Yellowstone Magma Chamber Under Immense Pressure After Deformation, Experts Warn

Seismologists who have been monitoring the Supervolcano at Yellowstone have said that new data has revealed that the magma chamber is under immense pressure and the caldera might erupt at any time.

Deformation Occurs When Pressure in Magma Chamber Changes

Experts have warned that the volcano is under strain after noticing deformation. This is said to be a process where the subsurface rock changes shape subtly and it is said to be happening under the surface of Yellowstone at the moment.

The researchers have said that the deformation happens when there has been a change in the pressure in the magma chamber and now the experts are keeping a careful watchful eye on any new development.

Seismologists from UNAVCO are now using GPS, along with borehole tiltmeters and borehole strainmeters so that they can measure the smallest of changes in any deformation at Yellowstone. Glen Mattioli and David Mencin, geodesists at UNAVCO said that the strain signal is bigger than what they expected if the crust that lies under Yellowstone was completely solid.

Semi-molten Rock May Be Just 3 Miles under the Surface

They believe that lava is flowing and this is allowing pressure to build up in the magma chamber and they have no idea whether this is a good or bad thing. The observations by the geodesists agree with other instruments used at Yellowstone, such as seismometers.

These give an indication that a zone of rock that is semi-molten lies around three miles under the surface. It is called semi-molten due to the fact that the whole zone has around 5% to 15% liquid rock occupying only a small pocket of space between the rocks that are solid.

Scientists want to give assurance to the public that the observations will not be a cause for alarm. However, they would say that and people should bear in mind that the last time that the volcano erupted was 700,000 years ago, so it is well overdue for another eruption. Now Yellowstone has been cast in the limelight due to the new data.

87,000 People Would Die If Yellowstone Supervolcano Erupted

If the volcano at Yellowstone were to erupt around 87,000 people would die immediately and around two-thirds of the United States would be left uninhabitable. It would lead to a huge amount of ash spewing into the atmosphere and it would block the sunlight out and affect life beneath it as there would be a nuclear winter. Perhaps the volcano at Yellowstone will not erupt for many more thousands of years or maybe it is giving a sign that eruption is close, we simply do not know.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

The Best Crop Circles From The last 5 Years to Get You Excited About The 2018 Season

With The Crop Circle Season quickly Approaching, Take a Look Back At The Best Ones From The Last 5 Years. We have seen some of the best Crop Circle formation ever in the last few years.

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Incredible ‘UFO’ shaped hotel in Norway’s Arctic Circle gives amazing Northern Lights view

IF YOU’RE a fan of things that go ‘bump’ in the night, then this extra-terrestrial hotel, likened to a UFO space ship, in northern Norway was made for you.

Life in the Cosmos --"In Its Advanced Forms May Be Incomprehensible to the Human Mind"

{ http://www.dailygalaxy.com/ }

The Lost Files of Project Blue Book

From the Desks of Project Blue Book

    The Black Vault is proud to host files from the “Desks of Project Blue Book” — courtesy of Investigator Rob Mercer. Many of these files are not available anywhere else, and are here due to the research efforts of Mr. Mercer. None of this can be reproduced without the express permission, as Mr. Mercer personally scanned this material for archival purposes.

By John Greenewald
The Black Vault

Background

Rob Mercer is a longtime follower of the UFO phenomenon and a history buff, as well as a UFO Investigator from Ohio. He resides in the Springfield, Ohio about 20 minutes from Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Wright Patterson has a rich history of research and development. It also plays an important part in UFO lore, with its ties to Roswell in 1947 and other UFO events. The Air Force also conducted their different investigation programs of UFO’s there, including Project Blue Book. Rob had spent years doing service work in homes in the Dayton area, including those of personnel who worked at the base. During this time, it was not uncommon for him to come across people that are also interested in UFO’s. Some would have collections of books or binders put together from private investigators. Items that will eventually be passed on to relatives, who in most cases, don’t care to keep them. It is a good bet that a lot of these collections will meet the curb, but from time to time you can find items such as these on Ebay or similar sites. Cost, time, and effort with shipping are required with these, something that most won’t bother with. Craigslist however, provides a place that is free, and it allows for local pickup. For this reason, he long thought that if he kept an eye out, he might come across some deals on some personal collections.

This is a copy of the original advertisement for the collection.

One evening in late 2013, under a UFO search on Craigslist in the Dayton, Ohio area, he came across an ad that advertised Project Blue Book Pics and Documents. The ad was from Centerville, which is located just south of Dayton. It stated that the materials were apparently the property of an Air Force Captain who was assigned to Project Blue Book. They were found behind a pile of lumber bought at auction in a garage in Fairborn, Ohio. A good portion of Wright Patterson is located in Fairborn, so upon seeing this he was instantly intrigued. There was a good chance that it was the real deal. The next morning when Rob received a response, he was told that there had been no interest in the files up to that point. After work, he made the trip to view the items and was convinced of their authenticity. After purchasing the files (ALL UNCLASSIFIED), to be safe he made sure to get a screenshot of the ad in hopes of protecting himself if the files ended up having been stolen.

After returning home Rob began to trace their origin, as everything the seller knew about them was in the ad. He found a name that was on many of the later documents, and began his search there. He was able to determine the name was associated with a house that had been sold a few years before. A search showed this same house having an auction a couple of months prior. He drove by the house, and saw that there was a two-story garage behind it. This was perfect place for items to be stored, misplaced and possibly lost over time.

Lt. Carmon Marano, Circled

Convinced that the story was true, and that he was on the right track, Rob set about confirming that this was the actual Air Force Officer, and not just someone else that shared the same name. Everything matched up and he began trying to figure out how to approach him. In the case that he was unaware of the files being out, he did not want to expose him to trouble. The box contained slides showing “UFO” photos and other briefing documents, two binders with case summaries and photos, a 16mm from Moline, IL and various other files.

Email exchange with Lt. Carmon Marano

Contact was eventually made with the Officer and they ended up spending a couple of hours talking. He said that he didn’t realize that he had left them behind when he moved out. They spoke about his time in service, the UFO program and politics. After 45 years his memory was a little fuzzy, but he remembered some of the cases. The Officer said he grew up a fan of science fiction, and mentioned that when he was first assigned to the program he planned to prove that we were being visited. After two years he became burned out and convinced otherwise. When looking at some of the hoaxes and other photos submitted to Blue Book, along with the amount of paperwork that went into each case, it is easy to see why this would happen. By the late 60’s, little resources and staff were available. 

His duties included briefings on UFO’s for the Air Force and investigating sightings. During his time, he was also charged with organizing the case files. Blue Book didn’t have the best relationship with the press, and from time to time they would get requests about specific cases. He took it upon himself to make the process friendlier, he copied case files and organized them into books to make it easier for them. When the program shut down and closed in 1970, he declassified all of the case files except for Navy sightings. They could not be declassified because they would reveal military whereabouts. From there they sent the files on to Maxwell Air Force Base.

A photograph of the garage where the items were found.

After seeing how much Rob enjoyed subject, the Officer informed him that he had a few more boxes from his Blue Book days back home where he stays during the spring and summer. Rob was sent four more boxes, including: Books, photos, case files, memos, rules & regulations, film, reel to reel sound tape, correspondences and more (ALL UNCLASSIFIED). He learned that the files he acquired were some originals, as well as copies that were used for the press, as well as UFO investigation tools, books, and other UFO related documents and interoffice memos (ALL UNCLASSIFIED) from their actual desks. They were earmarked for the trash, the officer kept them as souvenirs. 

Visit The Black Vault and View The Lost Files and More ► 

See Also:

The Socorro UFO Case – Two More 'Smoking Guns' 

Update on the ‘Search for the Socorro UFO (Case) Footage’ 

Hynek’s Last Contract with the Project Blue Book UFO Program 

{ http://www.theufochronicles.com/ }

Uitzonderlijke Maya-overblijfselen en beenderen van uitgestorven dieren gevonden in ’s werelds grootste onderwatergrottenstelsel - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

In het langste onderwatergrottensysteem ter wereld zijn archeologen op 9.000 jaar oude menselijke overschotten en keramiek uit de Mayacultuur gestoten. Daarnaast troffen ze ook beenderen van uitgestorven reuzenluiaards, gomphotheriën (olifantachtigen) en reuzenberen aan uit het Pleistoceen. Dat meldde het Nationaal Instituut voor Antropologie en Geschiedenis (INAH) in Mexico.

De vondsten werden gedaan in het Sac Actun-stelsel nabij de Mayastad Tulum, langs de Caraïbische kust van het schiereiland Yucatán in Mexico. Vorige maand werd pas ontdekt dat het stelsel van 263 kilometer lang verbonden was met het grottensysteem Dos Ojos (84 kilometer), wat van het gecombineerde stelsel het grootste onderwatergrottenstelsel ter wereld maakt.

Onderzoekers, gefinancierd door het INAH, zeggen in het 347 kilometer lange stelsel 248 cenotes te hebben gevonden. Ze vonden ook 200 archeologische sites, waarvan 140 uit de Mayacultuur. Bepaalde cenotes hadden volgens de archeologen een bepaald religieus belang voor de Maya’s. De duikers troffen namelijk “interessante architecturale aanpassingen” aan, zoals “muren, gangen, altaren, heiligdommen en trappen”.

Volgens het INAH steeg het waterpeil na de laatste ijstijd, circa 11.700 jaar geleden aan het einde van het Pleistoceen, met 100 meter, waardoor Sac Actun onder water kwam de staan. “Ideale omstandigheden voor de bewaring van de overblijfselen van de uitgestorven megafauna”, klinkt het. “Dit is zonder twijfel de belangrijkste archeologische site onder water ter wereld”, zegt onderzoeker Guillermo de Anda. 

 AFP 

Een masker

 AFP

 AFP 

Een ander bijzonder masker

VIDEO's bijgevoegd door peter2011 -

Eén beeld zegt meer, dan duizend woorden...

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Massive Ancient Underwater Caves Reveal Ancient Mayan Relics

Archaeologists who have been exploring the world's largest underwater cave, recently discovered in Mexico, presented their findings Monday, including fossils of giant sloths and an elaborate shrine to the Mayan god of commerce, reports phys.org.

Credit Image: The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Researchers discovered last month that two large networks of underwater caves in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the cave system known as Sac Actun, once measured at 263 km (163 miles), and in fact connected with the 83 km- (52 km-) Dos Ojos system forming the largest such structure on Earth.

Diving with SCUBA gear, they have been exploring the ancient relics left in the caves over the millennia, in a project sponsored by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Researchers believe the water level in the caves has fluctuated over time, and that they were a source of water in times of severe drought, a sometimes perilous one.

Some of the animals and humans who ventured inside never made it out alive. Today, their remains are a treasure trove for scientists, enabling them to piece together bits of the cave's history dating all the way back to the Pleistocene epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).

The animal remains include gomphotheres, an extinct elephant-like animal, as well as giant sloths and bears.

Credit Images: The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). 

Then there are the artifacts left inside by humans: burnt human bones, ceramics, wall etchings and more. Many others of the hundreds of sink-holes that connect to the cave have elaborate signs of ritual activity around them.

The ancient Mayans viewed caves, and especially ones that led to water, as extremely sacred places.

  

If the name “Brian Leathley-Andrew,” doesn’t ring a bell, that’s not surprising. He lives in Bedworth, Warwickshire, England, and has tried to stay out of the public eye for 50 years. Why? Because in 1968, Brian Leathley-Andrew believed he was not just in the public eye … he was in the eye of sinister forces that wanted him to stop investigating and publicizing UFO sightings through his organization, the Unidentified Flying Object Information Bureau. In fact, they succeeded by terrifying him into retirement.

“Suddenly, I noticed a man standing by the next door garage. Nobody had been there before. His face was glowing orange. As I watched, the face changed to that of an old man before my eyes. Then he turned and walked away. You could not describe the first face in normal terms. It had eyes, nose and mouth in the proper places – but not of the shape that we associate with the human figure.”

That quote is from The Coventry Telegraph on December 3, 1968, under the headline, “Worried UFO Man Gives Up.” In an interview this week in Birminghammail.co.uk, Leathley-Andrew recounts the flurry of UFO activity in the Birmingham area in 1968 which prompted him to open the Unidentified Flying Object Information Bureau. According to the interview, The Coventry Telegraph carried these headlines, often with comments from Leathley-Andrew.

“UFO Became A Mum” (September 28, 1968): “A flying saucer which gave birth over Willenhall has been reported to the Unidentified Flying Object Information Centre of Mr. Brian Leathley-Andrew.

“Flying Saucers Not A Load of Tripe” (September 24, 1968): “Flying saucers were the greatest mystery of our time and should not be dismissed as a load of tripe, Mr Wilf Grunau told Nuneaton Rotary Club.

“Saucer Over City Say Women” (March 31, 1969): “Two Coventry women believe there may have been a flying saucer over the city during the weekend after they were woken by an ‘unearthly’ high-pitched whining accompanied by a glowing light.

Those were exciting times for the UFO watcher and local expert … until he realized his phone was tapped.

“Quite clearly, I had problems with phone tapping, bloody crude phone tapping. You could hear the click.”

Who was watching him? Leathley-Andrew says the wire-tapping and other strange incidents like the man with the orange face began just two days after he opened the Unidentified Flying Object Information Bureau and happened to other members of the group as well.

“All the lights in the house suddenly dimmed as though a huge electrical load had been put in the circuit. “This will happen once in a while normally, but it kept on happening. This is most unusual.”

Indeed. Yet he continued on, until a sinister photograph of an alleged UFO was sent to him.

“One man sent me pictures of a UFO. It was the lid of exactly the same handcream my wife used. The jar was there on the table in front of me.”

In his “exit” interview with The Coventry Telegraph on December 3, 1968, Leathley-Andrew says he destroyed all of his personal records of the UFO sightings and closed the UFO group out of fear for his family’s safety. According to the article, the only records left are the archives of The Coventry Telegraph. Searches on the Internet turn up nothing on Leathley-Andrew nor his organization. While he doesn’t mention aliens, he does indicate that he believed many of the sightings were due to experimental research by the Government and possibly by the nearby Rolls Royce factory, maker of high-performance aircraft engines.

So, why has Brian Leathley-Andrew decided to come out of deep hiding after 50 years?

“I want to publicly warn all teenage hobbyists that this is nothing to dabble in lightly. Society is being watched by the Department of Them. Say hello to System X.”

The Department of Them? System X? Is he right?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Space is beginning to become more accessible to humankind. Naturally, the military wants to start fighting wars up there. Really, though, if you think about the timelines of the development of automobiles, aircraft, and atomic bombs relative to their use in war, it’s a wonder that there hasn’t been a war in space yet. I guess the near-unbelievable price tags of any space-borne technology still hold back the superpowers from going CRASH BANG BOOM with all their shiny new space toys – for now, at least. Thanks to James Bond villain-in-the-making Elon Musk and the Chinese rocket scientists who are no doubt furiously plagiarizing his technology (yeah, they really do that), those price tags are sure to come down in the near future. What does that mean for us? Get ready for war in space, folks. It’s gonna be weird – and deadly.

What blows up must come down.

For now, most of the space weaponry involves disarming, destroying, or hijacking enemy satellites. Giant death lasers are on the way, though, don’t worry. Satellites are what give battlefield advantage to modern militaries, providing GPS and communications networks, surveillance capabilities, and probably even some seriously crazy space-based firepower we don’t even know about yet. Those satellites are relied upon by military forces during conflicts, making them prime targets for adversaries. According to a new report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Russia and China are only a few years away from having operational anti-satellite technology designed to reduce the advantages of the American military. The report also states that “the risk of interstate
conflict, including among great powers, is higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War.” Space Wars, here we come.

World superpowers have been testing anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons for decades but are only now approaching battlefield readiness.

This new report was published by the intelligence community and presented to congressional intelligence and armed forces committees. In the view of intelligence analysts, the United States’ closest rivals for world hegemony are fast at work preparing for space to be the pivotal battlefield in the next global conflict:

If a future conflict were to occur involving Russia or China, either country would justify attacks against US and allied satellites as necessary to offset any perceived US military advantage derived from military, civil, or commercial space systems. Military reforms in both countries in the past few years indicate an increased focus on establishing operational forces designed to integrate attacks against space systems and services with military operations in other domains.

Both countries are already training their soldiers how to launch and operate antisatellite (ASAT) weapons and are launching what the report describes as “experimental satellites” designed for use in warfare despite both China and Russia’s government both publicly claiming space should be a peaceful domain. The Russians have lately been launching covert satellites from remote launching stations over the past few years, while their known “killer” satellites have been waking up lately, worrying some defense analysts that a satellite war could be likely. China, meanwhile, has been testing ASAT weapons since 2007, and the United States, of course, have been doing some shadowy aerospace stuff and secret testing in orbit lately too. 

Anything could be up there by now. Maybe this weird uh…thing? Sure, why not? Looks like it would hurt whatever it landed on when it fell from orbit.

It’s natural that war would move into space. Could it have already though? If there was shooting going on in space, would we know? I assume astronomers or anyone with a telescope would see the action, though, right? Although given all of the strange stuff falling from the skies and the mysterious boomslately, who knows what’s really going on overhead?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Is 2018 the year time travel comes out of the closet and achieves some sort of legitimacy, if not actual proof, like UFOs did in 2017? After videos of three alleged time travelerssurfaced earlier this year in one week, three more appeared recently and a presidential candidate, who claims he has time traveled and promised to expose the technology if elected, revealed he has also time traveled to Mars and seen evidence of life and graveyards. What about some lottery numbers or stock market predictions?

