Scientists think they might have the answer, and it's less to do with lack of understanding, and more to do with the feedback they're getting.

Getting positive or negative reactions to something you do or say is a greater influence on your thinking than logic and reasoning, the new research suggests – so if you're in a group of like-minded people, that's going to reinforce your thinking.

Receiving good feedback also encourages us to think we know more than we actually do.

In other words, the more sure we become that our current position is right, the less likely we are to take into account other opinions or even cold, hard scientific data.

"If you think you know a lot about something, even though you don't, you're less likely to be curious enough to explore the topic further, and will fail to learn how little you know," says one of the team members behind the new study, Louis Marti from the University of California, Berkeley.

For the research, more than 500 participants were recruited and shown a series of colored shapes. As each shape appeared, the participants got asked if it was a "Daxxy" – a word made up for these experiments.

The test takers had no clues as to what a Daxxy was or wasn't, but they did get feedback after guessing one way or the other – the system would tell them if the shape they were looking at qualified as a Daxxy or not. At the same time they were also asked how sure they were about what a Daxxy actually was.

In this way the researchers were able to measure certainty in relation to feedback. Results showed the confidence of the participants was largely based on the results of their last four or five guesses, not their performance overall.

You can see the researchers explain the experiment in the video below:

The team behind the tests says this plays into something we already know about learning – that for it to happen, learners need to recognise that there is a gap between what they currently know and what they could know. If they don't think that gap is there, they won't take on board new information.

"What we found interesting is that they could get the first 19 guesses in a row wrong, but if they got the last five right, they felt very confident," says Marti. "It's not that they weren't paying attention, they were learning what a Daxxy was, but they weren't using most of what they learned to inform their certainty."

This recent feedback is having more of an effect than hard evidence, the experiments showed, and that might apply in a broader sense too. It could apply to learning something new or trying to differentiate between right and wrong.

And while in this case the study participants were trying to identify a made-up shape, the same cognitive processes could be at work when it comes to echo chambers on social media or on news channels – where views are constantly reinforced.

"If you use a crazy theory to make a correct prediction a couple of times, you can get stuck in that belief and may not be as interested in gathering more information," says one of the team, psychologist Celeste Kidd from UC Berkeley.

So if you think vaccinations are harmful, for example, the new study suggests you might be basing that on the most recent feedback you've had on your views, rather than the overall evidence one way or the other.

Ideally, the researchers say, learning should be based on more considered observations over time – even if that's not quite how the brain works sometimes.

"If your goal is to arrive at the truth, the strategy of using your most recent feedback, rather than all of the data you've accumulated, is not a great tactic," says Marti.

• The research has been published in Open Mind.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

The Apocalyptic Prophecies of Nicolaas Rensburg

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

Astronaut Apollo 8 geeft brutaal eerlijk interview: “De maan? Een hoop kraters. Gewoon wat tinten grijs” - HLN.be

Apollo 8: rond de maan en terug

Bron: This American Life

Dat blijkt uit een vermakelijk interview van de 90-jarige voormalige NASA-astronaut met This American Life. Terwijl zijn mede-astronauten Jim Lovell en Bill Anders hun ogen uitkeken tijdens de allereerste bemande missie rond de maan, verveelde commandant Frank Borman zich dood.

Lees ook

“Houston, we have a problem”: hét foute citaat van vorige eeuw

Die verdomde Russen verslaan

“Ik was daar enkel en alleen omdat het de Koude Oorlog was”, vertelt Borman. “Ik wilde meedoen aan het grote Amerikaanse avontuur om de Sovjets te verslaan. Maar dat was het enige dat me motiveerde. Die verdomde Russen kloppen.” 

De ruimte zelf vond hij maar niets, om nog maar te zwijgen over het gevoel van gewichtloosheid. “Dat was misschien interessant voor de eerste 30 seconden. Dan was dat iets normaal.” De commandant werd er wel stevig ziek van. “Kotsen werkt hetzelfde als op aarde”, vertelt hij daarover. “Het is ongemakkelijk. Ik probeerde het op te vangen in een afvalzak, maar ik kon niet alles pakken.”

“Geen enkele kleur”

En ook de magisch nabije blik die hij mocht werpen op de maan, kon hem niet bekoren. “Verwoesting. Een hoop kraters. Geen enkele kleur. Gewoon wat verschillende tinten grijs”, klaagt hij. Terwijl zijn makker Jim Lovell zich vergaapte aan de machtige grijze bal en wanhopig wenste dat hij die kon gaan bestuderen, dacht geen haar op het hoofd van Borman eraan om ooit op dat ding te stappen.

De aarde

Het enige dat de aanvoerder écht interessant vond aan de belevenis, was het zicht dat de astronauten kregen op de aarde, die boven de maanhorizon verscheen. Crewlid Bill Anders nam toen het nu wereldberoemde kiekje van de aarde vanuit de maanbaan.

Dat beeld kon ook Borman écht smaken. Onze bol, amper een duim groot. “Daar zaten de belangrijkste dingen in mijn leven. Mijn familie, mijn vrouw, mijn ouders. Dat was het absolute hoogtepunt van de missie, vanuit een emotioneel oogpunt.”

Toen hij een jaar later opnieuw de kans kreeg om de ruimte in te gaan en zelfs te wandelen op de maan, paste hij voor de kans. “Ik ben waarschijnlijk de slechtste persoon om naar de maan te sturen”, klinkt het. We geven hem geen ongelijk.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

TWEE VLIEGTUIGEN CRASHEN DOOR ONBEKENDE "TREKKRACHT" ( VIDEO )

Kort na elkaar crashen twee kleine vliegtuigen op een vliegveld in Californië, waarbij beide piloten melding maken van een geheimzinnige kracht die aan het vliegtuig trekt. 

Alhoewel men driftig op zoek is geweest naar een oorzaak van dit alles, is er tot nu toe geen enkele mogelijke oorzaak gevonden. 

Het plaatsje heeft een eigen vliegveld en dat is mede te danken aan de Amerikaanse luchtmacht die dit hier tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog een bouwde voor het testen van allerlei zaken en het trainen van piloten. 

Na de oorlog werd het vliegveld overgedragen aan de stad en vandaag de dag wordt het gebruikt door kleine vliegtuigen.

Vorige week begon het op het vliegveld van Porterville. 

Een klein vliegtuig landde op het vliegveld, maar tijdens en na de landing gebeurde er iets vreemds. 

In het toestel zat een vrouw, een ervaren vlieger klaarblijkelijk, die later vertelde dat ze tijdens de landing een vreemde kracht waarnam die als het ware aan het toestel begon te trekken. 

Ze slaagde er wel in om te landen, maar kreeg toch het toestel niet onder controle, met als gevolg dat ze aan het einde van de landingsbaan tegen een object botste wat omschreven wordt als een “airport marker”. 

Ze was verder niet gewond en ook het toestel was niet zo zwaar beschadigd en er werd dan ook niet teveel aandacht besteed aan dit ongeluk. De politie werd gebeld, de luchtvaartautoriteiten ingelicht en de nodige rapporten gemaakt. 

Minder dan 24 uur later gebeurt er op datzelfde vliegveld weer een ongeluk, waarbij de piloot van geluk mag spreken dat hij nog leeft. 

Een klein vliegtuig vertrekt van de startbaan en tijdens de start merkt de piloot dat er een soort vreemde kracht aan zijn vliegtuig trekt. Hij slaagt er niet in om het toestel op de baan te houden, het trekt naar links het veld in. De piloot probeerde het toestel onder controle te krijgen maar vanwege de al hoge snelheid schiet toch de neus van het toestel omhoog. Vervolgens draait het toestel om de eigen as om tenslotte ondersteboven neer te komen in het grasland. 

Gelukkig heeft de piloot het er levend afgebracht. Het toestel is behoorlijk beschadigd. 

De onderzoeken naar beide ongelukken zijn nog in volle gang, maar vooralsnog heeft niemand enig idee waar die mysterieuze trekkracht vandaan kwam. 

Wanneer twee vliegtuigen met ervaren piloten op twee dagen achter elkaar iets dergelijks overkomt, dan lijkt het zeker dat ze zich die kracht niet inbeelden, maar dat er werkelijk iets gebeurd is in Porterville. 

Wat dan precies is vooralsnog een raadsel en Tyler van Secureteam denkt dat het misschien iets te maken heeft met dat hier vroeger een militaire basis gevestigd was. 

Of zou het misschien iets te maken kunnen hebben met de vreemde krachten die werkzaam zijn op onze planeet vanwege de komst van een andere, onbekende planeet? 

Voorlopig alleen maar raadsels en geen antwoorden. 

{ http://niburu.co/ }

The photographer says: I was riding in a car to go to the airport and flying back to Canada.

The sky is still very dark when I left River Falls, Wisconsin. The sky was lightening on the middle of our trip and I took some photos of the thunder and lighting.

I took a lot of images of the sky when the lighting flashed every 20 to 40 seconds. At the beginning, I didn't notice the object till I checked my iPhone camera in the car. It was the first photo that showed this object. Other photos that I took at the same time didn’t show the object.

I was so happy to be able to take a very special photo so I posted it on my Facebook right away when I landed in Toronto. Mufon report 94740.

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

Top-secret US technology SPOTTED? Mysterious ‘triangle UFO’ linked to military experiments

A SHOCK "triangular UFO" has been spotted close to a secretive US military base, amid speculation that the aircraft is the mysterious TR-3B on a test-run in Texas.

Neil Armstrong: We were ordered to 'move away' by ALIENS on the Moon

Watch out conspiracy theorists. The truth is, America really did make it to the moon, but what happened when they were there is the real question. Neil Armstrong claims that there was an alien species on the moon when they visited and that they were made to move away.

Armstrong claims that there were ships and structures on the moon that were not human-made. The idea is both thrillings and terrifying that an alien species could exist so close to the planet humans call home.

Armstrong was not the only one to have encountered and recalled these abnormalities. Buzz Aldrin also took videos of the strange occurrences, and they both reported back to Houston who censored this information from the American people to keep the country from rising in panic.

Aliens on the Moon

The interview transcription is below:

“Professor: What really happened out of Apollo 11?

Armstrong: An amazing thing, even though we have always known of this possibility. The fact is that they (aliens) have ordered us to turn away!

Professor: What do you mean “warned to move away”?

Armstrong: I cannot go into details; there are structures on the Moon, and not ours. I can only say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology. Wow if you were big! … And menacing!

Professor: But NASA also sent to the moon missions after Apollo 11 ….

Armstrong: Naturally, NASA had already announced at that time, and could not risk panic on Earth.”

Personally I will always believe that humans have been to the moon. There is not much that can be done to change my thoughts on that. But the possibility that there was something happening on the moon that we were not told about seems all too likely. How’s that for an explanation of video inconsistencies.

Armstrong's Strange Moon Experience

READ NEXT

• NASA photo: Floating Object Or Alien Sphere found on MARS

{https://www.disclose.tv/ }

UFO in Seborga “Italy” REAL or FAKE?

Thus began the story of a man who spotted a UFO in Seborga in the province of Imperia, Italy.

Our witness comment: It is about 8 am, in the direction of the hill I see two illuminated objects with a disc form, so fast “almost at supersonic speed” that I had difficulty following them with my phone.

Immediately after the report was taken in the event by the Italian association alien research or better (A.I.R.A), which after a series of checks, inspections and interviews have come to the conclusion that this is an exceptional case and really consists of unidentified intelligent objects.

The president of the association, the ufologist Roberto Maggioni has come to the conclusion that the witness was very reliable after three direct interviews and investigations, confirming that the video is interesting and unique.

There are many ufologists involved in this case, including a well-known Italian ufologist which comment:

On the scene we have two unidentified luminous objects, one of them makes small rotary movements, while after we have a second object arrive at a moderate speed, then after a pause, splashes away at supersonic speed. Among the objects appear bright points that seem crazy and head in all directions: the witness states that they were not visible to the naked eye and so we are inclined to think it is just “dust” in backlight.

