More than 1,200 Mesolithic tools that were used by people up to 10,000 years ago unearthed along Aberdeenshire river

• The worked flint tools included blades, scrapers and even part of a mace-head

• Local archaeology group Mesolithic Deeside collected them during 'fieldwalks'

• And they are conducting an archaeological dig at the Milton of Crathes this week

• The trenches they did will look for flints and investigate a possible settlement

By IAN RANDALL FOR MAILONLINE

More than 1,200 Mesolithic worked stone tools dating back to around 6,000–10,000 years ago have been found alongside the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

The flints — which include blades, scrapers and waste material — were collected by volunteers with archaeology group Mesolithic Deeside from 13–17 March this year.

The tools, the experts explained, would have been used by some of the earliest communities in the area to kill, butcher and prepare animals for food and materials.

One group member, a student from nearby University of Aberdeen, also found part of a Neolithic-age, egg-shaped mace head during the 'fieldwalking' exercise.

Building on these finds, the group will be conducting a 'test pitting' — digging a series of small trenches — at the Milton of Crathes from November 11–14.

Alongside hunting for more flints, the archaeologists will also be investigating features seen in aerial survey maps that may represent the remains of a settlement.

The group will also be joined by geologists who will probe the ground of the river terrace to look for evidence of former flooding and past environmental conditions.

More than 1,200 Mesolithic worked stone tools dating back to around 6,000–10,000 years ago (some of which are pictured) have been found alongside the River Dee in Aberdeenshire

The flints — which include blades, scrapers and waste material — were collected by volunteers with archaeology group Mesolithic Deeside from 13–17 March this year. Pictured: an example of so-called 'flint scatter' that the volunteers have found along the course of the River Dee

The tools, the experts explained, would have been used by some of the earliest communities in the area to kill, butcher and prepare animals for food and materials. One group member, a student from nearby University of Aberdeen, also found part of a Neolithic-age, egg-shaped mace head during the 'fieldwalking' exercise

Every flint found by the group is meticulously bagged and tagged with a GPS provenance, analysed by a specialist and the information collated into a database, making the Dee one of Scotland's most extensively studied rivers for flint deposits. Pictured: a map showing the finds from the group's fieldwalks back in March 2021. The different icons reflect the flint types

Mesolithic Deeside chair and archaeologist Alison Cameron told the MailOnline that the long and varied nature of the River Dee would have provided the inhabitants of the region 6,000–10,000 with everything that they needed to live. Pictured: a flint from the River Dee

Mesolithic Deeside chair and archaeologist Alison Cameron told the MailOnline that the long and varied nature of the River Dee would have provided the inhabitants of the region 6,000–10,000 with everything that they needed to live.

This, she explained, is why so much so-called 'flint scatter' can be found today in the fields along the river banks, showing where people made and used stone tools.

Every flint found by the group is meticulously bagged and tagged with a GPS provenance, sent off for analysis by a specialist and the information collated into a database, making the Dee one of Scotland's most extensively studied rivers for flint deposits.

Coinciding with the dig this week, Mesolithic expert Caroline Wickham-Jones and her fellow group members have compiled a dossier on their discoveries to date, which will be published in Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports.

The group — which was launched in 2017 and has some 50 members — is funded in part by the Aberdeenshire Council and the King George V Wind Turbine Trust.

Interested members of the public are welcome to volunteer in this week's excavations at the Milton of Crathes — such as by helping the dig itself and sorting the finds — or to simply visit to see what the group has uncovered.

'If visiting the site may be very muddy so wear sensible shoes or wellies!', said Alison Cameron.

'The work of Mesolithic Deeside has made a real contribution to our understanding of the prehistoric communities who lived along the Dee,' said archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones, formerly of the University of Aberdeen.

'Fieldwalking is fun but was obviously impacted by lockdown and they have worked hard to keep group members enthused.'

Aberdeenshire regional archaeologist Bruce Mann agreed, adding: 'The volunteers of Mesolithic Deeside have contributed so much to our understanding of early prehistory in this part of the world through their fieldwalking.'

Coinciding with the dig this week, Mesolithic expert Caroline Wickham-Jones and her fellow group members have compiled a dossier on their discoveries to date, which will be published in Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports. Pictured: a flint found by the group in March

The group — which was launched in 2017 and has some 50 members — is funded in part by the Aberdeenshire Council and the King George V Wind Turbine Trust. Pictured: a Mesolithic Deeside volunteer admires a flint found during a fieldwalking exercise

'I started fieldwalking with Mesolithic Deeside in 2018 and am now totally hooked,' said Mesolithic Deeside volunteer Roslyn Hay. 'The thrill of finding something that has been hidden in the soil, knowing that you are the first person to hold it since it was dropped thousands of years ago. You feel a connection with that person way back in prehistory. Pictured: two of the flints that the group found in fieldwalks back in March

'I started fieldwalking with Mesolithic Deeside in 2018 and am now totally hooked,' said Mesolithic Deeside volunteer Roslyn Hay.

'I've learned so much and made so many new friends, with the added benefit of plenty of exercise and fresh air. We walk, we talk (a lot), and find wonderful things.

'The thrill of finding something that has been hidden in the soil, knowing that you are the first person to hold it since it was dropped thousands of years ago. You feel a connection with that person way back in prehistory. 

'My most memorable find was a large blade. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it! It was confirmed as most probably from the Late Upper Palaeolithic. 

'Finds from this period, which predates the Mesolithic, are rare in Scotland, so this was a very exciting find for the group.' 

'When I started finding flints over 20 years ago, I could never have imagined contributing to such a massive project,' said Mesolithic Deeside co-secretary and founding member Sheila Duthie. The group's efforts, she added, are 'without doubt broadening our understanding of prehistoric human activity on Deeside — it’s a blast!' Pictured: some of the group's finds

'When I started finding flints over 20 years ago, I could never have imagined contributing to such a massive project,' said Mesolithic Deeside co-secretary and founding member Sheila Duthie.

The group's efforts, she added, are 'without doubt broadening our understanding of prehistoric human activity on Deeside — it’s a blast!'

'My ideal pastime is footerin in flat fields with fine folk finding flints, fair or foul!' she exuberantly concluded.

More information on the upcoming test pitting can be found on the Mesolithic Deeside Facebook page.

'The work of Mesolithic Deeside has made a real contribution to our understanding of the prehistoric communities who lived along the Dee,' said archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones, formerly of the University of Aberdeen. Pictured: a Mesolithic Deeside volunteer with one of the group's flint finds back in March

Building on these finds, the group will be conducting a 'test pitting' — digging a series of small trenches — at the Milton of Crathes from November 11–14. Alongside hunting for more flints, the archaeologists will also be investigating features seen in aerial survey maps that may represent the remains of a settlement

Interested members of the public are welcome to volunteer in this week's (November 11–14) excavations at the Milton of Crathes— such as by helping the dig itself and sorting the finds — or to simply visit to see what the group has uncovered. 'If visiting the site may be very muddy so wear sensible shoes or wellies!', said Alison Cameron. Pictured: the dig site

HOW DID PEOPLE LIVE DURING THE MESOLITHIC PERIOD?

The Mesolithic period, also called Middle Stone Age, is an ancient time period (8000 BC to AD 2700) that took place between the Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age) with its chipped stone tools, and the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) with its polished stone tools.

The Mesolithic period's material culture is characterized by greater innovation than the Paleolithic.

Among the new types of chipped stone tools were microliths: very small stone tools intended for mounting together on a shaft in order to produce a serrated edge. Polished stone was another innovation that arose in some Mesolithic groups.  

Northern European Mesolithic people (called Maglemosian's), who flourished at about 6000 BC, left behind traces of primitive huts with bark-covered floors and adzes for working wood.

At Starr Carr in Yorkshire, there are signs that four or five huts existed there, with a population of around 25 people. There is evidence that these sites may only have been occupied on a seasonal basis.

An artist's impression of tribes fishing during the Mesolithic period

Aracheologists have also found smaller flint tools from this group. These were mounted as points or barbs for arrows and harpoons and were also used in other composite tools. 

They used adzes and chisels made of antler or bone, as well as needles and pins, fish-hooks, harpoons and fish spears with several prongs. Some larger tools made of ground stone, such as club heads, have also been found.

Wooden structures have also been found and have remained well-preserved due to the preservative qualities of bogs. Some of the structures discovered include ax handles, paddles and a dugout canoe, and fishnets were made using bark fibre. 

Deer were hunted as well as fish and waterfowl, and some varieties of marsh plants may have been used.

Read more:

• Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports
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• Vol 97 (2021): Prehistoric communities of the River Dee: Mesolithic and other lithic scatter sites of central Deeside, Aberdeenshire | Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports

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More than 1,200 ancient Mesolithic stone tools have been found along the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, by archaeologists and volunteers during a “field walk”. These flints, which included scrapers, waste material, blades, and a portion of an egg-shaped mace head, would have been used by ancient humans who lived along the river between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago.  It is believed that the tools were used to kill animals and prepare the food as well as to make raw animal hide into clothes.

Sheila Duthie, who is the co-secretary at the archaeology group Mesolithic Deeside, talked about her decades-long discoveries of ancient tools, “When I started finding flints over 20 years ago, I could never have imagined contributing to such a massive project which is without doubt broadening our understanding of prehistoric human activity on Deeside.”

In an interview with MailOnline, Alison Cameron, who is the chair of the Mesolithic Deeside and an archaeologist, stated that the individuals who would have lived next to the River Dee between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago would have had everything they needed in order to survive thanks to the nature during that time. This was why so much “flint scatter” has already been discovered in the fields next to the river banks as the individuals would have made and used the stone tools there.

Since every tool found at the site has been collected and sent for analysis where the information gathered will then be put into a database, River Dee is one of the most substantial studies ever conducted on flint deposits found near a river in all of Scotland. “The work of Mesolithic Deeside has made a real contribution to our understanding of the prehistoric communities who lived along the Dee,” noted archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones.

Further excavations will be conducted in the coming days at the Milton of Crathes (this includes digging numerous small trenches), so perhaps they’ll discover even more items and/or other significant findings. Additionally, the archaeologists will look at specific features that were noticed during aerial survey maps of the site that may indicate the remains of an ancient settlement. Geologists will be in the area to investigate the ground of the river terrace in order to find out if there was ever an ancient flood as well as to look at what types of environmental conditions were present during the time that the individuals lived there.

Pictures of some of the tools can be seen here.

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Watch Live: SpaceX, NASA are ‘go’ for third operational astronaut launch

With less than three hours to go before liftoff, SpaceX and NASA remain on track – with the vehicle, crew, and weather conditions all in great shape – for Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon’s third operational astronaut launch.

Originally scheduled for late October, a minor crew health issue, a small hardware qualification delay, and – primarily – a variety of good and bad weather conditions ultimately pushed Crew-3 into the second week of November. As a result, SpaceX and NASA chose to return Dragon and four Crew-2 astronauts to Earth before launching Crew-3, and that process was flawlessly completed on the evening of November 8th. During Dragon’s fourth crewed reentry descent and landing, though, one of the spacecraft’s four main parachutes ran into a minor but well-understood issue.

Designed to safely splash down with one parachute out, the safety of the Crew-2 astronauts was never in question but the apparent parachute issue was easily visible to anyone watching NASA and SpaceX’s live coverage. In reality, the behavior observed had been seen – and even intentionally created – many times before in the dozens upon dozens of Dragon parachute tests SpaceX completed to qualify the system for human spaceflight. Specifically, one or more of Dragon’s four huge chutes occasionally lags behind and takes longer to fully inflate. In the case of Crew-2, the problem chute behaved exactly as expected based on that testing and ultimately wasn’t a problem at all, properly inflating to slow Dragon to the exact desired descent speed well before splashdown.

Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, virtually everyone familiar with NASA and the Commercial Crew Program expected the agency to closely examine the behavior and make absolutely sure that all is well. Indeed, in a prelaunch briefing late last night, SpaceX VP Bill Gerstenmaier confirmed as much, revealing that the company rapidly completed reviews of Crew-2 and Crew-3 parachute build data and even airlifted the problem chute – recovered from the Atlantic – back to Florida facilities. Less than 24 hours after that parachute was in Earth orbit, SpaceX managed to dry it out and complete thorough inspections – all with NASA officials in the loop – to confirm that the chute itself was healthy (undamaged, no missed design/build errors, etc).

Crew Dragon C210 and Falcon 9 B1067: Crew-3’s rides to space.

(Richard Angle)

Ultimately, in an impressive display of professionalism and expertise, SpaceX and NASA were able to verify in a matter of hours that Crew-2’s reentry, descent, and landing was fully nominal and posed no problem for Crew-3’s launch just two days later.

The post Watch Live: SpaceX, NASA are ‘go’ for third operational astronaut launch appeared first on TESLARATI.

Source: 

• https://www.teslarati.com/watch-live-spacex-nasa-crew-3-astronaut-launch/

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LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS

Underground Bases And Cloning Centers

SOURCE ​

• Many celebrities, entertainers, athletes, musicians, models, writers, producers, actors, all kinds of people from various industries are silently brought to the cloning centers for “pay-to-play sessions.”

Read here: 

• https://helenastales.weebly.com/blogu…  UFOmania – The truth is out there 

PEOPLE HYPNOTIZED & ABDUCTED BY ALIENS IN RUSSIA | CAUGHT ON CCTV POLICE CAR CAMERA

SOURCE 

• Russian Police Was Called To Are Where People Stop the Cars And Get Outside Kind Like Hypnotized Without Any kind Of Response Looking To The Sky As Soon as The Police Came The Officer Tell Them To Get Out Of The Front Of The Object Hovering in The Sky, When the Police Officer Was Forced To Get Near The People To Try To Make Them React The Officer Aswhell Get’s Hypnotized And The People And Him Are Abducted To Never More Been Seen Again…. This Is Not The First And It Is Not Going To Be The Last It Happens… Insane Police Car CCTV Video Footage Abduction In Russia… Welcome to the “THE SOULS BASE”

US ARMY SPECIAL FORCES | REPTILIAN ALIENS | THEY HUNT AND FEED FROM HUMAN BEINGS 

SOURCE 

• Welcome to the “THE SOULS BASE”

Mysterious Lights Over Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 02, 2021, | UAP UFO News | @UFOTV -VIRAL    

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Dark Object Over Albuquerque, New Mexico, Oct 20, 2021, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: October 20, 2021

Location of sighting: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Source:  MUFON

 

They eyewitness was recording in his backyard in New Mexico when suddenly a dark obelisk objects moves over his home. The object was thick and looked to be two meters tall by 1/3 meter wide. The bottom had a small tail to it, which could be part of the craft or it could be indications it is a deflated balloon. But we cannot just to that conclusion yet. When UFOs fly low, they use techniques...strategies to appear as something else. The object really doesn't look deflated and it has no string hanging from its tail. This UFO does rotate a little as its moving...which makes it appear as if it were noticing the human below, but then rotating back and continuing on its way. Odd one, but...UFOs are far from normal. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

Eyewitness states: 

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During a lightning storm seen on the ISS live feed November 8, 2021 something strange happened. 

It looks like a massive rectangular shaped object becomes visible after getting struck by a lightning strike. 

Could it be that the UFO was waiting for the right moment to connect to a lightning strike? It is said that UFOs use lightning strikes as an energy source.

  

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LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS

Glowing Cigar Shaped UFO Sighted Over Various Area Of Occitania, Southern France. November 9, 2021

Intriguing luminous phenomenon in the sky this Tuesday, November 9. This strange light activity is said to have been observed near the Mediterranean coast.

Testimonies have been pouring in since the observation by several people of a particularly strange luminous phenomenon in the sky, Tuesday, November 9. 2021. Several inhabitants of departments close to the Mediterranean observed and filmed this intriguing activity.

Thanks to Yann Fenn, Muriel J'Riviere & William for their outstanding footage...

SOURCE of story:

• https://actu.fr/occitanie/montpellier...

Quel est cet objet céleste de couleur orange qui se déplace depuis la nuit de mardi à mercredi et qui a de nouveau été observé la nuit dernière, autour de Montpellier ? Des témoins ont été intrigués d’assister à ce ballet nocturne lumineux depuis Cournonterral, Palavas-les-Flots ou encore Sète.

C’est le site Météo Gard-Hérault géré par Loïc Spadafora depuis le nord de Nîmes qui diffuse depuis mercredi des vidéos inédites, qui ne font qu’épaissir le mystère. Même le météorologue gardois se perd en conjectures, avouant avoir rarement vu un tel objet céleste en dehors de météorites et d’étoiles filantes.

Les commentaires vont bon train, avec cette interrogation : s’agit-il d’un OVNI ? Dans une des vidéos, on entend une famille s’interroger : « C’est quoi ce truc ? ». Nombreux sont les internautes curieux qui l’assurent, ce n’est pas un avion de ligne. Alors, vous aussi vous avez été intrigué ? En analysant les vidéos, avez-vous une idée de ce que peut être cet objet, parfois en forme de boule, parfois en forme de petit cigare ? Ce jeudi, le mystère perdure.

• https://www.midilibre.fr/2021/11/11/u...

Une vidéo publiée sur les réseaux sociaux montre un phénomène lumineux dans le ciel particulièrement intriguant ce mardi 9 novembre. Cette activité lumineuse étrange aurait été observée près du littoral méditerranéen.

Une phénomène observé dans plusieurs département du sud de la France.

Un rectangle lumineux, plusieurs vidéos

On peut observer une forme lumineuse rectangulaire divaguer dans la nuit noire. Selon nos confrères météorologues, l'événement aurait été observé depuis Montpellier, Cournonterral, Palavas-les-Flots ou encore Sète. Des signalements auraient même été rapportés depuis l'Andorre, Narbonne et Perpignan. 

Drone, satellite, lasers... Sur les réseaux sociaux, les internautes développent des théories pour expliquer le phénomène.

Un Ovni déjà identifié à Montpellier en septembre

Le mercredi 15 septembre, une activité lumineuse étrange avait aussi défrayé la chronique. Lors d'une soirée orageuse, des lumières ont été observées dans le ciel de Montpellier. Il s'agissait là d'éclairages provenant de projecteurs près de la Halle Tropisme rapportent nos confrères de France 3. 

En revanche, l'anomalie observée par plusieurs dizaines de personnes ce mardi 9 novembre est difficilement explicable. Un nouveau dossier qui ne devrait pas manquer d'intéresser les experts du Geipan, un service du Cnes à Toulouse chargé des phénomènes spatiaux non identifiés.

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UFOs over Syracuse, New York 9-Nov-2021

These unknown lights were flying across the night sky above Syracuse, NY on 9th November 2021.

Witness report: 

Myself and my 19 yo son were sitting on the back porch when we seen a orange light that I thought at first might be a plane. But it didn’t have blinking lights. Noticed a second one that looked like it was slowing down. Then it blinked out of sight. When down onto the yard to catch sight of the first on again then noticed 4 more. After recording that went inside to talk with family. Came back out and there were 2 more. All of them eventually blinked out. There was no noise. The lights were steady, going NW to SE. I used the compass on my phone.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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Reptilians: What if intelligent dinosaurs evacuated Earth millions of years ago?

Research evidence during this and last century leads some researchers to believe that a race from the age of dinosaurs was never completely extinct: “Some reptilians survived.”

The highly adaptable and cunning raptors could have survived millions of years ago to the impact of the Yucatan asteroid and subsequent massive climate change.

They would be the predecessors, of which some scientists agree, they have become an evolved and intelligent great race, the reptilians.

Those dinosaurs may have finally created advanced technologies and super-science that led to incredible knowledge, including interstellar spacecraft.

Over time they could have explored and colonized other planets creating a network of societies outside of Earth.

Some investigators of ‘alien contactee’ cases argue that many of today’s ET encounters are not aliens from another world, but lords originating from Earth.

A goal that drives a mysterious, perhaps terrifying agenda that only the dinosaur (reptilian) lords know about?

For many years scientists predicted the disappearance of the dinosaur race as a mass extinction in the footsteps of the catastrophic collision of a gigantic asteroid with Earth in the Chicxtulub Yucatan region.

They described a darkened world, an atmosphere choked by dust and swirling carbon storms from tens of thousands of blazing wildfires.

Its scenario matches the “nuclear winter” hypothesis of popular astronomer Carl Sagan.

Years ago, scientists believed that most plants died upon impact resulting in starvation of herbivores and when plant eaters died, so did the carnivores that fed on them.

Even the mighty T. Rex finally succumbed. But that was then, and this is now. And now a different picture has emerged.

New evidence points to the strong possibility that all the dinosaurs did not die within a few years after the asteroid hit. Some survived for many hundreds of thousands of years.

New data has also revealed that the Chicxtulub impact actually occurred 300,000 years ago before the originally accepted timeline, so it could not explain the mass extinction of the dinosaur race that followed.

The Yucatan asteroid did not kill the dinosaurs, study says. Another disturbing fact has worried some paleontologists for many years:

How could the most successful species on Earth that endured many climate changes in a span of almost 230 million years succumb so quickly to climate change?

The answer, other scientists say, is that dinosaurs did not succumb quickly. It took up to 700,000 years for these to disappear.

Over the past decade, mountains of evidence point to an entirely new picture of dinosaurs, their physiology, how they lived, and how they died.

Scientists have done a great rethinking of the dinosaur extinction hypothesis. These reptiles were also much more agile than scientists believed for a long time.

Some developed rudimentary hands that could eventually enable them to model and use tools. Some had brains evolving into true intelligence, such as velociraptors.

Surprisingly, all the necessary elements that allowed some races of dinosaurs to develop intelligently, at least the size of early man, have been confirmed.

And once the dinosaurs had reached that level on the evolutionary ladder, they had a better chance of survival. But is there any real evidence for the appearance of intelligent dinosaurs? Yes, there is.

Having a conscious brain that can think of solutions and extrapolate is an important step towards intelligence, but to be fully effective, the brain needs to link up with accessories that can significantly modify the environment.

Such an accessory must be very adaptable and capable of handling small things with a high degree of dexterity. Although dolphins are intelligent, they lack manipulative accessories, but humans have accessories that fit the criteria:

Hands; and these also grew on some of the dinosaurs. Such accessories, concurrent with the evolution of intelligence, allow the manipulation of habitats, the creation of rudimentary tools and weapons, and a better ability to dominate the environment.

«Sarahsaurus aurifontanalis, a dinosaur that inhabited the North American continent 200 million years ago was a small herbivore. Yet what the Sarahsaurus lacked, it made up for with hands: manipulative hands that were similar in size to human hands. And, according to studies by paleontologists, the creature’s hands gave it great power and influence. “

‘Evolutionary bioparanoia’  an article by John C. McLoughlin published in Animal Kingdom magazine, postulates the development of intelligent dinosaurs.

Other researchers followed up with the concept. The only restriction the researchers saw on the possibility of intelligent dinosaurs was that extinction came to them too quickly.

They lacked time to think about it and survive.

Author Thomas P. Hopp writes on his blog that  “among paleontologists of our time, the notion of intelligent dinosaurs comes up more frequently than you might suppose. Although researchers in this field today would not risk their reputations by proposing a human intellect among the creatures of 65 million years ago, there have been many scientific discussions of the brain capacity that existed within the skulls of Cretaceous creatures large and small. »

Yet another blogger speculates on a recent theory that intelligent dinosaurs rule other planets.

En «Dinosaurios Extremadamente Inteligentes Podrían Gobernar Otros Planetas En El Universo» el escritor hace referencia a un estudio fascinante que aparecen en el diario de la American Chemical Society, previendo que «avanzadas versiones del T. Rex y otros dinosaurios, criaturas monstruosas con la inteligencia y la astucia de los seres humanos puedan ser las formas de vida que se desarrollaron en otros planetas en el universo.»

FoxNews también tomó el tema de los dinosaurios inteligentes e informó: «..que existen probablemente unos super evolucionados, superinteligentes aliens dinosaurio en el espacio» y que «sería mejor no juntarse con uno de ellos.»

El marco de tiempo original de la extinción de los dinosaurios, sin embargo fue sesgado. Algunos dinosaurios continuaron existiendo tanto como 700 milenios, tiempo más que suficiente para que los dinosaurios como el velociraptor evolucionaran a un mayor grado de inteligencia, creando la agricultura, armas, refugios y eventualmente pueblos y ciudades.

Estos reptiles podrían haber desarrollado un lenguaje, eventualmente escribieron, crearon herramientas y armas más avanzadas. Incluso haber sido guerreros peleandose unos con los otros compitiendo por las mejores tierras y recursos.

Mientras las culturas de reptiles se desarrollaban podrían necesariamente haberse vuelto más sofisticadas. Reptiles inteligentes que se protegen de los elementos con diseños de ropa, refugios y más eficientes y avanzados métodos agrícolas.

Finalmente exploraron otros sistemas estelares. Incluso, aún siendo ellos avanzados, en su mayor parte abandonaron su tierra natal, visitándolo sólo esporádicamente para observar y vigilar la vida que sigue evolucionando en la Tierra, incluyendo los primeros homínidos que eventualmente se convirtió en Homo Sapiens.

El gran maestro tejedor de conspiraciones avid Icke obtuvo fama mundial con 19 best-sellers internacionales y un gran numero de seguidores.

Icke es la fuerza impulsora contra un cabal de secretos reptil-humanoides (diversamente llamados Reptil, Reptiloides o Reptilianos), la «hermandad babilónica» que manipula y dirige a los inocentes seres humanos para sus propios fines.

En un libro, El Secreto Más Grande, afirma que los seres humanos son producto de un programa diabólico reptil de reproducción que mutaron simples simios en esclavos humanoides casi-inteligentes para servir a sus amos reptiles.

Adoptando la hipótesis de sumeria de la raza extraterrestre de los Anunaki de Zecharia Sitchin, Icke ha creado un escenario espeluznante de naturaleza sorprendente e existencia artificial, los demonios señores lagarto y la manipulación de la conciencia.

In essence, reality is nothing more than an illusion directed and manipulated by cold and soulless reptilian beings. The only reality, Icke claims, is the Reptilian Realm of the Absolute. Could any of this be true?

Unbelievably, intelligent reptiles (dinosaurs) could have a real basis. Some paleontologists have seriously reflected on how these beings could have evolved, if they had not been exterminated by the impact of the Yucatan asteroid.

Your extrapolations may be closer to the truth than you think since the evidence that is emerging that the most intelligent reptiles were not destroyed by a global conflagration, but had almost three-quarters of a million more years to become intelligent, similar to the current human.

The concept, as you can imagine, is very controversial. Some paleontologists support or are intrigued by it; other scientists harshly criticize the idea as groundless or the utmost of homocentric arrogance.

Writes on the subject Dr. Dale Russell, the “discoverer of the Stenonychosaurus (now called Troodon) at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa, Canada.”

Russell posits that  ‘the dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous were well on their way to becoming intellectual animals and that would have happened if the dinosaurs had not suffered extinction. The Stenonychosaurus had an opposite thumb, standing about three feet tall, and had binocular vision. It had all the ingredients for success as we see later in the development of the apes »

Again, in light of new discoveries about the dinosaur extinction timeline, the question must be posed,

Did velociraptors, Troodons or dinosaurs learn how to survive those hundreds of thousands of additional years and achieve a high level of intelligence? The odds seem to be getting better and better.

UFO researchers generally agree that alien visitors appear to come in many shapes and sizes.

Some researchers claim that there are 81 different races of ETs that visit Earth in ships of unimaginable size and configurations.

Most researchers familiar with ET contact and abduction cases agree that most humanoid beings fall into several important categories, including known Grays, Nordics (tall, blond, well-developed, indistinguishable from men and women and sometimes seen with grays), Drones (insectoid creatures that sometimes accompany grays) and Reptilians.

Of all the ETs, the Reptilians (and the legends and myths about them) are the only beings to seep into human history.

Famed ufologist and theorist Jacques Vallee calls ETs “messengers of deception.” Other researchers have called them intruders, invaders, or manipulators.

Even other researchers – familiar with cattle and human mutilations, bizarre tracking programs, and terrifying abduction sessions conducted aboard state-of-the-art ships seem almost magical – call them demons and killers.

Records, dating back many thousands of years, reveal that an extraterrestrial intelligence or intelligences had directed the course of human civilization in ways not always beneficial to the human race.

So are the aliens here to help, being ambivalent, assimilate humans through DNA mutation or rule them as the masters of the world?

Writer Claire L. Evans on the science blog Badim Universe Everything reflects on the Reptilian Agenda. While much of it is ironic, she accurately defines conspiracy hypotheses that basically revolve around reptilian humanoids.

They are “highly developed, supernatural, intelligent reptilian-human hybrids, or Reptiloids, who are capable of shapeshifting and supposedly controlling all major secret societies, the royal lineage, and governments on Earth.”

Aside from David Icke, Evans also targets researcher John Rhodes. The theory that Rhodes proposes is the only one with new evidence that is beginning to be supported:

Some of the so-called aliens are actually evolved dinosaurs that survived and are now much more advanced than humans.

They could be since the race of intelligent dinosaurs have a multi-million years of evolution more than the human race.

Rhodes was “the first” to seriously investigate and publicly present the claims of the humanoid reptile observations by founding the Reptoids.com Research Center in the late 1990s. Evans reveals:

“Rhodes maintains that these cryptozoological mysteries are not extraterrestrial in nature, nor do they have anything to do with the governments of the world. That kind of gossip is just an instinctive collective fear of the current global political climate. His lizardmen, rather, are evolved dinosaurs. “

If intelligent dinosaurs exist, what are their motives? What is your schedule? Is it benign or sinister?

Perhaps anthropological studies are underway, or a far-reaching sociological study of a fellow intelligence that took a different evolutionary path, even sharing its mother world with them.

Or maybe the motifs of these reptiles are much darker and more sinister. What’s your opinion about it? Leave your comment below.

{ https://mysteriousthing.com/ }

Eat your heart out, Beyonce. While those who watched the Super Bowl continue to argue over the hidden meanings – Illuminati or otherwise – of Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime show (along with some band and that other guy) featuring a group of dancers performing in “Formation,” over 700 million viewers watched the Spring Festival Gala which marked the start of the Year of the Monkey with 540 robots dancing in unison while 26 drones performed in formation overhead.

Looking like a line of Robo-Rockettes

China Central Television’s annual Spring Festival Gala is billed as the most watched TV program in the world (six times as many viewers as the Super Bowl). The 4-and-a-half hour variety show featured 39 events ranging from singers to comedians to kung fu demonstrations. However, the highlight of the show was the robots.

As vocalist Sun Nan sang about China being a world leader, 540 robots proved it (at least in the field of dancing robots) by moving together to the beat of the music. Each robot is 16.5 inches tall and weighs 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds). Li Chao, the person in charge of the robotic performance, gave a hint as to how it was accomplished.

Each robot consists of 16 steering engines which are developed by our researchers independently. These steering engines can imitate the motions of human joints, so the robots can move so agilely.

According to a translation of the show’s description in the People’s Daily Online, there were a number of challenges in putting on this potentially record-setting (it’s been submitted to the Guinness Book of World records) performance. The original plan called for 240 robots but Li Chao upped the number to 540 at the last minute. This forced the robots to be 60 cm rather than one meter apart and required a boost in the control signals to compensate for distance and interference. Since the distance between the robots was so small, adjustments were made to their centers of gravity and range of motion to avoid a domino effect and a mess of bots.

The drones moving in over the dancing robots

The end of the performance included a coordinated flyover by 26 drones dropping glitter on the robots. That’s 540 robots shaking their metallic booties and doing handstands in a synchronized formation without a single mistake. The Monkey must be proud.

Is it too early to book them for Super Bowl LI?

Do you know anything by Adele?

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

From the country that invented fireworks, here is the future of aerial light shows, created by more than 1000 drones.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

There have long been very unsettling reports of unidentified aerial phenomena going on around nuclear facilities including nuclear power plants and those harboring ballistic missiles, and some of these are more disturbing than others. From 1947 to 1994, Loring Air Force Base was a United States Air Force installation located in northeastern Maine, near Limestone and Caribou in Aroostook County. During its decades of service, it was one of the largest bases of the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command, and during the Cold War, which lasted from 1947 to 1991, its location was extremely important because it was the closest point in the continental U.S. to Europe. For this reason, at the time it became an essential component of the country’s nuclear alert system, able to respond quickly to an incoming threat from the Soviet Union and respond with its two KC-135 tanker squadrons and B-52 bomber squadron, as well as the nuclear weapons it housed. At the time of the Cold War, which spanned most of its lifetime, it was an extremely important and sensitive installation with extremely high strategic value. It is for this reason that a strange series of events and unidentified objects in the skies around the base in the very darkest days of the Cold War were of immediate and critical concern.

Loring Air Force Base

The evening of October 27, 1975, began as usual for security personnel at the base, and things were uneventful until approximately 8 p.m., when things got rather weird very quickly. At the northern perimeter of the base, an airman patrolling the Loring weapons dump area spotted in the sky an unidentified aircraft of some sort with a red navigational light and a white strobe light slowly approaching the base perimeter at an altitude of between 150 and 300 feet. The strange object itself was not clearly seen, but hovered around the perimeter in a very helicopter-like way, bobbing and weaving and seeming to show particular intense interest in the nuclear weapons storage area, a highly secure and sensitive area that absolutely did not welcome unidentified aircraft of any kind. In response to the sudden intrusion, military helicopters were sent in to investigate and try to make contact with the trespasser, but all attempts to make radio contact were met with silence, and the exact nature of the mystery aircraft could not be identified, merely that it had a very bright strobe and could hover.

The base was put on high alert, and the already spooked personnel then picked up on a radar signature of another similar unidentified object around 10 to 13 miles east-northeast of their position. Contact was attempted with this aircraft too, on both civilian and military channels, but it too did not respond. The strange visitors apparently eerily circled about on their inscrutable errands for a full 40 minutes before the one near the base flew off towards Canada, and the other abruptly vanished from radar, leaving the base in a state of high alert and chaos. Considering that Loring was housing nuclear weapons and the aircraft to deliver those weapons, as well as its strategic importance, it was seen as a shocking and bold intrusion, a slap to the face, the base now buzzing with activity like a provoked hive of bees, and the higher ups were wondering what to do next. Even as they scrambled for answers and did their best to secure the base and keep the story from hitting the news, this would prove to not be the end of it.

Image by Steve Baxter

The following evening, on October 28, another strange object appeared at the base. It was first observed at 7:45 P.M. and would also hover about the premises, moving over the runway and near the nuclear weapons storage area, upon which it turned off its lights. Once again, helicopters were sent out to engage, but they were unable to make contact or identify what type of craft it was. Making it even stranger, witnesses on the ground who saw the mystery craft described it as an orange-and-red object shaped like an elongated football, with no windows or discernible doors, as well as no obvious propellers or other propulsion system and completely silent. Interestingly, helicopters that were sent out could not spot the strange intruder, and it often disappeared from radar. At the time the object seemed to appear and disappear from view, usually at a distance and described as behaving very much like a helicopter, but one of the more spectacular accounts of the object was made by two witnesses on the ground who saw it up close and gave an account that doesn’t sound much like a helicopter at all. The account is told in a book by UFO researchers Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett, called Clear Intent: The Government Coverup of the UFO Experience, in which the account is given:

Sgt. Steven Eichner, a crew chief on a B-52 bomber, was working out of a launch truck along with Sgt. R. Jones and other members of the crew. Jones spotted a red and orange object over the flight line. It seemed to be on the other side of the flight line from where the weapons storage area was located. To Eichner and Jones, the object looked like a stretched-out football. It hovered in midair as everyone in the crew stared in awe. As they watched, the object put out its lights and disappeared, but it soon reappeared again over the north end of the runway, moving in jerky motions. It stopped and hovered. Eichner and the rest of the crew jumped into the truck and started to drive toward the object. Proceeding down Oklahoma Avenue (which borders the runway), they turned left onto the road that led to the weapons storage area. As they made the turn, they spotted the object about 300 feet in front of them. It seemed to be about five feet in the air and hovered without movement or noise. Exhibiting a reddish-orange color, the object was about four car lengths long. Eichner described what he saw next: 

“The object looked like all the colors were blending together, as if you were looking at a desert scene. You see waves of heat rising off the desert floor. This is what I saw. There were these waves in front of the object and all the colors were blending together. The object was solid and we could not hear any noise coming from it.”

They could not see any doors or windows on the object nor any propellers or engines which would keep the object in the air. Suddenly, the base came alive. Sirens began screaming. Eichner could see numerous blue lights on police vehicles coming down the flight line and runway toward the weapons storage area at high speed. Jones turned and said to the crew, “We better get out of here!” They immediately did. The Security Police did not try to stop them. Their interest was in the object over the storage dump, not in the truck which was in a restricted area. The crew drove the truck back to its original location and watched from there. The scene at the weapons storage area was chaotic, with blue lights rotating around, and the vehicles’ searchlight beams shining in all directions. The object shut off its lights and disappeared, not to be seen again that night.”

The object appeared only intermittently on radar as it circled the nuclear area for nearly an hour before flying off into the night. An alert was sent out that an unknown aircraft had penetrated the base’s air space and the nuclear storage area, but a full sweep of the area turned up no evidence of what it was or where it had gone. For the next few nights these incidents would continue, and although the Air Force was insisting on officially calling them “unidentified helicopters,” some witnesses were not so sure. Although some witnesses did give the impression that they believed they had seen a helicopter, other descriptions seemed to defy this explanation. Some witnesses described a luminous, cigar shaped object capable of sharp turns, sudden vertical drops and rises, sudden rapid acceleration, and aerial acrobatics beyond the capabilities of a helicopter, and the fact that it was very often described as being completely silent did not seem to match with the helicopter theory either. It was also increasingly obvious that there was likely more than one of these things, and that the differences in appearance reported showed they could have been different types of craft.

Image by Steve Baxter

Despite the government’s insistence that these were probable helicopters, they were widely called UFOs by base personnel, many of who insisted that these objects were doing impossible feats up in the sky. Throughout these spooky incursions, radar operators would pick the objects up only to lose them again, and on several occasions fighter jets were scrambled, only to arrive on the scene to see nothing, even when ground personnel said they were right on top of them. Most of the time it seemed as if the objects were not able to be painted for radar to home in on, leaving pilots to hunt for the things based on verbal directions to the locations and never seeing anything. This seeming inability for pilots to get visual confirmation of them is truly bizarre, with all of these missions turning out to be wild goose chases, and one Chief Warrant Officer Bernard Poulin of the Maine Army National Guard’s 112th Medical Company would say of it:

Well, anyway, we hunted around, and we didn’t see anything. Again they would call and say they could hear it at a location, and we would go there, but could not see it. We would then shut down and wait for the next call. And that went on for a couple of nights. This, again, was early evening or early in the morning. I can recall on the second night of the mission radar picked up a return, but it turned out to be a KC-135 tanker returning from overseas. We could go real low to where they said it was and would turn on our search light and sweep the area with the light, but we never saw the craft. After it was over, we discussed our mission. The powers to be were quite concerned about what was going on and if we were able to see anything. They maintained all along up there, you know, those are pretty sensitive places and they have to know what the hell was going on. When they arrived at the base, the security lid was on so tightly that both pilots were permitted to call their wives only once to say that they were on a mission. In a meeting with Chapman, Poulin recalled the Commander saying, “We’ve got to keep the lid on the fact that someone has been able to penetrate in and around the bomb dump, and we don’t know what’s going on. We’ve got to find out what is going on and prevent it from happening again.”

Image by Steve Baxter

There would be other reports of this sense of secrecy, and of the government wanting to keep a lid on things. Personnel would report being debriefed after sightings and being told in no uncertain terms to talk to no one of what they had seen, or to spread the story that these were helicopters from over the Canadian border terrorizing them. Great efforts were made to keep all of this out of the press, but it started to hit the news in a big way. Throughout it all, the Air Force was adamant that it was all the doing of helicopters, even though they grudgingly admitted that they did not know for sure and it was officially classed as “unknown.” A complete investigation by the Air Force into it could not find a concrete cause for the sightings, and when the phenomena abruptly stopped on October 31, they were more than happy to try to brush it all under the carpet and divert attention away from the incident. Interestingly, during the same general timeframe, several other nuclear military installations around the United States experienced similar bizarre incidents involving unidentified flying objects invading their airspace, and it shows that this phenomenon expanded beyond just Loring.

Although the Air Force has tried to distance itself from the incident at Loring and other similar incidents at other bases, it has not been forgotten by the hundreds of witnesses who saw the phenomena for themselves and the numerous UFO researchers who have pursued it. What was going on here? It seems obvious that something unauthorized was making forays into the facility and showing an interest in the nuclear weapons storage site, in the process rattling the Air Force all the way up to the highest levels of the U.S. military’s command structure, but what was it? Were these helicopters, as the military seems to want us to believe? Was it perhaps some sort of experimental aircraft, either from the U.S. government testing our response to these intrusions, or from some foreign power, possibly even the Soviets? Or was this something else, possibly otherworldly visitors? In all cases, we are left to wonder what they wanted, why they menaced this facility, and where they went. It has gone on to become a very well-documented and intense case, yet despite thorough research into it all, there is very little known for sure other than that something very strange went on at Loring AFB during that week in 1975.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

This Drone Accidentally Makes A Chilling Discovery After Flying Above This Active Volcano System via Unexplained Mysteries

This drone accidentally makes a chilling discovery after flying above this active Volcano system. Today, we take a look at what this drone captured above this volcano system. Back in 2019, the White Island Crater Rim webcam took a chilling photograph. The image was taken at 2:10pm, but moments later the volcano erupted.

Those working monitoring the liv feed noticed that a group of hikers were in the crater at the time, with them having no idea that an eruption was about to take place. Officials said that it serves as a reminder as to how unpredictable nature can be. After the photographs were taken, investigators reported that the five individuals had passed away.

Police later confirmed that five had passed away from the incident, with another 20 people being unaccounted for following the eruption. Thank you for watching! Thank you to CO.AG for the background music!

