Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
Some of the most exciting UFO encounters are those that have been witnessed by multiple witnesses at the same time. If you add in a selection of witnesses who are traditionally considered reliable, and then throw in photographic evidence to boot, well, then you have gold. There are only a few good instances of all of these elements coming together in just the right way, but when they do, it all serves to propel a good amount of debate, analysis, and discussion. One such strange incident supposedly happened out at a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, and which produced photographs and testimony that have been picked apart to this day.
On January 16, 1958, the Brazilian ship Almirante Saldanha was off the coast of the remote and rugged island of Trindade, around 680 miles from the east coast of Brazil. The island is a sparsely inhabited, 3.9 square-mile rough slash of volcanic rock lying in the middle of nowhere, its only inhabitants an oceanographic post and a meteorological station run by the Hydrography and Navigation Division of the Ministry of the Brazilian Navy, and the Almirante Saldanha had been brought here for Naval oceanographic research as part of the International Geophysical Year project. Aboard the vessel were Captain José Teobaldo Viegas, various scientists, explorers and a civilian photographer by the name of Almiro Baraúna, brought aboard to take underwater pictures for the expedition, as well as some other civilian reporters and assistants.
Trinidade Island
On this day the ship, which had been anchored at Trinidade for several days, was preparing to depart headed back towards Rio de Janeiro when at around midday a number of those gathered on the deck observed something very strange in the sky approaching the island from the east, and flying towards the “Pico Desejado” (Wished Peak). The object was described as gray, metallic and glinting or shining, and roughly spherical in shape, with what seemed to be a ring around it, similar to the planet Saturn, as well as a greenish, phosphorescent vapor wreathing it. It was so unusual and moving at such high speed that it was obvious to those who saw it, including the photographer Baraúna and Captain Viegas himself, that this was no normal aircraft. Baraúna would later say of the sighting:
The deck was full of sailors and officers. Suddenly, Mr. Amilar Vieira and Captain Viegas called me, pointing to a certain spot in the sky and yelling about a bright object which was approaching the island. At this same moment, when I was still trying to see what it was, Lieutenant Homero, the ship’s dentist, came from the bow toward us, running, pointing out to the sky and also yelling about an object he was sighting. He was so disturbed and excited that he almost fell down after colliding with a cable. Then I was finally able to locate the object, by the flash (of light) it emitted. It was already close to the island. It glittered at certain moments, perhaps changing its own light – I don’t know. It was coming over the sea, moving toward the point called the Galo Crest.
The object apparently approached the peak to eerily hover over it for a few moments before disappearing behind it momentarily, and then reappearing, after which it continued its inscrutable journey out over the forlorn sea. This all happened as the crew stared in awed fascination, but Baraúna was a professional photographer and had the presence of mind to snap a series of four pictures of the mysterious object. He would explain of this:
I had my Rolleiflex 2.8, Model E, which was kept inside an aluminum box for protection against the corrosive effects of water and salt. I had left my Leica with a telephoto lens in my cabin a few moments before. I had lost thirty seconds looking for the object, but the camera was already in my hands, ready, when I sighted it clearly silhouetted against the clouds. I shot two photos before it disappeared behind the peak Desejado. My camera was set at a speed of 125 [125th of a second], with the aperture at f/8, and this was the cause of an overexposure error, as I discovered later.
The object remained out of sight for a few seconds – behind the peak – reappearing bigger in size and flying in the opposite direction, but lower and closer than before, and moving at a higher speed. I shot the third photo. The fourth and fifth ones were lost, not only because of the speed the saucer was moving, but also for another reason: In the confusion produced as a result of the sighting, I was being pulled and pushed by other persons also trying to spot the object and, as a consequence, photographed the sea and the island only – not the object. It was moving out to sea again, in the direction from which it had come, and it appeared to stop in midair for a brief time. At that moment I shot my last photo (the last on the film). After about ten seconds, the object continued to increase its distance from the ship, gradually diminishing in size and finally disappearing into the horizon.
When the otherworldly object was gone, the ship’s commander ordered the negatives to be developed right away and they were amazed by what they saw. Several of the crew aboard the ship would report that the vessel had experienced technical malfunctions during and after the encounter, as if the craft was exerting some influence on their electrical systems either accidentally or intentionally. Baraúna would say of this:
According to the rumors I heard at the deck, the electronic equipment of the ship stopped working during the apparition of the object; what I can confirm is that after the ship left the island, the equipment malfunctioned three more times and the officials didn’t have any plausible explanation for what was happening. Every time the ship stopped, the lights weakened slowly until the point they completely went out. When this happened, the officials would walk to the deck with their binoculars, however, the sky was clouded and they couldn’t see anything.
Once the ship was back in Rio, Baraúna was then allegedly approached and interviewed by various Naval officials about the mystery object he had photographed. The military wanted to know numerous details about the sighting and were very interested in analyzing the photographs, which apparently impressed them very much and were deemed to be genuine after exhaustive testing by the Laboratório de Reconhecimento Aéreo da Marinha, which is the Brazilian Navy’s Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory. Baraúna said of his time with these officials and the analysis of the images:
I was interviewed by several high-staff officers, who asked me all kinds of questions. I went there twice. At the first meeting, they requested the negatives for examination. They were sent to a civilian organization, the Cruzeiro do Sul Aerophoto grammetric Service, remaining there for four days. I was told by the Navy officers that the analyses proved they were genuine -excluding definitely the possibility of a trick or falsification. On the second visit, they performed several time-tests. While I worked with my Rolleiflex, taking shots at the same time intervals I had used to photograph the object, three Navy officers with chronometers registered the times. They came to the conclusion – based on these tests as well as on studies concerning the ship’s position and examinations of charts of the island – that the object was flying at a speed between 900 and 1,000 km./hour [about 600 mph]. The object’s size was also estimated on the basis of studies related with the island’s details also appearing on the photos, diagrams drawn on charts, graphs, et cetera. The object was about 120 feet in diameter and about 24 feet high.
One of the photos
It was not long before the photos got out into the wild, and they were featured heavily in Brazilian news publications and in the media at large. They generated a huge amount of discussion and debate, and through it all the Brazilian Navy stayed quiet, neither confirming or denying the alleged incident. The negatives were still floating around though, and before long the story was leaking out of official mouths, and with all of the rabid media attention it was getting, the Navy Ministry was forced to say something on the matter, giving a typical government opaque and ambiguous statement that reads:
With reference to the reports appearing in the press that the Navy is opposed to divulge the facts concerning the appearance of a strange object over Trindade Island, this Cabinet declares that such information has no basis. This Ministry has no motive to impede the release of photographs of the referred-to object, taken by Mr. Almiro Barauna, who was at Trindade Island at the invitation of the Navy, and in the presence of a large number of the crew of Almirante Saldanha from whose deck the photographs were taken. Clearly, this Ministry will not be able to make any pronouncement concerning the object seen, because the photographs do not constitute sufficient proof for such purpose.
In Brazil, the photos have widely been accepted as very good photographic evidence of UFOs, but there has of course been skepticism to wash all of it down. The U.S. Air Force’s UFO task force Project Blue Book labelled it curtly as a hoax, and Baraúna has had much damning criticism levelled against him. It has been pointed out that the photographer was a known hoaxer and fraud, apparently having a long history of faking pictures of things such as bogus treasures on the ocean floor, and he often used trick photography in humorous articles, including even one devoted precisely on how to fake UFO photos. It has been suggested that what is shown in the photos is trickery at best, and merely a misidentified aircraft seen through fog at best. Yet, we are still left with the estimated 50 witnesses aboard the vessel who apparently saw the phenomenon.
In the end, the Bralilian government has not had much else to say on the matter, and it is technically unsolved. The photos still do the rounds, and there are myriad explanations and in-depth breakdowns and analyses to be found. Yet, they still manage to remain elusive teases that can’t really be proven or disproven. Indeed, the whole Trinidade Island incident is mired in a muck of uncertainty, government opaqueness, and a lack of straight answers. While it has so many promising elements of something exciting, it is unfortunate that it is likely to remain a specter that will never truly be solved or find a consensus, and will go on as just another one of the many UFO accounts that will probably remain swirling about without landing on one thing or another
Are you ready to ride a woolly mammoth … or at least see one or a herd running free in a park? That day just got one step closer this week with the announcement that well-preserved skeletal remains of a teenage woolly mammoth were discovered in Siberia – and the foot bones still had some ligaments attached. Because the skeleton pieces are in such good shape, there’s hope the rest of it and others may be found in the area, perhaps even a head containing preserved brain matter. Is this the missing link to Mammoth Park?
“Fragments of a skeleton with soft tissues of an extinct animal were found on the shore of Lake Pechevalavato in the vicinity of the village of Seyakha, Yamal District, by local residents. The head of the village Stanislav Vanuito immediately informed the scientists about the unique find.”
In a press release by the Scientific Center for the Study of the Arctic, director Dmitry Frolov announced the discovery of the remains by people living near Lake Pechevalavato in northern Siberia. (Video of the find here, photos and maps here.) He said he is sending a team of scientists from the center study the remains and mark the spot in the lake bed where they were found to help future searchers. The Yamal District is a hot spot for mammoth remains, which is good news for researchers but bad for the environment – it means the permafrost is melting at a fast pace and exposing the skeletons and artifacts from thousands of years ago (not to mention methane gas), as the Moscow Times reports.
The bones were retrieved from Russia's remote Yamal Peninsula.
(AP: Governor Of Yamalo-Nenets Region Of Russia Press Office/Artem Cheremisov)
“Temperatures above the Arctic Circle have soared to nearly 40 degrees Celsius this summer as climate scientists warn that melting permafrost could release mass amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
While they hope to get an accurate date on when this particular young mammoth died – possibly proving some survived past the generally accepted date of their extinction 10,000 years ago – the scientists at the center also hope the soft tissue and brain matter can one day facilitate the cloning or resurrection of the creatures. They also want to get the remains out of the ground and into the lab before another bad sign of the times happens, as The Guardian reported in 2019.
“Woolly mammoth ivory preserved in the permafrost in Russia’s Yakutia region make up 80% of Russia’s trade in a largely unregulated market worth as much as £40m each year, according to Russian officials.”
While $52,000 per year may not sound like much, a global warming increase will increase that too. It’s already happening in the Yakutia district in northeast Siberia, where ivory demand by China resulted in over 100 tons of mammoth remains being excavated, stripped of ivory and sold. It’s estimated that the Yakutia has 500,000 tons of mammoth remains still in the ground … for now. The demand for regulation of excavation is high, but money talks in Siberia too.
Let’s hope that demand doesn’t drive the already controversial cloning or resurrection of the mammoth as well.
Is it worth a mammoth ride?
NOTE: all videos, selected and posted by peter2011
Jason A: UFO Mystery in 2020! (Shocking Announcement!)
When the rapture happens they will blame it on aliens to fool the people who are lefted behind, so they don’t seek God and believe the lie of the devil. JV
I saw something called the “Hudson Valley Boomerang” back in the 80’s. I believed in UFOs back then. I don’t anymore. I don’t believe in ghosts anymore either. What I DO believe in are demons, fallen angels, and portals to their realm. A great deception for sure. Tiffany Anthony
Aliens are fallen angels, they are causing mass deception and lies to take people’s eyes off of God. “Principalities of the air.” Lobo
You Will Never Believe These Huge Sea Monsters Exist In The Worlds Oceans
We are sure that no one would wish to see a Megalodon shark reappearing from pre-historic times, prowling the oceans, crushing down the bones of its Kill, and chewing up all the flesh right off its body. Sounds scary enough, to give you Goosebumps right!? But as it turns out, there are plenty of other sea monsters pervaded with bleeding gums and sharp teeth that could terrify you even more. In today’s video are going to tell you about 10 sea Monsters that would take all your courage to stare directly at them.
Glowing Sphere Over Ocean In Japan, July 17, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 17, 2020 Location of sighting: Coast of Japan A fisherman was waiting for a catch when he noticed an usual orange glowing light coming from the mist ahead of him. The light came closer, but then went lower and disappeared below the tree level. The eyewitness says the closest airports are 75km and 100km away. So these lights are not jets coming in to an airport. Perhaps drones used by the fishermen in order to see competing fishing boats? Hard to say, but I do know that the Japanese military often have helicopters and jets buzzing around its boarders, so its possible this is a military flare, but...it moves at an angle I would not expect a flare to move...also flares burn out...this light doesn't seem too. Defiantly and unidentified flying object. Scott C. Waring
Looks like Gigapan is up again. Last time it went down within 8 hours of me posting the last discovery in it. Came back up yesterday, down a whole week! I found this mud skipper fish in one of the Mars gigapan photos today. The mud skipper is a fish that often choses to live on land, mud, rocks and sand, but when startled it flips in the air and dives into the nearest water area for safety. This looks like an ancient fossil of just such a fish. This fossil is absolute proof that large bodies of water did once exist on Mars. Scott C. Waring
UFO Cloud Near Mt Fuji, Japan Glows From Within, Feb 15, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Feb 15, 2020
Location of sighting: Mount Fuji, Japan
This is some still photography made into a video and its more than breathtaking, its 100% evidence that aliens hide ships inside clouds. This particular cloud actually glows from within itself. Dark on the top and dark on the bottom the light emirates through its sides glowing a bright yellow. Although it was recorded back in February, this is one remarkable sighting and extraordinary poof that alien ships form clouds around them. This UFO was heading to Mt Fuji. Ancient volcanos were a common entrance for alien ships long ago to enter and exit the alien base that sits 5-6km below the surface. Today its less easy for them to go unseen, since video recorders, live cams and cell phones exist. With this technology so common and in the hands of most of the public, its just a matter of time before the world governments come out and reveal the truth...that aliens exist.
Scott C. Waring
Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011
Lenticular cloud or cloaked alien spaceship near Mount Fuji in Japan?
Pyramid UFO Glowing At Night Over Russia, Signs Of Base Nearby, July 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 24, 2020
Location of sighting: Buryatia, Russia
An eyewitness in Russia last week caught sight of a glowing object in the sky. The object sometimes held still and other times swirled. But when it did spin, each time it was at a different speed. The object held its altitude and is not seen falling. At one point, the beginning of the video, the object takes on a four sided pyramid with the top of it glowing white as seen in the screenshots above. I have never seen such a thing before. It does not resemble any space garbage, reentry vehicles or rockets that I have ever seen before. That pyramid at the beginning...has me dumbstruck. There is however a lake along side the area of Buryatia...maybe this UFO came from an underwater base hidden below the floor of the lake. This pyramid shape...transforming its shape...such pyramids have been seen before in reports. Its alien technology without a doubt.
Ben Landricombe was taking his dog for a walk when he stumbled across something strange through the woods near Meddon on July 13. He saw a flattened area of woodland where several trees had snapped and fallen. A Plymouth resident, Ben, could not help but wonder if there was more to what he saw as he thought the trees had snapped strangely.
Eventually, he thought that aliens might have something to do with the destruction. Ben said he found a crash site in the woods and could be UFO. He felt something “eerie” in the area, heard “weird sounds” and felt like he was being watched.
A spokesperson for Forestry England pointed out that UK woodland areas are hotbed on UFO sightings. They said that the country’s forests are no stranger to UFO sightings, as the debate continues since the legendary sighting in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, in 1980.
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They added that what has taken place at Meddon could be aliens’ smart trick to disguise a landing, but there’s a big possibility that it was just windblow. They explained that strong winds sometimes destabilise trees in the area, and the first one to fall could topple other trees nearby in a dramatic domino effect.
A spokesperson for The Met Office also thought a mini-tornado or funnel cloud that may have touched down at that area in the woods was responsible for causing the trees to snap and fall into each other.
And why this rediscovery of a lost world – called NGTS-11b – bodes well for finding habitable exoplanets.
Telescopes at the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) in Chile. Astronomers used these telescopes to find the “lost” world NGTS-11b. This image shows star trails; the bright streak is the moon.
Thehabitable zone– or Goldilocks zone – around a star is of great interest to astrobiologists, those scientists probing for life beyond Earth. It is the region where temperatures on a rocky world are suitable for liquid water to exist. Astronomers have been discovering many exoplanets orbiting within habitable zones. But they wonder, just what percentage of exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy might orbit within a habitable zone? In other words, what is the potential for life in our galaxy? Now, a new method devised andannounced by scientists at the University of Warwick in the U.K. has found a cooler planet that had been previously “lost” close to its star’s habitable zone. The planet is calledNGTS-11b. These scientists say their method promises to help find many more such worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars.
This rediscovery was published in the peer-reviewed journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 20, 2020.
NGTS-11b is about the size and mass of Saturn. It orbits its star every 35 days. It is five times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun and is 620 light-years away.
Astronomers think that that it is just one of hundreds of “lost worlds” that this new technique can help rediscover.
Samuel Gill at the University of Warwick, lead author of the new study, is searching for “lost” worlds.
Basically, they are exoplanets discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope but detected only once. TESS finds planets by observing them transit in front of their stars, but only scans most sections of the sky for 27 days. Any planets that have orbital periods longer than 27 days would only appear once in the observations. If a second observation cannot be obtained, the planet is considered “lost” as it were. But the researchers at the University of Warwick were able to reobserve some of these stars, using the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) in Chile, for up to 72 days. That way, planets with longer orbits could be detected. That’s how NGTS-11b was refound, by catching it transiting a second time. Samuel Gill, lead author of the paper, explained:
By chasing that second transit down we’ve found a longer period planet. It’s the first of hopefully many such finds pushing to longer periods.
These discoveries are rare but important, since they allow us to find longer period planets than other astronomers are finding. Longer period planets are cooler, more like the planets in our own solar system.
NGTS-11b has a temperature of only 160 degrees Celsius (320 degrees Fahrenheit), cooler than Mercury and Venus. Although this is still too hot to support life as we know it, it is closer to the Goldilocks zone than many previously discovered planets which typically have temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius (1800 F).
This planet is out at a thirty-five-day orbit, which is a much longer period than we usually find them. It is exciting to see the Goldilocks zone within our sights.
Artist’s illustration of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Some of the exoplanets found by TESS are categorized as “lost” when they can’t be detected in a second transit of their star.
The original transit appeared just once in the TESS data, and it was our team’s painstaking detective work that allowed us to find it again a year later with NGTS.
NGTS has twelve state-of-the-art telescopes, which means that we can monitor multiple stars for months on end, searching for lost planets. The dip in light from the transit is only 1% deep and occurs only once every 35 days, putting it out of reach of other telescopes.
The researchers expect that NGTS-11b will be just the first of hundreds of lost worlds found once again. Gill said:
There are hundreds of single transits detected by TESS that we will be monitoring using this method. This will allow us to discover cooler exoplanets of all sizes, including planets more like those in our own solar system. Some of these will be small rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone that are cool enough to host liquid water oceans and potentially extraterrestrial life.
Being able to detect multiple transits of a planet is crucial for determining its orbital period and mass, which cannot always be done by TESS alone. From the paper:
It is important to note that we have been able to determine the mass and radius of this relatively long-period exoplanet with a very modest number of radial-velocity measurements (nine with HARPS and six withFEROS). The detection of the second transit with NGTS was crucial for tightly constraining the possible orbital periods, and this serves to demonstrate the value of intense photometric monitoring in following up single-transit events. Without this second transit detection we would have required many more radial-velocity measurements in order to confirm the planet, determine its orbital period, and measure its mass (e.g., Díaz et al. 2020). The strategy of large investments of photometric follow-up with instruments such as NGTS thereby allows efficient confirmation of single-transit events without adding to the considerable pressure on high-precision radial-velocity instruments. This highlights the power of high-precision ground-based photometric facilities in revealing longer-period transiting exoplanets that TESS alone cannot discover.
Many exoplanets discovered so far orbit very close to their stars, including hot Jupiters. Such objects are relatively easy to detect, but their nearness to their stars also makes them unlikely to be habitable. Finding more planets farther out from their stars, including those in their stars’ habitable zones, is important in the search for habitable worlds.
Telescopes like those at NGTS will help to find more habitable zone exoplanets, these scientists say.
Later, other telescopes like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope – now scheduled for launch in October 2021 – will be able to analyze these planets’ atmospheres for possible biosignatures. By conducting research such as this, on Earth and in space, astronomers are stepping closer to finding other life in the galaxy, if it exists.
Artist’s concept of a gas giant planet orbiting its star. Researchers at the University of Warwick have rediscovered a planet about the size and mass of Saturn orbiting near the habitable zone of its star.
LA Marzulli: Pentagon Classified Off-world Vehicles Not Made on This Earth Report! UFO Disclosure Update Special
L. A. Marzulli is an author, lecturer and filmmaker. He has penned 12 books including The Nephilim Trilogy which made the CBA best sellers list. He received an honorary doctorate for the series from his mentor Dr. I. D. E. Thomas, who was the Provost at Pacific International University. He was also honored with the Gold Medallion award from Chuck Missler at the K-House conference in 2014.
His series On the Trail of the Nephilim I & II are full-color, over-sized books, which uncover startling evidence that there has been a massive cover-up of what he believes are the remains of the Nephilim, the giants mentioned in the Bible.
Marzulli teamed up with film producer Richard Shaw to create The Watchers series. There are now 11 installments in the series and Watchers 7: UFO Physical Evidence won UFO Best Film and the Peoples Choice Awards, at the UFO Congress in 2014. Marzulli and Shaw took their second trip to Peru in January of 2014, filming ancient artifacts and megalithic structures at various locations, and also filmed the unwrapping of a 2000-year-old mummy skull, at Sr. Juan Navarro’s Paracas History Museum, which was revealed in Watchers 8.
Marzulli has launched a new series, The Watchman Chronicles and his first independent film was released in March of 2017. The title of the series is “In Their Own Words: UFOs are Real!”
September Asteroid Impact? Real Data - How to Survive an Impact
While I wouldn’t count on that wish being granted, we might be able to help out in another way. That momentary streak of light may be a beautiful sight to behold, but it could be one of many interstellar objects hurtling toward Earth on a collision course.
We’ve been hit by giant, cataclysmic asteroids before. Yet unlike the dinosaurs, you can rest assured that we’ll be better prepared.
Whether it’s an earthquake, mudslide or shark attack, survive whatever awaits you. How To Survive shows how to endure life-threatening moments with science and survivor stories.
Silver Sphere Floats Across Beach In Kemer, Turkey, July 21, 2020, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting:July 21, 2020
Location of sighting: Kemer, Turkey
In this long winded video, they have selections from various parts of their vacation and travels. At the very end of the video, 33 min to 37 min into the video a whitish silver sphere is seen moving over the water and past some hills in the distance. The man continues talking and seems to be oblivious of the importance of such an event...but more caught up in his own conversation. However I made a short cut of the video and have it below to save you time.
Kemer is connected to the Mediterranean sea, a location that has for decades been connected to UFO sightings. Remarkable sighting and irritating that the person was oblivious to it the whole time. LOL, but thats life right? Its probably why UFOs come so close to use...and still get ignored.
Shape Shifting UFO Over Rio De Janeiro, May 7, 2020 Raw Video! UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Posted on July 19, 2020 Seen on May 7 Location of sighting: Rio De Janeiro, Brasil This UFO was recorded over Rio De Janeiro. It was reported in July 19, but was recorded May 7, 2020. The UFO is clearly a geometric shape, but that shape changes within seconds. I see a five sided star, and then seconds later it has become a pyramid! Remarkable and bizarre and yet...its real raw footage. The shape shifting cannot be explained in any terms...at one point even the woman seemed to wipe off the lens of the camera to make sure it was seeing what was in the sky. I have seen two similar UFOs but spinning back in Oct 8. 1979 at a Dallas football game. The footage was noticed by the cameraman and the football announcer so they zoomed in on them and had no idea what they were...they were UFOs. The same type we see in Rio De Janeiro on May 7. 2020. I will place the video below to compare. Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Below is May 7, 2020 UFO Over Rio De Janeiro.
UFO Sighting over Dallas Cowboys Football Game Oct 1979, Close Up on TV, Real Video during game.
What if you found out that you had a long-lost relative? And what if that long-lost relative was from a different planet in our galaxy?
And what if this faraway planet was home to billions of humans, just like Earth?
But these "humans" don't look anything like us. Because they're from the future. Could aliens be future versions of humans? How far ahead of us would they be?
How much would they have evolved?
Would we be able to understand each other?
What would meeting future humans mean for humanity on Earth?
How about instead of "aliens" being alien, they were actually humans travelling back in time from the future to study their origins as a species?
Our Technology Already Confirmed Existence of UFOs
Luis Elizondo (Youtube)
A former official at Pentagon urges world leaders to join forces for a deeper understanding of UFO origins. UFOs continue to fascinate the world despite decades of research and investigation. There’s no definite answer yet as to whether they’re for real or just a product of human imagination. However, Luis Elizondo claims that our technology has confirmed the existence of these UFOs. He encourages people to accept that these mysterious aerial objects are a fact.
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Elizondo, former head of a top-secret US government, believe that we’re in a time where these inexplicable flying objects exist beyond a reasonable doubt. Every year, UFO sightings are reported in different parts of the world. Meanwhile, the United States government collected thousands of accounts during Air Force’s Project Blue Book from 1952 to 1969 and through the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Most of these accounts, however, were reportedly “misidentified” and remain unresolved. Elizondo, now a director of global security and special programs at To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, explains this has pushed some people to think these accounts are hoaxes. He is now asking world leaders to work together and dig deeper into the subject to understand whether these objects are any threat to humanity.
Elizondo stresses that there’s something in our sky that we don’t know where it’s coming, and it’s a problem from a national security perspective. He points out that we need to understand these UFOs to decide if they’re a threat.
Today’s Jeopardy category is “Portals to Hell.” Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question. For $500, this Gateway to Hell is growing at a frightening rate of 30 meters (98 feet) per year.
“Washington D.C.!”
Sorry, that wasn’t a question.
“What is the Batagaika crater, located in the ice-covered Chersky Range in northeastern Siberia?”
Correct! It’s summer in Siberia, a season which has actually become more noticeable due to climate change. It means that Siberians are shedding clothing and the ground is shedding permafrost. In some areas, the end result is exploding pingos – ice-and-dirt-covered methane pockets whose heat-induced blasts leave large sinkholes behind. However, the Batagaika crater, about 660 km (410 miles) northeast of the city of Yakutsk, has been around for some time – long enough to grow to 1 km (.652) in length and 100 meters (328 feet) deep, and acquire the name “Gateway to Hell.”
Batagaika crater NASA image)
The Batagaika crater began forming in the 1960 when forests near the Batagaika river were cleared and permafrost began melting faster than normal. While paleontologists loved its massive exposure of Ice Age animal fossils, the steep cliffs and landslides make erosion occur even faster and land is dragged into the Gateway to Hell at an accelerated and dangerous pace, threatening everything in its path, including the homes, livestock and scenery of the local Yakutians, who first named this creation of invading resource-stealers the “Gateway to Hell.”
“The catch with Batagai is that although it survived multiple episodes of warming in the past, where the warming has been natural – in the last 50 or 60 years human disturbances have destabilised this ancient permafrost.
“So, I guess the message is that we need to be very careful.”
Geology professor Julian Murton of the University of Sussex told the BBC that a mere 60 years of warming has exposed permafrost from 650,000 years ago — the oldest of its kind in Eurasia and the second oldest in the world. Needless to say, that’s not good.
Growth of the Batagaika crater NASA image)
“Though this may sound so far away from our daily concerns and daily life, actually it’s not just curiosity that drives the Batagai research. It’s also the applicability of the results to the ongoing environmental changes – because the past is the key to the future. And by understanding the processes that occurred in the past and their aftermath, we can adapt to the ongoing future.”
Is it too late to close the Gateway to Hell? Verkhoyansk in northeastern Siberian recorded the Arctic’s highest ever temperature this summer — 100 F (38C) – the temperature of hell to Siberians. Is having wood for your fireplace or end tables worth widening the mouth of hell?
This story continues to appear every summer, and never gets better … only bigger. How long will it be before the Batagaika crater reaches big cities … Moscow … China … India … Europe … beyond? Does humanity stop it with sandbags … or climate change reversal?
Please give your answer in the form of a question.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the world thus far with more than 16.5 million people affected and over 650,000 deaths. It’s been reported that the virus was transmitted to humans from bats and a new study has revealed an even more incredible fact about COVID-19. Apparently the virus has beencirculating in bats for up to 70 years.
In a new research project where experts looked into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, they found that it evolved in bats (specifically the horseshoe bat) all the way back to 1948. Scientists that were led by the Pennsylvania State University compared SARS-CoV-2 to its closest relative in bats called RaTG13 (they are 96% similar to each other) and they found that both viruses have the same ancestor although it’s still unclear as to when SARS-CoV-2 split away from the other types of coronaviruses.
According to their studies, the scientists came up with three separate dates as to when the virus split from their ancestor called sarbecoviruses – 1948, 1969 and 1982 which indicates “that the lineage giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades,” the researchers stated.
Horseshoe bat
The experts mentioned that since the virus has been circulating in bats for between 40 and 70 years, there may be other coronaviruses out there that could potentially infect humans. As a matter of fact, I wrote an article back in April of this year that detailed six new coronaviruses that had been identified in bats. (The article can be read here.)
COVID-19 enters the human body by its receptor-binding domain (RBD) grabbing a hold of the ACE2 receptor in human cells which allows it to attack the body’s defensive mechanisms that would normally fight off the virus. In fact, SARS-CoV-2 is a thousand times more powerful than the RaTG13 virus at latching onto ACE2 receptors in humans. Interestingly, other sarbecoviruses haven’t had RBD and the closest thing they have found resided in pangolins although it isn’t believed that they were the ones that transmitted it to humans.
David L. Robertson, who is a professor of computational virology at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research as well as an author of the study, explained, “SARS-CoV-2’s receptor-binding domain sequence has so far only been found in a few pangolin viruses,” adding, “While it is possible that pangolins may have acted as an intermediate host facilitating transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans, no evidence exists to suggest that pangolin infection is a requirement for bat viruses to cross into humans.” “Instead, our research suggests that SARS-CoV-2 likely evolved the ability to replicate in the upper respiratory tract of both humans and pangolins.”
While bats are immune to coronavirus, it is still highly infectious to humans and has proved to be incredibly deadly. Maciej Boni, who is an associate professor of biology at Penn State and another author of the study, revealed that this pandemic “will not be our last”, adding that “Coronaviruses have genetic material that is highly recombinant, meaning different regions of the virus’s genome can be derived from multiple sources.”
Four “sister” species of the horseshoe bat have been discovered in Africa and researchers are hoping that by studying them and the viruses they carry, they will be able to help experts properly prepare for any other possible coronavirus pandemics in the future.
“I’m not saying it’s aliens … but it’s aliens.” “No, it’s not.” “Yes, it is.” “No, it’s not.” “The New York Times said it is.” “No, they didn’t.” “Yes, they did.” “Check, please!”
That conversation, in one form or another, is playing out across the U.S. and quite possibly around the world as the ‘big’ revelation by The New York Times that a secret thought-to-be-unfunded UFO/UAP investigation project in the Department of Defense still exists with funding, and some of the people mentioned in one article refer to vehicles “not made on this earth” and “actual materials” in the possession of the Pentagon
Here’s what we really meant.
Those statements were quickly addressed by former Senator Harry Reid, who said he never said the Pentagon had recovered alien materials, and by Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough, who heavily emphasized the national security nature of the project against non-traditional (non-U.S. or its known allies) spacecraft. Those responses didn’t stop the loud buzz of “It’s aliens!” activity both in the paranormal and mainstream world, so The New York Times tried to explain itself in a piece titled “Do We Believe in U.F.O.s? That’s the Wrong Question.”
“And to be clear: U.F.O.s don’t mean aliens. Unidentified means we don’t know what they are, only that they demonstrate capabilities that do not appear to be possible through currently available technology.”
Writers Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, who have been part of all of the Times announcements dating back to the original exposure of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and the release of the Navy Tic-Tac videos, refer to the well-known Margaret Mead quote about belief:
“Belief has to do with matters of faith; it has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge that is based on scientific inquiry.”
OK, so what kind of “scientific inquiry” was used by the Pentagon program to analyze the “materials” they referred to?
“Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.”
Uh-oh … it sounds like no one they talked to had actually seen the alleged recovered materials. Their own “scientific inquiry” consisted of reading unclassified slides from Pentagon briefings, including one that contained the now infamous promise that the program will in the future “arrange for access to data/reports/materials from crash retrievals of A.A.V.’s” (advanced aerospace vehicles). Then comes this nebulous and open-ended comment:
“Our sources told us that “A.A.V.” does not refer to vehicles made in any country — not Russian or Chinese — but is used to mean technology in the realm of the truly unexplained.”
We know how you feel, Al.
However, before you throw away that copy of The New York Times you were reading for free or delete the stories you read for free (yes, that’s a blatant plug to support subscription media of any and all kinds with a paid subscription), they closed with this reassurance:
“They also assure us that their briefings are based on facts, not belief.”
Well, that’s a relief … not. You can drive a truck or a vehicle from another world through the hole in that argument: no one has yet unveiled any facts supported by scientific inquiry. While The New York Times is correct to point out that they themselves did not say “It’s aliens!” nor did the Pentagon, Harry Reid or any living person associated with this ‘big’ reveal (color-coded balloons would have been a nice touch), it’s also right in chastising everyone who is screaming “It’s aliens!” No facts were revealed … yet. No one answered Margaret Mead’s questions: “What is it? How does it work?”
Secret Space Program Disclosure! The Advanced Technology Is Now Being Fast Tracked
COAST TO COAST AM – Based on his sources, Michael Salla said that the Department of the Navy is fast-tracking these technologies through the patent process in order for academic and private sector scientists to develop useable devices that will revolutionize transportation.
Salla predicted that “within five years, you could have the first prototype coming out,” which could enable us to “travel from New York to Honolulu in a matter of minutes.” He also described his research into the life of John F Kennedy and Kennedy’s apparent knowledge of the back-engineering of captured alien technology.
Antarctica Hollow Earth Cavern Strange Tales and the People Who Inhabit Them
COAST TO COAST AM – Timothy Green Beckley also discussed the account of famous early polar explorer Richard Byrd and Byrd’s belief that there was some sort of land beyond the poles which contained strange plants and animals. The government of Germany attempted to hire Byrd to lead an expedition to the Antarctic in order to see if there was a “master race” living there. Byrd refused, but Beckley related that the Germans went on their own the next year and claimed a large portion of the continent for themselves.
Beckley also detailed stories of underground races and civilizations, from tales of golden plates found in a cave in South America to Pennsylvania miners who claimed that a race of underground dwellers helped them survive a cave-in, and reports of “a tunnel system that was constructed by titans from outer space eons ago.”
Erich von Daniken: The Vimanas Secret Advanced Technology... India's Gravity Defying Machines Were Alien!
Erich von Daniken: The Vimanas Secret Advanced Technology… India’s Gravity Defying Machines Were Alien!
Ancient India is one of the most mystical places on Earth. Their ancient stories of contact with flying chariots and god like beings seem to be plentiful. The most significant and interesting of all ancient records are that of the Vimana’s, strange crafts that utilized propellers and rocket like engines that ran on mercury that were seemingly antigravity flying crafts. Did ancient India have contact with extraterrestrials?
20 Meter Person In Antartica On Google Earth Map! UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: July 28, 2020 Location of discovery: Antartica Source: Google Earth map Coordinates: 72°32'26.35"S 31°19'17.86"E Guys, I found a giant figure in Antartica today and its not far from a giant entrance to a cave opening. Now Google ruler says this figure is 20 meters tall. Google ruler also says the entrance to the cave is 22 meters tall. That seems to fit well. Now a 20 meter tall alien would surprise a lot of people, but honestly what does size have to do with intelligence? Nothing I would think. Reports of aliens 4-5 meters tall have come out of Russia in the past and giant skeletons of human like creatures have been found many times. This photo was taken by a satellite, an object with no bias, no agenda, no care except to record what it sees. Scott C. Waring
Guy Records UFO In Early Morning Over Switzerland, July 20, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 20, 2020 Location of sighting: Lausanne, Switzerland Time: 07:45AM Here is an early morning sighting by an eyewitness in Switzerland last week. He recorded a jug like UFO hovering over the tree tops. He moves the camera away from the UFO as if he though maybe it was just a balloon that was not going anywhere anytime soon, however when he returns the camera to the location...the object is gone. Yes people do this with the camera, yes...I have been guilty of such things...the truth is...when you see something like this, you just don't expect it to shoot off or dissapear. So yeah, I get it, I totally understand him...not blaming him at all for wandering with the camera at 7AM. This UFO is similar to the Kecksburg UFO incident back in Dec of 1965 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The ship is uniquely similar. I looked over the detail, the quality of video, the coloration and fading from distance...I can not find any flaws with it. It looks 100% real in all its aspects. An early morning alien encounter, this is a historical sighting indeed. Scott C. Waring
White Disk Shoots Over Trees In Tennessee, Family Panics Watching It, July 28, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: June 28, 2020 Location of sighting: Whitewell, Tennessee, USA The eyewitness in Tennessee caught a white disk flying low over the trees tops on a hill behind his home. The family is panicking as they watch the craft...you can hear the fear and astonishment in their voices. The white disk seems to deliberately fly low, when the trees get lower, the disk flies lower, then the tree or hilltop gets higher, the disk flies higher to avoid them. It looks as if its only 5 meters above the treetops. Incredible capture of a real alien craft. The object has no wings, no tails, no cockpit windows or side windows, no propellers and there is no way on earth a balloon or blimp could possibly move that fast and maneuver that quickly over those trees. This...is 100% alien in origin. Scott C. Waring
Glowing Octagon UFO Over Sao Paulo, Brazil On July 13, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 13, 2020 Location of sighting: Perus, Sao Paulo, Brasil The eyewitness says that the glowing red object was incredibly fast and may have been a balloon, but from the close up screenshot above...I can see its more crystal like in shape. The object looks more octagon in shape. I have never seen a octagon balloon that glows. This shape however is similar to a lot of other UFO sightings in the past in that it has a red glowing object, moving incredibly fast, too fast to be a balloon, but too slow to be a jet and octagon in shape...all this screams out UFO to me. Not a doubt in my mind about it. 100% alien in origin. Scott C. Waring
Black Wing UFO Seen Over Germany Military Base, Plane Investigates, July 7, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: July 7, 2020 Location of sighting: Spangdahiem Air Base, Germany
This UFO was seen over a military base in Germany a few weeks ago. The large black object was recorded moving slowly through the clouds as a single engine plane became intrigued with it and began investigating the UFO...circling it. The UFO looks like a single winged craft, much like a stealth fighter, but twice as big and less triangular, but more diamond shaped. Amazing catch, and it makes me think Germany may be working on a top secret craft that could be using alien technology. Seems similar to the single winged bomber that was made long ago by Germany. Then again, aliens would have a high interest in keeping track of military base operations...and UFO have been recorded near such bases in the past. This could go either way. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
During our walk on 07-07-2020 around 54655 Kyllburg Germany, around 5:30 p.m. we saw two flying objects coming from the American Spangdahlem Air Base flying in a northeasterly direction. One object was a normal small plane. The second object, however, was disk-shaped, resembling a so-called telemeter disk or "foo fighter". It flew parallel to the small plane and was the same size. What do you think it could have been?
Local man filmed cigar-shaped UFO near Youngstown Air Force base in Ohio 26-Jul-2020
Here’s one possible UFO sighting of a cigar-shaped object flying in the daytime sky above Warren in Ohio. This happened on 26th July 2020.
Witness report:
White Object in Sky. Saw this object in my yard. Not sure if it is a drone? Figured I would leave it to experts. I live about a mile from the Youngstown Air Force base. The object made no sound at all and was moving northeast towards the base.
Here are 10 of the coolest, weirdest and most unexpected findings about the Pluto system scientists have learned thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of the distant world in 2015.
Enhanced color global view of Pluto, taken when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 km) away. The image shows Pluto’s famous heart, a region known as Tombaugh Regio. It was recently announced that Pluto’s icy heart makes winds blow across the dwarf planet’s surface.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute)
NASA originally published this article on July 14, 2020.
On July 14, 2015, after a voyage of nearly 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, NASA’sNew Horizons spacecraft flew within 7,800 miles (12,550 km) of Pluto. Thanks to the piano-sized probe, we saw the surface of this distant world in spectacular, colored detail for the first time.
The encounter – which also included a detailed look at Charon, the largest of Pluto’s five moons – revealed an icy world replete in magnificent landscapes and geology, with towering mountains, giant ice sheets, pits, scarps, valleys and terrains seen nowhere else in the solar system.
In the five years since that groundbreaking flyby, nearly every conjecture about Pluto being an inert ball of ice has been thrown out the window.
Here are 10 of the coolest, weirdest and most unexpected findings about the Pluto system that scientists have learned since 2015, thanks to data from New Horizons.
Natural-color view of Pluto and its large moon Charon, compiled from images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 13 and 14, 2015. Of all the moon-planet systems in our solar system, Pluto and Charon are most nearly alike in size. Charon is nearly half the size of Pluto. It’s so big relative to Pluto that the 2 worlds are sometimes considered a double dwarf planet.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
1. Pluto has a “heart,” and it drives activity on the planet
Pluto’s heart – one of the signature features New Horizons observed on approach and imaged in high resolution during the flyby – is a vast, million-square-mile nitrogen glacier. The heart’s left ventricle, called Sputnik Planitia, literally forced the dwarf planet to reorient itself so the basin now faces almost squarely opposite Pluto’s moon Charon.
James Tuttle Keane is a planetary scientist and New Horizons team member at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He said:
It’s a process called true polar wander – it’s when a planetary body changes its spin axis, usually in response to large geologic processes.
Sputnik Planitia’s current position is no accident. It’s a cold trap, where nitrogen ices have accumulated to make an ice sheet that’s at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) thick. The constant imbalance of that hefty mass, combined with the tidal yanks and pulls of Charon as it orbited Pluto, literally tipped the dwarf planet so the basin aligned more closely with the tidal axis between Pluto and Charon. Keane said:
That event was also likely responsible for cracking Pluto’s surface and creating the many gigantic faults in its crust that zigzag over large portions of Pluto.
The basin is thought to have formed to the northwest of its present location, and closer to Pluto’s north pole. And should ices continue to accumulate on the basin, Pluto will continue to reorient itself.
Cross-section of Pluto’s surface and subsurface features, in the region of Sputnik Planitia, the western lobe of Pluto’s heart. New Horizons data suggest there may be a water ocean beneath the ice in this region.
2. There’s probably a vast liquid water ocean sloshing beneath Pluto’s surface
Gathered ices may not be the only thing that helped reorient Sputnik Planitia. New Horizons data from the basin indicated there may be a heavier mass beneath it that played a part, and scientists suspect that the heavier mass is a water ocean. Keane said:
That was an astonishing discovery. It would make Pluto an elusive ‘ocean world,’ in the same vein as Europa, Enceladus and Titan.
Several other lines of evidence, including tectonic structures seen in New Horizons imagery, also point to an ocean beneath Pluto’s crust.
Sputnik Planitia was likely created some 4 billion years ago by the impact of a Kuiper Belt object 30 to 60 miles (50 to 100 km) across that carved out a massive chunk of Pluto’s icy crust and left only a thin, weak layer at the basin’s floor. A subsurface ocean likely intruded the basin from below by pushing up against the weakened crust, and later the thick layer of nitrogen ice seen there now was laid on top.
Recent models based on images of the planet suggest that this liquid ocean may have arisen from a rapid, violent formation of Pluto.
The subsurface ocean on Pluto may be still in the process of freezing and potentially creating new faults on the surface today.
3. Pluto may still be tectonically active because that ocean is still liquid
Enormous faults stretch for hundreds of miles and cut roughly 2.5 miles into the icy crust covering Pluto’s surface. One of the only ways scientists reason Pluto got those fissures, though, is by the gradual freezing of an ocean beneath its surface.
Water expands as it freezes, and under an icy crust, that expansion will push and crack the surface, just like an ice cube in your freezer. But if the temperature is low enough and the pressure high enough, water crystals can start to form a more compact crystal configuration and the ice will once again contract.
Models using New Horizons data showed Pluto has the conditions for that type of contraction, but it doesn’t have any known geologic features that indicate that contraction has occurred. To scientists, that means the subsurface ocean is still in the process of freezing and potentially creating new faults on the surface today. Keane said:
If Pluto is an active ocean world, that suggests that the Kuiper Belt may be filled with other ocean worlds among its dwarf planets, dramatically expanding the number of potentially habitable places in our solar system.
But while Pluto’s liquid ocean likely still exists today, scientists suspect it’s isolated in most places (though not beneath Sputnik) by almost 200 miles (320 km) of ice. That means it probably doesn’t contact the surface today; but in the past, it may have oozed through volcanic activity called cryovolcanism.
Close up view of Wright Mons, one of two potential cryovolcanoes – volcanoes that spew ice instead of lava – spotted on the surface of Pluto by the passing New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
4. Pluto was – and still may be – volcanically active
But maybe not “volcanic” in the way you might think.
On Earth, molten lava spits, drools, bubbles, and erupts from underwater fissures through volcanoes sitting miles high in and protruding from the oceans, like on Hawaii. But on Pluto, there are numerous indications that a kind of cold, slushy cryolava has poured over the surface at various points.
Scientists call that “cryovolcanism.”
Wright Mons and Piccard Mons, two large mountains to the south of Sputnik Planitia, each bear a deep central pit that scientists believe are likely to be the mouths of cryovolcanoes unlike any others found in the solar system.
To the west of Sputnik sits Viking Terra, with its long fractures and grabens that show evidence of once-flowing cryolavas all over the surface there too.
And farther west of Sputnik Planitia is the Virgil Fossae region, where ammonia-rich cryolavas seem to have burst to the surface and coated an area of several thousand square kilometers in red-colored organic molecules no more than 1 billion years ago, if not even more recently.
And speaking of recently…
You’ve seen the images of Pluto’s famous heart. This is a close-up of a region in the western lobe of the heart, a region called Sputnik Planitia. This image spans about 50 miles (80 km) and shows thousands of pits in Pluto’s icy surface as well as larger circulation patterns. Scientists suspect the “islands” are floating bergs of water ice, or perhaps the tips of ice mountains.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
5. Glaciers cut across Pluto’s surface even today, and they’ve done so for billions of years
Pluto joins the ranks of Earth, Mars, and a handful of moons that have actively flowing glaciers.
East of Sputnik Planitia are dozens of (mostly) nitrogen-ice glaciers that course down from pitted highlands into the basin, carving out valleys as they go. Scientists suspect seasonal and “mega-seasonal” cycles of nitrogen ices that sublimate from ice to vapor, waft around the dwarf planet and then freeze back on the surface are the source of the glacier ice.
But these glaciers are not like our own water-ice glaciers here on Earth. For one, any melt within them won’t fall toward the bottom of the glacier. It will rise to the top, because liquid nitrogen is less dense than solid nitrogen. As that liquid nitrogen emerges on top of the glacier, it potentially even erupts as jets or geysers.
Additionally, there is the fact that some of Pluto’s surface is composed of water ice, which is slightly less dense than nitrogen ice. As Pluto’s glaciers carve the surface, some of those water-ice “rocks” will rise up through the glacier and float like icebergs. Such icebergs are seen in several New Horizons images of Sputnik Planitia, the largest of Pluto’s known glaciers, which stretches more than 620 miles (1,000 km) across – about the size of Oklahoma and Texas combined.
Scientists from NASA’s New Horizons mission used state-of-the-art computer simulations to show that the surface of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia is covered with churning ice “cells” that are geologically young and turning over due to the process of convection (same process you see in a pan of boiling water).
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
6.Pluto has heat convection cells on its giant glacier Sputnik
Zoom in close to the surface of Sputnik Planitia and you’ll see something unlike anywhere else in the solar system: a network of strange polygonal shapes in the ice, each at least 6 miles (10 km) across, churning on the surface of the glacier.
Although they resemble cells under a microscope, these aren’t; they’re evidence of Pluto’s internal heat trying to escape from underneath the glacier, and forming bubbles of upwelling and downwelling nitrogen ice, something like a hot lava lamp.
Warm ice rises up into the center of the cells while cold ice sinks along their margins. There’s nothing like it in any of Earth’s glaciers, and or anywhere else in the solar system that we’ve explored!
White area is lobe of Pluto’s “heart,” a vast area of nitrogen ice which cycles from vapor to condensation every day, driving nitrogen winds around the planet.
7. Pluto has a literal beating “heart” that controls its atmosphere and climate
Cold and far-flung as Pluto may be, its icy “heart” still beats to a daily, rhythmic drum that drives Pluto’s atmosphere and climate much in the way Greenland and Antarctica help control Earth’s climate.
Nitrogen ices in Pluto’s heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio go through a cycle every day, subliming from ice to vapor in the daytime sunlight and condensing back on the surface during the frigid night. Each round acts like a heartbeat, driving nitrogen winds that circulate around the planet at up to 20 mph (32 kph).
Tanguy Bertrand is a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Bertrand said:
Pluto’s heart actually controls its atmosphere circulation.
Sophisticated weather forecast models Bertrand has created using New Horizons data show that as these ices sublime in the northern reaches of Pluto’s icy heart and freeze out in the southern part, they drive brisk winds in a westward direction – curiously opposite Pluto’s eastward spin.
Those westward winds, bumping up against the rugged topography at the fringes of Pluto’s heart, explain why there are wind streaks on the western edge of Sputnik Planitia, a remarkable finding considering Pluto’s atmosphere is only 1/100,000th that of Earth’s, Bertrand said. They also explain some other surprising desert-like features …
Closeup of the water-ice mountains on the northwest fringes of Pluto’s Sputnik glacier may provide the particles, and Pluto’s beating nitrogen “heart” provides winds.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
8.Pluto has dunes
It’s not the Sahara Desert, or the Gobi Desert. This is Pluto. Hundreds of dunes stretch over at least 45 miles (75 km) of the western edge of Sputnik Planitia, and scientists suspect they formed recently.
Dunes require small particles and sustained, driving winds that can lift and blow the specks of sand or whatever else along. And despite its weak gravity, thin atmosphere, extreme cold and entire surface composition of ices, Pluto apparently had (or still may have) everything needed to make dunes.
Water-ice mountains on the northwest fringes of the Sputnik glacier may provide the particles, and Pluto’s beating nitrogen “heart” provides winds. Instead of quartz, basalt and gypsum sands blown by sometimes gale-force winds on Earth, though, scientists suspect the dunes on Pluto are sand-sized grains of methane ice carried by winds that blow at no more than 20 mph (32 kph), although given the size of the dunes, the winds may have been stronger and atmosphere much thicker in the past.
Pluto and Charon are dotted with large craters, but there are few small ones, possibly indicating fewer small Kuiper Belt objects than expected.
Image via NASA.
9.Pluto and Charon have almost no little craters, and that has some big implications
Finding craters on the surface of planets is kind of the norm in space. But if there’s one abnormal thing about the Pluto system, it’s that neither Pluto nor Charon has many small craters – they’re almost all big.
Kelsi Singer is a New Horizons deputy project scientist and co-investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She said:
That surprised us because there were fewer small craters than we expected, which means there are also fewer small Kuiper Belt objects than we expected.
Analyses of crater images from New Horizons indicate that few objects less than about a mile in diameter bombarded either world. Because scientists have no reason to believe tectonic activity would have preferentially wiped the surface clean of these small craters, It could mean the Kuiper Belt is mostly devoid of very small objects. Singer said:
These results give us clues about how the solar system formed because they tell us about the population of building blocks of larger objects, like Pluto and even perhaps Earth.
Enhanced color view of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. The colors are processed to highlight the variation of surface properties across the moon; most striking is the reddish north (top) polar region.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL/ Southwest Research Institute.
10. Charon had a volcanic past, and it could be key to understanding other icy worlds
New Horizons also captured stunning images of Pluto’s moon Charon, and they revealed some surprising geology there too.
On the side of Charon that New Horizons imaged in high resolution, Charon has two distinct terrain types: an immense, southward-stretching plain officially called Vulcan Planitia that’s at least the size of California, and a rugged terrain colloquially called Oz Terra that stretches northward to Charon’s north pole. Both seem to have formed from the freezing and expansion of (you guessed it!) an ancient ocean beneath Charon’s crust.
Moderate expansion in the north created the rugged, mountainous terrain of Oz Terra seen today, whereas the expansion in the south forced its way through vents, cracks and other openings as cryolava, spilling across the surface. In fact, Vulcan Planitia is thought to be a giant cryoflow that covered the entire region early in Charon’s history.
Similar features exist on some icy satellites all around the solar system, including Neptune’s giant moon Triton, Saturn’s moons Tethys, Dione and Enceladus, and Uranus’ moons Miranda and Ariel. And thanks to the detailed images of Charon from New Horizons, the models of Charon’s past might be a Rosetta Stone to aid in understanding the volcanic and geologic activity of those other icy worlds too.
Bottom line:Ten cool things about Pluto, from New Horizons data.
THE SAME COMPANY 3D PRINTING KFC’S MEAT NUGGETS IS PRINTING HUMAN TISSUE IN SPACE AS WELL
WAIT, WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
BY VICTOR TANGERMANN
It’s been a wild weekend for Russian startup 3D Bioprinting Solutions.
First, the companyannounced a partnership with fast food chain KFC as part of an effort to create the “world’s first laboratory-produced chicken nuggets.”
Now, the same company is ready to announce that it’s been hard at work bringing similar tech into orbit as well.
In an experiment on board the International Space Station that took place in 2018 but has only now been published, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononoenko was tasked to 3D print human cartilage cells in near-zero gravity using a machine called “Bioprinter Organ.Aut,” as Space.com reports — a machine assembled by, you guessed it, 3D Bioprinting Solutions.
The goal was to investigate ways to reverse some of the negative effects of spending prolonged periods of time in space, in particular evidence that parts of the human body can atrophy over time — something we’ve known about for quite some time.
The eventual hope is to give astronauts the ability to print entire body parts in space, according to the researchers — just in case something goes catastrophically wrong during a mission.
A paper about the research was published in the journal Science Advances last week.
Rather than using a bioassembly “scaffold,” a structure that acts as a support for tissue, the machine uses magnets to allow cells to float in place, a process the researchers called “magnetic levitational bioassembly.”
“Magnetic waves or fields are controlled so we can move the cells where we want them to go [to assemble] them into more complex structures of tissue constructs,” Utkan Demirci, co-director of the Canary Center for Cancer Early Detection at Stanford, who invented the process and co-authored the paper, told Space.com.
The Russian startup isn’t only looking at printing cartilage in space.
During following ISS expeditions, “we also conducted experiments in space on fabricating the mouse thyroid gland, fabricating meat, fabricating bones, fabricating three-dimensional bacterial biofilms, as well as crystallizing and growing crystals of protein compounds in a new method,” Vladislav Parfenov, 3D Bioprinting Solutions chief designer, told Space.com in an email.
PHYSICISTS SAY THERE’S A 90 PERCENT CHANCE CIVILIZATION WILL SOON COLLAPSE
IMAGE VIA PXHERE/VICTOR TANGERMANN
DAN ROBITZSKI
Final Countdown
If humanity continues down its current path, civilization as we know it is heading toward “irreversible collapse” in a matter of decades.
That’s according to research published in the journal Scientific Reports, which models out our future based on current rates of deforestation and other resource use. As Motherboard reports, even the rosiest projections in the research show a 90 percent chance of catastrophe.
Last Gasp
The paper, penned by physicists from the Alan Turing Institute and the University of Tarapacá, predicts that deforestation will claim the last forests on Earth in between 100 and 200 years. Coupled with global population changes and resource consumption, that’s bad new for humanity.
“Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” reads the paper.
Coming Soon
In light of that, the duo predicts that society as we know it could end within 20 to 40 years.
In lighter news, Motherboard reports that the global rate of deforestation has actually decreased in recent years. But there’s still a net loss in forest overall — and newly-planted trees can’t protect the environment nearly as well as old-growth forest.
“Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilization,” reads the paper.
“This study significantly changes the view of Venus from a mostly inactive planet to one whose interior is still churning and can feed many active volcanoes,” one scientist said.
On Venus, ring-like structures known as coronae dot the surface of the planet. They’re thought to provide evidence of a warm interior and for ongoing geologic activity. In the global map of Venus above, the 37 coronae determined to be active in the new study appear in red, and inactive coronae appear in white.
Researchers at the University of Maryland and the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, announced today (July 20, 2020) that their new new 3D model of cloud-covered Venus identifies 37 recently active volcanic structures. They said their study “provides some of the best evidence yet” that Venus is today a geologically active world. The peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience published these scientists’ work today.
Laurent Montési, a professor of geology at UMD and co-author of the research paper, said:
This is the first time we are able to point to specific structures and say ‘Look, this is not an ancient volcano but one that is active today, dormant perhaps, but not dead.’ This study significantly changes the view of Venus from a mostly inactive planet to one whose interior is still churning and can feed many active volcanoes.
A 3D rendition of 2 coronae observed on Venus’ surface. The ringlike structures are formed when hot material from deep inside Venus rises through the planet’s mantle and erupts through its crust. The black line represents a gap in the data.
A statement from University of Maryland explained:
Scientists have known for some time that Venus has a younger surface than planets like Mars and Mercury, which have cold interiors. Evidence of a warm interior and geologic activity dots the surface of the planet in the form of ring-like structures known as coronae, which form when plumes of hot material deep inside the planet rise through the mantle layerand crust. This is similar to the way mantle plumesformed the volcanic Hawaiian Islands.
But it was thought that the coronae on Venus were probably signs of ancient activity, and that Venus had cooled enough to slow geological activity in the planet’s interior and harden the crust so much that any warm material from deep inside would not be able to puncture through.
In addition, the exact processes by which mantle plumes formed coronae on Venus and the reasons for variation among coronae have been matters for debate.
In the new study, the researchers used numerical models of thermomechanical activity beneath the surface of Venus to create high-resolution, 3D simulations of coronae formation. Their simulations provide a more detailed view of the process than ever before.
The results helped Montési and his colleagues identify features that are present only in recently active coronae. The team was then able to match those features to those observed on the surface of Venus, revealing that some of the variation in coronae across the planet represents different stages of geological development.
The study provides the first evidence that coronae on Venus are still evolving, indicating that the interior of the planet is still churning.
Anna Gülcher is a Ph.D. student in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics group at ETH Zürich and lead author of the new study.
Montési added:
The improved degree of realism in these models over previous studies makes it possible to identify several stages in corona evolution and define diagnostic geological features present only at currently active coronae. We are able to tell that at least 37 coronae have been very recently active.
The active coronae on Venus are clustered in a handful of locations, which suggests areas where the planet is most active, providing clues to the workings of the planet’s interior. These results may help identify target areas where geologic instruments should be placed on future missions to Venus, such as Europe’s EnVision mission, scheduled to launch in 2032.
We’ve known about volcanic mountains on Venus for some time. Here is Maat Mons, a massive Venusian shield volcano. It’s the second-highest mountain – and the highest volcano – on Venus, rising some 5 miles (8 km) high. This perspective view is based on radar images from the Magellan spacecraft, which orbited Venus from 1990 to 1994. Maat Mons is not one of the locations evaluated in the new study, by the way. This structure on Venus be inactive or active, but the new study doesn’t address that question. In addition, there could be additional locations of current activity on Venus not pinpointed by the new study.
Over the last few days, here at Mysterious Universe, I have written several articles on FBI files concerning Flying Saucers, UFO-connected people, and paranormal phenomena that the FBI has declassified under the terms of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). They are files that the Bureau has placed onits website, The Vault. Today, however, I’m going to share with you some of the UFO/paranormal-related files that have been declassified by the FBI, but that have notyet been placed online at the The Vault. You can still obtain those files, of course: it just means to get those papers that have not yet been uploaded, you will have to file a FOIA request. So, with that said, let’s take a look at some of the declassified files that, presently, you can’t see at The Vault. One of them is the file on George Hunt Williamson – he was one of the early UFO Contactees of the 1950s and who died in 1986. The Williamson file runs to around 50 to 60 pages. I say “around” because a few pages of material on Williamson are also contained in another file: that of George Adamski, the most famous (or, more correctly, infamous) Contactee of all. And Williamson pops up, too, in the Truman Bethurum file. So, the precise number of pages on Williamson is somewhat hazy. With that said, let’s take a look at the content of the Williamson file.
Certainly, the most interesting aspect of the FBI file on George Hunt Williamson is that which concerns smuggling. It was in 1962 that the FBI heard rumors that Williamson was secretly transporting ancient artifacts across the border from Mexico into the United States. For a while the FBI deeply pondered on whether or not they should get further involved in the pursuit of a potential crime that had occurred outside of its jurisdiction and in another country – Mexico – but finally dropped the matter; rather fortunately, it must be said, for Williamson. There is one particularly curious aspect of this particular affair: a number of the relevant documents on this alleged smuggling caper are heavily censored and under category B1 of the Freedom of Information Act. Intriguingly, B1 covers nothing less than matters that may have a potential effect on U.S. national security.
Now, let’s take a look at Wilhelm Reich. As far back as the 1930s, Reich had researched what he ultimately came to call Orgone – or Orgone energy. In 2008, it was stated by wilhelmreichtrust.org that: “About eight years ago, Reich’s FBI file – comprising approximately 800 pages – became available online at the FBI website, in a section of the website dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Some time during 2007, a number of people reported to us that Reich’s file had been removed from that website.” There was, however, no conspiracy or cover-up involved at all. The FBI explained: “Wilhelm Reich’s file was intentionally taken off the Electronic Reading Room. Last year, RMD [Records Management Division] worked closely with the FBI’s Historian to identify files which were either historically valuable or were popular files, that is more than 3-4 requests in the past 3 years. The file in question didn’t make the list, so they removed it from the website.”
Moving on, there’s the matter of a woman named Mary Hardy Reeser. As Wonders and Marvels states: “During the summer of 1951, the St. Petersburg (Florida) Police Department needed help. On July 2, 67-year-old woman named Mary Hardy Reeser had burned to death in her apartment, and the police did not know how or why. A fire of unknown origin had reduced her body to fine ashes — except for her skull (“shrunken to the size of a teacup”), a small section of backbone, and her left foot, which still wore a shoe.” Rumors quuckly began to circulate that Reeser was a victim of nothing less than Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC). The FBI has a sizeable file on Reeser and the SHC claims. In fact, it runs to 115 pages. It’s not online at The Vault, though. It can be found, however, at John Greenewald, Jr.’s website, The Black Vault at this link.
The list goes on in relation to the papers that aren’t yet at The Vault: Guy Ballard has an FBI file that runs to a whopping 768 pages. That is not a surprise, as he was a very controversial figure who claimed to have met with none other than the “Ascended Master Count St. Germain.” As for Heaven’s Gate, no less than 382-pages of Bureau-based material are available via the Freedom of Information Act. George Adamski’s file is close to 300-pages-long. Hopefully, the FBI will expand the “Unexplained Phenomenon” section of the The Vault and create the ultimate online source for all of the now-declassified FBI files on matters of the mysterious and paranormal kind. I would be pleased to do it for them!
An image from a model used in a new study to investigate the origins of plate tectonics on Earth. (Image credit: The University of Hong Kong)
Long ago, Earth's outer shell cracked into pieces, which we now call tectonic plates. In a new study, scientists investigated the origins of plate tectonics and found its history rooted inEarth.
Approximately 4.5 billion years ago our home planet formed and, not too soon after — about 3.2 billion years ago — Earth's shell cracked into these plates. Now, while scientists know how Earth's tectonic plates shift and move, exactly how they got started has remained somewhat of a mystery.
In a new study, led by planetary scientist Alexander Webb at the University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, scientists have come up with a new idea to explain why Earth's crust cracked into pieces.
According to the study, the early Earth's outer shell, or lithosphere, heated up, which caused it to expand and crack. This might seem like a simple explanation, but it contradicts many earlier theories.
Previous studies have estimated that thermal expansion would be less likely to crack Earth's surface than thermal contraction, the opposite process by which Earth's outer shell shrinks as it cools. Because much of Earth's internal heat stems from radioactivity, radioactive decay would cause the planet's interior to cool over time, those studies have suggested.
But, according to Webb, the answer to Earth's tectonic origins "lies in consideration of major heat-loss mechanisms that could have occurred during Earth's early periods," theysaid in a statement. "If volcanic advection, carrying hot material from depth to the surface, was the major mode of early heat-loss, that changes everything."
Here, Webb referred to a method of heat loss involving volcanic advection, or the transfer of heat or matter via the movement of fluid. In this process, hot volcanic material would erupt and fall back onto the earth as the heat would escape to space and the material would cool and press into Earth's young crust, creating a cooling effect. The chilled lithosphere "would have been increasingly warmed via conduction from hot deep material below," according to the statement.
Webb's team used 3D spherical models to simulate how Earth's outer shell may have fractured in response to thermal expansion amidst varying heating and cooling in Earth's early years. They found that while there was global cooling in Earth's early years, the outer shell was warming at the same time, which is the most likely cause behind our planet's crust breaking apart.
NASA’s next rover is a connoisseur of Martian rocks. The main job of the Perseverance rover, set to launch between July 20 and August 11, is to pick out rocks that might preserve signs of past life and store the samples for a future mission back to Earth.
“We’re giving a gift to the future,” says planetary scientist Adrian Brown, who works at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Most of the rover’s seven sets of scientific instruments work in service of that goal, including zoomable cameras to pick out the best rocks from afar and lasers and spectrometers to identify a rock’s makeup. After the rover lands in February 2021, it’s capable of collecting and storing 20 samples within the first Martian year (about two Earth years). The NASA team plans to collect at least 30 samples over the whole mission, says planetary scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Fortunately, Perseverance is headed to a spot that should be full of collection-worthy rocks. The landing site in Jezero crater, just north of the Martian equator, contains an ancient river delta that looks like it once carried water and silt into a long-lived lake.
“We can already predict which parts of that delta might give us the highest return for possible biosignatures,” Stack Morgan says. The crater has a “bathtub ring” of carbonates, minerals that settle in shallow, warm waters that are especially good at preserving signs of life. “That makes Jezero special,” she says.
But Perseverance is more than a rock collector. The rover will probe the ground beneath its wheels, fly a helicopter, track the weather and test tech for turning Martian air into rocket fuel. Every part of the rover has a job to do.
RIMFAX
RIMFAX, or Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment, will use radio waves to probe the ground under the rover’s wheels. The instrument will take a measurement every 10 centimeters along the rover’s track and should be able to sense 10 meters deep, depending on what’s down there. The InSight lander, currently on Mars, has a seismometer that listens for Marsquakes, but a ground-penetrating radar to understand the Martian interior is a first.
MOXIE
Human explorers will need oxygen on Mars, but not just for breathing, says former astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman. “It’s for the rocket,” says Hoffman, now an engineer at MIT. To take off from the Martian surface and return home, astronauts will need liquid oxygen rocket fuel. Bringing all that fuel from Earth is not an option.
To demonstrate how to make fuel from scratch, MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, will pull carbon dioxide out of the Martian atmosphere and convert it to oxygen. MOXIE will produce about 10 grams of oxygen per hour, which is only about 0.5 percent of what’s needed to make enough fuel for a human mission over the 26 months between launch windows. But the effort will teach engineers on Earth how to scale up the technology.
Mastcam-Z
Set atop Perseverance’s neck, Mastcam-Z, the rover’s main set of eyes, can swivel 360 degrees laterally and 180 degrees up and down to view the surrounding landscape. Like its predecessor on the Curiosity rover, the camera will take color, 3-D and panoramic images to help scientists understand the terrain and the mineralogy of the surrounding rocks. Mastcam-Z can also zoom in on distant features — a first for a Mars rover.
SuperCam
How can Perseverance look for signs of ancient microbes in rocks too far away to touch? Enter SuperCam, a laser spectrometer mounted on the rover’s head. SuperCam will shoot rocks with a laser from more than seven meters away, vaporizing a tiny bit of the minerals. Researchers will then analyze the vapor to help figure out what the rocks are made of, without having to drive the rover down steep slopes or up rugged crags. The laser will also measure properties of the Martian atmosphere and dust to refine weather models.
MEDA
MEDA, or Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, is the rover’s weather station. Six instruments distributed across the neck, body and interior will measure air temperature, air pressure, humidity, radiation and wind speed and direction. The tools will also analyze the physical characteristics of the all-important Mars dust. Scientists hope to use the information from these sensors to better predict Mars weather.
PIXL, SHERLOC and WATSON
Geologists never go into the field without a hand lens. Likewise, Perseverance will be prepared with three arm-mounted magnifying instruments. PIXL, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, will have a camera that can resolve grains of Martian rock and dirt to scales smaller than a millimeter. It will also detect the chemical makeup of those rocks by zapping them with X-rays and measuring the wavelength of light the rocks emit in response. SHERLOC, or Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, will take similar measurements using an ultraviolet laser. WATSON, the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering, will take pictures with a resolution of 30 micrometers to put the chemistry in context. The instruments will seek signs of ancient microbes preserved in Martian rocks and soil, and help scientists decide which rocks to store for a future mission to return to Earth.
Ingenuity
This helicopter will be a test case for future reconnaissance missions to help the rover see further on Mars.JPL-CALTECH/NASA
Perseverance will also carry a stowaway folded up origami-style in a protective shield the size of a pizza box: a helicopter called Ingenuity. At a smooth, flat spot, Ingenuity will drop to the ground and unfold, then take about five flights in 30 Martian days. These flights are mainly to show that the copter can get enough lift in the thin Martian atmosphere. If Ingenuity is successful, future helicopters might help run reconnaissance for rovers. “There’s always a question with the rover, what’s over that cliff? What’s over that rise?” says planetary scientist Briony Horgan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. “If you have a helicopter, you can see those things ahead of time.”
International researchers have found proof that the Mediterranean Seawas 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) hotter during the time of theRoman Empire , from 1 to 500 AD, the warmest it has been over the past two millennia. The researchers claim that their investigation can show the relationship between climate change and important social and cultural changes, including the rise and fall of empires.
A multidisciplinary team of Spanish and Italians researchers were part of a project for “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the impact of historically warmer conditions between 2.7°F and 3.6°F (1.5°C to 2°C),” reports the Daily Mail . It is very challenging to retrieve information about past temperatures of the sea.
According to the Daily Mail , the experts believe that “the study of the fossil archives remains the only valid tool to reconstruct past environmental and climatic changes as far back as 2,000 years ago.” Due to the fact that it is enclosed, the Mediterranean Sea is more likely to be impacted by global climate change. “The sea occupies a ‘transitional zone’, combining the arid zone of the subtropical high and humid north-westerly air flows,” explains the Daily Mail .
The research team retrieved planktonic organisms from the sea floor off the coast of Sicily. The map shows the location of the sample (red triangle) and the location of marine records used for comparison (red circles).
Planktonic Organisms Hold Information About Past Sea Water Temperatures
The team recorded ratios of magnesium to calcite in planktonic singled cell organisms, called foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber, and this provided much-needed data. In 2014 the RV CNR-Urania research vessel was able to retrieve a skeletonized Globigerinoide ruber from the sea floor in the Sicily Channel, at a depth of 1500 feet (490 m). Professor Isabel Cacho, of the University of Barcelona, is quoted by Mirage News as saying that a chemical analysis of the “carbonated skeleton allows us to reconstruct the evolution of the temperature of the surface water mass over time.” This is because the organism only lives in warm marine habitats.
The data suggested that between 2000 and 1500 years ago the Mediterranean Sea temperatures were warmer than at any time since. It is believed that the sea was warmer because of increased solar activity. It was almost certainly not a result of global warming caused by greenhouse gases, such as carbon emissions. “For the first time, we can state the Roman period was the warmest period of the last 2,000 years, and these conditions lasted for 500 years,” explains Cacho in Mirage News . The study was correlated with data from other samples taken from other locations in the Mediterranean Sea, which confirmed their hypothesis.
The data collected from the Sicily Channel was compared to data from other locations in the Mediterranean Sea, and superimposed on a graph showing the main historic periods discussed in the study.
Cooling Sea Water Linked to Fall of Roman Republic
The Mediterranean was cool and humid until 100 BC, in what is known as the sub-Atlantic phase. The sea began to cool markedly after 50 BC. This has been linked to the eruption of Mount Okmok, off the coast of Alaska, that threw ash into the atmosphere leading to the cooling of the earth.
This cooling may be linked to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the rise of the new imperial system in Rome. Augustus established the Roman Empire in 27 BC, after his victory at Actium. This was to endure for 500 years, during which time the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world. The team wrote in Scientific Reports that “this climate phase corresponds to the so-called ‘Roman Climatic Optimum’,” characterized by mild and wet weather.
During his reign as emperor of the Roman Empire, from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD, Augustus increased the size of the empire substantially.
Warm Mediterranean Sea Temperatures Associated With Golden Age of Rome
The researchers believe that the Roman Climatic Optimum phase coincides with “the development of the expansion of the Roman Empire ,” explains Mirage News . The warm period has also been associated with the Golden Age of Rome, both culturally and economically.
Evidence for the warming of the Mediterranean during this period is also supported by separate studies from the Atlantic. The warm period may have helped to boost the Empire’s agricultural production , which was critical for the prosperity and stability of pre-industrial societies and even increased their military capabilities.
After the fall of the western Roman Empire, “a general cooling trend developed in the region with several minor oscillations in temperature,” clarifies the Daily Mail . This could have contributed to the decline of classical civilization after 500 AD. In Scientific Reports , the researchers write that the cooling was “also associated with socio-cultural changes in the central Mediterranean region.” The climate became drier and this meant that agriculture was not as productive and could not sustain cities in particular.
Destruction, by the English painter Thomas Cole, was painted to show the fall of the Roman Empire.
Can Climate Change Cause the Rise and Fall of Empires?
Combined with other research studies, this study has helped to demonstrate a potential link between climate change and the rise and fall of empires and civilizations . Quoted in the Daily Mail , those involved in the study explain that their work “offers ‘critical information’ to identify past interactions between climate changes and evolution of human societies and 'their adaptive strategies’.” Moreover, their work can also help to understand the history of other empires that once thrived in the Mediterranean region, and the effects of changes in climatic temperatures.
Top image:Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Sergii Figurnyi / Adobe Stock
WATCH BOSTON DYNAMICS’ ROBODOGS INVADE THIS FORD PRODUCTION PLANT
These robots act like the best-behaved dogs you've ever seen. Plus they have five cameras.
Boston Dynamics is heading to the Midwest. The perpetually viral robotics company, known across the world for videos of robots blowing people’s minds, has signed a deal with Ford Motor Company. Ford will be leasing two robots from the company in order to better scan their factories for retooling.
"WOW, IT'S, IT'S ACTUALLY DOGLIKE."
WHAT ARE THESE ROBOTS
The robots, which are officially named Spot but have been nicknamed Fluffy by Ford, are four-legged walkers that can take 360-degree camera scans, handle 30-degree grades and climb stairs for extended periods of time. At 70 pounds with five cameras, they’re nimble, and Boston Dynamics wanted to make sure they had a dog-like quality as they save clients money.
As digital engineering manager at Ford’s Advanced Manufacturing Center, Mark Goderis was already quite familiar with the animal-like robots that have made Boston Dynamics famous.
But when he finally saw them in person, he tells Inverse, “I was like, wow, it's, it's actually doglike. I was really shocked at how an animal or dog like it really is. But then you start to think oh my god it is a robot. It was a moment of shock.”
One place that real dogs have the robots beat is speed: these bots can only go 3 MPH, a safety feature. But with handler Paula Wiebelhaus, who gave Fluffy its nickname in the first place, these robots will scan plant floors and give engineers a helping hand in updating Computer Aided Designs (CAD), which are used to help improve workplaces.
Paula Wiebelhaus taking Fluffy for a walk.
Ford
Wiebelhaus can control Fluffy with a device that's only somewhat bigger than a Playstation 4 controller.
Ford
Even engineering experts at Ford were surprised by how dog-like Fluffy can be.
Ford
WHY DOES FORD NEED THEM
Although plants generally don’t change that much over the years, Goderis says, smaller changes take place over time and eventually become noticeable to those who work in them every day.
“It's like when you get up in the dark to do something in your house. You know how to walk through your house. But say you’ve moved something, a rocking chair. You kick it in the middle of the night because it's dark,” Goderis says.
The changes can be “as small as if you took a trash can and moved it from one location to another. But then we release a new trim level addition (used by car manufacturers to track the variety of special features on each car model), so you get a new part content on the line. And you literally just slide that into a workstation.
When you're adjusting in the facility, after production starts on a new vehicle, a lot of the time the process kind of smooths out. And as it smooths out, and you move things around, and the CAD images don't get updated as accurately as they should.”
Fluffy can climb stairs for hours.
Ford
HOW WILL THEY SAVE FORD MONEY
The problem is that old, manual methods of updating CAD images are pricey and time-consuming. Before the Boston Dynamics robots, one would need to “walk around with a tripod,” Goderis says.
“So think about a camera mounted on top of a tripod and you're posing for a family picture, but instead of having a camera we have a laser scanner on top of it. So we walk into a facility that's roughly 3 million square feet, and you would walk around with that tripod.”
That time-consuming process can work for family portraits, but it’s no good when it comes to car manufacturing. Even walking around at 3 MPH, Ford expects robotic Fluffy to cut down their camera times by half. That means faster designs, faster turnaround, and engineering teams getting plant designs faster. All of that means cars coming out faster.
And on top of that, the cameras will allow Fluffy’s video feed to be viewed remotely, meaning Ford engineers can, hypothetically, study plants thousands of miles away.
For now, Fluffy will start at a single plant, the Van Dyke Transmission Plant. But more dogs are likely in the company’s future.
After analysis of images shot by US-based space agency NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite, alien life enthusiasts believe they have spotted a huge UFO near the Sun. What appears to be a solar anomaly close to the Sun's surface is claimed by alien life conspiracy theorists to be a UFO of an almost incomprehensible scale.
According to prominent alien hunter Scott Waring, the supposed UFO is at least 'ten times the size of Earth'.
his cube, spotted in the northern hemisphere of our Sun, is many times bigger than Earth itself
Earth's radius is 3,958 miles (6,37km), making the UFO more than 39,580 miles (63,370km km) long.
Mr Waring also believes the UFO came from the Sun's core, where it is feeding off our host star's immense energy.
The UFO enthusiast said on his etdtabase.com blog: "In the image, I added light and focus and we can see that the red material is gathering around its hull.
"It may be a special particle from the Sun. This cube has a non-reflective black surface, like a stealth fighter jet – it absorbs, but does not reflect.
"This cube, spotted in the northern hemisphere of our Sun, is many times bigger than Earth itself."
Waring proceeds to speculate why the 'cubed spacecraft' is attracted to our solar system's star.
He said: "The cube is often seen coming and going from our Sun.
UFO sighting: Launched in 1995, SOHO studies the Sun from its interior to its outer atmosphere
(Image: NASA)
"It is thought either the cubes created a hollow Sun to live within and gather energy, or there is some special particles that we are not yet aware of at our stance of existence.
"These cube ships could be gathering those rare particles.
"Ether way, it is their Sun not ours – we don't have control over it as much as they will and that alien species probably existed long before earth itself existed.
"So, what right do we have to claim the Sun as our own?
Space scientists who have worked for NASA in the past have a much simpler explanation for all of the bizarre UFO sightings reported.
According to former NASA engineer James Oberg, most UFO sightings are nothing more than “space dandruff” floating in front of cameras.
These specks of dandruff can be anything from bits of chipped paint drifting aimlessly in zero gravity, flakes of ice or spacecraft insulation that has broken off.
He said: “I’ve had enough experience with real spaceflight to realise that what's being seen in many videos is nothing beyond the 'norm' from fully mundane phenomena occurring in unearthly settings.”
UFO sighting: UFO hunters have shared NASA photos they believe show an enormous cubed alien craft
Mr Oberg argued human brains are not wired to make sense of these tiny objects floating above the planet.
SOHO is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.
Launched in 1995, SOHO studies the Sun from its interior to its outer atmosphere, with an uninterrupted view from its vantage point between the Sun and our planet, approximately a million miles from Earth.
And over the past 25 years, NASA's SOHO has also become the greatest comet finder in human history.
The observatory's comet-hunting prowess comes from a combination of its long lifespan, its sensitive instruments focused on the solar corona, and the citizen scientists who constantly scour SOHO’s data for previously-undiscovered comets.
This map shows present-day Earth and deviations in the planet's magnetic field. Strong deviations are represented in yellow-orange, while small deviations are in blue. The star is located on the island Saint Helena. (Image credit: Yael Engbers/University of Liverpool)
Strange behavior in Earth's magnetic field over the South Atlantic region can be traced back as far as 11 million years ago, and it's unlikely to cause any impending reversal of Earth's magnetic field, a new study shows.
The South Atlantic Anomaly is a weak spot in Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from high doses of solar wind and cosmic radiation. This anomaly exists because the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the planet’s surface, causing an increased flux of energetic particles. In turn, this anomaly also causes technical disturbances in satellites and spacecraft orbiting Earth.
Researchers from the University of Liverpool in England studied igneous, or volcanic rocks from the island Saint Helena, which lies in the South Atlantic Anomaly. Records of Earth's magnetic field are preserved in igneous rocks, offering a detailed view of the planet's magnetic history.
"Our study provides the first long term analysis of the magnetic field in this region dating back millions of years," Yael Engbers, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "It reveals that the anomaly in the magnetic field in the South Atlantic is not a one-off, similar anomalies existed eight to 11 million years ago."
Researchers studied rocks from 34 volcanic eruptions that occurred at Saint Helena between 8 and 11 million years ago. When volcanic rocks cool down, small grains of iron-oxide in them get magnetized, preserving the direction and strength of the Earth’s magnetic field at that time and place.
Earth's magnetic field lines run from south to north. The geomagnetic records from the rocks show that the magnetic field at Saint Helena has pointed in different directions during past eruptions. This suggests that the magnetic field in this region has been unstable for millions of years.
Earth's magnetic field changes in strength and direction over time. It is believed that these fluctuations may eventually trigger a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field. However, given that the magnetic field at the region of the South Atlantic Anomaly has been unstable for several million years, it is not likely associated with any such impending reversal, according to the statement.
"It also supports earlier studies that hint towards a link between the South Atlantic Anomaly and anomalous seismic features in the lowermost mantle and the outer core," Engbers said in the statement. "This brings us closer to linking behavior of the geomagnetic field directly to features of the Earth's interior."
A car-sized asteroid discovered over the weekend made a close flyby of Earth today (July 28), passing our planet at a range that rivals the orbits of some high-flying satellites.
The asteroid 2020 OY4, which was first detected on Sunday (July 26), made its closest approach today at 1:31 a.m. EDT (0531 GMT) when it zipped by Earth at a speed of about 27,700 mph (44,600 km/h), according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid is just under 10 feet (3 meters) wide and posed no impact risk to Earth, but did approach the flight paths of geosynchronous satellites.
"A tiny, 3 meter asteroid called 2020 OY4 skimmed past Earth just a few hours ago, passing within the orbit of satellites in the geostationary ring," ESA officials wrote in a Twitter update.
This NASA graphic shows the locations of asteroid 2020 OY4 and Earth during a close flyby of the asteroid on July 28, 2020. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Estimates from ESA's Center for Near-Earth Object Coordination Center and NASA's Asteroid Watch outreach tool vary in the exact distance of asteroid 2020 OY4 at its closest approach.
NASA's tool listed the closest distance as about 25,800 miles (41,400 km), which is just outside the ring of geosynchronous satellites 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth's equator. ESA's asteroid-tracking center pegged the flyby range at about 21,900 miles (35,170 km), or just inside the satellite orbit ring.
"Of course, there were no risks at all to our planet," wrote astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy.
This image of asteroid 2020 OY4 (identified by arrow) by Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project was captured on July 27, 2020, one day before the asteroid's close approach to Earth. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project)
Masi captured a photo of asteroid 2020 OY4 on Monday (July 27), just ahead of the flyby. In the image, the asteroid looks like a bright dot on a sea of black streaked by star lines.
"The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid; this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow," Masi wrote in an image description.
Asteroids the size of 2020 OY4 fly by Earth several times a month, NASA officials have said in the past. In June 2019, an asteroid slightly larger than 2020 OY4 actually hit the Earth, but broke up harmlessly in the atmosphere, astronomers said.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik.
A car-sized asteroid discovered over the weekend made a close flyby of Earth today (July 28), passing our planet at a range that rivals the orbits of some high-flying satellites.
The asteroid 2020 OY4, which was first detected on Sunday (July 26), made its closest approach today at 1:31 a.m. EDT (0531 GMT) when it zipped by Earth at a speed of about 27,700 mph (44,600 km/h), according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid is just under 10 feet (3 meters) wide and posed no impact risk to Earth, but did approach the flight paths of geosynchronous satellites.
"A tiny, 3 meter asteroid called 2020 OY4 skimmed past Earth just a few hours ago, passing within the orbit of satellites in the geostationary ring," ESA officials wrote in a Twitter update.
This NASA graphic shows the locations of asteroid 2020 OY4 and Earth during a close flyby of the asteroid on July 28, 2020. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Estimates from ESA's Center for Near-Earth Object Coordination Center and NASA's Asteroid Watch outreach tool vary in the exact distance of asteroid 2020 OY4 at its closest approach.
NASA's tool listed the closest distance as about 25,800 miles (41,400 km), which is just outside the ring of geosynchronous satellites 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth's equator. ESA's asteroid-tracking center pegged the flyby range at about 21,900 miles (35,170 km), or just inside the satellite orbit ring.
"Of course, there were no risks at all to our planet," wrote astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy.
This image of asteroid 2020 OY4 (identified by arrow) by Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project was captured on July 27, 2020, one day before the asteroid's close approach to Earth. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project)
Masi captured a photo of asteroid 2020 OY4 on Monday (July 27), just ahead of the flyby. In the image, the asteroid looks like a bright dot on a sea of black streaked by star lines.
"The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid; this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow," Masi wrote in an image description.
Asteroids the size of 2020 OY4 fly by Earth several times a month, NASA officials have said in the past. In June 2019, an asteroid slightly larger than 2020 OY4 actually hit the Earth, but broke up harmlessly in the atmosphere, astronomers said.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik.
Photo NewsThomas Pesquet zal voor een tweede keer met SpaceX naar ruimtestation ISS vliegen.
Thomas Pesquet, een Franse astronaut van het Europese Ruimtevaartbureau ESA, mag een tweede keer wonen en werken in het Internationaal Ruimtestation ISS, zo heeft hij dinsdag getwitterd en heeft ESA bevestigd. Hij maakt in de lente van 2021 de reis naar de spacemeccano met de private Dragon-capsule van het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbedrijf SpaceX.
Pesquet wordt de eerste Europeaan om met de Crew Dragon van SpaceX te vliegen, startend vanop Cape Canaveral in Florida. Hij heeft reeds met de simulators van SpaceX getraind.
“Ik ben ontzettend blij dat ik de eerste Europeaan mag zijn die met de nieuwe generatie Amerikaanse bemande ruimtevaartuigen meevliegt, “ zegt Thomas. “Het zal extra interessant zijn om deze ervaring te kunnen vergelijken met mijn eerste vlucht als Sojoez-piloot en deze ervaring te delen met het team.”
Crew Dragon
Zijn missie zal de naam Alpha dragen, genoemd naar Alpha Centauri, het sterrenstelsel dat zich het dichtst bij de Aarde bevindt.
In mei heeft SpaceX voor rekening van de NASA met de Crew Dragon astronauten naar het ISS gebracht: de Amerikanen Doug Hurley en Bob Behnken. Zij keren op 1 augustus met de capsule naar de Aarde terug.
De tweede operationele missie van de Crew Dragon is precies die van Pesquet.
De 42-jarige Fransman verbleef in 2016-2017 reeds zowat zes maanden in het ISS, waarbij hij twee ruimtewandelingen maakte. De heen- en terugreis was met een Russische Sojoez.
Hij zal in de Crew Dragon het gezelschap hebben van de Japanner Akihiko Hoshide, aldus het Japanse ruimtevaartburaeu Jaxa dinsdag. De 51-jarige woonde en werkte al in 2008 en 2011 in het ruimtestation, waar hij de tweede Japanner wordt die het gezag zal voeren. De eerste was Koichi Wakata.
Groen licht voor Amerikaanse Marsmissie: robotjeep Perseverance kan gelanceerd worden - HLN.be
Bron: Belga
AFPRobotjeep Perseverance
WETENSCHAPDe jongste Amerikaanse Marsrobot, de Perseverance, heeft groen licht gekregen om donderdag vanop Cape Canveral in Florida naar de Rode Planeet te vertrekken, zo heeft het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbureau NASA vandaag meegedeeld.
De Marsverkenner heeft donderdag vanaf 13.50 uur (Belgische tijd) twee uur de tijd om te beginnen aan zijn reis, ingezet met een lancering door een krachtige Atlas-5 draagraket van lanceerbedrijf United Launch Alliance (ULA). Volgens de eerste meteoschatting bedraagt de kans op goed weer tachtig procent. De robotjeep moet op 18 februari landen in de Jezerokrater.
De zowat een ton wegende Perseverance moet zoeken naar sporen van vroeger microbiologisch leven. Bovendien moet de robotjeep het klimaat en de geologie van onze buurplaneet onderzoeken, door het nemen van stalen van stenen en stof. De missie moet tevens toelaten nieuwe technologie voor toekomstige onbemande en bemande missies naar Mars te testen.
Vinciane Debaillie, een wetenschapster van de ULB, is een van de vijf vorsers die het Europese Ruimtevaartbureau ESA heeft aangesteld om mee te werken met de 2,7 miljard dollar kostende Marsmissie. Haar werk bestaat onder meer uit de besturing van de robot, het documenteren van waarnemingen en het behandelen van gegevens. Ze maakt ook deel uit van het wetenschappelijk comité. Wetenschappers willen ook meer leren over het ontstaan van het universum.
De jeep draagt een plakkaat mee dat hulde brengt aan de hulpdiensten en de gezondheidswerkers die met de coronapandemie te maken hebben gekregen, zegt de NASA.
Mars 2020 Mission Overview ( bijgevoegd door peter2011 op basis van NASA )
The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key Astrobiology questions about the potential for life on Mars. The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. The Perseverance rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a "cache" on the surface of Mars. A future mission could potentially return these samples to Earth. That would help scientists study the samples in laboratories with special room-sized equipment that would be too large to take to Mars. The mission also provides opportunities to gather knowledge and demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expeditions to Mars. These include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars.
The mission is timed for a launch opportunity in July 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for landing on Mars. That is, it takes less power to travel to Mars at this time, compared to other times when Earth and Mars are in different positions in their orbits. To keep mission costs and risks as low as possible, the Mars 2020 design is based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory mission architecture, including its Curiosity rover and proven landing system.
Some are called to service with the Secret Space Program, others are born into it. This is the case with Randy Cramer, who claims to have been engineered for a military life on the moon and on Mars. After his return from 20 years of service, disturbing memories flooded his mind which he worked hard to reconcile. Knowing that there are many others who are enduring the same ordeal, it has become his mission to tell his story, to encourage them to come forward and reveal their experiences and heal.
Featured Content is Authorised for Exclusive Distribution on UAMN TV, by Premiere Networks Inc & iHeartMedia, and COASTTOCOASTAM.COM
Huge Alien Spaceship Captured Using The Sun As A Stargate
On July 23, 2020, NASA's (SOHO) Lasco C2 satellite shows the moment a coronal mass ejection came off of the right side of the sun, when a weird anomaly appeared in the solar flare for a split second.
Maybe the anomaly was just a cosmic ray but I have never seen that quite large and bright, it looks more like a spaceship similar to a fighter jet as you see it on an aircraft carrier.
It is said that interdimensional alien craft accessing our solar system using the Sun as a stargate, entering and exiting from dimensional portals in the Sun.
Is the sun a natural stargate, a portal to other solar systems and what you are seeing is a huge alien spaceship using the solar flare to enter or to exit a portal in the sun?
Couple spotted huge bright UFO flying over Lakeview, Ohio 18-Jul-2020
New footage of a bright unidentified flying object that was filmed in the sky above Lakeview, Ohio. This event happened on 18th July 2020.
Witness report:
Intense bright light with bluish tint. My wife and I were sitting in our far back yard viewing comet Neowise and off to my left (west) I noticed what I thought of as a blue beam. The beam effect could have been due to I wear glasses. Anyways I turned my head and noticed what appeared to be an unusually bright light. Kinda like aircraft landing light being seen head on but only one, not multiple. I got up and walked to the north a bit and saw the light coming through the trees and saw it was heading our way so I ran back and got the camera from my wife and started filming. It looked as bright and intense as a tig wielder but with a slight bluish tint. Did not see any anti collision lights, heard no noise from it at all. I would guess it seemed to be between 1000 and 2000 feet in altitude. That’s all I can think of.
Check out this amazing book about the top 10 UFO cases in the history.
Take a moment to appreciate what’s going on in this photo. This is Major Jesse Marcel of the Roswell Army Air Base in July of 1947. He knows that something incredible has taken place outside of town because he has seen the crash site with his own eyes and touched the wreckage with his own hands. For almost a day, it’s been breath-taking for Marcel knowing that the world is going to change dramatically, something he knows because his military bosses seem to be trying to level with the American people.
Then, the next day, the door slams shut hard. The policy is now denial and ridicule, and it comes straight down from Washington, D.C. Worse, Marcel gets chosen to be the visual messenger that takes it all back, to say sorry, our mistake, just a weather balloon, nothing to see here.
In this photo, Marcel realizes that at this singular moment in human history his role is to play the joker who screwed up, someone so dumb he can’t tell the difference between a weather balloon from his own military base or a flying saucer from outer space.
That is exactly how Jesse Marcel got to wear the deer-in-the-headlights look on his face in this memorable photo. He is taking the most epic fall in human history. Shakespeare could not have written it better.
With the scene set, let’s get to the breaking news…
Roswell 2016 | Photo by Jared Zabel
The New York Times Running with Fox News?
There’s a rumor buzzing about among UAP activists and researchers that the New York Times has reporters out making calls about actual crash retrievals of unidentified flying objects on American soil.
Update: That article was published on July 23, 2020.
Take a moment and appreciate what this might mean if it turns out to be true. That would mean the nation’s most famous newspaper may be on the verge of stating that we have recovered materials from crashes, and that the technology is not ours (the U.S.) or theirs (China, Russia), and comes from another source. Do the math on that one.
Why in the world would respectable journalists like Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, working in the bosom of respectability that the New York Times, want to chase that old canard of crashed saucers out in the desert?
For starters, because there’s always been lots of anecdotal evidence and witness testimony from some key people. Only it just hasn’t been the Smoking Wreckage that proof demands. That, plus you’d be so far out on a limb as a journalist that you might never crawl your way back. And that might have been true until just last year.
That’s when Luis Elizondo, who ran the government’s AATIP, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, said out loud what we knew he was thinking. While talking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson, he said that, yes, the U.S. had the goods, as in actual physical wreckage. Former military intelligence, Elizondo quit the government’s UFO program to live the activist’s life and advocate for new thinking and transparency about this reality.
Carlson: Do you believe, based on your decade of serving in the U.S. government on this question, that the U.S. government has in its possession any material from one of these aircrafts?
Elizondo: I do, yes.
Carlson: You think the U.S. government has debris from a UFO in its possession right now?
Elizondo: Unfortunately, Tucker, I really have to be careful of my NDA. I really can’t go into a lot more detail than that, but simply put, yes.
The whole topic just oozes the possibility of rapid Disclosure and change waiting in the wings, just off the stage of transparency. Here’s a great refresher on who’s said what about crash wreckage.
It is possible that the new headlines from The New York Times will be the kick to the barn door of Disclosure that lets all the horses out.
While we wait to see, let’s check in with what the Donald Trumps have to say about Roswell.
Roswell is the Holy Grail
Donald Trump Jr. just asked his dad, repeatedly, about Roswell in a Father’s Day 2020 interview. Red or blue, it is still semi-astonishing to hear the sitting President of the United States admit his awareness of Roswell, and say, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.” If it was just a 73-year old mistaken weather balloon or even crash dummies story, it wouldn’t be all that interesting, would it? Those deceptions are now old news. But if Roswell was something authentic, well, that would be… interesting.
The Question You Just Have to Ask
Quick review of Roswell 101 —
In early July of 1947, the military brass at the Roswell Army Air Base put out a press release that was so forthright that the local paper headlined with “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” Here’s the front page:
Roswell Daily Record
The next day the same people said that all these trained military people who the U.S. trusted with nuclear weapons out at the base got it all wrong and they just misidentified a weather balloon, something they dealt with every day.Here’s that headline:
Roswell Daily RecordWhat if the government accidentally told the truth that first day?
Why Do I Believe the Roswell Crash?
This is clearly a question to be answered cautiously. I start with what we know. We know the Roswell Army Air Base put out a press release saying they had captured a flying saucer and the next day took it all back and said they had only found a weather balloon. That’s shady behavior, but it’s not proof of anything.
We know over the years the U.S. military has variously announced that Roswell was a flying saucer, a weather balloon, crash dummies from a test flight, or a secret Mogul balloon to spy on the Soviets nuclear capability. Those are just the official attempts at explanation. Other interested parties have spun tales of Nazi Mengele-crewed saucers, Soviet saucers, and the work of the Devil. The subject has clearly been one open to interpretation for decades now.
Then, in shocking counterpoint to all of that, there’s a singular, other story that has been more or less consistently told from the beginning.
Roswell was exotic technology. We got wreckage and bodies. We don’t talk about Fight Club.
Roswell Today | Photo by Jared Zabel
That storyline has hundreds of witnesses testifying to roughly the same fact trail. Some were first hand witnesses to debris and even the recovery of bodies, and several accounts came from death bed confessions. Many more witnesses were family members who learned of the secret their fathers and husbands had kept inside them for decades. There were dozens and dozens who attested to extremely tight security and transportation of material in the aftermath of what crashed at Roswell.
I know this because I worked with the top two researchers — Don Schmitt and the late Stanton Friedman — and I’ve spent dozens of hours going through their research while working on a film project about how Stan was the man who found Jesse Marcel back in 1978 and Don was the energetic young researcher who competed with him in a bitter 1990s feud. Both men always came back to this:
Would hundreds of people be enlisted in such an immense effort to guard the scraps of a mere weather balloon that would be shown later in a news conference?
Those witnesses, of course, do not agree on each and every detail, nor were they all direct witnesses, but taken together they tell a very compelling story about essentially the same thing.
It involves a crash in a thunderstorm, a rescue effort to assess and move the intact part of the craft, and a clean-up effort both literally and figuratively that probably yielded one survivor and four dead. Bodies, craft and wreckage were moved, mostly to Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, and to other places, as ordered.
The testimony I’ve seen comes from men and women who were there, at the base, in the field, in the hospitals and funeral homes, and flying cargo and guarding it with care at a level you’d never experienced. There are so many of them.
Not one witness has come forward to say, “well, you know, I never wanted to talk about it in all these years but it really was a weather balloon.”
Yes, some of the details may feel slippery as would be normal based on memory in a case of this magnitude. Especially one that’s been undermined for years by experts in psychological operations, both in government and out.
There may be an uncomfortable amount of noise in this one but, to me, the signal remains loud and clear. The big picture is crash recovery of exotic technology.
Roswell Today | Photo by Jared Zabel
Roswell is Probably Off-Limts for a While Longer
The media has done a very poor job on the story over the years, preferring to cover people in alien cosplay costumes at the Roswell UFO Festival over actually digging in and doing research and interviewing witnesses.
The full story of Roswell likely won’t be written for years. When it is, the story will gain the respect it deserves. Historians and readers of that age will wonder how it came to be that such a serious matter was swept under the rug for so long. It will seem insane.
It’s doubtful that any imminent New York Times reporting will dare to touch the Roswell story, so tainted by disinformation, abuse, witness intimidation, and the twin pillars of cover-up, denial and ridicule, that to many it appears shaky and unreliable. It’s better for them to go after a fresh target, maybe something more recent, less well known. Roswell, it turns out, has hardly been the only crash. These wingless craft are not regularly falling out of the skies, but there have been a few, here and around the world.
The big game reporters are hunting is just one piece of material from a UFO wreck, or a craft itself. They want to know who got it, what they did with it, what we’ve learned from it, and where it is today.
So the news on the circuit is that calls have been widely made on the subject of testing exotic metals and crash retrievals. Predicting when such an astonishing story might drop is a fool’s errand. Because of the subject matter, editors will force reporters to source meticulously.
Here’s the prediction:
The story of Roswell is on a fast track to investigation and then de-classification. At that point, the game will continue with different rules.
We’re told as kids that a compass will always point north, but that’s not exactly true. A compass points to the North Magnetic Pole, not to the North Pole. The two are currently fairly close, so it’s a good approximation, but it’s not always like this.
The magnetic poles have flipped multiple times in history, approximately once every 300,000 years, though the period isn’t fixed. Researchers suspect a reversal may happen relatively soon. The last flip took place 780,000 years ago, and 41,000 years ago, the poles got significantly weaker, but never really flipped. Now, researchers studying a magnetic anomaly in the South Atlantic shed new light on this process.
The Earth is a big magnet
The Earth’s magnetic field is generated by the outer core. This outer core is fluid and consists mostly of iron and nickel, constantly moving and convecting, essentially acting like a dynamo that produces a magnetic field. In a sense, the Earth is just one big magnet.
We’re very lucky this happens: this magnetic field protects the earth by deflecting most of the solar wind. Without this protection, the solar wind would strip away most of the ozone layer, rendering our planet vulnerable to harmful radiation from the sun.
The Earth’s magnetic field isn’t uniform. Some areas have a stronger field, which offers extra protection, while some areas with a weaker field are somewhat vulnerable. A good example of the latter is a large and growing anomaly in the South Atlantic Ocean. The South Atlantic Anomaly has a magnetic field so weak that it’s as if you were flying in the ionosphere, hundreds of miles above the surface.
The South Atlantic Anomaly is a topic of interest for scientists, not just because they’re not sure how it came to be, but also because it poses real risks for space equipment. If it’s somehow connected to an upcoming pole reversal, it would be even more important to understand. But according to a new study, the anomaly has been there for a very long time — millions of years, in fact.
The new study suggests that the South Atlantic Anomaly isn’t a new phenomenon indicative of an upcoming pole reversal. Lead author of the paper, University of Liverpool Ph.D. student Yael Engbers, explains:
“Our study provides the first long term analysis of the magnetic field in this region dating back millions of years. It reveals that the anomaly in the magnetic field in the South Atlantic is not a one-off, similar anomalies existed eight to 11 million years ago.
“This is the first time that the irregular behaviour of the geomagnetic field in the South Atlantic region has been shown on such a long timescale. It suggests that the South Atlantic Anomaly is a recurring feature and probably not a sign of an impending reversal.
A map of the Earth showing the present-day deviation from expected magnetic field direction. Strong deviations are in yellow-orange, and little deviations are in blue. The star is Saint Helena, an island that is right in the anomaly. The grey line shows the outline of the seismic area that is warmer than the rest of the mantle.
Credit: Dr. YAEL Engbers, University of Liverpool
Magnetic field, frozen in rocks
You might be wondering how we could possibly know what the magnetic field was like millions of years ago. The answer to this, and the question of how we know about magnetic pole reversal, lies “frozen” in rocks.
When volcanic or igneous rocks cool down, the minerals that form them slowly solidify. Minerals that are rich in iron and easily magnetized tend to align themselves on the magnetic poles. Like a compass, these minerals point to the direction of the magnetic North-South line — but only when they cool down. After they’ve solidified, they no longer change this alignment, they stick to the original. So if we date these rocks, we can know how this North-South line went. By analyzing how well these minerals aligned to the field, we can also deduce the strength of the magnetic field.
Using this information, geologists build time charts depicting the normal and reversed polarity, using black and white as below.
In this research, the team analyzed rocks from 34 different volcanic eruptions from Mount Saint Helena (not to be confused with St. Helens). These eruptions took place between 8 and 11 million years ago and highlight a similarly weak magnetic field in the area. In other words, the anomaly was still there 11 million years ago. Engbers says that this suggests no connection to an impending pole reversal, but this could help us better understand how the Earth’s field is produced by geological activity.
“It also supports earlier studies that hint towards a link between the South Atlantic Anomaly and anomalous seismic features in the lowermost mantle and the outer core. This brings us closer to linking behaviour of the geomagnetic field directly to features of the Earth’s interior”
Huge, Hovering and Silent: The Mystery of 'Black Triangle' UFOs
An illustration depicting a triangle UFO.
Getty Images
Some speculate they are super-secret US spy craft. Others question whether they might be from elsewhere, conducting some kind of surveillance.
Within the larger mystery of the UFO phenomenon is another, still-unsolved puzzle: Why do so many reports involve strange, triangular-shaped craft—often described as dark in color, virtually noiseless and the size of a football field or larger? What, exactly, are they? And why are so many witnessed hovering or moving slowly and methodically, with no visible contrails?
In the years after the U.S. Air Force coined the term “unidentified flying object” in 1952, reports often referred to UFOs generically as flying saucers. But witnesses then, and since, have described a wide array of shapes: saucers (or two saucers put together), eggs, hats, cigars, boomerangs, lightbulbs—even Tic Tac candies.
Among the most commonly reported shapes were V-shaped, arrowhead-like or triangular. David Marler, UFO researcher and author of Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation, says he has reviewed more than 17,000 case files involving unidentified triangular craft, sometimes called “black triangles.” Whether the sightings represent advanced U.S. spy craft—as some speculate—or something of unknown origin, their purpose remains mysterious. Given their consistent hovering behavior, Marler says, they might be engaged in “surveillance of some nature—or scanning. Or analyzing the topography.”
“There have been many instances in which these vehicles have been observed over bases operated by the Strategic Air Command,” says Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, whose career has focused on unconventional threats to American security. Mellon is now an integral part of the investigative team featured on HISTORY’s “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.”
In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, triangular UFO reports hailed from across the U.S. and beyond. During the 1960s, at the height of Cold War UFO fever, mysterious flying triangles were reported over Connecticut, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas—as well as London, Madrid and Czechoslovakia. In 1969, two National Guard pilots tailed a “triangular shaped object, 50 feet in diameter” for 20 minutes over San Juan, Puerto Rico, until they ran low on fuel and had to return to their base. Many of these incidents would be attributed by officials to atmospheric conditions, weather balloons or other everyday sources, but some remained unexplained.
Between 1983 and 1986, a notable rash of mass sightings occurred in New York’s Hudson Valley, some 50 miles north of New York City. One witness, Kevin Soravilla, a retired lieutenant from the Yorktown Police Department, described a huge, silent craft, 100 yards from wingtip to wingtip, hovering low, which banked and made a 45-degree turn before abruptly speeding off. Soravilla said he called Stewart Air Force Base in nearby Newburgh to determine whether one of its C-5 transport planes—then theworld’s largest and heaviest aircraft—had been in the skies that night; none had. Later that year, a hulking triangular UFO hovering over a stretch of New York’s Taconic Parkway prompted a huge traffic pile-up as scores of motorists stopped to get a better look. Similar incidents continued in the region for several years.
Many witnesses describe what they perceive to be the crafts’ extraordinary abilities. One evening in late November 1989, two police officers on patrol in Eupen, Belgium, not far from the German border, spotted an odd triangular object overhead. In the ensuing days, hundreds of Belgians reported similar UFOs, described in news reports as “a triangular object with a bright red center light” or as a “flying platform” with three huge searchlights.
In March 1990, the Belgian air force sent up two F-16 fighter jets to get a closer look at one triangle that had been spotted on radar. Their onboard computers recorded the object’s remarkable maneuverability and its ability to accelerate from 1,000 kilometers per hour (about 621 miles per hour) to 1,800 kilometers per hour (about 1,120 miles per hour) within seconds. “What the computers registered exceeded the limits of conventional aviation,” a Belgian air force colonel told reporters.
In March 1997, Phoenix, Arizona, became a UFO hotspot when some 30,000 local residents saw something strange in the skies. Some reports said the mysterious object was V-shaped, but many described it as triangular. “It was in a triangle shape and it had three lights. It was moving very slowly,” an 11-year-old Cub Scout was quoted as saying. A retired airline pilot described it as “the size of 25 airliners…and it didn’t make a sound.” Others described it as the size of three football fields.
In 2000, police officers from neighboring municipalities in southern Illinois were called to investigate a trucker’s report of a massive arrowhead-shaped craft hovering low in the sky, two stories high and as long as a football field. Dispatch tapes reveal the shock and awe expressed by the different law-enforcement teams, who were all in radio contact with each other.
The National UFO Reporting Center, which catalogs more than 8,100 sightings of triangle-shaped UFOs since the early 1960s, lists more than 200 in the first half of 2020.
Many of these sightings have been investigated repeatedly by UFO sleuths. The Belgian triangles have been explained away as stars, planets, balloons or blimps, with a bit of mass hallucination thrown in. The lights over Phoenix were dismissed as flares dropped during an Air National Guard exercise, although that theory has many skeptics. Some say the New York sightings were a hoax perpetrated by local stunt pilots flying in formation.
A F-117 Nighthawk pictured in night vision, 1999.
Usaf/Getty Images
One explanation raises the possibility of the “airship effect.” That’s the theory that people who see unrelated lights in the sky can trick themselves into believing they are all part of the same object. Three lights? Must be a triangular spaceship. Three lights hundreds of yards apart? Must be a really big triangular spaceship.
Other speculation has focused on top-secret aircraft. Although the U.S. government has largely stayed mum on the matter, it’s common knowledge that the Air Force has experimented with triangular- and V-shaped aircraft for decades, including the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and the F-117 Nighthawk—and possibly others kept under wraps. Sightings near the clandestine spy plane test facility at Area 51 in Nevada may indeed be connected to test flights of some of these craft.
However, the extraordinary size many witness describe is puzzling. And for Marler and others, the volume of the sightings and the consistency of the crafts’ hovering behavior, combined with their unexplainable sudden accelerations, point away from known military technology.
If not home-grown, then what? One theory suggests that these craft are engaged in mapping sensitive sites. The southern Illinois sightings occurred within one to two miles of Scott Air Force Base, home to U.S. Air Mobility Command, which coordinates all global transportation for American troops. The Hudson Valley sightings happened in close proximity to Stewart Air Force Base. And Mellon has interviewed multiple Persian Gulf veterans who witnessed triangular craft near sensitive military operations. “An adversary planning a future attack would want to know every inch of the battlefield,” he says.
Still, the black triangle mystery persists. “There’s a lot of data,” says Marler. “That doesn’t equate to answers.”
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