevroren in een gletsjer in de Ötztaler Alpen op de grens tussen Oostenrijk en Italië ontdekt. Zijn ontdekking, genaamd Ötzi, of de Iceman, geldt als een grote archeologische vondst van de 20e eeuw.
Indonesische grotkunst Indonesië herbergt enkele van de oudst bekende nog bestaande grotkunst. In november 2018 werd een 40.000 jaar oud schilderij in de vorm van een dier ontdekt, in grotten verborgen in een afgelegen bergachtig gebied op het schiereiland Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat. Het maakt deel uit van een jachttafereel en is momenteel het oudste beeldverslag en het vroegste figuratieve kunstwerk ter wereld.
Knossos Knossos, het centrum van de Minoïsche beschaving en de hoofdstad van het Minoïsche Kreta, is de locatie van de grootste archeologische vindplaats uit de bronstijd op het eiland en wordt ook wel de oudste stad van Europa genoemd. Opgravingen begonnen in Knossos onder leiding van de Britse archeoloog Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941) in 1900. Naast het onthullen van de ruïnes van een paleis, heeft de opgraving een reeks tabletten blootgelegd met een oud Kretenzisch schrift dat bekend staat als Linear B. Dat is een syllabisch schrift dat werd gebruikt voor het schrijven van Myceens Grieks, de vroegst geschreven vorm van Grieks.
Begraafplaats koning Richard III In 2012 werden de stoffelijke resten van koning Richard III (1452-1485) opgegraven onder een parkeerplaats in Leicester, Engeland. De voormalige monarch, de laatste koning van het Huis van York, werd in 2015 herbegraven in de kathedraal van Leicester. De locatie van zijn oorspronkelijke graf heeft een beschermde status gekregen en maakt tegenwoordig deel uit van een bezoekerscentrum.
Paaseiland Moai De hoofden van Paaseiland staan bekend als Moai en zijn door het Rapa Nui-volk vervaardigd. Zij leefden tussen 1250 en 1500 n.Chr. en bikten 1.000 torenhoge figuren van vergoddelijkte voorouders uit vulkanisch tufsteen. De beelden werden voor het eerst waargenomen door Europeanen toen ze de eilanden in 1722 bezochten.
Borobudur De Borobudur-tempel in Midden-Java, Indonesië, is 's werelds grootste boeddhistische tempel. Het enorme complex dateert uit de 8e en 9e eeuw na Christus en werd in de 19e eeuw ontdekt.
Göbekli Tepe Göbekli Tepe is een neolithische archeologische vindplaats in de buurt van de stad Şanlıurfa in Turkije en onderscheidt zich vanwege de oudst bekende megalieten (stenen monumenten) ter wereld. Ze dateren uit ongeveer 9500 en 8000 v.Chr. en er zijn meer dan 200 massieve stenen pilaren. De archeologische vindplaats werd voor het eerst onderzocht in 1963.
De lijnen van Nazca De Nazca-lijnen, geëtst in de Nazca-woestijn in Peru en alleen zichtbaar vanuit de lucht, zijn enorme geogliefen (aardtekeningen) die op dieren en planten lijken. Ze zijn gemaakt tussen 500 v.Chr. en 500 n.Chr. en variëren in complexiteit. De Amerikaanse wetenschapper en historicus Paul Kosok (1896-1959) wordt gezien als de eerste serieuze onderzoeker van de Nazca-lijnen, maar tot op heden is het nog altijd een mysterie wat het doel is van de lijnen. Onderzoekers die drones gebruiken, hebben onlangs tussen de 80 en 100 nieuwe figuren ontdekt.
Petra Een van 's werelds beroemdste archeologische vindplaatsen, Petra, in Jordanië, staat bekend om zijn uit rotsen gehouwen architectuur. De uitgebreide Al-Khazneh-tempel (afgebeeld is het Ad Deir-klooster) is daarvan het hoogtepunt. Petra, mogelijk al in de 5e eeuw v.Chr. gebouwd, bleef 'verloren' totdat de Zwitserse ontdekkingsreiziger Jean-Louis Burckhardt (1784-1817) de ruïnes in 1812 ontdekte.
Olduvai-kloof De afgelegen Olduvai-kloof in Tanzania is een van de belangrijkste paleoantropologische vindplaatsen ter wereld. Hier hebben de Brits-Keniaanse paleoantropoloog Louis Leakey (1903-1972) en zijn vrouw Mary (1913-1996), die paleoantropoloog was, opgravings- en onderzoeksprogramma's opgezet en ontwikkeld. Daarbij werden fossielen van de vroegste mensachtigen ontdekt. Mary ontdekte de robuuste Zinjanthropus-schedel in de Olduvai-kloof in 1959.
Chichén Itzá Chichén Itzá is een van de meest bezochte archeologische vindplaatsen in Mexico, waarbij de tempel van Kukulcán (El Castillo) het centrum van de oude stad domineert. Het gebied werd in 1841 ontdekt door de Amerikaanse ontdekkingsreiziger John L. Stephens (1805-1852), een cruciale figuur in de ontdekking van de Maya-beschaving.
Skara Brae Het neolithische dorp Skara Brae aan de westkust Mainland, het grootste eiland in de Orkney-archipel van Schotland, werd ontdekt in de winter van 1850, nadat de contouren werden blootgelegd door een hevige storm. Skara Brae, een van de best bewaarde dorpen uit het stenen tijdperk in Europa, werd bewoond van ongeveer 3200 tot 2200 v.Chr.
De Akropolis van Athene De Akropolis van Athene is het meest opvallende en complete oude Griekse monumentale complex dat nog steeds bestaat in onze tijd. Gebouwd in de tweede helft van de 5e eeuw v.Chr., wordt de citadel gekroond door het prachtige Parthenon. Onderzoekers begonnen het gebied rond de eeuwwisseling van de 20e eeuw te restaureren en te behouden.
Tikal De ruïnes van Tikal, een oude pre-Columbiaanse Maya-stad diep in de regenwouden van wat tegenwoordig Guatemala is, werden pas in 1956 opgegraven door een team van archeologen van de Universiteit van Pennsylvania.
Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum Het Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum op Malta, werd per ongeluk ontdekt in 1902 door een bouwteam dat stortbakken aan het hakken was voor nieuwe woningbouw. Het is een neolithische ondergrondse structuur die dateert uit de Saflieni-fase (3300-3000 v.Chr.) in de Maltese prehistorie.
Angkor Wat Het enorme 12e-eeuwse boeddhistische tempelcomplex in het noorden van Cambodja, bekend als Angkor Wat, werd in de jaren 1840 ontdekt door de Franse ontdekkingsreiziger Henri Mouhot (1826-1861).
Homo luzonensis In 2019 betekende de opgraving van een voorheen onbekende mensensoort die zo'n 50.000 jaar geleden op een eiland in de huidige Filippijnen leefde, in feite dat de menselijke stamboom een nieuwe tak kreeg. De soort, Homo luzonensis genoemd naar het eiland Luzon waar het werd gevonden, is geen directe voorouder van de moderne mens, maar eerder een verre oud familielid. Deze foto toont de fossielen en tanden van de vroege verre voorouder.
Serra da Capivara Nationaal Park Het Serra da Capivara Nationaal Park in Brazilië, opgericht in 1979, getuigt op uitzonderlijke wijze van een van de oudste populaties die Zuid-Amerika bewoonden. In de rotsschuilplaatsen in het park, zijn talloze grotschilderingen ontdekt, waarvan sommige 25.000 jaar oud zijn. In feite heeft het gebied van Serra da Capivara de hoogste concentratie van prehistorische plaatsen in geheel Amerika.
Akrotiri De archeologische vindplaats Akrotiri uit de Minoïsche bronstijd, gelegen op het Griekse eiland Santorini, is een van de belangrijkste in zijn soort in de Egeïsche Zee. Het werd verwoest tijdens een vulkaanuitbarsting ergens in de 16e eeuw v.Chr. en bedolven onder as. De plek werd halverwege de jaren zestig ontdekt en sinds 1967 opgegraven.
Deciphering the Skies: The Latest in Tic-Tac UFO Encounters
Deciphering the Skies: The Latest in Tic-Tac UFO Encounters
In the vast expanse of our skies, the enigma of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, commonly known as UFOs, continues to captivate and puzzle us. Recently, two intriguing accounts have surfaced that are igniting the curiosity of enthusiasts and skeptics alike. These involve not just any observers, but trained military personnel, adding a compelling layer of credibility to the sightings. Let’s delve into these mysterious encounters and what they could potentially signify.
The LAX Tic-Tac Incident
On 22nd December 2023, an ordinary day at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) took an extraordinary turn. Plane spotters, live-streaming the airport activities, captured a baffling sight: a tic-tac-shaped object hovering near a tanker refueling and escorting Air Force One. The footage, which was quickly removed from the internet, showed a spherical object exhibiting flight characteristics beyond our current understanding. This sighting, referred to as the “LAX Tic-Tac Incident,” has since become a focal point for UAP discussions.
Navy Pilots’ Gulf Encounter
Adding to the intrigue, former F-18 pilot Jack Stewart revealed a personal encounter with a similar object. Over the Gulf of Mexico, Stewart and his wingman witnessed a 40-foot-long spherical UAP displaying incredible agility and speed. This account from highly trained observers adds another layer of authenticity to the ongoing narrative of unexplained aerial phenomena.
Analyzing the Accounts
What makes these accounts stand out is the credibility of the sources. Trained pilots with years of experience in the skies have little to gain and much to lose by coming forward with such stories. Their detailed descriptions and the physical evidence, albeit scrubbed from some platforms, offer a rare glimpse into incidents that are often shrouded in secrecy and skepticism.
The Bigger Picture
These sightings come at a time when the interest in UAPs has surged, not just among the public but within government and military circles. The U.S. government’s acknowledgment of UAPs and the establishment of official bodies to investigate them indicates a shift towards taking these phenomena seriously. The LAX and Gulf encounters feed into a larger narrative that our skies might be host to technologies or entities far beyond our current understanding.
The Path Forward
As we stand on the cusp of potentially groundbreaking revelations, it’s crucial to approach these accounts with a balance of open-mindedness and skepticism. While the possibility of extraterrestrial technology is tantalizing, it’s equally important to consider earthly explanations. However, the increasing quality and quantity of sightings by credible sources are pushing the boundaries of conventional skepticism.
VIDEO:
Chris Lehto – New Tic-Tac UAP Accounts-LAX and Navy Pilots
The recent Tic-Tac UAP accounts from LAX and Navy pilots are more than just fleeting news stories; they represent a growing body of evidence that demands serious attention and investigation. As we continue to explore and understand these phenomena, it’s clear that the skies hold more mysteries than we ever imagined.
Een ontdekking die alles verandert dat we weten over ons universum De James Webb-ruimtetelescoop is door de internationale gemeenschap gebouwd om het heelal beter te kunnen begrijpen. Beelden die tijdens recent ruimteonderzoek zijn gemaakt, hebben ons begrip van het universum mogelijk nog complexer gemaakt
Iets dat niet zou moeten bestaan Foto's die zijn gemaakt tijdens de verkenning van een stukje nachtelijke hemel dichtbij de Grote Beer, hebben verschillende abnormaal oude sterrenstelsels onthuld die niet zouden moeten bestaan.
Zes enorme sterrenstelsels In de door de James Webb ruimtetelescoop gemaakte opnamen waren subtiele sporen van zes massieve sterrenstelsels verborgen. Volgens astrofysici moeten deze kort na de oerknal zijn ontstaan. Deze sterrenstelsels zijn zo oud en zo groot dat ze onmogelijk echt kunnen zijn, aldus astrofysici.
Veel groter dan verwacht Volgens de wetenschappelijke nieuwswebsite phys.org verklaart Joel Leja, een professor in de astronomie en astrofysica aan de Penn State University, dat deze objecten veel zwaarder zijn dan verwacht. Ze is een van de onderzoekers die het licht van de ontdekte sterrenstelsels modelleerde.
Volwassen sterrenstelsels uit het begin der tijden "We hadden verwacht dat we op dit moment alleen kleine, jonge sterrenstelsels zouden vinden, vergelijkbaar met babystelsels. Tot onze verrassing hebben we sterrenstelsels ontdekt die net zo volwassen zijn als de onze. Sterrenstelsel die komen uit een tijd die wij beschouwen als het begin van het universum", voegde Leja eraan toe.
Grootte doet er toe Zowel de leeftijd als de grootte van deze sterrenstelsels zijn van immens belang. Als de voorlopige gegevens juist zijn, kan dit onze huidige kennis over de vorming van het vroege universum op zijn kop zetten.
13 miljard jaar oud "Elk van de kandidaat-sterrenstelsels bestonden mogelijk aan het begin van het universum. Ongeveer 500 tot 700 miljoen jaar na de oerknal, of meer dan 13 miljard jaar geleden", schreef Daniel Strain van de Universiteit van Boulder Colorado.
“Ze zijn ook gigantisch” "Ze zijn ook gigantisch," voegde Strain, eraan toe. ''Elk sterrenstelsel bevat bijna net zoveel sterren als het moderne Melkwegstelsel."
Er is meer onderzoek nodig Onderzoekers hebben nog meer gegevens nodig om te bevestigen dat de sterrenstelsels inderdaad zo oud en groot zijn als aangegeven. Toch wordt in Science Daily in de publicatie opgemerkt dat deze ontdekking "een veelbelovende voorproef biedt van hoe dankzij de komst van James Webb, de astronomieboeken herschreven kunnen worden", voegde Leja eraan toe.
"Het is waanzinnig" "Het is waanzinnig", zegt Erica Nelson, een astrofysicus van de Universiteit van Colorado en één van de co-auteurs van het onderzoek dat de zes oude sterrenstelsels identificeerde.
"Deze sterrenstelsels hebben geen tijd gehad om zich te vormen" “Je verwacht gewoon niet dat het vroege heelal zich zo snel kan organiseren. Deze sterrenstelsels hebben geen tijd gehad om zich te vormen”, voegde Nelson eraan toe.
Dit verandert alles wat we weten Leja herhaalde Nelson's verklaring en zei dat ze ontdekt hebben dat massieve sterrenstelsels zich extreem vroeg in de geschiedenis van het universum hebben gevormd. Dit betekend een ommekeer in de wetenschap. Mensen dachten dat bepaalde zaken gewoon vaststonden in de wetenschap, maar daar klopt niets meer van.
"Universele vernietigers" Volgens Leja hebben verschillende leden van het onderzoeksteam informeel verwezen naar de zes superzware sterrenstelsels die ze ontdekt hebben als 'universele vernietigers'. Dit vanwege de implicaties die ze zouden kunnen hebben voor wat we nu weten over het heelal.
99% van de kosmologische modellen zijn fout Hoewel wetenschap soms moeilijk te begrijpen is, komt het er volgens Leja in wezen op neer dat elk van de zes sterrenstelsels zo groot zijn, dat ze niet overeenkomen met 99% van onze huidige kosmologische modellen.
De eerste keer kijken naar het vroege heelal "We keken voor het eerst in het zeer vroege universum en hadden geen idee wat we zouden vinden", zei Leja.
Alles staat nu ter discussie "Het blijkt dat we iets onverwachts hebben gevonden. Dit gaat eigenijk zorgen voor problemen in de wetenschap. Het hele beeld van de vroege vorming van sterrenstelsels wordt nu in twijfel gebracht.''
Curiosity’s rear Hazcam captured the shadow of the back of the rover in this 12-hour view looking toward the floor of Gale Crater. A variety of factors caused several image artifacts, including a black speck, the distorted appearance of the Sun, and the rows of white pixels that streak out from the Sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech
On November 8th, NASA’s Curiosity Rover paused its incessant science work and just watched the day unfold on Mars. The rover used its black-and-white Hazard-Avoidance Cameras (Hazcams) to watch an entire 12-hour day on Mars as the shifting Sun cast shadows across the Martian landscape. NASA chose this day because of the Mars solar conjunction when the Sun interferes with communications with the Red Planet, meaning the rover doesn’t do any roving about. The timelapse comprises 25 frames from both the front and rear Hazcams.
When the rover stays in one place, it works pretty well as a sundial, NASA says. You can see in the video below, posted on X, how the Sun and shadows move across Curiosity and the surrounding vistas. This is the first time the Hazcams were used to record 12 hours of images from a day on Mars.
The rover team back on Earth sent the instructions to record the timelapse videos just before the start of Mars solar conjunction because during this time, the Sun’s plasma interferes with communications between Earth and Mars. While the rover isn’t completely out of contact, no complex instructions are sent during the several weeks of potential radio interference.
The Hazcams are usually used to spot rocks, slopes, and other hazards that may be risky for the rover to traverse. Because Curiosity wasn’t doing any roving or other science, the team hoped that by using the Haxcams to record a day on Mars, they might be able to capture clouds or dust devils that could reveal more about the Red Planet’s weather. However, it was a relatively mild weather day on Mars, so no unusual weather events show up in the video.
The Hazcams have an autoexposure algorithm to deal with the various amounts of daylight at different parts of the day. For example, during mid-day, the algorithm settles on exposure times of around one-third of a second. By nightfall, that exposure time grows to more than a minute. This causes a typical sensor noise known as “hot pixels” that appears as white snow across the final image.
The video posted on X shows the first part of the day, with images from the front Hazcam. The view looks southeast along Gediz Vallis, a valley found on Mount Sharp. Curiosity has been ascending the base of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain, which sits in Gale Crater, since 2014.
This annotated image from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows its wheel tracks in Jezero Crater and a distant view of the first potential location it could deposit a group of sample tubes for possible future return to Earth. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
At sunrise, the shadow of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm moves to the left, and Curiosity’s front wheels emerge from the darkness on either side of the frame. Also visible at left is a circular calibration target mounted on the shoulder of the robotic arm. Engineers use the target to test the accuracy of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, an instrument that detects chemical elements on the Martian surface.
The second video, which is our lead animated gif image, shows the view of the rear Hazcam as it looks northwest down the slopes of Mount Sharp to the floor of Gale Crater. The rover’s right rear wheel is visible, along with the shadow of Curiosity’s power system. NASA explained that a small black artifact that appears at the left midway through the video, during the 17th frame, resulted from a cosmic ray hitting the camera sensor. Likewise, the bright flashing and other noise at the end of the video are the result of heat from the spacecraft’s power system affecting the Hazcam’s image sensor.
How well does your own dozen-plus-year-old camera work? NASA said that speckled appearance of the images, especially prominent in the rear-camera video, is due to 11 years of Martian dust settling on the lenses. You can see in the image above how dust settles on many parts of the rover.
Curiosity launched from Earth on November 26, 2011 and landed on August 4, 2012.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io with each recent orbit. Juno is in its 57th orbit of Jupiter, and on December 30th, Juno came to within 1500 km (930 miles) of Io’s surface. It’s been more than 20 years since a spacecraft came this close.
The Galileo spacecraft travelled over the moon’s south pole in 2001, coming to within 181 km (112 miles.) Galileo showed us a lot about the nature of Io’s surface.
But Juno is a different spacecraft with more modern instruments and cameras that will fly by Io multiple times. One of the mission’s specific goals is to determine if Io has a magma ocean or not. And while the spacecraft’s suite of scientific instruments can shed light on that question, Juno also carries a powerful camera that rides shotgun: Junocam.
Junocam was included with the spacecraft primarily to satisfy us, the interested public around the world. It takes high-resolution visible light images that are available for anyone to process and share. Two other imagers were also busy during the Io flyby. One is the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), which takes images in infrared. The other is the Stellar Reference Unit, which usually takes images of stars for navigation.
Io’s forbidding surface looks almost inviting in this Junocam image processed by Kevin Gill. But don’t be fooled: Io is a volcanic hellscape. If you’d like a phone wallpaper version of this image, Kevin made one here. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin Gill
Junocam images get the most attention because NASA makes them available for anyone to process and post. Junocam captured six separate images of the volcanic moon, including black and white and colour. The image below is a composite showing the lit and shadowed sides of Io, processed by Hemant Dara.
Scientists know that Io is the most volcanic body in the Solar System by far. But they hunger for more detailed knowledge of its interior. Juno’s series of flybys will allow researchers to watch its volcanoes over time, which will help lead to some new understandings.
“By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes vary,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator and a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement issued before this most recent flyby. “We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
Io remains volcanic to this day because of its eccentric orbit around Jupiter. Jupiter’s mass squeezes Io, and the squeezing generates heat that drives its volcanoes. The other Galilean moons add to the effect. The tidal force is so strong that Io’s surface can rise and fall by as much as 100 meters.
Io is about the same size as Earth’s Moon, yet it’s covered in hundreds of active volcanoes. Eruptions can launch lava dozens of kilometres above the moon’s surface. There’s so much volcanic activity on the surface of Io that some lava flows are hundreds of kilometres long. These voluminous eruptions are like the ones that triggered mass extinctions here on Earth.
Juno’s next Io flyby will be on February 3rd. During that visit, Juno will also approach about 1500 km (930 miles) above Io’s surface.
“With our pair of close flybys in December and February, Juno will investigate the source of Io’s massive volcanic activity, whether a magma ocean exists underneath its crust, and the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter, which are relentlessly squeezing this tortured moon,” said Bolton.
Juno is nearing the end of its mission in 2025. One of the hazards that’s bringing its end is Jupiter’s intense radiation. The spacecraft’s orbits are designed to protect it from Jupiter’s radiation, except when it approaches the planet for closer looks. It has to remove itself from the intense radiation to both extend the life of its electronics and allow it to send data back to Earth.
Juno was designed to withstand only 17 orbits of Jupiter but has so far survived 57. With a few more to come, the mission still has lots to teach us about Io and the Jovian system. No doubt we’ll be gifted more stunning images and science as it completes its mission.
“Io is only one of the celestial bodies which continue to come under Juno’s microscope during this extended mission,” said Juno’s acting project manager, Matthew Johnson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As well as continuously changing our orbit to allow new perspectives of Jupiter and flying low over the nightside of the planet, the spacecraft will also be threading the needle between some of Jupiter’s rings to learn more about their origin and composition.”