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

Scientists Sent An Underwater Robot Inside The Fukushima Reactor & Made A Chilling Discovery via Unexplained Mysteries

Scientists sent an underwater robot inside the Fukushima reactor & made a chilling discovery. Today, we take a look at what scientists found inside the Fukushima Reactor. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster was a devastating event, with 18 non-fatal injuries being directly attributed to the incident, including physical injuries from the hydrogen explosion and radiation burns, and one loss of life with a clear link to the radiation exposure from Fukushima.

This nuclear accident was caused by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, both of which hit the powerplant and saw an additional 18,000 lost their lives. Whilst it was 2011 when disaster struck, the aftermath lingers on even today. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster continues to this day to be the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986… Thank you for watching! Thank you to CO.AG for the background music!

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Doorway To Hell Opens At Nuke Test 1945, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Nov 10, 2021
Location of discovery: Bakini Atoll Island Nuke Test
Date of event: July 9, 1945

Photo from Wiki: 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

Video from US Archives

Guys, I got some video from the US National Archives and found a doorway to hell at the base of a nuclear explosion test at Bikini Atoll in 1945. I also noticed three UFOs flying across the top of the explosion. Can you imagine the nuke test causing a doorway into another dimension, space or time or planet? An alien steps through that door into the heart of our atomic bomb test...and its vaporized! Welcome to Earth. 

Scott C. Waring, please subscribe to my Youtube channel.

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

Aliens in Alaska – They Walk Among Us S01E04

Ancient Aliens – They Walk Among Us

Season 1, Episode 4

19th April 2021, Discovery+

Hunters unearth new clues about Bigfoot’s cosmic origins. An Air Force veteran receives a shocking response when he reports UFO activity over Fairbanks. Piercing lights from above disrupt a late-night party near Wasilla, Alaska.

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

That Old “Second Sphinx” Chestnut Is Back – Is There or Is There Not A Hidden Sphinx?

A tourism official in Egypt has been ridiculed by his peers after claiming a second giant statue of the famous Sphinx awaits discovery. This supposed second sphinx is causing quite a stir amongst Egyptologists who argue that it is all just a hoax.

Putting the Second Sphinx Claims in Context

We will reverse into this story after I tell you a tale about UFOs. Perhaps nothing antagonizes career debunkers and skeptics more than when a supposed “expert” or “official” in any given field skips over to the perceived dark side. This happened in February 2021 after astrophysicist Avi Loeb, Director of the Harvard Astronomy Department, told the New Scientist that the space rock Oumuamua was “maybe a piece of alien technology.”

As almost the entire scientific community facepalmed, as they watched a U.S. icon of logic and reason dive down the scientific rabbit hole, Loeb doubled-down, telling Scientific American that “aliens have visited, and I am not kidding.” Loeb is now leading the Galileo Project , searching for “extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs).”

• There Is More to the Sphinx Than You Find at Giza
• The Great Pyramid at Giza and Noah’s Ark: Are we coming closer to an understanding of the Ancient Mind? Part I

Returning to the story at hand, Reda Abdel Halim is the director of public relations for the Giza pyramids district at the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Causing similar waves to Dr. Loeb in the U.S., Halim has told Cairo Live that he discovered “a statue in the pyramids area that is of similar size to the Sphinx.” In other words, he claims to have found a second sphinx.

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

Archaeologist Discovers Swiss Roman Battle Site and 2,000-Year-Old Dagger

Sometimes experts can get it wrong. And that is what seems to have happened in the case of a Swiss Roman battle site from 2000 years ago. The new site was found between the towns of Tiefencastel and the Cunter thanks to the persistence of an amateur archaeologist. Using a metal detector, Lucas Schmid, who is a volunteer at the Graubünden Archaeological Service, found a Roman dagger in the remote south-eastern region of Switzerland near the Crap-Ses gorge, which was a solid piece of evidence for what was until then an unknown Swiss Roman battle.

Using a metal detector, Lucas Schmid, a hobby archaeologist, found a Roman dagger in the south-eastern region of Switzerland, which was a solid piece of evidence for what was an unknown Swiss Roman battle.

( Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen )

The Swiss Roman Battle Site: Revealed Artifacts for 20 Years

Although the site became known 20 years back and yielded many artifacts at the time, it was believed to have surrendered all its treasures over the years. However, local amateur archaeologist Lucas Schmid believed otherwise.

His tenacity paid off when, two years ago, he managed to uncover the well-preserved 2000-year-old Roman dagger . This alerted experts to the possibility that there were more artifacts at the site to uncover. The University of Basel then began a five-year research project with the federal government and the canton.

Swissinfo.ch reports that over the last two years archaeologists have found a rich haul of hundreds of artifacts including the dagger, well-preserved slingshot stones , coins, nails, and part of a shield that are assumed to have been left behind after a Swiss Roman battle between the Roman army and a local tribe. The battle took place between the Roman army and a local Rhaetian tribe in what is the present-day canton of Graubünden.

• Rare Roman Soldier’s Dagger Restored To Its Former Glory
• Whistling Sling Stones: Psychological Warfare and the Roman Army

“It looks like the locals have holed up and were shot at by the Romans with slingshots and catapults,” Peter Schwarz, professor of Provincial Roman Archaeology at the University of Basel, said.

A sling lead with an inscription that suggests that the twelfth Roman legion was involved in the Swiss Roman battle against the local Celtic Helvetii tribes.

( Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen )

The Roman Conquest of Switzerland Leads to Local Battles

The area of what is now Switzerland was populated by numerous tribes, most of which were Celtic, before the Roman conquest. The Helvetii were the most numerous but there were many others including the Rauraci in north-west Switzerland based around Basel, and the Allobroges around Geneva. South of the Swiss plateau were the Nantuates, Seduni and Veragri in the Valais region, the Lepontii in the Ticino and the Raetians in the Grisons area.

The first part of Switzerland to fall to Rome’s armies was southern Ticino, annexed after the Roman victory over the Insubres in 222 BC. The last obstacle in the path of Roman control of the Alps as a shield to northern Italy were the Raetians. After a first expedition against them by Publius Silius Nerva in 16 BC, a more consistent campaign by Drusus and the later emperor Tiberius brought Raetia, and with it all of Switzerland, firmly under Roman control.

And it is around this time that the battle in Graubünden must have taken place. This would make it even more significant, considering that it may have been one of the last few skirmishes between the Roman forces and local Swiss tribal forces before the Romans established control over the entire Alps region .

The carefully protected Roman dagger that led to the discovery of the Swiss Roman battle site.

( Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen )

The Battlefield in Graubünden

According to Arkeonews, archaeologist Thomas Reitmaier said 7,000 square meters (7,655 square yards) out of a total of 35,000 square meters (41, 859 square yards) have been combed so far and the process had led to several hundred Roman artifacts being found. “Among the objects found were hundreds of shoe nails, slingshots, coins, and fragments of a shield that could be assigned to a local,” Reitmaier added.

How many people died in the battle is not clear and to date no graves have been found. However, the area will continue to be searched over the next year for clues about what happened there 2000 years ago.

• Ancient Celtic Woman Emerges from Zurich Tree Coffin In Elegant Dress
• The Original Swiss Army Knife: Check Out This Must Have Gadget for Guys on the Go

Meanwhile, Lucas Schmid can take pride in what his efforts two years ago have led to: research on such a large scale with the involvement of the University of Basel as well as the federal and canton governments. “Of course, I’m glad that what I’m doing is making a difference” he said, Arkeonews reports.

It is to be hoped that as the battlefield in Graubünden yields up more of its treasures that serve as records of past events, archaeologists will be able to paint a clearer picture of those events.

• Top image: The Roman dagger found by an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector that revealed the “unknown” Swiss Roman battle site, where the twelfth Roman legion fought against local Celtic tribes.
• Source: Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen

By Sahir Pandey

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

Stonehenge Plaques Hold Secret Cultural Data, Says New Study

Four Neolithic “chalk plaques” were discovered near Stonehenge between 1968–2017. A new study has shown that the ancient illustrations on the Stonehenge plaques are much more than just abstract patterns. The Stonehenge plaques were buried in a pit about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from England’s most famous ancient monument. English Heritage scientists have dated the plaques to between 2900 BC and 2580 BC. The new study has called these four ancient art works “some of the most spectacular chalk designs ever discovered in Britain.”

The front side of the four Stonehenge plaques.

( Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society )

The Stonehenge Plaques Found In a Cursus Pit

According to an article on Silent Earth , the plaque pit in which the artworks were discovered is located directly south of an entrance to the famous Cursus monument at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England. This is probably no coincidence and suggests some kind of connection between the chalk Stonehenge plaques and the Cursus, which was in use 500 to 820 years before the plaques were deposited in the nearby pit.

Examples of two-dimensional Neolithic artwork is a rarity in Britain, and chalk incisions, like these, are truly unique and unusual. The ancient chalk images discovered on the surface of the plaques have now been mapped by researchers at Wessex Archaeology and the full findings of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society .

• 5000-Year-Old Prehistoric Temple Discovered On Scottish Island
• Outside the Circle: The Ancient Stonehenge Landscape – A Wider Perspective

Since the first plaque was discovered in 1968, many archaeologists have been skeptical, maintaining that the chalk marks were mere random etchings. But now, using advanced imaging techniques, a team of scientists have revealed underlying “ geometric designs ” executed by artisans wielding “a range of artistic abilities,” according to the new study.

The reverse, back, side of the four Stonehenge plaques.

( Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society )

Ancient Art Works From A Neolithic Golden Age?

Aiming to “understand the creative process of these prehistoric artists,” professor of archaeology, Bob Davis, from the University of Cambridge, who led the new study, mapped the surfaces of each plaque using reflectance transformation imaging (RTI). This non-destructive scanning method means no physical contact with the artifacts was required, as it charted billions of data points pertaining to microscopic rises and dips of the surface texture of the plaques. The images show these points in different colors, representing highlights and shadows.

Plaque 1 shows the image of a twisted cord , which was the number one tool for farming, fishing, measuring, and building in the Neolithic period. The other three plaques demonstrate a kaleidoscope of apparently linear patterns. However, the new study demonstrates that these are interwoven with “deliberate, staged composition, execution and detail.” Having identified real world tools and conceptual elements (geometry) from Middle Neolithic culture, the paper suggests Late Neolithic Britain may have experienced a “golden age of chalk art .”

The lower part of Plaque 1 showing raw data under specular enhancement mode on the left and the engraved sequence on the right showing selected phases in red, dark blue, yellow, green, light blue and orange.

( Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society )

Neolithic Art Views Greatly Changed By the New Study

Until this new paper, archaeology was split over the content depicted on the chalk Stonehenge plaques. Many believed the linear patterns were random and contained no data whatsoever, while others maintained they were examples of hallucinogenic art under the influence of magic mushrooms . However, there has always been a faction of archaeologists that believed these plaques were much more than idle graffiti. Now, high technology has affirmed the last group’s suspicions demonstrating underlying meaning and “cultural significance” in the chalk Stonehenge plaques.

• Enigmatic Engraved Pendant from Stone Age Site is the Oldest in Britain
• Archaeologists uncover magnificent example of 3,500-year-old Neolithic art in Scotland

Co-author, archaeologist Phil Harding, first analyzed the plaques in the old analogue world, back in 1988. He said the modern analytical tools used in the new study offer deep new insights into the mindsets of the ancient people who made them, which they projected onto the ancient plaques with chalk.

Furthermore, another paper co-author, Matt Leivers, said the application of modern technology to the ancient artifacts allowed for not only a better understanding of the working methods of the Neolithic artists , but it also provided a rare glimpse into the artists’ “motivations.”

Having interpreted all of the lines and angles on the four plaques, the archaeologists concluded that they represent “an important cultural marker in the Neolithic period.” And with the twisted cord having been found marked on one plaque, it can be speculated that the Neolithic artists were inspired by everyday objects, trades and tools, just like today’s artists.

• Top image: Two of the Stonehenge plaques, make of chalk, analyzed with high tech in the latest study.   
•  Source: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society

By Ashley Cowie

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

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

Astrobiologists Call for New Framework in Search for Extraterrestrial Life

The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has been a source of wonder for humanity for millennia or more. Advances in planetary sciences, astronomy, biology and other fields now leave us poised, as never before, to address this question with scientific rigor. Numerous challenges confront this endeavor, including challenges of perception and communication. Evidence of extraterrestrial life may be subtle or unfamiliar, and reveal itself only in stages, as one observing campaign informs the next. However, the search for such evidence is often framed as an all-or-nothing proposition: either a mission returns definitive evidence of life or it has fallen short of its objective. In a new paper published in the journal Nature, astrobiologists from NASA and the University of Maryland aim to motivate and seed the discussion with basic considerations and offer an example of how such considerations might be incorporated and applied in a proof-of-concept-level framework.

“Having a scale like this will help us understand where we are in terms of the search for life in particular locations, and in terms of the capabilities of missions and technologies that help us in that quest,” said NASA’s chief scientist Dr. Jim Green.

“The scale contains seven levels, reflective of the winding, complicated staircase of steps that would lead to scientists declaring they’ve found life beyond Earth.”

As an analogy, Dr. Green and his colleagues point to the Technology Readiness Level scale, a system used inside NASA to rate how ready a spacecraft or technology is to fly.

“Until now, we have set the public up to think there are only two options: it’s life or it’s not life,” said Dr. Mary Voytek, head of NASA’s Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters.

“We need a better way to share the excitement of our discoveries, and demonstrate how each discovery builds on the next, so that we can bring the public and other scientists along on the journey.”

The field of astrobiology pursues some of the most profound questions that anyone could ask, regarding our origins and place in the Universe.

As scientists learn more and more about what kinds of signals are associated with life in diverse environments on Earth, they can create and improve upon technologies needed to find similar signs elsewhere.

While the exact details of the scale will evolve as astrobiologists, communicators, and others weigh in, the team’s paper offers a starting point for discussion.

At the first step of the scale, ‘Level 1,’ astrobiologists would report hints of a signature of life, such as a biologically relevant molecule. An example would be a future measurement of some molecule on Mars potentially related to life.

Moving up to ‘Level 2,’ scientists would ensure that the detection was not influenced by the instruments having been contaminated on Earth.

At ‘Level 3’ they would show how this biological signal is found in an analog environment, such as an ancient lakebed on Earth similar to Jezero Crater, the landing site of NASA’s Perseverance rover.

To add evidence to the middle of the scale, scientists would supplement those initial detections with information about whether the environment could support life, and rule out non-biological sources. For Mars in particular, samples returned from the planet could help make this kind of progress.

Perseverance will soon be collecting and storing samples with the goal of a future mission returning them one day.

Since different teams on Earth would have the opportunity to independently verify hints of life in Mars samples with a variety of instruments, the combination of their evidence could achieve ‘Level 6,’ the second highest step on the scale.

But in this example, to reach ‘Level 7,’ the standard by which scientists would be most sure they had detected life on Mars, an additional mission to a different part of Mars may be required.

“Achieving the highest levels of confidence requires the active participation of the broader scientific community,” the scientists said.

This scale would apply to discoveries from beyond the Solar System, too.

Detecting oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet would be a significant step in the process of searching for life.

We associate oxygen with life because it is made by plants and we breathe it, but there are also geological processes that generate oxygen, so it is not proof by itself of life.

To move upward on the scale, a mission team could demonstrate that the oxygen signal was not being contaminated by light reflected from Earth and study the chemistry of the planet’s atmosphere to rule out the geological explanation.

Additional evidence of an environment that supports life, such as an ocean, would bolster the case that this hypothetical planet is inhabited.

Scientists who study exoplanets are eager to find both oxygen and methane, a combination of gases in Earth’s atmosphere indicative of life. Because these gases would lead to reactions that cancel each other out unless there are biological sources of both present, finding both would be a key ‘Level 4’ milestone.

To reach ‘Level 5,’ astronomers would need a second, independent detection of some hint of life, such as global images of the planet with colors suggestive of forests or algae. They would need additional telescopes or longer-term observations to be sure they had found life on an exoplanet.

The study authors emphasize that the scale should not be seen as a race to the top.

The scale emphasizes the importance of the groundwork that many NASA missions lay without directly detecting possible biological signals, such as in characterizing environments on other planetary bodies.

Upcoming missions such as Europa Clipper, an orbiter headed for Jupiter’s icy moon Europa later this decade, and Dragonfly, an octocopter that will explore Saturn’s moon Titan, will provide vital information about the environments in which some form of life may one day be found.

“With each measurement, we learn more about both biological and non-biological planetary processes,” Dr. Voytek said.

“The search for life beyond Earth requires broad participation from the scientific community and many kinds of observations and experiments.”

“Together, we can be stronger in our efforts to look for hints that we are not alone.”

_____

• J. Green et al. 2021. Call for a framework for reporting evidence for life beyond Earth. Nature 598, 575-579; doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03804-9
• This article is based on text provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

{ http://www.sci-news.com/ }

Department of Homeland Security Reports First-ever Known Drone Attack Against US Electricity Grid

© Photo : Department of Homeland Security

A modified drone which crashed near a Pennsylvania power substation in July 2020 was “likely being used…to specifically target energy infrastructure,” a law enforcement bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center has revealed.

The memo, obtained by ABC News and CNN, said that authorities still do not know what individual or group may have been operating the drone, which crashed on a roof close to the substation. No details were provided on which power facility was targeted, and no damage was reported. The memo did not specify the cause of the crash.

The drone was said to have been modified, and fitted with a tether supporting a length of copper wire –apparently meant to short-circuit the high-voltage equipment at the substation by coming into contact with it, potentially leading to plant shutdown and possible combustion. The UAV used was a DJI Mavic 2, a consumer-grade quadrocopter commonly sold for about $1,600 US online. The drone’s camera, memory card and serial number labels had been removed.

The bulletin, which aims to ‘raise awareness’ with law enforcement, state and local officials about the threats unmanned aerial vehicles could potentially pose to critical infrastructure, was issued on 28 October, and followed a review of security incidents involving drones over a four year period.

The memo was accompanied by a satellite photo showing the substation and the drone’s recovery location, with an analysis of local power facilities in the state indicating that the substation and building adjacent to it are situated near the old Hershey chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

The incident was the first reported use of a drone to target the US electrical power grid.

However, the Pentagon is known to have vast experience with the use of graphite bombs, also known as ‘blackout bombs’ – a cluster bomb weapon used specifically to target energy grids. The bombs, which disperse soda can-sized canisters by tiny parachutes over electrical substations, contain spools of highly conductive carbon webbing, which drapes over lines, causing circuit overloads and plant shutdowns. The bombs were widely deployed by the US in the First Gulf War against Iraq, and by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999. In the latter instance, after Yugoslav engineers repeatedly restored power within a day after the attacks, NATO began using conventional bombs and missiles to attack powerlines and transformer stations, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to the Balkan country.

According to a recent Freedom of Information Act request by the Scientific Coalition for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Studies, some 24 US nuclear reactors and fuel storage sites were subjected to 57 drone incursions between 2015 and 2019. Last year, the group reported that a tiny armada of between four and six unmarked UAVs flew over the Palo Verde Generating Station in Arizona –America’s largest nuclear power plant, in September 2019, with plant security proving unable to stop them and authorities uncertain as to who was operating them or why.

Earlier this year, Sputnik reported on the mysterious deployment of drones by an unknown actor or entity to conduct nighttime flights over US Navy destroyers near a sensitive military training range in California’s Channel Islands. FOIA documents revealed that as many as six unidentified craft at a time chased after and maneuvered around the warships in July 2019, with the incidents sparking probes by the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the FBI. Media were troubled at the time by the fact that the drones could lock onto and catch up with the fast-moving warships in the dead of night and despite poor visibility.

Small drones are known to have been used repeatedly by guerilla fighters in Third World battlegrounds, being deployed in the civil war in Libya, and by Yemen’s Houthi militia against the Saudi-led coalition. In 2019, an armada of Houthi drones severely damaged a pair of Saudi oil production facilities, temporarily knocking out as much as half of the kingdom’s oil output.

 

Drone Armada Buzzed US’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant and Authorities Still Have No Clue Why

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

SpaceX's Endeavor capsule appears like a shooting star or 'donut UFO' over Louisiana and Alabama during the return trip to Earth that brought four astronauts home from the ISS

• SpaceX's Endeavor capsule brought four astronauts home last night

• The craft was spotted streaking across the night Monday evening 

• Reports of light show came from Alabama and Louisiana

• The capsule was traveling at least 17,000mph at the time 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A bright light streaked across the sky over parts of the southern U.S. on Monday evening that had some bystanders questioning if they saw a UFO.

Instead, it was the SpaceX return capsule.

The cosmic light show was a result of the Endeavour craft soaring through Earth’s atmosphere as it headed towards its designated splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida.

Carrying four astronauts, the capsule splashed down on time at 10:33pm ET, bring the, Crew-2 mission back to Earth after spending the last 200 days aboard the International Space Station.

The astronauts – NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, along with the European Space Agency's Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's astronaut Akihiko Hoshide – not only made headlines for coming home, but for having to complete the journey in diapers due to a faulty toilet in the capsule.  

Sightings of the SpaceX capsule were reported in Louisiana, Alabama and several other states along the gulf.

Scroll down for video 

The light show was a result of the Endeavour craft soaring through Earth’s atmosphere as it headed towards its designated splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida

Matt Kroschel, an anchor for a local news outlet in Huntsville, Alabama, urged residents to not call the newsroom with UFO reports if they spotted a streak of light in the night sky.

Twitter user Christopher of Mandeville, Louisiana shared a great image of the event on Twitter.  

‘Holy cr** that was awesome,’ he included with the tweet.

The capsule traveled at least 17,000 miles per hour during deorbit as it fell towards the ocean. 

It eventually slowed down and released parachutes to help stop it from crashing.

One spectator joked on Twitter about the capsule potentially being a UFO when it streaked through the night sky

At 10:38pm ET on Monday, the green light was given for the rescue crews to approach the capsule that had just landed in the Gulf of Mexico.

'We were on the helipad watching the crew members streak through the atmosphere, and it looked like a meteor - it was truly incredible,' said Leah Cheshier, a NASA spokesman.

'We couldn't ask for better conditions and things are moving really smoothly here and happening as planned.'

At 11:14pm ET, the side hatch was opened, and the crew disembarked. 

Carrying four astronauts, the capsule splashed down on time at 10:33pm, bring the Crew-2 mission back to Earth after spending the last 200 days aboard the International Space Station

The astronauts – NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, along with the European Space Agency's Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's astronaut Akihiko Hoshide – not only made headlines for coming home, but for having to complete the journey in diapers due to a faulty toilet in the capsule

McArthur, the captain, was the first to leave, at 11:26pm ET.

She was followed by Commander Kimbrough, beaming as he was carried out of the capsule and put on the stretcher to be wheeled away. He waved for the cameras and made a V for Victory sign.

All four were out of the capsule by 11:33pm, with smiles and fist-bumps all round.

Their return was initially set for Sunday afternoon, but high winds delayed the trip by a day.

Matt Kroschel, an anchor for a local news outlet in Huntsville, Alabama urged residents to not call the newsroom with UFO reports if they spot a streak of light in the night sky

Another sighting was reported over Gulf Shores, Alabama. The capsule traveled at least 17,000 miles per hour during deorbit as it free-falls toward the ocean, all the while slowing its speed before releasing parachutes to help stop it from crashing before splashing down

The SpaceX capsule, named Endeavour, was without a bathroom, due to a faulty toilet design, forcing the crew to wear diapers for the trip back to Earth.

However, the rescheduled mission cut the trip from space by 12 hours - it was only eight hours long instead of the expected 20 hours - due to the path from the ship to Earth, so the team did not have to sport the protective undergarments for as long as previously expected.

The Endeavour capsule is not the first SpaceX craft to spark UFO reports upon returning to Earth.

In September, SpaceX's Cargo Dragon C208-2 was spotted streaking through the night sky over parts of Georgia and Florida.

The Cargo Dragon C208-2 undocked from the ISS at 9:12am Thursday, following a supply run to the ship, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean around 11pm ET on September 30.

In September, Cargo Dragon C208-2 was spotted streaking through the night sky over parts of Georgia and Florida

The Cargo Dragon C208-2 undocked from the ISS at 9:12am Thursday, following a supply run to the ship, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean around 11pm ET on September 30

SpaceX tweeted that the capsule may be visible in parts of Georgia and Florida – and the firm was correct.

Many residents shared the event on Twitter, showing images of the glowing craft with a long, illuminated tail as it soared over highways and neighborhoods.

Local news stations in Florida received numerous reports of a loud boom on Thursday night, which was heard by residents in the Jacksonville area and all the way down to St. Augustine.

Residents said the loud boom rattled dishes and windows, along with entire homes.

The loud noise was a sonic boom released from the capsule, Newsweek reports.

According to NASA, a sonic boom is the thunder-like noise that someone on the ground hears when an aircraft or spacecraft overhead flies faster than the speed of sound.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

ISS-astronauten na half jaar in de ruimte veilig geland in Golf van Mexico

De vier astronauten die eind april met een raket van SpaceX naar het internationale ruimtestation ISS vertrokken, zijn veilig geland in de Golf van Mexico. De landing in de zee bij de Amerikaanse staat Florida vond plaats om 22.33 uur lokale tijd.

 Bron: ANP

De bemanningsleden, twee Amerikanen, een Japanner en een Fransman die onderhoud aan zonnepanelen en allerlei experimenten hebben uitgevoerd, waren ongeveer acht uur onderweg. Het vertrek was met een dag vertraagd vanwege slechte weersomstandigheden.

Lees ook

• 

  Astronauten telen voor het eerst zelfgemaakte chilipepers en maken “beste ruimte-taco’s ooit"

Het viertal was gearriveerd met de Endeavour van het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Elon Musk. Niet eerder waren astronauten met een gebruikte raket en capsule de ruimte in gestuurd. Na 199 dagen waarin ze onder meer chilipepers hebben verbouwd en wormen hebben bestudeerd, was het tijd voor de terugreis.

Luiers

Ongemakkelijk was dat op de terugreis het toilet niet werkte, zodat de bemanning luiers moest dragen. Het systeem om afval te verwerken in de capsule kampte met problemen.

De vervanging van de crew ondervindt ondertussen keer op keer vertraging, door het weer en een medische kwestie, meldde de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA. De nu geplande vertrekdatum is woensdag. Dan moeten drie Amerikanen en een Duitser worden gelanceerd vanaf ruimtebasis Cape Canaveral in Florida. Ook zij verblijven volgens de planning een half jaar in het ruimtestation.

Beeld uit een NASA-video waarin te zien is hoe de capsule aan parachutes hangt voor hij in de Golf van Mexico plonst.  © AP

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

‘Astounding’ Roman Statues Found Under Medieval Church in Britain

Archaeologists digging at the site of a Norman-era church north of London received quite a surprise recently. Their ongoing excavations unearthed the well-preserved remains of three large Roman statues that must have been buried there for more than 1,000 years. The find included three detached statue heads - of a man, woman, and child - along with two intact busts (neck, shoulders, and chests) that matched the heads of the adults.

The archaeologists who made this shocking discovery were carrying out excavations below St. Mary’s Church, a 900-year-old structure located in the village of Stoke Mandeville adjacent to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire county. They were working under the authority of the HS2 high-speed railway project, which is currently sponsoring excavations (as required by law) along the rail line route that will eventually connect London with the West Midlands.

In an HS2 press release , Dr. Rachel Wood, the lead archaeologist for HS2 contractor Fusion JV, referred to the Roman statues as “utterly astounding finds.”

Male head and torso of Roman statue discovered during a HS2 archaeological dig at the site of old St Mary’s church in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire.

( HS2)

“To find one stone head or one set of shoulders would be really astonishing,” she said, “but we have two complete heads and shoulders as well as a third head as well.”

• Roman Law and Its Lasting Influence On the Legal System of Europe
• Artifact Reveals People Were Fed To Lions In Roman Britain

Getting it Right the Second Time

This incredibly rare discovery has generated a lot of excitement among the HS2 archaeological team. It has also forced them to reconsider their initial interpretation of an earlier discovery at the St. Mary’s site.

Just last month, the archaeologists found the ruins of a large stone building buried directly beneath the Medieval church. The Normans had built a compacted dirt foundation on top of the rubble of that building, before beginning construction on St. Mary’s in the year 1080.

“The team working at St Mary’s discovered flint walls forming a square structure underneath the Norman levels, enclosed by a circular boundary ditch, and a small number of associated burials,” an HS2 spokesperson announced in September . “Archaeologists believe this to be an Anglo-Saxon church.”

HS2 archaeologists excavating Roman artifacts.

( HS2)

“The flint foundations are about one meter wide,” the spokesperson continued, “which indicates it would have been a tall structure, although its footprint would have been small.”

The archaeologists were finishing excavations in and around the building at the time they discovered the Roman statues . Reaching the bottom layer of the hidden church site, they thought they were digging into the foundations of an old Anglo-Saxon tower. But when they saw the Roman busts, they realized the site’s history went back even further than they’d imagined.

The Statues and Other Finds that Link the Site to Roman Settlers

The statue heads and torsos were all in excellent condition. It was possible to make out precise facial details, and also to identify the types of clothing and head coverings they were wearing.

Female head of Roman statue discovered during a HS2 archaeological dig at the site of old St Mary’s church in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire.

( HS2)

While the Roman statues are the most notable find at St. Mary’s, they were not the only artifacts that linked the site to Roman settlers.

The HS2 archaeologists also unearthed the remains of a hexagon-shaped Roman glass jug, which was in excellent condition and could easily be reconstructed with no missing pieces. Only one other vessel of this kind is known to exist. It is presently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Other distinctive Roman artifacts were also found during the latest excavations, including large roof tiles, pieces of painted wall plaster, and Roman cremation urns.

Rare Roman glass jug found at the site.

( HS2)

The last discovery seems especially significant, as revealed by the contents of the HS2 press release about the discoveries at the site.

“Archaeologists now believe the square building that pre-dates the Norman church is a Roman mausoleum,” the release said. “Roman materials found in the ditch around are too ornate and not enough in number to suggest the site was a domestic building.”

If the stone tower was in fact a mausoleum, or large tomb, it may have hosted the cremated remains of the three individuals (members of a wealthy and important family?) who were depicted in the statues.

A few pieces of Saxon pottery and a Saxon coin were found in the circular ditch that surrounded the large structure. But the archaeologists now believe the Saxons only occupied or modified pre-existing Roman structures, rather than building something new and original on their own.

How Lost and Forgotten Artifacts Reveal the Truth about History

The Romans remained in Britain for nearly 400 years after conquering the lands in the first century AD. They would have occupied the land on which St. Mary’s Church was built sometime during that time period, when the statues and mausoleum were created.

• New Date for Chedworth Roman Villa Mosaic Changes English History
• Powerhouse of the Roman Navy: The Classis Britannica

It is likely that the Roman statues were intentionally damaged by future occupants before being abandoned, which would explain why the heads were disconnected from the bodies.

“The disfiguration of the Roman busts, namely the removal of the head of each, is not entirely unusual as it is common for statues such as these to have been vandalized in some way before being torn down,” the HS2 press release explained. “These are early examples of how statues and historic artifacts have been discarded as society has evolved over time.”

Of course, archaeological ventures are launched primarily to search for such abandoned and forgotten objects, which can dramatically enhance our understanding of past eras.

“These extraordinary Roman statues are just some of the incredible artifacts uncovered between London and the West Midlands,” said Mike Court, the HS2, Ltd. lead archaeologist. “As HS2 builds for Britain’s future, we are uncovering and learning about the past, leaving a legacy of knowledge and discovery.”

The HS2 archaeological initiative has given archaeologists access to vast tracts of land that had been largely off-limits before. They are taking full advantage of the opportunity, learning many new and exciting facts about the United Kingdom’s complex and colorful history in the process.

• Top image: Complete bust of female Roman statue discovered at the site of old St Mary’s church in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, England. Source: HS2

By Nathan Falde

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

Metal Detectorist Stumbles Upon a 2,000-Year-Old Swiss Battle Site

Hundreds of ancient artifacts revealing a Roman battle site from about 2,000 years ago have been unearthed in Switzerland. The items include well-preserved slingshot stones, nails, coins, a portion of a shield, and a dagger – they were believed to have been left behind after a battle took place between the Romans and a local tribe around the year 15 BC.

It was Lucas Schmid who made the first discovery of a dagger close to the Crap-Ses gorge which is between the towns of Tiefencastel and Cunter. It was actually rather surprising that he found anything as there wasn’t thought to have been any artifacts left after several people with metal detectors had previously gone over the property and found other items.

(Not the dagger mentioned in this article.)

In an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch, Schmid described how he found the dagger, “The signal from the metal detector was very inconspicuous and quiet. At first there was nothing to suggest such a large find,” adding, “As I dug deeper the tension rose – I knew it had to be an old object. When I exposed one end of the object I saw that it was a dagger. When I saw it was a complete dagger I was overjoyed.”

After Schmid found the dagger, a team of archaeologists from the University of Basel went to the site and unearthed several hundred more items within a 35,000-square-meter area. The items found at the site, which included shoe nails and coins, were from around 15 BC when the battle occurred.

As for the battle, the local Raetian tribe was living in the eastern Alps (this included portions of what is now Italy and Austria), but when the Romans conquered the area, they referred to it as Raetia under Augustus (in reference to the Roman Emperor Augustus). It is estimated that up to 1,500 soldiers were involved in the battle.

Peter Schwarz, who is a professor of Provincial Roman Archaeology at the University of Basel, told SWI swissinfo.ch, “This is the first time that remnants from a Roman battle site has been found in Switzerland,” adding, “It seems that the Romans attacked their enemy on one side of the valley and then drove them over a river to the other side, before attacking again.”

Interestingly, researchers have not found any graves at the battle site and it’s unclear as to how many of the estimated 1,500 soldiers died. Further excavations will be conducted next year so perhaps they’ll make even more discoveries at the site.

A picture of the dagger can be seen here.

A dagger is one of hundreds of objects uncovered on the ancient battlefield. 

Archäologischer Dienst Graubünden

(Courtesy Peter-Andrew Schwarz)

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

ISS-astronauten met luiers op weg terug naar aarde

De vier astronauten die eind april met een raket van SpaceX naar het internationale ruimtestation ISS vertrokken, zijn op weg terug naar aarde. De bemanningsleden, twee Amerikanen, een Japanner en een Fransman die onderhoud aan zonnepanelen en allerlei experimenten hebben uitgevoerd, worden in de vroege ochtend verwacht in de zee bij Florida. Het vertrek was met een dag vertraagd vanwege slechte weersomstandigheden.

 Bron: ANP/AFP/DPA

Het viertal was gearriveerd met de Endeavour van het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Elon Musk. Nooit eerder waren astronauten met een gebruikte raket en capsule de ruimte in gestuurd. Na 199 dagen waarin ze onder meer chilipepers hebben verbouwd en wormen hebben bestudeerd, is het tijd voor de terugreis.

Enig minpunt is dat op de terugreis het toilet niet werkt, zodat de bemanning luiers moet dragen. Het systeem om afval te verwerken in de capsule kampt namelijk met problemen.

Ook de vervanging van de crew ondervindt ondertussen keer op keer vertraging, door het weer en een medische kwestie, meldde de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA. De nu geplande vertrekdatum is woensdag. Dan moeten drie Amerikanen en een Duitser worden gelanceerd vanaf ruimtebasis Cape Canaveral in de Amerikaanse staat Florida. Ook zij verblijven volgens de planning een half jaar in het ruimtestation.

Astronauten Thomas Pesquet, Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough en Akihiko Hoshide vertrokken in april naar het ISS.  © AP

© AP

© AP

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Lazar's story about the secret underground facility S4 sounds fantastic but it is not a lie. S4 facility at Area 51 photographed during construction.

The location of S4 has been a mystery for decades. Bob Lazar worked at S4 from December 1988 till mid of 1989. All he shared with the public were a few sketches and a short description of nine hangars built in the slope of a mountain, located ten miles South of Groom Lake (Area 51) and near the Papoose Lake dry bed. 

So where is this base? With so little information finding S4 is searching for the needle in the haystack. 

31 Years passed and the location was still unknown. People found lines in the sediment in a mountain on the Eat side of Papoose Lake and UAP Research too believed to have found S4 (actually we now believe that it is the predecessor of S4) South of Papoose Lake but the evidence was still missing. 

Not anymore as a couple months ago while watching an old video from 1989 UAP Research saw something that dropped his mouth open. Was this the needle? Yes it was! 

The video below shows all the information, maps, satellite images, sketches related to the location of S4 'the underground UFO base.'

 

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and osted biy peter2011

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

Aliens in Alaska – Night Stalkers S01E03

Ancient Aliens – Night Stalkers

Season 1, Episode 3

12th April 2021, Discovery+

An extraterrestrial stalker leaves a family frozen in fear outside of Juneau, Alaska. A maritime monster nearly capsizes an aircraft on Alaska’s famed Lake Iliamna. A hunter thwarts an attempted abduction by a fireball-spitting UFO.

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

NASA’s Perseverance rover spots Mars’ teeny tiny moon, Deimos

 By Georgina Torbet

NASA’s Perseverance rover doesn’t only spend its time looking down at the rocks and dust that cover the surface of Mars. It also looks up, and recently it captured an image of Mars’ tiny moon, Deimos, hovering overhead in the Martian sky.

Deimos is the smaller of Mars’ two moons, along with its bigger companion, Phobos, and measures less than 2 miles across. It is covered in impact craters from asteroid strikes, and it’s also covered in dust that gives it a smoother appearance than Phobos.

NASA shared the following image captured by the rover looking up, which zooms in to show the tiny bright white dot of Phobos passing through the sky:

A particularly intriguing concept about Mars’ moons is that they could once have been rings, like those around Saturn. Over thousands of years, the material in these rings condensed into the two moons we see today. And the moons might not be around forever — one theory states that eventually Phobos will come too close to Mars and break apart into tiny pieces, becoming a set of rings. This may even operate as a cycle, with Mars switching between rings and moons over millennia.

Rendering showing a planetary ring system over Mars. Demonstrates either the formation or destruction of Phobos and/or Deimos. Kevin Gill

Mars’ moons have also been in the news recently as Japanese scientists suggested that Deimos’ companion, Phobos, may be the ideal location to search for signs of ancient life. Although the moon itself lacks atmosphere and water, making it unsuitable for hosting life, it could carry evidence if there was once life on Mars. Asteroid strikes on the Martian surface have sent material flying onto Phobos, and its sterile environment could preserve these signs long-term.

We’ll learn more about Phobos and Deimos soon, as the Japanese space agency (JAXA) will be sending its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) probe to visit them both. The plan is for the probe to land on Phobos and collect a sample to return to Earth, and it will also perform a flyby of Deimos on its way. The mission aims to launch in 2024.

Editors' Recommendations

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{ https://www.digitaltrends.com/ }

Can SpaceX's Elon Musk help NASA get back to the moon by 2024 after all?

• Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.  He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among other venues.

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Unearthed Recording Alleges that Einstein Was Enlisted to Examine Roswell Wreckage

By Tim Binnall

In a recently unearthed recording of an interview conducted nearly 30 years ago, a former assistant to Albert Einstein alleges that the famed scientist was enlisted to examine the Roswell wreckage, including the ET occupants of the downed craft. UFO researcher Anthony Bragalia uncovered the remarkable revelation when he tracked down ufologist Sheila Franklin, who interviewed Dr. Shirley Wright in 1993 about her time working with Einstein in the summer of 1947. As luck would have it, Franklin still had the tapes from her conversation with the former assistant and what she told the researcher was nothing short of stunning.

According to Wright, she accompanied Einstein to what had been dubbed a "crisis conference" that was hastily held in July of 1947 at a remote army airbase in the American southwest. Upon their arrival, the duo entered a hangar that was under heavy security and, when they entered the building, they discovered that it contained a rather curious craft that appeared to have sustained significant damage. "It was disc-shaped, sort of concave," Wright recalled, "its size stood up to one-fourth of the hangar floor." While her response to the strange scene was one of "wonderment, half curiosity and maybe half fear," she said that Einstein was "not disturbed at all" and, instead, was primarily concerned with what sort of insights about propulsion and the universe could be gleaned from the vehicle.

The strange event took an even weirder turn, Wright claimed, when the pair were then presented with the bodies of five nearly indistinguishable beings that had apparently been aboard the craft. The scientist's former assistant observed that they "were about five feet tall, without hair, with big heads and enormous dark eyes, and their skin was gray with a slight greenish tinge, but for the most part their bodies were not exposed, being dressed in tight-fitting suits." The duo were then taken to another area where there was a still-living being that was struggling to stay alive and making strange sounds, but no coherent words or communication.

Shortly thereafter, Wright told Franklin, she and Einstein were ushered away from the base and the famed scientist was tasked with writing a report about the event while "I was just told to keep my mouth shut." It would appear that she did just that, keeping the story a secret until 1993, when she finally felt an obligation to reveal it to the world. Alas, Wright passed away in 2015 and the decades-old recording appears to be her only telling of the jaw-dropping experience. Attempts to determine Einstein's whereabouts at the time that the "crisis conference" was held have, so far, proven futile as archivists have been unable to produce his exact schedule from the time period in question.

{ https://www.coasttocoastam.com/ }

THERE ARE NO ALIENS IN DUNE. HERE’S WHY.

{ https://nationalufocenter.com/ }

{ https://nationalufocenter.com/ }

The move to push the U.S. government to investigate UFOs/UAPs officially began with Senator (and Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid and the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. It received a boost in 2020 when Senator Marco Rubio, via the of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, ordered the Director of National Intelligence to produce a report detailing any and all information it and other agencis have on unidentified aerial phenomena and “advanced aerial threats” – the report released in summary to the public in July 2021. For those disappointed in what’s been released so far, you have a new champion in the U.S Senate — on November 4, 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand submitted an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, H.R. 4350) to establish an “Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office” to assume the responsibilities of the Navy-led Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. According to those who have analyzed it, the “Gillibrand Amendment” is a big deal.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

(official photo)

“The Gillibrand Amendment would encourage progress towards greater UAP transparency by the government, by requiring issuance of public, unclassified reports on UAP annually, and by expanding the list of topics to be addressed in these reports to include several areas of particular interest to longtime students of the phenomena, including UAP events associated with nuclear weapons platforms.”

UFO researcher Douglas Johnson explains in his review of the amendment (included at the end of his article) that three other legislative proposals are already in front of Congress but Senator Gillibrand’s amendment requires far more resources devoted to UAPs. The Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office would set up a UFO reporting by government or military personnel would also be moved to a “central repository” for reports “including adverse physiological effects” suffered by military personnel exposed to UFOs.

Perhaps the most surprising new development in the Gillibrand Amendment is the formation of a new “Aerial and Transmedium Phenomena Advisory Committee” made up of both government and private sector individuals. “Transmedium” became a buzzword this summer as more reports and videos emerged of UAPs seamlessly moving between air and water. Three members of the committee would be selected by the NASA administrator and three by the head of Harvard University’s Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts – that person is Professor Avi Loeb, perhaps the world’s leading proponent of the existence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth as demonstrated by his persistent push to consider the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua to be a spaceship.

Oumuamua

In addition to detailed annual reports to the public, the Gillibrand Amendment would provide for twice-annual classified briefings to the House and Senate armed services and intelligence committees to update them on progress in prior investigations and detail on new UAP reports.

It’s interesting that Senator Gillibrand is a proponent of UAP/UFO research and disclosure since she’s never been included in the discussions before. Gillibrand made a brief run for the presidency in 2020 – perhaps she picked up some information at that time which pushed her to get involved. Gillibrand, a Democrat, is currently on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Will she get the bipartisan support that Senator Rubio, a Republican, received when he pushed for more research and disclosure in 2020? Let’s hope so … before it’s too late.

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

In the late 1960s, there was a race to be the first astronaut to set foot on the Moon. In the early 2020s, another race has begun to be the first astronaut to set foot on Mars. Every fan of science fiction dreams of being the first astronaut to leave our Solar System and set foot on a planet orbiting another star. It should come as no surprise that scientists are already planning that trip. However, before you update your resume and look for a line to stand in, their chosen first astronaut is one of those tiny water bears known as the tardigrade. While many humans may be disappointed if that happens – even though that first trip will probably be a one-way mission – fans of panspermia may be looking at this as a different kind of first … the first time a being from another star system came to Earth and then left to populate another one.

Tardigrade drawing 1861

(public domain)

“Here we explore the biological and technological challenges of interstellar space biology, focusing on radiation-tolerant microorganisms capable of cryptobiosis. Additionally, we discuss planetary protection concerns and other ethical considerations of sending life to the stars.”

Researchers are thinking about the NASA Starlight program in a new study titled “The First Interstellar Astronauts Will Not Be Human,” to be published in Acta Astronautica in January 2022. Starlight, also known as the Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration (DEEP-IN) and Directed Energy Interstellar Studies (DIES), is one of a number of programs considering how to send small, even micro-small, spacecraft to other star systems. According to Universe Today, this study – conducted by UC Santa Barbara, the UCLA Health Center, the University of Florida, and Ruhr-University Bochum – focused not on how to propel the craft but what kind of microorganisms would make good astronauts … and whether the idea is safe and ethical.

“Tardigrade species are adversely affected by hypergravity but are more resistant than larger organisms, such as the fruit fly, D. melanogaster, while species like C. elegans fare quite well under hyperacceleration. However, tardigrades can be launched in a cryptobiotic state, with the hope that this will mitigate deleterious acceleration-dependent effects of hypergravity on their survival rate.”

Because they can survive in conditions with extreme temperatures, extreme pressures, radiation, dehydration and starvation, tardigrades have already been flown into space, left exposed to the extremes, and still brought back alive able to reproduce. They’ve already been sent to the Moon — an Israeli mission carrying thousand of dehydrated tardigrades crashed but could conceivably have survived.

If we can send tardigrades to other stars, could extraterrestrial civilizations have already done the same thing – sending them to Earth millions of years ago? That theory has been bandied about by the panspermia crowd, especially after traces of biotic material were found on 4.1 billion year old rocks in Western Australia that may have been asteroids. Whether they were propelled into space intentionally by an advanced civilization or unintentionally on space rocks, their chances of survival, especially if they were dehydrated or in some other suspended state, would be as good as the researchers in the new study believe Earth tardigrades are.

Drawing of a tardigrade on a grain of sand

“However, once initial exploratory phases have been completed and best efforts at gathering knowledge of exoplanets has been performed, there may be certain circumstances in which intentionally “seeding life” would not be unethical.”

The study considers sending Earth organisms to other star systems ethical under certain circumstances yet to be determined. However, if the tardigrades were already sent here by ETs, we’re just pulling a “they did it first” switch. The biggest challenge to Starlight and programs like it are the propulsion mechanism needed to send the micro ships at extreme speeds far beyond those of current rockets and spacecrafts. Light sails pushed by lasers are a leading candidate and the study hints that the technology is close to happening.

Should the tardigrades look forward to the beginning of a new adventure … or just the next phase of a previous one?

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

I have traveled to Puerto Rico on many occasions. Usually (but not always) to go on expeditions with TV companies to try and find what is popularly known as the chupacabra. As an aside, I’ll be doing another such expedition very soon. But, I’m digressing. I’ll come back to that new expedition in a forthcoming article. Today, I’m going to share with you what was the creepiest story given to me. It was 2004 and high in the hills of the El Yunque rain-forest. There comes a time in the life of every investigator of the paranormal when a case just gels. From the credibility of the witness to the importance of the story, everything combines together and in the best fashion possible. I have experienced such a deep sense of satisfaction and connection on a number of occasions. But, there is, perhaps, no greater example than the amazing affair of a woman named Norka, who had a chupacabra encounter back in 1975. Yes, this case was long before the beast was believed to have been roaming around the island. Norka was a fascinating lady, who lived in a spacious and atmospheric house high in the El Yunque rain forest. Norka’s story was one that took our quest for the truth about the chupacabra to a whole new – and largely unanticipated – level.

After me and Jon Downes (my good mate and fellow Chupacabra-seeker) devoured our breakfasts fit for a king – in the open courtyard of the Wind Chimes Inn in San Juan – our convoy of jeep, cars, and trucks once again hit the road. There were people to interview, creatures to be sought, and absolutely no time to waste. Around ninety minutes after we left bustling San Juan behind us, we arrived at Norka’s lavish home. It was dominated by a pair of huge, wrought-iron gates and a driveway that was so steep it actually required me to put the jeep in the lowest possible gear to successfully climb it. I quipped to Jon that the fortified home had probably been built to keep the chupacabra out. Who knows? After digesting what Norka said, I seriously had to wonder if my joke just may have been on target, after all. Norka, seventy-something and sporting a beaming smile, invited us in as if we were old friends. It almost felt like we were. Norka was an incredibly generous host, despite unfortunately being in failing health. She provided us with liquid refreshment and snacks, gave us a tour of her home – which was, essentially, built solidly into the hill on which it stood – and regaled us with entertaining stories of her youth, during which she was a prize-winning, passionate motorcyclist. Both Jon and I instantly bonded with Norka, who was a fellow adventurer and lover of life – and a highly skilled artist, too.

(Nick Redfern) Puerto Rico – a home of monsters

Roughly an hour after arriving, the crew had set up all of their equipment, the cameras were ready to roll, and me, Jon, and Norka assumed our required positions on the balcony of Norka’s home. It provided an incredible, panoramic view of El Yunque. Indeed, the angle of the miles-wide view, coupled with the sheer altitude of Norka’s home, provoked a slight sense of vertigo. But that was no matter. Jon and I suspected that Norka had something special to say and we wanted to hear it. We weren’t entirely sure how special, but we quickly found out. Norka’s words demonstrated that the chupacabra enigma was much older than many researchers had assumed or concluded. Norka’s account, we were fascinated to learn, dated from 1975, at the height of the summer months.

It was dusk, on a stiflingly hot, weekday night in August. The atmosphere – as day began to surrender to nightfall – was as normal and tranquil as it had ever been. It wasn’t long, however, before normality and tranquility gave way to something hideous. As Norka drove carefully and slowly along the twisting, climbing road (in a car, rather than on one of her trusty motorbikes, I should stress), something suddenly surfaced from the huge, dense trees that stood proud and tall, like gigantic green curtains, and which dominated each side of the road. Doing barely twenty miles an hour to begin with, Norka was easily able to slow down as a curious beast loomed into view. Norka, looking into the camera, said that only about twenty feet in front of her was the strangest, most terrifying animal it had ever been her misfortune to encounter. For all intents and purposes, it looked very much like a bat. Except, that is, for one astonishing thing: the abomination was around four to five feet in height.

(Nick Redfern) El Yunque rain forest

Not surprisingly, Norka could scarcely believe her eyes as the monster shuffled slowly across the road, its muscular legs taking slow but deliberate strides across the hot tarmac. With her eyes transfixed on the beast, Norka could see that its body was dark brown in color. Two large wings were folded tight against its back. The clawed fingers on its hands – that drooped in curious, limp fashion from its bony wrists – were of a distinct, white-yellow hue. Of a near-identical color were two enormous fangs that protruded from its gaping, almost slack-jawed, mouth. Most frightening of all to Norka were the eyes of the creature: focused intently on Norka herself, they were almost blazing, like red hot coals.

(Nick Redfern) Jon Downes on the look-out in Puerto Rico

After what seemed like a torturous amount of time, but which was maybe no more than twenty or so seconds, the creature unfurled its wings. At this point, Norka could see just how big those mighty, membranous appendages were: somewhere in a combined region of twelve to fifteen feet. Norka said the wings flapped in a fast, furious and loud fashion that deeply shocked her. In mere moments, the beast took to the skies, vertically, and was quickly lost from sight. It was, I said to Jon later, almost a case of the Jeepers Creepers movies come to life. He didn’t disagree in the slightest. Since this was the only interview planned for that day, there was no need for us to make a hasty drive to destinations new, and so we hung out for another hour or so, chatting further with Norka, even though the cameras had stopped rolling. Jon and I were suitably impressed. Our quest for the truth of the chupacabra had taken a major step forward – and, in terms of the date of Norka’s encounter, a major step backwards! And there was one more thing: Norka had so enjoyed the afternoon that she surprised me by presenting me with nothing less than a full-color painting she had done of the creature she encountered back in 1975. I thanked Norka for her incredible generosity. Atmospheric and captivating, her artwork has pride of place on the one wall of my office that is not dominated by mountains of bookshelves.

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

12 Unbelievable Things That You Will See For The First Time

We love to discover new things, things that are surprising, strange but also fascinating. Just when you think you have seen it all, there comes a discovery that takes your breath away. We have brought for you some of the rare inventions and happenings around the world that are truly wonderful. Here is the list of cool things, we bet you would have not seen before.

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{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

Astrange beam of light and two bright spheres coming down through a cloud over Silver Spring, Forest Glen Park, U.S. 

It's not the first time strange beams of light have been photographed and it seems unlikely that all these beams are just natural phenomena, camera malfunctions or digital cam glitches. 

Normally we only see a beam, but this time there are two glowing spheres next to the ray. The spheres seem to be on top or connected to an oval disk-shaped construction. 

It may be far-fetched, but could the beam of light be a means of teleporting a UFO that travels instantaneously between two locations without crossing the intervening space?

source: www.mufon.com

  

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

The Mystery Of The Battle Of Los Angeles

The battle of Los Angeles is an interesting 20th century mystery that’s still being examined to this day. On the evening of February 24, 1942, an anti-aircraft barrage of more than 1,440 rounds was launched at what is initially thought to be a Japanese aerial attack on the City of Angels. However, when the smoke cleared, just who or what had the military been firing at? Was it enemy fighters, a UFO or nothing at all? There are many theories which we will present to you today but it’s up to you to decide what you believe, as we attempt to discover the unexplained.

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

‘The public have been led to believe UFOs don’t exist. But they do’

 Chris Sweeney

(L) 'In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and impossible science' by Ross Coulthart © HarperCollins; (R) © Getty Images / KTSDESIGN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

RT speaks to Ross Coulthart, the author of a new book, ‘In Plain Sight’, which records an array of mysterious UFO sightings around the world – and details officialdom’s extraordinary efforts to deny them or cover them up.

There’s been an explosion of UFO initiatives over the past 12 months, including the formation of the International Coalition for Extraterrestrial Research and the launch of the Galileo Project. And then there was the groundbreaking report by the Pentagon, in which it admitted there were incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) that couldn’t be explained.

Yet a new book, ‘In Plain Sight’, by award-winning investigative journalist Ross Coulthart could be one of the most interesting developments yet. Coulthart has no reputation to uphold in the UFO community, but has long held a desire to tackle the big question: are we really alone?µ

“I’ve always been intrigued by the subject matter, mainly because there’s such a taboo attached to it. In journalism, there’s a real stigma,” he said.

“I can remember editors telling me, ‘Ross, we don’t do UFO stories.’ I did a lot of national security and defence intelligence-related stories. I’ve spent a large part of the past 30-something years covering wars, terrorist acts and all the miseries of the world. And a lot of those contacts [I made]… when I asked them about UFOs, they wouldn’t dismiss it [ie, the idea they existed].”

Born in New Zealand, Coulthart was fascinated by the 1978 incident in which a cameraman captured footage of an object flying alongside a plane above the town of Kaikoura on the country’s South Island. Weeks later, the authorities attributed it to either the planet Venus or a reflection from fishing boats.

“As a 16-year old boy, it sounded plausible to me, so I didn’t think much of it,” he admitted. But, at university, Coulthart secured his first scoop by tracking down those involved, who assured him what they saw was a solid object.

Fast-forward to the 90s and he’d established himself as a journalist and was working on the Australian investigative TV show ‘Four Corners’. Following the conclusion of a day’s filming at an air force base, the crew were invited by their host to have a drink in the on-site bar. Recalled Coulthart, “After a while, he leaned forward and said, ‘Can I ask you a question? Why don’t you media ever do stories about UFOs?”

“I freely admit I laughed, and I said, ‘Because they’re bulls**t’. And he went, ‘No, they are not’. I wish I could say who this chap was – he was a very, very senior official, one of the highest people in our military at the time.”

Hampered by the parameters of the mainstream media, he still managed to convince his bosses to do a UAP story in 2011 – but it was only because they’d sent him to London to interview a rock star who cancelled and they were left with a hole to fill.

Coulthart dug into reports of a 1980 sighting near the air force base RAF Bentwaters and tracked down Colonel Charles Halt, who claimed to have seen a flying object. He recalled, “We gave it half an hour for broadcast and it just went nuts. The public were very interested, and, more importantly, what blew us away were the number of people calling and offering information.”

“They were contacting me from all over Australia, saying they’d seen a similar object. They were stunned that the media was finally reporting on this story. The good thing for them was we weren’t ridiculing it – we were treating the subject with respect.”

‘In Plain Sight’ contains detailed analysis of many sightings, including Coulthart’s personal favourite of a man sitting in a deckchair at an outdoor cinema in the South Australian desert when a cylindrical craft appeared. The moviegoer claimed he could see light inside its windows.

Coulthart embarked on the book after going freelance and casting off the shackles of dismissive editors, and says the Pentagon’s recent admission that something is out there has been a really positive development.

He explained: “There is essentially a single line that is parroted by any Five Eyes nation [the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia]. If you ask, ‘Are UFOs real?’, they don’t answer the question. They say there’s no national security issue with UAPs and they don’t pose a threat to flight safety. But, in July this year, that all changed dramatically.”

“Anyone can read that report. It says very, very clearly that UFOs are a threat to flight safety and that they are a possible threat to national security. It’s a complete reversal. Nobody in the Pentagon is explaining why they’ve done this, but I think – and I’ve been told – it’s because they realise the game is up. They’ve got to come clean eventually about what they know.”

• READ MORE
  

Aliens like our NUKES, former intel official admits, claiming that UFOs ‘interfered’ with US atomic capabilities

In his book, Coulthart drills down on the link between UFOs and nuclear facilities. ‘In Plain Sight’ begins with the 1991 tale of a woman called Annie Farinaccio, who had been at a party on a US base in Australia’s remote North West Cape. She was offered a ride back into town by two policemen and has never forgotten what she saw as they drove.

Said Coulthart, “Annie was sitting there petrified. She looked up through the windscreen and screamed, as there was this gigantic triangular craft with lights hovering right above as they were driving along at 100km/h down this road.”

“In the blink of an eye, it went to 1,000 feet and then it dropped down to the left-hand side of the car. By this time, she’s pleading [with the police] to drop her back in town, and then it jumps to 1,000 feet instantaneously again and drops down to the right-hand side of the car.”

The base housed very-low-frequency transmitters, which, in the event of war, would send signals to US nuclear submarines. Annie was visited by American officials, taken back to the base and told she had seen a weather balloon – even though the craft didn’t resemble one in any way.

The book records another incident, in Russia, in which the weapons in a nuclear silo had been mysteriously armed, ready for launch, without any input from the officers.

Said Coulthart, “They were panicking. The intelligence appeared to be demonstrating, whatever your security systems, they can be breached. If it is some intelligence of some kind, it seems to be sending a message – it seems to be expressing something about the use or potential misuse of nuclear weapons.”

Also featured in the book is the story of teacher Andrew Greenwood, from Clayton South, a suburb of Melbourne. Along with his high-school students, he saw a metallic disc appear in a cloudless sky.

Greenwood spoke to the local media before being silenced. Said Coulthart, “This is where things get very sinister. Two weeks after the incident, he gets a knock on the door at his private home.There on the doorstep is a man dressed in uniform – a senior officer – and the other gentleman is an official of some kind, perhaps a police officer or an intelligence official, more likely.”

“Andrew’s still angry at what they did. They flatly threatened [him] and said, ‘If you talk anymore about what you saw, we’ll make sure you lose your job – we’ll say you drank as a teacher.’ Andrew’s got no reason to lie about this and, more importantly, what he says he saw is backed up by 167 witnesses, all on the record, at the last count. It really is the most extraordinary case.”

More revelations have been dug up by Coulthart, including suggestions of recovered non-human craft. Sources claim the US and Russia each have facilities in which these are stored, but Coulthart says he is generally skeptical about such claims without having seen proof. “That’s the biggest problem I have. Governments are bloody hopeless at keeping secrets and I would’ve thought, if the United States government was sitting on secrets like that, then it would have been leaked by now, and it hasn’t been,” he said. “But, when you look in the archives of the US government… that’s why I called my book ‘In Plain Sight’. The evidence is right there, in plain sight. There are archives from the CIA that show it was working with the US Defense Department to recover what the documents refer to as ‘flying saucers’ from Nepal and Afghanistan.”

Along with the book, Coulthart has produced a UFO documentary, and has been met with an encouraging level of support from media colleagues and the public alike. “The response has just been mind-blowing. I’ve never in my career had a response like I’ve had to this subject matter,” explained Coulthart. “It has been overwhelming. I’m exhausted every day – I wake up and there are literally 300 to 500 emails, people telling me about their sightings, people offering me information. It’s like we’ve opened a wound and all of the reality is pouring out.”

The main purpose of the book, though, is to cut through the fog. According to Coulthart, it’s almost as if sections of the media don’t want to admit they’ve been asleep at the wheel.

He continued, “The media is failing here. The media is locked into the paradigm that, absurdly, it was encouraged to heed by the CIA and the US Air Force back in the 1960s.”

“The CIA decided to suppress the stories of UFOs – I don’t know why, but it’s claimed it was because they were worried that people reporting UFOs would get in the way of people providing early warning of a Russian ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] landing on the US. It’s an absurd argument that they wanted to stop people from jamming up the phones at NORAD [the North American Aerospace Defense Command] with sightings. It’s just ridiculous.”

For a man adept with words, Coulthart concludes by describing this complex subject appropriately succinctly. While he’s been unable so far to find out all that’s known by governments and security agencies about UFOs, he’s clear why the subject has been judged to be the pastime of fools. “We’ve been manipulated,” he said. “We’ve been had.”

{ https://www.rt.com/news/ }

ELON MUSK KEEPS BUZZ ABOUT EXTRATERRESTRIALS IN THE NEWS

{ https://mindmatters.ai/ }

In a new incredible discovery, water has been detected in a massive galaxy located 12.88 billion light-years away from us. This is the most distant finding of a very important element for supporting life in a regular star-forming galaxy.

The large galaxy, which is called SPT0311-58, is actually two galaxies that are merging into one. They were being witnessed when the Universe was just 780 million years old – approximately 5% of its current age when the very first galaxies and stars were forming. The larger of the two galaxies contains H2O and carbon monoxide molecules which were detected by scientists who were using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

(Not the SPT0311-58 galaxy)

Sreevani Jarugula, who is an astronomer at the University of Illinois and the primary investigator of the new research, explained what they found, “Oxygen and carbon, in particular, are first-generation elements, and in the molecular forms of carbon monoxide and water, they are critical to life as we know it,” adding, “This galaxy is the most massive galaxy currently known at high redshift, or the time when the Universe was still very young. It has more gas and dust compared to other galaxies in the early Universe, which gives us plenty of potential opportunities to observe abundant molecules and to better understand how these life-creating elements impacted the development of the early Universe.”

Molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide are the two most plentiful molecules in the universe, and water comes in third on the list. Water and far-infrared emissions from dust have previously been detected in other galaxies from the early and local universe as explained by Jarugula, “The dust absorbs the ultraviolet radiation from the stars in the galaxy and re-emits it as far-infrared photons.” “This further excites the water molecules, giving rise to the water emission that scientists are able to observe. In this case, it helped us to detect water emissions in this massive galaxy. This correlation could be used to develop water as a tracer of star formation, which could then be applied to galaxies on a cosmological scale.”

(Not the SPT0311-58 galaxy)

Jarugula went on to say, “Early galaxies are forming stars at a rate thousands of times that of the Milky Way,” adding, “Studying the gas and dust content of these early galaxies informs us of their properties, such as how many stars are being formed, the rate at which gas is converted into stars, how galaxies interact with each other and with the interstellar medium, and more.” The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Images of the SPT0311-58 galaxy can be seen here.

This artist’s conception shows the dust continuum and molecular lines of carbon monoxide and water seen in the pair of galaxies known as SPT0311-58.

Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / S. Dagnello, NRAO.

These images show the molecular lines and dust continuum seen in ALMA observations of SPT0311-58. On left: a composite image combining the dust continuum with molecular lines for water and carbon monoxide. On right: the dust continuum seen in red (top), molecular line for water shown in blue (second from top), molecular line transitions for carbon monoxide, CO(6-5) shown in purple (middle), CO(7-6) shown in magenta (second from bottom), and CO(10-9) shown in pinks and deep blue (bottom).

Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / S. Dagnello, NRAO.

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Are you afraid of spiders? It’s a common fear and one that keeps the roll-able magazine and foldable newspaper businesses profitable. If you’re arachnophobic, Georgia is not the state to live in – entomologists announced recently that giant Joro spiders (Trichonephila clavate), an invasive species from East Asia that only showed up in 2014, has taken over the state … covering it with its massive, intricate webs. Don’t rest too easily Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama – the entomologists say the Joro Spiders have crossed your borders with Georgia and are spreading. And, while they’re not the largest spider in North America, they may even be scaring other spiders. Is it time to subscribe to a few more magazines?

“Last year, there were dozens of spiders, and they began to be something of a nuisance when I was doing yard work. This year, I have several hundred, and they actually make the place look spooky with all the messy webs — like a scene out of ‘Arachnophobia.'”

Joro spider

University of Georgia entomologist Will Hudson explains in a statement that the Joro spiders are venomous but pose a danger only to insects caught in their webs, not humans of pets. However, their rapid spread throughout Georgia and has him concerned and he recommends killing any females one comes across – females are larger (3 inches across) and more colorful than the small brown males. Hudson himself has killed more than 300 females on his property just this year. He instructs to avoid persiticides and instead use old-fashioned methods like shovels, brinks, boots and magazines (big thick ones). And he warns it’s already too late to eradicate them from Georgia and the U.S

“Jumping spiders (Salticidae) have superb vision and are excellent predators but they can equally fall prey to other jumping spiders. In a hierarchical decision-making setup, we tested whether the common zebra jumping spider Salticus scenicus can visually recognize stationary predators.”

While Will Hudson is chasing Joro spiders, researchers led by Dr. Daniela Rößler at Germany’s University of Konstanz found something unusual about jumping spiders of the Salticidae family – they’re afraid of other jumping spiders. In a study published by the British Ecological Society and appropriately nicknamed “Arachno-Arachnophobia,” the entomologists wondered how jumping spiders, which use their springy talent to avoid predators, recognized the predators, particularly other jumping spiders. While many creatures detect, the researchers were surprised when jumping spiders recognized and backed away from a dead jumping spider. Even more interesting, Rößler says in a tweet that this behavior was present in newly hatched spiderlings too.

Jumping spider

“So, while we usually think of anti-predator adaptations in terms of morphology and behavior, we might want to include cognitive and perceptual abilities more into this discussion. Isn’t it absolutely amazing that a brain the size of a poppy seed is able to do this???”

Amazing? Yes. Frightening? Well, think about it. Something with a brain the size of a poppy seed can spot spiders before you can. And Rößler’s study only looks at jumping spiders. Do other spiders have this innate ability? Are Joro spiders already evolving to fear other spiders … boots?

Even if you’re not getting married, “Modern Bride” is a pretty thick magazine.

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It’s no secret that the U.S. Space Force is worried about China’s space program, which seems to be progressing at a much faster pace than NASA or private space programs, and has a not-too-subtle tendency towards militarizing space, the Moon, other planets and beyond. A good example of this appeared recently on the screens tracking China’s satellite launches. A few days after the October 23rd launch of what was reputed to be a debris-collecting satellite, a second mysterious object pulled up alongside of it.

“US military tracking data indicated the launcher placed the Shijian 21 spacecraft into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit ranging as high as 22,253 miles (35,813 kilometers) above Earth, with an inclination of about 28.5 degrees to the equator.”

Chinese state media reported that Shijian 21 would “test and verify space debris mitigation technologies.” That’s pretty nebulous – not that the U.S. is any more detailed on its own secret launches – but there wasn’t much concern until a few days later, as Space News reports.

“On Nov. 3 U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) catalogued a new object alongside Shijian-21 with the international designator 2021-094C. The object is noted as a rocket body and more precisely an apogee kick motor (AKM), used in some launches for a satellite to circularize and lower the inclination of its transfer orbit and enter geostationary orbit.”

The object is “noted as a rocket body” but it’s not acting like one. AKMs are usually maneuvered away from satellites after doing their job so they don’t collide — Shijian-21 and the SJ-21 AKM are flying side by side as if that was the intent. Space News speculates the mysterious object could be participating in counterspace operations tests such as rendezvous and proximity operations, refueling or manipulation using a robotic arm.

“We see their capabilities from direct-ascent ASAT, antisatellite capabilities, to on-orbit activity that they’ve done with that capability. All the while, China continues to maintain their public stance against the weaponization of space.”

Air Force Gen. James Dickinson told Congress earlier this year that Shijian-21 could use its robotic arm as a satellite crusher … and that was before its mysterious partner was discovered. This isn’t the first time a tight-formation pair of objects launched by China has been observed. In 2018, the TJS-3 (Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-3) satellite was launched unexpectedly and released a mysterious payload that performed coordinated maneuvers in what could be construed to be an attempt to confuse space tracking networks.

This could be the next step towards a space conflict – or it could be an indication that China is concerned about space junk like dead or malfunctioning satellites and is trying to get a jump on the geostationary satellite servicing marketplace which a number of public companies, including Space Logistics owned by Northrop Grumman, are developing spacecraft for. It all adds up to a need for the buzzword of the moment … transparency. We should have learned from previous wars and science fiction that cooperation works better than conflict.

We SHOULD have learned this. Have we?

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