The behavior of the two UFOs in our eyes is meaningless and devoid of connections, this could be a confirmation that it was not a human creation, but a alien behavior to us unknown. With this we can say that we have filed another extraterrestrial phenomenon? It is not 100% sure but ufologists of every nation are working on the case to determine more precisely if it is a fake or a real encounter with two floating UFOs in the Italian skies, what do you think about the UFO in Seborga?

{ http://www.ufosightingstoday.org/ }

Dr. Gil Levin’s NASA experiment found PROOF of life on Mars in 1976… but it was memory-holed by the government

by: Isabelle Z.

(Natural News) Gilbert Levin served as the lead investigator of the Labeled Release life detection experiment that was carried out on the two Viking Landers that NASA sent to Mars in 1976. Although his instrument ultimately yielded positive results at both locations, the finding has been largely memory-holed.

In a video posted to REAL.video, Levin talks about how his job working for the Health Department of the State of California determining water health inspired him to create his revolutionary approach using radioactive tagging. This eventually led to him being awarded a NASA contract in 1958 to develop a method to find extraterrestrial life, and his method was used in the Viking Missions in 1976.

In the video, he details how the experiment worked. Essentially, it entailed adding a drop of specially engineered radioactive food into a small cup of soil from Mars and monitoring the air above it to look for any radioactive gas that microorganisms would breathe out if present.

Few believed this would be successful on Mars, but with the first drop of the nutrient on Martian soil, a big amount of gas came out and was present for the full week of the experiment. Similar results were seen at the other landing site 4,000 miles away.

Could it have been related to chemicals in the soil rather than microorganisms? Just in case, they had an experiment ready to figure this out. They took a duplicate sample of the same soil and heated it to 160 degrees C to kill any microorganisms – a temperature that would at least kill those known on Earth – but not so high that it would destroy any oxidizing chemicals that would give a false positive. This “control” was carried out more than once and replicated on Viking 1 and Viking 2, ruling out the possibility that chemicals were responsible. In addition, the active sample was held in a chamber and after a few months, nothing showed up on the test, likely indicating that the microorganisms had died.

Naysayers first said the effect must be due to ultraviolet light, but when they sent out an arm to move a rock and take a sample from underneath it, the result was the same – yet for some reason, NASA wrote it off as containing “no organic matter.”

For the next 37 years, NASA and other scientists have been trying to explain away Levin’s results, but none have succeeded, nor have they reproduced any chemical that would explain away those results in a lab or even in theory.

Since his experiment, NASA has refused to send in similar life-finding experiments and rejected his proposals to carry out additional missions. Ambiguous answers would hurt their program, he believes, saying that this is motivated by politics and not science. After all, scientists who get positive results replicate and expand them, and NASA is clearly uninterested in doing that.

If there is life on Mars, he believes it must exist throughout the universe, but NASA and the government are doing everything they can to keep this information under wraps. Recently, he told The Space Show: “I am certain that NASA knows there is life on Mars” adding that there is “substantial and circumstantial evidence for extant microbial life on Mars.”

Lots of signs point to life on Mars

There are plenty of signs to support that notion. For example, NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered that methane on Mars has cyclical and seasonal spikes. With more than 90 percent of Earth’s atmospheric methane being created by living organisms like microbes, this is pretty solid evidence of life. Not surprisingly, team members on the Curiosity mission have already tried to explain it away, saying that water rock chemistry could be responsible.

In July, the Mars Express orbiter from the European Space Agency found an underground lake under a mile of ice toward the south pole of Mars. Although evidence of water has been seen on the planet before on a smaller scale, an underground lake it pretty hard to ignore.

In fact, Levin says that with everything we know about the planet now, it would be more surprising to prove that there isn’t life on Mars than that there is life on the Red ?Planet. He said that “it’s getting to the point where the shoe is on the other foot. It’s very hard to image a sterile Mars.”

Sources for this article include:

• REAL.video
• GilLevin.com
• Space.com

{ https://www.naturalnews.com/ }

{ https://www.odla.fr/ }

THIS IS THE VERY FIRST IMAGE OF A BLACK HOLE

Black holes are so outlandish that the scientists who first thought them up figured they couldn't possibly exist in reality. They form from massive, collapsed stars and are so dense that nothing can escape their gravitational pull, including light. Black holes mess with spacetime so badly that scientists have long wondered.
How do these things look, exactly? We may be on the cusp of seeing one thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, but back in 1979, Jean-Pierre Luminet created the first "image" using nothing but an early computer, lots of math and India ink. The problem with imaging a black hole is that, by definition, they don't emit light or radiation.

Luckily, large black holes are usually next to other stars and suck away their matter, something astronomers can see.
"As [gases from stars] fall towards the black hole, it becomes hotter and hotter and begins to emit radiation. This is a good source of light: the accretion rings shine and illuminate the central black hole," writes Luminet in his e-Luminesciences blog.  The distinguishing feature of a black hole is its "event horizon" boundary, the point of no return for matter and light.

At its periphery, materials sucked in from adjacent stars form an "accretion disk," famously depicted in Interstellar (below) as two bright, perpendicular disks. That's just an illusion, though -- there's only one disk at the equator, but the light is bent upward by the black hole's extreme gravity (via gravitation lensing).

Luminet's image depicts two other important phenomena not seen in Interstellar. One is the fact that the energy and light are stronger near the edge of a black hole and weaker farther out. Another is the Doppler and Einstein effects caused by the accretion disk's rotation, which would make light appear to be brighter on one side, depending on the spin direction. In Luminet's image, the accretion disk spins counter-clockwise, so its light approaches the viewer on the left and recedes on the right, making the left-hand side look brighter.

All that causes the black hole to be much brighter in the center and left, as depicted in Luminet's image, but not on the "Gargantua" black hole created by Interstellar's effects team.

"A realistic image must show a strong asymmetry of the disk's brightness, so that one side is far brighter and the other is far dimmer," he says. (Interstellar's black hole expert Kip Thorne was very aware of that, but director Christopher Nolan left it out so as not to confuse the audience.)
Luminet calculated all of that back in 1979 using the IBM 7040 mainframe, an early transistor computer with punch card inputs. The machine generated isolines for his image that were "directly translatable as smooth curves using the drawing software available at the time," he told Engadget in an email.

To create the final image though, he relied on his other passion: art. Using numerical data from the computer, he drew directly on negative image paper with black India ink, placing dots more densely where the simulation showed more light. “Next, I took the negative of my negative to get the positive, the black points becoming white and the white background becoming black.”

The result is an image that still holds up and is closer to reality than the CGI done by Interstellar's whiz kids. What's more, subsequent computer simulations created by NASA Goddard and others still show the same defining elements -- a thin "photon ring" at the center, Doppler and Einstin-shifted light and a double accretion disk caused by gravitational lensing. Not bad for someone with just punch cards and India ink.

Source

{  https://www.sci-techuniverse.com/ }

Tsunami from heaven: Spectacular timelapse footage captures storm dumping tonnes of water in an Alpine lake

• Amateur filmmaker Peter Maier recorded the video at Lake Millstatt in Austria
• Clip shows wet microburst, an intense small-scale downdraft produced by a thunderstorm
• One commenter said it looked like someone poured bucket of water from heaven

By DIANNE APEN-SADLER FOR MAILONLINE

In the clip, recorded at Lake Millstatt in Austria, the heavy clouds can be seen approaching the lake

Water is dumped from the heavens into the lake as the storm approaches the camera. The weather phenomenon is known as a wet microburst

After posting the video on Facebook, he said: 'One can't plan on capturing such images. It was a lucky shot.'

Mr Maier's incredible video quickly went viral, attracting 1.4 million views and more than 25,000 shares.

One commenter said it looked 'as if someone had poured a bucket of water up there'. 

Amateur filmmaker Peter Maier, 27, who captured the incredible timelapse video, said: 'One can't plan on capturing such images. It was a lucky shot'

Some viewers were so taken aback they thought the video must have been a fake, which prompted Mr Maier to post the original version.

An avid mountaineer, Mr Maier always carries five or six cameras in his backpack to capture the wonders of the natural world on camera.

A microburst is an intense small-scale downdraft produced by a thunderstorm or rain shower. There are two types of microbursts - wet microbursts and dry microbursts.

Several fatal and historic air crashes have been attributed to the phenomenon and flight crew training now goes to great lengths on how to recover from microbursts. 

One commenter said it looked 'as if someone had poured a bucket of water up there'. Mr Maier himself described it as a 'tsunami from heaven'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Everything You Need To Know About The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (Video)

by Arjun Walia, July 25th, 2018

If, for instance, if it turns out that all physical evidence is consistent with a mundane interpretation of the causes of UFO reports, there will be little reason to continue to speculate about the role of extraterrestrial beings. If, on the other hand, the analysis of physical evidence turns up very strong evidence that objects related with UFO reports were manufactured outside the solar system, then one must obviously consider very seriously that the phenomenon involves not only extraterrestrial vehicles but probably also extraterrestrial beings.” –

–Peter Andrew Sturrock(source) 

The ETH separates itself from the others for a couple of big reasons, one is the fact that multiple people from ‘within’ have come forward explaining that not only has there been a UFO cover-up, but an extraterrestrial cover-up as well. Secondly, the observed highly advanced, physics-physics manoeuvres these crafts that have been seen and filmed by people and military agencies are not produced by any nation on Earth. Lastly but not least, all of the supposed encounters between people and extraterrestrial beings, there is no shortage found within the lore.

 There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, . That civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time and that their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic Western point of view.

– Dr. Brian O’Leary (Physics professor, NASA Astronaut)

At the same time, we have to think about extra dimensions, parallel universes, and more…There could be multiple explanations for the UFO phenomenon, and multiple cases that don’t actually represent the same thing.

• Buy Book The Shag Harbour UFO Puzzle

There are many factors to consider here, and the lecture below is great for discussing that. I (the ETH) opens up new science, new paradigms, and leaves no aspect of humanity untouched. Science, history, technology, consciousness, and more will all be changed and transformed at a more rapid pace. This is one of the greatest stories in human history, and as independent media, we must keep talking about it because mainstream media always seems to have some sort of agenda, with all topics, from terrorism to UFOs and GMO’s and as I’m sure you know, much more.

Here is a couple of articles that goes into more detail regarding the latest on that:

• The US Government Just Admitted To Recovering Materials From UFOs, Here Are The Latest Updates
• It’s Official – We Now Know That “UFOs” or UAP Are Real – So Are They Extraterrestrial or Not? 

We have, indeed, been contacted — perhaps even visited — by extraterrestrial beings, and the US government, in collusion with the other national powers of the Earth, is determined to keep this information from the general public.

-Victor Marchetti (Second Look, Volume 1, No 7, Washington, DC, May, 1979)

Buy Book The Black World of UFOs: Exempt from Disclosure

About The Author

Arjun Walia

I joined the CE team in 2010 shortly after finishing university and have been grateful for the fact that I have been able to do this ever since There are many things happening on the planet that don’t resonate with me, and I wanted to do what I could to play a role in creating change. It’s been great making changes in my own life and creating awareness and I look forward to more projects that move beyond awareness and into action and implementation. So stay tuned arjun@collective-evolution.com

Source:

• https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/07/25/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-extraterrestrial-hypothesis-video/

{ https://stillnessinthestorm.com/ }

Grote opkuis van oceanen met plasticvanger gestart. Maar hoe werkt dat systeem nu juist? -HLN.be

CS  en ADN 

Bron: Volkskrant, VTM Nieuws, ANP

De oceaanschoonmaker is een buis van meer dan zeshonderd meter lang. De installatie drijft los in zee, dus zonder verankering aan de bodem. Door wind en golven beweegt de buis zich sneller dan ronddrijvend afval. Plastic dat zich aan en vlak onder de oppervlakte bevindt, wordt door de buis en het 3 meter brede scherm eronder ‘opgeveegd’. Vissen en andere zeedieren zullen met de neerwaartse stroom die voor de buis en het net ontstaat onder de installatie door zwemmen, dat is althans de bedoeling.