Io’s primary mission ended in July 2021, and its current extended mission will end in September 2025. At that time, the spacecraft will be sent plunging to its destruction in Jupiter’s atmosphere, ending its nine-year mission.
But these pictures of Io will always be part of its legacy.
After all of This Time Searching for Aliens, is it The Zoo Hypothesis or Nothing?
In 1950, during a lunchtime conversation with colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, famed physicist Enrico Fermi asked the question that launched a hundred (or more) proposed resolutions. “Where is Everybody?” In short, given the age of the Universe (13.8 billion years), the fact that the Solar System has only existed for the past 4.5 billion years, and the fact that the ingredients for life are everywhere in abundance, why haven’t we found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence by now? This came to be the basis of Fermi’s Paradox, which remains unresolved to this day.
Interest in Fermi’s question has been piqued in recent years thanks to the sheer number of “potentially habitable” exoplanets discovered in distant star systems. Despite that, all attempts to find signs of technological activity (“technosignatures”) have come up empty. In a recent study, a team of astrobiologists considered the possible resolutions and concluded that only two possibilities exist. Either extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) are incredibly rare (or non-existent), or they are deliberately avoiding contact with us (aka. the “Zoo Hypothesis“).
As we addressed in our series, “Beyond Fermi’s Paradox,” the paradox itself actually began with astronomer (and white nationalist) Michael Hart in 1975. In a paper titled “Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” Hart argued that given the age of the Universe and the relatively short time it would take for an advanced civilization to spread across the Milky Way Galaxy (650,000 years, by Hart’s estimate), Earth should have been visited by an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) by now.
In 1980, mathematical physicist and cosmologist Frank J. Tipler built on and refined Hart’s arguments with his paper, “Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings do not Exist.” Based on the Copernican Principle, which states that neither humanity nor Earth are in a privileged position to observe the Universe. Accordingly, Tipler theorized that an ETC would be assisted by self-replicating robotic explorers (von Neumann probes) that would spread from system to system, facilitating the arrival of settlers later. By Tipler’s refined estimate, an ETC would be able to explore the entire galaxy in “less than 300 million years.”
This came to be known as the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, which essentially states that the absence of evidence can only be explained by the absence of ETCs. In 1983, Carl Sagan and William Newman produced a rebuttal paper titled “The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (aka. “Sagan’s Response”) where they argued that “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence” and took the Hart-Tipler Conjecture to account for the many assumptions it made. They and countless other scientists have proposed potential resolutions for why we haven’t seen any ETCs yet.
The Great Silence Persists
Nevertheless, despite decades of observation and SETI surveys, there is still no definitive evidence that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are out there. For the most part, these have consisted of radio SETI experiments that have observed distant stars and galaxies for indications of radio transmissions. However, other SETI experiments have focused on anomalous infrared (heat) signatures that could indicate the presence of a megastructure designed to enclose an entire star system – otherwise known as a Dyson Sphere (or Dyson Structure).
Alas, these searches have found no compelling evidence of technosignatures within our galaxy or beyond. According to Crawford and Schulze-Makuch, the “Great Silence” we perceive when we look out into the Universe can only mean one of two things. First, there’s the possibility that the Hart-Tipler Conjecture is correct, and there are no advanced ETC out there. Similarly, it may be that intelligent life (or life in general) is rare in the Universe due to the odds being stacked against its emergence or evolution (aka. the Great Filter).
If neither of these scenarios is true, we are left with only one answer: the Zoo Hypothesis is correct and advanced civilizations are keeping their distance to avoid being detected. As Crawford told Universe Today via email:
“There are only two possibilities; either ETI exists, or it does not. As several people have noted over the years, either answer would be astonishing, yet one must be true. All we know is that we see no evidence for ETI, despite the number of planets and the great age of the Universe which would, naively, seem to imply that ETI should exist and perhaps be common. This is the FP. However, if ETI exists there are only two possibilities consistent with the fact that we don’t observe them. Either:
We would never expect to observe them because space is so big, etc.
We don’t observe them because they have taken steps to ensure that we don’t ( this is the ZH).”
Are we in a Zoo?
The term was coined in 1973 by John A. Ball, a Harvard astrophysicist and scientist with MIT’s Haystack Observatory. In a study of the same name, Ball addressed various proposed resolutions to the Fermi Paradox and some common assumptions made by SETI researchers. Among them is the belief that intelligent species exist in our galaxy, that they are older and more advanced than we are, and that they want to make contact with other intelligent species (including us). In contrast, Ball argued that advanced species are “deliberately avoiding interaction and that they have set aside the area in which we live as a zoo.”
In summary, the Zoo Hypothesis predicts that we shall never find them because they do not want to be found, and they have the technological ability to ensure this. This theory is similar to the Planetarium Hypothesis, which also posits that advanced civilizations have the means to elude detection from our instruments. Unlike the Planetarium Hypothesis, the Zoo Hypothesis assumes that the intentions of the ETCs are benign, which could include wanting to avoid interfering with our technological or social development (i.e., the “Prime Directive” from Star Trek).
The central region of the Milky Way, also known as the Zone of Avoidance. Credit: ESO/S. Brunier
As to which possibility is more likely to be true – i.e., intelligent life is non-existent (or extremely rare) vs. they are hiding from us – Crawford and Schulze-Makuch have somewhat opposite views. “For reasons given in the article, my own view is that life (and technological life especially) is likely to be so transformative that we really should see evidence of it if it exists and isn’t hiding,” said Crawford. “Therefore, I think if it does exist, then probably it must be hiding – aka the ZH. My own view is that it is more likely that ETI does not exist than that it is hiding.”
“I think that the Zoo Hypothesis is more likely,” Schulze-Makuch countered. “I believe so because (1) of the Copernican Principle. While I do think that humanity is something very special, being a technologically advanced life form, I can´t fathom that we are truly unique or so rare in that capability that – for practical reasons – nothing is out there.” The second reason, said Schulze-Makuch, has to do with the recent release of the so-called UFO Report, which demonstrated that unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) are far more common than previously known:
“While we can´t make a true scientific argument based on these, given their speculative nature, there are so many cases by now, quite a few with multiple lines of evidence, that we cannot simply ignore it. And if some of them can actually be attributed to ETI, it would mean that they don´t interfere with Earth matters or at least not to a large extent or clearly visible to us.”
This perhaps raises another possible resolution: humanity has been looking for technosignatures in the wrong places. Perhaps, rather than simply observing distant stars for signs of transmissions or other technological activity, we should also look for evidence of advanced civilizations closer to home. This is the path being pursued by Professor Avi Loeb and his colleagues at the Galileo Project, which hopes to complement conventional SETI by searching for evidence of ETC technology and artifacts within our Solar System.
What to Do?
Regardless of which possibility could be true, there’s the inevitable question: how do we find out? According to Crawford and Schulze-Makuch, the only thing we can do is to keep exploring the Universe systematically. This includes SETI surveys and searches for ETC artifacts within the Solar System because, as they write, “we can only assert an absence of evidence if we have searched for evidence sufficiently hard.” In the meantime, exoplanet studies are transitioning from discovery to characterization, which will be aided considerably by next-generation telescopes like theJames Webb Space Telescope.
This artist’s impression shows a Super-Earth orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). Credit: ESO
The ability to determine the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres could ultimately reveal indications of life or biological processes (“biosignatures”), thus putting tighter constraints on habitability. As they indicate, “such observations have the potential to constrain the prevalence of abiogenesis in the Universe, and possibly also the prevalence of biological complexity and intelligence.” Herein lies another difference between the Zoo and the Planetarium Hypothesis, which is that the former is more likely to be discoverable. As Schulze-Makuch summarized:
“If we are living in a simulation of some sort, we may never find out. But if the zoo hypothesis is correct, we would eventually. Our technology is getting more and more sophisticated, so we would catch up to ETI, and even if ETI could still hide their spacecraft, eventually, we would see their home worlds. But even hiding their spacecraft would get more and more difficult, and as sophisticated as they are, they would not be error-free, and accidents would happen. It is then tempting to attribute some of the UAP sightings as such… and this is still very speculative, but with more and more sensors coming online, we should be able to get a clearer picture soon.”
“Given our technological progress (and assuming the Zoo Hypothesis is correct), I think we might get some proof of ETI within 15 years (and I have bet a bottle of whiskey with Ian on this). But the timeline is, of course, difficult to predict and depends to a large degree also on how fast the progress will be, and how attentive the “Zoo keepers” are or what their aim is.”
As always, all we can do is search in anticipation of what we may find. At this point, there are literally hundreds of scenarios of where ETCs may be and why they’ve eluded detection for this long. Being able to test these theories with greater and greater precision in the coming years is going to be mighty exciting, almost as exciting as the prospect of finding something someday!
China is vastberaden om de wereldwijde race voor kernfusie te winnen. Het is al een van de meest geavanceerde landen op dat gebied, maar laat nu opnieuw zien hoe ambitieus het is door een uitzonderlijk consortium op te richten. Het brengt de crème de la crème van China op het gebied van kernfusie samen.
In het nieuws: China richt een consortium op voor kernfusie.
China heeft onlangs aangekondigd dat het een consortium zal vormen met de beste bedrijven en universiteiten van het land.
De organisatie, genaamd Controllable Nuclear Fusion Innovation Consortium, zal worden geleid door de China National Nuclear Corporation.
Het omvat met name de grootste staal- en energiebedrijven van China, zoals de China Three Gorges Corporation (een vooraanstaande speler in hernieuwbare energie, vooral in waterkrachtcentrales), de State Grid Corporation (de grootste netwerkbeheerder, transporteur en distributeur van elektriciteit ter wereld) en de China Baowu Steel Group (wereldwijd de grootste staalproducent).
In totaal zijn er 25 staatsbedrijven die deel uitmaken van het consortium. Samen met enkele van de beste onderzoeksinstituten en universiteiten van het land zullen ze proberen de ontwikkeling van kernfusie te versnellen.
China is al goed op weg in de race naar kernfusie
De context:
China behoort tot een van de meest geavanceerde landen ter wereld op het gebied van onderzoek naar kernfusie. Het belangrijkste doel is om het punt te bereiken waarop een fusiereactie zichzelf in stand houdt, zonder constante toevoer van energie.
Een van de opmerkelijkste experimenten is de “kunstmatige zon”. Via deze tokamak, een apparaat waarin een plasma kan worden beheerst door middel van magneten, waar men al vele jaren aan werkt, zou China al temperaturen van 70 miljoen graden Celsius hebben bereikt. Dit is vijf keer hoger dan de maximale temperatuur die op de “echte” zon is geregistreerd.
Het is vermeldenswaard dat China ook deel uitmaakt van de International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Dit project omvat 35 landen die ’s werelds grootste tokamak ontwikkelen, in Frankrijk. (cv)
House Oversight Committee members are set to undergo a classified briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs, next week.
The covert meeting, shrouded in mystery, underscores a surging interest among lawmakers from both ends of the spectrum that are demanding increased government transparency on the extraterrestrial front.
The briefing, scheduled for next Tuesday morning in the Office of House Security, will be conducted by the Office of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Thomas A. Monheim.
Previously, a bipartisan group of Oversight Committee members, led by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), had sought more details on UFOs, including potential programs for reverse engineering or recovering crashed UFOs.
This initiative came after a bombshell revelation from former intelligence honcho David Grusch, hinting at the government harboring 'nonhuman biologics' from a recovered UFO.
Next Tuesday's briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) will be conducted by the Office of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Thomas A. Monheim, pictured
Members of the House Oversight Committee are scheduled to undergo a classified briefing next week on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Pictured, an artist's impression of the alleged 1933 UFO crash outside Magenta, Italy shows a craft shaped like a saucer (file)
David Grusch - a former high-ranking intelligence official - is one of three military whistleblowers who testified under oath that they know firsthand about secret programs involving technology far surpassing the US' capabilities
The lawmakers have formed a Congressional UAP Caucus and include reps Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.).
It is behind closed doors in the halls of Congress, a tooth-and-nail fight has been raging over disclosure of what the government knows about UFOs.
On one side are whistleblowers and former top intelligence officials, who claim knowledge of a secret program that has allegedly retrieved crashed flying saucers – and who have convinced top lawmakers to back them, including Senatemajority leader Chuck Schumer, Senate intelligence committee ranking member Marco Rubio, and Senate armed services committee member Mike Rounds.
On the other is the $112 billion defense company Lockheed Martin, and two powerful House Republicans to whom it donates thousands of dollars: House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner, and House armed services committee chair Mike Rogers.
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray plays a video of a UAP during a hearing before a subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee in May 2022 - the first public hearing on UFOs on Capitol Hill since the 1960s
Senators Mike Rounds, Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio were in favor of the bill and have backed whistleblowers and former top intelligence officials
UFO activists blame congressmen Mike Turner and Mike Rogers who are funded by big defense company Lockheed Martin for watering down the bill
The fight began in July last year, when Schumer introduced a groundbreaking bill that would mandate a panel of experts with presidential-level authority to sift through government UFO records with the aim of disclosing them to the public.
It also gave the government the power to seize any 'technologies of unknown origin' or even 'biological evidence of non-human intelligence' held by private companies.
The apparent references to alien bodies and tech were shocking, in a piece of legislation put forward by senators as senior as Schumer and Rounds.
And proponents of the amendment point to its fierce opposition by senior House Republicans as a sign that they touched a nerve.
Sources close to the bill's drafting said lawmakers decided to put forward the legislation after classified briefings by whistleblowers who allegedly worked on crashed UFOs recovered by the US government and handed to defense contractors, in secret programs not disclosed to Congress.
Schumer and Rounds said their bill was modeled on the 1992 law that led to the disclosure of records about President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
The bill's original text (pictured) stated that President Joe Biden would have 90 days to appoint a nine-person Review Board responsible for investigating each record and determining if they are considered UAPs that should be disclosed to the public
Navy 2021 flyby video of an unidentified aerial phenomen
It analyzed more than 800 cases across three decades - albeit with a budget of just $100,000 and only about nine months to conduct their work.
The panel noted that, to date, most UFO sightings are recorded with sensors and other equipment intended for nonscientific purposes, under accidental or 'serendipitous' circumstances that are far from ideal.
Evidence from nearly all UFO cases, in other words, was not collected with enough scientific rigor for experts to reach reliable conclusions in the panel's view.
'Coupled with incomplete data archiving and curation,' the NASA panel wrote, 'this means that the origin of numerous UAP [UFOs] remain uncertain.'
A Department of Defense document from last summer revealed characteristics of the typical UFO, including the colour and the shape, velocity, and flight level
Ever since the first UFO sighting more than 75 years ago, popular culture has usually depicted them as flying saucers, as round as wheels. Pictured, cover of the pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories from October 1957
Whistleblowers with knowledge of a classified UFO 'reverse engineering' program have opted to testify to the Senate intelligence committee, in part over their reported mistrust of Dr. Kirkpatrick and his Pentagon UFO office. Above, a page from Project 1794 declassified in 2012
A still from a previously released unclassified U.S. government video appearing to show unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)
Best moments from new UFO government file release
'Unidentified aerial phenomena' or UAP that check off these 'observables' appear to display either one or all of the following: (1.) gravity-defying behavior, (2.) eerily low observability on radar or other sensors, (3.) sudden or instantaneous accelerations, (4.) hypersonic speeds without signatures like 'sonic booms,' and (5.) so-called 'trans-medium' travel between air, sea and outer space.
Space Force's strategy document, titled 'Space Doctrine Publication 3-100, Space Domain Awareness,' outlines the military branch's mission to monitor a vast orbital range that includes everything from low earth orbit (LEO) to the moon
It's unclear from the Space Force STARCOM document, however, whether these five, established UFO techno-signatures overlap with their own 'abnormal observables.'
It's also unclear what 'patterns of life' have been detected from orbital unknowns.
Across US military branches, the term 'patterns of life' has been used to reference the thermal heat signatures given off by living human targets, for everything from drone warfare to troop deployment surveillance.
The Pentagon's departing UFO investigation chief, physicist Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, also used the term to indicate UAP mysteries that would include extraterrestrial craft.
'We are executing a rigorous science and technology plan to ensure controlled calibration of sensors, patterns of life, and signature characterization development,' Kirkpatrick said in December 2022.
The world's UFO hotspots are revealed - as Pentagon admits hundreds of objects have been spotted 'all over the world'
The US government is notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.
But in a possible bid for transparency, the Department of Defense has released a new document disclosing the 'world's UFO hotspots'.
It includes a map disclosing where the most sightings of unidentified objects have been recorded, based on reports between 1996 and 2023.
The map discloses where the most sightings have been recorded based on reports between 1996 and 2023 - naming Japan and the coasts of the US as particular hotspots
Among them Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the east and west coasts of the US including California, as well as parts of the Middle East.
CONGRESS RECEIVING MYSTERIOUS CLASSIFIED BRIEFING ABOUT UFOS
CONGRESS RECEIVING MYSTERIOUS CLASSIFIED BRIEFING ABOUT UFOS
WHAT ARE THEY GETTING TOLD?
DREW ANGERER VIA GETTY / FUTURISM
Housekeeping
The House Oversight Committee is going to get a briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) soon — though, of course, the public won't be privy to anything they learn.
As Axios reports, the members-only briefing will be held by the intelligence community's inspector general. Though that outlet did not give an exact date for the hearing, a similar notice obtained by The Messenger suggests it'll be held next Tuesday.
Though one could trace this entire process back to the Obama administration, when a series of quiet leaks from the intelligence and military communities began confirming suspicions that the government has more information about UAPs than it lets on, this current iteration seems to have been spurred on by a more recent whistleblower.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of experts — as well as space doomerWilliam Shatner — called bull on Grusch's evidence-free claims. But all the same, they did raise enough eyebrows for Congressional truth-seekers to call on the intelligence community to provide more information about so-called "UAP retrieval programs."
As with everything in government, it took some time to get a response from the Office of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community — which, if we're being honest here, sounds a lot like a made-up "King of Spies"-style agency — and there's little doubt that whatever the House Oversight Committee learns will remain classified.
Nevertheless, it is a pretty big deal that the slow drip of government UFO intel has gone from blink-and-you'll-miss-it reporting during the tumult of the Trump years to being the subject of hearings both private and public before Congress.
Buildings On Mars Google Map, And NASA Wont Admit Aliens Exist, UFO Sighting News.
Buildings On Mars Google Map, And NASA Wont Admit Aliens Exist, UFO Sighting News.
Hey all, I know I posted some screenshots of these structures, but I only posted a few, this video covers the full area and also teaches you how to find them on Google earth map yourself. So amazing and perfect. Such structures could be air vents for underground cities or even water collectors to gather the rare moisture in the atmosphere for the intelligent beings below ground.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Art Bell’s Intriguing Insights into the Black Triangle UFO Phenomenon
Art Bell’s Intriguing Insights into the Black Triangle UFO Phenomenon
In the enigmatic world of paranormal broadcasting, few names are as synonymous with the unexplained as Art Bell. The late-night radio icon, best known for his program “Coast to Coast AM,” delved into the most cryptic corners of reality, discussing everything from ghostly encounters to alien abductions. Among the myriad of mysteries he explored, the Black Triangle UFO phenomenon stood out as particularly intriguing to Bell and his listeners. This article sheds light on Bell’s fascinating perspective on these enigmatic sightings.
The Enigmatic Black Triangles: A Global Mystery
Black Triangle UFOs, often described as silent, massive, and exhibiting highly advanced aerial maneuverability, have captivated the public and ufologists worldwide. Sightings of these ominous crafts, also known as Big Black Deltas or BBDs, surged notably during the 1990s and 2000s. Their distinctive shape and unworldly behavior have fueled theories ranging from top-secret military aircraft to extraterrestrial visitors.
Art Bell’s Personal Encounter: A Night to Remember
Art Bell was more than a mere spectator in the world of the unexplained; he was a participant. His own encounter with a Black Triangle UFO, which he bravely shared with his vast audience, adds a deeply personal layer to his discussions. Alongside his wife, Ramona, Bell witnessed this enigmatic craft, an experience that not only intensified his curiosity but also his resolve to seek answers.
Dialogues with Experts: Unraveling the Mystery
On “Coast to Coast AM,” Bell hosted numerous experts and eyewitnesses, fostering a platform for open dialogue and investigation. One notable guest was Colm Kelleher, a respected researcher who joined Bell to dissect the Black Triangle phenomenon. Together, they delved into the increasing sightings, the possible origins, and the implications of these mysterious crafts. Bell’s ability to both humanize and intellectualize these discussions made them accessible and riveting to a diverse audience.
Art Bell
Theories and Speculations: A Secret Military Project?
While the true nature of Black Triangle UFOs remains shrouded in mystery, some speculate that they might be part of a clandestine military project. These theories suggest that the triangles are advanced aircraft, developed in secret and tested under the cover of night. Bell’s program often entertained such hypotheses, reflecting his open-minded approach to the unexplained.
Art Bell’s Legacy: Continuing the Search
Though Art Bell has passed, his legacy endures through the countless hours of fascinating discussions he left behind. His exploration of the Black Triangle UFO phenomenon remains a testament to his enduring curiosity and commitment to uncovering the truth behind the unknown. As we continue to gaze skyward, wondering about the strange crafts that occasionally grace our skies, we carry on the quest that Bell championed — a quest for understanding, for answers, and, perhaps most importantly, for keeping the sense of wonder alive.
Verborgen waarheden: geheime Amerikaanse militaire operaties onthuld Het Amerikaanse leger verbergt zijn activiteiten vaak om geldige redenen voor het grote publiek. Ze hebben in het verleden echter fouten gemaakt, waarbij ze per ongeluk de duistere aspecten van hun werk blootlegden en er niet in slaagden deze te verbergen. In bepaalde gevallen is er concreet bewijs opgedoken, waardoor angstaanjagende waarheden zijn onthuld, terwijl in andere gevallen gelekte informatiefragmenten door het publiek zijn gebruikt om theorieën te construeren.
Nieuwsgierig? LEES hieronder verder om plaatsen en operaties te ontdekken die verborgen moesten blijven, en de oorsprong van veel complottheorieën!
Verborgen kamer ontdekt onder Grand Central Station Het beroemdste station van New York City verbergt een geheime elektriciteitscentrale die niet in officiële documenten voorkomt. De verborgen bunker van 22.000 vierkante meter, genaamd M42, die tien verdiepingen onder het hoofdniveau lag, werd officieel erkend in de jaren tachtig.
Verborgen kamer ontdekt onder Grand Central Station Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog speelden de oorspronkelijke omvormers een belangrijke en verborgen rol in de operaties van de New York Central Railroad, die het doelwit waren van de Duitsers in hun pogingen om het spoorvervoer langs de oostkust te verstoren.
Area 51 Deze faciliteit van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht in Nevada, vaak omgeven door geheimhouding, werd naar verluidt in de jaren zestig gebruikt als geheime vluchtzone om tests met verkenningsvliegtuigen uit te voeren. De officiële benamingen voor deze faciliteit zijn Homey Airport (ICAO: KXTA) en Groom Lake; Tijdens de oorlog in Vietnam werd het in een CIA-document echter Area 51 genoemd.
Area 51 Er is een overtuiging dat de basis een vergelijkbaar doel blijft dienen, terwijl een andere overtuiging suggereert dat de locatie bovendien wordt gebruikt voor de opslag van geclassificeerde wapens.
Area 51 Velen denken dat de VS in Area 51 gevangengenomen buitenaardse wezens en hun vliegende objecten bewaart. De Amerikaanse regering ontkent dergelijke theorieën.
Area... 52? De Tonopah Test Range (TTR) in Nevada, ongeveer 110 kilometer ten noordwesten van Area 51 gelegen, heeft complottheoretici geboeid vanwege het gebruik van experimentele en geheime vliegtuigen.
De Tonopah Test Range (TTR) In tegenstelling tot het aangrenzende gebied is het testbereik niet in verband gebracht met activiteiten waarbij wezens uit de ruimte betrokken waren. Daarom heeft het enigma rond deze locatie uitsluitend betrekking op militaire en overheidsaangelegenheden. Momenteel wordt de locatie gebruikt voor de opslag van kernwapens en voor het uitvoeren van tests om de betrouwbaarheid ervan te beoordelen, onderzoek uit te voeren en ontstekings- en afvuursystemen te bevorderen.
De Tonopah Test Range (TTR) Veteranen die in latere jaren bij Tonopah hebben gewerkt, eisen compensatie en beweren dat blootstelling aan aanhoudende straling tot gezondheidsproblemen heeft geleid. Ze beweren dat de federale overheid op de hoogte was van besmette gebieden op de Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), maar er niet in slaagde militair en burgerpersoneel te beschermen.
Het Dugway-testterrein Deze Amerikaanse legerfaciliteit, ongeveer 135 kilometer ten zuidwesten van Salt Lake City gelegen, werd in 1942 opgericht met als doel biologische en chemische wapens te testen.
Het Dugway-testterrein Medewerkers van deze faciliteit hebben te maken met enkele van de meest dodelijke en gevaarlijke biologische en chemische agentia ter wereld.
Het Dugway-testterrein Het experimenteren met gevaarlijke biologische en chemische wapens in een ultrageheime faciliteit zal zeker belangstelling trekken. In 2004 verklaarde Deseret News dat Dave Rosenfeld, de president van Utah UFO Hunters, beweerde: “Er zijn UFO’s gezien en gerapporteerd in het gebied in en rond Dugway.”
MK Ultra De MKUltra, uitgevoerd door de CIA, was een zeer alarmerend programma met illegale experimenten op mensen. Het doel was om drugs en methoden te ontdekken voor het verkrijgen van bekentenissen en het extraheren van informatie tijdens ondervragingen door middel van mindcontrol-technieken.
MK Ultra Ondanks dat het klonk als een complottheorie, was het programma inderdaad feitelijk. Het begon in 1953 en duurde tot de jaren zeventig, hoewel sommigen beweren dat het misschien nog steeds aan de gang is. Tragisch genoeg eisten de experimenten het leven van twee Amerikanen.
Area 6 Gelegen in de Yucca Flat in de woestijn van Nevada, is een geschatte basis voor het evalueren van sensoren op een geclassificeerd squadron drones een landingsbaan van anderhalve kilometer.
Area 6 Gelegen ongeveer 19 kilometer ten noordoosten van de beruchte Area 51, is er zeer weinig informatie beschikbaar over deze site. De ter plaatse gelegen Yucca Airstrip wordt echter gebruikt door zowel het ministerie van Defensie als het ministerie van Binnenlandse Veiligheid.
Operatie Northwoods De Amerikaanse regering voerde in 1962 een operatie uit, waarbij een terroristische aanslag op Amerikaanse burgers werd verzonnen. Deze misleidende daad was bedoeld om een Amerikaanse militaire interventie in Cuba te rechtvaardigen en Amerikanen te manipuleren om deze te steunen.
Operatie Northwoods Door de operatie zijn veel Amerikanen gaan vermoeden dat de Amerikaanse regering mogelijk verantwoordelijk is voor andere aanvallen in het land.
Moordaanslagen op Fidel Castro De CIA deed ongebruikelijke pogingen om de ex-Cubaanse leider uit te schakelen, waarbij bijzondere plannen betrokken waren. Bij een bijzondere poging in 1960 vergiftigde het bureau een doos met Castro's geliefde sigaren; ze bereikten echter nooit El Comandante. De verblijfplaats van de sigarenkist blijft onbekend.
Moordaanslagen op Fidel Castro In een andere mislukte poging schakelde de CIA twee beruchte criminelen uit de meest gezochte lijst van de FBI in om Castro te elimineren. Deze personen waren Sam Giancana, de leider van de Chicago-maffia, en Santos Trafficante, die toezicht hield op de operaties van de maffia in Cuba.
De Boeing X-37B Het herbruikbare onbemande ruimtevaartuig, ook wel het Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) genoemd, ontstond als een NASA-project in 1999 en werd later in 2004 overgedragen aan het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie. Er is echter beperkt bewustzijn over het doel ervan of het huidige gebruik ervan.
De Boeing X-37B Volgens een Space Daily-artikel uit 2010 van Tom Burghardt waren er beschuldigingen dat de Boeing werd gebruikt als spionagesatelliet of om wapens vanuit de ruimte te vervoeren. Het Pentagon ontkende deze beweringen echter. Andere geruchten suggereren dat de X-37B bedoeld was om ruimtevaartuigen van andere landen te saboteren.
De Boeing X-37B Voortbordurend op NASA's experimenten met ruimtetechnologie vestigde het X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) een nieuw uithoudingsrecord door 908 dagen in een baan om de aarde te brengen voordat het landde op NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dit overtreft zijn vorige record van 780 dagen in een baan om de aarde.
De USS Jimmy Carter De USS Jimmy Carter wordt beschouwd als de meest geheimzinnige onderzeeër van de Amerikaanse marine en is speciaal ontworpen voor zeebodemoorlog en geheime missies diep onder water.
De USS Jimmy Carter Deze nucleair aangedreven onderzeeër, die in 2004 werd opgestart, zou naar verluidt betrokken zijn bij een geheime missie om spionage uit te voeren op Noord-Korea.
De USS Jimmy Carter De Washington Examiner meldde in 2017 dat de onderzeeër een Jolly Roger tentoonstelde en suggereerde dat de machines betrokken waren bij mogelijke spionageactiviteiten.
Datacentrum van Utah Het datacenter in de woestijn van Utah, bekend als het Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, zou alle online- en telefoonactiviteiten monitoren.
De zwarte lijst van de FBI Tijdens het Amerika van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog voegde de FBI kunstenaars toe aan haar watchlist als middel om het communisme en andere anti-regerings- en anti-oorlogsgevoelens te onderdrukken.
Geheime Afghaanse gevangenissen In 2008, tijdens de regering-Obama, werd verklaard dat alle gevangenissen of ‘zwarte locaties’ in Abu Ghraib-stijl in Afghanistan waren uitgeroeid.
Journaliste Kimberly Dozier In 2011 ontdekte journalist Kimberly Dozier dat het Joint Special Operations Command twintig gevangenissen verborgen hield waar Afghanen mishandeling en marteling door de bewakers bleven ondergaan.
Reagans HAARP-initiatief De regering-Reagan keurde het High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) goed, een ionosferisch onderzoeksinitiatief gevestigd in Alaska, gericht op het bestuderen van de ionosfeer en het onderzoeken van mogelijke ontwikkelingen op het gebied van radiocommunicatie en surveillancetechnologie. Het programma heeft echter aanleiding gegeven tot verschillende obscure theorieën en speculaties.
Reagans HAARP-initiatief Het High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) loopt, waarbij universiteiten betrokken zijn en geleid wordt door de University of Alaska Fairbanks. Experimenten omvatten het genereren van kunstmatige airglow en het bestuderen van elektromagnetische golven.
Reagans HAARP-initiatief Eén gerucht suggereerde dat er mind-control-experimenten werden uitgevoerd, terwijl anderen geloofden dat de regering-Reagan technologie aan het ontwikkelen was om het klimaat en het weer te manipuleren.
For a number of years, the Admiral Wilson UFO document, which previously used to be considered a hoax, has been in the public domain. But as the UFO disclosure pace fastened, the hoax is seemingly turning into an authentic document that author & researcher Richard Dolan called the “UFO leak of the century.” Moreover, to confirm the authenticity of Wilson’s UFO leak, there are two credible personalities: Standford professor Gary Nolan and former manager of Special Projects for Los Alamos Labs, USN Vet, Oke Shannon (his name is mentioned in the document).
Brief Overview of Wilson-Davis Memo
In 2002, after a meeting with former Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, who had been the head of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs back in the 1990s, Dr. Eric Davis, a former Pentagon physicist supposedly took a transcript of the conversation.
Somehow, these documents found their way into the public domain after they were discovered in the files of the now deceased Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell. These 15 pages of notes describe Admiral Wilson’s discovery of a deeply classified program to study extraterrestrial technology.
During this alleged conversation, Admiral Wilson tells Eric Davis about a series of programs that he discovered hidden deep within the black project’s records of the Pentagon that were actively involved in attempts to reverse engineer a recovered craft that they believed could operate in air, sea, space or perhaps even in other dimensions. The program manager concluded that the craft was not man-made.
Astrophysicist Eric Davis during an interview with New York Post.
The claims have been hotly debated among ufologists but never corroborated. The DIA director at the time, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson has reportedly denied it all. Numerous national security experts and researchers have also dismissed it as a hoax. (Source)
But one of the other primary individuals cited in the document, astrophysicist Eric Davis has not directly addressed it in public, only fueling suspicions that there might be something to it. And Davis alluded to the possibility of some of the claims contained in the alleged memo as recently as last year in an interview in The New York Times.
Key Witness
Jay Anderson, a founder of Project Unity has recently interviewed Oke Shannon, whose name is mentioned in the documents multiple times. Shannon confirmed that “what was said about him in these notes is accurate, further proving that the conversation between Admiral Wilson and Eric Davis did indeed take place, and they really did discuss the reality that a recovered, non-human vehicle, is being studied in extreme secrecy by a shadowy, quasi-governmental working group that is evading standardized oversight, operating outside of the reservation of government control,” wrote Anderson.
Jay Anderson with Oke Shannon and his wife Linda. Credit: Facebook
Oke Shannon is a US Navy Veteran and a physicist. He was the manager of all Special Projects at Los Alamos National Labs, one of the highest funded and most secretive US Government Research Facilities in the United States.
Below is a transcript of the conversation held between Oke Shannon (OS) and Jay Anderson (JA) discussing the Wilson-Davis Memo: (Source)
JA: I think it’s important that we just get your side of this on the record so I would just like to be able to ask you first of all whether or not you personally know Dr. Eric W Davis.
OS: Yeah! I didn’t work with him day in and day out but I did work with him. I know him fairly well. (Shannon said he got to know Davis through mutual projects and mutual acquaintances.)
JA: Do you personally know Admiral Thomas R Wilson?
OS: Yes I do. Of course, I know of him but I read somewhere that his response was Oke who? and I thought that was kind of funny. I’m sure that my memory of him is stronger than his memory of me because he became a flag officer, and I went off.
JA: Did Admiral Wilson get in contact with you in 2001 or 2002 inquiring into the background and overall trustworthiness of Dr Eric Davis?
OS: Earlier than that. This was in 1999. I got this phone call and it was from Admiral Wilson. He wanted to know was could he trust Eric Davis. I mentioned that YES I believe that Eric Davis was an honorable and conscientious scientist and that he would honor any restrictions the Admiral might put on.
JA: One last question on these notes. I just wanted to kind of get it in a confirmatory statement. So, in these notes that were recovered from Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s estate that are a transcription of an alleged meeting that took place between Admiral Wilson and Dr. Eric Davis. It’s mentioned within the trust a transcript of their conversation that you were difficult to get in touch with at the time you were in poor health due to heart conditions and were not easy to get hold. So this is true in of itself you were struggling with that?
OS: Yeah so it was difficult to get in touch with and I might add to that I’m still difficult to get in touch with.
Credit: Congress.gov
During 2022 US Congress hearings on UFOs, Rep. Mike Gallagher asked Ronald Moultrie, the top Pentagon intelligence official, and Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, whether they were aware of an unverified 2002 document known as the “Wilson-Davis memo.” (Source)
“There’s nothing we can offer or help out with on your request,” a spokesperson for the federal think tank said. As for Moultrie and Bray, they told Gallagher that they were unfamiliar with the Wilson-Davis document. The fact the document was even broached — and then entered into the official hearing record — was shocking to those who have followed the saga.
However, not many would be satisfied with the Pentagon’s response to Rep. Gallagher on the Wilson-Davis leak. There is another expert named Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford Professor who claimed that the documents are “genuine.” He told investigative journalist Ross Coulthart that he knows Eric Davis and that he would not lie. “You know Eric is the kind of character that it’s just impossible for him to lie,” Nolan added.
Nolan asserted that the document was ultimately leaked. “Why would Eric Davis lie about writing something that he never intended to go public in the first place? He was just doing what an intelligence agent does on a regular basis which is write reports of what it is that they’ve been doing,” he said.
Davis, who is now a senior project engineer at the government-funded The Aerospace Corporation, worked on the Pentagon’s secret UFO program AATIP. He also said that some of the materials taken from the found UFOs have so far been unidentifiable. “We couldn’t make [the materials] ourselves,” Davis told the Times. (Source)
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have pioneered an artificially intelligent system, Coscientist, that can autonomously develop scientific research and experimentation. Published in the journal Nature, this non-organic intelligent system, developed by Assistant Professor Gabe Gomes and doctoral students Daniil Boiko and Robert MacKnight, is the first to design, plan, and execute a chemistry experiment autonomously.
Utilizing large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude, Coscientist demonstrates an innovative approach to conducting research through a human-machine partnership.
Coscientist’s design enables it to perform various tasks, from planning chemical syntheses using public data to controlling liquid handling instruments and solving optimization problems by analyzing previously collected data. Its architecture consists of multiple modules, including web and documentation search, code execution, and experiment automation, coordinated by a central module called ‘Planner,’ a GPT-4 chat completion instance. This structure allows Coscientist to operate semi-autonomously, integrating multiple data sources and hardware modules for complex scientific tasks.
“We anticipate that intelligent agent systems for autonomous scientific experimentation will bring tremendous discoveries, unforeseen therapies, and new materials,” the research team wrote in the paper. “While we cannot predict what those discoveries will be, we hope to see a new way of conducting research given by the synergetic partnership between humans and machines.”
The system’s capabilities were tested across different tasks, demonstrating its ability to precisely plan and execute experiments. For instance, Coscientist outperformed other models like GPT-3.5 and Falcon 40B in synthesizing compounds, particularly complex ones like ibuprofen and nitroaniline. This highlighted the importance of using advanced LLMs for accurate and efficient experiment planning.
A key aspect of Coscientist is its ability to understand and utilize technical documentation, which has always been a challenge in integrating LLMs with laboratory automation. By interpreting technical documentation, Coscientist enhances its performance in automating experiments. This capability was extended to a more diverse robotic ecosystem, such as the Emerald Cloud Lab (ECL), demonstrating Coscientist’s adaptability and potential for broad scientific application.
According to the research paper, Coscientist’s real-world testing involved conducting experiments using the Opentrons OT-2, a liquid handler with a well-documented Python API. Through simple natural language prompts, the system could execute accurate protocols and integrate multiple hardware tools, showcasing its practical applicability in a laboratory setting.
“Beyond the chemical synthesis tasks demonstrated by their system, Gomes and his team have successfully synthesized a sort of hyper-efficient lab partner. They put all the pieces together and the end result is far more than the sum of its parts — it can be used for genuinely useful scientific purposes,” National Science Foundation Chemistry Division Director David Berkowitz said in a press release.
Other similar AI-based assistants have been created in the past. A researcher at MIT built a system called “CRSEt” which serves as a lab assistant, and a team at the University of Michigan created BacterAI, a system that can map the metanbolism of two specific microbes. What sets Coscientist apart, however, is the complexity of the experiments it could perform, and that it requires significantly less human oversight regarding procedure and protocols.
Coscientist’s reasoning capabilities were evident in its ability to plan and execute complex chemical experiments, such as catalytic cross-coupling experiments. It successfully designed high-level working protocols using Python, demonstrating its potential in advanced scientific research. This adaptability was further shown in its performance across various organic transformations, indicating its usefulness in exploring multiple chemical reactions.
The team is aware that Coscientist’s development raises important considerations regarding the ethical and responsible use of AI in scientific research. While it offers significant potential for advancing research, concerns about safety and the possibility of misuse exist. Addressing these concerns is crucial to harness the full potential of AI systems like Coscientist in scientific discovery while mitigating risks.
“I believe the positive things that AI-enabled science can do far outweigh the negatives,” said Gomes. “But we have a responsibility to acknowledge what could go wrong and provide solutions and fail-safes.”
“By ensuring ethical and responsible use of these powerful tools, we can continue to explore the vast potential of large language models in advancing scientific research while mitigating the risks associated with their misuse,” the authors concluded in the research paper.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. He is the host of The Debrief Weekly Report. You can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
A solar-powered balloon mission detected a repeating infrasound noise in the stratosphere. Scientists don't know what is making it.
A view of Earth from a high-altitude balloon.
(Image credit: Matt Champlin/Getty Images)
Scientists have detected sounds high in Earth's atmosphere that can't be identified.
A solar-powered balloon mission launched by researchers from Sandia National Laboratories carried a microphone to a region of Earth's atmosphere found around 31 miles (50 km) above the planet called the stratosphere. This region is relatively calm and free of storms, turbulence and commercial air traffic, meaning microphones in this layer of the atmosphere can eavesdrop on the sounds of our planet, both natural and human-made.
However, the microphone in this particular study also heard strange sounds that repeat a few times per hour. Their source has yet to be identified. The sounds were recorded in the infrasound range, meaning they were at frequencies of 20 hertz (Hz) and lower, well below the range of the human ear. "There are mysterious infrasound signals that occur a few times per hour on some flights, but the source of these is completely unknown," Daniel Bowman of Sandia National Laboratories said in a statement..
To gather acoustic data from the stratosphere, Bowman and the team used devices initially designed to monitor volcanoes called microbarometers that are capable of detecting detect low-frequency sounds.
Along with the expected natural and man-made sounds, the microbarometers detected the mysterious repeating infrasound signals.
The sensors were carried aloft by balloons that Bowman and fellow researchers built. Featuring diameters between 20 and 23 feet (6 and 7 meters), the balloons were built from common and inexpensive materials. Powered by sunlight, these deceptively simple devices were able to climb to altitudes of around 70,000 feet (13.3 miles) over Earth.
"Our balloons are basically giant plastic bags with some charcoal dust on the inside to make them dark," Bowman said. "We build them using painter's plastic from the hardware store, shipping tape, and charcoal powder from pyrotechnic supply stores. When the sun shines on the dark balloons, the air inside heats up and becomes buoyant."
Bowman explained that this passive solar power is enough to propel the balloons from the surface of the planet to the stratosphere. After launch, the balloons were tracked using GPS, something that the team had to do because balloons can often fly for hundreds of miles and may land in difficult-to-navigate regions of the planet.
And, as recent events have shown, scientific balloons can be mistaken for other objects, sometimes causing unintentional alarm.
Researchers with Sandia National Laboratories inflating a solar hot air balloon with an infrasound microbarometer payload. (Image credit: Darielle Dexheimer, Sandia National Laboratories)
In addition to helping further investigate these mysterious stratospheric sounds, solar-powered balloons like these could be used to investigate mysteries much further from Earth.
Such vehicles are currently being tested to discover if they could be partnered with a Venus orbiter to observe seismic and volcanic activity through its thick atmosphere. Robotic balloons could drift through the upper atmosphere of "Earth's evil twin," high above its hellishly hot and high-pressure surface investigating its thick atmosphere and clouds of sulfuric acid.
The team's research containing the detection of these unidentified infrasound sources will be presented by Bowman on Thursday (May 11) at the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America being held in Chicago.
Stanford Professor Dr. Gary Nolan has recently been interviewed by The Debrief, hosted by Chrissy Newton where he talked about various topics: from his field of work to UAPs. He has been one of the faces of UFO phenomena after his research on the brains of contactees. However, there is more hidden information Dr. Nolan has shared in his recent interviews that provides a new perspective in looking at the UFO reality, which is more than just flying alien crafts.
Dr. Nolan, an immunologist at Stanford, is the author of more than 300 research articles and the holder of 40 patents in the United States. In addition to this, he has been recognized by Stanford University as one of the top 25 inventors in the institution’s history. Therefore, his participation in UFOlogy would bring some factual things to the field of study.
During his 90-minute interview (check the video below) with Chrissy Newton, he discussed his thoughts on the UAP topic going political along with his work on finding physical evidence of an area in the brain where an individual’s intuitive capabilities could potentially be located. Interestingly, Dr. Nolan began by sharing his personal alien-UFO encounter at an early age. He recalled interacting with phenomena three times in his life.
[His first interaction]“Well, it was at a house that my parents had first bought when after we moved here to the States. It was basically little guys in the bedroom and I remember calling out to my brother. I didn’t understand how it could be like two or three of him and then faces in the window and things like that. I mean other than just memories of them being in the room and being a little scared… it wasn’t until actually almost 30 years later that I found out from my brother that he had also seen things.”
[His second interaction] “At our second house, I was a paper boy and going between one house and another. Early in the morning, I saw something over my head. I mean it was not just like Far Over My Head it was like 30-40 feet just at the top of the trees. I can’t say that it was exactly saucer-shaped because all I saw really were the lights and kind of a vague outline against the sky. Because the lights were so bright um and but it was I didn’t know what it was I mean I saw it go over um it was silent. I mean at best it could have been a balloon but I don’t know any balloons that are traveling at tree height.”
[His third interaction] “I was a graduate student here at Stanford. I was in a used bookstore and buying science fiction books. I came across two books one was by John Mack and the other was byWhitley Strieber. I remember just seeing the cover and realizing that was a face that I had seen when I was a kid looking through the window or in the bedroom. The thing about the window, it was like six or seven feet off the ground. There was something very tall hovering. I remember just all the hair on my body stood on end when I saw it and I dropped the book because it was like how does this guy know what I saw. I knew nothing about the whole UFO Arena. I mean I read science fiction but I’d never read about alien abductions or any of that kind of stuff.”
Next, Newton discusses the work he has done researching the basal ganglia and caudate putamen regions of the brain, and he eventually gets into the conversation on the highly functioning breeding group of humans [based on objective evidence of highly dense neural connections within those particular regions]. Those areas of the brain are involved in motor control, planning, intuition, anticipation, and downstream executive function.
This is the “brain within the brain” responsible for higher-order processing. Humans with enhanced connections in these regions have highly advanced forms of intuition and can prepare the body for events before it happens. The work he has done involves case studies on military personnel (and others), who have encountered UAPs, and collecting raw data using physical brain scans of those individuals.
The density of the above-mentioned regions in those individuals (savants, highly trained, CEOs of companies, etc) was overdeveloped compared to normal. The feature is present in 1/100 or 1/200 individuals. He stated the chances are astronomically small that two people with these enhanced features randomly come together, and in these cases, they have formed breeding pairs of individuals with these enhanced brain features. He states that over time (within 100,000 years), this would develop into a different race of humans.
Later on in the conversation, he makes a reference to the CIA’s remote viewing program, which was headed up by Dr. Hal Puthoff, and explains that the goal of the study was for individuals to concentrate on the “remote view” signal rather than the overlay that their brains put onto the signal. The results of his MRIs show that he has these areas of his brain that are elevated. A highly-skilled meditator may be able to tune out all of the background “noise” in order to concentrate solely on the “signal.”
The studies done 60 years later have confirmed the findings of an individual who “intuited” the true function of the caudate putamen. Dr. Nolan says that everyone within the relevant government knows “something” (ET/Interdimensional etc.) is here. The beings here are placeholders/interaction icons, basically biological androids (he said this in a prior interview as well), designed to interact with humans and shape humanity by another external intelligence.
The problem is that the phenomenon seems to be many distinct things rather than just extraterrestrial beings, as opposed to being more complicated than just that. He gives the illustration that there could be eight distinct groups that do not necessarily agree with one another, with some of these groups considering humans to be a resource while others consider us to be something that needs to be protected. Someone at a high level in the military is either using the UAP technology and attempting to comprehend it, or they are scared that if the rest of the world has it, it would diminish their own authority.
Dr. Nolan stated in another interview with Event Horizon that Life may have started elsewhere and came here according to some models. He gives examples of atoms of elements present here that actually originated from explosions of other stars/meteorites etc. He states that life in the universe may be based on DNA if the theory of panspermia is correct.
[Interestingly, he is stating this because the verified CIA individual John Ramirez claimed several months ago in an interview that we are related to the ETs and are a result of a genetic manipulation. Luis Elizondo (the official CIA head of the UAP program, currently the contractor for the actual US Space Force) has indicated this thought in his interviews as well, and this ties into his comment that from their understanding, we are part of “mankinds” in plural, multiple forms of humanity present either here, extratemporally (time travelers), or in the cosmos].
On August 21, 2022, Dr. Nolan had an interview with Ross Coulthart on the Australian channel 7News, where he discussed his role in working with the government on analyzing and studying individuals that encountered UFOs. According to Nolan, there is a group of people that were involved in recovering UFO debris for secret government programs, and these individuals will soon be coming forward to reveal what they know. (Source)
Nobel Prize nominee Professor Garry Nolan stated he “knows” there has been an “active cover-up” by authorities. He said: “I’ve spoken to the people who are about to come out and whistle-blow on it.” Coulthart noted that the Department of Defense (DoD) has recently announced the creation of a new office dedicated to studying Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) or UFOs, and that an analysis will be conducted starting from 1947 onwards – the date of Roswell.
“When you say that the government has been involved in a coverup, do you think they’ve been hiding it all this time?” Coulthart asked. “Oh yes. I know it’s a fact because I’ve spoken to important people who are about to come out and whistleblow on it,” Nolan replied. “And there has been an active coverup. Just look at what the Department of Defense (DoD) recently announced. They announced an office to study the phenomenon. Putting money aside, they say they will start the study from 1947.”
“Which is incredible. That’s the date of Roswell,” Coulthart said. “Yes, 1947. And we want a list of every operation they did to misinform and misinform the public,” Nolan added. He stated that there are individuals who were involved in the retrieval of UFO debris, and subsequent secret government programs would soon come forward to reveal what they know, putting an end to one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history.
In addition to this,Jim Semivan, a former CIA officer, made a surprising comment in which he said, “there’s a whole other reality that surrounds us that we just simply don’t have the ability to observe or connect with.” He fiercely said that non-human intelligence is living with humans on Earth. “There’s an entity out there! There’s some kind of non-human intelligence that’s living with us on this F**KING planet,” Semivan said.
It all had started a few years before the “Space Race” began between the two rival nations: the USA and Soviets. The world was stunned by the daily UFO sightings, and stories of alien contact flushed newspapers. It was the era of two types of people: the first one was groups of like-minded people, for example, engineers, scientists, and inventors who dismissed any alien contact and flying saucers’ stories, while the second ones were the contactees who also claimed to had been in the UFOs. These groups never aligned with each other, but Wilbert Brockhouse Smith (1910-1962), a Canadian engineer was the only line of connection between these two groups.
Mr. Smith worked as a senior radio engineer for the Canadian government’s Department of Transport in the late 1940s and 50s. He was the reason behind the radio communication between Canada and the United States at that time. Very few people know that Mr. Smith convinced the Canadian government to establish a program to monitor the UFOs that eventually detects the strange aerial phenomenon which, according to him, was not earthly. While asking Americans about the existence of UFOs, he received a reply from them that the US government had put this subject at their uppermost concern, and it was even more top secret than the atomic bomb.
“One of the most important things I had to realize was that we are not alone. The human race in the form of man extends throughout the universe and is incredibly ancient. Also, its appearance in physical form is but one of its many manifestations along the path of progress. This planet has been colonized many times by people from elsewhere and our present human race are blood brothers of these people. Is it any wonder that they are interested in us,” Wilbert Smith said.
Wilbert Brockhouse Smith (1910-1962) Credit: Grant Cameron
Besides, according to researcher Grant Cameron, Mr. Smith played a major role in establishing Radio Ottawa used by Canadian spies and also for tracking secret Soviet communications.
In 1950, the Canadian UFO study program Project Magnet was established by Transport Canada under the supervision of Mr. Smith. The government funded the project for four years, but he received informal funding after. In 1952, he set up an observatory at Shirley’s Bay to study the findings of UFO sightings under Project Magnet. He had a personal interest in geo-magnetism, which made him conclude that the UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin, propelled by magnetic forces, and actually from parallel universes.
Mr. Smith said: “It is my opinion that the people from elsewhere choose all sorts of methods to make contact with us, and their technology and understanding being much better than ours, they can use methods which we find quite incomprehensible.”
Interestingly, he believed that the UFOs were controlled through physic powers, and such statements embarrassed the Department of Transport. In 1952, when the great UFO wave hit the media, Mr. Smith claimed that the United States Air Force shot down a UFO near Washington, D.C, recovered its piece and let him borrow it. When asked if he had returned the piece to the USAF, he replied that it went to a much more highly secret group (It was neither FBI nor CIA), which identity he could not disclose.
Surprisingly, Mr. Smith was also a firm believer in aliens. In 1961, he gave a speech at the Vancouver Area UFO Club, where he claimed to had been in contact with aliens, referring to them as “the boys topside.” Furthermore, he said that the aliens had explained to him that the speed of light is not constant, and time works differently in the universe, not chronological ticking that people can imagine on Earth, but a “field function” that changed throughout the universe, and which could be altered. (Source
Their ships as he was told, were supported on the Earth’s gravitational field. The fields surrounding their ships, he added, created areas that reduced areas that weakened the strength of objects that came into contact with them, accounting for the destruction of earthly military craft that flew too close to them. This explained, among other phenomena, the May 1956 crash of a military jet into the Villa St. Louis convent in Orleans — the jet, Smith said, flew into a “very strong vortex of reduced binding,” causing it to break apart.
When nuclear explosions happened, he added, similar unstable vortices were formed. His unnamed friend, who had also been in communication with “these people from outside,” claimed to have spoken with one of them, Tyla, a garbage collector whose duty was to clean up the radioactive messes left by such man-made explosions. Tyla, according to Smith, grabbed the stuff, transported it onboard his ship, rendered it inactive, and then dumped it in a remote location on Earth. Tyla reportedly told a friend in 1948 that he would dump his next load near Ottawa at an appropriate moment so that many people could observe it.
On November 21, 1950, Mr. Smith wrote a memo that was classified as “Top Secret” but later, it was recovered from the Archives of the University of Ottawa. According to the memo, the Canadian government was serious about UFOs and had been building a secret technology using oceanic radiation, atmospheric radioactivity, and geo-magnetism. He further wrote that his work in geomagnetic and the energy on which flying saucers operate was connected. (Source)
By summarizing sightings reported in 1952, Mr. Smith reported that UFOs were “a hundred feet or more in diameter; they can travel at speeds of several thousand miles per hour; they can reach altitudes well above those which should support conventional aircraft or balloons, and ample power and force seem to be available for all required maneuvers.”
Project Magnet was discontinued just a few days afterward. Ottawa Journal reported that scientists insist, “there is no proof flying saucers exist but they honorably admit there is no proof that all the strange and wandering objects reported in the sky are freaks of imagination or atmosphere.”
Before his death from cancer, Mr. Smith had asked his wife to hide all his research and sensitive files, as he was afraid that they would get into the wrong hands. “They will be coming to ransack all my work,” Smith proclaimed. He died on December 27, 1962, and as he predicted soon after that, the Soviets, Americans, and Canadians approached his wife. (Source)
The hunt for habitable exoplanets has taken a new turn with a groundbreaking discovery made by an international team of scientists from the University of Birmingham (UK), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and others. The team has formulated a novel technique to locate planets that could potentially harbor life, using an analysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in their atmospheres and comparing these values with those of neighboring planets.
The new study, published in Nature Astronomy, offers an unprecedented scope in determining the presence of life far beyond our own solar system.
Traditionally, planets within the ‘habitable zone’ – dubbed the ‘Goldilocks zone’ – have been the prime suspect for potentially habitable planets. However, the ability to confirm the existence of liquid water on these celestial bodies has remained elusive, despite theoretical paradigms.
In an innovative transition, scientists have now devised a ‘habitability signature,’ a discernible marker that can reliably indicate the presence of liquid water on a planet. Prior to this development, the best method we had was the detection of a water ‘glint’ – the faint reflection of starlight off a planet’s liquid surface. However, this signature proved too weak for current observational facilities to pick up, making this new method a timely discovery.
Professor Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham, co-lead on the study, shed light on the significance of the approach and its practical feasibility.
“Measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in a planet’s atmosphere is fairly easy, as CO2 is a strong absorber in the infrared. By comparing the CO2 levels across different planets’ atmospheres, we can isolate those with oceans and thereby identify planets more likely to be able to support life,” explained Triaud.
The researchers suggest looking for planets that have lower levels of carbon in their atmospheres compared to other planets in the same system. The presence of lower carbon could indicate the presence of significant amounts of liquid water, plate tectonics, and/or biomass (material from living organisms), all of which are considered important for supporting life as we know it.
The wavelength at which carbon dioxide is best detected is at 4.3 micrometers, which falls in a spectral “sweet spot” where there is minimal noise and interference from clouds or atmospheric haze. Because of this, the researchers believe that using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the detection of this “carbon depletion” could be used as an indicator of a planet’s habitability.
Trappist-1 System is often looked at as a candidate for a solar system with exoplanets harboring alien life
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech).
The strategy involves a few steps, starting with detecting an atmosphere around suitable terrestrial planets for about 10 transits (i.e., when the star’s brightness dips as the planet passes in front of it), then determining if there is low carbon in about 40 transits, and finally measuring ozone levels in about 100 transits to differentiate whether the low carbon levels are due to the presence of water or biomass.
The researchers suggest that this new concept of carbon depletion could serve as an effective signature for habitability and is adaptable for next-generation direct-imaging telescopes. This development potentially ushers in a new era in the search for habitable planets, enabling scientists to focus their efforts on celestial bodies more likely to harbor conditions supportive of life.
This method’s implications extend beyond locating habitable planets and venture into the realm of understanding environmental tipping points, acting as markers that urge us to consider the impending climate crisis on Earth in a new light.
Dr. Julien de Wit from MIT points out that the method could act as both a biosignature as well as a habitability signature. The method acknowledges that biology captures carbon dioxide on Earth, life forms account for 20% of the total captured CO2. Following this logic, the presence of oxygen, which can transform into detectable ozone, in tandem with CO2 could indicate not only habitability but also the existence of life.
Underscoring the practicality of the approach, de Wit noted that this method could work with existing telescopes. This finding offers renewed hope for the scientific community, who had begun to resign themselves to the idea that even major telescopes such as the JWST would be unable to detect life on exoplanets.
Looking ahead, the research team plans to detect atmospheric carbon dioxide compositions on a range of exoplanets, identifying those with oceans on their surfaces, and prioritizing further observations of those that could potentially support life.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. He is the host of The Debrief Weekly Report. You can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
President Biden’s Cosmic Companions: Alleged UFO Sighting Near Air Force One
President Biden’s Cosmic Companions: Alleged UFO Sighting Near Air Force One
In an era where the sky is no longer the limit, an intriguing event has captured the public’s imagination and scholarly interest alike: a potential Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sighting near President Joe Biden’s Air Force One. This high-profile incident has sparked discussions and debates across the globe, prompting renowned Harvard Professor of Science, Dr. Avi Loeb, to weigh in with his expert perspective.
The Curious Case of the Presidential Encounter
As President Biden embarked on a fundraising trip to Los Angeles, eyewitnesses near LAX reported an unusual sight—a white or silver spear-like object hovering close to the presidential aircraft. This was not your everyday aerial traffic; it was something that defied immediate explanation, a sighting that whispers the age-old question: are we alone in the universe?
Dr. Avi Loeb’s Scientific Quest
Dr. Avi Loeb, a respected physicist and a vanguard in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, offers a scientific yet open-minded approach to this mystery. With a career dedicated to unraveling the secrets of the cosmos, Dr. Loeb suggests that while the fundamental question is whether the object is man-made or extraterrestrial, we must start by assuming it’s terrestrial and then prove otherwise. He emphasizes the need for better data and scientific instrumentation, rather than relying on mere sightings, to make definitive conclusions.
The Spectrum of Possibilities
From the human-made to the extraterrestrial, the potential explanations for this UFO are as vast as the universe itself. Dr. Loeb speaks of the numerous objects monitored through the Galileo Project Observatory at Harvard University, highlighting the importance of careful analysis to distinguish between natural phenomena and something truly otherworldly. He doesn’t dismiss the notion that even a single extraterrestrial object, if confirmed, would have profound implications for humanity.
The Search Continues
The quest for understanding doesn’t stop at mere speculation. Dr. Loeb’s scientific endeavors, including searching for materials from interstellar objects in the ocean, demonstrate an unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth. The discovery of unique, never-before-seen materials near the path of an interstellar meteor suggests that there’s much more to learn about our universe and potentially, our neighbors within it.
VIDEO:
The Hill – President Biden’s EXTRATERRESTRIAL New Friends. Potential UFO Spotted Near Air Force One
While the incident near Air Force One remains shrouded in mystery, it serves as a reminder of our enduring fascination with the unknown. As Dr. Loeb and other scientists continue their vigilant search for answers, we’re reminded of our place in the vast cosmos. Each sighting, each anomaly, brings us closer to understanding whether Earth’s story is unique or just one of many in the galactic tapestry.
In the end, the sighting near President Biden’s Air Force One opens more than just the skies; it opens our minds to the infinite possibilities that lie beyond our blue planet. As we delve into the unknown, let’s remember that the search for extraterrestrial life is not just about finding others—it’s about understanding who we are in the grand scheme of the universe.
So, keep your eyes on the skies and your mind open to the endless wonders above. The nextUFO sightingmight just redefine our place in the cosmos.
Eleven years ago, gene therapy — where defective genes are snipped out of DNA and replaced with healthy ones — became a household name. A landmark paper proved that scientists could precisely manipulate DNA in ways previously thought unimaginable using CRISPR-Cas9, an editing tool adapted from the immune system found in some bacteria. Almost overnight, the idea of designer babies, kill-switch mosquitoes, and cancer-off buttons stormed into mainstream imagination.
Since then, gene therapy has experienced a complete renaissance, culminating this past November and early December when medical regulators in the U.K. and U.S. officially approved Casgevy, the first CRISPR-based gene therapy for treating two blood disorders: sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia (in the U.S., the new therapy has yet to be approved for the latter).
Casgevy is emblematic of gene therapy’s rapidly shifting expectations and direction. Numerous clinical trials are now underway across the globe, and we will undoubtedly see more and more gene-editing-based treatments making the approval list, changing the lives of countless individuals living with intractable health conditions and diseases.
“The future [of gene therapy] is very bright,” Kevin Davies, the executive editor of The CRISPR Journal and author of Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing, tells Inverse. “But I don’t don’t think anybody in the field wants to get too complacent because it was less than 25 years ago that we were riding a similar initial wave of enthusiasm for the technology.”
It’s true. Long before the Human Genome Project would ever decode a DNA sequence, ambitious scientists were spurred by advances in biotechnology and the early success of initial human trials. In 1990, then-4-year-old Ashanti DeSilva became the first person to be successfully treated with gene therapy. The treatment, a precursor of sorts to CRISPR-based gene therapy, cured her of a rare immune-related genetic disorder.
But those high hopes of tweaking genes to prevent or treat disease were suddenly dashed when, in 1999, a teenager named Jesse Gelsinger, who had a rare metabolic disorder, died within four days of receiving an experimental gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. In response, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suspended the university’s entire gene therapy program — which had been the largest in the world at the time — and launched investigations into 69 other gene therapy trials that were underway across the United States. Years later, when CRISPR entered the world, enthusiasm rose again — and here we are.
So what will this new wave — Gene Therapy 2.0, if you will — look like? Certainly, a promising frontier for tackling not only rare but common diseases and exquisitely precise gene-editing tools. With it, though, will come side effects, including exorbitant prices, barriers to access, and a lingering, gigantic cause for concern because once you edit an embryo, there’s no turning back. Here’s what 2024 and beyond has in store for our gene-edited future.
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna share the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their research into CRISPR.
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BETTER EDITING
In the early years of genetic therapy, scientists didn’t have many tools at their disposal to fix a gene (or genes) at the heart of a disease, Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of Oregon Health and Science University’s Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, tells Inverse.
If someone’s disease was due to a gene mutation or loss, Mitalipov says the fix was to introduce a synthetic, albeit normal copy of that gene with a virus stripped of its infectiousness but still retaining the ability to add new genetic information into DNA. With this new addition, a cell could then make a functional protein. While these essentially viral Ubers remain part of the gene therapy toolkit, the discovery and development of CRISPR-Cas9 gave scientists a more precise grip on the genetic engineering steering wheel.
CRISPR, or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, originate from bacteria and archaea and is used by these microorganisms as an immune defense against viruses called phages. The CRISPR system also includes specialized enzymes called CRISPR-associated proteins (or Cas). Together, they look through and remove any genetic sequences that may have been inserted by a sneaky phage or other invader, keeping the microorganism safe from infection.
In 2012, researchers Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier published a groundbreaking study detailing a novel CRISPR-Cas9 system they programmed to cut specific sites in isolated DNA. This was done using strands of RNA — a molecule that is like a working copy of DNA, containing the direct instructions for protein-making — guiding CRISPR-Cas9 to a specific genetic sequence.
Krishanu Saha, a bioengineer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison whose lab is working on gene therapies for treating blindness, says the precision allowed by CRISPR-Cas9’s programmability is its singular selling point.
“Traditional gene therapy, which we call gene augmentation, is essentially flooding the cell with extra copies of a normal gene; in some cases, this doesn’t work,” Saha tells Inverse. “We found in a few cases, it’s really important to destroy the mutant copy of the [gene] or fix the underlying mutation and that’s where you have to have the precision of CRISPR to go in and specifically do that.”
CRISPR has a unique drawback, however. When it goes in to patch up the bit of DNA as instructed, it does so by fracturing both strands of the DNA double helix. A cell is left to repair the breaks on its own, ideally using the synthetic DNA offered by the CRISPR-Cas9 system. But because it’s a klutzy repairperson, the cell may also introduce errors such as inserting or deleting DNA.
This is why the focus of the next generation of gene editing tools is to try to minimize, as much as possible, the risk of new mutations, says Mitalipov.
These tools include base editing, where specific base pairs — the building blocks of DNA — are swapped out without requiring a double-stranded break. Base editing was used in a recent gene therapy clinical trial treating individuals with a genetic form of high cholesterol called familial hypercholesterolemia. The gene-editing technique, which is based on CRISPR, was developed in 2016 by Harvard University’s David Liu, considered a founding pioneer of CRISPR.
Another CRISPR-based tool is a leveled-up version of base editing. Called prime editing (also co-invented by Liu), it can swap base pairs in addition to inserting and deleting without double-breaking the DNA helix.
More recently, a gene-editing tool called NICER developed by researchers in Japan is said to create little single-strand nicks that didn’t seem to cause mutations, according to a September 2023 Nature Communications study.
Despite the appeal of finer precision and avoiding inadvertent mutations, Mitalipov and Saha say it’s unlikely the original CRISPR-Cas9 system will be ousted or replaced entirely by these newer gene editors.
“Basically, you would have to look at the specific gene mutation and then decide what would be the best — it could be base or prime editing,” says Mitalipov. “So far, prime editing hasn’t been widely used. There’s only one or two labs [doing research] and nothing commercially available. So, it remains to be seen if [prime editing] is really going to be applicable.”
A laboratory staff works at Genethon, a non-profit gene therapy R&D organization in Evry, France.
ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
MORE TARGETS
CRISPR-based gene therapies are being devised to treat all sorts of conditions and disorders, from neurological to autoimmune and cancers. Currently, the only FDA-approved therapy using CRISPR is Casgevy; others on the market, such as Luxturna for people with a rare genetic defect that often leads to blindness and Zolgensma for treating spinal muscular atrophy, use a disabled virus bearing a normal version of the target gene to cells.
Currently, the focus is treating disorders or diseases caused by mutations in single genes in somatic cells (the body’s non-reproductive cells). This route makes it easier to identify and target relatively straightforward biological mechanisms than cracking at multiple genes acting in complex and sometimes unpredictable ways with which tinkering may lead to unintended, potentially life-threatening consequences. Understandably, since the late 1990s, there’s been a reasonably high regulatory bar for the research a gene therapy requires to meet FDA approval.
However, that doesn’t mean more genetically complex diseases are off the table. Editing multiple genes is quite possible and regularly done with transgenic animals (as well as plants), says Saha. Attempting this engineering feat for human health will take extensive research to uncover the genetic pathways and interactions involved and figuring out how to safely target all these genes with minimal off-target effects.
In the future, we may see gene therapies used increasingly for common health problems, not only rare genetic diseases, says Mitalipov and Saha. For example, a recent clinical trial in people with familial hypercholesterolemia found that one gene therapy targeting a mutated gene behind the build-up of bad cholesterol slashed cholesterol levels on par with similar-acting pharmaceutical drugs. These findings offer a tantalizing glimpse of an exciting beginning for gene therapy within preventative medicine, promising that someday, a simple edit in your genome may protect you against high cholesterol and blood pressure or any other commonplace ailments.
THERAPIES FOR ALL
There’s another barrier that could ultimately prevent even the safest, most promising gene therapy from seeing the light of clinical day: cost. Luxturna, for example, was reported at a whopping $425,000 per eye back in 2018. It’s a bit of a bargain compared to the average million-dollar price tag for emerging gene therapies such as Casgevy, the gene therapy for sickle-cell anemia/beta-thalassemia. The gene therapy market itself was valued at $1.46 billion in 2020 and is estimated to reach over $5 billion by 2028, according to a report by Polaris Market Research.
“How do we get the pricing down is an outrageously important and unsolvable question,” says Davies of The CRISPR Journal. “Some will point to ‘Well, it’s early days, and as more of these therapies get approved, we start to see competition and prices drop’... but we see when companies get a monopoly on something, they seem more than willing to take advantage of the situation.”
Saha says there’s an active discussion within the scientific community about how to make gene therapy equitable within the low- and middle-income countries that make up the Global South. But how gene therapy accessibility will play out in the coming years is yet to be seen.
“One of the key questions in our analysis is, who’s at the table making these decisions? It’s a fairly easy critique to say that the people in the room are not representative in various ways, perhaps Global North versus Global South, socioeconomic, scientific expertise versus the lay public,” says Saha. “There are important questions about power and democracy and whose knowledge should drive policymaking that needs to be settled. I think the deliberation and the process are as important as the end set of guidelines or policies.”
Then there’s the dreaded ethical prophecy augured by science fiction in films like Gattaca, set in a world where genetic engineering and socioeconomic status go hand in hand. Both before and after the infamous incident involving Chinese scientist He Jiankui creating the world’s first CRISPR-edited human babies with a gene for HIV immunity, there have been strict worldwide regulations on any gene editing research involving embryos.
But scientists like Mitalipov are looking into using CRISPR to potentially adjust an embryo’s risk for disease. His own research at OHSU involves gene-editing germline cells — or reproductive cells that pass on genetic information to the offspring — in what Mitalipov calls “IVF gene therapy.”
He says such a technique could help improve the success of embryo implantation during IVF by creating stronger, more viable embryos. Mitalipov acknowledges, however, that there needs to be a robust regulatory framework in place before we can ever truly consider genetically engineered babies.
“In terms of regulation, we have to focus only on those 10,000 gene defects we know today that cause human disease,” says Mitalipov. “It could be easily mandated that gene therapies in embryos have to be towards severe disease in children.”
But that, and the rest of gene therapy’s optimistically bright future, remains hedged with abundant yet much-warranted caution.
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Mysterious Manuscripts: The Fascinating Story of Ancient Bibles (Video)
Mysterious Manuscripts: The Fascinating Story of Ancient Bibles (Video)
Ancient religious texts have always been a source of fascination and intrigue, offering a glimpse into the beliefs and customs of people from bygone eras. A collection of mysterious and ancient Bibles at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art, has been the subject of intense interest among scholars and enthusiasts alike. These Bibles, made from animal skin, date back to a pivotal period in the history of Christianity, when the religion was transitioning from an underground cult to a more normative one. The manuscripts have been carefully preserved over the years, and their display provides a unique opportunity to gain insights into the beliefs and practices of early Christians.
Among the most significant discoveries is the freer Logie, a verse that follows the last chapter of the book of Mark, which occurs in no other known gospel in the world. The origins of this verse remain shrouded in mystery, but it has caused quite a stir among scholars. While carbon-14 dating is a possible scientific method to date these manuscripts, the danger of destroying them has made the task more challenging. While scholars continue to debate the origins and significance of this text, its discovery highlights the importance of these ancient manuscripts in helping us understand the evolution of Christianity and its place in the wider world.
New research aims to shed light on the puzzling winds on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, whose mysterious weather patterns have puzzled astronomers for decades.
This composite image shows an infrared view of Saturn's moon Titan from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, acquired during the mission's "T-114" flyby on Nov. 13, 2015.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)
New research is shedding light on peculiar winds swirling on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, whose mysterious weather patterns have puzzled astronomers for decades.
The answers may help to explain how Titan became the only moon in the solar system that still hosts a planet-like atmosphere, researchers say.
Astronomers have long known that seasons on Titan — each of which lasts nearly 7.5 Earth years — affect the moon's winds. But they haven't been able to pin down the speeds of those winds; two related studies, done nearly 30 years apart, have led to contradictory findings.
Now, astronomers are revisiting this decades-old mystery with updated telescopes. The paradoxical findings from past research might have resulted from incorrect assumptions about the data or instrument limitations, or it may just be that "there's something basic that we don't understand," Eliot Young, a principal scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, said in a statement.
Titan has a thick, smog-like atmosphere that reaches 370 miles (600 kilometers) into space and is 95% nitrogen with a sprinkle of organic molecules. Winds on the moon encircle it in just a day, repeatedly carrying currents of warm air from lower altitudes to the moon's poles, as if blowing on what NASA calls a high-speed conveyor belt.
In 1989, astronomers found that Titan's winds are slowest near its equator and fastest at midlatitudes in both the northern and southern hemispheres. This was revealed thanks to a chance alignment of a star behind Titan that allowed astronomers to study how the star's dimming light filtered through the moon's atmosphere, which helped them interpret wind speeds.
In 2016, a different team used ground-based telescopes to study how the light beamed by molecules in the atmosphere changed with shifting wind speeds and directions. The findings from this method revealed the opposite: The winds were fastest near Titan's equator and slowest at its lower latitudes.
Because there's a nearly three-decade gap between the two sets of observations, astronomers think different seasons on Titan may have led to the dramatic wind changes between both studies. Also, the 1989 research studied winds circling in the middle layers of the moon's atmosphere, while the more recent research focused on winds in the upper layers, which also may explain the varying wind speeds, the astronomers said.
"Just like on Earth, the winds on Titan are different at different altitudes and also change with seasons," Juan Lora, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Yale University, told Space.com in an email. "And both of these likely explain why the observations don't agree perfectly with each other."
To get to the bottom of this discrepancy, a group of scientists has collected new data about Titan's winds using both methods at the same time. Last year, the team used eight telescopes in the United States and South America to observe two chance alignments of Earth, Titan and faraway bright stars.
In September 2022, four telescopes in Hawaii — including NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the Keck Observatory — watched as the star, 2MASS 21312124-1602427, snuck behind Titan. In November of the same year, a different star called 2MASS 21292356-1611056 slid behind Titan. Data from this event was collected by four more telescopes in Chile, including the Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
An artist's impression of the 'light curve' produced by a star passing behind Titan. The spike at the center of the light curve represents the central flash produced by Titan's atmosphere acting as a lens and refracting the starlight toward a single focal point. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/C.Carreau)
The team is still comparing data from both observations and expects the results to be ready later this year. So far, ALMA observations already show evidence of speedy winds parallel to Titan's equator, Martin Cordiner, a planetary science researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland whose team first identified the discrepancy in 2021, told Space.com.
The researchers behind the latest study said they were just in time to capture valuable data about Titan's winds before the 2025 northern autumnal equinox, when both of the moon's hemispheres will briefly receive equal sunlight before its northern hemisphere points more directly toward the sun. During this time, Titan's winds will reverse directions and start flowing from north to south — a change that has sprouted powerful dust storms in the past, according to the journal Nature.
"Titan is amazingly similar to Earth in many ways, but it's also alien and often surprising — teasing out which of these applies to individual phenomena as we observe them is one of the fun bits about this research for me," Lora told Space.com.
Military chiefs plan to fight aliens with nukes and lasers in 'extraterrestrial' war
Military chiefs plan to fight aliens with nukes and lasers in 'extraterrestrial' war
Army chiefs may be at war with beings from beyond the stars in a matter of 'two or three decades' according to a top expert believing new weapons are needed to fight extraterrestrial.
But they would have to develop new weapons, vehicles and moon bases to take on hostile ETs.
The opening page states: "The United States may be called upon to wage extra-terrestrial warfare within the next two to three decades.
"This paper explores the implications of this requirement for the US Army and proposes a program of studies that will enable the Army to meet this requirement."
Expert Philip Mantle says weapons for dealing with extraterrestrials is not a bad idea(Image: Jam Press)
The 20-page document first appeared on eBay and had no information other than the title and a price tag of £800,000 ($1million).
But it has now been declassified and released to researcher John Greenwald, who runs the Black Vault website, under terms of the Freedom of Information Act.
Any future war with aliens would occur in space, on Mars, moons and asteroids in our solar system, according to Robert C Suggs, who wrote the report.
The secret paper states military bases could be set up on "natural satellites" starting with our Moon to carry out exploration and surveillance.
And new weaponry such as lasers would be used to combat the alien threat.
The document for mass destruction appeared with a hefty price tag on it (stock)(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The report said: "Direct energy weapons such as lasers seem to offer outstanding possibilities for space weaponry but much further research is required to increase the power of these devices and reduce the size of the components to manageable proportions for warfare."
Other firepower would be considered including using rockets and nuclear missiles.
"Nuclear weapons are generally agreed to have good potential for space application yet their employment may be restrained by a number of factors such as the effect of nuclear radiation on communication and sensing devices," the report adds.
It also called for special space suits to be developed to protect against radiation during a potential alien conflict.
The document was drawn up in June 1965 – four years before Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon.
All-out war with beings from beyond the stars could be in 'two or three decades'(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
It calls for a number of "substantive projects" to be launched to "develop the organisation, equipment and doctrine that will be ultimately required in the 1970-1980 time period".
Philip Mantle, 63, a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, said: "We have been open to alien invasion stories in print and on film since who knows when so it cannot surprise anyone that the US authorities put these ideas in writing if nothing else.
"Added to this we know that our fragile planet has in the past been hit by large comets and meteorites so maybe this was in their planning as well, saving us from a destructive asteroid.
"The last time such an incident happened was of course in Tunguska, Russia, in 1908.
"If such a thing happened today over a built-up area, then the casualty list could well be in the millions. Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to have such a space weapons system after all?"
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What are UFOs? The question that has been buzzing for decades might not have a simple explanation. From alien spaceships to interdimensional crafts, these mysterious objects are associated with various strange phenomena. There are a number of whistleblowers who have claimed that the U.S. government possesses UFO materials retrieved from crash sites, but the exact nature of these materials is not known.
UFO filmmaker Jeremy Corbell claims: “UFOs are real, and we’re no closer to understanding what a UFO truly is, who operates them, where they are from, what their intent is, or what they represent to humankind. So when the public in general sees that on the news, it’s like, “Okay, yeah, we all kind of thought that because we’re seeing them. Thanks, government, but nothing’s really answered.”
Corbell has discussed various theories surrounding UAPs/UFO phenomena with Steve-O on his podcast. He put forward ideas on what UFOs could manifest. Apart from interplanetary spacecraft, terrestrial, non-terrestrial, or interdimensional objects, Corbell introduced a new term to explain UFOs, which is “extratemporal.” He explained that many scientists working on UFO-related projects believe these crafts utilize gravitational propulsion, a technology we have yet to fully understand. Manipulating gravity could distort time and space, suggesting that these crafts might originate from another time; hence, the term is “extratemporal.”
Corbell noted that when it comes to duplicating or reverse-engineering these non-human technologies, our current understanding of science is not up to that mark. Corbell mentions that one of the significant challenges in understanding UFOs is the limitations of our material science. He explains that attempts at reverse engineering UFO materials or craft are hindered because our material science has not advanced enough to replicate these materials accurately.
“These craft can move; they call it transmedium. From space through air without a sonic boom, they can move at speed and into the sea without disturbance, without slowing down. That’s transmedium. So the idea of how do they do that with physics? Some people say, ‘Well, the craft’s skin, you know, it’s like hydrophobic; when you go in, it just slips in.’ But really what we’re seeing is objects that appear to move in ways that our physics understands; we just can’t replicate gravitational fields,” Corbell says.
Corbell explains that some people think UFOs might be using things like time travel or manipulating gravity to achieve these unusual movements. He mentions the idea that if they can control gravity somehow, they could create a kind of force field around their craft that makes them move in ways that we cannot explain with our current science.
Corbell also talks about the way UFOs can move from space into the Earth’s atmosphere or even underwater without making a sound or causing disturbances. He suggests that this could be related to their ability to control gravity, allowing them to smoothly transition between different environments.
Skin of the UFO is alive
Steve-O expresses his view that the distinction between craft and biologics in the UFO phenomenon is not entirely clear to him. He suggests that it might be more accurate to consider that the boundary between what is traditionally thought of as a craft and a biological entity is blurry. He implies that the craft themselves might have some form of biological elements.
Corbell agrees with this perspective and mentions that many military personnel who have had close encounters with UFOs often report a strange characteristic about the craft’s “skin.” According to these reports, the craft’s exterior appears to exhibit signs of intelligence and liveliness. Corbell notes that this observation is puzzling, especially to engineers who are accustomed to thinking of machines as non-biological entities.
Corbell further explores the idea that these UFOs may be so integrated with biological elements that they could be considered a form of biology as we understand it, even though they are still functional craft capable of carrying things.
Some of these UFOs appear to be piloted by what Corbell refers to as artificial intelligence, essentially acting like drones. Others seem to carry occupants, which they refer to as “biologics” or biological entities. However, they entertain the idea that even these occupants could be some form of cybernetic organisms with synthetic flesh, essentially functioning as autonomous AI beings.
Israeli Psychic Uri Geller, who is often misjudged on social media for his bizarre posts, was a part of CIA secret programs where his abilities were used in the area of “mind projection” and possibly for national security purposes. A declassified CIA document revealed information about the “Project Stargate” that was focused on remote viewing.
He played an important role in the CIA investigation into ESP and psychokinesis. In one experiment for the CIA, Geller was isolated in a room to draw the same picture that had been drawn by another person in another room. He drew a picture of a square with diagonals. In 2017, the CIA released some 12 million pages of records, revealing details about Project Stargate.
One of Geller’s least-known claims is about working with NASA. He got acquainted with Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell and later, the two became friends. He was then asked by Mitchell to meet a legendary German-born American aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun.
Geller said Kennedy argued to bring him to the US so that they could use his mind. Along with his brother-in-law Shipi Shtrang, Geller visited NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. While being there, Geller gave his secret spy camera to Shtrang which he used later to take photographs of Geller, Mitchell, von Braun, and more.
Geller claimed that he could not believe his eyes as he was shown extraterrestrial evidence at the Goddard Space Flight Center. During their meeting, Von Braun doubted Geller. “He said he heard about my powers and told me that if he took his wedding ring off his finger and put it in the palm of his hand and I’d be able to bend it while it’s there, he’d believe me,” Geller recounted. “And I did – completely.”
After that, Geller was shown a piece of metal at Von Braun’s office. “It was metallic, smooth, pearl-like, with rainbow reflective ‘skin.’ When I held it I sensed vibrations. It felt like it was breathing… as if it was alive. Von Braun said I was right – and that it was from a crashed UFO,” he explained. He never found out where this metal had come from. “UFOs/UAPS are not just nuts and bolt craft,” Geller posts on X (formerly Twitter).
With Curt Jaimungal on his Theories of Everything (TOE) podcast in 2021, former AATIP head Luis Elizondo carefully hinted that “potentially” the U.S. government had acquired otherworldly biological samples. He also suggested that the government has images of UAPs that appear to show beings inside them.
“Have there potentially been biological samples recovered?” Curt asked. ELizondo replied: “Yes. I’m not going to expound on that… and be careful when I say that. I’m being purposely very open and vague at the same time, right? What does that mean? Well, it means what it means.”
Besides, when asked if there are photos that show occupants inside “craft,” Elizondo said: “There are some very compelling photos out there that seem to show something inside, some sort of occupancy, And I’ll leave it at that, because it gets really murky, much beyond that.
And there’s a lot that can be speculated. And so I try to avoid speculation as much as possible. But yes, I’ve spoken to enough people with firsthand knowledge that not only report the crafts that we know exists, but potentially some sort of intelligence inside these vehicles.”
Why isn’t this topic being discussed by everyone on the planet? Is it feasible that the majority of people are disregarding this news, even if they are aware of it? At what point does the truth and its mind-boggling consequences become too conspicuous to overlook?
Former intelligence officer David Grusch also testified in July 2023 UAP hearings that the U.S. has recovered non-human “biologics” from alleged crash sites, which further bolsters Corbell and Geller’s claims that the craft’s skin or its occupants exhibit signs of intelligence and liveliness.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Ufo-meldpunt kreeg in 2023 iets meer waarnemingen binnen
Ufo-meldpunt kreeg in 2023 iets meer waarnemingen binnen
Het Belgische ufo-meldpunt heeft vorig jaar 223 meldingen binnengekregen. Dat is een kleine stijging in vergelijking met 2022, toen er 217 waarnemingen waren. Meldingen van planeten of sterren staan bovenaan de lijst, maar ook waarnemingen die als lichtspot (skytracer) konden verklaard worden, zitten in de lift.
Veertig keer ging het bij een ufo-melding om een planeet of een ster. Dat is een aanzienlijke stijging tegenover vorig jaar. Het aantal ufo-meldingen dat in 2023 veroorzaakt werd door lichtspots/skytracers (23), is ook gestegen. Bij meldingen die onvoldoende gegevens bevatten voor nader onderzoek, was er dan weer een dalende trend (39).
Andere verklaringen voor meldingen waren onder meer satellieten/ISS (33), vliegtuig/helikopter (31), meteoor/ruimteschroot (7), vogel/insect (6), drone (5).
De provincie Antwerpen is in 2023 duidelijke koploper met 61 observaties.
Hoewel het meldpunt Belgisch is, ontvangt het bijna uitsluitend waarnemingen uit Vlaanderen omdat de site Nederlandstalig is. “Er is een samenwerking met het Franstalige Cobeps (Comité Belge pour l’Etude des Phénomènes Spatiaux), waarbij deze zich voornamelijk op Franstalige getuigenissen toelegt”, zo legt Frederick Delaere van het ufo-meldpunt uit. Bij Cobeps werden in 2023 48 waarnemingen gerapporteerd.
info peter2011
Het volledige jaarverslag 2023 kan u downloaden via:
Mum thinks 'aliens are watching' her as she snaps 'UFO that looks like Doctor Who's TARDIS'
Mum thinks 'aliens are watching' her as she snaps 'UFO that looks like Doctor Who's TARDIS'
A mother has been left frightened by a mysterious object spotted over her house that she says "can't be a star" because it's always there and could be "watching" her.
- Do you think it looks like a TARDIS? Let us know in the comments
(Image: Kennedy News and Media)
A mum who took a picture of a UFOthat looks like Doctor Who’s TARDIS reckons “aliens are watching” her.
Kay Thorpe, 36, reckons she has seen the same UFO regularly hover over her house in Middleton, Leeds, for the last few years. She has since refuted claims that it is in fact a star she is looking at – this was something she set out to prove using her phone’s ultra-zoom camera.
Snapping the image from her garden on December 16, the mum of three said she felt “freaked out” by its presence. It doesn't flicker as stars do and closer inspection of the object left Kay, and the internet, convinced it looked like the famous time lord's runaround.
Kay said: "Where I live, you don't often see a lot of stars but this one particular star is above my house every night and every morning. And I kept looking at it thinking 'that can't be a star' because it's always there but it doesn't flicker like a star.
The mum of three was left scratching her head(Image: Kennedy News and Media)
"It's been there for years. It wasn't twinkling and I thought what else could it be? So I decided to take a photo on my phone but when you zoom in that far on your phone, it can become distorted.
"But I managed to keep it quite still and get a clear photo. When I took the picture, I just saw that shape. My first thought was it could be some sort of extraterrestrial. I didn't think it was a spaceship but when I saw the shape, I thought that's not normal.
Kay reckons it's not a star(Image: Kennedy News and Media)
"When I looked at it, I was freaked out. I thought 'am I safe'? I thought, could it be the International Space Station?"
She posted the image online and people soon chimed in their twopence. One comment said: "It's Doctor Who's phone box!"
Another added: "Clearly a TARDIS!"
A third said commented: "Hmm, it genuinely does look like a TARDIS."
She used her phone camera to zoom in(Image: Kennedy News and Media)
"I shared it online and everyone started saying it's Doctor Who, it's the TARDIS," she said. I'm not a Doctor Who fan but I knew what people meant when they said it. A lot of people said TARDIS.
"I don't believe we're alone. I think there's something out there - I don't think we're the only species. The thought has dawned on me that something could be looking down on us.
Some felt it a looked like TARDIS (stock)(Image: BBC)
"Because it's been there for that many years I know I must be safe. Unless I've been abducted and my memory's been wiped! A couple of people said it's heaven's door and we've recently had a bereavement so I'd like to think it's maybe that."
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ESA’s Tiny Pinhole Thruster is Ready for Production.
Rocket propulsion technology has progressed leaps and bounds since the first weaponised rockets of the Chinese and Mongolian empires. They were nothing more than rocket powered arrows and spears but they set the foundations for our exploration of space. Liquid propellant, ion engines and solar sails have all hit the headlines as we strive for more efficient methods of travel but a team has taken the next leap with a palm sized thruster system that could boost future tiny space craft across the gulf of space.
Palm sized thrusters are quite different to the gargantuan rockets we are used to, for example the Saturn V rocket that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon which stood 110m tall. The difference for the ATHENA thrusters is that they are designed for manoeuvring and propelling cubesats and small satellites once they are in space rather than propelling rockets from the surface of the Earth.
The Apollo 10 Saturn V during rollout. Credit: NASA
The team led by Daniel Perez Grande, CEO and Co-Founder of IENAI Spain, have called their palm sized thruster ‘Athena’, not the most catchy title but neatly represents what it does- the Adaptable, THruster based on Electrospray powered NAnotechnology. The technology has been developed for ESA and, following a successful design stage and, if all goes to plan, a prototype will be available by the end of 2024.
The technology relies upon something known as an electrospray which has previously been used in mass spectrometry but has now found its way into space. Each thruster has seven emitter arrays that are etched onto silicon wafers and each houses 500 pinhole emitters. Electrically charged particles from a conductive salt are sprayed out, propelled via an electrostatic field to produce the maximum amount of thrust which can be of the order of 20km per second. The concept is very similar to the ion propulsion systems already in use but on a much smaller scale.
Like its ION and liquid propellant cousins the thruster is highly adjustable and can be reconfigured in flight. The thrusters are eco-friendly too since the propellant is a non-toxic liquid and require no pressurised storage tanks. The small size of the thrusters means they can be grouped together in any required configuration with a total of six required to fit the face of a typical 10cm cubesats and can be clustered together on satellites and probes of up to 50kg mass. The team are hoping they can develop the technology further to work on craft up to 300kg.
Space technology is where possible, getting smaller and smaller like most other areas of technology. In order to achieve this though the propulsion systems also need to shrink and this is potentially a more challenging ask. ATEHNA looks to be a promising development but ESA and their partners are working on two other thruster systems based upon electrospray technology all of which, seem to be bringing promising results.
A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters investigates the potential existence of Mars-sized free-floating planets (FFPs)—also known as rogue planets, starless planets, and wandering planets—that could have been captured by our Sun’s gravity long ago and orbit in the outer solar system approximately 1,400 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. For context, the farthest known planetary body in the solar system is Pluto, which orbits approximately 39 AU from the Sun, and is also part of the Kuiper Belt, which scientists estimate extends as far out as 1,000 AU from the Sun.
This study comes as scientists currently estimate that billions, if not trillions, of FFPs could exist within our Milky Way Galaxy, with a recently submitted study using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to identify 540 potential Jupiter-sized rogue planet candidates, with some hypothesized to be pairs of rouge planets, also called binary rogue planets. This was followed up by another recently submitted study that investigated the origin and evolution of those binary rogue planets, as well. Scientists currently hypothesize that rogue planets are formed from two scenarios: As part of their own solar system but are then somehow ejected into the cosmos, or they form in isolation. But what is the significance of studying free-floating planets, overall?
“There are three interesting areas of astrophysics that we can learn about from free-floating planets,” Amir Siraj, who is a PhD student in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and sole author of the study, tells Universe Today. “The first is planetary system formation — free-floating planets are ostensibly byproducts of the planetary system formation process, so studying them can help illuminate how planetary systems like our own came to be. The second is habitability — free-floating planets may greatly outnumber bound planets, so if any fraction of them have regions with energy budgets that can support liquid water, free-floating planets could collectively represent an important swath of habitable real estate in the universe. The third is dynamical interactions with stars and planetary systems — since free-floating planets are not bound to any particular star, they roam the galaxy and can have dynamical interactions with many different stars and planetary systems.”
It was this third area that Siraj tells Universe Today he used as influence for this study, as he asked the probability of FFPs potentially being captured by our own solar system throughout its approximate 4.5-billion-year history.
For the study, Siraj used computer models to simulate the potential for FFPs being captured in the outer solar system while incorporating a myriad of factors, including semimajor axis, eccentricity, and observation times of FFPs. After conducting approximately 100,000,000 simulations, the results indicate the potential for the existence of a Mars-sized, or even a Mercury-sized planetary body somewhere in the outer solar system approximately 1,400 AU from the Sun, with Siraj noting in the study the distance could range between 600 to 3,500 AU. But what is the significance of a terrestrial planet so far out in the outer solar system as opposed to a gas giant planet?
“Since this planet would be a former exoplanet, studying it in detail would reveal a wealth of information about how planets form around other stars,” Siraj tells Universe Today. “The fact that it’s a terrestrial planet means that its surface is probably rocky — which is very exciting because it means that by studying its surface, we could learn about the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets in general.”
Siraj recommends in his study that future work could include gaining greater understanding of how rogue planets are captured in the first place, along with investigating observational tests to identify where to look in the sky for rogue planets, as well. He also notes how microlensing has become the preferred method in identifying rogue planets based on past studies.
What new discoveries will scientists make about rogue planets in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
The disclosure has probably been going on for some time, but most of us have been oblivious to it. Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, made the most startling claims about extraterrestrial visitors. He thinks there is intelligent life beyond Earth, on worlds that might be just as sophisticated and well-organized as ours. Mr. Nelson expressed his hope that some of the unexplained UFO sightings are not evidence of an “adversary here on earth.” He suggested that it is more likely that these sightings are evidence of life existing on other planets.
NASA conspirators/whistleblowers have a full assurance that the US space agency has been covering the evidence of UFOs since the first Apollo mission. Donna Hare claimed to have worked for NASA contractor Philco Ford in the early 1970s. She had a high-security clearance to walk into NASA’s photo lab and other departments.
During the Disclosure Project press conference, Hare revealed that NASA covered up and eliminated space anomalies such as UFOs from satellite photos. Hare has got several awards in space programs. She dedicated most of her time as a technical illustrator to space programs. She created lunar maps, and landing slides and had been working for 15 years as a sub-contractor for NASA.
Former NASA scientist Robin Brett, who was among the first people to study and direct research on moon rocks said: “It seems easier to explain the non-existence of the Moon than its existence.” Besides, according to scientists, the Moon is older than the Earth by nearly 800,000 years, which raises a lot of questions.
Former US Air Force Sergeant Karl Wolfe, who died in a bike accident in 2018, was another person who shared a story similar to Donna Hare. He also had top-secret clearance and worked at Langley Air Force base in Virginia, the USA. He worked as a precision electronics photograph repairer for NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Project. One day, he was taken into a lab by another worker who showed him a photo of artificial buildings at the lunar base. These photos had been taken prior to the Apollo landing in 1969.
Sergeant Karl Wolfe
“…At any rate, I was in a color lab one day when my boss, Staff Sergeant Taylor, came over to me and said that they were having a problem with some equipment on the base and it was the first lunar orbiter program, where they had a mission to pretty much locate the first landing sites for the 1969 lunar mission for the astronauts.
So he said they were having some problems with equipment over there. it was similar equipment to what we had- it was computerized contact printing equipment. He wanted to know if I would go over and take a look at it. He said to me, It’s an NSA facility. At the time, I didn’t know what the NSA was – I was pretty naive.
I thought he said NASA. So in my mind, for a long time, I thought it was a NASA facility that I had gone to, but I remembered him saying NSA and converting it in my own mind to NASA…”
Wolfe claimed that one day, when NSA photographic equipment failed, he was asked to assist them with the important repair work that was needed to keep the machines on the job. He was the only person who was readily available at the time and was trained in the type of equipment that had failed. This was really a coincidence. In the regular course of events, he would be breaking protocol by entering NSA territory.
The level of his security clearance was enhanced, and as a result, he was allowed to even enter the extremely secure laboratory. Wolfe’s heart was pounding when he entered the here-to-fore forbidden hangar on that particular day, and he was astounded to witness the frenzied activity in
Wolfe had expected that only people with the American citizenship would be in the NASA lab, but he was surprised to see a large number of people with guest name tags and obviously from other countries present on this particular day. This led him to believe that those people had traveled from their home countries for some event that required their temporary presence.
Concerning the outcome of his mission, he experienced feelings of dread. Whatever it was that required his presence, it was of the utmost significance. Someone had informed him that the relevant equipment was located in a nearby dark room.
When he was first carried into the chamber, the only thing that greeted him was the red glow of a safety light. However, after a time, he was able to make out the form of one airman who manned the area even though it was dark.
Wolfe was aware that in order to fix the image processing equipment, it would first need to be removed, and he was also aware that the diagnostics on this kind of equipment would take some time to complete.
Quickly, arrangements were made for the camera equipment to be moved to a safer place so Wolfe could start the long process of figuring out what was wrong. While Wolfe was waiting for his ride, he started talking to the other airman. Wolfe asked very carefully why NASA work was being done at Langley instead of at NASA’s headquarters in Houston.
After that, he was informed that all of the NASA picture data was transferred to Langley, where it was upgraded and transformed into finished photographs, which were then analyzed by various parts of the armed forces. Wolfe was given some insight by the attendant of the dark chamber as to the nature of the enigma surrounding the situation.
Wolfe was told that new, better pictures had shown structures on the surface of the Moon’s dark side that were both surprising and clear. Structures that could not have been made by natural means like meteors or ancient collisions between other celestial bodies. The structures were created by intelligent beings. “We discovered,” the airman said, “a base of the back side of the Moon.”
Wolfe was obviously stunned by this extraordinary disclosure. He remembers literally “shaking” trying to take in the enormity of what he had been told. Seeing Wolfe’s disbelief, the dark room attendant continued: “Yes, a base on the dark side of the Moon.”
Although the attendant had not explicitly stated that the structures were not created by inhabitants of Earth, it appeared obvious. Wolfe was still in awe as he looked down at the photos he was attempting to visualize in his mind. As he stooped beneath the red-glowing lamp, he saw something that so few would ever see. He was able to discern geometric shapes that were well-organized and planned. Most noticeable to him were what looked exactly like radar antennas, very similar to what one could see on Earth.
There was no longer any question in Wolfe’s mind as to the reason behind the peculiar assortment of investigators and scientists that were present at this location on this particular day. They had traveled to the moon in order to view and investigate the structures that he was currently staring at, which were built on the moon by intelligent beings.
He might be detained or worse. He only wanted to complete his task, get out of there, and leave things alone. Wolfe carried on the task at hand, putting the memories of that day to the back of his mind, and continued living his life. Wolfe, however, was haunted by the images he saw that day for many years to come.
After he left the active service, his security clearance prohibited him from leaving the United States for five years, and he was sworn to keep what he had seen to himself. Before he finally informed anyone about that remarkable day, it would be thirty years. The 74-year-old Sgt. Wolfe was killed after being hit by a trailer while cycling in Lansing, New York. Wolfe was rushed to Cayuga Medical Center where he later died from the injuries sustained in the crash.
Wolfe was not the only whistleblower whose death seems mysterious. Former U.S. Army Command Sgt. Major Robert Orel Dean claimed that when he worked for NATO in France, he read a document titled “The Assessment” in the 1960s. According to him, the document contained information about “photos of dead aliens, crashed UFOs and reports by military pilots and scientists.” Coincidently, he died a week before Wolfe’s death in 2018.
The abduction of Betty Andreasson Luca is considered to be one of the most documented cases in the history of Ufology. The woman from Massachusetts experienced multiple abductions, and her case is widely studied by UFO researchers. It became popular after the publication of the best-selling novel “The Andreasson Affair,” which came out in the late 1970s. She attended many radio shows and TV interviews where she discussed her encounter with grey aliens and even drew sketches of the incident.
Betty Andreasson was born on January 7, 1937, to Waino and Eva Aho. She went to school in Westminster and Gardner MA and had a great interest in art since childhood, which later became her passion. Betty married twice and with her first husband, she gave birth to seven children. She met her second husband Bob Luca in 1977.
Betty Andreasson Luca
According to the official reports, on the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty was at home with her seven children and parents. At around 6:30 p.m., she was busy in the kitchen when the lights in the house started blinking strangely. Soon after it, the kitchen’s window was hit by a reddish light beam, and the whole house went out of electricity. The children got terrified with the scene and Betty tried to calm them down. Her father looked out to find the source of the light and saw five strange-looking humanoid creatures walking right towards the house. Before he could understand the situation, the beings walked inside the house through the door which put the whole family in a state of shock.
Betty Andreasson during one of her hypnotic regression sessions
One creature went to Betty’s father while the other four came to her, and one of them started talking with her telepathically. The one who was made telepathic contact with Betty was about 5 feet tall, while others were shorter than him. The description by the witnesses was similar to the modern illustration of grey aliens. They had only slits on their mouth, three fingers in one hand, and wore a blue-colored one-piece suit.
Betty was frightened but at the same time, she felt calm by the friendly nature of the beings. They did not harm any member of the family and even released her daughter from a state of unawareness. Then she was taken outside and boarded on their saucer-shaped craft with a small dome that was standing in the backyard. After that, the ship went up in the air and merged with the mothership where Betty went through medical tests and was under the effects of strange equipment. Later, she was taken to some strange place where she felt much pain which, according to her, was a “spiritual experience.”
UFO sketch by Betty Andreasson
Later that night, Betty returned home at 10:40 p.m. and found her family still in a frozen state, where one of the aliens was watching them in her absence. Then the family was put to bed by the beings and the aliens left. What’s more, she forgot about her abduction until undergoing hypnotherapy in later years.
Betty said in some of her interviews that the creatures were angelic in nature but not biblical. She is a religious person, had only some school education and did not understand much about UFOs. Only after this bizarre experience, she understood that whatever she had experienced that night was much like a UFO abduction
In 1975, Dr. Allen J Hynek posted an ad in the newspaper to learn more about the abduction experiences and asked help from common people. Betty answered his ad by sending a letter, but it was rejected due to its unusual details. It was only in 1977 when her case was deeply investigated by the experts including a solar physicist, an electronics engineer, an aerospace engineer, a telecommunications specialist, and a UFO investigator.
Her case was first investigated by Jules Vaillancourt, a Mutual UFO Network investigator in 1977. He said: “What I found most amazing about Betty was her ability to draw. The detail of the (space) craft and the beings she drew under hypnosis were such that it really made me believe there was something to this.”
He also added that the detective who had given a psychological stress evaluation to Betty and her daughter believed in her story. She even spoke the language of aliens under hypnosis. Her case investigation continued for 12 months where she and her daughter had gone through hypnosis sessions, lie detector tests, and a psychiatric interview. Both mother and daughter passed them with a genuine reaction. Author and UFO researcher Raymond E. Fowler wrote five books on her UFO experiences that include the famous “The Andreasson Affair” series.
During one of her hypnotic regression sessions, she remembered one of the early abductions that occurred to her in childhood. It took place in 1950 when she was taken from her home into a spacecraft as usual. But this time, the craft was flying toward an ocean or sea. She was terrified that the craft would crash into the water. But the ship submerged into the water and entered into a kind of tunnel. Betty could see everything underwater, as the place was filled with light. What she said next under hypnosis is so bizarre that even gave a chill to Fowler.
Betty Andreasson drew what Fowler called Museum of Time
She saw people from all eras, different races, encased in the glass container. Fowler called it “The Museum of Time.” Betty said that people in the container were in old-fashioned clothes, and there were uncountable cubicles with humans inside at that underwater base.
Fowler wrote that when he listened to her one of the regression session recordings, his mind blew up as he found it difficult to believe. “A cold chill coursed through my body when Betty was describing people and animals enclosed in glassy cubicles in an icy cavern.”
Betty Andreasson and her second husband Bob Luca
Betty traveled a lot across the country, attending numerous TV interviews and radio shows and lecturing about her UFO experiences. She and her husband Bob Luca had been unsettled for many years until 1995 when they moved to Virginia. They lived in VA for 5 years and then moved to Florida. Shed died on March 18, 2022.
Some researchers believe that there was once a highly developed culture on Earth. But as a result of unknown circumstances,civilization was destroyed. This is evidenced by archaeological finds that cannot be explained from the scientific point of view of modern society. There is a theory that in the past, our planet was visited by alien representatives who shared their knowledge and technologies with people, so maybe they donated incredible technologies thousands of years ago, but then these technologies brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
Some people claim that our ancestors used so advanced technologies that in our time, it is difficult to imagine them. But some of the modern technologies may have been borrowed from the past, although almost no one knows about it. You may have heard of the ancient nuclear war hypothesis or ancient flying vehicles, which can also be found in ancient texts. It is said that our ancestors could even move in space and had knowledge about the universe that surpasses all modern knowledge.
A 450-page manuscript was examined in 1963 by Romanian engineer Doru Todericiu in Sibiu’s national archive (former Hermannstadt). Todericiu examined the manuscript’s scientific and technological substance before classifying it as a work on various artillery and ballistics difficulties, despite the fact that it had previously been known as such. He learned that Conrad Haas, the author of the manuscript’s third section, had written about some amazing concepts related to rocketry.
The Sibiu manuscript does not fit into the present history, so it draws increased attention. There aren’t many details available concerning Conrad Haas’s life. He was born not far from Vienna in Dornbach. He worked for the Imperial court of Vienna as an artillery guard and commissioned officer. He most likely traveled to Transylvania in 1551 with Imperial forces to fulfill this role, when he took the position of chief of the artillery camp at the Hermannstadt arsenal.
He penned the manuscript between 1529 and 1569, and it appears to contain, among other things, the earliest explanation of the multistage rocket’s basic operating principle. He talks about bundling rockets, stabilizing fins, and employing liquid fuel as well as describing and showing two and three-stage rockets.
The Sibiu manuscript is written in German. Many people believe that it was written using some even more ancient texts. The manuscript texts describe in detail the principles of rocketry, and there are also drawings of models of space three-stage rocket. The document contains a description of technologies for combining fireworks with weapons and even the construction of a hang glider, as well as instructions for creating fuel mixtures as liquid rocket fuel.
3-Stage Space Rockets description in Sibiu Manuscript
What’s more, there are references to flights to the moon. According to researchers from Romania, the manuscript contains stories about a man who was able to get to the Earth’s satellite due to a unique flying machine. There are also descriptions of prehistoric fuel, which consisted of several rare elements. The rockets of this type were later launched at Cape Kennedy and used by cosmonauts in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
It looks like this chronicler visited the future world. The handwritten text of Sibiu is quite long as it consists of 450 pages. It is known that the Sibiu manuscript is genuine and the experts do not doubt this, but they are in no hurry to comment on the contents of this text.
It could be claimed that this case is just science fiction if researchers of anticity did not find other strange texts and technologies. In addition, multiple artifacts found by archaeologists confirm that our ancestors were much more civilized than modern historians imagine. Manuscripts such as Sibiu have the potential to change the way people think about our history.
Description of a rocket by Conrad Haas
It remains a mystery whether Haas succeeded in using his designs and bringing them to life. However, there are people who claim that a rocket was launched in Sibiu in 1550. It is believed that Conrad Haas created the first rocket. According to Haas, it took him more than 25 years to develop a unique aircraft. The biggest challenge, in this case, was the search for a fuel that would be sufficient to lift it into the air.
The main focus of the paper is the fuel issue. In addition to the conventional powder components of saltpeter, sulfur, and coal, Haas also used “brandy”, with the help of which the thrust development of the rockets was to be increased: “Again, take a little crushed powder and pour in enough brandy to make a little dough. Then take it and paint the little chamber (= rocket chamber) together with the little hole (= ignition hole) on the rocket by heart.” Haas also tried and used other “fuels” – significantly, the missile’s purpose dictated the particular fuel combination.
In summary, one can say that the following developmental solutions and developments can be attributed to Conrad Haas:
Multistage and cluster rocket
Arrangement of fuel sets in stage rockets
Use of different fuel mixtures depending on the rocket type, performance, area of application and design
Use of liquid fuel
delta-shaped stabilizing fins
Anticipating the idea of the modern spaceship
Although Conrad Haas designed weapons to kill, he secretly believed in basic human values. His basic humanistic attitude is particularly clear from the following statement: “But my advice is more peace and no war, leave the rifles under the roof, so the bullet won’t be fired, the powder won’t be burned wet, so the prince kept his money, the gun master his life; that is the advice Conrad Haas does.”
The technical characteristics of the rocket are similar to those of modern vehicles. It was made of wooden parts covered with a layer of special stone dust, which was supposed to protect the body from burning when rubbed against the air. Contemporaries note that in the 16th century, researchers did not know the intricacies of physical processes in the air, which is why scientists could receive information from aliens.
In addition, from his youth, he was engaged in research on ancient writings found in the territory of modern Egypt. A mission to the Moon could take place in 1550. But there is no documentary evidence to support all these claims.
Lady Sala Shabazz, the founder of the Black Inventions Museum who passed away on March 28, 2002 said once: “… Unfortunately, the individuals who are commissioned to write textbooks many times exhibited prejudice and omitted other historical information. In an effort to cover large spans of time, they have briefed history and left out so many other important facts and that’s something that many people have not been aware of.”
The city of Sibiu is known to many of us because it is the birthplace of Hermann Oberth, considered to be one of three fathers of rocketry and modern astronautics. Additionally, there is a dedicated document (ID 19770026087) in the NASA archives about the Sibiu manuscript.
Unidentified flying objects are no longer a myth. Their existence has been accepted at the official level. The US government along with NASA has started an investigation on UFOs. The governments are not only looking for them into the sky but the underwater anomalies have also become a big concern for the military.
While the US government has found no evidence to call UFOs alien spacecraft, in 2013, the Russian government classified several documents describing the meetings of Russian soldiers with underwater UFOs including humanoids.
During the Soviet era, it was restricted to talk about UFOs and USOs but when it got disintegrated, some files came up with shocking information about alien spacecraft. The declassified documents said that the Russian navy found these unidentified objects technologically superior to Earth vehicles.
Russian submarine Severodvinsk (K-560)
One of the undated accounts was a Soviet nuclear submarine’s encounter with the formation of six alien spacecraft in the south of the Pacific ocean. At the depth of 260 meters, the six disc-like objects were moving towards the submarine at the speed of 426 km per hour. The crew could not escape their pursuit, and the commander ordered the crew to rise to the surface. The crew saw through the periscope that the objects came out of the water and took off at absurdly fast speed.
The same incident was covered by the British UFO researcher named Philip Mantle in his book “Russia’s USO Secrets: Unidentified Submersible Objects in Russian and International Waters.”
According to former nuclear submarine commander Yury Beketov, many mysterious events also took place in the Bermuda Triangle region. The devices failed for no apparent reason. He believed that the UFOs were behind it.
“[In Translation]We have repeatedly observed that devices record the movement of material objects at an unimaginable speed. We measured some speeds – it is about 230 knots (400 km per hour). Such speed is difficult to create on the surface, only in the air. But there is gigantic resistance in the water. As if the laws of physics do not apply to these objects. There is only one conclusion: the creatures who created such material objects significantly surpass us in development” Beketov said.
Another Navy intelligence Captain Igor Barclay said that the Unidentified submerged objects were seen in the places where the Russian Navy and NATO fleet are concentrated. He said: “These are the Bahamas and Bermuda, Puerto Rico. Especially often UFOs are seen in the deepest region of the Atlantic – in the south of the Bermuda Triangle and in the Caribbean.”
Lake Baikal
Fishermen often talked about glowing light coming from the depth of Lake Baikal and people who went swimming in the lake were dragged by the unknown creaturs. There is also a myth associated with the lake, talking about water spirits or krakens. Lake Baikal is the largest and deepest freshwater lake with a depth of approx. 1642 meters.
The most interesting encounter of the Russian military occurred beneath Lake Baikal in 1982. Seven trained Russian navy divers claimed to have seen about 9 feet tall humanoids, 50 meters deep into the lake during a research mission. They were wearing tight silvery suits and spherical helmets on their heads. It was surprising for the divers to see them without any scuba gears, breathing underwater.
The divers decided to catch one of them but the entities reacted with the powerful force that propelled the entire group of divers up to the surface from the deep water. Due to the rapid decompression, three divers died while others got severely injured.
A former employee of the British Government’s Ministry of Defence Nick Pope said, “These strange humanoid figures were much bigger than human beings and appeared to be wearing a helmet of some sort.”
In 1959, the Soviet TU-104 Camel jet airliner was chased by a UFO while flying over Lake Baikal. “Before falling into the lake, the captain of the ship allegedly informed the dispatchers about an unidentified flying object moving in the sky. All those present in the control room at that time had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. And the people fishing at the lake nearby saw a flying saucer chasing the falling plane – it accompanied the aircraft until the latter fell to the water.”
After flying objects, now underwater objects have become a subject of investigation for the governments. If extraterrestrials exist, then the oceans are the best place to hide as they are still hard for humans to explore.
Het Amerikaanse GE Aerospace heeft tests uitgevoerd met een hypersone motor die ook op lage snelheden werkt.
Hypersone wapens vliegen met minimaal 5000 kilometer per uur richting hun doel en zijn daardoor met bestaande luchtafweersystemen niet of nauwelijks te stoppen. Ten minste, dat werd gedacht en dat is ook wat de Russische president Vladimir Poetin in 2018 zei tijdens de onthulling van de hypersone Kinzhal-raket. Inmiddels blijkt dat de huidige modellen, waar onder meer de Amerikanen, Russen en Chinezen aan werken, niet de superwapens zijn die men voor ogen had. In mei van dit jaar schoten Oekraïense troepen met hun westerse Patriotraketten meerdere Kinzhals uit de lucht.
Maar een nieuwe Amerikaanse aandrijving, Rotating Detonation Combustion (RDC), kan er weleens voor zorgen dat hypersone raketten een stap voorwaarts maken. En die motor werd nu voor het eerst getest.
Scram!
Hypersone raketten maken gebruik van scramjet-motoren. De techniek in zo’n supersonic combustion ramjet is eenvoudiger dan die van een straalmotor. Bij bestaande straalmotoren zuigt een turbine lucht de motor in, die wordt samengeperst. Verderop wordt er brandstof (kerosine) toegevoegd en dan wordt het mengsel ontstoken. Bij de verbranding neemt de druk nog verder toe; het gasmengsel met de ontstane verbrandingsgassen zet sterk uit en verlaat de motor aan de achterkant.
Een scramjet gebruikt daarentegen de eigen snelheid om de lucht samen te persen. De interne druk en de temperatuur lopen daarbij zo hoog op dat de brandstof vanzelf ontbrandt. Er zijn dus veel minder bewegende onderdelen nodig om hem te laten werken en vooral het achterwege laten van de dure en kwetsbare turbine betekent dat er veel hogere snelheden mogelijk zijn.
Snel maar bestuurbaar
Nadeel is dat een scramjet dus eerst die enorme snelheid moet bereiken voordat hij stuwkracht kan leveren en dat wordt nog steeds gedaan met ouderwetse draagraketten. Om de hypersone raket een groter bereik te geven, wordt de hypersone projectiel bovendien naar grote hoogte gebracht, waarna hij in een duik/glijvlucht naar zijn doel schiet. En die lange, hoge vlucht maakt hem kwetsbaar.
Wat dus nodig is, zijn motoren die een hypersone raket tijdens zijn hele vlucht kunnen aandrijven, die ondanks hun extreme snelheid laag kunnen vliegen en toch, net als een kruisraket, bestuurbaar zijn. Om dat voor elkaar te krijgen ontwikkelde het Amerikaanse GE Aerospace de Dual-Mode Ramjet met dus zogenoemde Rotating Detonation Combustion.
Minitornado
Een RDC werkt met een cilinder die in een iets grotere cilinder valt. Door een mengsel van lucht en brandstof in de ruimte tussen de twee cilinders te spuiten en te ontsteken, gaat dat mengsel met supersonische snelheden rondtollen. Naarmate er meer brandstof en lucht wordt toegevoerd, loopt de druk steeds verder op en wordt er meer warmte geproduceerd. Door die ‘hete minitornado’ vervolgens aan de achterkant uit te stoten, wordt de raket voortgestuwd. Bekijk ook de video hieronder.
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De nieuwe motor, die dus zowel onder als boven mach 5 kan werken, werd gedemonstreerd op een testopstelling in GE’s fabriek in Niskayuna, in de staat New York. GE Aerospace verwacht in 2024 een volledige versie van de motor klaar te kunnen hebben.
Iedereen naar de maan en veel nieuwe raketten: Dit brengt 2024 voor de ruimtevaart
Iedereen naar de maan en veel nieuwe raketten: Dit brengt 2024 voor de ruimtevaart
Artikel van Wim De Maeseneer
Terug naar de maan
Ruimtekenners Koen Geukens, Nancy Vermeulen, Stijn Ilsen en Katrien Kolenberg zijn het er over eens: de maan zal volgend jaar het ruimtenieuws domineren.
"Alles wordt in gereedheid gebracht om terug te keren naar de maan. En deze keer om er te blijven", zegt Koen Geukens van volkssterrenwacht Urania. "2024 mag je zien als het voorspel van de hoogtepunten die de komende jaren zullen volgen."
Toch staat er ook dit jaar een hoogtepunt op de agenda. Eind 2024 zullen 4 astronauten een rondje rond de maan vliegen. Het is van de laatste Apollomissie in 1972 geleden dat er nog eens mensen zo dicht bij het maanoppervlak zijn geweest. En voor het eerst zal er ook een vrouwelijke astronaut meegaan.
De missie, Artemis II, is de eerste bemande testvlucht van het nieuwe ruimteschip Orion, waarmee eind 2025 (maar waarschijnlijk pas ten vroegste in 2026) opnieuw astronauten naar de maan zullen vliegen om er ook effectief te landen.
"Al die maanmissies dienen vooral als voorbereiding op een langer verblijf op de maan", zegt Geukens. "Er moet nog heel veel worden uitgetest, bijvoorbeeld om drinkbaar water en zuurstof te maken op de maan, of hoe we maanstof kunnen gebruiken om in 3D te printen... Dit jaar vertrekt in totaal een tiental ruimtevluchten met allerlei experimenten naar de maan."
Uitkijken naar megaraket Starship en Europese Ariane 6
Geen Amerikaanse astronauten op de maan zonder SpaceX, het ruimtebedrijf van Elon Musk. De maanlander, die de astronauten tot op de maan moet brengen, zal worden gebouwd én gelanceerd door SpaceX.
Daarvoor wordt Starship gebruikt, de grootste en krachtigste raket tot nog toe. Alleen is die raket nog geen enkele keer tot in de ruimte geraakt zonder te ontploffen.
"Toch verwacht ik de eerste succesvolle vlucht van Starship al begin 2024", zegt ruimtevaartingenieur Stijn Ilsen. "Het is de strategie van SpaceX: leren uit mislukkingen en snel weer doorgaan. Het zou me niet verbazen als we tegen eind 2024 zeker 3 of 4 succesvolle testvluchten hebben gezien."
Maar er zijn nog hordes te nemen. Eens Starship in een baan om de aarde vliegt, moet het ruimteschip door een tweede Starship bijgetankt worden met ultrakoude brandstof. "Ook dat proces wordt mogelijk al in 2024 getest", zegt Ilsen.
2024 wordt ook belangrijk voor de Europese ruimtevaart. Als alles goed gaat, wordt in de zomer de langverwachte Ariane 6-raket voor de eerste keer gelanceerd. Het is de opvolger van Ariane 5, die sinds juli 2023 met pensioen is.
"Europa heeft op dit moment geen enkele raket meer om zware vracht naar de ruimte te vervoeren", zegt ruimtevaartkenner Nancy Vermeulen. "Die eerste lancering wordt heel belangrijk. Mocht die mislukken, dan zou dat een ramp zijn."
Eerste ruimtewandeling door "ruimtetoeristen"
Wie geld genoeg heeft en ervan droomt om zelf eens naar de ruimte te reizen, kan sinds een aantal jaar terecht bij verschillende commerciële ruimtevaartbedrijven. Ook op dat vlak worden er grenzen verlegd in 2024.
"Ik kijk vooral uit naar "Polaris Down", de commerciële ruimtevlucht die de Amerikaanse miljardair Jared Isaacman heeft gekocht bij SpaceX", zegt Nancy Vermeulen. "Isaacman vliegt samen met 3 andere passagiers tot op 700 kilometer hoogte. Dat is bijna dubbel zo hoog als het internationale ruimtestation ISS."
"Ze gaan 5 dagen lang rond de aarde vliegen en zelfs een ruimtewandeling doen. Daar hou ik toch wel een beetje mijn hart voor vast. Het is de eerste keer dat niet-professioneel getrainde astronauten een ruimtewandeling gaan doen."
Belgische zonnesatellieten en Japan vertrekt naar Mars
Of we in 2024 ook wetenschappelijke doorbraken mogen verwachten, is moeilijk te voorspellen. Toch wordt het ongetwijfeld een jaar vol interessante ontdekkingen, zegt sterrenkundige Katrien Kolenberg (KU Leuven).
"We zitten in een tijdperk waarin we veel nieuwe resultaten mogen verwachten in verschillende domeinen. De James Webb-telescoop levert ons betere beelden dan ooit tevoren. We leren voortdurend bij over exoplaneten, sterren, zwarte gaten... Er zijn verschillende missies onderweg en de resultaten daarvan komen beetje bij beetje binnen."
Zo is in de zomer van 2023 de Europese ruimtetelescoop Euclid gelanceerd om de grootste en nauwkeurigste 3D-kaart ooit te maken van het heelal. De eerste kleurenfoto's zijn alvast verbluffend. "Daar gaan we dit jaar zeker ook nog van horen", zegt Kolenberg. "Ook onze modellen worden altijd beter. Dankzij artificiële intelligentie vinden we nieuwe manieren om resultaten beter te analyseren."
Foto door ruimtetelescoop Euclid van het "Verborgen Sterrenstelsel" (IC 342), op 11 miljoen lichtjaar van ons.
In de zomer wordt Proba-3 gelanceerd: twee Europese satellieten die op een heel nieuwe manier de zon gaan bestuderen. Ze moeten daarvoor perfect synchroon door de ruimte vliegen. De satellieten zijn in elkaar gezet bij Redwire Space in Kruibeke.
Japan lanceert in september een onbemand ruimtetuig naar Phobos, de grootste maan rond Mars, om er bodemstalen te halen. In oktober vertrekt dan weer een Amerikaanse ruimtesonde naar Europa, een ijsmaan van Jupiter.
En ESA vliegt diezelfde maand naar de ruimterots Dimorphos, waartegen in 2022 doelbewust een ruimtetuig is geknald. De nieuwe missie gaat van dichtbij kijken hoe groot de impact precies is geweest. Het uiteindelijke doel is om een redmiddel te vinden voor mocht er ooit een grote ruimterots op de aarde afstevenen.
Een overzicht van de belangrijkste gebeurtenissen:
Januari / februari: Twee Amerikaanse bedrijven vertrekken elk naar de maan. Eén van hen kan het eerste privébedrijf ooit worden dat kan landen op de maan. Er vliegen ook verschillende instrumenten van NASA mee.
19 januari: Aankomst van de "slimme" maanlander van Japan. Als de landing lukt, wordt Japan het 5e land ooit dat op de maan kan landen.
April: Polaris Dawn, een commerciële ruimtevlucht tot op 700 kilometer hoogte en eerste ruimtewandeling door niet-professionele astronauten
April:eerste vlucht van het commerciële ruimteveer Dream Chaser, een soort van kleine spaceshuttle. Moet op termijn ook mensen kunnen vervoeren.
Mei: China lanceert Chang'e 6, om voor het eerst bodemstalen van de achterkant van de maan op te halen en terug te brengen.
Zomer:ESA lanceert voor de eerste keer de Ariane 6-raket.
Augustus: Eerste lancering van New Glenn, de nieuwe raket van het ruimtebedrijf Blue Origin van Jeff Bezos. De krachtige, herbruikbare raket moet de concurrentie aangaan met de Falcon Heavy van SpaceX.
September: Japan lanceert onbemande ruimtesonde naar Phobos, de grootste maan rond Mars, om er bodemstalen te halen.
Oktober: Lancering Hera-missie van ESA naar de planetoïde Dimorphos. Daar is in 2022 een onbemand ruimteschip tegen gecrasht als test voor als er ooit een grote ruimtesteen zou afstevenen op onze aarde.
Oktober: NASA lanceert ruimtesonde naar Europa, één van de ijsmanen van Jupiter
Eind 2024: Artemis II, de tweede testvlucht naar de maan, met deze keer ook astronauten aan boord
The Milky Way is delivering some holiday cheer in a new image and video NASApublished Tuesday.
Young stars clustered together some 2,500 light years from Earth are creating a Christmas tree in space. With a little help from telescopes of different specialties that show phenomena beyond what we could normally see with our eyes, a busy stellar nursery glows with festive illumination.
The Christmas Tree Cluster, officially known as NGC 2264, is made of stars about one to five million years old. That’s young by cosmic standards. Some of these juveniles are less than a tenth of the mass of the Sun, but others would dwarf our nearby star with their hefty sizes of up to seven solar masses. Altogether, their visible light, their X-ray emissions, and their infrared glow make up the space agency’s holiday image.
NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster.”
“This new composite image enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation,” NASA’s image description says.
The tree itself is made of gas in the nebula. The National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona captured this glow, appearing in visible light. This region was colored green, however, to fit the Christmas theme (sometimes the nebula is given purple and pink colors, too). The boreal shape also pops out because the image is turned to show a vertical tree. It’s rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from standard North.
The blinking lights in this animation are X-ray emissions from young stars. They’ve been synchronized artificially to create the effect of Christmas tree lights.
The accompanying video shows synchronized flashes that look like Christmas tree lights. This is artificial, to an extent. The young stars emit volatile phenomena into space, like flares, which astronomers saw with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The stars do create these flashes, which show up in NASA’s data. But, they aren’t synchronized. That’s added for the holiday effect.
The perpetual white lights in this image are stars aglow in the infrared, observed with the Two Micron All Sky Survey in Arizona and Chile.
Science literacy is possible when people can learn more about the world around us. Presentations like this Christmas edit of a crowded cosmic corner may be an effective tool in spreading both astronomy knowledge — and holiday cheer.
Like most humans on Earth this past week, NASA’s Curiosity rover took a vacation of itself a few weeks ago. After soaking up the Martian scenery, it beamed back holiday videos from its cameras. On Thursday, NASA published the tranquil alien footage.
Among many things, the dawn-to-dusk videos show the shadow of the six-wheeled rover sliding across the rugged terrain. “When NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover isn’t on the move, it works pretty well as a sundial,” space agency officials wrote in a description of the videos. The rover also caught a cosmic ray.
Curiosity captured the videos from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mars time on November 8, the car-sized rover’s 4,002nd Martian day. Mission specialists on Earth had directed Curiosity’s front and rear Hazard-Avoidance Cameras (Hazcams) to gaze at the landscape. It was one of the last commands NASA sent Curiosity before the craft entered a two-week lull.
DAWN TO DUSK ON MARS
Curiosity’s shadow glides along on the Martian surface in these images taken by its front Hazcam.
Mars’ orbit triggered a pause in sending commands. The Red Planet was passing behind the Sun, presenting issues for mission communications. During the event, called Mars solar conjunction, super-hot plasma swimming around the Sun’s outer atmosphere put the risk of interfering with messages from Earth to Mars on high. The team waited until November 25 to begin running its science tasks. So, like many people now, passing the days ahead of the New Year, Curiosity was on hiatus.
The two videos show views in front of and behind Curiosity. In the first video, the front Hazcam looks towards Gediz Vallis, a valley of Mars’ Mount Sharp. This 3-mile-tall mountain rises from the basin of Gale Crater, Curiosity’s home since 2012.
Curiosity’s rear Hazcam captured the shadow of the back of the rover in this 12-hour view on November 8.
In the other video, from the rear Hazcam, the distant crater walls are visible, although they’re faint, and the viewer gazes down Mount Sharp’s slope. Left of the center of this video, during the 17th frame, a small black mark appears. A cosmic ray was the culprit, according to NASA’s description of the videos.
“Rover drivers normally rely on Curiosity’s Hazcams to spot rocks, slopes, and other hazards that may be risky to traverse,” according to NASA.
“But because the rover’s other activities were intentionally scaled back just prior to conjunction, the team decided to use the Hazcams to record 12 hours of snapshots for the first time,” officials added.
There are signs of Curiosity’s aging. The “speckled appearance” of the images, NASA officials explain, comes from the dust that’s accumulated on Curiosity’s lenses since beginning its grand tour of Gale Crater 11 Earth years ago.
If 2023 was defined by anything, it was government corruption and cover-ups of the unidentified flying objects/unidentified aerial phenomena (UFO/UAP) that’ve been hanging around our skies … possibly forever.
5. Strange Things In The Skies
Seeing strange things in our skies was par for 2023. Not only did a whole host of weird things fly around, day and night, across the U.S., but reports and videos of UFOs are now increasing around the world.
The growth in UFO reports from other countries is significant, as the U.S. has often been mocked for being the only place where aliens seem to show up. In reality, people in the U.S. are just far more open-minded about this stuff than anywhere else in the world. Britain, for example, is filled with miserable people who hate fun, so any mention of UFOs will see you perilously mocked by friends and loved ones.
But a growth in UFO reports from other countries means people are finally opening their minds to the possibility that we are not alone in the universe.
5. Rep. Tim Burchett Becomes The Poster Boy For UFO Disclosure
It’s always really sad to see elected officials anchor themselves to the UFO phenomenon. Every few years or so, a new face appears at the forefront of the push for disclosure of alien data collected by government agencies. This year, Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett decided to place his entire legacy in politics around this futile effort.
Although Burchett appears to be absolutely adorably emphatic when it comes to his work on UFOs, he’s just one of many who the UFO community has hammered over the years. I hope Burchett is able to do something far more notable with his career before he’s remembered for failing to actually change a damn thing about this field of exploration.
We met a new UFO whistleblower, David Grusch, in 2023. Despite being featured across most media channels, interviewed by podcaster Joe Rogan and testifying before Congress, Grusch managed to achieve net-zero forward mobility in our understanding of UFOs.
Not only has Grusch shown up with no evidence to back up his claims about government agencies reverse-engineering alien crafts (the oldest UFO story in the book) and aliens living on Earth (also a very old story), but most of his claims apparently came from other people. As far as whistleblowers go, Grusch is by far the least convincing in modern history, which is a real shame.
The real godfather of UFOs in 2023 was Harvard professor Avi Loeb, who said in April that if aliens are real, it would force the unification of humanity. Obviously, this is not a new claim either, but since most of the scum suckers on this planet build their profits from war, it makes sense that the government agencies they work with wouldn’t want us to unite under the truth of UFOs, right?
2. Political Infighting Leads To Inaction
Political infighting on UFOs didn’t really fall along Republican/Democrat lines this year. Most of the arguments were between elected officials and faceless government agencies who take our money without giving us any report on what the heck they’re doing with it.
While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called out Republicans for blocking UFO transparency, it’s not like he did anything to guarantee it either.
But by far the craziest political story of UFOs in 2023 came in December. Just days after we realized our lawmakers — who we literally pay to do a job for us — had refused to release any new UFO data, these idiots thought we’d actually believe an alien flew by President Joe Biden’s Air Force 1 in Los Angeles International Airport. How convenient?!?
Yes, your lawmakers think you’re that gullible and stupid.
1. Crop Circles Might Be Real
But the craziest story of 2023 came from the YouTube show “The Why Files,” which managed to debunk … and then not debunk … the crop circle phenomenon. I highly recommend watching the full episode because it’ll make your brain melt.
Even after all this, the only way I’d ever believe an alien was real is if it showed up in my house, took me on a flying tour of the world and our immediate cosmos and then handed me a sonic screwdriver and made my extremely overweight cat (it’s his breed) speak in a deep Scottish accent. Anything short of this would be a psyop, and I will die on this hill.
Italian residents in Milan are in complete confusion after a strange ring of lights were seen in the sky. Video published on social media showed the ring in thick clouds above the legendary city.
Some are speculating it’s potentially a UFO, while others are giving more simple explanations, saying the lights were Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.
Well, apparently it was a light show from a Christmas village in Milan that created the visual in the sky, according to the Daily Mail. The lights were shot up using powerful lasers, but my whole thing is … why the creepy look? And why on earth does this sighting look eerily close to the lights that were spotted in Morocco — the ones seen just before the country was hit with an earthquake?
I don’t know … this story might have a “simple explanation,” but Lord have mercy, this whole thing is weird as hell.
WATCH:
It might have just been lasers, but I still can’t get over how bizarre everything is around this whole thing (like with the Morocco similarity), and Milan residents seem to think the same thing
Laser shows, earthquake lights (like, really, what the hell is an earthquake light?), we always got an explanation for everything. But I’m personally not taking any chances. These UFO sightings got me over here like …
David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Office representative on the Defense Department's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, testifies during the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Before the start of the 2020s, almost anyone who admitted to a belief in UFOs (unidentified flying objects) or extraterrestrial visitors was dismissed as a crackpot. Yet since the start of the decade, the Pentagon has repeatedly and openly acknowledged that their own pilots have spotted and recorded images of UFOs (more specifically known as UAPs, orunidentified anomalous phenomena). The so-called Pentagon UFO videos — the initial clips of which were released to the public in 2020 — showed UAPs recorded in 2004, 2014, 2015 and 2019. Ever since, respected government officials and scientists have joined ordinary UFO enthusiasts in insisting that the proverbial truth must be out there.
But 2023 was arguably one the most important years for UAP developments, at least in terms of disclosures that didn't produce a smoking gun or things that were debunked. Here's a look back at what we learned.
01. NASA's first meeting confirming existence of UAPs
In June 2022, NASA announced the formation of an independent study group to weigh the evidence of UAPs and whether they indicate something more than strange weather phenomena or secretive military crafts. The 16-person group included experts from the aerospace aviation industry and academia, as well as former astronaut Scott Kelly. The panel disappointed many by concluding above all else that there is a need for more "high quality data," but even having NASA acknowledge the existence of UAPs was a major historic achievement.
"We steer between the rocks and the cyclone," panel chairman David Spergel, a widely respected cosmologist, said in a statement at the time. "We have a community of people who are completely convinced of the existence of UFOs. And we have a community of people who think addressing this question is ridiculous, everything can be explained."
02. The impressive UFO hearing by the US Congress
A trio of military officials met with a House Oversight subcommittee in July to discuss UAPs. It was a fruitful meeting, one that yielded a number of important revelations. One former intelligence official, David Grusch, claimed that so-called "nonhuman biologics" have been discovered from a crashed UAP. He also claimed to the assembled legislators that the Pentagon runs a progress to reassemble crashed UAPs by misappropriating funds and operating "above congressional oversight."
Then there was former Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who testified that both military and commercial pilots fear stigma and even professional repercussions when they report UAP encounters. Finally a former Navy commander, David Fravor, testified that in 2004 he and three of his fellow military pilots saw a white Tic-Tac shaped hovering between the Pacific Ocean and their jets, which vanished and immediately reappeared 60 miles away.
"The technology that we faced is far superior to anything that we had," Fravor said. "And there’s nothing we can do about it, nothing."
03. The less impressive UFO hearing held by the Mexican parliament
Not all of the UFO-related news in 2023 was promising. Just take the so-called "alien mummies" presented in Mexico, allegedly discovered by journalist and ufologist José Jaime Maussan Flota. The supposed extraterrestrials were revealed to the Mexican Congress in September. Maussan has twice before claimed to have found alien mummies, only to later be debunked, but despite this track record, Maussan was invited to present his findings to Mexican government officials.
Once there, he said he had discovered the pair of mummified aliens in a diatom mine in Cusco, Peru. Experts were unimpressed — including Graves, who was also invited to attend this conference. Graves later said that "yesterday's demonstration was a huge step backwards for this issue," adding that he was "deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiated stunt."
04. The US admits it receives dozens of UFO reports every month
When the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (or AARO) in 2022, the new government agency's explicit goal was to investigate all UAP incidents. As the Pentagon disclosed when releasing its annual report in October, AARO has certainly been kept quite busy: The organization had received roughly 800 reports of UAP over the preceding six months, a major jump from the previous year. Although then-director Sean Kirkpatrick, a physicist, acknowledged that about half of these contain sufficient data that they can be ruled out as "mundane things," there is a small fraction — 2% to 4% — that require further investigation.
"There are ways to hide in our noise that always concern me ... It could just be a foreign entity. It could be a hobbyist. It could be anybody ... And those are the things that we have to look into," Kirkpatrick explained to CNN at the time.
05. The supposedly alien beads that weren't
In 2014, an object from outer space named CNEOS 2014-01-08 crashed into Earth at over 100,000 mph before exploding into fragments that landed in the South Pacific Ocean. A UFO by definition, CNEOS 2014-01-08 piqued the interest of the scientific community, with Harvard astronomy professor Dr. Avi Loeb suggesting in 2022 that it could be extraterrestrial technology. After leading an expedition to the seafloor in 2023 to retrieve CNEOS 2014-01-08, Loeb came back with "spherules" that he speculated were of "likely extrasolar composition." For a moment, it seemed as if the promise of CNEOS 2014-01-08 would be fulfilled — but then other experts came back with a very different conclusion.
Mysterious orbital reckon probes parked at restricted AFB in Australia
Mysterious orbital reckon probes parked at restricted AFB in Australia
The RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC) is a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately 450 km (280 mi) north-west of Adelaide.
The WRC is comprised of both the Woomera Test Range (Air Force Test Ranges Squadron), RAAF Base Woomera (20SQN) and the Nurrungar Test Range The function of the Woomera Test Range (WTR) is to provide a specialised operations environment in support of directed whole-of-Defence activities for the testing of war materiel and, other directed activities in the wider National interest.
Now, if we take a look at the Woomera airport, using Google Earth then we see what looks like three mysterious metallic orbs with a diameter of about 3,5 meters each, parked at a restricted area of the airport (Coordinates: 31°08'56"S 136°48'21"E). See image above.
Google Earth images show that these orbs were parked there not so long ago.
As per information shared by our reader Eric, he suggests that the objects in question are orbital reckon probes.
Typically, these kind of probes are launched from Earth equipped with a suite of scientific instruments and tools intended for the study of atmospheric conditions and the composition of space, including other planets, moons, or celestial bodies.
Given the fact that these tic-tac-shaped objects are stationed in a restricted area where numerous tests are conducted, the question arises, assuming that these objects are orbital reckon probes, whether these advanced objects are deployed for sophisticated surveillance, potentially spying on military installations or warships.
Remarkably, these objects bear a striking resemblance to an orb-like entity previously captured by a U.S. military drone in the Middle East, a video of which was presented during a Pentagon hearing on UFOs a few months ago prompts questions not only whether these orbs are part of the mysterious tic-tac UAPs program but also of who is behind it.
Image above: Orb-like entity captured in the Middle East.
Image above: Are these orbs part of a UAP program?
De bouw van Tenacity is voltooid. Dit ruimtevaartuig van Sierra Space gaat goederen van en naar het ISS vervoeren en kan bij terugkomst landen op een landingsbaan.
Het internationale ruimtestation (ISS) – en de toekomstige opvolger – moeten continu bevoorraad worden. Daarvoor zijn er momenteel meerdere ruimtevaartuigen beschikbaar, zoals Northrop Grummans Cygnus en de H-II Transfer Vehicle van de Japanse ruimtevaartorganisatie.
Soms moet er ook materiaal terug naar de aarde worden gestuurd, maar de meeste bevoorradingsvaartuigen zijn daartoe niet in staat. Space X’s Dragon is een van de weinige die dat wel kan, en landt bij terugkomst in zee. Het Amerikaanse bedrijf Sierra Space komt nu met Tenacity, een ruimteschip dat bij terugkomst als een soort vliegtuig kan landen op een landingsbaan.
Spaceshuttle
Vorige week maakte Sierra Space bekend dat de bouw van Tenacity is afgerond en dat het ruimtevliegtuig in de komende weken wordt verscheept naar NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio voor milieutests.
Hoewel Tenacity momenteel het enige ruimtevaartuig is dat zijn ruimtereis kan eindigen op een landingsbaan, konden NASA’s spaceshuttles die in 2011 met pensioen gingen dat ook al. Niet gek dus dat het uiterlijk van de Dream Chaser sterk lijkt op dat van de spaceshuttles.
Een ruimteschip dat de atmosfeer binnenkomt, heeft naast extreme hitte (ruim 1600 graden) ook te maken met een enorme versnelling en dus hoge g-krachten. Toch kan Tenacity die krachten beperken tot anderhalf keer de zwaartekracht (1,5 g), wat schade aan kwetsbare lading kan voorkomen. De vleugels spelen hierbij een belangrijke rol; ze creëren lift.
Bij een vliegtuig zorgt liftkracht ervoor dat het toestel in de lucht blijft en bij Tenacity dat het toestel afremt.
Eerste missie is al snel
Sierra Space heeft een contract met NASA voor de lancering van bevoorradingsmissies van het ISS met Dream Chaser-toestellen. En de eerste missie zou al ergens april 2024 kunnen beginnen.
De lancering zal dan plaatsvinden vanaf NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aan boord van United Launch Alliance’s nieuwe Vulcan Centaur-raket. Bij terugkomst zal Tenacity landen op NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility, waar de spaceshuttles vroeger ook landde. Daarna kan het ruimteschip opnieuw worden gelanceerd, volgens Sierra Space heeft de Dream Chaser namelijk een levensduur van minstens vijftien missies.
Autonome bevoorradingsmissies zijn slechts het begin voor de Dream Chaser-toestellen. In de toekomst wil Sierra Space ook mensen vervoeren met het vaartuig.
Bekijk hieronder een animatie van een lancering en landing van het ruimtevliegtuig:
These 11 Space Photo Award Winners Are Truly Out of This World
-These 11 Space Photo Award Winners Are Truly Out of This World
See the wispy aurorae, amazing star clusters, and picturesque planets that make this year’s Royal Museums Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest.
For the past 15 years, England’s Royal Museums Greenwich has held an annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest, highlighting all the incredible nebulas, breathtaking gas clouds, awesome aurorae, and gobsmacking galaxies captured throughout the year. This year’s 11 winners encompass both professional photographers and amateur astronomers, and the shortlisted photographs are just as incredible.
If you’re inspired to see more, visit the Royal Museums Greenwich online and cast your vote for the People’s Choice Award for 2023.
Three European photographers — Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner, and Yann Sainty — took 110 hours of exposure to see the Andromeda Galaxy in a whole new way. They discovered faint light from a massive sea of charged particles that were essentially hiding in plain sight.
The blue streak to the left of the famous galaxy is now named the Strottner-Drechsler-Sainty Object 1 (SDSO-1) after the amateur astronomy trio. This huge extragalactic plasma streak appeared in an Oxygen-3 telescopic filter, an unpopular choice for viewing space. The team tried their luck, seeing if they could add a new visual dimension to the popular astronomy target.
The result was “an absolute accident,” Drechsler said in an image description.
Photographer Angel An stood on a Himalayan ridge as the sky erupted in this transient luminous event (TLE) on May 20, 2022. A TLE is a rare phenomenon that happens high above thunderstorm clouds, and while scientists have some knowledge about them, there is plenty left to discover.
This particular TLE called a sprite, extended much higher than the upper edge of the photo, as the ethereal “sprites” danced like fireworks, according to the photographer.
A mosaic of 115 frames picked from out of 3,400, this photo captures a filament as it meanders in the shape of a question mark across the Sun’s richly textured surface. Photographer Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau imaged this solar quandary from Rafaela, Argentina, on October 1, 2022.
“If you zoom into the surface of the Sun, the image has a paint-like quality,” competition judge Sheila Kanani said in the image description. “I feel like I can see the brush strokes. There’s a sense of movement.”
Mars plays peekaboo behind a full Moon during the December 8, 2022, lunar occultation. The lunar ground rises and dips as its textures reach out towards the horizon. Captured by photographer Ethan Chappel in Cibolo, Texas, this image displays our only satellite’s gray, dusty color in sharp contrast with the rust-orange tones of the Red Planet.
“To capture the level of detail on Mars that you see here takes a huge amount of skill and practice,” competition judge Steve Marsh said in an image description.
“It’s always a different show every time,” photographer Monika Deviat says in an image description of her photo of this aurora borealis above Utsjoki, Finland, and capturing “a single moment of the dance” requires skill, one Deviat has been honing since starting out as a concert photographer.
One challenge is that a person's eyes at night aren’t adept at picking up colors. A camera, however, can capture them well — the photographer doesn’t rely entirely on their tool. Exceptional photographers like Deviat keep an eye skyward for interesting, sudden motion because the sequence that birthed this aurora strand lasted less than a minute.
Although usually pictured as a suffocating hellscape, Venus puts on a creamy, soft texture for this award-winning image.
The planet is easily seen from Earth with the naked eye, shining exceptionally brightly in the sky as it reflects visible light from the Sun. But on February 26, 2023, from Trowbridge, U.K., photographer Tom Williams elected to look at Venus in ultraviolet light, which highlighted the contrasts in Venus’ atmosphere from the ground.
As a shipwreck in Hentiesbaai, Namibia, sits along a treacherous Atlantic coastline on September 18, 2022, the weathered and beaten artifact is accompanied by incredible star trails — an amazing backdrop for photographer Vikas Chander.
“It is a hauntingly beautiful image that would be the perfect setting for a ghost story and is one of my favorites from this year’s competition,” judge Melissa Brobby writes in an image description.
4. “NEW CLASS OF GALACTIC NEBULAE AROUND THE STAR YY HYA”
This is “the heart of the Hydra,” which amateur astronomer Marcel Drechsler discovered when observing the sky from Ovalle, Chile, from March 2021 to April 2022. Drechsler is also part of the team behind the 2023 winning photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Here, a pair of stars are surrounded by a common swaddle of dust and gas, called an envelope. More than 360 hours of exposure time were required to make this image, lasting around 100 nights over the course of about a year.
3. “SH2-132: BLINDED BY THE LIGHT”
Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer 2023 Winner
Newcomer Aaron Wilhelm impressed the judges with this photo of the Lion Nebula, photographed from Santa Monica, California, in September 2022. “With subtle but varying colors across the whole palette, the dark, twisting lanes of dust are resolved in exquisite detail, and the stars are perfectly round with no hint of trailing,” Judge Steve Marsh said in an image description.
Wilhelm took almost 70 hours of data to capture these faint emissions near the border of the Cepheus and Lacerta constellations.
Resembles a galactic cavern, this amazing image almost seems to invite the viewer to crawl inside and take a look.
This is the Running Chicken Nebula, named for its faint central feature shaped like a bird mid-sprint. Photographers Runwei Xu and Binyu Wang took this image from El Sauce Observatory in Río Hurtado, Chile, on December 19, 2022.
1. “BLACK ECHO”
Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation 2023 Winner
To create this image, John White passed audio through a receiver into an old speaker. Onto this device, White attached a petri dish with a blackened-out base. Then, this was filled with 3mm of water. The image seen here is the best shot out of about 100 White took as sound perturbed the water in a dark room where only a halo light shined — but this isn’t any ordinary sound.
These audio waves emanate from a black hole at the Perseus galaxy cluster’s center as the black hole emits pressure waves through abundant hot gas. NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory observed this twenty years ago, but NASA scaled the sound 57 octaves above its true pitch so human ears could hear it.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
![We have another potential UFO sighting, ladies and gentlemen, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's unclear what exactly it is, but it's bizarre. [X/Screenshot/Public — @Worldwar_3_]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-24-9.29.44-PM-fotor-20240124213143-e1706150041574.jpg)
![While playing a 2022 military UFO video taken by an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Mid East, AARO director Dr. Kirkpatrick told NASA's UFO advisory panel last May, 'We see these ['metallic orbs'] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/22/22/71615819-12992321-While_playing_a_2022_military_UFO_video_taken_by_an_MQ_9_Reaper_-a-47_1705961113255.jpg)
![The Wisconsin Republican also floated his hypothesis that UFOs 'could actually be [from] an ancient civilization that's just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself,' in this same June appearance on ESPN analyst Pat McAfee's sports talk show. Congressman Burlison made his statements Tuesday on a program devoted to the subject of these unsolved aerial mysteries, ' That UFO Podcast ' hosted by Andy McGrillen in the United Kingdom. Rep. Burlison had appeared for a 'special update pod' following House Oversight's classified UFO briefing last Friday , which covered a series of allegations made by former intelligence officer Grusch - who testified under oath that both the US military and its defense contractors are stonewalling on evidence of crashed UFOs, recovered 'beings,' and even UFO-related deaths.](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/17/20/73404971-12975597-The_Wisconsin_Republican_also_floated_his_hypothesis_that_UFOs_c-a-69_1705524850955.jpg)
![Nevertheless, Grusch did answer Rep. Burlison's questions on this theory under oath, during the House Oversight Committee's public UAP hearing last July. 'An alien species that is technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive, is something that I find a little bit farfetched,' as Rep. Burlison opined at the hearing. 'You have mentioned that there is interdimensional potential,' he continued, asking, 'Could you expound on that?' Grusch noted first that 'regardless of your level of sentience, you know, planes crash, cars crash, and a number of sorties [...] a small percentage are going to end in "mission failure," if you will, as we say in the Air Force.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/17/20/80140967-12975597-Nevertheless_Grusch_did_answer_Rep_Burlison_s_questions_on_this_-a-65_1705524850735.jpg)
!['In terms of multidimensionality,' the UFO whistleblower said, 'the framework that I am familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle.' 'It derives itself from general relativity and quantum mechanics and that is if you want to imagine a 3D object such as yourself casting a shadow onto a 2D surface that is the holographic principle.' 'So, you can be projected — quasi projected — from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional [space],' Grusch explained. 'It is a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally, as far as I understand, but there's probably guys with PhDs that could probably argue about that.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/17/20/80146901-12975597-_In_terms_of_multidimensionality_the_UFO_whistleblower_said_the_-a-63_1705524850725.jpg)
![He paired 1180 encounters with 'luminous' flying 'earthenware vessels' reported over Japan, Roman accounts of hovering 'shields' and Native American stories of 'baskets from heaven' to argue a continuity with modern 'flying saucer' cases. In more recent years, Vallée, now a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and computer scientist, published a study of physical evidence from a UFO crash in a peer-reviewed science journal, Progress in Aerospace Sciences. As he told Wired, Vallée hopes that research will become 'a template [...] for what serious UFO research could be in the future, if one plays by the rules.' But similar arguments, linking UFOs to demonic entities or angelic miracles, have also been made in less scholarly form on cable TV shows like 'Ancient Aliens,' and online by conspiracy theorists and evangelical Christians, among others.](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/17/20/80147107-12975597-He_paired_1180_encounters_with_luminous_flying_earthenware_vesse-a-61_1705524850720.jpg)
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![Italian residents in Milan are in complete confusion after a strange ring of lights were seen in the sky above the legendary city. [Twitter/Screenshot/Public — @KerolosKest]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-28-2.06.26-PM-fotor-2023122814752-e1703790533219.jpg)
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