Case 4: Two possible cloaked flying saucers photographed by plane passenger over Alberta

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

UFO Attack: Five Extraterrestrials Petrified 23 Russian Soldiers

23 Russian soldiers lost their lives during a UFO attack in Siberia. The CIA declassified report describes this event as a “horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze”.
The frightful information was one of the many published online by the CIA. Chiefly, it involves a horrible event about a UFO alien attack which turned into stone 23 Russian soldiers.

This infamous report, created on March 27, 1993, is a translation of a report from the Ukrainian newspaper Ternopil vechirniy.

Namely, this newspaper claims that after Mikhail Gorbachev lost his leadership, many KGB files ended up in CIA.

Among them, allegedly there was a 250-page portfolio on the strange UFO attack. The report included pictures and witness statements as well.

The declassified CIA report which indeed contains shocking claims.

The report explains how a low flying saucer rose up a military unit in Siberia. One of the Russian soldiers fired a missile in the air, which shut it down.

It said: “Five short humanoids with large heads and large black eyes got out.”

There were two other soldiers, among the other 23, who survived the incident. They described that after the UFO got down, five eerie creatures blended into a huge glowing ball that buzzed and fizzed.
Following this, there was a huge explosion which petrified 23 Russian soldiers who were curiously observing the shocking event.

The report said: “The KGB report goes on to say that the remains of the ‘petrified soldiers’ were transferred to a secret research institution near Moscow.”

Experts strongly believe that an unknown source turned the whole living structure of the soldiers into stone.
A CIA representative stated: “If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case.”

However, we have to admit one thing. If this is true than extraterrestrials own technology that goes beyond our imagination.

And while there are certainly many doubts regarding the report, one of the biggest enigmas is why the CIA held a translation of the Ukrainian newspaper report.

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

Military Computer Hacker Proves A “Space Force” Existed Long Before Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s presidency has been one of the best opportunities for the collective to see into how politics has been working all of these years. Regardless of what you think of him, he’s an outsider who has threatened the interests of many powerful bodies like the pharmaceutical companies, and other corporations that control federal regulatory agencies like the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

He’s legalized hemp, appears to be taking action steps to combat sex trafficking, and is trying his best to pull out of Syria. The American empire has always enforced their will on other countries for ulterior motives, and have, for decades, used lies in order to infiltrate foreign lands and governments for their own purposes. It’s not just America, it’s the entire Western Military-Industrial Complex, the ‘powers that be’ who completely control nations.

To some extent Trump may be compromised and compelled to play a part in that agenda, but so far it seems he’s been a disruptor more than anything. This is why mainstream media is constantly jumping on every opportunity to vilify him. If you think he has been widely criticized because he is truly ‘racist’ or ‘sexist,’ you may be missing the boat.  This post from Richard Dolan right after the 2016 election is still one of the best explanations as to why Donald Trump continues to be incessantly disparaged by mainstream media.

Trump Sought To Create An Independent Space Force

The creation of a ‘Space Force’ announced by Trump several months ago is another great example of how Trump is making waves with the established order.

Prior to Trump announcing it, the House Armed Services Committee voted to break off the United Air Force Space Command from under the US Air Force, leading to the creation of a new independent branch called the US Space Corps. It would be the first new military branch created in the U.S. since 1947, and would make America the only nation with a branch of military publicly known to be dedicated solely to space.

A lot of work and planning was put into this shift in power over the space command. As Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces stated, “This is an issue the subcommittee has studied for months and I can’t even tell you how many meetings with space experts and leaders [Democratic Rep.] Jim [Cooper] and I have had on this subject.”

It’s Not Independent Yet

However, recent developments that are now making their rounds around the internet state that Trump is expected to sign an order that directs the Defense Department to establish a U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces, but remaining within the Department of the Air Force.

Previously, Trump had stated that the ‘Space Force’ would be a new division alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. However, it seems things have changed and the desire to wrest this unit away from the Air Force has failed–for now. As Space News points out:

The Pentagon is wrapping up a legislative proposal and budget request for fiscal year 2020 that it will submit to the White House for approval. The proposal recommends creating a Space Force with its own four-star chief of staff and a civilian undersecretary of space under the umbrella of the Department of the Air Force. This setup, however, is only a “first step toward a future military department for national security space,”

says a draft of Space Policy Directive-4. A copy of the draft labeled “predecisional” was reviewed by SpaceNews.

Time will tell if Trump will actually be able to establish a Space Force as its own military department in the future.

The Secret Space Program

While this would be the first known government department to be solely devoted to space, it’s important to note that the United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, but its existence was hidden until the mid 1960’s. Even more secretive is the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years.

Not all information is made public, especially when it comes to space activities. This was made clear by the Pentagon’s recent disclosure of a secret program that they were running to track unidentified flying objects in and around our atmosphere. The cost of this program was $22 million, but deeper research into black budget programs reveals that they have been taking in multiple trillions of dollars. This is not debatable. You can read more about that and examine the sources here and here.

It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief know nothing about.

– Paul Hellyer, Ex Canadian Defense Minister

You can read more about that and the latest updates on ‘mainstream UFO disclosure’ in an article I published about it here approximately 8 months ago.

Strange happenings in space came to light more than a decade ago, when the largest military computer hack ever was made known to the public. A man by the name of Gary McKinnon was charged with causing $700,000 dollars worth of damage to government computer systems. He hacked the Pentagon, Department of Defense and Air Force computers. Gary faced extradition to the United States for 10 years, but was eventually given other punishments. His story was receiving mainstream media attention, and perhaps an extradition would have brought unwanted attention to what Gary found. As with most disclosures, Mainstream Media focused on the crime rather than the provocative information that was discovered.

According to Mckinnon, he found a list of “non-terrestrial off-world officers” of rank. He was unable to tell what department of the military they represented. He also found multiple pictures of UFOs and lists of “fleet-to fleet transfers” of materials from ship to ship. You can watch an interview with Gary in this article we published years ago.

Dealing With Extraterrestrials

One of the main reasons for developing a ‘space force,’ and to keep a ‘secret space program’ is, in my opinion, to deal with the extraterrestrial/UFO phenomenon. These ‘secret’ agencies within our government have been quite involved with this phenomenon, while at the same time, for decades, they’ve been actively engaged in concealing by subversion and ridicule.

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

- Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source)

Unfortunately the actual protocols, according to Paul Hellyer, are often to ‘shoot first and ask questions after.’ There is a lot of evidence for this. Dr. David Clarke is an investigative journalist, reader and lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in England, who was also the curator National Archive UFO project from 2008–13. He uncovered files that reveal the UK was “desperate to capture this technology – wherever it came from – before the Russians or the Chinese got hold of it first.” You can read more about that here.

According to Hermann Oberth, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, “flying saucers are real and…they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.” (source 1)(source 2)

There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations. That it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.” 

– Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)

Below is an excellent lecture by Richard Dolan that elaborates upon the idea I’m referring to above. This issue/topic goes far beyond Donald Trump and what we are spoon-fed by mainstream media. Transparency left this world long ago, and it’s slowly returning as more people start to become aware that all is not as it’s been presented to us. This shift in thinking alone is contributing to changing our human experience from one of secrecy to one of transparency. If you’d like to read more articles about the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon, you can visit the disclosure section of our website and sift through them, they’re all archived there.

The Takeaway

What we are seeing here is a battle between powers within the US Government to control space. Prior to Trump’s arrival, it seems (based on my research), that the secret space program was in the hands of the Deep State. What we’ve observed here at CE is that Donald Trump, and those he works with, seem to be in somewhat of a battle with this Deep State, which would explain his disclosure and initiation of a space force, when it’s quite clear that one has already been in existence.

The realization that we are not alone has huge implications and the disclosure of this information would leave no aspect of humanity untouched.

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

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

Archaeologists Discover a Long-lost Illyrian City ‘Mistaken for Natural Rocks’ in Albania

Polish archaeologists have uncovered a long-lost city, in north-east Albania according to Science in Poland . The city was found unexpectedly, and it is believed to be the ancient Illyrian city of Bassania. This discovery is generating a great deal of excitement among archaeologists because it can provide insights into the once mighty Illyrian civilization that dominated much of the Balkans in Antiquity.

Who Were the Illyrians?

The Illyrians were a powerful group of tribes who were the preeminent power in the western Balkans for several centuries. They had many contacts with the Greeks and they were influenced to an extent by the culture of their southern neighbors.  The Illyrian region was usually divided into several kingdoms who struggled for supremacy with each other. In 168 BC, the Romans defeated and captured the powerful Illyrian king, Gendaius and they created a series of client republics in his kingdom. The area eventually became a province of the Roman Empire and the local Illyrian culture was over time Romanized. According to the Britannica Encyclopaedia , Illyria ‘became a principal military bulwark of Rome and its culture in the ancient world’.

Bassania was known to historians mainly through the work of the great Roman historian Livy. In the historian’s account, the city was a very important one in the last Illyrian kingdom and was an important fortress. The city was destroyed by the Romans in 168 BC and it was presumed that it was later abandoned, its exact location forgotten.

• Two Ancient Palaces Unearthed in Montenegro Were Home to Famous Illyrian Rulers
• The Fierce Queen of the Illyrians: Teuta the Untameable
• The Early Temples and Monuments of the Alban People in Ancient Azerbaijan

The ruins are thought to be the lost city of Bassania. 

(Image: M. Lemke/ Science in Poland )

The Hidden City of Bassania

The city, which was located on some hills, had been lost for so many centuries because its ruins have been mistaken for natural rocks. After centuries of erosion, the stone remnants of the city’s surviving walls were so weathered that they looked like natural stones. There are no traveler or local accounts of the ruins and they were completely forgotten despite the scale of the site. This may have helped to preserve the ruins of Bassania, which was entirely forgotten - unlike nearby ancient Shkoder another Illyrian settlement.

In May, a Polish team of archaeologists from the Antiquity of South-eastern Europe Research Centre of the University of Warsaw, led by Professor Piotr Dyczek, re-discovered Bassania. In a routine dig, they discovered part of its walls and a gateway, made of well-made blocks of hewn stones. The gate was flanked by two bastions and the walls were 3 meters (10 feet) wide, whose spaces were packed with clay and stones.

Cut rock were used to construct substantial walls. 

(Image: M. Lemke/ Science in Poland )

After a survey of the site, it was established that Bassania was larger than ancient Shkoder and its walls encircled an area of approximately twenty acres. This indicates that the city had a large population and was an important urban center in Illyria.

During the investigation of the site, the Polish team discovered coins, pottery and ceramic vessels near the walls. The style of these would indicate that they are from the third to first century BC and shows that the city was part of the Illyrian kingdom that would later be annexed by Rome. An investigation of the site showed that it was constructed in a manner that was undoubtedly influenced by the Hellenistic kingdoms to the south. According to Science in Poland , the walls and gateway of Bassania are ‘typical for Hellenistic defensive structures’.

• Two Ancient Palaces Unearthed in Montenegro Were Home to Famous Illyrian Rulers
• Ancient ivory tablets reveal high status of Illyrian women
• The Palace of Diocletian: Roman Retirement Home and Palace Fortress of Croatia

The remains indicate that the city would have been larger than the nearby Shkoder.

(Image: M. Lemke/ Science in Poland )

The Polish team began an intensive investigation of the site and they soon established that the city was abandoned much later than thought. Research in recent years has indicated that Bassania was only abandoned late in the reign of Emperor Augustus (1 ^st century AD). The initial archaeological investigation would support the view that the city was occupied much longer than previously believed.

Rediscovering Bassania

The rediscovery of Bassania is one that allows archaeologists and other experts to gain a better understanding of ancient Illyria. The city which had largely been forgotten will yield up its secrets and allow us to have a better understanding of the Illyrians and how they became Romanized. One of the most exciting aspects of the discovery of the lost city is that it raises the prospect that there are many more Illyrian ruins waiting to be rediscovered.

Top image: Discovery of an ancient city in Albania. Source: M. Lemke/ Science in Poland

By Ed Whelan

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

How Realistic Are China's Plans to Build a Research Station on the Moon?

'Astrocomb' opens new horizons for planet-hunting telescope

National Institute of Standards and Technology

The hunt for Earth-like planets, and perhaps extraterrestrial life, just got more precise, thanks to record-setting starlight measurements made possible by a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) "astrocomb."

NIST's custom-made frequency comb—which precisely measures frequencies, or colors, of light—ensures the precision of starlight analysis by an instrument called a spectrograph at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas. The project is a collaboration involving NIST, the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and Pennsylvania State University, the primary partner in the telescope and spectrograph.

The new comb apparatus for the first time provides the precision needed for discovering and characterizing planets orbiting M dwarf stars, which comprise 70 percent of the stars in the galaxy and are plentiful near Earth, the research team reported in Optica.

"The comb immediately allowed our Penn State colleagues to make measurements they could not otherwise make," NIST Fellow Scott Diddams said. "These improved tools should allow us to find habitable planets around the most ubiquitous stars in our galaxy."

A star's nuclear furnace emits white light, which is modified by elements in the atmosphere that absorb certain narrow bands of color. To search for planets orbiting distant stars, astronomers look for periodic changes in this characteristic "fingerprint," that is, very small variations in the apparent colors of starlight over time. These oscillations in color are caused by the star being tugged to and fro by the gravitational pull of an unseen orbiting planet. This apparent wobble is subtle, and measurements are limited by the frequency standards used to calibrate spectrographs.

Hundreds of exoplanets have been discovered using star wobble analysis, but a planet with a mass similar to that of Earth and orbiting at just the right distance from a star—in the so-called "Goldilocks zone"—is hard to detect with conventional technology.

Data collected by the NIST-CU-Penn State research team show the astrocomb will make it possible to detect Earth-mass planets that cause color shifts equivalent to a star wobble of about 1 meter per second—the approximate speed of a person walking across a room, and at least 10 times better than previously achieved in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared light is the main type emitted by M dwarf stars.

Over the past 20 years, NIST researchers in Boulder, Colorado, first invented and then pioneered further advances in optical frequency combs. The comb delivered to Texas is unique in having about 5,000 widely spaced "teeth," or specific color calibration points. It's tailored to the reading capability of Penn State's Habitable Zone Planet Finder sprectrograph and spans the target infrared wavelength band of 800-1300 nm. Just 60 by 152 square centimeters in size and made of relatively simple commercial components, the comb is also robust enough to withstand continuous use at a remote site.

In providing tailored light to the spectrograph, the NIST comb acts like a very precise ruler to calibrate and track exact colors in a star's fingerprint and detect any periodic variations. The comb, made with new electro-optic laser technology, provides strong signals at accurately defined target frequencies that can be traced to international measurement standards.

The project has been in the works for years. The NIST-CU-Penn State research team did a test run in 2012 that showed the promise of the new approach. The new comb was delivered and saw "first light," as they say in astronomy, in February 2018, and has been running nightly since May of 2018. The new comb has a broader light range and is more stable than the earlier demo version.

While the idea of using frequency combs to aid planet discovery has generated a lot of interest around the world, the new NIST astrocomb is the first in operation at near-infrared wavelengths. Other combs currently operating on a telescope, such as the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in Chile, are dedicated to visible light measurements.

 Explore further: 'Star Comb' joins quest for Earthlike planets

More information: Andrew J. Metcalf et al, Stellar spectroscopy in the near-infrared with a laser frequency comb, Optica (2019). DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.6.000233 

{ https://phys.org/ }

NASA wants to probe deep into Uranus in search of smelly gas 

Rob Waugh

Scientists stunned the world this year with the revelation that Uranus actually does smell like farts – and a NASA probe could soon actually ‘breathe in’ the fumes.

Amy Simon of NASA’s Ice Giants Pre-Decadal Study group told the Gravity Assist podcast the next mission to Uranus should use an atmospheric probe.

Amy Simon said, ‘I think the primary thing we’d add to any mission is an atmospheric probe, because we want to understand what the layers are in the atmosphere, what the temperatures are.’

Sniff sniff sniff (Getty)

Simon told New Scientist last year that the space agency hoped to launch a probe to either Uranus or Neptune in the 2030s, A Science Enthusiast reports.

One of the proposed missions includes a fly-by of Uranus, which would include a narrow-angle camera – and a probe which would drop into Uranus’s atmosphere to measure gas and heavy elements.

Simon said that the mission could also use an orbiter, ‘ We have also looked at orbiters, and these are nice because it gives you a chance to explore that whole system – the rings, the moons, Triton in particular – to see what’s going on on all sides of those different moons.’

Has Uranus been probed?

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew closely past distant Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, in January 1986.

At its closest, the spacecraft came within 81,500 kilometres (50,600 miles) of Uranus’s cloudtops on January 24, 1986. 

Voyager 2 radioed thousands of images and voluminous amounts of other scientific data on the planet, its moons, rings, atmosphere, interior and the magnetic environment surrounding Uranus.

A map of the outer solar system

(Picture: AFP/Getty) 

Since launch on August 20, 1977, Voyager 2’s itinerary has taken the spacecraft to Jupiter in July 1979, Saturn in August 1981, and then Uranus. Voyager 2’s next encounter was with Neptune in August 1989. Both Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, will eventually leave our solar system and enter interstellar space. 

• MORE: Sorry, you’ve probably been saying the word Uranus wrong your whole life

Voyager 2’s images of the five largest moons around Uranus revealed complex surfaces indicative of varying geologic pasts. The cameras also detected 10 previously unseen moons.

The 11 rings of Uranus, opaque and a few kilometres wide each, are relatively young in space terms – not more than 600 million years old. They were probably formed by collisional fragmentation of several moons that once orbited the planet

(Picture: BSIP/UIG Via Getty)

Several instruments studied the ring system, uncovering the fine detail of the previously known rings and two newly detected rings. 

Voyager data showed that the planet’s rate of rotation is 17 hours, 14 minutes.

The spacecraft also found a Uranian magnetic field that is both large and unusual. In addition, the temperature of the equatorial region, which receives less sunlight over a Uranian year, is nevertheless about the same as that at the poles

{  https://metro.co.uk/ }

'River of Stars' Streaming Through the Milky Way Was Hiding in Plain Sight for 1 Billion Years

Japan Just Shot a Fake Asteroid with a Space Bullet … for Science

Wetenschappers waarschuwen Cubanen voor radioactieve ruimtestenen - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

Deskundigen hebben sindsdien honderd fragmenten gevonden, maar ook de lokale bewoners hebben enthousiast stukjes meteoriet verzameld. Die bewaren ze als aandenken. De wetenschappers drukken de Cubanen echter op het hart om de hemelstenen wegens de straling vooral niet als sieraad te dragen.

Lees ook

Meteoriet stort neer in Cuba

De stukken steen zijn mogelijk afkomstig van van de planetoïde Vesta die ruim 372 miljoen kilometer van de aarde verwijderd is. ze is de op twee na grootste planetoïde in ons zonnestelsel.

 AFP

 EPA

AFP

 AFP

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Pilots baffled as they see UFOs over Gloucestershire with other sightings over the M5 and towards Bristol

Air Midwest said flying objects "defied our normal expectation of standard aircraft or meteorological activity"

By Phil Norris - Breaking News Editor

A previous sighting of a 'UFO' over Gloucestershire, similar to those seen by the pilots

If there is one group of people who don’t immediately shout ‘UFO’ every time there is a strange light in the sky, it is pilots.

After all, it’s very much their job to know what kind of thing are up in the air and to keep a cool head.

So, it is no surprise that there has been a lot of interest in reports by pilots from Air Midwest, a flight training and aviation service company, of a unidentified flying object over Gloucestershire.

While stressing they are not saying the UFO is part of an alien scouting party, or the initial stage of an Earth invasion, they have been baffled by what they saw.

And they would very much like to hear from people what the orange-coloured objects were.

Described as ‘unidentified nocturnal lights’, the company said they were seen south of Gloucester on Thursday between 8.15pm and 8.45pm.

What did they see?

This is how they reported the sighting, which happened as two of their aircraft were conducting night navigation exercises.

“At approximately 8.15pm one of our aircraft was tracking south towards Gloucester at 7,000ft after leaving the Birmingham air traffic zone.

“At the same time one of our other aircraft was also tracking south towards Gloucester at 4,000ft when both aircraft observed one red and one orange lights in the the sky south of Gloucester.

“Our aircraft approached the lights on an interception track but were unable to gain on the objects as they appeared to move further south of Gloucester as our aircraft approached.

“We were unable to identify the lights.”

The company, based in Wolverhampton, stressed that the lights “defied our normal expectation of standard aircraft or meteorological activity”.

It has ruled out hot air balloons and said they have not come across any explanation of what the objects could be.

And it said it would welcome any explanation for what the pilots, with more than 25,000 flying hours between them, actually say.

Pilot describes his close encounter

I observed initially two large square orange lights.

One on top of each but slightly off set, however, there was a gap in height between them.

The top ‘orb’ was constantly orange.

The lower one occasionally flicked white but majority of time was orange.

In addition to that on two occasions I observed five orange lights but that was momentary.

I initially observed them when leaving Birmingham control zone. I thought they were just south of Gloucester and definitely a lot higher then us.

We then climbed 5000 ft and they seemed level at that height and stationary.

As we approached Gloucester, it became apparent they were now further south maybe beyond Bristol even as far as Weston-super-Mare but directly south of Gloucester[shire] airport.

On our return leg up to EGBO (our home base) by Worcester we climbed 7,000 ft and commenced a turn to observe the lights.

At this point they seemed lower than us in the same place and stationary.

I have no idea what these objects were.

Night glow balloons? But unlikely as these do not move very fast at all.

So what they were?

We have no idea.

An interesting event.

After the pilots shared their experiences on social media, others people also reported seeing strange lights.

One person said on Facebook: "We saw that UFO while we were driving along the M5 bright light and VERY STRANGE movements

"It looked like a fighter jet diving for low level it dropped very quickly while performing a series of tight turns then it just hovered."

Another person reported seeing it in Caerleon, near Newport in Wales, saying: "I saw this! I was in Caerleon and I noticed that there was nothing on radar and the fact that it was moving at a very fast pace."

While another person reported seeing something similar, but further south on the M3.

• Do you know what the lights were? You can contact us at citizen.news@glosmedia.co.uk, in the comments below, or via our social media channels.

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

The world’s inevitable march towards a war in space continues this week as China’s state-owned Science and Technology Daily newspaper reports plans for terrifying-sounding orbital solar power stations. According to the paper, Chinese scientists have developed plans to construct small orbiting solar plants which could be put into orbit in the stratosphere as early as 2021 or as late as 2025.

Unlike solar power farms down here on the surface of the Earth, solar farms in orbit could collect solar radiation 99% of the time as opposed to only when the Sun is out and unobscured by cloud cover. In addition, the higher altitude means the plants could generate up to six times the amount of power as solar farms on the surface do. “So wait, what’s so scary about space-based solar farms,” you ask? The fact that the plants will send the Sun’s energy back down to Earth via massive lasers or microwave energy beams. Say it with me now: what could go wrong?

The concept is somewhat reminiscent of the theoretical Dyson sphere, a massive structure which orbits a star and harvests 100% of its radiant energy.

I’ll tell you what could go wrong. For one, the risk of accidents would be enormous. A giant laser shooting gigawatts of energy downward from 36,000 kilometers above the ground doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d like above my head, thanks. The same technology that could direct energy into power plants on the ground could theoretically also be used to do what lasers and other directed energy weapons do best: light stuff on fire in magnificent fashion. Still, whether or not the power plants will be used or even could be used as a weapon remains unknown. I’m probably just being hyperbolic and overly skeptical of China’s plans for space; so far, these solar farms have only been discussed in terms of their ability to produce clean, renewable energy.

Still, the possibility of weaponization of this technology, however small, is there. Furthermore, this announcement comes on the heels of many recent developments which seem to suggest that China, like the rest of the space-faring nations, is actively militarizing or weaponizing space under the guise of scientific development.

Already, military intelligence agencies in the United States suspect that China’s plans to develop scientific research stations on the far side of the moon may have ulterior motivesand that China’s plans to clean up space debris with laser-equipped probes may be a ruse to develop killer satellitescapable of bringing other nations’ communications and defense capabilities to their knees. Is this solar farm idea an entirely peaceful way to harvest clean energy, or might these some day turn out to be solar-powered superweapons?

Why not both?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The rising number of people who believe that the Earth is flat is often used as proof that you can get humans to believe anything. Now it can also be used as proof that you can get humans to fund anything. Researchers have completed a study on … you guessed it … Flat Earthers and found that the population boom in pizza planet proponents can be traced to and thus blamed on … YouTube! Who do we blame the proliferation of studies on … and how can we get in on it?

“There’s a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation. Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it.”

Yes, someone paid for that seemingly obvious analysis from Asheley R. Landrum, PhD, a psychologist and Assistant Professor specializing in strategic science communication at Texas Tech in Lubbock. The Guardian reported this week on the study conducted by Landrum which involved questioning participants in two different conferences of Flat Earthers, one in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the other in Denver, Colorado (two cities whose citizens could look at each other with telescopes if the Earth was flat – just saying). Of the 30 people asked how they came to their belief in a flat Earth, 29 said they were convinced after watching YouTube videos on the theory and the 30th learned it from relatives who were persuaded after (don’t get ahead of me here) watching YouTube videos.

Landrum presented her study at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held last week in Washington DC in order to plead with the scientists in attendance to create their own YouTube videos explaining why the Earth is round – an idea that undoubtedly had many of them facepalming and shaking their heads.

“We don’t want YouTube to be full of videos saying here are all these reasons the Earth is flat. We need other videos saying here’s why those reasons aren’t real and here’s a bunch of ways you can research it for yourself.”

Even if this were to happen, it may have the opposite effect. Landrum pointed out that many of the believers say they were round Earthers at first and only went to the Internet to look for evidence supporting their case. In the process, they found videos like “200 proofs Earth is not a spinning ball” and were convinced to go flat. (See the video here — if you dare.)

“Believing the Earth is flat in of itself is not necessarily harmful, but it comes packaged with a distrust in institutions and authority more generally. We want people to be critical consumers of the information they are given, but there is a balance to be had.”

Landrum’s study is good but that’s the real issue here. People who are predisposed to a distrust of authority – government, science or otherwise – will find plenty to support their arguments on the greatest repository of conspiracy theories ever invented. The real question is – would they feel the same way or come to the same conclusions if there was no YouTube?

If anyone has the funds, I know someone willing to do that study.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Fastwalker UFOs – UFOs travelling over 20,000 MPH are so fast they appear as mere streaks to unaided human eye

They are called Fastwalkers (or Fast Walkers) and travel at speeds well over 20,000 miles per hour making these UFOs mere “streaks” of light to the unaided human eye. Their name comes from a 1984 NORAD incident which tracked an unidentified Fastwalker UFO moving at speeds over 22,000 MPH as it screamed towards earth.

The May 1984 NORAD Fastwalker event

In May of 1984 at 1400 hours Zulu time, an alert was triggered at the North America Air Defense Command (NORAD) when ultra-sensitive orbiting USDSPmilitary satellites (highly-classified satellites that serve as early ICBM launch detection systems) spotted a mysterious UFO heading towards earth at a mind-boggling 22,000 miles per hour. As is passed in front of Earth and less than 20 miles from the USDSP satellite, officials determined it was not a ballistic missile nor a meteor. After classifying it as “unknown”, it was given the code name “Fast Walker”.

NORAD data revealed the unidentified object was a hot, fast, solid object that swept in quickly from space, approached Earth, then sped off into space. The event was intended to be kept secret but an official (a retired military official) leaked details about the event to an investigator (special agent Joe Stefula) along with a diagram of the incident. According to Stefula:

“I haven’t been able to determine that the document’s absolutely authentic but I have been able to confirm that the DSP printout for that date shows an event at the same time with the same characteristics. What makes this particular Fast Walker so peculiar is that it came in from outer space on a curved trajectory, passing within three kilometers of the satellite platform, and then disappeared back into space. Whatever it was, it was tracked for nine minutes.”

The 1984 Fastwalker event obviously alarmed government officials – the sighting resulted in a 300-page internal report which basically “looked at every possibility and couldn’t explain [the unidentified object] by natural or man-made means.”  A researcher explained whey the NORAD sighting was significant:

“Where it appeared in the (satellite’s) sensor field would indicate that the object came into the sensor field from outer-space, went in front of the sensor, and left, departing back into deep space. It would indicate that it was some type of craft that had the ability to maneuver. And there you have hard evidence. You have telemetry from that satellite, you have information, you have systems, you have data that you can go back and investigate and check and verify. In the past, usually UFO events are of just eye-witness testimony… There you have a very sensitive defense system that sent you information to the ground. I don’t even know if you can solve it… maybe it’s one of those enigmas that’s just gonna be with us forever. What type of craft would have that ability? Some people might say, ‘A UFO’.”

In 1993, after word of Fastwalkers had leaked to the public, the Department of Defense declassified unrelated satellite information which confirmed that satellites were routinely picking up unidentified hi-speed moving objects in space which were neither missiles nor meteorites/asteroids. According to the official who leaked the documents, an average of two to three Fastwalkers are detected each month.

The Observatory Journal documents a “candidate for an alien probe”

Additional stunning evidence was presented in April 1995, when The Observatory journal published an article by Duncan Steel (University of Adelaide, Australia), an expert on the danger of near-Earth objects, that described a recently sighted Fastwalker. The article revealed that a December 1991 object passing near earth was designated a “candidate for an alien probe”. For all intents and purposes, the object looked and moved like an artificial satellite – only much faster.

Fastwalkers – alien surveillance probes

Many in the UFO community theorize the Earth may be under surveillance by advanced alien races whose motives are unclear.  They believe Fastwalkers are alien surveillance vehicles or probes which conduct routine surveillance missions gathering data on our planet and its inhabitants.  The surmise that governments know of their existence, and their intent, but choose to keep details of their activities from the public.

Additional information

• FOIA request confirms Fastwalkers

Below is a FOIA request submitted in 2013 which confirms NORAD’s search for “Fastwalkers” and “Slowwalkers” in internal document databases produced a representative hit.  However, as noted in the response below, information on Fastwalkers is still classified and unavailable for public review.

• Fastwalkers speed compared to other space objects

For reference, Fastwalkers travel much faster than orbiting satellites but much slower than deep space asteroids. When discussed together, slower anomalous flying objects are termed “Slowwalkers”.

Sources: BlackVault, NORAD, NASA, Unexplained Mysteries, The Inquisitr, Wikipedia, UFO Digest, Mission Galactic Freedom, YouTube

VIDEOS, SELECTED BY PETER2011

Magnified image of fast UFO passing space station

{ http://altereddimensions.net/ }

Fastwalker red band of light passes satellite

On February 14, 2019 Wilbur Allen has captured a strange red band of light that travels through space.

Given the speed of the object, it seems that the sky-watcher has filmed a fastwalker.

Fastwalker is a code name created by the North American Aerospace Defense Command to classify Unidentified Flying Objects which moving and changing directions at high speed and enter or leave the atmosphere at a great velocity.

Fastwalker captured on a DSP satellite.

Sometimes Fastwalkers have been captured on the Defense Support Program satellite system as happened on May 5, 1984 when a DSP satellite captured a FastWalker while it was traveling a 22,000 mph.

The footage shows a satellite and the fastwalker, characterized by a strange ‘red band of light, in one picture and compare the difference in speed at the moment the fast walker passes the satellite.

  

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

{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

Solar flares – huge erupting jets of gas – are common on our sun, but what about on other stars? It turns out other stars produce them as well, as astronomers have known for a long time now. Red dwarf stars, in particular, can have massive solar flares. But now, astronomers have observed a new solar flare on a young star that almost defies belief – 10 billion times more powerful than any ever seen on our own sun.

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Astronomers using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii reported the discovery on February 11, 2019. The peer-reviewed paper has been published in The Astrophysical Journal (full paper is online at arXiv). The initial detection of the flare was on November 26, 2016. As noted by astronomer Steve Mairs, lead investigator of the discovery team:

A discovery of this magnitude could have only happened in Hawaii. Using the JCMT, we study the birth of nearby stars as a means of understanding the history of our very own solar system. Observing flares around the youngest stars is new territory and it is giving us key insights into the physical conditions of these systems.

This is one of the ways we are working toward answering people’s most enduring questions about space, time, and the universe that surrounds us.

The flare was detected by JCMT using the telescope’s state-of the art high-frequency radio technology and sophisticated image analysis techniques. The telescope uses a special super-cooled 10,000-pixel camera called SCUBA-2, which needs to be kept at a very cold -459.5 degrees Fahrenheit (-290 Celsius).

From the paper:

The event may be the most luminous known flare associated with a young stellar object …

Solar flares occur when the magnetic field lines of a star get twisted and tangled with each other until they snap, releasing huge amounts of energy and charged particles into space. A typical solar flare on the sun releases energy equivalent to millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time.

The flare seen on this other young star, however, was 10 billion times more powerful than that.

The flare was observed on a very young star called JW 566, about 1,269 light-years away in the Orion Nebula. Lasting only a few hours, it is thought to be have been caused by a disruption in a powerful magnetic field that was funneling material onto the young, growing star as it gradually gained mass from the surrounding gas and dust.

JW 566 is a variable star – specifically, a T Tauri star – less than 10 million years old. It is going through a period of growth before it is massive enough for hydrogen fusion to ignite in its core.

JCMT – operated by the East Asian Observatory – is the only telescope in the Northern Hemisphere capable of finding this kind of solar flare activity, these astronomers said. JCMT has been observing nearly 1,000 very young nearby stars as part of a monthly tracking program.

The team said it will continue to monitor JW 566 as part of the JCMT Transient Survey, to see if any additional flares can be observed.

By the way, solar flares would be dangerous to unshielded human space travelers because very high-energy particles result from them. They can also negatively affect some earthly technologies, for example, satellites in Earth orbit.

At the same time, however, some scientists believe solar flares might have played a role in helping to “jump-start” life on the early Earth. Some of the energy required for early life might have come from solar flares, according to Vladimir Airapetian, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a study from 2016:

To make organic stuff out of inorganic stuff, you need a lot of energy.

The same thing – a jump-start for life, provided by solar flares – might happen on planets orbiting other stars. In particular, Earth-sized or super-Earth exoplanets that in the habitable zones of their stars might get a benefit, in terms of life starting, from solar flares.

The same may be true for red dwarf stars, like JW 566. But nature is complex, and – from what we can tell – the conditions needed for life may be delicate. Red dwarfs are known to be very active in terms of solar flares, perhaps too active. The same intense solar flare bombardment that might jump-start life might also make life difficult to continue on a planet’s surface.

Bottom line: Solar flares on our sun are an amazing phenomenon, but this discovery shows that some stars, especially younger ones, can have flares much more powerful than those – mind-bogglingly so.

• Source: The JCMT Transient Survey: An Extraordinary Submillimeter Flare in the T Tauri Binary System JW 566
• Via Maunakea Obervatories
• Via Science Alert

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

As Yellowstone Awakens, Dr. Michio Kaku Warns That it Could “Literally Tear the Guts Out of the United States of America”

One day it will happen.  Scientists assure us that one day the absolutely massive Yellowstone supervolcano will once again experience a Category 8 eruption, and if it happened today it would “literally tear the guts out of the United States of America”.  That is why what has been happening at Yellowstone in recent months is so alarming.  We know that the ground has been rising and that “a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock” is moving upwards directly under Yellowstone.  And we also know that the major geysers at Yellowstone were more active last year than in any other year in any of our lifetimes.  Are these signs that an eruption is coming?  We better hope not, because as Dr. Michio Kaku recently told Fox News, there is “a sleeping Godzilla underneath Yellowstone”…

Dr Kaku told Fox News: “Forget the image of Yogi Bear representing Yellowstone.

“We’re talking about a sleeping Godzilla underneath Yellowstone, that if it erupts in a maximum eruption called Category 8, it can literally tear the guts out of the United States of America.

“Instead of having 50 states of the Union, we would have 30 states of the Union.“

We live at a time when seismic activity has been increasing all over the world, and Yellowstone has also been exhibiting very unusual behavior.

However, Dr. Kaku says that we shouldn’t worry too much, because he believes that we will get warnings about a Yellowstone eruption in advance…

“Unlike a meteor from outer space, where you get no warning whatsoever, we get warnings.

“If you see movies like Pompeii, you know that there are days, in fact, weeks of eruptions building up, rumbling inside, underneath the pocket of lava.

“So there would be enough time, several weeks, to begin evacuation if and when such an unlikely event were to take place.”

But what if we have been ignoring the warnings that we have already been getting?

For example, Steamboat geyser erupted more times in 2018 than in any other year in history.  The following comes from National Geographic…

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory reports that Steamboat has now set a record by erupting a whopping 32 times in 2018, a personal best for the geyser for a single calendar year. Previously, this geyser made it as high as 29 paroxysms back in 1964.

Other nearby geysers have also been behaving fairly interestingly of late. Ear Spring Geyser, for example, has been pretty quiet since 1957, but it erupted spectacularly a few months back—and sprayed human garbage from the 1930s everywhere.

Prior to last year, there had not been an eruption of the Steamboat geyser for three and a half years.

In addition, the ground under Yellowstone has been steadily rising for the last few years, and the area was hit by 121 earthquakes in the month of December alone…

“In the area of Norris Geyser Basin, GPS data indicate a minor amount of uplift over the past few months, with a total uplift of about 2cm during 2018, also continuing the trend that has been ongoing since 2015.”

In the same Yellowstone update, the USGS revealed a total of 121 earthquakes were recorded in the Yellowstone area in December 2018 alone.

It is indeed possible that when Yellowstone finally erupts that we will get more of a warning than this.

But it is also possible that we will not.

When Yellowstone blows, life as you have known it will instantly be over.  If you are not in the immediate kill zone, you will have an opportunity to try to survive, but it won’t be easy.  One survivalist expert suggests that everyone should “head east as fast as you can”…

He added: “Zone one, which is a radius of 100 miles, could see 70,000 people die instantly.

“Zone two, which starts after 100 miles, would be covered in 10ft of volcanic ash at 450C.

“After the second zone, your chances of surviving increase, but still head east as fast as you can.

“Beyond zone six is where you would be the safest in the US for the short term, but the wind will greatly determine where ash falls.”

Personally, I don’t know if that is the best approach.  The roads will be absolutely clogged, and there is no way that you are going to outrun the volcanic ash.  If you get completely buried in volcanic ash in your vehicle, it will all be over.

Of course the truth is that if Yellowstone experiences a Category 8 eruption most Americans will eventually die no matter what they do.  The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles…

Hundreds of cubic miles of ash, rock and lava would be blasted into the atmosphere, and this would likely plunge much of the northern hemisphere into several days of complete darkness. Virtually everything within 100 miles of Yellowstone would be immediately killed, but a much more cruel fate would befall those that live in major cities outside of the immediate blast zone such as Salt Lake City and Denver.

Hot volcanic ash, rock and dust would rain down on those cities literally for weeks. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for anyone living in those communities to survive. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 percent of all people living within 600 miles of Yellowstone would be killed.