Lees ook

’Pac-Man’hapt 40 miljoen kg plastic uit oceaan

Onder invloed van wind en met behulp van kabels neemt de buis een U-vorm aan, waardoor het plastic zich tussen de armen verzamelt. Als het goed is, verplaatst de installatie zich vanzelf naar plekken waar het meeste afval drijft. Om de paar maanden haalt een schip het plastic op. Dat wordt aan land gebracht en zoveel mogelijk gerecycleerd.

De bedenkers lieten het ding gisteren te water aan de Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. De eerste opkuis vond plaats tussen Hawaii en San Francisco, een gebied van bijna 4.000 kilometer breed, dat drie keer zo groot is als Frankrijk. Voor de eerste Ocean Cleaner, bedacht door de toen 18-jarige Nederlander Boyan Slat, werd maar liefst 27 miljoen euro aan crowdfunding ingezameld.

“Plastic is niet de vijand”

“Dat mensen plastic gebruiken, is niet het probleem. Dat we dat plastic zomaar weggooien en dat het dan in zee belandt, dat is wel een probleem.” Dat zegt Lonneke Holierhoek van The Ocean Cleanup. 

“Plastic is niet de vijand”, klinkt het. “Plastic is een mooi product, het is bestendig, het is goed op verschillende manieren toe te passen. We vinden alleen dat het niet in de oceaan moet belanden.” Dat kan door überhaupt minder plastic te gebruiken, maar er zijn meer manieren. “We zijn gebaat bij betere recycling. Dat we verpakkingen bijvoorbeeld slimmer plannen. Zodat we niet nog meer plastic creëren, maar het plastic dat er is beter benutten.”

En daar zit volgens Holierhoek een probleem: “Er is te weinig stimulans om waarde te halen uit het plastic dat we al hebben. Zeker bij een lage olieprijs is het goedkoop om nieuw plastic te maken. Daarmee maak je de plasticberg alleen maar groter.” Zij vindt dat ook de industrie daar een taak in heeft. “Producenten kunnen plastic zo maken dat het goed te recyclen is. De recyclingindustrie kan nog een hoop innovatie gebruiken.”

Veel plastic in de Grote Oceaan is afkomstig uit landen als Indonesië, de Filipijnen en China. Holierhoek: “Het heeft te maken met armoede. Veel mensen wonen op plekken waar geen infrastructuur is die elke week het vuilnis ophaalt.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Na zes jaar voorbereiding begint Boyan Slat eindelijk aan grote schoonmaak van oceanen. Alles wat je moet weten over de grote plasticvanger - HLN.be

Cor Speksnijder 

Bron: de Volkskrant

Degenen die zaterdag in San Francisco over de Golden Gate Bridge rijden of lopen, zullen hun ogen uitkijken. In de loop van de middag komt daar een bijzonder gevaarte voorbij: een honderden meters lange zwarte buis die naar open zee wordt gesleept. Het is de eerste plasticvanger van Boyan Slat, de jonge Nederlandse uitvinder die zich ten doel heeft gesteld het plastic in de oceanen op te ruimen.

Lees ook

Ook de Italiaanse meren zitten vol plastic

Na jaren van voorbereiding gaat de grote schoonmaak nu echt beginnen. Het wordt de lakmoesproef voor de plannen van de 24-jarige Slat, die zes jaar geleden zijn idee lanceerde om afval in zee op te ruimen met lange drijvende armen. Het leverde hem een cultstatus op. Hij wist wetenschappers en sponsors aan zich te binden. Zijn groepje medewerkers groeide uit tot een professionele organisatie waarin miljoenen omgaan. Nu moet blijken of hij de hooggespannen verwachtingen kan waarmaken. De wereld kijkt mee.

Drijvende vuilnisbelt

Slats organisatie, The Ocean Cleanup, wil een drijvende vuilnisbelt opruimen die zich bevindt in de Stille Oceaan, tussen Hawaï en Californië. Daar heeft zich onder invloed van zeestromen een immense hoeveelheid plastic verzameld: 80.000 ton in een gebied drie keer zo groot als Frankrijk. Van visnetten tot verpakkingen, van kratten tot microplastics. De afvalberg weegt ruwweg evenveel als 450 Jumbo Jets.

Voor de ambitieuze opruimactie heeft The Ocean Cleanup een 600 meter lange metalen pijp ontworpen, waaronder een flexibel scherm hangt dat het plastic moet tegenhouden. Deze enorme sliert gaat zaterdag vanaf een voormalige basis van de Amerikaanse marine op weg naar zijn plaats van bestemming en zal daarbij onder de Golden Gate Bridge door komen.

Zodra de constructie – System 001 gedoopt – op zijn plek ligt, moeten de voorbereidingen voor de bouw van de tweede installatie beginnen. Het is de bedoeling dat uiteindelijk een vloot van zestig van deze drijvers op de plasticsoep wordt afgestuurd. Zo denkt Slat in vijf jaar de helft van de zogeheten Great Pacific Garbage Patch weg te kunnen werken. Of die ambitie haalbaar is, zal afhangen van het resultaat dat hij bereikt met System 001.

Hoe werkt de plasticvanger?

De installatie drijft los in zee, dus zonder verankering aan de bodem. Door wind en golven beweegt de buis zich sneller dan ronddrijvend afval. Plastic dat zich aan en vlak onder de oppervlakte bevindt, wordt door de buis en het 3 meter brede scherm ‘opgeveegd’. Vissen en andere zeedieren zullen met de neerwaartse stroom die voor de buis en het scherm ontstaat onder de installatie door zwemmen, dat is althans de bedoeling.

Onder invloed van wind en met behulp van kabels neemt de buis een U-vorm aan, waardoor het plastic zich tussen de armen verzamelt. Als het goed is verplaatst de installatie zich vanzelf naar plekken waar het meeste afval drijft. Om de paar maanden haalt een schip het plastic op. Dat wordt aan land gebracht en zoveel mogelijk gerecycleerd.

Geen zekerheid

Proeven met schaalmodellen en prototypes hebben Slat en zijn team vertrouwen gegeven dat het systeem gaat doen wat het moet doen. Maar geen zekerheid. De vraag is hoe het gevaarte zich zal houden midden op de oceaan, met stormen en golven die 12 meter hoog kunnen worden. Welk effect hebben corrosie, uv-straling en levende organismen die zich aan het materiaal hechten? Het moet allemaal duidelijk worden in de praktijk.

Het is makkelijker om spullen in de ruimte heel te houden dan op zee, zegt Slat op zijn kantoor in Rotterdam. “Een poos geleden zou dat mijn grootste zorg zijn geweest. Ons prototype op de Noordzee ging al vrij snel kapot. Daar hebben we veel van geleerd. Nu heb ik er meer vertrouwen in dat het systeem intact blijft.” Het spannendst is voor hem de vraag hoe efficiënt het systeem het plastic vangt en vasthoudt. “Hoe gedraagt het plastic zich als het stormt? Gaat het dan onder de drijver door? Daar zit voor mij de onzekerheid”, aldus Slat.

Kansrijk project

Gerbrant van Vledder, oceanograaf aan de TU Delft, helpt The Ocean Cleanup met computersimulaties van golfbewegingen. Als de wind draait, moet ook de installatie draaien. Als het stormt, moet het plastic binnen de U-vorm blijven. “Ik zie het als een kansrijk project, maar ik kan geen garantie geven. Het gaat erom dat het systeem tijdens een storm minder plastic verliest dan het in rustig weer verzamelt.”

System 001 is uitgerust met stabilisatoren, camera’s om de omgeving in de gaten te houden, verlichting, reflectoren voor radar en akoestische boeien om zeedieren weg te houden als het plastic wordt opgevist. Ook drones houden een oogje in het zeil. Met GPS is de positie van het systeem te volgen. 

Nederlandse vlag

De Nederlandse overheid houdt de veiligheid op zee en gevolgen voor het milieu in de gaten. Daarover heeft Slat dit jaar een overeenkomst getekend met het ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat. Het systeem, dat buiten de territoriale wateren ligt, ‘vaart’ onder Nederlandse vlag. Verder is er samenwerking met de Amerikaanse kustwacht, het Amerikaanse milieuagentschap EPA en de oceanische dienst NOAA.   

In de loop der jaren zijn de plannen van Slat verscheidene malen gewijzigd. Aanvankelijk was het de bedoeling om armen van 100 kilometer in zee te plaatsen, verankerd aan de zeebodem. De uitvoering van dit idee zou extreem duur en ingewikkeld zijn geworden. Daarna werd gedacht aan drijvers van 1 of 2 kilometer lang met zwevende ankers. De versie die nu naar de Garbage Patch gaat is nog korter. De zwevende ankers zijn verdwenen.

Kritiek

The Ocean Cleanup wekt niet alleen bewondering. Uit wetenschappelijke hoek klinkt ook kritiek op de methode-Slat. Onlangs gaven vijftien Amerikaanse experts nog te kennen dat ze twijfelen aan het nut van zijn operatie. Een van hen is Eben Schwartz van de California Coastal Commission. “De enorme aandacht voor dit project leidt ons af van het echte probleem”, zegt Schwartz. “Verreweg het meeste plastic in de oceanen komt van het land. Daar moeten we de vervuiling tegengaan, bij de bron.”

Volgens Schwartz drijft slechts 3 procent van al het plastic dat in de oceanen terecht komt aan de oppervlakte in zogeheten gyres, cirkelvormige oceaanstromingen waarin afval zich concentreert. Waar de rest blijft, is niet helemaal duidelijk. Vast staat dat veel plastic op kusten aanspoelt en – afgebroken tot kleine stukjes en microplastics – zinkt of wordt opgegeten door zeedieren. Schwartz: “Ik hoop dat het project van Boyan Slat een succes wordt, maar ik vrees dat we ons richten op een heel klein deel van het probleem.”

Half procent

Jan Andries van Franeker, marinebioloog bij Wageningen Marine Research, rekent voor hoe weinig de schoonmaak volgens hem oplevert. “The Ocean Cleanup schat zelf dat in de Pacific Garbage Patch zo’n 80.000 ton plastic drijft. Jaarlijks verdwijnt naar schatting 8 miljoen ton in zee. Slat zegt in vijf jaar de helft van het afval in de Garbage Patch te kunnen opruimen: dus 40.000 ton. In die tijd verwijdert The Ocean Cleanup dus een half procent van wat de mens er jaarlijks in stopt.”

Boyan Slat en zijn team zouden hun kennis en creativiteit beter kunnen richten op oplossingen om de hoeveelheid afval te beperken, zegt Van Franeker. Zoals het opvangen van plastic in riolen en rivieren of het ontwerpen van volledig recycleerbaar verpakkingsmateriaal. “Als je dan toch aan opruimen op zee denkt, denk dan aan technieken die toepasbaar zijn bij riviermondingen of op de kustlijn.”

Aanvulling

Slat verweert zich tegen deze kritiek door erop te wijzen dat opruimen en voorkomen van vervuiling elkaar niet uitsluiten maar aanvullen. Veel organisaties zijn bezig met preventie, maar niemand ontwikkelde technologie om het afval in de oceanen op te ruimen, zegt hij. “Wij vinden ook dat voorkomen moet worden dat plastic in zee komt. Maar zelfs als dat vandaag stopt, drijven er nog grote hoeveelheden rond die schadelijk zijn voor het zeeleven. Dat willen we opruimen voordat het plastic in microdeeltjes uiteenvalt en niet meer kan worden weggehaald.”

Volgens Slat komt veel kritiek voort uit een zekere afkeer van het grootschalige, bedrijfsmatige en technologische karakter van zijn methode. “In milieukringen hebben altijd vooroordelen bestaan tegen grootschaligheid, ondernemerschap en technologie. Allemaal eng.”

Eben Schwartz denkt dat de schoonmaak vrijwel onmogelijk zal zijn zonder schade aan het zeeleven. Hij vreest dat vissen op het plastic afkomen om ervan te eten en dat zeeschildpadden, zeehonden en dolfijnen verstrikt raken en slachtoffer worden als het plastic uit het water wordt gehaald. Onnodige bezorgdheid, reageert Slat. Ook nu eten vissen plastic en kunnen zoogdieren vast komen te zitten in ronddrijvende netten. 

Hij liet onafhankelijk onderzoek doen naar de milieu-effecten van zijn onderneming en daaruit blijkt dat de extra risico’s voor dieren vrijwel verwaarloosbaar zijn, zeker als een aantal aanbevolen maatregelen wordt genomen om dierenleed te voorkomen. “We houden de situatie in de gaten met camera’s. Tijdens het ophalen van het plastic kijken biologen of er dieren tussen zitten.”

Ondanks zijn kritiek wil Van Franeker gezegd hebben dat hij waardering heeft voor het wetenschappelijk onderzoek dat The Ocean Cleanup heeft gedaan naar verspreiding en typering van plastics in zee. “Dat hebben ze gedaan op een schaal die niemand anders voor elkaar heeft gekregen. Daarvoor verdienen ze een compliment. Met de media-aandacht die hun projecten trekken werken ze mee aan bewustwording. Aan de andere kant kan de boodschap dat we onze rotzooi kunnen opruimen het gevoel van urgentie doen afnemen.”

Recycleren

Twijfel is er ook bij critici over de bruikbaarheid van het plastic dat uit zee wordt gehaald. Als dat een tijd in het zoute water heeft gelegen en aan zonlicht heeft blootgestaan is er niet meer zoveel mee te doen, wordt gezegd. Slat wuift de bedenkingen weg. Zijn zonnebril, gemaakt met oceaanafval, moet het ongelijk van de critici bewijzen. 

“Over drie maanden vaart de eerste boot uit om plastic op te halen. Het verwerken van het afval tot korrels is al geregeld met recyclingbedrijven in Californië. Ik denk dat we over een jaar kunnen onthullen welke producten we gaan maken. Meer dan vijftig ondernemingen hebben belangstelling getoond. Zij begrijpen dat de waarde van het materiaal schuilt in het verhaal: dat het product afkomstig is uit de Great Garbage Patch.”

De lancering van System 001 is zaterdag vanaf 20 uur (Belgische tijd) te volgen via de website van The Ocean Cleanup. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

We're Probably Living in a Simulation, Elon Musk Says

It’s not often discussed in America, but military bases and testing sites are all around us. Depending on where you live, you might be only a few miles away from some seriously spooky stuff and not even realize it. Such is the case for a few perplexed and concerned homeowners in Satellite Beach, Florida this week after they discovered a strange, unidentified metal object in their backyard. Metal debris from our nation’s past is everywhere, but what makes this case curious is the home’s proximity to Patrick Air Force Base.

All the weirdest stuff happens near Air Force bases. It is known.

Patrick AFB is the current home of the 45th Space Wing which manages all of the unmanned launches at the Eastern Range, consisting of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. That means this wing oversees most launches of satellites for the military, National Reconnaissance Office, and National Security Agency. Prior to that, the base served as a base for anti-submarine operations during World War Two. With such a history, there’s no telling what might lay under the ground surrounding the base.

Which is why homeowners are so concerned about what might lie underneath their house. Residents of Satellite Beach, Florida have for years been telling urban legends the area, and this mysterious discovery might have proven some of them true. Satellite Shores resident Sandra Sullivan discovered an unidentified metal object in her yard with a metal detector and is now concerned that the object might be leaching harmful chemicals into the ground around her home – or worse. Upon discovering the object, Sullivan got in touch with federal investigators who confirmed that the ground upon which her home sits was in fact used as a military dump. 

Just the thing to drive property values up. For the right buyer.

The only concrete information coming from experts who have examined the object is that it’s not a bomb and it’s not a chemical drum. That leaves, well, just about everything else. Fuel rods? Depleted uranium shells? De-engineered alien warp drives? Who knows?

Despite the alarm, Satellite Beach City Manager Courtney Barker says that while the presence of old military hardware is alarming, noone has been harmed by any discarded materials – yet:

I’ve heard rumors all my life because I’ve grown up here. We checked with Brevard County and our records here at the city and we’ve never received any complaints ever about anybody digging up anything in their yards.

Barker says Satellite Beach city council members are consulting with state and federal safety experts to develop a new set of guidelines for potential dangers stemming from the area’s past as a landfill for the military’s space launches.

And who knows what some of those satellites might have been carrying?

While this unidentified object is in all likelihood a piece of inert scrap metal, it really makes you wonder what else might have fallen into the seas or deep underground during the last several decades of rocket launches, experimental aircraft tests, and who knows what else. The real losers in war are always civilians – even if only due to the toxic aftereffects of research, development, and testing here on good ol’ American soil. We should have listened to Eisenhower.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

When it comes to the paranormal, there seem to be certain places that are well-suited to or seem to draw the most activity. Old abandoned places, ruins, graveyards, dilapidated houses, these are the usual suspects for haunted places, but there are always exceptions to this, and certainly one of these would be military bases, and these locations also have on occasion drawn to them strange stories of the unexplained. It seems that the men and women stationed here would already have enough to worry about besides ghosts and ghouls, but here we will look at some very curious accounts of encounters with strange entities from beyond our understanding at military installations.

One report comes from a witness called Sergeant M., who in 2015 was assigned to 24-hour-desk duty, which entails keeping a full 24-hour watch at a barracks. One of their duties was to keep an eye on soldiers who were demonstrating psychological issues or who had been confined to their barracks to protect those around them and were considered “high risk.” The witness relates a tale about one such individual, who had been kicked out for being a troublemaker and an “angry, hate filled individual that never progressed past Private Second Class in his 20 months in uniform.” The mysterious individual was also apparently rumored to be into black magic and Satanism, and most of the others had kept well away from him. According to the witness, this unruly individual left the barracks without making any effort at all to clean out his filthy room, which would be described thus:

When he was kicked out, he left his barracks room a complete mess. I’ve seen portable toilets cleaner than his room. The toilet had been broken and didn’t flush, but he had continued to use it. In the closet there were mountains of trash, and rotten food in the sink and refrigerator. The shower was also filled with garbage and water. Aside from the mess, there were strange things as well. When the commander, First Sergeant and myself, the Supply Sergeant, went into his room, we found chicken bones tied together, hanging from strings from the ceiling. They had been lashed together to make seemingly archaic symbols. We counted roughly two dozen before we quit counting. The floor was covered in grime and candles had been lit in a circle. All of the furniture had been stacked out of the way or shoved in the closet. I’ll spare you the description of the smell. But the whole room had an unsettling feeling to it. The air in the room felt wrong. I couldn’t tell at the time if it was the smell or the filth. Whatever the reason, I didn’t want to be in there. We called a special cleanup team and put in a work order to have the room stripped and cleaned by professionals. After they were finished, the room was spotless.

Not long after this, there allegedly began to trickle in reports of strange phenomena surrounding the room in question. Even though it was still unoccupied there were claims that things could be heard banging around within, and odd odors would also emanate from the room, such as a scent of burning plastic that could not be identified. The witness says that he ended up being assigned to the duty roster that put him into close proximity to the “haunted” room, and one evening he had a very terrifying experience as he was on duty with a private. It started when they suddenly heard a roar come from the room, which he describes as sounding “like metal tearing while someone played a recording of a scream, except distorted and in reverse.” The startled men then warily approached the room, and the witness would say of what happened next thus:

Being the senior ranking, I instructed the soldier to call the Barracks Representative (LNO) and have him get to the desk as soon as possible. Five minutes later, he and I are using his master key to gain access to the room while my Private covers the hallway from the desk, staying with the phone and also watching our backs. As soon as we enter the foyer, we’re hit with the smell of dog poo and burned plastic. Neither of us can identify the source, but the room is completely empty. We sweep and clear every nook and cranny, later agreeing that we felt like we were being watched the whole time. We found nothing but the smell remained.

We decided to re-secure the room and not log the incident, because I, for one, didn’t want to look like a crazy idiot when my boss’s boss read my report. We move for the door. We exit, turn and go to close the door behind us when a massive force hits the door from inside the room, shoving the Barracks Representative out of the doorway and slamming the door shut. None of the doors are allowed to slam, they all have hydraulic arms at the top to prevent that. They’re not even quick to close if a 200 lb male leans on them, so one slamming so hard it could move a grown man is impossible – especially considering it had worked moments prior when we entered the room.

We tried to open the lock again, but this time the keycard wouldn’t work. We agreed that neither of us wanted to go in again anyway, and we agreed not to report any of it, because we would be taken as seriously as anyone else. After that incident, I kept an ear out but didn’t hear anything nearly as dramatic again. On another occasion, it sounded like there was some kind of shuffling coming from the room, like someone moving around, but I kept a stalwart face about it and ordered my private to stay away from it as well. To this day, I cannot explain what happened in that room.

What was this? Was it some sort of demonic entity conjured up by the troubled soldier who had left? It is hard to say. In another case defying classification the tale is told by the nephew of the eyewitness, but it is no less spooky. The uncle, called Bob, was reportedly a new soldier in the Army in 1985, and at the time he was on fence patrol duty at a base in Arizona. As he and a partner made their way around the perimeter, he claimed that they had heard an anomalous noise from behind them, and turned to see a strange sight indeed. According to the one relaying the account:

When they turned around, they saw an old man dressed in buckskin with long hair in braids. Bob described it was being so grey that “it almost glowed”. The man was standing approximately thirty feet behind them. Both men drew their weapons, as the old man was in a “shoot to kill” area, with warning signs all over the place. Neither Bob or the other man wanted to shoot an old man. They figured that he must have Alzheimer’s, and had wandered into the base or something. After all, he was not being threatening, and appeared harmless.

The men shouted to the old man, telling him he was in a restricted area and that he needed to put his hands in the air. Bob thought they’d walk him to post call and call the local police department who would be able to get him back home. Bob tried the radio, but it was just static. Calling his friend to help, both he and Bob turned to tinker with the walkie. Although they only looked away for “half a second”, to quote my uncle, when they turned back the old man was gone. In his place was a massive cottontail (rabbit), just sitting there, watching them.

The two startled men looked around to see if the old man was still around, but the mysterious stranger was gone, nowhere to be seen. All that was there was this rabbit sitting there staring at them in the desert night. They warily continued on with their duty, and shortly after heard the noise again, this time from the opposite side of the perimeter fence. When they looked, they were shocked to see the same old man standing there on the other side, staring in at them. Since this was a military base, the fence was very high, around 10 feet, and decked out with razor wire, very secure, so it seemed impossible that the old man could have gotten over the fence so quickly without being detected. This was frightening enough that the two men quickly got out of there and never spoke of it with their commanding officer.

This case is particularly interesting due to the location, Arizona, and the apparent shapeshifting quality of the strange intruder. One phenomena often reported from the southwest United States is that of what are called Skinwalkers, basically shape changing entities from Native lore that have been sighted all over the region by often very reliable witnesses. Is that what these two men saw? Unfortunately, this is a second hand account that is impossible to verify, so it is all left to imagination and speculation.

If it was a Skinwalker it certainly wouldn’t be the only one reported by military personnel. In the wake of my own article outlining my personal experiences with a group of what could have very well been these creatures, I was given a curious account by a reader who says he encountered one in New Mexico, where he had been stationed at the White Sands Missile Range. According to the witness, he had been on guard duty one evening along with a partner and it was typically a rather uneventful, even boring duty, yet on this night they would have a frightening  encounter that has stayed with them ever since.

White Sands Missile Range

The witness says that as they conducted their patrol his partner stopped him and pointed off into the barren surrounding desert wilderness, where there appeared to be two pinpoints of light hovering over the scrub, around 6 feet in the air. Thinking it was perhaps just a wild animal, they crept closer to its position to find that it seemed to be a tall, dark figure just standing out there in the middle of nowhere in the dark. It then became apparent that this cloaked individual was a man, although with a deeply wrinkled face that looked “ancient.” The witness would describe what happened next:

We were a little spooked because there should have been no one out there at this time, especially that close to the base. And this guy, he gave off a weird vibe, just standing there staring at us even as we approached. His face, he looked like he was maybe Native American, and I couldn’t tell so well but his skin looked creased, craggy and pockmarked, somehow ancient. He was wrapped up in some kind of cape or cloak and we couldn’t see his hands or feet. We called out to him to identify himself but this guy, he didn’t flinch. I don’t even know if he heard us or not.

Well, now we are a bit unsettled, and think we are dealing with a seriously disturbed individual or some senile old fart from a reservation, so we know we have to apprehend him or at least get him out of there. We start getting closer to this guy, who is still standing stock still like a statue and that is when it happens BOOM, he just sort of drops, there is a flutter of the cape, and he is gone. Just gone. My partner calls out in surprise and right then a coyote runs right past us, practically close enough to touch, before dashing off into the night. That old guy, there is no sign of him. It freaked us out for sure.

It seems like a classic Skinwalker encounter. What did those guys see out there? There have been strange paranormal encounters reported from bases in other areas of the world as well. One account was given by a witness named Adolph Schäfer, who claims to be the equivalent of a sergeant in the unified armed forces of Germany, called the Bundeswehr. He claims to have had a very anomalous experience when he was just a cadet at boot camp in East Germany. One evening at around 5 PM they were apparently out doing drills when they heard some sort of “eerie, unexplainable noises” coming from one of the nearby buildings. They did not think much of it at the time, but then at 8PM the power grid began to go on the fritz, with lights flickering everywhere, which was odd as it had been inspected just a few days before.

The base drill sergeant was convinced that it was just a faulty generator, and had the witness go out with three others to fix it. The men then made their way to the basement where the generators were kept, and there they found that two of the generators worked fine, although one had inexplicably been turned off. It was when they got to the larger third generator when things would get ominous down there in the dank basement, and the witness says of what happened thus:

The third generator was the largest main source of power in the base. The first thing I noticed were the scratches: this seemingly super-hard-to-break hunk of metal had what I think were scratches and cuts – claw marks – piercing its outer metal shell like a buzzsaw. So deep, the scratches had cut the cords inside and had damaged the batteries as though they were paper. After a moment of thinking I knew this couldn’t have been a person doing this, seeing as nothing any cadet had could cut through that tough metal so easily, I immediately rushed up the stairs to tell my drill sergeant, hoping he would know what to do. He told me, “The most we can do is tell base command and put someone guard the door, and have the generator replaced. Good thing reporting this, cadet Schäfer.

After getting a pat on the back, I resumed my daily training routines without anything too odd happening. But some hours later, sometime in the night (I can’t be exactly sure when), I heard scratching noises, but not from the basement, they were too close and too loud… as if they were in the sleeping quarters. After that moment of realization, I opened my eyes and looked around. I saw what I thought was someone in the corner, going through a bag… But, when I looked around the room, sheer terror came into me: all the bunks were full, every one.

“Wait….the hell?”, I thought to myself. But, then, as if it had heard what I was thinking, the “thing” in the corner turned to face me. It was a pale grey, with no nose, and claws like razors. This thing was skinny and two feet taller than my six-foot self. After that I just froze in a blank stare of horror. In my mind seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours and hours turned to days….I think I passed out of terror, because all I remember after that is waking up to my buddies and sergeant looking at me, while talking to me, telling me I looked sick. And I felt sick too, like all energy from me was drained for days on end.

Also strange is another case from way over in Afghanistan, where a witness named Jerry Aberdeen saw something very unusual during his tour of duty out in that forsaken wasteland. It is an account that seems hard to really categorize, but seeming to deal with ghosts, demons, or some other supernatural being.

The incident happened to him while he was stationed at an air base in in Mosul, Ninewah Province in 2004, and the witness would say:

I was attached to 2/3 INF 3 SBCT at FOB Patriot. A call went out on the radio that FOB Diamondback (the airfield) was under attack. Everyone on every FOB from, Courage, Blickenstaff, Patriot and Marez jumped into the closest vehicle and headed to the airfield to counter the attack. I was in a vehicle with some other infantry guys, an engineer and a PsyOps guy. When we got to the airfield we saw some dudes trying to climb over the wall. The gunner opened up on them and the rest of us took up a position in a ditch on the other side of the road and opened fire. There were three of us side by side, the engineer, the PsyOps guys and myself. We fired and one guy and he dropped from the top of the wall (hard to tell who actually shot him). Right after he fell there was stream of black smoke coming out of him. The engineer made that comment that he must have been wearing a suicide vest and it malfunctioned. A few seconds later the black smoke grew larger and started to take a human looking form. What happened next all three of us saw and there was no doubt. The now fully materialized black smoke was standing upright and now had red smoky glowing eyes and a weird looking mouth. The damn thing actually smiled at us and turned to, sort of run but it just dissipated after it took a few steps. Very hard to describe how it all happened. All three of us just looked at each other wide eyed for a second or two. After it was all over we only spoke about once then never again.

What sort of entity was this, if it ever really existed at all? There is no way to know. And that seems to be a recurring theme with all of these reports. Here we have looked at an assortment of cases of what seem to be very odd paranormal entities of some sort, but which seem to elude easy categorization. What are these things and what do they want? Are we looking at ghosts, Skinwalkers, demons, or all of the above? Considering the range of differences between these cases there is probably no clear answer that can explain all of them, and they probably represent very different disparate phenomena, but one common question we can ask why have they been drawn to these military installations? Or are these merely creepy campfire stories being told by some soldiers for a good laugh? As usual we are left with some very jolting accounts and hints, but no clear answers to any of these, and once again we have more to pile onto the great big pile of weird things we may never understand.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Born in Township, Minnesota in 1908, Daniel William Fry claimed a distinctly close encounter of the alien kind while working at the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico: he asserted he took a flight in an extraterrestrial spacecraft – on Independence Day, 1949, no less – to New York and back in barely half-an-hour! So the story went, Fry intended to celebrate the holiday period with colleagues and friends from the base in the nearby town of Las Cruces. Unfortunately, he missed the bus and was forced to remain on-base – utterly alone.

It was, said Fry, a blisteringly-hot night; and given the fact that the air-conditioning system in his quarters was pretty much useless and made the room “unbearably hot and stuffy,” he decided to do a bit of exploring in the vast expanse of desert that makes up what is today called the White Sands Missile Range. It’s highly unlikely that Fry ever anticipated coming into contact with a being from another world while he roamed the isolated area; and yet that is precisely what he said did happen.

White Sands Missile Range Museum

“I headed first in the direction of the old static test stand, on which we were mounting our largest rocket motor,” said Fry. “About two thirds of the way to the test stand, a small dirt road intersects the main road, and leads off to the right toward the base of the Organ Mountains.” He added: “Directly ahead of me, and just over the peaks of the Organ Mountains, an especially bright group of stars seemed to beckon to me as I walked leisurely along. Then, suddenly, the brightest of the stars simply went out…something I could not see was eclipsing the light of the star.” Fry soon found out what that something was. Out of the skies descended “a spheroid, considerably flattened at the top and bottom. The vertical dimension was about sixteen feet, and the horizontal dimension about thirty feet at the widest point…if viewed from directly below it might appear to be saucer shaped, but actually it was more nearly like a soup bowl inverted over a sauce dish.”

As Fry looked on in complete and utter awe (“as a child might stare at the rabbit which a stage magician has just pulled from his hat”), a disembodied voice – that went by the name of A-lan – told the shocked Fry that the fantastic device appearing before him was being remotely-controlled by a “mother-ship” orbiting the planet at a height of around 900 miles. Then there came a truly bombshell-style question: would Fry like to take a ride across the country in the alien craft? Of course, the answer was: Yes! And so – Fry maintained – that’s exactly what he did. He jumped aboard and was whisked across the night-sky to New York and back in no more than half-an-hour. The journey may not have been a long one; but it was said to have been a highly profound one. While Fry was on-board the futuristic flying machine, the voice of A-lan related a wealth of data relative to the forgotten and lost history of human culture:

“Tens of thousands of years ago, some of our ancestors lived upon this planet, Earth. There was, at that time, a small continent in a part of the now sea-covered area which you have named the Pacific Ocean. Some of your ancient legends refer to this sunken land mass as the ‘Lost Continent of Lemuria or Mu.’ Our ancestors had built a great empire and mighty science upon this continent. At the same time, there was another rapidly developing race upon a land mass in the southwestern portion of the present Atlantic Ocean. In your legends, this continent has been named Atlantis.”

According to A-lan, “increasing bitterness” between the two cultures, as well as “their constantly increasing command of destructive energies,” led to a catastrophic war. He explained to Fry: “…the resulting nuclear radiation was so intense and so widespread, that the entire surface became virtually unfit for habitation, for a number of generations.” Before departing (having thoughtfully returned Fry to White Sands), and in a fashion that would become all-too-typical of the Space-Brothers, A-lan gave Fry a message pertaining to the potential for overwhelming atomic disaster that faced modern-day humanity: “As nuclear weapons proliferate among your nations, it should always be remembered that ‘An ounce of understanding is worth a megaton of deterrent.’”

In 1954, shortly after going public with his fantastic story, Fry outright flunked a lie-detector test; and it was later learned that his much-flaunted “doctorate,” bestowed upon him around early 1960, had, in reality, been obtained via a London, England mail-order organization called the Saint Andrews College. But this did not stop Fry from developing a large following of like-minded individuals. From 1954 onward, Fry delivered numerous lectures across the United States, and wrote such publications as Atoms, Galaxies and Understanding; To Men of Earth; Steps to the Stars; Curve of Development; Can God Fill Teeth?; and Verse and Worse.

One year later, he established a group that went by the name of Understanding Inc., and which, in 1959, was described as follows: “From a start of nine members at El Monte, California in 1955, Understanding Inc., has grown into an international organization of more than sixty units and many members-at-large throughout the world. These units and members have sponsored hundreds of lectures and meetings, circulated thousands of books and magazines to reach many people in the spirit of ‘bringing about a greater degree of understanding among all the peoples of the earth and preparing them for their eventual inevitable meetings with other races in space.’”

Such was the interest in Fry’s claims of alien contact thatUnderstanding Inc. went on to publish a monthly newsletter that ran for no less than 23 years: nearly 250 issues were published between 1956 and 1979. Moreover, at its height, in the early 1960s, Understanding Inc. was able to boast of almost 1,500 members, and became the recipient of an impressive 55-acres of land near Tonopah, Arizona that had been donated by a Reverend Enid Smith. The true irony of this was that the buildings, first intended by Smith to act as a religious college, were shaped like classic flying saucers. Understanding, Inc. took full control of the property by 1976; however, with membership of Understanding, Inc. falling by that point, and with Fry’s finances not being what they once were, the site ultimately fell into disrepair: in late September and early October 1978, the kitchen and the library were burned to the ground by an arsonist and were never rebuilt. And further tragedy followed: one year later, Fry’s second wife, Florence, died from breast-cancer – he had divorced wife number-one, Elma, in 1964.

Although Fry’s place within the annals of Ufology was largely over by the dawning of the 1980s, he continued to give the occasional lecture and interview, before ultimately passing on in December 1992 – still standing by his every claim of that strange, long-gone,  }4, 1949 night when he sailed high across the starlit skies of the United States, with nothing but an intergalactic disembodied voice for company.

My view on all this? Fry was a great storyteller. And I do mean stories. His photos and footage of alleged flying saucers were far from being credible. He failed a lie-detector. And his “doctorate” came via mail-order. Time to move on to far more credible things, methinks…

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Strange fireball-shaped object hovering in the sky over Toronto

The city’s skies lit up Thursday evening with what appeared to be a fireball-shaped object hovering in the night sky.

The mysterious, large ball appeared before midnight, prompting reports of UFO sightings in Pickering and Scarborough.

The strange glowing orb flickering in the eastern sky caused quite a stir on social media, one user said just hovered in the sky instead of moving or disappearing.

It looks like the mysterious light source, is coming from below a disk shaped object then the footage shows also a smaller orb flying away from the light source.

  

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

Mile Long UFO Caught During Sunset Over Reykjavik, Iceland On Sept 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Sept 9, 2018
Location of sighting: Artun, Reykjavik, Iceland
Source: MUFON #94745

This UFO was caught just today and was seen during sunset over Iceland. The UFO measures over a mile across has a shape of large disk, AKA flying saucer. This is a fantastic video of the UFO and it appears he didn't see the craft till viewing the video at home, otherwise he probably would have focused in it a lot more. 

I often say its easiest to record a UFO during sunset, because the angle of the setting sun, the UFO and the eyewitness makes a perfect triangle which causes the cloaked UFO to be revealed...for a few minutes only. This is one beautiful alien craft. 

Such UFOs have been seen recently by a pilot over the ocean near the UK back in 2007. Click here to see interview with pilot. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

I saw it directly over the N1 gasoline station in Artun, Reykjavik.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Black UFO Seen Coming From Gulf of Mexico Over Texas, Aug 28, 2018, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Aug 28, 2018

Location of sighting: Bacliff, Texas, USA

Source: MUFON #94751

 

This dark black UFO was seen over Trinity Bay in Texas. The bay is connected to the Gulf of Mexico. This UFO was seen coming from the direction of the Gulf and may have come from an underwater alien base off shore. Since the ocean covers 75% of the earths surface, its just logical to assume aliens would use ocean floors for bases. Also remember if UFOs work in space, then they will work under water. 

Scott C. Waring

 

Eyewitness states: 

Hovered over water, then went in a over land, looked like it was carrying a cage.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Top secret US base houses living and dead ALIENS from Roswell UFO crash site in vaults and burial grounds, former worker claims- PART I

Top secret US base houses living and dead ALIENS from Roswell UFO crash site in vaults and burial grounds, former worker claims- PART II

Apart from the underground tunnels, Szymanski also believes there are four potential burial sites on the AFB grounds where aliens have been buried.

Szymanski has pictured one of the sites in his book where, he says, it is quite possible that a 4ft tall alien grey has been laid to rest standing in a vertical standing position as opposed to laying horizontally, as is customary for humans.

Szymanski also suggests that the bodies of eight aliens are buried under a car park next to the Foreign Technologies Division for UFO Reverse Engineering.

The Roswell incident has fascinated UFO hunters and conspiracy theorists ever since the US military announced in a press release they had found the remains of a crashed flying saucer in the New Mexico desert in July 1947.

The following day officials retracted the statement but witnesses came forward to say they saw alien bodies with the crashed craft which were taken away - something the US government has always denied.
Szymanski believes governments have good reason or keeping the existence of aliens under wraps - to keep us safe.

He said: "We still aren’t ready for full disclosure, the governments like to keep secrets cause that’s what keeps us safe sometimes.

"The last time the Air-Force made the announcement ‘hey we’ve got a flying saucer’ that didn’t go so well, so what would happen if they announced it this time?

"I really don’t see a change, I don’t think the fact that we have cell phones or 150,000 cable TV channels will make us any more prepared than the people were in 1947 after Roswell.”

Szymanski knows his theories may sound far fetched but he says he just wants to document his research and let people decide for themselves.

He said: “I present new theories, I show you evidence and I let you make up your own mind."

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/ }

A Stunning New Crop Circle Has Shown Up & It’s Very Mysterious (Pictures)

By Joe Martino

A new crop circle has appeared in Reigate Hill, Surrey according to a recent report. While the reports are still recent and not much is known about the circle, including specific details about the formation that could tell us more about how it got there, this one is quite fascinating in design.

Why talk about crop circles? As we will discuss below, they are a phenomenon that simply can’t be ignored. Formations show up every single year and come with great mystery, even in the scientific realm. Many do not realize some of the amazing things that are happening inside crop circles that blow the board and rope theory out the window.

“Some of these formations are so immense and complex as to defy reason. And after all these decades, none of the perpetrators have been caught in the act of making any of the truly extraordinary formations.”

– Richard Dolan, historian, academic, author, and one of the world’s leading UFO researchers (source)

Richard’s thoughts there are quite telling of this reality, and even scientific minds are at a loss for words as although they believe the circles are done by humans, they are calling it the most science oriented art movement ever.

For example, Richard Taylor, a University of Oregon physicist, published a paper on them in the 2011 issue of Physics World, stating:

“Crop circle arts are not going to give up their secrets easily. This summer, unknown artists will venture into the countryside close to your homes and carry out their craft, safe in the knowledge that they are continuing the legacy of the most science-oriented art movement in history.” (source)

But what would cause a physicist to conclude that these works do not have an extraterrestrial explanation? Or to even consider the issue seriously?

Here are the pictures of the most recent crop circle reported in the UK. Thanks to CropCircleConnector for the images.

Facts About Crop Circles

When you begin to explore the reality of crop circles you start to realize how one cannot simply pass the phenomenon off as people walking out into a field with some ropes and boards and making a design. It would be naive to make such a claim.

Above is a picture of an 800 foot crop circle that appeared in Wiltshire, England back in 2001. It caused a lot of commotion, and as you can see, it was very beautiful and extremely complex. The design consisted of 409 circles that form what’s known as a triskelion, a symbol that dates back thousands of years. There is some great footage of it in the documentary Crop Cricles: Quest for Truth by Academy Award-winning director William Gazecki. You can view that here.

“It was so large that it took us half an hour to find the center.” (quote taken from video link below)

There are some more great images of it in this YouTube video. You can also see footage of it taken by a helicopter flying above from the documentary Thrive in this video (at the 26.16 minute mark). This circle marks just one of thousands of verified formations that continue to baffle scientists, researchers, and onlookers alike.

Richard Taylor, the aforementioned scientist who studied these circles, again expressed his belief that this was one of the greatest art revolutions in history when he published his scientific analysis of crop circles in the journal Nature in 2010.

After studying the affected grass in the lab, he concluded that the circle makers must be using GPS devices, lasers, and microwaves to create these designs because the nodes of some of the stalks had been blasted out on one side. This same effect has been replicated by highly localized microwave heating, which is what causes the stocks to flop over to one side.

While he was able to come up with a scientifically feasible explanation for this phenomenon, he fails to address how hoaxers could come into possession of such advanced technology. It’s clear that there would be no other way to make some of these circles, so what is really going on here?

“If something like this caused the formations, then we are clearly talking about a highly sophisticated agency behind the phenomenon.” – Richard Dolan (source)

Did you know that the electromagnetic field over the area where a circle appears is usually electrostatically charged? Or that there is a rare form of electromagnetic energy called an “ionized plasma vortex,” also known as ball lighting, involved with these formations? (source)

The helicopters you see in the video are military helicopters. Military involvement with UFOs is well documented, and this should be no surprise. For more information on that you can read this article.

These are verified facts, which is why studies published in scientific journals have tried to come up with explanations that differ from unknown or extraterrestrial. For example, Dr. Terence Meadon, a professional physicist, meteorologist, and archaeologist at the University of Oxford, said that these balls of light are a result of wind currents and ionized plasmas. Whatever the case may be, the fact that scientists are taking note should signal that this phenomenon is worth our attention.

{ https://www.collective-evolution.com/ }

End Of The Moon Landing Conspiracy? NASA Releases 4K Video Of The Moon

NASA has released what is being dubbed a 4K virtual tour of the moon which allows the general public to take a peek at Earth’s natural satellite in more intricate detail than ever before.

The video was compiled from images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft over a period of nine years. It follows a previously released video from NASA seven years ago and incorporates the original imagery along with newly compiled footage of the lunar surface.

Ernie Wright of NASA’s Space Visualisation Studio explained in a blog post released on the official NASA website that the tour is designed to zoom in on some interesting sites to illustrate the variety found in the lunar landscape. He explains that some of the selected sites are on the near side of the moon and will, therefore, be very familiar to both professional and amateur astronomers, but some of the sites lie on the so-called dark side of the moon which can only be seen clearly from space.

NASA releases 4K virtual tour of the moon

Among the fascinating sites delved into in the course of the video is the Tycho Crater. The origins of this crater, which is estimated to be one hundred million years old, features a bizarrely placed 100-meter-wide boulder at its summit which is still a complete mystery to scientists studying the history of the moon. The video also zooms in on the Tauruas-Littrow Valley which is notable for being deeper than the Grand Canyon. Another exceptional point of interest about the Tauruas-Littrow Valley is that it was the original site of the Apollo 17 moon landing crew. The video demonstrates the path that the astronauts followed during their three days on the lunar surface and zoomed in on the rover vehicle and the bottom half of the lunar landing which have been in place for the past forty-six years.

It has been speculated that this emphasis on the original site of the moon landing was an attempt by NASA to dispel rumours that the moon landing in 1972 was fake. However, it is unlikely that this video will be enough to remove doubt from the millions of people across the world who believe that the original NASA missions to the moon were not all that they appeared to be.

READ NEXT

• NASA just filmed this giant solar flare eruption

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

Trumpets of the Apocalypse: Could this be the answer? 

Since 2011, strange reports have ebbed in concerning strange noises coming from the skies including humming, grinding metal, disparate noises that speak to the general hustle and bustle of the city and most bizarrely of all, trumpets. This year, new reports of this phenomenon have come in from areas as geographically disparate as Canada and Indonesia. Now, investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe is on a mission to get to the bottom of this scientifically baffling mystery.

Strange noises come from the sky – could this be the answer?

Various theories have been put forward since 2011 to explain the source of these bizarre sounds. One of the first theories to emerge came from the Azerbaijani geophysicist Elchin Khalilov who suggested that the phenomenon was caused by "acoustic-gravity waves caused by powerful solar flares and plasma emissions from the sun." However, this theory has not gained a great deal of traction and experts in the field of solar physics, such as David Hathaway of NASA, have said that they doubted that solar activity could be connected to the sounds.

Other theories have suggested that the sounds might be emanating from subtle movements of the tectonic plates. However, this theory can be dismissed for some reasons. Firstly, no unusual seismic activity has been detected in the areas which have been afflicted by the sounds during the event and secondly, if the noises were caused by a movement of the plates, then the phenomenon would surely have been detected long before 2011.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

Fishermen saw ‘robot-like creatures with slit mouths and crab pincers in most bizarre alien abduction ever’, secret hypnosis files reveal

SpaceX wants to give rise to a human settlement on Mars.

Starting small with a couple of spaceships and expanding out into a sprawling metropolis, a colony on the red planet is partially the vision of Paul Wooster, principal Mars development engineer for SpaceX. Speaking at the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention in August, Wooster detailed how SpaceX is grappling with some of the big questions that come with taking on one of the biggest projects in human history.

“The idea would be to expand out, start off not just with an outpost, but grow into a larger base, not just like there are in Antarctica, but really a village, a town, growing into a city and then multiple cities on Mars,” Wooster said. The convention notes that Wooster is a long-time supporter that attended early conferences and also served as a founding member of the Mars Society.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk detailed the company’s plans to reach Mars at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, in September 2017. A newly designed “BFR” rocket that measures 348 feet tall will produce liftoff thrust of 5,400 tons from 31 Raptor engines. SpaceX will launch two rockets and their corresponding spaceships to Mars in 2022, filled with supplies for future missions. The company will send four more in 2024, two of which will ferry the first humans to the planet to set up an outpost.

Wooster explained that each spaceship would carry around 100 tons of supplies, meaning the six ships would ferry around double the mass of the International Space Station to Mars. The ships would probably serve as the home for the first humans initially, as they work to extract resources and become self-sufficient fast. The humans will be tasked with extracting at least one tonne of ice per day, part of which will help make the methane fuel to bring the humans and rockets back to Earth.

The six ships are the first steps to permanent Martian cities. The humans will then need to consider establishing surface power, developing landing pads, habitats, greenhouses, additional life support, and all the other amenities to encourage a functioning settlement.

“All the capabilities you need to have a growing population on the surface,” Wooster said.

The humans will also have to consider tasks like setting up a suitable recycling system — no word on whether they’ll use color-coded bins. Another future issue is surface mobility, with artist concepts detailing pressurized rovers and a space suit for moving around the surface.

There are also questions about what they would be doing in their day-to-day life, once the settlement is stable. Researchers could learn more about the history, geology and climate of Mars. Teams could dive sub-surface, looking at questions about whether there ever was life on Mars — and if there is still life on Mars.

“These types of things are real opportunities for pretty much anyone in the broader Mars-related community to engage in,” Wooster said. “SpaceX is focused on getting the transportation architecture set up as quickly as possible, but it’s really to enable all these other types of activities.”

Ancient Mayan Statue Has QR Code On It's Face. Aliens Warning Us?

The ancient Mayan ruins of Mexico have nearly all, but a few, been excavated and their treasures placed in museums all over Mexico. This is not news. However, what may come as a shock to many, is that there are believers worldwide who fully believe that these statues hold proof that they were indeed made by ancient aliens, how inhabited our earth many, many years ago.

One such piece is that of an ancient Mayan statue, which has a face out of the ordinary. In fact, the face is a flat tablet, which looks remarkably like the QR codes we use in modern society to scan into our smart devices. There’s no doubt that its intention at the time was not to enable people thousands of years later to use as a scanning code, but experts have come to the conclusion it is more likely a warning of some kind, maybe of a disaster forthcoming sometime in the future.

Ancient Mayan Message?

News states “A photo of a statue with what looks like a QR code for a face has been making the rounds on social media, with some of the most imaginative people suggesting that it's evidence of ancient aliens. The "ancient aliens" would also have to be time traveling aliens, as QR codes were only invented in 1994. So the most likely explanation is that it's a modern statue.”

So, to believe its authenticity, people not only have to believe that the Mayans were indeed some alien race, but also that these aliens had the technology to be able to jump through time to thousands of years previously.

Whether or not people believe, a few have tried scanning the code into their smart devices to see just exactly what comes up. Nothing interesting! And there is speculation that it is no more than a model made by a Mexican electronic company to promote their products. It is up to you to come to your conclusions!

I took a few minutes to transcribe the QR code into machine readable format, and then scanned it. The result was rather boring:

 

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

The Pentagon in Washington, DC, is the largest building on Planet Earth – standing 71 feet (22 meters) high with each of the five sides measuring 921 feet (281 meters) in length. Astronomers studying the mysterious Hexagon which is located at Planet Saturn’s north pole have discovered new data which forced them to increase its measurements – the Hexagon is 20,000 miles (32,000 km) wide and about 180 miles high. If this Hexagon is the headquarters of Planet Saturn’s military, we’re gonna need a bigger Space Force.

Fortunately, astronomers agree that the hexagon is a jet stream moving at about 200 mph (320 km/h) with a circular vortex spinning in the middle. First discovered by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions in 1980 and 1981, it was believed to only be as high as Saturn’s troposphere (lowest level of atmosphere). Cassini arrived in 2004 and its measurements seemed to confirm that of its predecessors. However, scientists decided to withhold final judgement until Saturn’s spring when the clouds changed to allow Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) to take better measurements. With Saturn’s year spanning 29 Earth years, spring didn’t arrive until 2009 and low temperatures didn’t allow accurate readings until 2014. (Is Saturn having climate change issues too?)

Nothing happens fast on Saturn, so it took the astronomers three more years of data collection and analysis to find out that that the hexagon is a towering monstrosity.

“As the polar vortex became more and more visible, we noticed it had hexagonal edges, and realized that we were seeing the pre-existing hexagon at much higher altitudes than previously thought.”

Credit: JPL/NASA

In a statement from the European Space Agency, Sandrine Guerlet of the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique in France and co-author of the study published in Nature Communications, described the surprising discovery that the hexagon stands 180 miles tall. It seems hard to believe that a jet stream could maintain such a distinctive shape over such a large area and at such a high altitude, but there it is. Why?

“This could mean that there’s a fundamental asymmetry between Saturn’s poles that we’re yet to understand, or it could mean that the north polar vortex was still developing in our last observations and kept doing so after Cassini’s demise.”

The researchers found that Saturn’s south pole has no such hexagon anywhere at any height. That could mean the poles are different in ways not yet understood. One theory as to how a cloud could maintain such a solid, well-defined shape through multiple levels of atmosheres is a process called evanescence, where waves travel can travel upwards with only minor loss of strength, thus maintaining their shape. But why a hexagon? Lead author Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester answers that one.

“We simply need to know more. It’s quite frustrating that we only discovered this stratospheric hexagon right at the end of Cassini’s lifespan.”

Ah, yes … Cassini self-destructed in an atmospheric plunge on September 15, 2017. NASA has future missions to Saturn and its moons planned but none budgeted for. Since Cassini took over 6 year to get to Saturn, we’re not looking at getting new data for a while. Until then, Saturn continues to be the most stylish planet with its iconic rings and its huge polar hexagon.

At least we don’t have to worry about the Saturn Space Force … that will probably come from Enceladus.

Credit: JPL/NASA

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Wikipedia notes: “North American Aerospace Defense Command…known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection for Northern America.Headquarters for NORAD and the NORAD/United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) center are located at Peterson Air Force Base in El Paso County, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The nearby Cheyenne Mountain Complex has the Alternate Command Center. The NORAD commander and deputy commander (CINCNORAD) are, respectively, a United States four-star general or equivalent and a Canadian three-maple-leaf general or equivalent.”

It’s a little-known fact that now and again highly controversial tales surface concerning NORAD and nothing less than alien bodies. Of course, it’s not at all out of the question that the collective tales are simply that: tales. Indeed, as interesting as such stories are, they parallel sensational claims of (A) the U.S. Government having Bigfoot bodies hidden away at secret sites, of (B) extraterrestrial corpses held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, and of (C) alien corpses hidden at the world’s most well-known secret base: Area 51. The stories are intriguing and eye-opening. But, so far, at least, no evidence of such bodies existing – and kept hidden behind closed doors – has ever surfaced. Worse, some of the stories come from people unwilling to share their full, real names – which effectively renders the stories useless, even if they do have some validity to them. All of which brings me back to the matter of NORAD and alien bodies.

In early 1968, Suzanne, then of Gallipolis, Ohio was told an amazing story by her father. According to the tale, Suzanne’s father decided to come clean on something that he knew of the UFO phenomenon. It was something amazing and which, if true, had a bearing on national security.. Suzanne’s father said that in 1965 and while employed at NORAD, he saw, under circumstances that he declined to explain, a series of black-and-white, aerial photographs of three small, large-headed bodies strewn around a desert floor, and which also showed a large amount of silvery, bright debris. The location, Suzanne’s father said, was New Mexico, and the photos were taken in 1947. This strongly suggests the now-famous Roswell affair of 1947 – although, admittedly, Suzanne’s father made no reference to Roswell at all. Suzanne was warned by her father not to reveal what he had told her until after his death – which occurred in 1981. Such was the concern, and even fear, in her father’s voice, however, Suzanne chose to remain silent until the late-1990s.

A very similar account surfaced from Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt – who have both dug deep into the intricacies of the Roswell affair. Commenting on those who had either direct or indirect access to actual crash- recovered exhibits of alien technology or alien remains, Schmitt and Randle stated the following in their 1991 book, UFO Crash at Roswell:  “There are others, however, who have firsthand experiences, but who did not see the bodies. They, through their work with the military, saw files containing notes about the crashes and photographs of the bodies. One of those is a man who said he worked at NORAD in Colorado Springs. In the course of computerizing some of the files, he came across one labeled: USAAF (United States Army Air Force) Early Automation. The file dealt with the recovery of several small bodies and included black and white photographs of them. The man said the bodies were small, no more than four or five feet tall, with big heads.”

NORAD jets

There’s no doubting the fact that both accounts have similarities. First and foremost, there is the NORAD connection. Second, both men – Suzanne’s father and the Schmitt-Randle source – claimed, during the course of their work at NORAD, to have seen photos of small, unusual bodies. In both cases, the photos were black-and-white. Of course, none of this proves anything at all – indeed, one story may well be a fabrication, or an elaboration, based on the other. Like the stories coming out of Area 51 and Wright-Patterson, the NORAD tales are intriguing. But, right now, that’s all they are. Unless you know better…

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

When UFOs Buzzed the White House and the Air Force Blamed the Weather

DAVE ROOS

UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. caused a stir in the White House in 1952.

(Credit: Bettmann Archive)

1952 was the year America caught flying-saucer fever.

So when a rash of strange sightings was reported in the skies over Washington D.C. that summer, the press and the public demanded answers. Were these unexplained radar blips, crafts that in some cases outran jets, part of a nuclear-armed Soviet invasion—a very real threat at the height of the Red Scare? Or were they evidence of something far more mysterious?

The Washington, D.C. sightings of July 1952, also known as “the Big Flap,” hold a special place in the history of unidentified flying objects. Major American newspapers were reporting multiple credible sightings by civilian and military radar operators and pilots—so many that a special intelligence unit of the U.S. Air Force was sent in to investigate. What they found—or didn’t find—along with the Air Force’s official explanation, fueled some of the earliest conspiracy theories about a government plot to hide evidence of alien life. 

UFO mania takes hold

It all started in 1947, when a search-and-rescue pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported nine “saucer-like things…flying like geese in a diagonal chainlike line” at speeds exceeding 1,000 m.p.h. near Mount Rainier in Washington State. Within weeks, “flying saucer” sightings had been reported in 40 other states.

In the name of national security, Air Force General Nathan Twining launched Project SIGN (originally named Project SAUCER) in 1948, the first official military-intelligence program to collect information on UFO sightings. Its investigators dismissed the vast majority as hoaxes or misidentifications of known aircraft or natural phenomena.

But a few cases remained “unexplained.”

By 1952, the UFO-investigation unit was called Project Blue Book, led by Captain Edward Ruppelt at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Ruppelt and his team would probably have continued to investigate a couple dozen sightings a month if not for the April 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Just above its knockout cover shot of Marilyn Monroe ran an equally eye-catching headline: “There is a Case for Interplanetary Saucers.”

The article, written with Ruppelt’s full cooperation, explained the Air Force’s national-security interest in UFOs. And it made a convincing case—through the colorful retelling of 10 unexplained UFO “incidents”—that these unidentified objects were extraterrestrial in origin. As one rocket scientist working on “secret” projects for the U.S. told LIFE: “I am completely convinced that they have an out-of-world basis.”

According to The Washington Post, the number of UFO sightings reported to the Air Force jumped more than sixfold, from 23 in March 1952 to 148 in June. By July, the precise conditions were in place for a wildfire of UFO mania: widespread Cold War anxiety, mainstream press coverage of unexplained UFO incidents and a healthy dose of “midsummer madness.” All that was needed was a spark.

The Washington National Airport, 1953.

(Credit: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Mysterious radar blips buzzing over the White House

Shortly before midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1952, air-traffic controller Edward Nugent at Washington National Airport spotted seven slow-moving objects on his radar screen far from any known civilian or military flight paths. He called over his supervisor and joked about a “fleet of flying saucers.” At the same time, two more air-traffic controllers at National spotted a strange bright light hovering in the distance that suddenly zipped away at incredible speed.

At nearby Andrews Air Force Base, radar operators were getting the same unidentified blips—slow and clustered at first, then racing away at speeds exceeding 7,000 mph. Looking out his tower window, one Andrews controller saw what he described as an “orange ball of fire trailing a tail.” A commercial pilot, cruising over the Virginia and Washington, D.C. area, reported six streaking bright lights, “like falling stars without tails.”

When radar operators at National watched the objects buzz past the White House and Capitol building, the UFO jokes stopped. Two F-94 interceptor jets were scrambled, but each time they approached the locations appearing on the radar screens, the mysterious blips would disappear. By dawn of July 20, the objects were gone.

‘I tried to make contact with the bogies’

Nobody bothered to tell Ruppelt, the Air Force’s lead Project Blue Book investigator, about the sightings. He found out a few days later when he flew into Washington, D.C. and read news reports. Ruppelt tried to get out to National and Andrews to interview radar operators and air-traffic controllers, but was denied a government-issued car or even cab fare. Frustrated, he flew back to Ohio with nothing.

The very next Saturday, the UFOs were back over the nation’s capital. Again, Ruppelt found out through a phone call from a reporter, and immediately called on two Air Force colleagues to check out the situation at National. The same radar blips were back, and radar operators wondered out loud if the dozen or so objects on their screens couldn’t be caused by a temperature inversion, a common phenomenon in D.C.’s hot, muggy summer months.

A temperature inversion occurs when a layer of warm air forms in the low atmosphere, trapping cooler air beneath. Radar signals can bounce off this layer at shallow angles and mistakenly show near-ground objects as appearing in the sky. Ruppelt’s Air Force colleagues, however, were convinced that the objects on the radar screen weren’t mirages, but solid aircraft.

To be safe, two more F-94 jets were scrambled to chase down the unidentified targets appearing on radar screens at both National and Andrews. A game of high-speed Whack-a-Mole ensued, where the jets would race to a location targeted by radar, only for the blips to vanish. Finally, one of the jet pilots caught sight of a bright light in the distance and gave chase.

“I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet,” the pilot later told reporters. “I saw several bright lights. I was at maximum speed, but even then I had no closing speed. I ceased chasing them because I saw no chance of overtaking them.”

Captain Edward Ruppelt, standing, and General John Samford, seated to the right of him, discussing the reports of unidentified flying objects with other Air Force officers at a 1952 news conference.

(Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Averting mass panic with a disputed theory

The next day, newspaper headlines across America screamed “Saucers Swarm Over Capital” and “Jets Chase D.C. Sky Ghosts.” The publicity and public panic over the sightings were so great that President Harry Truman himself asked aides to get answers. When they called Ruppelt, he said it could have been caused by a temperature inversion, but more investigation was needed to fully explain both the radar images and credible eyewitness accounts.

But before such an in-depth investigation could take place, the Air Force called a press conference, the longest such news event since World War II. The Air Force brass had decided, without consulting Ruppelt or the Project Blue Book team, that the best response to the sightings was to feed the press and the public an easy-to-swallow explanation.

Dodging specific questions about what pilots and radar operators had seen in the skies over the Capitol, Major General John Samford came back again and again to the temperature-inversion theory. Never mind that Ruppelt had since come to the opposite conclusion.

“The investigators had ruled out the inversion,” says Alejandro Rojas, editor of the UFO news site OpenMinds. “They had examined that situation. The radar operators said, ‘Inversions happen. We know what inversions look like. This is not an inversion. This is not the same thing at all.’”

To Ruppelt’s disappointment, the Air Force’s press conference worked exactly as planned. The papers reported the temperature-inversion story and the public largely seemed to accept it. In his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Ruppelt reports that after the press conference, UFO sightings dropped from 50 a day to 10.

Skeptics, however, weren’t satisfied with the pat government response. Many accused Air Force and Project Blue Book investigators of devious behavior and secret knowledge. It wasn’t until Project Blue Book documents were made public WHEN that UFO sleuths could see that the closest thing to a government cover-up of UFO sightings in the nation’s capital was actually a conspiracy of ignorance.

“The Washington UFO flap perfectly illustrates the real government ‘cover-up’,” says Nick Pope, a UFO journalist who used to run UFO-investigations unit for the British Ministry of Defense. “It’s not a situation where the authorities conspired to keep some terrible truth about UFOs from the people, but rather, the government doing its best to keep people from realizing that they didn’t have all the answers.”

{ https://www.history.com/news }

Hole That Caused Leak in Russian Spacecraft Possibly Traced to Assembly or Testing: Report

A Drone’s Eye View of the Ancient Pyramids of Egypt, Sudan & Mexico

A couple years ago we featured drone footage shot above Los Angeles, New York, London, Bangkok, and Mexico City, the sort of metropolises that rank among the greatest works of modern man. But the pilot-photographers of small, unmanned, camera-bearing aircraft have produced equally fascinating visual revelations of the great works of not-so-modern-man. Just above, for instance, we have a drone flyover of the Nubian pyramids of Meroë, Sudan. You can see more such footage at National Geographic, whose engineer Alan Turchik has taken his own quadcopter out there.

"The part of the site that draws the most attention is the underground burial chamber of a Nubian king who conquered Egypt in 715 B.C.," writes National Geographic's Nora Rappaport. She quotes Turchik on the benefits of his chosen photographic technology, which allows him to "fly over and gain this connection between all the other burial sites, between the pyramid and the temple, and get an understanding of what that is from the air.”

That holds just as true for other sites of interest, such as the famous pyramids of Giza, captured just above by a traveler-drone photographer from China. (Flying drones in Egypt, we should note, has recently become a more difficult proposition; an enthusiast called Izzy Drones made a video on the complexities of his own mission to shoot the pyramids last year.)

Just as you'll visit the pyramids if you take a trip to Cairo, you'll visit the pyramids if you take a trip to Mexico City — but the pyramids of the still-impressive, still-mysterious ancient city of Teotihuacán. "Helicopters illegally fly over this area for foreign dignitaries, but we were told we might be the first to have filmed the pyramids with a drone," writes the uploader of the video just above. He and his collaborators shot it early one morning for a Boston University research project on "what the ruins of a pre-Aztec metropolis can teach us about today’s cities." History and urbanism buffs alike will want to read the accompanying article, but even just a glance at these clips tells you one thing for sure: whether old and long-ruined or relatively new and thriving, every city looks good from above.

Related Content:

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• A Beautiful Drone’s Eye View of Antarctica
• A Drone’s Eye View of Los Angeles, New York, London, Bangkok & Mexico City
• The Best Drone Cinema in the World

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

{ http://www.openculture.com/ }

D’étranges OVNI bleus filmés en Allemagne

Un homme a photographié de mystérieuses lumières bleues dans le ciel. Beaucoup pensent qu’il s’agissait d’un OVNI.

Lorsque Rolf Ernst a regardé le ciel nocturne au-dessus de Gundelsheim il y a un peu moins de trois semaines, il a vu quelque chose d’inexplicable. Environ 50 lumières bleues volaient entre Heidelberg et Nuremberg. Il a regardé cette scène pendant cinq minutes. Après cela, les lumières n’étaient plus visibles. Maintenant, le témoin se demande ce qu’il a vu cette nuit-là. En raconte son histoire au journal echo24.de le 18 août 2018, il s’est rendu compte qu’il n’était pas le seul à les avoir vus.

« Quels étaient ces objets volants étranges ? », s’est questionné le témoin tout en publiant une photo de son observation. Dès lors, des journalistes ont enquêté sur l’origine de ces lumières bleues. Ces lumières non identifiées pourraient avoir une explication rationnelle selon eux.

Au cours de cette enquête, ils ont constaté que ces lumières n’avaient pas été seulement visibles à travers Gundelsheim – et pas seulement le 18 août. A plusieurs reprises, des personnes ont signalé avoir assisté à ce même phénomène sur le site Web ufowatch.de. A chaque fois, il s’agissait d’une multitude de petites lumières qui se déplaçaient de manière uniforme, mais très rapidement dans le ciel.

Ces OVNI ressemblaient à ce qu’avait observé Rolf Ernst. Certains témoins ont même filmé ces lumières surnaturelles.

La photo de Rolf a été transmise à plusieurs observatoires. « Malheureusement, nous n’avons aucune information à ce sujet », a déclaré Volker Lang de l’observatoire Robert Meyer situé à Heilbronn. De plus, des sites d’information ont tenté de résoudre ce mystère, en vain.

Andreas Dobler de la Schwäbische Sternwarte de Stuttgart croit tenir une explication : « Pour nous, cela ressemble à un départ nocturne de ballons à LED. »

Ces objets sont souvent lancés dans le ciel pendant les mariages ou les anniversaires malgré le fait qu’ils soient interdits.

Cette explication vous semble-t-elle satisfaisante ?

Source: Echo24.de, le 6 septembre 2018 – 

Traduction AP

{ https://www.nouvelordremondial.cc/ }

Unique swirl patterns point to the Moon’s magnetic past

 BY ALEXANDRU MICU

The unique swirl patterns may be produced by ancient magma tubes.

An image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Image credits NASA / LRO / WAC science team.

If you prop up a telescope and look at the Moon, you’re likely to see some curious-looking shapes dotting its surface. Many people take them to be craters left over from meteorite impacts, since this is, after all, the Moon.

That would be jumping to conclusions, however, according to a team from the Rutgers University. These bright, undulating shapes are known as ‘lunar swirls’ and up until now, they were somewhat of a mystery.

Cheesy swirls

One of the most striking features of these swirls is that they come hand-in-hand with powerful — but localized — magnetic fields. These swirls, as well as their strange magnetism, have been known for decades. Efforts to map magnetic activity on the Moon (it doesn’t have a magnetic field of its own) during the Apollo 15 and 16 missions were the first to identify these swirls as sources of magnetism back in 1979.

Since then, try as we might, we just couldn’t make heads or tails of the swirls. Each new tidbit of information only seemed to compound the problem further. For example, the swirls are less pronounced and less intricate at higher altitudes. Every swirl has its own magnetic signature, but there are also magnetic fields on the Moon that are completely distinct from swirls. To top it all off, the swirls show geological signs suggesting they’re new formations (they’re much less weathered than the surrounding rocks) — however, they’re definitely not new formations; we’ve seen them up there for decades now.

Reiner Gamma (60 km width, same swirl as above), seen by the Clementine spacecraft.
Image credits NASA.

“The cause of those magnetic fields, and thus of the swirls themselves, had long been a mystery,” said planetary scientist Sonia Tikoo of Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

“To solve it, we had to find out what kind of geological feature could produce these magnetic fields – and why their magnetism is so powerful.”

Computer modeling allowed the team to discover that, in order to fit the observed magnetic signature, each swirl has to form close to or directly above narrow structures that are close to the surface and can create a magnetic field. One structure that would fit this description are lava tubes, or lava dikes — the products of ancient volcanic activity, the team explains.

These tubes are left-overs from the same basalt lava flows which, 3 to 4 billion years ago, created the dark and wide basalt plains seen over the lunar surface. This would explain why those underground formations became magnetized. The magnetic fields generated by the tubes would also deflect incoming solar wind particles, helping to insulate the swirls from weathering effects.

When Moon rock (regolith) is heated to around 600° Celsius (875° Kelvin or 1,112° Fahrenheit) in an environment that lacks oxygen but has a magnetic field, it becomes ‘imprinted’ with this field itself — it becomes magnetized. Heat causes some minerals in the rock to break down, releasing iron, which becomes magnetized across the same direction as the surrounding field.

This process doesn’t usually take place on Earth, because there’s a lot of oxygen here. It can’t take place on the Moon today, because it lost both its lava flows and its magnetic field. However, according to some of the team’s prior research, the lunar magnetic field persisted up to 2 billion years longer. So their hypothesis fits the timeline.

“No one had thought about this reaction in terms of explaining these unusually strong magnetic features on the Moon,” Tikoo said. “This was the final piece in the puzzle of understanding the magnetism that underlies these lunar swirls.”

The team hopes that the next mission to the Moon will study these swirls directly, and confirm or disprove their hypothesis.

The paper “Lunar Swirl Morphology Constrains the Geometry, Magnetization, and Origins of Lunar Magnetic Anomalies” has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

Life on Mars? 40 Years Later, Viking Lander Scientist Still Says 'Yes'

Conspiracy theorists claim Novichok crop circle predicted Dawn Sturgess’ death as giant sign for chemical weapons appeared in nearby field just hours before

Did Google Earth just expose NASA? Bizarre 'pyramid structure' spotted on moon

AN ANCIENT civilisation that lived on the moon has been exposed after a pyramid structure was discovered on the surface, according to wild claims online.

By Callum Hoare 

The bizarre finding was uncovered by Argentinian Marcelo Irazusta as he scoured Google Earth's moon viewing software for any proof of life. 

What he found exceeded his expectations though, as a structure more than two hundred metres tall appears to stick out from the lunar surface.

According to the man, who uploaded the clip to his YouTube channel, there is no way the anomaly could have been created naturally.

And others online seemed to share the same views, claiming the US space agency must be covering something up. 

• 

  Scientists find 250 million-year-old skull from 'massive lizard'

• 

  Nibiru SPOTTED? Bizarre 'red planet' appears beside moon sparking doomsday fears

• 

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"When will people wake up from NASA's lies?" One questioned.

Another added: "What a find – they will have to cover that one up."

And a third claimed: "Pyramids on the moon – wow, this could change science."

But others were not so convinced, claiming the 3D image may have experienced issues rendering.

GOOGLE EARTH

BIZARRE: Could this be proof of an ancient civilisation?

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }