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Prehistorisch vernuft: bouwers van Stonehenge gebruikten varkensvet om stenen te versleuren - HLN.be

Bron: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Stonehenge is en blijft een populair studieobject. Er circuleren dan ook vele theorieën omtrent het mysterieuze bouwwerk, alsook over de krachtpatsers die Stonehenge verwezenlijkten. Dat die krachtpatsers graag en veel aten, suggereren tal van archeologische vondsten. En varkens stonden daarbij steevast op het menu.

Over de bereidingswijze van de varkens bestaat echter enige verwarring. Volgens sommigen werd het vlees van het varken bereid in keramische potten. Door de beperkte grootte van de potten zou het varken natuurlijk in stukken gesneden zijn. Toch zijn er karkassen teruggevonden van volledige varkens. Hoe kan dat?

Lees ook

Varken aan het spit 

Enkele archeologen aan de Britse Newcastle University formuleren daar graag een antwoord op. Zij stellen dat de varkens inderdaad aan het spit bereid werden. Dat verklaart meteen de volledige karkassen die teruggevonden werden rondom de historische site. 

Maar waarom zaten er eveneens hoge concentraties varkensvet op de resten van het aardwerk? Om die vraag te beantwoorden, introduceren de onderzoekers een nieuwe theorie. Vermoedelijk werd het aardwerk niet gebruikt om te koken, maar wel om varkensvet te verzamelen. 

Dat vet zou het vervoeren van de zware megalieten een beetje vergemakkelijkt hebben. Om de zware stenen te verplaatsen, hebben de bouwers waarschijnlijk gebruik gemaakt van houten sleeën en boomstammen. Dierenvet zou de wrijving tussen de stenen en het hout hebben verminderd waardoor het makkelijker werd om de megalieten te vervoeren.

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Steve Quayle: Ancient Egyptians in the Grand Canyon

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SpaceX wiggles Starhopper’s Raptor engine, tests parts ahead of hover test debut

On the evening of July 12th, SpaceX technicians put Starhopper’s freshly-installed Raptor – serial number 06 (SN06) – through a simple but decidedly entertaining test, effectively wiggling the engine in circles.

Designed to verify that Raptor’s thrust vectoring capabilities are in order and ensure that Starhopper and the engine are properly communicating, the wiggle test is a small but critical part of pre-flight acceptance and a good indicator that the low-fidelity Starship prototype is nearing its first hover test(s). Roughly 48 hours after a successful series of wiggles, Starhopper and Raptor proceeded into the next stage of pre-flight acceptance, likely the final more step before a tethered static fire.

Although it would undoubtedly be easier, cheaper, and faster to skip that post-delivery static fire, it will simultaneously lower the risk of Raptor failing mid-flight and verify that Starhopper itself is healthy and ready for untethered hovering. Although SpaceX could likely live without Starhopper in the event that it’s lost during flight-testing, any failure capable of destroying the vehicle itself is at least as capable of severely damaging or completely destroying the spartan but still expansive test and launch facilities the company built over the course of several months.

SpaceX has been hard at work gradually building, expanding, and upgrading its South Texas launch facilities since December 2018.

(NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal, 04/27/2019)

Would you like some testing with your testing?

Follow July 12th’s nighttime Raptor wiggle test, July 13th was mainly quiet and filled with inspections of Starhopper, Raptor, and other various work. The day after, however, SpaceX proceeded through several hours of propellant loading, ending with what looked like less energetic versions of the Raptor preburner ignition tests Starhopper previously performed with Raptor SN02.

In a staged-combustion engine like Raptor, getting from the supercool liquid oxygen and methane propellant to 200+ tons of thrust is quite literally staged, meaning that the ignition doesn’t happen all at once. Rather, the preburners – essentially their own, unique combustion chambers – ignite an oxygen- or methane-rich mixture, the burning of which produces the gas and pressure that powers the turbines that bring fuel into the main combustion chamber. That fuel then ignites, producing thrust as they exit the engine’s bell-shaped nozzle.

The first obvious test occurred around 7:30pm CT, July 14th. (LabPadre) 

The second obvious test followed around 8:50 pm CT. 

(LabPadre)

Although the fireworks are so subtle that they are easily missed, the conditions inside the preburner – hidden away from view – are actually far more intense than the iconic blue, purple, and pink flame that exists Raptor’s nozzle. This is because the preburners have to nurture the conditions necessary for the pumps they power to fuel the main combustion chamber. Much like hot water will cool while traveling through pipes, the superheated gaseous propellant that Raptor ignites to produce thrust will also cool (and thus lose pressure) as it travels from Raptor’s preburner to the main combustion chamber.

Thus, if the head pressure produced in the preburners is too low, Raptor’s thrust will be (roughly speaking) proportionally limited at best. At worst, low pressure in the preburners can completely prevent Raptor from starting and running stably and can even trigger a “hard start” or shutdown that could damage or destroy the engine. As such, to preburners fundamentally have to operate at higher chamber pressures (and thus higher temperatures) than the main combustion chamber (the big firey bit at the end). According to Elon Musk, Raptor’s oxygen preburner has the worst of it, operating at pressures as high or higher than 800 bar (11,600 psi, 80 megapascals).

Coincidentally, this is roughly equivalent to the pressure at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Starhopper and Raptor seen on the afternoon of July 14th, preparing for an evening of testing.

(NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

In short, preburner testing is no less critical than full-on static fire testing with an engine like Raptor. July 14th’s test was also made doubly efficient due to the fact that preburner testing requires liquid propellant, which effectively makes the whole test a wet dress rehearsal (WDR) even before any engine ignition or partial ignition is involved. Per SpaceX moving from propellant loading to preburner/turbine testing, Starhopper is almost certainly healthy and operating as expected, an excellent sign that the ungainly vessel may be ready for a static fire of Raptor as early as 2pm CT, July 15th.

The memes, oh, the memes.

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Gary McKinnon's Secret Space Program Reports - Solar Warden Deepest Dive Ever!

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Can animals mourn their dead? Do they recognize when one of their own has fallen and give it thought? Us humans like to think we are pretty special, sitting high and mighty above the “animal world” below us. We like to think that we are pretty damn unique, and that it is only us who display any sense of recognizing and fearing death, even mourning it, but there just so happen to be other animals that possibly do this same thing, and one of these is perhaps quite a surprise, as it turns out that crows show bevahior that is perhaps quite similar to our own mourning practices.

Some of the most intelligent animals on our planet are a group of birds called the corvids, which include crows, jays, magpies, and ravens. They have demonstrated teamwork, complex social behaviors, advanced problem solving, the ability to hold grudges, an uncanny ability to recognize faces, and even tool-using, all to a spectacular degree that shows remarkable cognitive capabilities that we are learning about all of the time, but one very mysterious behavior among especially crows that has long held a certain macabre quality to it is their tendency to hold what are called “crow funerals.” Whenever one of their own species dies, other crows in the area will flock to the scene and linger about the corpse, squawking loudly and refusing to leave, in a strange gathering that has long been suspected to be some sort of mourning ritual and contemplation of their dead being carried out by the animals.

This has long been a perplexing mystery for scientists, and although this “funeral” behavior is still not completely understood there have been efforts to get to the bottom of it, and try to ascertain if these birds are indeed mourning their dead or if it is something else. Perhaps the most in depth research on the phenomenon has been carried out by a team led by Kaeli Swift, a PhD student in environmental science and biologist John Marzluff, both of the University of Washington, and who together carried out a two-year study to try and figure out what is going on here. One of the first things they found was that, unlike many animals, crows actually recognize the concept of death, understand that one of their own has died, and react to it in some pretty potent and interesting ways.

It was already known before this experiment was carried out that crows have an incredible ability to not only recognize and indefinitely remember individual human faces, but to also teach other crows about those faces, especially if they are considered a threat. This was brought to light in 2008 by Marzluff, who devised an experiment wherein volunteers in cavemen masks would harass crows, whereas others in Dick Cheney masks would feed them. It did not take long at all for the crows to display aggressive mobbing behavior towards the “cavemen,” even individual crows who had never seen the cavemen before and regardless of whether they were engaging in threatening behavior at that moment, indicating that some sort of social learning was going on, and the crows would remember for years. This was seen as a useful trick for efficiently sifting out who was a threat and who meant to give food, but it was not known just how deeply this went until he and Swift teamed up for their new study.

To test this out further, the team set up an experiment that began with Swift leaving out food for the birds to eat at regular times, after which they associated the area with food and quickly learned when it would be set out, always congregating at the same spot at the same time every day. Then a variety of different volunteers were sent in to elicit different reactions from the birds, all of them wearing different latex masks to obscure their real faces. Among the volunteers were those who approached the crows empty handed, those who had with them a taxidermy specimen of a crow predator, others who had a specimen of a pigeon, and then Swift, who was the one who brought food.

It was found that the ones with a pigeon were mostly ignored, as were the empty handed ones, but the ones holding a predator would be mostly avoided and squawked at from afar, and the one with the dead crow would be actively mobbed and threatened by groups of the birds. If this mask showed up empty handed, the crows remembered it and mobbed the volunteer even in the absence of the dead bird. The birds would also be warier about approaching the location where this particular mask wearer had shown up. It did not matter who wore the mask, as it could be switched between wearers with the same effects, it was the appearance of the mask itself that set off their alarm bells, and they only got aggravated when the one who had held a dead crow was in sight. Even birds that had not witnessed the original display of the taxidermy specimen were clued in to what was going on, meaning they had been taught this. For six weeks the volunteers returned to the scene empty-handed, and the crows still reacted the same ways depending on the mask worn. As for the one who fed them, the crows would show great favor towards this one, and not show any aggressive behavior at all. Curiously, the actual death of the crow did not have to be witnessed by the animals to elicit a reaction, just the corpse. Swift would say of it all:

I was always the friendly feeder, which was nice, I never made any crow enemies. I would put my food out, then this second person would show up. They would be holding a dead crow, not violently, not reenacting a death scene, just holding it like they were picking it up to throw it in rubbish, palms outstretched like you might hold a plate of hors d’oeuvre.

This is interesting in that other research has shown that crows will even on occasion bring “gifts” for the ones who feed them, while remembering the faces of their enemies and teaching others of this. Considering that the crows clearly recognize when a dead one of their own kind is present, it shows a particular cognitive ability, of which Swift says:

It tells us that crows view death, at least in part, as a ‘teachable moment’ to borrow an anthropomorphic phrase. It’s a signal of danger and danger is something to be avoided. They know what death is and know to fear it. It’s amazing to think a crow — a bird — is doing something like this that so few other animals are doing that we know.

This fear of death upon seeing a corpse of one of their brethren, to recognize and even perhaps mourn death, may seem pretty obvious to us, but there are only a very few types of animals known to actually have this reaction, including humans, elephants, giraffes, chimpanzees, dolphins, and several other corvid species. So what does this have to do with those “crow funerals” we were talking about earlier? Well, although it could be a type of mourning, Swift and team think it might have more to do with the crows studying the area and trying to learn what the threat is, trying to figure out who is a friendly person and who is a threat. As Swift says, “By participating in these funerals, crows can get information about new dangers without taking the risk.” However, she still does not rule out that they may indeed be showing mourning behavior as well.

The study was published in a 2015 article in the journal Animal Behaviour, and it is a rather intriguing theory on crow funerals and the behaviors and cognitive functions that drive them. Whether the birds are actually displaying mourning behavior or not, it is still pretty damn clever that they are able to do this, and it probably has to do with the birds evolving right along such close proximity to human beings. It is an excellent chance to study the similarities between these birds and us, and what that means, with Swift saying:

This work is another example of how crows have evolved to live so successfully with us. They can learn our faces and do so in an impressive number of circumstances including when we have appeared to out ourselves as one of those prickly neighbors by interacting with their dead. If you step back and examine how distantly related crows are from us, and our closest mammalian relatives, you start to see how striking this shared interest in our dead is. It’s a chance to unlock deep mysteries about the evolution of our own funeral rites, and appreciate how much we share with our black cloaked companions, even if they look nothing like us.

Despite the study, it is still unclear exactly what drives this funeral behavior in crows, but we do know that they in fact recognize death to some extent and fear it. Does this mean that they mourn their fallen as well? Are we perhaps not alone in our ability to contemplate our mortality and show sympathy for those who are not with us anymore or is it seen in other animals as well? In recent years with more and more research into animal psychology and behavior it is becoming more and more apparent that we are perhaps not so unique as we would sometimes like to believe, and the animal world is still a very mysterious place that is bound to turn up more surprises.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Two UFOs On Google Sky Map, Can We Contact Them? UFO Sighting News.

Coordinates: -27.413253° -117.047394° Object #2: -27.468549° -117.189112°

I found these three objects that look like artificial structures. Why would aliens need a planet when they can create structures even bigger than some planets? Think of it this way, Earth is about 3.5 billion years old, but there universe is said to be 13.5 billion years old. Therefore about 75% of the planets in our universe are older than Earth. Can you imagine a species having technology for over a billion years? Well how about 10 billion years? Such a species would be gods in our eyes. So it looks like we need to aim communication radio telescopes in this direction to send signals in hopes of contacting them. Perhaps sending that Carl Sagan greeting from 1974 might be a good place to start. Many say we should not try to contact them...but guys, they know we are here. Remember its us, not them with lack of technology to scan the universe well. 
Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

There are many groups of people the world over who are renowned for unique adaptations to their environment. These range from the tribal groups of the deep Amazon, whose hunter-gathering way of life has remained primarily unchanged for thousands of years, to the enigmatic Sherpas, whose genetics allow them to traverse the steep Himalayan slopes without suffering the effects of the thin air at those altitudes.

Similar feats are achieved almost daily by the Bajau of Southeast Asia, especially where oxygen is concerned. These “sea nomads”, as they are often called, have the unique ability to hold their breath for minutes at a time, ranking them among the world’s most unparalleled divers (and hence their unique nickname).

Some of the Bajau divers are able to operate underwater with such ease that it led to speculation as to whether they had adapted genetically over time, similar to people who thrive in higher altitudes. Last spring, evolutionary geneticist Melissa Ilardo led a study that proposed such adaptations might involve the unusually large spleens found among the Bajau, outlined in a paper published in the journal Cell. Similar adaptations have been observed in ocean-dwelling mammals, such as sperm whales which are able to hold their breaths for up to 90 minutes thanks to a substance in their bloodstream called myoglobin, which binds oxygen in their blood and becomes electrically-charged when the whales go underwater. 

The Bajau perform their incredible diving feats completely naturally, although the current record for a human holding their breath underwater is held by 47-year-old Peter Colat, a diver from Zurich, Switzerland, who managed to hold his breath for an astounding 19 minutes and 21 seconds in 2010.

Colat, who was 38-year-old at the time, managed to achieve this through oxygen-assisted static apnea, where one breathes pure oxygen for 10 minutes prior to diving, according to rules set by the Guinness Book of World Records. His record ousted the previous record holder, Nicola Putignano of Italy, by just 19 seconds.

It begs the question, just how long could a person or animal survive underwater with the help of a little extra added oxygen? More specifically, what if rather than holding their breath, the mammals in question were able to breathe oxygen from the water itself?

Perhaps the earliest study looking into this goes all the way back to 1964, as reported in the journal Sea Frontiers by Johannes A. Kylstra, which discussed experiments with mice that involved such processes. The experiments were conducted in chambers partially filled with water, where the air was replaced with compressed oxygen and pressurized equivalent to that of eight atmospheres, allowing for an artificially oxygen-enriched liquid environment below it. Finally, salts which are similar to those that appear naturally in the blood of mammals were added to the water.

The study found that mice introduced into the liquid environment were actually able to “breathe for several minutes and, in some cases, hours.” Temperature was also a factor in survival, with mice surviving the longest at a temperature of 68°F. The mice, despite being within a liquid environment, were found to be “active and alert,” and “did not appear to be in severe distress” while submerged in the oxygenated water.

Most of the mice began to lose consciousness within half an hour of entering the liquid environment. Subsequent experiments involved the introduction of a chemical buffer into the water, which helped preserve a constant acidity in the liquid solution, whereafter some of the mice responded to stimuli such as shaking or tapping the outside of the tank for up to six hours while submerged.

These initial studies led to further experiments with perfluorinated hydrocarbons, which unlike the oxygenated water from the earlier studies, could more effectively remove carbon dioxide from the lungs. The most effective substance of this variety, called perflubron, has roughly double the density of water, and can also carry as much as twice the amount of oxygen as air (this substance is most often referenced as “radiopaque perfluorocarbon solution for lung lavage,” and is sold under the name “LiquiVent” in the United States and other countries, generally only for research purposes).

If all of this sounds a lot like the famous liquid breathing apparatus used by Ed Harris during the climax of the sci-fi film The Abyss, you wouldn’t be the only one who thinks so. In fact, several years ago during a revolutionary medical procedure that was used to save Adrianna Mancini–a child born five months premature–Dr. Jay Greenspan at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Dr. Thomas Shaffer of Temple University in Philadelphia employed the then-experimental process of liquid ventilation in order to save the child’s life, after comparing it to the liquid featured in the famous film. 

“I knew that I was watching medical history being made,” Mancini later told Reader’s Digest. Shafer and Greenspan’s procedure went on to be used to save other premature infants in the years that followed. 

Quite obviously, the futuristic deep-sea breathing apparatus featured in The Abyss was partially inspired by the real-life science described here (in fact, one scene in the film actually depicts a rat being submerged in a perfluorinated hydrocarbon-like liquid; an obvious a nod to the 1960s studies that introduced the idea). But what began with experiments aimed at helping mice breathe in special liquid environments did more than just inspire the world of sci-fi, and now, the real-world applications of these studies can even help save lives.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

It’s not a great plot for a horror movie – they’re not eating brains (yet) – but it’s real. Plants that were once alive hundreds of years ago, then frozen during the Little Ice Age and buried under a hundred feet of ice the Canadian tundra, are being exposed to light once again due to (no surprise here) climate change and not just rising up as the ice melts again but growing and even thriving. If they need some help getting reestablished, some worms found in Siberia (where else?) that were frozen 40,000 years ago have warmed up and are alive again. Aspiring screenwriters want to know … has anyone offered them brains yet?

“You wouldn’t assume that anything buried for hundreds of years would be viable. The material had always been considered dead. But by seeing green tissue, “I thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty unusual.’ We were pretty blown away.”

The model for Indiana Jones in this movie might be evolutionary biologist Catherine La Farge (Indiannette Jones?), who recently went to the Trardrop Glacier on Canada’s Ellesmere Island intending to study what she expected to be decaying ancient plants being exposed by climate change. As reported in The National Post, when she scraped up the moss Aulacomnium turgidum, La Farge was shocked to see something green … shocked because this moss last saw light somewhere between 1550 and 1850 when The Little Ice Age hit North America, severely dropping temperatures for centuries and growing its glaciers in both area and depth. The moss La Farge found was indeed rising back to life on its own. She brought samples back to her lab in Edmonton and gave them a little help in the form of warmth and nutrients, and they not only arose but grew into seemingly normal (a Rip Van Winkle kind of normal) plants.

Aulacomnium turgidum

La Farge may have some competition in getting a Frozen Frankenstein Flora movie based on her discovery. There’s news from Antarctica of the discovery of mossfrozen 1500 years ago that was also growing again. Peter Convey, an ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey, wasn’t quite as surprised because he believes ice protects plant cells from the stresses of surface life – freeze-thaw cycles and radiation are two big ones. As the ice permanently melts, the first plants exposed have the best chance to arise and take over before anything else thaws, which “really accelerates the recolonization process” and allows the ground frozen and buried for centuries to quickly become green once again.

If these ‘new’ ancient plants need help growing, they can open a can of worms from Siberia, where University of Tennessee microbiologist Tatiana Vishnivetskaya has been drilling deep into the Siberian permafrost and recently discovered frozen 40,000-year-old segmented worms (nematodes) that began wiggling once again when thawed.

“Of course we were surprised and very excited.”

Soybean cyst nematode and egg

That probably applies to the worms too, especially if they know they might be moving to slightly warmer dirt where they can eat, poop and fertilize centuries-old plants. It might also be good news for life on other planets, and even life forms on spaceships or asteroids traveling around the galaxy looking for a place to land/crash, thaw and live long and prosper.

Not a great movie plot but definitely a glimmer of hope of the continuation of life on Earth and possibility of life on other planets.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

There’s no doubt that the defining date on which the UFO phenomenon was born was June 24, 1947. That was the date on which pilot Kenneth Arnold had a close encounter of the very weird kind. The location was near Mt. Rainier, Washington State. As for Arnold’s experience, it involved nothing less than an entire squadron of strange-looking aircraft.The terms “UFO” and “Unidentified Flying Objects” were not around way back then. Such craft were referred to as “Flying Saucers” and “Flying Disks.” There’s a reason why I bring all of this up today. While lecturing on the UFO subject recently for a regional group, I brought up the matter of the Arnold affair. What surprised me was the distinct lack of knowledge – on the part of many of the attendees – regarding the specific nature of Arnold’s sighting. So, I thought, why not share with you today the story of Arnold – in the man’s very own words, and for one and all to understand and appreciate.

Arnold said:

“The following story of what I observed over the Cascade Mountains, as impossible as it may seem, is positively true. I never asked nor wanted any notoriety for just accidentally being in the right spot at the right time to observe what I did. I reported something that I know any pilot would have reported. I don’t think that in any way my observation was due to any sensitivity of eye sight or judgment than what is considered normal for any pilot. On June 24th, Tuesday, 1947, I had finished my work for the Central Air Service at Chehalis, Washington, and at about two o’clock I took off from Chehalis, Washington, airport with the intention of going to Yakima, Wash. My trip was delayed for an hour to search for a large marine transport that supposedly went down near or around the southwest side of Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington and to date has never been found.”

Kenneth Arnold

Arnold continued: “I flew directly toward Mt. Rainier after reaching an altitude of about 9,500 feet, which is the approximate elevation of the high plateau from which Mt. Rainier rises. I had made one sweep of this high plateau to the westward, searching all of the various ridges for this marine ship and flew to the west down and near the ridge side of the canyon where Ashford, Washington, is located. Unable to see anything that looked like the lost ship, I made a 360 degree turn to the right and above the little city of Mineral, starting again toward Mt. Rainier. I climbed back up to an altitude of approximately 9,200 feet. The air was so smooth that day that it was a real pleasure flying and, as most pilots do when the air is smooth and they are flying at a higher altitude, I trimmed out my airplane in the direction of Yakima, Washington, which was almost directly east of my position and simply sat in my plane observing the sky and the terrain.”

The man himself was about to have the encounter that made him famous: “There was a DC-4 to the left and to the rear of me approximately fifteen miles distance, and I should judge, at 14,000 foot elevation. The sky and air was clear as crystal. I hadn’t flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash reflected on my airplane. It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other aircraft. I looked every place in the sky and couldn’t find where the reflection had come from until I looked to the left and the north of Mt. Rainier where I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at approximately 9,500 foot elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170 degrees. They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane. These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation. Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly.”

Arnold did his very best to figure out what the vehicles were: “I thought it was very peculiar that I couldn’t find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. I was determined to clock their speed, as I had two definite points I could clock them by; the air was so clear that it was very easy to see objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles that day. I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight day clock, which is located on my instrument panel, read one minute to 3 P.M. as the first object of this formation passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier. I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed airplanes flying so close to the mountain tops, flying directly south to southeast down the hog’s back of a mountain range. I would estimate their elevation could have varied a thousand feet one way or another up or down, but they were pretty much on the horizon to me which would indicate they were near the same elevation as I was.”

It’s very clear from Arnold’s words that he was struggling to understand what was afoot in the skies over Washington State: “They flew like many times I have observed geese to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks. Their speed at the time did not impress me particularly, because I knew that our army and air forces had planes that went very fast. What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their path was the fact that I couldn’t make out any tail on them, and I am sure that any pilot would justify more than a second look at such a plane. I observed them quite plainly, and I estimate my distance from them, which was almost at right angles, to be between twenty to twenty-five miles. I knew they must be very large to observe their shape at that distance, even on as clear a day as it was that Tuesday, In fact I compared a zeus [sic: it should be “Dzus”] fastener or cowling tool I had in my pocket with them – holding it up on them and holding it up on the DC-4 – that I could observe at quite a distance to my left, and they seemed smaller than the DC-4; but, I should judge their span would have been as wide as the furtherest [sic] engines on each side of the fuselage of the DC-4.”

He continued to remain puzzled; in fact, very much so: “The more I observed these objects the more upset I became, as I am accustomed and familiar with most all objects flying whether I am close to the ground or at higher altitudes. I observed the chain of these objects passing another high snow-covered ridge in between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams and as, the first one was passing the south crest of this ridge the last object was entering the northern crest of the ridge. As I was flying in the direction of this particular ridge, I measured it and found it to be approximately five miles so I could safely assume that the chain of these saucer like objects were at least five miles long. I could quite accurately determine their pathway due to the fact that there were several high peaks that were a little this side of them as well as higher peaks on the other side of their pathway.”

The story got even more amazing: “As the last unit of this formation passed the southern-most high snow-covered crest of Mt. Adams, I looked at my sweep second hand and it showed that they had traveled the distance in one minute and forty-two seconds. Even at the time this timing did not upset me as I felt confident after I would land there would be some explanation of what I saw. A number of news men and experts suggested that I might have been seeing reflections or even a mirage. This I know to be absolutely false, as I observed these objects not only through the glass of my airplane but turned my airplane sideways where I could open my window and observe them with a completely unobstructed view. (Without sun glasses.) Even though two minutes seems like a very short time to one on the ground, in the air in two minutes time a pilot can observe a great many things and anything within his sight of vision probably as many as fifty or sixty times.”

As Arnold told it, “I continued my search for the marine plane for another fifteen or twenty minutes and while searching for this marine plane, what I had just observed kept going through my mind. I became more disturbed, so after taking a last look at Tieton Reservoir I headed for Yakima. I might add that my complete observation of these objects, which I could even follow by their flashes as they passed Mt. Adams, was around two and one-half or three minutes — although, by the time they reached Mt. Adams they were out of my range of vision as far as determining shape or form. Of course, when the sun reflected from one or two or three of these units, they appeared to be completely round; but, I am making a drawing to the best of my ability, which I am including, as to the shape I observed these objects to be as they passed the snow covered ridges as well as Mt. Rainier. When these objects were flying approximately straight and level, they were just a black thin line and when they flipped was the only time I could get a judgment as to their size. These objects were holding an almost constant elevation; they did not seem to be going up or coming down, such as would be the case of rockets or artillery shells.”

An opinion then came from Arnold: “I am convinced in my own mind that they were some type of airplane, even though they didn’t conform with the many aspects of the conventional type of planes that I know. Although these objects have been reported by many other observers throughout the United States, there have been six or seven other accounts written by some of these observers that I can truthfully say must have observed the same thing that I did; particularly, the descriptions of the three Western [Cedar City, Utah] Air Lines employees, the gentleman [pilot] from Oklahoma City and the locomotive engineer from Illinois, plus Capt. Smith and Co-Pilot Stevens of United Air Lines. Some descriptions could not be very accurate taken from the ground unless these saucer-like disks were at a great height and there is a possibility that all of the people who observed peculiar objects could have seen the same thing I did, but, it would have been very difficult from the ground to observe these for more than four or five seconds, and there is always the possibility of atmospheric moisture and dust near the ground which could distort one’s vision.”

There was more to come: “I have in my possession letters from all over the Unites States and people who profess that these objects have been observed over other portions of the world, principally Sweden, Bermuda, and California. I would have given almost anything that day to have had a movie camera with a telephoto lens and from now on I will never be without one – but, to continue further with my story. When I landed at Yakima, Wash., airport I described what I had seen to my very good friend, Al Baxter, who listened patiently and was very courteous but in a joking way didn’t believe me. I did not accurately measure the distance between these two mountains until I landed at Pendleton, Oregon, that same day where I told a number of pilot friends of mine what I had observed and they did not scoff or laugh but suggested they might be guided missiles or something new. In fact several former Army pilots informed me that they had been briefed before going into combat overseas that they might see objects of similar shape and design as I described and assured me that I wasn’t dreaming or going crazy.”

According to Arnold: “I quote Sonny Robinson, a former Army Air Forces pilot who is now operating dusting operations at Pendleton, Oregon, ‘that what you observed, I am convinced, is some type of jet or rocket propelled ship that is in the process of being tested by our government or even it could possibly be by some foreign government.’ Anyhow, the news that I had observed these spread very rapidly and before the night was over I was receiving telephone calls from all parts of the world; and, to date, I have not received one telephone call or one letter of scoffing or disbelief. The only disbelief that I know of was what was printed in the papers.”

In conclusion, there are these words from Arnold: “I look at this whole ordeal as not something funny as some people have made it out to be. To me it is mighty serious and since I evidently did observe something that at least Mr. John Doe on the street corner or Pete Andrews on the ranch has never heard about, is no reason that it does not exist. Even though I openly invited an investigation by the Army and the FBI as to the authenticity of my story or a mental or a physical examination as to my capabilities, I have received no interest from these two important protective forces of our country; I will go so far as to assume that any report I gave to the United and Associated Press and over the radio on two different occasions which apparently set the nation buzzing, if our Military intelligence was not aware of what I observed, they would be the very first people that I could expect as visitors. I have received lots of requests from people who told me to make a lot of wild guesses. I have based what I have written here in this article on positive facts and as far as guessing what it was I observed, it is just as much a mystery to me as it is to the rest of the world.”

So, in case you didn’t know the story, you do now!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Europese navigatiesatelliet Galileo plat door “technisch incident” - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

Door de problemen kunnen alle ontvangers geen bruikbare signalen oppikken om hun positie te bepalen. In plaats daarvan zijn ze momenteel afhankelijk van de Amerikaanse tegenhanger gps. Afhankelijk van de geïnstalleerde chip kunnen dat ook de Russische (GLONASS) of Chinese (Beidou) netwerken zijn, meldt de BBC.

Lees ook

Franse luchtmacht vecht nu ook in de ruimte

“Experts zijn bezig om de situatie zo snel mogelijk te herstellen”, laat GSA weten. Er is een onderzoeksraad ingesteld om de exacte oorzaak te achterhalen en het probleem op te lossen. Mogelijk ligt het euvel bij een faciliteit in Italië die gebruikt wordt om alle klokken in het systeem gelijk te stellen. De reddingsdienst SAR, om mensen in nood op bijvoorbeeld zee of in de de bergen te lokaliseren en helpen, werkt wel nog.

Alternatief voor Amerikaans gps-systeem

Galileo is het grootste ruimtevaartproject uit de Europese geschiedenis. De Europese Commissie wil een alternatief bouwen voor het overal gebruikte gps, dat van het Amerikaanse leger is. De Galileo-satellieten kunnen tot op 20 centimeter nauwkeurig bepalen waar een aangesloten kastje is. Volledige dienstverlening zal mogelijk zijn van zodra er 30 satellieten in de ruimte zijn, nu zijn er reeds 26 die rond onze planeet draaien. De vier resterende kunstmanen vertrekken eind volgend jaar.

Galileo had eigenlijk al in 2008 volledig operationeel moeten zijn. Maar de kosten zijn de pan uitgerezen. In 1999 plande de EU 2,2 tot 2,9 miljard euro voor de uitbouw van het systeem in. In de begroting tot 2020 is 7,2 miljard voor de uitbouw en 3 miljard voor de uitbating voorzien.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

India stelt maanmissie op het laatste moment uit - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

De Chandrayaan-2 - ‘maanvoertuig’ in het Sanskriet - omvat naast een lander die niet ver van de zuidpool van de maan aan de grond wordt gezet ook een orbiter waaraan een Belgisch bedrijf heeft bijgedragen. Het Luikse Amos produceerde namelijk optische onderdelen van het hyperspectrale instrument (IIRS) aan boord van de orbiter.

Lees ook

India keert terug naar de maan met nieuwe missie ‘Chandrayaan-2’

De maansonde moest normaal gezien om 2.51 uur plaatselijke tijd (23.21 uur Belgische tijd) vertrekken vanop de zuidelijke ruimtehaven Sriharikota. Zo’n 56 minuten voor de lancering werd de missie echter afgelast omdat er een technisch probleem was vastgesteld aan de draagraket. 

Nieuwe lanceerdatum

Als alles uiteindelijk goed verloopt, is India na de Verenigde Staten, de voormalige Sovjet-Unie en China het vierde land dat op de maan weet te landen. Volgens ISRO is het “de meest complexe ruimtemissie die het agentschap ooit heeft ondernomen”. India heeft eerder met de Chandrayaan-1 al onderzoek naar de maan verricht, maar is daar toen nooit geland. 

Een nieuwe lanceerdatum wordt binnenkort bekendgemaakt.

India hoopt na de Verenigde Staten, de voormalige Sovjet-Unie en China het vierde land ter wereld te worden om een zachte landing op de Maan te verwezenlijken. 

ISRO
✔@isro

A technical snag was observed in launch vehicle system at 1 hour before the launch. As a measure of abundant precaution, #Chandrayaan2 launch has been called off for today. Revised launch date will be announced later.

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{ https://www.hln.be/ }

George Knapp: Australia's Classified and Unseen Alien Files

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Did Rectangular SSP Craft Shoot Down Missile In Hawaii?

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

How human babies born on Mars would suffer horrific MUTATIONS due to cosmic radiation and jeopardise the entire colonising mission

Dr John Millis, a NASA-funded physicist and astronomer, said that the red planet's low gravity would also cause problems with the child's bone and muscles growth

By Mark Hodge

A HUMAN baby born on Mars would be MUTATED by cosmic radiation and would "put the entire crew in danger", US scientists believe.

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk recently invited members of NASA and leading academics to discuss colonising Earth’s nearest neighbour in the next 40 to 100 years.

Babies born on Mars would suffer mutations from the planet's cosmic radiation, an expert told The Sun Online 4Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

But considering a human colony on Mars would need to reproduce in order to be successful – it’s worth considering the dangers of having a child on the mysterious planet.

Dr John Millis, a NASA-funded physicist and astronomer, told The Sun Online that cosmic radiation on the planet’s surface would lead to “mutations” in the fetus.

He said: “One of the larger challenges facing a human mission to Mars is the amount of time the astronauts would spend in transit to the planet would expose them to significant radiation.

“Similarly, once on the surface of Mars, the design and construction of the habitats would be crucial to mission success because of radiation concerns on the surface - since Mars has very little atmosphere or magnetic field.

“To the forming fetus, the higher radiation levels would cause cell deformation and mutation, possibly terminating the pregnancy before reaching full term.”

But it's not just the mother and the child who would be put at risk.

A female astronaut falling pregnant during a Mars mission would “put the entire crew in danger,” write US biologists Haley Schuster and Steven L. Peck.

The low gravity on Mars would also impact the infant's bones and muscles, Dr Millis said Credit: Getty - Contributor

Martian caves could provide shelter for humans

• Underground structures such as caves could be used to set up human colonies, NASA-funded project Caves of Mars Project found in 2004.
• These Martian caverns could provide shielding from radiation and other dangerous elements, the report concluded.
• Bill Hargenrader, SciFi Author and founder of the Mars NOW research organisation, told The Sun Online how human explorers could set up home on the red planet.
• He said: "Mars is a lot colder than Earth, it's one per cent of the atmospheric pressure, it's 38 per cent of the gravity and it has no protection from cosmic radiation.
• "The first structures will be the actual space craft the pioneers will land in. The next steps will be to use the Martian soil itself to tunnel or utilise cave structures.
• "In addition, we're looking at using 3D printing to create bricks and other structures."

The two scientists, of Brigham Young University in Utah, believe resources such as medical supplies, oxygen and food would be compromised by the expectant mother and eventually her child.

In fact, they believe that a pregnancy on a Mars mission would be so dangerous that having the astronauts “permanently or temporarily sterilised" would have to be seriously considered.

Another challenge facing the mother and the crew would be the lack of a gravity on the red planet and its impact on the tot.

Mars has only 40 per cent of the gravity of the Earth which could lead to problems with the baby’s bone growth, Dr Millis said.

Microgravity environments can cause “bone and muscle degradation” which is why astronauts have to exercise regularly, he added.

Plans to set up a human colony on the red planet would be difficult with our current technology, scientists say

Credit: Alamy

New technology would need to be developed to deal with the radiation and low-gravity, Millis said. Pictured: The skeleton of a mutated fetus found inChile in 20037

Credit: Dr. Emery Smith

Dr Schuster and Dr Peck, who studied the impact of a pregnancy on a mission to Mars, agree that a baby would develop "abnormally" in an environment lacking gravity.

They write: "Studies using human bone marrow stem cells found a significant effect on cells in microgravity and fewer cells were generated.

"Since cell proliferation was decreased in these human stem cells, it is likely that the space environment could cause the fetus to develop abnormally"

Dr Millis, of Anderson University in Indiana, insists that new technology would need to be developed in order for a child to be born, grow and survive on the unforgiving planet.

Mars may be harboring alien life, according to NASA chief Jim Bridenstine. Pictured: In this handout provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the 'Mojave' site, where its drill collected the mission's second taste of Mount Sharp. 

Photo: Getty Images/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

How long does it take to get to Mars?

It's not that short of a trip...

• There's an immense distance between Earth and Mars, which means any trip to the red planet will take a very long time
• It's also made more complicated by the fact that the distance is constantly changing as the two planets rotate around the sun
• The closest that the Earth and Mars would ever be is a distance of 33.9million miles – that's 9,800 times the distance between London and New York
• That's really rare though: the more useful distance is the average, which is 140million miles
• Scientists on Earth have already launched a whole bunch of spacecraft to (or near) Mars, so we have a rough idea of how long it takes with current technology
• Historically, the trip has taken anywhere from 128 to 333 days - admittedly a huge length of time for humans to be on board a cramped spacecraft.

He said: “It is highly improbable that a forming fetus would be able to make it to term in space, at least without significant radiation shielding.

“A simulated gravity environment on the spacecraft such as those depicted in some films, such as The Martian, would also be required.

“In all, it seems, that with the limits of current technology it is unlikely a baby could be born in space, and even if they were, they would face significant developmental challenges.”

Schuster and Peck also reveal that a pregnant astronaut "may be at greater risk for contracting an illness" brought on the mission by another crew member.

They write: "Pathogens may spread among the crew more easily in the cramped conditions of a spacecraft.

Elon Musk told HBO that there's a 70% chance he'll move to Mars

Credit: HBO

"The observation that astronauts’ immune systems are suppressed due to microgravity is well established.

"NASA researchers expect that an impaired immune system could pose a major risk for longer space flights, such as the one to Mars."

Despite the dangers involved of living there, South African-born tech mogul Elon Musk recently said there is a 70 per cent chance he will travel to Mars.

Musk, who founded PayPal and runs car firm Tesla, hopes to visit the planet using technology built by his space company SpaceX.

SpaceX is currently working on a vessel named Starship, which was previously codenamed Big F***ing Rocket.

It's believed that Starship will be able to make the voyage to Mars – with humans on board – within the next seven years.

And Musk, speaking last month on HBO's Axios, said: "I know exactly what to do. I'm talking about moving there."

The red planet is being photographed by NASA's unmanned Insight spacecraft which landed on the planet two weeks ago.

By examining and mapping the interior of Mars, scientists hope to learn why the rocky planets in our solar system turned out so different and why Earth became a haven for life.

{ https://www.thesun.ie/ }

This Overview Of NASA's SR-71 Blackbird Is A Must Watch

Even the tiniest details about the SR-71 tend to be fascinating, but a good overview of the jet and its operations is also very intriguing.

By Amy Russo

{ https://www.huffpost.com/ }

Amazing footage reveals a mysterious black hole found by Hubble which astronomers claim 'shouldn't exist' according to Einstein's theories of relativity

• An international team of researchers made the finding in the galaxy NGC 3147 130 million light-years away 
• The 'starving' supermassive black hole weighs roughly 250 million times more than the sun scientists say 
• They claim it shouldn't have a large disk of matter surrounding it according to Einstein's theories of relativity
• Instead light given off by the object mimics the behaviour of black holes at the centres of more active galaxies

By TIM COLLINS FOR MAILONLINE

A mysterious black hole surrounded by a thin 'accretion' disk of gases and other cosmic debris that astronomers claim 'shouldn't exist' has been discovered at the heart of a spiral galaxy. 

NGC 3147, found around 130 million light-years away in the Draco constellation, was uncovered by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The supermassive black hole, which weighs roughly 250 million times more than the sun, shouldn't have a disk of matter surrounding it, according to Einstein's theories of relativity.

That's because NGC 3147's black hole is currently 'starving', due to a lack of material to feed on in the region, and starving black holes don't usually have an accretion disk around them, experts say.

Instead, light given off by the object at the centre of NGC 3147 mimics the behaviour of a supermassive black hole at the centres of much more active galaxies.

A mysterious black hole surrounded by a thin 'accretion' disk of gases and other cosmic debris that astronomers claim 'shouldn't exist' has been discovered at the heart of a spiral galaxy.

Pictured: An artist's impression of the accretion disk swirling around the supermasive black hole

The disk of material circling the black hole offers a unique opportunity to test Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity. 

It is so deeply embedded in the black hole's intense gravitational field that the light emitted from the gas disk is modified, according to Einstein's theories of relativity.

This has provided astronomers with a unique glimpse at the dynamic processes at work close to a black hole, researchers say.

'This is an intriguing peek at a disc very close to a black hole, so close that the velocities and the intensity of the gravitational pull are affecting how we see the photons of light,' said the study's first author, Stefano Bianchi, of the University of Roma Tre in Italy.

'The type of disc we see is a scaled-down quasar that we did not expect to exist.

'It's the same type of disc we see in objects that are 1000 or even 100 000 times more luminous. 

'The predictions of current models for very faint active galaxies clearly failed.' 

NGC 3147 (top down satellite image, left / above), found around 130 million light-years away in the Draco constellation, was uncovered by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope. The supermassive black hole (top down artist's impression, right / under) shouldn't have a disk of matter surrounding it, according to Einstein's theories of relativity

NGC 3147's black hole (pictured, glowing at it's centre) is currently 'starving', due to a lack of material to feed on in the region, and starving black holes don't usually have an accretion disk around them, experts say

In order to study the matter swirling deep inside this disc, the researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument. 

This diagnostic tool divides the light from an object into its many individual wavelengths to determine the object's speed, temperature, and other characteristics at very high precision. 

STIS was integral to effectively observing the low-luminosity region around the black hole, blocking out the galaxy’s brilliant light.

The disc’s material was measured by Hubble to be whirling around the black hole at more than 10 per cent of the speed of light. 

At such extreme velocities, the gas appears to brighten as it travels toward Earth on one side, and dims as it speeds away from our planet on the other. This effect is known as relativistic beaming. 

Hubble’s observations also show that the gas is embedded so deep in a gravitational well that light is struggling to escape, and therefore appears stretched to redder wavelengths.  

The astronomers initially selected this galaxy to validate accepted models about lower-luminosity active galaxies: those with malnourished black holes. 

These models predict that discs of material should form when ample amounts of gas are trapped by a black hole’s strong gravitational pull, subsequently emitting lots of light and producing a brilliant beacon called a quasar. 

'We've never seen the effects of both general and special relativity in visible light with this much clarity,' said team member Marco Chiaberge of AURA for ESA, STScI and Johns Hopkins University.

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

Light given off by the object (artists' impression, right) at the centre of NGC 3147 (left) mimics the behaviour of a supermassive black hole at the centres of much more active galaxies

Read more:

• HST unveils a compact mildly relativistic broad-line region in the candidate true type 2 NGC 3147 | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters | Oxford Academic

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Chile has one of the highest concentrations of large telescope observatories in the world, mostly in the Atacama Desert in the northern part. It could be due to the dry air, its isolation from city lights or its 330 clear nights per year on average. Those conditions could also be why Chile also has such a large number of UFO sightings. It could also be due to its multitude of mines, where ‘alien’ ships might conceivably pick up parts or fuel. The city of Concepcion in particular has a place in UFO lore for its ‘tiny alien skeleton’, which for decades fascinated and baffled many before DNA tests proved it to be a human fetus. That’s why a recent UFO sighting in Chile deserves more than a cursory view.

“UFOs, or strange lights captured in Concepción in front of the Catholic university.”

That was the caption on July 6, 2019, under a YouTube video taken the day before by a security camera which showed two unidentified flying objects quickly crossing the sky and changing directions multiple times. (Watch it here.) There are obvious trails behind them, suggesting they could be meteors or skydivers, but their speed and their drastic directional changes seem to negate both of those possibilities. The video was reported by the local media source Pagina 7 (Page 7), which identified the location – over the Catholic University of the Most Holy Conception – and asked local meteorologist Eduardo Sáez for his opinion.

“Indeed, at first sight it is difficult to know what it is. If it were a thermal image, it could be the motor temperature, but I do not know what kind of image it is. For a plane, but if we think of meteorites, of course. But I already say that there is no meteorological phenomenon that generates that kind of light.”

Since this is Chile, there are plenty of UFO investigators around, so Pagina 7 then asked local paranormal investigator Hugo Mazuela for his analysis of the video.

“I find it very interesting. I have two theories about it, the first is that they can be objects called ‘Foo Fighters’ or moving lights, which are a kind of UFO with voluntary movements as we see in the video. Sometimes these UFOs are usually so fast that it is difficult to see them, they are characterized by being alive or not being manned.”

Foo Fighters? What about a camera anomaly? These security cameras aren’t high quality, but Pagina 7 says no other anomalies were seen on other footage from it. Yes, there’s one more possibility we haven’t addressed – the ubiquitous drones – but Mazuela says the same thing applies to them as to meteors or skydivers … the movements were too fast and sharp to be a drone, so he’s sticking with Foo Fighters.

No other reports of these UFOs come up in searches, but another one allegedly occurred on July 7, also over Concepcion, that was captured on a cellphone video. (Watch it here.) This sighting looks more like a drone, plane or possibly one of those experimental triangular crafts that keep appearing more frequently. In fact, some comments on the video say this is actually an older sighting from December 2018 of exactly that, but it’s Chile so one should never jump to conclusions.

Chile has been called the best place in the world to see UFOs,and these videos add to that sentiment. While many can be blamed on the military or drones, that doesn’t apply to all. And we haven’t even brought in the fact that Chile has a chain of over 2,000 active and inactive volcanoes (second-longest next to Indonesia) and there have been many UFO sightings near volcanoes that lead to speculation that they may be ports or refueling stations. Or they could just be anomalies.

In any case, Chile deserves all of the attention it gets as a UFO hotspot. Hopefully, the experts there will soon explain the unusual sighting on July 5th over Concepcion.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

UFO authority Timothy Good stated the following in his 1987 book, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up: “In 1959 Stan Steers, President of the Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau [which was created in 1956] at the time received a phone call from a man requesting a meeting in a large car park in Brisbane, hinting that Seers might learn something to his advantage about UFOs.” Seers, by his own admission, at first thought that this was someone’s idea of a not too amusing practical joke. All thoughts of pranks went quickly out of the window, however, when – after a couple more phone calls with the mysterious man at the other end of the line – Seers was finally able to meet the clandestine character at that aforementioned car park. He was nothing less than an employee of  the Australian Security Intelligence Organization(the ASIO).

“Mr. D,” as Seers tantalizingly termed the man, was seemingly intent on playing a game of “bad-cop”-“good-cop,” but all on his lonesome. The ASIO agent began in somewhat hostile fashion and “dangled the Communist bogey,” as Seers succinctly put it. The man then proceeded to reel off significant background information on both Seers and two of his colleagues in the QFSRB. In an instant, Seers realized something amazing and more than a bit alarming: I’m being watched. Closely. By the Government. Shit. Mr. D’s tone soon changed, though, when he suggested to Seers that perhaps the ASIO could provide significant UFO-themed data to Seers and his friends – if and when the circumstances were deemed to be right; whatever that meant.

The Australian government handing its UFO files over to a group of ufologists? It sounded way too good to be true. No surprise: it turns out that’s exactly what it was. Mr. D carefully, skillfully and ultimately ruthlessly wormed his way into the UFO group, causing major dissention in the ranks, and fracturing friendships as he did so. This is what Seers astutely came to believe was the entire point of the operation: to infiltrate the QFSRB, to weaken it, and to ensure that the ASIO was able to keep a careful watch on it and its members at all times – and particularly so those in the group who had what was referred to as by the ASIO as having “some Communist influence.” A now-declassified ASIO document, titled The Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau, and dated August 4, 1959 – the very same time-frame in which Stan Seers was approached – reveals that the ASIO had undertaken a wealth of background data on the UFO group, as the following extract from an ASIO document shows:

“The Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau is an organization with a present membership of 163 which meets regularly on the second Wednesday of each month in the Canberra Hotel and conducts a discussion group on the first Wednesday of each month in…Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. The members are of great diversity in outlook, politics and religion but all have a common purpose in endeavoring to establish the authenticity of unidentified flying objects which have been sighted throughout the world, including Australia, particularly in the last ten years. There is some Communist influence in the Bureau due to the presence of the Secretary, Gordon Leslie Jamieson and members of the Souwer family of Slacks Creek, to whom he is related by marriage.”

The ASIO continued: “Recently an announcement appeared in the daily papers which stated that a difference of opinion has arisen amongst two groups of eminent Soviet physicists concerning the origin of an explosion which took place in Siberia in 1908 [the controversial “Tunguska” affair] and which has been for the past fifty years accepted as the landing of a giant meteorite. The difference has arisen due to the fact that a small group of scientists have now put forward the theory that due to the unnatural nature of the explosion and the fact that a large number of persons in the area suffered from leukemia the explosion could have been the destruction of some space vehicle, possibly trying to land or in some mechanical trouble.”

There was also this from the ASIO: “At the May meeting of the Bureau, Gordon Leslie Jamison had prepared for dispatch to the Soviet Union a letter asking for any additional information that may be available from the scientists. To date no reply has been received but it is quite possible that with the re-introduction of the Soviet Embassy to Australia this could easily afford an avenue for contact between the V.O.K.S. representative and the Bureau with offers from the Soviet Embassy to assist in the supply of information.”

The ASIO’s concerns about VOKS – Vsesojuznoe obschestvo kul’turnykh svyzei s zagranitsei – liaising with the QFSRB were completely valid and warranted. It was a body that highlighted matters of a cultural nature between the East and the West. It wasn’t widely known outside of the world of intelligence, however, that many of those Russian cultural characters were really Soviet agents seeking information that might have been useful to the KGB. The ASIO was fully aware that VOKS was filled to the absolute brim with agents of the Soviet Union, and not just with cultural representatives. And, although the VOKS program was shut down in 1958, the QFSRB had been in existence since 1956. Two years was an ample amount of time for the UFO group to have cultivated a chain of communication with VOKS, something that the ASIO feared just might already have happened.

It’s not surprising, then, that the ASIO became very concerned that those same Soviet agents could have tried to “turn” one or more QFSRB members. And, in a worst-case scenario, did turn them. Such a grim picture was seen as being disturbingly all too possible. For example, although Stan Steers was described by the ASIO as being “the most level headed and rational member of the Bureau,” the QFSRB’s secretary, Gordon Jamieson and his family were described by Australian Intelligence  as “pacifists and communists.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Most people who have lived in Southern California their entire lives would be quick to tell you that earthquakes there are nothing out of the ordinary.

However, with the arrival of the Fourth of July holiday, residents north of Los Angeles had more than just fireworks to shake things up, as a swarm of earthquakes rattled desert communities throughout the region well into the following week.

NBC Los Angeles reported that as of Monday morning, “nearly 3,000 aftershocks [were] recorded in the area since Friday’s magnitude-7.1 main shock and magnitude-6.4 Independence Day quake, the strongest earthquakes to hit Southern California in the last 20 years.” The earthquakes were centered just outside the town of Ridgecrest in the Mojave Desert, approximately 150 miles northbound from Los Angeles.

Although earthquakes aren’t uncommon in the region, that isn’t to say that last week’s wave of holiday tremblors was anything typical, either.

USGS map depicting mainshock and aftershock locations shortly after the M7.1 event, which displays a distinctive “T” pattern, created by the two perpendicular fault zones.

(USGS/Public domain).

Geologists note that there is only around a 5% likelihood that a significant earthquake will be followed by an even larger one; however, this was only one way that initial pair of earthquakes that struck the region seemingly defied the odds. Live Science reported that the Independence Day earthquake occurred on an unmapped fault region along the Little Lake fault zone near Ridgecrest, and involved right angle ruptures, which may be more easily detected today than they were only years ago.

“This is very interesting geologically,” geoscientist Michele Cooke told Live Science. “We don’t have a lot of earthquakes in our record that show simultaneous slip on two perpendicular faults,” she said.

“Many of us are wondering if these complications are actually the norm and that our instruments 10+ years ago were not sensitive enough to pick up these complications,” Cooke also said, suggesting that these “rare” seismic events may not be so unusual after all.

However, geologists weren’t the only ones noticing odd things coinciding with the recent California earthquakes. According to the National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), disturbances in HF propagation on the west coast appeared to coincide with the July 4 earthquake as well, resulting in a “massive short-wave radio blackout” over the holiday weekend, a phenomenon that was observed by a number of HAM radio operators in the region.

Alex Schwarz, an amateur radio operator out of British Columbia, Canada who operates the RF Seismograph, reported that there were correlations “between earthquake activity and HF band conditions, said the radio disruption began at around 1600 UTC on July 4, and continued into July 5.”

According to the ARRL, “[Schwarz] said that on July 4, the blackout was total except for 20 meters, where conditions were ‘severely attenuated’… The RF Seismograph also detected the magnitude 7.1 earthquake on July 6 in the same vicinity.”

Finally, NASA was also monitoring the quakes, with a little help from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and one of their satellites, which resulted in colorful imagery of the areas affected by the earthquakes:

Image depicting earthquake elevational displacement following the July 4th seismic events

(Credit: JPL/Caltech/NASA).

According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the space agency’s Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team borrowed data collected by synthetic aperture radar, which was then colorized to reveal minor changes that were visible in the area of the earthquakes.

“Each colour… represents 12 centimetres (about 4.8 inches) of lifting or sinking in the landscape, with evidence of cracks in the lines cutting through the fringes of some colours,” Science Alert reported.

Despite the significant strength of last week’s earthquakes, few injuries were reported since the epicenter of the quakes had been located in a remote area. It is also possible that more earthquakes and aftershocks will continue over the next several weeks, although the unique data being collected in their aftermath may help reshape our understanding of similar seismic phenomena for decades to come.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Should everything go according to plan, more than a half-million strangers will gather in a remote Nevada town in mid-September, united by a common goal: to raid Area 51 in the wee hours of the morning — using a strength-in-numbers approach to reveal any extraterrestrial treasures stashed within the notoriously clandestine government base.

Or, put more simply: “Lets see them aliens.”

By Friday evening, more than 540,000 people from around the world had signed up to attend the joke Facebook event: “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” — and just as many had indicated they were “interested.” Planned for Sept. 20 in Amargosa Valley, an hour’s drive from Las Vegas, the event page is filled with thousands of satirical posts and memes theorizing the best way to break into the top-secret facility.

“We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry,” reads a brief description of the event, which was created by popular video game streamer SmyleeKun. “If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets.” The latter part of the description references anime ninja Naruto Uzumaki, whose signature head-forward, arms-behind-the-back running technique has led some to believe it makes them run faster. (It doesn’t.)

Most people discussing the raid, including various news outlets that have written about the event, recognize that it’s not intended to be taken seriously. But what about those who don’t? It’s not clear exactly how many people — if any — will actually show up to lead a blitzkrieg on the Nellis Air Force Base Complex, which houses the land containing Area 51.

Though some who’ve posted on the event page in recent days have considered that possibility.

“P.S. Hello U.S. government, this is a joke, and I do not actually intend to go ahead with this plan,” wrote user Jackson Barnes, following his rather descriptive proposed game plan. “I just thought it would be funny and get me some thumbsy uppies on the Internet. I’m not responsible if people decide to actually storm area 51.”

• [The government admits it studies UFOs. So about those Area 51 conspiracy theories …]

Speaking with The Washington Post on Friday, Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews said officials were aware of the event. When asked how authorities would respond to ardent explorers who might attempt to enter Area 51 in September, McAndrews said she could not elaborate on specific plans or security procedures at the base.

She did, however, issue a warning to those itching to try their luck.

“[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces,” McAndrews said. “The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”

The facility has long been a source of public intrigue, yet for decades, Americans were told Area 51 didn’t exist at all. That notion was officially debunked in 2013 when the CIA confirmed its existence through documents obtained in a public records request by George Washington University.

Yes, Area 51 is definitely real — and even though the report indicated it was nothing more than an aircraft-testing facility, mentioning nothing about extraterrestrial life, the revelation gave credence to conspiracy theories alleging the government uses the base to hide aliens and their spacecraft. The CIA has since published information about test flights that took place there, and the alien aspects in many of those theories have been debunked.

However, in 2017, the Pentagon confirmed the existence of a $22 million government program to analyze “anomalous aerospace threats” — also known as UFOs — giving the alien-obsessed kooks fresh fodder for their conjectures.

Though the facility is not publicly accessible, the area around Area 51 is a popular tourist destination, sprinkled with alien-themed motels, museums and restaurants. (In 1996, Nevada renamed state Route 375 to “Extraterrestrial Highway.”) But those who venture too far into the land surrounding the base are greeted with warning signs indicating they could be fined or jailed for trespassing and taking photos.

Some signs suggest those who enter could be subject to “deadly force.”

In 2014, a tour bus carting four passengers near Area 51 inadvertently drove through the warning signs and entered the base, Las Vegas Nowreported. The truck was stopped by men in “military garb,” and everyone in the vehicle was threatened with a misdemeanor conviction and $650 fine. The incident was caught on video, making it obvious the tour’s passengers thought it was all part of the experience. Only the driver was charged.

Of course, those who say they will participate in the September raid know their mission won’t be easy. Some have offered their own plans and even schematics detailing how the group will take on the base.

But the chatter mostly inspired dozens of jokes and memes:

View image on Twitter

Sabrina@idkhonestlyok

the aliens at #Area51 waiting for the we outside text

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Paco442@Paco_442

My alien that I stole from area 51 waking me up at 3 AM asking me how to flush the toilet #Area51

• 32.4K

4:58 PM - Jul 12, 2019

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Barbara@ImBarbaraPool

Area 51 guards watching people trying to break in. #Area51

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5:14 PM - Jul 12, 2019

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Read more:

• The government admits it studies UFOs. So about those Area 51 conspiracy theories …
• Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public

{ https://www.washingtonpost.com/ }

Watch out for ‘space pirates,’ Ted Cruz warns

Adam Best

✔@adamcbest

Ted Cruz argues that Space Force is necessary because... wait for it... space pirates. Leave it to Cruz to take a dumb Trump idea and make it sound even dumber.

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1:19 AM - May 16, 2019

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Katie Mack

✔@AstroKatie

Senator Ted Cruz thinks those of us concerned about climate change are alarmist, but he’s adamant that the nation invest in protection ainst space pirates https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1128376680693809153 …

Jeff Foust@jeff_foust

Subcommittee chairman Cruz: pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space, hence need for a Space Force.

• 7,699

6:24 PM - May 15, 2019

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• 2,838 people are talking about this

{ https://www.rt.com/news/ }

Ancient Egypt: Did aliens build the pyramids? Archeologist addresses SHOCK UFO claims

ANCIENT Egypt’s imposing Great Pyramids of Giza of have been at the heart of conspiracy debate and wild UFO claims for decades – but were the pyramids built by ancient aliens?

Video shows strange object flying over Tucson

{ https://kvoa.com/ }

Auroral Sounds: Why the Northern Lights Crackle

The study is a continuation of a hypothesis that Unto K. Laine, Professor Emeritus, published three years ago on the origin of the sounds heard during the displays of the Northern Lights. His theory postulated that the sounds are generated when a magnetic storm causes charges in the temperature inversion layer of the lower atmosphere, to be discharged at an altitude of 70 to 80 meters.

Credit: Aalto University

A recent research paper presented by Laine at the ICSV26 congress in Montreal provides a more detailed account of the sound generation. According to this study, when the Northern Lights occur, the spectrum of the temporal envelope of the crackling noise (or in other words, the rapid changes in the sound amplitude) contain frequencies of the Schumann resonances.

The Schumann resonances refer to the low-frequency electromagnetic resonances occurring around the Earth, the strongest of them being below 50 Hz. Laine has now observed that these resonances generated similar rhythmic structures in all the measured crackling sounds.

’Previous international research has shown that a geomagnetic storm occurring during the Northern Lights reinforces the Schumann resonances. For the first time, such resonances have been found to activate the sound generation mechanism in the temperature inversion layer at altitudes of between 70 to 80 metres where the accumulated electric charges give rise to corona discharges and crackling sounds. In addition to the nine lowest Schumann resonances, the spectra also include their difference and sum frequencies or in other words, distortion components. This non-linearity also lends support to the hypothesis of auroral sounds generation,’ Laine says.

Credit:  D. Kalmančok, M. Šebeň, Comenius University   / Wikimedia Commons

The research material consisted of 25 sound events measured on the ground in September 2001 and in March 2012 in Southern Finland, during the display of active Northern Lights. Although the measurements were conducted at different locations using various equipment, the results nevertheless point to the same direction.

The results will be published today (10 July) at the ICSV26 congress in Montreal, which brings together more than 2,000 researchers in acoustics from around the globe.

• Contacts and sources:
  Minna Hölttä
• Aalto University

Source:

{  https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

How Fast Is the Universe Expanding Exactly?

Exactly how fast is the universe expanding?

Scientists are still not completely sure, but a Princeton-led team of astrophysicists has used the neutron star merger detected in 2017 to come up with a more precise value for this figure, known as the Hubble constant. Their work appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Astronomy

.The collision of two neutron stars (GW170817) flung out an extraordinary fireball of material and energy that is allowing a Princeton-led team of astrophysicists to calculate the Hubble constant, the speed of the universe’s expansion. They used a super-high-resolution radio ‘movie’ (left) that they compared to a computer model (right). To generate their ‘movie,’ the science team combined data from enough radio telescopes spread over a large enough region to generate an image with such high resolution that if it were an optical camera, it could see individual hairs on someone’s head 6 miles away. The movie emphasizes observations taken 75 days and 230 days after the merger. The middle panel shows the radio afterglow light curve.

Mov3High[1] from Princeton University on Vimeo.

Video by Ore Gottlieb and Ehud Nakar, Tel Aviv University

“The Hubble constant is one of the most fundamental pieces of information that describes the state of the universe in the past, present and future,” said Kenta Hotokezaka, the Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow in Princeton’s Department of Astrophysical Sciences. “So we’d like to know what its value is.”

Currently, the two most successful techniques for estimating the Hubble constant are based on observations of either the cosmic microwave background or stars blowing themselves to pieces in the distant universe.

But those figures disagree: Measurements of exploding stars — Type Ia supernovae — suggest that the universe is expanding faster than is predicted by Planck observations of the cosmic microwave background.

“So either one of them is incorrect, or the models of the physics which underpin them are wrong,” said Hotokezaka. “We’d like to know what is really happening in the universe, so we need a third, independent check.”

He and his colleagues — Princeton’s NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow Kento Masuda, Ore Gottlieb and Ehud Nakar from Tel Aviv University in Israel, Samaya Nissanke from the University of Amsterdam, Gregg Hallinan and Kunal Mooley from the California Institute of Technology, and Adam Deller from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia — found that independent check by using the merger of two neutron stars.

Neutron star mergers are phenomenally energetic events in which two massive stars whip around each other hundreds of times per second before merging in an extraordinary collision that flings out a burst of gravitational waves and an enormous blast of material. In the case of the neutron star merger that was detected on Aug. 17, 2017, the two stars — each the size of Manhattan and with almost twice the mass of the sun — were moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light before they collided.

The gravitational wave burst from a neutron star merger makes a distinctive pattern known as a “standard siren.” Based on the shape of the gravitational wave signal, astrophysicists can calculate how strong the gravitational waves should have been. They can then compare that to the measured strength of the signal to work out how far away the merger occurred.

Credit: Ore Gottlieb and Ehud Nakar, Tel Aviv University

But there’s a catch — this only works if they know how the merging stars were oriented with respect to Earth’s telescopes. The gravitational wave data can’t distinguish between mergers that were nearby and edge-on, distant and face-on, or something in between.

To separate those possibilities, the researchers used a super-high-resolution radio “movie” of the fireball of material that was left behind after the neutron stars merged. To make their movie, they combined data from radio telescopes spread across the world.

“The resolution of the radio images we made was so high, if it was an optical camera, it could see individual hairs on someone’s head 3 miles away,” said Deller.

“By comparing the miniscule changes in the location and shape of this distant bullet of radio-emitting gas against several models including one developed on supercomputers, we were able to determine the orientation of the merging neutron stars,” said Nakar.

Using this, they calculated how far away the merging neutron stars were — and then, by comparing that with how fast their host galaxy is rushing away from ours, they could measure the Hubble constant.

After the 2017 neutron star merger (GW170817) was registered by nearly every astronomical instrument on the planet, astrophysicists calculated that the Hubble constant value was between 66 and 90 kilometers per second per megaparsec. By using tight constraints on the orientation of the collision, published last year by Mooley and several of the same co-authors, including Hotokezaka, the current group of collaborators were able to pin that estimate down further, to between 65.3 and 75.6 km/s/Mpc.

While that precision is “quite good,” said Hotokezaka, it’s still not good enough to distinguish between the Planck and Type Ia models. He and his colleagues estimate that to get that level of precision, they would need data from 15 more collisions like GW170817 — with its helpful abundance of data up and down the entire electromagnetic spectrum — or 50 to 100 collisions that are detected only with gravitational waves.

“This is the first time that astronomers have been able to measure the Hubble constant by using a joint analysis of a gravitational-wave signals and radio images,” said Hotokezaka. “It is remarkable that only a single merger event allows us to measure the Hubble constant with a high precision — and this approach relies neither on the cosmological model (Planck) nor the cosmic-distance ladder (Type Ia).”

 The research was supported by Princeton University, the Israel Science Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation (AST-1654815), and the Australian Research Council (FT150100415).

• Contacts and sources:
  Liz Fuller-Wright
  Princeton University
• Citation: “A Hubble constant measurement from superluminal motion of the jet in GW170817″ by K. Hotokezaka, E. Nakar, O. Gottlieb, S. Nissanke, K. Masuda, G. Hallinan, K. P. Mooley and A. T. Deller appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0820-1.)

 

Source:

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

UFO Expert Warns People Against Trying To Contact Aliens

In a recent interview, UFO abduction expert and former CIA operative, Derrel Sims, warned humans against trying to contact aliens. He claimed that if we attempt to contact extraterrestrials, we could end up getting physically injured or even dying since aliens are malevolent beings.

On his website called Alien Hunter, Sims documented his first ever encounter with aliens which happened in 1952 when he was just four years of age. He explained that the extraterrestrial showed up in his bedroom and attempted to alter his mind into thinking that it was a clown. He believes that the alien was trying to modify his memories so that he wouldn’t remember seeing it or being abducted. He wrote, “I know inside, ‘He wants me to remember this as a bad dream of a clown.’” Years later, after Sims became a husband and a father, he realized that extraterrestrials had attempted to make contact with his 6-year-old son.

Since his experiences were less than pleasant, Sims believes that aliens are manipulative and can victimize humans through different ways. This is why he is warning people against trying to contact the otherworldly beings.

In his interview with the YouTube channel UAMN TV, he said, “It’s an uninformed position for them to get in contact with whoever’s out there,” adding, “Some people have done that and died as a result. Some people have been injured.”

He recalled a terrifying story that a producer told him in 1994. A television and movie production crew flashed strong lights into the sky at an area that was known for UFO activity in order to try and contact aliens. After they flashed their lights into the sky, something appeared out of nowhere and the crew vanished. The producer still doesn’t know what happened to the crew.

Sims also made an interesting comparison. He said that a human looking for contact with aliens is like a dog that is chasing a moving car. He explained that eventually the car will stop moving and the dog may not like whoever is driving the vehicle. The same goes with humans who are chasing the idea of contacting UFOs and aliens. When or if we do meet them, we may not like them and we could very well regret it.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The U.S. Air Force’s mysterious unmanned X-37B space plane is approaching 700 days in Earth orbit on the fifth mission (OTV-5) of the super-secret Orbital Test Vehicle project. No one outside of a select few members of the military and the government know anything about the space plane. However, you can now add a non-military astronomer and photographer to the list after he not only located the X-37B in orbit but managed to take multiple photographs of it. How did he do it? Has he been whisked away to secret detention center?

“When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn’t meet the predicted time and path. It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers’ network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2.”

Live Science reports that astronomer and satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands has been on a months-long quest to find the X-37B. He first spotted it in May 2019 – confirming it’s still in space – and began preparations for photographing it. Unfortunately, when he pointed his 10-inch F/4,8 aperture Newtonian telescope with an Astrolumina ALccd 5L-11 mono CMOS camera at where the X-37B was expected to be … it wasn’t there. He found it again – confirming that it is making maneuvers in space – and took two sets of photos (they can be seen here and here)

Ralf Vandebergh

@ralfvandebergh

 

“It is really a small object, even at only 300 kilometers [186 miles] altitude, so don’t expect the detail level of ground-based images of the real space shuttle.”

An artist's illustration of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane in orbit. The OTV-5 mission launched on Sept. 7, 2017.

Vandebergh is far too modest in describing his success.

“We can recognize a bit of the nose, payload bay and tail of this mini-shuttle, with even a sign of some smaller detail.”

Does Vandebergh’s discovery put him in any danger? Probably not. The Air Force has released a few photos of the space plane on the ground and after landings, and revealed at least one detail of its current mission – it’s carrying the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-II), which are experimental oscillating heat pipes the Air Force is testing for eventual use on long-duration space missions.

Then again, he may want to at least start wearing a fake mustache for a while.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Bryan Bender: Politico’s Defense Editor Talks UFOs

Open Minds UFO Radio: Bryan Bender is the defense editor for POLITICO Pro and can be seen adding commentary on the History Channel’s Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation. He was previously a D.C.-based reporter for the Boston Globe and Jane’s Defence Weekly, where he covered US military operations in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the Balkans.

Bryan also writes about terrorism, the international arms trade, and government secrecy. He is the author of “You Are Not Forgotten,“ the story of an Iraq War veteran’s search for a missing World War II fighter pilot in the South Pacific. He is currently a board member of the Military Reporters and Editors Association. Regarding UFOs, Bender has broken several important stories. He published an article revealing the Pentagon’s secretive UFO program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the same day as the New York Times. For that story, the Department of Defense (DoD) confirmed to him AATIP did exist and that a career intelligence officer, Luis Elizondo, ran it. Bender also broke the news regrind the Navy creating new UFO reporting guidelines and another story revealing that US Senators were briefed on UFOs. In this interview, we discuss how Bender came to know AATIP existed, how he vetted that information, and his thoughts on the nature of government UFO research and where it may this all might lead to.

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

Hundred Thousands of People Are Planning To Storm Area 51 To Find Truth of Alien Contact

To find proof of alien contact, more than 120,000 individuals have pledged to meet up and storm Nevada desert’s Area 51.

The ambitious plan is being organised through Facebook and is scheduled to take place on September 20, 2019, at 3 am. The meeting place will be at the Area 51 Alien Center in Amargosa Valley, Nevada. Those taking part will then proceed to Area 51, a classified military facility believed to housed alien technology and aliens themselves.

The group organisers are planning to do the Naruto run so that they can move faster than the area security’s bullet. Naruto running is a meme inspired by a popular anime character Naruto Uzumaki who has a distinctive running style.

Dodging bullets is something that no one succeeded in the past. In January, the local sheriff’s office and Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) officers shot a man carrying an unidentified cylindrical object after attempting to drive into the site.

It remains to be seen whether the group is just doing some grand scale internet trolling or serious about the attempt to gain access to the controversial Area 51.

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

Heather Taddy and Chuck Zukowski Discuss Their New Show Alien Highway

Open Minds UFO Radio: Chuck Zukowski and Heather Taddy are co-hosts of the Travel Channel’s new series Alien Highway. Along with Chuck’s son, Daniel, they are investigating paranormal incidents and hot spots. For the past 30 years, Chuck has been an IC Mask Design Engineering contractor. He’s been on microchip design teams working on projects as simple as optics for traffic light controllers, and as complex as Spy Satellites, Deep Space Probes, and LIDAR technology. Chuck was also a volunteer Deputy Sheriff for El Paso County Sheriff’s Department for eight years and was terminated for running animal mutilation investigations within his county. As a UFO/Paranormal Field Investigator, Chuck has been researching and Field Investigating the unknown for more than three decades. Heather Taddy starred on A&E’s hit television series “Paranormal State,” which chronicled investigations from the world-renowned college-run club at Pennsylvania State University, The Paranormal Research Society (PRS). Serving as the Team Documentarian, Taddy traveled across the country, helping and educating families experiencing paranormal activity. Showing no fear when it comes to the paranormal, Taddy is often seen on the series isolating her self in some of the world’s most notoriously haunted locations. In this episode, we talk about some of what we will see in the show, what it was like conducting investigations together and how their various paranormal interests relate to one another.

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

Nederlander weet geheimzinnig Amerikaans ruimteschip vast te leggen op camera - HLN.be

Caspar Naber

Bron: AD.nl

De foto, gepubliceerd op de vooraanstaande Amerikaanse astronomiesite space.com, leverde de Nederlander tot zijn verrassing veel buitenlandse media-aandacht op. “Ik had verwacht dat alleen echte satellietvolgers zouden reageren’’, zegt hij hoorbaar verbaasd over de telefoon.

De amateur-astrofotograaf schrijft de belangstelling toe aan het feit dat de media de X-37B bij zijn lancering, in september 2017 vanaf de Amerikaanse vlieg- en ruimtevaartbasis Kennedy Space Center in Florida, omschreven als ’geheimzinnig ruimteveer’. Daarvan is alleen bekend dat het experimenten uitvoert en informatie verzamelt over objecten in de ruimte.

Lees ook

Beruchte sigaarvormige ruimterots is géén ufo, maar wat dan wel?

340 kilometer hoogte

Vandebergh wist het robotachtige ruimtevliegtuig te fotograferen op een hoogte van zo’n 340 kilometer. Dat deed hij ‘gewoon’ bij hem thuis met een op een telescoop gemonteerde astrocamera. “Wittem ligt tussen de heuvels in een dal. Dat schermt het strooilicht af van de omliggende steden Aken, Heerlen en Maastricht.” Hij is blij met het eindresultaat maar vond het voortraject naar eigen zeggen ‘het allermooist’. 

Als actieve satellietspotter wist hij dat de X-37B in juni veel passages over Nederland zou maken. “Ik ben een paar maanden op jacht geweest naar het ruimtevliegtuig. Dat spotte ik in mei voor het eerst met het blote oog maar op dat moment kon ik geen opnames maken. Na te hebben uitgerekend wanneer hij het best te fotograferen zou zijn - midden juni - zat ik klaar met mijn camera. Maar op het verwachte moment kwam de mini-shuttle niet opdagen.’’

Spanning

Vandebergh meldde het aan de groep satellietspotters waarvan hij deel uitmaakt. Die ontdekte dat het ruimtevliegtuig zich in een andere baan om de aarde bevond. De amateur-waarnemers maakten een nieuwe berekening van het moment waarop het onbemande ruimtevliegtuig opnieuw voorbij zou komen. Een paar dagen later vonden ze de X-37B terug. 

“Het allermooist vond ik de spanning’’, zegt de astronoom terugblikkend. Hij wist dat de mini-spaceshuttle in de loop van juli alleen nog overdag over Nederland zou komen en daardoor niet meer te fotograferen zou zijn. “Daardoor vroeg ik me constant af: haal ik het nog?’’  

Verbaasd

Op 30 juni en 2 juli waren de atmosferische omstandigheden volgens hem ideaal en stelde hij zijn telescoop met camera op. De opnames op 30 juni waren volgens hem al geslaagd maar Vandebergh publiceerde ze niet in afwachting van betere. Die maakte hij twee dagen later.   

“Het was een super geslaagde opname’’, zegt Vandenbergh terugblikkend. “Op de afbeelding is een stuk van de neus van het ruimtevliegtuig te herkennen en ook de laadruimte. Je kunt zelfs zien dat de laaddeuren openstaan. De gedetailleerdheid verbaasde me omdat je dat niet verwacht gelet op de hoogte en afmetingen van de X-37B. Die is ongeveer zo groot als een zakenvliegtuigje waarmee je amper één vleugel van de echte spaceshuttle kunt bedekken.’’   

Toestellen als de X-37B zijn volgens hem normaal gesproken nauwelijks te zien boven onze horizon. Dit omdat ze op een lagere lengtegraad in een baan om de aarde worden gelanceerd. Vandebergh: “De mini-spaceshuttle werd op een iets hogere lengtegraad gelanceerd, net als het internationaal ruimtestation ISS.’’ 

Hoogtepunt

Hoe leuk hij alle media-aandacht ook vindt, de foto van de X-37B is voor hem minder bijzonder dan voor de buitenwereld. “Een écht hoogtepunt was de foto die ik in 2009 maakte van twee Amerikaanse astronauten die aan het werk waren buiten ruimtestation ISS. De eerste keer dat iemand erin was geslaagd om vanaf de aarde mensen in de ruimte te fotograferen.’’ Hij probeerde zo’n foto al sinds 2007 te maken maar dat lukte niet doordat de astronauten telkens op een niet-zichtbaar deel van het ruimtestation zaten of in de schaduw of doordat het zicht gewoon niet goed was.  

Teleurstellingen

“In deze hobby moet je veel geduld hebben en ben je afhankelijk van de weersomstandigheden en de atmosfeer. Daardoor is het een liefhebberij met veel teleurstellingen en slechts af en toe geluksmomenten. Als het lukt is dat mooi maar voor mij geen reden om een gat in de lucht te springen. Dat vind ik overdreven’’, aldus de amateur-astrofotograaf.

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Ralf Vandebergh@ralfvandebergh

The #OTV5 / #X37B space plane photographed in orbit! Finally an image showing this mini-Space Shuttle which is only a fraction in size of the real Shuttle.

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=154946 

… @SPACEdotcom @planet4589 @Marco_Langbroek @Astroguyz

@govertschilling @phi48 @Sterne_Weltraum

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Ralf Vandebergh@ralfvandebergh

TODAY it is exactly 10 years ago that I took the FIRST PHOTO OF A HUMAN IN SPACE FROM THE GROUND - during mission STS-119 #ISS. Read what analyses I did to be sure of it:http://www.ralfvandebergh-astrophotography.simpsite.nl/astronauts-in-the-telescope … @NASAKennedy @NASAJPL @NASA_Johnson @esaoperations @esa @ESA_nl @ruimtevaart @csa_asc

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Belief in Intelligent Life on Other Planets at Record High, UFOs Not Yet a Threat

Most Don’t View UFOs As A Threat To U.S. National Security.

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans think it is likely intelligent life exists on other planets and do not view UFOs as a threat to national security, a new poll finds.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds 61% believe intelligent life on other planets is likely, including 31% who find it very likely. That’s the highest level of belief measured to date.

By party, Republicans (31%), Democrats (31%), and unaffiliated voters (32%) are equally likely to believe intelligent life on other planets is very likely. Men (39%) are somewhat more likely than are women (24%) to say it is very likely.

Recently, a number of top U.S. Senators have been briefed on UFO sightings by U.S. Navy pilots. Those experiences have been documented by the History Channel in a new six-part series Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.

The series follows Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who confirmed the existence the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

AATIP refers to UFOs as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Mr. Elizondo resigned from the post to investigate the phenomena with his team. That team includes former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge. Steve Justice, who worked at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, is also on the team.

Chris Mellon, who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, is the team’s government liaison. He has played a key role in setting up those recent briefings and believes UFOs are a serious threat to national security.

But Americans do not view UFOs as a threat, at least as of now.

An equal number (61%) do not believe UFOs pose a national security threat to the United States. Twelve percent (12%) disagree and 27% are unsure.

By party, Republicans (13%) are only slightly less likely than Democrats (16%) to view UFOs as a threat to national security, while unaffiliated voters (9%) are least likely.

That may be due to the fact only 11% report ever seeing or knowing someone who has seen a UFO, while 80% have not and do not. Still, according to the U.S. Census Bureau Population Clock, that 11% translates to more than 36 million adults nationwide.

By party, Republicans (11%) and Democrats (11%) are equally likely to report having seen or knowing someone who has seen a UFO, while unaffiliated voters (12%) are not statistically likely to disagree.

• The national survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted June 23-24, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports.

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

U.S. fighter jets to get 'UFO trackers': New radar being fitted to military aircraft to track enemy planes will also make it easier to pinpoint unexplained objects, expert says

• Infrared search and track systems are designed to help track enemy aircraft
• But the systems could have the side-effect of assisting investigations into UFOs 
• Air Force jets and Navy Super Hornet planes are due to get the sensors soon 

By TIM STICKINGS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

New trackers on U.S. fighter jets could make it easier for them to detect UFOs, an aviation expert has said. 

The infrared search and track systems (IRSTs) are designed to hunt down enemy planes - but could also have the side-effect of helping pilots to investigate unexplained objects.

Military writer Tyler Rogoway said the technology has existed for decades but is now 'exponentially more capable' and could be a 'revolutionary' step in gathering UFO data.

Writing for The War Zone, of which he is the editor, he said the Navy's Super Hornet fleet and Air Force planes including the F-15C are due to get the sensors in the near future.  

Jets such as the Navy's fleet of Super Hornets (one of which is pictured in a file photo) will be equipped with infrared technology that could help investigate UFOs

The new technology 'could result in a major breakthrough, or at least a major uptick, when it comes to detecting and gathering information on so-called unidentified flying objects, if they are indeed out there,' he said.  

It 'could even serve as the final technological element needed to springboard potentially revolutionary data collection on the phenomenon,' he added. 

As a result the Pentagon may get 'more than it bargained for' with the new technology, he suggested.   

The IRSTs would be able to detect more because of their highly sensitive equipment and fast computer processing, Rogoway said. 

The new equipment is an upgrade compared to regular radar technology, which has certain limitations.   

One advantage of IRSTs is that, unlike radars, they do not emit any energy themselves. 

That makes the detection system, in itself, harder to detect, and much harder to jam. 

In addition, the IRST will keep working and tracking enemy aircraft even if the plane's radar system fails, he said.  

As a result, the technology could be of great help to American pilots against stealthy aircraft nearby.  

An image released by the Pentagon shows an unidentified object which was tracked by pilots off the east coast of the U.S. in 2015 

Eurofighter Typhoon jets also feature the technology, which goes by the name of PIRATE. 

They were previously used on older U.S. planes such as the F-101 Voodoo, a jet which was retired from the Air Force in 1972.  

Earlier this year it emerged that a number of pilots in the United States Navy reported seeing UFOs over American airspace between 2014 and 2015. 

One of them, Ryan Graves, said he saw UFOs regularly in the airspace off the Eastern seaboard between Florida and Virginia. 

Graves said he reported what he saw to the Pentagon and to members of Congress. 

In 2014, a pilot operating one of the Super Hornet fighter jets reported that he nearly collided with a UFO.

Another pilot, Danny Accoin, said he noticed a flying object on his radar, missile system, and infrared camera, but was not able to see it in his helmet. 

The UFOs were spotted in areas that were designated for fighter jet training, which makes it unlikely that these were commercial drones or other objects that are classified.

But none of the pilots or the Pentagon would speculate as to what they believed the objects were. 

Read more:

• U.S. Fighter Jets Are About To Get Infrared Sensors That Could Be Huge For UFO Reporting - The Drive

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Back in 2015, astronomers noticed a star that was behaving in a very unusual way. Nicknamed “Tabby’s Star” after astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, the star exhibits strange and unexplained dips in its light output. This led many to speculate that Tabby’s Star was surrounded by some sort of artificial technological structure like a Dyson sphere constructed by an advanced alien civilization. Radio monitoring of Tabby’s Star didn’t turn up any alien chatter or anything else unusual, but it didn’t explain what was going on with the star either. Now astronomers have discovered another star with mysterious dips in its light output (behavior which usually suggests it’s being orbited by something) for which astronomers also have absolutely no explanation.

According to Scientific American, the star was discovered using the now-retired Kepler space telescope, an extremely precise exoplanet hunting space telescope. After analyzing Kepler’s data on the star, called HD 139139 (it doesn’t have a fancy name like Tabby’s Star yet), for more than a year, astronomers have no explanation for what might be causing its anomalous behavior. Andrew Vanderburg, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin says:

“We’ve never seen anything like this in Kepler, and Kepler’s looked at 500,000 stars.”

As an exoplanet hunting telescope, Kepler’s job was to look for periodic dips in brightness coming from stars. These dips in brightness usually indicate orbiting planets as they pass in front of the star. Data from these observations are fed through algorithms that look for repeated patterns, a good indicator exoplanets considering they should be spinning around the star in a consistent pattern. Some of the patterns though are too complex for the algorithms to handle, and are instead placed in the hands of volunteer civilian astronomers. It was one of these astronomers contacted Vanderburg  and told him to check out HD 139139, a star the size of the sun about 350 light-years away.

So what exactly makes this star so strange? According to Vanderburg:

“When I got that e-mail, I looked more closely and said, ‘okay, this definitely looks like a multiplanet system. But I can’t find any [planets] that appear to line up.'”

The dips in light make the star seem like it should be a multiplanet system, but it can’t be. The star displayed 28 dips in light, each of which lasted between 45 minutes and 7.5 hours with no repeats. The team says it looked more like noise than an actual signal. The team thought it may be a glitch in the system, but after checking again, the data turned out to be real.

One explanation was that this star had at least 14 planets and perhaps as many as 28—more planets than any other known system. That would in itself be very strange, but in order for even that explanation to work all of those exoplanets would have to be the same size, only slightly larger than Earth.

Yet there’s another problem with that explanation, according to Vanderburg. based on the short duration of the light dips, the planets would need to be in extremely close orbit to the star. But that doesn’t match the lack of a repeated pattern in the light dips. For there to be no repeats in the 80 days the telescope was pointed at the star is essentially impossible if the planets were as close to the star as they would need to be. So it’s not planets.

Among the other proposed explanations are a second, invisible source of gravity pulling on the star, the dust cloud of a planet disintegrating in front of the star, and short-lived starspots (cooler versions of our suns sunspots that have never been observed). For various reasons, none of these explanations hold up either.

A Dyson sphere is a theoretical structure that could harvest the energy of the enclosed star.

Vanderburg says there was one explanation left out of the recent paper he published on the star: an alien megastructure. Vanderburg says that explanation is extremely unlikely (which is the least surprising thing here), but astronomer Jason Wright, who led the investigation into Tabby’s Star, says HD 139139 will definitely be added to the list of places being investigated for alien technosignatures.

It’s unlikely any further investigations will happen for a while, though. The Kepler space telescope has been decommissioned and there are few other telescopes that can match its precision. So until another telescope is pointed at this mysterious star, all we’re left with is wild speculation. And the experts that are running the numbers and actually have the know-how to comment on it, of course.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

CONCEALED: The white marble pyramid was hidden on the Greek island 

(Pic: Cambridge Keros Project)

An ancient Greek pyramid dating back to the Bronze Age – making it the same age as Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt – has been discovered on an island in the Aegean Sea and has archeologists and Greek historians throwing around the exclamation “This changes everything!” It certainly changes one thing … who knew the Greeks built pyramids? And how did they get a pyramid’s worth of marble to an island 4,600 years ago? Did they get any advice from the Egyptians or the early Brits? Did they give them any?

“It is by far the largest prehistoric marine transport operation that has ever come to light anywhere in the world. It demonstrates quite clearly just how important, and integral to their culture, seafaring was to these early Bronze Age Aegean people.”

Keros

The story broke this week in The Independent but the actual announcement of the discovery was made earlier by members of the four-year Cambridge Keros Project centered at the University of Cambridge, with help from the Ephorate of the Cyclades and the Cyprus Institute. Keros is the well-known Aegean island where the large collection of artistic and unbroken marble Cycladic figurines now called the “Keros Hoard” was previously found. The nearby smaller island of Dhaskalio, was once linked to Keros by a narrow causeway, is where pyramid was discovered under what was once a settlement. There are few quality marble formations on Keros or Dhaskalio, so this massive pyramid-covering amount of the stone had to be transported there by Bronze Age sailors – a concept that archeologists and historians never believed these ancient Greeks were capable of.

How much marble? The project team estimates between 7,000 and 10,000 tons of glossy white marble was transported by sea from the island of Naxos, about 10 km (6.2 miles) north. It’s estimated that the Aegean boats at that time — Cycladic boats that were only 10-15 meter long and capable of carrying only between one and two tons of stone – made over 3,500 trips over a 20-year period totaling 45,000 miles.

What the builders used all of that marble for was a six-step terrace pyramid built by terraforming the island’s small mountain. (Photo here.) The terraces were six meters wide the end result was a thousand meters of glistening marble pyramid. The archeologists believe the top terrace was once flat and used for ceremonies, and Greek sanctuary expert Dr. Alan Peatfield of University College Dublin’s School of Archaeology thinks this may have been the first and a model for the later ones.

Aerial view of sophisticated prehistoric public architecture uncovered at Keros, Greece.

Image credit: Cambridge Keros project

Excavation in Trench B at the staircase.

Image credit: Cambridge Keros Project

An intact metalworking hearth from 2500 BCE at Keros, Greece. Image credit: Cambridge Keros Project

ENGINEERING: The pyramid shape of the island is man-made 

(Pic: Cambridge Keros Project)

“It is potentially a fundamental place of origin for the phenomenon of sacred mountains within the Greek world.”

If it was the first, it was an impressive start, according to Professor Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge and co-director of the excavation.

“At Dhaskalio we see a number of sophisticated architectural techniques employed in a well-thought through manner. These include massive entranceways, stone-flagged stairways, and an intricate drainage system covering the entire island. This gives the clear impression of a skilled architect and a guiding hand planning and executing a building programme whose scope can only be compared with a site like Knossos on Crete.”

An Egyptian steppe pyramid

The mountain pyramid may have symbolized the importance of Dhaskalio and Keros as a metalworking center and marketplace for metal products such as high-quality daggers. With those metal products being found throughout the islands, this new discovery reinforces the new theory that the seafaring skills of the ancient Greeks began earlier and were much more impressive than first thought.

Is it just a coincidence that this Greek pyramid, Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids (and possibly those in Central and South America and Asia) were built at about the same times? Or was something else going on that influenced these nearly simultaneous  “This changes everything!” constructions? That’s a question for another day and a different set of experts.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Area 51 Raid, Over 400K People Sign up to Storm Groom Lake for Alien Secrets

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

Secrecy on UFOs has been with us for a lifetime. At times it has seemed like it would last forever.

For the past few years, however, the media has treated the subject rather differently and since late 2017 ufology has been in a fevered state with new revelations, new media coverage, and a much enhanced "brand" overall.

Nearly all of this is due to To the Stars Academy (TTSA). TTSA's recent TV show, Unidentified, portrayed several military encounters with UFOs, and more than once - many times, in fact - used the word "threat" in connection to these encounters.

We have to believe TTSA that there is a “threat” or is this just fear mongering and if so, what might the agenda be?

Or, is there any legitimacy to considering UFOs as at least a potential threat or are we on a path toward some sort of disclosure? If so, is it something complete, partial, or even false, as some argue?

  

Link to Part 2: TTSA: Fear Mongering or Not?

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUfueQRX0c&t=5s

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