(NASA)

The Great Barrier Reef Was Just Hit by a Flood of Polluted Water Visible From Space

CARLY CASSELLA 

The Great Barrier Reef just can't catch a break. Year after year, this global treasure has been battered by cyclones and beaten by bleaching events. Now, with little time to recover, a part of the reef is being kicked while its down.

An exceptional year of rainfall in Queensland, Australia has caused a huge flood of polluted runoff to rush out to sea, straight towards the reef.

Satellite images show the muddy waters stretching from the swollen rivers of the Whitsundays to Cape Tribulation.

(NASA)

For the nearest reefs, some 60 kilometres away from shore, the floodwater has already arrived, possibly shielding the sun and smothering the life below.

The biggest fear, according to the ABC, is that the muddy waters contain common farming chemicals, like nitrogen or phosphorous, because these could kill off the nearby coral and seagrass.

The longer the murky cloud sits there, the more damage it could do, and without strong winds, the plume of polluted water may take a while to move on.

Right now, it's not clear if or how the runoff has impacted the reef, but there's not a lot more we can afford to lose.

Back in 2016, 93 percent of the reef was reported to be bleached due to unseasonably warm weather, with 50 percent listed as dead or dying, and some think it can no longer be saved.

(NASA)

But there may be an upside to all of this. If the rivers transport cold water out to sea and if the clouds continue to block out the sun, this might be enough to cool down some underwater heatwaves headed for the region in the coming weeks.

"If you want to have a flipside to the story that would be one, yes," marine scientists Frederieke Kroon told the ABC, "but it's still a huge disturbance to the reef [after] the bleaching and the cyclones that we've had over the last couple of years."

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{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

High Speed UFO makes 90 degrees turn without slowing down filmed over Doi Ang Khang, Thailand

When selecting video material for their wedding video, the couple discovered a UFO in the video flying at an incredible speed over Doi Ang Khang, Thailand.

The most fascinating aspect of this UFO fastwalker is the fact that it abruptly makes a 90-degree turn without slowing down.

Again the question, what are these flying objects that manifest themselves in our atmosphere and in space?

Is it possible that these fastwalkers are advanced transport vehicles under intelligent control carrying highly confidence messages or codes from and to certain locations?

The video was made in 2013 but recently uploaded on February 17, 2019. You have to slow the speed of the video (video-settings-speed) to see the amazing movements of the UFO.

  

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

UFO Caught on TV Zooming Over Cleveland, and You Won't Believe NASA's Response

Amid the hype, NBC affiliate WKYC, whose cameras picked up the footage, reexaminedthe video for themselves in HD, and contacted a NASA expert, who told them that the streak was just a bird. 

Thomas Wertman, a local UFO watcher, similarly downplayed the clip's significance, saying that the 'unidentified flying object' was "most likely a gull," and not really anything out of this world.

"I can actually see the wings going up and down and this is not uncommon. I've had some other videos submitted over the past that have turned out to be insects, when you get a very high quality resolution, you can even see the wings going up and down as it goes across the screen," he said.

"So we can move this from the category of unidentified flying object to identified flying object," WKYC concluded.

But WKYC's viewers weren't so sure. On the channel's Facebook page, users insisted that the footage was real, or offered alternative explanations as to what caused the mysterious streak. 

"I don't know what it is but the article says that 'experts' at NASA who examined the video said it was a bird. The experts at NASA who stated this must have a bird brain because of all things it could be it's certainly not a bird," a user named Jim angrily noted. 

"Definitely a UFO," a user named Larry added, saying that at the time in question, he had just parked his car at work in the area "when a light shot across the sky behind the clouds…way too fast for a jet."

Others had alternative ideas, suggesting the blip was a "potato and cheese pierogi," a search light, lightning, a meteor, a blimp, Nancy Pelosi flying on a broomstick, or even God.

"Always someone recording it with a camera that looks like it was HD back in the 70s…can you donate some higher quality cameras to WKYC?" user Keith joked.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

The incredible stories of 3 people who claim to have seen a UFO in Leicestershire

'It was immediately obvious to me that this was not an earthly object'

CGI images of the UFO commissioned by Colin 

(Image: Colin Saunders)

It was 20 years ago, but Colin Saunders can recall every detail of the experience as if it was yesterday.

The 60-year-old, from Barwell, saw something that he will never forget.

He spoke to Leicestershire Live about his experience after we published a video of a bright UFO moving about in the sky over the city and part of the county.

Here is his story, and those of two other people who believe they have seen something extraterrestrial.

"It was the 31st of March, 1999," said Colin.

"We had been out for a bar meal in Warwickshire to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday.

"At approximately 9.30pm, myself, my ex-wife, daughter and mother-in-law headed home.

"We turned onto the Fosse Way, near the village of Monks Kirby, and immediately noticed some bright lights ahead of us.

"The lights were half a mile away and just off the road to the left. The lights appeared deep red, with a bit of white mingled in.

"We drove down, parallel to the lights. We had slowed right down at this point.

"I stared at the four lights, which were in a row, but not level with the ground.

"It was at this moment that I noticed a fifth, smaller, spurious light off to the left hand side.

'It tilted slowly upwards like an airship'

"I stared into the end light, and could see a criss cross of lines, a bit like a traffic light lens. It seemed to pulse very rapidly.

"As I was looking at this light and the lights in general, a shape started to appear around them. The edges looked like the sky was rippling, but they, and the body, I believe, were transparent at that time.

"I could see the shape of a diamond around the lights.

"As soon as I had realised there was an object there, it tilted slowly upwards like an airship or a submarine. The object was now solid and fully materialised in a triangular shape.

"The tilt was not from the centre of the craft but from the rear. It was so low that if it had pivoted from the centre of the craft it would have struck the ground.

READ MORE

• What is this? Bright UFO over Leicester caught on video

"I noticed the surface looked to be alive, it was like a lake of dark grey liquid similar to mercury. The liquid, although tilted quite steeply, looked as though it had waves running up and down the surface, like ripples on a lake in a breeze.

"On top of this 'lake' were silver lines running up and down the surface. They were like raised box sections, which interlocked like an old fashioned maze.

"I could see how the craft's top and bottom surfaces joined to a lighter central core, like a sandwich. No nuts and bolts, rivets or welding seams visible. 

"It was immediately obvious to me that this was not an earthly object."

At this point, said Colin, who is a former aircraft designer, having been employed by Saab Aerospace in the military in Sweden, and Chevron Petroleum in New Zealand, the driver of the car pulled forward so she could reverse into a gateway off the main road.

As she pulled forward, a large hedge momentarily blocked the view of the craft. When they could once more see the spot where it the UFO had been, it had disappeared.

"We got out of the car and it was gone."

Of the object they had seen, Colin said: "We could see a large craft in the distance with strange red lights at the rear. It seemed enormous to me with a huge wingspan.

"At the end of each wing was a steady white light shining up along the top surface.

"It was very, very quiet as we stood there, no smells of any fuel having been burnt.

"During the incident we didn't hear a single noise from the craft, which was the size of a house, hovering by the car."

READ MORE

• More UFO sightings reported in Leicestershire as residents describe 'triangular object' in sky

Since his experience, which Colin described "like meeting God" and "life changing", he has devoted much of his time researching what he saw.

Colin was 40 when it happened. He immediately went home and starting building a model of the craft he believes he saw, which he completed in 2000. He has also had a 3D printed model made of the craft, and commissioned computer-generated imagery to enable him to show at his presentations.

Colin, now aged 60, said: "The years since the encounter have been very interesting for me.

"I have given several presentations to different groups, as well as appearing on television a couple of times with my model.

"The result of this is that many people have come forward to tell me of their own experiences."

Although his story will sound hard to believe to many of us, Colin is not alone.

'I understand this sounds very weird'

In 2014, a man who lives in Earl Shilton had a similar experience in his back garden.

"I was out in the back garden having a cigarette - when I smoked - in the summer of 2014.

"It was late as it was dark. I don't remember exactly the time and date as I had put it to the back of my mind. 

"I usually look up to the stars during clear nights as it's a very nice sight. When I did, I saw a 'fluid' looking triangular craft coming from the west over Earl Shilton.

"I understand this sounds very weird hence I've not talked about it before.

"I don't think I would have noticed it if it had been at a different angle as it was 'cloaked'. I could see stars as if I was looking straight through it, but I could clearly see the triangular shape of the craft and I still remember thinking to myself that it wasn't a very good cloaking device.

"It was moving very slowly and very low with no sound and no lights whatsoever, but it was huge - the size of a football pitch.

"As it got closer visibility got worse - I'm guessing it's all about the angle of view - then I could no longer see it at all.  I managed to see what I assume would be the front right side as it was approaching, then the underneath.

"It was all smooth or fluid with no sharp edges with no markings that I could see."

Another person, who did not want to be named, said: "I have also seen triangular objects moving silently across the sky very low.

"On February 3, 2016, at 17.37, I was travelling from Stoney Stanton towards Earl Shilton. The lights seemed to be heading from Desford way, and following the Earl Shilton bypass across to Barwell.

"I wound down my window as it crossed overhead.

"The lights were very bright. I quite often stargaze and these lights stood out immediately. There didn't appear to be any other lights on it, just the three white lights in a triangle shape.

"They did not flash. The lights were around the size of helicopter’s search lights.

"I would say the height of it when it passed overhead was around 300-400 metres high. I couldn't make out the size of the craft as the street lights made it difficult.

"However, with the distance between the two rear lights and the front light, I would say it was the size of an articulated lorry and more of an isosceles triangle rather than equilateral. There was no sound as it passed over at approx 30mph."

Have you seen anything unusual in the skies that couldn't be explained? Send your pictures and videos to newsdesk@leicestermercury.co.uk

{ https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/ }

UFO spotted leaving Alps Mountain in Switzerland; conspiracy theorists in frenzy

Scott C Waring argued that the UFO above Alps could be either entering or leaving a secret alien base located on the mountain.

By : Nirmal Narayanan

UFO Sightings Daily

Scott C Waring, a popular extraterrestrial researcher who posts UFO-related stories, recently uploaded pictures of an alleged unidentified flying object sighting apparently shot from the Alps mountain Lesyn in Switzerland.

In his post, Waring revealed that the pictures were actually taken on last year, but the alleged UFO came to notice only after closer analysis a few days back. Even though no video of the sighting is available as of now, the photos of the incident have already gone viral on online spaces. 

UFO Sightings Daily

After closely studying the image, Waring argued that this UFO might be actually entering or exiting a hidden alien base in the Alps mountain. The alien researcher also added that the alleged extraterrestrial craft might be using artificial gravity technology which is helping the occupants to stay intact even when the flying object is tilting.

"The UFO is tilted, but for the aliens inside, there is no tilting. The craft would have artificial gravity that keeps the pilots and occupants totally comfortable. The UFO would only be tilted if it was entering or exiting a mountain alien base," wrote Scott C Waring on his website UFO Sightings Daily.

In the website post, Waring assured that extraterrestrial aliens are living in the Alps, and this photograph is an irrefutable piece of evidence that substantiates this fact.

"This is a very rare moment not often seen, let alone photographed. Amazing evidence that an alien base exists below the mountains of Lesyn," added Waring.

However, experts have already ruled out the alien possibility by stating that this anomaly in the photo could be the result of a technical glitch.

The report of this UFO sighting came just a few days after popular conspiracy theory channel 'UFOmania' released footage that shows another flying object spotted during the live feed of Channel 3 NBC. Scott C Waring also checked this clip, and he claimed that aliens are visiting the earth to monitor human activities. Several viewers who watched the eerie footage also argued that extraterrestrials from deep space are gearing up for an invasion.

UFO Sightings Daily

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

Close encounters of the Sparkhill kind! Photographer claims to have snapped UFOs

Marie Kayali has taken hundreds of photos of strange shapes in the sky over her Sparkhill home

By Mike Lockley

A BIRMINGHAM woman claims she is being plagued by UFOs – and says she has the pictures to prove it.

Amateur photographer Marie Kayali has taken hundreds of photographs of strange shapes in the sky over her Sparkhill home.

She has no doubt that each image is evidence of a Close Encounter.

The pictures taken by Marie on her Nikon DS 200 are certainly intriguing.

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She claims to have witnessed strange shapes, both by day and night, since childhood.

“I can zoom in on a plane and get all the detail, but something blocks detail when I try to zoom in on the craft,” Marie says.

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• Major UFO incident after two sets of pilots report objects close to passenger planes

The 60-year-old alleges that she has been stalked by bright orbs, the most common being orange in colour.

She has also spotted triangular and cigar-shaped UFOs in the sky.

“Every single time I decide to take photos, they seem to just appear,” she adds.

“I don’t always see them beforehand.

“In a lot of the videos, they appear after I point the camera somewhere, like they want to be seen."

READ MORE

• The number of paranormal sightings in Birmingham will surprise you

She added: “They seem to have a barrier, like they are blocking a certain percentage of the picture.

“I’ve also noticed that there will be rainbow colours around the sky and spirals before the UFOs appear.

“Sometimes these craft are as low as planes.”

She adds: “Someone or something is controlling these craft that isn’t human or of this world. I think that scares a lot of people.”

READ MORE

• 'Strange light in the sky' spotted above Solihull

Marie’s most baffling series of stills and videos show a nugget-shaped silver object that appears to mutate.

“The sky was so clear that day, not even a dot of a cloud, but something made me take some photos,” she recalls.

“I’ve never seen anything like  these before.

“I use a 300mm lens, the pictures are high-res and when zooming in they are very clear.

“The object can’t be ice because it was a very hot day in June."

READ MORE

• Dozens spot eerie mystery 'ghost plane' in Midland skies

Marie admits many have poured scorn on her extraterrestrial scrapbook.

But she insists seeing is believing.

{ https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ }

3 explanations for ‘Oumuamua that aren’t alien spaceships

Possibilities for the interstellar object include a fluffy fractal and a comet skeleton

BY LISA GROSSMAN

HITTING THE GAS  ‘Oumuamua had its foot on the accelerator as it left the solar system. Some astronomers think the object was spewing jets of gas, as shown in this artist’s illustration, although there’s no evidence of that. Others think it was pushed by radiation from the sun.

NASA, ESA, STSCI

The first known interstellar visitor to the solar system is keeping astronomers guessing.

Ever since it was spotted in October 2017, major mysteries have dogged the object, known as ‘Oumuamua (SN Online: 10/27/17). Astronomers don’t know where it came from in the galaxy. And they’ve disagreed over whether ‘Oumuamua is an asteroid, a comet or something else entirely.

One of the strangest mysteries is how ‘Oumuamua sped up after it slung around the sun and fled the solar system, a motion that can’t be explained by the gravitational forces of the sun or other celestial bodies alone. The most natural explanation is that ‘Oumuamua spouts gas like a comet, which would have given the object an extra push away from the sun — except astronomers saw no signs of such outgassing.

In November, Harvard University astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Avi Loeb sparked a firestorm of media coverage when they suggested that the acceleration could be explained if ‘Oumuamua is an alien spaceship, in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. In particular, the duo suggested, the object could be a solar sail: a large flat sheet less than 1 millimeter thick that uses pushes from starlight to navigate the galaxy (SN: 9/10/11, p. 18). Loeb is part of an organization called the Breakthrough Initiative that has suggested sending solar sails to visit a nearby planet orbiting the star Proxima Centauri (SN Online: 8/25/16). Maybe some other spacefaring civilization sent a similar sail to visit us, Loeb argues.  

Since then, astronomers have been kicking around other origin stories to explain ‘Oumuamua and its bizarre behavior. “Jumping to the conclusion that it has to be produced by extraterrestrial intelligence, I think we don’t have evidence for it yet,” says astronomer Amaya Moro-Martín of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “There are other natural explanations that can be explored.”

Here are three such possibilities.

1. Fluffy ice fractal

To get a push from starlight, an object needs to have a large surface area — to provide more surfaces for particles of light called photons to nudge — and a small mass, so that even tiny amounts of photon pressure can make a difference.

A flat sheet, such as a solar sail, isn’t the only way to harness this radiation pressure, Moro-Martín says. A fluffy, porous structure that resembles a fractal, a geometric pattern that repeats itself on smaller and larger scales, could also be propelled by light, she argues. “Physically it would be the same idea, just the geometry would be different.”

FEELING FLUFFY ‘Oumuamua could have the same porous structure as this interplanetary dust particle, but on a larger scale, researchers say.

H. VOLTEN ET AL/ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS 2007

Dust particles collected in Earth’s stratosphere can have this sort of fluffy fractal form, Moro-Martín says. She also sees similar structures in computer simulations of the way planets grow up in the dusty planet-forming disks astronomers see around other stars. As ice grains in the distant, frigid regions of those disks stick together, the particles develop into fractals.

‘Oumuamua could be one of those still-forming planets that got booted out of its star system before it finished forming, Moro-Martín proposes in a study published February 22 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“If ‘Oumuamua were to have such an origin, it will be very interesting because it will be the first time that we have evidence for what this intermediate stage is,” Moro-Martín says. “We don’t know how the planet formation process proceeds. All we can see are the smallest particles, the dust particles, or the very largest, planets.”

But could a fluffy fractal survive the journey from another star’s planet-forming disk, all the way into the solar system and out again?

To accelerate as much as ‘Oumuamua did, the object must have a density of just 0.00001 grams per cubic centimeter, Moro-Martín estimates. In comparison, graphene aerogel — the lowest-density artificially produced material — is at least 10 times as dense. “It tells you [the object] must be very fragile,” Moro-Martín says.

“The idea that ‘Oumuamua is a fluffy fractal of ice, pushed by radiation pressure from sunlight, is an interesting scenario,” Loeb says. “But there are major challenges that it faces,” including how such a fragile object would survive, he says.

2. Comet skeleton

Planetary scientist Zdenek Sekanina of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., agrees that a fluffy structure could account for ‘Oumuamua’s strange speedup. But he doesn’t think ‘Oumuamua was born with it. Instead, the object is a desiccated comet that lost most of its water and gases when it swooped close to the sun, he proposes in a paper posted January 30 at arXiv.org.

“It’s like a skeleton of the original body, with all the ice out,” Sekanina says.

SKY SKELETON Maybe ‘Oumuamua was a comet that was destroyed as it approached the sun, like this image of comet LINEAR shattering into mini-comets in 2000. If that’s the case, only the skeleton of the original comet was left by the time astronomers spotted ‘Oumuamua.

HAL WEAVER/JHU, NASA

Comets that fly close to the sun often do not survive. But some of these doomed objects have left observable fragments behind, like comet LINEAR. That comet came within 0.7 times the Earth’s distance to the sun in 2000 and left a cloud of mini comets behind, which were observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. ‘Oumuamua faced a harsher situation: It swooped closer to the sun, about 0.25 times Earth’s distance.

Like Loeb and Moro-Martín, Sekanina thinks solar radiation pressure is the best explanation for how ‘Oumuamua sped up. And a fluffy structure is the best way to accelerate with radiation pressure without invoking “little green men sending a sail,” he says. Although ‘Oumuamua is denser in Sekanina’s estimates than Moro-Martín’s, that’s still “just unbelievable,” he says. “It’s like a fairy castle type structure, or gossamer.”

If ‘Oumuamua were a fully solid, icy comet when it approached the solar system, and developed that gossamer structure only after flying close to the sun, that could explain how the object survived a trip through interstellar space.

3. Weird comet or ice shard?

When the Spitzer Space Telescope checked ‘Oumuamua for signs of a cometlike tail, the instrument saw none, meaning only minuscule amounts of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gas would have been expelled, if any. And if you assume ‘Oumuamua’s composition is similar to comets in the solar system, Spitzer’s data suggest that the object must not have been spewing out much water, either.

But if ‘Oumuamua is a strange sort of comet, it could spew water vapor or other noncarbonated gases that Spitzer didn’t detect, which could explain how the object sped up. “‘Oumuamua is made of still water, not Perrier,” quips astronomer Gregory Laughlin of Yale University.  

Laughlin and colleagues are working on a study that suggests that ‘Oumuamua releases a nozzlelike jet of gas whose source migrates across the object’s surface, following the warmth of the sun. That migration would let ‘Oumuamua tumble through space without spinning so fast that it breaks apart. Other comets, including one visited by the Rosetta spacecraft (SN: 11/11/17, p. 32), exhibit this sort of sun-tracking jet.  

“The weirdness is that [‘Oumuamua] would have to be made of pretty pure ice” to explain such outgassing, Laughlin says. It’s not clear if a comet, even a weird one, could be made of pure ice. So it’s possible that it ‘Oumuamua could be an ice shard of a larger body, such as if an icy planet came too close to a larger neighbor and was ripped apart, he says.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to check how ‘Oumuamua is structured now — it’s too far away to make any more observations. The ultimate test will come when — and astronomers think it’s a matter of when, not if — another interstellar visitor comes calling.

“If [‘Oumuamua] was representative of a population, there will be opportunities to get an up-close look at them,” Laughlin says.

Citations

• A. Moro-Martín. Could 1I/‘Oumuamua be an icy fractal aggregate? Astrophysical Journal Letters. Published February 22, 2019. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab05df
• Z. Sekanina. 1I/‘Oumuamua as debris of dwarf interstellar comet that disintegrated before perihelion. arXiv:1901.08704. Posted to arXiv.org January 30, 2019.
• S. Bialy and A. Loeb. Could solar radiation pressure explain ‘Oumuamua’s peculiar acceleration? Astrophysical Journal Letters. Published November 12, 2018. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aaeda8.

Further Reading

• E. Conover. ‘Oumuamua may be a comet, not an asteroid. Science News Online, June 27, 2018.
• E. Conover. Our first interstellar visitor may be a camouflaged comet. Science News Online, December 18, 2017.
• L. Grossman. We still don’t know where the first interstellar asteroid came from. Science News Online, December 1, 2017.
• L. Grossman. An interstellar asteroid might have just been spotted for the first time. Science News. Vol. 192, November 25, 2017, p. 14.
• A. Yeager. See a new mosaic of images of comet 67P from the Rosetta mission. Science News. Vol. 192, November 11, 2017, p. 32.
• T. Siegfried. Visits to Proxima Centauri’s planet are probably millennia away. Science News Online, August 25, 2016.
• A. Witze. Flying on sunshine. Science News. Vol 180, September 10, 2011, p. 18.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

An Exploding Asteroid Blasted Across Mars' Surface in the Last 10 Years

This zoomed-in image shows the impact site.

(Image: © NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Here's the site in 2009:

Here it is in 2016:

The new features are exciting because Mars barely changes, or changes very slowly. University of Arizona researchers counted 21 separate craters in this image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with some of the features up to 23 feet (7 meters) across. They span an area just over 1,000 feet (305 m) across.

"This is a not-so-gentle reminder that although we may think of Mars as not being a terribly active world, especially when compared to Earth, there's still stuff going on there … even if it means importing the action from space," Plait wrote.

And as Live Science has previously reported, "action" like this isn't terribly uncommon in our solar system. In fact, Earth and the moon seem to be going through a bit of a spike in impacts compared to billions of years in the past.

• Fallen Stars: A Gallery of Famous Meteorites
• Space-y Tales: The 5 Strangest Meteorites
• Crash! The 10 Biggest Impact Craters on Earth

Originally published on Live Science.

{https://www.space.com/ }

Planet Nine Likely to Be Found Within a Decade

By Mike Wall 

Artist's illustration of the hypothetical Planet Nine, which may lie undiscovered in the outer solar system.

(Image: © Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC))

Planet Nine will probably be detected within a decade or so, if the putative world does indeed exist, a new study suggests.

Three years ago, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown estimated that the hypothesized Planet Nine — also known as Planet X, Giant Planet Five or Planet Next — is perhaps 10 times more massive than Earth and lopes around the sun at an average distance of 600 astronomical units (AU). (One AU is the Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)

But in a detailed and lengthy new review paper, Batygin, Brown and two other researchers determined that the putative planet is likely smaller and less far-flung than that. 

• Related: The Evidence for 'Planet Nine' in Our Solar System (Gallery)

Orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects and the hypothesized Planet Nine. Orbits rendered in purple are primarily controlled by Planet Nine's gravity and exhibit tight orbital clustering. Green orbits are strongly coupled to Neptune and exhibit a broader orbital dispersion. Updated orbital calculations suggest that Planet Nine is an approximately 5-Earth-mass planet that resides on a mildly eccentric orbit with a period of about 10,000 years.

(Image: © James Tuttle Keane/Caltech)

Observational evidence and computer-modeling work indicate that 10 Earth masses is an upper limit for Planet Nine, according to the new study. Indeed, 5 Earth masses, and an average orbital distance of 400 to 500 AU, are likely to be closer to the actual marks, the scientists found.

And that means Planet Nine is probably easier to spot than scientists had suspected.

"Perhaps counterintuitively, the increase in brightness due to a smaller heliocentric distance more than makes up for the decrease in brightness due to a slightly diminished physical radius, suggesting that Planet Nine is more readily discoverable by conventional optical surveys than previously thought," Batygin and his colleagues wrote in the paper. The study was published online this month in the journal Physics Reports. You can read it for free at the online pre-print site arXiv.org.

Indeed, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project in Hawaii could conceivably spy Planet Nine any day now. And even if the hypothesized world is on the fainter and more distant side, it will probably still be detectable by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is scheduled to come online in Chile in the early 2020s, the researchers said.

"Therefore, Planet Nine — if it exists as described here — is likely to be discovered within a decade," they wrote in the study.

The newly published paper also sums up the case for Planet Nine's existence, organizing the available observations into four main lines of evidence. All four deal with peculiarities in the orbits of small objects way out in the frigid wastes beyond Neptune's orbit.

Such peculiarities are best explained by the existence of a big, distant "perturber," whose gravity has shepherded the objects onto their current paths, the researchers wrote. (The magnitude of this sculpting effect is determined by both the perturber's mass and distance from the sun. So, a smaller-than-thought Planet Nine would have to be closer to the sun to produce the observed results.)

"Although this analysis does not say anything directly about whether Planet Nine is there, it does indicate that the hypothesis rests upon a solid foundation," Brown said in a statement.

This foundation is, indeed, very solid, Batygin said. In a conversation with Space.com last fall, he pegged the probability of the world's existence at "over 90 percent." Another key player in the Planet Nine hunt, Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, is similarly bullish, putting the odds in the 80 to 90 percent range.

It may seem strange that an object considerably bigger than Earth could stay hidden in our own solar system for so long. But Planet Nine's neighborhood is extremely distant; for perspective, Pluto orbits the sun at an average distance of just 39.5 AU. So, Planet Nine is likely to be quite faint, and its orbital path is huge, meaning that astronomers have a lot of celestial ground to search.

"We've covered very little of the sky to the depth that's needed to be covered to find something this faint," Sheppard told Space.com last fall. "You can hide a very big thing in the outer solar system very easily."

• Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now.
• Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.
• Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Chinese satellite snaps rare photo of moon's far side with Earth in the background

Eye-popping image evokes other iconic space photos, including the famous "Earthrise" portrait taken during the Apollo 8 mission.

{ https://www.nbcnews.com/mach }

NASA might spot alien life within the subsequent Mars mission, says Jim Bridenstine

by Denis Bedoya

NASA, the United States space agency has been searching for alien life outside the earth for many years, but until now, no probes have successfully found traces of life in the space. However, Jim Bridenstine, the reigning NASA administrator believes that the milestone alien discovery will happen soon, and he recently revealed that the upcoming Mars missions will find an answer to the billion-dollar question regarding extraterrestrial life.

An artist's illustration of NASA's life-hunting Mars 2020 rover on the Red Planet's surface.

(Image: © Curiosity Didn't Find Life on Mars — But These 2 Future Rovers Might)

As per a report published in The Independent, Jim Bridenstine is quite eager to equip upcoming NASA missions to search for alien life. Bridenstine revealed that future Mars missions by NASA will try to collect samples from the surface of the Red Planet, and will be later taken back to the earth for further research. The NASA administrator also added that studying these samples will help to identify biosignatures that aliens might have left behind.

“We’re going to be able to look at samples and determine if there’s a biosignature in there. The goal is to discover life on another world; that’s what we’re trying to achieve. And because of so many great people in this room, friends, we are well on our way to doing that,” said Bridenstine, Space.com reports.

Bridenstine also talked about the previous findings which indicate that Mars is one planet in the solar system where alien life can be found. Earlier, several reses arch reports have found that organic molecules are there in the Red Planet, and experts also believe that there might be water sources below the Martian surface.

A few days back, Scott C Waring, a popular conspiracy theorist had argued that Mars was once home to an advanced alien civilization. Waring made this conclusion after spotting various anomalies on Mars photos taken by NASA. In a recent post on his website UFO Sightings Daily, Waring also argued that the male-oriented society which once existed on Mars was the reason behind the extinction of life on the Red Planet.

As per Waring, in his research, he has spotted very less female face-like structures on the red planet, and most of the apparent face-like structures he found were males with beards and mustaches. Waring added that the intelligence of female Martian species was ignored by men, and thus the species increased the odds of destroying themselves.

{ https://infosurhoy.com/  }

"The pilot believes he may have been under a laser attack from the ground.

"A bright laser-like light illuminated the cockpit. Immediately after this the main lights (UFO) were observed."

Air Midwest, a flying school based at Wolverhampton airport in Bobbington, has been unable to identify the source of the light. Staff members are now wondering if this event was related to the UFO sightings. They are also unsure if the light source was actually a laser, or if it was caused by something else.

The Express & Star reported last week how two Air Midwest flying instructors, and their two students, reported seeing UFOs on the night of February 19. After the flight, one made a report saying he witnessed two UFOs which were 'large, orange and square'.

They were undertaking night navigation training over Gloucestershire when the sightings occurred, after taking off from Wolverhampton airport.

Both events - the UFOs and so-called laser-light - have left staff members at the flying school baffled.

In the 'laser incident', which took place before the UFO sightings, the affected pilot radioed air traffic control after his student raised concerns.

In the conversation to air traffic control, the pilot said: “Apparently there is someone shining lasers at the aircraft from the bottom of the base-downwind leg."

A while later into the flight, the two Air Midwest flying instructors, who were in separate aircraft, spoke about witnessing the UFOs.

One pilot said to the other: "Behind you at your six O'clock, there is something that looks stationery but has got some peculiar lights on it."

As part of Air Midwest's own investigations, staff members trawled logs from Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), which listed airborne events in the area.

Tim Brannon, director of the flying school, told the Express & Star: "There was no airborne activity that remotely the objects we saw.

The flight school published the pilot's report on its Facebook page. Note, the photograph is not what the pilots saw, but gives an illustration of their encounter

"This is a massive surprise to us as we expected to find an activity that explained the event.

"So as it stands my guys did see still unexplained objects that one would generally refer to as UFOs."

The incident has drawn interest from around the world and it remains a mystery.

The Air Midwest spokesman added: "We at Air Midwest are still expecting a normal explanation at some point but as yet after investigating, we still cannot find an explanation for what four of our pilots saw that evening."

{ https://www.expressandstar.com/ }

• UFO sighting: 'AMAZING' video footage captures BLACK UFO over Britain

UFO footage purporting to show a mysterious rectangular alien space ship flying over East Sussex has resurfaced this week.

“The UFO is a rectangle shape from the side, but a diamond shape from a tilted position.

“Also the fact that unusual tunnel clouds appear in the background make me believe this is a UFO and it may be responsible for making that cloud tunnel.

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

• Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.

What astronomers now characterize as dwarf planets might seem to be little more than large asteroids. But, as planetary scientists have been discovering, dwarf planets can share characteristics with full-sized planets; they are indeed actual worlds. That’s certainly true of distant Pluto, with its blue skies, high mountains, and red snows, not to mention its system of moons. Another example is the dwarf planet Ceres, which resides in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Despite being a lot smaller than the primary rocky planets like Earth or even Mercury, and a lot farther from the sun, we now know Ceres has its own unique and active geological history, too.

One of the most intriguing discoveries about Ceres has been evidence for ancient cryovolcanoes – an icy type of volcano that releases water, ammonia or methane instead of hot molten rock. Now, a new research study – a joint project between the University of Texas at Austin and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) – suggests that shallow meltwater reservoirs of salty meltwater were able to stay liquid for millions of years, thanks to an insulating crust. The findings are related to the numerous bright spots seen on Ceres, in particular the largest ones in Occator Crater, which are sodium carbonate salt deposits thought to be the remnants of cryomagma – salty meltwater – that vaporized after reaching Ceres’ virtually airless surface.

The new peer-reviewed research was published online on February 8, 2019, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. From the summary:

We are testing the hypothesis that the bright spots in the center of Occator crater on Ceres are salts extruded from a large brine reservoir in the crust that melted during the asteroid impact that formed Occator Crater. The age difference between the crater and the salt deposits is approximately 16 million years and it is not clear if the brine can remain molten for such a long time. Our simulations show that an isolated impact-induced cryomagma chamber will cool in less than 12 million years. However, our simulations show that the crustal brine reservoir might communicate with a deeper brine reservoir in Ceres’ mantle. Such recharge could extend the longevity of the impact-induced cryomagma chamber beneath Occator Crater.

Cryovolcanism could help mix chemicals that produce the more complex molecules needed for life, such as on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Scientists are interested in studying how similar processes work on Ceres and whether they could could also create the molecules needed for life to begin. According to lead author Marc Hesse, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences:

Cryovolcanism looks to be a really important system as we look for life. So we’re trying to understand these ice shells and how they behave.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that life itself ever started on Ceres, but the initial chemical interactions needed certainly could have, at least. A subsurface supply of salty water below the surface would have been an ideal environment for that to occur.

The new study focused on the bright salt deposits in Occator Crater. While the crater is about 20 million years old, the deposits are as young as 4 million years old. The cryomagma is thought to have been produced by the impact that created Occator, and was originally estimated to have only been able to remain liquid for about 400,000 years after the impact. But if the deposits are only about 4 million years old, how did the meltwater reservoirs remain liquid so long? To answer that question, Hesse and Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist at JPL, looked closer at Ceres’ crustal chemistry and physics. As Castillo-Rogez explained:

It’s difficult to maintain liquid so close to the surface. But our new model includes materials inside the crust that tend to act as insulators consistent with the results from the Dawn observations.

According to their calculations, the melt reservoir of cryomagma could have lasted for 10 million years. As Hess added:

Now that we’re accounting for all these negative feedbacks on cooling – the fact that you release latent heat, the fact that as you warm up the crust it becomes less conductive – you can begin to argue that if the ages are just off by a few million years you might get it.

The bright spots, including those in Occator, tend to be located in the or near the center of impact craters, which suggests that the impacts created the reservoirs of cryomagma, which then came to the surface through cracks. The salty water evaporated, leaving the salt deposits behind.

The new findings will help scientists better understand how Ceres evolved, according to Jennifer Scully, a planetary geologist at JPL:

They used more up-to-date data to create their model. This will help in the future to see if all of the material involved in the observed deposits can be explained by the impact, or does this require a connection to a deeper source of material. It’s a great step in the right direction of answering that question.

Cryovolcanism is rather common in the outer solar system – it is known to exist, and suspected to exist, on many icy worlds including Ceres, Titan, Pluto, Europa, Enceladus, Triton and others. This icy form of volcanism mimics the “hot” volcanism of planets and moons like Earth, Venus and Io, and shows that even small, cold bodies in the solar system can be surprisingly geologically active – Ceres itself is only 592 miles (952 km) in diameter.

Bottom line: The dwarf planet Ceres had subsurface meltwater reservoirs of salty water (cryomagma) for millions of years, the new research suggests. Whether any kind of primitive life could have ever evolved is unknown, but the environment could at least have allowed the chemistry to begin that would lead to the creation of the kinds of organic molecules that are the building blocks of life.

• Source: Thermal Evolution of the Impact-Induced Cryomagma Chamber Beneath Occator Crater on Ceres
• Via Texas Geosciences

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

On Sunday night, as Americans were settling in for the beginning of the week ahead, many televisions were dialed-in to the 91st Academy Awards, held this year at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Notably, this year’s Oscars ceremony was the first since 1989 to be held in the absence of a host, after repeated failed attempts to secure prospectives that included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, as well as comedian Kevin Hart (who stepped aside after a series of Tweets rose from his past and stirred controversy; it’s a social media trap that has become all-too-familiar to us these days).

However, these weren’t the only notable and controversial things happening with relation to this year’s Oscars on Twitter. As the awards were being given, many people following the proceedings on social media were surprised to see the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chiming in.

“In #BlackPanther,” the CIA’s Tweet read, “a unique metal called #vibranium helped the fictional African nation of #Wakanda become the most technologically advanced country on the planet.” It was accompanied by a poll asking whether viewers thought  “vibranium” was “A real metal,” “Based upon real materials,” “Possible future tech,” or simply “Total fiction”, with the latter option winning at 55%. 

The Tweet was linked to a page about the CIA’s “Reel vs. Real,” described at its website as follows:

Merging the overt world of Hollywood with the covert mission of the CIA, the Agency’s “Reel vs. Real” event seeks to demystify the CIA’s mission by comparing what’s seen on TV to what happens in reality. Former CIA officers join the acclaimed creator and actors from FX’s “The Americans” on-stage at UCLA for a lively discussion about the facts vs. fiction of espionage, CIA tradecraft, and living under cover.

Although Hollywood and entertainment reporting isn’t something we focus on all that often here at MU, the occasional humor that appears on the CIA’s Twitter feed isn’t lost on us. Back in January 2018, Paul Seaburn also reported here on one of the agency’s occasional UFO-related Tweets, which featured a famous UFO photograph in conjunction with a post commemorating World UFO Day.

This wasn’t the first time the CIA used its Twitter account to make references to UFOs. Back in early 2015, as the agency Tweeted about its most-read articles from the previous year, it featured what was likely the first of its Tweets about the subject when it shared the following:

The Tweet linked to an article titled “The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974,” featured as a PDF document which discussed the agency’s high-altitude tests involving the U-2 spyplane in the 1950s.

“[T]esting of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” the report states. Two years earlier, the agency had already released historical documents pertaining to the U-2 Program, which gave the position of the famous Area 51 base near Groom Lake Nevada. There was no Tweet that accompanied this release, however, since the CIA’s Twitter account did not appear online until the following year.

In fact, the CIA’s penchant for the provocative and humorous in its Tweeting habits goes all the way back to its very first Tweet, issued on June 26, 2014, which simply stated, “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.”

Obviously, whoever handles the CIA’s Twitter account enjoys poking a little fun at the tropes associated with their work, and even putting their own spin on a few common internet memes. The agency may have even resorted to posting cat pictures on at least one occasion; but as you might have guessed, we’re not in a position to confirm, nor deny whether such an incident ever occurred… you be the judge.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

It’s 6:30 am.  The coffee’s still brewing, the sun is about to peek over the horizon, and you turn on the local news because you’re a responsible and informed citizen. Or a masochist. The camera pans across Lake Erie and shows Cleveland, Ohio getting ready to meet the day. And then you see it. A glowing white shape comes out of the clouds and wobbles across the sky.  A UFO. You’ve always known this day would come, but never thought it would be live on WKYC. The anchors don’t notice, it was too fast. As Mr. Coffee gives his last gurgle, you don’t know what you’ve just seen and realize it’s going to be one of those days.

Last Thursday, someone in Cleveland had that exact morning.  During their early morning broadcast a strange object briefly appeared on a WKYC camera. It went unnoticed by the anchors, but was soon uploaded to YouTube where it began gaining traction—You can see the video for yourself here. According to WKYC, it was MUFON investigator Thomas Wertman who brought the existence of the clip to their attention. Which shows how dedicated MUFON investigators are. They know what’s on your camera before you do.

The video looks pretty strange. A shape seems to appear out of nowhere over the bay and disappears just as quickly as it arrives. It’s not necessarily how I’d prefer to start my day, and you can see why someone would immediately upload it to YouTube.

No one needs alien nonsense at 6:30 in the morning. Start normal, end weird. That’s my motto.

You’ve got to hand it to WKYC. They actually followed up with MUFON’s Thomas Wertman and invited him into the studio to go over the footage. The benefits of it being unintentionally filmed by a news station means they can prove it’s not doctored, they can slow it down, they can see what’s actually going on here.

And this is where the disappointment comes in. According to Wertman, after seeing the video in full resolution, he believes the the UFO is  just a bird:

“I can actually see the wings going up and down and this is not uncommon. I’ve had some other videos submitted over the past that have turned out to be insects, when you get a very high quality resolution, you can even see the wings going up and down as it goes across the screen.”

Asked if it was safe to say the object in the video had been identified, he said:

“I’m sure we can, because I’ve also gone and scrubbed up any aircraft in the region. I had one helicopter flying around in that region, but no other aircraft in that area that I could pick up on the transponder. So, I’m sure we’re seeing wildlife down along there, most likely a gull.”

Seagulls ruin everything.

Like I said, dedicated. In the slowed down video, you can see what appears to be wings flapping. Although, there has been some winged weirdness in that part of the country recently. Was it mothman? Sorry, I didn’t need to bring him into it. UFOs are one thing, but no one deserves mothman before coffee.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

I often like to look into reports that truly skirt around the periphery of the paranormal and cryptozoology, the cases that stand out as being particularly odd and baffling. Such cases truly tax the imagination and leave us scrambling to try and explain just what in the world could be going on, and challenge our notions of what we think we know. Here I have collected together an eclectic mix of very weird encounters with everything from jellyfish floating through the sky, to squid-like beasts and octopod monsters roaming the wilderness, so sit back, buckle up, and enjoy this journey to the other side of the bizarre.

One of the stranger things one could see soaring through the skies is a jellyfish, but there are actually numerous reports throughout the world of just that. These incredibly bizarre entities are often reported as looking very similar to a typical jellyfish one would find bobbing about in the sea, only in this case soaring through the air, and in some accounts they are described as being able to change density, color, or size, and to be able to go almost completely transparent, and there have even been cases of some sort of bioluminescence present. They are variously reported as moving about on their own through some unknown form of propulsion or merely at the whim of the air currents, and they are always just about as otherworldly as can be.

There have been particularly strange accounts of encounters with flying jellyfish going back decades. In the 1950s a police man in England claimed to have had a run in with a low flying sky jellyfish as he was riding his bicycle on patrol. He claimed that it drifted right down in front of him and that he actually bumped up against it, describing the sensation as similar to brushing up against a soft blanket, and that it had a slightly unpleasant smell of mildew. In 1958 there was also report from Florida, where a policeman named Faustin Galegos found a translucent purple blob about the size of a soccer ball outside of his house. He claimed that when he had approached it seemed to be some sort of dying creature, and when he picked it up the thing just sort of evaporated in his hands.

A more recent account was given on the site Phantoms and Monsters, and comes from a witness in Perth, Australia, who is referred to merely as “BD.” The witness claims that in 2012 he was out in front of his house one evening having a cigarette when his attention was drawn to the curious sight of the light patterns of the stars being disrupted by something passing over them. At first he thought it might be a plane, but it soon became apparent that this was no aircraft. The witness explains:

As it got closer, the way it moved resembled the way a jellyfish would swim if it was horizontal. It was hard to describe, but it looked to be expanding at the front like a balloon, then using that air to propel itself along. It was roughly 100 meters above me and I watched it for 10 minutes. After that it was out of sight. This was during a clear night sky in Australia. I am very familiar with aircraft as I live relatively close to Jandakot airport and we see/hear them all the time. It was certainly not a machine of any kind.

I yelled out to my Mother-in-Law who was staying at the time to come out and look. She also saw it. I filmed it on my smartphone, but being 8pm at night it was pitch black and you couldn’t see anything. If I had to guess, I would say the feeling I was left with is that it was some kind of creature. It moved gracefully and gradually in large deliberate movements. Like a large bird would do with a large flap of its wings, then gliding for a bit, although this was unlike anything I could describe. It appeared to be translucent in parts and remained at the same altitude and speed but just completely silent.

Amazingly, there was a follow up report from a different witness, who claims that he and a friend saw what appears to be the same or a similar creature around Perth at around the same time as this sighting. The witness says of the creature:

I would like to confirm the story of the flying jellyfish like creature as described on your forum by “BD,” There were two of us actually not just myself. We were in Perth CBD actually having a glass of wine on a quite loud jazz music playing balcony about 10 meters from the ground. I am so thrilled to find out there is another person who has seen this. The creature was behaving exactly as described by “BD” so basically like jellyfish but without any long tentacles – about a size of a balloon.

It was kind of changing according to the different colored lighting attached to the balcony and it was flying upwards so effortlessly. It is really precious I have finally found this. I have been searching for so long. I have to be honest I don’t recall the exact day but it must have been the same night as “BD” mentioned. We had seen it around 9-10pm either friday or saturday. The creature wasn’t too shy either meaning it didn’t fly in a hurry. Would gladly put my hand on my heart on this one and now may actually try to find it again, but who knows how often do they appear.

A very odd claim was posted on the site Norcalblogs, from a commenter calling himself Pie Guevara, who claims that his uncle, an Oscar Guevera, had taken part in a scientific survey of these sorts of creatures in the 1950s and 60s. The remote areas north of San Fransisco had apparently experienced a spate of sightings for over a decade of what were usually referred to as “Space Jellies,” which would congregate in the upper atmosphere along the coast, after which they would soar up into the upper atmosphere out of sight. Pie provides a letter that he allegedly received from his uncle, which outlines the phenomenon and his study of it, and reads:

This coalescence of “space jellies”, as we called them, was assumed to be part of a seasonal migration pattern in and about the western Pacific. With a small joint grant fund from several philanthropic scientific organizations (which shall remain unnamed), I developed a small, high altitude, long distance ultralight aircraft (the first of its kind) assisted by an in-flight deployable and detachable ovoid helium balloon. This platform was developed as it had become evident through observation and experimentation that the behavior of these creatures was disturbed by the approach of larger aircraft. It was not by coincidence that the craft bore a distinct resemblance to the large, presumably mature form, of “space jelly” creatures themselves.

Working within a shoe-string budget, I deployed a modified aqualung attached to a motorcycle helmet and a small forge bellows that was fashioned into a crude but effective and light weight re-breathing system for high altitudes. For warmth I wore a gorilla suit (procured from a costumer’s auction in Emeryville) and had it fitted with a lining of goose down. From below the aircraft was lowered a fair sized grappling hook with several large mackerels tied to it with bailing wire. Inside of six weeks in the fall of 1973 I had snagged most of these diaphanous jelly fish like buggers. None of the captured survived the experience and within minutes dissolved into an odd steamy smoke. On my final expedition, as per standard operating procedure, I reached the specified location at an altitude of 9500 feet, deployed the balloon, and floated up into the remaining few of these creatures which, apparently, died of fright on the spot, dissolving into threadlike wisps before me.

Besides the regrettable loss of the subjects under study there was one more unfortunate circumstance. On the last mission, after jettisoning the balloon, I was flying in from the Pacific over the Farallons at about 5000 feet towards my hidden base of operations in a remote area of [redacted]. I was spotted by a US Navy crew on a practice and shakedown cruise flying a restored antique Consolidated Vultee PB2Y Coronado that was to be displayed in a few days at a Fleet Week exposition near Fisherman’s wharf. They veered off course, followed me, and executed a close and slow pass-by over San Francisco Bay. So close I could see the faces of the pilot and crew. The flying boat then abruptly dropped altitude and beached near the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in what, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be an emergency landing.

Weeks later I learned, through some Navy sources in Vallejo who hung out Fridays at the [redacted] Bar and Grill, that the pilot and crew recovered from the plane had babbled incoherently and for days all they could get out of them was, “Flying fish bear … flying fish bear …” Needless to say this story has never been declassified and likely never will be. The only reason I relate it now is lay to rest any fears that may still exist about these creatures and confident in the knowledge that no one in their right mind would ever actually believe it.

This is truly a far-out and spectacular account, and one can’t help but wonder how much veracity any of it holds. A guy in a gorilla suit collecting flying jellyfish from the upper atmosphere? Flying Fish Bears? It is all quite beyond bizarre. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. In December of 1999 there was a rather unusual sighting of something like this at Vitebsk, in the Republic of Belarus. The two witnesses described the object as being somewhat tubular or cigar-shaped, with a front part that was rounded and asymmetric, and a rear part that seemed blurred. It was apparently a blue and red color, and exhibited a somewhat transparent quality, as well as what looked to be some sort of flickering bioluminescence. Whatever it was moved with a sort of undulating movement and made no noise during the sighting, and after a while it was reported as just vanishing into thin air. The witnesses would claim that it was not an aircraft, and that they had had the distinct impression that it was a living creature, saying it somewhat resembled an animal known as the glass squid (Cranchiidae).

Glass squid

What could such creatures be? One idea is that they are a type of theoretical organism known as an “atmospheric beast.” Atmospheric beasts, or atmospheric life-forms, as they are often called, are said to be organisms that live their entire lives floating high in the atmosphere, undetected by humans. These creatures are most often described as having bodies that are semi-solid, or almost insubstantial, with some reports even claiming that they are able to adjust their density from almost immaterial and invisible to more solid, depending on as yet unknown factors. Numerous theories have been posited as to how such seemingly fantastical organisms could manage to stay adrift in the air, such as air bladders or very low body densities.

The appearance of these atmospheric beasts varies wildly. Accounts have variously described them as amorphous and cloud-like behemoths, finned squid-like creatures, floating jellyfish, translucent, vaporous blobs, flitting rods, amoeba-like organisms, gelatinous oddities, and even dragons. The sizes of atmospheric beasts likewise run the gamut from tiny and bird-like, to gargantuan monsters hundreds of feet long. Although these enigmatic creatures are said to typically lurk too high in the atmosphere or to be too insubstantial to see with the naked eye, there are instances when one might become observable for some reason. Indeed, there has been a substantial amount of sightings reports over the years from all over the world describing unusual flying monsters that do not fit into the typical mold of thunderbirds or other flying cryptids. These atmospheric life forms have even allegedly been photographed, and there have been reports of the gelatinous remains of dead ones on occasion. Are such sightings evidence of this type of lifeform?

While flying jellyfish are weird enough, let’s move on to something just about as strange. One thing that one would not typically expect to find out walking around on land is an octopod beast, but there have been some downright surreal reports of these as well. One earlier and very weird case comes from the battlefields of World War II, in particular the Battle of Okinawa, in Japan. Lasting from April until June of 1945, the 82-day-long battle was envisioned as the first step in a planned eventual invasion of the Japanese Okinawa Islands and on to the mainland. It was the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific Theater, and saw some of the fiercest, most intense, and bloodiest fighting of the entire war. From here among the many scattered dead bodies strewn about in the aftermath of the fighting come some odd tales of encounters some Japanese troops allegedly had with something very bizarre indeed.

Fighting at the Battle of Okinawa

There are some scattered stories of Japanese troops surveying the smoking battlefields and telling of seeing what appeared to be very large octopuses picking through the corpses. These creatures were said to be around 4 feet in height, and rather than slither about like one would expect a normal octopus to do, they were said to walk about on their tentacles with their heads held above the ground. When one of the beasts was startled or on alert, it would apparently stretch its tentacles up to hold its head higher, like a camera mounted upon a tripod. Making it all more sinister is that the soldiers who saw these creatures claimed that they seemed to be actually coming to feed upon the corpses of the fallen. It is hard to know what to make of these reports, and one wonders if it just wasn’t a spooky forgotten wartime legend of the battlefield.

Then we have what has come to be known as the “Octosquatch.” In the summer of 1961, a 29-year-old truck driver named Arquimedes Sanchez was driving along a precipitous mountain road through the Basque mountains in Spain at around 11PM, along with an unnamed companion, on their way to the town of Puerto de Barazar. As they rounded a bend, their headlights hit a bizarre and rather monstrous being standing upon an embankment nearby, which prompted the pair to stop their vehicle.

When they peered through the murk ahead of them they claim that they saw a “hairy octopus,” which stood around 4 feet tall, with glowing eyes and “tentacle-like” arms. The witnesses and the thing apparently sat there completely frozen and immobile for several minutes, both parties probably just as startled and scared as the other, before Sanchez snapped out of it and slammed the accelerator, which caused the weird apparition to scurry backwards away from the threat, after which Sanchez backed up and tried again, apparently intent on running it over. Interestingly, the otherworldly intruder refused to take off into the night, instead always just managing to avoid being run over, as if it were all a game. Finally the two men, neither who were willing to step out of the vehicle to investigate, drove off to leave the being behind, never to be seen again.

In more recent years, in December of 2014 there was a very odd report taken by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), concerning an outlandish bipedal creature that was sighted and almost hit by a car in the vicinity of the sleepy town of Carmel, in Highland County, Ohio. The witnesses, a former Marine and his wife, had just moved to the area, and one evening they were driving along the rural road through a wooded area towards their home when a 7-foot-tall creature with muscular, very bendable, tentacle-like legs, and a tubular body without any arms or head ran in front of their car and into the woods on the other side of the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by the vehicle in the process.

It would later be described as being a dull, sickly grey in color and looking sort of like a “walking squid,” and after the report was featured in the local paper there was a lot of speculation as to what it might be. One of the most popular ideas is that this was merely a misidentified deer that had just happened to be witnessed in a strange, bipedal pose. This sort of makes sense, as white-tailed deer are known to rear up on their hind legs and even take a few steps in that position, but it seems odd that one would walk so far, and it doesn’t really seem to totally match the witnesses’ description. Interestingly, the witnesses also claimed that there was a large sphere of grass near their house that is always greener than the surroundings and where snow does not gather, so make of that what you will. Whatever it is, the “Walking Squid” Of Carmel, Ohio, is a truly bizarre case that can’t easily be explained away.

Here we have looked at an array of utterly bizarre tales of jellyfish, squid, and octopus-like creatures popping up in the oddest of places. These obviously could not be considered normal examples of these types of animals, so what were they? Some sort of undiscovered species? Aliens? Interdimensional interlopers? Are they just tall tales or hallucinations? No matter what the answer may be, these are certainly highly odd cases that go beyond the strange, and elude any easy classification.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Jim Marrs Presents Remote Viewing Aliens and UFOs

Jim Marrs – Remote Viewing Aliens and UFOs – Lecture from the 2011 International UFO Congress. Jim Marrs has written about government projects to establish remote viewing groups. An interesting side note to this psychic spying project is that many remote viewers have made discoveries regarding UFOs and extraterrestrials. Marrs will show us some of the amazing findings that top remote viewers have recovered. Jim Marrs is a former journalist and a bestselling author. He primarily focuses on government cover-ups and conspiracies. His book Crossfire, an investigation into the death of John F. Kennedy, was turned into the movie JFK by Oliver stone. While researching the power elite, he also discovered the reality of the UFO cover up and has written extensively on his findings on this matter. www.jimmarrs.com Jim Marrs unfortunately left us early. He passed on August 2, 2017. Fortunately, we can still enjoy the fruits of his efforts. Enjoy.

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

Dr. John Alexander – UFO Research and the U.S. Government

John Alexander is a retired Army Colonel who has been a critical figure in the field of non-lethal weapons and also played a role in U.S. Army Intelligence research in the paranormal. In the 1980s John put together a group of intelligence officials, members of all branches of the military and the defense aerospace industry to investigate UFO secrecy. His group was called the Advanced Theoretical Physics (ATP) project. In this episode, we discuss the similarities between John’s ATP and the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Due to the attention the disclosure of the existence of AATIP has garnered, there is a resurgence of interest in the UFO topic in Washington D.C. Relying on John’s insider knowledge on how the government works, we also discuss the difficulties a UFO research program would have functioning inside the government, the concerns the military or other credible organizations may have hosting a UFO program, and whether a government UFO program is the best option for resorcin into the UFO Phenomenon.

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

Navy UFO Events Took Place Off the Coast of Florida AND VIRGINIA

{ https://silvarecord.com/ }

Project Blue Book Episode 7 Review: The Scoutmaster

On this week's Project Blue Book, swamp gas attacks scoutmaster as Quinn forks Russian spy.

REVIEW Alejandro Rojas

Project Blue Book Episode 7

Project Blue Book continues to be much more exciting than real-life events, even though the real story is about the Air Force investigating potential alien spacecraft. This week, Hynek invokes the swamp gas theory for a UFO sighting, later revealing the case to be a hoax, while Captain Quinn discovers he is the victim of deception as well.

Captain Quinn is on special assignment for General Harding. Someone stole something important from the Air Force base Hynek and Quinn visited in the last episode, and Harding tells Quinn he thinks it was Edward Rizzuto. Rizzuto is the Russian spy Quinn caught. Harding is sending Quinn to question Rizzuto. Quinn’s form of questioning is brutal. First, he roughs up Rizzuto, and then he makes him breakfast with a gun on the table. At one point Rizzuot pisses off Quinn, so Quinn sticks a fork in his hand. Ouch!

Quinn eventually leaves Rizzuto’s apartment, and Harding comes in. It turns out Rizzuto and Harding were setting Quinn up. Harding suspects Quinn was the thief. Quinn overhears Harding and Rizzuto and confronts Harding. Harding said he had to test him because they found the object missing after Quinn and Hynek had left. He also explains how he turned Rizzuto into a double agent.

When told all of this, Quinn’s expression revealed he knows who might have the mysterious important object. Although we as the audience can tell from his mannerisms, Quinn knows something. Fortunately, Harding doesn’t notice. I am being sarcastic of course. I find it funny when characters play to the audience, and the other characters miss their obvious reactions.

Meanwhile, Hynek has gone to Bowling Green, Ohio to investigate the Bowling Green Massacre. It turns out there was a massacre, and it was an alien who was gunned down mercilessly. A scoutmaster was camping with his troop when they all witnessed lights in the forest. The scoutmaster told the kids to stay put while he investigates. There is then yelling and gunshots. The kids find a charred and burning forest, but their scoutmaster is gone.

further reading: 9 Facts About Project Blue Book

Hynek comes on the scene and joins a town hall meeting on the matter. He explains to the townsfolk it could be a case of swamp gas. Swamp gas, also known as marsh gas, is a condition in which rotting vegetation can produce flammable gasses. It is rare, but these gasses can then ignite in the right circumstances. The townsfolk do not like his explanation.

As Hynek is explaining this trying to convince the townspeople, the scoutmaster wonders into the room, battered and singed. So much for swamp gas, Dr. Hyenk. The scoutmaster explains that he saw an object above him in the forest that night. Then a creature came out of the object. Naturally, the scoutmaster shot at it, and it appeared he go it. 

Hynek takes the scoutmaster back to the scene of the encounter, and they find an alien looking skull in the ground. Hynek takes the skull to a local Choctaw who is visibly upset. It turns out this skull was stolen. It is a skull that looks alien because the head has been elongated by head binding. Some cultures place binding around the skull of a child beginning at birth to cause the skull to change shape. The Choctaw man explains this was first done in honor of the “Star People.”

In the end, Quinn confronts Hynek who denies having stolen anything.

This episode is undoubtedly full of twists and turns, and it keeps the audience on their toes. As far as aliens go, the UFO case in this episode turned out to be a hoax, but there is still a matter of the mysterious alien-looking object. At the end of the episode, Hynek puts it in the backseat of his car and his tail lights get bright and crack.

The Project Blue Book Files

In this episode, Hynek is a little annoying with his debunking. He is getting a bit like Quinn insisting on prosaic answers. Perhaps it is because Hynek is fighting the alien answer externally while inside he is becoming more accepting of the possibility. He does seem to be mystified by the mysterious object, and he admitted that the green fireballs in the previous episode appear to be too advanced to be human technology.

Some people got annoyed by the real Hynek's debunking as well. Perhaps the most notable is Gerald Ford. Before he was president, Gerald Ford was a congressman from Michigan. In 1966 there were many mysterious UFO sightings in Michigan. Some of those sightings made headlines. During a press conference, Hynek infamously suggested the lights could be swamp gas. Like in the show, this explanation did not sit well with locals. Ford’s office responded in a press release that stated, “Ford is not satisfied with the Air Force explanation of the recent sightings in Michigan and describes the ‘swamp gas’ version given by astrophysicist J. Allen Hynek as flippant.”

Ford even suggested, “Congress investigate the rash of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects in Southern Michigan and other parts of the country.”

Congressional investigations never happened, and when Ford became president, he did not pursue UFO investigations. But he and the state of Michigan were not impressed with Hynek. To this day the term “swamp gas” is used as a joke by UFO enthusiasts to explain away UFO sightings mockingly.

The primary case in the episode was the sighting by the scoutmaster. This was based on a real incident that occurred in West Palm Beach in August 1952. Scoutmaster D.S. DesVergers claims that he was driving with several of his scouts when they saw a light in the forest. He told the boys to stay in the car while he investigates. He claimed to see a large disc-shaped object in the sky that opened up and emitted a red orb. The orb moved towards DesVergers and grew into a haze that engulfed him. He then claims to have lost consciousness.

• read more: Aliens in America: A History of UFO Storytelling

The next thing he remembers is waking up leaning against a tree. He could barely see, but he made his way back to the highway and found the boys. Local authorities had also arrived.

Project Blue Book Chief Captain Edward J. Ruppelt personally investigated the case. Ruppelt says one of the deputies on the scene who had witnessed DesVergers come out of the forest told him, “In all my 19 years of law-enforcement work, I’ve never seen anyone as terrified as he was.”

At first, Ruppelt seems to believe DesVergers. There was even some physical evidence at the scene in the form of singed grass. However, in the end, Ruppelt concluded the case was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by DesVergers and his scouts. His conclusion was likely influenced by the discovery that DesVergers had a criminal record. Of course many argue Ruppelt’s conclusion was unfounded.

Images of the singed grass and the area where the alleged UFO encounter took place can be found in the Project Blue Book files. In an article on the case on the History Channel’s website, more images can be seen, but I could not find more of the original Blue Book files on this case.

Whether or not aliens are to be blamed for the alleged attack on scoutmaster DesVergers will continue to be debated. As for the show, whether or not aliens have anything to do with UFOs is also still unclear. We are learning a lot about Russian espionage, mind control, and men in black related to Project Blue Book, which is all fictional, but what about the aliens?

History has renewed the series for a second season, so audiences must be liking the show. It could be that viewers like exploring alternate conspiracy theories to the idea that UFOs are aliens. I appreciate that line of thinking because it seems like I have to continually remind people the U in UFO does not stand for aliens, it stands for Unidentified. Meaning, we do not know what the hell is going on.

• Keep up with Project Blue Book news and reviews here.

Alejandro Rojas writes and blogs about science, entertainment, and the paranormal. Alejandro has spent many hours in the field investigating anomalous phenomena up close and personal. You can find him on Twitter here.

{ https://www.denofgeek.com/ }

Alien technology in the hands of army! Testor model kits for Roswell UFO, and U.S. top secret aircraft.Videos.

By Tom Keller, an aerospace engineer who has worked as a computer systems analyst for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. he said:

“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects, and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity

Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.”

“We now have the technology to take ET home. No, it won’t take someone’s lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations. We know what it is. We now have the capability to travel to the stars.

First, you have to understand that we will not get to the stars using chemical propulsion. Second, we have to devise a new propulsion technology. What we have to do is find out where Einstein went wrong.”

When Rich was asked how UFO propulsion worked, he said, “Let me ask you. How does ESP work?” The questioner responded with, “All points in time and space are connected?” Rich then said, “That’s how it works!

Ben Rich Lockheed Former Director knew of extraterrestrial UFO visitors

Lockheed „Skunk Works“ former director knew the Roswell extraterrestrial UFO influenced designs of Testor model kits for Roswell UFO models, and U.S. top secret aircraft.

{ https://dailymysteries.com/ }

Life on Mars: my 15 amazing years with Oppy, NASA’s record-breaking rover

BY TIBI PUIU 

“It’s getting dark, my batteries are running low.” With this final poignant message, the most successful mission to Mars – originally planned to last 90 days – ended after 15 years, in a dust storm in June 2018.

Despite efforts to re-establish contact with its solar-powered rover “Oppy”, NASA declared the mission over on February 13 2019. The little robotic geologist had transmitted thousands of images from the surface of the planet, transforming our understanding of Mars and paving the way for future exploration.

In 2003, NASA launched its daring new mission with twin exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity, heralding a new era of discovery on the Red Planet. While not the first rovers on Mars – that was Sojourner on 1997’s Mars Pathfinder mission – they were the first to look beyond the horizon of any stationary landing platform.

With a planned lifetime of 90 days and a range of just one kilometre, Spirit and Opportunity exceeded our wildest expectations. Spirit covered more than seven kilometres and stopped communication in 2010, six years after it landed on Mars in 2004. Oppy continued exploring until mid-2018, setting the record for off-Earth driving distance at 45km.

Chance of a lifetime

Opportunity knocked for me too. Nineteen years ago, searching for a dissertation topic in the final year of a physics degree at the University of Mainz, I happened to come across an ad on a notice board that read: “Let’s go to Mars!” Incredibly, I was the only respondent and soon found myself working with a group developing a miniaturised Mössbauer spectrometer for Mars exploration. This device identifies iron-bearing minerals – important on Mars, also known as the Red Planet because of the iron oxides (rust) on its surface.

The NASA Mars Surveyor lander, originally due to launch in 2001, had been cancelled because of a landing platform failure. But our spectrometer was selected for an ambitious new Mars rover project. I graduated in 2001 but was hooked and wanted to see this thing through to launch, so I managed to secure a PhD position to carry on working with the development group in Mainz.

Against all odds, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the outskirts of Los Angeles had managed to build two rovers from scratch in just three years to launch in 2003. Our instruments had overcome various challenges to function properly once integrated into the two new rovers and were on board. After celebrating a successful launch, the fickle nature of space flight and the Martian curse, which had rendered about half of all Mars missions a failure, hit home at the end of the year.

The UK-led Beagle 2 lander, which also had one of our Mössbauer spectrometers on board, landed at Christmas time but failed to respond. Our instruments on board the Mars rover were not working properly either when checked during flight. It looked like all our work had been in vain.

Opportunity’s twin, Spirit, was next. It landed successfully to the immense relief of the engineering team. A lot was riding on the rovers’ success for NASA after two failed missions. Now it was time to jump into action. The rover rolled off the platform to investigate the composition of the planet’s surface. Miraculously, our spectrometer worked flawlessly – the first ever extraterrestrial application of Mössbauer spectroscopy on the surface of Mars.

Life of Opportunity

Opportunity landed three weeks later. We only had 90 days to accomplish the mission goals, working at JPL on Mars time (a day on Mars – a “sol” – is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day), ignoring Earthly day and night cycles to make it happen.
What’s more, Spirit and Opportunity had landed on opposite sides of Mars. With the day’s shift on one rover ending, how could we go to bed without knowing what was going on on the other side of the planet?

The rovers had to drive a minimum distance of 600m and use their instruments to find evidence for the past existence of water, and assess past environmental conditions for their suitability for life. The rocks at Spirit’s landing site in Gusev crater were revealed to have a volcanic composition. Which meant if there had ever been any lake sediments inside the crater, they had been covered by a lava flow. Hills visible at the horizon offered some hope of discovery of evidence for past water. But would Spirit be able to get there given that the distance and timescale needed exceeded what the rover had been designed for?

Opportunity had more luck. The crater it landed in revealed sedimentary bedrock that provided evidence for water. Not only had water soaked the rocks, it had also episodically pooled at the surface. Though it was acidic it would have provided a habitable environment for various known microorganisms. Mission accomplished! But what now?

New chapter of exploration

Of course we know the end of this story. Both rovers continued to function many years beyond their original lifetime, making new discoveries that greatly enhanced our understanding of Mars. They established that there was plenty of liquid water on Mars’ surface in the past, and that this wet environment would have been capable of supporting life. The rovers and the thousands of images they beamed back to Earth have made Mars a familiar place. I moved to the University of Stirling in 2013, where I continued my work, and can say I’ve been going to work on Mars for almost 15 years.

Though Opportunty’s mission is over, Mars exploration will enter a new phase with the NASA Mars 2020 rover and the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin, scheduled for next year. This rover will open up a new dimension by excavating material from two metres below the surface. Mars 2020 will kick off the long awaited effort to return rock and soil samples from Mars back to Earth. Both will owe a huge debt to the experience and knowledge gained from Spirit and Opportunity.

Christian Schroeder, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science and Planetary Exploration, University of Stirling

• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

RH Negative: Aliens Genetically Created Us: Overwhelming Evidence (Video)

If you want to rouse passionate opinions – just discuss the origin of the human race. Fervent believers argue the literal, biblical perspective… that we were created in an instant by a Creator … while scientists claim we are the result of pure evolution – and there are many theories inside that. As it turns out, more and more evidence is showing the likelihood that both theories actually hold some truth, …that the human race is, by all means, an evolving species, but also, that there are a multitude of reasons to believe that a more intelligent life form played a role in developing our DNA.

As we unravel more mysteries from our past, more and more physicists, historians, geneticists, and anthropologists are pushing the boundaries of accepted theories by mentioning the “A” word – yes – the dreaded “alien” – and the overwhelming evidence that something played a role in our evolution. So if you’re among those people still laughing off this possibility – because you’ve never seen one – we’d like to bring you up to speed with some of the remarkable discoveries being discussed in the scientific community, ones that prove our genetic makeup has to be more than just a random hand of cards.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

'Aliens ABDUCTED me – and told me the universe's secrets' Shock claims

A PERSON claiming to have been kidnapped by aliens has come forward to reveal bizarre details of their “abduction”.

By Rachel O'Donoghue 

GETTY

TAKEN: The unnamed person claims to have been abducted by aliens

The unnamed man wrote a post on a popular conspiracy forum about his “experience” in the company of extraterrestrials and what they told him.

Among his supposed revelations are that the universe did not come about as a result of the “Big Bang” and that aliens are able to communicate with each other via telepathy.

The bloke writes that his first contact with beings from outer-space happened when he was young when one got in touch with him through his brainwaves.

He the says that since then, he has been constantly conversing with them.

GETTY

CLAIMS: The person says aliens have been communicating with him for years

“I woke up and realized immediately what happened. I was freezing. And soaking wet.”

Alien abductee

He goes on: “For the last 17 years it’s been an on and off again thing. I’d just gone 5 years without any contact or communication incidents, but in Aug 2016, things got very serious, very fast.

“I went to bed one Saturday night just like any other night. But Sunday morning was not anything like any Sunday I’d been through before.

"I woke up and realized immediately what happened. I was freezing. And soaking wet. And I felt like I was in a dream. Have you ever been under anaesthetic? Same feeling when waking up.”

He claims that during this encounter, he was told that the universe was created by something called “The One” – something that is neither alive nor dead, male nor female, but responsible for everything in existence.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

Rh-Negative Blood: An Exotic Bloodline or Random Mutation?

Most people who have the Rh blood type are Rh-positive. There are also instances, however, where people are Rh-Negative. Health problems may occur for the unborn child of a mother with Rh-Negative blood when the baby is Rh-Positive. This has led some to suggest that Rh-Negative blood must be of a non-human origin. Theories range from supernatural ones such as being of divine descent or membership in a divinely chosen people-group, to more scientific or pseudoscientific explanations such as interbreeding with extraterrestrials. The majority of scientists who have studied the blood type have concluded that it is most likely just a random mutation. This explanation seems to be the one most consistent with available evidence and the one that is most able to withstand Occam’s Razor.

What is unusual about Rh-Negative blood is that the gene for it is surprisingly common despite being potentially harmful. When a woman who is Rh-Negative is pregnant with a child that is Rh-Positive, the mother’s immune system creates protective anti-bodies to the Rh-Positive blood, and her blood essentially becomes toxic to the child. To some people, this looks like the mother’s body is rejecting the baby - which has led them to suggest that perhaps the reason for the rejection is incompatibility based on the mother and child being of different species. Others suggest that lineages with the gene for Rh-Negative blood are merely special in some way and were not meant to be mixed with lineages which are predominantly Rh-Positive.

• The Shroud of Turin: Controversial Cloth Defies Explanation as Study Shows it Has DNA From Around the World
• A world map of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry in modern humans
• Scientists Believe they Have Found the Origins of the Unique Basque Culture

Blood type testing.

(ec-jpr/ CC BY NC ND 2.0 )

Rh-Negative Blood Lineages

One population which contains an unusually high frequency of the gene for the Rh-Negative blood type are the Basques from northeastern Spain. The Basques have the highest incidence of the gene out of any population in the world. The Basques also speak a non-Indo-European language and have genetic markers that pre-date the rise of agriculture. This has led to speculation that Rh-Negative blood is related to Cro-Magnon ancestry going back to the upper Paleolithic period in Europe.

Among the more exotic theories is the idea that the Rh-Negative gene represents a separate branch of humanity that intermarried with the branch that came out of Africa. One blogger has gone as far as to say that those with Rh-Negative blood are descendants of the Hyperborean race, which they believe to be the original human race. Followers of this idea believe that this race was blonde-haired and blue-eyed and included most major spiritual teachers in history, including Jesus.

An artistic representation of Hyperborean women. 

( Youtube Screenshot )

Some people who are not satisfied with the idea that those with RH- blood are another form of humanity have suggested that the trait originates from extraterrestrials either interbreeding with humans or creating humans through genetic engineering.

The Role of Genetics in Rh-Negative Blood

This unusual trait can, however, also be explained in terms of relatively mundane human genetics and natural selection. One possibility is that the gene for Rh-Negative blood has some sort of selective advantage that outweighed the negative consequences of having Rh-Negative blood.

A well-known example of this phenomenon would be the case of sickle cell anemia and malaria. A large percentage of the population in west Africa where malaria is common consists of carriers of the gene for sickle-cell anemia, although they don’t have the disease themselves. The reason is that just carrying the gene for sickle cell anemia gives the person carrying it immunity to Malaria. Although sickle-cell anemia is harmful, even deadly, carrying the gene gives a selective advantage and therefore it is much more common than would be expected.

Sickle-cell disease is inherited in the autosomal recessive pattern. 

( CC BY SA 3.0 )

Scientists studying the effects of Rh-Negative blood have found that individuals carrying the gene for Rh-Negative blood are more resistant to certain parasites such as toxoplasma, which can threaten unborn children. It has also been found that there are more carriers of the gene in areas where toxoplasma is more common. This suggests that carriers of the gene for Rh-Negative blood might be more common than expected because there is a positive selective advantage, greater resistance to parasites, that outweighs the negative, possibly having a pregnancy where the mother’s blood endangers the unborn child.

Dividing Toxoplasma gondii, an obligate intracellular human parasite.

(Ke Hu and John M. Murray/ CC BY 4.0 )

As a result, it could be that some populations contain a higher occurrence rate of the gene not because of a unique lineage but because they are adapted to a region with a high prevalence of certain parasites such as toxoplasma. This would explain why the gene occurs in high frequency in populations that are not really connected other than the fact that they are  Homo Sapiens,  such as Basques and certain Jewish populations.

The Basques have an ancestry that, with other European groups, goes back to the European Upper Paleolithic. Yet the Jews ultimately descend from relatively recent Middle Eastern populations. This would make sense if the reason for the prevalence of the gene was because both the ancestral Basque and Jewish populations originated in an environment with similar selective factors rather than being of a common lineage.

Basque women in Bayonne (1852).

( Public Domain )

Although it could still be that there is a common, unique ancestral lineage connecting populations with high prevalence of Rh-Negative blood, the fact that the populations where the gene occurs in high prevalence appear otherwise unrelated to each other makes it less likely and in need of more evidence.

• Study Casts New Light on Diseases We Inherited from Neanderthals
• The Serpent Scion: Mythic Traditions and the Brotherhood of the Snake - Part 1
• How Ancient Hominid Interbreeding has Shaped Humans Today

Could Rh-Negative Blood Come from Extraterrestrials?

The extraterrestrial explanation is even more problematic because the Rh-Negative gene is clearly a variation of an otherwise completely human gene. Unless it was specifically engineered by extraterrestrials from a pre-existing human gene, it is unlikely that it comes from anything other than  Homo Sapiens .

The other problem with the Rh-Negative blood type being the result of hybridization with extraterrestrials is that extraterrestrials are likely to have a completely different biology and genome than human beings. Their genome might not even be based on DNA - but something else such as RNA, or some exotic form of genetic storage that never evolved on Earth. This would make any viable hybrids very improbable if not impossible. As the astronomer Carl Sagan would have put it, it would be easier to make a human-tulip hybrid, than a human-extraterrestrial hybrid.

An artist’s representation of an extraterrestrial.

( Public Domain )

The unlikelihood and uncertainty of the other options make the explanation that the Rh-Negative blood type is just a mutation that became common in some populations due to a selective advantage the most likely option. It is also the one that most easily survives the application of Occam’s Razor. If this blood type was because of another human species, let alone extraterrestrials, many more unnecessary assumptions that are difficult to verify have to be made. As a result, the evidence currently points toward little more than an ordinary mutation as the cause of the Rh-Negative blood phenotype.

• Top Image: Silhouettes ( Public Domain ) in front of blood cells ( Public Domain ) and a gene. ( Public Domain )

By Caleb Strom

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

Why? Massive Blasts Hitting Earth Continually

Researcher Dani Arnold-McKenny rejoins the program to discuss the massive geomagnetic blasts that have been routinely hitting the Earth since the beginning of January. These blasts are at levels not seen by scientists in the field who have been watching and observing Earth’s magnetic forces for years. We discuss the unusual events and what this could mean.

ge·o·mag·ne·tism

 (jē′ō-măg′nĭ-tĭz′əm)

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Meanwhile In Canada…This Happens (Video)

Meanwhile In Canada…This Happens (Video)

Published by JayWill7497

Video cameras typically have LED illuminators sited close to the lens, and these can capture floating particles of dust, moisture droplets and tiny insects in a similar way to the flash of a still camera.
The primary difference is, needless to say, movement. Researchers use infra-red DV cameras in there investigations, and these have multiple IR LEDs situated in a circle with the lens at its centre.
We frequently record floating orbs using this setup, usually triggered by dust stirred up by passing humans, which shows up as orbs up to several minutes afterwards, or completely randomly.
Occasionally the orbs have a flight path that makes them seem to follow folks; however, as with still-photo orbs, they are actually much closer to the camera than they appear.
The noticeable size of the orbs, and their flight paths, is an illusion attributable to the compression of 3D visual space down to 2D.
Typically there’s nothing paranormal involved, but that does not suggest we take things for granted and don’t bother to check it out?

With that being said, many thanks to youtube’s UFOmania – The truth is out there for this video.

Source:http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com

FULL CREDIT to ​Robo Guerreiro: https://youtu.be/mEh0_9QD3wE

Read here:https://helenastales.weebly.com/blogu…

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Richard Branson dook naar de bodem van het grootste zinkgat ter wereld en maakte er adembenemende beelden van - HLN.be

Bron: Aquatica Submarines, Discovery

Het ‘Great Blue Hole’ ligt voor de kust van Belize in de Caribische Zee en is 124 meter diep en 318 meter breed. Het zinkgat spreekt al jaren tot de verbeelding van wetenschappers, maar mede dankzij miljardair en Virgin-baas Richard Branson weten we nu hoe het zinkgat er vanbinnen uitziet. Branson daalde in december, samen met een team diepzeespecialisten van Aquatica Submarines, af naar de bodem met een speciaal uitgeruste duikboot.

Nooit eerder ontdekte stalactieten

Een van de meest opmerkelijke ontdekkingen in het zinkgat waren stalactieten die er nog nooit eerder werden waargenomen. Volgens wetenschappers was het zinkgat zo’n 100.000 jaar geleden een gigantische bovengrondse grot en ontstonden de stalactieten toen de grot nog niet was overspoeld. Toen het zeeniveau steeg, verdween de grot diep in het water en zakte het dak van de grot in. Maar vanbinnen heeft de tijd wel 100.000 jaar stilgestaan.

Naast de stalactieten vond het team ook mysterieuze sporen op de bodem van het zinkgat. “We weten niet waar die sporen vandaan komen”, zegt diepzeepilote Erika Bergman, die ook de leiding van de expeditie nam.

3D-kaart

Branson en zijn team konden met sonarscan een 3D-kaart maken van het zinkgat. Die kaart wordt binnenkort vrijgegeven, maar Aquatica Submarines licht nu al een tipje van de sluier met videobeelden.

Binnenkort wordt ook een documentaire uitgezonden over de expeditie naar het Great Blue Hole. Die documentaire wordt ergens in de lente verwacht.

Aquatica Submarines Richard Branson en het team van Aquatica Submarines

Aquatica Submarines Richard Branson zakte met een duikboot af naar de bodem van het 'Great Blue Hole'.

Aquatica Submarines .

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Strange new island or mere mirage? Border patrol tweets phenomenal PHOTO

• ALSO ON RT.COM This ‘aerial’ photo of frozen lakes is not what it seems

Finland’s Lapland Border Patrol tweeted images of the strange, apparently geological, phenomenon; an impressive feat considering temperatures in the region had plummeted as low as -25 degrees Celsius and there was no sight nor sound of any volcanic activity in the area that might explain the sudden appearance of new rock formations, seemingly out of nowhere.

Lapin rajavartiosto@lapinraja

Inarinjärvelläkin on joskus harvoin mahdollisuus nähdä kangastuksia. Papinsaaren edustalle on noussut uusi saari. Ivalon partio sai ilmiön ikuistettua kameralle kirkkaassa -25 C pakkassäässä. #ivalonraja #inarinjärvi

• 252

12:43 PM - Feb 23, 2019

• 43 people are talking about this

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It was merely an optical illusion, however, as one commenter pointed out on Twitter. Light behaves differently when passing through atmospheric layers, which can lead to mirage-like effects along the horizon, reflecting and refracting distant landscapes in mind-bending ways.

Mirages aren’t exclusive to sandy deserts, it would seem.

• 
• ALSO ON RT.COMRussian satellite spots baffling bursts of light above EARTH that science can’t explain

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

There are billionaires – not many but the number is growing. Some inherited their wealth. Others created their wealth but their life stories have become more annoying than inspiring (we’re looking at you – Jeff and Elon). Then there’s Sir Richard Branson. The owner of the Virgin Group of over 400 assorted companies, he’s always been an adventurer who’s now in the process of preparing for his first space flight. However, Sir Richard also travels in the opposite direction and in December 2018 he joined up with Fabien Cousteau to dive to the bottom of the mysterious Great Blue Hole in the Belize Barrier Reef. The submarine dive was broadcast live on the Discovery Channel and vessels remained at the hole for a few more weeks collecting data. Much of that data was made available this week and what Branson observed on the bottom of the Great Blue Hole sheds new light on the deepest, darkest sinkhole on the planet. What did he see?

“One of the top five scuba diving sites in the world.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

While the Great Blue Hole in the Caribbean off the coast of Belize has long been known about by local fishermen, it was exposed to the world in 1971 by Calypso Captain Jacques Cousteau on his famous television show. (You can watch the episode here.)

While divers agree with Cousteau’s description, at 410 feet (125 meters), the sinkhole is too deep for scuba divers to see the bottom. In December 2018, Richard Branson joined Cousteau’s grandson Fabien and a team of scientists in two submarines and descended to the bottom of the hole with cameras, sonar and 3D mapping equipment. Erika Bergman was the chief pilot, oceanographer and operations manager. (See pictures from the expedition here.)

While that descent was broadcast on the Discovery Channel, it has taken until now to create the map, which Bergman revealed to CNN Travel.

“We did our complete 360 sonar map and that map is now almost complete. It looks really cool, it’s this mesh-layered, sonar scan of the entire thousand-foot diameter hole.”

Bergman gave new details on the expedition. The team encountered never-before-seen stalactites at 407 feet near the bottom – which makes sense because it’s believed the Great Blue Hole was once a great big cave on dry land before the area became the Caribbean. Passing through the hydrogen sulfide layer at 300 feet, all surface light is gone, along with any oxygen that could support fish or other life forms. However, they found remains of dead sea creatures on the bottom. Unfortunately, they also found evidence of humans.

“There were basically two or three little pieces of plastic — and other than that, it was really, really clear.”

And something else. On the bottom of the Great Blue Hole, Bergman reveals that the team found some tracks. Of what?

“(That remains) open to interpretation.”

Tracks! That alone should generate enough interest to fund another expedition, right?

“It’s neat that there are spaces on our planet — and most of them in the oceans — that are exactly the way they were thousands of years ago and will remain exactly the way they are thousands of years in the future.”

Richard Branson

It sounds like Sir Richard has already moved on in the opposite direction to infinity and beyond while Captain Bergman says she’s already planning for a similar expedition to the depths around the Virgin Islands. That leaves Fabien Cousteau to go back and look at the tracks.

What would Grandpa Jacques do, Fabien?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The mystery boom phenomenon continues worldwide without any official explanation. While these incidents are spread out around the globe, the similarities among all of these unexplained ground-shaking booms are too striking to ignore. Even more striking is the deafening silence of law enforcement and governmental agencies. Are these all merely unconnected natural events? Why the sudden and sharp increase in frequency, then?

February has seen (heard?) cities all throughout North America rattled by powerful and mysterious explosion-like sounds. The phenomenon continued this week as cities in South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and England were rattled by unknown booms. It all began on February 18 when residents of the Charleston, South Carolina area felt the ground shake and heard a powerful boom. Geologists with the College of Charleston said that while they’re investigating the reports, it appears the noise was likely a sonic boom. The area is home to Joint Base Charleston, a military complex which houses units from every branch of the military.

The next day, residents of Nottingham, England reported a late night “explosion” heard for miles. Concerned residents described the sound as “like a bomb going off,” and have suspected either a meteorite or explosive device. Louise Hunt of St. Ann’s said the noise was too powerful to have been terrestrial in origin and believes its perpetrator originated from space:

It was like a big explosion, I put a status on Facebook and a few of my friends replied all saying they heard it too. It was really strange as we heard no sirens afterwards my partner then suggested it could if been a meteorite that exploded in mid-air somewhere.

When asked for comment from Nottinghamshire Live, Nottinghamshire Police merely shrugged, said they’ve “received no reports,” and presumably went back to their crosswords.

Nottingham, England.

Back in the US, another terrifyingly loud set of booms rattled Fort Knox, Kentucky on February 22 – although these seem to have an explanation. The U.S. Army’s Marine Detachment has been conducting live fire tank training this week, creating booms loud enough to be heard 30 miles away. While residents of Fort Knox are used to the loud noises generated by military exercises, residents in surrounding areas say the noises usually don’t travel so far. Why the sudden change?

The month in mystery booms ended in the cities of Ward and Beebe, Arkansas, where residents heard a loud, unexplained explosion on February 24. Local police forces acknowledged the booms but asked residents not to call them in unless there was a “real” emergency.

Every week I write a round-up of the week’s mystery booms, and every week I’m left to wonder what’s behind the phenomenon. There are far too many identical incidents occurring each week for this to be merely a coincidence. Someone out there knows something the public doesn’t. 

“Shhh. The Masked Singer is on. Keep shopping. OBEY.”

Or maybe not. Maybe these are merely unconnected and insignificant natural phenomena. Is my obsession with these booms all a case of the Baader-Meinhof effect in which individuals first notice a phenomenon or occurrence only to then see the same phenomenon everywhere? If it were only me hearing these noises I might think so, but the fact that they’re receiving the attention of at least local news outlets shows that the phenomenon has been heard and felt by thousands if not tens of thousands of individuals around the world. What is causing these mystery booms?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

No TV show has so effectively blurred the boundaries between UFO fact and fantasy as NBC’s Dark Skies, which ran from September 1996 to May 1997. Created by Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman, the series presented an alternate history of 20^th Century America. Its tagline read: “History as we know it is a lie.” In this case, it was a lie sprung from and built around a covert extraterrestrial presence on Earth and the US government’s quiet efforts to understand and control the alien threat.

J.T. Walsh as Agent Frank Bach in ‘Dark Skies.’

The narrative begins with the Roswell Incident (here a deliberate military downing of an alien craft) and the establishment of the top secret working group, Majestic, which, as in the UFO literature, is tasked with overseeing the rapidly escalating flying saucer problem in the United States.

We then jump forward to 1961 when the show’s protagonists, John Loengard (Eric Close) and Kim Sayers (Megan Ward), a young couple with political aspirations, find themselves drawn into the shadowy world of Majestic 12, headed by the imposing Frank Bach (J.T. Walsh). Whereas in The X-Files’ Fox Mulder was forever on the outside of the cover-up attempting to look in, in Dark Skies, John Loengard was on the inside looking out.

Each episode saw John and Kim attempting to understand and combat not only the Gray aliens, known in the series as “The Hive,” but Majestic themselves, whose motives and actions are morally dubious at best. All of this plays out against the backdrop of real historical events of the 20^th Century, including the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the death of Marilyn Monroe, the Watts riots of 1965, and the north-east black out of that same year. Numerous cultural icons show up throughout the series, including The Beatles, Jim Morrison, Ed Sullivan, and Timothy Leary, as well as real-life figures from politics, science, and UFOlogy, such as Harry Truman, Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, J. Edgar Hoover, J. Allen Hynek, and Carl Sagan.

So, how did such an ambitious UFO show come to be? While researching my book, Silver Screen Saucers, Dark Skies co-creator Bryce Zabel shared with me the intriguing and, at times, creepy production history of his show.

Zabel and Friedman pitched their series to networks in the form of a faux “Top Secret” briefing file, modeled on the MJ-12 documents. The thick, ring-bound file, which they referred to as the “Dark Skies Bible,” contained enough rich UFO lore intertwined with official history to comfortably fuel five full series of the prospective show, which had been the original plan. The file was fronted by a one-page letter “written by” the show’s fictional hero, John Loengard. It was dated 2 January 1995 and was addressed to his real-world creators. It read:

Bryce and Brent,

The truth must be told. You have been chosen as instruments to achieve this objective.

The truth, however, must not be represented as truth. Too many people who are needed in the struggle will die.

The cover of fiction must be used to present this truth. Those who fear the light will not want to bring attention to you by allowing your death.

This is the only way.

Do not be afraid.

The fight for humanity demands your courage.

[SIGNED]

John Loengard.

The Dark Skies Bible, and the Loengard letter in particular, exemplified the now complete inseparability and symbiosis of UFOlogical “fact” and Hollywood fantasy. Loengard’s statement to his creators that they had been chosen as instruments to tell the truth about UFOs under the cover of fiction, would later ring disturbingly true for Zabel and Friedman, as we shall see.

Official Denial

Before we delve into the weirdness that went on behind the scenes of Dark Skies, we first need to mention Brcye’s previous production. A made-for-TV movie, Official Denial was an ambitious exploration of modern UFO mythology, featuring MJ-12, UFO crash-retrievals, and aliens in the custody of the US government. It even anticipated reports to follow of military abductions of UFO experiencers (known in UFOlogy as “MILABs”). Indeed, it seems fair to say that Official Denial was perhaps the most explicitly UFOlogical movie ever produced at that point. Unfortunately, its ambitions greatly exceeded its limited budget, and its special effects were severely dated even at the time of its broadcast. It was not widely seen and has yet to receive a DVD release.

Official Denial was a passion project for Bryce, and so its less-than-perfect onscreen realization disappointed him greatly:

The sadness of my life is that I didn’t sell the script to a large film studio who would have spent 30 or 40 million dollars making the perfect version of it. Instead it got sold to a small company, which sold it to the Sci-Fi Channel [now The SyFy Channel], which made it for around $2 million. The result was that I couldn’t even watch the finished product. The alien was a twelve-year-old ballerina in a plastic costume, and the effects were bad, and the acting was bad. It just wasn’t on film what it was in my mind.

It was the partial failure of Official Denial that prompted Bryce to embark on his next UFO-themed project. “I just felt I needed to sell something to somebody who had more money so that we can do these aliens right,” he recalled. The development of Dark Skies began in late-1994 while Bryce was working at Universal as a writer on M.A.N.T.I.S, Sam Raimi’s short-lived TV show about an African-American super hero. “My assistant on that show introduced me to her husband, who was Brent Friedman. Brent and I started talking UFOs and it turned out he had been told certain things by a government insider.”

‘Dark Skies’ co-creator, Brent Friedman.

Friedman has described this incident as follows:

A good family friend of ours when I was just getting out of high school was working at a very high level in the Reagan administration. One night he took me aside and told me some of the things he was doing in the government, and he ended up telling me some pretty shattering stories. He knew that I’d always been into science-fiction, fantasy, and comic books, and he very casually just threw out there that ‘aliens are real, they’re here, and I’ve seen them.’ At the time I was just absolutely shocked. This was a person that I grew up with and absolutely trusted, and it just rocked my world.

With their mutual interest established, Bryce and Brent set about developing what would become their Dark Skies Bible. “Our show was really about blending the UFO phenomenon into documented, accepted world history,” Bryce told me. “Everything I had read in UFO literature ended up in Dark Skies, from Betty and Barney Hill to Majestic-12, you name it. I tried to weave it all in there.”

Here come the Men in Black

The inclusion of such intricate UFOlogical detail in Dark Skies apparently attracted the attention of real government UFO spooks. The series pilot premiered on NBC on 21 September 1996. That same night, Bryce threw a wrap party at his Los Angeles home for his cast and crew—some 200 people in total. They would watch the pilot live together. It was a private party, invitation only. All invited guests were issued in advance with a faux Majestic-12 ID badge (loosely modeled on Bob Lazar’s Area 51 ID badge) which they were required to wear throughout the evening. One man at the party that evening wore no ID badge.

“A guy showed up here,” Bryce recalled. “Nicely dressed, young. Nobody recognized him. He approached Brent and myself and he told us, “We’ve seen your pilot.” This was strange, because at that point in evening the pilot had yet to air. “Nobody else had seen it, other than a few people in Hollywood,” said Bryce. The man stated again, “We’ve seen your pilot and we think you get a lot right, but we want to help you with the rest.”

The mystery man suggested to the producers that their show could benefit from inside information on UFOs, and that he could provide them with this information. Here, then, was John Loengard sprung to life from Bryce and Brent’s fictional letter, choosing them as conduits to share the truth disguised as fiction. The producers initially suspected a prank, but their Dark Skies pitch had been private. No one had seen their Loengard letter but for a handful of network executives in Hollywood. What’s more, based on his detailed knowledge of its plot, the mystery man seemed to have really seen the unaired Dark Skies pilot, as he claimed. He even knew details about episodes that hadn’t been filmed yet.

“Who are you?” the producers asked. “That’s really not important right now,” came the reply. “But I work with people who have an interest in what you’re doing and what you’re putting out.” The mystery man then proceeded to grab a napkin and scrawl something on it. “It was a bunch of symbols and stuff,” said Bryce. The man handed the napkin to Brent, who naturally inquired as to its meaning. “The secrets of the universe,” said the man, enigmatically. “Sound, light, and frequency.” I asked Bryce where the napkin is now. “I haven’t seen it in years,” he told me. “Brent has it locked in a safe some place.”

The man and his napkin were undeniably intriguing, but this was bad timing. Bryce was playing host to 200 people: “I didn’t really have time to stand around talking to this guy. But Brent invited him to our office at NBC to come and talk to us some more at a later date.”

That meeting happened a few days later, and it would prove both confusing and unsettling.

Bryce described the meeting to me:

The guy from the party shows up with two other people, older men, who he said were his bosses in Naval Intelligence. They sat around a table with us and they spoke for around two hours. They certainly had a well-constructed alternate world. They had lots of details, and they weren’t shy. Actually they were a little condescending to us, saying things like, “You guys think you’re such hotshots because you’re in Hollywood, but the truth is that you don’t even know what you’re playing with. Yes, you’ve stumbled into getting most of it right, but there are some things that you haven’t got right.”

Cemetery at midnight

Things were about to get even stranger: “At one point the guy puts a little vile on the table and says ‘you don’t have this in your show.’ And we’re looking at it and we say ‘what is this?’, and he says ‘this is what this is all about.’ It was a vile of gold, or fool’s gold, I’m not sure which.” Were Bryce and Brent meant to infer that aliens were after our gold, like the Anunnaki of Ancient Astronaut lore? Or were they supposed to think the vile contained some alien element, perhaps used to fuel a flying saucer? It is impossible to know, but certainly the mystery men were intent on confusing and provoking the producers. “Their whole tone was like, ‘You fucking idiots! This is what it’s about! You don’t even have the truth!’ It was just weird.”

Bryce asked again precisely who these men were. “So one of them said, ‘look. we’re with Naval Intelligence and if you really want us to read you in you’re going to have to meet the big guy. There’s a ship down in Long Beach right now and we can arrange for you to meet him. But you can’t meet him on the ship.”

One of the men then provided Bryce and Brent with the location of a cemetery in Long Beach, where they could meet the big guy at midnight on a given date. Bryce was now thoroughly perturbed. He’d heard enough. “That’s when I pushed back from the table and said “Okay, I’m done. I have a show to run, and I have three children, and I am not meeting you or anyone else in a cemetery at midnight. Good day.’” That was the last Bryce heard from them.

What can we make of these events? Certainly they would appear to be neatly in line with disinformative strategies employed previously against UFO researchers and through entertainment media. Did intelligence operatives get wind of a new X-Files-style TV show utilizing factual UFOlogical detail and see it as great new opportunity to sow its content with self-serving UFO conspiracy mythology, or even simply to manage and guide the show’s existing mythology? “It was very intricate,” said Bryce of the whole affair. “It felt like it was staged for us. Like it was all built around us. It seems to be that we had been targeted for some elaborate disinformation job.”

I asked Bryce if he felt the men were the real deal, and if there is any chance it was all just a prank by some amateur tricksters:

Do I think they were really going to read us into a secret UFO program? No. But it did seem like they really were part of some official organization. One of the guys said he was a SEAL, and, I have to say, all of these guys looked like veryhardcore military guys. They didn’t look like soft fanboys pulling a prank on us. They didn’t look like guys you’d see at Comic Con. They looked and spoke like military guys.

I asked Bryce if he believed in UFOs at the time of Dark Skies’development and if his intention with the show was to educate and inform the public about the subject. He replied:

Did I intend to inform? No. I intended to entertain. But did I believe in UFOs and alien visitation? Yes. I believed strongly at the time of Dark Skies that Roswell was a real event and that it was probably unearthly in nature. I still believe that today. Whether or not I believed the Majestic 12 documents were real or faked was irrelevant. I just used the name because it was on people’s minds. But I did feel that if MJ-12 didn’t exist, then another group like it by another name probably did. Somebody had to be working on the UFO problem.

Dark Skies arrived on TV in 1996, and comparisons to a certain other UFO conspiracy show were inevitable.  Bryce said:

People accused us at the time of ripping off The X-Files. But actually we didn’t like what The X-Files was doing, which was teasing everybody. We wanted to do the opposite. We wanted to say ‘we’re not going to tease you about the cover-up. We’re going to take you inside the cover-up and let our character be your tour guide through these events of history.’ It was more direct than The X-Files.

A 1996 issue of ‘Starlog’ magazine.

Dark Skies was cancelled before the end of its first season due to low ratings, which may have been a result of its inopportune weekly scheduling. The show was dark in name, dark in themes, and dark in visual content, with violent and intense scenes in most episodes. Despite this, Dark Skies was broadcast at 8pm on Saturday evenings—peak viewing time for families (for whom the show was not entirely suitable), and peak going-out time for teens and young adults. Today Dark Skies retains a cult fanbase, and Bryce is proud of what he and Brent achieved with the show. “It’s about 90 percent faithful to what I set out to do back in 1994, and it certainly succeeds in twisting UFOlogy and history and tying them into this knot. It’s one of the most subversive TV shows ever produced.”

If you’re a fan of science fiction, and of UFO conspiracy shows in particular, you owe it to yourself to check out Dark Skies… the real Men in Black did.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Earlier this month, a massive and mysterious fireball was seen above West Cornwall in the United Kingdom. Some witnesses described the fireball as green, while others say it was red, but all described it as moving unusually slow and leaving a trail of flame in its wake. While a meteor was suspected, many eyewitnesses said the fireball did not look anything like other shooting stars or meteors they’ve seen in the past.

Now, another strangely slow-moving fireball has been spotted, this time over Canada. Bruce and Melody Hamilton, amateur astronomers based in Nova Scotia spotted the fireball on February 23rd while skygazing from their home. The similarities in the descriptions of this fireball and the one seen in England are striking. The Hamiltons described this Canadian fireball as orange with fiery debris trailing behind it, and like the Cornwall fireball, this one appeared to move incredibly slowly across the sky.

“I saw a light travelling west to east, quite a bright ball cutting a trail,” Melody told the CBC. “But it wasn’t as fast as any meteor that we’ve ever seen. We’ve seen some fairly slow ones, but this was slower. But it wasn’t as slow as an airplane. It was this unusual speed … it looked like it was on fire.”

The fireball was spotted by other witnesses who likewise said the light was different from other shooting stars. “It was quite amazing, actually,” said Jonathan Pettigrew of New Brunswick. “It seemed so close. You could even see it looked like sparks on the tail of it. It was getting brighter. It was quite interesting.”

Charles White of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada told the CBC that without further evidence, it is difficult if not impossible to determine exactly what eyewitnesses saw. White suspects the object was either a ferrous meteorite or a piece of space debris. Given the slow speed and the unusual fiery trail the fireball left behind, I’m more inclined to suspect it was the latter. With all of the talk of satellite warfare going on lately, there’s no telling what may soon be falling out of the skies. For now, these two satellites remain a mystery.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

After much debate over the last 150 years, paleontologists have finally identified the mysterious creature that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. The oddly shaped creature, which is flat-looking with a long arm coming out of its side, is known as a stylophoran which is an ancient relative of starfish, sea urchins, sea lilies, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, and feather stars.

Sea Urchins

The fossils – which included around 450 specimens of the stylophoran – were discovered during a 2014 excavation at the Fezouata Formation which is along the edge of the Sahara Desert in the southern part of Morocco. These fossils date back approximately 478 million years.

Researchers were able to find out exactly what type of creature it was because their fossils had “unequivocal evidence for exceptionally preserved soft parts, both in the appendage and in the body of stylophorans,” explained Bertrand Lefebvre, who is a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Laboratory of Geology of Lyon which is located in France.

After analyzing the fossils using a binocular microscope, they noticed that there were also soft parts. Since soft tissues hardly ever fossilize, the stylophorans were only recognized for their hard skeletal parts and not for their soft insides. According to Lefebvre, “Their internal anatomy was not only entirely unknown, but also – and mostly – highly controversial.”

Stylophoran fossils have been discovered around the world since the 1850s which led researchers to confirm that they lived from the middle Cambrian to the late Carboniferous periods, which date back from around 510 million to 310 million years ago.

These creatures had two main parts: a core body and an appendage that were both around 1.2 inches long. From the 1850s to the 1950s, it was believed that stylophorans were “normal” echinoderms with its appendage being compared to the stem of sea lilies. However, in the early 1960s, Georges Ubaghs, who was a Belgian paleontologist, discovered that the creature’s appendage was quite a bit different than a stem and more like an arm for feeding – similar to a starfish.

Starfish

A few years later, in the late 1960s, Richard Jefferies, who was a British paleontologist, suggested that the main body of the stylophoran was instead a head containing a brain and a pharynx, while its appendage consisted of muscles and a notochord which is a type of primitive backbone. He also believed that stylophorans were the missing link between echinoderms (invertebrates) and chordates (vertebrates).

Much later, in the 2000s, another British paleontologist named Andrew Smith gave his own interpretation of the creature. He believed that stylophorans were not the missing link between echinoderms and chordates and instead they were primitive deuterostomes which put them right in the middle of the gap between acorn worms and echinoderms.

With this new discovery, researchers can perform testing on the creature’s soft tissue and find out which of the theories best explains the creature. Ubaghs’ theory, however, does seem to be the most plausible. The creature’s flat body consisted of intestines and its appendage was more like an arm since it had a water vascular system which would have aided the creature to eat and move the same way that the arms of starfish do.

With their new study (which can be read here), we finally know the origins of the mysterious creature that has baffled scientists for over a hundred years. Lefebvre explained it best when he said, “This discovery is of particular importance, because it brings to an end a 150-year-old debate about the position of these bizarre-looking fossils in the tree of life.”

• Click here to see pictures and a video of the stylophoran.

Credit: Emmanuel Robert

Credit: Copyright Rich Mooi/California Academy of Science

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Ready to feel a bit useless? A boy from Memphis, Tennessee has apparently become the youngest person to ever build a fusion reactor after successfully building one in the spare room in his home using parts sourced from eBay. Jackson Oswalt, now 14, began construction on the machine when he was 12 and completed his working fusion reactor just before his 13th birthday.

Jackson Oswalt says that after reading a story of another boy, Taylor Wilson, who grabbed headlines when he built a working reactor at age 14, he wanted to beat his record. So he did. With his parents’ financial backing and a self-taught course in nuclear engineering, Jackson Oswalt built a small, working, fusion reactor that has apparently been verified by nuclear engineers. The machine works by running 50,000 volts of electricity through deuterium gas to force the deuterium atoms together, similar to the process that powers the sun.

Despite their admittedly limited understanding of what their son was working on,  his parents provided financial support to the tune of $8,000-$10,000 dollars for parts that Jackson bought off of eBay. According to Jackson, finding the components was fairly straight-forward:

“The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors. After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. [I] got those parts off eBay primarily and then often times the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren’t exactly what I needed. So, I’d have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project.”

Jackson Oswalt’s nuclear fusion reactor.

Credit: (CC BY-SA 4.0) James Smith39

The process of building the reactor was, unsurprisingly, a bit more complicated. There isn’t a “Nuclear Fusion For Young Engineers” guidebook just yet, so according to Jackson, the process involved a lot of trial and error and consulting the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a forum for amateur amateur physicists and budding mad scientists trying to construct reactors of their own. Jackson Oswalt says that once he began tinkering, the pieces began to fall into place:

“After a while, it became pretty simple to realize how it all worked together, but at the start it was definitely figuring out one aspect of it, memorizing what that actually meant and then moving on to a different aspect of it. Eventually all those pieces of the puzzle came together to make a good project.”

His father, Chris Oswalt,  says that although he doesn’t know anything about how a fusion reactor works, he knew it was likely a pretty dangerous project and made sure his son consulted with experts to avoid electrocution, radiation poisoning, or any other the other potential hazards involved in nuclear reactors.

Jackson Oswalt’s resulted were verified by Richard Hull, a retired engineer and administrator of the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, who says his machine works and that Jackson Oswalt is the youngest person in America, and likely the youngest person in the world to build a working fusion reactor.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Humpback Whale Found In The Forest Of The Amazon, Video, Feb 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: February 2019
Location of discovery: Island of Marajo, Araruna Beach, Amazon River, Brazil

This baby humpback whale was found laying among some trees and shrubs far from the beach. Whales are often taken by UFOs...analyzed...and then returned. But sometimes animals are returned to a location that is not hospitable to them. Apparently the alien who took this whale had no idea that they only live in the water. LOL, it looks like aliens make a lot more mistakes than I thought. 
Scott C. Waring

News states: 

The humpback whale was discovered last Friday in the middle of the undergrowth on the island of Marajo off the Araruna Beach, at the mouth of the Amazon River. Scientists believe the creature died at sea and may have landed in the wooded area after rough seas and high tides threw it inland, far from the ocean. A team from Semma went to the region to inspect the remains, believed to be a 12-month old calf, and to gather information which could help to explain how the aquatic creature crash landed in the jungle. In a Facebook post by the NGO, Bicho D’agua Institute which is based on Marajo Island, biologists suspect that the calf become entangled in the mangroves after being thrown ashore by high waves.

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

NASA scientists create basic building blocks of life in a ‘primordial ocean’

BY TIBI PUIU

The origin of life is one of the most important questions in science. For NASA, answering this question is especially important because it enables scientists to narrow down their search for alien life, in the solar system or beyond. In a new study, a research team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reported how it managed to create amino acids — the basic building blocks of life that, like pieces of LEGO, assemble into proteins — in an environment that simulates what the ocean floor was like four billion years ago.

Life in a jar

Researchers made miniature seafloors by filling beakers with a solution that mimics Earth’s primordial ocean, including a hydrothermal vent — cracks in the seafloor where hot fluid escapes from the crust. These porous geological structures are produced by chemical reactions between solid rock and water, as alkaline fluids from the Earth’s crust flow up the vent towards the more acidic ocean water. This interaction leads to natural proton concentration differences remarkably similar to those powering all living cells.

Like an underwater chimney, hydrothermal vents produce a warm environment that is constantly in flux, which is why biologists have identified them as a probable hotspot for the formation of life.

“Understanding how far you can go with just organics and minerals before you have an actual cell is really important for understanding what types of environments life could emerge from,” Laurie Barge, and astrobiologist and the first author on the new study, said in a statement. “Also, investigating how things like the atmosphere, the ocean and the minerals in the vents all impact this can help you understand how likely this is to have occurred on another planet.”

Barge and colleagues combined water and minerals, along with pyruvate and ammonia, which are precursor molecules to amino acids. The solution was heated to around 158ºF (70ºC), the average temperature of a hydrothermal vent, and researchers adjusted the pH in order to mimic an alkaline environment. Oxygen was carefully removed until it reached a low concentration, similar to that of early Earth when cyanobacteria had yet to transformthe planet’s suffocating atmosphere. Finally, the researchers also added iron hydroxide, also known as “green rust”, which was abundant billion of years ago.

A time-lapse video of a miniature hydrothermal chimney forming in the lab.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The researchers found that the green rust reacted with the oxygen from the solution, producing the amino acid alanine and the alpha hydroxy acid lactate. The latter is important because alpha hydroxy acids are the byproducts of amino acid reactions, and are therefore considered to be essential components of the complex organic molecules that might form life.

“We’ve shown that in geological conditions similar to early Earth, and maybe to other planets, we can form amino acids and alpha hydroxy acids from a simple reaction under mild conditions that would have existed on the seafloor,” said Barge.

Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is believed to hide a deep ocean of salty liquid water beneath its icy shell. Now, a new Nasa study has revealed that this ocean may have an Earth-like chemical balance that could sustain life.

Credit: NASA.

Previously, researchers had investigated whether the right ingredients for life could be found in hydrothermal vents or if they could supply enough power to drive important chemical reactions. However, this was the first time that scientists produced the precursors to life in a hydrothermal-vent-like environment.

Such environments are believed to exist elsewhere in the solar system, beneath the thick ice that covers Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. In the future, NASA would like to send robotic exploration missions to these worlds that might drill through the ice and gather evidence of amino acids and other biological signatures.

“We don’t have concrete evidence of life elsewhere yet,” said Barge. “But understanding the conditions that are required for life’s origin can help narrow down the places that we think life could exist.”

The findings appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

{ https://futurism.com/ }

Grootste radiotelescoop ter wereld van 1 vierkante km kan terugblikken tot net na oerknal - HLN.be

Bron: zdnet, computerworld

Het volledige gebied dat radiosignalen vanuit de ruimte moet opvangen beslaat inderdaad meer dan 1 miljoen vierkante meter. In Zuid-Afrika komt de tweede hoofdcomponent van de megatelescoop met een doorsnede tot 5.000 km. In 2028 zou hij operatief moeten zijn. SKA zou in de ruimte moeten kunnen kijken tot net na de big bang.

Lange tijd was er een strijd tussen Zuid-Afrika en Australië om de allergrootste radiotelescoop ooit te mogen bouwen. Het project van ongeveer 1,5 miljard euro werd uiteindelijk aan beide landen toegekend. Nog een tiental andere landen zijn betrokken. Nederland kocht zich in voor 30 miljoen euro en ook Canada, China, Frankrijk, India, Italië, Nieuw-Zealand, Spanje, Zweden en het Verenigd Koninkrijk doen mee.

De SKA zal bestaan uit duizenden antennes die gespreid worden over de wereld. Er zijn twee centra: Zuid-Afrika en West-Australië, respectievelijk SKA-midden en SKA-laag, verwijzend naar midden- en laagfrequentie. Al die antennes moeten met elkaar in verbinding staan om een zo nauwkeurig mogelijk beeld te krijgen van de ruimte. Zo zijn er in Australië 65.000 optische glasvezelkabels nodig om de enorme hoeveelheid aan data van de 132.000 laagfrequentie-antennes te kunnen transporteren.

De centrale supercomputer die alles moet verwerken heeft een rekencapaciteit van maar liefst 100 miljoen pc’s. De SKA zal het universum dan ook gedetailleerder dan ooit kunnen vatten. De radiotelescoop zal zo gevoelig zijn dat hij een luchthavenradar kan waarnemen op een planeet tientallen lichtjaren van hier.

Dat zou tot wetenschappelijke revoluties kunnen leiden over het universum en het ontstaan ervan. Er wordt zelfs al luidop gedroomd van een verklaring voor het mysterie van ‘donkere energie’. We zullen ook meer te weten komen over de magnetische velden die het universum doorkruisen, en over hoe die gegenereerd worden.

“Astronomen hopen verder dat de SKA iets zal vinden waar ze al decennialang naar zoeken: een pulsar die in een baan rond een zwart gat cirkelt”, klinkt het. “Zo’n ontdekking zou hen in staat stellen de meest veeleisende test tot nu toe van Einsteins theorie van de zwaartekracht te maken.”

Last but not least: het is ook niet uitgesloten dat het gigantische meetinstrument signalen zou opvangen van buitenaardse beschavingen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Restanten van oude Sovjet-ruimtesonde landen dit jaar waarschijnlijk terug op aarde - HLN.be

Bron: Spacepage.be, Space.com

Een tripje naar het verleden: op 31 maart 1972 lanceerde de toenmalige Sovjet-Unie de Cosmos 482, een ruimtesonde met een satelliet aan boord om de planeet Venus te bestuderen. De Koude Oorlog was volop aan de gang en de Sovjet-Unie wedijverde niet alleen op aarde met de Verenigde Staten.

Ruimtewedloop
De ruimtewedloop van de twee naties liep synchroon met de wapenwedloop. Daarbij leverden zowel de VS als de Sovjet-Unie inspanningen om zoveel mogelijk satellieten te lanceren om de ruimte te verkennen. De Spoetnik 1 (1957) was de eerste succesvolle satelliet die door de Sovjet-Unie in een baan rondom de aarde werd gestuurd. Daarop volgde vier maanden later het antwoord van de VS: de Explorer 1. En zo snelden in nog geen half jaar tijd plots twee satellieten doorheen de ruimte. 

Lees ook

Dertig jaar na ruimtemissie ontdekken wetenschappers gemiste maan rond Neptunus

De Sovjets stuurden de eerste hond naar de ruimte, maar Neil Armstrong was de eerste man die een (Amerikaanse) stap op de maan zette. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, zijn de legendarische woorden die in alle geschiedenisboeken geschreven werden. Daarmee leken de successen van de Sovjets al snel vergeten, al waren het er eigenlijk meer dan de Amerikaanse successen. 

Trial and error

Zo was de Sovjet-Unie de eerste om Venus te verkennen. Dat gebeurde voor het eerst in 1971 met de Venera 7. Hetzelfde moest een jaar later gebeuren met de Venera 8, onderdeel van de ruimtemissie Cosmos 482. Maar daar liep het even mis. Door een probleem met de rakettrap, brak de ruimtesonde in verschillende brokstukken. Sommige brokstukken kwamen enkele dagen later al neer in Nieuw-Zeeland. Andere restanten bleven als ruimteafval rondom de aarde wentelen.

Ruimteafval

Bijna exact 47 jaar later dreigen die restanten terug te keren naar de aarde. Bovendien geloven astronauten dat 40 tot 50 procent van het ruimtevaarttuig nog in één geheel rondom de aarde cirkelt. En omdat de ruimtesonde voorzien was van een afdalingsmodule die zo’n 500 kilogram woog, is de kans groot dat de onderdelen hun terugkeer naar de aarde overleven.

Bekijk ook:

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Mystery surrounds humpback whale found dead in depths of Brazil’s Amazon jungle

Wildlife experts only found huge mammal after following birds of prey scavenging on carcass

Tim Wyatt @tswyatt

Brazilian wildlife experts have been left baffled after discovering a dead humpback whale in the Amazon rainforest.

The 10-ton mammal was found in the jungle undergrowth on the island of Marajo, which sits at the mouth of the Amazon River.

Although scientists presume the enormous creature was hurled onshore during a storm, they do not understand how it came so far inland or why it was swimming off the coast in the first place.

Marine specialists from the Bicho D’agua Institute, a conservation group based on Marajo, are part of the team examining the whale, which is thought to have died several days before it was found.

A dead sperm whale lies on Hunstanton beach in Norfolk on February 5 2016

AFP/Getty

Renata Emin, the institute’s project leader, said: “We’re still not sure how it landed here, but we’re guessing that the creature was floating close to the shore and the tide, which has been pretty considerable over the past few days, picked it up and threw it inland, into the mangrove.

“Along with this astonishing feat, we are baffled as to what a humpback whale is doing on the north coast of Brazil during February because this is a very unusual occurrence.”

Humpback whales are commonly seen further south on the Bahia coast of Brazil between August and November, but very rarely travel the thousands of kilometres north to the mouth of the Amazon.

Ms Emin said the whale is believed to be a calf which got separated from its mother while migrating back south.

Researchers said there were no clear reasons why the animal died but were starting to take samples from the carcass for further study.

Marine biologists are now taking samples from the enormous creature to find out how it died (SEMMA/FocusOn News)

“Depending on the state of decomposition, some information may already have been lost.

“We are collecting as much information as we can get and identifying marks and wounds on its body to see if it was caught in a net or hit by a boat,” Ms Emin said.

Dirlene Silva, from the state environment department, told local television that the body of the whale would be left where it crash-landed into the jungle.

“It’s very difficult to get there and there’s no way we can send a bulldozer because it would not get through. There is no way to remove it. To get there, we need to cross the swamp.”

The skeleton of the humpback will, however, be dismantled, preserved, and then sent to a natural history museum in the city of Belem for future study.

{ https://www.independent.co.uk/ }

Staggering discovery reveals moon lies INSIDE Earth’s atmosphere

We now know that the atmosphere surrounding our planet stretches 630,000km (391,464 miles) away and is 50 times the diameter of Earth, thanks to the discovery and analysis of decades-old data by scientists at Russia’s Space Research Institute.

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It means that the Moon is part of our atmosphere and not outside of it. In fact, it’s actually located right in the middle of our atmosphere, at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres (238,855 miles) from Earth.

“The Moon flies through Earth’s atmosphere,”explained study author physicist Igor Baliukin of Russia’s Space Research Institute.

The Earth's geocorona

@ ESA

The jaw-dropping data was collected by the NASA/European Space Agency Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) between 1996 and 1998 and had been gathering dust in an archive since then.

SOHO unwittingly gathered the groundbreaking information when it was mapping the geocorona, the layer of hydrogen atoms located where the atmosphere merges with outer space. The thin layer glows in far-ultraviolet light which can only be seen from space and is difficult to measure.

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Because of this, it was, until now, thought to be about 200,000 kilometres (124,000 miles) from Earth, as that is the point at which solar radiation pressure would override Earth’s gravity.

SOHO’s SWAN instrument has the ability to measure far-ultraviolet emissions from hydrogen atoms, allowing it to make its amazing observation of the geocorona.

• “Data archived many years ago can often be exploited for new science,” SOHO project scientist Bernhard Fleck of the European Space Agency said. “This discovery highlights the value of data collected over 20 years ago and the exceptional performance of SOHO.”

{ https://www.rt.com/ }