Experts project that such an eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away, and approximately two-thirds of the United States would suddenly become uninhabitable. The volcanic ash would severely contaminate most of our water supplies, and growing food in the middle of the country would become next to impossible.

In other words, it would be the end of our country as we know it today.

The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a “nuclear winter”. An extreme period of “global cooling” would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees. Crops would fail all over the planet, and severe famine would sweep the globe.

In the end, billions could die.

Let us hope and pray that nothing like this happens any time soon.  Those of you that regularly follow my work already know that I am far more concerned about an eruption of Mt. Rainier, and we should also keep a very, very close eye on Mt. Fuji in Japan.

As our planet becomes increasingly unstable, there will be unprecedented natural disasters in the years ahead, and multitudes of people will die in those disasters.

Unfortunately, most of the “experts” continue to assure the public that everything is going to be “just fine”, but meanwhile the shaking of our planet just continues to get even worse with each passing year.

• About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.
• The post As Yellowstone Awakens, Dr. Michio Kaku Warns That It Could “Literally Tear The Guts Out Of The United States Of America” appeared first on The Economic Collapse.
• Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here.

Source: 

• http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/as-yellowstone-awakens-dr-michio-kaku-warns-that-it-could-literally-tear-the-guts-out-of-the-united-states-of-america

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

IN BEELD. De grootste supermaan van het jaar - HLN.be

 

Photo News Londen, Verenigd Koninkrijk.

 

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Pauline Lee@daisystar83

Full moon over Mount Kinabalu (19.02.2019). Photo not taken by me just sharing this beautiful shot #supermoon

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Megan O'Leary@MegOLeary

Here it comes!

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Nile's Daughter@nileisdaughter

#SuperSnowMoon #supermoon #egypt #travel #civilization #ThisIsEgypt #ägypten #visit_Egypt #photographers #fun #friendly #photography #pictures #مصر

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SFGate

✔@SFGate

From Instagram: The Supermoon seen this morning. Thanks @telephototim for the close up! #fullmoon #supermoon #goldengate #goldengatebridge #sf #sanfrancisco #regram #bayarea #citylife #instagood #instalike #picoftheday #ggbridge https://ift.tt/2InZ5J7 

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Leo Van Vreckem@Leovanvreckem

#vrtweer #maan #supermaan
Roosdaal 7u27

138:00 AM - Feb 20, 2019

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• Vanavond is het de grootste supermaan van 2019: hebben we dan écht meer seks en slapen we slechter?

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NASA onder de indruk: Australiërs zien draak boven IJsland vliegen - HLN.be

Bron: AD

Volgens NASA is de dramatische, Game of Thrones-achtige foto een maand geleden gemaakt onder omstandigheden die eigenlijk helemaal niet hadden moeten leiden tot een spectaculair noorderlicht. Op het moment dat de foto werd genomen was de atmosfeer rond de zon - veroorzaker van het noorder- of poollicht -  namelijk stabiel. Het noorderlicht wordt veroorzaakt door sterke uitbarstingen aan het oppervlak van de zon. Geladen deeltjes worden met grote kracht het heelal in geslingerd. Als de deeltjes met extreem hoge snelheid de atmosfeer bij de Noord- en Zuidpool raken, komt op 80 tot 1000 kilometer hoogte zoveel energie vrij dat gekleurd licht kan ontstaan. 

In een verklaring van NASA wordt gesteld dat de woest lijkende hemeldraak mogelijk ook nog geluid heeft gemaakt. “Als mensen het poollicht zien, horen ze meestal niets omdat het zachte ‘klappende, knetterende of ploppende’ geluid alleen hoorbaar is vanaf een hoogte van circa 70 meter.” Volgens de fotografen waren ze hoe dan ook behoorlijk onder de indruk van wat ze noemen de dragon aurora: het drakenpoollicht. De persoon die op de foto te zien is, is de moeder van één van de twee. “Zij rende keihard naar buiten toen ze het mythische monster zag.”

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Andreas@KleidiHum

Space Pic of the Day - Dragon Aurora over Iceland - by @nasa
@AsgardiaSpace #AsgardiaBerlin

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15 Area 51 Facts You Should Know

Since its launch in the 1950s, Area 51 has attracted thengreat interest of a huge number of people, very keen to find out what lies behind the perimeter of the tightly guarded military airbase.

The top-secret location in Nevada desert has remained off-limits to the public for about sixty years, including a large no-fly zone in airspace nearby.

The lack of basic information has led to weird speculation about its primary purpose. Actually, to most, Area 51 has become a term related to outlandish conspiracy theories about government cover-ups and extraterrestrial life.

Eventually, the wild speculations have diverted public attention away from some of the magnificent developments which have occurred at the base over the many years, things that have remained relatively mysterious among the public.

There is still high confusion among the members of the public concerning the driving forces behind this facility since no photos have been released publicly in the recent years.

Area 51 has been the location of on-going secret programs managed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since its establishment. Used mainly to test fresh technologies, some of the most high-level air capabilities of military started their working life at the base.

Work at the location continues to be improved today, with the recent satellite images revealing that new structures are being constructed. Nonetheless, their purpose stays unclear.

Therefore, to attempt and assist you separate reality from myth, here are 15 things about Area 51 you probably don’t know.

1. Foreign Aircraft Were Present At The Base

The US used the Area 51 location to test captured technology acquired from aircrafts of enemy nations.

The earliest foreign plane to land was the Russian-built MiG-21 that had been captured by the Israeli forces in 1966 when one of the members of the Iraqi air force defected.

The primary purpose of the investigations was to reveal weaknesses in design and performance so that United States forces could exploit them during the combat. In 1970, further examinations of Area 51 began – this time on secretly developed Soviet radar systems.

Some speculate this method of examination goes on with the intergalactic spacecraft allegedly being kept somewhere inside the compound.

2. The CIA Only Acknowledged Its Existence In 2013

Until 2013, the CIA declined to acknowledge the presence of Area 51 in the official documents since the United States government deemed the work undertaken at the base to be very sensitive.

This secrecy gave rise to the elusive nature of the base and without doubt fed the thousands of myths surrounding it.

At first, all the secrecy was as a result of the Cold War. Washington became super paranoid about its military programs alleging that it might fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. Fair enough, it would have been pretty shitty if that would occur, so paranoia warranted.

The existence of Area 51 was eventually admitted in a secret report which covered the first 2 decades of operations at Area 51. It was released in 2013 as a result of a freedom of information request by a popular professor at the George Washington University.

Obama also made an impromptu comment regarding the Area 51 in 2013, making him the first president to openly acknowledge its existence.

3. First Drone Test Flight

Even though the use of drones by the United States military is currently widespread in conflicts in different countries, their development started some time ago.

Area 51 was the site of the earliest test flight of the unmanned drone in 1964. The aircraft was known as D21 and was designed for use as the surveillance aircraft.

It had taken quite some time before the drone was launched individually. However, by 1966, the D21 model had flown to the heights of 90,000 feet.

But during its 4th test flight, something went wrong when a particular drone was released from its primary carrier plane and both aircraft’s were damaged, killing one crew member. The D21 drone continue to conduct 4 spying missions over China, from 1969-1971.

4. United States Army Accused Of Using Lethal Substances At Area 51

Suggestions have emerged that the military misused secrecy surrounding Area 51, and the confidentiality obligations assigned to those who work there to dump huge quantities of poisonous waste at the site.

The workers who became sick, and the widows of those who lost their lives, brought together evidence of huge drums of deadly waste being dumped in the trenches prior to being set alight.

A court case was arranged but could not proceed because of national security considerations. Claims were also made that due to the remoteness of Area 51, it was used to dispose of the waste gathered from some other military locations.

5. Area 51 Was Accidentally Disclosed

Area 51 is the well-known secret military base of operations in the entire world. However, a 1967 government memo is the single reason we
know of its presence at all.

Protocol meant each reference to the Area 51 had to be redacted from each document but, enquiringly, in this memo that was sent by CIA Director Richard Helms and concerned the positioning of surveillance aircraft in the Vietnam, one slipped through.

The mistake did not reach the public, but the big question stands: was this leak actually accidental?

6. U2 Spy Plane Involved in First Area 51 Operation

The site started in 1955 as a top test center for the U-2 spy plane an aircraft established after WWII. It was able to conduct surveillance over the Soviet Union, and even practice flights were performed using the runways constructed onsite.

When it kicked off the operations over the Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, a cover story was made to display it as a weather research plane.

7. Photos Were Once Accidentally Taken off the Base

During the flight on board Skylab in 1974, a certain group of inexperienced astronauts unintentionally took photographs of the Area 51 site.

The incident prompted a national security debate and the likelihood of formally acknowledging the base was regarded. William Colby, retired director of the CIA, was drawn into a huge controversy within the intelligence service that eventually choose not to release the photograph to the public.

Confidential documents since released, show that Area 51 was the only location in the world which CIA had prohibited from being photographed from the space. This offers an indication of how valued the work done there was seen.

8. Area 51 May Have Tested The Helicopters Used In The Bin Laden Raid

The conspiracy to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011 was conducted by a team of Navy Seals that were flown to his Pakistan site by 2 Blackhawk helicopters.

Nonetheless, when one helicopter crashed during the mission, aviation professionals recognized that this was no normal helicopter.

Some speculate it was the Blackhawk model which had undergone considerable modification; others claim it was a totally new and formerly unknown model, perhaps one which was purpose-built for this mission.

It is believed the testing grounds for this modern chopper would’ve been Area 51. The improved Black Hawk was regarded near invisible to the radar. Judging by the success of the mission, the aircraft was clearly much harder to sense than its predecessors.

9.The Recent Project May Be A Next Generation Spy Plane

Rumors are circulating, after the appearance of recent satellite data displaying Area 51 which a significant new project is under way. A huge, hangar-like building is supposedly being developed at the end of one of the runways.

According to the defense journalist Tyler Rogoway, the United States air force has indirectly admitted that the prototype of a long-range and the unmanned surveillance aircraft exists that’s believed to be a possible candidate for testing.

The hangar developed at Area 51 has been equipped with large doors, nearly 170 feet wide, suggesting that they’ve been precisely designed to deal with a massive object like an aircraft.

10. Entertainment Options at Area 51

If you are planning an enjoyable getaway to Area 51, you may need to pack some books since you are going to be bored.

Insiders have shown that, early on, the only entertainment choices at Area 51 were a small bowling alley and a single cement tennis court. There was no radio, and TV signals only made it through the nearby mountains in the evening.

However, the good news is that Area 51 workers ate very well. The mess hall occasionally served oysters and lobsters, and they enjoyed a weekly steak night.

11. Aliases of Area 51

During its early construction, Area 51 was given codenames atertown’, room Lake’, the Edgar Allen Poe-inspired reamland’ and, lastly, aradise Ranch’. It is unclear if Michael Jackson had a contributed any of these naming choices.

The primary idea behind “Paradise Ranch” was that it would eventually make the mission appear more desirable to the contracted construction workers.

Arguably, there was not necessary since months of back-breaking labor in the remote Arizonian desert certainly sounds like an idea of a great time.

“Paradise Ranch” is also the name of the campy Korean TV drama. Does it tells the story of the construction of Area 51? It certainly seems like it.

12. Most Ridiculous Conspiracy Theory of Area 51

There are no deficiencies of these to select from, but perhaps the most disgraceful appeared in the 2011 book, on the history of the top-secret base by Annie Jacobsen.

According to her, Area 51 was an active center of a United States cover-up which went into motion after the alleged crashing of the UFO at Roswell, in 1947.

Refuting that it was a UFO, she alleges that the craft was the Soviet mission, piloted by genetically engineered kids to make people in the United States believe that it was the alien craft, to spread fear.

In this imaginary tale, Area 51 was used as a storage location for the oviet’ ship and the remains of its crew. As if this wasn’t going far enough, she also claimed that the fugitive Nazi scientist had conducted the genetic engineering of these kids, Josef Mengele, who is ill-famed for his experiments on the concentration camp prisoners during the WWII.

13. Alien Reports

In 1952, a spectacular spike in the UFO sightings had the CIA admitting the remote prospect that interplanetary aircraft were used. The government considered the phenomenon seriously and even investigated every sighting.

90 percent of reported sightings were simply debunked –whatnot and weather balloons – but the other 10 percent were categorized as “incredible reports from credible observers.”

More than half of the UFO reports from the late 1950s through to the Swingin’ 60s were accounted for by the manned reconnaissance flights over the US. Nearly all of these came from Area 51.

Despite the reasonable explanations, several still claim that the alien aircraft are being kept at Area 51 and reverse-engineered to build new weapons and aircraft.

A recent poll confirmed that more than 70 percent of Americans believe UFOs are real. A number that believes in unicorns stays unconfirmed.

14. Hoax Moon Landing Twist

It is no secret entire hoards of people believe America did fake the moon landing in order to win the coveted Space Race. Most of them believe the staged event happened at Area 51 that’s ground zero for each wild conspiracy theory.

What you may not realize is the sliver of evidence corroborates this specific conspiracy. A huge variety of space equipment – including life-support systems and land rovers – were discovered at adjoining nuclear testing grounds of Area 51.

It is possible these were mainly used for test purposes by various astronauts, but it is still very suspicious.

15. Crashed A-12 Spy Plane

The A-12 is a super-sonic spy plane which was built and tested behind the black curtain of Area 51.

It was almost undetectable to the radar and could cross-continental the USA in only 70 minutes, capturing footage at a remarkable altitude of 90,000 ft.

Pushing the aviation limits came with some risks, still, and finally led to a terrible crash outside of Area 51 in 1963. When fragments of the crashed A-12 were revealed in Utah, the CIA chose to release and even publish photos of the plane.

Reportedly, pilot Ken Collins had managed to parachute to the ground where he was shocked to be meet 3 civilians in a pickup, who provided him a ride to the wreckage of his plane.

Instead, Collins asked them to take him in an opposite direction by informing them the plane had a nuclear weapon on board. In fact, this was a pre-arranged cover story in order to keep the craft secret and even proves the lengths officials were ready to go to.

Sources:

• http://thechive.com/2015/09/19/a-few-facts-about-the-alleged-area-51-15-photos/
• http://www.planetdolan.com/15-facts-you-didnt-know-about-area-51/2
• http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-popular/10-declassified-facts-you-didnt-know-about-area-51/?view=all
• http://natgeotv.com/uk/area-51-i-was-there/inside-area-51s-secrets-facts

{ http://latestufosightingsworld.com/ }

While it holds a predominant place in Australian Aboriginal mythology as well as in tales by European settlers, the cryptid known as the bunyip has been rarely seen. That makes the news of both the discovery of Aboriginal cave paintings of bunyips as well as a possible video of one a two-fer for their fans. If you’re not one yet, you may become one after hearing one of the origin stories, and if you believe the video, you may want to avoid rivers and billabongs for a while.

The word bunyip comes from the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of Victoria, but tales of similar creatures are found throughout Aboriginal folklore. Most say it’s a water spirit, usually evil, with a wide variety of characteristics, including a dog-like face, a crocodile-like head, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns, or a duck-like bill – many of these coming from unidentified fossils attributed to the bunyip.. The National Library of Australia has a famous drawing by an unknown artist illustrating the strange combination of features. Since the sightings are always in water, there’s some speculation the creature is based on a seal, a prehistoric ancestor to the platypus or even an aquatic prehistoric marsupial.

Bunyip by C.D. Richardson

The Aboriginal people have their own ideas, which brings us to the cave paintings. They were rediscovered in 2016 during an expansion of the Grampians Peaks Trail in a shallow cave atop a cliff in the Mt. Difficult Range in Grampians National Park Victoria. Four red-ochre bunyips, well-worn but still identifiable possibly tens of thousands of years after they were drawn on the sandstone wall, have been kept secret until now for their protection – in fact, the exact location of the caves has not been revealed to anyone but traditional owners, park rangers and archaeologists. (See the photos here.)

The rock art of the Grampians is rich in symbols, some of which are found nowhere else and much of which has meanings yet to be relearned.

Picture: JUSTIN MCMANUS

Though faded after years of neglect, park rangers and archaeologists are using new technology to reveal traces of ochre which may be tens of thousands of years old.

Picture: JUSTIN MCMANUS

The traditional owners tell an interesting tale of the bunyip. Bunjil, the creator spirit, lived on a cliff in the Mt. Difficult Range. One day he jumped from it safely with his wife and two children in his arms. However, when his mother-in-law jumped, he couldn’t catch and she broke into pieces. Still alive, she crawled to a waterhole where a bunyip attacked her. She offered her clumsy son-in-law instead and the bunyip killed Bunjil.

I told you some people would become fans of the bunyip after hearing this story!

The Bunyip

That brings us to the recent video. (See it here.) There is very little information on it, other than it was allegedly shot in the western Australia outback, far from Victoria, and the barely visible creature swimming in the water allegedly ate a horse. The explanation refers to it as possibly a rainbow serpent, which is sometimes used to describe a bunyip but with more benevolent characteristics – it came with the great mother from the sea, brings the wet seasons and deposits spirit-children in pools where women swim to impregnate them. Sounds better than eating a horse, doesn’t it? The word “bunyip” has entered common usage as a synonym for “imposter” or “pretender” and that also seems to fit this video.

The cave paintings of the bunyip are truly an historic find and will add to the heritage of Mt. Difficult and the Grampians National Park. Of course, all of that changes if a better video of a surfacing bunyip surfaces.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

This is just a natural sky phenomenon? Sun pillar with triangular clouds above the pillar?

The video shows a sun pillar with 6 clouds, conjoined triangles above the pillar.

It is very strange that there are various clouds that form a circle above the sun pillar while most of these clouds are triangular.

This is just a natural sky phenomenon? I have never seen it before.

  

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

Alien Temple Ruins Found On Mars By Curiosity Rover, NASA Link, Newest Rover Photo! UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Feb 20, 2019

Location of discovery: Mars, Sol 2320

Source: 

https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-

images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/02320/opgs/edr/ncam/NRA_603465763EDR_F0740540NCAM00280M_.JPG

I was looking through this weeks uploads made by the Curiosity Rover and found that in the distance was a ancient temple structure built on a hilltop. The structure has five or more levels, each one getting smaller than the one before it. The top level being the highest. The main structure at the top of the levels looks like a pyramid with the top built flat. Each level has a flat perfectly horizontal top so that someone or something can walk on it. I believe the rover will not investigate this because NASAs true mission is to drop feed the public boring information about space so it satisfies them, but keeps the public in the dark about the true nature of the surface of Mars. 

Scott C. Waring

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

Harvard Professor Claims The First Interstellar Object In The Solar System Could Be Alien Ship

A Harvard professor has proposed that Oumuamua, which is the first to arrive interstellar object in our solar system, could be alien in origin.

University of Hawaii astronomers spotted the cigar-shaped object entering our solar system on October 19, 2017. Astrophysicists named it Oumuamua, which means a scout or messenger in the Hawaiian word.

The extraterrestrial visitor has a strange spaceship shape, and its origin is still unknown, which instantly fired wild speculations around the world.

Among several dozens of considered outlandish theories is that it’s an advanced alien technological equipment. However, this theory may not be as far-fetched as initially thought.

The chair of Harvard’s astronomy department Professor Avi Loeb argues it’s scientifically imperative to entertain the Oumuamua alien probe story until the evidence proves otherwise.

The Professor says that the scientific community stays away from discussing the search for alien civilisations because of the baggage from science fiction and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

Professor believes that it is the wrong attitude because it’s like putting blinders on our eyes. He explains that it might not be the case, but it should be discussed as a possibility. He suggests collecting as much data on the next object class that we see to verify if this possibility is ruled out or ruled in.

He stresses that it is imperative not to dismiss any other hypothesis to check whether we are right in saying that something is just a rock.

Professor Loeb points out the strange thing about the Oumuamua. He says that it deviates from an orbit dictated by the gravity of the Sun and it shows no cometary tail or gas around it.

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

Ufologist claims ‘global intelligence’ covering up ALIEN LIFE on Earth for ‘decades’

A roadside collection of alien dolls and toy UFOs in Jacumba, California

© Reuters / Mike Blake

No matter how divided the nations may be in politics, there is a thing that makes the government stick together: covering up existing contacts with the aliens. At least that’s according to Steven Greer, director of the Center for the Study of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and the Disclosure Project, who spoke with RT’s SophieCo show.

The retired traumatologist who has been looking for non-human presence on Earth for almost 30 years claims that he has “documents to show” that the Soviet KGB and the US intelligence cooperated on the issue “back in the darkest days of the Cold War.”

Read more

• More than just UFOs: Pentagon’s secret program researched wormholes, invisibility & death-rays

Today, data on alien life is allegedly kept by top-secret projects in Canada, UK, Russia, China, with the US being the “crown jewel.”

Greer himself claims to have collected enough testimonies, documents, photos and even biological specimens to suggest there’s “incontrovertible evidence” of alien life existence. While not disclosing specifics, he mentions apparently peculiar footage apparently handed over by “Chilean generals” which shows fighter jets chasing a UFO and a similar one from Mexico.

• READ MORE: Chilean navy declassifies inexplicable UFO footage after 2yr investigation (VIDEO)

Greer believes the alien technologies go beyond the speed of light but they won’t hurt humans until they bring weapons of mass destruction into space.

While “43% of Americans” believe in contacts with non-human creatures, the CIA is spreading disinformation to mislead the public, the UFO enthusiast goes on to say. He adds that the governments won’t reveal the truth because it will disrupt the current “macroeconomic petrodollar system.”

Modern science seems to agree that there are no confirmed traces of alien presence on Earth, and every study of bodies that may have carried extraterrestrial life – like meteorites found buried in Antarctic ice – receives keen interest from the media. This is usually linked to the theory of panspermia – that life on Earth may have been seeded from space.

• READ MORE: Deep under ice it dwells: Scientists find ‘fully unexpected’ signs of life in subglacial Antarctic

But Greer insists that whole “civilizations” and “species” of extraterrestrial beings from different star systems have already been documented in secret. The reason this is not out in the open, he suggests, is because of far-going implications of confirming the existence of the “cross-dimensional” technologies that they possess.

Whether it’s true or not, the US government seems to have put out feelers for aliens. It recently emerged that in 2007-2012, the Pentagon spent a hefty $22 million on a secretive program to study UFOs.

Researchers who haven’t found evidence of aliens on Earth are not giving up either, as they look for new ways to tackle the issue. In late 2018, a NASA scientist suggested that there is a need to rethink the quest for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations as “life” may have visited Earth in forms beyond our comprehension.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

{ https://www.rt.com/news/ }

3 people from my team, including ex-CIA director, were assassinated – ufologist

Dr Steven Greer, director of the Center for the Study of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and the Disclosure Project

Talks of UFOs hovering in the skies have been exciting researchers and the general public for decades. Are we being watched from above, and are we ready for encountering the unknown? We ask Dr Steven Greer, director of the Center for the Study of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and the Disclosure Project.

Follow @SophieCo_RT 

Sophie Shevardnadze:Dr. Steven Greer, director of the Centre for the Study of Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, welcome to the show, great to have you with us. So Dr. Greer, you say that we are not alone in the universe, and there have already been many contacts between us and aliens. You got to admit, though, that for most people this claim is pretty far out. What can be done to prove once and for all that the aliens are real and already discovered?

Steven Greer: Well, that’s a great question, and, in fact, that has happened. If you look it, there’s a documentary that’s just been released in 2017 called Unacknowledged. And it’s the first word in Unacknowledged Special Access Projects, which is a term used in the military of the United States for very top-secret projects dealing with the UFO and extraterrestrial issue. And you’ll see that there we have over 950 top-secret military people who come forward with testimony documents, photographs, we have even done analysis on an extra-terrestrial biological specimen. And there’s incontrovertible evidence that we’re being visited. And frankly, everyone in very high-ranking classified projects know this. The public hasn’t been told because they wanted to keep these secret for reasons of technology and the macroeconomic petrodollar system. The secrecy has really nothing to do with the, quote on quote, aliens, it has everything to do with the geopolitical power and money, as usual.

 {https://www.rt.com/news/ }

‘Jaw-dropping moment’: Scientists discover mysterious new communication mechanism in the brain

File photo: © Pexels.com / David Cassolato

While we’re asleep, the cortex and hippocampus in the brain send out mysterious neural ‘waves’. Scientists have previously observed a low-level, slow periodic activity in the brains of decapitated mice by studying slices of their hippocampuses.

“We’ve known about these waves for a long time, but no one knows their exact function and no one believed they could spontaneously propagate,”says neural and biomedical engineer Dominique Durand from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

This slow periodic activity can generate electric fields which ‘switch on’ neighboring cells briefly, allowing for chemical-free communication across gaps in the brain. The team managed to simulate communication across completely severed brain tissue while the separate pieces remained in close proximity.

“It was a jaw-dropping moment for us and for every scientist we told about this so far.”

The review committee at The Journal of Physiology required the researchers to replicate their results again before they would consider publishing. The researchers were happy to oblige and their paper was subsequently published in the October issue.

When many neurons fire they create a weak electric field, which we can observe on an electroencephalogram (EEG); think of a Mexican wave that keeps going despite breaks in the crowd.

The team has yet to decipher how exactly the discovery works, or what its applications may be.

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

Mystery surrounds strange orange glow seen over Leicester

The clouds had an eerie look last night

By Maia Snow

A strange orange glow was visible over Leicester last night 

(Image: John Bonell)

A strange orange glow was spotted in the skies over Leicester last night.

The eerie light was seen illuminating the clouds around 7.30pm and over Leicester Forest East and the source is unknown.

It was still visible around three hours later from Leicester Forest East and could even be seen from the National Space Centre according to eyewitnesses.

John Bonell, from the Leicester Astronomical Society took a picture of the glow.

He said: "What is the strange orange glow visible over Leicester?

"Saw this first from Leicester Forest East when we left at 7pm for tonight's meeting of the Leicester Astronomical Society at the National Space Centre.

"It was still clearly visible from the NSC when the meeting finished at around 9.30pm.

"This was taken looking east from LFE circa 10pm.

"Has anyone else seen it? What is the cause?"

There are suggestions on social media that it could have been caused by light pollution.

View image on Twitter

Carolyn B@kylenano

Orange lights illuminating cloud over Leicester this evening. #lightpollution

• 4

11:36 PM - Feb 12, 2019

See Carolyn B's other Tweets

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Did you see the strange orange glow in the sky?

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

Aliens living in ocean? Philippines media reports huge glowing UFO sighting

After analyzing the UFO video, popular alien researcher Scott C Waring revealed that extraterrestrials might be living in bases located in oceans

By : Nirmal Narayanan

YouTube

As the number of UFO sightings increase all across the globe, conspiracy theorists strongly argue that these incidents are authentic proof of alien existence. To add heat to their claims, local media in the Philippines have reported a huge UFO sighting above the ocean.

The video uploaded by GMA News soon went viral, and it made many people believe that aliens are living secretly in the oceans. It should be noted that the majority of UFO sightings usually happened above the oceans, and conspiracy theorists argue that extraterrestrials could be using water bodies as a hiding platform.

After analyzing the clip, popular extraterrestrial researcher Scott C Waring wrote on his website stating that the glowing object spotted above the ocean is not a plane or helicopter.

"The video was on local TV news and uploaded by the TV news agency, so you know it is not been faked. The UFO is huge, I mean its 747 size, and has a glow that can only be compared to looking directly into the sun. There is no technology I know of that can produce a flying light like that, not LEDs, not a plane or helicopter. This is an alien craft from a nearby underwater base," wrote Waring on his website UFO Sightings Daily.

In his website post, Waring also added that underwater alien bases are located 3 to 6 kilometers beneath the ocean.

The report about the UFO sighting the Philippines came just a few days after local residents spotted a mysterious glowing light in Wellington and Taunton Deane. Even though no videos or photos of the sighting are available as of now, witnesses strongly argued that the object they spotted is not a meteorite nor a star. As the news went viral, some conspiracy theorists claimed that governments across the world are involved in an extraterrestrial coverup. 

Related

• Men spot glowing UFO in Oregon, say humans not alone
• Alien UFO or secret military drill? Strange lights over Texas sparks debate
• Alien technology? Extraterrestrial researcher spots diamond-shaped ships in asteroid Vesta

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

20-second delay in ISS live feed could be evidence of NASA's alien coverup, says documentary

The documentary reveals that NASA is using this 20-second delay time to correct anomalies surrounding UFO and alien visits near ISS.

By : Nirmal Narayanan

Pixabay

Conspiracy theorists across the world strongly believe that NASA is well aware of alien existence and they are intentionally covering up the secrets of extraterrestrial life fearing public panic. Adding heat to their claims, an Amazon Prime documentary, Secret Space, has quoted the words of a Russian scientist and hinted that NASA is involved in a possible alien coverup.

The documentary shows how a Russian scientist figured out a meagre 20-second delay in NASA's International Space Station (ISS) live feed.

"The pre-docking manoeuvres of Russian cargo freighter Progress 18 in June 2005 left no doubt there was a delay. In fact, that delay has been shown to be no less than 20 seconds. As Progress was approaching the station for docking, a ground controller at Moscow Mission Control mildly complained that the live video feed they were getting included this delay," said the narrator in the documentary, Express.co.uk reports.

The documentary narrator also added that this 20-second delay in the live feed is primarily used to correct anomalies which might come under public attention.

"NASA instituted this delay in their live broadcasts from space. They do this to obscure anomalies in space from getting to the public. However, some things still slip through," said the narrator.

A few months back, several conspiracy theorists had alleged that Elon Musk's SpaceX is also working hand-in-glove with NASA to hide dark secrets about aliens. To substantiate these claims, conspiracy theorists released a video in which a triangular shaped object can be seen zooming past SpaceX's Dragon during its early December 2018 mission.

Even though many people consider the UFO sighting near Dragon a concrete proof of alien existence, experts revealed that it might be the reflection of objects inside the International Space Station that might have caused this visual deception.

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

Alien invasion? Locals report UFO sighting in Taunton Deane and Wellington

The locals who witnessed the UFO sighting strongly believe that the bizarre ball-like object might be proof of alien life.

By : Nirmal Narayanan

Locals in Taunton Deane and Wellington in the UK were pulled to a state of panic on Valentine's Day after they spotted a bright round unidentified flying object (UFO) hovering in the skies. Even though no videos or photos of the apparent UFO sighting are available as of now, local media outlets have reported the incident, and they have even quoted statements from witnesses.

"I wonder if anybody else saw the big white glowing ball shape object that went over Taunton last night? Possible UFO sighting? I live in Hillcommon and my son lives in Wellington, he spotted it too. It seemed to come over from Taunton at great speed then it just disappeared," said Kevin Midwood, a local resident who saw the UFO flying above his home, Somerset Country Gazette reports.

Kevin Midwood's son James Vasey said that the UFO was not a meteorite or shooting star. The eyewitness also made it clear that the object was hovering too low before disappearing.

"I was walking from my home in Wellington and a bright yellow object shot across the sky at rapid speed. It wasn't a meteorite or shooting star as it was flying too low and whatever it was disappeared," Vasey revealed.

As the news of the alleged UFO sighting went viral online, many people started arguing that alien life is a reality, and these extraterrestrial beings might be gearing up for an invasion.

Some conspiracy theorists even went a step ahead and claimed that governments all around the world and space agencies like NASA and ESA are covering up the bitter facts fearing public panic.

Popular extraterrestrial researcher Scott C Waring has also joined the party and urged the authorities to conduct further investigations to unveil the mysteries surrounding this UFO sighting.

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

SpaceX and NASA alien cover-up? Triangular UFO spotted near Dragon during ISS mission

As the video of the triangular UFO surfaced online, conspiracy theorists have started arguing that NASA and SpaceX are covering up the truth behind aliens.

Conspiracy theorists have long been alleging that NASA, the United States space agency, is well aware of alien existence and they are intentionally covering up the truth behind extraterrestrials fearing public panic. Adding heat to their beliefs, eagle-eyed conspiracy theorists have spotted an apparently triangular-shaped UFO zooming past SpaceX's Dragon during its early December 2018 mission that successfully ferried 2.5 tonnes of supplies to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).

Interestingly, conspiracy theorists spotted the triangular UFO from NASA's ISS live feed, and in the video, a triangular object with glowing lights on its well-defined edges can be seen moving slowly in the background.

A video about the triangular UFO sighting was uploaded by conspiracy theory channel 'UFO Today' a few weeks back. In the video, the conspiracy theory channel argued that the triangular flying object spotted in the footage could be actually the alleged TR-3B, an anti-gravity military vessel developed by the United States Air Force during the peak of Gulf War.

Many conspiracy theorists believe that the United States Air Force developed this sophisticated military vessel using alien technology and some of them even went a step ahead to argue that friendly extraterrestrials from deep space have built these ships from Area 51.

A section of other conspiracy theorists believe that the triangular UFO might be either from an alien world or sometimes it might be the part of Donald Trump's space force.

As the video uploaded by UFO Today went viral, many people have started claiming that SpaceX is also a puppet in the hands of NASA and they are also covering up alien secrets for sinister intentions.

However, sceptics soon dismissed the alien claims and made it clear that the lights could be actually the reflection from objects inside the ISS. 

A couple of days back, two men from Bend, Oregon spotted glowing UFOs in the night sky and it made them claim that humans are not alone in the universe. These men revealed that the unidentified object spotted in the skies was hovering almost 500 feet above the ground.

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

Alien UFO or secret military drill? Strange lights over Texas sparks debate

Even though many people consider this UFO sighting as proof of alien existence, a section of conspiracy theorists argue that these are all secret military vessels.

By : Nirmal Narayanan

YouTube: UFOmania

An apparently diamond-shaped UFO with flashing lights spotted above Burleson, Texas, is now the hottest debating point among conspiracy theorists and alien enthusiasts. The video was originally uploaded on YouTube by a user named 'UFO Casebook', and gained popularity after it was shared by popular conspiracy theory channel 'UFOmania'.

In the video, strange glowing lights can be seen hovering in the night skies of Texas, and its body emanates lights from well-defined corners.

"Driving down I-35 westbound and Rendon Crowley Rd., next to Texas Health Huguley Hospital, I was on the phone with my girlfriend, driving ahead of me, and we both witness strange red/white flashing lights in the sky a little in the distance," wrote the eyewitness.

The video uploaded by UFOmania soon went viral on online spaces, and viewers started putting forward various theories explaining the weird sightings. Most of the people who watched the video argued that these flying objects which appear in the skies are actually alien spaceships from deep space.

Some of these alien enthusiasts even went a step ahead and argued that these extraterrestrials are now gearing up for an invasion.

"Been patiently waiting for concrete proof of space creatures (people). It's bound to happen and the world will instantly change, guaranteed," commented Jefferey Blagus, a YouTube user. 

Pixabay

In the meantime, a section of other conspiracy theorists claimed that these strange UFOs might be actually secret military vehicles tested by the United States Air Force. 

"It's probably clear indication when objects are seen with flashing lights it is not an extraterrestrial craft... Don't think they would need to signal lane changes... Most likely man-made craft," commented Lorena A, another YouTuber. 

The new UFO was spotted just a few days after an apparently humanoid flying object was seen hovering in the skies of Canada in broad daylight. This video soon went viral, and people claimed this sighting an authentic proof of extraterrestrial existence. 

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

FAMOUS ATLANTIS FOUND IN JAPAN?! (VIDEO)

This one is strange because we might find that this is not a naturally occurring circumstance when the mystery is solved.

Atlantis is the mythical underwater city ruled by either Poseidon or Aquaman, depending on whom you ask.

As the story originated in Greece, many believe that the possible real-world equivalent is located somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Or maybe it’s next to Japan. Large stone formations lie below the waters of Yonaguni Jima, Japan

They resemble Egyptian or Aztec pyramids and have been underwater for about 3,000 years.

Originally discovered by a local diver, the formations were thought to be naturally forming, albeit at strangely accurate 90-degree angles.

These rock shapes were later theorized to be an ancient city (5,000 years old) knocked into the ocean by a large seismic event.

This theory is generally accepted but not completely proven.

Unlike the previous mysteries, this one has a pretty solid answer.

We hope that helps us all sleep a little better tonight.

Video:

Selected videos peter2011

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

FINALLY: LIE DETECTOR TEST PROVES BUZZ ALDRIN SAW ALIEN UFOS IN SPACE

The institution behind the claim will not reveal how the claim has been proven, Aldrin himself has denied it, and at least some of the astronauts named didn’t actually take part in the study, since two of them are dead.

The claim, originally published in the Daily Star, has now been repeated by many of the world’s biggest websites and across the world. The reports – many of which cast little doubt on the initial claims – have been shared thousands of times.

The report trades on the idea that Nasa is secretly keeping evidence of aliens under wraps.

While some Apollo astronauts have claimed to have seen UFOs during their missions, Mr Aldrin, the second man on the moon, has not – repeatedly denying reports suggesting he spotted an alien craft during the historic 1969 mission.

The original report said Apollo 11 astronaut Mr Aldrin had “passed lie detector tests over claims they experienced alien encounters”. It said experts had examined astronauts’accounts of “strange space sightings”, using the “latest technology” and that they had proven the astronauts were convinced about what they saw.

It claimed that the experts came from the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health, a non-profit in Albany, Ohio. The organisation had used “top-secret” technology, it said, which scans people’s voices to understand them.

As well as Mr Aldrin, the report claims that four Nasa astronauts have been studied and found to be telling the truth about their claims. It appears that the group did that with recordings, since two of the astronauts being studied are now dead.

But there’s no proof that the wild claims of that organisation have been tested or proven. While “bioacoustics” is a legitimate scientific exercise – it explores how living things make and are changed by sound – that is not what the organisation is doing.

A website that appears to belong to the institute claims that it “quietly goes about changing the future”. “This tiny non-profit research institute has provided supporting evidence for the ancient claims that the sounds of the voice can act as a holographic representation of health and wellness,” the website claims.

It goes on to suggest that the institute can not only tell whether people are lying, but also can be used to “reverse diseases and traumas previously thought to be incurable, to reveal the secrets of our true nature, to enhance our lives, to predict what may be our fate through the frequencies of our voice”.

None of those claims have been tested and many of them appear to be impossible according to modern science. It is theoretically possible that it could be possible to understand whether someone is lying by listening to their voice, but previous examples have been unreliable and the institute reported on by the Daily Star did not make its working available to the public or to other scientists.

Mr Aldrin has repeatedly dismissed suggestions he has seen a UFO. He has spoken about seeing a light out of the window as he was heading towards the Moon – but has always said he is sure that what he saw was either the rocket the crew had separated from, or panels that had come off when the lander and the rocket were detached.

“It was not an alien,” he wrote in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit three years ago. He explained that he had told Nasa about what he had seen and presumed that information had been sent out into the world – until he mentioned what he had seen in a TV interview, which many now point to as proof that Mr Aldrin had seen an alien craft.

The Daily Star repeated this claim in its report, writing that “Aldrin has always maintained he spotted a UFO on the way to the moon”. While it is true that what he said is in some sense unidentified – in that it’s not clear what part of the spacecraft it was – the suggestion that he thinks it might be alien was false and he has repeatedly denied it.

But the institute and the Daily Star suggested that Mr Aldrin had seen a UFO and that its tests had shown that he knew it, even if he wasn’t aware of it. He continues to believe otherwise because his logical mind “cannot explain it”, the Daily Star reported.

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

Super Snow Moon Today Is the Biggest Full Moon of 2019

Stonehenge rocks were brought in from 180 miles away

 BY MIHAI ANDREI

As if Stonehenge wasn’t impressive enough, its rocks were quarried from a very, very long distance away. Now, researchers have zoomed in on the source of the rocks, identifying it at an outcrop in Wales, 180 miles away from the site.

The Welsh quarry where the rocks were brought from.

Image credits: UCL.

Stonehenge, which lies firmly in England, used rocks quarried from Wales. Geologists have long known that at least 42 of Stonehenge’s smaller stones, known as ‘bluestones’, came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. The new study shows exactly where these rocks were quarried from.

“This was the dominant source of Stonehenge’s spotted dolerite, so-called because it has white spots in the igneous blue rock. At least five of Stonehenge’s bluestones, and probably more, came from Carn Goedog,” said geologist Dr. Richard Bevins from the National Museum of Wales.

This is rather unusual, as most megaliths of the time are built with rocks from no more than 10 miles away — which is very reasonable, considering how difficult it would have been to carry these big rocks over miles and miles. Especially in Europe, Neolithic megaliths were built with local rocks, says Professor Mike Pearson. Scientists have been trying to understand what makes Stonehenge such a remarkable outlier.

“We’re now looking to find out just what was so special about the Preseli hills 5,000 years ago, and whether there were any important stone circles here, built before the bluestones were moved to Stonehenge.”

According to the study, the bluestone outcrops consist of natural, vertical pillars. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult to extract from the outcrop, particularly compared to the stone quarries in ancient Egypt, which often consisted of much more solid rocks like basalt or granite. The tools they had, however, were woefully unfit for this type of job.

The Stonehenge workers actually left some traces of their work behind. Archaeologists have discovered tools such as hammer stones and stone wedges, but these wedges were much softer than the rocks.

“The stone wedges are made of imported mudstone, much softer than the hard dolerite pillars. An engineering colleague has suggested that hammering in a hard wedge could have created stress fractures, causing the thin pillars to crack. Using a soft wedge means that, if anything were to break, it would be the wedge and not the pillar,” said Professor Parker Pearson.

Transportation, however, would have been even more difficult. Excavations around the outcrop have uncovered the remains of man-made platforms of stone and Earth. Archaeologists also suspect that the builders used perishable ropes and levers.

“Bluestone pillars could be eased down onto this platform, which acted as a loading bay for lowering them onto wooden sledges before dragging them away,” said Professor Colin Richards (University of the Highlands and Islands), who has excavated Britain’s only other identified megalith quarry in the Orkney islands, off the north coast of Scotland.

The new discovery also works against a popular theory, which claimed that the rocks were carried on water, using rafts.

“Some people think that the bluestones were taken southwards to Milford Haven and placed on rafts or slung between boats and then paddled up the Bristol Channel and along the Bristol Avon towards Salisbury Plain. But these quarries are on the north side of the Preseli hills so the megaliths could have simply gone overland all the way to Salisbury Plain,” said Professor Kate Welham (Bournemouth University).

So some of the Stonehenge rocks were quarried with soft tools and carried using rudimentary platforms over 180 miles, an absolutely grueling journey — and we’re really not sure why.

The team now believes that Stonehenge was initially a circle of rough, unworked bluestones set in shallow pits (called the Aubrey holes). Over time, more rocks were added, finessed, and re-arranged.

• The findings have been published in the journal Antiquity.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

Gigantische gletsjer twee keer zo groot als België dreigt los te komen van Antarctica: zeeniveau kan tot 3 meter stijgen

Illustratie FOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

{ https://www.nieuwsblad.be/ }

Mars: What We Know About the Red Planet

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Befitting the Red Planet's bloody color, the Romans named it after their god of war. In truth, the Romans copied the ancient Greeks, who also named the planet after their god of war, Ares. Other civilizations also typically gave the planet names based on its color — for example, the Egyptians named it "Her Desher," meaning "the red one," while ancient Chinese astronomers dubbed it "the fire star."

Physical characteristics

The bright rust color Mars is known for is due to iron-rich minerals in its regolith — the loose dust and rock covering its surface. The soil of Earth is a kind of regolith, too, albeit one loaded with organic content. According to NASA, the iron minerals oxidize, or rust, causing the soil to look red.

The cold, thin atmosphere means liquid water likely cannot exist on the Martian surface for any length of time. Features called recurring slope lineae may have spurts of briny water flowing on the surface, but this evidence is disputed; some scientists argue the hydrogen spotted from orbit in this region may instead indicate briny salts. This means that although this desert planet is just half the diameter of Earth, it has the same amount of dry land.

The Red Planet is home to both the highest mountain and the deepest, longest valley in the solar system. Olympus Mons is roughly 17 miles (27 kilometers) high, about three times as tall as Mount Everest, while the Valles Marinerissystem of valleys — named after the Mariner 9 probe that discovered it in 1971 — reaches as deep as 6 miles (10 km) and runs east-west for roughly 2,500 miles (4,000 km), about one-fifth of the distance around Mars and close to the width of Australia.

Scientists think the Valles Marineris formed mostly by rifting of the crust as it got stretched. Individual canyons within the system are as much as 60 miles (100 km) wide. The canyons merge in the central part of the Valles Marineris in a region as much as 370 miles (600 km) wide. Large channels emerging from the ends of some canyons and layered sediments within suggest the canyons might once have been filled with liquid water.

Mars also has the largest volcanoes in the solar system, Olympus Mons being one of them. The massive volcano, which is about 370 miles (600 km) in diameter, is wide enough to cover the state of New Mexico. Olympus Mons is a shield volcano, with slopes that rise gradually like those of Hawaiian volcanoes, and was created by eruptions of lavas that flowed for long distances before solidifying. Mars also has many other kinds of volcanic landforms, from small, steep-sided cones to enormous plains coated in hardened lava. Some minor eruptions might still occur on the planet.

Channels, valleys and gullies are found all over Mars, and suggest that liquid water might have flowed across the planet's surface in recent times. Some channels can be 60 miles (100 km) wide and 1,200 miles (2,000 km) long. Water may still lie in cracks and pores in underground rock. A study by scientists in 2018 suggested that salty water below the Martian surface could hold a considerable amount of oxygen, which would support microbial life. However, the amount of oxygen depends on temperature and pressure; temperature changes on Mars from time to time as the tilt of its rotation axis shifts.

Many regions of Mars are flat, low-lying plains. The lowest of the northern plains are among the flattest, smoothest places in the solar system, potentially created by water that once flowed across the Martian surface. The northern hemisphere mostly lies at a lower elevation than the southern hemisphere, suggesting the crust may be thinner in the north than in the south. This difference between the north and south might be due to a very large impact shortly after the birth of Mars. 

The number of craters on Mars varies dramatically from place to place, depending on how old the surface is. Much of the surface of the southern hemisphere is extremely old, and so has many craters — including the planet's largest, 1,400-mile-wide (2,300 km) Hellas Planitia — while that of northern hemisphere is younger and so has fewer craters. Some volcanoes also have a few craters, which suggests they erupted recently, with the resulting lava covering up any old craters. Some craters have unusual-looking deposits of debris around them resembling solidified mudflows, potentially indicating that the impactor hit underground water or ice.

In 2018, the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft detected what could be a slurry of water and grains underneath icy Planum Australe. (Some reports describe it as a "lake," but it's unclear how much regolith is inside the water.) This body of water is said to be about 12.4 miles (20 km) across. Its underground location is reminiscent of similar underground lakes in Antarctica, which have been found to host microbes. Late in the year, Mars Express also spied a huge, icy zone in the Red Planet's Korolev Crater.

Polar caps

Vast deposits of what appear to be finely layered stacks of water ice and dust extend from the poles to latitudes of about 80 degrees in both hemispheres. These were probably deposited by the atmosphere over long spans of time. On top of much of these layered deposits in both hemispheres are caps of water ice that remain frozen year-round. 

Additional seasonal caps of frost appear in the wintertime. These are made of solid carbon dioxide, also known as "dry ice," which has condensed from carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. In the deepest part of the winter, this frost can extend from the poles to latitudes as low as 45 degrees, or halfway to the equator. The dry ice layer appears to have a fluffy texture, like freshly fallen snow, according to a report in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets.

Climate

Mars is much colder than Earth, in large part due to its greater distance from the sun. The average temperature is about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 degrees Celsius), although it can vary from minus 195 F (minus 125 C) near the poles during the winter to as much as 70 F (20 C) at midday near the equator.

The carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere of Mars is also about 100 times less dense than Earth's on average, but it is nevertheless thick enough to support weather, clouds and winds. The density of the atmosphere varies seasonally, as winter forces carbon dioxide to freeze out of the Martian air. In the ancient past, the atmosphere was likely thicker and able to support water flowing on its surface. Over time, lighter molecules in the Martian atmosphere escaped under pressure from the solar wind, which affected the atmosphere because Mars does not have a global magnetic field. This process is being studied today by NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds, making Mars the only body in the solar system known to host such unusual winter weather. The Red Planet also causes water-ice snow to fall from the clouds.

The dust storms on Mars are the largest in the solar system, capable of blanketing the entire Red Planet and lasting for months. One theory as to why dust storms can grow so big on Mars is because the airborne dust particles absorb sunlight, warming the Martian atmosphere in their vicinity. Warm pockets of air then flow toward colder regions, generating winds. Strong winds lift more dust off the ground, which, in turn, heats the atmosphere, raising more wind and kicking up more dust.

Orbital characteristics

The axis of Mars, like Earth's, is tilted with relation to the sun. This means that like Earth, the amount of sunlight falling on certain parts of the Red Planet can vary widely during the year, giving Mars seasons.

However, the seasons that Mars experiences are more extreme than Earth's because the Red Planet's elliptical, oval-shaped orbit around the sun is more elongated than that of any of the other major planets. When Mars is closest to the sun, its southern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, giving it a short, very hot summer, while the northern hemisphere experiences a short, cold winter. When Mars is farthest from the sun, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, giving it a long, mild summer, while the southern hemisphere experiences a long, cold winter.

The tilt of the Red Planet's axis swings wildly over time because it's not stabilized by a large moon, such as Earth is. This led to different climates on the Martian surface throughout its history. A 2017 study suggests that the changing tilt also influenced the release of methane into Mars' atmosphere, causing temporary warming periods that allowed water to flow. 

Facts about Mars' orbit:

• Average distance from the sun: 141,633,260 miles (227,936,640 km). By comparison: 1.524 times that of Earth.
• Perihelion (closest): 128,400,000 miles (206,600,000 km). By comparison: 1.404 times that of Earth.
• Aphelion (farthest): 154,900,000 miles (249,200,000 km). By comparison: 1.638 times that of Earth.

Composition & structure

• Atmospheric composition (by volume) 

According to NASA, the atmosphere of Mars is 95.32 percent carbon dioxide, 2.7 percent nitrogen, 1.6 percent argon, 0.13 percent oxygen, 0.08 percent carbon monoxide, with minor amounts of water, nitrogen oxide, neon, hydrogen-deuterium-oxygen, krypton and xenon.

• Magnetic field

• Chemical composition

Mars likely has a solid core composed of iron, nickel and sulfur. The mantle of Mars is probably similar to Earth's in that it is composed mostly of peridotite, which is made up primarily of silicon, oxygen, iron and magnesium. The crust is probably largely made of the volcanic rock basalt, which is also common in the crusts of the Earth and the moon, although some crustal rocks, especially in the northern hemisphere, may be a form of andesite, a volcanic rock that contains more silica than basalt does.

Internal structure

Scientists think that on average, the Martian core is between 1,800 and 2,400 miles in diameter (3,000 and 4,000 km), its mantle is about 900 to 1,200 miles (5,400 to 7,200 km) wide and its crust is about 30 miles (50 km) thick.

The moons of Mars

The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall over the course of a week in 1877. Hall had almost given up his search for a moon of Mars, but his wife, Angelina, urged him on. He discovered Deimos the next night, and Phobos six days after that. He named the moons after the sons of the Greek war god Ares — Phobos means "fear," while Deimos means "rout."

Both Phobos and Deimos are apparently made of carbon-rich rock mixed with ice and are covered in dust and loose rocks. They are tiny next to Earth's moon, and are irregularly shaped, since they lack enough gravity to pull themselves into a more circular form. The widest Phobos gets is about 17 miles (27 km), and the widest Deimos gets is roughly 9 miles (15 km).

Both moons are pockmarked with craters from meteor impacts. The surface of Phobos also possesses an intricate pattern of grooves, which may be cracks that formed after the impact created the moon's largest crater — a hole about 6 miles (10 km) wide, or nearly half the width of Phobos. They always show the same face to Mars, just as our moon does to Earth.

It remains uncertain how Phobos and Deimos were born. They may have been asteroids captured by Mars' gravitational pull, or they may have been formed in orbit around Mars the same time the planet came into existence. Ultraviolet light reflected from Phobos provides strong evidence that the moon is a captured asteroid ,according to astronomers at the University of Padova in Italy.

Phobos is gradually spiraling toward Mars, drawing about 6 feet (1.8 meters) closer to the Red Planet each century. Within 50 million years, Phobos will either smash into Mars or break up and form a ring of debris around the planet.

Research & exploration

The first person to watch Mars with a telescope was Galileo Galilei. In the century following, astronomers discovered the planet's polar ice caps. In the 19th and 20th centuries, researchers believed they saw a network of long, straight canals on Mars, that hinted at possible civilization, although later these proved to be mistaken interpretations of dark regions they saw.

A number of martian rocks have fallen to the surface of Earth over the eons, providing scientists a rare opportunity to study Martian rocks without having to leave our planet. One of the most controversial finds was Allan Hills 84001 (ALH 84001) — a Martian meteorite that in 1996, was said to contain shapes reminiscent of small fossils. The find garnered a lot of media attention at the time, but subsequent studies dismissed the idea. The debate was still ongoing in 2016, the 20th anniversary of the announcement. In 2018, a separate meteorite study found that organic molecules — the building blocks of life, although not necessarily life itself — could have formed on Mars through battery-like chemical reactions.

The Soviet Union also launched numerous spacecraft in the 1960s and early 1970s, but most of those missions failed. Mars 2 (1971) and Mars 3 (1971) operated successfully, but were unable to map the surface due to dust storms. NASA's Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars in 1976, the first successful landing on the Red Planet. The lander took the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface but found no strong evidence for life.

The next two craft to successfully reach Mars were the Mars Pathfinder, a lander, and Mars Global Surveyor, an orbiter, both launched in 1996. A small robot onboard Pathfinder named Sojourner — the first wheeled rover to explore the surface of another planet — ventured over the planet's surface analyzing rocks.

In 2001, the NASA launched the Mars Odyssey probe, which discovered vast amounts of water ice beneath the Martian surface, mostly in the upper 3 feet (1 meter). It remains uncertain whether more water lies underneath, since the probe cannot see water any deeper.

In 2003, Mars passed closer to Earth than anytime in that past 60,000 years. That same year, NASA launched two rovers, nicknamed Spirit and Opportunity, which explored different regions of the Martian surface. Both rovers found signs that water once flowed on the planet's surface. 

In 2008, NASA sent another mission, Phoenix, to land in the northern plains of Mars and search for water which it succeeded in doing. 

In 2011, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission sent the Mars Curiosity rover, to investigate Martian rocks and determine the geologic processes that created them. Among the mission's findings was the first meteorite on the surface of the Red Planet. The rover has found complex organic molecules on the surface, as well as seasonal fluctuations in methane concentrations in the atmosphere.

NASA has two other orbiters working around the planet, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution). The European Space Agency (ESA) also has two spacecraft orbiting the planet: Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter.

In September 2014, India's Mars Orbiter Mission also reached the Red Planet, making it the fourth nation to successfully enter orbit around Mars.

In November 2018, NASA sent a stationary lander called Mars InSight to the surface. InSight will examine the planet's geologic activity by burrowing a probe underground.

NASA plans to launch a successor rover mission to Curiosity, called Mars 2020. This mission will search for ancient signs of life and, depending on how promising its samples look, it may "cache" the results in safe spots on the Red Planet for a future rover to pick up.

ESA is working on its own ExoMars rover that should also launch in 2020, and will include a drill to go deep into the Red Planet, collecting soil samples from about 2 meters (6.5 feet) deep.

Lost missions

Mars is far from an easy planet to reach. NASA, Russia, the European Space Agency, China, Japan and the Soviet Union collectively lost many spacecraft in their quest to explore the Red Planet. Notable examples include:

1992 — NASA's Mars Observer

1996 — Russia's Mars 96

1998 — NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, Japan's Nozomi

1999 — NASA's Mars Polar Lander

2003 — ESA's Beagle 2 lander

2011 — Russia's Fobus-Grunt mission to Phobos with the Chinese Yinghuo-1 orbiter

2016 — ESA's Schiaparelli test lander

Human missions to come

Robots aren't the only ones getting a ticket to Mars. A workshop group of scientists from government agencies, academia and industry have determined that a NASA-led manned mission to Mars should be possible by the 2030s. However, in late 2017, the Trump administration directed NASA to send people back to the moon before going to Mars. NASA is now more focused on a concept called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway that would be a moon-based space station and headquarters for further space exploration.

Robotic missions to the Red Planet have seen much success in the past few decades, but it remains a considerable challenge to get people to Mars. With current rocket technology, it would take several months for people to travel to Mars, and that means they would live for several months in microgravity, which has devastating effects on the human body. Performing activities in the moderate gravity on Mars could prove extremely difficult after many months in microgravity. Research on the effects of microgravity continues on the International Space Station.

NASA isn't the only one with Martian astronaut hopefuls. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has outlined multiple concepts to bring people to Mars. In November 2018, Musk rebranded SpaceX's future "Big Falcon Rocket" to "Starship". Other nations, including China and Russia, have also announced their goals for sending humans to Mars.

Additional resources:

• Read about and see pictures of more than 40 missions to Mars.
• Follow the rover Curiosity as it makes its way across the Martian terrain.
• Learn more about Mars at NASA's Solar System Exploration website.
• This article was updated on Feb. 7, 2019, by Space.com contributor Elizabeth Howell.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Help In Finding Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI)?

The existence of intelligent life forms beyond Earth has been speculated on for centuries. However, with the recent advancements in the field of science and technology, this speculation is becoming much more intense. We have already sent Voyagers out into the cosmos to find if anyone is out there and detect any traces of extraterrestrial habitation.

In our quest for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), we have typically looked for empathetic signs of intelligence, physiology, and communication like our own. Many researchers, like Jill Tarter, who specialize in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), opine that a conventional approach like transmitting electromagnetic signals might be good for detecting technosignatures, but not necessarily intelligence.

For that reason, scientists are now attempting to use artificial intelligence (AI) to find alien intelligence in ways we as humans cannot achieve. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a specially designed type of software that mimics the way humans learn and solve complex problems. Machines running AI programs learn activities like speech recognition, planning, problem-solving, perception, and planning all by themselves, and can work efficiently without getting lost in the labyrinth of data. You can learn everything you want to know about AI here.

Understanding ‘Intelligence’

To earnestly go out and find extraterrestrial intelligence, we must eliminate the dogma of human beings as a supremely intelligent species.

There are many examples in the wild demonstrating that animals can be incredibly smart in their own ways. For instance, spiders are known to process information through their webs, crows understand analogies, cetaceans like dolphins have their own dialects, and primates like chimpanzees skillfully use tools to complete tasks. In other words, ‘non-human’ forms of intelligence and culture are all around us.

A chimpanzee showing off his intelligence

(Photo Credit : Cornelia Schrauf/Wikimedia Commons)

Extraterrestrial intelligence might look like a dinosaur, an ant, a shark or a robot—or something radically different from any forms or ideas found on Earth.

The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute is toiling day and night to uncover alien intelligence elsewhere in the universe. However, the conventional SETI approach suffers from two limitations: First, they surmise that extraterrestrial creatures are smart and ready to communicate with us or other species; Second is the assumption that we are intelligent enough to recognize the messages if they (aliens) send them to us in some raw or encoded form.

(Photo Credit : Denys/Wikimedia Commons)

However, thanks to recent discoveries in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning, we can now re-examine existing data to uncover any minute traces of extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI researchers are convinced that artificial intelligence could turn out to be the game changer in the search, as AI algorithms are ideal for spotting differences and forming patterns out of the massive sea of data.

That is why researchers at the SETI Institute are partnering with the tech giants like Intel, IBM, and others to discuss ways in which AI can be used to solve pertinent space and science problems, including the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence.

AI Anomaly Engine

One of the ways in which the discovery of alien existence could be achieved is by designing an AI anomaly engine. The idea at the heart of this strategy is to scan for anomalous patterns that may not necessarily be communication signals sent by aliens, but rather subtle manifestations of technological advancement that have been achieved in other parts of the universe. The main motive of the AI anomaly engine is to discern a data set that is aberrant to the standard baseline. This strategy helps to curtail futile efforts, such as making vague assumptions about what an extraterrestrial intelligent species would look like, which is inherently filled with our own biases.

The best part of the AI anomaly engine is that it is often seen as a win-win proposition. Even if an unusual discovery is not related to an extraterrestrial civilization, it demands an explanation that might propel our researchers to understand the universe in an even more profound way.

Autocorrelator

That being said, designing an efficient AI anomaly detection engine that ingeniously works with the multivariant data remains a dark art for even the best minds working in the SETI field. Despite the potential it holds, designing an AI anomaly engine continues to be highly challenging. Another approach is to train a deep neural network to be an autocorrelator, capable of finding unusual examples of data.

For the uninitiated, a deep learning neural network is a paradigm of AI that derives inspiration from the structure of the human brain; it consists of a set of complex units (equivalent to neurons in our brain). Each unit combines a set of input values to generate an output value, which in turn is passed on to other neurons in the deeper layer of the network. In other words, a deep neural network involves the use of neural networks—computer programs that are structurally inspired by the dense network of neurons in the human brain.

(Photo Credit: Pixabay)

To successfully implement an autocorrelator, the input data needs to be compressed so that it can flow through a pinch-point in the neural net—like sand flowing through an hourglass.

By design, AI algorithms are fast learners, so the more they sift through data of a similar nature, the better the AI program becomes at compressing and categorizing that information. Furthermore, if it encounters data that is unusual by set standards, it would notify the researchers about the discovery of this incongruous data.

The limitation of autocorrelators, at the moment, is that they work best with limited data size and still lack the flexibility needed to correctly spot the outliers that could provide some hint of extraterrestrial intelligence.

However, research in the niche field of AI is going full steam ahead. It is expected that researchers will come out with many more ways to further enhance the capabilities of AI. AI algorithms could potentially spot anomalies within the huge data repository collected after years of research in space science disciplines.

It is possible that proof of alien intelligence could be lurking within the petabytes of space data we’ve already gathered, and the sophisticated AI of the future will reveal all the secrets hiding there!

References:

1. ScienceDirect
2. Cornell University
3. Cambridge University

{ https://www.scienceabc.com/ }

ALERTE AUX ALIENS AU PAYS DE GALLES : Un expert en OVNI affirme que la lumière bleue étrange est liée à une “base extraterrestre souterraine”

Des images effrayantes d’une mystérieuse lumière bleue et éclatante au-dessus de l’A55 seraient reliées à une “base extraterrestre souterraine” dans le nord du Pays de Galles, a déclaré un enquêteur sur les OVNI.

Des séquences de l’étrange lumière flottante ont été prises par un membre du Service aérien de la Police nationale, ce qui a déclenché une réaction de l’enquêteur Russ Kellett, qui a dit que c’était un signe d’une forme de vie extraterrestre. Il a dit à North Wales Live : “Je pense que la lumière est probablement connectée à une base souterraine. Je ne sais pas ce que c’était, mais c’est peut-être un OVNI qui s’est écrasé, quelque chose qui a atterri dans la région ou même quelque chose qui a été amené dans la région. Ça pourrait être un signe avant-coureur que quelque chose d’autre est sur le point d’arriver.”

La lumière est apparue près de Northop où elle a brillé avant de s’estomper tandis que des chauffeurs de poids lourds et automobilistes affluaient sur la route pour leurs déplacements matinaux.

La source de la lumière demeure inconnue.

D’autres théoriciens pensent que la lumière, qui éclairait tout le tronçon de route très fréquentée, pourrait être le résultat d’un phénomène naturel comme la foudre.

La théorie de M. Kellett n’est cependant pas la première à lier ce type de phénomène aux extraterrestres. En décembre dernier, il a dit qu’il ne doutait pas que quelque part au Pays de Galles, il y avait une base secrète extraterrestre.

Il a également prétendu avoir été enlevé à plusieurs reprises dans le passé et croyait qu’une opération militaire secrète avait eu lieu dans la mer d’Irlande entre le nord du Pays de Galles et Liverpool le matin de l’incident des montagnes Berwyn, qu’il sonde depuis trois décennies, ce qui est étonnant.

Il a dit : “Le nord du Pays de Galles est considéré comme un point chaud pour les OVNI depuis l’incident des Montagnes Berwyn. J’ai regardé de très près cette zone, et il se passe quelque chose.”

L’incident des Montagnes Berwyn s’est produit en 1974 quand le ciel s’est embrasé avec des lumières vives à la suite d’un tremblement de terre.

Le tremblement a été enregistré à une magnitude de 3,5 et a été ressenti jusqu’à Liverpool.

Cela a donné lieu à un certain nombre de théories, dont celle d’un OVNI qui s’est écrasé sur terre. D’autres disent qu’il est possible qu’une météorite se soit écrasée dans la région.

• Source: Express.co.uk, le 18 février 2019 – 
• Traduction Nouvelordremondial.cc

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

Could Volcanic Activity Allow Water Beneath the Martian Polar Ice?

{ https://www.space.com/ }

Mysterious Flash of Light in Wales Sky Triggers 'Alien Warning' Speculation

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }