Aliens who have been rescued from crashed UFOs reveal what they want from us (video)

The tragic events of September 11th are not to be laughed at. The lives lost on that day will be remembered forever, and we will never trivialize the case.

But, as well-known as this tragedy is, did you know it wasn’t the only tragic occurrence to occur during that time period?

About two days before the crisis on 9/9, a UFO from the future landed on Earth, and when the aliens descended from their spacecraft, they started showing us what they had been trying to teach us all along.

Since the video was leaked, don’t expect it to be in flawless condition. Former President Jimmy Carter was the one who first released it, and he said that it is top-secret video that could never have been made public.

{ https://mysteriousthing.com/ }

Earth’s Largest-Ever Lake Engulfed Europe and Asia 12 Million Years Ago

In-depth research has shed new light on the astonishing and awe-inspiring history of the Paratethys Sea. This 12-milion-year-old megalake was formed in Eurasia by the same tectonic shifts that created many European and Asian mountain ranges. It was the Earth’s largest lake, covering more area than the modern-day Mediterranean Sea .

Until now, not much was known about the lake’s geological history, or about its relationship to the surrounding environment. But two new studies have revealed some fascinating information about how the Paratethys Sea was created, how it disappeared, and how its fluctuations in size and shape ultimately influenced the evolution of modern animal species.

Chart showing the comparison between the water volume of the Paratethys Sea and that of other water bodies. 

Utrecht University )

The Rise and Fall of the Earth’s Largest Lake

Under the leadership of paleo-oceanographer Dan Palcu from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, an international team of geologists, geographers, and evolutionary biologists performed a detailed analysis of fossils and geological samples taken from the area that was once covered by the Paratethys Sea. They recently disclosed their mind-blowing discoveries in the journal Scientific Reports , and it seems their work has solved many of the mysteries involving the life and death of this massive inland body of water.

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At its peak size, the Paratethys Sea covered an area of approximately 1.7 million square miles (2.8 million square kilometers), the researchers report. It bisected the Eurasian continental mass, flooding the lands of what is now Central Europe and creating a watery border that separated northern from southern Asia. Before climate change caused it to shrink, the Paratethys Sea extended from the eastern Alps to what is now the nation of Kazakhstan.

The Paratethys Sea was created through the collisions of moving tectonic plates, explains Sid Perkins in Science. These movements created huge mountains that thrust up and through the existing prehistoric ocean and enclosed one section of it, trapping a massive quantity of ocean water inland. The researchers estimate that the lake’s volume surpassed the astonishing figure of 1.1 cubic miles (1.77 cubic kilometers), which is 10 times more than the volume of water held in all of today’s fresh and saltwater lakes combined.

The remnants of the Earth’s largest lake include Bulgaria’s Cape Kaliakra cliffs (above) overlooking the Black Sea.

( ValentinValkov / Adobe Stock)

How Climate Change Affected the World’s Largest Lake

During the Miocene Epoch, which lasted from 23 million years ago to about five million years ago, the Eurasian climate gradually became dryer. Rainfall levels fell, and the Paratethys Sea was significantly affected by the ongoing climate change. This drying of the climate was not steady, but was instead marked by a series of long-term droughts.

Palcu and his team identified four separate drying events that caused the Paratethys Sea to shrink in size, with the most dramatic shift occurring in the period between 7.9 and 7.65 million years ago. Over this time span the lake lost one-third of its volume and two-thirds of its surface area, with water levels falling by up to 250 meters (820 ft) at areas of greatest depth.

These catastrophic changes caused the salinity of the lake to increase dramatically. This decimated many of the unique species that had evolved there over the nearly five million years the lake had been separated from the world’s larger oceanic ecosystem. "It must have been a post-apocalyptic prehistoric world, an aquatic version of the wastelands from Mad Max," explained Wout Krijgsman, a geologist and study co-author in a Utrecht University press release .

Smaller versions of dolphins, seals, and whales were among the creatures known to have lived in the Paratethys Sea. Spikes in salinity caused these mammals to go extinct, creating evolutionary dead ends. Only a few of the hardiest species (like certain types of mollusks) were able to survive the changes the lake underwent as its size decreased.

The end came for the Paratethys Sea between 6.9 and 6.7 million years ago. Erosion caused a massive breach in its southwest coastline, forming a rampaging river that eventually drained the lake’s remaining water into the Mediterranean.

Based on the fossil record, scientists know know that the Paratethys Sea was once home to unique species, such as the Cetotherium riabinini, the smallest known whale on record.

( Pavel Gol’Din / Lena Godlevska )

How the Paratethys Sea Shaped the Evolution of African Wildlife

Research by another team of scientists, published in May 2021 in  Communications Earth & Environment , has helped publicize the surprising connection between the Paratethys Sea and the evolution and eventual migration of African wildlife.

Fossil finds have shown that the ancestors of giraffes, elephants, and other large mammals that reside on the African savannah originally lived along the southern shores of the Paratethys Sea. They survived by grazing on the grasslands that were formed when the lake’s water levels declined, carving out a niche in a unique ecosystem.

At some point, these large mammals left the area and migrated to the southwest. They eventually settled in Africa and evolved into their modern forms after that. The reason why this migration took place has never been clear, and that motivated evolutionary biologist Madelaine Böhme, from the University of Tübingen in Germany, to launch a study designed to solve this enduring mystery.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

The Nine Unknown Men: An Ancient Indian Secret Society

There is a pervasive legend in India of a secret organization that allegedly has a vast amount of advanced knowledge in their possession. Believed to have been formed over 2000 years ago, the Nine Unknown Men is widely suspected of manipulating political and societal trends in order to further the personal goals of the Nine. But is such a secret organization a reality or is it merely the stuff of legend?

An Origin Story Like No Other…

The society of the Nine Unknown Men was formed shortly after 226 BC by Emperor Ashoka. Grandson of the legendary Emperor who unified the Indian subcontinent, Chandragupta, Ashoka was anxious to uphold his grandfather’s legacy and maintain the empire. In the region between Calcutta and Madras, the Kalingan’s resisted the imperial rule, leading to an all-out war.

Ashoka’s vastly superior forces are said to have killed over 100,000 of Kalinga’s warriors and deported over 150,000 of the region’s villagers. Even though he had won the war, Ashoka was aghast at the carnage such a victory entailed. From then on, he swore off violence forever.

Relief from Sanchi showing Ashoka on his chariot. First century BC.

(Photo Dharma/ CC BY 2.0 )

Emperor Ashoka is best known for his conversion to Buddhism and his efforts to spread the peaceful religion throughout India as well as Malaya, Ceylon, and Indonesia. His efforts contributed to Buddhism’s later rise in China, Nepal, Tibet, and Mongolia. Ashoka was a sworn vegetarian but did not force others to do likewise. Indeed, he was incredibly tolerant of other religious sects. He did, however, prohibit the consumption of alcohol.

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Most importantly, “he renounced the idea of trying to integrate the rebellious people, declaring that the only true conquest was to win men’s hearts by observance of the laws of duty and piety, because the Sacred Majesty desired that all living creatures should enjoy security, peace, and happiness and be free to live as they pleased” (Pauwels and Bergier). So committed was the Emperor to this mission that he sought to prevent his fellow man from putting their intelligence towards perpetrating evil, particularly the evil involved with warfare.

King Ashoka.

(Prarthana1830590/ CC BY-SA 4.0 )

The task of collecting, preserving, and containing all knowledge was too great for one emperor to do alone, not the least because of the other duties required in ruling an empire. So Ashoka summoned nine of the most brilliant minds in India at the time. For security purposes, the identity of these men was never made public. Together, these geniuses formed a secret society that came to be known as the Nine Unknown Men.

What Did The Nine Unknown Men Study?

The organization set up accumulating all the scientific knowledge they could, from natural science to psychology to the composition of matter. Fearing that if ordinary men were given scientific knowledge they would use it for destruction, only the Nine Men were allowed to study and develop scientific theories and technology. To better accomplish this daunting task, each of the nine was charged with a specific book that he was to update, revise, and ultimately perfect the knowledge therein.

When one of the nine could no longer complete the task – whether from the wish to retire, fading health, or death - the obligation was passed to a chosen successor. The number of members in the society was always to be nine. Thus the society of the Nine Unknown Men has allegedly lived on for over 2000 years.

Portrait of a young Indian scholar, Mughal miniature by Mir Sayyid Ali, circa 1550 AD. ( Public Domain )

Speculation about the contents of each of the nine books varies widely. Talbot Mundy, an English writer, published a book entitled The Nine Unknown Men in 1923, which contained a list of the nine books. This list has come to be generally accepted.

• “Propaganda: The first book dealt with techniques of propaganda and psychological warfare. “The most dangerous of all sciences is that of molding mass opinion, because it would enable anyone to govern the whole world,” according to Mundy.
• Physiology: The second book discussed physiology and explains how to kill a person simply by touching him or her, known as the “the touch of death,” simply by the reversal of a nerve impulse. It is said that the martial art of Judo is a result of “leakages” from the second book.
• Microbiology: The third volume focused on microbiology and biotechnology.
• Alchemy: The fourth dealt with alchemy and transmutation of metals. According to another legend, in times of severe drought, temples and religious relief organizations received large quantities of gold from “a secret source.”
• Communication: The fifth book contained a study of all means of communication, terrestrial and extraterrestrial. Alluding then that the Nine Unknown Men were aware of alien presence.
• Gravity: The sixth book focused on the secrets of gravitation and actual instructions on how to make the ancient Vedic Vimana, (like Vaiminika Shastra on aerospace technology).
• Cosmogony: The seventh contained cosmogony and matters of the universe.
• Light: The eighth dealt with light, including the speed and how to use it as a weapon.
• Sociology: The ninth and final book discussed sociology. It included rules for the evolution of societies and the means of foretelling their decline.” (Mundy paraphrased by Ancient Explorers)

Is the Secret Society Fact or Myth?

But were the Nine Unknown Men real? Ashoka may very well have asked nine men of unknown identity to gather scientific knowledge, particularly with regards to its application to warfare. This was a very fractious time and other Emperors have been known to order similar initiatives. These men may have explored different empires’ battle tactics and training, weapons manufacturing, horse/elephant handling, and maybe even gunpowder usage.

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However, an ancient group living on in secrecy for over 2000 years, controlling global events from the remote jungles of India with not a hint of modern equipment, infrastructure, or technology is hard to believe. For many, the legend is most likely just a legend.

Has the ancient group of the Nine Unknown Men been working in secrecy for over 2000 years?

( Jakub Krechowicz /Adobe Stock )

• Top Image: What’s the true story behind the Nine Unknown Men? Source: Jakub Krechowicz /Adobe Stock

By Kerry Sullivan

Updated on June 9, 2021.

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{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

NASA’S MARS ROVER JUST REACHED A NEW AREA AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL

THE SANDY DUNES OF MARS NEVER LOOKED THIS GOOD.

Sandy Dunes

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover is making another pit stop on its journey to probe the surrounding Jezero Crater for signs of ancient life.

“I’ve made it to my next lookout, overlooking a spot we’re calling ‘Séítah,'” the rover’s official account tweeted just now.

“It’s an area of dunes with some good science targets in and around it,” the rover added. “I’ll spy a few from here, doing science from afar, then circle around and keep exploring.”

As promised, the views are extraordinary, as seen in a panorama accompanying the update — a reminder of the countless landscapes we have yet to see for ourselves on the Red Planet and beyond.

Rover Journey

The six-wheeled rover officially kicked off its science phase on June 1, leaving the “Octavia E. Butler” landing site where it touched down earlier this year.

It has since covered roughly 0.57 miles, according to geolocation data, making several stops along the way to explore its surroundings.

The Séítah (“amidst the sand” in the Navajo language) geological unit is adjacent to the crater-filled floor of Jezero, dubbed the Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The Séítah area is filled with layered rocks and sand dunes.

“Starting with the Crater Floor Fractured Rough and Seitah geologic units allows us to start our exploration of Jezero at the very beginning,” said Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a June 9 statement.

“This area was under at least 100 meters [328 feet] of water 3.8 billion years ago,” he added. “We don’t know what stories the rocks and layered outcrops will tell us, but we’re excited to get started.”

On Auto

Thanks to Perseverance’s sophisticated “AutoNav” mode, which essentially turns it into a self-driving car, the rover is about to really get going.

“I’m getting a good feel for driving, and starting to take charge more to find my own way,” the rover’s account tweeted today. “By mapping while I drive, I may be able to cover up to 5 or 6 times more distance in a day. Good, since there’s so much to get to!”

More on Perseverance: 

• NASA Releases Breathtaking Panorama From New Rover

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{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

Most Americans think intelligent aliens exist, and half think they have visited Earth

Based on new analysis of data collected by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (or MARSIS), Mars may have dozens of lakes hidden underneath the planet’s south pole.

We already know that Mars has water as data collected by Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft revealed evidence of a large subsurface lake around the south pole area back in 2018. It is located approximately a mile (1.6 kilometers) underneath the surface of the planet and measures about 12 miles in width (19.3 kilometers). The MARSIS instrument then detected three more underground lakes – all measuring around 6 miles in width (9.7 kilometers).

And now, new research has suggested that there may be much more water under the Red Planet’s south pole that experts previously didn’t know about. Aditya Khuller, who is an Arizona State University doctoral student, as well as Jeffrey Plaut from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California and MARSIS co-principal investigator, studied 44,000 observations of the planet’s south pole area that were collected by MARSIS over a time frame of 15 years.

They discovered dozens of radar reflections that looked like the previous four lakes found in the region. What’s even more incredible was that these signals were detected pretty close to the surface of the planet where the cold temperatures would make it impossible to have liquid water – at least that’s what was previously believed.

In a statement, Plaut described their findings, “We’re not certain whether these signals are liquid water or not, but they appear to be much more widespread than what the original paper found,” adding, “Either liquid water is common beneath Mars’ south pole, or these signals are indicative of something else.”

If these signals actually are liquid water, how is it possible that it hasn’t frozen over with the extremely cold temperatures? Mars has an average surface temperature of minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62 degrees Celsius) which would certainly freeze water. One possibility (but highly unlikely) is volcanism as Khuller addressed in the same statement, “…we haven’t really seen any strong evidence for recent volcanism at the south pole, so it seems unlikely that volcanic activity would allow subsurface liquid water to be present throughout this region.”

How much water is actually on Mars?

While experts still aren’t exactly sure as to what the radar reflections were picking up, if it is liquid water located relatively close to the surface, this would be incredible news regarding how much water is on the Red Planet and if there could be any potential life. Their study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters where it can be read in full.

Pictures taken of Mars’ south pole can be seen here.

The bright white region of this image, captured by Europe's Mars Express spacecraft in December 2012, shows the icy cap that covers Mars’ south pole, composed of frozen water and frozen carbon dioxide. 

(Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/Bill Dunford)

The colored dots represent sites where bright radar reflections have been spotted by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter at Mars’ south polar cap. Such reflections have previously been interpreted as subsurface liquid water, but their prevalence and proximity to the surface suggests they may be something else. 

Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Meteor that blasted millions of trees in Siberia only 'grazed' Earth, new research says

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer  

This destructive cosmic event has puzzled scientists for more than a century

A mysterious blast in 1908, thought to have been caused by a meteor, flattened a Siberian taiga forest. This photo was taken in 1938, during an expedition by Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, investigating the event. 

(Image credit: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A new explanation for a massive blast over a remote Siberian forest in 1908 is even stranger than the mysterious incident itself.

Known as the Tunguska event, the blast flattened more than 80 million trees in seconds, over an area spanning nearly 800 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) — but left no crater. A meteor that exploded before hitting the ground was thought by many to be the culprit. However, a comet or asteroid would likely have left behind rocky fragments after blowing up, and no "smoking gun" remnants of a cosmic visitor have ever been found. 

Now, a team of researchers has proposed a solution to this long-standing puzzle: A large iron meteor hurtled toward Earth and came just close enough to generate a tremendous shock wave. But the meteor then curved away from our planet without breaking up, its mass and momentum carrying it onward in its journey through space.

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On the morning of June 30, 1908, the sky above Siberia flared so bright and hot that a witness standing dozens of kilometers from the site thought that his shirt had caught fire, said Vladimir Pariev, co-author of the new Tunguska study and a researcher with the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. 

Following the bright light, which lasted for about 1 minute, was an explosion that smashed windows and knocked people off their feet in a town more than 35 miles (60 km) away, the BBC reported. "The sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire," another witness said in a testimonial. Energy released by the blast was later estimated by scientists to be 185 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according to NASA.

Initial explanations for the blast included volcanic eruptions and mining accidents, according to NASA, but those claims were not supported by physical evidence. Other later suggestions were more far-fetched, such as a crashed UFO or a black hole collision with Earth — a study describing the black hole hypothesis was published in the journal Nature in 1973 (and was soundly debunked in another Nature study published just a few months later).

The most widely accepted scientific explanation is that a rocky asteroid or comet entered Earth's atmosphere and then disintegrated with a bang about 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 km) above the ground, Pariev told Live Science in an email. But such an explosion should have strewn the ground with rocky debris, which no one has ever found. By comparison, a meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013 broke into fragments that were discovered within a week, Pariev said.

What if, the researchers questioned, the Tunguska meteor were made of iron rather than rock? Could a massive iron meteor "graze" Earth's atmosphere, approaching close enough to generate a powerful shock wave, then yank free of the planet's gravitational pull and escape without fragmenting?

• Related: Top 10 ways to destroy Earth

To test that hypothesis, the scientists calculated meteor paths using computer models. They looked at objects that were as small as 164 feet (50 meters) across and as large as 656 feet (200 m) in diameter. Objects were made of rock, ice or iron, and approached in a trajectory that brought them within 6 to 10 miles (10 to 15 km) of Earth's surface. 

The scientists' calculations showed that space bodies made of rock and ice would completely disintegrate under the enormous pressures generated by their passage through the tropospheric altitudes. "Only asteroids made of iron larger than 100 m [328 feet] in diameter can survive and not get cracked and fragmented into many separate pieces," they said. 

The researchers estimated that the Tunguska meteor likely measured between 328 and 656 feet (100 and 200 m) in diameter, and hurtled through Earth's atmosphere at roughly 45,000 mph (72,000 km/h). During its fiery passage, the meteor would lose some of its mass. But iron shed by a meteor traveling at such speeds would have escaped as gas and plasma, oxidized in the atmosphere and then dispersed on the ground, becoming nearly indistinguishable from terrestrial iron oxides, according to the study.

Prior studies have calculated the power of shock waves produced by meteors based on the object entering Earth's atmosphere at a very steep angle "and either hitting the ground or exploding in midair," Pariev said. 

In the case of the Tunguska meteor, the iron-rich space object could have entered Earth's atmosphere at a very shallow angle — about 9 to 12 degrees tangential to the surface. It then would have grazed through the atmosphere, creating a shock wave at an altitude of around 6 to 10 miles (10 to 15 km) above the ground, capable of flattening trees for hundreds of kilometers and scorching the surface. But because of the meteor's mass and momentum, it didn't break up; it then exited the atmosphere and returned to space, the researchers reported.

• Related: Space-y Tales: The 5 strangest meteorites

However, some lingering questions about this scenario remain, said Mark Boslough, a research professor at the University of New Mexico and physicist with Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Boslough, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that if an object "skimmed through the atmosphere" and didn't blow up, the resulting shock wave would be significantly weaker than an explosion's blast wave.

"An object that survived such a transit through the atmosphere could not have descended close enough to the surface for a sonic boom to do the kind of damage that was observed at Tunguska," Boslough said. 

What's more, the pattern of felled trees at the site is radial — emanating from a single point of tremendous energy release, he said. That's something you'd expect to see after an explosion rather than a sonic boom, "even if it had been strong enough to blow trees over." Boslough added that eyewitness accounts at the time of the incident "are consistent with an object that was descending toward the surface before it exploded." 

While the study authors didn't numerically calculate the impact of a shock wave that a "grazing" iron meteor of this size could produce, their estimates still suggest that such a wave would be powerful enough to flatten trees and damage the ground as the Tunguska event did, Pariev said in the email.

"Detailed calculations of the shock waves from a grazing asteroid is the subject of our ongoing research," he added.

The findings were published online in the March issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Originally published on Live Science.

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{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

Japan is opening up a UFO lab near the Fukushima nuclear disaster to research the enigma after a flurry of local sightings of unidentified flying objects

• Japan is opening up a research lab dedicated to unexplained phenomena 

• The International UFO Laboratory opened on June 24, the day before the Pentagon released its 9-page report on unidentified aerial phenomena   

• The lab will 'strive to unravel the enigma' of UFOs 

• Its director is Takeharu Mikami, the editor-in-chief of Mu occult magazine

• The lab will look into various sightings, including the Mount Senganmori incident in the 1970s 

• It will be in Iiono, miles away from the Fukushima nuclear disaster 

By CHRIS CIACCIA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Nearly a year after it was reported the Japanese Defense Ministry would draw up plans for any potential encounters with UFOs, the country is opening up a research lab dedicated to unexplained phenomena near the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.   

According to Japanese news outlet The Mainichi, the International UFO Laboratory opened up on June 24, the day before the Pentagon released its 9-page report on unidentified aerial phenomena.

The lab, which is on the grounds of UFO Interactive Hall, will 'strive to unravel the enigma' of these objects and its director will be 51-year-old Takeharu Mikami, the editor-in-chief of Mu occult magazine.

'Until now, even if UFOs were discovered, the information was shared only on an individual level,' Mikami was quoted as saying by the news outlet. 

'I hope the research lab will serve as a base receiving information, and lead to new discoveries. I'd like to get to the bottom of their identity.'

Japan is opening up a research lab dedicated to unexplained phenomena near the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

Its director is Takeharu Mikami, the editor-in-chief of Mu occult magazine. The lab will look into various sightings, including the Mount Senganmori incident in the 1970s

The new lab is located in Iino, Fukushima Prefecture, just miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Fukushima-1) in Okuma, Fukushima. 

The UFO lab will look into a number of sightings that have occurred near the district, which calls itself the 'hometown of UFOs.'

In the 1970s, a light-emitting cone-shaped object was witnessed near Mount Senganmori, which eventually became known as the Mount Senganmori incident.

Mikami wants residents of the area to share images with the laboratory.

'Particularly during quarantine, look up at the sky and see if you can see anything. I hope the research institute will be a base for receiving more information on UFOs so we can get to the bottom of what they are,' Mikami said in a translated article from Kyodo News.  

In May 2020, the Japanese Defense Ministry began to 'consider procedures to respond to, record and report encounters, but the unknown nature of such objects may confuse Self-Defense Forces pilots, including those of F-15 fighter jets,' according to Nippon News. 

The update from the Defense Ministry came just one week after the Pentagon officially released three videos of unidentified aerial phenomena taken by Navy aircraft which had circulated in the public for years. 

In April 2020, the Pentagon officially released three videos of unidentified aerial phenomena taken by Navy aircraft which had circulated in the public for years

On June 25, the long-awaited report from the Pentagon on the subject of 'unidentified aerial phenomenon' (UAPs) offered no explanation for 140 of the 144 observations dating back to 2004

Last week, the long-awaited report from the Pentagon on the subject of 'unidentified aerial phenomenon' (UAPs) offered no explanation for 140 of the 144 observations dating back to 2004.

The declassified June 25 report, which came from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, added that it lacks sufficient data to determine the nature of mysterious flying objects.

'In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics,' the report reads.

'Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings.

'The UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management. Additional rigorous analysis are necessary by multiple teams or groups of technical experts to determine the nature and validity of these data. 

'We are conducting further analysis to determine if breakthrough technologies were demonstrated.'  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

A UFO lab just opened in Fukushima to look into Japan's strange sky sightings

Cheryl Teh 

The International UFO Laboratory in Fukushima opened on June 24. It aims to investigate mysterious UFO sightings over Japan. International UFO Laboratory

• A UFO research lab has opened in Fukushima to study UFO encounters.

• The International UFO Laboratory is based in Iino, a rural town known for strange occurrences.

• The opening of the Fukushima facility comes amid a marked increase in interest in UFOs worldwide.

• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Close encounters of the third kind, anyone? 

If you're tired of UFO research going nowhere in the US and inconclusive Pentagon reports, you're in luck. A lab in Japan is looking to dive deep into the enigmas of the universe.

The new UFO lab opened its doors last week in the rural town of Iino, Fukushima Prefecture, and its team plans to delve into the mysteries of the country's odd and inexplicable sightings. 

According to a report by local Japanese news outlet The Mainichi, the International UFO Lab opened on the premises of the UFO Interactive Hall, a facility filled with some 3,000 pieces of UFO-related materials and clues. The facility celebrated its opening on June 24, which was dubbed UFO Day after the first reported UFO sighting in the US. 

The research center will be headed by UFO enthusiast Takeharu Mikami, per the Japan Times. Mikami runs a monthly magazine called Mu, which explores a "wide range of themes such as UFOs, superscience, psychic powers, cryptids, and ancient civilizations."

While Mikami does not appear to have a professional background in science, he intends to work with the UFO museum's curator, Tsugio Kinoshita, to study these flying objects, per local news outlet Fukushima Minpo News. And according to the lab's website, they are looking for scientists — and the UFO-obsessed — alike to contribute to their records of UFO sightings. 

Mikami appealed to residents of the town to share materials like smartphone images with the center, wrote Kyodo News.

"Particularly during quarantine, look up at the sky and see if you can see anything. I hope the research institute will be a base for receiving more information on UFOs so we can get to the bottom of what they are," said Mikami to Kyodo News.

The Institute was located there because the surrounding area is known for unexplainable aerial sightings since the 1970s, per a Yahoo! Japan report. One of these events included a bright cone-shaped object soaring above the town that was spotted in the 70s, according to Asahi News. 

There were so many weird events taking place in the town of Iino that the city became known as the "Home of UFOs." Alien enthusiasts also made their way to Mount Senganmori, a remote, pyramid-like hill known for UFO sightings, in the hope of getting a rare glimpse of a flying saucer.

{ https://www.insider.com/ }

On June 30, veteran UFO researcher Richard Dolan released a leaked summary of the classified version of the UAP report delivered to the US Senate five days earlier. The alleged summary asserts that members of Congress were informed of eight breakthrough propulsion technologies being studied and tested at Nevada’s Area 51 and Tonopah Test Range. None of the advanced propulsion technologies were deployed outside of these testing facilities, according to the summary, and therefore none of craft identified in the June 25 UAP report belong to the US.

This Exopolitics Today podcast examines competing claims over whether evidence exists that such craft have been successfully built and deployed by different branches of the US military.

Available on Rumble and YouTube

Podcast References

• Richard Dolan’s June 30 Podcast is available here.
• The leaked summary is available here.

Further Reading/Listening

• June UAP Report will Confirm UFOs are Real but Intel Community disagrees over their Origins
• Is Deep State silencing Insiders that threaten ‘UFOs are a National Security Threat’ Narrative?
• Tic Tac UFOs Revealed in 2005 Briefing to be Secret USAF Spacecraft
• Limited Hangout vs Full Disclosure of Reverse Engineered Alien Spacecraft
• U.S. Congress & Pentagon briefed that UFOs are not made on this earth
• US Congress asks for UFO Report from Intel Community in 180 days

The Untold History of America's Reverse Engineering of Alien Spacecraft from EXOPOLITICS.ORG

We are on the verge of an official report being delivered by the Intelligence Community to the US Senate acknowledging the reality of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs/UFOs) as an unknown national security threat. The Deep State will use all its political and media assets to perpetuate a major lie over the origin of these craft and the threat they pose. In fact, it is well known by many within the intelligence community that most of the UAPs/UFOs seen over the US and around the world are reverse engineered extraterrestrial spacecraft.

In the immediate post-World War II era, leaked documents reveal that the US military embarked on an ambitious research and development program aiming to reverse engineer recovered extraterrestrial spacecraft. Military laboratories, government funded think-tanks, scientific advisory groups, and leading aerospace corporations collaborated in trying to understand the highly advanced alien technologies, but their combined efforts resulted in limited progress. This is because most of the retrieved craft were Trojan horses, insofar as the technologies were too advanced for Earth’s scientific community, thereby luring US policy makers into seeking extraterrestrial assistance.

Technological breakthroughs only occurred with the assistance of German scientists brought into the US through Operation Paperclip with links to a breakaway German colony in Antarctica, and with extraterrestrial entities found at crash sites willing to assist. There appeared to be two distinct alien factions willing to share their technology secrets with the US military. Eventually, several agreements were reached during the Eisenhower administration which made reverse engineering possible, and major aerospace companies were enlisted for projects that received the highest security classification possible. These covert reverse engineering efforts led to the development of advanced technologies used in multiple secret space programs underway today.

In the meantime, the US intelligence community initiated a sophisticated psychological warfare operation to hide these reverse engineering programs, the reality of extraterrestrial life, and the existence of a German space program out of Antarctica. Today, we are on the verge of an official disclosure initiative that is best described as a Limited Hangout designed to deceive and mislead the public. It will depict UFOs as an unknown national security threat, requiring massive military investments and further, instigate new levels of public fear through controlled media manipulation.

In order to understand what is coming, everyone needs to know the historical background which illuminates many of the lies already being spun around disclosure. This is particularly the case when it comes to an emerging disclosure narrative that is likely to acknowledge the existence of recovered extraterrestrial craft, while depicting US reverse engineering efforts as historically unsuccessful.

In this webinar, Dr. Michael Salla, author of the best-selling Secret Space Programs series will reveal the full extent of the massive reverse engineering efforts set up in the US, and how this relates to the scheduled June 2021 Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon report to be delivered to the US Congress.

Pre-Order Now - Scheduled Release is June 21, 2021

{ https://exopolitics.org/ }

Livable Conditions

First, they suggest that Mars had large bodies of water on the surface. That’s already a pretty well-accepted hypothesis, though, as more and more evidence of ancient rivers and lakes has piled up in recent years. But beyond that, the researchers say in the paper that whenever this ancient lake was around, Mars must have also low, temperate temperatures so that the lake didn’t immediately freeze or evaporate away. And then in order to actually form these clay deposits, that time period must have lasted for millions of years.

Again, that’s not direct evidence that life exists or ever existed on Mars. But a temperate, aqueous era that lasted that long would have given any budding life forms enough time to emerge and proliferate before the Martian environment turned into the frozen hellscape it is today — and that’s intriguing.

• READ MORE: Glauconitic-like clay found on Mars suggests the planet once had habitable conditions [Phys.org]
• More on Martian lakes: The Lakes of Mars Likely Dried Up Multiple Times Before Vanishing

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

A new quantum paradox throws the foundations of observed reality into question

by Eric Cavalcanti, The Conversation

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Perhaps not, some say.

And if someone is there to hear it? If you think that means it obviously did make a sound, you might need to revise that opinion.

We have found a new paradox in quantum mechanics—one of our two most fundamental scientific theories, together with Einstein's theory of relativity—that throws doubt on some common-sense ideas about physical reality.

Quantum mechanics vs common sense

Take a look at these three statements:

1. When someone observes an event happening, it really happened.
2. It is possible to make free choices, or at least, statistically random choices.
3. A choice made in one place can't instantly affect a distant event. (Physicists call this "locality.")

These are all intuitive ideas, and widely believed even by physicists. But our research, published in Nature Physics, shows they cannot all be true—or quantum mechanics itself must break down at some level.

This is the strongest result yet in a long series of discoveries in quantum mechanics that have upended our ideas about reality. To understand why it's so important, let's look at this history.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

The battle for reality

Quantum mechanics works extremely well to describe the behavior of tiny objects, such as atoms or particles of light (photons). But that behavior is … very odd.

In many cases, quantum theory doesn't give definite answers to questions such as "where is this particle right now?" Instead, it only provides probabilities for where the particle might be found when it is observed.

For Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the theory a century ago, that's not because we lack information, but because physical properties like "position" don't actually exist until they are measured.

And what's more, because some properties of a particle can't be perfectly observed simultaneously—such as position and velocity—they can't be real simultaneously.

No less a figure than Albert Einstein found this idea untenable. In a 1935 article with fellow theorists Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, he argued there must be more to reality than what quantum mechanics could describe.

The article considered a pair of distant particles in a special state now known as an "entangled" state. When the same property (say, position or velocity) is measured on both entangled particles, the result will be random—but there will be a correlation between the results from each particle.

For example, an observer measuring the position of the first particle could perfectly predict the result of measuring the position of the distant one, without even touching it. Or the observer could choose to predict the velocity instead. This had a natural explanation, they argued, if both properties existed before being measured, contrary to Bohr's interpretation.

However, in 1964 Northern Irish physicist John Bell found Einstein's argument broke down if you carried out a more complicated combination of different measurements on the two particles.

Bell showed that if the two observers randomly and independently choose between measuring one or another property of their particles, like position or velocity, the average results cannot be explained in any theory where both position and velocity were pre-existing local properties.

That sounds incredible, but experiments have now conclusively demonstrated Bell's correlations do occur. For many physicists, this is evidence that Bohr was right: physical properties don't exist until they are measured.

But that raises the crucial question: what is so special about a "measurement"?

The observer, observed

In 1961, the Hungarian-American theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner devised a thought experiment to show what's so tricky about the idea of measurement.

He considered a situation in which his friend goes into a tightly sealed lab and performs a measurement on a quantum particle—its position, say.

However, Wigner noticed that if he applied the equations of quantum mechanics to describe this situation from the outside, the result was quite different. Instead of the friend's measurement making the particle's position real, from Wigner's perspective the friend becomes entangled with the particle and infected with the uncertainty that surrounds it.

This is similar to Schrödinger's famous cat, a thought experiment in which the fate of a cat in a box becomes entangled with a random quantum event.

For Wigner, this was an absurd conclusion. Instead, he believed that once the consciousness of an observer becomes involved, the entanglement would "collapse" to make the friend's observation definite.

But what if Wigner was wrong?

Our experiment

In our research, we built on an extended version of the Wigner's friend paradox, first proposed by Časlav Brukner of the University of Vienna. In this scenario, there are two physicists—call them Alice and Bob—each with their own friends (Charlie and Debbie) in two distant labs.

There's another twist: Charlie and Debbie are now measuring a pair of entangled particles, like in the Bell experiments.

As in Wigner's argument, the equations of quantum mechanics tell us Charlie and Debbie should become entangled with their observed particles. But because those particles were already entangled with each other, Charlie and Debbie themselves should become entangled—in theory.

But what does that imply experimentally?

Our experiment goes like this: the friends enter their labs and measure their particles. Some time later, Alice and Bob each flip a coin. If it's heads, they open the door and ask their friend what they saw. If it's tails, they perform a different measurement.

This different measurement always gives a positive outcome for Alice if Charlie is entangled with his observed particle in the way calculated by Wigner. Likewise for Bob and Debbie.

In any realization of this measurement, however, any record of their friend's observation inside the lab is blocked from reaching the external world. Charlie or Debbie will not remember having seen anything inside the lab, as if waking up from total anesthesia.

But did it really happen, even if they don't remember it?

If the three intuitive ideas at the beginning of this article are correct, each friend saw a real and unique outcome for their measurement inside the lab, independent of whether or not Alice or Bob later decided to open their door. Also, what Alice and Charlie see should not depend on how Bob's distant coin lands, and vice versa.

We showed that if this were the case, there would be limits to the correlations Alice and Bob could expect to see between their results. We also showed that quantum mechanics predicts Alice and Bob will see correlations that go beyond those limits.

Next, we did an experiment to confirm the quantum mechanical predictions using pairs of entangled photons. The role of each friend's measurement was played by one of two paths each photon may take in the setup, depending on a property of the photon called "polarization." That is, the path "measures" the polarization.

Our experiment is only really a proof of principle, since the "friends" are very small and simple. But it opens the question whether the same results would hold with more complex observers.

We may never be able to do this experiment with real humans. But we argue that it may one day be possible to create a conclusive demonstration if the "friend" is a human-level artificial intelligence running in a massive quantum computer.

What does it all mean?

Although a conclusive test may be decades away, if the quantum mechanical predictions continue to hold, this has strong implications for our understanding of reality—even more so than the Bell correlations. For one, the correlations we discovered cannot be explained just by saying that physical properties don't exist until they are measured.

Now the absolute reality of measurement outcomes themselves is called into question.

Our results force physicists to deal with the measurement problem head on: either our experiment doesn't scale up, and quantum mechanics gives way to a so-called "objective collapse theory," or one of our three common-sense assumptions must be rejected.

There are theories, like de Broglie-Bohm, that postulate "action at a distance," in which actions can have instantaneous effects elsewhere in the universe. However, this is in direct conflict with Einstein's theory of relativity.

Some search for a theory that rejects freedom of choice, but they either require backwards causality, or a seemingly conspiratorial form of fatalism called "superdeterminism".

Another way to resolve the conflict could be to make Einstein's theory even more relative. For Einstein, different observers could disagree about when or where something happens—but what happens was an absolute fact.

However, in some interpretations, such as relational quantum mechanics, QBism, or the many-worlds interpretation, events themselves may occur only relative to one or more observers. A fallen tree observed by one may not be a fact for everyone else.

All of this does not imply that you can choose your own reality. Firstly, you can choose what questions you ask, but the answers are given by the world. And even in a relational world, when two observers communicate, their realities are entangled. In this way a shared reality can emerge.

Which means that if we both witness the same tree falling and you say you can't hear it, you might just need a hearing aid.

• Quantum physics: Our study suggests objective reality doesn't exist

{ https://phys.org/ }

For several decades—well over half a century, in fact—information has been collected about unidentified aerial phenomena.

That’s what they’re called in modern parlance, at least. Prior to the last few years, these mysteries of the skies were more commonly known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs. This had been the name given to them by Edward Ruppelt, the first director of Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force’s systematic study of anomalous aerial phenomena that ran from March 1952 until December 1969. The program was the successor to a pair of previous studies, Project Sign and Project Grudge, undertaken by the USAF beginning in the late 1940s.

Project Blue Book, although it had been the longest-running government study of UFOs to date, produced limited results regarding the potential that an unrecognized form of technology existed and operated in our skies. Among its primary findings had been three main points:

• “No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security.”
• “There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge.”
• “There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ were extraterrestrial vehicles.”

This might all be news to anyone who hasn’t been following the UFO/UAP subject now for more than the last few years. In fact, it might also be news to the most recent government group that has been convened to analyze the problem, which appeared to frame its analysis of the issue within a narrow period spanning only the last few years.

Recently, a widely anticipated government report on UFOs was recently delivered to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by the Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). In it, we learned that our government has been using a formalized method of collecting reports on UAP encountered by our military since early 2019, involving a refined mechanism for the collection of data on such reports that subsequently was adopted by the USAF in late 2020. Based on this, the Navy’s UAPTF has analyzed 144 incidents that have been logged since 2004, the majority of which occurred within the last two years.

To summarize their conclusions: all but one of these incidents remain unexplained, and the technology behind them could represent both a hazard to aviators, as well as a “challenge” to United States National Security.

Despite the merit of the Task Force’s analysis of recent reports involving UAP, it leaves much to be desired. For instance, the nine-page report—which also consists of a cover page, and appendixes at the back—leaves us with a total of just six pages that are actually related to the discussion of what the UAPTF learned from studying UAP reports during its short time in operation. What’s more, of the 144 reports that were logged, there were no details provided that gave any specific information about any of these incidents… not even one.

Indeed, the UAPTF report leaves much to be desired for longtime followers of the UFO topic. Also contained within the report are a few curiosities; take, for instance, the following excerpt regarding the USAF’s involvement, and its limited participation in the analysis of the phenomenon in question:

“Although USAF data collection has been limited historically the USAF began a six-month pilot program in November 2020 to collect in the most likely areas to encounter UAP and is evaluating how to normalize future collection, reporting, and analysis across the entire Air Force.”

Obviously, the report’s authors must have meant that the USAF has played a “limited” role in the recent collection of information on this topic, which the UAP Task Force relied upon for its analysis. However, many who read this when the report appeared online were no doubt aware of the irony in the statement: the one branch of the military that actually did undertake what remains the single longest study of unidentified flying objects in American history with Project Blue Book is now considered to have participated in “data collection [that] has been limited historically”?

Of course, there are other issues the public version of the UAPTF report presents, and we must recognize that this is also considered to be nothing more than a preliminary report, as its title aptly conveys. Nonetheless, many Americans and others around the world had probably been hoping for a bit more from our government about its involvement with the study of UAP.

Perhaps with time, there will be additional analysis and even portions of the classified version of the report that will be obtained and released by diligent transparency advocates who make frequent use of the Freedom of Information Act. However, for the time being, it appears that “what you see is what you get,” and in light of that, the American public has been left wanting on the subject of UFOs, or whatever else people may choose to call them.

It certainly isn’t the first time it has happened either… indeed, some things really don’t ever change, do they?

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

There are UFO reports of all shapes and sizes, spanning the globe, and these can run the range from the odd to the outright insane. In many cases the elements come together to form a case that not only includes traditionally reliable witnesses, but many of them, all seeing the same thing and leaving us to wonder what is going on. In 1960 there was just such a case, which was first brought to the public’s attention by two sober, reliable police officers, and which would later be corroborated by many others to leave it a highly intriguing account that has never been solved.

August 13, 1960, started off fairly normally in the small town of Corning, California, near another larger town called Red Bluff, and on this hot night California Highway Patrol officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley E. Scott were out at work along Hoag Road. It was a hot, lazy evening, with the two of them looking for speeding motorists, but no one was really out in the rural area, and so they were mostly just driving along lost to their thoughts. Just before midnight they noticed something in the sky that they at first took to be an airliner, but it was flying so low that they feared it was in trouble, possibly even coming in to crash. They stopped their car to get a better look, and it would soon become apparent that this was no normal aircraft. Carson would later say of what happened:

From our position outside the car the first thing we noticed was an absolute silence. Still assuming it to be an aircraft with power off we continued to watch until the object was probably within 100′ to 200′ of the ground when it suddenly reversed completely, at high speed and gained approximately 500′ altitude. There the object stopped, at this time it was clearly visible to both of us and obviously not an aircraft of any design familiar to us. It was surrounded by a glow making the round or oblong object visible. At each end, or each side of the object there were definite red lights. At times about five white lights were visible between the red lights. As we watched the object moved again and performed aerial feats that were actually unbelievable. At this time, we radioed Tehama County Sheriff’s Office requesting they contact local radar base. The Radar Base confirmed the U.F.O. – completely unidentified.

In the meantime, the two men continued to observe the object, which they described as “as large or larger than an airliner,” completely transfixed by what they were seeing. At this point they had no idea what it could be up there doing its aerial acrobatics, and even as they excitedly wondered to each other what it was things got weirder when the object began to show signs that it knew they were there, on several occasions approaching them and then moving away again, all while occasionally lighting up the ground below with a bright red light. Officer Carson would explain:

On two occasions the object came directly towards the patrol vehicle, each time it approached, the object swept the area with a huge red light. Officer Scott turned the red light on the patrol vehicle towards the object and it immediately went away from us. We observed the object use the red beam approximately 6 or 7 times, sweeping the sky and ground areas.

After this, the mysterious craft then began to slowly move off to the east, and not wanting to lose sight of it the officers followed in their car. They kept increasing their speed to keep up with it, and were now chasing it down the road, and although they lost sight of it a few times they managed to relocate it again. At one point, they were shocked to see a similar light begin approaching from the south. This second inscrutable object approached the first and they took up a tight formation, after which they stopped and hovered there for some time, sporadically shooting red beams towards the ground, before both of them sped off to the east and disappeared. The two startled officers then went back to the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office, where they found that two deputies had also seen the strange object. Carson would say of this:

We returned to the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office and met Deputy Fry and Deputy Montgomery, who had gone to Los Molinos after contacting the radar base. Both had seen the U. F. O. clearly and described to us what we saw. The night jailer also was able to see the object for a short time, each described the object and its maneuvers exactly as we saw them. We first saw the object at 2350 hours and observed it for approximately two hours and 15 minutes. Each time the object neared us we experienced radio interference.

Image by Steve Baxter

The objects were also allegedly seen by another deputy, other Highway Patrol Officers, the night jailer, several prisoners, and some residents of the area, with around a dozen people having also observed one or both of them. In one case a formation of eight mysterious lights was supposedly seen. On top of this, the deputies who had seen the original object also reported trying to follow it as it had sped off along to its rendezvous with the other. Deputy Fry would explain in a report that would be heavily redacted and later released by the Air Force of what he and four prisoners had seen:

At 12:00 Midnight this Officer and Officer Montgomery went to Los Molinas and set on a small hill to the East named or called Blueberry Hill and at approximately 12:30AM of 8-14-60 observed four objects in the Western sky, they were traveling from the south to the north in a straight line and at times they would go straight up or down, one of the objects seem [sic] to stop and hover over the Red Bluff area. After a short time, there was an object seen going from the North to the South. I went out side of the Tehama Co. Jail to check the sky as officer Montgomery radioed that he had an object in the area that had appeared to have landed twice to the east of Los Molinas, on checking out side of the Jail observed a object coming in from the west to a position of about South East of the jail, and it appeared to stop and hover for a moment in that position. I called to the four trusties a [Blacked Out], [Blacked Out], [Blacked Out] and a [Blacked Out] to come out side and observe the flying object, by the time the four men arrived the object was hovering and it looked like a large Rail Road car with two large Red Lights one on each end, the whole object was a pale yellow glow in color and white lights appeared along it in three or four places which may have been windows. The object then took off in a southerly direction and passed out of sight without any of the above four persons and this writer hearing any type of motor or sound from the Object.

This was a great relief to officers Carson and Scott, because they had not believed their own eyes, and had thought that everyone would think they were crazy. Officer Carson would say of this in a radio interview on the matter:

I am like officer Scott, I still find it rather difficult to believe even after watching. It was amazing to sit out there for two hours and fifteen minutes watching this thing, and it is even more difficult to tell someone else what you saw. It is quite an experience. That is all you could say about it. It was definitely not a balloon or optical illusion. We saw something out there. I could hardly believe what I had seen out there and I was thankful for the fact that there were other officers from different agencies that had seen the object, plus residents of the area and people traveling through because myself — I don’t think if I had seen it and no one else had seen it — I would have been pretty confused.

Image by Steve Baxter

In the meantime, the Red Bluff Air Force Station, a radar-only site at nearby Red Bluff, who had originally confirmed to deputy Fry that they had made radar contact with something strange, were now flatly denying that they had, claiming that they had seen nothing unusual. In the following week after Carson and Scott’s sighting there would be myriad other reports of something strange in the sky, some by similarly traditionally reliable witnesses, and this is what must have finally caused the Air Force to move in for their own investigation, sending in investigators from their Project Blue Book division, which was specifically tasked with dealing with UFO reports. They would immediately confirm that there had been various sightings both before and after the Conrad and Scott sighting, and investigator Duane K. Bilslend would write of this in his report:

Local inquiry succeeded in locating various residents who had witnessed the appearance of UFO previous to or on the same date the Highway Patrol Officers had reported seeing the one in question. The undersigned interviewed each of the above persons and based on a personal opinion formed through observation of credibility, responsibility and reputation, concluded that an unidentified object and/or objects of similar physical appearance, whether real or imaginary, were observed by various solid citizens of Tehama County California.

This all seems to be very promising, with a solid series of sightings made by many disparate reliable witnesses all describing the same thing, but unfortunately, the Project Blue Book investigation was under the authority of a Colonel Philip G. Evans, who was at the time was very keen to end the Air Force’s investigation into UFOs and was known for conjuring up reports that were riddled with misinformation and dishonest data and information, mis-stating, fabricating, or omitting relevant facts, as well as often offering up lengthy and scientifically questionable “rational explanations” that sounded great to skeptics but didn’t always add up and were just as pseudo-scientific as anything else. His dismissive final report on the matter would read in part:

The conclusion of ATIC is that the sightings which occurred in the Red Bluff area were due to atmospheric refraction. It is an impossible task to determine what the exact light source was for each specific incident, but the planet Mars was the most probable culprit in the instance of the highway patrolmen. The planet at the time of the sighting was just below the horizon and probably hove into view due to the refraction of its light by the atmosphere. A contributing factor to the sightings could have been the layer of smoke which hung over the area in a thin stratiform layer. This smoke came from the forest fires in the area and hung in a layer due to the stable conditions associated with the inversion. In addition to the usual results of atmospheric refraction, special optical effects known as mirages may occur when there are strong temperature contrasts in adjacent layers of air. It is quite probable that reports of all of the sightings which occurred in California during the period 12-20 August 1960 did not reach ATIC. It is, therefore, impossible to make an accurate estimate as to how many sightings actually occurred and what percentage were due to the inversion. It is possible that some were due to other causes such as “hysteria” and the “get into the act” attitude of some people. However, in view of all available evidence in this case, it is concluded that the effects associated with the inversion were responsible for the sightings which occurred in the Red Bluff, California area between 12-20 August 1960.

This is despite the fact that Mars, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse were all below the horizon at the time of the sighting, and an analysis of the meteorological records of the area for that night by atmospheric physicist James E. MacDonald did not find any evidence that would indicate the presence of a temperature inversion. Nevertheless, this was the Air Force story and they were sticking with it. As to what he thought of these findings, Officer Carson would say:

I have been told we saw Northern lights, a weather balloon, and now refractions. I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness. We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.

Is that what this all was, just some refraction of light or some other mundane phenomena? Is so, how could it fool so many trained witnesses and be described by many people as something wholly otherworldly? Why did the Air Force confirm a radar lock on the object, only to then go and withdraw this? Just what was going on here? It is hard to say, and the Red Bluff incident remains a rather curious and intriguing mass sighting involving a good amount of very good witnesses, and which has never been adequately explained.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 03 - 07 - 2021

UFO Sighted Over Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica ( July 2, 2021 )

STATEMENT : Wie opinan de esto esto es en el Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica 

TRANSLATE : What do you think about this? This is in the Volcán Irazú

• Costa Rica credit : Hector Rivera
  

UFOs Sighted Over China ( June 29, 2021 )

UFOs were sighted over China on June 29, 2021 : video was taken by Cheng.33313333 and posted on Tik Tok

RELATED VIDEO

UAPs / UFOs Sighted Over Kansas ( June 29, 2021 )

Amazing UFO / Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sighting over Kansas

Statement : These UAPs or UFOs were spotted in Kansas in 29/06/2021. I would like you to try explaining these objects!

original and following with approximation and speed reduction.

They are everywhere

• credit : GA. B.A.

UFO Sighted Over Dinkelsbühl, Germany ( July 2, 2021 )

This is the most documented UFO that was recorded at night the location of capturing this UNIDENTIFIED object is Germany.... Dinkelsbuhl town recorded in 2.07 2021. It's the most authentic capture of a triangular object that appeared in the air right above the front of the car road, some people will think why the author of this video didn't stop and video because she was terrified and it was happening quickly, you would they stopped at night as if such an object flew over your head, the author of this not alone film, I want to remain anonymous I think she has reasons and I don't blame her

UFO Sighted Over California Beach ( July 1, 2021 )

UFO sighted over California beach on July 1, 2021

STATEMENT : Ovni o Avión??? UFO or Plane???

• credit : Dracko Mcfly

UFO Sighted Over Courrières, France ( July 2, 2021 )

Massive UFO was sighted over Courrières, Hauts-de-France region of France on July 2, 2021. Video was taken by Reynald Wisniewski

NOTE PETER2011 : in my personal opinion that is clearly a ZEPPELIN, a blimp thus...

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - MUFON CASES - 03 - 07- 2021

MUFON CASE : 116646 Upland, California ( July 2, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Small blackened object descending over san bernadino mountains

Long Description of Sighting Report

When driving east bound on 210 freeway in upland. I Notice object falling leaving dark grey cloud like trail. Cloud remained and seemed to have internal structure partially visable.

Date Submitted : 2021-07-02

Date of Event : 2020-12-05 / 4:45PM

MUFON SUBMITTER FILE :

• 20201206162541.mp4 ( FILE 2 )

MUFON CASE : 116640 Mount Crested Butte, Colorado ( July 2, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Bright Object

Long Description of Sighting Report

This was taken from my patio a couple days after the one I submitted to MUFON. This was filmed on my porch thru binoculars using a device that makes it possible. Sadly, I haven’t been able to video thru it when it’s dark though. This object is like many of the others. If you zoom in you can see that appears to be revolving. Also, it is clear from this video that the object flies into the cloud rather than the cloud obstructing the view of a celestial object.

Date Submitted : 2021-07-02

Date of Event : 2021-04-19 /  4:18P

MUFON SUBMITTER FILE : MVI9247.MP4

MUFON CASE : 116639 Glendale, Arizona ( July 2, 2021 )

inc : 116464 Lumby, Canada : Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Red and Blue Flying saucer that appears to change shapes, but could be blurring?

Long Description of Sighting Report

Saw black speck hovering up high in the sky and zoomed in on it and recorded a red and blue colored saucer type event. Tried to put camera on tripod and by that time, the object was gone.

Date Submitted : 2021-07-02
Date of Event : 2021-07-02 / 10:56AM
MUFON SUBMITTER FILE : MVI9247.MP4

VIDEO 2 : MUFON CASE : 116464 : Lumby, Canada
I have seen this a couple of times within the last weeks.

Long Description of Sighting Report

I have been seeing this for the past few weeks. Randomly. It’s after the sun has gone down completely.

Date Submitted : 2021-06-24
Date of Event : 2021-06-23 / 9:38PM
MUFON SUBMITTER FILES :

• trim.AFA459C6134F4F5B8D25FB93897FDA60.MOV
• trim.C80A1095F91A4021A8A0E17F52032680.MOV

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

The UAP Task Force Report was finally released to the public last week, generally being panned by the UFO community. For understandable reasons, considering how vague and tepid it was. 

UFO historian Richard Dolan examines the report, especially in light of claims regarding the so-called alien threat narrative. 

He examines whether or not this latest report fits with the thesis that much of the recent UFO information is part of a psychological operation (psyop) or even a false flag designed to frighten and manipulate the public. 

He also shares information that was leaked to him describing the classified portion of the UAP report. This is unconfirmed and should be taken as such.

  

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

AUFO which appeared to travelling around 106mph and is said to have been only visible on a thermal camera was filmed by a police helicopter in the UK. The eerie footage - which is similar to recent UFOs videos captured by the US military - was released by cops after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request appears to show the object moving over the Bristol Channel. 

Image credit: The Sun.

Video shows the object moving against the wind as it appears to travel at high speed and is tracked by the police helicopter's FLIR thermal camera near St Athan in Wales at around 9pm on September 17, 2016. 

Snippets of the video filmed off a screen were originally shared by the NPAS team at the time. 

But now the full video of the strange encounter has been revealed following on FOI request by former cop turned UFO investigator Gary Heseltine. 

And after a protracted battle to get his questions answered, he has called on the UK government to finally come clean on what it knows about UFOs. 

NPAS South West tweeted at the time the object was not detected by local air traffic control and was described as "hot" as it travelled against the wind - meaning it was unlikely to be a balloon or lantern. 

It was flying around 1,000 feet and was only visible when the cops noticed it on the thermal camera which they were said to be testing by pointing it at planes heading into Cardiff Airport. 

The encounter lasted around eight minutes and the footage shows the camera changing settings as the cops appear to try to identify the strange phenomena. 

Cops also said in a tweet in 2019 - more than three years after they released the short clip - "a drone is possible, but they were unable to keep up with it so it would have to have been very fast.". 

Mr Heseltine's attempts to obtain the audio recordings from inside the police chopper along with a map of the object's movements, but this information was not provided in the FOI response. 

"This is verified police helicopter FLIR footage showing an object not seen with the naked eye but clearly seen in the infrared spectrum. It is moving against the wind, so it is not a balloon, nor is emitting any heat signature indicating a propulsion system," he told The Sun Online.

  

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

Westall’s 50-year-old UFO sighting emerges again

A teacher who claimed to see UFOs hovering over a Melbourne school says military officials threatened to have him fired if he ever spoke about the incident. Andrew Greenwood is talking publicly about the famous Westall High sightings 55 years ago for the first time in tonight’s 7NEWS ‘Spotlight’ program.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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

Experts are still searching for life on other planets and we may possibly even find it on one of them in our own Solar System. NASA just recently announced that there will be two missions sent to Venus to study our “sister planet”. Unfortunately for our planetary neighbor, a new study has pretty much dashed any hopes of finding life on Venus, but there is optimism for Jupiter.

In a news conference, John Hallsworth, who is a microbiologist at Queen’s University in Belfast, U.K., explained this further, “When we looked at the effective concentration of water molecules in those clouds, we found that it was a hundred times too low for even the most resilient Earth organisms to survive,” adding that it is an “…unbridgeable distance.”

Venus

For example, microorganisms on Earth can survive in water activity with a value as low as 0.585; however, on Venus, the water activity level in the clouds was just 0.004. Chris McKay, who is a NASA Ames astrobiologist, went into further details about their findings, “Our conclusion is based directly on measurements.” “It’s not a model, it’s not an assumption. The missions that NASA just selected to go to Venus will do the same measurements again — temperature, pressure — and they are going to come to very much the same conclusions because Venus is not changing on that type of time scale.”

This is incredibly disappointing news, especially for the experts who were excited to find phosphine on the planet (this is a compound that is made up of atoms from phosphorus and hydrogen that is important in regards to life.)

Now onto Jupiter, the researchers analyzed data collected by the Galileo probe that flew between 26 and 42 miles (between 42 and 68 kilometers) from the surface of the planet and discovered that the water activity in the Gas Giant’s clouds was at 0.585 which means that there is enough water activity to possibly support life. Furthermore, the temperature is about minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit which is also within the range for life to survive.

Jupiter

McKay talked a bit about this discovery, “Jupiter looks much more optimistic.” “There is at least a layer in the clouds of Jupiter where the water requirements are met. It doesn’t mean that there is life, it just means that with respect to water, it would be OK.” There are, however, other problems for life to survive such as a lack of nutrients and high levels of ultraviolet radiation.

The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy where it can be read in full.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

June 25, 2021, might have been the day the United States government released its most significant report on unidentified aerial phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, that the American public has seen in several decades.

By some measures, the report that arrived on this date was as significant as many had hoped that it would be. Nobody would deny that the document, produced by the U.S. Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), had been both highly anticipated, and conveys that the United States military appears to be taking the subject of UFOs more seriously than it has in decades. The information it contained would have been especially significant for anyone new to the subject, who might have been surprised—if not a little concerned—to learn that our military believes there is reasonable evidence of unidentified technologies operating in our controlled airspace.

By contrast, the contents of the report left much to be desired of long-time advocates of the existence of unidentified flying objects, who probably looked at the report as being, loosely summarized, “the same old, same old.” In other words, little that the report conveyed in its brief, nine pages (just six pages, if we exclude the cover page and appendixes) was anything new to those who are well-read on the topic of UFOs. These folks have likely been hearing about the release of documents through the Freedom of Information Act now for decades, conveying similar instances where unusual aerial objects appear to be capable of entering our controlled airspace at their leisure, and with little regard for the national security concerns of our military.

Because of this, there have no doubt already been plenty of members of our military that have taken the subject seriously in years past, whether they ever voiced their interest or not. However, the appearance of a larger scale, coordinated effort to collect information about possible aerial threats, and analyze them within government, has never been more apparent in recent memory than it is now. This, following both the release of the UAPTF report, as well as a press statement on it from the Pentagon that referenced a memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks outlining the objectives of the UAPTF as it moves forward. In addition to this, several Senators, and even NASA weighed in on the timely subject of UAP following the report’s release.

Where does all of this leave us though? Perhaps more importantly, where do we go from here, and what will the American military be doing in the years ahead as it continues to study this phenomenon?

While much of this remains to be seen, there are several things that the United States, as well as any other nation that endeavors to study the phenomenon, should consider in terms of transparency, as well as the possibility of threats that could arise from such studies. Below are just a few considerations related to the study of UAP and its implications in the years ahead.

Make at least some information about UAP available to the scientific community for analysis: 

There has long been a significant disconnect between government and science on this subject. Since the UAP issue currently appears to remain within the purview of national security, a degree of government secrecy is warranted (especially as it relates to potentially classified technologies used to obtain information on the phenomena). However, if any of these objects should prove to represent novel or breakthrough technologies (especially in the unlikely event that they have exotic origins), it will be incumbent upon our government to coordinate with the scientific community on this issue and assess whether it has implications that are broader than the isolated space of national security, with potential ramifications for both the American public and maybe the entire world.

Along with its internal system of formal reporting, the U.S. Government should provide ongoing updates to the public: 

The public version of this report, while limited, is a necessary step in the right direction toward government transparency on a timely issue. When it is possible to do so while maintaining national security protocols, future information about this area of study should be periodically conveyed to the public.

Our government should commit to the ethical use and management of technologies potentially derived from UAP: 

Whatever the source of UAP may ultimately prove to be, the potential exists they may serve as the impetus for new innovations and disruptive technologies. This may hold true whether the technology is captured by our military, studied, and replicated, or even as a result of the mere observation of the devices and their operation. Such technologies may prove beneficial, although the possibility also exists that they could even hold the potential for escalating an arms race at some point in the future.

The problem outlined above is only one among several possibilities that military studies involving UAP might lead to, whether or not it was ever intended. If a significant technological breakthrough were ever to arise from the study of UAP, it indeed might prove to be beneficial to humankind. However, all-too-often in the past when new technological innovations have been acquired by militaries, their use in weapons systems development and other potentially destructive capacities has remained a consistent problem.

Transparency will be the key. In addition to being able to be studied by the scientific establishment, government studies of UAP could benefit greatly from the oversight and moral guidance that civilian organizations might be able to provide, ranging from think tanks, to media agencies and a host of other sources of valuable feedback. For that to happen, it also requires the government to be transparent with at least some of its UAP data.

The release of the UAPTF report in late June is already a step in the right direction in that regard, but will this trend continue? Or as information on military UAP studies begins to trickle out, will we merely see a bottleneck effect, where the pace of “disclosure” (if we dare even call it that) begins to steadily slow, and finally stop?

All of this remains to be seen, but for now, if nothing else, the U.S. government’s current UAP studies have injected a much-needed renascence of interest into the debate about unidentified aerial phenomena observed by pilots and others for decades. This, as well as a new awareness of the scientific possibilities—both potentially good, and bad—that the study of them might afford us in the years ahead.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

The Pentagon’s long-awaited UFO report (and by ‘report’ we mean the public summary, not the full classified report) and the general consensus is that it’s weak on details and totally lacking on any information that kept the investigators from completely ruling out extraterrestrial origins. It’s as if this duck soup of a report is saying to those who have seen UFOs or claim to have been abducted by aliens and believe they’re not of this Earth, “Who are you going to believe … us or your lying eyes?” (Thank you, Marx Brothers.) Fortunately, we have a couple of psychics who claim they’ve used their abilities to confirm aliens are already here and predict that real ‘full and transparent disclosure’ is coming soon. Let’s start with the psychic who has seen evidence of alien presence on Earth for at least 50 years.

“I touched it and told Wernher, ‘this is not from our planet’. He said, ‘You’re right – this is a piece of a UFO that crashed on Earth’. I cannot reveal any more about what I saw in that refrigerator. I have signed non-disclosure documents. But I can tell you that we are in contact.’’

Did he see aliens?

That’s everyone’s favorite psychic spoonbender Uri Geller – fresh off of using his ‘powers’ to help England beat Germany in Euro 2020 (so he claims) – telling the Daily Star about a time in 1974 when he allegedly was invited to a NASA “base” in Maryland, possibly while his abilities were being tested by the U.S. government as part of the Stargate Project, to view what he was told was part of a crashed alien spacecraft … and more.

“I cannot reveal any more about what I saw in that refrigerator. I have signed non-disclosure documents. But I can tell you that we are in contact.’’

Geller is likely implying he saw a body or bodies of beings from the craft, a sight he claims shocked him. Geller says he doesn’t believe the Pentagon report is truthful because: “They DO know more!? Do they? Does he? Really? Or should he stick to football and spoon bending?

Moving on …

“I see more information being shared with the public about the known presence of alien life visiting our planet. I also see that more people will come forward to speak about strange lights in their homes and gardens and the public collectively will speak about this. It’s only through public demand that more information will be given. We are being visited now more than ever by life forms from other planets.”

Deborah Davies is the next generation of psychics – a reality star on “Real Housewives of Cheshire” who claims she’s the descendent of psychics, has had abilities since childhood and has been a working medium doing readings, paranormal consulting and predictions since 2009. No spoon-bending here – just claims she’s accurately predicted plane crashes, the coronavirus outbreak, Prince Philip’s death, advancements in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and more. This appears to be her first prediction on UFOs and extraterrestrials, but she makes two important comments – there is information about the “known presence of alien life forms visiting our planet” and we are being visited now by “life forms from other planets.” Unfortunately, she seems to have nothing more to share on them and The Daily Mail did no follow-up.

Ask more questions!

Two well-known psychics say alien life is here – one claims to have firsthand, eyewitness knowledge. Are they any less believable than a 9-page summary that blames its lack of depth on the witnesses not providing enough information?

Who are you going to believe … the government or a spoon-bender, a real housewife and the tabloids? Tougher question than you thought, isn’t it?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Linda Moulton Howe: Secrets of Antarctica and the Extraterrestrial Presence

Linda Moulton Howe: Secrets of Antarctica and The Extraterrestrial Presence

Linda Moulton Howe in Manchester, UK: Awakening Expo Anniversary Release Special! Researcher, Author and Investigative Journalist Linda Moulton Howe reveals a startling incident involving military personnel and an extraterrestrial underground facility based in Antarctica.

Emmy and Peabody honored investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe, Reporter and Editor of the award-winning Earthfiles news website and weekly YouTube Channel broadcasts, reports firsthand accounts by military and controlled remote viewers who already have information about and experiences with other intelligences of unknown origin or intent.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - MUFON CASES - 02 - 07- 2021

MUFON CASE : 116633 Seattle, Washington ( July 2, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Noticed ball of light that turned into a barrell
Long Description of Sighting Report

Ball of light that eventually turned into a black barrel coming from the he Olympic park direction towards west Seattle

Date Submitted : 2021-07-02
Date of Event : 2021-07-01 / 9:55PM
MUFON SUBMITTER FILES :

• 20210701215758.mp4
  
• 20210701215719.mp4
  
• 20210701215504.mp4

MUFON CASE : 116625 Portland, Oregon ( July 1, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : 3 hovering twinkling lights in diagonal formation, then each take off in different directions

Long Description of Sighting Report

Did anyone else see interesting lights last night? We saw these beauties looking south from Mt. Tabor. Started off as 3 giant bright lights in a diagonal line. They hovered there for about 10 minutes. One by one, they peeled off in different directions, about 5 minutes apart.

Date Submitted : 2021-07-01
Date of Event : 2021-06-23 / 11:03PM
MUFON SUBMITTER FILE :

• trim.0CD65C64DA3343C4810337DC741A01AE.MOV

MUFON CASE : 116623 Cleveland, Ohio ( July 1, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Saw over 10 UFO/Star Like move thru the sky, from southwest to Southeast.

Long Description of Sighting Report

Observed over ten UFO/Starlike objects move across the night sky, from Southwest to Southeast. The day had been stormy and cloudy. The event was filmed with a regular Cellphone. Objects made no sound and at the end of The sighting, A Helicopter entered the area.

Date Submitted : 2021-07-01
Date of Event : 2021-06-30

MUFON SUBMITTER FILE :

• 20210630213343.mp4

MUFON CASE : 116619 Sofia, Bulgaria ( July 1, 2021 )

Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Hello this video is filmed at 18th of June
Long Description of Sighting Report

This video is filmed by 2 of my colleagues 10 min after I left the office. We all thing that this may be some sort of drones but not sure about it this is why I send it to mufon so more people can give their opinion.

My colleagues speak in Bulgarian and many times during the clip they say that the objects can't be seen anymore with a naked eye just from the phones zoom. We have 2 videos from 2 phones that ware filming it. My colegue say that this objects are hovering where usually plains fly and approach for landing on the nearby airport and that there was no plains ~2 or more hours

Date Submitted : 2021-07-01
Date of Event : 2021-06-18 / 5:11PM
MUFON SUBMITTER FILE :

• IMG2084.MOV

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 02 - 07 - 2021

UFO Sighted Over Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, Brazil ( May 29, 2021 )

UFO captured at Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, Goiás, Brazil : recorded in May 29, 2021

STATEMENT : object apparently shaped like a glowing disk and it moves quite quickly and looks like it had some sort of trouble in flight and looks like it would crash behind these mountains

• credit : David Smolinski

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

PROOF ALIENS EXIST? | First, it was UFOs, but could extraterrestrial life be next?

The US Government and Pentagon made global news when they confirmed the existence of UFOs after leaked footage surfaced online. But what about aliens? The search for extraterrestrial life has never been more important, or more valued than right now.

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

US fighter pilot who witnessed tic-tac UFOs claims craft disabled his weapons in a ‘act of war’

https://youtu.be/SbK7USdL22Y

A US Navy pilot whose plane filmed the famous "tic-tac" UFO footage has revealed how his weapons system was disabled during the eerie encounter. 

Seventeen years on, Lieutenant Commander Chad Underwood said when he tried to track the "target of interest", he began seeing "strobe lines" on his cockpit radar.

Screenshot from the eerie and unexplained 'Tic Tac' video filmed by the US Navy and released by the Pentagon

Commander Chad Underwood encountered a bizarre object moving 'erratically' at incredible speeds

Credit: Chad Underwood

UFOs have stepped from a fringe conspiracy theory to a genuine national security debate as the US last week admitted hundreds of mysterious encounters in the skies.

It followed the Pentagon confirming Mr Underwood’s in-flight "tic-tac" video from 2004, recorded by his F/A-18 Super Hornet, was authentic. 

The incident unfolded during a USS Nimitz carrier group exercises off the coast of Mexico.

Crew aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, had been spending the past two weeks tracking mysterious aircraft on and off with an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.

Now, speaking to filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, Mr Underwood has revealed how his weapons system was suddenly crippled after he attempted to track the "tic-tac" object which was moving at incredible speeds. 

He said: "Once I got the target of interest on my radar I took a lock and that’s when all the kinda funky things started happening.

"The erratic nature of the tic-tac. The air speed was very telling to me.

"Then we started seeing what we call jam strobe lines.

"Strobe lines are vertical lines that show up on your radar that are indications that you are being jammed."

Mr Corbell's extraordinary interview with Mr Underwood detailing the "act of war" UFO encounter will appear in full at a later date.

French warplane pilots have also reported heir weapons systems being disabled during UFO encounters, according to an official investigation. 

After releasing the bombshell report last week, it appears the US Department of Defense (DoD) is preparing to set up a new unit dedicated to the strange phenomena, similar to secretive agencies in hit TV show The X-Files and movie series Men in Black.

DoD officials released a memo on Friday which stated they will now seek to "formalise" the investigations of UFOS, often now referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

UAPs are currently the main brief of the UAP Task Force, a body set up after a series of stunning leaked videos show strange encounters between the phenomena and US warplanes.

And a memo released by the DoD set out a three point plan to pull together US investigations to try and work out exactly what these mysterious objects that defy normal understanding could be.

The first point states the DoD wants to "synchronize collection, reporting and analysis" of UAPs, and to "secure" military test and training ranges.

And then next it states it wants to set aside resources and staffing to continue the probe, seemingly confirming the establishment of a formal office.

Finally, it states there must be "coordination" between all arms of the US military and the intelligence services on the issue.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed the US military would be taking a deeper look at UFOs after a report was released detailing hundreds of encounters

Some of the numerous sightings by the US military

What is going on with UFOs in the US?

UFOS have stepped from fringe conspiracy theories to a genuine national security debate in the US.

Pentagon officials last year took the unprecedented step to confirm a trio of remarkable videos which showed US encounters with UFOs.

The debate is still open as to what the phenomena caught on film were – but it made clear to everyone, something is in the skies.

Perhaps the most striking was a video known as the "Tic-Tac" – which showed an unidentified object being pursued by fighter planes.

The US also confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) – a Pentagon programme set up to study UFOs before being disbanded in 2017.

However, it was replaced by the UAP Task Force in June 2020 after a vote by the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

Defence chiefs have since confirmed a number of leaked UFO videos and photos which were submitted to the Task Force for investigation.

Why this sudden rush for transparency?

No outside the secretive wings of the US government currently knows for sure.

And as a tacked on addendum to a 5,500 page Covid relief bill passed in December, the the Director of National Intelligence’s office was ordered to compile a report on UFOs within 180 days.

The UAP report dropped as expected on June 25, and while not giving much away - it did not rule anything out either as much of it remains classified.

The US appear to have acknowledged that UFOs - whatever they are - are real and are a potential threat to national security as they appear to be able to enter restricted airspace with total impunity.

Is it aliens? Officially the US position is simply, "we don't know yet" as further disclosure is expected in the coming months and years. 

DoD staff will also have to report an apparent encounter with a UAP within two weeks to allow it to be more properly investigated, the memo reads.

It was signed off by deputy secretary of defense Kathleen Hicks.

The move is a major win for campaigners who have been calling on the US to take the issue of UFOs more seriously, and is being sent as another step on the road to potential disclosure.

Most of the sightings bear similarities. Some are tic-tac shaped while others are triangular or circular.

Footage taken by FA-18 pilots on March 4, 2019

An FA-18 pilot and a Weapons Systems Officer spotted mysterious objects in the sky

Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell received information about a third sighting which happened on March 4, 2019

Footage captured by a US Navy destroyer shows several mysterious flashing objects

The clip was captured with night vision cameras

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/  }

Accounts of alien abductions have been around for a while, and they always serve to amaze, stir debate, and raise eyebrows. Some such accounts can definitely be more bizarre than others, and one of the truly outlandish ones comes to us from a supposed alien contactee in the U.S. state of New Mexico, who has a very amazing, and some might say unbelievable, story to tell. The rather bizarre tale here begins in July of 1987, when a woman named Christa Tilton had an inexplicable bout of missing time, with three hours of her life simply gone and with no reasonable explanation. After suffering from nightmares and finding herself constantly pondering why she had lost this time, Tilton underwent hypnosis and this was where she would find her lost memories surging into her consciousness, and would weave an outlandish account of alien abductions, secret underground bases, and strange experiments.

Under hypnosis, Christa would remember being approached by two small humanoid creatures, who grabbed her by the arms and somehow rendered her unconscious. When she awoke, she found herself lying on a table within a small craft, where she was approached by what she calls a “guide.” This guide gave her some sort of liquid to drink, which immediately woke her up and energized her, after which he took her outside onto what appeared to be a small hill. She would say of what happened next:

To my right it looked like a long hallway where there were many offices. We took the transit car and went for what seemed to be a very long time to another secured area. It was then that I was told to step onto some type of scale-like device that faced a computer screen. I saw lights flashing and numbers computing and then a card was issued with holes punched into it. I would later realize it was used as identification inside a computer. I asked my guide where we were going and why. He didn’t say too much the whole time except that he was to show me some things that I need to know for future reference. He told me that we had just entered Level One of the ‘facility’. I asked what kind of facility it was and he did not answer.

The guide then wordlessly took her to a large elevator that had no door and they descended, with him merely remarking that they were going to “Level 2.” Here she says there were offices and people walking about, all of them human and seemingly oblivious to her presence, just going about their business as if she wasn’t there. It all looked rather like a normal office building other than for the armed guards in colored jumpsuits interspersed throughout, and at one point they passed what looked like a huge factory of some sort, which had what looked like “small alien-type craft” parked there. As she looked at this factory and the strange craft, she saw what looked like typical “grey-type aliens” going about some sort of maintenance on the craft, which also ignored her as if she had every right to be there in the world. After this she was taken to another elevator to “Level 5,” where she was asked to change clothes. By this point she was starting to feel terrified, but her guide assured her that nothing bad would happen to her. She put on a hospital gown and was weighed and scanned with some sort of electrical device, after which she was led past another guard station and down another hall. It was here where she says she was suddenly hit with a wave of overpowering stench that smelled to like what she thought might be formaldehyde, something she knew from her days as a former nurse. The guide reassured her that everything was alright but the smell was oppressive, and she says of what happened next:

We came to a large room and I stopped to look inside. I saw these huge large tanks with computerized gauges hooked to them and a huge arm-like device that extended from the top of some tubing down into the tanks. The tanks were about 4 feet tall so standing where I was I could not see inside them. I did notice a humming sound and it looked as if something was being stirred inside the tanks. I started to walk closer to the tanks and it was at that time that my guide grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly out into the hall. He told me that it wasn’t necessary to see the contents of the tanks; that it would only complicate matters. So we went on down the hallway and then he guided my arm into a large laboratory. I was amazed because I had worked in a laboratory before and I was seeing machines that I had never seen before. It was then I turned and saw a small grey being with his back turned doing something at a counter. I heard the clinking of metal against metal. I had only heard this when I was preparing my surgical instruments for my doctor in surgery.

Christa was then told to sit on a table in the middle of the room, and she was now getting the very strong sense that something wasn’t right, the fear beginning to grip her more tightly. As she sat there wondering what to do and what was going on, a human doctor then entered the room, greeted the guide, and turned his gaze to her. She explains the next part of her very odd tale:

My guide smiled at me and told me he would be waiting outside and I would only be there for a few minutes. I began to cry. I cry when I get scared. The grey alien looked at me and turned around to continue what he was doing. The doctor called for more assistance and it was then that one other grey alien came in. The next thing I knew I was very drowsy. I knew I was being examined internally and when I lifted my head, I saw this horrid grey alien glaring at me with large black eyes. It was then I felt a stabbing pain. I screamed and then the human doctor stood next to me and rubbed something over my stomach. It was cold. The pain immediately subsided. I could not believe this was happening to me all over again. 

I begged for them to let me go, but they just kept on working very fast. After they were finished, I was told to get up and go into this small room and change back into my other clothes. I noticed blood, as if I had started my period. But, I continued to get dressed and when I came out I saw my guide speaking to the doctor in the corner of the room. I just stood there… helpless. I felt more alone then than I ever had in my life. I felt like a guinea pig. After we left that laboratory I was silent. I was angry at him for allowing this to happen to me ‘again’. But he said it was necessary. Told me to forget. I see more aliens pass us in the hall. Again, it is as if I was a ghost. I asked my guide to please explain this place to me. He told me it was a very sensitive place and I would be brought back again in the next few years. I again asked where I was and he told me I could not be told for my own safety.

She then got into a sort of transit car with her guide and they moved on to what she considers to be the most unsettling thing she saw during the whole weird encounter, saying:

I saw what looked to me to be people of all different types standing up against the wall inside a clear casing-like chamber. I went closer and it looked ‘as if they were wax figures. I could not understand what I was seeing. I also saw animals in cages. They were alive. They looked as if they were in suspended animation. I went up to the clear casings that they were being held in. I put my hands on the casing and leaned towards them to see if I could get some kind of a response. I did not. I could not discern whether they were dead or alive at that point in time. They were just not moving, and I could not see whether or not there was any fluid. I think that the casings were free of any fluid in this particular case.

She says that after this, her guide took her back outside to the waiting alien craft that had abducted her, and she was taken back to where they had found her and her memory was wiped. Remembering this experience through the hypnosis marked the beginning a nearly obsessive search for answers as to what had happened to her. Although she was never explicitly told where she had been taken, she would come to the conclusion that she had likely been brought to a secret underground base beneath the town of Dulce, New Mexico, a place that has been at the center of all manner of conspiracy theories since at least the 1970s and is a hotbed of UFO activity, cattle mutilations, and talk of top secret underground bases. In addition to this, Christa claims that after this initial experience she would be abducted on numerous other occasions and taken to different underground facilities, which she claims the government keeps a network of across the country. She explains of this:

I am aware of many, many, many underground facilities or bases that are being used for different purposes. Most of the underground bases are being used for covert purposes or otherwise purposes involving governments who are doing certain types of testing that they consider would be safer to do underground. And then there are the bases, one in particular north of Tucson, Arizona, where I’m almost positive I was taken to, it goes under the cover or name of “Evergreen Aviation”. They have all the planes there and everything, but what I found during my ten years of research is that this is a CIA-backed or based facility. I got very, very close to the facility, I climbed over the wired fence and sneaked in with a pilot friend of mine not long ago and got some great photographs of some black helicopters. These black helicopters were unmarked. There were other types of aircraft there, and so we really believe that there are many many bases in many states. I’ve heard of bases in almost every state here in the United States.

Christa has written a book of her experiences at Dulce, rather straightforwardly called Underground Alien Bio Lab At Dulce, and has been very vocal about these underground bases and aliens in general. Her stories have gotten increasingly eye-brow raising over the years, with her claiming to be an alien hybrid, and she has written extensively on her encounters with various types of alien beings, including what she calls “Light Beings,” Reptilians, blonde-haired humanoid Nordics, and more, with agendas that from range strict non-interventionists to imperialistic factions who want to conquer Earth. Then there are of course the Greys, which she has made abundantly obvious she doesn’t care much for. She has not minced words when she has said of the Greys:

The Greys seem to do things like a massive collective consciousness. I’ve noticed that they do things together, there is almost no discussion among themselves. They seem to be working on projects or on certain things that are given to them by higher-ups, or higher alien beings and/or humans. I can tell you right now that the main weakness of the Greys is that they have no soul, they are soulless. Do not allow them to tell you otherwise. Some of them have been known to try to impart some type of false religious philosophies on people that they’ve abducted, and the thing is you have to realize that these aliens have their own agenda, and its not something that I feel is a positive one really. Certainly I have to believe that the Greys are, the only way I can describe it is that they are an empty, empty case… There’s nothing there other than a superior technology type of brain apparatus up in their skull area. Otherwise they are of no use to us really, they are really of no use. They are used to impart different technologies and give us information, but as far as trusting them, I do not trust them as far as I could throw them.

It is hard to know what to do with this rather spectacular case, and with all of the added details and science fiction-sounding claims made over the years, Tilton has gained just as many skeptics and detractors as believers. It is all certainly a compelling and oddball case, but is there anything to it all? Whatever you might think, it manages to stand on the fringe end of alien abduction cases, and true or not it manages to point out just how deep the rabbit hole can go.

https://youtu.be/59HMBTD_tvI

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

What you're looking at is the plasmodium form of Physarum polycephalum, the many-headed slime mold. Like other slime molds found in nature, it fills an important ecological role, aiding in the decay of organic matter to recycle it into the food web.

This bizarre little organism doesn't have a brain, or a nervous system – its blobby, bright-yellow body is just one cell. This slime mold species has thrived, more or less unchanged, for a billion years in its damp, decaying habitats.

And, in the last decade, it's been changing how we think about cognition and problem-solving.

"I think it's the same kind of revolution that occurred when people realized that plants could communicate with each other," says biologist Audrey Dussutour of the French National Center for Scientific Research.

"Even these tiny little microbes can learn. It gives you a bit of humility."

P. polycephalum in its natural habitat.

(Kay Dee/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC)

P. polycephalum – adorably nicknamed "The Blob" by Dussutour – isn't exactly rare. It can be found in dark, humid, cool environments like the leaf litter on a forest floor. It's also really peculiar; although we call it a 'mold', it is not actually fungus. Nor is it animal or plant, but a member of the protist kingdom – a sort of catch-all group for anything that can't be neatly categorized in the other three kingdoms.

It starts its life as many individual cells, each with a single nucleus. Then, they merge to form the plasmodium, the vegetative life stage in which the organism feeds and grows.

In this form, fanning out in veins to search for food and explore its environment, it's still a single cell, but containing millions or even billions of nuclei swimming in the cytoplasmic fluid confined within the bright-yellow membrane.

Cognition without a brain

Like all organisms, P. polycephalum needs to be able to make decisions about its environment. It needs to seek food and avoid danger. It needs to find the ideal conditions for its reproductive cycle. And this is where our little yellow friend gets really interesting. P. polycephalum doesn't have a central nervous system. It doesn't even have specialized tissues.

Yet it can solve complex puzzles, like labyrinth mazes, and remember novel substances. The kind of tasks we used to think only animals could perform.

"We're talking about cognition without a brain, obviously, but also without any neurons at all. So the underlying mechanisms, the whole architectural framework of how it deals with information is totally different to the way your brain works," biologist Chris Reid of Macquarie University in Australia tells ScienceAlert.

"By providing it with the same problem-solving challenges that we've traditionally given to animals with brains, we can start to see how this fundamentally different system might arrive at the same outcome. It's where it becomes clear that for a lot of these things – that we've always thought required a brain or some kind of higher information processing system – that's not always necessary."

(David Villa/ScienceImage/CBI/CNRS)

P. polycephalum is well known to science. Decades ago, it was, as physicist Hans-Günther Döbereiner of the University of Bremen in Germany explains, the "workhorse of cell biology". It was easy to clone, and keep, and study.

However, as our genetic analysis toolkits evolved, organisms such as mice or cell lines such as HeLa took over, and P. polycephalum fell by the wayside.

In 2000, biologist Toshiyuki Nakagaki of RIKEN in Japan brought the little beastie out of retirement – and not for cell biology. His paper, published in Nature, bore the title "Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism" – and that's exactly what P. polycephalum had done. Nakagaki and his team had put a piece of plasmodium at one end of a maze, a food reward (oats, because P. polycephalum loves oat bacteria) at the other, and watched what happened.

The results were stunning. This weird little acellular organism managed to find the fastest route through every maze thrown at it.

"That triggered a wave of research into what other kinds of more difficult scenarios we can test the slime mold with," Reid says.

"Virtually all of those have been surprising in some way or another, and surprised the researchers in how the slime mold actually performed. It revealed some limitations as well. But mostly, it's been a voyage of revelation on how this simple creature can do tasks that have always been given to and thought to be the domain of higher organisms."

Full of surprises

Nakagaki recreated the Tokyo subway, with the station nodes marked out with oats; P. polycephalum recreated it almost exactly – except the slime mold version was more robust to damage, wherein if a link got severed, the rest of the network could carry on.

Yet another team of researchers found that the protist could efficiently solve the traveling salesman problem, an exponentially complex mathematical task that programmers routinely use to test algorithms.

Earlier this year, a team of researchers found that P. polycephalum can "remember" where it has previously found food based on the structure of the veins in that area. This followed previous research from Dussutour and her colleagues, who discovered that blobs of slime mold could learn and remember substances that they didn't like, and communicate that information to other blobs of slime mold once they fused.

"I'm still amazed by how, in a way, complex they are because they always surprise you in an experiment, they would never do exactly what you choose to do," Dussutour says.

In one instance, her team was testing a growth medium used for mammal cells, and wanted to see if the slime would like it.

"It hated it. It started to build this weird three-dimensional structure so it could go on the lead and escape. And I'm like, 'oh my gosh, this organism'."

A processing network

Although it's technically a single-celled organism, P. polycephalum is considered a network, exhibiting collective behavior. Each part of the slime mold is operating independently and sharing information with its neighboring sections, with no centralized processing.

"I guess the analogy would be neurons in a brain," Reid says. "You have this one brain that's composed of lots of neurons – it's the same for the slime mold."

That brain analogy is a really intriguing one, and it wouldn't be the first time P. polycephalum has been compared to a network of neurons. The topology and structure of brain networks and slime mold blobs are very similar, and both systems exhibit oscillations.

It's not entirely clear how information is propagated and shared in the slime mold, but we do know that P. polycephalum's veins contract to act as a peristaltic pump, pushing cytoplasmic fluid from section to section. And oscillations in this fluid seem to coincide with encounters with external stimuli.

"It's thought that these oscillations convey information, process information, by the way they interact and actually produce the behavior at the same time," Döbereiner tells ScienceAlert.

"If you have a network of Physarum go to a certain food, it changes oscillation pattern when it encounters sugar: it starts to oscillate quicker. Because of these quicker oscillations, the whole organism starts changing its oscillation pattern and starts to flow into the direction where the food was found."

He and colleagues recently published a paper demonstrating that these oscillations are extraordinarily similar to the oscillations seen in a brain, only a hydrodynamic system rather than electrical signals.

"What's relevant is not so much what oscillates and how the information is transported," he explains, "but that it oscillates and that a topology is relevant – is one neuron connected to 100 neurons or just to two; is a neuron connected just to its neighbors or is it connected to another neuron very far away."

P. polycephalum growing on a life-sized model of a human skull.

(Andrew Adamatzky, Artifical Life, 2015)

Defining cognition

As exciting as its escapades may seem, any researcher working with it will tell you that P. polycephalum is not, in itself, a brain. It's not capable of higher-level processing or abstract reasoning, as far as we can tell.

Nor is it, as intriguing as the notion may seem, likely to evolve into something like a brain. The organism has had a billion years to do so and shows no sign of going in that direction (although if any science fiction writers out there like the idea, feel free to run with it).

In terms of overall biology, slime mold is extremely simple. And by that very fact, it's changing how we understand problem-solving.

Just like other organisms, it needs food, it needs to navigate its environment, and it needs a safe place to grow and reproduce. These problems can be complex, and yet P. polycephalum can solve them with its extremely limited cognitive architecture. It does so in its own simple way and with its own limitations, says Reid, "but that in itself is one of the beautiful things about the system". 

In a sense, it leaves us with an organism – a wet, slimy, damp-loving blob – whose cognition is fundamentally different from our own. And, just like the Tokyo subway, that can teach us new ways to solve our own problems.

"It's teaching us about the nature of intelligence, really, challenging certain views, and basically widening the concept," Reid says.

"It does force us to challenge these long-held anthropocentric beliefs that we are unique and capable of so much more than other creatures."

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

More frequently reported sightings of unidentified flying objects by pilots have made government officials more serious about finding out what they are.

(File Photo)

The growing number of sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFO's, by military and commercial pilots is now drawing the attention of the federal government. Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Capitol Hill have now been briefed on the much-anticipated UFO report that is expected to be released at the end of this month. 

“We do have reason to be concerned until we are able to rule out any threat to the traveling public, to those military pilots, to our military facilities,” said Rep. Val Demings (D-Florida District 10), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Demings was briefed Wednesday by Naval and FBI officials on their findings, which did not confirm or rule out the sightings as alien spacecraft. 

“It’s an ongoing investigation — I think they are competent and capable of identifying those unidentified objects,” Demings said in an interview with Spectrum News.

The Department of Defense has been keeping track of these kinds of reports for decades but only recently acknowledged their existence. 

“There was a taboo on discussing technological civilizations beyond Earth for a while,” said Harvard University science professor Dr. Avi Loeb. “It was considered a little crazy, perhaps in the realm of science fiction, but I think we're getting to the time where it will be part of the mainstream discussion.”

For years, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been urging the federal government to take UFOs seriously. He’s been demanding answers and added language into former President Donald Trump’s last spending bill that mandated the Pentagon to compile the UFO report.

“People can speculate about, well, it’s space aliens,” Rubio said. “My biggest concern frankly is that it’s another country. They’ve made some technological leap that will catch us by surprise by perhaps one of our adversaries. That would be deeply concerning.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the space agency is also launching an investigation of its own. 

“Now that I’m here at NASA, I’ve turned to our scientists, and I’ve said, ‘Would you look at it from a scientific standpoint?’” Nelson said. “NASA is going to appropriately look at it through the lens of its scientists.”

The UFO report is expected to be released to the public by the end of the month.  It’s unclear how much the government will reveal of its findings because of national security concerns. 

{ https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando }

Chichen Itza: Ancient Maya City Built Above A Gateway to the Underworld

Chichen Itza is an ancient Mayan city located in the northern part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The city is though to have been founded around the 6th century AD. Nevertheless, it only rose to prominence several centuries later. Chichen Itza dominated the Yucatan Peninsula during the early part of the postclassic Mayan period, from about the 10th to 13th centuries AD. The supremacy of the city during this period is reflected by the great monuments that were constructed by its rulers. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, Chichen Itza had been largely left abandoned. Since the 19th century, the site has been explored and excavated by archaeologists. Apart from being an active archaeological site, Chichen Itza is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico.

Where does the name Chichen Itza come from?

The name Chichen Itza comes from a combination of three separate Mayan words. Chi means “mouth” or “edge”, chen means “well,” and Itza is the name of the Mayan ethnic group that settled at the site. Therefore, the name of this ancient city may be said to mean “the mouth of the well of the Itzas.” The word Itza can also be translated to mean “magicians of the water”. This is because Itza itself is a combination of two words, itz, meaning “magic”, and a, meaning “water”.

Chichen Itza is thought to have been founded during the 6th century AD, presumably by the Maya peoples who had occupied the Yucatan Peninsula since the preclassic period, which lasted from around 1500 BC to 300 AD. There is evidence that during the 10th century the city was invaded by foreigners. It was around this time that the Maya cities of the southern lowlands were collapsing. The identity of these invaders, however, is not entirely clear. Some scholars, for instance, believe the invaders were the Itza, whilst others believe that they were Maya who were influenced by the Toltecs of central Mexico, or even the Toltecs themselves. There is also a suggestion that the Itza came to occupy the site, though only two or three centuries after this initial invasion.

Relief sculpture in the Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza showing sacrifice by decapitation.

( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Interestingly, there is evidence in the Books of the Chilam Balam (“Chilam Balam” meaning “Secrets of the Soothsayers”) that Chichen Itza had a different name prior to the arrival of the Itza. Since there is no single standard of orthography for the Yucatec Maya, the original name for the site has been represented in different ways, including Uuc Yabnal , Uuc Habnal , Uuc Hab Nal , or Uc Abnal . Whilst Uuc or Uc means “seven”, the meaning of the second word varies. Yab, for instance, means “many”, whilst an ab is a type of fruit.

The Sacred Cenote: Ritual Sinkhole Becomes Treasure Trove for Archaeologists

One of the factors that led to the establishment of a settlement at Chichen Itza is the presence of several cenotes at the site. These are large, natural sinkholes that serve as a source of water. Considering that the northern Yucatan is arid, and that its interior has no above-ground rivers, cenotes would have played an important role in the survival of the people who lived there. The most famous cenote at Chichen Itza is the Cenote Sagrada or Sacred Cenote, which was formed by a collapsed cave in the limestone bedrock.

The Sacred Cenote is considered one of the largest repositories of offerings in the Americas.

( Subbotina Anna /Adobe Stock)

As its name suggests, the Sacred Cenote was not just a source of water, but was also a place of ritual significance. According to sources written during the Spanish period, the Maya deposited luxury goods, and made human sacrifices at cenotes as a means of worshipping Chaac, the Maya rain god. Over time, researchers have found truth in these claims, as a variety of luxury goods have been found deposited in the cenote. As a matter of fact, the Sacred Cenote is considered to be one of the largest repositories of offerings found in the Americas during the pre-Columbian period.

During the 20th century, the Sacred Cenote has been investigated by archaeologists. Between 1904 and 1910, for example, a controversial dredging project was undertaken by the American archaeologist Edward Herbert Thompson. The project recovered a large quantity of artifacts, including pottery, gold objects, and goods made of jade. In addition, human remains, which displayed wounds consistent with ritual sacrifice, were found.

Deciphering History Through Architecture at Chichen Itza

As mentioned earlier, Chichen Itza was established during the 6th century AD, but was later captured by foreign invaders. This change in the city’s occupants is physically visible in the structures that have survived. Before the coming of the Itza, the inhabitants of Chichen Itza constructed their buildings in an architectural style known as Puuc. This style is named after the Puuc Hills to the southwest of Chichen Itza, and may be identified by several characteristics. For instance, Puuc buildings normally face inwards towards the city’s ceremonial plaza, and are grouped around a general north-south axis. Apart from that, Puuc buildings consist of a solid core of stone and plaster, covered by well-cut, worked stone that serves a purely ornamental function.

Aerial view of Chichen Itza, UNESCO World Heritage site.

( CC BY 3.0 )

The buildings of Chichen Itza that were constructed in the Puuc style are located to the south of the main plaza, in the area known today as Chichen Viejo , or Old Chichen. The structures of Old Chichen are considered to be the oldest in the site, and include el Caracol , la Iglesia , and the Akabtzib. El Caracol , which means “the snail”, named as such after the stone spiral staircase within it. The structure consists of a round building (where the staircase is found) on a square platform, and it served as a sophisticated astronomical observatory. La Iglesia , meaning “the church,” is a small temple decorated with elaborate masks of Chaac, whereas the Akabtzib, which is Maya for “House of the Dark Writing’, was the home of the city’s administrator. The name of the latter is derived from the intricately carved glyphs found on the lintel above one of the structure’s doorways. Incidentally, the building was once known as “The Flat House with the Excessive Number of Chambers.”

Temple of Kukulcan: The Mesoamerican Step-Pyramid at the Heart of Chichen Itza

The most famous monuments at Chichen Itza, however, were only built after the arrival of the foreign invaders. These include El Castillo , the Great Ball Court, and the Temple of the Warriors. El Castillo, meaning “the castle,” is arguably the most recognizable monument of Chichen Itza. This structure, known also as the Temple of Kukulcan, is situated at the center of the city. The prominence of the temple is enhanced by the fact that it is the tallest structure at the site. The pyramid itself is 24 m (78.7 ft.) in height, whilst the temple on the platform is 6 m (19.7 ft.). Thus, the entire monument is 30 m (98 ft.) high. In addition, the Temple of Kukulacan is the largest temple in Chichen Itza, having a base measuring 53.3 m (174.9 ft.) on all four sides.         

El Castillo, know as the Temple of Kukulcan, at the center of Chichen Itza.

( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

The Temple of Kukulcan is not only impressive for its size, but also for the mathematical brilliance of its architects. According to legend, twice a year, when day and night are in balance, Kukulcan (the Maya version of Quetzalcoatl) would visit this temple. The god would commune with his followers, give them his blessings, and continue into the sacred waters. After taking a bath there, he would continue his journey to the Underworld. The architects of the Temple of Kukulcan designed the pyramid in such a way that during the equinox, those who came to the temple would be treated to a magical spectacle of light and shadow. For five hours on those days, the shadow of seven triangles would appear on the side of the staircase, starting from the top, and making its way down to the giant stone head of Kukulcan at the bottom. The top and the bottom of the pyramid are connected by the shadows for 45 minutes, before it slowly descends, and disappears. For the ancient Maya, this must have been proof of the legend. Interestingly, this phenomenon has been recreated artificially in modern times on a nightly basis, so that tourists need not wait for the equinox to see it.

Great Ball Court and the Temple of a Thousand Warriors

To the northwest of the Temple of Kukulcan is located the Great Ball Court. Although seven ball courts have been discovered at Chichen Itza, this one is considered to be the most impressive. The Great Ball Court measures 166 m (544.6 ft.) by 68 m (223.1 ft.), making it the largest ball court in Mesoamerica. The walls of the court are 12 m (39.4 ft.) high, on the top of which are rings carved with intertwining serpents. The walls are also decorated by sculpted reliefs. One of these reliefs has been interpreted as depicting the victors of a game holding the decapitated head of a member of the losing team.

Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza

( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

As for the Temple of a Thousand Warriors, this is a large, stepped pyramid with rows of carved columns portraying warriors. The columns are located in front and on the side of the temple. Similarities in design have been noted between this temple and Temple B at Tula, the Toltec capital. This has led to the suggestion that there were cultural contacts between the peoples of the two cities.

Decline of Chichen Itza and the Spanish Conquest

Scholars believe that Chichen Itza dominated the Yucatan Peninsula between the 10th and 13th centuries. According to written sources, a revolt and civil war broke out about 1221 in Chichen Itza, leading to the city’s decline. This is corroborated by the archaeological evidence, as the wooden roofs of the Temple of the Warriors and the Great Market were found to have been burned around this time. In more recent years, however, archaeologists have suggested that Chichen Itza went into decline around the 11th century, 200 years earlier than originally thought.

• What Happened to the Maya?
• Advanced Engineering Discovered at the Maya Observatory at Chichen Itza
• Kukulcan, the Snake God of the Maya, Remains as a Legacy of the Once-Powerful Civilization

After its decline, Chichen Itza was replaced by Mayapan, a neighbouring city to its west, as the dominant power on the peninsula. For a period of time, Chichen Itza joined Mayapan and Uxmal to form a political confederacy called the League of Mayapan. The league, along with the supremacy of Mayapan, came to an end around 1450. During the 16th century, the Spanish arrived on the Yucatan Peninsula, and began their conquest of the Maya. Chichen Itza was claimed by the conquistador Franciso de Montejo in 1531. Although de Montejo intended to make the city the capital of Spanish Yucatan, he failed to do so, as the Spanish were driven out by a native Maya revolt several months later.

Page from the illustrated book Incidents of Travel in Yucutan by John Lloyd Stephens.

( Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0 )

Forgotten Maya Ruins Capture the Imagination

In any case, by the time of de Montejo’s arrival, Chichen Itza had been largely abandoned, as its inhabitants had moved to smaller towns. The situation remained as such in the centuries that followed, and the site was gradually reclaimed by the jungle. Although Chichen Itza remained sacred to the Maya, it was slowly forgotten by the rest of the world. The site, however, entered popular imagination during the 19th century. In 1843, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan was published by the American explorer, John Lloyd Stephens. As a result of Stephens’ book, which recounted his journey in the Yucatan Peninsula, other explorers began to visit the ancient Maya city.

In the decades that followed, various archaeological excavations were conducted at Chichen Itza . As a result of these investigations, the site’s ruins were mapped, and some monuments were restored. The archaeological work at the site has also led to a greater understanding of Chichen Itza. Archaeologists continue to work at Chichen Itza even today, on the hunt for new discoveries. In 2019, for instance, archaeologists were searching for a sacred well under the city. Instead, as they were exploring the Balamku, or ‘Jaguar God’ cave system, they stumbled upon a trove of over 150 ritual objects.

Chichen Itza has become an extremely popular tourist attraction. Stephens’ book not only prompted archaeologists to explore the site, but tourists were not far behind. In the early 1920s, for example, Yucatan’s first official tourism business was established. In recent years, it has been estimated that up to two million tourists visit Chichen Itza annually, which makes it one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico. Chichen Itza is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site . In 2007 it was voted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a global survey of more than 100 million people.

• Top image: The Maya pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza in Mexico.
• Source: IRStone /Adobe Stock

By Wu Mingren

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

Hyperborea: Mythical Land That Fascinated Writers of the Ancient World

Hyperborea is a location in Greek mythology. The inhabitants of this mythical land are known as Hyperboreans, whom the ancient Greeks believed enjoyed extremely long lives. Hyperborea is mentioned by a number of Greek and Roman writers, including Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and Pindar. Although Hyperborea is a mythical land, there has been speculation over the ages that it is a real place on earth. This has led to a number of theories about its exact location. In addition, attempts have been made to connect the Hyperboreans with real, historical peoples.

The name ‘Hyperborea’ may be translated to mean ‘Beyond the North Wind’, which is an indication of where the ancient Greeks thought this land was located. According to Greek mythology, the North Wind, personified by the god Boreas, lived in Thrace. Therefore, Hyperborea would logically be placed to the north of Thrace. Hyperborea, however, was one of the terrae incognitae (Latin for ‘unknown lands’) of the ancient Greeks and Romans. These were regions which have neither been mapped nor documented. In other words, Hyperborea might very well be a place that exists only in myth. And many of the stories told about Hyperborea and the Hyperboreans are quite unbelievable.

Hyperborea Mentioned Repeatedly by Herodotus

One of the ancient writers who mentions Hyperborea many times in his work is the Greek historian Herodotus. The so-called ‘father of history’ wrote about the Hyperborea in Book IV of his Histories. In one part of this book, Herodotus writes:

“Aristeas the son of Caystrobus, who came from Proconnesus, claimed in a poem that he visited the Issedones in a state of inspiration by Apollo, that beyond the Issedones lived a one-eyed race called the Arimaspians, beyond them there is the land of the gold-guarding griffins, and beyond them the Hyperboreans, all the way to the sea. All these people, from the Arimaspians on, except the Hyperboreans, are constantly attacking their neighbors.”

Ancient north pole map of mythical lands including the central continent of Hyperborea.

(Abraham Ortelius / Public domain )

Herodotus seems to be skeptical about the existence of Hyperborea, but nevertheless informs his readers that this mythical land has been mentioned by two of ancient Greece’s most revered poets, Hesiod and Homer:

“None of the tribes living there, including the Scythians, have anything to say about the Hyperboreans. Perhaps the Issedones do, but I do not think so, because if they did the Scythians would have stories about them too, just as they do about the one-eyed people. Hesiod, however, has mentioned the Hyperboreans, and so has Homer in the Epigoni (if indeed Homer is the author of this poem).”

Herodotus then points out that most of the stories about Hyperborea are told by the inhabitants of the sacred island of Delos, “The overwhelming majority of the stories about the Hyperboreans come from Delos.” The historian goes on to relate some of the tales about the Hyperboreans, in which Delos, as one might expect, plays a prominent role. One of these, for instance, relates to the way sacred objects were transported from Hyperborea to Delos:

“The Delians say that sacred objects are tied up inside a bundle of wheat straws and are transported from the Hyperboreans first to Scythia, then westward as far as possible – that is, to the Adriatic – through a chain of successive neighbouring tribes, then south to Dodona (which is the first Greek community to receive them), then to the Gulf of Malia, where they cross over to Euboea, where they are passed from town to town until they reach Carystus, at which stage Andros is omitted, because the Carystians are the ones taking them to Tenos, and from Tenos the objects are conveyed to Delos. So this is how these sacred objects are said to reach Delos.”

The next story provided by Herodotus explains why the sacred objects were delivered in such a manner. According to the historian, the first time the sacred objects were sent to Delos, they were carried by two Hyperborean women, Hyperoche and Laodice (according to the Delians). The women were accompanied by five Hyperborean men who protected them and served as their escorts. These envoys, however, never returned home, causing the rest of the Hyperboreans to worry that the people they sent to deliver sacred objects in the future would not come back either. Therefore, they devised the method in which the objects were passed from one group of people to another, until they arrived in Delos.

Herodotus states that Hyperoche and Laodice accomplished their mission, and stayed in Delos, rather than returning home. After their deaths, the women were worshipped by the Delians and commemorated in a special ritual:

“Now, the death of the young women who came from the Hyperboreans is commemorated on Delos by a hair-cutting ritual performed by the girls and boys of the island. Before they get married, the girls cut off a lock of hair, wind it around a spindle and put in on the tomb (which is inside the sanctuary of Artemis, on the left as one enters, and an olive-tree has grown over it), and the Delian boys wind some of their hair around a twig and put it on the tomb as well. So that is how these Hyperborean women are worshipped by the inhabitants of Delos.”

Herodotus’ last story about the Hyperboreans is that of Arge and Opis, a pair of women who also travelled from Hyperborea to Delos. The women are said to have made the journey before Hyperoche and Laodice, though for a different purpose. Arge and Opis went to the island in order to pay tribute to Eileithyia, the Greek goddess of childbirth, in exchange for a quick and easy labor at childbirth.

According to Herodotus, the Delians claimed that the two women were accompanied by the gods themselves, and received different honors when they came to Delos. The women of the island begged gifts for Arge and Opis, whilst calling on the pair by name in the words of the hymn composed by Olen of Lycia in their honor. This practice has spread from Delos to the other Aegean islands and Ionia. Like Hyperoche and Laodice, the tombs of Arge and Opis are also found on the island: “This tomb of theirs is situated behind the grounds of the sanctuary of Artemis, facing east, right next to the banqueting-hall of the Ceans.”

Head of Herodotus, the “father of history” who wrote the most about Hyperborea.

(© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Public domain )

Before ending his discussion about Hyperborea, Herodotus mentions in passing a figure called Abaris. As the historian says that he was not going to repeat the story of Abaris, it may be assumed that Herodotus’ readers were familiar with this tale. In any case, we learn from Herodotus that this Abaris was believed to be a Hyperborean, and that he “carried an arrow all the way around the world without eating anything.” Herodotus ends this section with a playful suggestion about people living beyond the South Wind, “But if there are Hyperboreans, there should also be Hyperenotians, people living beyond the south wind.”

Pliny The Elder and Hyperborea

Although Herodotus provides several stories related to the Hyperboreans, he does not talk much about Hyperborea itself, apart from its general location. Therefore, one has to rely on other ancient sources to fill in the gaps left by Herodotus. One such source is Natural History , written by Pliny the Elder, the Roman naturalist and natural philosopher. Pliny mentions the Hyperboreans in Book IV of his work, and begins with the general location of Hyperborea:

“Along the [Black Sea] coast [of Europe], as far as the river Tanais [known today as the Don], are the Mæotæ, from whom the lake derives its name, and the last of all, in the rear of them, the Arimaspi. We then come to the Riphæan mountains, and the region known by the name of Pterophoros, because of the perpetual fall of snow there, the flakes of which resemble feathers; a part of the world which has been condemned by the decree of nature to lie immersed in thick darkness; suited for nothing but the generation of cold, and to be the asylum of the chilling blasts of the northern winds.

Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a happy race, known as the Hyperborei.”

Pliny the Elder of Rome who also wrote a lot about Hyperborea

(Wolfgang Sauber / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Like Herodotus before him, Pliny seems to express his doubts about the existence of the Hyperboreans. Unlike the Greek historian, however, Pliny does not go straight into Delian-related Hyperborean stories. (Incidentally, the story about the Hyperboreans sending sacred objects to Delos via neighboring tribes can be found at the end of Pliny’s account of Hyperborea.) Instead, Pliny provides his readers with more details about Hyperborea itself:

“At this spot are supposed to be the hinges upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months together, given by the Sun in one continuous day, who does not, however, as some ignorant persons have asserted, conceal himself from the vernal equinox to autumn. On the contrary, to these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, and that at the summer solstice, and but one setting, at the winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from every noxious blast.”

Pliny continues his account with information about the Hyperboreans themselves. Apart from referring to the Hyperboreans “a race that lives to an extreme old age,” earlier on, Pliny also wrote the following:

“The abodes of the natives are the woods and groves; the gods receive their worship singly and in groups, while all discord and every kind of sickness are things utterly unknown. Death comes upon them only when satiated with life; after a career of feasting, in an old age sated with every luxury, they leap from a certain rock there into the sea; and this they deem the most desirable mode of ending existence.”

• Eight Legendary Creatures from Greek Mythology That You Might Not Know About
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From Pliny’s work, it is clear that even in ancient times the exact location of Hyperborea was a puzzle. Several competing hypotheses about Hyperborea’s actual whereabouts are mentioned by the Roman writer. For instance, Pliny mentions some ancient writers claimed that Hyperborea is located on the edge of the shores of Asia. These writers argued that a people called the Attacori, who resemble the Hyperboreans, lived in that region, which has very similar conditions to Hyperborea. Other writers argued that the region lies “midway between the two suns, at the spot where it sets to the Antipodes and rises to us.” Pliny discounts this hypothesis, considering the “vast tract of sea which there intervenes” A third hypothesis states that Hyperborea is located “nowhere but under a day which lasts for six months,” and that the Hyperboreans sow in the morning, reap at mid-day, gather the fruits of the trees at sunset, and conceal themselves in caves at night.

Bust of the lyric Roman poet Pindar whose poems mention Hyperborea

(Stas Kozlovsky / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Other Talk of Hyperborea

Hyperborea is also mentioned in works by ancient poets. These poetic works provide us with more information about this mythical land. The Hyperboreans, for instance, appear in Pindar’s Olympian Ode III . In his poem, Pindar claims that Heracles had travelled to Hyperborea to obtain an olive tree from its inhabitants. The hero begged for the tree “to make shade for all men to share, and for brave deeds of valorous spirits, a crown.” In another poem, Pythian Ode X , Pindar places the slaying of Medusa by Perseus in Hyperborea, and paints the region as a place of great happiness:

“The Muse is not absent from their customs; all around swirl the dances of girls, the lyre’s loud chords and the cries of flutes. They wreathe their hair with golden laurel branches and revel joyfully. No sickness or ruinous old age is mixed into that sacred race.”

Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and Pindar were not the only ancient authors who wrote about Hyperborea. Other well known figures who mention this mythical region include Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, Ovid, and Strabo.

The large amount of work written about Hyperborea by these ancient authors shows that there was a great fascination with this land. As a matter of fact, this fascination has survived till this day, as some have sought to identify the location of Hyperborea, which may help to prove its existence. Nevertheless, there is still no consensus to the location of Hyperborea, assuming this paradise even exists in the first place.

• Top image: Boreas, Greek God of the North Wind, who is strongly connected with the mythical land of Hyperborea, abducting Oreithyia.   Source: Giovanni Francesco Romanelli / Public domain .

By Wu Mingren

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{  https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

Bruce Dorminey -  Contributor Science

I cover aerospace, astronomy and host The Cosmic Controversy Podcast.

NASA's Curiosity rover took this selfie on June 15, 2018, which was the 2082nd Martian day, or sol, ... [+]

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS.

For the past two decades, planetary scientists have been trying to solve the mystery surrounding measurements of atmospheric methane on Mars. This includes repeated detections of this potential biosignature right above the surface of Mars’ Gale Crater by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

But as yet, the European Space Agency’S (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has come up empty when looking for methane higher in the Martian atmosphere, says NASA.

“When the Trace Gas Orbiter came on board in 2016, I was fully expecting the orbiter team to report that there’s a small amount of methane everywhere on Mars,” Chris Webster, lead of the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) instrument in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) chemistry lab aboard the Curiosity rover, said in a statement.

But now NASA thinks it may have found a solution. 

Because it needs a lot of power, TLS operates mostly at night when no other Curiosity instruments are working, says NASA. That’s when the Martian atmosphere is calm at night and methane seeping from the ground builds up near the surface where Curiosity can detect it, the agency notes. 

ESA’S Trace Gas Orbiter, on the other hand, requires sunlight to pinpoint methane about 3 miles above the surface.

So, NASA made specific measurements using the TLS instrument during daytime and also confirmed a non-detection of the methane gas. Webster and colleagues detailed their results this week in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal. 

{ https://www.forbes.com/ }

This ancient beetle is the first new species discovered in fossilized poop

By Akila Raghavan

Beetles are everywhere—and new members of Earth’s most diverse group of organisms are being discovered nearly every day. Now, for the first time, scientists have found a new species in an unusual place: the fossilized poop of a dinosaur ancestor. Found whole and remarkably intact, the 230-million-year-old beetle, named Triamyxa coprolithica, is the first insect to be scientifically described from fossilized feces, also known as coprolites.

“This is very exciting research,” says Spencer Lucas, a paleontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, who was not involved in the work. “This study is cutting edge and explores a whole new area of paleontology that has only been understood in the last decade.”

Coprolites are abundant in museum and research collections around the world. But until recently, Lucas says, few scientists examined these “little capsules of incredible fossil record” for their content, largely because researchers did not think small insects could successfully pass through a digestive system and end up in a recognizable form. Instead, paleontologists got most of their information about insect evolution from unlucky ones trapped in amber, or fossilized tree resin. But these fossils aren’t very old, geologically speaking: The most ancient ones date back to about 140 million years ago.

To discover whether coprolites could indeed preserve insect remains, Uppsala University paleontologist Martin Qvarnström and colleagues examined fossilized droppings from Poland that has previously been associated with the Triassic period, some 230 million years ago. They selected a coprolite fragment nearly 2 centimeters long that, based on its broken ends, suggested it was part of a much larger piece that might be more likely to contain things inside it. Then, they subjected the whole specimen to an intense x-ray beam at a synchrotron. By rotating the coprolite in the beam, they created 3D reconstructions of the coprolite’s contents. What they saw astounded them: incredibly preserved, nearly complete insects just 1.4 millimeters long, as well as fragments like heads, antennae, and legs, they report today in Current Biology.

The new species came from dung presumed to have been excreted by Silesaurus opolensis, a beaked dinosaur ancestor about 2.3 meters in length. The beetles were well preserved because coprolites act as microenvironments that can preserve organic material, including soft tissues, without any of the flattening that comes with other fossil types.

This extinct beetle likely belonged to a group known as Myxophaga, small beetles that thrive on algae in wet habitats, says study co-author Martin Fikáček, an entomologist at National Sun Yat-sen University. The team categorized it taxonomically by noting shared characteristics, like the number of abdomen segments or the position of the antennae, to modern Myxophaga, of which four lineages still survive today. The find is remarkable, Qvarnström says. “We have found bits and pieces [of insects in fossilized feces] before, but not enough to describe a new species, genus, and family,” like this.

These reconstructed images and models (see video above) not only reveal the new beetle species, but also offer information about the diets and environments of the animals that ate them, Qvarnström says. Such analyses can help scientists understand ancient food webs and how the dinosaur ancestors lived and interacted in this ancient ecosystem. By scanning coprolites from earlier and later in the Triassic period, the team also hopes to learn about insect evolution. 

As for T. coprolithica, researchers say there is no way of knowing why it went extinct while its cousins survived into the modern era. Fikáček says it is likely to have been a combination of random events and sheer bad luck. “Extinction is always the trickiest part out of all these things to understand,” he says.

Related information about fossil discovery is shown on Blast World Mysteries' YouTube video below:

{ https://science.sciencemag.org/ }

The violent birth of modern man: The incredible ancient stone carvings that reveal how a devastating comet impact 13,000 years ago killed thousands, altered the climate and triggered the rise of the first civilisations

• Scientists were analysing symbols carved on pillars at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey

• Using memorial carvings they pinpointed a comet impact to around 11,000BC

• The comet triggered a mini ice age that lasted 1,000 years

• This ice age forced humans to develop farming techniques to grow their crops

By HARRY PETTIT FOR MAILONLINE 

Ancient symbols carved into stone at an archaeological site in Turkey tell the story of a devastating comet impact that triggered a mini ice age more than 13,000 years ago, scientists believe.

Evidence from the carvings, made on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, suggests that a swarm of comet fragments hit the Earth in around 11000 BC.

One image of a headless man is thought to symbolise human disaster and extensive loss of life. 

The devastating event, which wiped out creatures such as woolly mammoths, also helped spark the rise of civilisation.

Scroll down for video 

Ancient stone carvings confirm that a swarm of comets hit Earth 13,000 years ago sparking the rise of civilisations and wiping out the woolly mammoth. Pictured are the stone carvings used in the team's research, found on pillar 43 or 'the Vulture Stone' at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey

Scientists have speculated for decades that a comet could have caused the sharp drop in temperature during a period known as the Younger Dryas.

The Younger Dryas is seen as a crucial period in humanity's history as it coincides with the beginnings of agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations.

Scientists were analysing the mysterious symbols carved onto stone pillars at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey to find out if they could be linked to constellations. 

Engineers from the University of Edinburgh studied animal carvings made on a pillar – known as the vulture stone – at the site.

By interpreting the animals as astronomical symbols, and using computer software to match their positions to patterns of stars, researchers dated the event to 10,950BC.

It probably resulted from the break-up of a giant comet in the inner solar system. 

This is around the time the Younger Dryas period began according to ice core data from Greenland, which pinpoints the event to 10,890BC.

Before the comet strike, large fields of barley and wheat had allowed roaming hunters in the Middle East to set up permanent base camps.

Evidence from the carvings, made on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, suggests that a swarm of comet fragments hit the Earth in around 11000 BC. The different symbols, said to tell the story, are labeled in the graphic above

But the ice-cold conditions created by the impact forced these hunters to band together and find new ways to grow crops.

They developed watering and selective breeding to help their crops last against the harsh climate, forming modern farming practices.

The carvings appear to have remained important to the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, the Edinburgh researchers said. 

This suggests that the event and cold climate that followed likely had a serious impact.

The comet's impact killed thousands of people and triggered a mini ice age that lasted more than 1,000 years. Pictured is a replica of the Vulture Stone at Sanliurfa Museum in Turkey

By interpreting the animals as astronomical symbols, and using computer software to match their positions to patterns of stars, researchers dated the event to 10,950BC. This image shows the position of the sun and stars on the summer solstice of 10,950BC

The team suggest the images were intended as a record of the cataclysmic event.

A further carving showing a headless man may indicate human disaster and extensive loss of life, they said.

Furthermore, symbolism on the pillars indicates that the long-term changes in Earth's rotational axis was recorded at this time using an early form of writing.  

The symbolism suggests that Gȍbekli Tepe was an observatory for meteors and comets.

The find supports a theory that Earth is likely to experience periods when comet strikes are more likely, owing to Earth's orbit intersecting orbiting rings of comet fragments in space.

Stone pillars at Gobleki Tepe, thought to be the world's oldest temple site. Scientists have speculated for decades that a comet could have caused the sharp drop in temperature during a period known as the Younger Dryas around 11,000BC

More stone pillars found at the Gobleki Tepe temple site. The Younger Dryas is seen as a crucial period in humanity's history as it coincides with the beginnings of agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations

Dr Martin Sweatman, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering, who led the research, said: 'I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent, virtually seal the case in favour of (a Younger Dryas comet impact).

'Our work serves to reinforce that physical evidence. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.

'It appears Göbekli Tepe was, among other things, an observatory for monitoring the night sky.

'One of its pillars seems to have served as a memorial to this devastating event – probably the worst day in history since the end of the ice age.'

Scientists were analysing the mysterious symbols carved onto stone pillars at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey to find out if they could be linked to constellations

The find supports a theory that Earth is likely to experience periods when comet strikes are more likely, owing to Earth's orbit intersecting orbiting rings of comet fragments in space (stock image)

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Catastrophic Comet Impact 13,000 Years Ago Likely Sparked the Rise of Civilization

Humans suddenly changed around 13,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherer societies began to rapidly change their way of life. They began to build permanent settlements and focused their efforts on farming. The oldest man-made megalithic structures around were also built around this period. Was a comet impact the reason behind this rapid development of human civilization?

 Vladislav Tchakarov 

8 takeaways from the government's big UFO report

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

(CNN) - On Friday evening the US intelligence community released something remarkable: An unclassified report to Congress of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) aka UFOs.

Which is a big deal! Especially when you consider that, for decades, the American government totally denied the existence of flying objects that they simply could not identify or, in some situations, explain.

The 9-page report isn't exactly an exhaustive study of UFOs, nor does it confirm or debunk the existence of alien life. And that it was released on a Friday night in the summer is also not an accident in terms of the government doing everything they can to bury the report.

Despite all of that, there were a number of interesting tidbits in the report. I pulled out some key quotes -- and added some context as well. That's below.

1. "Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall 'other' bin."

OK, so there are five basic categories for UFOs according to the report: Random airborne, uh, stuff (like birds), weather phenomenons, defense prototypes -- either from the US or "foreign adversary systems" and then the "other bin." And, yes, I (and the rest of the world) am most interested in the "other" bin.

2. "After carefully considering this information, the UAPTF focused on reports that involved UAP largely witnessed firsthand by military aviators and that were collected from systems we considered to be reliable."

The UAPTF is short for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, of course. (There's nothing that the government likes more than acronyms.) And, what this line says is that the task force decided to give precedence to UFO reports "witnessed firsthand by military aviators." Which is rightly read to mean that these reports are a) serious and b) credible.

A movie poster from the 1950s shows how Hollywood envisioned UFOs

3. "No standardized reporting mechanism existed until the Navy established one in March 2019. The Air Force subsequently adopted that mechanism in November 2020, but it remains limited to USG reporting."

Amazing! There was no formal way within the government to record UFO sightings until the Navy started one in 2019!!! And the Air Force didn't follow suit until, roughly, six months ago! Which reveals a) how resistant the government has been to acknowledging UFOs and b) how many sightings were almost certainly missed.

4. "[There were] 144 reports originated from USG sources. Of these, 80 reports involved observation with multiple sensors."

This line establishes the universe, ahem, that the task force examined. There were incidents between 2004 and 2021 -- and more than half were confirmed by "multiple sensors."

5. "Narratives from aviators in the operational community and analysts from the military and IC describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues. Although the effects of these stigmas have lessened as senior members of the scientific, policy, military, and intelligence communities engage on the topic seriously in public, reputational risk may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the topic."

Important stuff here -- an acknowledgment that the number of reports of UFOs may have been kept artificially low because of the stigma long attached to reporting these sorts of things, particularly among the military and intelligence community. That, according to the task force, has lessened somewhat as "senior members of the scientific, policy, military, and intelligence communities engage on the topic seriously in public."

6. "In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics. Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings."

Eyes emoji!!!! Like, this seems like a big deal! A total of 18 incidents where UFOs "appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion." In plain English, that means that military personnel spotted unidentified aerial phenomena that appeared to be unaffected by wind, move in ways that can't be explained and be propelled in ways that can't be explained. Which is very, very interesting.

7. "With the exception of the one instance where we determined with high confidence that the reported UAP was airborne clutter, specifically a deflating balloon, we currently lack sufficient information in our dataset to attribute incidents to specific explanations."

So, one time the thing that people thought was a UFO was a "deflating balloon." But, ALL the other times the military and intelligence community can't explain what the heck the UFO actually was. Which, again, BIG DEAL.

8. "Although most of the UAP described in our dataset probably remain unidentified due to limited data or challenges to collection processing or analysis, we may require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze and characterize some of them."

Most of these episodes remain mysterious, according to the report, because there simply isn't adequate information on hand to explain them. Then, however, there are some incidents that "may require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze and characterize some of them." Like, advanced science beyond our current capacity. Interesting!

{ https://edition.cnn.com/ }

Translation of 5,500-Year-Old Babel Text from China Reveals Oldest Known Map of Inner Solar System

It is obvious to any astronomer that some of the brightest objects in the night sky are the planets. It is thus mysterious that there are so few references to the planets in ancient literature.

Prior to decoding the Babel Text , which is an archaic geometric text that is based on astronomy, the oldest representation of the planets orbiting around the sun was ancient Greek philosophers Hicetas and Philolaus’ discussion on the planets orbiting a hot ball of metal, but there is little to indicate that they knew the relative orbital distances.

Identifying Astronomical Details with the Babel Text

However, with Dr. Derek Cunningham’s recent discovery of the Babel Text, a 5,300 to 5,600-Year-Old text from Lingjiatan, China, our understanding of the ancient past has changed dramatically. Now it is possible to read the enigmatic geometrical symbols on ancient artifacts and to identify subtle astronomical details that prior historians have missed.

In China, one of the most intriguing sites is Lingjiatan. The Lingjiatan culture existed from 5,500 to 4,000 years ago; and at around the same time as Stonehenge was constructed, the Chinese also created astronomical observatories and stone circles. Remarkably, the larger stones used to create the Chinese stone circles were not local to the area, which is the exact same trend seen later at Stonehenge.

• Stone Age Text Links Australia to Europe: Initial Evidence for Worldwide Travel by an Ancient Stone Age Civilization
• Did Humans Speak Through Cave Art? Ancient Drawings and Language's Origins
• Religious statues from Cyprus show evidence of astronomical writing

A tomb full of grave goods at Lingjiatan in China.

( Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology )

Amongst the thousands of artifacts recovered at site 87M4:30, two items have caught the attention of Chinese archaeologists and historians.

A Depiction of Heaven and Earth

The first is an engraved geometric plaque that was found in 1987 between two jade tortoise shells that draws the ancient Chinese description of Heaven and Earth. This is a geometric drawing with lines radiating through two concentric circles, with four arrow-type symbols placed on the outer circle.

At the center of this complex drawing is an eight pointed star that is still used as a pattern in local tribal clothing. For example, the Yi describe (note: the linked text is in Chinese) the eight pointed star as the "the heaven and earth gossip pattern."

A representation (not the actual image) of the Jade Heaven and Earth plaque from Lingjiatan.

Credit: Derek Cunningham

This symbol is also mentioned in the Chinese document called the “Book of Changes”, where it is said the universe began in a state of chaos called Taiji and it was centered on the rotation of the North Pole. Then order developed from this chaos and Taiji created two Yis. One Yi was called Earth (Yin). The other Yi was called Heaven (Yiang).

In the book “Chinese Jade”, the author Ming Yu then states that Yin created what was called the four Xiangs, which is represented by four arrow-type images. These are argued by Chinese historians to be the same symbols drawn on this jade plaque. Then Yin developed into the shape of a square (perhaps reflecting a rectangular Mercator Map of Earth), and the heavens then circled three (or four) times around Earth. The jade plaque is dated differently by various researchers, but it is normally considered to be between 5,600 to 5,300 years old (see work by Li Liu, and Xingcan Chen.)

Variant of the Taijitu ("supreme ultimate diagram"). A number of similar such diagrams are known from the Ming-era Daoist canon. The origin of this particular design is unknown (but it likely predates the 18th century). ( Public Domain ) A more detailed explanation surrounding this ancient description of a square-shaped Earth is provided in “ The Map that Talked ”; which looks at the creation of an intriguing Stone Age map, which uses the stars to create a relatively accurate map of Earth.

This archaic map can also explain the various aquatic descriptions that the Greeks gave to the constellations; where it is found that, when an expanded map of the stars is wrapped three times around Earth the Greek water constellations intriguingly mark the oceans and the constellations that describe heroes that did not drown mark the continents. The same book also describes the initial discovery of the original Babel Text.

“Aquarius, Piscis Australis & Ballon Aerostatique”, plate 26 in Urania's Mirror, a set of celestial cards accompanied by A familiar treatise on astronomy ... by Jehoshaphat Aspin. London. Astronomical chart, 1 print on layered paper board: etching, hand-colored.

( Public Domain )

Language in the Babel Text

Though many dedicated Ancient Origin readers will know of Derek Cunningham’s prior work, where he analyzed many geometric symbols around the world and noted the archaic patterns were apparently used as a very simple code, in which the angles of the lines were set to reflect the key astronomical values that astronomers used to calculate time and predict eclipses, few will have heard the phrase, “The Babel Texts”.

The reason for now referring to these lines as being the original written and spoken world language comes from a preliminary analysis that has recovered a phonetic code that can be attached to the lines. This means the lines are both mathematical values (that reflect astronomical terms) and a type of alphabet, where each line can be given a consonant that depends on the angle of the line.

To this pictorial text a vowel can also be attached, where the vowel depends on whether the offset is to above or below the horizontal, or to the right or left of the vertical.

This idea is discussed in much more detail in the author’s latest book “The Babel Texts”, where the basic conclusion is that the same astronomical code was used worldwide, including in Australia and in North and South America, during the Stone Age.

Part of the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement in Victoria, Australia.

(Ray Norris/ CC BY SA 2.5 )

Intriguingly, though the original world “spoken” language rapidly diverged over time, it appears the written text was far more resistant to change, and that permits more modern texts, such as proto-cuneiform and other angular-based texts such as Irish Ogham , to be used to recover phonetic clues; which now brings us back to the Chinese Neolithic Lingjiatan astronomical site and a second intriguing pattern that was found on a jade eagle.

The Jade Eagle

The Babel Text also appears on this jade artifact, but what is important about this archaic text is the pattern apparently names six planets and the moon and the sun. From its layout it is possible to extract the names of the celestial bodies.

The most important point to note is the inverted triangles on this jade eagle are almost all symmetrical. The exception is just one pairing, which is created using the -18.6, -5.1 degree pairing. These astronomical values are linked to the angle of the moon’s orbital plane relative to Earth, and the moon’s 18.6 year long orbital cycle around Earth. As this is the only inverted triangle that uses the 5.1 degree value, this inverted triangle is believed to represent the moon.

Using various ancient texts to try to determine phonetic values for these lines then produces a relatively simple text that matches later Ogham phonetic values. In this case it appears the names for the celestial bodies are GeGo (Earth); ShyiShyu (Mercury); Ish(o)?Ishe (Venus); NuNi (Mars); IsheIsh(o)? (Jupiter); NiNu (Saturn); Ish(o)?Hes (The Moon) and ShyuShyi (The Sun).  

Intriguingly, this jade eagle also provides the earliest known drawing of the inner solar system.

The jade eagle also appears to draw the inner solar system. Credit: Derek Cunningham

By using the holes that create the eyes and the nose of the various animals to draw circles, it is found that the image draws the orbital distances for the first four planets.

It is also intriguing that this jade eagle is considered to be circa 5,300 years old, which makes it marginally older than the earthwork found at Stonehenge.

In this image, which is a representation (and not the actual image of the jade eagle) it is found that the angles drawn by the lines that create the central star pattern are aligned to the astronomical values that astronomers use to measure time and predict eclipses. For example, the 27.32 degree value is the sidereal month, which is central in determining where the Earth is in its orbit around the sun.

Credit: Derek Cunningham

Both the jade eagle and the layout of Stonehenge are described in more detail in the author’s book “The Babel Text”, but what is now becoming clear is the same astronomical knowledge was present in both Britain and China at around the same time period.

The Case of Stonehenge

In the case of Stonehenge, I could find no prior work by any other author that mentions the size of the Stonehenge earthwork relative to the central stone circle appears to show the relative diameters of the moon and planet Earth.

The width of the stone circle at Stonehenge also appears to reflect the apparent change in the size of the moon at apogee and perigee.

This drawing of Stonehenge is based on recent LIDAR data, which shows the outer earthwork that surrounds Stonehenge is actually a reasonable representation of the size of Earth if the inner stone circle is considered to the moon. (See here)

It thus seems likely that circa 5,300 years ago the Mesopotamians, the people who settled in the Orkney Isles , and the Stone Circle Builders of Lingjiatan were in contact.

However, this is not the only time the world was in contact.

• Are There Hidden Depths to the Golden Lozenge of Stonehenge?
• Ten Mysterious Examples of Rock Art from the Ancient World
• The Origins of Human Language: One of the Hardest Problems in Science

A Connection Since the Appearance of the Fist Homo sapiens

For this archaic text to be the original Babel Text, it must be old enough to explain the appearance of the same geometric text in Australia and in California and Nevada in North America; and with the original text to guide us, it is actually possible to follow this text through time. Amazingly, the journey does takes us all the way back to the appearance of the first Homo sapiens.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to discuss all the results here, but it is now clear that the Bible was correct. There was a time when the whole earth was of one language , and of one speech . The only surprise is we didn’t realize that the phrase “One Language” was referring to an archaic written text.

‘The Confusion of Tongues’ (1620) by Karel van Mander I. 

Source: Public Domain

• Top Image: Early man looking up at the stars ( Kovalenko I / Adobe Stock)

By Derek Cunningham

More information on this topic can be found in The Babel Texts by Derek and Robert Cunningham.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

How transparency on UFOs can unite a deeply divided nation

© Getty

President Biden promised to unify a fractured country. At the same time, his administration pledged to usher in a new era of transparency. Following the release of a highly anticipated government report on UFOs, Biden has a rare opportunity to live up to both commitments.

The UFO report prompted a flurry of bipartisan calls for a robust, open-minded investigation into these perplexing phenomena. If members of Congress can set aside seemingly intractable differences to take this issue seriously, the Biden administration – and the American public – should take note.

Beyond acknowledging that intelligence analysts are thoroughly stumped by mysterious objects – some of which appear to exhibit remarkable technology in restricted airspace – the report marks an extraordinary shift in how the government perceives UFOs. After seven decades of deflection, ridicule and brushing aside such encounters, the Pentagon is following in Congress’s footsteps and taking such phenomena seriously. Very seriously.

Moreover, by demanding the report, Congress stumbled upon an issue that can unite Americans of all political stripes. Indeed, if strong, bipartisan statements on these encounters are any indicator, the UFO mystery could ultimately transcend the deep polarization of the post-Trump era.

America, after all, is at its best when it is united by curiosity about the unknown.

To that end, the Biden administration should declassify some basic, non-sensitive information, focusing on objects that seem to exhibit remarkable technology.

Of 143 unexplained encounters, 18 involved “unusual” “movement patterns or flight characteristics.” According to the report, analysts are attempting to determine if these objects demonstrated “breakthrough technologies.” This aligns with reporting by the New York Times that some of these craft accelerated, changed direction and submerged in seemingly extraordinary ways.

The report’s equivocation on these perplexing encounters stands in stark contrast to former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe’s unambiguous comments that “there are technologies that we don’t have and frankly that we are not capable of defending against.”

According to Ratcliffe, intelligence analysts “ruled out” weather incidents, visual disturbances, foreign adversaries or ultra-secret U.S. technology as possible explanations for the most exotic phenomena.

If Ratcliffe’s statements are accurate, this is an extraordinary development. More to the point, the Biden administration has a rare opportunity to live up to its pledges to restore transparency and national unity. It can begin by releasing a numbered list of the report’s 18 “unusual” encounters alongside the intelligence community’s preliminary confidence levels (low, medium or high) that each object exhibited some sort of “breakthrough technology.”

If Ratcliffe is correct and analysts ruled out mundane explanations or advanced U.S. and adversarial technology, the government’s high-level assessments would fuel a remarkable discussion, drawing in Americans from across the political divide.

Perhaps best of all, declassifying such data would not expose tradecraft or sensitive sources and collection methods. In other words, the Biden administration has no good reason not to release such basic information.

Ratcliffe’s eyebrow-raising comments are not the only reason more Americans’ curiosity should be piqued.

After reviewing government reports on UFOs, former astronaut, senator and current NASA administrator Bill Nelson said “the hair stood up on the back of my neck.”

John Brennan, CIA director under President Obama, went further, speculating that UFOs might constitute a “different form of life.” In much the same vein, Luis Elizondo, the one-time head of a Pentagon unit tasked with investigating these phenomena, stated that the U.S. government is actively “considering whether the most extraordinary unidentified flying objects are not of earthly origin.” Meanwhile, Christopher Mellon, a former top Pentagon official, penned a post titled “Don’t Dismiss the Alien Hypothesis.”

And in recent weeks, former presidents Obama and Clinton – who still receive high-level intelligence briefings – openly speculated about extraterrestrial life when asked about UFOs.

Make no mistake: These are fascinating developments that should spur curiosity among Republicans and Democrats alike.

And if a thorough investigation, driven by intense bipartisan interest, ultimately determines that balloons, drones, birds or plastic bags explain the most extraordinary UFO encounters, the upshot is that America will be less politically and culturally fractured. (Ditto for any revelation that an adversary mounted an audacious espionage campaign.)

As large swathes of the country face a drought of “biblical proportions” and all-time temperature records are demolished, an unlikely shot at uncovering “breakthrough technology” is worth eroding the deep fault lines dividing America.

To that end, the Biden administration must live up to its twin commitments to transparency and unity.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter @MvonRen.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

Another coronavirus epidemic hit humanity more than 20,000 years ago

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A coronavirus outbreak struck East Asia some 20,000 years ago — and left traces of the epidemic in the genetic makeup of people from that area, a study has found.

An international team of researchers led from the University of Queensland analysed the genes in human DNA that code for proteins that interact with coronaviruses.

They found evidence among the DNA people of East Asian ancestry of natural selection for adaptations that would have served to lessen disease severity.

COVID-19 — which has killed some 3.8 million people over the course of the last 18 months — is not the only severe outbreak of coronavirus that jumped from animals.

In 2002, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome resulting from SARS-CoV emerged in China and led to more than 800 mortalities. 

Meanwhile, MERS-CoV — which leads to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome — killed more than 850 people after it was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. 

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© Provided by Daily Mail 

'The modern human genome contains evolutionary information tracing back tens of thousands of years,' said paper author and synthetic biologist Kirill Alexandrov of the Queensland University of Technology.

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

The entire world right now is going through a horrible and deadly pandemic with over 180,000,000 people having been infected with COVID-19 and almost 4,000,000 deaths. But this isn’t a new thing as over 20,000 years ago there was another coronavirus infection that hit the eastern part of Asia.

A new study was conducted by researchers from the United States and Australia who analyzed the genomes of over 2,500 people belonging to 26 different worldwide populations. They specifically found the earliest interaction of the human genome with coronavirus infections and those genetic imprints are incredibly still present in the DNA of people currently from East Asia.

Lead author Yassine Souilmi explained that viruses duplicate themselves; however, they don’t have the tools to do that on their own, “So they actually depend on a host, and that’s why they invade a host and then they hijack their machinery to create copies of themselves.” The hijacking on the cells can still be seen in today’s populations which allowed the researchers to pinpoint whose ancestors may have been exposed to a very ancient form of coronavirus.

The experts found specific genomes with signs of ancient coronavirus in five populations located in China, Japan, and Vietnam. It is possible that the virus could have spread to other parts of the world but there is no information so far on whether or not that happened.

In those five specific populations, the researchers discovered that a beneficial mutation had been developed throughout the years that aided in protecting them against coronavirus and gave them a better chance of surviving it. Souilmi explained this further, “Over a long period of time, and along the exposure, this leaves a very, very clear marking in the genomes of their descendants,” adding, “And that’s the signature we actually use to detect this ancient epidemic, and also the timing of this ancient epidemic.”

It is unknown how many people caught the virus, how many died as a result from it, and what type of symptoms they had – was it like a normal flu or something much worse, similar to what we’re currently dealing with? Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that coronavirus hit a part of the world over 20,000 years ago and it is now doing the same thing but much, much worse.

The study was published in Current Biology where it can be read in full.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Over the course of several months between the final weeks of 1896 and the early summer of 1897, newspapers throughout the United States had been reporting on odd stories of airships that were purportedly being seen across the nation. Beginning in California, the sightings continued in the months ahead as the area of sightings slowly expanded eastward into states like Arkansas, Missouri and Texas.

One of the most interesting accounts from the era appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the date of April 16, 1897, which announced that the mysterious airship had been viewed through a telescope by one Dr. Leo Caplan while it passed over Missouri.

“The airship visited St. Louis again Thursday night,” the Post-Dispatch report read. “This time the bright searchlight was not only seen by thousands but the object was observed through a telescope and the outlines of the craft were seen.”

Artist’s rendering of the airship purportedly seen during late 1896 and into the summer of 1897.

Dr. Caplan, who was described in the article as a medical doctor and “a dabbler in astronomy” and frequent stargazer, had been convinced that what he observed was no star.

“I was walking to my home on Washington avenue last night about 7:45,” Caplan explained, “when I saw a bright light almost overhead.” The light appeared to the northwest of where Caplan stood observing.

“But the moment I saw this light,” Caplan explained, “I realized it was something unusual and I hastened home, ran to the roof and brought my telescope to bear on the object. Before taking a sight I noticed the light was swaying from side to side.” Caplan likened this peculiar motion to that of “a searchlight that was being manipulated.”

Most intriguingly, Caplan also said that he was able to observe through his telescope “a long black body behind the light,” which he described as being similar to other reports of a large, cigar-shaped object reported by other observers around the time who had seen the mysterious craft during its mostly nighttime visits. One day after Caplan’s observation, another purported sighting of the strange aerial visitor was logged by an Arkansas constable named John J. Sumpter, who saw the airship with his Deputy Sherriff John McLemore.

Amidst newspaper reports like these that had been occurring in the spring and early summer of 1897, there had been other unusual sightings taking place even further east. Around the same time, Joseph Loven, a resident of the Cold Springs community along Jonas Ridge, North Carolina, first said he observed peculiar lights that appeared at night and could be seen from his home off in the direction of a location now famous for the strange lights said to manifest there: a long, flat ridgeline called Brown Mountain.

Brown Mountain as seen today in Western North Carolina.

The Brown Mountain Lights, as the phenomena reputed to occur near Linville in Western North Carolina has since come to be known, would seem to be quite different from the reports of airships that were afoot during the 1890s. However, is it possible that there might nonetheless be a connection between them?

In 1906, nine years after the American airship affair had died down (and some of the earliest alleged sightings of the Brown Mountain Lights were said to have occurred), author Jules Verne still had airships on his mind. His novel Master of the World, a sequel to his earlier book Robur the Conquerer, was now hitting the shelves, which continued the adventures of the fearful Robur and his penchant for building magnificent flying ships. In Master of the World, Verne described a rather unique location as the base of operations for Robur’s latest operations, as featured in the opening pages of the story.

“The strange occurrences began in the western part of our great American State of North Carolina,” Verne explains. “There, deep amid the Blueridge Mountains rises the crest called the Great Eyrie. Its huge rounded form is distinctly seen from the little town of Morganton on the Catawba River, and still more clearly as one approaches the mountains by way of the village of Pleasant Garden.”

“The Great Eyrie,” as depicted in the original illustrations for Jules Verne’s novel “Master of the World”

(public domain).

Verne goes on to paint the Great Eyrie as a strange prominence rising above the surrounding landscape, describing it as “rocky and grim and inaccessible,” noting that “under certain atmospheric conditions [it] has a peculiarly blue and distant effect.” Verne elaborates further, speculating that the summit of the Great Eyrie, which remained impenetrable to even the most experienced climbers, might have been an ancient volcano, “one which had slept through ages, but whose inner fires might yet reawake,” which he likens to Krakatoa, Mont Pelee, and potentially being host to an “eruption such as that of 1902 in Martinique.”

This much might have been evident by the many sightings of smoke, or the “unexplained rumblings” cited by locals which appeared to emanate from the Great Eyrie. This, and the fact that, as Verne recounts, “A glow in the sky had crowned the height at night.”

“And finally,” Verne tells us, “one stormy night pale flames, reflected from the clouds above the summit, cast upon the district below a sinister, warning light.”

Flames above the Great Eyrie, from Verne’s “Master of the World”

(Public Domain).

Soon, newspapers throughout the region would begin to report on the mysterious light show occurring in the skies above The Great Eyrie, and as Verne tells us, “curiosity among those who being in no danger themselves were interested in the disturbance merely as a strange phenomenon of nature,” while others nearer to the mysterious mountain lived in fear of possible forthcoming danger.

“Those more immediately threatened were the citizens of Morganton,” Verne tells us, “and even more the good folk of Pleasant Garden and the hamlets and farms yet closer to the mountain.”

English translations of Vern’s novel wouldn’t make their way onto the shelves of American bookstores until 1911, but by the time they did, people around real-life Morganton, North Carolina, were already familiar with similar strange happenings said to occur in their region.

An example appeared in The Charlotte Daily Observer on the date of September 23, 1913, which provided the following account:

“The mysterious light that is seen just above the horizon almost every night from Rattlesnake Knob, near Cold Spring, on the Morganton road is still baffling all investigators. With punctual regularity the light rises in a southeasterly direction from the point of observation just over the lower slope of Brown Mountain, first about 7:30 p.m. and again at 10 o’clock. It looks much like a toy fire balloon, a distinct ball, with no atmosphere about it. It is much smaller than the full moon, much larger than any star and very red. It rises in the far distance from beyond Brown Mountain, which is about 6 miles from Rattlesnake Knob, and after going up a short distance, wavers and goes out in less than 1 minute. It does not always appear in exactly the same place, but varies what must amount in the distance to several miles. The light is visible at all seasons, so Mr. Anderson Loven, an old and reliable resident testifies There seems to be no doubt that the light rises from some point in the wide, level country between Brown Mountain and the South Mountains, a distance of about 12 miles, though it is possible that it rises at a still greater distance.”

Historical photo depicting lights purported to represent the mysterious lights seen near the vicinity of Brown Mountain, North Carolina.

According to most sources, no written records of mysterious lights appear in the region prior to around 1912, although most newspaper accounts begin appearing in 1913. These state that locals had been troubled by the appearances of the lights for the last “two or three years,” which as Geologist Ed Speer, a researcher who has studied the lights for several years has pointed out, would roughly coincide with the appearance of English translations of Jules Verne’s Master of the World in 1911.

However, some sources such as Joseph Loven, who claimed to have seen the lights as early as 1897 (when mysterious “airships” were frequent appearing, at least in American newspapers) also said he wouldn’t begin to pay attention to the lights until 1910, when others began to bring attention to them like Rev. C. E. Gregory, his neighbor at the time.

Is it indeed possible that there could be any connection between beliefs about the Brown Mountain Lights—appearances of which have been said to persist now for decades—and the mysterious airships of the 1890s? Admittedly, the appearance of “The Great Eyrie” as depicted in art from Verne’s novel bears a striking similarity to Table Rock, a prominent mountain in the Linville Gorge wilderness a short distance from Brown Mountain where reports of the mysterious lights have also been logged over the years.

An enhanced photo that may depict an anomalous light rising over Table Rock in the Linville Gorge Wilderness, taken in 2009 by researcher Bill Fox

(Credit: Bill Fox).

It would be difficult to imagine Jules Verne (who despite his gifted imagination, never strayed far from his home in France) had somehow heard about quaint local traditions in the southern Appalachians regarding ghost lights at the time he wrote of the “strange occurrences… in the western part of our great American State of North Carolina” in Master of the World. This is especially unlikely since newspaper accounts detailing the lights appeared no earlier than 1912, one year after the publication of his novel.

Conversely, the skeptically inclined would argue that stories about the lights, rather than inspiring Verne’s story, had actually been influenced by its publication instead. Then again, if this were true, what can be said of the endurance of reports of the lights now for more than a century? A final possibility would simply be that there are no connections, apart from the coincidental appearances of the lights shortly after the publication of Verne’s book, which borrowed from the lingering interest in prospective airships seen in America in the 1890s (although it should be noted that a similar rash of sightings occurred in Britain in 1909, Verne’s novel was published in France three years before this, and thus couldn’t have been inspired by the sightings of “Scareships” over Europe).

Some of the similarities between these late-19th and early-20th century oddities are certainly difficult to ignore. Ultimately, they could be suggestive of the cultural influence one of the most renowned early science fiction novelists had on the development of a famous folk tradition of “ghost lights” in the American southeast.

ALL RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

If there was one person on Earth who would have definitive knowledge of extraterrestrials, the leading candidate would be an astronaut who has spent time in space. Second choice might be the head of NASA, who has talked to these astronauts and seen their reports. Third would probably be someone who has read the full classified Pentagon report on UFOs, not just the public summary. There’s one person who fits in all three categories – Bill Nelson, the former astronaut who is currently the new head of NASA and just finished reading the classified Pentagon report. So, what does he have to say about ETs?

“People are hungry to know. And of course, ever since ‘Star Trek,’ you know people are yearning to find out what’s out there in the cosmos. Are we alone? Personally, I don’t think we are. The universe is so big, it’s 13 and a half billion years ago is when the universe started. That’s pretty big.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

What about the UAPs, Bill. Are these Romulan warships or Klingon battle cruisers? Are they shuttlecrafts from a cloaked mothership? Scouts? What did the classified version of the Pentagon report really say about them?

“The report basically says what we thought. We don’t know the answer to what those Navy pilots saw but they know that they know something. They tracked it and locked their radar on to it. It moved quickly from one location to another.”

In an interview with CNN (watch it here), Nelson unfortunately doesn’t sound the one person on Earth with the experience and the exposure to answer those critical questions. Instead, he verbally agrees with the limited 9-pafe summary released to the public, although he does add some NASA-specific observations about whether it might be an alien adversary.

“We don’t think so [that it is an adversary], but when it comes to universe, remember the universe is so large, we have a program in NASA called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But thus far, we don’t have any receipt communication from something that’s intelligent.”

Not surprisingly, he hopes they’re not owned by a foreign adversary.

“… I talked to the Navy pilots, when we were briefed in the Senate Armed Services Committee, and my feeling is that there is clearly something there. It may not necessarily be an extraterrestrial, but if it is a technology that some of our adversaries have, then we better be concerned.”

He also says the public needs to be patient. NASA scientists are analyzing the data in an attempt to explain them scientifically, and he’s awaiting their report. He also plugs the upcoming launch of the James Webb telescope in November, which will “peer back in time, almost to the beginning and additional information will find more planets.”

Associate NASA Administrator Robert Cabana, Administrator Bill Nelson and former NASA Deputy Director Lori Garver in an early photo front of NASA’s first space-bound Orion capsule.

Sigh. Despite his top position at NASA, his time in space and with other astronauts, his access to classified information … he sounds like he’s still in the mode of his other previous job – U.S. senator from Florida.

Will anyone step forward with additional information on those 143 unexplained UAP sightings by the military, or the UAP sightings by other countries, or the hundreds (or more) of other non-military sightings the government must have in its files? Are the sightings really not ours nor of other countries? How much longer will frustrated pilots continue to report on them with no answers? How much longer before there’s a confrontation? Why hasn’t there been one yet?

We want to believe … we just don’t yet know WHO to believe.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 01 - 07 - 2021

UFO Sighted Over Arizona Desert ( June 26, 2021 )

Amazing UFO sighting was held in the Arizona Desert on June 26, 2021 

STATEMENT : ufo black floating box footage az desert

• credit : Austin 2

UFOs Sighted Over Canada ( June 30, 2021 )

UFOs were sighted over Canada on June 30, 2021

STATEMENT : Enregistrement Canada 2021 : Recording Canada 2021

• credit : UFO Sightings Footage

UFOs Sighted Over Nashik, India ( June 30. 2021 )

UFOs were sighted over Nashik, India on June 30. 2021

STATEMENTS : Orange Lights In Sky : Strange lights in sky - Nashik : Video from Suma Khan

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : VIDEO 1 : Vaibhav.n

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/kR5-v_rbaog

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : VIDEO 2 : sumaiya khan

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/PnZlqjcsLl

Strange Light Over Guanajuato, Mexico ( June 29, 2021 )

Strange Light Over Guanajuato, Mexico on June 29, 2021

STATEMENT : Será un relámpago!!! ¿Qué es eso?
Se ve como para Gran Jardín o el Parque Metropolitano...

TRANSLATE : It will be lightning
!!!What is that?
Looks like Big Garden or Metropolitan Park...

• credit : Ricardo Dávalos

UFO Follows Helicopter Over Mexico ( June 30, 2021 )

UFO Follows Helicopter Over Mexico on June 30, 2021

STATEMENT : ufo acompanha Helicóptero : Ufo acompanha Helicóptero no vôo : Ufo accompanies helicopter on flight

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : Arquivos do Mundo Sobrenatural

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/tth1IeHTfow

UFO Sighted Over Seoul, South Korea ( June 30, 2021 )

UFO sighted over Seoul, South Korea on June 30, 2021

STATEMENT : It was not a balloon. Still cannot figure out of the identity.

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : Truth Finder

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/ywGGlgR0vgg

Strange Lights Sighted Over London, England ( June 30, 2021 )

UFO ? : STATEMENT : Wembley ( London ) blue lights coming from behind the clouds

Well guys during lockdown in the U.K. stay indoors have a ceiling over your head for a whole year !!!! Hmmmmm. Not many people looking up at the sky anymore ??? Very fishy stuff

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : TROJAN PERFORMANCE

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/hgcZ0hYOnh4

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Police car films something strange on the road in Rabun County, Georgia. What is it?

In Rabun Conty, Georgia, residents have been thrown into a fright after a bizarre story emerged regarding cops being scared at a road location by what has been described as a “something strange”.

That and more strange events caught on tape. Real or fake? Video here:

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

Former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid shares what he saw at Area 51, thoughts on UFOs

Recent disclosures by the federal government acknowledged the existence of UFOs might be surprising to everyone except Nevada’s former Sen. Harry Reid.

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

“Interstellar vehicles” visited Earth: ancient manuscripts confirm it

The history of mankind keeps many secrets hidden for millennia. It is possible that the Earth was visited by interstellar vehicles from other worlds.

There are ancient manuscripts , possibly written for some purpose . The truth is that humanity will always be oriented to discover its true origin. And the story tells of interstellar vehicles , beings from other worlds, and many other events that orthodox historians wish to eliminate.

In these ancient texts mention is made of exotic technologies, such as antigravity . Whose control came from the human mind.

For many, civilizations such as the Sumerian or Egyptian are considered those that would have the greatest relevance in terms of the evolution of the Earth .

However, ancient India keeps ancient texts with a unique and surprising knowledge.

The oldest history of mankind?

One of the broadest histories of society is found in ancient India, and its texts known as the Vedas considered the greatest ancient manuscripts of mankind.

Among some of the particularities found in these texts is the mention of flying ships that traveled the Earth 6000 years ago .

These Vedic Sanskrit texts constitute the oldest link in Hinduism in terms of Sanskrit literature and writing.

In the book, Vaimanika Shastra or “Science of Aeronautics” are descriptions of interstellar vehicles , whose control was the mind through. A technology of ancient cultures, now defunct.

According to various experts, the texts show real aeronautical ships.

Mention is also made of antigravity or levitation as technologies used in the past.

Interstellar vehicles in ancient times

For some scholars the sacred text Vaimanika Shastra can be considered as a guide for space, interstellar and space travel

V. Raghavam, writer of more than 120 books and  1,200 articles , which credited him with the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Sanskrit in 1966, was commissioned to interpret those spoken by Vaimanika Shastra.

Dr. V. Raghavam interpreted that thousands of years ago alien beings visited our ancestors. In the same way, human beings inhabited other planets .

Other scholars and authors agree with Raghavan, that evidence of various types of written technologies can be found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

For the professor of aeronautics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Dr. AV Krishna Murty, what has been said is totally true.

Stating that “ancient Indian Vedas and other texts describe aeronautics, flying machines, spaceships and ancient astronauts.”

It is worth mentioning that, although the Hindu Vedas is not the only text that makes mention of flying ships, it is the most explicit and graphic. So can we say that the Earth was visited by the Ancient Astronauts?

{ https://mysteriousthing.com/ }