Mysterious Lights Spotted in Japan Spark Alien Sighting Rumors

The sighting does line up with Japan's Epsilon-3 Rocket launch, which took place in the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture at 6.06 am on Thursday. Taking this into account, it's wholly possible that the mysterious lights could be moisture in the air reacting to fumes from the rocket's launch.

"JAXA launched Epsilon-3, the third Epsilon launch vehicle which encapsulates NEC Small radar satellite "ASNARO-2", from the JAXA Uchinoura Space Center," JAXA said in a statement. "The launch occurred on time."

Epsilon-3 successfully put into orbit the ASNARO-2 commercial satellite at a height of about 500 kilometers. The rocket is at the vanguard of aerospace tech because it cuts back considerable time, equipment, and human resources required to launch. 

Japanese residents ought to get used to seeing more strange events in the sky, as Japan continues to step up its space exploration game. Last year, a private Tokyo-based firm raised $90 million from major Japanese corporations and investors to send a spacecraft into orbit in 2019 that will land on the moon the following year. Funded with the promise of moon colonization, the firm says that by 2021, 1,000 people will be living on the Moon, and with their help, 10 times as many will visit each year. 

Last fall, JAXA also uncovered a moon cave that it says will be an ideal location for a base. Its Selene spacecraft discovered an "echo pattern" at the tube opening in the moon's Marius Hills, found using radar technology, which provides solid evidence that a hollow area exists underneath. This is just one of the many lava tubes that may be housing large repositories of ice beneath the lunar surface.

JAXA is also working with NASA on a manned mission to Mars' moons, Phobos and Deinos, although that mission might have to wait until scientists figure out how to protect astronauts from high amounts of electricity.

{ https://www.outerplaces.com/ }

Despite the seemingly endless reports of UFO sightings, ghost encounters, Bigfoot videos, strange hums, falling fish and other paranormal occurrences, there are days when it seems that nothing out of the ordinary is happening (we exclude politics from consideration, unless a UFO is involved). When all other countries or geographical areas fail, Peru always seems to come through. Within the past week, that fine country has provided stories about a truck driver destroying some Nazca lines and a DNA analysis of the mysterious Paracas elongated skulls. The paranormal riches of Peru paid off once again today, with the report that an ongoing investigation of the three-fingered mummies found in a Nazca cave has determined that they were once definitely alive. Muchas gracias, Peru!

Here’s a quick update. The chalky-covered three-fingered-and-toed, big-headed, small-bodied mummies were allegedly found in a Nazca cave and revealed to the public in 2017 by Gaia.com. Since then, there have reports of one being pregnant, another carrying eggs, the total reaching 20, a guy named Mario taking credit for the discovery, a possible sighting of live ones, DNA tests showing they’re human or human-like and more. Now, a video has surfaced with new insights from a member of the team.

“Each of three small specimens has been analysed and bone density belong to that of a living being. The preservation is amazing, it is really surprising, especially the bone parts of these small creatures. “You see that, the base of the skull has its own characteristics. We can scientifically prove the skull of these creatures have a cranial cavity similar to humans, but they have some strong differences.”

It was reported this week by express.co.uk that radiologist Dr. Raymundo Salas Alfaro, a new name in these three-fingered mummy reports, made those observations after claiming to see CAT scans of the mummies. A video dated October 2017 shows Alfaro discussing the mummies but an English translation was not provided. That’s too bad because, in the express.co.uk account, Alfaro seems to disagree with the DNA report by saying that the skull does not look human. (Did he look at the fingers?)

“Here another image you see the soft tissue – a big surprise about these small creatures. Of course they have existed this is not a fake.”

Alfaro then addressed the most famous of the three-fingered mummies – the one the team has named Maria – and said this:

“We are scientifically proving that this is a real body that was once alive.”

So Dr. Alfaro seems to be refuting those who claim this is an elaborate and morbid hoax perpetrated by someone who pieced together the mummies from human body parts. However, the evidence he presents is still just the CAT scan and the DNA test. That isn’t enough to convince skeptics, which includes the World Congress on Mummy Studies and the Peruvian government, which doesn’t like foreigners messing with any of its mummies, real or otherwise.

Sorry Maria, Dr. Alfaro and the rest of the three-fingered mummies and researchers. The needle on this case is still stuck between ‘Skeptical’ and ‘Hoax’. However, we’re leaving it open in the likely event there’s another slow paranormal news day.

Image credit: YouTube/Unsplash

Muchas gracias!

{

In the paranormal business, the cure for a slow news day is to see what’s cooking in Peru. Last week, we had the truck driver plowing his vehicle over the ancient Nazca lines, destroying portions of these famous and unexplained geoglyphs in the name of avoiding to pay a toll. It’s been a while since we heard anything about the three-fingered mummies but there’s nothing new to reports. Fortunately, the elongated skulls came to the rescue!

“This could re-write history as we know it.”

Yes, it was another “This changes everything” moment over the weekend when the Elongated Skulls Symposium was held in Los Angeles. Hosted by author, lecturer and film maker L.A. Marzulli, it brought together a variety of speakers on the subject of the Paracas skulls, including videographer Richard Shaw, forensic expert Chase Kloetske, archaeologist Mondo Gonzales, 3D forensic artist Marcia K. Moore, anthropologist Rick Woodward, medical doctor Dr. Michael Alday, and chiropractor Dr. Malcolm Warren. However, the big news on DNA testing of the skulls came from Marzulli and Brien Forester of Hidden Inca Tours.

If those last two names sound familiar, it’s probably because they had a similar “this changes everything!” moment in 2016 when DNA tests were reportedly conducted on the Paracas elongated skulls of Peru. At that time, they revealed that the test results showed the skulls were not from Peru but were not alien either. The humans were believed to have come from Europe and Mesopotamia, especially Syria. That was interesting and certainly added a twist to which humans first arrived in the Americas, but not a game-changer. Was the Elongated Skulls Symposium?

The website megalithicmarvels.com gave a synopsis of the talk by Brien Forester.

“The DNA results actually were incredibly complicated… It’s gonna take me some time to actually figure out what the results mean. What it does show for sure is that the Paracas elongated skull people were not 100% Native American. They were a mix or even you could say, in some ways, a hybrid of different people.”

Wait a minute … this sounds familiar. That’s when Forester adds a new twist.

“It appears that the largest elongated skulls on the planet have been found, “A” in Paracas, Peru and “B” in the Caucasus area in between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea… so my theory is that there was a sub-species of human which we are going to be eventually calling Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens-Paracas, and they were living in the area in between the Caspian and Black Sea.”

And …

“They were invaded by somebody… and so they were forced to flee.”

Forester lays out a path for this sub-species to sail from the Persian Gulf to Peru. That’s where he believes, and says some of the other speakers agree, that these naturally long-skulled people settled and flourished for a time.

“ … because of the abnormalities found with some of the Elongated Skulls from the Chongos cemetery in Peru they have no other choice but to state that some of these ancient Paracas were a sub-species of humanity… it had to be genetic, they had to be born with these abnormalities. They had dark red hair… the royal Paracas were the ones with elongated heads, not the common people… the royal family of the Paracas, they lived in subterranean underground houses and I think the reason for that is that they had light-colored skin, probably sensitive eyes because of the extreme sunshine…”

So, Forester believes the long skulls are a genetic abnormality, not the result of binding, and those with them were regarded as leaders and superiors. The key word is “believes,” not proves. This certainly reinforces the idea that the genetic makeup of Native South Americans is truly a varied mix. It also continues to disappoint those who want to believe the elongated skull beings are aliens. However, it doesn’t prove how the Paracas could be a separate sub-species while all other elongated skull cultures are not.

Let’s hope the next ‘this changes everything’ DNA tests come during another slow news week.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The Road to Strange: UFOs, Aliens and High Strangeness is the new book from Michael Brein and Rosemary Ellen Guiley.  It’s a book which is filled with literally dozens and dozens of cases of the ufological kind. Those cases cover such issues as crop circles, alien abductions, pilot encounters, Men in Black, UFO landings, and much more. But, it’s very important to note that this is not just a collection of events and incidents. Rather, the emphasis is on how the experiences impacted on the witnesses themselves. This is a good, solid and refreshing way of demonstrating to the reader the way in which the UFO phenomenon can affect people – and not always in a positive way. The same goes for their families and friends. Ridicule, fear, denial, amazement, and paranoia are just some of the results of the close encounter cases in The Road to Strange. Let’s take a look at the content.

As far as the accounts are concerned, they are split into four categories: “I Know What I saw,” “Mystery Lights and Craft,” “Alien Encounters,” and “High Strangeness.” One of the intriguing issues that surfaces in certain events described in the book is the “Why me?” factor. As Guiley and Brein note, in profound UFO cases witnesses sometimes develop a sense that the phenomenon deliberately targeted them, that there was a specific reason for the encounter, that there was more to the sighting than just something unusual of a random nature. It’s this “Why me?” aspect which provokes anxiety in some, fear in others, and a sense of wonder in those who see the matter in a positive light. One of the weirder aspect of the UFO enigma revolves around how one person can see a UFO, but someone standing right next to them sees nothing at all. Again, there is the matter of “Why me?”

Seeing how people deal with such matters – or don’t – makes for revealing reading. As for the reaction of family members, well, at one end of the spectrum there is the sense that their relative is mistaken, lying – or, of course, telling the truth. At the other end of the spectrum, though, there’s the tragic story of T.L. Murdock who, as a child in 1931, was “backhanded” with “full force” by his mother for claiming an encounter with something strange in the sky. This, of course, was long before the dawning of the flying saucer era in 1947.

As for that aforementioned matter of ridicule – or the concern of it becoming an issue – it surfaces on several occasions. Again, the impact that this has on the witness is as significant as it is eye-opening. As an example, we have the words of the late Graham Sheppard, who was a captain and pilot with British Airways. Sheppard, who died in 2005, had a couple of profound UFO encounters. One such case, from the 1960s, is described by Sheppard in his own words: “When we were over the Midlands of England we got a radar alert about an object traveling at high speed directly in the airway. We saw this disc coming towards us! It was about 30 feet across, and it looked as if it was going to come extremely close to us.”

Sheppard noted the reluctance on the part of colleagues to talk about UFO encounters, “even though I knew other pilots and flight engineers had seen UFOs.” Sheppard tells a fascinating story of how, decades ago, he was aware of a kind of unwritten code of silence among air-crews when it comes to UFOs. Again, we get to see- first-hand – how the phenomenon of the UFO alters lives and directs their beliefs and approach to the mystery.

One of the most interesting stories revolves around a bizarre encounter with dwarfish humanoids floating in self-illuminated “pods of light” in the direct vicinity of Wiltshire, England’s famous Silbury Hill. It’s one of those cases which is hard to fit into any particular category. Fear, denial and and an attempt to rationalize the incident by suggesting it was connected to a “military exercise” or “a projector” are all part and parcel of a story that undeniably changed lives.

Silsbury Hill

High-strangeness in the heart of crop circles is an important aspect of the book and our authors note that those visiting the formations experience drowsiness, a feeling of “cosmic connection,” and “mystical rapture.” Men in Black of a clearly supernatural nature pop up, too – in a North Carolina library, and who appear to have the ability to affect electrical equipment. The menacing MIB reports and the crop circle cases demonstrate just how weird certain UFO-themed events can become – and they too are shown to profoundly affect those in close proximity. Add to that stories of missing time, alien-human hybrids, strange “holes” in the sky, an incident at Area 51, and much more and you have a book that makes for absorbing reading.

I have often said that the most important people in the field of the unknown are not the writers, the authors, the radio-show hosts, or those who appear on TV shows.  The most important people are the witnesses. A great deal can be learned from studying them, their reactions, their words, and how their lives have been changed, altered and even scarred. The Road to Strange does a great job of getting right to the heart of what it means to be a UFO witness.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

VIDÉO: L’OVNI DE ROSWELL SE TROUVE-T-IL TOUJOURS SUR UNE BASE US?

PAR VINCENT DEROY

Pas un jour ne se passe sans que les enthousiastes repèrent de mystérieux objets d’origine extraterrestre, mais le mystère de la base américaine Andrews, liée au mystère de Roswell, imprègne toujours l’esprit des ufologues. Cher lecteurs, êtes-vous prêts à plonger dans cet endroit sinistre?

Le groupe d’ufologues, baptisé UFO Seekers («Chercheurs d’extraterrestres»), a filmé le territoire de la base militaire américaine Andrews dans le désert du Nevada, connu sous le nom de Zone 51. L’objectif: vérifier les nombreuses théories du complot qui affirment que cette base est utilisée pour garder les ovnis qui se seraient écrasés dans la région à la fin des années 40.

Les aventuriers ont réussi à filmer une partie de la Zone 51, notamment la piste d’atterrissage et des véhicules de l’armée qui se déplaçaient sur le territoire de base. À la grande déception du groupe, aucune soucoupe volante, aucun extraterrestre, ni

L’incident de Roswell reste toujours férocement débattu par les historiens, ufologues et amateurs de théories du complot depuis la fin des années 1970. Bien que les spécialistes aient opté en faveur de la théorie du phénomène extraterrestre, l’affaire de Roswell est aussi le cas le plus réfuté par les sceptiques, ces derniers s’appuyant notamment sur les nombreuses incohérences relevées dans cette affaire.

En tout cas, 70 ans après l’incident, personne n’a jamais trouvé de débris des ovnis ou de corps des extraterrestres dans cette base.

Sources: Wikistrike, SputnikNews, 6 septembre 2017

{ http://paranormalqc.com/category/ovnis/ }

{ https://ancienprofesseur.fr/ }

I-Team: Understanding the science of UFOs

By: George Knapp

Looking to put a sub on Titan, NASA recreated its methane oceans in Washington

BY ALEXANDRU MICU

NASA is hard at work trying to get a robot on Titan. To find out exactly what it would be up against, the agency has built a tiny, freezing methane ocean at the Washington State University.

Composite image of Titan seen in near-infrared.
Image credits NASA / JPL.

Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system, only more modest in size than Jupiter’s Ganymede. However, it’s a spot that NASA has been itching to visit for quite some time now, as it is the largest body after Earth to harbor stable, liquid oceans. But put the snorkel away, because this is by no means an ocean you’d want to take a dip in. Titan isn’t covered in water, it’s covered in methane — frigid, liquid methane.

To coldly go where nobody has gone before

NASA plans to send an autonomous submarine to poke around Titan’s seas and oceans some time in the next 20 years. So far, they’ve been designing the mission and the craft based on data beamed back by the Cassini mission. However, environmental conditions on the moon are so dramatically different and extreme compared to those we’re used to, that the agency believes we need more experimental data to check the bot against.

As such, they’ve teamed up with scientists at Washington State University to recreate the moon’s methane ocean in a laboratory.

The WSU researchers built a test chamber filled with a “liquid mixture at very cold temperatures to simulate the seas of Titan,” a press release from the University details. “They added a two-inch, cylinder-shaped cartridge heater that would approximate the heat that a submarine would create”. The project was led by Ian Richardson, a former WSU graduate who interned at NASA on an unrelated research project.

“My research just took a right turn, and I went with it. It’s a crazy experiment, and I never thought I would have had this opportunity. It’s been a very fun and challenging experimental design problem,” he said.

The make-believe ocean has revealed two hurdles that researchers will have to overcome when designing the sub-to-be: the formation of gas bubbles and recording video at the freezing temperatures.

NASA released this design for the Titan sub back in 2016.
Image credits NASA.

If the submarine is powered by a heat-generating mechanism, it would cause nitrogen bubbles to form in the very cold liquid on Titan (which is mostly made up of a methane-ethane mix at roughly -185° Celsius (-300° Fahrenheit). These bubbles have shown that they can severely hinder the submarine’s mobility and make it difficult for onboard sensors to collect data.

Even if such bubbles fail to materialize, snapping images and videos of the sub’s surroundings will be a challenging task — mostly because it’s a really cold, pressurized environment (comparable to being under 30 meters/100 feet of water).

One piece of good news is that the nitrogen fraction in the mix lowers the freezing point of Titan’s oceans from about -185° to roughly -200° Celsius (-297° to -324° Fahrenheit).

“That’s a big deal. That means you don’t have to worry about icebergs,’’ Richardson explains.

The team says they worked around the temperature and pressure problems and developed a device that allowed them to shoot video footage in the liquid and snow methane-ethane mix inside the chamber. In the future, all measurements and data recorded in this experiment will be used to ” to aid in thermodynamic modeling of the Titan seas as well as the design of the Titan Submarine,” he added.

The paper “Experimental PρT-x measurements of liquid methane-ethane-nitrogen mixtures.” has been published in the journal Fluid Phase Equilibria.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

UFO’s in West Michigan? Maybe.

In 2017, there were 169 UFO sightings reported directly to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the world's oldest and largest UFO phenomenon investigative body. 

 FOX 17 dug into the data, examining hundreds of local reports while getting a good look at viewer submitted videos of possible UFOs flying over the skies. This, after a former Pentagon official revealed a government program allegedly researching UFO's for years. 

In December of 2017, the world learned that the Pentagon spent $22 million on a program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, according to Luis Elizondo, who led the Pentagon effort. Elizondo told The New York Times he resigned from the Department of Defense in October in protest what he called excessive secrecy surrounding the program and internal opposition to it after funding for the effort ended in 2012. The footage below was released by Elizondo following his resignation.

Footage shows an encounter between U.S. fighter jets and “anomalous aerial vehicles.”

(To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science)

However, you don't have to go far to find first-hand accounts of extraterrestrial encounters. Of 151 reports of UFOs documented worldwide by MUFON in 2018, six were reported in Michigan.

MUFON was founded in 1969 to investigate the growing UFO phenomenon through a team of investigators and researchers. The Michigan MUFON chapter meets five times a year outside of Flint, where like-minded people come together and share their personal stories about what they've seen in the sky.

"People are seeing things they can't understand on a regular basis," said MUFON state director Bill Konkolesky. "When people can come together and talk face-to-face about what they've seen and what their theories are on everything, that's real."

Konkolesky says the organization is big into investigating the UFO phenomenon based on evidence.  Michigan has three "licensed investigators" who collect data and keep it organized and open to the public. You can even track UFO sightings worldwide in real time here.  However, Konkolesky admits that 97% of the time, a sighting is not a UFO.

"We had 410 sightings a few years ago, and that was the year when Chinese lanterns were all the rage," Konkolesky said. Other identified sightings are drone or some sort of meteorological event like the recent Bolide/meteor sighted across the state in January. The other 3% remains unknown.

 The UFO Center, operated out of Washington state by Peter Davenport, also takes reports of UFOs on a daily basis. Davenport says people should do their own research before making up their minds about whether or not they "believe" that UFOs exist.

"I think it’s important that people see things with their own eyes before they believe them or accept them," Davenport said. "Biblical scholars, for example, should be included in the UFO debate and research process, because they might have some input that would be significant." 

The UFO Reporting Center has received more than 150 cases in 2018. That number is rising every day. Davenport believes it's because people are starting to "believe what they're seeing."

Here are a number of historically-head scratching cases that have happened in Michigan:

1) 1975, Konkolesky says there was a large UFO sighting over Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Iosco County, Michigan.

2.) March 8th, 1994: hundreds of witnesses reported seeing flickering lights resembling a string of Christmas lights or a group of airplanes flying close together near Holland. Below are 911 calls and testimony from the National Weather Service, (MUFON).

3) March, 1966:  hundreds of Michigan residents saw colorful, strange lights across the sky. Konkolesky said the US Air Force came out to investigate but claimed that residents were seeing no more than swamp or marsh gas.

"So I like to joke that Michigan is not only the Great Lakes State, but we’re also the swamp gas state," Konkolesky said. "Michigan has a rich history when it comes to UFO sightings."

It's important to note there has not been an actual sighting of a UFO confirmed by any governing agency. UFO enthusiasts encourage the general public to do their own research before coming to any conclusion.

{ http://fox17online.com/ }

UFO'S VOLGEN TESLA IN DE RUIMTE ( VIDEO )

Afgelopen week werd één van de grootste en zwaarste raketten ooit de ruimte in gestuurd, met de complimenten van Elon Musk, de baas van SpaceX. 

Deze raket had een bijzondere lading en dat was de privé Tesla cabriolet van Musk, iets waar ook buitenaardsen belangstelling voor schijnen te hebben. 

Het was een bijzondere week voor de ruimtevaart, want:

Elon Musk heeft het geflikt. Ruim twee uur later dan gepland is vanavond de Falcon Heavy-raket van zijn bedrijf SpaceX met succes gelanceerd. De geslaagde operatie is een enorme opsteker voor Musks missie naar Mars.

Elon Musk zou Elon Musk niet zijn als hij de raket zonder kenmerkende handtekening de lucht in zou sturen. In dit geval wordt die handtekening gevormd door een kersrode Tesla Roadster, als lading in het topje van de Falcon Heavy-raket. Het is zijn eigen Roadster. Inclusief een pop achter het stuur, gekleed in een door SpaceX ontwikkeld ruimtepak.

 
Echter, de spectaculaire beelden in de ruimte, gefilmd vanuit de Tesla, tonen ook nog iets anders. En dat zijn UFO's die op een gegeven moment een kijkje komen nemen naar wat daar nu eigenlijk rondvliegt.

Het zijn onmiskenbaar UFO's die daar rondvliegen, want ze stoppen, vertragen of versnellen en veranderen van richting. Iets dat sterren of planeten uiteraard niet doen. 

In de volgende video is te zien wat er daar rondvliegt als je doorspoelt naar ongeveer 2 minuten 20 seconden in de video.

En niet alleen bij de raket van Elon Musk doken UFO's op. In Japan werd enkele dagen geleden een raket gelanceerd en ook daar verschenen vreemde objecten in beeld.

Op de volgende afbeelding zie je de raket en rood omcirkeld drie vreemde lichten.

Wanneer je het beeld uitvergroot, ziet het er zo uit.

De raket werd gelanceerd om een satelliet in een baan om de aarde te brengen en diverse UFO-websites zijn van mening dat die drie lichten een onverklaarbaar object zijn. Volgens Scott Waring is deze UFO zeker 20 keer groter dan de raket en dat zou dan inderdaad een fiks ruimteschip zijn.

UFO of misschien toch een vliegtuig omdat wanneer je goed kijkt er ook een strobe light waar te nemen is. Of zijn de beelden gewoon helemaal nep? Bij het ter perse gaan van dit artikel lazen we in het AD dat de raket uit koers is geraakt en Mars niet zal bereiken. Script? Of toeval?

 

En tenslotte een bericht en een video die wij ontvingen van Paul Harmans (dank!), onder andere bekend van de website Ufowijzer.

Het gaat om een door hem in het Nederlands ondertitelde video van Tyler van Secureteam. Daarin maakt Tyler bekend dat er zeer binnenkort voor een korte periode gratis een interessante documentaire te zien zal zijn.

Deze heet "Australian Skies 2" en is dan te zien voordat deze in première gaat. 

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

Tesla van Elon Musk wijkt af van geplande koers en stevent af op planetoïdengordel- HLN.be

Bron: The Guardian, Twitter

In een tweet bevestigde Musk dat de finale bestemming van de missie is veranderd. “Koers gewijzigd waardoor traject voorbij Mars loopt en reis verderzet naar de planetoïdengordel.” 

Lees ook

Dirk Frimout over raketlancering Elon Musk: “Die Tesla was niet nodig... maar de rest was spectaculair”

Musk liet een Tesla Roadster als ludiek experiment meevliegen met de eerste vlucht van de Falcon Heavy. Het doel was de heliocentrische baan die op ongeveer dezelfde afstand van de zon als van Mars ligt. Op zijn nieuwe traject zal de Falcon Heavy maandenlang onderweg zijn naar de asteroïdengordel tussen Mars en Jupiter. Hier is het risico op een catastrofale botsing groter dan op de oorspronkelijk gewenste koers. De missiemanagers hebben nog niet bevestigd of de koersverandering een ongeluk of intentioneel was.

View image on Twitter

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.

4:46 AM - Feb 7, 2018

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Sommige experts vrezen voor de effecten van ruimtelijke straling op de Tesla Roadster. Professor chemie aan de Indiana University William Carroll legt uit wat er kan foutlopen: “Alle organische stoffen lijden onder de verschillende types van straling. Als de bindingen breken, kan de auto letterlijk uit elkaar vallen.”

Beelden van crash

SpaceX hoopt met deze demonstratievlucht contracten van NASA te winnen. Musk heeft ook het verlies bevestigd van een centrale ‘core booster’ na de lancering, een van de drie kleinere Falcon 9-raketten die samengebonden werden om de Falcon Heavy te vormen. De twee andere raketten keerden veilig terug naar het landingsplatform aan het Kennedy Space Center. De derde had op een boot in de Atlantische Oceaan moeten landen, maar crashte in de oceaan. “Het dek van het schip lag vol scherven”, zei Musk. “We gaan dit onderzoeken. De raket is duidelijk niet op het onbemande schip geland. We hebben er beelden van.”

Musk heeft meer dan een half miljard geïnvesteerd in de lancering van de Falcon Heavy. Hij hoopte op succes om zijn concurrenten af te troeven. Er zijn namelijk verschillende bedrijven die strijden om ruimtevluchten voor de man in de straat mogelijk te maken. “We willen een nieuwe ruimterace. Dit zal andere bedrijven aanmoedigen om hetzelfde te doen”, legt Musk zijn beweegredenen uit.

{ https://www.hln.be/}

Retangle UFO Over Phoenix, Arizona Mountains Could Be Secret USAF Craft, Feb 2, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Feb 2, 2018

Location of sighting: Phenix, Arizona, USA

News source: MUFON #90112

 

This is in the Phoenix, Arizona area, a location famous for the largest UFO ever seen that blacked out the stars back in 1997. This UFO is clearly a craft, but also may be a USAF experimental craft that uses alien tech at a local base. The fact that a helicopter showed up shortly after only confirms that it was very important to the US military. 

Scott C. Waring

 

Eyewitness states: 

We were driving on the I17 heading into Phoenix when I noticed a rectangular object hovering over the mountains on the left hand side. My friend Dan grabbed his cellphone and took a picture of the object. After about 10 minutes the object disappeared. A helicopter appeared shortly there after.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Giant UFO Disk Seen Near SpaceX Rocket Carrying Elon Musks Tesla Roadster To Mars, Feb 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Feb 2018
Location of sighting: Leaving Earths orbit
Found by Streetcap1 of Youtube. 

This classic UFO was seen flashing as it passed by the Tesla SpaceX rocket. Why would aliens be interested in this? Because this is a public business in charge of it, and it is carrying Elon Musks personal red cherry Tesla Roadster, which at auction could fetch over one million US dollars, but normally costs around $250,000 US. This car has a dummy astronaut wearing a SpaceX made new spacesuit in the drivers seat. The car will be playing "Ground control to Major Tom," on the radio for eternity. I take it that its powered by solar panels. When it reaches Mars in 335 days, this Tesla will be placed into a Mars orbit, and will stay there for around 10,000 years with cameras on it recording it and send video back of the car floating in orbit. 10,000 years of free advertising in every science and astronomy book in the world. Smart thinking. Now do you see why aliens would be interested?
Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Strange Aerial Phenomenon over Ocala, Florida - Richmond, VA – Alberta CA

A rare phenomenon appeared in the sky over Spondin in Alberta, Canada where the daughter of the owner of the TK Ranch snapped an image of an amazing sun rise on February 7, 2018.

Credit image: TK Ranch, Spondin, Alberta.

Other strange sky phenomena were spotted over Ocala, Florida and Richmond, Virginia but don’t worry, meteorologists assure us, with great confidence, that all these aerial phenomena are completely normal.

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

UFO Hunters Pick Up Alien Vessel Disguises As Iceberg On Google Maps

People usually go to Google Maps for educational mapping service as it offers satellite images of locations around the world. However, now and then keen observers picked up strange sightings. One photograph in Antarctica shows a lone iceberg that UFO hunters believe an underwater alien base.

Google Maps is designed for people who want to visit all areas of the world from the comfort of their turf. However, along with its informative qualities, the site also offers several entertaining images.

Seeing residential streets and national parks is just an ordinary thing in Google Maps, but many also are downright bizarre.

One particular image shows a lonely iceberg off the coast of Antarctica.

A block of ice approximately 500 metres long was discovered at the coordinate 72°43’13.53″S 78°40’21.56″W.

The iceberg seems nothing out of the ordinary apart from its placing.

However, some UFO hunters believe it is an underwater alien lair. They think it does not fit the ordinary iceberg description.

They explained that icebergs could be classified based on their shapes and forms, which are tabular and non-tabular. They observed that the shapes and forms of the iceberg in question look very different from all the various shapes and forms of tabular and non-tabular icebergs. They suspected that it could be a vessel disguised as an iceberg.

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

UFO following JAXA rocket

Many will say this is an airplane, but the area had a no fly zone at the time of the rocket launch. On the 18th of January the Japanese Space agency Jaxa launched it’s Epsilon 3 rocket to put a commercial planetary observational satellite into earth’s atmosphere. The launch went perfectly, but during the launch a strange mysterious craft was filmed. This UFO was flying at the same altitude as the rocket. It was moving along with the rocket as it started it’s orbit around the Earth. What was this object?

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

Nearly 60,000 UFO sightings MAPPED: Does this finally prove mystery link to US military?

UFO investigators have mapped nearly 60,000 flying saucer sightings in the USA with staggering results that could show why there is an alleged link between UFOs and the military.

By JON AUSTIN

Adam Crahen

UFO MAP: Nearly 60,000 sightings have been plotted across the US.

Sightings recorded by the US-based National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), an independent organisation that logs and investigates such cases, have been charted on a map of North America.

Data analyst Adam Crahen plotted all 58,828 reports received by NUFORC for the US from 1995 to 2014 on a map of the US. 

The impressive end result shows swathes of green UFO reports spread out across the vast country.

However, it has been suggested the most dense areas for sightings coincide with US military installations. 

Alex Hollings, a retired US duty marine, now writes for Sofrep.com, a news and intelligence service provided by former special operations veterans.

He wrote: "When laying that same map of reported UFO sightings over a US map showing the locations of all military installations, an interesting trend starts to emerge.

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It’s not as unlikely as you may think. Military aircraft are often mistaken for Unidentified Flying Objects in US skies because their shape and behaviour don’t adhere to the norms we’re accustomed to.

Alex Hollings

"Many of the regions that seem to show a high frequency of UFO reports coincide with the locations of military installations. 

"For the conspiracy minded, this might mean our alien visitors have taken a particular interest in what our military is up to.

"Others might be inclined to conclude many of these supposed UFO sightings may be nothing more than misidentified military aircraft."

Conspiracy theorists have developed many claims about UFO and US military links.

The most far-fetched of which suggests intelligent aliens have arrived on Earth and been hidden away in top-secret US military installations away from public view.

There, they help military scientists reverse engineer their flying saucer technology, in return for being allowed to abduct a small number of human beings for their own experimentation.

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Another slightly less outlandish claim suggests that aliens are not working with the military as above, but so-called black projects are underway at secret bases, such as Area 51 in Nevada.

There, it is claimed, experts try to reverse engineer UFOs that have been recovered after "crashes" in order to produce the most hi-tech spy craft ever built on Earth.

Many claim these "spy craft" being tested are then mistaken for alien UFOs.

Mr Hollings believes the real reason so many UFOs are see near military installations is more straight forward.

He added: "It’s not as unlikely as you may think. Military aircraft are often mistaken for Unidentified Flying Objects in US skies because their shape and behaviour don’t adhere to the norms we’re accustomed to. 

"Sometimes, these sightings are the result of the testing of never before seen platforms, but others, it’s simply a matter of military aircraft not exhibiting the same behaviour seen from commercial aircraft above our heads.

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"A bright light flying low over a rural region and moving in a seemingly unusual manner could be Martians… but it could also be a Blackhawk in the distance. Most people don’t have a lot of experience identifying either, through no fault of their own.

"Is this a reasonable explanation for nearly 60,000 sightings spread out over a 19-year span? 

"Maybe not, but the next time you look to the sky and think you may see an inbound flying saucer, it might be worth doing a quick search to see how far you are from the nearest air national guard base. The answer may surprise you."

Groups like NUFORC and the larger, but similar US organisation the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), readily accept the about 95 per cent of the thousands of reports they receive can be explained by natural phenomena and misidentified aircraft built by humans.

The other around five per cent are said to remain a mystery.

RELATED ARTICLES

• PENTAGON UFO BOMBSHELL: SETI experts break silence over 'UFO'
• SHOCK CLAIM: Nuclear WW3 between US and Russia 'prevented by aliens'
• 'US Government has crystal clear pics of UFOs chased by military'

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

Conspiracy theorists warn people after seeing vertical UFO lingering around Mexico (Video+)

The word “Alien” has been ever present in the human society for something that is beyond our understanding. Recently, this topic of extraterrestrial life sparked the interest of common man with the strange object that was spotted in the skies of Baja state located in Mexico. This mysterious object was captured via a cell phone that shows a vertical aligned UFO flying over a city located in this state.

The object in the video isn’t clear enough to prove the presence of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). However, one can derive from the video that there is a certain cylindrical object hovering over the city which is aligned in a vertical manner.

Rumors of UFO sighting have been highly prevalent since ages with no solid proof of the presence of intelligent life visiting the perimeter of earthly realms. This is the very first video of UFO sighting after the arrival of this New Year. The clip, shot in the Baja state of Mexico has already started trending on numerous social media platform with conspiracy theorists stating that aliens might be keeping an eye on our activities.

According to a conspiracy theorist, Pedro Ramirez, UFO sightings have increased in number in the recent months due to the fact that space agencies such as SpaceX and NASA have been busy launching space missions on a continuous basis. This continuous space exploration might have attracted the attention of intelligent life beyond our blue planet. You can easily see this tubular shaped UFO flying in a vertical manner over the city. If claims are to be believed, UFO sightings and other alien activities have increased over a few months and especially during the year 2017’s final two months.

Ramirez further added that aliens knew that we have been launching a number of space missions which might be perceived as “War Material” being sent up in the sky. The extraterrestrial beings might be concerned with our increased activities, thereby monitoring the planet to confirm the cause.

The video of this particular UFO sighting was captured by a woman who can be easily heard in the video exclaiming “What is this?” while she continued shooting the object with her phone’s camera. The video garnered around 50,000 shares by netizens all over the web which was a result of concern or indifference in observation.

When you explore the definition of a spaceship or UFO, this latest sighting has all the signs of an extra-terrestrial machine but defied the perception of our knowledge about UFOs. Normally we believe that UFOs are circular discs or saucer-like objects. This is the very first time a vertical one has been seen hovering in the sky.

NASA has always been keen on trying to explore the possibilities of alien life visiting Earth but when it comes to UFO sightings, the organization doesn’t seem as much interested. As per NASA astronomers, most of these sightings don’t even come under the explanation of UFO. For instance, in the year 1972 during the Apollo 16, three astronauts captured an object with a dome on top. Charles Duke, Thomas Mattingly, and John Young speculated this object to be a UFO. However, it turned out to be a spacewalk floodlight which is why most of the UFO sighting does not attract interest from NASA scientists.

As per the judgment over the Mexico sightings is concerned, it is still under consideration. The conspiracy theory behind such sightings might be true for some instances as space missions in the recent months have increased significantly which might be a red flag for the intelligent life living far away from us.

{ https://sciexaminer.com/ }

Extraterrestrial life difficult to study with existing knowledge: NASA scientists

By ​Rahul K R

{ http://www.ibtimes.sg/ }

Secret police audio files prove men who claim they were abducted by ‘alien creatures’ with lobster-like claws were telling the TRUTH, researcher claims

WHY FINDING ALIEN LIFE WOULD BE BAD. THE GREAT FILTER

Since the Universe is big and old, and life on Earth didn’t take relatively long to evolve, then life should be everywhere in the Universe. And yet, no matter how hard we look, we don’t see any evidence of it out there, not on Mars, not sending us radio messages, and not taking over entire galaxies and using up all their energy.

This, of course, is the Fermi Paradox, and it’s an absolutely fascinating concept to think about. There are many possible resolutions to the Fermi Paradox, but most of them are unsatisfying. Sure, we could be living in a cosmic zoo, or we fundamentally misunderstand how difficult it’ll be to travel to another star.

And maybe we’re just the first lifeforms in the observable Universe that have reached the level of technology that can conceive of exploring the Universe. But then, what are the chances of that? That really seems unlikely.

But then there’s the idea of the Great Filter. That there’s some kind of event that affects every single intelligent civilization, stopping it from reaching out into the galaxy, sending out signals, and exploring other worlds. Something wipes them out every time.

A scene from the episode

And considering the fact that we’re on the verge of becoming a multi-planet species ourselves, this concept of the Great Filter becomes even more unsettling.

It could be right around the corner from us.

Our friends at Kurzgesagt just released a video all about the Great Filter, and honestly, I think it’s the best video they’ve ever done. The animation, as always, is excellent, but the way they approach the Great Filter is really innovative, showing how evidence of life in the Universe is actually a bad sign, since it means we’re probably not the first life forms out there.

Which means the Great Filter is even more likely.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

SOFREP’s X-Files: Four things to know about the Pentagon’s secret UFO department 

BY ALEX HOLLINGS 

{ https://sofrep.com/ }

Is that a UFO? Nearly 60,000 UFO sightings compiled since 1995 show correlation between sightings and military bases 

BY ALEX HOLLINGS 

{ https://sofrep.com/}

Whether Human or Alien Made: Something Sophisticated is Happening

{ https://thedivinefrequency.com/ }

Ancient virus could be responsible for human ability to think

By Sean Keach, Digital Technology and Science Editor 

| The Sun

It's believed that between 40 and 80 percent of the human genome was developed thanks to ancient viruses. Unlike bacteria, which simply live in the body, viruses make active changes to your cells, injecting their own genetic code.  

(REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann)

An ancient virus could be responsible for human consciousness, giving you the ability to think for yourself.

New research has linked a human gene responsible for conscious thought to a virus that was spread in the early days of humanity.

Two papers published in the Cell journal discuss the origins of the Arc gene, which packages up genetic information and sends it around nerve cells in little virus-style capsules.

These packages of information are believed to be critical to how our nerves communicate and could be responsible for our thoughts.

Elissa D. Pastuzyn, who authored one of the studies, said: "Evolutionary analysis indicates that Arc is derived from a vertebrate lineage of Ty3/gypsy retrotransposons, which are also ancestors to retroviruses."

It's believed that between 40 percent and 80 percent of the human genome was developed thanks to ancient viruses.

Unlike bacteria, which simply live in the body, viruses make active changes to your cells, injecting their own genetic code.

This can often be entirely useless – and sometimes causes harm, including through the reproduction of more viruses – but occasionally we end up with useful modifications.

And it seems an ancient virus may have given rise to all human thought — thanks to the Arc gene.

Pastuzyn says that the virus was "repurposed during evolution, to mediate intercellular communication in the nervous system."

James Ashley, who authored one of the studies, said: "The neuronal gene Arc is essential for long-lasting information storage in the mammalian brain, mediates various forms of synaptic plasticity, and has been implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders."

He adds that mutations in the gene have been "linked to autism and schizophrenia," which suggests that Arc has a pivotal role to play in how we perceive and react to the world around us.

This story originally appeared in The Sun.

{ http://www.foxnews.com/ }

Archaeologists believe they have discovered one of the world’s oldest brains that once belonged to a man in Iron Age Britain who was sacrificed in a ritual killing.

Scientists found the cranium in a muddy pit when they were excavating a site before a new campus was to be built at the University of York. When a researcher reached inside the skull, she was stunned to discover the soft tissue of the 2,500-year-old brain still preserved.

Fractures and marks on the bones suggest the man, who was aged between 26 and 45, died most probably from hanging, after which he was carefully decapitated and his head was then buried on its own.

Grey matter: The 2,500-year-old preserved brain has baffled scientists after it was found during an excavation at the University of York

Scientists have been baffled by how the brain tissue – which usually rots after a couple at years – managed to remain intact for so long.

‘The survival of brain remains where no other soft tissues are preserved is extremely rare,’ said Sonia O’Connor, research fellow in archaeological sciences at the University of Bradford.

‘This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the UK, and one of the earliest worldwide.’

Philip Duffey, a neurologist at York Hospital who scanned the skull, said: ‘I’m amazed and excited that scanning has shown structures which appear to be unequivocally of brain origin.’ 

Baffled: Dr Sonia O Connor, from the University of Bradford, examines the remains of the brain

‘I think that it will be very important to establish how these structures have survived, whether there are traces of biological material within them and, if not, what is their composition.’

Experts from York Archaeological Trust were commissioned by the university to carry out the exploratory dig last year before building work on the £750million campus expansion started.

They discovered the solitary skull face-down in the pit in dark brown organic rich, soft sandy clay.

The university put together a team of scientists, archaeologists, chemists, bio-archaeologists and neurologists, to establish how the man’s brain, could have survived when all the other soft tissue had decayed leaving only the bone.

Remains: Archaeologists sift through the muddy pit at the site near the University of York where the brain was found

The team is also investigating details of the man’s death and burial that may have contributed to the survival of what is normally highly vulnerable soft tissue. 

The research, which was funded by the University of York and English Heritage, is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Since the discovery, the brain and skull have been kept in strictly controlled conditions, but scientists have examined samples using a range of sophisticated equipment, including a CT scanner at York Hospital and mass spectrometers at the University of York.

Samples of brain material had a DNA sequence that matched sequences found only in a few individuals from Tuscany and the Near East. Carbon dating suggests the remains date from between 673-482BC.

Fractures on the second neck vertebrae point to some kind of trauma before the man died and and a cluster of about nine horizontal fine cut-marks made by a thin-bladed instrument, such as a knife, can be seen on the front of the brain. 

Preserved: Brain material shows as dark folded matter at the top of the head in this computer-generated view of the skull

Clean: Scientists said there was no trace on the brain of the usual preservation methods such as embalming or smoking

Scientists are now investigating how lipids and proteins found in the brain preserved the brain and what happened between the man dying and his burial.

Dr O’Connor said: ‘It is rare to be able to suggest the cause of death for skeletonised human remains of archaeological origin. The preservation of the brain in otherwise skeletonised remains is even more astonishing but not unique.

‘This is the most thorough investigation ever undertaken of a brain found in a buried skeleton and has allowed us to begin to really understand why a brain can survive thousands of years after all the other soft tissues have decayed.’

Despite the place that ‘trophy heads’ appear to have played in Iron Age societies and evidence for the preservation of human remains in the Bronze Age, the researchers say there is no evidence for that in this case. They found no marks indicating deliberate preservation by embalming or smoking.

Dr O’Connor added: ‘The hydrated state of the brain and the lack of evidence for putrefaction suggests that burial, in the fine-grained, anoxic sediments of the pit, occurred very rapidly after death. This is a distinctive and unusual sequence of events, and could be taken as an explanation for the exceptional brain preservation.’

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

The Melting Of Arctic Permafrost Could Release A ‘Mercury Apocalypse’

There’s a ticking time bomb composed of Mercury hidden beneath our planets Permafrost. Scientists warn that climate change could accelerate the release of toxic Mercury, and it’s worrying.

Despite the fact that Mercury has a lot of good uses, its toxic to humans and animals and can pose a great threat to our planet’s ecosystems.

As melting permafrost releases mercury, eventually some of it will make it into the food chain—and into animals such as the Alaskan caribou. As noted by National Geographic, “in some forms, mercury is a powerful neurotoxin, and in children it can harm brain development, affecting cognition, memory, language and even motor and visual skills. Even in adults, excessive amounts can hamper vision, speech and muscle movements, compromise the reproductive and immune systems, and cause cardiovascular problems.”

If global warming ends up melting the permafrost—the permanently frozen surface layer of the northern hemisphere—it could trigger a global ecological catastrophe, since this area contains more than 15 million gallons (58 million liters) of mercury buried according to a group of researchers.

This is a worrisome fact because this is roughly twice as much mercury as can be found in the rest of Earth’s soils, ocean and atmosphere combined, reports Live Science.

Concentrations of mercury in the Northern Hemisphere, in four soil layers.

(Credit: Schuster et al./GRL/AGU.)

“Our results indicate the active layer alone represents the largest [mercury] reservoir on the planet,” says the study, published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.

“The active layer and permafrost together contain nearly twice as much [mercury] as all other soils, the ocean, and the atmosphere combined.”

Natural mercury comes from the atmosphere and is chemically linked with organic substances in the northern soils, recalls the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

A team of researchers from the US Geological Survey analyzed 13 ice samples taken in Alaska between 2004 and 2012 and compared them with 11,000 samples of tundra soil in various parts of the world.

The analysis revealed that permafrost contains 10 times more mercury than that expelled into the atmosphere by human activity in the past 30 years.

“There would be no environmental problem if everything remained frozen, but we know the Earth is getting warmer,” study author Paul Schuster, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement

“Twenty-four percent of all the soil above the equator is permafrost, and it has this huge pool of locked-up mercury. What happens if the permafrost thaws? How far will the mercury travel up the food chain? These are big-picture questions that we need to answer,” added Schuster.

“There’s a significant social and human health aspect to this study,” said Steve Sebestyen, a research hydrologist at the USDA Forest Service in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

“The consequences of this mercury being released into the environment are potentially huge because mercury has health effects on organisms and can travel up the food chain, adversely affecting native and other communities.”

Featured image credit: V.Schaal/Shutterstock

{https://www.ancient-code.com/}

U.S. Department of Defense Study Successfully Zaps Brains to Improve Memory

A well-placed jolt of electricity can improve memory recall by up to 15 percent.

By Peter Hess

Most of us accept eventual memory impairment as an unfortunate fact of life, but recent advances in brain stimulation, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, could be changing all that. On Tuesday, scientists conducting research within the program reported in the journal Nature Communications that they’d found a way to electrically stimulate the brain to improve memory recall in a significant way.

The goal of the program is to ultimately treat people with neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, which affect many combat veterans living with the long-term effects of head trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. The new paper, published Tuesday, is a major step in achieving those goals. The team of researchers, led by Youssef Ezzyat, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania, found that directly stimulating a part of the brain called the lateral temporal cortex could help improve patients’ memory recall by as much as 15 percent.

In the study, the researchers recorded the brain activity of 25 volunteers who were participating in a clinical trial intended to treat drug-resistant epilepsy, a seizure disorder that can affect a person’s memory. The patients read a list of 12 words and were instructed to remember them. All the while, scientists monitored the patients’ brain activity via electrodes on the cortical surface of the brain as well as embedded in the brain.

Feeding this data to a machine-learning algorithm showed them when a patient’s brain was most likely not encoding the memories properly. Later, when patients were performing a memory task, the electrodes hooked up to their lateral temporal cortex, a part of the brain associated with memory and language processing, gave the patients a little zap of electricity to stimulate the region whenever it detected activity associated with encoding deficits.

The study’s authors report that this monitoring and responding process, known as closed-loop stimulation, improved patients’ memory recall by 15 percent. This new study rests on previous findings by Ezzyat’s team, which demonstrated the potential of closed-loop brain stimulation for improving memory encoding. This differs from open-loop stimulation in that it only fires up when a patient is showing the biomarkers that indicate encoding problems. The latest research builds on this intervention by identifying an anatomical target for brain stimulation.

Since, as Inverse previously reported, the National Institutes of Mental Health isn’t very interested in funding this kind of research, it looks like this project and others funded by the D.O.D. could be doctors’ best bet at perfecting treatments that involve direct brain stimulation.

Abstract: 

Memory failures are frustrating and often the result of ineffective encoding. One approach to improving memory outcomes is through direct modulation of brain activity with electrical stimulation. Previous efforts, however, have reported inconsistent effects when using open-loop stimulation and often target the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes. Here we use a closed-loop system to monitor and decode neural activity from direct brain recordings in humans. We apply targeted stimulation to lateral temporal cortex and report that this stimulation rescues periods of poor memory encoding. This system also improves later recall, revealing that the lateral temporal cortex is a reliable target for memory enhancement. Taken together, our results suggest that such systems may provide a therapeutic approach for treating memory dysfunction.

You've read that, now watch this: "'Mindset' Headphones Monitor Your Brainwaves to Keep You Focused"

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

Rest easily, Earthlings … the planet is once again being protected. NASA, which has been looking since last August for a new Planetary Protection Officer to protect the planet against threats from other planets and to protect other planets from threats and contaminates being delivered by Earth-launched space probes, announced that the position has been filled. It’s a big job that just got bigger with the discovery of new planets outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Could that be why the previous Planetary Protection Officer retired?

NASA announced the search for a new PPO in August 2017 when the previous Planetary Protection Officer, Catherine Conley, retired after three years on the job. NASA advertised the up-to- $187,000-a year position for a month, then spent four months interviewing candidates before choosing Lisa Pratt, who will step down from her current position as associate executive dean of Indiana University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Part of the Planetary Protection Officer’s job description?

“The title is not a title anybody should have.”

That doesn’t sound like someone who just got a new job, especially one that all of humanity is dependent on, but Lisa Pratt convinced her new bosses that she’s the right person to handle it. The daughter of a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, she received a bachelor’s degree in botany from the University of North Carolina and a master’s in botany from the University of Illinois. Then she did what anyone with that kind of education behind them would do … she became a bartender.

Fortunately, a college mentor convinced her to go back to school and get a master’s and Ph.D. in geology, giving her what would eventually be the perfect combination of sciences to become a Planetary Protection Officer. But first, she caught NASA’s attention (and received a $2.4 million grant) with her work on the Greenland Ice Sheet (which is similar to conditions on other planets and moons) to study methane emissions and microbial life there.

The Planetary Protection Officer is responsible for sending clean equipment to other planets

Despite those qualifications, her work experience and encouragement from NASA colleagues, Pratt wasn’t sure she was right for the job, especially since it was located in Washington DC – not exactly a welcome home for scientists these days. However, she received the offer and, after getting the OK from her husband and daughters, accepted the big job. And Pratt knows it’s big.

“I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the mission of planetary protection at a defining moment in human evolution and the advancement of science. We are on the verge of becoming a spacefaring species, and I feel privileged to be invited into an extraordinary conversation, pushing the frontiers of science, exploration and discovery at NASA. This position plays a direct role in seeking evidence to address a profound question: Are we alone?”

If we aren’t, it sounds like Lisa Pratt is the perfect Planetary Protection Officer to welcome ETs to Earth and assure them we’re not contagious and didn’t mean to send those germs to Mars.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/}

Space agencies around the world have made great strides in the search for alien worlds lately. NASA, in particular, discovered ten potentially habitable exoplanets just last year with a little help from the Kepler space telescope. While most new exoplanets are not believed to support life or are found to be the complete opposite of habitable, the search for exoplanets continues in the hope that at least one might contain alien life. Or at least some natural resources we can pillage. Up until now, all of the planets we have discovered have been in our own neck of the cosmos: the Milky Way galaxy. However, in a groundbreaking discovery, astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma have announced they’ve found evidence of the first known planets outside of our galaxy. What could this discovery hold for the future of astronomy?

Albert Einstein predicted these types of discoveries over 70 years ago.

For now, likely not much. The planets are found some 3.8 billion light years away, meaning they’re much too far away for us to know much more about them – at least in our lifetime. The planets were found using a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing which occurs when light traveling through space is ‘bent’ by immense masses such as clusters of galaxies. When the researchers were studying a distant quasar known as RX J1131-1231, they discovered light signatures which could only be explained by the presence of four exoplanets ranging in size from nearly that of our Moon to that of Jupiter.

The image created by microlensing. The galaxy thought to host the planets is in the center, while the light from several quasars is ‘bent’ around it in a ring.

One of the astronomers behind the discovery, OU postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras, says that while the planets are too far away to really add much to our knowledge of space, at least we now know how to harness gravitational microlensing in the search for alien worlds:

This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be. This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario. However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science.

Very cool science indeed. You know what would be even cooler science? Figuring out a way to reach one of these exoplanets someday and ensure the human race will after the Earth has been reduced to a radioactive lump of coal by a few spiteful old men. When are we going to make that happen?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The official Nevada state motto is “All for Our Country” and the state also has a variety of official and unofficial state slogans and nicknames, including “Battle Born,” “The Silver State,” “Home Means Nevada” (license plate slogan), “Wide Open” and “Nevada: Come Happy, Leave Broke.” While all of those appeal in some way to humans, which one would be best for convincing extraterrestrials to visit (or revisit?) Nevada? Or should it try a new one designed specifically for space aliens? Battle Born But We’ll Cease Fire While You’re Here? The Silver Parts for Your Spaceship State? ET Phoned Home and Nevada Answered? Come Happy, Leave Us Alone?

As part of a program to help the government find them, Travelnevada.com, a website managed by the Nevada Commission on Tourism, has published a travel itinerary it believes will appeal to ETs. As one might expect, it hits the hot spots of UFO and alien activity that appeal to humans as well, so the visitors should be ready to interact with them, especially if they decide to stay at a Bed (or whatever it is they sleep on) & Breakfast (or whatever it is they eat).

The guide begins the recommended trip in Las Vegas, which may be a mistake if the ETs lose all of their money on the first day and have nothing left for souvenirs. Then again, if they’re smart enough to get here, they’ve probably figured out how to beat the Vegas machines and will simply make enough to pay for the trip before moving on to …

Valley of Fire State Park, a red sandstone used to shoot scenes from “Star Trek: Generations.” Then it’s on to the Extraterrestrial Highway (no speeding on Nevada State Route 375 – being an actual ET won’t sway the trooper) and a stop at the Alien Research Center (no giggling) before heading to the place everyone visiting the area stops at …

The nearest rest stop with a bathroom, unless of course ETs have solved that problem. Then it’s time for Area 51 which, like the Extraterrestrial Highway, does not offer special privileges to ETs in human transportation vehicles. There’s probably not much there an ET hasn’t seen already, so the guide recommends eating at the famous Little A’Le’Inn restaurant (ignore the pun – it’s a human thing) and bedding down (powering down?) for the night at the Victorian-era (as if that means anything to ETs) Mizpah Hotel. With the money they saved using their intergalactic ID card for a 20 percent discount, they have extra cash to spend at …

The Tonopah Historic Mining Park (no free silver samples), the Central Nevada Museum and the Tonopah Brewing Co. for beer and barbecue that is out of this world – then again, that could be said of everything they’ve ingested on Earth. At that point, it’s time for the highlight of the tour … a trip to the hometown of …

No, not William Shatner … Art Bell! Art put Pahrump, Nevada, on the terrestrial map and it’s probably on the celestial ones as well. A few more souvenir stops and then it’s back to Las Vegas, where they can get rid of the rest of their useless-at-home Earth money at a casino or a strip club … the robot strippers from the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show may still be in town. Remember to ask for a discreet receipt, perhaps from the Nevada Robo-Research Facility, for the expense report.

Does that sound like a great trip for extraterrestrials? Probably not, but it’s definitely a good one for humans. Just make Vegas the LAST stop and dress nice in case any ETs want you in their selfies.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Born in 1921, Air Marshal Sir Beresford Peter Torrington Horsleybegan his career with the British military in 1939, when he boarded the TSS Cyclops, a steamer bound for Malaya. For the return journey, and as the Second World War was declared, he changed ships – to the TSS Menelaus – and eventually gravitated to a career in the Royal Air Force. First as an air-gunner, then as a pilot, and subsequently as a flight-instructor. Horsley was later attached to the Communications-Squadron of the 2^nd Tactical Air Force in France. And, during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, he accepted the job of personal pilot to Major-General Sir Miles Graham. He returned to England in 1947, joined the staff of the Central Flying School, 23 Training Group, and was appointed Adjutant to the Oxford University Air Squadron in 1948.

In July 1949, Horsley entered the Royal Household as a Squadron Leader, and as Equerry to Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (better known today as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II), and to His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh. In 1952, Horsley became a Wing-Commander and in 1953 became a full-time Equerry to the Duke of Edinburgh; it was a role he held until 1956. His final post in the Royal Air Force was as the Deputy-Commander-in-Chief of Strike Command, which he held from 1973 to 1975. And there’s one more thing: Horsley’s other claim to fame is that, in late 1954, he had a face-to-face encounter with a human-looking alien who went by the memorable and mysterious name of Mr. Janus.

The very strange affair began when Horsley learned of the Duke of Edinburgh’s fascination with the complexities of the UFO puzzle. According to Horsley (in his 1998 book, Sounds From Another Room): “[The Duke] was quite interested. As always his mind was open. He agreed I should do a study on the subject in my spare time; as long as I kept it in perspective and didn’t bring the Palace into disrepute. He didn’t want to see headlines about him believing in little green men.”

With typical British understatement, Horsley said: “At the end of my tour at the Palace, I had a very strange experience.” To say the least!

Sir Arthur Barratt, who worked at Buckingham Palace, as Gentleman Usher to the Sword of State, introduced Horsley to a certain General Martin, who, in turn, put him in touch with a mysterious Mrs. Markham. Interestingly, the English researchers Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts learned from Horsley that General Martin “believed UFOs were visitors from an alien civilization which wanted to warn us of the dangers posed by atomic war.” Mrs. Markham who told Horsley to turn up at a particular apartment in London’s Chelsea district on a specific evening, where he would meet a stranger: the aforementioned Mr. Janus.

Horsley said of his chat with the man that: “Janus was there, sitting by the fire in a deep chair. He asked: ‘What is your interest in flying saucers?’ We talked for hours about traveling in space and time. I don’t know what or who he was. He didn’t say he was a visitor from another planet but I had that impression. I believe he was here to observe us. I never saw him again. I have no qualms about the reaction to my experience with Mr. Janus.”

Rather disturbingly, and echoing the claims of so many of the Contactees that the Space-Brothers were concerned by our ever-growing nuclear arsenals, UFO investigator Timothy Good says: “In my second and last meeting with Sir Peter Horsley at his home in 2000, he revealed that, in addition to being disturbed by the realization that Janus was reading his mind, he was even more disturbed by the fact that this extraordinary man ‘knew all Britain’s top-secret nuclear secrets.’”

MI5 building

In light of what Mr. Janus knew, is it possible that this bizarre episode was actually part of some state-sponsored operation designed to ascertain the nature of Sir Peter’s character and his loyalty to the country? This particularly novel and thought-provoking theory was most assuredly on the minds of researchers Clarke and Roberts, who asked Horsley if he considered it feasible that he had been “set up” by MI5 to “test his vulnerability.” MI5 being the U.K.’s equivalent of the United States’ FBI.

Horsley provided the pair with an adamant, “no.” Right up until his death in 2001, Horsley’s position on the overwhelmingly weird experience was rock-solid: “I don’t care what people think – it was what happened. I would say they come from another planet somewhere in the universe but not in our galaxy. They are benign, not aggressive and, like us, are explorers.”

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/}

Worm uploaded to a computer and trained to balance a pole

Vienna University of Technology

Is it a computer program or a living being? At TU Wien (Vienna), the boundaries have become blurred. The neural system of a nematode was translated into computer code – and then the virtual worm was taught amazing tricks.

C. elegans worms.
Image credits PROZEISS Microscopy / Flickr.

It is not much to look at: the nematode C. elegans is about one millimetre in length and is a very simple organism. But for science, it is extremely interesting. C. elegans is the only living being whose neural system has been analysed completely. It can be drawn as a circuit diagram or reproduced by computer software, so that the neural activity of the worm is simulated by a computer program.

Such an artificial C. elegans has now been trained at TU Wien (Vienna) to perform a remarkable trick: The computer worm has learned to balance a pole at the tip of its tail.

C. elegans has to get by with only 300 neurons. But they are enough to make sure that the worm can find its way, eat bacteria and react to certain external stimuli. It can, for example, react to a touch on its body. A reflexive response is triggered and the worm squirms away.

This behaviour is determined by the worm's nerve cells and the strength of the connections between them. When this simple reflex network is recreated on a computer, the simulated worm reacts in exactly the same way to a virtual stimulation – not because anybody programmed it to do so, but because this kind of behaviour is hard-wired in its neural network.

"This reflexive response of such a neural circuit, is very similar to the reaction of a control agent balancing a pole," says Ramin Hasani (Institute of Computer Engineering, TU Wien). This is a typical control problem that can be solved quite well by standard controllers. A pole is fixed on its lower end on a moving object, and it is supposed to stay in a vertical position. Whenever it starts tilting, the lower end has to move slightly to keep the pole from tipping over. Much like the worm has to change its direction whenever it is stimulated by a touch, the pole must be moved whenever it tilts.

Mathias Lechner, Radu Grosu and Ramin Hasani wanted to find out whether the neural system of C. elegans, uploaded to a computer, could solve this problem – without adding any nerve cells, just by tuning the strength of the synaptic connections. This basic idea (tuning the connections between nerve cells) is also the characteristic feature of any natural learning process

The worm’s natural behavior is very similar to that required in this test.
Image credits TU Wien.

A Program without a Programmer

"With the help of reinforcement learning, a method also known as 'learning based on experiment and reward,' the artificial reflex network was trained and optimized on the computer," Mathias Lechner explains. The team succeeded in teaching the virtual nerve system to balance a pole. "The result is a controller, which can solve a standard technology problem – stabilizing a pole, balanced on its tip. But no human being has written even one line of code for this controller, it just emerged by training a biological nerve system," says Radu Grosu.

The team is going to explore the capabilities of such control circuits further. The project raises the question whether there is a fundamental difference between living nerve systems and computer code. Is machine learning and the activity of our brain the same on a fundamental level? At least we can be pretty sure that the simple nematode C. elegans does not care whether it lives as a worm in the ground or as a virtual worm on a computer hard drive.

 Explore further: 

• A brain chemical blamed for mental decline in old age could hold key to its reversal

More information: Worm-level Control through Search-based Reinforcement Learning:

•  docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid … Q3YjZhZTZiYWJiNDI5NA 

{ https://phys.org/ }

New research shows that the TRAPPIST-1 planets are even more Earth-like than we thought

BY MIHAI ANDREI

Researchers from Bern University have performed the most accurate calculation of the density of the seven planets around the star TRAPPIST-1, making them the best-studied planets outside our own solar system. They found that all the planets are rocky and contain 5% water — much more than what Earth has.

An artistic depiction of what the seven planets might look like, based on available information about their size, density, and distance to the star.

Credits: NASA/JPL/Caltech.

TRAPPIST-1, also technically designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285, is a seemingly inconspicuous ultra-cool red dwarf star. However, astronomers have taken a special interest in it, as it seemingly harbors seven Earth-like planets, several of which have the potential to host life. Now, a new study offers an unprecedented view into the physical and chemical characteristics of these planets.

In order to assess their density, astronomers took advantage of something called “transit timing variations,” a method which has also been used to detect planets. Essentially, when a planet passes in front of a star, it causes a dip in luminosity. By studying that dip, you can identify a planet and its size. But astronomers went even deeper.

“We now know more about TRAPPIST-1 than any other planetary system apart from our own,” said Sean Carey, manager of the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, and co-author of the new study. “The improved densities in our study dramatically refine our understanding of the nature of these mysterious worlds.”

But while the planets might be similar to Earth, TRAPPIST-1 is extremely small by stellar standards, being only 9 percent as massive as our Sun. In turn, this means that it’s much cooler than our star, and in order for the planets to have Earth-like temperatures, they’d first need to be much closer to the star. This has indeed been confirmed by observation, as several of the planets lie closer to TRAPPIST-1 than Mercury to the Sun. In fact, a couple of them are actually much more illuminated than the Earth, while another planet, Trappist-d, matches Earth near-perfectly in terms of illumination.

This graph presents known properties of the seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets (labeled b through h), showing how they compare to the inner rocky worlds in our own solar system.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The fact that the planets have up to 5% water is also an intriguing sign, especially considering that on Earth, water accounts for only 0.02% of the planet’s mass.

However, just because these planets have the right density, structure, and distance from their star, doesn’t make them habitable. It makes them potentially habitable, which is a big distinction.

“Densities, while important clues to the planets’ compositions, do not say anything about habitability. However, our study is an important step forward as we continue to explore whether these planets could support life,” said Brice-Olivier Demory, co-author at the University of Bern.

This illustration shows the seven Earth-size planets of TRAPPIST-1. The image does not show the planets’ orbits to scale, but highlights possibilities for how the surfaces of these intriguing worlds might look. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

For instance, we have no idea how their surfaces might look like. Mars and the Moon have quite similar densities, but they look completely different. It’s tantalizing to think what the surface of these planets might be like, but for now, we just don’t have enough information to make any assumption. The next step will be using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to figure out whether these planets have atmospheres and if yes, what these atmospheres are like.

“Our conceptions of what these planets look like today may change dramatically over time,” said Robert Hurt, senior visualization scientist at the Spitzer Science Center. “As we learn more about these planets, the pictures we make will evolve in response to our improved understanding."

Journal Reference: S. Grimm et al.: The nature of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 05.02.2018, in press.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

Scientists find massive quantities of mercury seeping out of the thawing permafrost

BY MIHAI ANDREI

Researchers found surprisingly large quantities of mercury in the permafrost of the northern hemisphere. As temperatures rise and ice continues to melt, the mercury can be released, with significant consequences for both wildlife and mankind.

Maps of mercury concentrations (micrograms of mercury per square meter) in Northern hemisphere permafrost zones for four soil layers: 0-30 centimeters, 0-100 centimeters, 0-300 centimeters, and permafrost. The permafrost map represents the mercury bound to frozen organic matter below the Active Layer Depth (ALD) and above 300 cm depth.

Credit: Schuster et al./GRL/AGU.

The tentacles of climate change are long and far-reaching. As temperatures rise, it brings along a number of unforeseen changes. Rising temperatures are threatening the oceans, causing more hurricanes, and even causing a coffee crisis. Now, we can add mercury to that long list of problems.

A new study reports that permafrost soils contain more mercury than the rest of the planet’s soils, atmosphere, and oceans combined.

In the new study, geologists assessed the concentrations in permafrost cores from Alaska. They found that permafrost soils contain two times more mercury than soils elsewhere in the world — an unexpected discovery with important consequences.

“This discovery is a game-changer,” said Paul Schuster, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Boulder, Colorado and lead author of the new study. “We’ve quantified a pool of mercury that had not been done previously, and the results have profound implications for better understanding the global mercury cycle.”

This wouldn’t normally be a very high concern, but the problem is that temperatures are now rising.

Permafrost in Alaska is thawing, and a new study finds northern permafrost soils are the largest reservoir of mercury on the planet, storing nearly twice as much mercury as all other soils, the ocean, and the atmosphere combined.

Credit: John A. Kelley, USDA Natural Resources Conservation, CC BY 2.0.

Mercury tends to bind with organic material in the soil and gets stuck with that soil. As it gets buried by sediment, it becomes frozen into permafrost, where it can remain for thousands of years. But if temperatures rise, all that can change. When temperatures rise and the permafrost melts, mercury isn’t fixed in place anymore. Instead of being frozen in the permafrost, it can also be transported by waters or microorganisms, or it can slowly seep on its own.

“There would be no environmental problem if everything remained frozen, but we know the Earth is getting warmer,” Schuster said. “Although measurement of the rate of permafrost thaw was not part of this study, the thawing permafrost provides a potential for mercury to be released—that’s just physics.”

Locally, the effects could be dramatic. From microorganisms, things can slowly move up the food chain, and like most toxins, they tend to gather higher up the food chain — and potentially end up on our plates.

The release of mercury could also have far-reaching global consequences. If released into the atmosphere, it could travel quickly at the mercy of air currents, possibly ending up as far as thousands of kilometers away.

But we don’t really know how much and how far the mercury can travel. Scientists are also unsure how much of the stored mercury would affect ecosystems if the permafrost were to thaw.

Schuster hopes to analyze that those issues in further studies.

“24 percent of all the soil above the equator is permafrost, and it has this huge pool of locked-up mercury,” he said. “What happens if the permafrost thaws? How far will the mercury travel up the food chain? These are big-picture questions that we need to answer.”

W5: What happens when the permafrost thaws?

Journal Reference: Paul F. Schuster et al. Permafrost Stores a Globally Significant Amount of Mercury. DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075571.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

EN RUSSIE, UN OVNI LUMINEUX A FAIT LA JOIE DES UFOLOGUES

YOUSSOUF

Les théoriciens du complot prétendent avoir repéré un OVNI « noir de forme triangulaire » survolant la Russie la semaine dernière

Ils affirment que c’est la « meilleure preuve » de l’existence des extraterrestres jamais enregistrée. Une vidéo montre l’objet mystérieux volant dans le ciel nocturne à une vitesse que les théoriciens du complot prétendent être trop lente pour être un avion.

Mais tout le monde n’est pas convaincu que l’objet soit un OVNI, et certains suggèrent qu’il pourrait simplement s’agir d’un drone.

Un étrange objet volant dans le ciel nocturne russe

La vidéo, intitulée « Un OVNI de type TR-3B a été filmé en Russie – Meilleure preuve à ce jour » a été postée sur YouTube par UFO Today, une chaîne basée en Belgique et qui publie régulièrement des vidéos sur de prétendues observations extraterrestres. La vidéo montre un objet qui vole dans le ciel nocturne, avec trois lumières scintillantes disposées sous forme de triangle, ce que UFO Today considère comme étant potentiellement un OVNI TR-3B.

Dans la description de la vidéo, UFO Today écrit : « L’objet bouge à un rythme très lent, trop lent pour être un avion classique. La vitesse à laquelle cet objet se déplaçait est physiquement impossible pour tout avion construit par l’homme ».

Les théoriciens du complot prétendent donc que l’objet pourrait être un OVNI noir triangulaire – une classe d’OVNI ayant une forme triangulaire caractéristique.

Mais tout le monde n’est pas convaincu qu’il s’agit d’un OVNI

En effet, tout le monde ne partage pas l’avis de UFO Today à propos de l’objet volant observé dans le ciel nocturne en Russie. C’est le cas notamment de Nigel Watson, auteur du « UFO Investigations Manual », qui déclare que :

« La nuit, il est difficile d’évaluer la distance et la taille d’un objet ou des lumières, ce qui rend difficile le jugement de leur vitesse. Comme l’objet semble voler plus lentement qu’un avion, je dirais que c’est un drone avec des lumières. Les drones peuvent planer et se déplacer lentement, avec peu de bruit. Donc, je ne considère pas cette vidéo comme une preuve que des extraterrestres visitent notre planète. »

Alors, OVNI ou pas ? La question reste posée une fois de plus, peut être jusqu’au jour où on verra l’un de ses engins se poser au sol et en sortir des aliens !

{ http://www.fredzone.org/ }

Intelligence means technology: SETI expert says they’re actually searching for “technosignatures”

 by: David Williams

(Natural News) The term extraterrestrial used to stand for something truly great. Now, as far as the general public is concerned, it has all but lost its meaning. The same applies to the related phrase, extraterrestrial intelligence. Perhaps both terms just don’t roll off the tongue. No matter the reason, it’s quite clear that both words are, for lack of a better term, obsolete. Now, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject has given her thoughts on it, and surprisingly, she wants to get rid of it entirely.

According to Jill Tarter, a world-renowned astrophysicist who served as a former director of the Center for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research, it’s pretty much high time for the term “SETI” to be changed or rebranded. In her view, it’s a misnomer and could ultimately end up leading people down the wrong path on the search for alien life outside of the planet Earth.

During a recently concluded meeting of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe, Tarter said that the term “search for extraterrestrial intelligence” implies something that was simply not remotely possible, based on current understanding of space and, indeed, extraterrestrials. Instead, she proposes that experts use the term “the search for technosignatures” which means to look for signs of old but standing and working alien technology.

Tarter said that it’s important to make the changes to the term “SETI” because of the implications that it sets forth on anyone who happens to come across it, especially those who decided to dedicate parts of their lives to it. “We need to be very careful about our language,” she said during a presentation at the committee meeting last January. “SETI is not the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We can’t define intelligence, and we sure as hell don’t know how to detect it remotely. [SETI]… is searching for evidence of someone else’s technology. We use technology as a proxy for intelligence.

She concludes: “‘SETI’ [as a term] has been problematic in history, and we should just drop [it] and just continue to talk about a search for technosignatures.”

Based on her comments on the subject, it’s clear that Tarter simply wants to make the distinction that intelligent life outside of Earth would have the capability to develop different kinds of technologies to make their lives easier and maximize the use of their resources. Therefore, it would be useful to search for a certain level of “technosignature” that would be left behind by any sufficiently advanced life form or civilization.

“We have a pragmatic definition for technology, which is the ability to deliberately modify an environment in ways that can be sensed over interstellar or interplanetary distances,” Tarter explained further. “Life does this, but it doesn’t do it deliberately.

One example of a technosignature that signifies intelligent life is the presence of communication signals. In short, if it ever comes to the point where the SETI Institute happens upon an alien communication signal, then that would mean their search is successful. Other technosignatures are waiting to be detected, of course. But unless the focus of experts and all others here on Earth changes from simply searching — somewhat vaguely — for “intelligent extraterrestrials” to actual extraterrestrial with functioning intelligence that can be translated into technosignatures, then perhaps the world would be that much closer to meeting its first non-human life forms.

Here’s hoping that it doesn’t turn out to be a disaster for humankind.

Learn more about the many changes happening in the space industry through Space.news.

Sources include:

• Space.com
• Inquisitr.com

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

NEW MASS SIGHTING: LARGE GROUP OF UFOS SEEN IN THREE USA LOCATIONS ON SAME DAY

EXCLUSIVE: UFO investigators are looking at three separate sightings of multiple UFOs which occurred in the US within less than eight hours.

One incident happened at 12.45pm in Pasadena, California, when at least five “circular UFOs” were seen.

The unnamed witness said in a report to NUFORC: “My cousin went outside to throw away the trash after we finished eating breakfast.

“He then returns and tells everyone that their are UFO’s outside.

“I thought he was joking but his wife went outside to look first my wife followed and then my kids and I followed.

“I looked up and in the sky I saw shiny dots in the sky. I observed the objects and then returned inside to get my iPhone to document what I saw.

“We continued watching the objects for 15 minutes or so. Everyone else went back inside and I continued watching the UFOs.”

The witness later saw a father and son, and showed them the objects in the sky.

He said: “I asked if they looked like drones. He replied, ‘No Way’.

Groups of UFOs were seen over three US locations the same day.

“I was able to observe the UFO’s for close to an hour.”

NUFORC said: “Seven observers witness a cluster of at least five tiny white objects that hovered almost motionless in a clear, cloudless sky, for approximately an hour.

“High-quality video footage of the event accompanied the written report.

“Our initial thought was that the objects might have been seagulls soaring in upwelling wind, but the objects do not appear to look, or behave, like birds.”

Express.co.uk showed the video to Scott Brando, who runs debunking website Ufoofinterest.org.

He said he believes they were just a group of helium balloons that had been caught on the wind and were slowly rising away.

The second sighting was at 2.30pm, also on January 13, about 90 miles to the south in Carlsbad, California, when five oval or circular orbs were seen.

The witness was testing out new binoculars.

He wrote to NUFORC: “While I was scanning some edges of a few clouds and some contrails looking towards the west over the ocean around 2.30pm, I noticed one very outstanding whitish looking object, between egg and football shaped but sometimes looking more round and other times having more of a top shape.

The cases are being investigated by NUFORC, but Scott Brando says they were balloons and lanterns.

“I had to assume that possibly the changing viewing angle had something to do with shape change although at times the object seemed to either be vibrating or rotating.

“As I continued watching I noticed another object moving very slowly, coming directly out of the setting sun direction and moving very slowly in direct horizontal line towards the first object in what looked like a collision course.

“These objects went from a white colour to sometimes a shimmering metallic or reflective mylar look but it wasn’t solid looking when it began shimmering it seemed to flash as if it had multiple surfaces.

“As I continued to view the two objects I watched a third that seemed to drop down from above my focus to an altitude similar to the other two objects and north of them again the three manoeuvred back into a horizontal line with quite a bit of distance between each other.

“After that manoeuvre, they then broke the line and moved closer to form a triangular formation and slowly moved out towards the ocean and then back towards my viewing position.

“After watching these slow manoeuvres for some time I noticed a fourth and fifth object materialising or moving from very high in the sky down towards the other objects and as these other two became about the same size as the others they all formed another horizontal line from north to south, evenly spaced, and kept that formation for a short while.”

Then, at around 8pm the same day more than 2,000 miles away in Hollywood, Florida, there was another sighting of “numerous orange lights above the coastline,” by a law enforcement officer.

The witness said simply: “Numerous orange lights observed moving slowly above the ocean from north to south.

“All lights disappeared simultaneously.”

NUFORC was also sent video.

It said: “NUFORC is attempting to determine what the wind direction and velocity were at the time of the sighting, in attempt to rule out the possibility that the lights may have been sky lanterns, or so-called ‘Chinese’ lanterns.”

Chinese lanterns are often mistaken for UFOs as they drift in groups before disappearing as the internal flame goes out.

Mr Brando said the second sighting in Carlsbad was likely to be the same helium balloons travelling south.

He believes the objects seen in Florida were Chinese lanterns and unrelated.

{ alien-ufo-sightings­.com - }

CONTACTEE CLAIMS OUR MOON IS ARTIFICIAL AND WAS BROUGHT HERE FROM ANOTHER GALAXY

Contactee Alex Collier claims our Moon is actually the interstellar transport ship that was brought here from a distant solar system. It contained an experiment run by the grey aliens and their reptilian masters: our genetically-engineered ancestors.

Fluke or not, most Sci-Fi writers proved to be quite visionary, if not somewhat prophetic. The book “Letters from Andromeda”, the brainchild of Job Robinson and Alex Collier describes a telepathic conversation with alien beings originating from the Andromeda Galaxy. An ancient being called Moraney from the constellation Zenetae, transmitted important information to Collier, questioning the lies spread in our history books.

The Andromedan exposed the deceitful way humans are being ruled, the lies that govern our everyday lives without our consent or even awareness. We are being told nothing about the real concerns of real life, much less about what is actually happening in our Solar System.

Moraney’s biggest revelation pertained to mankind’s true history and a secret base on the Moon. Earth’s satellite carried a vital role in our genesis, but far from any way we have been taught so. The Moon was brought from the constellation Ursa Minor – 432 light years from Earth – to serve as a transport ship for reptilians, human-reptilian hybrids and the first generation of human ancestors to descend on Earth. Our moon made its way in our galaxy dragged by an asteroid that is believed to cross our galaxy every 25,000 Earth years.

Moraney also revealed that our Moon once orbited the 17^th planet of the Chowta star system, home of the Andromedans. What we see today of the Moon, are in fact the remains of a 6.2 billion years-old cosmic vestige called Maldek, a reminder of the ancient war between the tyrannical Grey aliens of the Orion Empire.

According to the information passed on to Collier by the Andromedan, we are here because we were brought here by an ancient extraterrestrial civilization surpassing our Sun in age.

To sustain this daring theory, we need to address speculation. Rumors have it that on the surface of the Moon, lunar missions detected the presence of some unknown chemical compounds, and that discovery was entirely covered up. Collier had his restraints on this matter, but Moraney’s telepathic communication confirmed all doubts:

“The Moon is hollow. It contains huge underground facilities built by E.T.’s and later humans from Earth. There are seven openings into the Moon’s crust, and the underground bases. Conservative scientists have wondered why so many craters seem so shallow, despite their size. The Andromedans say, it’s because much of the surface was built on top of a metallic shell of a circular space crest; or “A War Carrier”, as the Andromedans describe it.”

The craters on the Moon are a solid hint to a trained eye, for their depth does not match a straying cosmic body, but a uniform shape pressing against the layers of lunar dust and rock, but since we are alone in this galaxy, who is responsible for the so called craters? The answer comes from the Andromedan, who tells of cities and spacecraft hangars located on the far side of the Moon, that were destroyed in a war over 113,000 years ago, leaving behind the marks visible from our planet.

The Greys guided the first exploration mission of these ruins back in 1950, when a team of NSA (not NASA!) astronauts allegedly delved into a lunar underground facility the size of New York, right underneath the Jules Verne crater. Inside the facility they found the remnants of a violent battle, seeing pieces of reptilian bodies scattered all over the place.

“When the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, the World Order had been there for some time,” Collier wrote. "This knowledge and technology was withheld from the lower levels of NASA and our military. NASA has been used as a blind to keep people from truly knowing what was going on there. The astronauts were silenced under threats and remain so today.”

Since then, the World Government maintained a lunar population program starting with 36,000 handpicked people. The colony is estimated to reach 600,000 occupants in the near future.

The leaders of the entire operation are the Greys, but they rarely interfere directly, but rather carry their messages through a group called the Black Monks. Originally human, the Black Monks have been radically modified to serve the Greys’ needs and can “no longer be considered Earth humans.”

The step below in the hierarchy are a group called the Blue Moon, who serve the Black Monks, comprised of American, British, Russian and French representatives. These groups operate and control the moon bases and under their command are two organizations: Alpha One and Alpha Two. Collier had reasons to believe that Alpha One was assigned with gathering resources on Earth and keeping the population unsuspecting.

The Andromedan Moraney told Collier that Alpha Two is actually MJ-12, the infamous organization tasked with recovering and investigating alien craft. If this is true, the organization we believe to be in charge of such covert projects is actually at the bottom of the ladder, and said ladder runs much higher than we previously thought.
To this day, Collier’s allegations have yet to be proven but completely rejecting their implications would be unwise.

The far side of the Moon is forever hidden from view and even if a number of alien bases were located there, we wouldn’t be able to spot them from Earth. But Alex Collier is pretty adamant about his enlightenment and the forbidden knowledge he was blessed with by the Andromedans.

{ https://www.tidiochat.com/}

Here Are 5 Mysterious Artifacts Which Date Back Millions Of Years

Technically speaking, these artifacts should not exist, and according to mainstream science, they don’t. Yet all around the globe, a set of enigmatic objects have been found that point towards the possibility that advanced life may have flourished on Earth, before the arrival of modern humans, millions of years ago.

Despite this fact, a number of strange, and extremely ancient artifacts have been found all around the globe that ultimately question the human origins and human history.

How long ago did modern humans appear on Earth? Where did we come from? And, is it possible that before the arrival of Homo Sapiens, another different species inhabited Earth, perhaps millions of years ago?

1. Ancient Hammer predating humans.

Let’s take a look at an artifact discovered in London, Texas, USA, in 1934. What appears to be an ordinary hammer is, in fact, a hammer embedded in stone.

What makes this extremely interesting is the age of the object; it is believed to date back 400 million years.  Impossible right?

It is believed that this mysterious hammer originated from rock that belongs to the Ordovician era, more than 400 million years ago. Researchers consider that since the head of the hammer was found embedded into the rock, it points to the possibility that the embedding process was performed under different atmospheric conditions to the current, and different atmospheric pressure more similar to those in the remote past.

According to studies of the Metallurgical Institute of Columbia, the inside handle underwent the process of carbonization, the head of the hammer was built with an iron purity only achievable with modern-day technology. According to analysis, the head of the hammer consists of 97 pure iron, 2 percent chlorine, and 1 percent sulfur.

2. There’s a 290-million-year-old footprint, and it should not exist. Ever.

A rock belonging to the Permian period—some 290 million years ago—has a curious detail on its surface.

Discovered in New Mexico, the Permian Period rock features a human footprint. But, humans did not exist on Earth 290 million years ago, so how’s that possible? Curiously, the Permian (along with the Paleozoic) ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species died out. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted; on land, ecosystems took 30 million years to recover.

As noted by Dr. Don Patton, the footprint is genuine. If it is, it would mean that hundreds of millions of years ago, a different type of human called Earth their home. Of course, according to scientific evidence, that’s not really possible. The Permian Period was a time way before birds, dinosaurs, and MAN, were supposed to exist.

3. A Giant footprint which makes absolutely no sense.

It’s huge. It’s old. It’s striking.

Located in South Africa, in the vicinity of the town of Mpaluzi, close to the border with Swaziland is a mysterious rock that has an incredible feature.

A massive granite block has a massive footprint embedded on its surface. Geologists believe that the granite block dates back some 200 million years.

This fascinating footprint was discovered over a hundred years ago when a hunter called Stoffel Coetzee stumbled across it in 1912 while hunting in the area. The footprint left behind on ‘rough granite’ measures staggering 4 feet in length.

4. Ok, this one isn’t an artifact, but rather evidence of many artifacts combined on Earth.

Many researchers believe that there are several pieces of evidence pointing towards the existence of highly advanced ancient civilizations that existed on Earth millions of years ago.

According to Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist and the director of the Natural Science Research Center at Moscow’s International Independent University of Ecology and Politology, there’s evidence of million-year-old structures scattered across the globe.

During his long career, Dr. Koltypin has studied numerous ancient underground structures mainly in the Mediterranean and has identified numerous similarities which have led him to believe that many sites were interconnected. But most incredibly, the weathering of the structures together with their material composition and extreme geological features has led him to believe these megastructures were built by advanced civilizations that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.

5. 300 million-year-old screw?

Apparently, we’ve got history all wrong.

What is the chance that there are numerous objects recovered across the globe that date back millions of years? If humans weren’t around at that time, who built them?

According to reports from Chinese News agencies, a mysterious object discovered in 2002 could be evidence of prehistorical civilizations. Tests have failed to show the exact composition of the mysterious rock, researchers that include geologists and physicists from the National Land Resources Bureau of Gansu Province, Colored Metal Survey Bureau of Gansu Province, the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy, Lanzhou Branch, and the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou College are unsure of the origin of the artifact and point out that at this time, all theories are possible.

According to Lanzhou Morning News; After a discussion about the possibility of being man-made and the possible reasons for its formation, scientists unanimously labeled the stone as one of the most valuable in China and in the world of collections, researchers, and Archaeological studies.”

After many studies, Chinese scientists concluded that the artifact had not been made by contemporary hands or by current technology levels, the most accepted hypothesis is that it is a product of a prehistoric civilization.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

Dit is hoe de Europese Marsrover buitenaards leven zou kunnen ontdekken

‘Raketlancering was technisch hoogstandje, ondanks gecrasht onderdeel’

 door Marie Garré

GERELATEERDE VIDEOS

http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20180206_03342156

Musk lanceert met succes krachtigste raket van het momentaar

{ http://www.standaard.be/ }

VAN ONZE REDACTEUR PETER VANTYGHEM

BRUSSEL ‘Een sprong vooruit van 150 jaar’, noemt Stephen Houston, archeoloog aan Houston University, de ontdekking van een enorme ­Maya-stad in de jungle van Guate­mala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador en Honduras (DS 5 februari). Het nieuws werd afgelopen weekend bekendgemaakt omdat National Geographic er deze week een documentaire aan wijdt. Daarin is de hoofdrol weggelegd voor het instrument dat alles mogelijk maakte: LiDAR-technologie.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/extra/static/video/kaltura_player_voor_methode.html?id=1_ge1bq5wp#

dS VIDEO - Archeologen leggen littekens van WO I vast.

‘Laser imaging, detection and ranging’, kortweg LiDAR, is niet nieuw en de toepassing ervan voor archeologie begon al in 2004. In 2010 slaagden Arlen en Diane Chase erin om over de oude Maya-stad Caracol in tien uur tijd meer data te verzamelen dan archeologen tussen 1983 en 2000 deden die zich moeizaam met machetes een weg door de jungle hadden gehakt. De Chases keken daarbij vanuit een vliegtuig dwars door de bomen naar de bodem.

‘In de Ieperboog toont LiDAR een onthutsend reliëf van kraters en structuren uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog’

BIRGER STICHELBAUT Archeoloog

Het was een kwestie van tijd voor LiDAR ingeburgerd zou raken in de archeologie. In 2013 werd in de jungle van Cambodja de 1.200 jaar oude stad Mahendraparvata gevonden. ‘Met LiDAR zagen we ineens een haarfijn beeld van een complete stad waarvan niemand het bestaan vermoedde’, zei de Australische archeoloog Damian Evans toen. Sindsdien heeft hij in die regio meerdere steden gevonden en wordt gesproken van ‘het grootste rijk ter wereld’, maar dat dient nog bewezen.

Evans scande immers ‘maar’ 230 vierkante kilometer. In Noord-Guatemala werd in 2016 een gebied van tien keer zo groot onderzocht: er bleken 60.000 bouwsels op te staan.

Meten met licht

LiDAR was aanvankelijk niet bedoeld om archeologen blij te maken. De technologie is vergelijkbaar met radar, maar in plaats van radiogolven gebruikt ze licht. Vanaf een bepaald punt, bijvoorbeeld een vliegtuig, worden laserstralen naar een oppervlakte gestuurd. Dan wordt gemeten hoelang het duurt voor de straal terugkomt. Zo kan men de hoogteverschillen op het onderzochte oppervlakte vaststellen. Die data worden met behulp van gps vertaald in een topografische kaart van het terrein, waaruit de begroeiing desgewenst weggefilterd kan worden (‘digitale ontbossing’).

‘In de bossen rond Antwerpen heb ik in 2010 met een gps het hele loopgravensysteem afgestapt. Datzelfde werk kan ik nu in drie uur doen’

WOUTER GHEYLE

Onderzoeker UGent

Al in de jaren zestig diende LiDAR aardrijkskundig, oceanografisch en atmosferisch onderzoek, maar de enorme datasets die vrijkwamen, wekten in de jaren nadien een bredere interesse op. De Amerikaanse Ruimtevaartorganisatie Nasa peilt ermee hoe dik de ijslagen aan de polen zijn en hoe snel de gletsjers smelten. New York gebruikte een 3D-kaart op basis van LiDAR-scans om zijn noodplan tegen overstroming op te maken.

Maya-specialiste Kathryn Reese-Taylor vertelt aan National Geographic hoe zij en anderen al decennialang de jungle van Guatemala doorzochten zonder ooit iets gevonden te hebben, laat staan een goed beeld te krijgen van een geheel. Nu is het alsof de mist opgetrokken is: het is duidelijk dat de vlakte tussen 250 en 900 na Christus erg druk bewoond was, naar schatting door 10 miljoen mensen. Er zijn enorme landbouwzones te zien, net als ook grote verdedigingsmuren en vier grote centra, compleet met pleinen en tempels. En dit is maar de eerste fase in een groot project dat 15.000 km² Maya-gebied in kaart wil brengen.

De ruïnes van Tikal in Guatemala steken boven het regenwoud uit, maar de nieuw ontdekte steden zijn nog groter. 

Wild Blue Media/National Geographic

Mist trekt op

LiDAR wordt ook in Vlaanderen gebruikt. Sterker nog: van 2013 tot 2016 is de volledige oppervlakte van de regio gescand in opdracht van de overheid. In 2015 en 2016 werden veel van die gegevens ‘opgeleverd’. Dat betekent dat vandaag een enorme dataset beschikbaar is voor onderzoek. De overheid gebruikt die voor ruimtelijke planning, om nieuwe overstromingskaarten te maken, om de erosie van het landschap te bestuderen. Maar ook de archeologische sector zoekt er informatie.

Wouter Gheyle, wetenschappelijk onderzoeker aan de UGent, is zelf in Maya-gebied geweest. ‘De grote problemen in de jungle zijn toegankelijkheid en zichtbaarheid. Je herkent nog geen muur die op twee meter van je staat. Daarom is LiDAR zo belangrijk. Ik verwacht in de komende jaren nog veel andere ontdekkingen, al moeten die enorme datasets wel verwerkt worden. En dan moeten we de ontdekte structuren ter plekke ook gaan bekijken natuurlijk.’

Wat kunnen Vlaamse archeologen met LiDAR doen? Hier zitten geen steden in de bossen verstopt. ‘Nee,’ zegt Gheyle, ‘maar ook in Vlaanderen zijn boeiende ontdekkingen te doen en is veel erfgoed bewaard uit allerlei periodes. Ik bestudeer de archeologie van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. In de bossen rond Antwerpen heb ik in 2010 met een gps het hele loop­gravensysteem afgestapt. Datzelfde werk kan ik nu in drie uur doen. We kunnen bosbeheerders adviseren op sommige plekken voorzichtig te zijn. Op de hoogtemodellen zien we veel zaken die we nog niet kenden, zoals grafheuvels uit de protohistorie en de Romeinse tijd, houtskoolmijlers uit de middeleeuwen, en vooral veel erfgoed van de twee wereldoorlogen.’

De Eerste Wereldoorlog (1914-1918) en de Tweede Wereldoorlog (1940-1945) hebben veel sporen nagelaten in het Belgische landschap. Tot dusver werden die vooral onderzocht via historische bronnen en lokale graafwerken, recent ook via grondscans. LiDAR doet, zoals in de jungle van Guatemala, ook hier de mist optrekken. De bossen in de Westhoek zijn de oudste getuigen van de oorlog, omdat ze in de decennia daarna minder opgeruimd en niet doorploegd werden, zoals de rest van het land. Archeoloog Birger Stichelbaut (UGent): ‘In de Cabourduinen in Adinkerke, bijvoorbeeld, een zeer mooi en goed bewaard duingebied, liggen sporen uit WO II boven op sporen van WO I, zoals batterijen en loopgraven. Op de Heuvelrug van Bellewaerde bevindt een onafgewerkte V1-lanceerbasis zich boven op kraters uit WO I. In allerlei kleine bossen in de Ieperboog, de zwaar bevochten oostkant van Ieper, toont LiDAR een onthutsend reliëf van kraters en structuren van WO I.’

Roofputten

En er zit evolutie in. De nieuwe generatie LiDAR, die de Vlaamse overheid aankocht in 2015, scant de bodem al zestigmaal gedetailleerder dan in 2003. Dat betekent dat er nu zestien metingen per vierkante meter zijn, wat het bodembeeld heel precies maakt. ‘Een micro-reliëf is wat we nu zien’, zegt Stichelbaut, die LiDAR-beelden gebruikt in de expositie Sporen van Oorlog, die vanaf 17 februari te zien is in het In Flanders Fieldsmuseum. Daar wordt de Eerste Wereldoorlog bekeken vanuit archeologisch standpunt.

Eén bizarre gelijkenis heeft de Westhoek ook nog met de Maya-ontdekking: in beide gevallen werden de vindplaatsen, lang voor archeologen en LiDAR-scans erbij raakten, al druk bezocht door illegale grafdelvers. Op de beelden in Guatemala zijn duizenden roofputten te zien.

Documentaire op zondag 11/2 om 20 uur op Channel 4. Op www.standaard.be/lidar kunt u zien hoe LiDAR doorheen de bossen kijkt.

In ‘DSWeekblad’ leest u zaterdag een uitgebreide reportage over oorlogserfgoed in de Westhoek.

{ http://www.standaard.be/ }

Elon Musk, on Falcon Heavy’s triumphant launch - PART II16h

And finally … a successful burn to Mars!

View image on Twitter

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.

4:46 AM - Feb 7, 2018

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What a day.

Can’t get enough? Check out the 30-minute video, below, from SpaceX. It’s an updated version of Tuesday’s live webcast and includes both side booster cameras and additional Starman views.

Bottom line: Tweets and video from SpaceX and Elon Musk on Tuesday’s successful launch of the Falcon Heavy. Go SpaceX!

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

Divorced father, 74, who claims to have lost his virginity to an ALIEN 'with a very nice body' is mocked by This Morning viewers (as Holly and Phil battle to keep a straight face)

• David Huggins recalled the multiple alien encounters he's had since he was eight
• Divorced father-of-one, from Hoboken, New Jersey, has painted the meetings
• Part-time deli counter worker appeared via live video link on ITV's This Morning
• Presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield interviewed him
• Viewers watching at home were amazed they managed to keep a straight face

By Natalie Corner For Mailonline

A seventy-four-year-old part-time deli-worker who claims he lost his virginity to an alien has appeared on This Morning via live video link to recall his saucy encounter.

David Huggins, a divorced father-of-one, from Hoboken, New Jersey, told the ITV show presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that he was intimate with an extra-terrestrial called Crescent who had a 'very nice body'.

However, the duo could barely contain their laughter as David calmly claimed he had fathered hundreds of alien offspring over the years.

Viewers watching the segment at home praised Holly and Phil for not breaking down in hysterics while a serious David shared his story - including how different types of beings continued to visit him for decades and one female, whom he named Crescent, took his virginity at the age of 17 in the Georgia woods.

David Huggins, 74, from New Jersey, appeared on today's This Morning to recount how he believes he lost his virginity to an alien called Crescent when he was 17

This Morning presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby battled to keep a straight face

During the interview Phillip made amusing faces as he attempted to understand how exactly the interviewee had had the encounters for six decades

Viewers watching the bizarre interview took to Twitter to praise the presenters for keeping a straight face  

The alien enthusiast, who had his first encounter aged eight when he was at the bottom of a tree in a field, has also replicated many of the meetings in paintings - which have been aired on Love and Saucers, a US documentary detailing his extraordinary claims.

Phillip looked bemused as he questioned David about why aliens had chosen him to father their offspring but he didn't have a clear answer.

He told This Morning: 'That was something I would like to know, I guess they want to do it on a gradual level.

'I haven’t asked them… I was always there for a reason and I would do whatever they asked me to do.' 

But Holly wanted more evidence and said she wondered why, despite there being hundreds of meetings with the aliens, David hadn't taken any pictures as proof.

David appeared via live link from New York to tell Holly and Phil about how he first met an alien when he was just eight years old

David has spoken recently about his extra-terrestrial encounters for a documentary by director Brad Abrahams

David, who claimed he had last seen Crescent about five months ago, said he would try to take a photo the next time he visited with the beings.

Explaining about his encounters, David also claimed that a 'portal' had opened up in his bedroom after he moved to New York City when he was 19.

'That was very interesting I was having these experiences for months,' he said. 

The extraordinary tale was too much for viewers watching at home, as one said: 'This alien sex man is the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV.' 

The alien enthusiast has painted several images of Crescent who he claims took his virginity during an intimate moment in the woods

It's testament to Holly and Phil's interviewing skills that they didn't break down in hysterics as they listened to David speak about his alien encounters

Another added: 'I love people that are bonkers. They fascinate me. This bloke on This Morning lost his virginity to an alien called Crescent.'

'Seriously .. HOW ARE THEY DOING THIS .. I would be in absolute hysterics,' said one impressed viewer.

'HOW are @Schofe and @Hollywills keeping their cool with this guy? If Phil stared at me while I was trying to be serious like that I would’ve cracked,' said another.

'Best topic to see on a Monday Morning! ‘I lost my virginity to a busty alien called Crescent’ And also claims to have fathered babies,' joked another. 

'I was walking in the woods, and I see a woman sitting under a tree – and she gets up and she starts coming towards me,’ he explains in the documentary.

‘I become very aroused sexually; I couldn’t get my pants down fast enough. I fall back on the ground and I’m lying there and she’s looking at me, and I reach my climax, which was quite painful, actually; it was very intense. And then I’m looking in her eyes and I pass out … Virginity lost.’

He continued his relationship with the beings and Crescent, even after his move at 19 to New York City. At times he even visited ‘there,’ the space or realm occupied by the extraterrestrials, he claims.

He says of Crescent: 'There was something very beautiful, something lovely about her. She had a very nice body. The only thing that was different about her was that she had very long fingernails and she had these very large eyes, and her face was very pale.'

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10.30am  

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

'I lost my virginity to an alien called Crescent'

{ http://www.itv.com/thismorning }