Mining the Moon for Rocket Fuel Could Help Us Reach Mars

 

Sung Wha Kang (RISD)

IN BRIEF

Recently, there has been a re-sparking of interest in the moon. The closest celestial body to our planet could hold some novel benefits for humans such as being cultivated as a jumping-off point for future space travel.

BACK TO THE MOON

Forty-five years have passed since humans last set foot on an extraterrestrial body. Now, the moon is back at the center of efforts not only to explore space, but to create a permanent, independent space-faring society. 

Planning expeditions to Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor is no longer just a NASA effort, though the U.S. space agency has plans for a moon-orbiting space station that would serve as a staging ground for Mars missions in the early 2030s. The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is planning a lunar fueling station for spacecraft, capable of supporting 1,000 people living in space within 30 years.

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Robert Bigelow all have companies aiming to deliver people or goods to the moon. Several teams competing for a share of Google’s US$30 million cash prize are planning to launch rovers to the moon.

We and 27 other students from around the world recently participated in the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge, proposing designs of what a lunar launch and supply station for deep space missions might look like, and how it would work.

THE RAW MATERIALS FOR ROCKET FUEL

Right now all space missions are based on, and launched from, Earth. But Earth’s gravitational pull is strong. To escape Earth’s gravity, a rocket has to be traveling 11 kilometers a second – 25,000 miles per hour!

Any rocket leaving Earth has to carry all the fuel it will ever use to get to its destination and, if needed, back again. That fuel is heavy – and getting it moving at such high speeds takes a lot of energy. If we could refuel in orbit, that launch energy could lift more people or cargo or scientific equipment into orbit. Then the spacecraft could refuel in space, where Earth’s gravity is less powerful.

The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, which makes it an attractive alternative base. The moon also has ice, which we already know how to process into a hydrogen-oxygen propellant that we use in many modern rockets.

ROVING LUNA

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite missions have already found substantial amounts of ice in permanently shadowed craters on the moon.

Those locations would be tricky to mine because they are colder and offer no sunlight to power roving vehicles. However, we could install big mirrors on the craters’ rims to illuminate solar panels in the permanently shadowed regions.

Mining operations on the moon, an artist’s rendering. Sung Wha Kang (RISD), CC BY-ND

Rovers from Google’s Lunar X Prize competition and NASA’s Lunar Resource Prospector, set to launch in 2020, would also contribute to finding good locations to mine ice.

IMAGINING A MOON BASE

Depending on where the best ice reserves are, we might need to build several small robotic moon bases. Each one would mine ice, manufacture liquid propellant and transfer it to passing spacecraft. Our team developed plans to accomplish those tasks with three different types of rovers. Our plans also require a few small robotic shuttles to meet up with nearby deep-space mission vehicles in lunar orbit.

An artist’s rendering of lunar rover concepts. Sung Wha Kang (RISD), CC BY-ND

One rover, which we call the Prospector, would explore the moon and find ice-bearing locations. A second rover, the Constructor, would follow along behind, building a launch pad and packing down roadways to ease movements for the third rover type, the Miners, which actually collect the ice and deliver it to nearby storage tanks and an electrolysis processing plant that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The Constructor would also build a landing pad where the small near-moon transport spacecraft we call Lunar Resupply Shuttles would arrive to collect fuel for delivery as newly launched spacecraft pass by the moon. The shuttles would burn moon-made fuel and would have advanced guidance and navigation systems to travel between lunar bases and their target spacecraft.

A GAS STATION IN SPACE

When enough fuel is being produced, and the shuttle delivery system is tested and reliable, our plan calls for building a gas station in space. The shuttles would deliver ice directly to the orbiting fuel depot, where it would be processed into fuel and where rockets heading to Mars or elsewhere could dock to top up.

The depot would have large solar arrays powering an electrolysis module for melting the ice and then turning the water into fuel, and large fuel tanks to store what’s made. NASA is already working on most of the technology needed for a depot like this, including docking and fuel transfer. We anticipate a working depot could be ready in the early 2030s, just in time for the first human missions to Mars.

To be most useful and efficient, the depot should be located in a stable orbit relatively near both the Earth and the moon. The Earth-moon Lagrangian Point 1 (L1) is a point in space about 85 percent of the way from Earth to the moon, where the force of Earth’s gravity would exactly equal the force of the moon’s gravity pulling in the other direction. It’s the perfect pit stop for a spacecraft on its way to Mars or the outer planets.

LEAVING EARTH

Our team also found a fuel-efficient way to get spacecraft from Earth orbit to the depot at L1, requiring even less launch fuel and freeing up more lift energy for cargo items. First, the spacecraft would launch from Earth into Low Earth Orbit with an empty propellant tank.

Then, the spacecraft and its cargo could be towed from Low Earth Orbit to the depot at L1 using a solar electric propulsion tug, a spacecraft largely propelled by solar-powered electric thrusters.

This would let us triple the payload delivery to Mars. At present, a human Mars mission is estimated to cost as much as US$100 billion, and will need hundreds of tons of cargo. Delivering more cargo from Earth to Mars with fewer rocket launches would save billions of dollars and years of time.

A BASE FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

Building a gas station between Earth and the moon would also reduce costs for missions beyond Mars. NASA is looking for extraterrestrial life on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Future spacecraft could carry much more cargo if they could refuel in space – who knows what scientific discoveries sending large exploration vehicles to these moons could enable?

By helping us escape both Earth’s gravity and dependence on its resources, a lunar gas station could be the first small step toward the giant leap into making humanity an interplanetary civilization.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to clarify the distinction between escape velocity and the velocity needed to achieve orbit.

---

Gary Li, Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles; Danielle DeLatte, Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics & Astronautics, University of Tokyo; Jerome Gilleron, Ph.D. Candidate in Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; Samuel Wald, Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Therese Jones, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

{ https://futurism.com/ }

Listening to starlight: Our ongoing search for alien intelligence

If ET is out there, he's doing a great job hiding from us.

by Andrew Tarantola, @terrortola

{ https://www.engadget.com/ }

Leaked footage from top-secret Area 51 military base shows mysterious ALIEN craft, claim UFO hunters

• The strange video appears to show a flying object hovering in the sky
• The craft emits a strange light as it sporadically moves side to side 
• The footage was believed to have been filmed in the 1980s or 1990s
• Nevada-based military facility has been a focal point of  conspiracy theorists
• UFOlogists have long claimed the base houses secretive alien technology

By Phoebe Weston For Mailonline

Area 51 is one of the most secretive locations in the world.

Now, UFO hunters at SecureTeam 10 have released leaked footage which they claim shows an alien craft is hiding in the Nevada-based military facility.

The strange video appears to show a flying object hovering in the sky and then flying away - emitting a strange light as it sporadically moves side to side.  

Scroll down for video

UFO hunters SecureTeam 10 have now released leaked footage which they claim shows an alien craft is hiding in the Nevada military facility

'It's one of the mysterious pieces in UFOlogy', said Tyler Glockner who runs SecureTeam 10 on the YouTube clip. 

He described the footage, which was believed to have been filmed in the 1980s or 1990s, as a 'hidden gem'.

The unexplained object appears to be getting higher and higher and releases a strange light as the footage goes on.  

The Nevada-based military testing facility has been a focal point of many conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists since the late 1970s, who claim that the base houses secretive alien technology. 

The sprawling military complex sits between a dry lake bed to the North East, and a small mountain to the West. 

Area 51 has been a hot spot for extra terrestrial enthusiasts because the government did not acknowledge its existence until 2013.

It has long been fenced off from the prying eyes of the public, with armed guards swarming the surrounding area.

'Area 51 has always been a magnet for those who believe the US Government knows a lot more about UFOs than they are prepared to reveal to the public,' Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, told MailOnline.

'People like the late Boyd Bushman, a senior scientist who worked for Lockheed Martin, have declared that Area 51 is a base where extraterrestrial spacecraft and technology is stored and examined.' 

The strange video appears to show a flying object hovering in the sky and then flying away - emitting a strange light as it sporadically moves side to side

'It's one of the mysterious pieces in UFOlogy', said Tyler Glockner who runs SecureTeam 10 on the clip. He described the footage, which was believed to have been filmed in the 1980s or 1990s as a 'hidden gem'

The Nevada-based military testing facility has been a focal point of many conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists since the late 1970s, who claim that the base houses secretive alien technology. Pictured is the most recent sighting by SecureTeam 10 

Claims of alien conspiracies around Area 51 have largely been debunked.

But the site has been confirmed as a historic test site for military aircraft. 

Famous machines developed there include the U-2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter.

The unexplained object appears to be getting higher and higher and releases a strange light as the footage goes on

The extraterrestrial Highway is between Highway 6 and Highway 93 in Nevada, and is the closest main road to Area 51. The sprawling military complex sits between a dry lake bed to the North East, and a small mountain to the West

Area 51 is blanketed by a strict 23 by 25-mile (37 by 40km) no-fly zone for civilian aircraft, and nearby viewpoints Freedom Ridge and White Sides Peak, which provide vantage points looking down on the base, are off-limits to the public

Images of the base are extremely rare, with any photographers brave enough to travel there kept far back from the perimeter by the base's many armed guards.

Area 51 is blanketed by a strict 23 by 25-mile (37 by 40km) no-fly zone for civilian aircraft.

Nearby viewpoints Freedom Ridge and White Sides Peak, which offer vantage points looking down on the base, are off-limits to the public.

After a series of declassifications, official details of Area 51 only came to light in 2011. This image shows a suspended, upside-down titanium A-12 spy-plane prototype as it is 'prepped' for radar testing

The U-2 spy plane is photographed as it is tested at Area 51 in 1955. Early missions involving the plane were used throughout the Cold War for surveillance over Cuba, the Soviet Union and China

The U.S. Air Force's SR-71 (double cockpit training version pictured) was in many ways a product of Area 51 testing and an evolution of the A-12, which was decommissioned in 1968

The unique design of the A-12 made at Area 51. A mock-up of the aircraft is seen here upside down as it is tested. Ironically, this is is also how test pilot Collins had to eject in 1963

{  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

World's Largest Aircraft Completes Successful Test Flight

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

Robo-Venus Flytrap Could Help Bots Grasp Objects

An artificial Venus flytrap can open and then close on cue, just like its namesake in nature, according to a new study. Scientists said this flexible gripping device could give soft robots a way to grasp and release objects autonomously, without the need for programming or computer-controlled parts.

"If you want to make something intelligent, oftentimes it's made using computers and some control circuitry that incorporates sensors and detectors. You have a system with many different pieces that have to be integrated to make the device work," said the study’s lead researcher Arri Priimagi, an associate professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Tampere University of Technology in Finland. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]

The team tried to make this simpler he told Live Science.

Priimagi and his colleagues described their device in a study published online today (May 23) in the journal Nature Communications.

Although the device could serve in a range of applications, from biomedical manipulators to microchip-assembly lines to warehouse robots that stock shelves, Priimagi said he hasn't devoted much time to thinking about how the technology might be used.

"This wasn't application-driven," he said. 

The artificial Venus flytrap could be used to help soft robots grasp and release objects autonomously, according to the researchers.

Credit: Owies Wani et al./Nature Communications

In nature, the carnivorous Venus flytrap waits with its jaw-like leaves open until an insect descends to drink from a nectar gland inside the plant. Last year, a study published in the journal Current Biology by researchers at the University of Würzburg in Germany, showed that the plant doesn't react instantly if a fly lands on it. Instead, hair-like sensors inside the flytraps' leaves need to be triggered twice in 20 seconds for the jaws to close, and five times to trigger the production of digestive enzymes, the scientists found.

Priimagi's gripper doesn't trap or ingest insects, but it does use a stimulus in order to close its trap, he said. What's more, the power source, sensors and devices that convert energy into motion are combined into one simple device.

The device has two main components: an optical fiber stem and a leaf made from a light-responsive liquid crystal elastomer. When open, the leaf and the fiber form a capital letter "T."

When light in the fiber-optic stem shines up through the leaf and out into the air, it creates a cone-shaped beam. If an object passes into the beam, light scatters back to the bendy leaf, triggering molecules inside the material that respond by changing shape. This changing of shape generates heat, causing the molecules to misalign, and this creates a bend in the elastomer. The leaf closes, opening when the light is turned off.

The leaf is tiny: a strip measuring no longer than 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) and thinner than a strand of human hair. But because it's made of soft material that becomes even softer when it heats up a bit, the leaf's gripping strength is high, the researchers said. It's able to grasp objects that have a mass hundreds of times higher than itself, the scientists added.

In lab experiments, the team showed that the device could grab objects of any shape, including round or square objects, as well as random bits of Styrofoam and thin sheets covered with reflective material, such as aluminum foil. The scientists used lasers for the study, but Priimagi said they could do the same with LEDs or even with white light.

"We just need light and optical fibers," he said.

Priimagi said his team has more work to do, such as experimenting with different colors of light, finding ways to move heavier objects and making the device snap shut more quickly, the way a real Venus flytrap does.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

• Watch This Artificial Venus Flytrap Pick Up Tiny Objects | Video
• The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created
• 10 Crazy New Skills That Robots Picked Up in 2016

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

STEEDS MEER UFO'S BIJ CHEMTRAILS ( VIDEO )

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

New Crop Circle May Be Connected to the Cerne Abbas Giant

 Paul Seaburn

A new crop circle which appeared this week in Dorset, England, is unusual not so much for its shape but for its close proximity to the mysterious hill figure known as the Cerne Abbas Giant and the earthworks called the Trendle or Frying Pan. Are these new and old (although that’s a subject of debate) formations related?

The website Crop Circle Connector provides an excellent drone video and close-up photographs of the crop circle. Both show details of the swirls left when whoever or whatever knocked down the wheat to create the pattern. The pattern itself is pretty simplistic compared to the more complex crop circles that tend to get them all of the attention. The comments section of the website contains an analysis by well-known crop circle expert Dr. Horace Drew, who claims he can decode crop circles, says many of them contain messages from aliens and human time travelers and professes that he can identify man-made (by today’s humans) crop circles.

Dr. Drew says this one is “paranormally real” (not man-made) and gives comparisons to its shape and various religious symbols. The intersecting circles looks like a Vesica Piscis, a symbol for Christ, and the almond-shaped intersection is a popular framing device for surrounding religious icons in many religions. So in this case, the shape could be a symbol of Christ emitting rays – another popular picture.

Interpretations of the crop circle provided by Dr. Drew

However, the religious aspects don’t necessarily fit with the crop circle’s close proximity to the Cerne Abbas Giant – whose looks and history are as controversial as many crop circles. The most well-known features of the crushed chalk outline of a large naked man are his large erection and his large club – that’s not a redundancy. While some have tried to date the figure back to Roman times because of its resemblance to Hercules, it’s not mentioned in historical documents until the late 17th century. An interesting theory is that it may be a satirical drawing of Oliver Cromwell.

The crop circle (left) and the giant (right) are too close for coincidence

It the crop circle and the hill figure – particularly the giant’s “lower” club – are related, then the circle takes on the resemblance of a female’s sexual organ. That would make sense if the crop circle was man-made, but Dr. Drew says it’s “paranormally real.”

What about the Frying Pan? Located above and to the right of the Giant’s head, the trendle (which means ‘hoop’) or frying pan would predate a 17th century Giant. Most experts believe it’s the remnants of a temple and was later used for maypole dancing – a maypole would be erected in its center and childless couples would circle it in a fertility dance.

The Giant and the Frying Pan

Erect a pole? Giant erection? Fertility dance? Crop circle in the shape of a female sex organ? Despite Dr. Drew’s comment that “For people who think about “sex” all of the time, this might seem to be a good theory!”, it actually seems like this is the most likely connection … even for people who don’t think about sex all of the time.

Whatever the case and whatever the cause, this new crop circle provides a great reason to call attention to one of Britain’s unique features – the Cerne Abbas Giant – and to ponder why an alien or time traveler would choose that shape for a nearby crop circle.

 TAGS: alien, Cerne Abbas Giant, Crop circle, Great Britain, Paranormal, religion, Roman Britain

{http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

That Marilyn Monroe UFO Document – Again

 Nick Redfern

I was interested to see Paul Seaburn’s new article, “New Film Suggests Marilyn Monroe Was About To Reveal Aliens.” It’s a saga that dates back to the mid-1990s and which is clearly not going to go away anytime soon, as this latest development shows. The vast majority of the story is reliant on a controversial document of questionable origins and of equally questionable authenticity. Allegedly, it’s a CIA document dated August 3, 1962 and which deals with Marilyn Monroe’s supposed knowledge of Roswell and UFO-themed conspiracies. You can find the document here.

What particularly interests me about the “Monroe document” is not so much what it says, but what it specifically doesn’t say. Despite what many researchers have said, there is not even a single reference in the document to aliens, extraterrestrials, flying saucers, or UFOs. Not a single one. In fact, the wording could actually push the whole thing down a very different path. I’ll explain what I mean by that. But, first, let’s see how and under what circumstances the controversial one-page document surfaced.

It all began in 1995, at a Los Angeles-based press conference. It was a press conference held by a man named Milo Speriglio. He was a guy with a deep interest in the circumstances surrounding Marilyn’s death. Speriglio was so interested in her final day that he wrote three books on the issues of her life and still-controversial death. They were Crypt 33, The Marilyn Conspiracy, and Marilyn Monroe: Murder Cover-Up. Until 1995, Speriglio had not made any kind of connection between the Hollywood uber-babe and UFOs. So, what was it that prompted Speriglio to head off into new and highly inflammatory territory? It was a revelation from a man named Timothy Cooper.

Today, many people within Ufology might not recognize that name. But, from the early-to-late 1990s, Cooper – of Big Bear Lake, California – was a well-known figure in Ufology. He was also a controversial figure, too. Most of the controversy stemmed from the fact that Cooper claimed to have received a wealth of old, sensational, leaked documents from retired figures in the intelligence community – almost all of them on crashed UFOs, Roswell, dead aliens, and the notorious Majestic 12 group.

There’s no doubt that the documents existed (and still exist). You can find PDF versions of most of them at Ryan Wood’s MajesticDocuments.com website. There are literally hundreds of pages. The big question is: are they the real deal? When the papers were made available, there were those researchers who believed that the documents were 100 percent real. Some considered them to be government disinformation. And others were firmly of the opinion that Cooper had created them himself. The controversy raged for a while, but finally imploded upon itself with barely a sigh. The Marilyn document was one of those which Cooper claimed to have received from one of his various sources, or as I call them “ufological Snowdens.”

I know quite a bit about the Cooper papers (including the Marilyn Monroe document), as the following extract from my new book, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, makes clear (QUOTE): “It’s a little known fact that in late 2001 Tim Cooper sold all of his voluminous UFO files to Dr. Robert M. Wood. Bob is the author of Alien Viruses and the father of Ryan Wood, who has spent years researching alleged crashed UFO incidents – all detailed in his book, Majic Eyes Only. It is even less well-known that in the early days of 2002, Bob hired me to spend a week in an Orange County, California-based motel-room, surrounded by all of the thousands upon thousands of pages of Cooper’s voluminous collection of the cosmic sort. The plan was for me to catalog all of the material, to compile each and every piece of it into chronological order, and to summarize the content of each document, every letter, and every Freedom of Information request that Cooper had submitted to government agencies – which is precisely what I did. It was a week in which I most definitely earned my loot. It was also a week that paralleled the infamous story told by Hunter S. Thompson in his classic gonzo saga, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Whereas Thompson was hunkered down with his whisky, margaritas and shrimp cocktails, for me it was cases of cold beer and club sandwiches” (END OF QUOTE).

Hunter S. Thompson

Contained within that huge amount of material at my disposal was the Monroe document – the original one that Cooper is said to have received from one of his sources. There were also a number of FOIA requests from Cooper that he had sent to various military and intelligence agencies, in search of any and all files on Marilyn Monroe. Cooper was clearly seeking out as much as he could find on Marilyn and UFOs – regardless of the actual origin of the document. For around eight weeks, Speriglio did absolutely nothing with the document, aside from sitting on it and pondering on what his next move should be. What Speriglio finally did was to hold that aforementioned press-conference. And that’s how the story began and how the document and its contents spilled over into the UFO research community.

One of the lesser known aspects of this story is that Speriglio made a very brief comment to the effect that copies of the document were in the hands of what he described as “two federal agencies.” At the press conference, Speriglio flatly refused to reveal the identities of the two agencies. And he refused to reveal the names when questioned later, too. So far, nothing of any substance has ever surfaced in relation to what, exactly, those two agencies may have done with the document. If anything, at all, of course.

Now, let’s take a look at the contents of the document. Most of those contents are focused on conversations between two people: Dorothy Kilgallen and a friend named Howard Rothberg. The former was a well-known figure in the field of celebrity-journalism in the 1950s and who was deeply interested in the JFK assassination (see this link for more information). As an aside, when the Speriglio-Cooper document surfaced, I fired off FOIA requests to the CIA and FBI and received copies of their files on Kilgallen. The CIA papers were few and brief, to say the least. The FBI, however, mailed me close to 170 pages on Kilgallen, demonstrating that she was someone watched closely by J. Edgar Hoover’s Special-Agents.

J. Edgar Hoover

As for what the purported CIA document states, there is this: “Rothberg discussed the apparent comeback of [Marilyn Monroe] with Kilgallen and the break up with the Kennedys. Rothberg told Kilgallen that she was attending Hollywood parties hosted by the ‘inner circle’ among Hollywood’s elite and was becoming the talk of the town again. Rothberg indicated in so many words, that she had secrets to tell, no doubt arising from her trists [sic] with the President and the Attorney General.”

Now, we get to the crux of the story. The document states: “One such [illegible] mentions the visit by the President at a secret air base for the purpose of inspecting things from outer space. Kilgallen replied that she knew what might be the source of the visit. In the mid-fifties Kilgallen learned of secret effort by US and UK governments to identify the origins of crashed spacecraft and dead bodies, from a British government official. Kilgallen believed the story may have come from the [illegible] in the late forties. Kilgallen said that if the story is true, it could cause terrible embarrassment to Jack and his plans to have NASA put men on the moon.”

It is true that Dorothy Kilgallen wrote – briefly – about UFOs back in 1955. While vacationing in the U.K. in that year, Kilgallen was on the receiving end of a very odd story, as she noted: “I can report today on a story which is positively spooky, not to mention chilling. British scientists and airmen, after examining the wreckage of one mysterious flying ship, are convinced these strange aerial objects are not optical illusions or Soviet inventions, but are flying saucers which originate on another planet. The source of my information is a British official of cabinet rank who prefers to remain unidentified.”

Dorothy Kilgallen (left)

That same “British official of cabinet rank” reportedly advised Kilgallen of the following: “We believe, on the basis of our inquiry thus far, that the saucers were staffed by small men – probably under four feet tall. It’s frightening, but there’s no denying the flying saucers come from another planet.” Kilgallen had more to say: “This official quoted scientists as saying a flying ship of this type could not have possibly been constructed on Earth. The British Government, I learned, is withholding an official report on the ‘flying saucer’ examination at this time, possibly because it does not wish to frighten the public. When my husband and I arrived here from a brief vacation, I had no premonition that I would be catapulting myself into the controversy over whether flying saucers are real or imaginary.”

The references in the document to Marilyn having “secrets to tell” (secrets supposedly shared with her by JFK and RFK) have led a number of UFO investigators to conclude that Marilyn was killed because of what she knew about Roswell. The alleged CIA document goes on to refer to Monroe’s “diary of secrets,” “what the newspapers would do with such disclosures,” and how she had “threatened to hold a press conference and would tell all.” A countdown to death, all in the name of maintaining UFO secrecy? Well, yes, that’s how it seems. But, in Ufology practically nothing is as it seems.

It’s important to note that at the top of the document there is a reference to a Project Moon Dust. In a January 2017 article I wrote for Mysterious Universe on Moon Dust I stated: “Over the years, ufologists have given a great deal of attention to a certain U.S. military program called Project Moon Dust (also referred to as Moondust). Its origins date back to the 1950s. The reason why so much attention has been placed upon Project Moon Dust is because of its potential connection to the issue of alleged crashed and recovered UFOs held by elements of the U.S. military – crash-retrievals or C/Rs as they are generally known. But, was Moon Dust really the key operation in secretly locating and recovering crashed ships from faraway worlds?”

No, it was not. A November 3, 1961 U.S. Air Force document states: ““In addition to their staff duty assignments, intelligence team personnel have peacetime duty functions in support of such Air Force projects as Moondust, Bluefly, and UFO, and other AFCIN directed quick reaction projects which require intelligence team operational capabilities…Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO): Headquarters USAF has established a program for investigation of reliably reported unidentified flying objects within the United States. AFR 200-2 delineates 1127th collection responsibilities…”

That all sounds very interesting…but…if you take a careful look at all of the Moon Dust documents in the public domain (which I have done), it becomes very clear that when the military was referring to “UFOs” in their files they were not talking about alien spacecraft. Rather, they were referencing probable space debris that originated with the former Soviet Union. Which brings me back to the document that got Milo Speriglio fired up.

Keep Moon Dust in mind as you read the following. You’ll recall that earlier in this article I stated the following: “Despite what many researchers have said, there is not even a single reference in the document to dead aliens, extraterrestrials, flying saucers, or UFOs. Not a single one.” That’s absolutely true. What it really says is that JFK allegedly traveled to “…a secret air base for the purpose of inspecting things from outer space.” No references to aliens or to extraterrestrial ships. The document also refers to “crashed spacecraft and dead bodies.” But, again, no specific references to mangled E.T.s or wrecked saucers.

Now, some might say that references to “dead bodies,” to “things from outer space,” and to “crashed spacecraft” are references to Roswell and deceased aliens. On the other hand, however, the very fact that the document references Project Moon Dust suggests another possibility. Namely, that the subject-matter may have been a failed – and still unknown – early Soviet manned-mission into space. One which predated Yuri Gagarin’s flight into outer space on April 12, 1961. There is another bit of data that supports this scenario. Recall that the document states: “Kilgallen said that if the story is true, it could cause terrible embarrassment to Jack and his plans to have NASA put men on the moon.” For ufologists this is – or should be – a problem.

Why on Earth would widespread knowledge of the existence of aliens “cause terrible embarrassment to Jack and his plans to have NASA put me on the moon?” The answer is: it wouldn’t. If such information on aliens reached the public it certainly would have caused widespread fear, wonder and amazement among the public – and within government, too. But, specifically provoking embarrassment in relation to plans to put a man on the Moon? That doesn’t make any sense. If, however, those “dead bodies” were Soviet cosmonauts, if the “crashed spacecraft” was a Russian rocket, and if the Soviets did have a number of unsuccessful manned-missions that predated Gagarin – and that such information threatened to surface during the time Kennedy was in office – then yes that would have caused significant embarrassment for the JFK administration – and, possibly, for NASA.

So, where does all of this leave us? Admittedly, since the Marilyn document first surfaced in 1995, my views and opinions have gone back and forth. I think it’s probably a hoax. Probably. Mainly because it gives Ufology just about all the things it wants and yearns for: the references to “dead bodies” and “crashed spacecraft” inevitably provoke Roswell-like imagery. The mention of a “secret air base” effortlessly points us in the direction of Area 51, thus adding another layer of sensational conspiracy to the story. The JFK-UFO angle reinforces the belief in some quarters that Kennedy was whacked because of what he knew about Roswell. The same with Marilyn, too. It’s The X-Files-meets-Dark Skies-meets-Oliver Stone’s JFK.

But, I have to admit, I do find it intriguing that whoever really wrote the document, they were extremely vague in terms of what they were talking about. I have seen more than a few questionable UFO documents in my time, and the one thing that nearly all of them share is an explicit, collective reference to ETs, aliens, flying saucers, and extraterrestrial craft. In other words, there is no doubt about the subject-matter: creatures from other worlds.

For me, though, the Marilyn document remains interesting because of the undeniable haziness of what it says. Or of what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t tell the reader that aliens crashed anywhere – despite the assumptions of Ufology. So, maybe, with that in mind, there is something to the document, after all. That’s not a case of me fence-sitting. As I said, I think it’s a hoax. But, if it is, then a great deal of thought went into it. As did a great deal of restraint – in terms of the unclear subject-matter. Maybe, there’s another answer: that we’re seeing a document crafted by disinformation experts to confuse Ufology, and for reasons presently unknown.

In light of all the above, it’s not surprising the document is still “alive and kicking,” close to a quarter of a century after it surfaced.

 TAGS: Dorothy Kilgallen, Marilyn Monroe, Project Moon Dust, ufo

{http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Canadian witness describes cigar-shaped UFO

A Canadian witness at Ottawa reported watching a white-gray colored, cigar-shaped object hovering and then moving away at incredible speed and making no sound, according to testimony in Case 83359 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

Witness illustration.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness was alone on a home balcony smoking a cigarette at 4:30 a.m. on April 23, 2017, gazing at the “waning crescent moon.”

“As I was observing the moon, thinking about different non-related things in my mind, I all of a sudden noticed a big, cigar-shaped object a couple degrees to the right of the moon,” the witness stated.

Cropped version of the witness illustration.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness described the object.

“The object seemed large. It was of a white-gray color, cylindrical-shaped. What seemed to be the front of the cylinder was a couple degrees upward and the bottom a couple degrees downward. In other words, it was at an angle. It did not move. It was static in the sky at the moment I noticed it.”

Cropped version of the witness illustration.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness was confused and did not know what the object was.

“A lapse of three seconds went by until the object seemed to pulsate with a white, circular light at the bottom end of the ship. In a fraction of a second after this pulse was emitted, the object propelled itself at an incredible speed. The movement lasted about a second. At the end of the second, the object pulsated another white circular light. This time at the front of the ship. And it seemed to have entered this light and disappeared. There were absolutely no sounds emitted whatsoever before, during or after the incident.”

Cropped version of the witness illustration.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness noted that Ottawa Airport is about two minutes away from where the sighting happened.

“I am used to seeing airplanes taking off or flying by. I always hear them, and I am more than certain that this was no plane. This object was huge, had no wings. It was static in the air. It made no sounds whatsoever. It flew at a speed of a shooting star upwards and disappeared.”

Cropped version of the witness illustration.

(Credit: MUFON)

After the incident, the witness went inside and woke up a friend.

“I told him what had happened, but he was really sleepy, so he went to bed. I have attached a sketch of what I saw and I have enumerated the sequence of how the event happened.”

Canada MUFON Field Investigator Robert Shimmon is investigating.

Ottawa is the capital city of Canada, population 934,243. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

{  http://www.openminds.tv/ }

Witness describes helicopter chasing ball of light

A Kansas witness at Lawrence reported watching a military helicopter apparently chasing an orange ball of light moving overhead under 1,000 feet, according to testimony in Case 83535 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The witness went outside upon hearing a low flying helicopter on May 4, 2017. Pictured: Lawrence, Kansas.

(Credit: Google)

The witness was inside an apartment watching television when the sound of a helicopter was heard at 11:15 p.m. on May 4, 2017.

“It sounded very low and powerful, so I figured it had to be military, and I, being a total nerd, had to run out to the parking lot to get a look,” the witness stated.“By the time I was out my door and in the parking lot, I had just enough time to watch a small, orange ball of light being chased by what I assume to be a Blackhawk helicopter (because of size and sound) disappear behind the rooftops of the buildings east of me.”

This struck the witness as bizarre.

“I saw something similar some months ago in the same general area – the skies south of Lawrence. I live on the south side of town, not far from Baker Wetlands.”

The witness saw a military helicopter apparently chasing an orange ball of light.

Pictured: Lawrence, Kansas. (Credit: Google)

The witness described the event.

“The light was small and orange in color and was about 50-100 yards ahead of the helicopter. It made no erratic movements, but was travelling at a fair clip as the helicopter was tracking it at almost the exact speed and it was moving pretty quickly.”

The witness does not believe the orange light could have been a sky lantern.

“I have my doubts that this could’ve been a paper lantern – though the color and intensity of the light were similar to one – and the distance ahead of the helicopter rules out a refueling boom. I’d give the altitude of the two objects to be between 500-1,000 feet AGL and the speed of both to be about 100 knots at the time I saw them.”

The witness noted there was one other object in the sky.

Both objects were flying under 1,000 feet. Pictured: Lawrence, Kansas.

(Credit: Google)

“I saw another object in the sky in the general area at the same time, though it may not have been connected. This object seemed to be an aircraft judging by the red and white lights it had on it, but it hovered in place for a moment until the lights slowly faded out with no apparent change in location. The direction I was looking toward would be about a straight line to KCI, so I wasn’t immediately suspicious, but – having seen plenty of air traffic heading to and from KCI on that flight path – this didn’t look like anything I’d seen before – and no landing lights. I mention this because it was odd and because the previous sighting of a few months earlier of the same kind of event had two helicopters chasing the light instead of just one. Maybe this was the second.”

Lawrence is the sixth largest city in the state of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, population 87,643. Kansas MUFON State Director Stan Seba is investigating. No photos or videos were included with the report which was filed on May 5, 2017. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

{  http://www.openminds.tv/ }

SHOCK CLAIM: Footage of ‘alien UFO being tested at Area 51 leaked’

VIDEO footage showing an unidentifiable object flying above the ground was leaked out of the mysterious Area 51 US Air Force (USAF) base, it has been claimed.

Video released on YouTube shows grainy footage of a flying object which appears to rise and hover in the sky.

Conspiracy theorists believe the video to have been recorded in the late Eighties or early Nineties.

The "UFO" appears to emit a light as it seems to move from side to side.

Secureteam10 is behind the release and its producer Tyler Glockner claims in the video it is some of the most compelling UFO evidence out there.

He said in a video about the clip: "It is alleged to have been recorded back in mid to early 1990s or possible even late 1980s.

"It is said to be of an alien vehicle being tested over the very secretive base known as Area 51."

But, sceptical ufologist Scott Brando, who runs hoax busting website ufoofinterest.org said the video was not even recorded at Area 51, but another top-secret USAF base in Nevada.

GETTY*YouTube

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  UFO 'disappeared into wormhole' after bizarre events at military base
• 
  Triangle UFOs built by US government using alien technology - expert

Mr Brando provided the same footage which was said to have been recorded at the Nellis Air Force base in Las Vegas on May 30 1995.

He regularly highlights Secureteam10 for misleading its more than 750,000 subscribers.

He, and a number of UFO hoax busters claim to have exposed its use of CGI footage and misrepresentation, and the channel appears on a numb roy UFO website blacklists.

Mr Glockner denies being a deliberate hoaxer, and claims his research is genuine.

He added in his new video: "It's one of the mysterious pieces in UFOlogy - a hidden gem."

The heavily guarded Area 51, deep in the Nevada desert, is at the centre of many alien-related conspiracy theories, but so is the Nellis base.

It is claimed that alien flying saucers have crashed on Earth, such as the alleged 1947 Roswell incident, and that the wreckage and even corpses have been taken to both bases to be analysed away from public view.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  'TR-3B Triangle UFO' seen being driven in military convoy near Area 51
• 
  Was Gary McKinnon right? ‘SECRET space fleet filmed at US Air base'

It is alleged to have been recorded back in mid to early 1990s or possible even late 1980s.

Tyler Glockner

One theory suggests that USAF scientists have tried to back engineer the alien technology to create their own top-secret spy craft capable of travelling into space.

The conspiracy theories have been fuelled by the fart the US Government did not acknowledge Area 51 existed until 2013.

But, it is accepted that the USAF does secretly test new aircraft there, with the U-2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter all developed there.

Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said: "Area 51 has always been a magnet for those who believe the US Government knows a lot more about UFOs than they are prepared to reveal to the public.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  'IT'S NOT AREA 51': Real US 'secret base for hiding UFOs' REVEALED
• 
  'UFO on truck with police escort seen being driven at night’

"People like the late Boyd Bushman, a senior scientist who worked for Lockheed Martin, have declared that Area 51 is a base where extraterrestrial spacecraft and technology is stored and examined." 

Mr Brando said he believes the 1995 footage from the Nellis base is a standard military craft or other operation taking place, and that there is no evidence to connect it to alien technology.

Mr Brando told Express.co.uk: "It's old footage published in the 1990's by several UFO magazines with VHS. 

"We don't know if the audio of the video is original or counterfeit. 

"These kinds of movies were deliberately cut and packed for the mentioned magazines."

Related articles

•  Insider confirms 'black projects' underway in top secret military base
•  How 'deadly force' used to keep prying eyes from mysterious Area 51
•  'UFOs' on trucks on A34 spark claims there is a BRITISH AREA 51

{http://www.express.co.uk/news }

UFO BOMBSHELL: Could this memo solve Roswell 'flying saucer' crash mystery?

DECIPHERING this memo captured in an alleged image of the remains of whatever crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, nearly 70 years ago, could solve the world's biggest ever UFO mystery, it has been claimed.

On Friday, scientists sounded the alarm: The rule-defying Tabby’s Star — the so-called “alien megastructure” — was officially losing light yet again.

But unlike the dramatic dimming event of two years ago, scientists are now prepared and organized to be able to figure out what the hell is going on with Tabby’s Star, thanks to the leadership of its namesake, Tabetha Boyajian.

Two years ago, Boyajian — now an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University — analyzed month’s-old data from NASA’s Kepler telescope, which has its eye trained on thousands of stars in a specific part of the universe. One star, KIC 8462852, behaved like no other. At one point, the star lost nearly a quarter of its radiance, an inexplicable event that earned it the “alien megastructure” name. Since the discovery, the star continues to flummox scientists. Although a number of decent theories have emerged, scientists have been eagerly waiting for Tabby’s Star to begin dimming again, giving them an opportunity to observe it as the darkening events unfold.

“It’s critical to keep an eye on it, stay on our toes, and see what comes,” Boyajian told Inverse.

 Follow

Jason Wright @Astro_Wright

ALERT:@tsboyajian's star is dipping

This is not a drill.

Astro tweeps on telescopes in the next 48 hours: spectra please!

1:24 PM - 19 May 2017

•  715715 Retweets
•  1,0361,036 likes

Twitter Ads info & Privacy

The initial dip, announced on Friday, showed a three percent drop in radiance – which is quite a bit. If alien observers 1,300 light-years away from Earth were to watch our sun lose three percent of its radiance, something the size of Jupiter would have to obstruct the sun’s light.

Throughout the weekend, astronomers around the world observed the erratic star and sent their data to Boyajian, the ad-hoc expert for the star-watching operation. “This is the central clearing house for all the observations coming in,” she says.

Two NASA images of Tabby's Star, taken in Infrared (right) and UV. The star is located 1,300 light years from Earth. 

The assumption is that something with a lot of mass is blocking out a considerable portion of Tabby’s light – perhaps a group of orbiting comets, a giant mess of planetary leftovers, or (probably unlikely) an alien superstructure that intelligent beings use to harness the star’s energy. To find out, scientists are looking at the spectrums of light coming from Tabby’s Star, because light is manipulated as it travels through different things, like expansive bodies of gas or hot cosmic dust. Boyajian hopes that these observations will reveal important insights about what this obstructing matter is, along with its temperature and density.

Although there are compelling ideas about what might be blocking the light, Boyajian doesn’t yet favor any particular hypothesis. “At this point I’m keeping an open mind,” she says. “We’re trying to stay responsible about not drawing any early conclusions.”

As of Monday, May 22, the three percent dip ended, as shown in the graph below, tweeted by Jason Wright, an astrophysicist at Penn State University. But, explains Boyajian, the previous dimming events came in clusters, so there’s a “good possibility that another event or dip will happen.”

View image on Twitter

 Follow

Jason Wright @Astro_Wright

Latest photometry from last night; this event seems to have ended, but remember than in Q16 they came in clumps.@tsboyajian

5:31 PM - 22 May 2017

•  8080 Retweets
•  123123 likes

Twitter Ads info & Privacy

Although the new activity just began, some scientists propose that the dimming events may keep to a schedule. The earlier Kepler data, examined by Boyajian, showed that the dips might occur around every two years. “It’s suggestive of something that is periodically dimming the star – perhaps something bound to the star,” says Brian Metzger, an astrophysicist at Columbia University.

In January, Metzger published a study proposing that an Earth-sized planet or moon got kicked a bit too close to Tabby’s Star, allowing Tabby to shred off its surface and mantle. Now, that big messy pile of planetary debris could be orbiting Tabby’s Star on a pretty consistent basis, periodically blotching out a significant amount of its light.

If so, scientists using infrared telescopes should be able to find some evidence of this hot debris, especially when it passes close to Tabby’s Star and gets sizzled by the star’s heat. “If we see this infrared evidence it will be strong support of our model,” explains Metzger.

As for a massive Dyson sphere – an alien super-structure designed to surround and harness a star’s energy – it’s still in the running, although it’s probably in last place. A distant last.

“Technically we haven’t ruled out anything,” says Metzger. “Let’s talk about the Dyson sphere when we have all the cards on the table.”

Photos via NASA, Flickr / NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Written by Mark Kaufman

More articles by Mark

•Follow Mark on Twitter

• 
  The Definitive Ranking of Netflix's Alien Documentaries
• 
  A Supercomputer Just Solved a Big Mystery Behind Dark Matter
• 
  The Rocket Scientist Who Woke the Stars

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

Area 51: Leaked video purports alien craft being tested at secret military base

(Credit: SecureTeam 10 YouTube)

{ http://www.foxnews.com/ }

Study shows how radioactive decay could support extraterrestrial life

A University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) team modeled a natural water-cracking process called radiolysis. They applied the model to the icy bodies around our solar system to show how radiation emitted from rocky cores could break up water molecules and support hydrogen-eating microbes. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

In the icy bodies around our solar system, radiation emitted from rocky cores could break up water molecules and support hydrogen-eating microbes. To address this cosmic possibility, a University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) team modeled a natural water-cracking process called radiolysis. They then applied the model to several worlds with known or suspected interior oceans, including Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's moon Europa, Pluto and its moon Charon, as well as the dwarf planet Ceres

"The physical and chemical processes that follow radiolysis release molecular hydrogen (H2), which is a molecule of astrobiological interest," said Alexis Bouquet, lead author of the study published in the May edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters. Radioactive isotopes of elements such as uranium, potassium, and thorium are found in a class of rocky meteorites known as chondrites. The cores of the worlds studied by Bouquet and his co-authors are thought to have chondrite-like compositions. Ocean water permeating the porous rock of the core could be exposed to ionizing radiation and undergo radiolysis, producing molecular hydrogen and reactive oxygen compounds.

Bouquet, a student in the joint doctoral program between UTSA's Department of Physics and Astronomy and SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division, explained that microbial communities sustained by H2 have been found in extreme environments on Earth. These include a groundwater sample found nearly 2 miles deep in a South African gold mine and at hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. That raises interesting possibilities for the potential existence of analogous microbes at the water-rock interfaces of ocean worlds such as Enceladus or Europa.

"We know that these radioactive elements exist within icy bodies, but this is the first systematic look across the solar system to estimate radiolysis. The results suggest that there are many potential targets for exploration out there, and that's exciting," says co-author Dr. Danielle Wyrick, a principal scientist in SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division.

One frequently suggested source of molecular hydrogen on ocean worlds is serpentinization. This chemical reaction between rock and water occurs, for example, in hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

The key finding of the study is that radiolysis represents a potentially important additional source of molecular hydrogen. While hydrothermal activity can produce considerable quantities of hydrogen, in porous rocks often found under seafloors, radiolysis could produce copious amounts as well.

Radiolysis may also contribute to the potential habitability of ocean worlds in another way. In addition to molecular hydrogen, it produces oxygen compounds that can react with certain minerals in the core to create sulfates, a food source for some kinds of microorganisms.

"Radiolysis in an ocean world's outer core could be fundamental in supporting life. Because mixtures of water and rock are everywhere in the outer solar system, this insight increases the odds of abundant habitable real estate out there," Bouquet said.

Co-authors of the article, "Alternative Energy: Production of H2 by Radiolysis of Water in the Rocky Cores of Icy Bodies," are SwRI's Dr. Christopher R. Glein, Wyrick, and Dr. J. Hunter Waite, who also serves as a UTSA adjoint professor. 

 Explore further: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region within Saturn's moon Enceladus

Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal Letters  

Provided by: Southwest Research Institute  

{ https://phys.org/ }

Stunning photos show rare UFO-shaped clouds over Devon 

by Zoe Stevens

The mysterious clouds appeared over Sidmouth on Sunday

These amazing pictures show bizarre flying saucer shaped clouds in the skies over Sidmouth which left residents astonished.

The mysterious clouds appeared to stack on top of each other, and the glowing phenomenon caught the attention of visitors and residents walking along the promenade on Sunday lunchtime.

A spokesman from the Met Office has explained that they are, in fact, ethereal clouds.

The spokesman said: "They are most likely stratocumulus clouds, stratocumulus lenticularis. These are wave clouds, probably generated as the south-easterly wind buffeted over the coastline on Sunday.

"These would have been quite short lived as drier, clearer air spread from the continent during the afternoon. The ragged bases of the clouds, especially in the second picture hint at some precipitation falling from them, but probably not enough to reach the surface. This is called virga."

For the latest news and breaking news visit DevonLive.com/news.

Get all the headlines, pictures, analysis, opinion and video on the stories that matter to you. Have you got anything to add? Get in contact with us on social media or email echonews@expressandecho.co.uk.

Follow us on Twitter @DevonLiveNews - we're also on Facebook/devonlivenews.

{ http://www.devonlive.com/news }

UFOs over Lake Ontario? We have the answer

Comparison of Monroe Wiretap document with declassified CIA Information Report.

Source: Outpost Forum

New evidence emerges that Monroe planned to reveal JFK saw crashed UFOs

New evidence has just been released supporting the authenticity of a leaked CIA document allegedly of wiretaps of Marilyn Monroe and her friends shortly before her suspicious death on August 4, 1962. The wiretap document revealed that Monroe was planning to give a press conference about what President Kennedy had told her of a visit to an undisclosed Air Force facility where he saw the debris of a crashed UFO. The Monroe wiretap document was first leaked in 1992 to a UFO researcher, and was made public in 1994. It has not been confirmed by the CIA to be genuine, and remains open to dispute. The new evidence that was revealed yesterday shows that the leaked document conforms closely to a standard classified Information Report form used by the CIA in 1963. Either someone broke the law by forging or using a standard CIA Information Report form for classified reports at the time of Monroe’s death, or the Monroe wiretap document was indeed a classified report about a wiretap of Monroe and her friends.

This is what the alleged CIA wiretap document, dated August 3, 1962, had to say about Monroe’s knowledge of Kennedy and UFOs:

Rothberg indicated in so many words, that she [Monroe] had secrets to tell, no doubt arising from her trists [sic] with the President and the Attorney General. One such “secret” mentions the visit by the President at a secret air base for the purpose of inspecting things from outer space.
2. Subject repeatedly called the Attorney General and complained about the way she was being ignored by the President and his brother.
3. Subject threatened to hold a press conference and would tell all.

The discoverer of the CIA intelligence report is Lee Nicholson from the Outpost Forum. In his April 14 forum post he described what he found after visiting the CIA’s electronic reading room:

During the process of researching this article I spent several hours at the CIA’s electronic reading room looking at documents from the 1960s, in an attempt to find examples of similar typeface to that seen in our questioned document …. I discovered a CIA Information Report dated 18th March, 1963 with the subject heading: “Projected Soviet Space Launchings” which was declassified on the 16th of July 2011. This authentic CIA information report is an almost perfect match in style and presentation for the leaked ‘Marilyn document’.

Nicholson went on to describe new facts emerging from a comparison between the declassified CIA document and the Monroe wiretap document:

In fact a close comparison gleans some important new facts. Firstly, we can now see that both documents use the exact same form letter or template information report. Presumably the author would have a stack of these ‘blank’ forms which would be placed into a typewriter to add the relevant information before classification and distribution. We can also see that both documents contain the same secondary typeface, which is in fact Courier type commonly used on IBM typewriters in the 1960s.

Nicholson then described a series of parallels between the declassified 1963 Information Report and the leaked Monroe wiretap document. His conclusion was that they closely matched suggesting that the Monroe document is genuine.

The implications of the Monroe wiretap document being genuine are astounding. It reveals that only one day before her death, Monroe was planning a press conference that would reveal what President Kennedy had confidentially told her about UFOs. The fact that the CIA was monitoring her and wiretapping her phone calls, directly implicates the CIA in her suspicious death and the cover-up of information concerning UFOs.

{ http://exopolitics.org/ }

Amazing video: UFO making maneuvers over Decatur, Alabama 17-May-2017

Here’s one new really interesting footage of a so-called fastwalkers that are making a maneuvers in the sky above Decatur in Alabama.

Witness report: 

These are clips from a 20 min recording of a star like object changing directions, hovering, no sound was heard. The recording was made with a infrared low power telescope

Author (source: MUFON)

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

Uit elkaar gevallen planeet of buitenaards megabouwwerk?

Orphan Planet Acting Mysteriously Like a Star

Do planets have feelings? Can they hear astronomers talking about them … giving them derogatory names like “rogue” … referring to them as orphans, wandering or starless without knowing anything about their history or how they came to be in the non-solar-system state they seem to be in? A new study of a so-called orphan planet refers to it as “lonely” – could this be why it is suddenly acting like a brown dwarf or a young star? What is the medical term for “anthropomorphism about planets” and is there a treatment? Asking for a friend.

A group of astronomers from the University of Valparaiso and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, led by Amelia Bayo of Valparaiso, have been using the the ALMA observatory in Chile to study OTS44 — a free-floating planetary-mass object discovered in 1998 and currently located 550 light-years away in the constellation Chamaeleon. OTS44 is approximately 11.5 times the mass of Jupiter and is the smallest and least massive known free-floating planet. On the plus side, it’s one of only four known to have an orbiting disc. However, according to Bayo’s study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the disc is much different that that of Saturn or other ringed planets, hinting that OTS44 may not be a planet at all.

Artists’ impression of the disk around OTS44.
Image: Johan Olofsson (U Valparaiso & MPIA)

Bayo’s analysis shows that the mass of the disk is, well, massive, and its ratio of mass of disk to mass of orbited object is closer to that of a substellar object like a brown dwarf or a young star in the process of forming a planetary solar system. The study also found that OTS44 appears to be pulling in dust and rocks from the dick, causing it to grow – not very planetary behavior. Finally, the astronomers discovered that the dust particles themselves are clumping together and growing, suggesting that they may be forming moons or – if OTS44 is a young star – planets.

Is this a big deal? Yes, says an excited Bayo.

The more we know about OTS44, the greater its similarities with a young star. But its mass is so low that theory tells us it cannot have formed like a star!

Saturn acting like a ringed planet

And yet, the study shows that this process formed … something. Whatever it is, it’s obviously impressive enough to Amelia Bayo and her fellow astronomers to revise their models on both planetary and star formation. So, what should it be called? A big brown dwarf with a belt? Ringed and roaming? Lonely no more?

Any word on that cure for planetary anthropomorphism?

 TAGS: 

Astronomy, brown dwarf, orphan planet, planet, rogue planet, star, substellar objects, young star

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Mainstream Media Covers North Korean UFO Sighting

 Paul Seaburn

To paraphrase Rick Blaine, Humphrey Bogart’s character in the classic, movie Casablanca … of all the UFO sightings in all the towns in all the world, this is the one you cover? Mainstream media outlets – U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic and others – actually devoted space to a UFO sighting over North Korea which traveled to South Korea. That location should make one suspect that it’s not aliens, but the mainstream knows that linking anything to North Korea these days – even UFOs – is good for business. So, did anyone in the most militarized, scrutinized and monitored area in the world identify the UFO?

I heard a story once — as a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time.

North Korea reportedly fired a mystery unidentified flying object over the Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday. The UFO sighting comes two days after North Korea’s latest missile test … The sighting also comes after the United Nations Security Council lambasted the country for the missile test, on Monday.

That’s U.S. News & World Report putting the “mystery” UFO sighting at the lead of continuing coverage of the latest North Korean missile test.

As South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports, an object was detected at 4 p.m. local time crossing the Military Demarcation Line, a 154-mile armistice line that was established by both countries in 1953 at the end of the Korean War, into South Korean airspace. The South Korean military fired more than 90 K-3 machine gun rounds at the object, which was detected over the country’s northeast Gangwon province, just 45 miles away from Seoul, its capital.

That’s The Atlantic, reporting that the South Korean military response to the UFO was “machine gun rounds,” making it a suspiciously low-flying UFO. Yonhap News Agency is South Korea’s largest news agency and it reports that the UFO was brought down by the machine guns and no less than South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement.

The South’s military is analyzing the object and its route and has beefed up its air defense.

What kind of extra air defense is needed against UFOs that can be brought down by machine guns? Does it sound like this UFO may be something identifiable? If you have “drone” in the office pool, you lost your bet. CNN revealed the answer:

Unidentified objects which flew across the border from the North were probably propaganda balloons … [South Korea’s military said] the objects were in the shape of a balloon… (and) flew in the wind’s direction before disappearing. Our military responded in accordance to our military protocol.

Propaganda balloons carrying leaflets and videos travel in both directions across the DMZ as both countries use them to deliver messages to and from the Internet and cellphone-deprived North. Obviously, this isn’t news.

What’s news is that the mainstream media chose to cover this incident as a “UFO sighting” as opposed to a military action or a propaganda balloon story. The UFO community struggles to get mainstream reports on other sightings that are much more unidentifiable and in need of explanation, yet propaganda balloons (it’s always balloons with these people) get the attention.

It’s just like the line from Casablanca’s famous song, “As Time Goes By.”

It’s still the same old story.

 TAGS: 

Balloon, Conspiracy, DMZ, mainstream media, media, media bias, military, military aircraft, North Korea, South Korea, ufo, weather balloon

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

HOUDT UNIEKE VONDST IN DUITSLAND VERBAND MET DE KOMST VAN NIBIRU? ( VIDEO )

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

SCIENTIST BELIEVES CIVILIZATIONS ON MARS WERE NUKED INTO OBLIVION!

A scientist has spoken out about his beliefs that Mars could have been much like Earth with civilizations on it and then it was nuked and life was destroyed.

This is the theory of Dr. John Brandenburg who has been called a pseudoscientist. He does have credentials that are said to be impressive yet his ideas are way out there. He was the speaker at the Secret Space Program Conference 2015; this was a conference that asked the question of what was going on. 

BRANDENBURG BELIEVES CYDONIANS AND UTOPIANS USED TO LIVE ON MARS 

Dr. Brandenburg has said that the surface of Mars is covered with a layer of substances that are radioactive and this includes thorium, uranium and radioactive potassium. The doctor said that this pattern radiates from a hot spot that is on Mars. He went on to say that as weird as it sounds ancient Martians with the names of Utopians and Cydonians had been massacred in the nuclear attack that had taken place on Mars. He went on to say that such a nuclear attack may have sent debris flying all around the planet. RELATED ARTICLES Scientist Believes Crop Circles Contain an Advanced Binary CodeChina’s 9/11 Now Confirmed: Tianjin Was Nuked. It was not a chemical fire! Brandenburg had given a talk at the Meeting of the American Physical Society in 2014 in Illinois on the subject. He had said that scientists used to think that the explosion had been natural; however, Brandenburg thinks that nuclear isotopes in the atmosphere look like hydrogen bomb tests and they could be a guide to civilization having been wiped out by an attack that was nuclear from space.

NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE LEFT MARS THE WASTELAND IT IS TODAY

Brandenburg dedicated his career to the issues of space, national defense and energy. He wrote the book Life and Death on Mars. A reviewer said that the drama of the book was his talk about the nuclear catastrophe that made Mars, which was once a planet like Earth, become the wasteland it is known to be today.

Brandenburg had made a study of the high concentration of Xenon-129 which was in the atmosphere of Mars, with uranium and thorium on the surface, which had been seen by the Odyssey spacecraft of NASA. Scientists had pointed out that the appearance of the elements was not all that surprising due to the fact that they were natural elements that could be found everywhere.

CREDIBILITY OF BRANDENBURG IS CHALLENGED

Stuart Robbins, however, challenges the doctor’s credibility and said that one of the things that were unique about Brandenburg was that one of his biggest claims of evidence that the ideas of his are correct, is that he says he was present during the scientific conferences and there is no one that has challenged him. Robbins went on to say that this is a claim that he has made many times in just about every interview he had given.

Robbins may have a point if you listen to Brandenburg and what he said. He had said that earlier results of the massacre still stand; but that for the conference he had chosen to focus on one important part and this was the huge nuclear explosions, which the doctor said was the most extraordinary evidence that there has been life on Mars. He went on to say that his goal had been establishing the reality of the explosions to the scientific community along with their non-natural origin and then goes on to focus on the target. 

BRANDENBURG CLAIMS TO HAVE SAID MARS WAS COVERED WITH OCEAN

Brandenburg also said that he came up with Mars hypothesis that the planet had once been covered with an ocean, which is something that NASA have recently said. At the Secret Space Program conference 2015, the conference went on to ask what was going on and whether a secret space program was being developed using funds that had been allocated by congress of a different economic system. The question of where the missing trillions had gone was asked as was what is the UFO phenomenon.

The conference asked if there was a series of military projects that were using technology that was advanced and which had been developed in bases that were underground around the globe and whether it represented something that was alien.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Was Tianjin Nuked By A Secret Pentagon Space Weapon?
• Mayor Believes Dug up Remains is That of Alien Head  

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

UK GOVERNMENT TO REVEAL PREVIOUSLY SECRET AND UNPUBLISHED REPORTS ON UFO ACTIVITY

It has been said that the British government is going to release secret information about all UFO sightings in the UK once the general election is over and done with in June.

50 YEARS OF SECRETS TO BE RELEASED FOLLOWING ELECTION

A German science and paranormal blog said that the secret dossier is going to be revealed and it contains many reports that have been unpublished about UFO activity over 50 years that has been put together by the Ministry of Defence in Britain.  

The Ministry of Defence released what at the time they called, all of the files in relation to UFOs, in 2013. However, they then admitted to having held back 18 documents with the reason being that they needed to identify some content that had to be re-examined before then releasing it to the general public under the Freedom of Information Act.

FILES WERE DELAYED SPARKING CONSPIRACY THEORIES

This brought about many claims about a cover-up of alien life and their existence by men who wore dark clothing. The Ministry of Defence then revealed that they would release the files during 2015 and then it was 2016 and then the most recent date is March 2017. It has been said that the delay at current is down to the general election which is scheduled to be held on June 8.

A letter that was said to have been sent to the German website and which was alleged to have come from a spokesperson for the National Archives, said that due to the upcoming election along with the rules that are in relation to the government departments during the period before the election, the files cannot be released until after the election has taken place. They went on to say that they were working to make sure that the files get released as soon as possible after that period, which points to around the middle of June.

ALIEN HUNTERS WAITING FOR CONSPIRACIES TO BE LAID BARE

Alien hunters and paranormal researchers have been waiting for proof of extraterrestrials, and for the conspiracies to be laid bare, they are hoping that something is going to be released that will be worthy of a cover-up by the government. Whatever they hold the documents should contain something that is interesting, which dates back to the 1970s.

A former MoD investigator said that there was nothing in the files that would confirm that aliens do exist; however, he went on to say that there were plenty of reports about UFOs. It is thought that among the information to be released will be documents relating to the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980, this has been said to be Britain’s answer to Roswell. The incident involved many people giving reports of a UFO landing close to the Bentwaters and Woodbridge RAF military bases.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Windows 10 sends a huge number of reports about user activity – but why?
• New Evidence Shows Humans In North America At Least 115,000 Years  

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

PHOENIX LIGHTS UFO: New witness comes forward 20 years later… and its a hollywood legend

A WORLD famous actor has broken a 20-year silence about witnessing first hand the US' biggest ever mass UFO sighting.

Kurt Russell has told of seeing mysterious lights above Phoenix, Arizona, as he flew a plane into land.

Russell revealed all on the BBC One Show as he was interviewed with sci-fi film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 co-star Chris Pratt.

Host Gyles Brandreth recounted the story of an unidentified pilot who was flying in his private aircraft with his son near an airport in Phoenix. 

He said the pilot spotted six lights in the night sky and reported this to the control tower to find out what was going on. 

Russell responded: “The tail number for that plane was Bonanza two Tango Sierra, and I was the pilot.”

MUFON*GETTY

GETTY

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  Phoenix Lights mass 'UFO sighting' left witnesses with ‘MEMORY LOSS’
• 
  NEW PHOENIX LIGHTS? Multiple people report seeing UFOs over Florida

He said that he and Oliver Hudson, who is Goldie Hawn’s son from her first marriage and considers Russell his father, were flying into Phoenix.

He said: “We were on approach and I saw six lights over the airport in absolute uniform, in a V-shape."

Russell said they called the control tower which said its radar did not detect anything.

The actor said the pair of them gave it no further thought.

But around two years later he said he returned home to find Goldie Hawn watching a programme about the Phoenix Lights incident.

He said: "That was the most viewed UFO event. Over 20,000 people saw it.

"As I watched the show, I felt like Richard Dreyfuss from Close Encounters.”

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  New mass Arizona UFO sighting sparks fears of alien invasion
• 
  Return of the PHOENIX LIGHTS? Blinking 'alien crafts' in sky

We were on approach and I saw six lights over the airport in absolute uniform, in a V-shape.

Kurt Russell

He felt as though for some reason he knew something about the event. 

The show then mentioned that a pilot reported seeing the UFO upon landing, and that is when Russell thought to himself, “that was me”.

He said he went to check his log book and his flight coin diced with the Phoenix Lights incident.

He said: “The fascinating part to me is that it just went, literally, out of my head. Oliver never mentioned it. 

"Had I not seen that show, I would have never thought of it. That, to me, was the weird part.” 

Earlier this year, claims emerged that people suffered memory loss and numbness and did not speak about the Phoenix Lights incident afterwards.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  Are mysterious triangle UFOs REAL? Weird sightings keep happening
• 
  PHOENIX LIGHTS: Mass UFO sighting 20 years ago 'PROOF of ET'

Alejandro Rojas, host of Open Minds Radio, said: "Apparently, this is the first time Russell has told this story in public. 

"Prior to this, Russell has not been associated with the famous Phoenix UFO sighting."

The infamous Phoenix Lights incident happened on March 13, 1997, when five lights were seen in a formation by thousands of people over three hours from 7.30pm to 10.30pm.

The sightings took place a cross a 300-mile area from Phoenix to Tucson.

It was blamed by officials as military flares at the time.

Related articles

•  UFO clip could prove Phoenix Lights incident 'once and for all'
•  DECLASSIFIED: 'TR-3B UFO staked out nuclear power plant'
•  Video of 'triangle UFOs' making bizarre formation emerges

{ http://www.express.co.uk/ }

Marilyn Monroe 'murdered by CIA to stop her exposing Roswell UFO truth JFK told to her'

MARILYN Monroe was "murdered because she knew the truth about aliens and was about to blow the lid on the truth”, a shocking new film claims.

UFO caught on tape over Mexico City 16-May-2017

Solid object was seen and recorded in the sky above Mexico City on 16th May 2017. What is your opinion about this sighting?

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

Harvard University Study Reveals Cosmic Light Flashes Could Be From Alien Spaceships

A study has claimed that bursts of super speed cosmic light picked up by astronomers could be from an interstellar UFO spacecraft.

Described as brief flashes of light, the fast radio bursts are believed to be coming from galaxies over a billion light years away. However, scientists have yet to determine the exact source of these cosmic rays.

A Harvard University study introduced a possibility that these brief flashes of light could be from an alien spaceship.

Co-author of the study and Harvard theorist, Avi Loeb, stated that they had not identified a possible source of the fast radio bursts with any confidence yet.
Avi Loeb further said that it is worth contemplating and checking an artificial origin.

Another possible source for the radio bursts could be an alien-made large radio transmitter.

The author of the study, Manasvi Lingam, also of Harvard, as well as Avi, stated that signals like the ones picked up by astronomers could be beamed from a solar-powered transmitter. The transmitter could be used for a feat humanity has yet to discover – interstellar travel.

Because of the speed of the bursts, scientists could only catch a glimpse of it.

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

Winston Churchill’s Unpublished Essay On Aliens Revealed

It has been revealed that Winston Churchill had a secret obsession with extraterrestrials and believed there could be life on Venus or Mars.

The interest of Britain’s World War 2 Prime Minister has been revealed after the discovery of his 11-page essay titled “Are We Alone in the Universe?”
The politician known for his cigar-chomping discusses the possibility of life on Mars and Venus in the newly discovered article.

Churchill suggested that Mars and Venus were the only two planets in the Solar System that could conceivably harbor life other than Earth due to their distance from the Sun.

The essay was never published and it remained undiscovered for years as it ended up in the U.S. National Churchill Museum, located in Fulton, Missouri in the 1980s.

The interest about alien life on Mars and Venus remains until today as scientists have been spending their resources to their probe on the two planets. Scientists are also observing Jupiter’s Europa as the possible home of alien life in the Solar System.

Churchill wrote several popular science essays for magazines and newspapers in the 1920s and 30s on topics such as cells and evolution. He is the first prime minister in the history to hire a science adviser.

Churchill’s interest in UFOs could be very evident when he ordered a secret probe into mysterious airships observed in Britain when he was at the Admiralty.

Astrophysicist Mario Livio looked through the newly discovered essay, and he was impressed by Churchill’s understanding of science.

Dr. Livio finds it moving to recall a leader who engaged with science so profoundly at a time when many of today’s politicians shun it.

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

Contact With Extraterrestrials

By Cheryl Costa

 

Columnist Cheryl Costa examines different possibilities of alien-human contact.

{ https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/ }

I-Team: Rock star plans for announcement on UFOs

By: George Knapp

LAS VEGAS - Can a rock star do what generations of investigators have failed to manage -- that is, find out what the government knows about UFOs?

Last year, Tom DeLonge, the co-founder of Blink 182, told the I-Team about his plans to create a multi-media empire based on inside information given to him by military sources he had cultivated.

Since then, DeLonge has taken some lumps, and his grand plan was nearly crushed by the WikiLeaks disclosures.

The rock star life was good for Tom DeLonge. he had millions of fans, sold millions of records, and would occasionally mention his obsession in song lyrics.

Copyright 2017 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

But since becoming more serious about UFOs, he's managed to tick off just about everyone, especially the UFO faithful who've accused him of being a dupe, a fraud, a tool of the deep state, or delusional. DeLonge has persevered.

"This is the greatest story never told period, you don't even need to sensationalize anything. It's like science fiction, but more like science non-fiction," said Tom DeLonge, founder of To The Stars.

Last year, when DeLonge showed us the headquarters for his new company, To The Stars, he revealed that he had talked his way into a seat at the UFO table, by somehow cultivating a group of high-ranking sources or advisors from within the defense establishment, the keepers of UFO secrets. He says he did it by making this pitch.

"They have been backed into a corner and need a way for this to get out and I went in there saying, there will never be congressional hearings on this. I understand and accept that but what I think can happen is that we can change belief systems," DeLonge said.

What he offered to do was to invest millions of his own dollars into telling a different story. One that explained why the cone of silence had been dropped over UFOs, why misinformation was spread. In exchange, they told him things.

Tom DeLonge: "He says, 'We found a life form..'"
George Knapp: "We found a life form?"
Tom DeLonge: "When we first found the vehicles, I know we brought in private industry, military, intelligence, a good diverse group of elevated thinkers and said, how do we handle this?"

Defending the military's handling of UFO secrecy was too much for many researchers. They dismissed DeLonge as a profiteer, out to make a buck on flying saucers, and maybe of making it all up.

Copyright 2017 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Then came WikiLeaks Presidential advisor John Podesta's emails spilled out for the whole world to see  and in the middle of them were multiple emails to and from DeLonge, naming his secret panel of advisors, and showing there had been high-level meetings of generals and military contractors to discuss UFO disclosure. 

DeLonge had been telling the truth. In February, DeLonge accepted an award from the UFO Congress in Arizona, he has since acknowledged that his panel of advisors had been shell shocked by the leaks, and that his plans had been delayed but not derailed.

For the last few months, DeLonge has been almost silent about his plans. On his Twitter feed, he's acknowledged delays in making his big announcement but says it's still coming. There are other hints about who might be helping him. A former high-ranking CIA operative Jim Semivan wrote the forward to one of DeLonge's books.

Copyright 2017 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Astrophysicist and author Dr. Jacques Vallee did likewise. and a former defense department official named Chris Mellon has made public statements about UFO secrecy. If DeLonge has a new team of advisors, he may be inching closer to his original plan of using movies and TV and other media for a program of gradual disclosure, rather than a sudden announcement.

"I think they really do want us to know. I really do think they do. I do, at this point, feel like it's going to be a tough thing to swallow for people and I think there are elements about it that people are not ready for," Delonge said.

He had hoped to make some sort of announcement about his business plans by the beginning of June but it looks like that will be delayed until later this summer.

In the meantime, he's reportedly in the studio recording a new album.

{ http://www.lasvegasnow.com/ }

Slow Down! Researchers Spot Possible Speeding 'Renegade' Supermassive Black Hole

Astronomers have spied the possible aftermath of a colossal black hole collision that happened in the center of a galaxy far, far away.

Usually, researchers find supermassive black holes that are stationary objects, anchored in the cores of their galactic hosts. So astronomers became excited when they spotted a "renegade" supermassive black hole speeding through space, as reported in a new study.

The black hole, which is 160 million times the mass of Earth's sun, appears to be the result of a collision with another black hole in a galaxy 3.9 billion light-years away from Earth. [Watch: Monster Black Hole on the Move - Where's It Headed?]

Theory suggests that when two galaxies merge, supermassive black holes in the two galaxies' cores orbit one another and eventually collide. The black hole pair may merge to create an even more massive supermassive black hole. But sometimes, the pair can violently recoil, and one of the black holes may be kicked in the opposite direction at great speed.

Researchers spotted what seems to be a "renegade" supermassive black hole speeding away from the site of a galactic merger.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/NRAO/D.-C.Kim; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

The energy behind this powerful recoil is referred to as gravitational waves. As two black holes approach one other, they generate a lot of these ripples in space-time, and if the conditions are right, there might be a preponderance of gravitational waves blasted out in one direction, ejecting one of the black holes.

While searching through thousands of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) observations in hopes of finding these recoiling black holes, the new study's researchers noticed a very bright X-ray source at the center of one galaxy. This is a telltale sign that a black hole is active and growing, the researchers said in a statement. 

Then, using the Hubble Space Telescope, they discovered that the emissions were coming from two distinct objects. Further observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Keck telescope in Hawaii revealed that one of the two black holes is not in the center of its galaxy and is traveling at a different speed than its surroundings.

These clues suggest the object is a recoiling black hole, and the host galaxy itself also carries evidence of the merger that could have instigated it, the researchers said. The galaxy is forming stars at a high rate, for example, which is a sign that interstellar gases have been compressed. Also, the outer regions of the galaxy show signs of a massive disturbance.

Although the data supports a bona fide recoiling black hole, the researchers said in the statement, further observations are needed to rule out other explanations.

The study was recently accepted to The Astrophysical Journal and is available online on arXiv.org.

Follow Ian O'Neill @astroengine. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Moving Black Hole Possibly Spotted in Far Away Galaxy | Video
• No Escape: Dive Into a Black Hole (Infographic)
• Our X-Ray Universe: Amazing Photos by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• Galactic Collisions Fuel Supermassive Black Holes | Video

{

Fantastische foto van mogelijk levensvatbare maan van Saturnus

Caroline Kraaijvanger

Op het kiekje schittert Enceladus: een maan waarvan gedacht wordt dat deze wel eens leven kan herbergen.

De foto heeft iets mysterieus. We kijken tegen de zijde aan die op Saturnus gericht is en een klein beetje verlicht wordt door het licht dat Saturnus reflecteert. De rechterzijde van de planeet baadt ondertussen in het zonlicht, waardoor de vele breuken en groeven in het kilometers dikke pak ijs goed zichtbaar zijn.

Cassini
Ruimtesonde Cassini maakte de foto eind vorig jaar, maar NASA heeft deze nu pas vrijgegeven. Op het moment dat de foto gemaakt werd, was Cassini zo’n 168.000 kilometer van de 504 kilometer grote maan verwijderd.

Foto: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Snoepwinkel
Enceladus spreekt tot de verbeelding. De maan van Saturnus is bedekt met een kilometers dik pak ijs. Maar onder dat ijs gaat hoogstwaarschijnlijk een vloeibare oceaan schuil. Onderzoekers achten het niet onmogelijk dat in die oceaan leven huist. Recent stelden onderzoekers dat de drie basisingrediënten voor leven – vloeibaar water, een energiebron voor metabolisme en de juiste chemische ingrediënten, te weten koolstof, fosfor, waterstof, stikstof, zuurstof en zwavel) bijna allemaal aanwezig zijn op Enceladus. Onderzoeker Hunter Waite noemde de maan “een snoepwinkel voor microscopisch leven”.

Of er ook echt leven is op de maan blijft onduidelijk. Want Cassini – de sonde die momenteel Saturnus en omgeving bestudeert – is niet in staat om leven op te sporen. Een goede reden om er op korte termijn een ruimtevaartuig naartoe te sturen dat dat wel kan. De ijskap die op de maan rust, heeft een gemiddelde dikte van 18 tot 22 kilometer. Maar op de zuidpool is deze dunner dan vijf kilometer. “Als Enceladus’ ondergrondse zee echt zo dicht aan het oppervlak ligt als deze studie suggereert dan kan een toekomstige missie naar deze maan die uitgerust is met een radarinstrument dat door het ijs heen kan ‘kijken’ de oceaan wellicht detecteren,” aldus onderzoeker Alice Le Gall eerder dit jaar.

Bronmateriaal:

"Slim Crescent of Ice" - NASA
De foto bovenaan dit artikel is gemaakt door NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

Wetenschap bedenkt nieuw planetair object: 'synestia'

Caroline Kraaijvanger

Ooit zou ook de aarde een ‘synestia’ zijn geweest.

Maar wat is dat dan precies? Een enorme, draaiende, donutvormige massa van heet, verdampt gesteente die ontstaat wanneer twee planeten op elkaar klappen. Dat is te lezen in het blad Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Botsingen
De synestia is een bedenksel van wetenschappers Simon Lock en Sarah Stewart. Zij doen uitgebreid onderzoek naar hoe planeten kunnen ontstaan na een aantal botsingen. Op dit moment wordt aangenomen dat rotsachtige objecten zoals de aarde, Mars en Venus ontstonden doordat kleinere hemellichamen op elkaar klapten. Die botsingen waren zo heftig, dat het resulterende hemellichaam smolt en deels verdampte. Na enige tijd koelde het af en ontstond een (vrijwel ronde) planeet.

Temperatuur en impulsmoment
Lock en Stewart richtten zich in hun nieuwe studie op botsingen tussen draaiende objecten. “Wij ontdekten dat zij een compleet nieuwe structuur kunnen vormen.” En dat is de synestia. Bij hoge temperaturen en een groot impulsmoment kunnen planeten deze nieuwe en veel grotere structuur vormen die grotendeels uit verdampt gesteente bestaat en geen vast of vloeibaar oppervlak kent.

Hier zie je op schaal een planeet, een planeet met ringen en een synestia. De drie objecten hebben allemaal dezelfde massa (ongeveer 1 aardmassa).

Afbeelding: Simon Lock / Harvard University.

Ook de aarde was een synestia
Volgens de onderzoekers maken de meeste planeten ergens in hun leven wel botsingen mee die kunnen resulteren in het ontstaan van een synestia. Voor een object zoals de aarde zou de synestia niet lang bestaan: al na zo’n 100 jaar zou deze zoveel warmte hebben verloren dat er condensatie plaatsvindt en weer een vast object ontstaat. Maar synestia’s die ontstaan door botsingen tussen veel grotere en hetere objecten – zoals gasreuzen of sterren – kunnen veel langer standhouden.

Net als de maan
De synestia-theorie kan ook wel eens leiden tot een nieuwe kijk op het ontstaan van de maan. De maan doet qua samenstelling sterk denken aan de aarde. Op dit moment wordt aangenomen dat een groot object op de aarde klapte en er tijdens die botsing materiaal in een baan rond de aarde belandde. Dat materiaal zou uiteindelijk de maan hebben gevormd. Maar tijdens een dergelijke inslag kan volgens de onderzoekers ook een synestia zijn ontstaan waaruit de aarde en de maan beiden condenseerden.

Onderzoekers hebben nog nooit een synestia waargenomen. Maar daar kan wel eens verandering in komen als we er in andere zonnestelsels actief naar gaan zoeken, zo denken Lock en Stewart.

Bronmateriaal:

"Synestia, a New Type of Planetary Object" - UC Davis

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

TRAPPIST-1h is koud en waarschijnlijk onbewoonbaar

Caroline Kraaijvanger

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/ }

UFO Sightings in the United States

Arizona Lights

Gilbert — I was going out for my birthday on March 7, 2017 when I stopped at the gas station and I look over and these lights were in the sky. I thought it was an airplane until they kept popping up and then they were there for awhile. So then I jump on my phone and started videoing it. I don’t know what they were. The airport wasn’t over that way where the lights were in the sky.

Note: The brightness of the video was adjusted to see if the lights were anchored to any structure. It does not appear that the lights were anchored to anything. The lights were stationary, but changed in number and formation. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com

California Object

 Los Angeles — I was walking out to my garage and noticed these strange lights in the sky on May 15, 2017. I ran inside to grab my phone and they had not moved when I returned. I captured a photo, and after sending it to a friend, I looked back up and they were gone. They did not fade gradually or drift off, they were simply there one moment and gone the next. I struggled to find an explanation for what it was, and still do. I lost sight by simply looking away for a moment. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Colorado Orb

Breckinridge — My friend took the picture snowboarding around the Breckinridge area on May 5, 2017.

He didn’t know it was there until he went to erase it he noticed the area I enlarged. Definitely interesting. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Weston — Walked outside and had a sense to start filming the horizon on May 13, 2017. A grey black portal distortion appeared and UFO came into view through a portal. I took a picture in addition to video. It’s not the greatest quality iPhone plus but it’s clear as day. I didn’t fully realize what I had until I uploaded it to my laptop screen. Three days before this I filmed a green orb at the Garden of the Gods;
One month I woke up to a third eye dent on my forehead and. I took a picture of the third eye dent and it shows black running out of the “dent.”. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Florida Lights

Deltona — On Friday May12, 2017, I was leaving home and saw a bright red glowing light in the sky. After a few seconds I realized it was not a plane as there was no engine noise and it was moving way too fast. I pulled out my iPhone and started recording. When I zoomed in it looked like a yellowish/orange disc flying across the sky. It quickly gained quite a bit of altitude and flew over the horizon in 90 seconds. I try to watch all shuttles and rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and I can view these from behind my house and this was way faster. A UFO group feels I took a video of Venus or Jupiter. I can say with certainty that this was NOT a planet. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Indiana Cylinder

Fort Wayne — I was sitting in my truck about to go into work on May 18, 2018, when I saw this fireball or moving object that looked strange to me. I’m pretty skeptical so I tried to come up with what it could be, but the more I look at the photo and video, the stranger it is to me. It could be nothing, but I’m not sure. It just was moving across the sky but there wasn’t a lasting contrail. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Maine Object

Coming home after work I started taking pictures of chemtrails on November 15, 2017.

Once home I downloaded pictures and noticed the object clearly and two others appearing in the 2^nd and 3rd frames. .Thanks to MUFON CMS

Michigan Discs

Capac — I saw this UFO formation in rural area in January of 1980, when I was 18 years old. It was a bitterly cold night and I was out driving with my girlfriend and another couple sipping a few beers. Nobody had cell phones, and we just socialized and listened to music.
I needed to go so I picked a spot to stop and to my right above a farmhouse were three circular craft very close to each other with lights going all the way around. The craft were kind of silhouetted darker against the sky and blocked out the stars. It was 130 feet high and floating east at walking speed. It was about 50 yards wide and the side part was only four feet high. When these things floated a hundred feet closer to me I went to the car and said, “Come out here and look at this!” They all just hollered to shut the door so. I got in the car and we drove off. I’m comfortable reaching out especially now that organization like yours exists. I even made an illustration of it because it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, Thanks to MUFON CMS

Nevada Object

North Las Vegas — On May 15, 2017, at 2:16 pm on Las Vegas Boulevard I was shooting the Nellis Air Force Base aircraft coming in for a landing. I have Sony a350 DSLR, shooting specs of iso 400, f8. I was looking north as some airplanes come straight down the Vegas Boulevard to make two 180 degree turns and land at Nellis. There were about 22 planes in this group. At about plane 18, I spotted a light coming behind and out of the clouds. I began to shoot, getting 10 shots off in 12 seconds. I recorded an image on 9 out of 10. The UFO is about two miles away that was like a bright light, but when I blew it up, it looked like a descending Smokey Goldfish Cracker. The object started up at 1000 feet and pulled a 45 degree descent and just disappeared moving really quickly. Enjoy we are indeed not alone. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New Jersey Four Orbs

Monmouth County — Driving south on Route 9 south, the orbs became apparent in my line of sight while driving and I’ve never seen the color that these objects were in the sky before. I had no idea what the objects were and I literally said out loud to myself “what am I looking at right now!?”

There were 4 objects. Three of them were mostly in a straight line maybe 200ft apart from each other and the 4th seamed further to the east and further behind the other 3. The first thing I noticed about the color was the shade and brightness of the red. As I continued driving and getting closer I could see what looked like an orange/yellow glowing ball underneath the red. At one point as they were passing over I rolled down my window. There was no sound at all. I basically drove for another 20 minutes trying to think of what it could have been what it resembled or if I had ever seen anything with those colors and shape. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New York Orb

I’ve noticed that there are multiple lighted orbs that hang around the sun during the mid morning and late afternoon. On May 11, 2017, I caught them around 3:30 pm. It would be the last photo that’s the most orbs I’ve seen at once and up in the left corner it appears to be a planet. I was able to take it to a photo specialist to confirm it wasn’t a lens flare. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Oregon Orb

Wilsonville – I looked outside and saw this object, so I got my binoculars but, could not identify what it was, It was not moving and was very bright like reflected light on May 19, 2017. It, looks like two bell shaped objects together, and it was very odd that it was not moving, so I could not attribute this to anything I know. It stayed for quite awhile. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Pennsylvania Cylinder

I took pictures of a long black cylinder moving like a worm on May 17, 2017. It had what looked like a front window on it.

Personally I’ve never seen a ufo in my life, but I often see lights in the sky at night.  Thanks to MUFON CMS

Texas Orbs

I was hanging out with some friends, when one of them noticed an odd object in the sky on May 13, 2017.

We walked into the street to see what was going on, when we noticed strange lights in the sky. I took pictures and video of the objects that seemed to just disappear, like either there was no more fuel, or they had reached such a distance that they vanished from perception. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Denton – I was driving for a case as I am an investigator for child protective services, when I saw the UFO on May 14, 2017. It was broad daylight and there were no clouds in the sky. I saw a silvery shining reflection in the sky. I immediately felt like it noticed me and followed me for at least two-three miles. It was disc shaped and then shone bright white lights before it disappeared. I did not feel apprehensive, but curious and thought that this synchronistic because I lately I have been asking my spirit guides to reveal themselves to me during my mediations. I managed to take a picture of it before it disappeared about a minute later. I observed a UFO briefly reappear an hour later. It was a silvery/grey disk and again seemed to follow my path while I was driving but disappeared after about 30 seconds. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Washington Light

Seattle – I have a video of it. It was a bright orb like object just hovering on April 24, 2017. I have been a longtime sky watcher and this was the first time that I have witnessed this. I was on the way back from China and had a layover in Seattle and witnessed this. Response from Witness: It did disappear right after I stopped the video. I was naive think if it would still be there in a few seconds. I was trying to send to my friend a short video and I went to film it again and it was gone. It disappeared in mid air. I’m sure you see a lot of crazy things in Washington, year?

Note: The object is not a bright planet because it is below the clouds on April 24, 2017. It could be a balloon, but there should be some drift with the wind. It is not likely to be a high altitude balloon because the balloons normally are maintained at a constant height and the witness said that it vanished shortly. It is unlikely to be a drone as it is near Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Drones are not allowed to be within 4 miles of an airport. Also a drone would not disappear in mid air. The weather in Seattle at the time of the video showed a few clouds at 6,000 feet and 20,000 feet. Visibility was 10 miles. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com

 Worldwide UFO Sightings

Australia

Rapid Bay — It was stormy wild weather in the morning on January 17, 2017, we were skeptical to go camping in it but went ahead and drove our friends caravan south to Rapid Bay, It was a  warm beautiful weather driving down the hill, our friend following us lingered back about noon to take some snaps. I don’t remember noticing anything in the sky, nor does my partner. The UFO in the photo looks nothing like a drone and I believe is too big in relation to the landscape. It has a shine where the sun light is hitting it with an. aura. It’s beyond the hill over the ocean moving fast. I didn’t notice this photo until a couple months later. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Canada Unknown Object

Oshawa, Ontario — I thought to share another strange image taken on May13, 2017.while outside my house. I thought to experiment and took ten photos examining all the photos found something interesting in one of the pictures taken @ 4:34 Pm. reveals a strange ‘ long ‘ colorful unknown object. This was not seen with the naked eye. I do wonder what flies undetected from the naked eye. Thanks to Paul Shishis

Czech Republic Object

Bmo — I took pictures of the landscape and I did not notice any object at the photo shoot on May 8, 2017, otherwise I would have made more photos.

I noticed it at home when I zoomed in on the desktop. When zoomed in, it is clearly visible dark object of regular shape with light around it.

Thanks to MUFON CMS

Egypt Light

Hurghada – I was at the front of the house and I was drinking a tea on May 5, 2017, when I notice an object.

I started to take photos and movies and thought it’s an airplane but it does not move for hours. Because this area is close to an airport, it looks like a star very close to the buildings. It didn’t move at all and was a beaming light. I felt so excited as I believe in UFOs and I even try the contact them. I saw it again the next day at the same spot and the same time. I lost the sight of the object when the sun light was getting stronger. Thanks to MUFON CMS

France Disc

Paris — In June 2016, whilst looking from the viewing platform we noticed a transparent orb in the distance, which when viewed through the ‘telescope’ provided on the Tower appeared to have a small red light in the centre. It was completely stationary and did not have any form of suspension to keep it in the air (e.g. lines, supports). It was visible barely with the naked eye.

I had taken several pictures of the scenery of Paris from the Tower and was only aware that we had captured the orb when reviewing the photos this year. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Norway Object

Oslo — On the afternoon of May 6th 2017 whilst driving over the mountains from Bergen to Oslo Norway I noticed a white flying object. I thought was a plane but noticed I could not see any wings, engines, or any markings. It looked a solid white cigar shape. It was a sunny bright day so I took a photo on my mobile phone and when I zoomed into the photo I noticed other strange anomalies. The experience lasted a couple of minutes as I lost sight of the flying object. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Peru UFO over Nasca Lines

Nasca Lines– A farmer, a doctor (my sister) and a journalist (me) were near Majoro Hotel, southeast of Nasca Lines and we saw at least a dozen of UFOs, Two star-like objects passing north one after the other, not so fast. I called the UFO’s to land and the first object projected two white and powerful beams. The lights seemed to reach the entire horizon and was the same quality of light at all its length, Moments after two similar objects passed one of them was carrying a meteorite with a very bright tail, orange, green, and blue. I believe they were protecting the Nasca Lines in order to avoid being impacted by the Chelyabinsk meteorite. The objects disappeared slowly going north. Other UFO’s I saw passed making sudden angles to the horizon in fraction of second. My father had contact with aliens when he was 7 years old. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Russia Cylinder

Tula — I saw a UFO in the evening and it came from beyond the river on July 24, 2011. On my right was the village of Monastyrshchino and the object appeared as a double narrow pulsating band of white light, tapering at the ends. When the object passed over my head, I saw a cigar-shaped dark body against the backdrop of the Milky Way. The orangeish and bluish lights flashed alternately at the ends. The wings were gone, and there was no noise. The object disappeared slowly behind the horizon as a narrow white pulsating band. I have not seen anything more beautiful in my life. It was like going home and there can only be beautiful good people inside. It was during the archaeological expedition on the Kulikovo field. These places are a historical monument of a Russian victory over the Golden Horde. The day before I had a magazine article with a fantastic story written by me. Thanks to MUFON CMS

UK Cylinder

Myself, my partner and our two children had just left her sister’s house on Kenwyn Close in an area of Bedford named Putnoe. We were just loading up into the car to head home when my eldest Vincent noticed what he described as a UFO. We all looked up and saw a bright light moving quite rapidly through the clouds. I took out my mobile phone and tried to record the object. I was very disappointed as it would have been something interesting to have captured and I have always had an interest in UFOs, About 7 months later I was sitting at home one evening just deleting images and videos and to my amazement I managed to capture a glimpse of the UFO. I actually captured 3 more objects in a horizontal line hovering and pulsing green red and blue. I’ve decided to report this and send you the video to make up your own minds. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Support Earth Changing Research

Please Help

Sending you these files and keeping up a website is expensive; we are just trying to break even. I have macular degeneration of my eyes so have trouble editing these files and need to hire more help. A donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.

Visit our UFO Themed Store

DONATIONS

PayPal and/or Credit Card Donations Use this link.

Check or Money Order.

Filer’s Files C/O George Filer
222 Jackson Road
Medford, NJ 08055

Products and Books

Filer’s Files: Worldwide Reports of UFO Sightings

Filer’s Files: Worldwide Reports of UFO Sightings on Amazon.com

Advertise in the Filer’s Files Newsletter

Filer’s Files Advertising Rates
1 Time 3 Times
Eight lines $25 $20 each
Quarter Page $50 $40 each
Half Page $75 $50 each
Full Page $100 $75 each

31,000 subscribers and placed in website with 4,000,000 hits average.

Website and Filer’s Files advertising, sign up online here. (Limited space available)

Send email to Email George Filer

Our research is uncovering amazing truths by solving challenging projects deemed too difficult by other firms. We have had some success in finding missing persons. We could use your help in getting more results from our research. I have put together a DVD of the last seventeen years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings. Additionally, I have decided to include my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.

Have been digging through the giant DVD you sent recently. As a relatively recent joiner, I was unaware of the years’ worth of consistent reports of the same types of objects all over. This has been very educational. Just wanted to thank you for all you’ve done.
Bruce W. Freeman
Attorney at Law

Sign me up right now for Filer’s Files.

I have put together a DVD of the last seventeen years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings that will explain the phenomena and the importance to your life and your family. Additionally, I have included my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
Please use this link to receive this offer.

JOIN MUFON!

Become a MUFON member today! Benefits of membership include a subscription to the monthly UFO Journal that contains current investigations, sightings reports, articles by world-renowned researchers and more. To join now, click here JOIN NOW

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/ }

What Other Blockbuster Villains Can Learn From David in Alien: Covenant

Michael Fassbender in Alien: Covenant.

(This post contains spoilers for Alien: Covenant.)

One of the strange side effects of the rise of superheroes in Hollywood, as well as the borderline superheroes who populate franchises like The Fast and the Furious, has been a lack of equal opposition: The villains in these movies can’t hold a candle to the protagonists. Marvel in particular has taken a lot of guff for its villain problem, but the issue extends beyond just the MCU; in general, the new stress on cinematic universes and endlessly iterative properties puts the onus on continuity, and the agents of continuity are the heroes. There’s no better example of the problem at work than the recent decisions by both the MCU and Fast and Furious to pit the heroes against each other.

Meanwhile, one franchise is showing it’s still possible for a modern blockbuster to have a great villain. In Alien: Covenant, David — the android played by Michael Fassbender, first introduced in Prometheus — comes into his own as a fleshed-out, dynamic, and genuinely striking antagonist, one who isn’t just an equal match for the heroes, but even becomes the central thread of the series. He’s a huge part of what makes Alien: Covenant work, and you can rest assured he’ll play a major role in whatever happens with the next two installments Ridley Scott has teased.

In addition to his importance to the Alien series, though, David offers a few useful lessons that other franchises can take away in trying to solve their own particular villain problems.

1. Give the villain a coherent philosophy

Over the course of Alien: Covenant, we slowly learn David’s worldview. At first, he seems simply scientifically interested in the aliens, but as our understanding of David evolves, we come to recognize him as a much more complex, and insidious, figure. He’s the enlightened monster, the educated, urbane intellectual who should be familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of 20th-century history. Like Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, David is a eugenicist and murderer who couches his philosophies in Nietzschean rhetoric about furthering the species, complete with quotes from Romantic poets like Lord Byron — except in this case, the species is the terrifying, parasitical Xenomorph.

While there are plenty of dangers in basing something as relatively innocuous as a baddie in a popcorn film on horrific real-world analogues — at another point, David annihilates the indigenous life forms of a strange planet he lands on, which has definite shades of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — it’s also what gives the film its resonance and meaning. It’s just as true now as ever that an elegant sophisticate can be a great perpetrator of evil, and that the urge to create can be used for terrible ends as well as good. David is a far more relevant and instructive villain than, say, Marvel’s generic Ultron, who’s basically a less interesting version of HAL 9000, or the ultracartoonish Cipher of Furious 7, a hacker whose entire plan seems to based on a freshman-level understanding of game theory. If you believe that big films as well as small can aspire to the achievement of art and meaning, then the interrogation of themes like these is a welcome sight.

2. Let the villain do stuff

Similarly, David gets to actually play a physical role in the plot of Alien: Covenant. He welcomes the gang to his lair, climaxing with a fascinating moment in which he rages at one of the crew for shooting and killing a Xenomorph, and, like any good villain, he gets the film’s most interesting dialogue, including a strangely touching scene in which he teaches the other android, Walter — also played by Fassbender — to play music. That might seem an obvious thing for a villain to do, but you’d be surprised how many modern blockbuster villains don’t pass that test. Instead, they often spend their entire films separated from the main characters, hiding behind faceless minions who get killed by the thousands.

Not David. He’s constantly doing stuff in the film: reciting poetry, making art, cutting his hair, lurking. He is active within the fabric of the film, not just a catalyst that makes it happen. And the way he does factor into the end is another major factor:

3. Let the villain win — or at least give him a chance

Related Stories

• Review: Alien: Covenant Is an Origin Story We Might Not Have Wanteµ
• Bryan Fuller Can’t Understand Why the Characters in Alien: Covenant Are So Dumb

The biggest problem with the villains of most contemporary studio movies is that they never stand a chance. Their plans are always so hysterically large — destroy Earth! enslave all humans! turn all living matter into an extension of themselves! — that their success wouldn’t just mean the end of the main characters, but also the end of the franchise, the cinematic universe, and, well, everything, in general. Since a big-budget tentpole movie can’t end like that, their villains are hopelessly neutered.

Alien, of course, has a huge advantage, in that the main draw are the aliens, not necessarily any one hero or group of heroes. (Although the fact that the series still produced a hero as emblematic as Ripley is also worth noting.) But that didn’t require Covenant to pull off the coup that it did, in which David ultimately gains the upper hand, taking over the ship while the helpless heroes look on. And beyond that, the mere thought that this could happen makes David a drastically more compelling figure than your average villain: He’s actually dangerous, not just a convenient conduit for stunts and CGI battles who will be disposed of by film’s end. Like many of the best movie bad guys, including Hannibal Lecter and Seven’s John Doe, he represents a demon that even his total defeat couldn’t fully banish.

4. Let the star be a star

Of course, none of this matters without Michael Fassbender. Fassbender is so good in Alien: Covenant, so fully committed and clearly happy to be playing the role, that it’s hard to imagine the part without him. Actors playing blockbuster villains are often obviously showing up for the paycheck, or else so bereft of material to work with that they end up lending the character distracting and unnecessary affectations. But in David, Fassbender has a disturbing, and disturbingly complete, mindset to work with, and he plays the part with relish, never more than in the classic moment at which he kisses himself.

More than just about any other type of role, villains allow actors to leave their stamp on a character — which is why they’re so much harder to play than heroes. In a heroic role, particularly a superheroic one, you basically just have to reflect the arc of the audience, an arc that’s pretty much identical in the vast majority of contemporary blockbusters. Play a villain, on the other hand, and you always run the risk of looking like Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending: You’re giving 110 percent to the movie, but the movie has nothing to give you back. With the best villainous performances, the film will instead nurture and reflect the actor’s performance, as The Dark Knight does for Heath Ledger, Mission: Impossible III does for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Skyfall does for Javier Bardem. Sure, those actors can’t win — but they’re such an integral part of the movie that it doesn’t really matter.

That’s what Scott’s latest Alien iteration has managed to achieve with Fassbender. And totally apart from what happens with the Xenomorph, the esoteric mythology of the series, and the fate of Katherine Waterston’s Daniels, it’s David who’s worth returning to for another go-round of the franchise.

{http://www.vulture.com/news/alien-covenant/ }

‘Unacknowledged’: New Alien Documentary Implies Marilyn Monroe Was Killed for Knowing Too Much

Are we alone in the universe? It’s been a question that’s haunted scientists, civilians, and sci-fi writers alike for hundreds of years. Unacknowledged, a new documentary about the existence of aliens, may not have definite proof about whether or not aliens exist, but it certainly offers enough of a compelling argument to make even the most skeptical Scully raise an eyebrow.

Following Dr. Steven Greer, Unacknowledged makes the claim that the United States government has been covering up the existence of aliens for decades. However, the documentary’s biggest strength is its extensive list of subjects. Rather than just focusing on a couple of key figures, director Michael Mazzola’s documentary offers dozens of talking head interviews, all of which claim to have seen an alien or UFO, been in contact to an alien, or have seen classified information that proves the existence of aliens. Additionally, most of these interviews come from former military personnel rather than civilians, adding another layer of authenticity to the documentary’s claims. Initially the theories Unacknowledged propose sound insane, but after a nonstop parade of testimonies and footage from JFK and both Bill and Hillary Clinton talking about alien life, it starts to toe the line of possibly believable. And if it’s not that, then it’s at least entertaining.

However, no alien documentary is worthwhile without a crazy conspiracy theory, and Unacknowledged is no different. At one point, the documentary proposes that Marilyn Monroe didn’t die of an overdose. Instead, she was killed to prevent her from leaking the government’s secrets, which included the U.S.’s ties to aliens. Greer initially poses the theory as coming from singer Burl Ives before pointing to a document that was filed a couple of days before Monroe’s death and calling it a “virtual death warrant.” The alleged document says that after Monroe was forced to end things with both Kennedy brothers, she threatened to host a press conference where she would tell everything. That everything supposedly included top government secrets as well as knowledge of a secret air base that was designed to examine “things from outer space.” Greer’s implication is that Monroe’s death a few days later happened as a result of the threat she made. You can watch Greer’s explanation of the Monroe conspiracy theory on Gizmodo.

Auroris Media

Of course, there’s no telling whether or not that conspiracy theory is true. It’s also just an anecdote in an hour and 45 minute documentary that’s primary purpose is to expose the existence of aliens. However, Unacknowledged is nothing if not an interesting watch even if you don’t believe its other worldly claims. It’s a documentary about aliens that’s relatively well-reasoned and has a much higher production value than other documentaries on the subject, but it still maintains the fast pace most conspiracy theories videos are known for.

Whatever side you fall on in the alien debate, Unacknowledged will likely won’t change your mind. For believers, the documentary stands as a well researched and structured argument about the existence of life on other planets — qualities most specials on this subject typically lack. For people who don’t believe, it’s a fun-to-watch documentary filled with conspiracy theories. Either way, it’s definitely worth pouring yourself a drink and pressing play.

{ http://decider.com/what-to-watch/ }

Orbit of Earth-Size Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1h in Alien Solar System Nailed Down

Detecting Life In Space: The Red Edge

NASA

The universe's "most interesting star" just started acting up again.

Known as KIC 8462852, or the WTF star (for "Where's The Flux"), this sun became famous a few years ago for its strange short-lived dips in light output. Its behavior was weird enough that astronomers added "alien megastructures" to the long list of possible explanations for WTF star's changes in brightness. My twitter feed was lighting up this weekend as WTF star started, once again, to show a pronounced diminution.

The excitement over WTF star is, ultimately, about finding evidence for life on other planets. But even without alien megastructures (which are probably not going to be the explanation), WTF star highlights the remarkable range of ways astronomers might be able to find evidence for life on distant planets.

Since we'll be staring hard at thousands of these worlds over the next few decades, each kind of life detection method is exciting in its own right. That's why today I want to introduce you to "The Red Edge" (which, also, just sounds pretty cool).

The story starts with one of space exploration's greatest tragedies.

Back in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during launch, killing the entire crew. The loss was devastating for so many reasons, but one of its consequences was that the Galileo mission to Jupiter was left without a launch vehicle. The plan had been for it to ride a shuttle into space, where a powerful booster would then send it on to a half-billion-or-so-mile ride to the solar system's largest world. In the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, NASA scientists were forced to launch Galileo using a less powerful booster, placing it onto a complicated trajectory that used the gravity of a number of planets to slingshot the spacecraft out to Jupiter. In particular, Galileo first headed inward to Venus and then back to Earth — twice — picking up speed with each gravity "assist." It was during these Earth-return fly-bys that scientists came to the novel idea of viewing our planet as if it were an alien world.

The idea was, in part, Carl Sagan's. As Galileo passed by Earth, it trained its instruments on our planet and recorded the light it reflected from the sun. In this way, scientists could run an experiment to see if Earth's light "signal" could reveal the presence of life.

Of all the features the scientists found in the Earth-light, one of the most important came in the form of a sharp change in our planet's reflectance just past the wavelengths of red light. Reflectance means how much of the sunlight falling on the planet gets bounced back into space. Low reflectance means much of the light is being absorbed, while high reflectance means the opposite. The Galileo data showed that Earth's reflectance depended strongly on the light's color (meaning its wavelength). Most of the light in the visible spectrum was strongly absorbed. But around the wavelength of red light (past a half of a millionth of meter) the reflectance shot up. This wall in the reflectance curve was known from remote sensing studies and was called The Red Edge. In a paper titled "A Search for Life on Earth From The Galileo Spacecraft," Sagan and his co-authors highlighted the planet's absorption and reflection properties as one of four critical pieces of data that confirmed Earth was, in fact, a living world.

But what causes the Red Edge and why might it be a cosmic life-detector? The answer lies within even the most lowly houseplant.

Almost all of the world's vegetation will strongly absorb light in the blue and green parts of the spectrum. Much of this is due to photosynthesis, since these are the wavelengths of light plants absorb to make sugars and power their metabolism. At longer wavelengths, the leaves have no need to absorb sunlight, so they've evolved to reflect this light back into space. So what Galileo was seeing as it flew by Earth was the combined absorbing power of an entire planet's worth of vegetation.

Of course, Sagan and other astronomers knew that what works for Earth may work for alien worlds, too. Maybe we could detect Red Edges in the spectra from other worlds. If so, wouldn't that be proof of alien life and, even better, of full alien biospheres?

Astronomers are now deep in their "exo-planet" revolution. That means they're learning how to probe the light from these worlds in ways that, in principle, mimic what Galileo did for Earth. The crucial difference, of course, is distance. These planets are light-years away. That means we get just a minute fraction of the light they reflect from their stars. Astronomers must be extremely clever in how they go about their searches for exoplanet Red Edges. That's a challenge they're already working to overcome.

One early example of of these efforts is a well-regarded paper from 2005 by Sara Seager and collaborators titled Vegetation's Red Edge: A Possible Spectroscopic Biosignature of Extraterrestrial Plants. The team laid out arguments for how the Red Edge might be detected in light from other worlds. They also made the important case that evolution on any planet might lead to some kind of feature like the Red Edge. As they put it, " ... while extraterrestrial 'light-harvesting organisms' have no compelling reason to display the exact same red edge feature as terrestrial vegetation, they might have similar spectroscopic features at different wavelengths than terrestrial vegetation." Thus a Red Edge of some kind, may, perhaps be universal.

For years now, movies and TV have taught us that the only way to find life in the universe was to directly detect purposeful signals from intelligences on those worlds. With the advent of the exo-planet revolution, a new era has opened. The WTF star raised the issue that we may detect intelligence by the artifacts they leave. Even more important, and more likely, is that we might find evidence of less-evolved forms of life by the imprints they leave on the planet as a whole. The lesson of the Red Edge is that life — even plants — can change planets in ways that might be visible from across the depths of space.

---

Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science." You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter:@adamfrank4

{ http://www.npr.org/ }

'This is not a drill': Scientists scramble to observe mysterious Tabby's Star

By Nick Whigham

An artists depiction of a theoretical Dyson sphere. Photo / Getty Images

The possible existence of an alien megastructure orbiting a mysterious star in the Milky Way is one of the more far fetched theories banded about by imaginative stargazers — but it's not going away.

Over the past weekend astronomers were rushing to fix their telescopes on the mysterious star which spawned the theory because it was, once again, acting strangely.

Known as Tabby's Star, or KIC 8462852, the odd pattern of light emitted from the star located about 1500 light years away continues to leave scientists puzzled since it's strange luminosity was noticed in recent years.

The star's observed brightness dips by about 20 per cent, an unexplained phenomena that has led to a number of theories, some more sensational than others.

On Friday night astronomer Jason Wright from Penn State University — the same academic who recently wrote a paper about the hypothetical existence of an indigenous alien species in our solar system before humans — noted that the brightness of Tabby's Star was dipping again.

The star is named after astronomer Tabetha Boyajian who first reported on the star's seemingly strange behaviour after analysing data from the Hubble Telescope.

She has been posting recording of the star's dimming over the past few days with great excitement.

View image on Twitter

 Follow

Tabetha Boyajian 

✔@tsboyajian

the newest light curve for #TabbysStar from LCO 0.4m scopes shows it has a complex shape. And its not over yet!@LCO_Global

7:20 PM - 21 May 2017

•  151151 Retweets
•  209209 likes

 YouTube ‎@YouTube

 Follow

Tabetha Boyajian 

✔@tsboyajian

#TabbysStar is dimming right now - join our live chat with @astro_wright @BerkeleySETI https://youtu.be/eYpIGZS8nJc  via @YouTube

8:30 PM - 19 May 2017

• 9393 Retweets
•  113113 likes

But we still have no idea why the star appears to be flickering.

One of the most favoured explanations for seemingly random light fluctuation is that a swarm of comet fragments is periodically blocking light from the star. Another very similar theory contends it could be the debris of a destroyed planet that is blocking the star's rays, however such a theory struggles to explain the irregularity of the dimming.

Another technically possible explanation that has been banded about — and gained much attention in the media — is the idea that an alien megastructure has been responsible for blocking the star's light.

It's a notion that has its origins in an idea put forth by physicist Freeman Dyson who proposed that a massive orbiting array of solar collectors (which has become known as a Dyson structure) would be a perfectly rational thing for an alien society to build to meet its energy needs.

Of course, scientists think that's hugely improbable.

Last year SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial life Institute) announced it was going to focus on the star in a bid to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Dan Werthimer, a chief scientist at Berkeley SETI, was quick to dismiss the wild theories of an alien megastructure.

"I don't think it's very likely — a one in a billion chance or something like that — but nevertheless, we're going to check it out," he said.

- news.com.au

{ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ }

UK Government To Release “Secret Dossier” Of All British UFO Sightings After Election Next Month

Katy Evans 

Copy Editor

In a plot that sounds straight out of, if not Bond, then perhaps Kingsman (or even Jonny English), the British government is set to release previously unpublished information it holds on UFO sightings in the UK, once the general election is over in June, a German website has exclusively claimed.

According to Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell, a “newsblog on frontier science and the paranormal”, the secret dossier will reveal previously unpublished reports of UFO activity spanning 50 years collected by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Back in 2013, the MoD released what it said was all of its UFO-related files via the National Archives, although in 2014 it admitted it had held back 18 documents, due to identifying some content that needed to be re-examined before it could be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.

This, of course, prompted claims of a cover-up of the existence of alien life by men with a penchant for dark clothing. 

The MoD then announced it would be releasing these files in 2015, which got pushed back to 2016, then summer 2016, then March 2017, and now apparently June. According to a letter to the German site from a spokesperson for the National Archives, the current delay is due to the general election that will be held in the UK on June 8.

“Due to the upcoming election here in the UK and the rules relating to government departments during the pre-election period, the files will not be released until after the election,” the letter reads. “We are working to ensure that the files are ready for release as soon after this period as is possible: hopefully around the middle of June.“

Paranormal “researchers” and alien hunters are hoping for proof of extraterrestrials, conspiracies laid bare, and government cover-ups worthy of the more outlandish episode of X-files, but even if it doesn't deliver on that count (#sorrynotsorry), the documents should hold some interesting information, dating back to the 1970s.

“There's no smoking gun in these files that will confirm the existence of aliens, but there are plenty of fascinating UFO reports and MoD policy documents, so these really are the real life X-Files,” Nick Pope, a former MoD investigator into UFO sightings, told the Daily Mail.

“The delay has been a comedy of errors though, I think it's more bureaucracy than conspiracy,” he added.

Amongst the files expected to be released are documents on "Britain's answer to Roswell", the Rendlesham Forest incident of 1980, where multiple people reported seeing an unidentified flying object landing at close range near the military RAF-bases Bentwaters and Woodbridge.

Coincidence that Mulder and Scully returned to our screens last year after a 14-year absence? We'll see.  

[H/T: RT]

{ http://www.iflscience.com/ }

13 Famous People Who Believe in Aliens

Credit: lassedesignen/Shutterstock

0. I want to believe

Are we alone in the universe? It's a question that humanity has long grappled with. But while astronomers continue to scan the cosmos for signs of alien life, imaginations are free to run wild here on Earth. From pop stars to Hollywood actors to politicians, here are 13 famous people who believe in aliens.

Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty

1. Winston Churchill

History remembers Winston Churchill for his political prowess and his leadership during a complex time in Britain's history, but a relatively unknown part of the statesman's legacy — one in which he confronted the idea of alien civilizations — was recently uncovered.

Churchill penned an 11-page essay on alien life in 1939, revealing his curiosity about the universe and outlining his definition of life and its most important ingredients.

"I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures," he wrote in the newly uncovered essay, "or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."

Churchill's essay was described in an article published in the journal Nature in February 2017.

Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty

2. Khloe Kardashian

It can be hard keeping up with the Kardashians' exploits, but when it comes to aliens, at least one member of the famous family is a believer. In 2015, Khloe Kardashian saw strange lights in the sky and tweeted "Kendall and I are spazzing out!!!!!! #UFO." 

Though the U.S. Navy later said the unusual lights were part of a pre-planned missile test, Kardashian stuck to her guns.

"What do we expect people to say? Obvi they are going to say it's a meteor shower. I'm such a conspiracy theorist let me enjoy this," she responded.

Credit: Hagen Hopkins/Getty

4. Zayn Malik

Singer Zayn Malik told Glamour in July 2016 that the first time he realized he wanted to leave the boy band One Direction and go solo was after a paranormal encounter. "An alien spoke to me in a dream," he told the magazine.

Malik is in a relationship with model Gigi Hadid, who recently posed for a space-themed photo spread for Harper's Bazaar. "My boyfriend's really into aliens," Hadid told the interviewer from Harper's Bazaar during the photo shoot at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty

5. Gigi Hadid

It's always better when two people in a relationship are on the same page about important issues. For model Gigi Hadid and her boyfriend, singer Zayn Malik, their shared belief in aliens makes them a match made in … the cosmos?

In a recent, space-themed photo spread for Harper's Bazaar, Hadid posed at the controls of a spacecraft, in front of massive rockets and rocket engines, and on what's made to look like the lunar surface. In the Harper's Bazaar interview, Hadid revealed that she and Malik both believe that life exists beyond Earth.

"My boyfriend's really into aliens," she told the magazine.

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty

6. Ariana Grande

Singer Ariana Grande has described herself as "obsessed" with aliens, and in a 2013 interview with Complex magazine, the pop powerhouse said, "We'd be so stupid to believe we are the only people here." 

Grande's music video for the song "Break Free" featured her battling aliens and dancing on a spaceship. But Grande told Complex she has never seen a real extraterrestrial (though she said she did have a ghost and demon experience once at a haunted castle in Kansas City). 

Credit: 20th Century Fox

7. Ridley Scott

Film director Ridley Scott is no stranger to the concept of alien invasions and hostile encounters with extraterrestrials. His 1979 movie "Alien" explored the scary concept of an aggressive extraterrestrial that targets the crew of a spaceship. The film spawned a franchise with three sequels and two prequels, including "Alien: Covenant," which opens in theaters in the U.S. on May 19, 2017.

While promoting the new film, Scott warned that hundreds of alien species are "out there" and cautioned that humans likely won't fare well if these cosmic interlopers ever decide to pay a visit to Earth.

"If you are stupid enough to challenge them, you will be taken out in three seconds," Scott told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Credit: Araya Diaz/Getty

8. Gillian Anderson

Actress Gillian Anderson is best known for playing FBI Special Agent Dana Scully on the hit sci-fi series "The X-Files." But while Anderson spent nine seasons investigating paranormal phenomena on the small screen, does she believe in aliens in real life?

"I do to the degree that the universe is obviously vast and the thought that we are the only planet full of living beings doesn't make sense," Anderson said in an interview with The Guardian in 2012. "That doesn't necessarily mean that there are aliens, but there could be. If we're talking about an advancement of technology, that they'd be potentially further along than us is as conceivable as their existence. So I wouldn't rule it out."

Credit: Capitol Records

9. Katy Perry

In a 2014 interview with GQ, pop star Katy Perry spoke about her wide range of beliefs.

"I see everything through a spiritual lens," she told GQ. "I believe in a lot of astrology. I believe in aliens. I look up into the stars and I imagine: How self-important are we to think that we are the only life-form?"

At the time, Perry said she might even take her questions about alien life to then-President Barack Obama.

"I mean, if my relationship with Obama gets any better, I'm going to ask him that question. It just hasn't been appropriate yet."

Credit: Nicholas Hunt/Getty

10. Nick Jonas

In an interview with the British talk show "The Morning," singer Nick Jonas described his own close encounter.

"I was in my backyard in L.A., and I looked up at the sky and [saw] three flying saucers," Jonas said. "I looked at my friend and said, 'Are you seeing this or am I losing my mind?'"

Jonas said he looked online and saw three similar reports from two weeks earlier. The U.S. Navy later claimed responsibility for the seemingly out-of-this-world display, saying the lights were from a Trident missile test. But Jonas has other ideas.

"I'm obsessed with UFO stuff in general, so I'm all over this," Jonas said. "That blue light freaks me out in the best way possible."

Credit: Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty

11. William Shatner

As the most recognizable face of the "Star Trek" franchise, actor William Shatner is probably used to fielding questions about his extraterrestrial beliefs. But in a 2010 interview for Montreal Gazette, the man who brought Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise to life explained why he thinks intelligent beings must be out there.

"There is no doubt that there is life out there; the mathematics of it lead you to that absolute conclusion. In my mind, there is no doubt that the universe teems — teems! — with life in all its forms."

Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty

12. Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking has repeatedly warned that humans should be wary of contacting alien civilizations. In 2016, in a documentary called "Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places," the famed theoretical physicist said humanity may one day receive a signal from a potentially habitable alien world, such as Gliese 832c.

"But we should be wary of answering back," Hawking said in the 26-minute documentary. "Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well."

That's not the first time Hawking has expressed such a concern. In 2015, he cautioned that visiting aliens may be in search of resources to plunder, as they roam the cosmos colonizing other worlds.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach," he said in an interview with El País at the time.

Still, Hawking said it's not likely that humanity will find intelligent alien life in the next 20 years. "The probability is low, probably," said Hawking, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is paralyzed, but "speaks" with the assistance of a computer.

Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

13. Demi Lovato

During an appearance on the talk show "Late Night with Seth Myers," singer Demi Lovato insisted that aliens are real. "How self-centered would we be, as humans, to believe that we are the only living things in the universe?" she said.