Let’s start with pixel-faced “Noah.” He appeared first in a video from Apex TV (the new go-to source for time travel videos) where he claims he’s from the year 2030, says he can’t show his face or use his real voice because he could be assassinated for revealing the future and looks like his comments are being evaluated by a lie detector which buzzes in the background while the video flashes the word “True” on the screen. That last part seems pretty questionable, not to mention hokey.

In the video, and in a later interview in Australia on Sydney’s KIIS 106.5, he says that (some media reports call these “predictions” but they should be called “revelations” since he allegedly already knows they will happen) that Donald Trump will be re-elected, the law limiting the age of a president will be changed and a 21-year-old female named Ilana Remikee will become President in 2030 – but the really big news is that Ilana is the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr. Although that one registers “true” on the so-called lie detector, no searches have come up with a granddaughter of King by that name. He also said he takes pills to keep from aging, has proof he’s from the future (although he doesn’t reveal it – possibly waiting to get on a bigger radio show), says global warming will still be a problem as will pennies, even though bitcoin use will increase.

“Noah” also says humans will fly to Mars, which seems to contradict time traveler number 2 and presidential candidate Andrew Basiago. Basiago is running again in 2020 (he ran in 2016) and has an interesting list on his website of 100 proposals he will fulfill if elected, including disclosing “the existence of the secret US presence on the Red Planet.” A recent article in express.co.uk refers to a presentation which he supposedly gave at an unspecified MUFON symposium where he said:

“We landed on Mars in 1964 – the documentary source I can cite, but can’t proffer is a French external intelligence organisation dossier I was asked to read in the summer of 1980 which was also read by the future President Barack Obama which referred to a crash landing by an American team of astronauts on Mars who perished because they were not rescued by the Martian humanoids.”

He also allegedly repeats what he claims to have revealed in 2008 that:

“I show that in a ravine west of the Home Plate in the Gusev Crater on Mars, there was a mass grave of several hundred humanoid bodies, both male and female, clothed in uniform blue clothes suggestive of regimentation.”

Can someone ask pixelized Noah and his lie detector to give us a clarification on when humans go to Mars? Or maybe we can ask pixelized Edward, another first-names-only-please time traveler who claims in yet another Apex TV video that in 2004 he traveled to the year 5000 and just now decided to reveal what he brought back … a blurred picture of what he claims is Los Angeles under water. Speaking of blurred pictures of the future, Alexander Smith chose last week to reveal (in another Apex TV video) that he traveled to the year 2118 and his proof is a blurred photo of an unidentified city – blurred due to the stress of time travel, a common excuse.

What do we make of these time travel tales? The revelations are conflicting, the evidence is blurry (both physically and in explanation), the source for all of the videos except Andrew Basiago’s is Apex TV, and the time travelers themselves don’t appear to be the kind of believable people you’d select to send back to warn humanity of what’s coming.

Is this new interest in time travel and warnings from the future merely a way to cope with what’s happening in the world today?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Cylindrical UFO filmed in the sky above Vero Beach, Florida

This cigar-shaped UFO was caught on tape over Vero Beach in Florida. Filmed on 17th August 2017 but it was just recently submitted to MUFON.

Witness report: 

Was at Vero Beach Florida standing on our hotel balcony looking at ocean on a beautiful clear evening. Someone point out object flying over ocean and I started recording as quickly as possible. Object had no wings and it was silent as far as we could tell.

Author (source: MUFON)

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

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/ }

Filer’s Files #7 – 2018 Alien Reproduction Vehicle - PART II

UFO Sightings in the United States

Arizona Light

Phoenix — We were driving on Route I17 heading into Phoenix on February 2, 2018, when I noticed a rectangular object hovering over the mountains on the left hand side of the road.

My friend Dan grabbed his cell phone and took a picture of the object. After about 10 minutes the object disappeared.

A helicopter appeared shortly thereafter appearing to search for the UFO. Thanks to MUFON CMS

 California Mother Ship

Long Beach — I saw a huge white orb over my house on October 21, 2017. At first I spotted two objects crossing paths with each other and I focused on the larger one. As I zoomed in on my camera the UFO started ejecting smaller spheres into the atmosphere. The first ejection formed a triangular formation! As I kept filming the object started emitting tons of orbs falling in a steady stream from the main object. There were at least 40 smaller spheres emitted from the main UFO. Interestingly the smaller orbs were only visible through my infrared camera. This was recorded with my full spectrum Canon SX60 with a monopod in my backyard in Long Beach, CA.

Note: The video was taken during the daytime, but is dark due to the fact that it was taken by an infrared camera. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com

Colorado Lights

Wetmore – On February 13, 2018, we were driving home from the grocery store, on a road through the mountains at 8:00 pm. We noticed a series of orbs moving horizontally across the sky in front of us. Each orb would light up, and then would start to fade. As one would start to darken, the light next to it would light up, before they would all disappear. During  the first sighting, the lights appeared to be stacked in two horizontal rows. We pulled over and continued to watch. At one point, the orbs lit up and branched out to the left and right. We turned the vehicle around and watched again. After that, the sky went black. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Florida Disc

My name is Dennis James G Jr, I’m 48, and in 1990 myself and two other friends were on our way to the Florida keys to go fishing on Long Key bridge at about 5am. We all live in Broward County and go fishing often. .We were on us1 heading south sitting 3 across in a ford pickup, when I noticed a round completely silent “UFO” about 30 feet to the passenger side and about the height of a telephone pole traveling our same speed almost like we were racing. It was about 20 feet across and saucer shaped with an angular flat topped dome on top. I told my friend sitting in the middle to look at it and he did. Then we both told the driver to look….he did and got scarred and immediately stomped the gas and took off.  The object accelerated right along with us and stayed with us.   Then because we were the only people on the road he smashed the brakes and with lots of tire smoke we came to a complete stop. It did the same and then we took off again.

We repeated this 3 more times….with the object mirroring our every move. The last time we did this, I decided (HAD) to get out of the truck. I got out and the driver took off and left me on the side of the highway.

I HAD to get out of the truck like it was an order or something! The object stayed with me. I was about 25 feet away from it and it was at the height of a street light. It hovered there in front of me completely silent and I could CLEARLY see it and was amazed. It was circular with no rivets like one piece of metal and at the top was a angled flat sided cockpit type structure that was multi colored internally light….like a disco dance floor with multi colored internal lights.

The edge of the main saucer shape structure had a thin white light all the way around the edge. I was alone with this thing for what seemed like an hour but was more like 5 to 10 minutes..Then I heard the truck screech up and I heard my friends yelling to me. If I didn’t get back in the truck they were going to leave me there. So I got back in the truck and we sped away, with this thing following us again. This time the driver was trying to get away from it at any way he could.

He accelerated to well over 100 mph but we couldn’t get away from it.  We didn’t know what to do so we just keep moving. I couldn’t take my eyes off it…then I looked at my friends and asked what we should do! I turned back to look at it again and it was gone!

We arrived at our fishing spot and sat there for an hour worried that it would return. We discussed what we just experienced, and decided not to go fishing and went home. My friends would only talk about our experience when we were together and alone. A few years later I finally got one of them to confirm that it did happen.

I know for SURE we are not alone by any means. This has affected my whole life and would testify under oath and swear what I told you is 100% true. This will be with me for life. ….. Dennis James Jr.

Georgia Lights

Saint Marys  — At approx 6:00 pm I went to my car, in my driveway on February 12, 2018, coming over the west horizon I saw what I thought may have been a burning object floating upwards. It was wobbling back and forth. I ran into the house to get my girlfriend. As I pointed out the one that had passed over the house, another one showed up, from the west and followed the same path. We watched a total of six, flying the same path, wobbling back and forth and traveling at a relatively fast speed, with no noise. They looked like a rocket as all six flew over the naval sub base. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Missouri Rectangle

St. Peters — Mom and I were looking and saw 5 weird lights we thought were airplanes on February 12, 2018. We pulled over to check it out as now there were 3 flashing lights in the distance. One started to get closer and soon we saw a black square box. It was huge like a car. Mom says it a drone and gets out and I said no. As she got out and she said that it stopped right over her head and the lights went out completely. She then said, No it can’t be a drone and gets back in the car and the lights of it go back on and it starts to move slowly again.

There were so many lights that were beaming so big. We thought they were planes or drones, but soon thought of a ufo. They were going in a circle and would change the direction. They would also hover and disappear. We felt amazed and scared. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Montana Lights

Missoula — I was walking out of the gym, at 7:50 PM on February 12, 2018, and I saw two orangish lights on the horizon that were as bright as Venus. They clearly didn’t belong in that portion of the sky. I observed them slowly ascend from the skyline…1…2…3…and 4 of them.  They weren’t doing anything too out of the ordinary just slowly ascending. They were varying in brightness at times and the highest one in the sky phased out followed by the lowest one, and then the second lowest one.

The brightest light stayed fairly consistent on the last one and turned west and slowly phased out.  I did get the event on video. The whole event lasted 3 minutes and 30 seconds.. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New Jersey Triangle

Waretown — My mother and I were on our way home when I saw an extremely bright star on February 1, 2018. I pointed it out to my Mom and the object looked black in color at night. I got a good look at it and it had a very big bright white light on the front with a red pulsating light on each of the outermost points. We then stopped the car to see the triangular shape hovering over a small marina. We then turned onto the street next to the marina and it looked way too low to be an airplane. The lights were also way too bright, not to mention it was clearly a full triangle shape. We got out of the car to look as the object started to fly fast making a rumbling noise. It accelerated faster than an airplane with the sound actually behind it. The triangle’s bottom was over our heads with more colored lights on it. I think it realized we were watching it when it started flying away and disappeared . Thanks to MUFON CMS

Flying Reptile Bird

Mercerville — I am a retired law enforcement officer and have had other UAP sightings which I have reported to MUFON. On January 18, 2018 at 1720 hours while I was on the back porch I observed a large “bird” flying west at 200 feet. I am a student of nature, science, space, and aviation and familiar with anything that moves around us in our natural habitat. This gull grey flying object had a set of large primary wings mid span of its body and a secondary set of smaller wings at the end of its thin like a snake body. They flapped in tandem at the same rate as the large thin primary wings. The body was slender and long. It had no discernible head or beak. No underpinnings like legs or feet were present. It looked like a skinny B-29.

The wings were very thin and long and flew like an eel or snake as it adjusted its flight path up and down or to the left at slight increments. I followed it above the neighborhood trees and lost sight of it about 30 seconds later. This UAP was very fluid like in its motion like a live natural creature. It moved through the air much like a sea born creature would move through the water. The very thin body was at the minimum 10 feet long as were the very thin main wings. The tail wings were about a quarter size of the main wings. This was not any natural Earthly flying creature. Note A large ten foot winged bird was reported in West Windsor in October. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Oklahoma Light

Watching live feed of star man being deployed from Falcon Heavy on February 2, 2018. I observed seemingly spherical object pass over at about star man’s 10 o’clock position. Thanks to MUFON CMS

 Texas Lights

 Wetherford — At 2:30 AM on January 29, 2018. I got up to let my dogs out and saw two strange pulsating lights traveling towards me. I stared at them in awe and was trying to figure out their identity. These objects had pulsating lights that changed colors from white to orange, then to red, and then gold at a very slow rate. The object to the left started to change direction in a zig sagging pattern and traveled west descending and then hovered. The other object was traveling toward me started to take shape pulsating and zig zagging at slow rate and hovered. I noticed a faint beam and five white orbs come down from the bottom of the object.

I was in the Marine Corps and have seen numerous aircraft, but this freaked me out. I ran in the house and got my camera but when I returned I could only see the bigger objects for the next 15 minutes before they disappeared  Thanks to MUFON CMS

Virginia Object

Alexandria — Observed from my 15th floor condo 4 miles from Pentagon a large object in the West sky on February 12, 2018, at 6pm. It looked like a large aquatic like mammal with flippers or wings, dark in color slowly rotating in the sky. It rotated to the side facing in the direction of the Pentagon.

When I took pictures I captured 7 or 8 glowing white objects that took on different shapes and separated. The show lasted, probably two hours because I stopped watching. Thanks to MUFON CMS

In the recent Filer’s Files #6, I couldn’t help noticing that the photo under Indiana Cylinder looks just like the photo of an object I took a picture of a couple of years ago. Thanks to Dan

Washington Lights

Roger Marsh reports a witness at Ellensburg reported watching an object the size of an “aircraft carrier” moving slowly under 1,000 feet with an unusual lighting configuration, according to testimony in MUFON Case 89498. The reporting witness heard his dog barking “insistently” at 8:45 p.m. on January 9, 2018, just outside.

“My wife and I both heard a deep, low, muffled, pulsing sound that grew louder within several seconds,” the witness stated. “My wife went out the northeast bedroom door and we heard a loud sound like an pulsating electric turbine.”The witness looked directly up.“Saw a very large object moving slowly towards the southwest. The object appeared to be about 500 to 1,000 feet above the ground. There were two lights and one pulsating red light on both the fore and aft ends of the object.”

The object blocked out any view of the stars but you could clearly see a physical object extending between the sets of lights.”The witness first thought that the object was two aircraft moving in perfect tandem configuration. “However, the rear set of lights was directly behind the first and moving in perfect harmony at a slow but steady speed much too slow for aircraft. I could clearly see some physical object between the two.” The pulsating sound was very loud and muffled, but we could almost feel the energy as it receded as the object moved over the hills to the southwest two miles away. Our elevation is 1,300 feet and the nearby hills are at 1,800 feet and I got the sense that the object was only 500 to 1,000 feet above us. I held both hands out pointed at the front and back and my arms were at a 90-degree angle, which gave me a sense of the size. No lights were visible as the object passed over the highway.” and moved away. Thanks to MUFON CMS Cropped version of witness Image # 1.

Worldwide UFO Sightings

Australia Lights

Sydney — Captured in an image – it just doesn’t look like a plane. What is it??

Thanks to MUFON CMS

 Canada Object

Scarborough  — On October 19, 2017, as I stepped outside work I was in shock as a bright light flew in from the west at 12:10 pm. First seen about quarter mile away coming towards the east I pulled out my camera and started to film this long dark flashing white light object. It came across heading northwest over the roof. The object was skipping across the sky at a thousand feet or less. My camera was on 30 x zoom. In 2017, I had witnessed 53 UFO sightings. Most were daylight UFOs and many were long type UFO’s, not round as from the past. Thanks to Paul Shishis

France Light

Bruges Capbis Mifaget — Seen with the National Director. We were returning, with my companion, from the Lourdes sector and driving towards Oloron Sainte-Marie on CD 35, at 21:31, on August 27, 2017. It was a dark night where we saw the banks of clouds approaching. There was no traffic or lights on the country road. My companion was driving when my eyes were drawn to the 6 red lights in a disc shape.  I immediately asked my companion to stop. Leaving the car, we find that the low altitude flying object makes no noise. I take my cell phone and take two photos while my companion’s phone missed it. In view of the lack of noise, the discoidal shape, slow speed, low altitude, the constant red lights, it was likely a UFO.  \It accelerated into a group of clouds in which it disappeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Ireland Light

While walking to the shops at 20:38 on February 13, 2018. I noticed a strange object in the sky. It was too fast and agile to be a helicopter, or drone. I recorded a video with my phone. I went home to grab 50mm 30x binoculars. When I returned to the spot 5 minutes later it was heading away and ascending, a distance had doubled by this time. When my binoculars lost sight of the object, it was 10km away from me, and its lights were barely visible. There were two solid red lights on it, and a flashing blue light. The object was above a path used by commercial aeroplanes coming into land that travel at a constant speed. This object turned over its path multiple times and darted around before departing. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Lebanon Object

Hazmieh – Beirut — I was taking a random photo for the Sun on February 8, 2018, and I was totally focused on the sun on the screen of my IPhone. I never saw anything weird until I was reviewing the photos and noticed a strange object in the photo. It was a little black dot! I zoomed and it was like a round object in the sky. It looks like a planet, but I guess it’s impossible to catch a planet with an iPhone camera during the day. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New Zealand Object

Bay Of Plenty — My husband and I had visited remote Lake Okataina on January 10, 2018. We had a picnic tea on the main shore while we waited for it to get dark to see the glow worms nearby. I took 3 photos of the sunset at 7.53 pm. My husband and I did not notice any UFO activity in the sky. A month later while studying the photos, I noticed a dark Trapezium shaped object in the sky, with a very broad and intense light beaming down from underneath it onto the darker cloud below it.

The lower cloud shows the beam shining on it very clearly. The beam of light emanating from the craft is the entire length of the craft’s underside. It looks nothing like an aeroplane’s light. It is not a normal shaped craft that we are used to seeing in our skies. I have darkened the photo slightly and zoomed on the image, so that the shape of the craft and beam of light can be seen in better detail. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Puerto Rico Lights

Caguas — While sitting in the balcony at my brother’s house with my wife and sister in law I notice of lights in the sky on May 25, 2014

But wasn’t sure what they were so I asked them if they seen the lights and they told me I was drunk. So I asked again if they do see the lights? They answer, “Yes,” I said are you drunk too? The following day the lights were spotted in the north of the house. Thanks to MUFON CMS

UK/ England Orb

Manchester — I was in my back garden with my granddaughter. I had bought a new digital camera and was trying to get a photo of a plane. I zoomed in and had a pretty good shot of the plane on May13, 2015. I pressed the shutter button but the I had left the auto focus on and the camera zoomed back a little and the plane looked blurred. I did not delete it but later that day I copied the photos of my granddaughter and others I had taken to my pc. Glancing at the photo of the plane I noticed a small grey dot? I first thought my camera had dust or something on the lens. But on checking other pics there were no other dots! I then zoomed in on the photo and noticed it looks very much like a Grey oval type item? Having watched many UFO programs on TV I can only
presume that this is what it is? I did not see the UFO when I took the picture as it would have been too small. I only noticed a small dot on the picture but when you zoom in you notice the shape etc. Thanks to MUFON CMS

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UFO METAL MYSTERY: So who found 'alien craft parts' allegedly held in storage by Pentagon?

MYSTERIOUS metal allegedly recovered from UFOs and placed into top-secret storage by the Pentagon was not found by the US Government, as widely believed, according to new claims. Experts connected to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, based in the US, said they understood if any metal has been recovered, as suggested by recently-released Department of Defense (DoD) documents, then the find was likely made by independent UFO investigators.

By JON AUSTIN

Was metal allegedly recovered from UFOs found by the military or MUFON?

A shock New York Times article revealed details of a top-secret £16 million Pentagon study on any threats posed by UFOs which ran from 2007 to 2012.

According to the New York Times, which said it had seen DoD documents relating to the study, "metals unknown to science" had been recovered, which had been tested and placed them into private storage.

It was widely believed in the UFO community that the metals must have been taken from a UFO crash scene such as the legendary Roswell incident of 1947.

However, it has now been claimed that UFO believers found the material and handed it over.

The bulk of the money allocated by the DoD for the project reportedly went via a contract to Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, run by billionaire US businessman Robert Bigelow, who is also working with NASA to create a new expandable spacecraft.

Last May, Mr Bigelow stunned the world by declaring during an interview with prime time CBS current affairs show 60 Minutes intelligent aliens are secretly living on Earth, and the government knows.

The report claimed under the billionaire's direction buildings at the company headquarters were “modified” to allow the storage of the materials. 

The SETI Institute is a collective of scientists looking for evidence of alien life in the cosmos.

In a radio podcast of the Big Picture Science Skeptic Check, produced at the SETI Institute, a panel of experts discussed the New York Times article and looked at the staggering claims in the New York Times article about the metal being found.

James Oberg, a space journalist, historian and former NASA employee, said he understood the metal had not been recovered and stored by the military or government agents, but UFO hunters.

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  ‘Metal from alien UFOs stored in Las Vegas’ - but where is it now?
• 
  ALIEN SHOCK: Top-secret metal ‘recovered from UFO must be made public'

Imagine a scenario where a farmer sees a UFO over his cow pasture, and later found some bits of metal in the field. He assumes - maybe wrongly - that it's connected with the sighting, and gives it to a UFO investigator.

Nick Pope

Mr Oberg said: "The money went out of the DoD to Robert Bigelow and he contracted the work out to some UFO groups to look for UFOs and who spent a lot of money retrofitting his buildings to store this material.”

Show host Seth Shostak said more details should be given on the material and what exactly was done to the buildings to store the product.

He said: "Why would the government give the material to business entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, why not to science experts in atmospheric physics or even aviation?

"Look people have been clamoring for physical evidence for decades. If that evidence is stacked up in some buildings in Las Vegas, let's open the doors.

"At the moment the promise of exotic artefacts in storage is nothing more than that.”

Fellow host Molly Bentley said: "Why aren't the artefacts from unidentified aerial phenomena in his building being made available to material scientists or other researchers for study.

"If the evidence isn't released, no one can evaluate it.”

Details of the D o D Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme (AATIP) investigating the threat posed by UFOs, that supposedly looked at the material, were revealed in December.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  'UFO' parts found after object crashes to Earth
• 
  Pentagon DOES have 'mystery metals that came from UFOs'

The project was run by military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring.

Mr Elizondo, who resigned to form UFO research group To The Stars Academy with former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge's, said that the effort secretly continues and that he has a successor, whom he declined to name.

According to the New York Times article, documents from the Pentagon said metal and other materials allegedly recovered from UFOs were stored in converted buildings in Las Vegas under a US Government-funded program.

The material, that was said to be “unknown to science” following tests, was stored in buildings at Bigelow Aerospace.

However, no images have surfaced of the alleged material, nor have any details of where the objects was found, or any reports of tests carried out.

No further details were released at the time about where they were found, how many there are, or what happened to them.

It also does not appear any official reports on the materials have been released, but it is claimed that research was also carried out on people who came into contact with the material to see if there were any effects on them.

Express.co.uk has approached Mr Bigelow through Bigelow Aerospace to try to find out what happened to the material.

We have also contacted Mr Elizondo through To The Stars Academy, asking if they know what became of the materials.

We await responses from both.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  The bizarre object which 'fell from the sky' that UFO hunters say...
• 
  Mysterious metal fragment found near Roswell UFO crash site

Nick Pope, a former investigator of UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), also understands the metal parts may have been obtained by UFO groups, specifically the US-based Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), which investigates UFOs and keeps a global database of sightings, but whose chief executive Jan Harzan is an alien conspiracy theorist, who believes aliens are here on Earth.

Mr Pope said: "We don't know how these alloys and other materials were obtained. 

"We're told they relate to UFOs, and if they come from some sort of military encounter, this is potentially very significant. 

"However, we also know that Bigelow Aerospace acquired all sorts of UFO-related materials from civilian UFO research groups such as the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).”

Mr Pope said: "Imagine a scenario where a farmer sees a UFO over his cow pasture, and later found some bits of metal in the field. 

"He assumes - maybe wrongly - that it's connected with the sighting, and gives it to a UFO investigator." 

Alejandro Rojas was the official spokesperson for the MUFON at the time the AATIP ran. He does not believe the metal was provided by MUFON investigators.

He told Express.co.uk: "I do not believe that to be accurate. I do not believe MUFON had anything to do with the material. But, I can tell you it is not an alloy like the New York Times claims."

RELATED ARTICLES

• US Navy pilot in bombshell 'Pentagon UFO case' describes encounter
• PENTAGON UFOS - Truth about UFO videos US Government did NOT release
• Is this REAL TRUTH about UFO video that convinced many aliens exist?

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

Google Maps: ‘UFO’ spotted flying through a nature reserve in Florida

GOOGLE Maps: Caught on camera, strange footage is secretly captured when nobody else is looking.

Project Blue Beam: NASA Is Beta Testing Alien Invasion

Just short of Fourth of July, which is only a few days away, man-made auroras have been spread across the skies, causing much amazement along the east coast and parts of Virginia.

This amazing display of auroras, a rare sight, was due to a long-delayed launch of the terrier-improved Malemute rocket which had encountered many obstacles just before its launch, having been delayed an astonishing ten times before it finally launched just before Independence Day.

The rocket was launched to just above 100 miles above Earth, where the rocket discharged small canisters containing colorful chemicals that burst in the atmosphere to create an artificial aurora. However, that was not the main point of the experiment.

Conspiracy theories: What is Project Blue Beam?

According to conspiracy theories, the Blue Beam Project is a secret Star Trek-like black project NASA is alledegly working on to fake an alien invasion in order unite humanity into a New Age world religion under the United Nation with the Antichrist at its head. This is considered to be the start of a New World Order as a result of this simulated Second Coming and the destruction of religious doctrines, the fourth step, with advanced laser projection technology beyond our imagination. These lasers would be used to project information and images of unimaginable supernatural forces in scale never witnessed over every major city on Earth.

Book: Project Blue beam NASA by Serge Monast

The theories about Project Blue Beam were first presented by Quebecois journalist and conspiracy theorist Serge Monast in 1994. A few yeas later he wrote the book "Project Blue Beam (NASA)". Monast died as a result of a heart attack in 1996. Conspiracy theories made the rounds that he and the coauthor of his book were in fact assassinated in an effort to cover-up his investigations into Project Blue Beam.

Nasa’s ‘fake space clouds’ look suspiciously like an Alien Invasion from Star Trek

NASA was actually researching on a deeper purpose and meaning: getting a better understanding of our Earth's atmosphere, vital to life on Earth and the health of the people and animals living on Earth. The second main point is to test equipment which will be used to study the auroras over Norway, an anomaly in our atmosphere that is vital for us as a species to understand it, such that we will be able to know how mother nature truly works, and the wonders it can do.

NASA has always ventured further, and above much of what humanity can truly do, in the vastness of our skies and beyond. Now, we can only hope that experiments are continued such that it can help our environment - and preserve it better.

Sadly, some parts of the east coast were robbed of the wonderful display as overcast skies blocked the view of the aurora. Let us hope that more chances will arise that will allow this spectacular view.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

Asking someone if they believe in aliens might seem like an innocent enough question, but it’s actually really loaded. Believing in the possibility of extraterrestrial life existing somewhere is definitely not the same as believing in abductions, flying saucers, and government cover-ups. As many UFO fans celebrate the anniversary of Roswell, consider this: How come there have been fewer reports of flying saucers and alien abductions in the age of the camera phone?

Many true believers of little grey aliens consider July 8, 1947, to be a seminal moment, as it was the official date of the so-called “Roswell Incident.” According to lore, alleged real aliens crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, and were quickly hidden by the U.S. government. If you believe that alien visitors did in fact crash-land on U.S. soil on that date, that’s okay. But consider this: Most of the eye-witness accounts of the Roswell crash are not only contradictory. They also don’t provide any kind of scientific body of information for any one study. In his 1975 essay, “The Rocketing Dutchman,” Isaac Asimov elucidated the problem with considering only eye-witness accounts as “proof” of flying saucers. “Eyewitness evidence by a small number of people uncorroborated by any other sort of evidence is worthless,” Dr. Asimov wrote. “There is not a single mystical belief that is not supported by numerous cases of eyewitness evidence.”

You Might Also Like: “This Could Be the Last Drone Footage of Area 51 You’ll Ever See”

As Asimov explained, real scientific inquiry requires impartial data. Of course, devotees and fans of The X-Files who have mistaken it for a series of non-fiction documentaries will tell you that the lack of evidence supports the existence of a cover-up. Asimov calls this kind of circular argumentation “one of the chief delights of the intellectually feeble.”

In recent years, the phenomena of a flying saucer sighting and alien abduction accounts have been viewed more soberly as sociological human quirks rather than fuzzy science fake news. Writer Jack Womack explained that his collection of UFO ephemera and cheekily titled 2016 book Flying Saucers are Real! were an attempt to catalog the beliefs of those obsessed with outlandish accounts.

“I can study TB without catching it, preferably,” Womack explained. “And I can be a student of the Bible without being a Christian.” Womack’s work on cataloging writing about flying saucer obsessions in the 20th century is exhausting. Recently, Inverse got back in touch with the author to discuss this important Roswell anniversary. This led to an important and relevant insight: “Going by both research and empirical observation, the number of UFO reports dropped off significantly in the early 21st century,” Womack said. He attributes this, at least partially, to the rise of camera phones.

Which makes sense. Arguably, the Eighties and Nineties were the peak of UFO interest in the United States. Proof? The vast majority of famous books published about UFOs and government cover-ups — most notably The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore — were published in these two decades. And yet, once every regular citizen had a camera on them at all times in their phones, reports of UFO sightings suddenly dropped off. Did the aliens get camera-shy?

You Might Also Like: “Google Timelapse Reveals Stunning Developments at Area 51”

In 2012, Joe Nickell and James McGaha outlined their theory of “Roswellian Syndrome” for the Skeptical Inquirer. Nickell and McGaha echo sci-fi author William Gibson’s observation that flying saucer theories are meme-like, insofar as they will experience a media bandwagon period, as well as a period of not being so interesting to the mainstream. They also predict that a reboot of everyone you know suddenly believing in Roswell is coming, too.

Basically, because it hasn’t been hip to believe in abductions for a while, this can cause these kinds of beliefs to come back with a vengeance. “During a period of submergence, the mythologizing tendency has been at work followed by a reemergence—rather like a new, more virulent strain of a virus.”

Nickell and McGaha point out that contemporary “UFOlogists are always looking for a Holy Grail case to verify their belief.” And the problem there is that a holy grail could easily exist. If only those abducted by aliens would remember to get a clear image of saucer men captured on their iPhones.

You've read that, now watch this:

" Arrival Ending Explained | Symbolism and Language "

ARRIVAL ALIEN LANGUAGE ANIMATION AFTER EFFECTS TUTORIAL! (NO THIRD PARTY PLUGINS!)

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

THE MOST SHOCKING EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS VISITED BY ANCIENT ALIENS

The very words give me the chills: ancient aliens. In the early 1970s, when Erich von Däniken first released Chariots of the Gods, he called them “ancient astronauts”—a name that’s equally creepy. The Apollo missions were still going on, and the image of astronauts was fresh in everyone’s minds. Could ancient alien beings have arrived on Earth in the distant past? Would they have worn spacesuits, like our own astronauts?

If they truly visited our planet in millennia past: why were they here? What did the aliens do while they were on Earth?

Researchers have spent a lot of time looking into the question of whether we were visited so many millennia ago. The popular television show Ancient Aliens, although well-intentioned, has muddied the water in their search of show material—did we really need an episode asking whether aliens interfered with the American Civil War? (C’mon, guys. You’re off the reservation.)

Although we may not be ever know for sure that we had extraterrestrial visitors thousands of years in the past, perhaps if they did come, they might have left us modern people some clues. Let’s take a look at some of the most clear—and startling—evidence for the existence of ancient aliens on Earth.

ANCIENT ALIENS VISIT THE DOGON TRIBE?

African Tribe Possessed Knowledge Science Had Yet to Discover

The Dogon tribe and the Sirius Mystery are amazing enough that we’ve covered them elsewhere.

This African tribe (whose name is pronounced “DOE-gone”) has known all sorts of specifics about the star Sirius for thousands of years, passed down from holy man to holy man. We’re talking details here, like how Sirius has a companion star (“Sirius B”), and that it circles the main star (“Sirius A”) every 50 years. Here’s the thing: it is absolutely true—but modern scientists didn’t know these things about Sirius until the middle of the 19th century. The Dogon knew a thousand years ago. Heck, the Dogon also knew that Sirius has a second companion star, and scientists didn’t discover it (“Sirius C”) until the 1990s.

How did the Dogon get this scientific information about Sirius B? If you ask them, they’ll tell you that the tribe was visited by the Nommos, an amphibian-like race that came from the Sirius star system in a noisy “ark” that spun and whipped up wind while it landed. It was the Nommos, a race of ancient aliens, who told the Dogon about their homeworld and its star cluster.

Knee-jerk skeptics like to invent reasons why all this can’t be true. Westerners must have stopped by and told them about Sirius, one denier said. There’s no way, though: the Dogon have artifacts that are thousands of years old, depicting Sirius and its companions. No one should have known this stuff that long ago, but the Dogon did.

This short video does a good job explaining the ancient Dogon knowledge. (I have no idea why the narrator pronounces Sirius as “SIGH-ree-us”, but we can give him a pass on that.)

THE PROPHET EZEKIEL DESCRIBES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH ANCIENT UFOS—IN THE BIBLE

Holy Scriptures Contain Account of Alien Contact?

Ask Erich von Däniken, the guy who pioneered the search for ancient aliens, and he’ll tell you his favorite evidence is in the Old Testament. It’s the story of Ezekiel and his bizarre encounter with UFOs.

Ezekiel was a prophet living in exile with the rest of the Hebrews in the land they called Babylon. Being a prophet was a highfalutin job back then, but Ezekiel’s life got even stranger—stranger than just being a guy who received special messages from the creator of the universe.

The prophet Ezekiel encounters a UFO and aliens 2,500 years ago

I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings.

Ezekiel 1:1-6

Some people read this and think: the dude was taking drugs. Others (knee-jerk skeptics) say: oh, it’s just more Biblical mumbo-jumbo. Devout people may say that Ezekiel saw angels.

Maybe.

What if this was Ezekiel actually saw something, and he didn’t know what it was, or how to explain it? If he actually encountered ancient aliens, how would he describe them? We think he’d probably describe them just like he did.

Next Ezekiel describes the machine that the being had arrived in, the machine that landed in a rush of wind.

Ezekiel confronts the great wheels within wheels. Did he meet ancient aliens?

I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz … each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went.

Ezekiel 1:15-19

Doesn’t that sound like a spacecraft to you? Why would a man living 500 years B.C. write a description that sounds so much like the landing and maneuvering of an alien ship? Surely this was not just random. Remember: Ezekiel was devoutly religious, and he would interpret amazing events as signs from God. If beings appeared, he would assume they were angels. But perhaps they were ancient aliens.

What about their technology? Ezekiel’s description was of an alien craft with advanced maneuverability.

This story of the machine that had wheels-within-wheels impressed NASA engineer Joe Blumrich a lot. A wheel that could move in any direction without having to turn—that sounded like something a planetary exploration vehicle could use. He went on to invent a wheel based on Ezekiel’s description, and called it the “omni wheel.” Joe received a US patent for it in 1972. Today, omni wheels are routinely used in robot vehicles. Blumrich also wrote a popular book, The Spaceships of Ezekiel, in which he explained that after starting out intending to disprove the idea, he’d become convinced that Ezekiel truly had been writing about an encounter with ancient aliens.

“THOSE WHO CAME FROM THE SKIES TO THE EARTH”

World’s Oldest Civilization Leaves Record of Alien Contact

The ancient Sumerians lived 5,000 years ago in what’s now the country of Iraq. They left behind humankind’s first writings, books older than the Bible and the Hindu Vedas.

The Sumerians wrote a lot about the Anunnaki, whose name means “those who came from the skies to Earth”. Modern scholars have assumed that the stories of the Annunaki were just myths about Sumerian gods—but the stories themselves sound more like tales of ancient aliens.

In the writings, the Annunaki came to Earth from a lost planet in our solar system—one with such a wide orbit that it rarely approaches us. They called the planet Nibiru.

The leaders of the ancient aliens were named Enki and Enlil. They were here for gold, a mineral they needed but did not have enough of. Mines were set up there in Sumer, but also in Africa as well. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, a Zulu elder and author of Zulu Shaman: Dreams, Prophecies, and Mysteries, says that ancient tribal traditions speak of “visitors from the stars” who mined for gold.

After mining for some time, the Anunnaki realized that the local humanoids—Homo Erectus, our ancestors—might make useful slaves if they could make them smarter. After improving the proto-humans, presumably with DNA modification, they managed to create a hybrid race: part Anunnaki, part early human. These new beings, called the Adamu, were the first real humans. They were also the new slaves who would work in the gold mines.

Ancient Sumerian cylindrical seal shows an accurate map of our solar system

Our hybrid ancestors didn’t stand for this situation for long, though, probably because these newly created beings were far too smart. Who wants to be a slave? They eventually rose up and rebelled, and eventually, a new Adamu society formed, one which maintained an uneasy truce with the Anunnaki.

The Sumerians recorded this history after first inventing writing. They also made engravings and art of the Anunnaki along with knowledge they had received from them—for instance, an ancient Sumerian seal depicts the Sumerian “gods” along with an accurate representation of our solar system, with 11 planets. The planets have correct proportions (Jupiter is the largest, then Saturn, and so on), and the depiction also includes the asteroid belt. Remember that modern science only discovered Uranus and Neptune in the past 150 years, and that scientists are only now saying that there is gravitational evidence for a “lost” planet with a weird, oblong orbit. Are there truly 11 planets? It may be so.

Sumerian artwork always depicts members of the Anunnaki as having wings. Did they actually have wings? It seems unlikely—many researchers believe the wings are meant to show that the Anunnaki had the ability to fly, as in ships. Other strange and telling things appear in the artwork: the goddess Ishtar’s symbol, which stood for the concept of “life”, bears a striking resemblance to the entwined double helix of DNA. Could that be more than a coincidence?

We’ve been kind of critical of the show Ancient Aliens, but this segment from an early episode explains all this pretty well (below). We also very much like this documentary about the Anunnaki and the planet Nibiru.

ANCIENT ALIENS FIGHT WARS IN THE SKIES OF ANCIENT INDIA

Hindu Holy Books Called The Vedas Describe Alien Encounters

There is strong evidence that ancient aliens visited other places around the Earth. In India, for example, the ancient holy books known as The Vedas tell of a space war between ships and fought in the skies. The descriptions of the ships are remarkable—translated, it is difficult to imagine that they were describing anything except spacecraft.

The Vedas state that “strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth.”

Spacecraft as described in the ancient Hindu holy books called The Vedas

No, that’s not a spacecraft they’re describing. No way.

“Fifty years of researching this ancient works convinces me that there are living beings on other planets and that they visited Earth as far back as 4,000 BC. There is just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons that can be found in translations of The Vedas, Indian epics and other ancient Sanskrit text.” That’s Dr. Vijaya Raghavan, speaking; he was head of the Sanskrit department of the University of Madras in India (now retired). His job, if it’s not obvious, was to study The Vedas; his conclusion was that they described real events in which aliens came to Earth.

In other parts of The Vedas, we get a description of something that can only be a nuclear explosion.

“Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.”

So what do we make of that? Just ancient imagination that happens to sound exactly like nuclear devastation? Sure, you deniers and skeptics, sure. You’re probably right. It’s ancient nonsense. Right?

Hungry for more?

Check out Google searches about the Nazca lines, and the Mayan king Pakal at the pyramid of Palenque. We could go on; there’s a lot of strange evidence on our Earth that is dismissed far too easily by mainstream science. Because the universe is mundane, and it has to be mundane—that is, if you’re a knee-jerk skeptic addicted to the idea that the universe is mundane.

Now, if you want to see the original film that inspired all this hysteria, it’s below: Chariots of the Gods, from the early 1970s. Yes, sure, it’s cheesy—it’s from the ’70s! But it’s still pretty cool, we think.

{ http://www.area51.org/ }

Americans would welcome alien life rather than fear it

U.S. volunteers were pretty positive about the hypothetical discovery of E.T.

BY MARIA TEMMING 

ITSY BITSY ALIENS Americans would probably welcome the discovery of microbial alien life.

3000AD/SHUTTERSTOCK

AUSTIN, Texas — If alien microbes crash-land on Earth, they may get a warm welcome.

When people were asked how they would react to the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, they give generally positive responses, researchers reported at a news conference February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

This suggests that if microbial life is found on Mars, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus (SN: 5/13/17, p. 6) or elsewhere in the solar system, “we’ll take the news rather well,” said Michael Varnum, a social psychologist at Arizona State University in Tempe. What’s more, the tone of news reports announcing potential evidence for intelligent aliens suggests people would welcome that news, too.

Varnum and colleagues asked about 500 online volunteers — all in the United States — to describe how they would react if they learned scientists had discovered alien microbes. Varnum’s team analyzed each response using software that determined the fraction of words indicating positive emotion, such as “nice,” and negative emotion, like “worried.” The program also scanned for reward- and risk-focused words, such as “benefit” and “danger.”

MARTIAN MICROBES In 1996, a Martian meteorite (top) made headlines when researchers reported it might have harbored microbial alien life (bottom) — a claim that has not found widespread support among the scientific community.

FROM TOP: JSC/NASA; NASA

People generally used more positive and reward-oriented words than negative and risk-oriented ones to describe their anticipated reactions. The same held true when participants were asked how they expected everyone else to take the news.

In another study, Varnum’s team asked about 500 U.S.-based volunteers to read one of two newspaper articles. One from 1996 reported the discovery of evidence for fossilized Martian microbes in a meteorite (SN: 8/10/96, p. 84). In the second, researchers announced in 2010 that they had created a synthetic bacterial cell in the lab (SN: 6/19/10, p. 5).

Both groups responded favorably to the articles, but the people who read about Martian microbes had a more positive reaction. This suggests that while people feel good about discoveries of any previously unknown life-forms, they are particularly keen on finding aliens, Varnum says.

But “any finding that comes from one population — like Americans — you have to take with a grain of salt,” Varnum says. He and his colleagues now hope to gather responses from participants of different cultures, to compare how people across the globe would take the news of alien microbes. 

Psychologist and SETI researcher Douglas Vakoch, who heads the nonprofit organization Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence in San Francisco, suggests researchers also gauge reactions to different scenarios of alien microbial discovery. The Martian meteorite described in the 1996 article “has been on Earth for a long time and nothing bad has happened,” says Vakoch, who wasn’t involved in the work. “That’s a really safe scenario.” But, he wonders, are people as gung-ho about the prospect of finding live microbes on other planets or aboard meteorites? 

And what if the aliens were intelligent? “If you find intelligent life elsewhere, [you] know that you’re not the only kid on the block,” says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. Knowing that human intelligence isn’t so special after all could provoke a much different emotional response than finding mere microbes “like pond scum in space,” Shostak says.

To get a sense of how people would feel about finding intelligent aliens, Varnum analyzed reports that the interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua could be an alien spaceship (SN Online: 12/18/17). The news articles took a largely positive angle. So the broader public might also take kindly to the discovery of little green men, Varnum says. 

Citations

• J.Y. Kwon et al. How will we react to the discovery of extraterrestrial life? Frontiers in Psychology. Published online January 10, 2018. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02308.
• M. Varnum. Humans rethink aliens, look to future in space. American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, Austin, Texas, February 16, 2018.
• M. Varnum. What happens when everyone finds out?  American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, Austin, Texas, February 17, 2018.

Further Reading

• L. Grossman. Aliens ruled out for why Tabby’s star flickers. Science News Online, January 3, 2018.
• E. Conover. Our first interstellar visitor may be a camouflaged comet. Science News Online. December 18, 2017.
• A. Yeager. Food for microbes found on Enceladus. Science News. Vol. 191, May 13, 2017, p. 6.
• L. Sanders. Genome from a bottle. Science News. Vol. 177, June 19, 2010, p. 5.
• R. Cowen. Meteorite hints at early life on Mars. Science News. Vol. 150, August 10, 1996, p. 84.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

UFO 'evidence': Recordings reveal air traffic control's confusion at strange craft over Oregon

On October 25, a strange craft was seen — in broad daylight — flying amid the heavy traffic of the United States’ air corridors above the state of Oregon.

Pilots radioed in reports of an aircraft flying outside registered flight plans. It was not responding to radio calls. It had no collision-avoidance transponders. But it was always just outside clear sight.

On the ground, air traffic control was also seeing strange things. Its radar was intermittently tracking an unregistered object moving at unusually high speeds.

It was cause for real concern.

After all, 9/11 showed the potential havoc aircraft flying “dark” could achieve.

So F-15 interceptor fighters from the U.S. Air Force were scrambled to take a look.

The story was first picked up by "The War Zone" blog of the automotive website The Drive. It tracked down comments from the pilots that had seen something strange that day. It also obtained confirmation — of sorts — from the U.S. air base that launched the fighters.

Now "War Zone" has obtained ─ through a freedom of information claim ─ a small mountain of documents and hours of audio recordings detailing Oregon’s air traffic controllers' actions.

Amid the accounts of phone calls, radio exchanges and pilot interviews is an enticing picture of what a substantive UFO report looks like, and how authorities struggle to make sense of what is going on above them.

‘THAT LOOKS CRAZY’

The unidentified flying object was first detected tearing through the air above Northern California by radar stations in Oakland. It was 4:30 p.m. It was unexpected. It was traveling “very fast at 37,000”.

It wasn’t supposed to be there.

At this point the recordings reveal the U.S. military was also aware of the strange aircraft. Air traffic controllers are told the Air Force was examining the radar track.

Then the unknown flying object did something potentially dangerous.

It took a sudden turn into a crowded stream of commercial airliners.

There it disappeared from radar.

But not from sight.

Startled commercial pilots began calling in reports.

Concerned and confused, for the next 30 minutes pilots and controllers tried to make sense of what was going on.

The audio recordings tell the tale of an obviously bemused controller responding to pilots. He directs other pilots on where to look. He asks if any of their air safety proximity sensors were registering it.

The military was also in the loop: references to elements of the US air defense command NORAD can be heard — “WADS” and “Bigfoot”.

Fighters are ordered into the air from the McChord Air Force Base in Washington.

What was the aircraft? Where was it going? What was it doing?

All they had to go on was that it appeared to be big. It was colored white. It was flying at about 37,000 feet.

It was now moving about the same speed as commercial airliners. It was not on radar, and was emitting no signals.

It never strayed closer than the edge of visual range.

“STEALTH MODE OR SOMETHING”

The radar and audio recordings reveal the F-15 interceptor fighters took to the air out of Portland. Dubbed “Rock” flight, these fighter aircraft are just some of those kept at a high alert status around the United States for incidents such as these after 9/11.

Strangely, they head south even as reports from commercial airliners indicate the strange craft was to the north.

One pilot calls air traffic control for an update: what’s going on?

The controller responds the UFO must be in “stealth mode or something”.

But by now it has slipped out of sight.

Losing touch with such an unregistered aircraft is no small thing.

Would it suddenly appear diving into the heart of a nearby city?

The scars of September 11 run deep.

So the urgent phone calls started.

MAINTAINING MYSTERY

Here the War Zone notes some unusual aspects of the Federal Aviation Authority recordings released under freedom of information requests.

“There were a few strange areas where conversations went mute and it’s not clear if this was edited or just an anomaly,” the blog reports.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the redacted components appear to be responses to requests for information about the military’s activities.

“When the Manager In Charge is asked if he was asking for military assistance by another FAA controller, the tape goes blank,” War Zone reports. “The same inquiry is heard moments later, and it goes silent again before another call begins.”

And again later, another “blank” occurs as pilots are asked about what they saw.

During a call with United 612 there are some odd “dead” moments in the audio, but the pilot is heard describing the encounter, stating that he was too far away to make out the type.

The pilot of Southwest 4712 was a little more forthcoming.

“This was a white airplane and it was big. And it was moving at a clip too, because we were keeping pace with it, it was probably moving faster than we were.”

FALLOUT

The recordings continue long after the strange craft slips out of sight.

Seattle’s air traffic control manager in charge of operations urgently interrogates controllers and three of the airline pilots that reported visual contact — as well as air traffic security and an safety officers.

Everyone had to submit written reports.

Had they responded correctly?

Should the commercial airliners have been ordered to keep the strange aircraft in sight?

Was the unknown flying object a threat, and should the airliners have been ordered to scatter?

Whatever the outcome, one air traffic controller hit the situation on the head with one off-the-cuff comment:

“I have a feeling someone is going to go through this with a fine-tooth comb.”

POSSIBILITIES AND PROBABILITIES

It’s tempting to immediately make the mental leap to aliens, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Occam’s razor makes the fair point that when seeking an explanation for something unusual, choose the one that makes the least assumptions as being the most likely.

So what could such an explanation be?

Oregon is in the country’s northwest. It’s alongside the state of Nevada. Nevada is the site of the ultra-secret U.S. Air Force testing facility, Area 51 (or more officially Groom Lake).

We know the U.S. Air Force is fast-tracking development of its next generation stealth bomber, the B-21 “Raider”. We also know that absolutely everything about this aircraft — including its cost — is top secret.

And that’s probably one of the least secret projects being worked on at Area 51.

But a test pilot first allowing to be detected on radar and then entering a highway of commercial airliners in plain sight, is unprofessional in the least.

And the U.S. is no longer the only nation with stealth technology. Russia. China. Both have caught up and — in an increasingly belligerent world — are likely to “send messages” through overflights such as this.

So when it comes to the idea of ET taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque, it beggars belief that such a super intelligence capable of traveling vast interstellar distances would let itself be seen — if it didn’t want to be.

This story originally appeared in news.com.au.

{ http://www.foxnews.com/ }

Remarkably bizarre deep sea creatures – not a freak show

 BY MIHAI ANDREI

OK, I know, the internet is full of articles articles about freak creatures – “The most bizarre ocean creatures“, “Deep sea monsters“, etc – and I don’t like those articles. These creatures are not monsters, they are not freaks – they are remarkably adapted to an extremely unfriendly environment, with immense pressure, low temperatures and a lack of light. So maybe we could start treating them less as a freak show, and try to understand them and learn from their curiosities?

1. The Angler fish

Artistic representation of an angler fish. Via CG Arena.

You’ve probably seen this iconic creature before – it’s like they’re a mascot for the abyssal area. However, only some of them live in the deep sea, while others inhabit the continental shelf. Pelagic forms are most laterally compressed whereas the benthic forms are often more vertically compressed, with long mouths.

Via National Geographic.

They’re called “angler fish” due to their unusual hunting techniques – basically, they emit light (bioluminescence) to attract unsuspecting fish, which will be devoured if they come close enough. Naturally, there is no light in the deep oceans, so their bioluminescence is really appealing to  victims. However, they don’t do it by themselves – the light is a result of symbiosis with a bacteria, the mechanism of which is not entirely understood. But what really makes them unique is their reproduction system.

That thing in the red circle – that’s the male. Image Credits.

When scientists first discovered angler fish, they were rather puzzled by the fact that they only found females; furthermore, these females appeared to have some sort of parasite attached to them. Well, here’s the kicker: those “parasites” were actually the males! The sole purpose of the male’s life is to find a female host, without which he can’t survive for long. After he does find a female, the male bites into her skin, and the two are “fused” together, until the point where the only discernible parts of the male are its gonads. The male is still alive and he shares the female’s circulatory system, but he is basically a parasite which occasionally pays his dues by providing her with sperm on the spot so that she might impregnate herself. This is called parasitic reproduction. This extreme sexual dimorphism ensures that, when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available – something which can be quite difficult in the deep sea; she also doesn’t have to spend additional resources to find a mate, resources which are scarce in this environment.

Examples of angler fish species. Via Wikipedia.

Not all angler fish exhibit this extremely unusual reproduction system, many families and genera  exhibit “normal” reproduction. It’s not clear why this is happens, but there are several theories – here’s one of them: females have to remain larger to accommodate fecundity; therefore, in the deep areas, there is a low density of females, so males had very little choice when it came to choosing a mate. In such an environment, evolution would make them become smaller and smaller and evolve more advanced and sophisticated methods of finding a mate.If a male manages to find a female parasitic attachment then it is ultimately more likely to improve lifetime fitness relative to free-living, he would be more successful (have more offspring), and thus the technique would spread).

2. The blobfish

No wonder he’s sad…

Unofficially declared “the ugliest animal in the world”, the blobfish is actually really interesting. They inhabit the deep waters off Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, living at depths of 600 to 1200 meters (2000 – 4000 ft).At that depth, pressure is tens of times bigger than at the surface – and therefore gas bladders would be inefficient. Gas bladders are internal gas-filled organs that contribute to the ability of a fish to control its buoyancy, floating up or down with relative ease. The blobfish found an alternative to that: its flesh is basically a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. He may be lazy, but he’s pretty efficient – and there’s a reason why he looks like that.

Artistic representation; this is what blobfish look like in their natural environment. Source: Wikipedia.

When it lives underwater, at huge pressures, the blobfish looks quite different – the pressure keeps its body looking like you see above, but when you take it out, it starts to puff up due to the decompression. I’d say, that in its natural habitat, he’s quite a nifty fellow.

In September 2013 the blobfish was voted the “World’s Ugliest Animal”, based on photographs of decompressed specimens, and adopted as the mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, in an initiative to help preserve animals which were not blessed with what we, humans, consider to be “cuteness”.

3. The goblin shark

The goblin shark is a very rare and poorly understood animal – arguably the least understood shark species. The only survivor of its family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage some 125 million years old, they are quite the puzzling creatures.

While you could see some resemblance to other shark species, this animal looks like no other shark.  It is usually between 3 and 4 meters long when mature, though it can grow much larger than that (it’s not exactly clear just how much); you shouldn’t worry however, because they live at over 100 meters deep, with mature specimens living way deeper than that.

Various anatomical features of the goblin shark, such as its flabby body and small fins, suggest that it is sluggish in nature, and they have a very reduced skeleton and weak muscles – therefore it is not a fast swimmer, but probably a stalker, relying on ambush tactics. The long snout appears to have a sensory function, detecting electric fields from other creatures. They don’t survive on the surface, despite Japanese attempts at keeping them in special aquariums. I really wish the Japanese would stop doing stupid things like that.

4. Gulper eel

The Gulper eel is another poorly understood species. They are superficially similar to other eel species, but have many internal differences. Their most notable attribute is the big mouth, bigger than the rest of the body. The mouth is loosely hinged, and can be opened wide enough to swallow an animal much larger than itself, but it usually only eats small crustaceans.

Not much is known about the reproductive habits of the gulper eel. We do know that as they mature, the males undergo a change that causes enlargement of the olfactory organs, responsible for the sense of smell, and degeneration of the teeth and jaws – they give up on some hunting abilities in order to be more successful in finding a mate.

They live deep undersea, at depths between 150-1.800 meters (500 to 6.000 feet).

5. Barrel Eye

Via Wikpiedia.

The Barrel Eye is an incredible species named for their barrel-shaped, tubular eyes, which are generally directed upwards to detect the silhouettes of available prey. The tubular eyes generally look upwards, but they can also turn forward.

Via Wikipedia.

To better serve their vision, barreleyes have large, dome-shaped, transparent heads, arguably allowing them to collect any bit of light that might stumble their way, which is crucial at the depths they inhabit – 400–2.500 m deep. They reproduce by massively ejecting eggs and sperm, which are buoyant. the larvae and juveniles drift with the currents—likely at much shallower depths than the adults, and as they grow, they drift deeper.

6. The Dumbo Octopus

Image Credits.

The Dumbo octopus looks like, well, you could say it looks like Dumbo, Disney’s elephant… except it doesn’t. It is the deepest living octopus, inhabiting the oceans between 3.000 and 7.000 meters (9.800 to 23.000 feet).

They can flush the transparent layer of their skin at will, and are pelagic animals, measuring under 2 meters (7 feet). The Dumbo octopus is strange in the way it consumes food in that it swallows its prey whole, which differs from any other kind of octopus.

7. The Giant Isopod

Image Credits: Wikipedia.

Let’s change things up a little, and look at this species – well, group of species actually. A giant isopod is any of the almost 20 species of large isopod related to shrimps and crabs. They average between 20-36 centimeters (0.75 – 1.1 feet), but can occasionally grow beyond that. They have seven pairs of legs, the first of which are modified into maxillipeds to manipulate and bring food to the four sets of jaws. They’re pretty similar in appearance and overall beaviour.

Image Credits.

Their are also “living fossils” (like the goblin shark) – similar creatures were found in the fossil record 160 million years ago. They can be found on the bottom of deep seas, scavenging any food that may fall from the shallow waters or hunting anything that’s smaller then them and moves slow. When they find abundant food, they can gorge themselves to the point of compromising their locomotive ability. Luckily for them, food is not very abundant in their natural environment – and they have to spend a lot of time finding it.

8. Stargazer

Via National Geographic.

The stargazers are a family of fish with eyes and mouth directed upwards, on top of their heads.

Via Wikipedia.

They usually bury themselves in the sand and leap upwards to attack their prey as it swims by. Thing is, even if they’re not directly successful, they are poisonous, and can track their injured prey down. Also, they are able to deliver electric shocks to stun their prey – pretty neat, huh? Not if you’re their prey, that’s for sure. They are some of the few marine bioelectrogenic bony fishes.

9. The Hatchetfish

Image Credits.

Deep sea Hatchetfish should not be confused with  the freshwater hatchetfishes, which are not particularly closely related to them – it’s just a name similarity, basically; we’re interested in the deep sea creature.

Via Discover Magazine.

When you look at them, don’t forget that  they’re really small in size, almost never measuring over 10 centimeters.

Image Credits.

Given the depths at which they live (50-1.500 meters), their tiny bodies have adapted to the pressure. The marine hatchetfish is also endowed with bioluminescent properties, which allow it to evade predators lurking in the depths below – it’s more of a defensive mechanism. Their scales are silvery, delicate and easily abrade.

10. The Chimaera

Chimaeras are cartilaginous fishes. Wait a minute, sharks are cartilaginous fishes, and the chimaeras do look like sharks, so aren’t they sharks? Well no – not really. Based on the fossil record, scientists believe that they were once really abundant in shallow waters as well, but now, they’re mostly reserved to deep waters. They separated from the sharks nearly 400 million years ago and have remained isolated ever since. You could say that they’re more related to sharks than fish, however.

They live in temperate ocean floors down to 2,600 m (8,500 ft) deep, with few occurring at depths shallower than 200 m (660 ft). They lack sharks’ many sharp and replaceable teeth, having instead just three pairs of large permanent grinding tooth plates, and they are the only vertebrates to retain traces of a third pair of limbs. Not all of them look as eccentric as the one above though.

11. The Colossal Squid

Not to be confused with the Giant Squid is the largest squid species, growing up to 12–14 m (39–46 ft) long. It is also the largest known invertebrate.

There are not many pictures of actual colossal squid. This is the largest cephalopod ever recorded. Here it is shown in its live state during capture, with the delicate red skin still intact and the mantle characteristically inflated. More info here.

Not much is known about them, but their range varies from a few hundred meters to at least 2.200 kilometers. They are so big that they probably caused the belief in a mythical monster, the kraken – a legendary sea monster of giant proportions that is said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. They are the preferred prey of a number of whales. They have a small metabolic rate, and probably rely on ambush to hunt their prey, using their big eyes to scout. The method of reproduction was not observed, but it is known that females are much larger than males, something not uncommon in invertebrates.

12. The Dragonfish

This is an artistic illustration, but yes – that’s how they look, as you can also see below. Credits.

Dragonfish are small deep sea creatures. While they may look extremely fierce and dangerous, they measure only 10-20 centimeters. However, they can be found at depths of 2 kilometers, but they start their life near the surface, as their eggs are buoyant.

Credits.

Like many other deep sea creatures, it eventually becomes capable of producing its own light through bioluminescence, when it is ready to move on to the deep sea. One of its many light producing photophores can be found on a barbel attached to its lower jaw, which it most likely uses for hunting. I’m a broken record, I know – but not much is known about this species.

13. The Fangtooth

Via National Geographic.

They are among the deepest-living fish, found as far as 5,000 m (16,400 ft) down. They sometimes hunt in small groups, but more often they do it alone. However, they’re not the most perceptive creature, relying on luck to bump into something edible. The smaller teeth and longer gill rakers of juveniles suggest they feed primarily by filtering zooplankton from the water.

Credits.

They’re also small, rarely growing over 20 centimeters, and like many miniature beasts of the abyss, they feature disproportionately large teeth. The function of these teeth is offensive – basically, in the extremely harsh environment in which they live, anything must be considered a meal – or a predator. Big teeth equal big weapons. The fangtooth has proportionately the largest teeth of any fish in the ocean – but still, even if, in all absurdity, they would stumble upon a human, they would be pretty harmless.

Fangtooths are known to be robust when compared to many other deep-sea fish, surviving for months when captured and placed in aquariums. Again, I really with that people would stop trying to take these fish out of there environments and put them somewhere on display – they can’t survive this treatment, and it’s a slow, painful end.

14. The Frilled Shark

Image Credits.

The Frilled Shark is another “living fossil” – a seldom seen specimen inhabiting  the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Scientists speculate that it captures its prey by bending its body and lunging forward like a snake, often swallowing its prey whole. A 1.6 m (5.2 ft) long individual, caught off the coast of Japan was found to have swallowed a 590 g (1.30 lb) Japanese catshark.

Notice the long, terminally positioned jaws, and the strange teeth. Via Wikipedia.

It reaches a length of 2 m (6.6 ft) and has a dark brown, eel-like body. With its elongated body and impressive aspect, it has long been likened to the mythical sea serpent. The many small, sharp, recurved teeth of the frilled shark are functionally similar to squid jigs and could easily snag the body or tentacles of a squid, though they probably like to take advantage of injured or tired individuals.

These are just a few of the fascinating creatures which inhabit the deep sea – hopefully, if this article has reached its purpose, you understand that they are not monsters or freaks – they are adapted to their extreme environment (hundreds of bars of pressure, small amounts of oxygen, very little food, no sunlight, and constant, extreme cold) –  extreme environment requires extreme adaptations. Many of them rely on food falling from above, and for them, there are mostly two types of creatures: things you can eat, or things that can eat you. Sometimes it’s hard to draw a line between the two.

Humans have explored less than 2% of the ocean floor, and dozens of new species of deep sea creatures are discovered with every dive.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

The mysterious deep-sea Dumbo octopus hatchlings look just like adults [with video]

BY MIHAI ANDREI

When most creatures are sent into this world, they don’t have the capacity to take care of themselves. Their body is insufficiently developed, their mind is still a work in progress, and they certainly don’t have the ability to hunt. But the Dumbo octopus is different, researchers have learned. Dumbo octopus hatchlings are basically miniature versions of adults, emerging with a fully formed body, a complex nervous system, and the ability to navigate their surroundings.

The Dumbo octopus.

Image via NOAA.

The Dumbo octopus is a strange animal. We don’t know that much about it, largely because it generally lives at depths of 3,000 to 4,000 meters (9,800 to 13,100 ft), with some living up to 7,000 meters (23,000 ft) below sea level — the deepest of any known octopus. The creature takes its name from Disney’s fictional elephant Dumbo, due to the prominent ear-like fins located above each eye, which look like Dumbo’s giant ears. But these prominent fins do more than just raise similarity with a fictional elephant: they propel the octopus through unique, flapping motions.

It’s not easy to study a creature that spends most of its time kilometers beneath the surface, so researchers were thrilled when they came across the first Dumbo eggs ever observed.

Tim Shank at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution first noticed one in 2005. As he was working with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to explore the Northwest Atlantic, he observed what appeared to be tan-colored golf balls attached to coral branches. They were too interesting to just pass by, so he collected a few.

“With each successive collection, it became apparent that this was some sort of an egg case,” Shank says. “The first few were open and empty, the next two contained a white gelatinous mass within, and the final collection yielded the specimen described in the paper.”

Most of them were cracked (the octopus had already hatched), but one was still intact. So he took it inside the lab, placed it in a bucket in a cold room that mimics its natural environment, and observed it.

The egg started to crack, and the tiny octopus peaked its head.

“Once the fins were observed while it was still in the bucket, it was clear that it was a ‘dumbo’ octopod,” says Elizabeth Shea at the Delaware Museum of Natural History.

At first, it didn’t move much, but after a while, it started to swim around, in the video you can see above. Researchers were quite surprised to see just how well the octopus navigated its surroundings. Seemingly fully formed right from the start, the hatchling can see and chemically sense its environment, and an internal yolk sac also gives it a little time to successfully capture a first meal. However, it seems perfectly competent to already hunt on its own.

“The virtual exploration and 3D reconstruction of the internal anatomy of this deep-sea creature was particularly revealing,” says study co-author Alexander Ziegler from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in Germany. “I was impressed by the complexity of the central nervous system and the relative size of fins and the internal shell. However, for me as a zoologist, the most interesting aspect of our discovery remains the close interaction between the dumbo egg and the deep-sea coral host.”

Dumbos typically hover above the sea floor, where they look for worms, crustaceans, or other small creatures they can hunt. It’s intriguing that they hatch so well-formed, but what researchers are most interested in now is establishing the environmental relationship between the octopus and the corals which host its eggs.

“We knew that adults are predominantly benthopelagic [living and feeding near the seafloor, as well as in mid waters or nearer to the surface], that females lay eggs on the ocean bottom, and that octopod eggs come in a variety of sizes, colors, and textures,” Shea says. “Our work connects the dots between a particular egg, a particular coral, and a particular octopod.”.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

Earth’s Magnetic Poles May Be About to Flip. What Will Happen When They Do?

By: Nidhi Goyal

Image by The Cosmos News on Youtube

{ http://www.industrytap.com/ }

Wikileaks Documents Leaked Confirming The Existence Of Extraterrestrial Life & UFOs

Julian Assange has grabbed the attention of the entire planet, as both mainstream and alternative media networks have covered Wikileaks in depth. For those who don’t know, Wikileaks is an international, online, non-profit organization that publishes secret (classified) documents,  information, news leaks and other classified material from anonymous sources. They are no different from Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. As I’ve mentioned before, they’ve been a tremendous threat to the controlling elite for a number of years and have gained the attention of major mainstream media outlets worldwide, mny of whom have bashed Assange, pointing to the idea that the release of classified documents is a threat to national security. Wrong, it’s simply a threat to secrecy, information and truth. America alone classifies over five hundred million pages of documents per year. Think about a historian trying to study history, or technological development, science and more, how can they properly do this if most of this information is constantly kept secret from the general population?

That’s why organizations like Wikileaks are so important, as they shed light on truth that most of the human race knows nothing about, and one of them is the reality of UFOs and extraterrestrials.

Wikileaks is a major attention grabber, so it’s a great way to bring more attention to the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon that’s been gaining heavy interest over the last few years.

As far as UFO documents go, the Wikileaks ones are not really significant compared to what’s already available in the public domain. They do however show that these topics are still mentioned in highly classified documents.

Again, we already have a number of (more significant and telling) documents that have been released into the public domain, as well as statements from high ranking military and political figures. To see some of these documents and whistle-blowers, you can refer to the last article I wrote on this subject by clickingHERE.  For more articles on this subject from Collective Evolution, you can click HERE.

Wikileaks UFO/Extraterrestrial Documents

Prominent Lithuanian politician says that there are a “group of UFOs, who are making influence from the Cosmos.” That “there exists a decreasing group of persons, who are trying to rationally analyze the situation and objectively evaluate what is happening.” (source)

This cable comes from the year 2006 from the American Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania. The statement was made by Albinas Januska, who at the time was appointed adviser to the Lithuanian Prime Minister.

Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan Nobutaka Machimura Says UFOs definitely exist. 

This is a cable from Japan that shows how the Chief Cabinet Secretary was unhappy with the governments official view rejecting the existence of UFOs. The document goes on to describe how he stated in a press conference that “I am sure that unidentified flying objects exist, otherwise it is impossible to explain the Nazca Lines (In Peru), isn’t it?”(source)

He also stated that ” the government has offered only a boilerplate response in its formal statement” regarding UFOs.

Tajik Mayor says there is life on other planets, and that peace and unity on Earth is necessary.

On January 13 Ambassador called on Dushanbe Mayor and Chairman of the upper house of Parliament Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev at his parliamentary office. The Mayor began the meeting with a lengthy discourse on Afghanistan, thanking the United States for its contributions and sacrifices there, and saying that U.S. activities there were very important “as we enter the third millennium and the 21st century.” Ubaidulloev thought the main task there was to build a sense of national identity among ethnically disparate groups, and said the United States was an example for this. He noted that “war is very dangerous”, and said “we know there is life on other planets, but we must make peace here first.

In a platitude-ridden meeting, Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev said upcoming elections would be free and fair, that contributions to the Roghun Dam were voluntary, and that the losses suffered by the United States in Afghanistan were felt by Tajiks as their own. Ubaidulloev asked for help in getting Tajik students admitted to Harvard University, but effectively declined to help find a new location for an American Corner in Dushanbe. He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth. End Summary. (source)

Julian Assange has also said that that a UFO cult called the Raelians were of concern to the U.S. ambassador in Canada. It’s not surprising that the U.S. ambassador in Canada was concerned with this group. Government agencies have been concerned, harassing, monitoring and questioning extraterrestrial abductees and contacts for a number of years. They have been studying this subject for a very long time.

Like I said, Wikileaks seems to garnish a lot of attention, that’s why I chose to cover the topic, even though the documents are not as significant as ones that have already been released from dozens of governments, three letter agencies and more. Not to mention shocking statements from high ranking military and political personnel.  I linked an article in the first few paragraphs of this one that provides more examples of these, and below I am going to provide a brief excerpt from it to illustrate what I am talking about.

VERY BRIEF example of other information that’s already out there

Within the past few years, dozens of governments admitted to allocating resources and having programs to study the UFO phenomenon. For instance, in Canada the RCMP, Transport Canada and the Department of National Defence recently admitted to tracking UFOs and investigating them. (source) They’ve been doing it for years, accumulating thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents -many of which have since been officially released.

HERE is the latest batch of UFO files released from the United Kingdom.

Documents released by the National Security Agency (NSA) reveal what is recorded when a UFO is being tracked on radar. HERE is one example. HERE is a four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describing a particular encounter in great detail.

“As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ”

You can read more about the radar tracking of UFOs HERE. 

HERE is a Wikileak cable that describes how some politicians already know we are not alone in the universe. You can read more about that HERE.

Again the list goes on and on and thousands upon thousands of UFO related documents are now available in the public domain. For a summary of more documents that have been declassified and made available, a video done by UFO expert Richard Dolan does a great job at doing just that in 10 minutes.

Source: http://www.collective-evolution.com/

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

3 Incredible - Gravity Defying - UFO Sightings Caught On Video By The BBC And 3 Great UFO Videos By Express.Co.UK

Date: 08/10/2014

3. Confirmed: A UFO caught on a mainstream news channel, BBC...

 

Screenshot:

3 Videos from Another UK paper called Express;

1. UFO caught on shocking lunar eclipse video? 

The report said: "Our all-sky night camera caught this unusual bright object pass overhead, Highway 395 Inyo county, heading west over the Sierra Nevada. "It was too late at night to be a satellite (plus satellites don't travel E to W) and too slow for a meteor. "The entire passage lasted 80 seconds.

More UK UFO news stories:

BBC: 'UFO and alien' sightings revealed by Cambridgeshire Police
Sightings of aliens and UFOs have been reported to police in Cambridgeshire six times in two years, new figures show. The force was asked in a Freedom of Information request how many 999 and 101 calls it had received during 2015, 2016 and 2017. It reported three calls mentioning "alien" and three referencing "UFO". Two of the reported sightings took place in 2015 and four in 2016.

BBC: Why the French state has a team of UFO hunters


BBC: John Challis hunts for UFOs over Shropshire

UK paper called Daily Mail: Are aliens getting less camera shy? UFOs filmed above BBC building in London

UK Paper Daily Star: VIDEO: UFO spotted flying over Hong Kong protests EAGLE-eyed BBC viewers watching a report on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong saw what appears to be a UFO flying above the crowds.

UFO Phenomenon Analyzed

{ http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/ }

Unbelievable Video and Audio Recordings Of A UFO That Was Seen On Radar Flying At Tremendous Speed Before Disappearing

A mysterious UFO apparently outmanoeuvred F15 fighter pilots who attempted to intercept it. It was noticed on radar flying at incredible speeds before disappearing. The bizarre incident took place on the evening of October 25 above the Pacific Northwest in northern California.

Commercial pilots flying north above Oregon apparently noticed the white object that was first spotted on radar. The video and audio recordings of the radar operators were released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The group behind the declassification believe they present what could be one of the most insightful instances of official documentation surrounding such encounter that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the USAF had already both confirmed to have taken place.

The recently declassified materials include audio recordings of radio transmissions and phone calls made as the mysterious incident unfolded. Pilot interviews, as well as conversations with FAA officials after the event, are also included.

The object was first noticed on radar flying at high speed across Northern California, around 4:30 pm local time. It then took a sharp north turn and merged with commercial aircraft when it vanished from radar.

The incident left people baffling what the mysterious object could have been.

In recordings of calls after the strange event, one operator is heard saying there was definitely something out there. Another one says the UFO had made a sudden manoeuvre and took off northbound. The third one can be heard saying “I have a feeling someone is going to go through this with a fine-tooth comb.”

Southwest 4712 pilot said he never encountered such incident in nearly 30 years of flying jets. He explained that he probably would not have seen it clear if it was like a Lear type airframe (private jet). He further described the white aeroplane as big and moved at a clip, probably faster than they were flying.

An FAA Quality Assurance Group official can be heard saying that it is weird and should be classified as potentially significant.

Military officials have not identified the origin of the plane or even the destination after it disappeared.

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

Nicola Davis in Austin

 @NicolaKSDavis

Archaeology might evoke thoughts of intrepid explorers and painstaking digging, but in fact researchers say it is a high-tech laser mapping technique that is rewriting the textbooks at an unprecedented rate.

The approach, known as light detection and ranging scanning (lidar) involves directing a rapid succession of laser pulses at the ground from an aircraft.

The time and wavelength of the pulses reflected by the surface are combined with GPS and other data to produce a precise, three-dimensional map of the landscape. Crucially, the technique probes beneath foliage – useful for areas where vegetation is dense.

Earlier this month researchers revealed it had been used to discover an ancient Mayan city within the dense jungles of Guatemala, while it has also helped archaeologists to map the city of Caracol – another Mayan metropolis.

READ MORE

Into the light: how lidar is replacing radar as the archaeologist’s map tool of choice

Now, researchers have used the technique to reveal the full extent of an ancient city in western Mexico, about a half an hour’s drive from Morelia, built by rivals to the Aztecs.

“To think that this massive city existed in the heartland of Mexico for all this time and nobody knew it was there is kind of amazing,” said Chris Fisher, an archaeologist at Colorado State University who is presenting the latest findings from the study at the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas, this week.

While less well known than the Aztecs, the Purépecha were a major civilisation in central Mexico in the early 16th century, before Europeans arrived and wreaked havoc through war and disease. Purépecha cities included an imperial capital called Tzintzuntzan that lies on the edge of Lake Pátzcuaro in western Mexico, an area in which modern Purépecha communities still live.

Using lidar, researchers have found that the recently-discovered city, known as Angamuco, was more than double the size of Tzintzuntzan – although probably not as densely populated – extending over 26 km² of ground that was covered by a lava flow thousands of years ago.

 The city of Angamuco, which occupies a lava field on the eastern edge of the Lake Pátzcuaro basin. Photograph: C Fisher

“That is a huge area with a lot of people and a lot of architectural foundations that are represented,” said Fisher. “If you do the maths, all of a sudden you are talking about 40,000 building foundations up there, which is [about] the same number of building foundations that are on the island of Manhattan.”

The team also found that Angamuco has an unusual layout. Monuments such as pyramids and open plazas are largely concentrated in eight zones around the city’s edges, rather being located in one large city centre. According to Fisher, more than 100,000 people are thought to have lived in Angamuco in its heyday between about 1000AD to 1350AD. “[Its size] would make it the biggest city that we know of right now in western Mexico during this period,” said Fisher.

First found by researchers in 2007, archeologists initially attempted to explore Angamuco using a traditional “boots on the ground” approach, resulting in the discovery of about 1,500 architectural features over each square kilometre surveyed. But the team soon realised the rugged terrain meant it would take at least a decade to map the whole area.

 Examples of sunken plazas, patios, and related features in Angamuco. Photograph: C Fisher

Instead, since 2011 the lidar technique has been used to map a 35km² area, revealing an astonishing array of features at high resolution, from pyramids and temples to road systems, garden areas for growing food and even ball courts.

So far more than 7,000 architectural features over a 4km² area seen using lidar have been verified by the team on the ground, with excavations undertaken at seven locations to shed further light on the site.

The earliest evidence from the city, including ceramic fragments and radiocarbon dating of remnants from offerings, dates to about 900AD, with the city believed to have undergone two waves of development and one of collapse before the arrival of the Spanish.

Fisher adds that lidar is likely to lead to further developments. “Everywhere you point the lidar instrument you find new stuff, and that is because we know so little about the archaeological universe in the Americas right now,” he said. “Right now every textbook has to be rewritten, and two years from now[they’re] going to have to be rewritten again.”

READ MORE

Lost cities #7: how Nasa technology uncovered the 'megacity' of Angkor

Fisher has also used lidar to explore a remote area of the Mosquitia region of north-eastern Honduras, shedding light on what is now known as the City of the Jaguar. This settlement, the team found, had terraces, water control features such as canals, and boasted about 10 plaza complexes, with the whole city stretching over three square kilometres.

“Many of these areas of the Americas that we see today that we think that we would classify as pristine tropical forests are really abandoned gardens,” says Fisher.

However, previous coverage of the work has proved controversial, with some saying claims of a “lost city” smack of colonialist rhetoric.

Elizabeth Graham, professor of mesoamerican archaeology at University College London who was not involved in the projects, said the team’s work was impressive, and that lidar was backing up long-held suspicions about the size of archaeological settlements.

“Once it shows all traces of the land surface, we can interpret those, because you can tell what is natural and what is not,” she added. “It’ll show you terracing, where houses are – or at least structures of some sort – agricultural features, manipulated land – all of that.”

But, she said, while lidar can help to direct expeditions and digs, traditional techniques were still needed to unearth the details. “Ultimately we still have to get on the ground and then excavate,” she said.

• This article was amended on 15 and 16 February 2018 to correct the spelling of Purépecha and to add some clarifying details about the size of the Angamuco site and estimates of the number of buildings it had.

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

Scottsdale UFO conference: 'We're not alone in the universe'

Travis Walton talks about his extraterrestrial encounter at the International UFO Congress on Feb. 17, 2018.

(Photo: BrieAnna J. Frank)

Scottsdale became a landing spot this weekend for those who believe in UFOs, alien abductions and large-scale government cover-ups.

A panel Saturday at the International UFO Congress in Scottsdale gave accounts of what some say were extraordinary contacts with extraterrestrial life. 

Although UFO "sightings" often turn out to be explicable phenomena, such as the streak of light caused by a recent SpaceX rocket launch in California, the U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed previous funding of UFO research.

While no human contact with aliens has ever been verified by the government, attendees at the Saturday conference say it's clear that we are not alone in the universe. 

MORE: If U.S. government is tracking UFO sightings, Arizona is fertile ground

And if you get a rush from hunting for any sign of paranormal evidence, Arizona is the place to be, they say. 

Travis Walton, an Arizona resident and one of the speakers, inspired the 1993 science-fiction film "Fire in the Sky." He said he believes he was abducted by a UFO near Snowflake on Nov. 5, 1975"

He was in a truck, returning with co-workers from a logging job in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, when, he said, they saw a bright light hovering over a break in the trees.

Once they got closer to the light, Walton said, there was "no doubt of what we were seeing," and one co-worker exclaimed, "It's a flying saucer."

Walton said he had an "impulse to see it" and threw open the truck door, getting closer to the craft for a better look.

"It was kind of a foolish move in retrospect," Walton said, drawing laughter from the audience.

Walton said he felt like it was his own impulse that drew him there, and not anything extraterrestrial.

It was both 'frightening' and 'beautiful'

Travis Walton, Chuck Ellison and Don Walton sit on a panel at the International UFO Congress on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018. 

(Photo: BrieAnna J. Frank)

The closer he got, Walton said, the more frightened he and his co-workers became.

"This was not only frightening, but it was beautiful," Walton said. "It just looked smooth as glass. It was glowing, it was shiny and metallic. The surface was so shiny that even though it was giving off light, it was also reflecting its surroundings."

After a few moments, Walton said, the UFO began to move, and the sound it was making got louder, filling the night air.

Walton said he decided to run, and that's when he heard a powerful blast. 

His co-workers fled the scene, he said, leaving him behind. 

"It was the most commonsense thing to do, was to get the (heck) out of there," Walton said.

Former law-enforcement officer Chuck Ellison and his wife were about to have supper at their Heber home when the phone rang.

Justin Kohn hands out free information on aliens and extraterrestrial life at the International UFO Congress on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018. 

(Photo: BrieAnna J. Frank)

On the other end of the line was a frantic voice. Ellison drove to meet Walton's six "hysterical" co-workers.

Ellison, who was also at Saturday's panel alongside Walton, said that several of Walton's co-workers were crying.

Finally, one of the co-workers told Ellison that a flying saucer had abducted Walton and that they had left the scene. 

"I said that was kinda a sorry thing to do," Ellison said to laughter from the audience. 

The story continues 

Justin Kohn hands out free information on aliens and extraterrestrial life at the International UFO Congress on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018.

 (Photo: BrieAnna J. Frank)

Walton said he was missing for five days, and his co-workers were accused of inventing the UFO story. 

Others said that Walton was playing a hoax on his family and the surrounding community. 

Walton's brother, Don, was the third speaker on the Saturday panel and said his mother showed up at his house around 3 a.m. Nov. 6, saying that Walton was missing. 

"She was hysterical, and my mother did not do hysterical," Don Walton said.

Over the next few days, media hounded the Waltons, demanding interviews, Don Walton said.

An incredible tale 

15 Arizona UFO stories from the Project Blue Book

 Fullscreen

The Arizona Republic sifted through more than 100 reports from the Project Blue Book files, searching for the interesting, the bizarre and the unbelievable stories from Arizona's UFO sightings. Many of the names and specific locations within the reports were redacted by the U.S. Air Force.  Thinkstock

4 p.m. July 7, 1947- The 30-year-old Mr. Rhodes of Phoenix heard the approach of an incoming jet . He stepped out his backdoor to look, but saw nothing. After several seconds however, a gray disc appeared over the horizon to the northeast. Mr. Rhodes ran to his workshop, grabbed his camera and snapped two pictures as the disc dipped under the clouds again. The disc then disappeared over the western horizon. The entire event lasted about 60 seconds.  United States Air Force

5:45 p.m. April 28, 1949- A Tucson florist stood with two friends, when a silver object appeared over the rim of the Catalina Mountains. "It appeared sausage like in shape," the florist noted in his firsthand account. It had no wings, windows, fins or visible openings, facts corroborated by all three men. The sausage seemed to revolve in a slow roll, similar to an airplane at speeds estimated about 500 miles per hour, and at a height of about 5 to 10 miles above the Earth. The sighting lasted for about 12 minutes.  United States Air Force

2:30 p.m. May 9, 1949- A U.S. Air Force sergeant spotted two flying objects while reclining on the front lawn of his home in northeast Tucson. The objects were flat, silver, reflective and "perfectly round." They appeared in the southwest of the sky, about the size of washtubs, approximately 10,000 feet in the air traveling between 750 and 1,000 miles per hours.. The pair headed northwest, banked to the left, then abruptly to the right, fading from view over the Catalina Mountains.  United States Air Force

7:45 a.m. April 3, 1952- A civilian pilot instructor landed at Marana Air Base. While taxiing, the instructor noticed an object described as a "bright star" in the morning sky. The pilot instructor continued to keep his eye on the object. "It never moved the slightest fraction in relation to the canopy of my aircraft," he said in the report. After about 45 minutes of observation, the object suddenly vanished. "The object was bright and shone like polished aluminum. I've been flying for 25 years and never saw anything like it. It was weird," Logan said in a news article about the incident.  United States Air Force

7:15 p.m. Jan. 27, 1953- A Cottonwood man stood outside his home watching an airplane fly overhead when he noticed the illuminated object.It appeared as a yellow-orange light, larger and brighter than any of the stars in the night sky. The man ran inside, grabbed a pair of binoculars and returned to see the light heading south. Through the binoculars, he could see the object was made of two lights, one brighter light near the head of the object, and a second fainter light near what he assumed was the tail. The man followed the object for about five minutes before it faded into the night.  United States Air Force

Dec. 23, 1954- Kenneth Hite was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. Hite was flying a local combat air patrol mission when he encountered an unidentified object near Nogales. He was flying at an altitude of 15,000 feet, and noted the object was about 5,000 to 10,000 feet above him. Hite followed the object, which appeared about 10 miles ahead of him, he said. He continued pursuit at an altitude of 28,000 feet and a speed of 350 knots. After reaching Douglas, it turned south and Hite, again, gave chase. Not long after, Hike began to run low on fuel and had to return to base.  United States Air Force

Oct. 17, 1955- Reports from a missing case file indicate that approximately 12 pale, yellow lights appeared over Yuma. The observer, described as a military source, said the formation of the pale lights was a wide "V" at a high altitude. The lights grew dimmer, smaller and faded away over the course of about three to four seconds. Air Force conclusion: The duration and height of the sightings led military officials to believe the observer saw a meteor shower.  United States Air Force

7:45 p.m. April 8, 1958- Two men in their 20s saw an unidentified flying object speeding from north to south while driving west on Main Street in Mesa. At first, the men said it had the appearance of a falling star with an approximate size of a grapefruit held at arm's length. What was peculiar, according to the report, was the object's movement and speed. The light rapidly descended to about 1,500 feet over the city of Mesa then slowly pulled into a steep climb until it performed a near vertical ascent, all the while accelerating. The object disappeared from view after a total of 10 seconds.  United States Air Force

6:27 p.m. Oct. 19, 1958- A group of astronomers set up about nine miles outside of Benson to watch the Russian space satellite, Sputnik 1, and the third-stage rocket that helped it get into orbit. The observers instead saw a bright object over the southeastern horizon. It traveled rapidly across the sky then vanished out of view over the north-northwestern horizon after about five minutes.It was traveling in the opposite direction of the satellite's projected path, and was much too bright to be airplane lights, the observer wrote in the account.  Dr. Bruce Maccabee

6:20 p.m. Feb. 24, 1960-The sun had just set behind the mountains when a 31-year-old Tucson man and his wife encountered a white, globular light while driving outside of downtown. He pulled to the side of the road to more closely examine the object. The object appeared over the mountains to the west, heading east over the city. As it flew, the object made drastic maneuvers, changing direction and slanting. After about 5 minutes, the diagonal streaks broke off the initial band of light, circling the object, then absorbed back into the original band. It appeared to glide over the sky, gently rising and then fading away to the south.  United States Air Force

4:30 a.m. Aug. 10, 1964- An object with a trail of whitish-yellow flames and sparks skittered across the early-morning sky over Phoenix, according to reports from civilian and military observers. Two of the reports indicated the object looked like a fireball and could have been a meteor. Most agree, the source was very bright and came from a single object. No sound was reported. Most on the ground observed the object heading from west to east, but two flight crews reported the object moving southwest to northwest.  United States Air Force

Sept. 7, 1965- A Tempe liquor-store clerk watched as six whitish-yellow objects flew low over the city as if they were going to land, before disappearing to the southeast over the mountains. Each of the objects were oval-shaped, and had windows that emanated a pinkish light, according to the clerk. Two of the lights were side by side, and four together. They emitted a high-pitched hum that hurt the ears of the observer, and gave her a headache.The officer producing the report noted that the clerk was convinced UFOs exist and had seen numerous UFOs during the four years prior. The clerk also said she had hypersensitive hearing that allows her to hear UFOs before she sees them.  United States Air Force

Oct. 25, 1965- Nine miles southeast of Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, a military official watched the night sky from home. The observer noticed a bright object to the southwest. At first, the observer thought it resembled a star or planet. It oscillated from white to orange and black to white. Then it began to move. It changed directions from south to north, then moved to the southeast and east. It changed elevation, disappeared, then reappeared an hour after its first appearance. The observer described the movements as "erratic" and emphasized it moved at high speed.  United States Air Force

8:05 p.m. Nov. 26, 1965- A husband, wife and son standing outside watched an explosion in the sky similar to Fourth of July fireworks, except that the rocket burst into a perfect circle of blue starlike objects.The cluster of 30 to 50 objects then moved south over Phoenix. Ten to 15 seconds after the first sighting, the cluster began "swarming like bees, resolving into two undulating 'V' formations," then melding back into a single V before disappearing while heading due south, according to a summary of the event from the husband, who included his qualifications as an astronomer and a teacher of aircraft identification during World War II.  Dr. Bruce Maccabee

5:40 p.m. Oct. 9, 1967- A 13-year-old boy said he watched a UFO take off from the desert. He described the object as looking like a large, silver water heater with 2 legs, each fitted with a curved pad. The boy said the UFO made a humming sound as it took off, and left an indescribable taste in his mouth. The report includes pictures of impressions in the sand the boy alleges were created by the UFO. The Aerial Phenomena Branch received the report, took pictures and soil samples, then sent them to the Ohio River Division Laboratory for testing. In turn, the lab found that the UFO could not possibly have been the size or dimensions described by the boy.  United States Air Force

While his family was dealing with chaos on the ground, Walton said, he believes he was contending with aliens in the extraterrestrial aircraft that had abducted him. 

Walton said he lost consciousness when the blast hit him on the ground before he was taken aboard. But he said he eventually regained consciousness and woke up to see two figures on board.

The first creature fit the description of stereotypical alien depictions — small, hairless creatures with a large head and very large eyes, Walton said.

The other creature appeared humanlike and came aboard as Walton regained consciousness.

The next thing Walton said he recalls is being dropped off in Heber, where he found a pay phone to contact his family. It was snowing and about 20 degrees, Ellison said. 

Walton says he believes he saw the craft departing.

"I was wondering why they didn't take me home to my house!" Walton said, prompting another round of laughter from the audience. 

Walton said the movie "Fire in the Sky" deviates from what he recalls when it implies that Walton was dropped back on Earth completely naked.

"I was fully clothed, but that's Hollywood for you," he said. "They gotta have that nude scene!"

'The townspeople put us through hell'

The fabled Project Blue Book, the Air Force's files on UFO sightings and investigations, have tantalized and frustrated extraterrestrial enthusiasts for decades. But this past week, nearly 130,000 pages of declassified UFO records were put online. VPC

Although Walton made light of some aspects of his alleged experience, he was serious about the scrutiny that he and his family endured following his return.

"Quite literally, the townspeople put us through hell," Don Walton said of his family's experiences as they stayed in the sleepy town of Snowflake. "We were shunned, we were taunted, teased, called liars." 

'We're not alone in the universe'

From the UFO files. (Photo: Dr. Bruce Maccabee)

In the years that have passed since 1975, Walton said, it appears that more people believe his story and give credence to the notion of extraterrestrial life. 

His main message, though, is for the naysayers.

"So many people form an opinion and then gather all the so-called facts they can to support the theory," he said. "Instead, they should gather the facts and let facts dictate what their theory becomes."

Walton said his experience has been costly to him and his family. He said he'd rather it never happened, but it did.

"It's become my mission to promote understanding so that people will know that this is real, these things do happen and we're not alone in the universe," Walton said. "That shouldn't be alarming, either; that should just be something that we're aware of." 

From Our Archives: Phoenix Lights

 Fullscreen

Air Guard unit dropped flares on night Valley saw the lights  The Arizona Republic

Air Guard: Valley's UFOs were our flares  The Arizona Republic

Skeptics seek solutions to UFOs  The Arizona Republic

Mystery lingers over sighting of Phoenix Lights The Arizona Republic

Phoenix Lights still bright 1 year later  The Arizona Republic

Phoenix Lights, plus a year  The Arizona Republic

'Phoenix Lights' witnesses credible, hard to dismiss  The Arizona Republic

Seeking UFO Answers  The Arizona Republic

READ MORE:

That streak across the Phoenix sky wasn't a UFO

Was the Phoenix Zoo visited by aliens in 1993?

Did a UFO crash in Kingman in 1953?

Tempe history: City gets its first UFO

{ https://www.azcentral.com/  }

Naburig sterrenstelsel Andromeda is minder oud dan de aarde - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

François Hammer van het Observatorium van Parijs en zijn Frans-Chinees team hebben miljoenen bytes aan data onderzocht. Met behulp van de krachtigste computersimulaties konden de wetenschappers het traject van de twee oorspronkelijke sterrenstelsels opnieuw uittekenen. Zo bleek dat ze 1,8 tot drie miljard jaar geleden zijn gebotst.

Dat betekent dat Andromeda -  een afgeplatte schijf - geboren is toen de Aarde al bestond.  In de gigantische schijf van Andromeda ondergaan alle sterren van meer dan twee miljard jaar oud ongeordende veranderingen, luidt het. Ter vergelijking: de sterren van onze Melkweg volgen netjes bewegingen van rotatie. Enkel een recente botsing kan het gedrag van de sterren in Andromeda verklaren.

Andere studies wijzen uit dat er een botsing zal plaatsvinden tussen Andromeda en onze Melkweg, maar dat zal pas binnen vier miljard jaar gebeuren.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Rusland investeert 90 miljoen euro in zoektocht naar leven op Mars - HLN.be

Bron: Belga, ANP

Het grootste deel van de investering staat gepland voor 2019 en 2020, meldt het persagentschap Interfax. Met ExoMars zoeken Rusland en ESA naar sporen van leven op de Rode Planeet. België speelt een belangrijke rol bij ExoMars.

Lees ook

Eerste metingen door Mars-sonde sijpelen binnen

Al in oktober 2016 hebben beide organisaties een sonde in een baan rond Mars gebracht. Een lander crashte. De verwachting is dat de sonde medio maart gereed is met de laatste manoeuvres om een analyse van de atmosfeer te beginnen. België is toonaangevend in dat atmosfeeronderzoek. Exomars heeft nog een tweede luik met de lancering in 2020 van een robotjeep. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Black Disk Seen In Sky Over Great Britain, Proof Alien Bases Exist In GB, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: 8-3-1998, but reported today.

Source: MUFON #90312

Location of sighting: Gainsborough, Great Britain

 

I really like this photo. It shows a classic shaped UFO in the far distance above Great Britain. There is just too much evidence coming from GB to deny the existence of aliens any longer. The truth is, we are not alone, and never have been. 

Scott C. Waring

 

Eyewitness states: 

I had just bought a new camera and was trying it out by swizzling around and napping pictures to see if the was any blurring. I took about 10 pictures doing the same thing I only looked at the first couple and they seemed good quality. So I downloaded them into a file on my computer and never thought any more about it. Then I acquired a program called Picasa which found lots of photos on my computer looking through them I spotted this one I thought it might have been a bird in flight and passed it by. I have never bothered to much about it and it might be nothing at all, I will let you judge.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Astronaut caught trying to hide UFO near ISS on Live Stream

This footage was captured during the ISS live stream on February 18, 2018 at approximately 8.20 pm.

It shows a mysterious UFO fly into shot from the left hand side of the screen and change direction before emitting a white glow and shooting off at high speed before the astronaut tries to hide the UFO.

  

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

Are We Alone In The Universe? Scientists Say We Can Handle Extraterrestrial Life

Isaac Newton’s Philosopher’s Stone Recipe Discovered

According to reports, researchers have re-discovered Isaac Newton’s recipe for alchemists’ mercury.

The document, which dates back to the seventeenth century is believed to have been handwritten by Isaac Newton himself and explains the fundamental part of the process to create the mythical Philosopher’s Stone, a substance that alchemists believed could transmute base metals into gold.

The papers written by Newton on theology and alchemy far exceed in volume those dedicated to Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics, sciences in which he is a leading figure.

However, it is important to mention that Newton wrote more than a million words about alchemy, something that was known only after his death since ‘proto-science’ was illegal in his time.

His forbidden texts were written under the pseudonym of Jeova Sanctus Unus.

The document contains text copied from another alchemist’s writings as well as descriptions of Newton’s own experiments

© Courtesy of the Chemical Heritage Foundation

The philosopher’s stone was, according to the tradition of alchemists and necromancers, a substance with extraordinary properties capable of transmuting any metal into gold, it was also capable of curing diseases and granting immortality, through the elixir of life.

One of the great cultivators of these secrets was Isaac Newton, one of the fathers of physics, who practically devoted himself to the Great Work—Latin: Magnum opus, in an exhaustive way.

The Great Work is an alchemical term for the process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher’s stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition, attached to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, used as a model for the individuation process, and as a device in art and literature.

The manuscript which contained the extraordinary recipe, was in the possession of a private collector, and auctioned in Pasadena, California, and purchased by the Chemical Heritage Foundation of Philadelphia.

It is an instructive guide that details the process for preparing ” alchemists mercury “, a recipe that Newton copied from the American alchemist George Starkey, whom he probably considered a better alchemist.

Starkey (1628 – 1665), considered the first man of American science, also wrote under a pseudonym; Eirenaeus Philalethes.

According to website Chemistry World, ‘Philosophic mercury was [thought to be] a substance that could be used to break down metals into their constituent parts,’ explains James Voelkel, the CHF’s curator of rare books. ‘The idea is if you break the metals down you can then reassemble them and make different metals.’ The process was part of the effort to make the philosopher’s stone, he adds, a mythical substance that alchemists believed could turn lead into gold.

Translated from Latin, the manuscript title is: ‘Preparation of the [Sophick] Mercury for the [Philosophers’] Stone by the Antimonial Stellate Regulus of Mars and Luna from the Manuscripts of the American Philosopher’. The manuscript is believed to describe the necessary process to make ‘sophick’ – short for ‘philosophic’ – mercury.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Researchers Unearth Sophisticated Engineering And Metal-Work Beneath Ancient Greek ‘Pyramid’

As noted by experts, this ancient ‘pyramid’ composed of a number of terraces of would have blazed in the Greek sun, visible from far off. Beneath the structure, researchers discovered traces of complex engineering and metal-working.

A group of archaeologists from three countries has found evidence of advanced engineering work under the terraces of the pyramidal sanctuary of the islet Daskalio.

New excavations on the remote Greek island of Keros have revealed evidence of spectacular engineering feats and monumental architectural works that, according to researchers, make it one of the most impressive archaeological sites in the Aegean.

An Impressive ancient mold for metallurgy found in the archaeological site.

Image Credit: University of Cambridge

According to reports, more than 4,000 years ago, to be precise 4,500 years ago, the ancient builders carved the entire surface of a natural promontory in the form of a pyramid on the Greek island of Keros. They formed it in terraces covered with 1,000 tons of gleaming white stone specially imported to give it the appearance of a giant stepped pyramid that rises from the Aegean, making it the most imposing artificial structure of the entire Cycladic archipelago.

However, what’s inside is even more impressive, say archaeologists.

Experts have found below the surface of the terraces still-undiscovered engineering and craftsmanship feats that rival the impressive exterior of the structure.

As noted by the Guardian, Archaeologists have found evidence of a complex of drainage tunnels – constructed 1,000 years before the famous indoor plumbing of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete – and traces of sophisticated metalworking.

Experts are still unsure whether the ancient tunnels were designed as a system for wastewater or fresh water.

This is an aerial image of the promontory of Dhaskalio, rising from the Aegean sea. According to experts, it was once joined to the major sanctuary of Keros.

Image Credit: Michael Boyd

Researchers uncovered the first traces of advanced metalworking ten years ago on the site. Since then, new discoveries have shown the ancient inhabitants of the Mini-Islands were far more sophisticated than researchers imagined, as experts have excavated two workshops full of metalworking debris, and a number of artifacts including a lead axe, a mold for copper daggers, as well as countless ceramic fragments from metalworking equipment, used by the ancient builders, thousands of years ago.

“What we are seeing here with the metalworking and in other ways is the beginnings of urbanization,” said Joint director of the excavation Michael Boyd, of the University of Cambridge in an interview with the Guardian. Far-flung communities were drawn into networks centered on the site, craft and agricultural production was intensified, and the architecture became grander, gradually overshadowing the original importance of the sanctuary.

Archaeologists have found complex drainage tunnels and metalwork

Image Credit Michael Boyd.

It is noteworthy to mention that the Dhaksalio promontory is now essentially a small islet due to the rise in sea level.

However, 4,500 years ago it was attached through a narrow channel to Keros, which, according to previous research, was a maritime sanctuary, center of power and destination of pilgrimage where mysterious rituals were carried out with broken marble objects.

Source:

• Advanced Plumbing and Metalwork Found on Ancient Greek Island
• Complex engineering and metal-work discovered beneath ancient Greek ‘pyramid’

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

The Mysterious UFO Incident with Many Witnesses above Gosford, Australia (1994)

On New Year’s Eve 1994, police switchboards suddenly lit up with reports of an unidentified illuminated object flying over the waters around Gosford on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

According to Sergeant Bob Wenning, callers reported seeing a “huge ball-shaped object with bright lights on the bottom”. To many of the witnesses, it appeared as though the illuminated craft was sucking up water from the bay with beams of light shining down from the object, penetrating the water.

Some thought that these beams were turning the water to steam, while others described the water frothing.

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Fragments of Famed ‘UFO’ Discovered in Archives of London Museum

Though experts deemed it a hoax, the ‘Silpho Saucer’ created a sensation when it was discovered in the 1950s

{ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ }

Disc-shaped UFO spotted soaring above Mount Everest in spooky footage

UFO watchers say the spooky object causes a silhouette and its height means it can't be a drone or helicopter

By Ed McConnell

A bizarre UFO has been spotted above Mount Everest.

The disc-shaped object can be seen in the sky over the Himalayas.

UFO watchers say the spooky object causes a silhouette and its height means it can't be a drone or helicopter.

The image is one of 477 stitched together by mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears as part of an amazing two-billion-pixel photo.

The mosaic image is intended to show Mount Everest in all its glory and stretches from the camp of 500 prospective climbers at the base to the sky above.

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• 'Is that aliens?': Black UFO spotted during Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket launch prompting claims of 'cover up'

While it was created in 2012 it remains unclear exactly what the object is.

UFO Today adds in its coverage that there have long been rumoured to be secret underground 'Area 51'-type bases in the area, especially in the virtually inaccessible Ladakh border area between India and China.

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• Dad captures 'frightening footage of neat freak ghost pulling wardrobe door closed' as he gets ready for bed

Last year declassified CIA files revealed seven sightings of UFOs were reported in the skies above Nepal and neighbouring India and Bhutan in 1968.

Two of those were in Nepal including one in which "a blazing object, flashing intermittently and accompanies by a big thunder sound" was seen disintegrating above the western part of the country.

(Image: UFO TODAY)

(Image: UFO TODAY)

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The report goes on to state that a "huge metallic disc-shaped object with a six-foot base and four feet in height was found in a crater, five miles north east of Pokhara."

Portions of a similar object were found nearby.

{ https://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

Why too many sinister happenings forced UFO hunter to give up

A former UFO hunter reveals why too many sinister happenings forced him to give up

A former UFO tracker claims Government phone-tappers forced the closure of his own organisation, the Unidentified Flying Object Information Bureau.

Brian Leathley-Andrew chronicled reports of a plethora of strange craft in the late 1960s.

Press cuttings at the time suggest that, in the Swinging Sixties, the truth was definitely out there – and lurking in the skies over the West Midlands.

But his work made shadowy figures in the halls of power twitchy, Brian – who now refers to himself as Lord Brian Leathley-Andrew – believes.

They were concerned, he reckons, that he’d tripped upon dark technology being developed in secret locations.

Now 71 and living in Bedworth, Warwickshire, the former electrical engineer says: “Society is being watched by the Department of Them. Say hello to System X.

“Quite clearly, I had problems with phone tapping, bloody crude phone tapping. You could hear the click.

“There were too many people looking, in hindsight.”

READ MORE

• Midland asteroid watcher on the prospect of alien life

It has been more than 50 years since Brian turned his back on the UFO bureau and his interest in Close Encounters has diminished.

“These days I’m retired,” he admits. “I struggle to find time to tie my shoelaces.”

But he’s convinced of the validity of some of the sightings, even if work was sometimes bogged down by hoaxers.

He is also adamant that Big Brother was, indeed, watching – and listening in.

His personal security, even safety, he says, were compromised.

“There were a lot of mickey-takers,” he admits. “One man sent me pictures of a UFO.

“It was the lid of exactly the same handcream my wife used. The jar was there on the table in front of me.”

Half a century on, the work of Brian’s bureau lives on through the yellowed archives of our sister newspaper, The Coventry Telegraph.

On December 3, 1968, Brian publicly admitted he was a scared man.

Under the banner headline “Worried UFO Man Gives Up”, he announced the organisation’s closure.

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• TV documentary makers in bid to 'contact' the Black Eyed Child of Cannock Chase

In the bombshell article, Brian alleged:

• He had been watched by a man with a glowing orange face;
• His phone cut off whenever he attempted to talk about UFOs;
• He had a phone message from a caller “speaking unusual English”.

“I have given this thing up and destroyed all the papers,” he told the Telegraph. “There have been happenings which have worried me and frightened my wife.”

For Brian, the alarm bells rang while repairing his mother’s car.

“Suddenly, I noticed a man standing by the next door garage,” he told the paper. “Nobody had been there before.

“His face was glowing orange. As I watched, the face changed to that of an old man before my eyes.

“Then he turned and walked away.

“You could not describe the first face in normal terms. It had eyes, nose and mouth in the proper places – but not of the shape that we associate with the human figure.”

Soon afterwards, a visit to a fellow UFO watcher in Stoke was strangely scuppered.

“All the lights in the house suddenly dimmed as though a huge electrical load had been put in the circuit,” he said.

“This will happen once in a while normally, but it kept on happening. This is most unusual.

“All this started two days after I opened my bureau. I want to publicly warn all teenage hobbyists that this is nothing to dabble in lightly.”

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Did ET get sent to Coventry?

Judging by the flood of reports, Brian was in the right place to experience extra-terrestrial activity.

At the time, the Coventry Telegraph carried page after page of sightings.

And he was not alone in being gripped by ET fever.

He believes the flood of sightings coincided with experimental research by the Government. The Rolls Royce factory was nearby, he pointed out.

Coventry folk – even city policemen – were experiencing close encounters on a daily basis.

The dramatic reports can best be described as “of their time”. Frankly, some of the Coventry Telegraph reporters seem to have approached the topic with tongue firmly in cheek.

For example....

“UFO Became A Mum” (September 28, 1968): 

“A flying saucer which gave birth over Willenhall has been reported to the Unidentified Flying Object Information Centre of Mr Brian Leathley-Andrew.

“An eye-witness phoned Mr Leathley-Andrew to report that the mother UFO was a giant sphere-like object seen in 1953. Sparks came from the underside of the UFO which gave birth to a small sphere. The incident was seen by people in a bus queue near Willenhall traffic island.”

And there’s more...

“Flying Saucers Not A Load of Tripe” (September 24, 1968): 

“Flying saucers were the greatest mystery of our time and should not be dismissed as a load of tripe, Mr Wilf Grunau told Nuneaton Rotary Club.

“Mr Grunau is managing director of the Awson Motor Carriage Company which has works at Solihull and Nuneaton. Mankind, he said, had been seeing strange things in the sky since the beginning of recorded history. Mr Grunau spoke of making two sightings himself over Coventry through binoculars. He said: ‘As a result, I believe in UFOs. All I can repeat is UFOs must be piloted by beings from other worlds or else they are a natural phenomena in our atmosphere’.”

READ MORE

• Football fans film "UFO" hovering above St Andrews before Birmingham City clash

And yet more...

“Saucer Over City Say Women” (March 31, 1969): 

“Two Coventry women believe there may have been a flying saucer over the city during the weekend after they were woken by an ‘unearthly’ high-pitched whining accompanied by a glowing light.

“‘I have been over all the possibilities and that is the only explanation I can think of,’ said 28-year-old Patricia Hughes.”

‘Do not be too sceptical about UFOs’

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s members of the constabulary were less shy about admitting they had seen UFOs.

After all, the whole nation were closet believers.

On February 24, 1971, four bobbies gave their story to the Coventry Telegraph.

It reported: “PC Brian Hewitt of B sub-division said: ‘We were attending a job in Lythall’s Lane at 6.15am when we all saw a strange object in the sky.

“‘It was not a meteorite or anything like that. There were three single white lights in the sky over the Nuneaton area and moving at a great spread in a westerly direction towards Birmingham. They then turned northwards.

“‘They were at the height of about two miles and the lights did not belong to the same object because they were so far apart. They appeared to be in formation.

“‘They were also travelling at a tremendous speed because an aircraft flying at, say, 600mph at that height would appear to be going very slowly.

“‘I don’t know what they could have been. I don’t believe in flying saucers or anything like that and I have tried to look at it in a reasoned way. I have checked with air traffic control at Birmingham Airport and the first aircraft to land there was later than the time we saw those lights. I cannot explain it.’”

Such was the space fever that the police actually appealed for UFO sightings.

On January 4, 1972, Warwickshire police sergeant Mike Davies told the Telegraph: “Don’t be too sceptical about UFOs.

“I ask people to whom sightings are reported to listen to what is said. Then they can deduce what the object was not, and speculate what it was. I believe there is something beyond our comprehension and our technology.

“The tendency is to take a few statements and then to make a sweeping statement about what an object was. People are too prepared to dismiss the subject.”

The officer added: “I have yet to be convinced that some information about UFOs is not withheld by the authorities.

“But supposing there was a statement that we were being invaded by people from another planet, what do you think the reaction of the public would be?”

UFOs OVER BIRMINHAM ( 2017/2018 ) ( By Peter2011)

{ https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ }

Google Maps: UFO CRASH alien landing discovered in ‘no-fly’ Arizona mountains

GOOGLE MAPS: Satellite footage taken from a restricted access site in Arizona, US points to existence of alien UFO spacecraft.

WHAT IS UP WITH THOSE PENTAGON UFO VIDEOS?

ON DECEMBER 17, 2017, a newspaper printed a story titled“Real U.F.O.’s? Pentagon Unit Tried to Know.” No, the headline wasn’t surrounded by text about post-baby bods and B-listers’ secret sorrows. Because it was on the front page of The New York Times.

The article describes a federally funded program that investigated reports of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs, the take-me-seriously acronym that includes UFOs). And within the story, the Times embedded videos of two such UAPs.

Although the article was careful not to say that unidentified meant extraterrestrial, the Department of Defense acknowledged the program, and it was easy enough for readers to draw the conclusion that these videos could show alien aircraft. The Times supplemented one of the clips with a first-hand account of a Navy pilot who was sent to investigate “mysterious aircraft” that appeared—poof!—at 80,000 feet, dropped down to 20,000, and then seemed to hover before either leaving radar range or launching straight up. Weird, right?

The discovery, and federal acknowledgement, of a UFO of non-earthly origin would be revelatory—and the Times’ scoop seemed to suggest that such a worldview-shifting scenario is at least not not-true. That the videos came courtesy of the Defense Department made it easier for readers to put faith in their validity.

“The video footage, in this case, is what captures people’s imagination and is part of what made this case more compelling,” says historian Greg Eghigian, a recent NASA and American Historical Association Fellow in Aerospace History.

But there are a few missing links in this narrative chain, links that need to be forged before anyone has enough information to accurately interpret these videos, let alone conclude they even remotely suggest anything extraterrestrial.

But wait, this story broke the news that the DOD had a secret UFO program and had released secret video! That’s huge!

Here’s what happened. About a decade ago, the Department of Defense inaugurated a UFO program, budgeted at $22 million according to the Times. It went by AATIP, for Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, though the Times story refers to it as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Its purpose was to investigate flying foreign weapon threats—ones that exist now or could be developed in the next 40 years. The product of legislation cosponsored by senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the program, according to Pentagon spokesperson Audricia Harris, was primarily executed through a contract with Bigelow Aerospace—a company owned by Reid’s constituent and donor Robert Bigelow. (The wealthy businessman, who is best known for his inflatable space habitats, still owns a company called Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, which has also researched UFO reports.)

The Pentagon program was run by Luis Elizondo, who told WIRED he took the lead position in 2010. (WIRED was unable to verify that Elizondo worked on AATIP, but Harris does confirm that he worked for the Defense Department.) The AATIP team, Elizondo says, took strange-sighting reports from pilots, as well as associated data like camera footage and radar returns, and tried to match them with known international aircraft signatures. “What we found many times was the fact that the aircraft did not belong to anybody,” Elizondo says. Sometimes, he says, the craft displayed behavior the AATIP team couldn’t explain.

Elizondo has become a kind of celebrity—in the wider world, arguably, but definitely in the UFO community. This week, those UFO researchers and enthusiasts and skeptics gathered in Fort McDowell, Arizona, for their annual International UFO Congress. And Elizondo, who had brought them closer to the capital-D Disclosure they’ve long sought, was supposed to be there. Instead, this evening at 6 pm Eastern, the Congress will show a prerecorded interview in which Elizondo will answer submitted questions from the community— “many of the questions that have gone unanswered,” according to a press release.

People have been clamoring for those answers—and Elizondo characterizes himself as being all about the answers. He says he wanted, for instance, to speak more publicly about the crafts’ non-nationality. “That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people,” Elizondo told the Times, and the website linked to his new venture makes reference to the declassification processes the films had to undergo. The Times portrays the program as “shadowy” and possessing “excessive secrecy.”

But those are all funny things to say, because it doesn’t seem like the Pentagon ever held the program’s data or documents that close, and it doesn’t seem like the videos in that story ever were classified.

“If they were officially declassified, they would have to have been officially classified,” says Nate Jones, director of the Freedom of Information Act Project at the National Security Archive. And a classified video would likely have a markingat least at the beginning and end, even after it was okayed for public consumption. Someone—at the Times, at To The Stars—could have cut those introductory and closing seconds from the video, but why would they do that, when both groups were emphasizing the direct-from-DOD legitimacy of the videos? “It looks very strongly like these weren’t released through any proper DOD declassification channels that I’ve ever seen,” says Jones. “I’ve seen a lot of DOD declassification in response to FOIA, in response to mandatory declassification review, in response to proactive disclosure. And it doesn’t look like this.”

Here is, perhaps, why: While the details of the program weren’t widely known, Harris says that the program files the Pentagon has pored over so far—Pentagon staffers have been reviewing AATIP documentation since around the time the Times story broke—were unclassified.

Of course, there are endless quibbles to be had over classification. Elizondo, for his part, clarified to WIRED that he didn’t believe the videos themselves were ever classified: They were just stored on a classified system. Either way, though, it seems that they made their way into the world without the typical release process, which the Department of Defense requires of “all documents that are submitted for official public release.”

Information is classified, according to the National Archives, if its improper release would present a national security problem. So why would a secret program looking at aerial anomalies—“aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme maneuvers, with unique phenomenology,” says Harris—remain unclassified? Sounds like those UAPs weren’t so threatening after all.

Well, fine. But the videos were still part of the program, even if they weren’t classified. It even says right there: “Courtesy of US Department of Defense.”

It’s true, that’s what the December Times story says about the videos. But there are two important things to know about that credit.

First of all, Harris maintains the Pentagon isn’t the source of the videos. “The official who is authorized to release this video on behalf of DOD did not approve the release of this video,” she says. She’s adamant: “I stand firm that we did not release those videos.”

Which means that although the videos may have originated within the DOD, which Harris acknowledges they may have, there’s no public proof or Pentagon acknowledgement of their association with AATIP. Of course, perhaps the Pentagon wants it that way. In the 1950s, according to a bookby investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, the CIA’s Psychological Strategy Board concluded that the public’s potential reaction to UFOs (belief, followed by hysteria) constituted a national security threat. The '50s were a long time ago, but we still enjoy Jell-O salad every so often, so maybe we would still be susceptible to social chaos if we were to learn about flying objects of questionable origin.

And in any case, one of the Times’ video credits has since changed. WIRED contacted the Times reporters in late December, asking them to comment on how the paper obtained the videos, and on the Defense Department’s denial that it had released them. Reporter Ralph Blumenthal replied on behalf of the three coauthors in early January, “We don't discuss the processes by which we obtain information.” But he added, “We have official documents showing the origin of the videos and the process of review provided within the DOD before they were released.”

In mid-January, though, the Times changed the caption of the lead video in its story. Both videos still have captions stating they were “released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.” But the page now simply says the first video is “by,” not “courtesy of,” the Department of Defense.

Journalists gonna journalism, though. Of course they’re protecting their sources. But I just so happen to know that there’s another place that has original video straight from the DOD, and they’re up-front about everything.

Ah, you must be talking about To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science.

In case other readers are not already caught up, To the Stars is a company cofounded by former Blink-182 member and longtime paranormal enthusiast Tom DeLonge. The company wants to collect data on unexplained phenomena, maybe even building out tech based on what they observe. Oh, and sell books, movies, music, and merchandise related to To the Stars’ efforts

It also, coincidentally, now employs Luis Elizondo. Elizondo says he wanted to speak about what he says the AATIP team had seen, but he didn’t think that was possible from within the Pentagon. So he resigned in October 2017, he says, signing on with To The Stars soon thereafter (although WIRED’s FOIA request for Elizondo's resignation letter, which was quoted in the Times, turned up no records, according to the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Joint Staff).

Also coincidentally, To the Stars launched a video-centric site on the same day the Times story came out—carrying the same two fighter-jet clips that appeared with the article. The so-called Community of Interest currently hosts one pilot report and one video interview along with the gun-camera videos—“the first official UAP footage,” the page says, “ever released by the USG.” (That’s the US government, for all you sheeple.)

While the academy’s site may make bolder claims than the Times did, that doesn’t make those claims more true. The Community of Interest page says the videos come from the Defense Department, have gone through the official declassification review process, and have been approved for public release. Further, it boasts that the academy can prove it with chain-of-custody paperwork. Its two UAP videos, together, have garnered nearly 3 million views on To The Stars’ YouTube channel, where the footage begins with on-screen text characterizing the videos as official and released.

Those chain-of-custody files aren’t public, but To The Stars did show WIRED some paperwork suggesting that the videos had gone through the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR), which is one part of the DOD’s document release procedure. DOPSR, says this guide, conducts “security and policy reviews on all documents that are submitted for official public release.” “It means that one of the steps for the review of a product has been completed,” says the Pentagon’s Harris.

But that documentation doesn’t actually clear material for release. “An approval from DOPSR does not equate to public release approval,” says Harris. To release AATIP videos by the book, someone would have had to coordinate with the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. So the videos on the To the Stars don’t carry any more weight than the same videos published by the Times.

OK, fine. But those videos are still spooky. If we can’t trust the feds or the paperwork, we can trust our own eyes, right?

True, the videos show some weird stuff. But without a clear chain of custody, we can’t even know whether they were part of AATIP at all, or trust that they haven’t been tampered with.

And a copy of one of the much-touted videos has been online since at least 2007. UFO researcher Isaac Koi (a pseudonym under which he writes about the topic) established that the second video in the Times story, of an event in 2004, appeared online in 2007. Someone posted it on the conspiracy website Above Top Secret, and Koi delved into its origins. The first appearance he could find was on a website for a company called Vision Unlimited—a film production company. An archived 2007 version of vision-unlimited.de confirms that the footage was hosted there back then.

That archival film matches the Times video.¹

After all the unclassifications and release-denials, this information shouldn’t surprise you. We’ve pretty clearly established that whatever these videos show, they don’t seem important enough for the Pentagon to get in a tizzy over. And while the fact that one of them has shown up online before doesn’t prove that they didn’t originate with the military, it does call that chain of custody into question. Without official confirmation or available documentation (and more documentation than WIRED saw), you can’t be sure what you’re viewing is unadulterated footage, and you can’t be sure who recorded it first.

To The Stars Academy acknowledges that the 2004 video has existed elsewhere; its explanation is that those incarnations were leaked versions and that theirs is original. But there’s no public proof for that statement.

It’s true, a Navy pilot named David Fravor did give an account to the Times of his 2004 experience with a UFO, and an unnamed source provided a report in September 2017 of the same events to To The Stars Academy. But squint just a little to see that there’s no definitive link between these accounts and that video. The witnesses give a description of an alleged strange event, and the video shows an encounter with a strange object. But without a time and location stamp of some sort, viewers can’t know whether the witnesses are actually describing what’s in the video. And, beyond that, there’s no definitive link between this video and AATIP.

In the end, also, there’s no way for the public to know whether, five seconds after the other film ends, the pilots don’t discover the “fleet” of crazy flyers wasn’t from Finland. Or the Air Force.

Fine, hater. What would it take to make you believe?

In lieu of federal nondenial, or more public paperwork, there should exist hard data—like air traffic control reports, or the radar returns Elizondo mentioned—that could help establish the videos’ actualness and officialness, as well as the UAPs’ strangeness. If someone—in an aircraft, on the ground, on a ship—sent radio waves up, and they bounced off a flying object, the timing of their return and the way those waves had changed could reveal the object’s speed, its distance, and sometimes its shape.

Will To The Stars Academy be releasing those?

Yes, Elizondo says. But how and when and where, he doesn’t know.

¹ UPDATE 9:45 AM ET, 2/17/2018: This article previously included an interpretation of the text on the Nimitz video display.

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