Unusual Lights Appear In the Dark Sky Over Katy

Extra-terrestrials appear to have been checking the traffic jams in Katy, Texas. A person caught a cell phone video of multiple strange lights in the sky as he drove along Hyw 99 Grand Parkway north towards I-10 and Highland Knolls. The video initially shows three mysterious lights flying close to each other. Moments later, the fourth light emerges on the screen.

According to the driver, he was going home around 8:20 pm on September 18 when he noticed the lights in the night sky. The eyewitness noted that there is no airport in the area where he saw the strange aerial things flickering in and out. He said that the fourth one flicked into the video after one light disappeared.

The driver initially thought they might have been flares, but he saw the last light moved at a fast rate to the east at a 90-degree angle until it reached beyond the tree line and disappeared.

The eyewitness reported the sighting to Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) along with the video taken in Katy.

The sighting is still under investigation. MUFON encourages anyone to report own UFO sightings to their website.

Full video:

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

Gravitational Waves Detected from the Same Cosmic Event

This is the longest gravitational wave signal ever detected.

By Peter Hess

Astronomers have seen evidence of a handful of gravitational waves in the past two years, but this week they announced that they saw something they’d never seen before.

Two neutron stars colliding is what researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — LIGO — saw this summer, news they revealed on Monday.

In an ongoing collaboration with the Virgo Observatory in Italy, the United States-based LIGO detected a prolonged signal that was different from previous black hole mergers they’d detected. This one, which occurred on August 17, was much higher frequency and lasted much longer. It turns out the signal came from two neutron stars circling each other before colliding about 130 million light-years from Earth.

The collision sent out gravitational waves in every direction, rippling spacetime. The merger also emitted a flash of gamma rays, which Earth- and space-based detectors caught. Here’s what scientists envision the collision looked like:

“While earlier detections of the black holes that we’ve made … only lasted for us a couple of seconds or much less, this neutron star inspiral lasted for over a minute,” LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker told reporters on Monday.

The reason for this longer detection is that neutron stars, the smallest, densest stars known to exist, are much lighter than black holes. Whereas the merging black holes that created earlier gravitational wave detections were many times larger than the sun — the first detection in 2015 involved black holes of 29 and 36 solar masses — the neutron stars involved in this latest detection were only about the mass of the sun or maybe twice the mass of the sun.

As a result, this binary neutron star system emitted gravitational waves at a higher frequency, a frequency that Earth-based detectors could measure more easily.

“The result is that we can see the system for some 1,500 complete cycles of these two objects around each other,” said Shoemaker. “It gives us a chance to get a very precise measurement of the parameters of the system.”

Here’s how the latest detection compares to previous ones:

This prolonged signal came to Earth from the region defined by the Hydra Constellation. Scientists figured out where the gravitational waves came from by comparing the times when the signals hit the three different detectors involved: the Virgo Observatory detector in Italy, the LIGO detector in Louisiana, and the LIGO detector in Washington. Here’s what it looked like:

The miniscule differences in detection times helped astronomers discern where the waves emitted from originally. The next steps will be to figure out what exactly happened to the neutron stars after they collided.

“We don’t exactly know what happened to the objects at the end,” said Shoemaker. “We don’t know whether it’s a black hole or a neutron star, or perhaps something else.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

Gravitational waves plus new clues from space reveal new way to make a black hole

For the first time, two neutron stars are caught in the act of colliding

Date:

October 16, 2017

Source:

Penn State

Summary:

For the first time, scientists have detected both gravitational waves and light shooting toward our planet from the birthplace of a new black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars. The discovery marks the beginning of a new era of    

Artist impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.

Credit: R. Hurt, Caltech/JPL

For the first time, scientists worldwide and at Penn State University have detected both gravitational waves and light shooting toward our planet from one massively powerful event in space -- the birth of a new black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars. This detection is important because it marks the beginning of a new era of "multi-messenger" as well as "multi-wavelength" space exploration -- an era when gravitational-wave detectors are triggering a global network of other types of instruments to focus their special detection powers simultaneously on one fleetingly explosive point in space.

All the previous gravitational-wave detections since the first in September 2015 had been the result of two merging black holes -- objects much more massive than a neutron star -- which have left only gravitational waves as fleeting clues of their merger. "The evidence that these new gravitational waves are from merging neutron stars has been captured, for the first time, by observatories on Earth and in orbit that detect electromagnetic radiation, including visible light and other wavelengths," said Chad Hanna, assistant professor of physics and of astronomy & astrophysics and Freed Early Career Professor at Penn State. Hanna has served as co-chair of the Compact Binary Coalescence Group of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), and is one of the primary data analysts involved in this research.

"Several graduate students and post-docs on my Penn State research team were among the first in the world to see the alert triggered by LIGO when this new gravitational wave arrived," Hanna said. "Cody Messick -- a graduate student -- sent the first email to the broader collaboration notifying everyone of what had happened." Penn State's LIGO team, along with other members of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, quickly alerted a worldwide network of observatories whose scientists then commandeered their telescopes and other detectors to look for more evidence. "Because we now have three gravitational-wave detectors -- the two LIGO detectors in the United States plus the Virgo detector in Europe -- we were able to triangulate the location of the source of the waves sufficiently well for several observatories to find the counterpart" Hanna said.

NASA's Swift, Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer missions, along with dozens of ground-based observatories, later captured the fading glow of the blast's expanding debris. Numerous scientific papers describing and interpreting these new observations are being published in Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal. Penn State scientists are leaders and innovators in many of the scientific collaborations contributing to these new multiwavelength discoveries. Penn State has earned a reputation rivaled by only a few other educational institutions for the breadth and depth of the contributions its scientists have made and are continuing to make in discoveries that enrich our understanding of the universe and its effect on our planet.

"We applaud this latest achievement of our many Penn State scientists and students who have helped to build and are helping to develop this innovative new technology and its system of international collaboration among many research teams worldwide," said Nicholas P. Jones, Penn State's Executive Vice President and Provost. "With their knowledge, skills, and creativity, our scientists are contributing to the evolution of this new way of exploring the universe."

Penn State scientists are leaders in the development and operation of NASA's Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer satellite. Two of Swift's three instruments were built with Penn State leadership, and Penn State continues to lead Swift's Mission Operations Center, which is located on the University Park Campus. "Swift's rapid response time enabled us to use it to rapidly search for and detect the electromagnetic counterpart of this gamma-ray burst after its detection by LIGO," said Jamie Kennea, associate research professor of astronomy and astrophysics, the leader of the Swift Science Operations Team at Swift's Mission Operations Center, located at Penn State's University Park campus.

"We saw ultraviolet light resulting from this gravitational-wave event as part of Swift observations of almost 750 different locations in the sky. Then, as this light rapidly faded from view, we intensely observed it with Swift's ultraviolet/optical telescope, the UVOT," Kennea said. "Because ultraviolet light from objects in space can be detected only by telescopes located outside Earth's atmosphere, Swift's UVOT telescope provided unique data on this event. These new data now present new questions for theorists to solve."

Penn State astronomers also are among the leaders in the development and use of NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. Gordon Garmire, Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is the principal investigator of the team that built one of the primary instruments on board the satellite. He also is a co-discoverer of high-energy gamma rays and is responsible for developing many of the data-analysis algorithms used today in high-energy astrophysics.

Penn State's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, directed by Eberly Professor of Physics Abhay Ashtekar, includes Penn State's Center for Particle and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics, where leading scientists in both theoretical and experimental physics collaborate. The center's faculty are prominent participants in eight major international projects that are making rapid-response observations -- using extremely high-energy protons and nuclei, neutrinos, gamma-rays, X-rays and gravitational waves -- as quickly as possible after gravitational waves are discovered by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. These projects are the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer satellite, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory, the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational-waves (NANOGrav) and the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) TeV gamma-ray detector.

Long before it was possible to detect gravitational waves, highly respected theories about the kinds of evidence that two merging neutron stars could produce were developed by Peter Mészáros, Penn State's Eberly Family Chair in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Professor of Physics, together with his colleague Martin Rees. "Our theories predicted that neutron star binaries, which would inevitably merge as they emit gravitational waves, would produce a short and distinctive burst of gamma rays at the moment of their merger," Mészáros said. "Previously, as anticipated, gamma ray detectors had observed bursts of gamma rays such as were expected from neutron star mergers. However, we never before have had the important independent confirmation of the merger of two neutron stars that we now have obtained with this new gravitational wave detection. For the first time, exactly the evidence we needed has been provided by the gamma-ray detections that coincided with this new gravitational-wave burst."

The scientists now have not only gravitational-wave detectors but also a wealth of other types of observatories collaborating in this effort to capture a range of multimessenger signals from the sources that produce gravitational waves. "In order to facilitate this effort, Penn State is spearheading the new Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) in our Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos," Mészáros said. These combined detection capabilities give us a much better tool, which we now can begin to use to gauge -- much more accurately than previously was possible -- the age of the universe and how fast it is expanding."  

{ Science Daily }

ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source

Merging neutron stars scatter gold and platinum into space

ESO’s fleet of telescopes in Chile have detected the first visible counterpart to a gravitational wave source. These historic observations suggest that this unique object is the result of the merger of two neutron stars. The cataclysmic aftermaths of this kind of merger — long-predicted events called kilonovae — disperse heavy elements such as gold and platinum throughout the Universe. This discovery, published in several papers in the journal Nature and elsewhere, also provides the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are caused by mergers of neutron stars.

For the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light (electromagnetic radiation) from the same event, thanks to a global collaborative effort and the quick reactions of both ESO’s facilities and others around the world.

On 17 August 2017 the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, working with the Virgo Interferometer in Italy, detected gravitational waves passing the Earth. This event, the fifth ever detected, was named GW170817. About two seconds later, two space observatories, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and ESA’s INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), detected a short gamma-ray burst from the same area of the sky.

The LIGO–Virgo observatory network positioned the source within a large region of the southern sky, the size of several hundred full Moons and containing millions of stars [1]. As night fell in Chile many telescopes peered at this patch of sky, searching for new sources. These included ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) and VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory, the Italian Rapid Eye Mount (REM) telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, the LCO 0.4-meter telescope at Las Cumbres Observatory, and the American DECam at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The Swope 1-metre telescope was the first to announce a new point of light. It appeared very close to NGC 4993, a lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Hydra, and VISTA observations pinpointed this source at infrared wavelengths almost at the same time. As night marched west across the globe, the Hawaiian island telescopes Pan-STARRS and Subaru also picked it up and watched it evolve rapidly.

“There are rare occasions when a scientist has the chance to witness a new era at its beginning,” said Elena Pian, astronomer with INAF, Italy, and lead author of one of the Nature papers. “This is one such time!”

ESO launched one of the biggest ever “target of opportunity” observing campaigns and many ESO and ESO-partnered telescopes observed the object over the weeks following the detection [2]. ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), New Technology Telescope (NTT), VST, the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) [3] all observed the event and its after-effects over a wide range of wavelengths. About 70 observatories around the world also observed the event, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Distance estimates from both the gravitational wave data and other observations agree that GW170817 was at the same distance as NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. This makes the source both the closest gravitational wave event detected so far and also one of the closest gamma-ray burst sources ever seen [4].

The ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves are created by moving masses, but only the most intense, created by rapid changes in the speed of very massive objects, can currently be detected. One such event is the merging of neutron stars, the extremely dense, collapsed cores of high-mass stars left behind after supernovae [5]. These mergers have so far been the leading hypothesis to explain short gamma-ray bursts. An explosive event 1000 times brighter than a typical nova — known as a kilonova — is expected to follow this type of event.

The almost simultaneous detections of both gravitational waves and gamma rays from GW170817 raised hopes that this object was indeed a long-sought kilonova and observations with ESO facilities have revealed properties remarkably close to theoretical predictions. Kilonovae were suggested more than 30 years ago but this marks the first confirmed observation.

Following the merger of the two neutron stars, a burst of rapidly expanding radioactive heavy chemical elements left the kilonova, moving as fast as one-fifth of the speed of light. The colour of the kilonova shifted from very blue to very red over the next few days, a faster change than that seen in any other observed stellar explosion.

“When the spectrum appeared on our screens I realised that this was the most unusual transient event I’d ever seen,” remarked Stephen Smartt, who led observations with ESO’s NTT as part of the extended Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (ePESSTO) observing programme. “I had never seen anything like it. Our data, along with data from other groups, proved to everyone that this was not a supernova or a foreground variable star, but was something quite remarkable.”

Spectra from ePESSTO and the VLT’s X-shooter instrument suggest the presence of caesium and tellurium ejected from the merging neutron stars. These and other heavy elements, produced during the neutron star merger, would be blown into space by the subsequent kilonova. These observations pin down the formation of elements heavier than iron through nuclear reactions within high-density stellar objects, known as r-process nucleosynthesis, something which was only theorised before.

“The data we have so far are an amazingly close match to theory. It is a triumph for the theorists, a confirmation that the LIGO–VIRGO events are absolutely real, and an achievement for ESO to have gathered such an astonishing data set on the kilonova,” adds Stefano Covino, lead author of one of the Nature Astronomy papers.

“ESO’s great strength is that it has a wide range of telescopes and instruments to tackle big and complex astronomical projects, and at short notice. We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!” concludes Andrew Levan, lead author of one of the papers.

Notes

[1] The LIGO–Virgo detection localised the source to an area on the sky of about 35 square degrees.

[2 The galaxy was only observable in the evening in August and then was too close to the Sun in the sky to be observed by September.

[3] On the VLT, observations were taken with: the X-shooter spectrograph located on Unit Telescope 2 (UT2); the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) and Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) – Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph (CONICA) (NACO) on Unit Telescope 1 (UT1); VIsible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) and VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared (VISIR) located on Unit Telescope 3 (UT3); and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) on Unit Telescope 4 (UT4). The VST observed using the OmegaCAM and VISTA observed with the VISTA InfraRed CAMera (VIRCAM). Through the ePESSTO programme, the NTT collected visible spectra with the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 (EFOSC2) spectrograph and infrared spectra with the Son of ISAAC (SOFI) spectrograph. The MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope observed using the Gamma-Ray burst Optical/Near-infrared Detector (GROND) instrument.

[4] The comparatively small distance between Earth and the neutron star merger, 130 million light-years, made the observations possible, since merging neutron stars create weaker gravitational waves than merging black holes, which were the likely case of the first four gravitational wave detections.

[5] When neutron stars orbit one another in a binary system, they lose energy by emitting gravitational waves. They get closer together until, when they finally meet, some of the mass of the stellar remnants is converted into energy in a violent burst of gravitational waves, as described by Einstein’s famous equation E=mc².

More information

This research was presented in a series of papers to appear in Nature, Nature Astronomy and Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The extensive list of team members is available in this PDF file

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and by Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

LIGO is funded by the NSF, and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived of LIGO and led the Initial and Advanced LIGO projects. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by the NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council) making significant commitments and contributions to the project. More than 1,200 scientists from around the world participate in the effort through the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. Additional partners are listed at http://ligo.org/partners.php.

The Virgo collaboration consists of more than 280 physicists and engineers belonging to 20 different European research groups: six from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France; eight from the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy; two in the Netherlands with Nikhef; the MTA Wigner RCP in Hungary; the POLGRAW group in Poland; Spain with the University of Valencia; and the European Gravitational Observatory, EGO, the laboratory hosting the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy, funded by CNRS, INFN, and Nikhef.

Links

• Team members
• FAQ (PDF file, 184 KB)
• Fact Sheet (PDF file, 105 KB)
• Science Paper 1: “Spectroscopic identification of r-process nucleosynthesis in a double neutron star merger”, by E. Pian et al. in Nature. (PDF file, 196 KB)
• Science Paper 2: “The emergence of a lanthanide-rich kilonova following the merger of two neutron stars”, by N. R. Tanvir et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 843 KB)
• Science Paper 3: “The electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source unveils a kilonova”, by S. J. Smartt et al. in Nature (PDF file, 9 MB)
• Science Paper 4: “The unpolarized macronova associated with the gravitational wave event GW170817”, by S. Covino et al. in Nature Astronomy (PDF file, 230 KB)
• Science Paper 5: “The Distance to NGC 4993 — The host galaxy of the gravitational wave event GW17017”, by J. Hjorth et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 2.4 MB)
• Science Paper 6: “The environment of the binary neutron star merger GW170817”, by A. J. Levan et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters (PDF file, 2.6 MB)
• LIGO press release
• ESA/Hubble press release

Contacts

Stephen Smartt
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7876 014103
Email: s.smartt@qub.ac.uk

Elena Pian
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Bologna, Italy
Tel: +39 051 6398701
Email: elena.pian@inaf.it

Andrew Levan
University of Warwick
Coventry, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7714 250373
Email: A.J.Levan@warwick.ac.uk

Nial Tanvir
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7980 136499
Email: nrt3@leicester.ac.uk

Stefano Covino
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Merate, Italy
Tel: +39 02 72320475
Cell: +39 331 6748534
Email: stefano.covino@brera.inaf.it

Marina Rejkuba
ESO Head of User Support Department
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6453
Email: mrejkuba@eso.org

Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org

{ https://www.eso.org/public/ }

ESO Scientists Unveil an “Unprecedented Discovery” About Gravitational Waves

by Brad Jones

 

 ESO

New Wave

Last week, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) teased news of an “unprecedented discovery.” Now, the organization has revealed that, for the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light produced by the same event.

“This discovery is significant because it gives us two completely different ways to view the same thing,” Brian Koberlein, astrophysicist and Senior Lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, explained to Futurism. “Imagine trying to follow a detective show if you could just hear the show without video, or just see the show without hearing it. When you combine the two you get the whole picture.”

VIMOS image of galaxy NGC 4993 showing the visible-light counterpart to a merging neutron star pair. Image Credit: ESO/A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime that were first theorized by Albert Einstein about a century ago. Last year marked the first time we’ve been able to observe the phenomena, and so far, all the gravitational waves we’ve observed have been caused by particularly intense events, such as the merging of neutron stars. This type of merger has also been considered the most likely cause of short gamma ray bursts, cosmic explosions that emit massive amounts of light.

On August 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) caught evidence of gravitational waves passing over Earth — only the fifth time such a detection has been made. Just two seconds later, both NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the ESA’s International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory detected a short gamma-ray burst in a similar region of the sky. This quick succession led the researchers to believe the gravitational waves and light were caused by a single event.

Scientists have long suspected that the merger of two neutron stars would be followed by a kilonova, an explosive occurrence some 1,000 times brighter than a standard nova. They speculated that the near-simultaneous observations of gravitational waves and a gamma ray burst could indicate that such an event was taking place, and subsequent study by ESO facilities indicates that this was the case: a kilonova had finally been observed.

“I had never seen anything like it,” Stephen Smartt, who led observations with the ESO’s New Technology Telescope, said in an ESO press release. “Our data, along with data from other groups, proved to everyone that this was not a supernova or a foreground variable star, but was something quite remarkable.”

Rare Occasion

No single facility was responsible for this breakthrough discovery — it was truly a collaborative effort. A large swathe of sky containing millions of stars needed to be monitored after the initial detection of the gravitational waves and light, so a host of different facilities were called into action.

Paranal Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope and VLT Survey Telescope, La Silla Observatory’s Rapid Eye Mount telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory’s LCO 0.4-meter telescope, and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory’s Dark Energy Camera were all used to observe further developments.

The Swope 1-meter telescope at Cerro Las Campanas was the first to spot a new point of light appearing close to the lenticular galaxy designated NGC 4993. This point of light was monitored by the Pan-STARRS telescope and the Subaru telescope in Hawaii overnight. Even more observatories and telescopes would study the event over the following couple of weeks.

“ESO’s great strength is that it has a wide range of telescopes and instruments to tackle big and complex astronomical projects, and at short notice,” said Andrew Levan, lead author of one of the papers. “We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!”

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

{ https://futurism.com/ }

Are we about to get proof of aliens? Clinton campaign chief tweets #TheTruthIsOutThere

UFOLOGISTS believe we are on the "threshold" of learning the truth about aliens after a former lawyer to US President Barack Obama hinted a big announcement about extraterrestrial life was coming.

FLORIDA REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE BELIEVES ALIENS ABDUCTED HER WHEN SHE WAS 7 YEARS OLD AND STILL TALK TO HER

Videos prove an unexpected hit on YouTube channel

Dave Parkinson

A YouTube channel set up by a Cardigan man concentrating on the weird and wonderful has reached its first million views.

The Wonderful World of Weirdness is a platform for all things paranormal, including ghosts, UFOs and all things weird and is the brainchild of John Clarke, from Blaenporth.

The channel had its humble origins back in May 2016 and is now a worldwide success. It was originally set up as a platform to share videos that were shared by people on Facebook.

However it was only in June 2016 when 52-year-old John made his first video and since then has never looked back and has partnered up with long-time childhood friend Julian Murphy, who lives in Carmarthen.

Julian is a musician and author and has now started writing the music for all the videos on the channel.

“I cannot believe how quickly it has all grown and never expected it to be such a success,” said John, who hit upon the idea while caring for his two-year-old child while his partner went back to work.

“I could not bear the idea of just sitting around all day so decided I had to do something. I had a bit of an interest in the paranormal but nothing other than that. I am not one of these paranormal investigators.

“I am self taught and just seem to have a knack of putting together videos that other people seem to like and to get to a million views so quickly is amazing.”

Following on the success of the You Tube channel, John and Julian have also now set up a website www.thewonderfulworldofweirdness.com which you can check out if you are a fan of anything weird and paranormal.

A free download of their single " I'm Weird and I Know It" is available.

{ http://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/ }

Tom DeLonge Challenging Boundaries of What is Possible.

By Cheryl Costa

Columnist Cheryl Costa discusses Tom DeLonge’s UFO research endeavor, To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science.

TOM DELONGE IN 2012. PHOTO BY A.SAVIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

For decades the UFO community and beyond has wanted to see a good-faith and honest effort to research everything to do with Unidentified Flying Objects. We’ve all wanted to see the topic talked about in a factual way with the specter of mockery and the societal boundaries removed. We’ve all wanted the scientific community to get past the shadow of ridicule, receive funding and get to the theoretical bottom of the unknown physics that UFOs represented — no matter how fantastic.

In 1940, if you were an American high technology student in some of the nation’s best engineering schools and you mentioned to your professor that you were interested in rockets, you were frequently made fun of and dismissed as a crackpot. A MIT professor of the era said, “I don’t understand how a serious scientist or engineer can play around with rockets.”

Of course, that wasn’t the feeling in Nazi Germany. They saw great promise in rockets for their own objectives.

A few years after World War II, Dr. Werner Von Braun and his band of German rocket scientists were working for our government and military community. Von Braun wanted to put a satellite in orbit around the planet by September 1956 or by early-1957. Regrettably, nobody in the U.S. government understood the potential or had the vision to give Von Braun the green light to do it. Why? Well, there were certain touchy Cold War-policy considerations but beyond the politics, there was still the nagging notion that putting mechanisms in orbit still seemed to be the stuff of science fiction and fantasy.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Russians showed they had the vision and political will to launch Earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit. This event woke everybody up in both the science and arts communities. Suddenly, rocket research and outer space came out of the realm of science fiction and became very real, and the possibilities were evident in a few short years.

What we as a society needed at that time were two things: the arts community to dare to imagine the future and share the stories of the possible and the sciences to do rational inquiry and the research to make it all real.

In September 1962, five years after Sputnik was launched, President John F. Kennedy had the vision to challenge the country to go to the moon. Nine years after Sputnik, DesiLu Studios and Gene Rodenberry launched a science fiction television series that has helped several generations to imagine the possibilities of exploring the galaxy; that series was Star Trek.

On Oct. 11, rocker Tom DeLonge presented his much-anticipated, long-promised disclosure announcement. Was it disclosure? This question has caused great ambivalence within the UFO community. Many say yes, and many say no. So let me quote independent investigative journalist Leslie Kean, who put it most clearly:

“Folks, I’m concerned that some of you are missing the point. The head of a secret UFO program at the DOD has just come forward to confirm the existence of that program. Based on the work of this official program, he has stated for the world to hear that UFOs are unquestionably real. He left that program less than two weeks ago. This is as close to official ‘disclosure’ as we have come since the close of Project Blue Book.”

The former DOD official to whom she is referring is Luis Elizondo. So we didn’t get everything, but we did get some disclosure, or as some would say another splash of drip-drip disclosure. It certainly wasn’t the drink from the fire hose that many in the UFO community really wanted.

The principal focus of DeLonge’s presentation was his challenge to take the next step with the launch of “To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science.”

What DeLonge and his team of experts did was form a public benefit corporation with a charter to encourage scientific research efforts related to Unidentified Flying Objects. In addition, this corporate charter has a strong artistic element to this effort, intended to stimulate the cultural imagination to a new level of contemplation of future of possibilities. The objective is to challenge the boundaries of our thinking by inspiring exploration, and imagining and manifesting a bold and prosperous future. DeLonge and his prestigious colleagues are asking people to invest in the project with a stock offering.

This is a new and different approach to the issue of disclosure. They are challenging the UFO community to put their money where their mouths are, so to speak. It will be interesting to watch and follow their progress.

Click here to see Delonge’s 4:30-minute pitch. Click here to see the entire 39-minute presentation.

Note: Neither New York Skies or Syracuse New Times has any connection to the DeLonge project, and this is not an endorsement.

Cheryl Costa will be speaking at the following events in October:

• Oct. 23, 7 p.m.: Connetquot Public Library, 760 Ocean Avenue, Bohemia, N.Y. Presenting via Skype, library will be giving data handouts.
  • Oct. 26, 7 p.m.: Center for the Arts, 72 S. Main St., Homer, N.Y. Speaking in person.

If you have a UFO sighting to report, you can use either one of the two national database services: nuforc.org or mufon.com. Both services respect confidentiality. Follow me on Twitter @American_Skies.

Attention, Central New York residents: Join a monthly MUFON-sponsored speakers presentation and discussion group in Syracuse. Regularly held the last Saturday of the month, it runs from April 29 through October 28, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m, May Memorial, 3800 E. Genesee St. Plenty of off-street parking is available

{ https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/ }

Miami politician says aliens took her on a spaceship. Now she’s running for Congress.

Miami congressional candidate, Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, speaks in 2009 about her relationships with extraterrestrial beings in an Américan Tevé program. Courtesy of América Tevé

BY ALEX DAUGHERTY AND PATRICIA MAZZEI

adaugherty@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON - Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle.

{ http://www.miamiherald.com/ }

Aliens CREATED GOD… and now they want him back – shock claim of how religion began

“I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes.”

Attention Tom DeLonge … THAT is how you announce that you’ve had personal contact with aliens and rode in a flying saucer. A politician running for US Congress from Miami, Florida, has admitted in the past that she has had contacts with extraterrestrials and was a passenger on their spaceship. However, now that she’s a candidate for higher office, she’s suddenly evasive. Isn’t this the time to stand up and be proud that you have first-hand information about contacts with a species from another planet? Or does she have something more to hide?

According to McClatchy DC, Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, a longtime public servant for the city of Doral and Miami-Dade county, admitted in 2009 in a televised interview that she had an extraterrestrial encounter at age 7 with “three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male” – and that the beings looked like the giant Christ the Redeemer statue on the top of a mountain in Rio de Janeiro (those must have been some BIG bodies). She also admitted in this and in a second interview in 2011 that the beings continued to communicate with her telepathically at various times later in her life, although it doesn’t appear she said when the last time was.

Aguilera says the aliens also shared some interesting information with her:

• There are 30,000 skulls — “different from humans” — in a cave in the Mediterranean island of Malta.
• The world’s “energy center” is in Africa.
• The Coral Castle, a mysterious limestone tourist attraction South Miami-Dade (sometimes called Florida’s Stonehenge) is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.
• “God is a universal energy.”

Those are interesting ideas – especially since the Coral Castle is generally believed to have been built by Latvian American Edward Leedskalnin in the first half of the 20th century – and the Miami Herald decided last week to ask her for more details about her encounters. This time, Rodriguez Aguilera was very evasive, admitting nothing. Has she been visited by the Men in Black? Possibly, but more likely she’s been visited by Republican Party officials (her party) and members of the White House staff. The White House?

Yep. Turns out her daughter is former Republican National Committee Hispanic outreach director Bettina Inclán Agen and her son-in-law, Jarrod Agen, is Vice President Mike Pence’s deputy chief of staff. Pence is no Tom DeLonge or John Podesta and is probably quite wary of anyone who believes in space aliens.

Rodriguez Aguilera tried to dance around the question about her alien encounters. After invoking Ronald Reagan by pointing out that he claimed to have seen a UFO, she said:

“I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.”

Of course there must be … you met them! Or did you?

What will Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera do now? Will she go back to her original statements to woo voters who believe in ETs? Will she toe the party line and deny saying it? If she loses the election, will she head for Malta to look for the skulls? Has Tom DeLonge talked to her yet?

Once again, politics and religion get in the way of disclosure.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

{

We survived the September 23rd apocalypse. In fact, if you’re reading this, it means we’ve survived EVERY apocalyptic prediction. So those who are warning us about the upcoming crash of an abandoned Chinese space station aren’t predicting the end of the world – even though the ‘thing’ about to plunge back to Earth is eerily named “Heavenly Palace” — but they actually have scientific evidence tat it will indeed happen and it ‘could’ cause some problems. Who is going to need to duck … and when?

Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace 1” is an 8.5 ton prototype space station – China’s first – that was launched unmanned on September 29, 2011. It has been visited by both unmanned and manned missions but has never functioned as an operational space station like the International Space Station, Skylab or Mir. Its mission was scheduled to end in 2014 but was extended for two years until March 21, 2016, when the Space Engineering Office officially announced its termination. A few months later, after amateur astronomers noticed it was acting erratically, Chinese officials confirmed that the Heavenly Palace was leaving the heavens at some point but they didn’t know when because the telemetry link with it was lost. Uh-oh.

Tiangong-1 (source: The Guardian)

At that time, the estimated time of departure from the heavens was between October 2017 and April 2018. Now, Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell has revised and narrowed the window. In an interview with The Guardian, he said this:

“Now that [its] perigee is below 300 kilometers [186 miles] and it is in denser atmosphere, the rate of decay is getting higher, I expect it will come down a few months from now—late 2017 or early 2018.”

That’s a little better, but how about something more specific, like who should duck and when? Unfortunately, neither McDowell nor Chinese space officials can get any more accurate that “soon.” Even worse, they expect some of the pieces of Tiangong-1 – which was small in comparison to 77.5 ton Skylab – to be up to 100 kg (220 pounds), which could cause some serious damage if they make it through Earth’s atmosphere and crash in a populated area.

“You really can’t steer these things. Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won’t know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it’s going to come down. Not knowing when it’s going to come down translates as not knowing where it’s going to come down.”

“Not knowing when it’s going to come down translates as not knowing where it’s going to come down.”

Is McDowell an astronomer or a politician? China doesn’t have to take responsibility as long as it informs the United Nations “Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space” when the Heavenly Palace is being demolished (hopefully) by the atmospheric wrecking crew, which may not get the pieces small enough for safety.

Well, at least there’s the comfort in knowing that over 3/4 of the planet is water, right? Leave it to McDowell – and climate change – to ruin that little bit of hope. McDowell noted that even a slight change in atmospheric conditions could translate into Tiangong-1 skipping from a predicted continent to another one.

With this lack of accurate information, it looks like everyone needs to be ready at a moment’s notice to perform a Peking duck. (You knew there would be a Peking duck joke eventually).

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

IS ALIEN TRUTH COMING? Tom DeLonge's Area 51 and military insiders will 'lift lid on UFOs'

ROCK star Tom DeLonge has sensationally revealed a team of US government insiders he has been secretly working with to try to prove aliens have visited earth.

‘We’re not ready to meet aliens’: Humans are too stupid and religious to cope with extra-terrestrial life, claims expert

Titan and Enceladus: Saturn's moons are two of the most likely locations for extraterrestrial life

Following Cassini, Nasa needs a new mission to look for life on Saturn's mysterious moons.

By Monica Grady

Stranger Things Season 2 - Final Trailer

NASA's Cassini mission has made its "death plunge" into the swirling clouds of Saturn after 20 years of exploring the planet and its moons. It's been amazingly successful, making headlines with groundbreaking discoveries throughout its journey. But today the headlines are more like obituary notices, looking back at the mission's spectacular achievements.

Cassini discovered new moons around Saturn, found evidence for an ocean below the surface of the moon Enceladus and even managed to land a probe on the satellite Titan (the Huygens probe). It also observed unusual features in the rings of the planet and recorded an enormous, hurricane-like storm whirling around its north pole. Surely, we must now know everything about Saturn and its moons?

Fortunately, scientists are never satisfied, and the answer to one question usually leads to at least three new questions. The discoveries from Cassini and Huygens have resulted in a whole series of issues that require further investigation. Two of the main targets for future exploration are Titan and Enceladus.

Signs of life

Before Huygens parachuted down onto Titan's surfacein January 2005, all we knew about the moon was that it was cold (about 100K or -173.15°C) and had a thick atmosphere (mostly of nitrogen, but with traces of methane), which prevented us from seeing the surface. Huygens revealed networks of valleys and rivers cutting through hills to the shoreline of an inland sea. Subsequent observations by instruments on-board Cassini have given us a greatly expanded understanding of Titan's landscape – with an entire gazetteer of named features, from mountains to plains and oceans to ponds.

We must now try to understand what they are, how they formed and how they change with the seasons. We need to learn about tides and ocean icebergs, to define a climate cycle and to determine the composition of the land masses – are they derived from basalt, the most common rock type in the solar system, or are they frozen ice and mud? Does Titan have a rocky core overlain directly by an icy mantle, or does it have an ocean below the surface? If so, is it made up of water?

This all matters because what we have learnt about Titan from Cassini and Huygens has confirmed that it has an active chemistry, based on methane and ammonia. We know that these substances, when irradiated by the sun, result in interesting mixes of chemicals that are precursors to amino acids and other biologically important molecules. The freezing temperature of Titan's surface precludes anything being alive – but how far below the surface do you have to go before the environment becomes sufficiently balmy for a cryophile to be comfortable? Without a dedicated mission to Titan, we will not find out.

Cassini's exploration of Titan was always one of the main goals of the mission, with a few larger moons also scheduled for observation. But early in the mission, it became clear that Enceladus should be a prime target too. Anomalies in data observed as the spacecraft flew past Enceladus were subsequently verified as resulting from a large plume of gas and dust venting from the surface close to the south pole.

This was further investigated by Cassini, flying past Enceladus at different altitudes – the closest of which was at 25km. The data it collected helped scientists resolve the plume into a series of vents through cracks in the surface. It became clear that, like Jupiter's icy moon Europa, Enceladus was home to an ocean below the icy crust.

Scientists also managed to identify grains of dust, water-rich ice and gases including methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide – plus traces of other organic molecules – in the plume. This lead to to much speculation about the possibility of life in the ocean.

Like Titan, Enceladus is now recognised as one of the solar system's most likely locations for extraterrestrial life. A recent report of hydrogen in Enceladus' plume has given that recognition even greater prominence. That's because hydrogen is expected to be released as a byproduct of reactions between water and rock. Scientists believe that ocean water on Enceladus collides with rock, becomes heated, reacts chemically and rises up in the ocean via "hydrothermal vents". That happens in the Earth's oceans, too. And here, the chemically charged water around these vents supports a rich ecology of microbes and other life forms.

A single mission?

Follow-up missions to Saturn, Titan and Enceladus have all been proposed to both the European Space Agency and NASA, but none has yet been accepted and taken forward to the planning stage.

There might be a case for combining a mission to Titan with a mission to Enceladus to investigate the opportunities for life close to Saturn. I am not sure what such a mission would look like. Certainly there should be a spacecraft orbiting Titan and Enceladus, to gather additional information prior to launching vessels to the surface of both moons. Would these vessels be "penetrators" so they could pierce the ice of Enceladus? Or should they be balloons to float down through the atmosphere of Titan? I don't know, but a possible name for the mission could be EnTiRE – Enceladus and Titan Research and Exploration. You heard it here first…

Of course, one should not forget the "Lord of the Rings" itself. There are still many unknown aspects of the giant planet that would be worth going back to investigate, such as the composition and formation of its unusual rings. And what about that huge, hexagonal-shaped hurricane at the north pole? Is there something comparable at the south pole? How do such weather systems form – and, more to the point, given the current catastrophic hurricanes experienced recently on Earth, can we learn anything from Saturn about our own atmospheric disturbances?

Given the timescale for mission planning, alongside the time it takes to get to the Saturnian system, it will realistically be at least another 20 years before Cassini's successor arrives. Until then, we will have to rely on the next generation of Earth-based telescopes to help us explore Saturn and its fascinating satellites.

Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open University

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

Related topics : NASA

{ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ }

Ruimtestation stort binnenkort neer: “Brokstukken van 100 kilo zullen op Aarde vallen”

door nadb | Bron: THE GUARDIAN 

{ http://www.nieuwsblad.be/ }

The Remains of a 200,000 Year Old Advanced Civilization Found in Africa

The incredible discovery was made in South Africa, around 150 km west of port Maputo. There, we find the remains of a huge metropolis that measures, according to tests, around 1500 square kilometers. This ancient city is, according to researchers, part of an even larger community with about 10,000 square kilometers and is believed to have been constructed 160,000 to 200,000 years before Christ.

The region is somewhat remote and the “circles” have often been encountered by local farmers who assumed they were made by some indigenous people in the past. But, oddly, no one ever bothered to inquire about who could have made them or how old they were. This changed when researcher and author, Michael Tellinger, in association with Johan Heine, a local fireman and pilot who had looked at these ruins for years, decided to investigate them. Heine had the unique opportunity to see these incredible structures from the air and knew that their significance was not appreciated.

“When Johan first introduced me to the ancient stone ruins of southern Africa, he had no idea of the incredible discoveries we would make in the following years. The photographs, artifacts and evidence we accumulated, point towards a lost civilization that has never before been and precedes all others – not for a few hundred years, or a few thousand years … but many thousands of years.” – Tellinger

According to Tellinger, these discoveries are so incredible that It will need a complete paradigm shift in how we view our human history.

The surrounding geology is interesting due to the numbers gold mines located in the vicinity. Researchers have proposed that a vanished civilization from the distant past, could have lived and proposed in that part of the world while mining gold. They point to the Ancient Anunnaki:

The Anunnkai Timeline – Coming to Earth: (According to Sitchin)

450,000 B.C.
After long wars, the atmosphere of Nibiru began to deteriorate and became a hostile place for life, The Anunnaki needed gold to repair their atmosphere. According to researchers, we can use gold nano particles to repair our damaged ozone layer.

445,000 A.C.
The Anunnaki aliens landed on Earth and established their base in Eridu, wanting to extract gold from the Persian Gulf. They were led by Enki, son of Anu.

416,000 B.C.
Gold production fell, which made Anu come to Earth. Beside him his other son Enlil arrived. Anu decided that mining would take place in Africa and promoted Enlil in charge of the Terran mission.

400,000 A. C.
In southern Mesopotamia were seven developed nations. Among the most important were:  “Sipar”, “Nippur” and “Shuruppak”. After the metal was refined, the ore was transported from Africa with ‘ships’ and sent into orbit.

You can take look at these incredible structures with Google Earth using the following coordinates:

Carolina: 25 55 ‘53.28? S / 30 16 ‘13.13? E

Badplaas: 25 47 ‘33.45? S / 30 40 ‘38.76? E

Waterval: 25 38 ‘07.82? S / 30 21 ‘18.79? E

Machadodorp: 25 39 ‘22.42? S / 30 17 ‘03.25? E

These incredible ruins mostly consist of stone circles, most have been buried in the sand and are only observable by plane or satellites. Some have been exposed to climate change that has removed the sand, revealing the walls and foundations.

“I see myself as someone quite open-minded but I admit that it took me over a year to figure it out, and I realized that we are actually dealing with the oldest structures ever built by man on Earth.
The main reason for this is that we have been taught that nothing of significance has ever come from South Africa. Powerful civilizations all emerged in Sumeria and Egypt and other places. “- Tellinger

According to Telling: It shows that the Sumerians and even the Egyptians inherited all their knowledge from an earlier advanced civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa more than 200,000 years ago… mining gold.

These were also the people who carved the first Horus bird, the first Sphinx, built the first pyramids and built an exact stone calendar right in the heart of it all. Adam’s Calendar is the flagship among millions of circular stone ruins, ancient roads, agricultural terraces and thousands of ancient mines, left behind by a vanished civilization which they now call the FIRST PEOPLE. These were the ancestors of all humans today with an advanced knowledge of energy fields through planet Earth.

They carved detailed images into the hardest rock, worshipped the sun, and are the first to carve an image of the Egyptian Ankh – key of life and universal knowledge, 200,000 years before the Egyptians came to light. Tellinger presents this groundbreaking new evidence in which is released in his latest book Temples Of The African Gods. It graphically exposes these discoveries and will undoubtedly be the catalyst for rewriting our ancient human history.

source: ancient-code

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

APOLLO 15 PILOT JOINS THE LONG LIST OF ASTRONAUTS TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT ‘ALIEN’ VISITATION

Take the founder of Bigelow Aerospace for example, who is one of many who has shared his knowledge about the fact that we are not alone, and that are being visited.

For so long, this subject has been swept under the radar by so many people, and all of a sudden we’ve had this burst of information that’s made it clear to most that something is going on here.

The more popular this subject gets, the more it becomes dripped into the mainstream arena, and the more we need to put our critical thinking caps on.

For years, government, and those from within the government as well as intelligence agencies, have had a very heavy interest in this subject. All of the mainstream organizations started to officially investigate this phenomenon, like NICAP, and MUFON, originate by those from within the intelligence and defence community. This is a common trend with regards to mainstream initiatives dealing with the UFO/ extraterrestrial subject.

The point is, our government and mainstream media, for the most part, have been deceiving us on so many different topics, with perhaps 9/11, and other false flag events that have happened in recent history. People still question this narrative, despite the fact that multiple insiders, whistleblowers, and even active presidents, politicians and academicians have been providing the evidence for decades.

It seems that when something that is not heavily present or made known by our sources of ‘reliable’ information, which lie in the hands of a tightly knit, small group of financial elite with vested big powerful interests in multiple areas, is not considered to be of significance.

This comes despite the fact that our mainstream media has direct connections to the intelligence community.

Related CE Article: Declassified CIA Documents Shows Agencies Control Over Mainstream Media

There is news transpiring everyday that should be making headlines, but it doesn’t and instead we are drip fed with lies, which is made even more clear by international media in other countries sharing information that contradicts the western world.

This is why, the solution is not to censor information or deem it as “fake news,” but rather to have open discussions, teach people how to think critically, and examine sources for themselves. Let them decide, and not have some authority figure deciding it for them.

The latest example would be Vladimir Putin calling out the Syrian chemical weapons attack as a false flag. 

After all, a lot of what we see is used for corruption, and brainwashing, and providing narratives that justify military action.

So, when it comes to the UFO/extraterrestrial topic, why should we really expect anything else?  This field, being a veteran researcher within it, has a long history of infiltration by special interests, to change narratives, and more. Hillary Clinton seemed to use the topic a lot this year and speak about it in a serious matter in order to rack up more votes, but who really knows.

Related CE Article discussing the potential for a false flag alien invasion. 

This type of thing has been seen within our media, and even academia, to sway or persuade a perception.

“Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”

– Former head of CIA Roscoe Hillenkoetter (source)

If you want to learn more about the UFO/extraterrestrial topic, we’ve published many heavily citied articles on the subject. You can read those, as they are all archived, by visiting the exopolitics section of our website, here.

While we’ve had so many astronauts share their experiences, others are quick to dismiss any talk of UFOs, saying that they have not personally come across any evidence to suggest that the phenomenon is real. This is quite confusing, and brings into question the possibility of a ridicule campaign in continuance, while a disinformation is currently underway. Who knows?

It’s important for us to be able to distinguish between a ‘credible reliable source,’ that’s honest, and another that fits the same description but is not reliable, and spreading disinformation. How we do that is a topic of discussion for another article.

Let’s take a look at what the astronaut said. 

He said, very seriously, “We are the aliens, we just think they’re somebody else, but we’re the ones who came from somewhere else. Because somebody else had to survive…they got in a little space craft and they came here and they landed and they started civilization here, that’s what I believe. And if you don’t believe me, go get books on the ancient Sumerians and see what they had to say about it, they’ll tell you right up front.” 

Again, he is sharing his beliefs, perhaps he has more knowledge on the subject, but who really knows. After all, everything with regards what really happened and is happening on the moon is quite scattered and hard to piece together.

It’s not like this astronaut is saying something along the lies of what Dr. Edgar Mitchell did when he said he “happens to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we are not alone on this plant ” and that we have “been visited many times.” (source) (source) (source)

As far as coming from space, this astronaut is not the only one who has brought for this theory. You can read more about that in the article lined below.

Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of DNA says our genes were brought here by extraterrestrials

Obviously, this brings a lot of other questions into play. Anything on this topic really does open a can of worms that dive and related to multiple areas and aspects of human life and history.

THE BIG BANG CREATED TWO UNIVERSES - NOT ONE!

Theoretical physicists are suggesting that when the Big Bang occurred it produced two parallel universes, our universe and one in which time is moving backward.

TWO UNIVERSES CREATED BY BIG BANG NOT ONE

In the 1920s it was said by physicist Arthur Eddington that time only moves in one direction and this is from low entropy towards increased and it has been known as the thermodynamic view of time.

ONE ARROW PONTING FORWARD AND ANOTHER BACKWARDS  

However, three physicists have said that time is something of a mystery and there should be a different set of time that is based on gravity, not thermodynamics. They said that all known laws of physics look the same regardless of which way time runs, and in our world, everything goes in one direction. They said that if you think of a simple model with bees in the middle of the Big Bang, there would be two arrows of time, one that points in the opposite direction of the swarm. So one arrow would be forward, and the other would be going backward.  

Dr. Barbour acknowledged that being able to find the other universe is a very different thing altogether. The three physicists managed to create a simulation of 1,000 particles on a computer that interacted while being under the influence of gravity. They discovered that each of the particle configurations settled in a structure that was low-entropy fluctuation and from this, the particles then expanded outwards, and they went into two symmetrical opposite arrows of time that were very distinct. So thanks to the computer simulation they believe that not one but two universes exist and in one of them, time is going backward.

NOT THE FIRST TIME A PARALLEL UNIVERSE HAS BEEN PREDICTED

This, of course, is not the first time that a parallel universe theory has come to light. In May of this year, a mysterious cold spot in space was said to be evidence that there was a parallel universe. This was a strange dark region in space that was said to be radiation that had been left over when the big bang occurred. While there was a range of different explanations as to why it was there, the main one was that it was a parallel universe. So the three physicists are not the only ones who think that there is a parallel universe out there.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Pope declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real
• Scientists Claim To Have Discovered What Existed BEFORE The Big Bang  

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

UFO STRUCK BY LIGHTNING STRIKE DURING THUNDERSTORM IN DELAWARE

During a recent thunderstorm in Delaware, a UFO was hit by a lightning strike.

The object seemed unaffected by the 10 billion joules jolt. If this was a man-made object it would be destroyed in milliseconds.

The UFO was hovering in the proximity of the thunderclouds for a couple of minutes.

There is a possibility that it was deliberately flying towards the thunderstorm in order to get hit by one of the lightning strikes to get a recharge of its power supplies.

HERE IS THE DRAMATIC FOOTAGE:  

It's not the first time a UFO was captured on video while it was hit by a lightning strike. Could it be that these extraterrestrial objects are studying our weather systems in order to optimize their energy systems?

Even back in 1750, Benjamin Franklin proposed to capture the energy of a lightning strike using a kite. Can it be an extraterrestrial intelligence has found a way to use our lightning strikes as a source of energy to power their UFO's?

RELATED ARTICLES

• UFO hit by lightning during thunderstorm - Moment of impact and crash filmed - France 2017
• Trump And Hillary Share A Common Address In Delaware?   :  

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

Owls and UFOs. To those with no interest in either, the two might seem like chalk and cheese, but these ‘phenomena’—one assumed to belong exclusively to our world, the other thought to originate elsewhere—often go hand-in-hand, at least according to the testimonies UFO experiencers the world over.

It has long been theorized in the UFO research community that the sighting of an owl shortly prior to, during, or soon after a UFO close encounter is a strong indication of a repressed abduction experience, the image of the owl acting as a screen memory for the traumatized abductee. The logic here is that the large, penetrating eyes of an owl closely resemble those of the archetypal alien Grey. Owls also swoop from the skies—the domain of the UFO.

In his fascinating book, The Messengers, author Mike Clelland considers the psychological function of owl imagery in abduction reports, but, ultimately, he ascribes it a more profound and mystical meaning, confidently speculating that the owl in these circumstances may be “part of a shamanic initiation,” a wake-up call from the universe itself for those who suspect but refuse to acknowledge their lifetime of hidden experiences with intelligences beyond the realm of everyday perception.

Owl imagery was used very explicitly in the context of abduction in the 2009 movie The Fourth Kind. Before that, it was used prominently in the 1989 big screen adaptation of Whitley Strieber’s bestselling Communion. For the purposes of this article, I’m interested in how owl imagery can be linked to UFO phenomena by filmmakers very subtly, even subconsciously. Examples that spring to mind are Twin Peaks(“The owls are not what they seem”), or even Labyrinth, in which Bowie’s Goblin King, Jareth, adopts the form of an owl to spirit away an infant to an other-dimensional realm.

A couple of years back, soon after a chat with “owl guy” Mike Clelland (and having owls on the brain as a result), I switched on the TV. The 1986 movie Short Circuit was playing. A family-friendly sci-fi flick, the movie follows the adventures of Johnny 5, an escaped experimental military robot who gains sentience—and apparently even a soul—after being struck by lightning.

Synchronistically, the scene that happened to be playing was a pivotal one: Johnny 5’s first meeting with the character of Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy). The scene is shot to resemble a distinctly Spielbergian “close encounter” style event, with Stephanie under the impression that Johnny 5 is not a robot, but an extraterrestrial. As Stephanie steps outside her house one night to investigate a disturbance, she sees a mysterious glow emanating from her van. “Hey, get outta there!” she yells, nervously. It is at this point that we cut to a close-up of an owl perched atop Stephanie’s personalized mailbox. The bird turns its head to her, almost expectantly.

As Stephanie approaches her van, its side panel flips open to reveal an alien-looking Johnny 5 bathed in misty light. We then cut once more to the owl, which turns its head to Johnny 5, and, in that moment, one can’t help but draw a visual parallel between the robot and the bird—both having large, round, yellow and black eyes harshly accented by a “frown” (metal eyebrows in Johnny’s case, and ‘ear’ tufts in the owl’s).

Short Circuit (1986)

Stephanie exclaims: “Oh, my God! I knew they would pick me, I just knew it!” perhaps indicating that she expects—even wants—to be abducted. “Welcome to my planet,” she says, excitedly.

It goes without saying that owls have always been a permanent fixture in the iconographic landscape of the horror genre. But Short Circuit is sci-fi, not horror, and, while Johnny 5 isn’t actually an alien, in this crucial scene, the filmmakers have gone out of their way to present him as alien-esque and as a potential abductor. Also significant is the positioning of the owl directly on top of Stephanie’s mailbox, which clearly bears her name, as if the bird has come for her specifically (just as Mike Clelland feels the owls in his own life are communicating something to him on an intensely personal level). We might expect an owl to be perched on a tree branch, but here the owl prefers a mailbox—a ‘message’ box, a communications receptacle. In Western culture, owls are often associated with knowledge and wisdom, and so it is fitting that, in the very same scene, the first thing Johnny 5 demands of Stephanie is “input.” She’s delighted: “That’s information,” she replies, “I’m full of it!” As an aside here, it’s also worth remembering that Harry Potter’s beloved owl, Hedwig, was also a messenger, serving Harry faithfully for years by delivering his mail to him.

The prominent inclusion of the owl in Short Circuit was most likely little more than an effort to enhance the spooky atmosphere of Stephanie’s introduction to Johnny. Nonetheless, in the implied context of the scene (a close encounter with an alien entity), and in light of Mike Clelland’s work, the presence of the owl assumes a deeper meaning, whether or not it was consciously intended.

The mystical connection between owls and otherworldly entities also presents itself in an entirely different film: the 1982 inspired-by-real-events domestic chiller, The Entity, starring Barbara Hershey.

This disturbing film follows the plight of Carla (Hershey), a young, essentially single mother of three. One day, without warning, Carla is viciously beaten and raped in her bedroom by a powerful but invisible entity. In the days and weeks that follow, Carla continues to be sexually assaulted by the entity and, fearing for her sanity, seeks help, first from a skeptical psychotherapist, and later from a team of parapsychologists. All the while, the entity is relentless in its aggressive sexual pursuit of this traumatized woman.

In many respects, The Entity can comfortably be classed as a horror movie, but it also flirts with science fiction. It constantly defies genre expectations; perhaps, in part, because it is based on a true story—the rigidity of genre rarely applying to life as we live it.

The film’s sci-fi element is particularly identifiable in an onscreen debate surrounding just what the entity actually is, and where it comes from. In the third act, the team of university parapsychologists devises a plan to capture and kill the entity for scientific study. Their weapon of choice: liquid helium.

One of the parapsychologists explains:

“What we’re seeking is to determine if this entity has mass. If in fact this is the case, then we should be able to freeze it, verify its objective existence, and prove that it isn’t just a psychic projection, but rather an independent force from some other level of reality that has never been isolated.”

Spoken about in these terms, the entity seems to have less in common with the traditionally supernatural (ghosts, for example) and more with the interdimensional trickster intelligences theorized by the likes of Jacques Vallee and John Keel.

The interdimensional hypothesis posits that UFO entities might exist beyond space-time and can flit in and out of our reality at will, assuming a multitude of forms—from the faeries, goblins, and incubi of ages past, to the UFOs and aliens of modern times. This theory is explicitly brought to mind in The Entityduring a scene in which Carla’s psychiatrist, Dr Sneiderman (Ron Silver), attempts to dispel her “irrational” belief in the literal existence of her invisible tormentor, showing her old drawings of goblins, demons, and faerie folk: “They were supposed to abuse people sexually,” he tells her, “they were supposed to impregnate people. Do you think these things really existed then!?”

It is notable that the true nature of the entity is never discovered, and there is no indication that it is anything so mundane as the lingering ghost of a deceased man; indeed, no indication that it was ever human at all. In the movie, the entity’s few physical manifestations take the form of dazzling lights, bright, fast-moving orbs, and electrical discharges—phenomena typically associated with UFOs. In one scene, when asked by parapsychologists to reveal itself, the entity appears literally as an unidentified flying object, a vaguely spherical green light that calls to mind the green fireballs frequently sighted over US nuclear installations throughout the late 1940s and which lead directly to the formation of the USAF’s Project Twinkle. The stunned parapsychologists look on in awe in shots that wouldn’t seem out of place in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The woven owl in Carla’s kitchen. Here she appears to be smiling at the owl. This is never explained in the movie.

So where do owls come into this? Well, they’re onscreen throughout the movie, from beginning to end, as decorative wall ornaments. In the hallway, directly by Carla’s front door, we can see a board displaying five owls made from coloured felt. In Carla’s kitchen we can see a woven owl on the wall near the sink. At one point, in Carla’s bedroom, her dressing chair even appears owl-like. The camera never dwells on any of these images, but they are noticeable to the perceptive viewer. Why this owl motif pervades the film and whether or not there was conscious purpose behind its inclusion is debatable.

Five owls stand watch over Carla’s front door. Is their purpose to keep something out, or to keep her in?

The Native American Hopi people traditionally associate owls with sorcery and evil. In Mesoamerican cultures, the owl is considered a symbol of death and destruction. In the Mayan religious text, the Popol Vuh, owls are described as messengers of Xibalba (the Mayan “Place of Fright”). In these folkloric and religious contexts, owl imagery perfectly complements the nature and intent of the malevolent entity in the movie.

The owl is noticeably skewed on the wall as Carla feels the strain of her abuse.

I could waffle on about all of this for quite some time without threatening to reach anything resembling a conclusion. So, I’ll leave it here. Next time you watch a movie—any movie—keep your eyes peeled for sneaky owls… you never know where they might decide to put in an appearance.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Gabriel G. de la Torre, a psychologist at Spain’s University of Cádiz, isn’t sure we should be in a hurry for SETI and similar initiatives to succeed—because we have a skewed and incomplete understanding of how we should respond to first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, and what our next step should be. After sending questionnaires to 116 students at American and European universities, he reached the unsettling conclusion that “the knowledge of the general public … of the cosmos and our place within it is still poor” and that “we need a new Galileo to lead this journey.”

But I’m not sure de la Torre, or anyone else, is in a position to assess just how huge contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization would be. In a relative sense, the fact that we’re disagreeing about issues of scientific literacy and ethical priority pales in comparison to the fact that any civilization we encounter is statistically likely to be much more advanced than we are, and its mere existence will tell us things that will blow our minds—and that kind of dramatic paradigm shift will have unpredictable consequences on all of us.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. As Carl Sagan explains here, taking into account the finitude of the speed of light and the vastness of the universe, we may not hear back from another civilization until 2350 or so:

It’s no coincidence that this process towards a more cosmic view—which Sagan calls “the deprovincialization of our planet”—is in our best interests as well, whether we actually contact another species or not. If contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization does shock our cultural system, we can hope it will do so completely enough that we will finally give up violence and exploitation—because those very terrestrial threats have threatened our survival as a species as completely as any extraterrestrial civilization could.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Mysterious cluster of Bright Lights moving at very high altitude over Lisbon Portugal

A strange phenomenon in the sky over Lisbon, Portugal has been filmed by a witness at the moment he was strolling in Lisbon by the river Tejo, next to the Padrao dos Descobrimentos monument on October 14, 2017 and suddenly noticed a strange cluster of lights on the sky moving at very high altitude.

The witness states: It was clearly visible as it was a dark night already with no light pollution on the river or left river bank where I was standing.

The phenomena reminded me the pattern of a cloud of chaff or the light reflections on waves at the sea, except the ones on the sky moved steadily and seemed to glow and flicker, were very high above the few clouds (so much so I could not see the contours) and were following a straight flight pattern, from South to North at surely high speed -since the moment I saw them above the right river bank until they vanished from view on the city hills on the left bank around 15 minutes passed, on a path that would have made it overfly the Lisbon airport.

And yet another strange fact; I am an aviation enthusiast and this summer as Portugal and Lisbon have become a much sought after tourist hotspot, I have been tracking for the past 2 months the arrivals of scores of planes, which land in large numbers from a SW flight path coming from the right (South) river bank of the Tejo river, a bit off the bridge, every 5 minutes or so.

After the disappearing of the strange lights from my visual standing point, I was much further intrigued by the fact that dozens of outgoing flights were now departing from Lisbon airport not on the very common South-North runway axis but rather taking the usual inbound flight path, i.e., precisely on the opposite direction of the strange lights as if for some reason they were avoiding a possible crossing of their path.

I am also a frequent flyer to man destinations all over the world and never have any of my flights took off across the city skyline, having inclusively to then make steep turns to go to their destinations as I observed yesterday.

Ps: I took one photo with my Iphone SE and a short video, where it seems there is a central cluster with small independent "orbs" next to it.

Also, apparently and as far as I can tell, dozens of bystanders, mostly tourists were baffled as I and taking pictures and videos with their Smartphones, and furthermore I checked with Portuguese UFO associations and this exact sightings have been multiplying this year alone mostly in Lisbon area but also in Algarve (Southern tip of the country). Mufon case file 87343. 

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

Strange Blue Beam in the sky over Mexico points to holographic laser technology?

On October 13, 2017 WebcamsdeMexico recorded a sort of blue beam in the sky.

At first I was sure, like the big black spot, it was lens flare or crepuscular rays (rays of sunlight) that appear to radiate from the point in the sky where the sun is located but then I realized that the Sun is rising to the left of the screen, while the strange beam is coming from the right.

Despite I have no answer to this strange sky phenomenon I’m just considering if it could be a holographic laser projection performed by an unknown device using highly advanced laser technology.

According to physics.stackexchange you can lock the frequency of two lasers to each other, so as one drifts the other follows identically. If you phase lock the two lasers, then you will be able to see the interference pattern with your eye.

  

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

Nearby 'Death Star' Dubbed Kronos has Devoured 15 Earth-like Planets

In mythology, the Titan Kronos devoured his children, including Poseidon (better known as the planet Neptune), Hades (Pluto) and three daughters.

Astronomers discovered twin stars, one of which showed signs of having ingested a dozen or more rocky planets, they named them after Kronos and the companion star is named Krios, after Kronos’ brother. Their official designations are HD 240430 and HD 240429, and they are both about 350 light years from Earth.

Both Kronos and Krios are sun-like stars - yellow G-type - and are about 4 billion years old, orbiting each other about every 10,000 years. They have different chemical compositions - not an unknown phenomenon in binary star systems - but the scale of that difference is unusual, and seems even more bizarre when put in the context of the sun.

“Even if our sun ate the entire inner solar system, it wouldn’t come close to the anomaly we see in this star,” David Hogg, the group leader for astronomical data at the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) at the Flatiron Institute, who co-authored a new study on the subject, said in a statement Thursday.

The terrestrial matter is rich in heavier elements that can make up rock-forming minerals, such as magnesium, aluminum, silicon, iron, chromium, and yttrium. These materials are found in abundance in Kronos’ outer layers. The lighter elements like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and potassium are found in the gaseous form. And given the laws of chemistry, heavier elements formed in nature after the lighter ones.

Therefore, usually, a Kronos-like metal-rich star would contain “all the other elements enhanced at a similar level, whereas Kronos has volatile elements suppressed, which makes it really weird in the general context of stellar abundance patterns.

All of the elements that would make up a rocky planet are exactly the elements that are enhanced on Kronos, and the volatile elements are not enhanced, so that provides a strong argument for a planet engulfment scenario, instead of something else.

Further calculations showed “that gaining this many rock-forming minerals without many volatiles would require engulfing roughly 15 Earth-mass planets.”

  

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

Local UFO photos fascinated Air Force; farmer wanted to forget them: Throwback Thursday

 

Paul Trent's first UFO photo.

(Oregonian archive)

BY DOUGLAS PERRY

Evelyn Trent started yelling for her husband at about 7:45 that evening. She was feeding their rabbits in the yard of the couple’s Dayton farm when she saw it -- “like a good-sized parachute canopy without the strings, only silver-bright mixed with bronze.”

“It was as pretty as anything I ever saw,” she recalled later.

She ran into the house, found her husband -- and their camera -- and they raced back into the yard. Paul Trent spotted it too -- “a round, shiny, wingless object” hovering in the sky.

The 43-year-old farmer managed to take two photographs before the flying object disappeared into the evening mist.

They’re the most famous photos ever to come out of Yamhill County.

 

The McMinnville Telephone Register and The Oregonian published the images in June of 1950, a month after Paul Trent took them. (He had to finish off the roll before getting the images developed. The final three photos he took were of a family picnic on Mother’s Day.)

Life magazine followed the Oregon newspapers, offering its national audience a gander at the unidentified flying object. Soon, a U.S. Air Force investigator came to the Trent farm outside McMinnville. “The object was coming in toward us and seemed to be tipped up a little bit,” Paul Trent told the officer. “It was very bright -- almost silvery -- and there was no noise.”

The investigator had heard such stories before. This was the Golden Age of UFO sightings. But while most alien-craft tales were easily debunked -- they were discovered to be weather balloons or private planes or obvious hoaxes -- that wasn’t the case with the Trents’ photos.

In 1967, the Air Force commissioned prominent nuclear physicist Edward U. Condon to lead an exhaustive UFO study. The 950-page report, titled “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” easily dismissed most of the reported sightings, but, it stated, “at least one, showing a disk-shaped object in flight over Oregon, is classed as difficult to explain in a conventional way.” The study determined that the photos were genuine and the Trents truthful.

“This is one of the few UFO reports,” the study declared, “in which all factors investigated -- gemetic, psychological and physical -- appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two [credible] witnesses.”

 

Paul Trent's second photo of the UFO.

(Oregonian archive)

The Condon report reached this conclusion even though Evelyn Trent had a history of spotting strange objects in the sky. She had told The Oregonian in 1950 that she’d seen flying saucers at the coast three separate times, “but no one would believe me.”

On this occasion, however, her husband backed her up and never wavered about what he saw, though he admitted, The Oregonian wrote, that he had “no idea what the object was, how fast it was flying, how high it was nor where it came from.”

Eventually, McMinnville embraced the sighting, with McMenamins launching a popular annual UFO festival in the city. The 19^th event will take place next May.

 

Kim Spencer, granddaughter of UFO photographer Paul Trent, in 2000.

(The Oregonian)

Paul Trent -- who died in 1998, a year after his wife -- eventually just wanted to put the whole UFO thing behind them. When two Oregonian reporters asked for recollections some 40 years after the sighting, he chafed at Evelyn’s willingness to talk again about what they had seen. “I told you to forget all about that,” he said.

Evelyn nodded at her husband, and then continued her story, telling the reporters about the "magnificent disc hurtling toward the house.”

-- Douglas Perry

{ http://www.oregonlive.com/ }

The Campaign to Discredit Betty Hill

Posted by: Kathleen Marden 

Betty and Barney Hill are best known as the first alien abductees to garner worldwide attention and media coverage of their 1961 close encounter with a UFO and subsequent abduction by non-human beings.

Betty (1919-2004) was social worker for the State of New Hampshire and Barney (1922-69) was civil service worker for the U.S. Post Office. The encounter transpired when the couple was returning to their Portsmouth, New Hampshire home on September 19, 1961 from a short vacation in Niagara Falls and Montreal. Hurricane Esther was whirling up the coast and threatening to strike New Hampshire’s Seacoast, so the Hills decided to cut their trip short. This decision would require a nighttime drive with an expected 2:00 a.m. arrival time, but Barney was up for the challenge as he was well rested from the night before and was accustomed to working the night shift.

Betty and Barney Hill

At the time neither had any particular interest in UFOs. Betty, however, was more open-minded about the possibility that UFOs may exist while Barney was convinced otherwise. The events of that fateful evening forever changed the couple’s lives when they experienced an unknown phenomenon superior to anything known on Earth. Both made confidential reports of the event to the appropriate authorities, but were troubled by a two-hour time lapse and physical evidence that they couldn’t account for. Hoping to break through the apparent amnesia, a little more than two years after the close encounter, Betty and Barney contacted renowned Boston psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon. Both recalled the traumatic details of being seized and subjected to physical examinations by non-human beings.

Much to their dismay, a breach of confidentiality led to the public disclosure of the Hills’ story in October 1965. The worst thing that could have happened to the Hills was for their story to become public knowledge because they felt they had much to lose and nothing to gain. Soon their tale emerged in popular culture as a fascinating chronicle of alien abduction; the topic of intense scientific interest; and the prime target of debunkers, who continue to attack it today.

Attempts to Discredit the Hills

As a social scientist, UFO researcher, and the niece of Betty and Barney Hill, it came to my attention, long ago, that mainstream publications were not very accurate in regards to the facts of the Betty and Barney Hill close encounter and abduction case. For example, the March 7, 1993 PARADE article by Carl Sagan entitled “Are they coming for US? What’s Going On?” led its readers to believe that Betty observed only a “bright star-like UFO” that seemed to be following them. Carl would have us believe that it remained a bright distant dot in the sky throughout the Hills’ journey through New Hampshire’s White Mountains on September 19, 1961. The fact is that it followed the Hills for approximately an hour and progressively closed in on them. The following day, Betty and Barney sketched pictures of the lighted, disk-shaped craft that hovered silently approximately 100 feet above their vehicle. Barney’s sketch showed figures standing in the windows. They reported their close encounter to the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), Donald Keyhoe, and were interviewed for six hours by NICAP investigator Walter Webb, an astronomy lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium in Boston. The close encounter is part of the official record.

Marker commemorating the location of the Betty and Barney Hill incident. (Credit: Kathleen Marden)

Next, according to Carl, Barney left the main highway for “narrow mountain roads” because he feared they might be harmed. This is an outright fabrication but it conveniently explains the time lapse that the Hills and investigators couldn’t account for even after the investigation. The fact is that at no time did Barney intentionally turn off the main highway. The fact is that he wanted to stay on the highway because he was closer to human contact and because he wanted to report his close encounter to a police officer.

Carl continues, “They arrived home two hours later than expected” and Betty read a book (by Donald Keyhoe), claiming they were “spaceships from other worlds.” Next, we learn about Betty’s series of nightmares in which she and Barney were abducted. Donald Keyhoe’s book didn’t contain any information about UFO abductions or any of the details in Betty’s dreams, but Carl’s careful crafting leads us to believe that Keyhoe’s book provided the information in the five dreams/nightmares that occurred about two weeks after her close encounter. It is important to note that in reality Betty’s dreams about the abduction contained information for which she had conscious recall. Additionally, the abduction she recalled in hypnotic regression was markedly different than that of her dreams.

Carl’s article was intent upon debunking all UFO abduction claims by convincing his readership that experiencers are having nothing more than lucid dreams and sleep paralysis involving aliens found in popular culture. He bolstered his contention by declaring that none of the so-called evidence has been substantiated and no eye witness testimony carries much weight, even multiple witness testimony by reliable reporters. The truth is that people have been convicted in a court of law based upon the degree of evidence that suspected abductees have produced: physical trace evidence, radar evidence, photographic evidence, multiple witness lie detector testing, testing normal on psychological evaluations and personality disorder screenings, physiological evidence, multiple witness testimony, etc. But Carl informs us that all of this is completely inadequate and unreliable.

Carl Sagan with a model of the Viking lander.

(Credit: NASA)

Returning to the Hill case, Carl bounded into another leap of faith when he stated that Barney overheard Betty describing the details in her dreams to friends and UFO investigators, and under hypnosis with Dr. Benjamin Simon several years later (it was only twenty-nine months later), he confabulated Betty’s dream information into his own abduction story. The truth is that Dr. Simon couldn’t bring himself to accept the possibility that the Hills had been abducted, although he stated several times that the first experience, the close encounter, came out clearly in both Betty’s and Barney’s hypnosis and probably was a real experience. His statement to Barney with regard to several hypotheses was “All of these things can happen. Anything can happen when you come right down to it.”

On the Hills’ hypnosis tapes, Barney swore that although he had overheard some of the information in Betty’s dreams, they were obviously dreams, not reality in his opinion. He rejected them. Dr. Simon probed the possibility that Barney might be lying or even that a telepathic transfer of information had occurred between Betty and Barney. In the October 1967 issue of Psychiatric Opinion, Dr. Simon wrote, “I had to be continually on the alert for distortions honestly made by them and had to test their revelations against the continuum of the entire picture. Even when they appeared to be lying, they were telling the truth if one could work out the general semantics of the situation.” As for telepathic communication, Dr. Simon rejected this hypothesis early on with the exception of Betty’s star map. He later stated that if science proved that Zeta Reticuli had planets with intelligent life, we must assume that Betty had acquired this information telepathically. Dr. Simon had only one viable option to explain the Hill UFO case. Because he had been informed that alien abduction was impossible, his only option was that Betty must have somehow transferred the content of her dreams/nightmares to Barney. In turn, he thought that Barney had simply reiterated the information in Betty’s dreams during his own hypnosis sessions.

Dr. Benjamin Simon

Dr. Simon repeatedly returned to what he considered was the only viable option—the dream hypothesis. He explored the possibility that Betty’s dreams were relived during her hypnosis sessions and that Barney had merely absorbed and repeated the content of her dreams in his own recall. The hypnosis tapes made it abundantly clear that the Hills made a convincing argument against Dr. Simon’s hypothesis. Betty stated that that her captors bore no resemblance to those in her dreams. Their appearance and mode of communication was completely different. The dream aliens had a southern European appearance and were dressed in blue military cadet uniforms and spoke with their mouths, not telepathically. In contrast, in hypnotic regression she described truly non-human aliens in appearance and communication. She stated that she understood them in English although their mouths didn’t move. Additionally, she recalled an extraordinary amount of experiential details that were not in her dreams. Barney too was convinced that his hypnotic recall had accurately explained the period of apparent amnesia and missing time.

All of the documented evidence available to me indicates that Dr. Simon remained retrospective about the Hills’ experience until the movie The UFO Incident, starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons which aired on NBC on October 20, 1975. On the October 25, 1975 Today Show, Dr. Simon stated publically for the first time that he believed the abduction was largely a dream. When asked directly if he had concluded that the memory of being aboard a spaceship was a fantasy, he replied “A fantasy. In other words it was a dream.” On November 24, 1975 he and Betty appeared on the Larry Glick show and he repeated his opinion stating, “Their story was fantastic and unreal and had to be accepted or rejected…If I this were real I’d have to believe these beings were from outer space.” Dr. Simon rejected that notion; after all, he had an outstanding reputation to protect.

It is telling that Dr. Simon incorrectly recalled much of the information on the hypnosis tapes. His memory appears to have been failing. For example, he stated that Betty’s abduction experience and her dreams were exactly alike except for the description of the ramp to the craft. As I noted above, Dr. Simon’s memory was inaccurate and wrong. He spoke about Barney’s increasing fear throughout the trip and its escalating intensity after the object was sighted. The fact is that Barney was sometimes concerned about the possibility of racial discrimination, but didn’t encounter it. It was only a periodic concern, not an overwhelming obsession. He did remove his gun in the wilderness area because he was outside at night in an area inhabited by bears—a very real concern. And he did become increasingly fearful as the silent, hovering, unconventional craft approached closer and closer. His fear reached an apex when he observed beings on the craft were “somehow not human,” as stated in Walt Webb’s NICAP report, and felt that he would soon be captured. It is not unreasonable for any well-adjusted human to have a strong emotional response to this kind of stimuli.

Dr. Simon correctly noted a difference between the Hills’ two stories, as did I. It is apparent that Betty sometimes abandoned her veridical memory of the event and escaped to some of her dream memories. Barney did not. His physical exam was nearly identical to that described by male abductees in subsequent abduction reports although they were not privy to Barney’s information. It is apparent that Dr. Simon didn’t examine Betty’s and Barney’s independent statements in detail vis-à-vis her dream account. He challenged Betty and Barney to explain why Betty knew everything about Barney’s experience on the craft but he knew nothing of hers. But that was an empty statement. Betty knew very little about Barney’s experience on the craft and certainly Barney knew nothing of Betty’s experience.

Setting the Record Straight

Unfortunately, Dr. Simon and Carl Sagan didn’t live long enough to read my book Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, coauthored by scientific ufologist/nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman. Nor were they around to read my comparative analysis of the hypnosis tapes versus Betty’s dream transcripts. The detailed information that she and Barney independently offered would have dispelled that myth. The Hills gave detailed correlating information that was not in Betty’s dreams and could not have been passed from one to the other.

Kathleen Marden holding her books, Science Was Wrong and Captured!

(Credit: Alejandro Rojas)

Returning to Carl’s article, I made the naive assumption in 1993 that Carl simply didn’t have his facts straight and I wrote to him listing his errors and the correct information. But I didn’t receive a reply, or more importantly a retraction. It was only later that I learned that Carl had sent a review copy of his article to Stanton Friedman, more than two months before the PARADE article was published. Stanton replied in a twelve-page letter giving detailed commentary on Carl’s inaccurate statements and supplying the correct information. Nevertheless Carl chose to misrepresent the facts.

In my new book with Stanton Friedman, Science Was Wrong, I question why Carl would knowingly misrepresent the Hill case to millions of readers and viewers of his Cosmos series and his PARADE article. Since that time I have been searching for the answer to my question. I recently found a clue in a letter written by Carl to debunker Philip Klass praising his Skeptical Inquirer review of the Condon study, an infamous committee established to study UFOs in the 1960s. Carl wrote, “I also take credit for convincing the O’Brien Committee of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, of which I was a member, to recommend a major academic skeptical study of UFO’s.” Notice that he did not use the word “unbiased.” As most readers probably know, the Condon study was both skeptical and biased. What you might not know is that Robert Low, the project coordinator, maintained a close relationship with Klass throughout the study, exchanging frequent letters and confidential information. It is not unfair, in my estimation, to say that Carl Sagan and Phil Klass had a vested interest in dispensing of the entire UFO problem. It would certainly let the U.S. government off the hook.

This article originally appeared in Open Minds Magazine. For more about Kathleen Marden and her work, visit her site: Kathleen-Marden.com.

{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

DREIGING YELLOWSTONE SUPERVULKAAN VEEL GROTER DAN GEDACHT

Misschien wel de meest misplaatste arrogantie ooit van de mensheid is dat ze denken het klimaat wel even te kunnen beheersen. 

Terwijl de aardbevingen rondom Yellowstone blijven toenemen, haalt Nederland het in haar hoofd om een minister van Klimaat te benoemen. 

De afgelopen jaren is het publiek regelmatig in slaap gesust door de Amerikaanse Geological Survey (USGS), die verzekerde dat ondanks dat er zich steeds vaker series kleine aardbevingen voordeden rondom het gebied van de Yellowstone Supervulkaan, dit helemaal niets was om ons zorgen over te maken.

Een supervulkaan die, wanneer deze wel tot uitbarsting zou komen, zal zorgen voor mogelijk honderdduizenden dodelijke slachtoffers.

Echter, die geruststellende praatjes beginnen nu plotsklaps te veranderen.

Sinds ongeveer het midden van de maand juli van dit jaar hebben zich in het Yellowstone gebied ongeveer 2.500 kleine aardbevingen voorgedaan, het hoogste aantal in een serie ooit. De aarde onder de vulkaan is aan het verschuiven en dit kan betekenen dat er magma is gaan stromen naar de belangrijkste magmakamer.

Dit proces dat leidt naar een uitbarsting had volgens eerdere voorspellingen van de geologen van de USGS nog duizenden jaren moeten duren.

Wanneer dit monster uitbarst, kan er meer dan 1.000 kubieke kilometer as en gruis de atmosfeer in worden geblazen, ongeveer 2.500 keer meer materiaal dan tijdens de uitbarsting van de Mount Saint Helens in 1980, waarbij 57 doden vielen. Wanneer Yellowstone daadwerkelijk uitbarst, zal niet alleen Noord Amerika worden bedekt met een dikke laag as, maar zal de wereld te maken krijgen met een vulkaanwinter. 

Wetenschappers staan eigenlijk op dit moment een beetje met hun mond vol tanden, want nooit hadden zij verwacht dat het gehele voorbereidende proces dat zich voltrekt voordat de vulkaan daadwerkelijk uitbarst, zou kunnen plaatsvinden in een tijdsbestek van één mensenleven.

Wij schrijven al heel lang dat er iets bijzonders gaande is rondom Yellowstone supervulkaan, maar ook dat werd door velen afgedaan als een complotter-verhaaltje. Nu blijkt dit dus wel degelijk te kloppen, hetgeen maar weer eens bewijst dat je voor het echte nieuws bij de alternatieve media moet zijn, want volgens de mainstream was ertin het geheel niets aan de hand bij Yellowstone.

Net zoals wij al heel lang schrijven over andere fenomenen die veel heftiger zijn dan de mainstream ons willen laten geloven, zoals onlangs over de schrikbarende toename van het aantal aardbevingen dat volkomen onder de pet wordt gehouden.

Slapende vulkanen die overal ter wereld wakker worden, sinkholes die overal ter wereld verschijnen, aardbevingen die in aantallen stijgen naar een recordhoogte. Al deze dingen hebben totaal niets te maken met de gedragingen van de mens en (niet bestaande) opwarming van de aarde.

We worden voorgelogen op een enorme schaal. Zoals we onlangs schreven wordt het klimaat op aarde voornamelijk bepaald door de zon en dan lijkt het erop dat we weer richting mini ijstijd gaan. Dit gekoppeld aan het feit dat er temperatuurdalingen kunnen ontstaan door grote vulkaanuitbarstingen betekent dat er helemaal geen sprake is van klimaatopwarming. Daarnaast is CO2 iets dat onze planeet heel hard nodig heeft en door het bestrijden daarvan doen we onszelf als mensheid de das om.

In plaats van dat onze overheid zich concentreert op het beter voorbereiden van de bevolking op mogelijk roerige tijden en deze leert hoe ze in barre tijden zoals een vulkaanwinter kunnen overleven, gaan ze een Minister van Klimaat aanstellen.

Er schuift vanaf november elke vrijdag een beklagenswaardige, nieuwe figuur aan tafel in de Trêveszaal voor de ministerraad. Het is de Klimaatminister, waarschijnlijk van D66-huize, met een oneindig vertrouwen in de toekomst. Want deze man of vrouw wordt opgezadeld met een hondsmoeilijke opdracht, waarvan het resultaat pas duidelijk is als Rutte III en zijn Klimaatminister bijna zijn vergeten.

Kijk naar bovenstaande, waaruit wederom blijkt dat wij al jarenlang gelijk hebben en dat de situatie rondom de Yellowstone vulkaan veel kritischer is dan men ons wilde doen geloven. Kijk naar de mainstream media die daar jarenlang over hebben gelogen zoals ze over alles liegen.

Kijk en huiver hoe de paljassen in Den Haag een minister van klimaat gaan aanstellen. Alsof ze dezelfde macht zouden hebben als een God. De mens controleert het klimaat op aarde niet, hoe hard ze het ook proberen, en dat is een van de de grootste leugens die ooit aan een slapende bevolking is verteld.

De zon en eventueel de invloeden van enorme (magnetische) krachtvelden van andere planeten bepalen het klimaat hier op aarde en niet de mens.

{ http://niburu.co/ }

Conspiracy Theorists Claim Top UFO Researchers Are Being Murdered One After Another

The government killing off anyone who gets near to the truth about UFOs may be just a perfect conspiracy theory, but some people sincerely believe it. As proof, they referred to growing list of people who had died due to alleged accidents and suicides.

John Ventre, one of the researchers at the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), says that 137 people died in the field of UFO investigation in a ten-year period.

Paranormal investigator Max Spiers died last year after claiming to have survived a secret super soldier programme of the government. Conspiracy fans pointed the finger at secret government agencies.

Believers say that killings may have been arranged to stop them from revealing the truth about UFOs back as far as 1947. They believe that JFK assassination may be one of those killings.

YouTuber Tyler of SecureTeam 10 claims that he has had threats and phone calls. He says that the danger from the government or people who want to keep them silent grows monumentally as UFO enthusiasts like him have grown into prominent positions in the field of UFO research. Tyler adds that he is starting to believe that those concerns are justified.

UFO author Nigel Watson says the conspiracy theory implies that there is some form of conspiracy and organisation behind the killings.

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

Triangle-shaped craft seen by 20 witnesses over Thornhill, Canada 9-Oct-2017

Check out this really interesting video of a triangle-shaped craft hovering in the sky above Thornhill, Canada. This was filmed on 9th October 2017.

Witness report: 

We were at our friends house in the backyard for thanksgiving when I noticed something glimmering brightly in the sky. This was observed by 20 people. We were at a friends house for thanksgiving in the background with 20 people including kids. I initially had something catch my eye in the south east sky around 1,000 feet at an angle of around 50 degrees to the ground. We initially thought it was maybe some silver balloons as we could see three round shiny objects. It became apparent that it was actually one object triangular in shape with three bright lights. The object hovered and moved around slowly making no sound at all. We could see this object move behind a cloud and then back again. It began to climb to around 2,000 plus feet. We thought maybe it was a drione but the object was much larger than any drone I’ve seen and was metallic. We did not observe any strobe pattern or flashing lights just the three solid lights which did increase and decrease in intensity. I did manage to capture a couple of still shots and it can be seen that this is clearly a triangular shakes object with 3 equally spaced bright white lights. We watched this object for around 30 minutes until it climbed to 3,000 feet and above and made its way into the south east sky. During its movement it appeared that this object was moving and spinning slowly. I immediately began to film it with my iPhone. 

Author (source: MUFON)

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

The Solar System and Beyond is Awash in Water

As NASA missions explore our solar system and search for new worlds, they are finding water in surprising places. Water is but one piece of our search for habitable planets and life beyond Earth, yet it links many seemingly unrelated worlds in surprising ways.

“NASA science activities have provided a wave of amazing findings related to water in recent years that inspire us to continue investigating our origins and the fascinating possibilities for other worlds, and life, in the universe,” said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for the agency. “In our lifetime, we may very well finally answer whether we are alone in the solar system and beyond.”

The chemical elements in water, hydrogen and oxygen, are some of the most abundant elements in the universe. Astronomers see the signature of water in giant molecular clouds between the stars, in disks of material that represent newborn planetary systems, and in the atmospheres of giant planets orbiting other stars.

There are several worlds thought to possess liquid water beneath their surfaces, and many more that have water in the form of ice or vapor. Water is found in primitive bodies like comets and asteroids, and dwarf planets like Ceres. The atmospheres and interiors of the four giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are thought to contain enormous quantities of the wet stuff, and their moons and rings have substantial water ice.

Perhaps the most surprising water worlds are the five icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn that show strong evidence of oceans beneath their surfaces: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto at Jupiter, and Enceladus and Titan at Saturn.

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently provided powerful evidence that Ganymede has a saltwater, sub-surface ocean, likely sandwiched between two layers of ice.

Europa and Enceladus are thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath their surface in contact with mineral-rich rock, and may have the three ingredients needed for life as we know it: liquid water, essential chemical elements for biological processes, and sources of energy that could be used by living things. NASA’s Cassini mission has revealed Enceladus as an active world of icy geysers. Recent research suggests it may have hydrothermal activity on its ocean floor, an environment potentially suitable for living organisms.

NASA spacecraft have also found signs of water in permanently shadowed craters on Mercury and our moon, which hold a record of icy impacts across the ages like cryogenic keepsakes.

While our solar system may seem drenched in some places, others seem to have lost large amounts of water.

On Mars, NASA spacecraft have found clear evidence that the Red Planet had water on its surface for long periods in the distant past. NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover discovered an ancient streambed that existed amidst conditions favorable for life as we know it.

More recently, NASA scientists using ground-based telescopes were able to estimate the amount of water Mars has lost over the eons. They concluded the planet once had enough liquid water to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’ northern hemisphere, in some regions reaching depths greater than a mile (1.6 kilometers). But where did the water go?

It’s clear some of it is in the Martian polar ice caps and below the surface. We also think much of Mars’ early atmosphere was stripped away by the wind of charged particles that streams from the sun, causing the planet to dry out. NASA’s MAVEN mission is hard at work following this lead from its orbit around Mars.

The story of how Mars dried out is intimately connected to how the Red Planet’s atmosphere interacts with the solar wind. Data from the agency’s solar missions — including STEREO, Solar Dynamics Observatory and the planned Solar Probe Plus — are vital to helping us better understand what happened.

Understanding the distribution of water in our solar system tells us a great deal about how the planets, moons, comets and other bodies formed 4.5 billion years ago from the disk of gas and dust that surrounded our sun. The space closer to the sun was hotter and drier than the space farther from the sun, which was cold enough for water to condense. The dividing line, called the “frost line,” sat around Jupiter’s present-day orbit. Even today, this is the approximate distance from the sun at which the ice on most comets begins to melt and become “active.” Their brilliant spray releases water ice, vapor, dust and other chemicals, which are thought to form the bedrock of most worlds of the frigid outer solar system.

Scientists think it was too hot in the solar system’s early days for water to condense into liquid or ice on the inner planets, so it had to be delivered — possibly by comets and water-bearing asteroids. NASA’s Dawn mission is currently studying Ceres, which is the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Researchers think Ceres might have a water-rich composition similar to some of the bodies that brought water to the three rocky, inner planets, including Earth.

The amount of water in the giant planet Jupiter holds a critical missing piece to the puzzle of our solar system’s formation. Jupiter was likely the first planet to form, and it contains most of the material that wasn’t incorporated into the sun. The leading theories about its formation rest on the amount of water the planet soaked up. To help solve this mystery, NASA’s Juno mission will measure this important quantity beginning in mid-2016.

Looking further afield, observing other planetary systems as they form is like getting a glimpse of our own solar system’s baby pictures, and water is a big part of that story. For example, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has observed signs of a hail of water-rich comets raining down on a young solar system, much like the bombardment planets in our solar system endured in their youth.

With the study of exoplanets — planets that orbit other stars — we are closer than ever to finding out if other water-rich worlds like ours exist. In fact, our basic concept of what makes planets suitable for life is closely tied to water: Every star has a habitable zone, or a range of distances around it in which temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist. NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler mission was designed with this in mind. Kepler looks for planets in the habitable zone around many types of stars.

Recently verifying its thousandth exoplanet, Kepler data confirm that the most common planet sizes are worlds just slightly larger than Earth. Astronomers think many of those worlds could be entirely covered by deep oceans. Kepler’s successor, K2, continues to watch for dips in starlight to uncover new worlds.

The agency’s upcoming TESS mission will search nearby, bright stars in the solar neighborhood for Earth- and super-Earth-sized exoplanets. Some of the planets TESS discovers may have water, and NASA’s next great space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, will examine the atmospheres of those special worlds in great detail.

It’s easy to forget that the story of Earth’s water, from gentle rains to raging rivers, is intimately connected to the larger story of our solar system and beyond. But our water came from somewhere — every world in our solar system got its water from the same shared source. So it’s worth considering that the next glass of water you drink could easily have been part of a comet, or an ocean moon, or a long-vanished sea on the surface of Mars. And note that the night sky may be full of exoplanets formed by similar processes to our home world, where gentle waves wash against the shores of alien seas.

Source www.jpl.nasa.gov

{http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/}

There’s a giant egg floating in our solar system with a ring around it

Some of the most exciting new discoveries in space come from far, far away, thanks to telescopes capable of detecting exoplanets that are so distant we’d likely never be able to actually visit them, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some pretty interesting stuff here in our own Solar System. Take, for example, the dwarf planet Haumea, a large egg-shaped body that hangs out beyond Neptune in the far reaches of our little planetary neighborhood, which researchers just discovered also happens to have a ring around it. Man, space is weird.

The research, which was published in the journal Nature, reveals that the oddly-shaped object is a real oddity, even among dwarf planets. Haumea’s oblong shape isn’t the only weird thing about it, as it also has an extremely fast rotational speed, leading to a full revolution once every 3.9 hours.

This older depiction of Haumea lacks the rings but shows the dark red spot that scientists identified on the dwarf planet’s surface.

Credit: SINC/José Antonio Peñas

Haumea is one of only five officially recognized dwarf planets, with the others being Ceres, Eris, Makemake, and of course the onetime planet Pluto. Along with its egg shape and rapid rotation, it sets itself apart thanks to its pair of moons and of course it’s newly-discovered debris ring.

Rings around planets like Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are well-studied and, for the most part, understood. But a dwarf planet boasting a ring of its own is definitely pretty weird, if only because it’s the first with a confirmed ring.

Interestingly, the many oddities that make Haumea such a strange dwarf planet might be related. Past research suggested that the dwarf planet experienced a collision with another object in the Kuiper Belt — the thick circle of debris that lies past Neptune — and it’s entirely possible that the impact not only caused the dwarf to spin wildly, sending debris into its orbit. That debris could have been the material that eventually formed its moons, with the rest of the dust falling into orbit and creating its ring.

Source bgr.com

{ Alien UFO Sightings }

US AIR FORCE’S 1950S SUPERSONIC FLYING SAUCER DECLASSIFIED

The aircraft, which had the code name Project 1794, was developed by the USAF and Avro Canada in the 1950s. One declassified memo, which seems to be the conclusion of initial research and prototyping, says that Project 1794 is a flying saucer capable of “between Mach 3 and Mach 4,” (2,300-3,000 mph) a service ceiling of over 100,000 feet (30,500m), and a range of around 1,000 nautical miles (1,150mi, 1850km).

As far as we can tell, the supersonic flying saucer would propel itself by rotating an outer disk at very high speed, taking advantage of the Coandă effect. Maneuvering would be accomplished by using small shutters on the edge of the disc (similar to ailerons on a winged aircraft). Power would be provided by jet turbines. According to the cutaway diagrams, the entire thing would even be capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL).

These images (two more at the end of the story) come from the US National Archives, which is tasked with preserving important records and documents — including declassified military documents. It isn’t clear why it has taken some 64 years for Project 1794 to be declassified, though it does follow on from the declassified news in 2008 that the US government has been monitoring UFO activity for more than 30 years. There are apparently two whole boxes of Project 1794 documents — but only the four images shown here have been digitized.

Without a deeper look inside those boxes, we can’t be sure that Project 1794 ever made it off the ground. It’s worth noting that Avro Canada also worked on the VZ-9 Avrocar, though — which is basically the same as Project 1794, but a lot smaller. The Avrocar was originally specified for a max speed of 300 mph and a service ceiling of 10,000 feet — but in practice, it never got more than three feet off the ground or flew faster than 35mph.

Despite the Avrocar’s failures, it is clear that the US government was indeed working on aircraft in the 1950s that resembled flying saucers. Suffice it to say, the US might also have been working on flying saucers back in the ’40s, around the same time as the Roswell UFO incident.

Ultimately, though, the fact that we use fixed-wing aircraft today is a good indicator that flying saucers, while cool, just aren’t that functional. If flying saucers were somehow faster or more efficient or capable of lifting heavier loads, we would almost certainly see them in a commercial setting. Sadly, while some UFO sightings may have indeed been Project 1794, it’s unlikely that they were anything more than experiments carried out by humans, not aliens.

Source www.extremetech.com

{ Alien UFO Sightings. }

The hunt for an alleged mysterious ninth planet (no, not Pluto, the other one) keeps taking strange turns. It all began when astronomers began detecting unexplained anomalies in the orbits of distant planets and objects in our Solar System. These anomalies implied that an unknown massive object was exerting gravitational forces on these objects, prompting astronomers to search for and identify several possible candidates for an alleged Planet 9 (or Planet X, depending on who you ask).

Planet 9/X has become one of the most intriguing astronomical mysteries of our time.

While the possible existence of such a planet is still up in the air, that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from launching all sorts of speculation about the role of such a planet in apocalyptic doomsday events. As usual, though, the proposed dates for such a planetary collision have come and gone several times without incident. 

Or maybe it already has collided with Earth and launched us into a hellish the current dimension/timeline we seem to have found ourselves in.

Now, the hunt for the mysterious ninth planet has gone a step further as a pair of astronomers and bona fide Planet X hunters believe they have found some of the most tantalizing evidence yet for the planet’s existence. The California Institute of Technology’s Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the University of Côte d’Azur published the first evidence of Planet X in early 2016, and they’ve continued their search ever since.

Brown, left, and Batygin: Planet hunters extraordinaire.

Their latest study was actually a meta-study, meaning it analyzed and examined every other study and piece of evidence concerning Planet 9/X. After poring over every bit of data out there, Brown and Batygin now believe that Planet 9 not only exists, but is key to explaining some of the essential features of our Solar System:

There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine. If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them.

In their mind-bogglingly-technical recent publication, Batygin and Brown specifically state that a ninth planet might be the only known phenomenon that could explain the tilt, or obliquity, of the Sun:

While a multitude of processes could have contributed to the observed obliquity of the sun, the gravitational influence of Planet Nine provides the only dynamical mechanism that is directly testable.

Of course, it will take many more years of scanning the cosmos before any of these hypotheses can be confirmed, or we might need better instruments that have yet to be invented. Just as we look back upon the first telescopes and star charts as early steps in a long process leading us to today’s technology, future astronomers will chuckle with adoration at our current space telescopes and probes once future astronomers discover methods of transportation and data collection beyond the wildest dreams of today. Who knows what other wonders we’ll uncover right here in our own cosmic backyard?

{http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The Apollo 15 moon mission began on July 26, 1971, and ended on Aug 7, 1971. After three orbits of Earth, the command module traveled to the Moon under the direction of Command Module Pilot Alfred M. Worden, who then orbited the Moon 75 times while Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin spent three days on the lunar surface. This was Worden’s first (and only) space mission and, when his orbit took him to 2,235 miles from the surface, he set a record (at the time) for being the farthest away from any other human beings.

Commander Dave Scott, Command Module Pilot Alfred Worden, Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin

Worden called it “three wonderful days in a spacecraft all by myself” and apparently used that time to do a lot of thinking about those even-farther-away humans on Earth and how they got there.

He finally opened up about his thoughts in a recent interview on Good Morning Britain when he said this:

“I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times … are there, do you believe in aliens? That I say yeah, have you ever seen one, I say yeah, I have. Well how have you seen him? Well I said I look in the mirror every morning. That’s what we are … we are the aliens but we just we just think we’re saying we just think there’s somebody else but we’re the ones who came from somewhere else because, because somebody else had to survive and they got in a little spacecraft then he came here and they landed and they started civilization here. That’s where I believe.”

“Somebody else had to survive” so they got into a spacecraft and moved here, where they were alone like Worden circling the Moon, except they got to land and procreate and populate the planet with their race that Worden and the rest of us call ‘humans’. That sounds like something right out of graphic novels and would be discounted as such if it weren’t coming from one of the handful of humans who have actually done the same thing … left their home planet.

In fact, Worden says that humans in the future will have to – if you believe his first premise – leave their home planet AGAIN and move to another orb that can sustain us. Nothing in our solar system (sorry Elon) fits the bill, so Worden says:

“We got to develop the capability to go someplace where there is another earth and we know that they’re out there, there’s no question of that, they are out there, but there are a little ways out, maybe 3.2 light-years is the nearest one, which means we got to build a machine it goes a little faster than the speed of light and that’s gonna be the big key.”

Al Worden

Wow. Is that the kind of insight 75 trips around the Moon can give you? Well, that and:

“And if you don’t believe me, go get books on the ancient Sumerians and see what they had to say about it, they’ll tell you right up front.”

Ah, the Sumerians and their ancient aliens. So Worden got the psychological and celestial thrills that all lunar astronauts talk about, and combined them with ancient alien theories. No seeing secret cities on the dark side of the Moon, no abandoned flying saucers, no psychic communications, no billboards with pictures of grey aliens warning that “Loose lips sink spaceships.”

Nonetheless, Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot Alfred M. Worden has been there. Until we send more humans to the Moon and beyond, he deserves to be listened to.

{http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Planet X: There might be a planet on the edge of our solar system, says Nasa, but it's not going to kill us all

Andrew Griffin 

@_andrew_griffin 

A mysterious planet might be lurking on the edge of our solar system.

Nibiru has been blamed for a variety of things – strange events on Earth, days of darkness where the sun won't rise, and even the potential destruction of Earth. One man has said, repeatedly, that the planet is going to cause the apocalypse on Earth – changing the date when that doesn't become true.

Of course, any planet that Nasa discovered almost certainly won't have any of the attributes that believers in Nibiru ascribe to it. It won't be heading to Earth to destroy us all – at least not any time soon – and it doesn't have any mystical powers.

But those talking about Nibiru are right about one thing: there might in fact a planet on the edge of our solar system, and scientists really aren't sure whether it exists or not. Scientists say that it's now more likely that it does exist than it doesn't.

"There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," said Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, whose team could be about to find the planet. "If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them," he said in a new Nasa statement.

Professor Batygin alongside astronomer Mike Brown claim to have found a range of different, indirect pieces of evidence for the planet. It seems to be tilting our universe, for instance, in a way that makes scientists think there must be something out on the edge disrupting things.

Now astronomers are looking deep into the sky using advanced telescopes to try and see the planet itself. Doing so is difficult, given it is so distant, hidden and dark – but they are now using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, described as the "best tool" for the job, to try and spot them.

When they do that, they'll be more likely to find out where it was. And, unlike the myths Planet X or Nibiru, its origin won't be the inside of someone's head.

More about: 

• Planet Nine
• Planet X
• Nibiru
• Nasa

{ http://www.independent.co.uk/ }

Ster Kronos verorberde zijn eigen planeten

Tim Kraaijvanger

Net als het bekende figuur uit de Griekse mythologie at ook de ster Kronos zijn eigen kroost op.

Astronomen ontdekten dat de ster HD 240430 in het verleden het equivalent van vijftien aardes heeft verorberd. “Zelfs al zou onze zon alle vier binnenplaneten (Mercurius, Venus, Aarde en Mars, red.) verslinden, dan nog zou de ster niet in de buurt komen van wat HD 240430 heeft opgeslokt”, zegt auteur David Hogg.

De ster heeft de bijnaam Kronos gekregen. Dat klinkt iets makkelijker dan HD 240430, maar is ook nog eens toepasselijk. Kronos is een figuur uit de Griekse mythologie. Hij was de zoon van Ouranos en Gaia. Omdat zijn ouders hadden voorspeld dat een van zijn kinderen hem zou onttronen, besloot hij om zijn kinderen met huid en haar te verslinden. Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon, Hades en Hera kwamen zo aan hun eind. Alleen Zeus werd gespaard, omdat moeder Rheia hem in het geheim baarde. De uitkomst is natuurlijk al bekend: Zeus nam de heerschappij over van Kronos.

De ster Kronos is 350 lichtjaar van de aarde verwijderd en vormt een duo met ster HD 240429 (Krios). Wanneer onderzoekers kijken naar dubbelsterren, dan zien ze er chemisch gezien vaak hetzelfde uit. Logisch, want de sterren zijn in dezelfde stellaire kraamkamer ontstaan. Toch blijken Krios en Kronos te verschillen.

Kronos verslaat Ouranos. Bron: Wikimedia Commons.

De onderzoekers hebben allerlei mogelijke verklaringen hiervoor onderzocht. Is een van de sterren ouder dan de ander? Zijn de sterren toch in twee verschillende gaswolken ontstaan? Of waren elementen in de gaswolk niet goed gemixt? De astronomen beweren dat deze verklaringen niet kloppen, omdat ze in dezelfde omstandigheden zijn ontstaan.

Veel zware elementen
De enige logische verklaring is dat Kronos veel materiaal heeft opgeslokt. Hierdoor heeft Kronos meer zware elementen, zoals ijzer, silicium, magnesium en lithium. Deze elementen zijn ook terug te vinden op onze eigen planeet. De zwaardere elementen zijn terug te vinden in de buitenste lagen van Kronos en zijn dus niet goed gemixt. Dit is sterk bewijs dat de ster pas een miljard jaar na zijn geboorte deze elementen ontving.

Scheerde een andere ster langs Kronos?
In het verleden zijn er vaker planetenverslindende sterren gevonden, maar het equivalent van vijftien aardes is toch echt wel een record. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat Kronos in het verleden vlak langs een andere ster scheerde, waardoor de banen van planeten werden gewijzigd. De planeten kwamen hierdoor op ramkoers te liggen met de ster. Een triest einde voor dit systeem. Toch gebeurt dit wel vaker. Wist je dat over 1,3 miljoen jaar er ook een andere ster door ons zonnestelsel reist? De gevolgen voor de aarde zijn gelukkig klein, maar deze ster verstoort mogelijk wel de banen van objecten in de Oortwolk. Met alle gevolgen van dien.

Bronmateriaal:

"A Star That Devoured Its Own Planets" - Simons Foundation
Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Simons Foundation

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

NASA noemt bewijs voor planeet X 'overtuigend'

Caroline Kraaijvanger

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }