Does This FBI Document Suggest That Nikola Tesla Was An Alien From Venus?
For more than half a century, incredible information about Nikola Tesla has been kept secret, and only recently the FBI declassified document revealed this data, which indicates that a cult scientist was once brought to Earth from Venus. Tesla’s mind was almost too great for the limitations of his time’s technology.
These things make it clear that Tesla was a remarkably intelligent man who was far ahead of his time. In fact, it has been said by many that his inventions were between 300 and 1,000 years ahead of time. If it were not for Tesla’s inventions, the world as we know it would be nearly half a century behind where we are today in terms of technological advancement. This
According to information from the FBI documents, Nikola Tesla was an alien. In the archives of the FBI’s official website, there is a very mysterious document that contains a very unusual statement regarding Nikola Tesla. In addition, the declassified FBI dossier contained information about a certain George Washington Van Tassel, who was engaged in ufology and also worked on the Douglas, Hughes, and Lockheed planes in the 30s and 40s.
Credit: FBI vault
This declassified FBI document known as the “Interplanetary Sessions Newsletter“, written on June 14, 1957, seems to suggest that these notions may not be as unbelievable as they sound. In fact, this document seems to suggest that Tesla was originally from the planet Venus. It read in part:
“The Space People have visited the Tesla engineers many times, and have told us that Tesla was a Venusian, brought to this planet as a baby, in 1856, and left with Mr. and Mrs. Tesla in a remote mountain province in what is now Yugoslavia.”
Margaret Storm had been assigned to certain work with the Space People, as follows: She wrote a book – Return of the Dove – a story of the life of Nikola Tesla, a scientist, and the part his inventions played in the New Age. Much of the data for this book has been supplied to Mrs. Storm through transcripts received on the Tesla set, a radio-type machine invented by Tesla in 1938 for Interplanetary Communication.
Tesla died in 1943 and his engineers did not build the Tesla set until after his death. It was placed in operation in 1950 and since that time the Tesla engineers have been in close touch with space ships. The Space People have visited the Tesla engineers many times, and have told us that Tesla was a Venusian, brought to this planet as a baby, in 1856, and left with Mr. and Mrs. Tesla in a remote mountain province in what is now Yugoslavia.”
Margaret Storm Publication, Baltimore Maryland 1959.
Image credit: Hello-earth.com
Additionally, Margaret Storm, a woman who was tasked with writing a book on Tesla’s remarkable life, was reportedly given information through a device that the scientist created in 1938 that was said to allow for “interplanetary communication”. Allegedly, Storm even had contact with these so-called “Space People”. In an interview in May of 1959, Storm reported that Tesla was a Venusian saying:
“Tesla was born onboard a spacecraft and brought to this planet… and placed in the care of Mr. & Mrs. Tesla.”
Storm claimed that Tesla was frequently in contact with his fellow Venusians, even visiting him from time to time. In the interview, she states that Tesla had many visitors who arrived in spaceships and that “most of them have come from Venus”.
According to the “Interplanetary Sessions Newsletter”, Margaret Storm had been “assigned to certain work with the Space People as follows: She is writing a book- Return of the Dove- a story of the life of Nikola Tesla, scientist, and the part his inventions will play in the new age”. Further, much of the information that Storm used to complete her book was given to her through communication with the Space People. The now-declassified FBI document goes on to say:
“Much of the data for this book has been supplied to Mrs. Storm through transcripts received on the Tesla set, a radio-type machine invented by Tesla in 1943 and his engineers did not build the Tesla set until after his death. It was placed in operation in 1950 and since that time the Tesla engineers have been in close touch with space ships.”
Read also:
It’s tough to know why Margaret Storm wrote her book and said Tesla was from Venus. But by checking the FBI document that’s not secret anymore, we might get a hint about the smart people behind all this.
Nikola Tesla was the pioneer in modern technology. His inventions have changed the world. Elon Musk honored Tesla, naming his electric vehicle company after him. With such a great mind, Tesla never underestimated the theory that aliens exist.
Tesla had been working on a machine capable of sending signals millions of miles from the Earth. He shared an incident that simply terrified him. He said: “I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the incident, and see my apparatus as though it were actually before me. My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me.”
He continued saying that the changes his apparatus noted were not traceable. Tesla was aware of the electrical disturbances produced by the Sun, Aurora Borealis, and earth currents but they did not cause those signals. He said: “It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control.”
Tesla claimed that he had found a way to start interplanetary communication. Further, he added: “At the present stage of progress, there would be no insurmountable obstacle in constructing a machine capable of conveying a message to Mars, nor would there be any great difficulty in recording signals transmitted to us by the inhabitants of that planet, if they be skilled electricians. Communication once established, even in the simplest way, as by a mere interchange of numbers, the progress toward more intelligible communication would be rapid.”
He explained that the location of the Egyptian pyramid was responsible for the power. Bigthink wrote: “He [Nikola Tesla] built a tower facility known as the Tesla Experimental Station in Colorado Springs and Wardenclyffe Tower or Tesla Tower on the East Coast that sought to take advantage of the Earth’s energy field. The locations were chosen according to the laws of where the Pyramids of Giza were built, related to the relationship between the elliptical orbit of the planet and the equator. The design was intended for wireless transmission of energy.” (Click here for the article)
Based on the number of patents that Tesla had on record, in addition to the nearly 500 patents that he had either sold or did not register, Tesla would have had to have created an unbelievable 20 inventions every year. The “Interplanetary Sessions Newsletter” seems to leave us more questions than answers. Still, it is a remarkable finding for those who believe in alien visitation to our world.
CONTACT WITH NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE OF THE AQUATIC KIND: WILL EXTRATERRESTRIALS BE NEXT?
In popular culture, an abundance of movies and literature explore humanity’s desire to communicate with non-human intelligence, whether existing here on Earth or in the form of civilizations from other galaxies.
Now, a team of scientists including researchers with the SETI Institute recently claimed to have established communication with a form of non-human aquatic intelligence. However, they aren’t talking about aliens from a water-based planet; they’re talking about whales in our oceans.
Last December, the Whale-SETI team announced they had studied humpback whale communication to aid in creating a tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
A female adult humpback whale named Twain in Southeast Alaska exhibited a positive response to an underwater speaker playing a recorded humpback ‘contact’ call into the sea. During the research, Twain circled the SETI team boat and responded with a ‘greeting signal’ in a conversational style for 20 minutes. Known as a ‘whup/throp’ the researchers assert that Twain responded to every playback call and accurately matched the interval variations between each signal.
The SETI team’s results demonstrated that Twain took part both physically and acoustically in three phases of interaction (Phase 1: Engagement, Phase 2: Agitation, Phase 3: Disengagement), independently documented by researchers.
The overall research indicated that Twain was actively engaged in the exchange during Phase 1 (Engagement), less so during Phase 2 (Agitation), and disengaged during Phase 3 (Disengagement).
So how does communicating with whales help us understand communicating with extraterrestrial civilizations?
These initial findings highlight several important factors, which include the importance of using playback signals that are noticeable by any intelligent species, as well as changing and adjustable, all attributes that the researchers involved in the study say should be applied in studying interactive nonhuman species communication.
“Because of current limitations on technology, an important assumption of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that extraterrestrials will be interested in making contact and so target human receivers,” said Dr. Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute, a co-author of a recent paper detailing the research, said in a press release. “This important assumption is certainly supported by the behavior of humpback whales.”
The first contact account and examination of the encounter are detailed in a recent issue of the journal PeerJ titled “Interactive Bioacoustic Playback as a Tool for Detecting and Exploring Nonhuman Intelligence: ‘Conversing’ with an Alaskan Humpback Whale.”
“We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback “language,” said lead author Dr. Brenda McCowan of U.C. Davis. “Humpback whales are extremely intelligent, have complex social systems, make tools – nets out of bubbles to catch fish -, and communicate extensively with both songs and social calls,” said coauthor Dr. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation.
Dr. Brenda McCowan (Left) and Dr. Fred Sharpe at work onboard the Blue Pearl
(Image credit: Jodi Frediani).
UFO seen for 20 min over Captain Cook, Island of Hawaii, USA April 25, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
Giant UFO over Ridge, Maryland, USA on 11-28-2023, UAP Sighting News.
Awesome black UFO over Kurdistan On April 2024, Video, UAP Sighting News.
Alien structures on Mars in infrared, you will never be the same, UFO Sighting News.
Ancient aliens left evidence for us in Arches National Park, Utah, UFO Sighting News.
In 1665, Many Said They Saw a UFO Battle and Fell Sick Afterward
On April 8, 1665, around 2 p.m., fishermen anchored near Barhöfft (then in Sweden, now in Germany) reported seeing ships in the sky battling each other. After the battle, a dark object hovered in the sky.
“After a while out of the sky came a flat round form, like a plate, looking like the big hat of a man… Its color was that of the darkening moon, and it hovered right over the Church of St. Nicolai. There it remained stationary until the evening. The fishermen, worried to death, didn’t want to look further at the spectacle and buried their faces in their hands. On the following days, they fell sick with trembling all over and pain in head and limbs. Many scholarly people thought a lot about that,” wrote Erasmus Francisci in “Der wunder-reiche Ueberzug unserer Nider-Welt/Oder Erd-umgebende” in 1689. Francisci had gathered news reports from 1665 related to the event. The “scholarly people” who considered the event and the illness could not discern the causes.
In the June 2015 edition of EdgeScience magazine, Chris Aubeck and Martin Shough detail their investigation of the event. Aubeck is the founder of the historical research group Magonia Exchange, an international archival project, and a prolific writer on the subject of UFOs as cultural history. Shough is a research associate for the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).
Aubeck and Shough looked at various possible explanations for the phenomenon. They ruled out certain celestial phenomena. The angle of the sun described in accounts would preclude an ice halo, for example.
A Fata Morgana is a kind of mirage that appears just above the horizon when the right mix of thermal layers is present in the air. The mirage shifts frequently and can sometimes make it look like there are ships in the sky just above the horizon. The 1665 event was described as occurring higher in the sky than a Fata Morgana would appear. A mirage also would not explain the plate- or hat-shaped object that was said to remain into the evening, as Fata Morgana do not remain stable for so long.
A Fata Morgana along the Santa Cruz, Calif., shoreline as seen from Moss Landing on May 7, 2007.
(Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia Commons)
A Fata Morgana off the east coast of Australia that makes it appear as though a ship is floating above the horizon, on Aug. 26, 2012.
(Timpaananen/Wikimedia Commons)
The “battle” seems to have started with the appearance of a flock of birds. Aubeck and Shough summarize the accounts: “A large flock of birds appeared in the heavens. After moving in unison for a time they formed a shape ‘like a long passage in a house.’ This became a warship that seemed to approach from the north, followed by countless other vessels. Then another group of large ships came from the south, heading northeast. Fire and smoke ensued as the two main ships sent cannonballs whizzing at each other, terrifying the fishermen down below. The ship from the north then retreated, came back, and headed south. Two other fleets appeared from the west and the east, with smaller ships. When the smoke cleared, the fishermen could make out the broken masts of the southern fleet, and a man dressed in brown clothes, a hat beneath one arm and his left hand by his side, watching the crew working and running.”
An unusually large flock of starlings may have resembled such a scene, Aubeck and Shough said. Flocks sometimes merge together in startlingly well-defined masses that move in patterns before settling down. Perhaps in the spring of 1665 more starlings than usual were pushed by uncommon weather to move west of the Baltic to their summer breeding grounds?
A murmuration of starlings.
(Walter Baxter/Wikimedia Commons)
A flock would still not account for the dark object that stayed in the sky until night-fall. Is it possible two unusual phenomena occurred at once, one producing the scene of the battle and another producing the mysterious, hovering object in the sky?
Aubeck and Shough say it is “a remarkable case and—true or not—ought to be considered among the first alleged ‘flying saucer’ sightings in history.”
VIDEOS
Unraveling the Enigma of the 1668 Swedish Fishermen UFO Encounter
In the annals of unexplained phenomena, the 1668 Swedish Fishermen UFO Battle stands as a testament to the enduring allure of the mysterious. This event, occurring 355 years ago, remains one of the earliest and most captivating accounts of UFO sightings, predating modern UFO lore by centuries. It’s a tale that intertwines history, the supernatural, and the unceasing human quest for understanding the unknown.
In 1668, off the coast of Sweden, a group of fishermen witnessed an extraordinary spectacle: a luminous aerial battle. According to a letter penned by Pastor Erik Ludvigsson, a bright light in the sky split into two, heralding the start of an intense skirmish. The fishermen described seeing explosions, beams of light, and several smaller objects that accompanied the larger combatants. This event reportedly lasted several hours, leaving a lasting impression on the witnesses and, eventually, on history.
The description provided by the fishermen and recorded by Pastor Ludvigsson raises several questions. Was this a case of misinterpreted natural phenomena, a military exercise misunderstood by the observers, or something far beyond the scientific understanding of the 17th century?
Experts have speculated on various explanations, ranging from natural astronomical events like auroras or comets to more speculative theories involving military exercises or even extraterrestrial intervention. However, the detailed account, characterized by “objects engaging in battle,” challenges these conventional explanations. The lack of technological capabilities in the 17th century further complicates the notion of a military exercise, while the detailed and earnest account provided by the fishermen and the pastor undermines the idea of a hoax.
Among the various theories, the extraterrestrial explanation remains the most intriguing, despite the absence of concrete evidence. The detailed observations, the number of witnesses, and the narrative’s persistence over centuries lend a certain credence to this possibility, captivating the imagination of UFO enthusiasts and scholars alike.
The Swedish Fishermen UFO Battle not only provides a fascinating glimpse into early UFO sightings but also reflects the human penchant for wonder and the quest to make sense of the incomprehensible. This historical account, while remaining an unresolved mystery, underscores the importance of approaching unexplained phenomena with an open mind, balanced with a critical eye toward the limitations and perspectives of historical contexts.
US Military Recovered UFO That ‘Distorted Space-Time’ & Craft Able To ‘Alter Our Reality’ As Mentioned In Bizarre Navy Docs
Physicist Michio Kaku proposes the existence of other dimensions, also known as parallel universes, coexisting alongside our own reality. Within these dimensions, it is plausible that there are beings or entities living alongside us, despite our inability to perceive them. While the concept of alternate dimensions or universes may seem far-fetched to some, it is intricately connected to the subject of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), commonly referred to as UFO phenomena.
We live in a four-dimensional world (if time is included), but scientists propose there are more dimensions. However, they do not believe there can exist more than 11 dimensions because conditions become unstable and particles naturally collapse back down into 10 or 11 dimensions. The 12th dimension, for example, introduces a second time.
“Our understanding of reality is not complete, by far,” says Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde. “Reality exists independently of us.” If they exist, those universes are separated from ours, unreachable and undetectable by any direct measurement (at least so far). And that makes some experts question whether the search for a multiverse can ever be truly scientific.
In the realm of science, our quest for understanding alternate or higher dimensions remains ongoing. However, within the field of UFOlogy, intriguing cases have emerged suggesting the existence of not just other dimensions, but also the presence of entities residing within them. These beings seem to possess the ability to manipulate a bridge connecting their realm to ours, enabling them to embark on regular visits to our world.
A very strange UFO case has been shared by American attorney Daniel Sheehan with Daily Mail. Sheehan involved in bringing UFO whistleblowers to Congress, claimed that a whistleblower told him a mind-boggling tale about a recovered crashed UFO. He revealed that a crashed UFO recovered by the US military had distorted space-time and was “bigger on the inside.” The whistleblower has reportedly briefed Senate Intelligence Committee staff on the matter.
Daniel P. Sheehan.
Image credit: danielpsheehan.com
According to Sheehan, one of the alleged recoveries described by the insider involved a 30-foot saucer partially embedded in the earth. When attempts were made to remove it using a bulldozer, the craft exhibited unusual behavior. As it was being pulled out, it seemingly detached in a pie slice-shaped section, suggesting that it was constructed in a unique way.
The anonymous whistleblower then entered the craft and was astonished to find that the interior was as large as a football stadium, while the exterior was only about 30 feet in diameter. The experience inside caused disorientation and nausea due to the vast size discrepancy. Furthermore, upon exiting the craft in a few minutes, the whistleblower found that four hours had passed outside, indicating time distortion as well.
Sheehan mentions that the craft’s distortion of space and time is consistent with the theories proposed by physicists regarding advanced propulsion systems. These theories suggest that warping space-time could be used to counteract the effects of gravity and achieve advanced forms of propulsion. However, Sheehan does not provide further specific details, such as the location or date of the incident, and admits to being unable to provide concrete evidence to support these claims.
Read also:
Moreover, on Jesse Michels’ show, astronomer and UFO researcher Jacques Vallee discussed another UFO case that includes experiencing another dimension by the witness. Valle said: “There was one case in San Jose. A woman had seen something over her house. It was a big disc, and I say, ‘How big was it?’ And she says, ‘Well, it was about the same size as her house. It was, you know, just like that.’ Then I say, ‘Well, when you went inside, you said, uh, you know, there was this being, and the being took you on a staircase.’ I say, ‘Where did the staircase go?’ Well, the staircase went up the side of this big round room. I say, ‘How would you compare it?’ Well, like a movie house, you know, like an M5 theater. I said, ‘That’s bigger than your house.’”
Luis Elizondo, the man who managed the UFO program inside the Pentagon, explains how space-time distortion works and hints that we can manipulate this physics for technological advancement. In an interview with George Knapp in 2018, Elizondo explains:
“Space-time is something we observe in the natural world all the time, especially in relation to gravity and GPS satellites. The clocks on these satellites need constant calibration. Even though the clocks on the satellites are identical to the ones on the ground station, they still require regular calibration. The reason for this is the effect of Earth’s gravity on space-time. The clocks on Earth run slightly slower compared to the clocks on the platforms above Earth.
How is this possible if the clocks are the same? Well, it’s because the closer you are to a massive object, like Earth, the more space-time warps. This phenomenon is explained by the theory of general relativity, which boils down to using the equation E=mc². Essentially, it means that a significant amount of mass or energy warps space-time. When you approach a supermassive object like the sun, the distortion becomes even greater. In fact, near a black hole, time becomes so distorted that it virtually stops.
We have observed this phenomenon through gravitational lensing when studying distant galaxies. We can actually see the effects of gravity on space-time with our own eyes, so it’s a scientific fact, not fiction. The question now is how we can manipulate this physics for technological advancement. Potentially, we could warp space-time in a way that allows us to travel from point A to point B more quickly.”
Is it possible that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization has already accomplished this kind of technology and has been using it to visit our world? Or perhaps we already have such technology?
In 2021, leaked documents revealed that the US Navy had conducted experiments on various far-fetched technologies, including a “space modification weapon.” These documents, disclosed by The War Zone, detailed the research carried out by the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) between 2017 and 2019. The most interesting thing is that the technology written in those documents discusses propulsion system that defies gravity, or to devastating weapons that bends the laws of physics and craft that alters the fabric of time and space.
The man behind all the patents is Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, who is an aerospace engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). He has four patents registered in his name that contain the source of technology that would change the world. In these patents, a “Spacetime Modification Weapon” (SMW, a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison) is mentioned.
Dr. Salvatore Pais is a physicist and aerospace engineer with the US Navy. In 2019 his inventions of 3 highly advanced forms of technology were granted patents.
Are these patents a cover for the reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology? The Navy’s objective in testing this conceptual system was to keep pace with similar programs being developed in China. The researchers believed that the space modification weapon could revolutionize power and propulsion systems. The technology was based on the “Pais effect” aimed to push the boundaries of science.
Pais made ambitious claims about the potential of this technology, suggesting that it could lead to a propulsion system defying gravity or devastating weapons that bend the laws of physics. He even outlined plans for a “hybrid aerospace-underwater craft” capable of altering the fabric of time and space.
The Navy’s aerospace research enterprise supported Pais’s patents, stating that they filed them to keep up with similar technological advancements being pursued by the Chinese military. The “space modification weapon” described in the documents was envisioned to release extremely high energy levels, surpassing the destructive power of a Hydrogen bomb.
However, the experiments conducted between 2017 and 2019 were inconclusive. The elusive Pais effect was neither observed nor disproven during this period. The Pais effect refers to a theoretical physics concept that involves the controlled movement of highly electrically charged matter. If proven possible, it could enable the creation of powerful energy fields capable of fundamentally engineering the fabric of reality.
It is unclear whether the US Navy is continuing its experiments on the Pais effect or if the project has been discontinued entirely. None of the futuristic technologies described in the leaked UFO patents were developed, leaving the ultimate fate of the space modification weapon and related concepts uncertain.
David Grusch Reveals Disturbing UFO Secrets to Tucker Carlson: Claims of Death & Physical Harm in Cover-Up
David Grusch, a key figure in the UFO mystery, has participated in consecutive interviews with mainstream media regarding the concealment of UFO information. Grusch has gained prominence following the July 2023 US Congress UAP hearings, thanks to his compelling and assertive testimony about non-human intelligence. He is consistently claiming we have alien crafts in double digits and also possess non-human biologics which implies Earth is in contact with or aware of species from other planets.
With each passing day, David Grusch is making efforts to reach a larger audience and share his story. This drew him to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a prominent figure in American media. Carlson, with over 10.9 million followers on Elon Musk’s X (formerly named Twitter), did a bombshell interview with Grusch published on December 14, 2023.
On X, Tucker Carlson posted this 66-minute interview with Grusch with the caption: “It’s becoming obvious that the US government has made contact with nonhuman beings.”
Grusch told Tucker that the U.S. government has retrieved “biologics” (bodies) from crashed UFO sites. When asked about the nature of these biologics, Grusch states that they are “non-human.” He emphasizes that this assessment comes from individuals with direct knowledge who are still part of the program. Grusch also mentions the existence of documentary evidence but suggests that details would need to be discussed in a secure location called a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).
Tucker expresses surprise at Grusch’s sudden public involvement in the UFO topic, given his extensive background in military intelligence. Grusch recounts how he first became interested in the topic after seeing a New York Times article in 2017 about Lou Elizondo and programs like AATIP and AWASAP. Tucker notes that the government never confirmed or denied Elizondo’s involvement, to which Grusch clarified that he knew about Elizondo’s role. He recalls hearing that Elizondo was considered somewhat erratic by some officials. Grusch’s curiosity deepened when he saw news reports about Elizondo’s involvement in a UFO program, leading him to realize that the program was indeed real.
Grusch explains that it was a unique experience during his time in UAP task force because he started uncovering disturbing facts. He had access to classified archives from previous UFO programs and came across foreign intelligence gathered by clandestine human sources overseas. These sources, according to him, noted that the U.S. had a retrieval and reverse engineering program for UFOs. Notably, these assessments were from other countries.
Tucker questions Grusch about how the Pentagon, an entity that serves elected officials, could deny an elected official access to information. He emphasizes that the Pentagon works for politicians who are accountable to the people and compares Pentagon employees to household staff, highlighting that they’re not an independent entity.
Grsuch acknowledged the issue and pointed out that this is one of the reasons he decided to blow the whistle. He explains that even in the normal black Special Access Program (SAP) community, elected leaders are treated as second-class citizens. He mentions instances where reporting is waived, and Deputy Secretaries of Defense (Dep SecDef) can sign orders limiting briefings to certain committees.
“I can sign an order saying we’re not going to fully brief certain committees on, you see, on programs that are in Public Law 10 US Code Section 119, and that is congressional oversight of SAPS, is the title of that part of Public Law. But the department, which I find in retrospect, very weird, where the legislators authorize and appropriate these programs, but they’re not afforded full access. And occasionally the Gang of Eight will get those kinds of briefings. But literally, they could withhold, besides notifying a program that stood up the entire Congress, that we’re doing some kind of clandestine activity.”
Grsuch mentioned there are approximately 40 people, many with firsthand knowledge, some at the same level as Harry Reid. He explains that after realizing the reality of the situation, he and his team conducted interviews with individuals who had privileged information, even comparable to a high-ranking figure like Harry Reid.
Grsuch recounts a conversation with Harry Reid, where the former senator expressed deep concern about the topic. Reid, then planning to discuss it with President Biden, highlighted the challenges even someone of his stature faced in accessing information. David Grusch emphasizes that past administrations had varying levels of knowledge about these programs, and even presidents were not always briefed on all aspects.
When Tucker specifically asks about any connection between the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan Project (which developed nuclear weapons) and UFO programs, Grusch clarifies that there isn’t an overt connection. However, he speculates that the development of nuclear weapons might have sparked interest in unidentified objects.
David Grusch mentions that he can’t discuss many retrievals, and the only one he has publicly mentioned is the 1933 Italian event. He chose this event to highlight that the UFO phenomenon is not exclusive to the United States but is a worldwide issue.
Grusch explains that the Italian event involved the recovery of an object that looked like an acorn in Magenta, Italy, by the Axis powers (Italy and Germany) in 1933. He notes that information about this event surfaced in the early 2000s through Italian researchers who uncovered documents sent by Mussolini to the Gestapo.
According to a senior intelligence officer who briefed him, the recovered object resembled a lenticular disc, but the edges broke off when it hit the Earth, giving it an acorn or bell shape. The Italians kept custody of the artifact until the end of the war, and then the Americans recovered it. He adds that the Vatican and the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) communicated with FDR about the crash. Grusch said the 1933 Italian event is the only one he has cleared through DoD security.
Read also:
Tucker questions Grusch about the timeline of the U.S. government’s knowledge of UFOs, pointing out that David mentioned the government didn’t take custody until the end of the war. David clarifies that this statement specifically refers to a particular case, but the government was aware of the UFO issue in the 1930s.
Tucker then raises a common question: Why do advanced technologies like UFOs crash so often? Grusch suggests that crashes may not necessarily be intentional. He introduces the concept of von Neumann replicating probes, where advanced civilizations might send throwaway probes that could crash accidentally. Grusch emphasizes that this is not just his theory but something discussed by scientists involved in the program.
Tucker follows up by questioning whether these objects truly come from a far distance. Grusch admits the uncertainty, highlighting that even certain directors of government agencies prefer using the term “extraterrestrial.” However, he leans towards the term NHI, meaning non-human intelligence. He notes that this term is also used in the Schumer amendment called the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023. The act is part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and is currently in conference. He underscores that he’s not the only one using terms like “non-human intelligence biologics” and points out that influential figures like Chuck Schumer are pushing for transparency in the matter.
Tucker questions why there is so much secrecy, and David suggests that excessive secrecy hinders national security. He draws a parallel with nuclear physics, explaining that while details about building nuclear weapons are classified, the broader study of nuclear physics is open to the public. David advocates for a similar approach to UFOs, where the subject should be “horizontally protected,” allowing broad academic study and public access to information, with only genuinely dangerous or classified aspects kept confidential. This way, he believes 95% of the subject could be open for study worldwide.
Tucker asks David about the truth behind these abduction claims. David responds by saying that he doesn’t have any first-hand knowledge on the phenomenon of abduction. He notes that, during his interviews, none of the individuals he spoke with had direct experience or knowledge about abductions.
“I don’t know. Nobody I interviewed had any firsthand knowledge of that phenomenon. I certainly believe people have experienced things like that. At least they believe it, because you look at Dr. John Mack, who was a Harvard-trained psychologist and psychiatrist. He examined the phenomenon of abduction in the early 2000s before his death and affirmed that the people he psychoanalyzed certainly experienced something real to them. But what is the abduction phenomenon? I really don’t know. I’m not sure.”
David Grusch tells Tucker Carlson about Rep. Mike Turner’s efforts to block the UAP Disclosure Act and destroy Tim Burchett’s career “Mike Rogers & Mike Turner, two of the dumbest people in Washington. Pure tools of the national security state.” Additionally on Newnation, he said, “Mike Turner probably has no business being the (House Intelligence Committee) Chairman… Mike Turner has never been an intelligence officer. He’s never served in the military.” “We need to get these people out of office.”
Tucker raises a sensitive issue about the potential harm or killing of individuals connected to the U.S. government’s UFO programs. He specifically asks Grusch if he has reason to believe that the government has hurt or killed anyone, particularly American citizens, in connection to these programs.
Grusch responds by acknowledging concerns that were raised by individuals who approached him, expressing worries about potential harm. He emphasizes that he took these concerns seriously and reported them to the Inspe
Tucker pushes further, specifically mentioning the allegation of murder, to which Grusch confirms that the concerns included both murder and physical harm. However, he refrains from providing specific details due to the ongoing investigation and potential risks to his safety.
Grusch discloses that he felt his life was in jeopardy, and he reported the threats and surveillance to a counterintelligence element and law enforcement. He reveals that these threats not only affected him but also impacted his wife. He states that he doesn’t know the identity of those involved, ruling out the possibility of it being a foreign entity.
Previously on the Joe Rogan Experience, Grusch talked about the fundamental questions related to UFOs, such as the existence of extraterrestrial life and the nature of human consciousness. Grusch asserted with confidence, based on conversations with high-level individuals like Harry Reid, that we are not alone, and the UFO phenomenon is real.
“You know for humanity. Are we alone or you know what happens when we die? Well, I don’t know about that, but are we alone? Well, the answer is we’re not alone. And I know that with 100% certainty, which as an Intel officer, you never say 100%, but all things pointed towards based on the people I talked to…The phenomenon is real. It’s been going on for thousands of years. People have been seeing strange things and not everybody’s mass hallucinating. So that’s kind of my long diatribe about what’s happening.”
Inside the Quest to Confirm A Strange 60-Year-Old Theory About Stonehenge
Archaeological evidence suggests Stonehenge also aligns with moonrise and moonset.
When it comes to its connection to the sky, Stonehenge is best known for its solar alignments. Every midsummer night, tens of thousands of people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate and witness the rising sun in alignment with the Heel stone standing outside of the circle. Six months later, a smaller crowd congregates around the Heel stone to witness the midwinter Sun setting within the stone circle.
However, a hypothesis has been around for 60 years that part of Stonehenge also aligns with moonrise and moonset at what is called a major lunar standstill. Although a correlation between the layout of certain stones and the major lunar standstill has been known about for several decades, no one has systematically observed and recorded the phenomenon at Stonehenge.
This is what we are aiming to do in a project bringing together archaeologists, astronomers, and photographers from English Heritage, Oxford, Leicester, and Bournemouth universities, as well as the Royal Astronomical Society.
There is now an abundance of archaeological evidence that indicates the solar alignment was part of the architectural design of Stonehenge. Around 2500 BC, the people who put up large stones and dug an avenue into the chalk seemed to want to cement the solstice axis into the architecture of Stonehenge.
Archaeological evidence from nearby Durrington Walls, the place where scientists believe the ancient people who visited Stonehenge stayed, indicates that of the two solstices, it was the midwinter one that drew the largest crowd.
But Stonehenge includes other elements, such as 56 pits arranged in a circle, an earthwork bank and ditch, and other smaller features, such as the four station stones. These are four sarsen stones, a form of silicified sandstone common in Wiltshire, that were carefully placed to form an almost exact rectangle encompassing the stone circle.
Only two of these stones are still there, and they pale in comparison to their larger counterparts, as they are only a few feet high. So, what could their purpose be?
Only two of the station stones are still there.
DRONE EXPLORER/SHUTTERSTOCK
The rectangle that they form is not just any rectangle. The shorter sides are parallel to the main axis of the stone circle, and this may be a clue as to their purpose. The longer sides of the rectangle skirt the outside of the stone circle.
It is these longer sides that are thought to align with the major lunar standstill. If you marked the position of moonrise (or set) over the course of a month, you would see that it moves between two points on the horizon. These southern and northern limits of moonrise (or set) change on a cycle of 18.6 years between a minimum and a maximum range – the so-called minor and major lunar standstills, respectively.
The major lunar standstill is a period of about one and a half to two years when the northernmost and southernmost moonrises (or sets) are furthest apart. When this happens, the Moon rises (and sets) outside the range of sunrises and sets, which may have imbued this celestial phenomenon with meaning and significance.
The strongest evidence we have for people marking the major lunar standstill comes from the US southwest. The Great House of Chimney Rock is a multi-level complex built by the ancestral Pueblo people in the San Juan National Forest, Colorado, more than 1,000 years ago.
It lies on a ridge that ends at a natural formation of twin rock pillars – an area that has cultural significance to more than 26 native American tribal nations. From the vantage point of the Great House, the Sun will never rise in the gap between the pillars.
However, during a major standstill the Moon does rise between them in awe-inspiring fashion. Excavations unearthed preserved wood that meant researchers could date to the year episodes of construction of the Great House.
Of six cutting dates, four correspond to major lunar standstill years between the years AD1018 and AD1093, indicating that the site was renewed, maintained, or expanded on consecutive major standstills.
Returning to southern England, archaeologists think there is a connection between the major lunar standstill and the earliest construction phase of Stonehenge (3000-2500 BC), before the sarsen stones were brought in.
Several sets of cremated human remains from this phase of construction were found in the southeastern part of the monument in the general direction of the southernmost major standstill moonrise, where three timber posts were also set into the bank. It is possible that there was an early connection between the site of Stonehenge and the Moon, which was later emphasized when the station stone rectangle was built.
The major lunar standstill hypothesis, however, raises more questions than it answers. We don’t know if the lunar alignments of the station stones were symbolic or whether people were meant to observe the Moon through them. Neither do we know which phases of the Moon would be more dramatic to witness.
In our upcoming work, we will be trying to answer the questions the major lunar standstill hypothesis raises. It’s unclear whether the Moon would have been strong enough to cast shadows and how they would have interacted with the other stones. We will also need to check whether the alignments can still be seen today or if they are blocked by woods, traffic, and other features.
The Moon will align with the station stone rectangle twice a month from about February 2024 to November 2025, giving us plenty of opportunities to observe this phenomenon in different seasons and phases of the Moon.
To bring our research to life, English Heritage will livestream the southernmost Moonrise in June 2024 and host a series of events throughout the year, including talks, a pop-up planetarium, stargazing, and storytelling sessions.
Across the Atlantic, our partners at the US Forest Service are developing educational materials about the major lunar standstill at Chimney Rock National Monument. This collaboration will result in events showcasing and debating the lunar alignments at both Stonehenge and Chimney Rock.
SCIENTISTS DISCOVER A 10,000-YEAR-OLD MAN-MADE MEGASTRUCTURE UNDER THE BALTIC SEA
This might be Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure.
Archaeologists have identified what may be Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure, submerged 21 meters below the Baltic Sea in the Bay of Mecklenburg, Germany. This structure – which has been named the Blinkerwall – is a continuous low wall made from over 1,500 granite stones that run for almost a kilometer. The evidence suggests it was constructed by Palaeolithic people between 11,700 and 9,900 years ago, probably as an aid for hunting reindeer.
The archaeologists investigating the Bay of Mecklenburg used a range of submarine equipment, sampling methods, and modeling techniques to reconstruct the ancient lake bed and its surrounding landscape. This revealed that the Blinkerwall stands on a ridge running east to west, with a 5km-wide lake basin a few meters below the ridge to the south.
The human, rather than natural, origin for the Blinkerwall was confirmed by an archaeological diving team who photographed sections of the wall. These show that it is made up of 288 very large boulders, which were probably dropped in that location by the retreating glacier, connected by 1,673 smaller stones.
These smaller stones appear to have been collected from the immediate vicinity, as the area just to the north of the wall has many fewer stones than the areas even further north. The resulting structure stands a little under a meter in height and up to two meters wide, with remarkable regularity over its 971-meter length.
Woolly mammoth lived during the Pleistocene era until its extinction in the Holocene.
FLORILEGIUS/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGES
At the time of its construction, the landscapes and seascapes of northwest Europe were very different from today. The climate was beginning to warm as the colder Pleistocene era ended and the warmer Holocene era began. Sea levels were much lower, and large glaciers sat over much of Fennoscandia.
The land around the Baltic Sea basin rose rapidly, released from the weight of the retreating glaciers, and transformed into a brackish body of water known as the Yoldia Sea into freshwater Ancylus Lake. Great Britain was a peninsula of the European continental landmass, with a vast lowland plain known as Doggerland stretching from Norfolk to the Netherlands. Herds of reindeer, European bison, and wild horses migrated across its sparsely forested landscape.
In cultural terms, this period, known as the Late Upper Palaeolithic, is marked by significant hallmarks in technological innovation by the people who lived at this time. Dogs have recently been domesticated; there are regionally distinct forms of stone projectile points, and there is frequent use of decorated bone and antler harpoons, as well as specialist hunting strategies employed to target migrating prey.
The identification of the Blinkerwall now demonstrates that Palaeolithic hunters were managing their landscape to aid their hunting activities more deliberately than was previously thought.
The construction of walls and other features in the landscape is familiar to us, particularly in the context of land enclosure for farming. Both contemporary and ancient societies that have traditionally subsisted by hunting and gathering wild resources are also known to alter their environments by constructing features such as stone walls. These are used for a variety of purposes, including fishing, shellfishing, and hunting.
The researchers compared the Blinkerwall to other archaeologically documented structures of a similar length and construction type that have been identified in the Middle East, North America, Canada, and Greenland. These structures are interpreted as having been built for the purpose of game drive hunting. In this strategy, hunters use landscape and built features to gain an advantage over their prey by directing its movements to a location where they are more vulnerable to attack by other hunters.
The similarity of the Blinkerwall to these other structures, and its construction adjacent to a body of water, led to the suggestion that the wall had been created for the same purpose. The lake itself may also have been used in this strategy.
Replica of Paleolithic art from an underwater cave.
NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
One archaeological site from Germany that supports this interpretation is Stellmoor, located just north of Hamburg and which dates to the latest time that the Blinkerwall could have been constructed.
The site is located at the end of a narrow valley where thousands of reindeer bones – some bearing hunting impact traces, flint points, and even pinewood arrow shafts – were found preserved in the ancient lake sediments. The hunting evidence at Stellmoor shows the reindeer were shot by arrows as they were driven down the valley into the lake.
While there is no archaeological evidence at Stellmoor to suggest people had deliberately created or changed the landscape to enhance their hunting success, it shows how the topography of the landscape was used to the hunters’ advantage. The Blinkerwall construction provides evidence that Palaeolithic people took this level of planning and coordination a step further.
It shows they recognized and understood the instincts of their prey so well that they were able to predict their movements – and how they would react when faced with an artificially created obstacle like the Blinkerwall.
The discovery of this monumental piece of hunting architecture is unique in Europe. At a maximum of 11,700 years old, it is one of the oldest examples in the world, potentially predating a desert hunting “kite” at Jibal al-Gadiwiyt in Jordan by over a thousand years.
The Blinkerwall adds a new element to our understanding of the highly skilled and specialized hunting strategies engineered by people at the end of the last glacial period – strategies that have continued to be used in different landscapes for millennia. And the discoveries are unlikely to stop here.
The Bay of Mecklenburg has the potential to reveal further archaeological evidence of equal significance. The researchers do not rule out the possibility that another wall or other associated features could be found buried under later sedimentation of the ancient lake.
If weapons, tools, or animal remains were to be recovered at the site, this would reveal information about the nature and duration of their use – and far greater insights into the sophisticated subsistence strategies of the Palaeolithic hunters of the Baltic.
Psyche is Still Sending Data Home at Broadband Speeds
When I heard about this I felt an amused twinge of envy. Over the last year I have been using an unimpressive 4G broadband service and at best get 20 Mbps, NASA’s Psyche mission has STILL been getting 23 Mbps at 225 million km away! It’s all thanks to the prototype optical transmission system employed on the probe. It means it can get up to 100 times more data transmission rate than usual radio.
NASA’s Pysche mission is on its way to explore the metal rich asteroid between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter called, not surprisingly Psyche. The intriguing thing about the asteroid is that it seems to be the iron rich core of an unformed planet. The spacecraft carried a wealth of scientific instruments to explore the asteroid including an imaging rig, gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, magnetometer and an X-band Gravity platform.
It began its two year journey on 13 October with its destination, a tiny world that may help us unravel some of the mysteries of the formation of our Solar System. The theory that Psyche is a failed planetary core is not certain so this will be one of the first of its mission objectives; is it simply unmelted metal or was it a core. In order to understand this it’s necessary to work out its age. Secondary to the origin, other objectives are to explore the composition and its topography across the surface.
Asteroid Psuche was discovered in March 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. Because he discovered it, he was allowed to name it and settled on Psyche after the Greek goddess of the soul. It orbits the Sun at a distance of between 378 million to 497 million kilometres and takes about 5 Earth years to complete an orbit. Shaped like a potato, or perhaps more accurately classed as ‘irregular’ it is actually a little ellipsoid in shape measuring 280 km across wide at its widest part and 232 km across long.
Illustration of the metallic asteroid Psyche.
Credit: Peter Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Of more interest than the objectives perhaps (although I for one am looking forward to learn more about this wonderful asteroid) was the trial communication system. The newly developed Deep Space Optical Communications technology (DSOC) is not the primary communications platform but it is there as a prototype.
The optical system which relies upon laser technology successfully sent back engineering data at a distance of 226 million kilometres. Perhaps more impressively though, the spacecraft has shown that it can transmit at a rate of 267 Mbps (YES you read that right, just over quarter of a Gbps!) The impressive download speed was achieved on 11 December last year when a 15 second ultra high definition video was sent to Earth. Sadly though, as the spacecraft recedes, its data transmission capability will reduce. Still far better than normal radio communications though.
Using a powerful modulated laser, the Optical Communication Telescope Laboratory in California will be able to send data at a low rate to Psyche. To receive data, a photon counting receiver has been installed at the Caltech Palomar Observatory to pickup information sent by the spacecraft. Communication has always been a great challenge in space exploration and, whilst we cannot reduce transit time for data, we can improve the amount of data sent at any one time. A great step forward in space exploration.
Source :
Did Aliens Land on Earth in 1945? A Defense Bill Seeks Answers.
The Defense Department’s annual spending bill requires it to review U.F.O. sightings dating to 1945, the year some believe an object from space crashed in the New Mexico desert.
For the casual student of U.F.O. history, the modern idea of life beyond our planet usually dates to 1947, when a top-secret U.S. military balloon crashed in the desert near Roswell, N.M. The wreckage prompted decades of conspiracy theories and gave rise to the idea that Roswell was the site of an alien crash landing.
Now, thanks to a new congressional spending bill, U.F.O. enthusiasts may look to 1945 as the beginning of that era.
An amendment tucked into this year’s $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the Defense Department’s annual operating budget, requires the department to review historical documents related to unidentified aerial phenomena — government lingo for U.F.O.s — dating to 1945. That is the year that, according to one account, a large, avocado-shaped object struck a communication tower in a patch of New Mexico desert now known as the Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated that July.
Experts said the bill, which President Biden signed into law in December, could be a game changer for studying unidentified phenomena.
“The American public can reasonably expect to get some answers to questions that have been burning in the minds of millions of Americans for many years,” said Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence. “If nothing else, this should either clear up something that’s been a cloud hanging over the Air Force and Department of Defense for decades or it might lead in another direction, which could be truly incredible. There’s a lot at stake.”
The amendment was introduced by Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Gallagher, who declined an interview request, said in a brief statement that a “comprehensive timeline” of unidentified aerial phenomena in U.S. government records was needed, and that the amendment would ensure a full review of “all U.S. government classified and unclassified information.”
“This is an important step that will give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we know — and don’t know — about incidents impacting our military,” he said.
The U.S. government has dabbled in public-facing programs that have explored the possibility of alien life. In 2021, the Pentagon announced it would form a task force to look at the issue after a congressionally mandated report found that the government had no explanation for 143 sightings of strange phenomena by military pilots and others since 2004. NASA said in June that it would finance a study to look at unexplained sightings.
In 2022, the Defense Department established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which succeeded the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, after facing scrutiny from the public and lawmakers. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, a former chief scientist at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, which is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was named director.
The introduction of drones and other airborne clutter has led to an increase in sightings of unidentified objects in recent years. The government, which delivered its most recent update on Thursday, has found that weather balloons and surveillance operations by foreign powers accounted for most of the recent sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, though dozens remain officially unexplained.
The defense funding bill requires the new office to work with the intelligence community to identify any nondisclosure agreements related to possible U.F.O. sightings. It also requires the office to create a process for people to share information, regardless of classification, and to share its findings with the highest levels of the Defense Department. It also mandates that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office be fully staffed.
“This is an office now that has a voice and resources, and it has authority,” Mr. Mellon, the former Defense Department official, said.
Susan Gough, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email that “the department is reviewing the enacted legislation.”
Jacques Vallée, a longtime ufologist, astronomer and computer scientist, said the amendment’s inclusion in the defense bill was “an absolute turning point.”
“This is what all scientists and my colleagues have always dreamed of,” said Dr. Vallée, who has helped study reports of U.F.O.s for the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the French space agency. He said that the U.S. government’s agreement to dig into the past meant “the stigma has been removed.”
Dr. Vallée began studying the Trinity incident several years ago alongside a journalist, Paola Harris, and interviewed people who claimed to have witnessed the crash. Dr. Vallée and Ms. Harris chronicled their research in a book, “Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret,” including the details of the avocado-shaped object. They also spoke to witnesses who said they came across the object as children and found what they described as “little creatures.”
In the United States, Dr. Vallée said, “there has always been, on the part of the government, especially the Pentagon,” a sense that civilian sightings are unreliable. “The reason,” he said, “is that civilians don’t have the technology to really document what happens, and of course the Pentagon does.”
But, Dr. Vallée said, there’s no reason that “a farmer in his field” isn’t qualified to give a quality observation of a possible U.F.O. “The civilian observations tend to be longer, they tend to be more detailed, they tend to leave a trace that we can analyze,” he said.
He said he was working with a team at Stanford University to analyze samples of minerals and debris that were left after U.F.O. crashes or landings.
“I would hope that the new project would continue to do that because I think we’ve shown the way to do that scientifically,” Dr. Vallée said. He added, “We don’t have proof that a biologist can look at, but we have considerable statistical and now observational evidence that there must be life out there, that the Earth is not unique.”
At 83, Dr. Vallée still holds out hope for tangible evidence in his lifetime.
“Science is a moving frontier,” he said. “I want to have the right answers, even if they are small answers, rather than more speculation.”
Unveiling the Shadows: The 1945 Avocado-Shaped UFO Crash – A Prelude to Roswell
In the vast expanse of the New Mexico desert, a mystery older than the famed Roswell incident has beckoned the curious and the skeptical alike. In 1945, years before Roswell became synonymous with UFOs, an event unfolded near San Antonio, New Mexico, that would later be dubbed as the “Roswell before Roswell.” This event involved the crash of a mysterious “avocado-shaped” UFO—an incident that has intrigued UFO enthusiasts and researchers for decades.
President Biden’s recent signing of a military spending bill has thrust this enigmatic 1945 UFO crash back into the limelight, commanding the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to re-investigate the occurrence. This directive marks a significant moment in the annals of UFO investigations, promising to potentially unveil new insights into an event that predates the official narrative of UFO sightings in the United States.
At the heart of this resurgence in interest are the eyewitness accounts and the painstaking research of Jacques Vallée, a renowned scientist and UFO investigator, whose work inspired the character of François Truffaut in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Alongside Italian UFO journalist Paola Harris, Vallée co-authored Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, delving deep into the 1945 incident through the eyes of those who first encountered the wreckage.
The narrative of the crash is as fascinating as it is mysterious. Witnesses described an object with a dull metallic sheen, embedded in the ground, alongside accounts of strange, shadowy beings near the site. The subsequent military response, quickly securing and explaining away the incident as a downed weather balloon, did little to quell speculation, leading many to suspect a cover-up.
As the Pentagon embarks on this renewed investigation, the world watches with bated breath. The implications of uncovering new evidence or insights into the 1945 crash could be profound, challenging our understanding of human history and our place in the cosmos. The commitment to re-examine this case reflects a broader, more transparent approach to UFO sightings and encounters, signaling an era where the search for truth transcends the bounds of skepticism and secrecy.
With each passing year, the interest in UFO sightings continues to grow, fueled by a combination of technological advancements, increasing numbers of declassified documents, and a global community ever eager for answers. The re-investigation of the 1945 UFO crash not only serves as a testament to the enduring fascination with the unknown but also as a beacon, guiding us closer to the elusive truth that lies hidden among the stars.
Pentagon’s UFO Office Releases Report On Air Force Incident Over Gulf Of Mexico
The Pentagon has released a new report by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) about a UFO encounter by a pilot over the Gulf of Mexico.
The UFO encounter occurred on January 26th, 2023 and was reported by a United States Air Force fighter jet pilot that was based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The incident was first made public by Congressman Matt Gaetz during a July 2023 hearing when he revealed that he had seen evidence of a UFO that he was “not able to attach to any human capability.”
In March, through a Freedom of Information Act request, documents pertaining to the UFO encounter revealed that one of the UFOs encountered by the Air Force pilot had a “orange-reddish” illuminated bottom, a “three-dimensional cone shape” top composed of “gunmetal gray segmented panels,” and was similiar in shape to an “Apollo spacecraft.”
The UFO encounter was significant enough for Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna and Representative Tim Burchett to visit Eglin Air Force Base to conduct an investigation. Luna claimed that the Air Force and the Pentagon tried to cover up the incident and stop them from gaining clearance.
The pilot reported to the AARO “that they thought they saw a vertically oriented engine affixed to the side of the object that was nearly the height of the object.”
They also claimed that “upon closing to within 4,000 feet of the object, the radar on the aircraft malfunctioned and remained disabled for the remainder of the training exercise.”
Each and every claim made by the Air Force pilot was supposedly debunked or explained away by the AARO.
“AARO assesses the reported UAP very likely was an ordinary object and was not exhibiting anomalous or exceptional characteristics or flight behaviors,” the office concluded. “AARO has moderate confidence in this assessment due to the limited data provided.”
Based on a “thorough review of the data collected, official pilot accounts of the object’s description and behavior, laboratory testing of a commercial lighting balloon determined to have similar physical characteristics to the object described in the pilot’s report, a reconstruction of the flight geometry, and the sun angle at the time of the observation,” the AARO concluded “the object was a lighter-than-air (LTA) object, such as a large form-factor balloon; a meteorological balloon; a large Mylar balloon; or a large, commercial, outdoor, helium-filled, lighting balloon.”
AARO
It’s always just a balloon, isn’t it?
Bestaan er levensvormen op de maan van Jupiter? Een nieuw instrument zal ons dat eindelijk kunnen vertellen
Zijn er levensvormen op Europa, een van de manen van Jupiter? Volgens wetenschappers is er een manier om daar achter te komen dankzij een nieuwe techniek: laten we eens kijken waar het uit bestaat.
unknown author of the NASA - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Wikimedia commons - Public domain
Het zou voldoende zijn om één enkele ijskoude korrel die Europa bedekt te analyseren om te ontdekken of de satelliet cellulair leven herbergt. Makkelijker gezegd dan gedaan, maar wetenschappers hebben een manier gevonden die in de nabije toekomst getest kan worden, wanneer Europa Clipper, de sonde van NASA, over Europa vliegt.
In de praktijk zetten wetenschappers alles in op een van de instrumenten van de sonde, genaamd SUDA, Surface Dust Analyser, die ijskorrels moet oppikken als hij door de bevroren waterpluimen op het oppervlak van de satelliet vliegt en deze vervolgens moet analyseren. Fabian Klenner, planeetwetenschapper aan de Universiteit van Washington en hoofdauteur van het onderzoek naar deze methode, zei: "Het is verbazingwekkend hoe de analyse van deze kleine ijskorrels ons kan vertellen of er leven is op een ijskoude maan. We weten nu in ieder geval dat SUDA over deze mogelijkheden beschikt."
NASA-JPL/Wikimedia commons - Public domain
SUDA zal in staat zijn om de chemische elementen in het verzamelde materiaal direct te onderzoeken, dankzij een proces dat bekend staat als “impact ionisatie massaspectrometrie”. Het unieke aan deze techniek is dat het instrument een enkele ijskorrel kan analyseren in plaats van een grote massa ijsdeeltjes. Hierdoor kunnen onderzoekers ontdekken of een enkele korrel hoge percentages ingrediënten van een enkele cel bevat.
Wetenschappers geloven dat verschillende manen van zowel Jupiter als Saturnus, waaronder Europa, Enceladus, Ganymedes en Callisto, reservoirs van vloeibaar water bedekt met ijs bevatten. NASA's missie Cassini naar Saturnus heeft ontdekt dat pluimen ijskorrels die via het ijsoppervlak uit de verborgen zeeën van Enceladus spuwen verschillende organische verbindingen bevatten (en een hoge aanwezigheid van fosfor). Dit leidde tot de hypothese dat hetzelfde zou kunnen gebeuren op Europa.
Volgens Klenner zou de grote hoeveelheid ijskorrels rond de satelliet Jupiter het gevolg zijn van interplanetaire meteoroïden die het oppervlak raken, "waardoor er een vage wolk van ijskorrels rond de maan ontstaat - een paradijs voor een instrument als SUDA".
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Wikimedia commons - Public domain
Het idee dat Europa levensvormen zou kunnen herbergen, is niet nieuw: in de jaren negentig opperde de natuurkundige Freeman Dyson de aanwezigheid van “gevriesdroogde vis” in de ring van ruimtepuin rond Jupiter: hoewel dit een ver verwijderde hypothese is, zou er cellulair leven, zelfs in gefragmenteerde vorm, kunnen worden gevonden in de ijskorrels van de maan. Voordat ze SUDA op hun missie stuurden, testten Klenner en zijn team de capaciteiten door middel van laboratoriumsimulaties met experimentele apparatuur, die in staat bleek om bacteriën in afzonderlijke waterdruppels te onderscheiden. De sonde Europa Clipper wordt volgens de planning in oktober gelanceerd en komt in 2030 in een baan om Jupiter, waar hij ongeveer vier jaar zal blijven.
Een ander recent onderzoek suggereerde dat de ijzige schil van Europa meer dan 20 km dik zou kunnen zijn, wat een voortdurend omvallen van de ijslagen zou kunnen veroorzaken en dus een uitwisseling van het oppervlak met de oceaan. Sascha Kempf, de hoofdonderzoeker van SUDA, legde uit: “Als Europa Clipper de uitwisselingsprocessen tussen ijs en oceaan zou bevestigen, dan heeft deze maan een mechanisme om materiaal van de oceaan naar het oppervlak te transporteren, en zouden instrumenten aan boord van de sonde materiaal kunnen analyseren dat ooit uit de oceaan kwam – misschien zelfs celmateriaal, indien aanwezig."
Bestaat er echt leven in het water van deze maan van Jupiter? Er rest ons niets anders dan afwachten.
Source:
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Public Domain
NASA reist naar een asteroïde van onschatbare waarde: hij is rijk aan kostbare metalen en dat niet alleen Door Janine
In de familie van asteroïden die de kosmos bevolken, heeft er één in het bijzonder de aandacht getrokken van wetenschappers vanwege zijn mogelijk onschatbare waarde. Hier lees je waarom en waar hij te vinden is.
NASA
Psyche zou niet alleen een gigantische, maar ook een “zeer rijke” asteroïde kunnen zijn, die indrukwekkende hoeveelheden edelmetalen zou kunnen bevatten. Het bevindt zich ongeveer drie keer verder van de zon dan onze planeet en heeft een onregelmatige vorm, die doet denken aan een aardappel. Het breedste punt meet 280 km, terwijl het hoogste punt 232 km lang is, met een totaal van 165.800 vierkante kilometer.
De samenstelling ervan wordt geschat op een mix van 30% rotsen en 60% metal. Het 3D-model van de asteroïde suggereert de aanwezigheid van twee kraters, wat zou kunnen wijzen op een grote verandering in het metaalgehalte en de uiterlijke kleur van Psyche. Dit kan echter pas worden bevestigd als NASA's missie Pysche het voor het eerst van dichtbij kan zien. Wetenschappers geloven dat zijn oorsprong voortkomt uit een reeks talrijke en gewelddadige botsingen, die hij heeft overleefd sinds de vorming van het zonnestelsel. Om deze reden zou het kunnen onthullen hoe de kern van de aarde en die van andere planeten is gevormd.
Raysastrophotograhy/Wikimedia commons - CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED
Psyche is een ontdekking van de Italiaanse astronoom Annibale de Gasparis, die de asteroïde op 17 maart 1852 voor het eerst zag en hem de naam gaf van de Griekse godin van de ziel die trouwde met Eros, de god van de liefde. Omdat het de zestiende ontdekte asteroïde is, is de volledige naam 16 Psyche en vertegenwoordigt het een belangrijk doelwit voor NASA: het gelijknamige ruimtevaartuig werd op 13 oktober 2023 gelanceerd vanaf NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, en zal over Mars vliegen om in augustus 2029 zijn bestemming te bereiken. In totaal zes jaar en 3,6 miljard kilometer.
De missie is van plan het oppervlak en de eigenschappen van het hemellichaam in kaart te brengen, dat een blootliggende kern van een planeet lijkt te zijn. Maar dit is niet de enige reden van belangstelling die Psyche omhult: er wordt geschat dat de kostbare metalen die het bevat, waaronder ijzer, nikkel en goud, ongeveer 10.000 biljoen dollar waard zijn.
NASA /JPL-Caltech/ASU/Peter Rubin/Wikimedia commons - Public domain
Deskundigen werkten dag en nacht om het ruimtevaartuig te lanceren en het een baanbrekende reis naar de asteroïde te laten maken, die niet alleen de geheimen van de oorsprong van de aarde kon bevatten, maar ook een onschatbare economische waarde zou kunnen hebben. Er zal echter nog een lange weg te gaan zijn voordat deze voorspellingen worden bevestigd.
Constante monitoring van de orbiter zorgt ervoor dat deze zijn reis naar de diepe ruimte kan voortzetten, met mogelijke koersaanpassingen. Tegen de tijd dat het ruimtevaartuig Psyche bereikt in de belangrijkste asteroïdengordel tussen Jupiter en Mars, zal het ongeveer twee jaar rond de asteroïde draaien en verschillende aspecten onderzoeken, zoals de magnetische eigenschappen, de zwaartekracht en de samenstelling. In 2026 zal het ruimtevaartuig Mars naderen om een zwaartekrachtboost te krijgen, waardoor het zijn reis kan voortzetten. De missie zou in 2031 moeten eindigen.
Comprehensive 3D map of the universe fills 11-billion-year gap
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has been collecting data for over 20 years now, with each data release resulting in more and more detailed maps of the cosmos. Now, scientists have combined it all into one huge three-dimensional map that covers almost the entire history of the universe. Importantly, the team says that the new study fills in a massive gap in the middle that has long bothered astronomers.
“We know both the ancient history of the universe and its recent expansion history fairly well, but there’s a troublesome gap in the middle 11 billion years,” says Kyle Dawson, a lead researcher on the project. “For five years, we have worked to fill in that gap, and we are using that information to provide some of the most substantial advances in cosmology in the last decade."
The new map uses data from different phases of the Sloan survey to chart objects at different distances from Earth – therefore representing different time periods in the universe’s history. In this map, Earth is the dot at the very center, and the differently colored rings represent different data sets, circulating outwards in ever greater distances in space and time.
The green section highlights galaxies closest to Earth, from data gathered during the first two SDSS runs. The pink and red circles cover the region up to about six billion light-years away, from observations of large, old, red galaxies. A little beyond that, the data comes from younger blue galaxies. To map even further out, to about 11 billion years ago, data was collected from quasars, which are bright galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centers.
DESI has made the largest 3D map of our universe to date. Earth is at the center of this thin slice of the full map. In the magnified section, it is easy to see the underlying structure of matter in our universe (Credit: Claire Lamman/DESI collaboration; custom colormap package by cmastro).
The resulting map revealed a few new tidbits of information for astronomers. The researchers were able to use the map to measure the rate that the universe is expanding – a value known as the Hubble Constant. Strangely enough, they found the current value to be about 10 percent lower than when it’s calculated by measuring distances to nearby galaxies.
The team says that the data from the map is very precise, and made up of different data sets that all have the same conclusion. Exactly why there’s a mismatch for the Hubble Constant is a mystery that will require further study, the researchers say.
The study also showed that the expansion of the universe seemed to speed up about six billion years ago. It’s well known that the rate of expansion is accelerating, but nailing down when this began has been tricky in the past. Previous studies have suggested it started some four billion years ago, but the new data indicates it was earlier. A force dubbed "dark energy" is our current best guess for what is causing this acceleration.
And finally, since the study covers such a large section of space and time, it’s able to give one of the clearest pictures of what “shape” the universe is. Whether it’s flat or curved is the subject of ongoing argument for astrophysicists, but the new SDSS map adds evidence to it being flat.
The SDSS will continue to study the cosmos in ever more detail, with a new phase of operations due to begin later this year.
The research was published in a series of studies, as Sloan’s 16th data release. The team discusses the work in the video below.
Source:
Why is it so hard to send humans back to the moon?
Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo missions sent a total of a dozen astronauts to the surface of the moon — and that was before the explosion of modern technology. So why does it seem like our current efforts, as embodied by NASA's Artemis program, are so slow, halting and complex?
There isn't one easy answer, but it comes down to money, politics and priorities.
Let's start with the money. Yes, the Apollo missions were enormously successful — and enormously expensive. At its peak, NASA was consuming around 5% of the entire federal budget, and more than half of that was devoted to the Apollo program. Accounting for inflation, the entire Apollo program would cost over $260 billion in today's dollars. If you include project Gemini and the robotic lunar program, which were necessary precursors to Apollo, that figure reaches over $280 billio
Related:
In comparison, today NASA commands less than half a percent of the total federal budget, with a much broader range of priorities and directives. Over the past decade, NASA has spent roughly $90 billion on the Artemis program. Naturally, with less money going to a new moon landing, we're likely to make slower progress, even with advancements in technology.
Closely tied to the financial realities are the political realities. In the 1960s, America was in the midst of the space race, a competition with the Soviet Union to achieve as many firsts in space, especially landing humans on the moon. The public was on board and energized by this idea, as were lawmakers who directed NASA's expansive budget.
That kind of spending, however, was deeply unsustainable. As soon as America "won," the public quickly lost interest and NASA funding tumbled. There simply isn't the political or public will to spend that amount of money for a second shot at the moon.
This combination of lower political will and fewer financial resources forced NASA to make some critical decisions in the late 1990s and early 2000s — decisions that still affect Artemis today.
Namely, as the space shuttle program was winding down, NASA administrators didn't know what to do with the industrial capabilities and partnerships that led to the shuttle. They decided to keep that infrastructure in place by reusing many shuttle parts, especially the engines, and folding them into the Artemis design.
On the other hand, one could argue that it was the right call to keep that infrastructure in place and aerospace engineers employed, because it was exactly that technical base that we needed to launch the recent renaissance in private spaceflight companies — but that's a separate discussion.
Lastly, the modern Artemis concept has a much different set of priorities than the Apollo missions did. For example, our risk tolerance is much, much lower than it was in the 1960s. The Apollo missions were outright dangerous, with a significant chance of failure. Indeed, several missions did encounter disasters: the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts, an engine shutdown during Apollo 6, and the near-fatal design flaw that nearly led to the deaths of the Apollo 13 astronauts. NASA, lawmakers and the public are not willing to take on that level of risk again, especially after the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
The Apollo missions expended enormous sums of money to send astronauts to the lunar surface for a few dozen hours. They went, collected some samples, set up some simple experiments, and left.
The Artemis missions are designed around a completely different set of goals. For one, the astronauts will spend up to a week on the lunar surface, which requires more food, water, fuel and scientific instruments. Second, while the Apollo missions treated science as an afterthought — the main goal was to beat the Soviets — scientific investigation will take center stage in the Artemis program, meaning it entails a longer, more complex mission design.
Lastly, the intent of the Artemis program isn't just to return humans to the moon; it's to begin building the infrastructure to maintain a permanent human presence there. Everything from orbiting refueling depots to site selection for future colonies falls under the umbrella of the Artemis project. It is a much more involved program because it provides the framework for achieving dreams for generations to come.
ASTRONOMERS REVEAL AN ‘ACTIVE MOON’ MAY BE HIDING IN ORBIT NEAR THIS RECENT JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE DISCOVERY
Astronomers have detected emissions from a brown dwarf with help from the James Webb Space Telescope that suggests it may produce aurorae like those seen near Earth’s poles, and that it could also possess an active moon in its orbit.
Brown dwarfs are larger than planets but possess less mass than stars and appear frequently throughout the universe. Of the many thousands known to exist, last year, a study led by research scientist Jackie Faherty with the American Museum of Natural History investigated a dozen of these celestial objects with the powerful eye of the Webb telescope.
Located approximately 47 light years from Earth, one of these brown dwarfs, CWISEP J193518.59–154620.3 (also known simply as W1935), possesses a surface temperature of about 400° Fahrenheit and a likely mass of somewhere between six and 35 times that of Jupiter.
During their studies, Faherty and her team found that W1935 was unlike other brown dwarfs they had observed; specifically, it appeared to be emitting methane. This is unusual since methane is most often associated with larger planets like gas giants.
“We were confused about what we were seeing at first but ultimately that transformed into pure excitement at the discovery,” Faherty said.
The initial detection of methane emanating from W1935 was reported in January, baffling astronomers at the time since the object is relatively cold and lacks any host star to provide its upper atmosphere with the energy that usually drives such methane emissions.
Faherty and her team relied on computer modeling in their observations of W1935, which revealed that it also appears to possess a temperature inversion, which is fairly common for planets orbiting stars. However, without any external heat source, it seemed odd that W1935 would possess this characteristic due to its isolation.
Ben Burningham, a researcher from the University of Hertfordshire and co-author of a new paper describing the team’s findings, says the team was “pleasantly shocked” by this discovery and went to work on trying to locate the source of the extra heat in W1935’s upper atmosphere.
Looking at our own solar system, they initially made comparisons to Jupiter and Saturn, both of which are similar to W1935 in that they emit methane and also have temperature inversions, which astronomers link to the presence of aurorae on these planets.
In other words, all evidence seemed to point to the existence of aurorae on W1935 as well. This luminous phenomenon occurs due to the interaction between high-energy particles emitted by the Sun and the magnetic fields surrounding Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth.
Kingman UFO Crash: Man Worked At Area 51 Said Alien Survivor Helped Re-Engineering UFO
In 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission conducted a series of powerful explosions at the Nevada Test Site, known as “Upshot Knothole.” During the same period, witnesses reported seeing eight unidentified flying objects engaged in a dogfight near Arizona. Historian and former museum curator Harry Drew spent ten years investigating the incident and discovered that three of the craft had crashed on the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona in May 1953.
Drew did not expect to find evidence of the Kingman UFO and was surprised to learn about the third crashed craft. Mystery Wire reports he researched old records and interviewed original witnesses to uncover a complicated story that was more intricate than the Roswell UFO crash story.
In 1973, a retired Nevada Test Site technician named Arthur Stansel revealed that he and his team were taken to a remote desert location in Arizona to recover a secret experimental craft that had crashed. The team found a perfectly intact 40-foot diameter disc-shaped craft with four alien beings associated with it, and it was shipped to Groom Lake, Nevada, where Area 51 was later built around it.
An artist’s rendition of the 1953 Kingman UFO Crash.
Credit: Harry Drew via Mystery Wire
In his book, “7 Days in May: The Kingman UFO Story,” Drew describes what happened to the three crashed crafts. One was destroyed when it crashed into a mountain near Kingman, another was found intact miles away from the crash site, and the third one crashed next to a small reservoir after clipping a rocky butte. The military took the last unknown craft back to a Nevada base. He found military-issued food containers dating back to 1953 around the exact crash site, proving that military teams camped there.
UFO enthusiasts have speculated that the Kingman UFO incident might be linked to the nuclear tests conducted in Nevada. However, Drew’s research suggests that the cause was a trio of powerful experimental radar sites set up around Kingman.
Drew claimed that he was able to document the crashes and the secret transport of the crafts to Nevada. He also asserted that one of the crafts was entirely intact when discovered. Despite the hotly contested nature of the story, Drew has evidence to support his findings.
According to MUFON researcher Richard Hall, in April 1964, the first report of a crash near Kingman was relayed to him by a future Vietnam commander. However, it was not until June 1973 that the case of the Kingman UFO retrieval was brought to the public’s attention by renowned UFO researcher Raymond Fowler.
The incident involved an engineer, Arthur G. Stancil (also known as “Fritz Werner”), who took preliminary measurements to assess the momentum of the crashed craft, which could prove useful in any reverse engineering attempts. Stancil, an Ohio University mechanical engineering graduate, who worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, first made the story public.
Dr. Eric Wang, who was suspected of leading a reverse engineering team on alien craft, headed the Installations Division within the Office of Special Studies where Stancil worked. Stancil provided an affidavit in April 1976 vouching for the honesty of his testimony, which was released by Ray Fowler in the UFO Magazine. In his statement, Stancil revealed that he was loaned out to the Atomic Energy Commission and designated as a project engineer on some atomic bomb tests referred to as “Operation Upshot Knothole.”
The craft was reported to have a brushed aluminum exterior finish, measuring approximately 30 feet in diameter, and contained two swivel seats, instruments, and display panels. The hatch was five feet high and three feet wide. Additional reports from the book “Majic Eyes Only,” written by Ryan S. Wood, indicate that the craft was embedded 20” into the desert sand on impact.
There are varying reports about the number of extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs) recovered at the crash site. Some sources claim that four small EBEs were recovered, while others state that only one was found. Despite these discrepancies, there is evidence to suggest that a military blockade was set up along Highway 40, possibly in 1953, to secure the area leading to and from the potential crash site.
It is unclear whether the military recovered objects of extraterrestrial origin and transported them to a clandestine hangar, but there are reports of crashed discs being housed at a top-secret facility known as Area S-4, located 12 miles south of Area 51.
According to Wendelle Stevens, a retired US Air Force pilot-turned-UFO researcher, the disc that crashed near Kingman was transported to Area 51 via a U.S. Army tank transporter. The recovery crew attempted to tilt the craft on end to facilitate transportation across the country but abandoned this procedure when it became clear that it was impossible. Telephone poles had to be removed when the main road intersected with unimproved surfaces or dirt roads due to the oversized load of the disc on the trailer.
Read also:
Bill Uhouse, a retired mechanical engineer, claimed to have been part of a top-secret program to design and build flight simulators used to teach American test pilots how to control flying saucers. He stated that the origin of the program came from the UFO crash at Kingman.
Mr. Uhouse claimed to have served in the Marine Corps and Air Force for a total of 14 years as a fighter pilot and flight tester of experimental aircraft. Later in his career, he worked as an engineer for defense contractors, focusing on antigravity propulsion systems and flight simulators for exotic aircraft, as well as actual flying discs.
According to his testimony, the first disc they tested was a re-engineered ET craft. Mr. Uhouse was invited to work on a flying disc simulator by an unknown man. He was reassigned to link aviation and worked on building the F-102 simulator and B-47 simulator. He claimed that extraterrestrials presented a craft to the US government which was taken to Area 51, and the four ETs were taken to Los Alamos. His specialty was the flight deck and instruments, and he met with an ET called J-rod who helped engineers with the craft’s engineering.
“There was only one of them (alien) that would talk to scientists in the lab with them and the rest wouldn’t talk to anybody or even have a conversation with them. First, they thought it was mental telepathy but it is kind of a joke to me because they actually speak maybe not like we do but uh they actually speak,” Mr. Uhouse said on Sirius Disclosure.
In his 2013 interview, Mr. Uhouse discussed his work on a craft that was different from Bob Lazar’s alleged reactor. He explained that the simulator he worked on had six capacitors charged with a million volts each, which created a gravitational field that allowed the craft to lift off and turn left to right.
The craft had no windows, and visibility was through cameras, and there were no seat belts as the craft had its own gravitational field. Uhouse mentioned that it took a significant amount of training to operate the craft, and its design did not allow for the installation of external weapons like traditional aircraft. He also claimed that Area-51’s secrecy was due to a peace pact signed between the US and the United Nations during the time of President Eisenhower.
Old newspaper clipping of Bill Uhous
Credit: Richard Geldreich, Jr.
In 1977, UFO researcher Len Stringfield shared another account supporting the Kingman UFO crash. According to this new story, a man who served in the National Guard at Wright Patterson claimed to have witnessed the delivery of three bodies packed in dry ice, measuring four feet tall with large heads and brownish skin. The bodies were reportedly recovered from a crash site in Arizona in 1953. Since then, several other witnesses have come forward, but further details are currently unavailable. (Source)
Interestingly, UFO expert Charles Wilhelm heard a strikingly similar story in 1966 from a man who claimed that his father had shared the account on his deathbed. In 1995, an individual who went by the name of Jarod-2 contacted The Groom Lake Desert Rat, an Internet publication, and revealed that he had worked on a secret project for the USAF. The project aimed to construct a flying saucer simulator and had gathered materials from the Roswell and Kingman crash sites.
CHINA CLAIMS NEW BREAKTHROUGH IN LASER PROPULSION COULD LEAD TO ULTRAFAST, STEALTH SUBMARINES
Chinese scientists claim to be on the cusp of a significant breakthrough in underwater military technology, developing a new laser propulsion system that could lead to a new class of “superfast, silent” submarines.
According to recent reports by the South China Morning Post, Chinese scientists from Harbin Engineering University in Heilongjiang province are refining a system that might enable submarines to move faster than the speed of sound using laser-induced propulsion.
Researchers first introduced the new laser propulsion system at the “Applied Optics and Photonics” conference in Beijing in late 2023. During the proceedings, scientists explained that the system utilizes high-energy lasers to direct the force from cavitation implosions to propel a submarine.
In a paper recently published in the Chinese academic journal Acta Optica Sinica, scientists elaborated that the system, named “underwater fiber laser-induced plasma detonation wave propulsion,” works by directing laser energy through optical fibers. These fibers, as thin as human hairs, would coat the submarine’s exterior, allowing directed high-power laser beams to propel the vessel through the water.
The setup purportedly generates up to 70,000 newtons of thrust with just 2 megawatts of laser power, roughly equivalent to the force of a commercial jet engine.
The use of laser propulsion systems represents a significant departure from traditional propellants. Instead of relying on mechanical engines, this innovative method uses lasers to generate plasma in water, creating a wave that propels the vessel forward.
The concept of laser propulsion is associated with the phenomenon of supercavitation or the formation of bubbles around a submarine’s surface. This creates an air pocket that drastically reduces water resistance, allowing the submarine to achieve extraordinary speeds.
Theoretically, a submarine exploiting supercavitation could travel faster than the speed of sound, or nearly 667 knots-per-hour (767 mph). The Soviet twin-propeller K-222 submarine holds the fastest claimed underwater speed, reportedly clocking in at 44.7 knots during sea trials in 1969.
Laser propulsion operates similarly to a magnetohydrodynamic drive (MHD), a concept for marine propulsion that has been explored since the late 1960s.
While a magnetohydrodynamic drive propels a submarine by using electric and magnetic fields to accelerate a liquid or gas, a laser propulsion system propels the vessel using focused laser beams to create plasma.
Also similar to a magnetohydrodynamic drive (MHD), a laser propulsion system would have no moving parts, reducing a submarine’s autistic signature as it passes through the water.
The idea of using laser propulsion for submarines has been explored for decades. Yet, despite these efforts, previous attempts to develop the technology have failed to produce a system with enough power or thrust to be practical.
However, Chinese scientists, led by Dr. Ge Yang, an associate professor at Harbin Engineering University, have reportedly overcome previous hurdles in laser propulsion technology by innovating the structure used to harness and direct energy.
Traditionally, adding devices to constrain the propulsion mechanism was thought to cause significant energy loss. However, the team says they addressed this by integrating a device resembling a gun barrel at the ends of the optical fibers.
Further enhancements involved introducing specially designed structures within the barrels to minimize the interaction and internal friction between shock waves, thereby maximizing the propulsion force.
Researchers said insights from the Chinese aerospace defense sector, particularly in advanced plasma electric propulsion used in hypersonic weapons, were instrumental in refining the technology.
Despite this development’s potential, researchers have not yet addressed several critical challenges. These include confronting the problem of heat dissipation in the optical fibers, their durability in harsh underwater environments, and the integration of the system with existing submarine designs, particularly the surfacing and steering mechanisms.
These issues must be resolved before this novel laser propulsion system is considered viable. However, if realized, the military implications of such technology are significant.
Submarines are vital to national security because of their stealth capabilities and firepower. Successfully developing an operational laser propulsion system would significantly improve the stealth and speed of China’s naval forces, potentially altering the strategic dynamics in the ongoing technological rivalry between Beijing and the United States.
In their paper, researchers note that this breakthrough laser propulsion technology would not be limited to submarines. In addition to improving the efficiency of civilian ships to achieve “green shipping,” authors say the system could enhance a number of naval weapons.
“The system can effectively control the generation of laser energy and spot, achieving precise microsphere propulsion,” researchers wrote. “This method can also be applied to underwater weapons, causing a supercavitation phenomenon, thereby significantly increasing the underwater range of projectiles, underwater missiles, or torpedoes.”
Credit: Ge Yang.
A diagram Screenshot Acta Optica Sinica, Vol. 44 Issue 6/ Yang Ge and Xulong Yang
Laser propulsion is also being researched as a form of space transportation.
NASA/Getty
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Stumbled On A Glistening Lava Lake On Jupiter’s Moon Io
Loki Patera is like no place on Earth.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently spotted a glassy-smooth lava lake amid the volcanic hellscape of Jupiter’s moon Io.
When Juno’s orbit swooped past Io last December, its cameras captured a mirrorlike reflection from a small patch of the moon’s surface. The strangely shiny landmark turns out to be a lava lake, covered with a thin crust of smooth, gleaming volcanic rock. The rock was probably something like obsidian, a natural glass that forms from cooling magma here on Earth. Known as Loki Patera, the lava lake stretches 127 miles long and is dotted with rocky islands, and its edges glow with heat from the molten magma just beneath the surface.
Loki Patera isn’t the first lava lake scientists have spotted on Io; previous spacecraft, including Galileo (RIP) have also sent home images of similar features, but Juno’s pics are the clearest and most detailed. Based on Juno’s data, NASA created this animation of what a flight over Loki Patera might look like.
This is an artist’s illustration, based on the images from Juno; Juno captured a lot of detail, but not quite this much.
On Io, lava lakes like Loki Patera probably form when the ground over a magma reservoir sinks or collapses. Earth has similar features called calderas, which form when a volcano erupts and its top collapses inward because there’s less magma underneath to support it. Io’s paterae (the plural of patera) are similar to calderas on Earth and Mars, but they’re also different in ways that suggest they may form a little differently. A 2001 study, which used data from Galileo, suggested that tectonic movements may pull pieces of Io’s crust apart, leaving gaps that collapse and form paterae.
Once a patera like Loki forms, lava usually floods its floor – and often spreads well beyond the edges of the patera. The lava pours in from underground magma chambers like the one planetary scientists say probably lies beneath Loki Patera. Galileo captured an image of a patera on Io, with magma gushing in from fissures at the base of its rocky walls, back in 2000.
NASA’s Galileo spacecraft captured this image of lava seeping into a patera on Io; it’s the one outlined in red at the far left of the image.
RADEBAUGH ET AL. 2024
The surface of Loki Patera is exposed to the poisonous atmosphere of Io, so it slowly cools into a hard, thin crust of volcanic glass, which reflects sunlight so brightly in Juno’s images. Islands of rock — rock with a higher melting point than the magma beneath the patera — dot the middle of the lava lake. Glowing hot magma lines their shores and the lake's edges, peeking through cracks that form at the edges of the glassy crust.
Picture a frozen lake here on Earth: smooth ice on the surface and liquid water beneath. Now imagine that it’s all lava instead of water, and that’s Loki Patera.
But unlike ice, rock gets heavier, not lighter, when it cools and solidifies. Eventually, the crust will be too heavy to float on top of the liquid, molten rock beneath, and it will sink into the magma. This happens every Earth year or two, leaving the bubbling molten surface of the lava lake exposed, which spacecraft like Juno can see because the molten rock radiates about ten times more heat than the cooled, glassy crust.
LOCKHEED MARTIN’S ‘MAKO,’ THE U.S. NAVY’S POWERFUL NEW MULTI-MISSION HYPERSONIC MISSILE, IS OFFICIALLY UNVEILED
Capable of delivery from the internal weapons bay of stealth multirole combat aircraft like the F-35, Mako is a stand-off hypersonic air-launched missile developed jointly by Lockheed Martin and CoAspire, who recently unveiled the new weapon at the Navy League’s 2024 Sea Air Space exposition in Maryland.
Developed as a weapon with versatility both in terms of its performance and its cost, Lockheed Martin has presented the Mako to the U.S. Navy, with the potential for additional use on submarines and surface warships in the military’s arsenal. Notably, at the Mako’s official unveiling earlier this month, images were featured that depicted what appeared to be a U.S. Air Force F-35A deploying six of the missiles.
Like its famous and deadly namesake, the Mako shark, Lockheed Martin’s new missile is built to enable quick, devastating action. Designed with rapid capabilities and prowess in multi-target engagement, the Mako is the result of more than seven years of development.
Originally developed as an answer for the Air Force’s Stand In Attack Weapon (SiAW) program, Mako has been presented to the Navy as a multi-mission system capable of attacking a variety of different targets, and which is essentially ready for use.
Presently, several of the Mako hypersonic missile’s capabilities remain unknown, which include specifics about the weapon’s multiple guidance systems. However, it is known that the Mako is capable of speeds reaching at least Mach 5 and that the weapon has been fit-checked both electronically and on actual fighter jets and other aircraft that include the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, as well as the similar two-seat EA-18G Growler. Similar fit-checks have also been conducted with the F-16, the F-15, and all three versions of the F-35 Lightning II.
Aircraft in the F-35 family, which specifically include the F-35A and F-35C, can carry the new Mako missile internally, whereas the F-35B and other aircraft would be required to carry the missile via external pylons. Combining internal and exterior loads would allow as many as six of the missiles to be carried by the F-35A.
Amid rising tensions with nations like China, the Mako’s performance and capabilities could provide a crucial advantage in the event of a conflict, given the new missile’s readiness for use against ballistic missile systems and mobile air defense capabilities that are likely to be utilized as part of anti-access/area denial strategies both China and Russia would likely employ.
Speaking recently at the Navy League’s 2024 Sea Air Space exposition, Rick Loy hinted at the possibility that the Mako could see additional use in the years ahead from surface or ground launch systems, “or even sub-surface like other weapons” that would conceivably extend Mako’s capabilities beyond just launch from aircraft.
Lockheed Martin has also implied that the weapon may be used by other countries, where the missile would offer an accessible and cost-effective solution for militaries wishing to acquire hypersonic capabilities.
Although official imagery depicting the Mako either in real-world testing or artistic representations has yet to be released by Lockheed Martin, video of the new missile as it appeared earlier this month at the Sea Air Space exposition has been made available by Naval News on its YouTube channel, which can be viewed here.
Composite image with an F-35 carrying four Mako missiles under the wings and, in the box, the mockup displayed at the Sea Air Space 2024 exposition. (Images: Lockheed Martin and Naval News)
Leaked document 'shows US government confirming they recovered crashed UFO'
A former White House insider shared a document, from around 2020, that appears to prove the US government recovered remains of a crashed UFO in the of Arizona in the 1950
A former White House insider has released a bombshell document claiming the US government has a crashed UFO.
Chris Mellon, who served in the Clinton and George W Bush administrations, published a redacted copy of discussions with a “senior US government official” who says it came down in Arizona.
The official, whose name Mellon has not released, says: “We’re dealing with the recovered UAP that landed in Kingman, AZ in the 1950s.”
READ MORE:
In the document, from around 2020, they also warn people “would be slack-jawed if they found out what we now know”.
In the Kingman case from May 1953, witnesses reported seeing a fleet of saucer-like objects in the skies. Three were claimed to have crashed, with one appearing to be undamaged.
The US military is said to have been testing a powerful new radar system near the desert town around the time of the incident.
The case has echoes of the more famous Roswell incident from 1947 where the US military originally said they had retrieved a crashed flying saucer before making a U-turn and claiming it was actually a weather balloon.
The Kingman document was cleared for publication by the US government because it contains no classified material.
Mellon said: “My purpose in releasing this document, in the wake of the government’s blanket denials regarding the possession of off-world technology, is simply to help others understand why I and some others consider these allegations worthy of investigation.”
It comes after a veteran airline pilot shared four "unexplainable" objects that he's seen in the sky – including a "hypersonic" UFO and a craft that flew at "30,000mph".
Christiaan Van Heijst told podcaster Chris Lehto he assumed that he had stumbled upon the tests of some experimental USAF technology, but recent events have made him change his mind.
UK’s Clearest UFO Photo Is Revealed, It Was Set To Be Released In 2072, 100% Authentic
A big revelation in the 1990 Calvine UFO incident has recently happened. The most awaited UFO photo that was set to be released on January 1, 2072, was somehow found and released by UAP Media UK. This new discovery is a shock to those who always bring skepticism to the field of UFOlogy. Vinnie Adams of the UAP Media UK disclosed that his team not only found the original print of the Calvine “UFO,” taken directly from the negatives, but also the original envelope which was sent from the Scottish Daily Record to Craig Lindsay who was the MOD Press Officer that dealt with the case at the time.
There are many videos and photographs of UFOs on the Internet, and some of them have credibility. But there is one photograph sent to the UK defense ministry, the MoD, which is considered to be the most spectacular UFO photo although somehow, it has disappeared. The photograph contains a 100-feet diamond-shaped flying saucer, hovering over a village named Calvine in the Scottish Highlands. The photo was taken in 1990.
Nick Pope worked for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) for 21 years. From 1991 to 1994, he was the head of the MoD’s UFO project. He said that during his time in the MoD, he came across several credible UFO cases. One such case involves the photograph from the Calvine Incident.
The story of how the photograph reached the MoD’s office is phenomenal. Mr. Pope said that when he began his investigation into UFOs in 1991, it led him to a poster, hanging on the wall near his desk. The poster was an enlarged-colored photograph of the UFO from the Calvine Incident.
“The X-Files first aired in the UK in 1994 and I acquired the same nickname (Spooky) as Fox Mulder, for obvious reasons,” Nick said. “Mulder famously had his ‘I want to believe’ UFO poster on his office wall and though uncaptioned, I suppose this was my equivalent.”
Most of the UFO photos are either fake, blurry, or just a small dot in the sky, but this particular photo was clear and taken in broad daylight. According to Mr. Pope, the photograph contained an 80-foot diamond-shaped craft with a military jet in the background.
Two unnamed hikers from the Perthshire region allegedly took the photo of a large UFO while walking near the village of Calvine on August 4, 1990. “The photos were then sent to the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) who then sent them on to imagery analysts at JARIC (Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre). Yet at the time, the MoD hadn’t even publicly acknowledged that there was any intelligence interest in UFOs at all,” Mr. Pope explained.
Read also:
Interestingly, the photo disappeared without any trace when the UFO investigators questioned the MoD whether Americans were testing secret prototype aircraft in the area. Mr. Pope asked the US if the craft belonged to them but they refused to admit it.
According to a 30-year rule in the UK, the MoD was supposed to release the secret UFO dossier on January 1, 2021, but the UK government banned the release for another 50 years. This secret file is said to contain the infamous UFO photo from the Calvine incident. Now, it is set to be released on January 1, 2072.
UAP Media UK is working hard to bring a serious resource to the British media outlets on the discussion of UFOs. One of the members of this project named Vinnie Adams has been working with Dr. David Clarke and a small team of researchers on the Calvine case from 1990 in Scotland for the last 11 months. (Source)
The original Calvine photograph, showing the diamond-shaped craft and a Harrier aircraft in what appears to be close proximity.
credit: VINNIE ADAMS From UAP Media UK
This led him to discover an original print of the Calvine “UFO,” taken directly from the negatives that were sent by the witnesses to the Scottish Daily Record back in 1990, just after the event occurred.
He also found the original envelope which was sent from the Scottish Daily Record to Craig Lindsay who was the MOD Press Officer that dealt with the case at the time.
Original envelope which was sent from the Scottish Daily Record to Craig Lindsay who was the MOD Press Officer that dealt with the case at the time.
Credit: VINNIE ADAMS
Mr. Adams wrote: “According to the copy of the hand-written sighting report that was released by The National Archives (TNA) in October 2008, the witnesses gave an account of their sighting plus the color photographs to what was the joint RAF/Royal Navy Headquarters at Pitreavie, near Dunfermline (which closed in 1996).”
Nick Pope mentioned the details of the Scottish sighting in his 1996 book “Open Skies, Closed Minds,” which prompted a British Parliamentary Question in July 1996 from Martin Redmond, Former Member of Parliament for Doncaster, about the incident:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department made of the photograph of an unidentified craft at Calvine on 4 August 1990; who removed it from an office in Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a; for what reasons; and if he will make a statement.”
Nicholas Soames, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, gave a written reply to the MP’s question:
“A number of negatives associated with the sighting were examined by staff responsible for air defence matters. Since it was judged they contained nothing of defence significance the negatives were not retained and we have no record of any photographs being taken from them.” (Hansard HC Deb., 24 July 1996, vol.282, col 39248W)
Journalist Dr David Clarke, who is also a member of UAP Media UK, was put in touch with retired RAF press officer Craig Lindsay. Craig was involved in the Calvine case back in 1990 as the go-between for the Daily Record and the MOD.
Retired RAF Press Officer Craig Lindsay and Dr. David Clarke.During his involvement in the case, Craig acquired an original print of the elusive photograph. Along with the photo, Craig also kept the original envelope containing the photograph sent by the Daily Record to the MOD.
In May 2022, David interviewed Craig in Scotland and was shown the original print. In June, Craig agreed to donate the photograph to the Sheffield Hallam University Archives, handing it to Dr. Dravid Clarke and Vinnie Adams. The image now resides in its new home at the Sheffield Hallam University folklore archives.
Andrew Robinson, a senior lecturer in Photography at Sheffield Hallam University claims the authenticity of the 1990 Scottish highlands UFO photo. In his detailed analysis, he found the image showing no evidence of negative or print-based manipulation, and all visible signs suggest this is a genuine photograph of the scene before the camera. (Source)
Robinson concluded in his study:
Check the video below by Nick Pope, speaking about how insiders view the Calvine UFO incident
Pilot saw UFO
An airline pilot claims he saw a "UFO twice the size of a city" while flying over Mexico. Arturo Saucedo recounted his experience in this video for the No Es Contra Ti podcast.
En route to California, Saucedo claims he noticed strange lights over Queretaro in central Mexico. “Suddenly, we were plunged into total darkness with only the panels lit up,” he said on the podcast.
“I then saw a beam of light that I first thought was something from Starlink as I had seen some images about Elon Musk’s company, basically a line of satellites that shine brightly in the sky.”
Chilling final video messages of Heaven's Gate cult members before mass suicide
Map shows New York UFO sightings since the year 2000 with thousands spotted
If you can't see the video below, click here.
Despite the fact that the strange flying item was 35,000 below him, Saucedo was alarmed by how large it was, even from a big distance away. “I should clarify that a UFO is not necessarily alien, it is an unidentified flying object,” he continued. “We are used to seeing things that are common to see, but this was not at all common.”
Along with his flight captain, Saucedo decided to report the sighting. However, he was informed that there was no satellite launches scheduled for that day. The pilot, though, is conviced that the technology is human and not otherworldly in nature.
It was “human technology, some type of American technology that they didn’t report," he said. While observing the anomalous object, Saucedo said “it started moving quickly to the right.”
UFO map shows extraterrestrial reporting hotspots in the United States
Aliens would face two major obstacles before they could ever contact humans, expert says
So quick was the supposed UFO that it flew towards the Gulf of Mexico “in a minute, minute and a half” before disappearing from sight.
There has been no confirmation on what the pilot alleges to have witnessed was. It may, like so many other UFO sightings, remain a mystery.
Next Generation Ion Engines Will Be Extremely Powerful
During the Space Race, scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union investigated the concept of ion propulsion. Like many early Space Age proposals, the concept was originally explored by luminaries like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth – two of the “forefathers of rocketry.” Since then, the technology has been validated repeatedly by missions like the Deep Space-1 (DS-1) technology demonstrator, the ESA’s Smart-1 lunar orbiter, JAXA’s Hayabusa and Hayabysa 2 satellites, and NASA’s Dawn mission.
Looking to the future of space exploration, researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) have been busy developing a next-generation ion engine that combines extreme fuel efficiency with high acceleration. These efforts have led to the NASA-H71M sub-kilowatt Hall-effect thruster, a small spacecraft electric propulsion (SSEP) system that will enable new types of planetary science missions. With the help of commercial partners like SpaceLogistics, this thruster will also be used to extend the lifetimes of spacecraft that are already in orbit.
Space exploration and commercial space have benefitted from the development of small spacecraft and small satellites. These missions are notable for being cost-effective since they require less propellant to launch, can be deployed in smarms, and take advantage of rideshares. Similarly, the proliferation of small satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has made low-power Hall-effect thrusters the most common electric propulsion system in space today. These systems are noted for their fuel efficiency, allowing many years of orbital maneuvers, corrections, and collision avoidance.
Nevertheless, small spacecraft will need to be able to perform challenging propulsive maneuvers like achieving escape velocity, orbital capture, and other maneuvers that require significant acceleration (delta-v). The thrust required to perform these maneuvers – 8 km/s (~5 mps) of delta-v – is beyond the capability of current and commercially available propulsion technology. Moreover, low-cost commercial electric propulsion systems have limited lifetimes and typically process only about 10% of a small spacecraft’s propellant mass.
Similarly, secondary spacecraft are becoming more common thanks to rockets with excess capacity (enabling rideshare programs). Still, these are generally limited to scientific targets that align with the primary mission’s trajectory. Additionally, secondary missions typically have limited time to collect data during high-speed flybys. What is needed is an electric propulsion system that requires low power (sub-kilowatt) and has high-propellant throughout – meaning it is capable of using lots of propellant over its lifetime.
To meet this demand, engineers at NASA Glenn are taking many advanced high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) elements developed over the past decade and are miniaturizing them. These elements were developed as part of NASA’s Moon to Mars mission architecture, with applications including the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) of the Lunar Gateway. A SEP system was also part of the design for a Deep Space Transport (DST), the vehicle that will conduct the first crewed missions to Mars by 2040. The NASA-H71M system, however, is expected to have a major impact on small spacecraft, expanding mission profiles and durations.
According to NASA, missions using the NASA-H71M system could operate for 15,000 hours and process over 30% of the small spacecraft’s initial mass in propellant. This system could increase the reach of secondary spacecraft, allowing them to deviate from the primary mission’s trajectory and explore a wider range of scientific targets. By allowing spacecraft to decelerate and make orbital insertions, this technology could increase mission durations and the amount of time they have to study objects.
NASA-H71M Hall-effect thruster on the Glenn Research Center Vacuum Facility 8 thrust stand (left) and Dr. Jonathan Mackey tuning the thrust stand before closing and pumping down the test facility (right).
Credit: NASA GRC
It’s also beyond the needs of most commercial LEO missions, and the associated costs are generally higher than what commercial missions call for. As such, NASA continues to seek partnerships with commercial developers working on small commercial spacecraft with more ambitious mission profiles. One such partner is SpaceLogistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that provides in-orbit satellite servicing to geosynchronous satellite operators using its proprietary Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV).
This vehicle relies on Northrop Grumman NGHT-1X Hall-effect thrusters based on the NASA-H71M design. This propulsive capability will allow the MEV to reach satellites in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), where it will dock with customer’s satellites, extending their lives for at least six years. Through a Space Act Agreement (SAA), Northrop Grumman is conducting long-duration wear tests (LDWT) at NASA Glenn’s Vacuum Facility 11. The first three MEP spacecraft are expected to launch in 2025 and extend the lives of three GEO communication satellites.
Further Reading:
The Intriguing UFO Encounter of a Japanese Fighter Pilot
The Intriguing UFO Encounter of a Japanese Fighter Pilot
In the vast expanses of our skies, where the blue meets the infinite, lies a mystery that has puzzled humanity for decades: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Among the numerous accounts of encounters with these enigmatic phenomena, the story of Mamoru Sato, a retired Japanese fighter pilot, stands out for its compelling detail and the credibility of the witness.
Mamoru Sato, with a distinguished career spanning 34 years in the Japanese Air Defense Force, recounts a bewildering experience at Matsushima Air Base. During a routine training session, an anomaly in the clear sky caught the attention of a pilot under Sato’s command. A cigar-shaped object, defying the laws of aviation as we understand them, hovered eerily above. What makes Sato’s narrative particularly intriguing is the immediate effect the UFO had on the aircraft. The pilot struggled with the controls, a challenge unprecedented in his career, not due to a mechanical failure but seemingly caused by the proximity of the unidentified object.
The situation escalated when, upon attempting to land, the UFO reappeared, leading to a recurrence of the inexplicable loss of control, a phenomenon now witnessed by both the trainee and the instructor. This dual confirmation of the sighting under different circumstances adds a layer of depth to the encounter, suggesting a deliberate interaction, or at least an acknowledgment, from the unidentified entity.
Sato’s account contributes to a larger tapestry of UFO sightings by military personnel, a category that commands significant attention due to the expertise and reliability of the observers. These individuals, trained to identify and interact with various aircraft, lend a gravitas to their reports, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the phenomena.
As stories like Sato’s emerge into the public domain, they fuel a growing interest in UFO sightings, transcending the confines of conspiracy theories to spark a genuine scientific curiosity. What are these objects? Where do they come from, and what is their purpose? These are the questions that haunt the minds of those who look to the skies and dare to wonder.
Mamoru Sato’s story is but a single thread in the intricate weave of UFO sightings, each account adding color and context to the ongoing investigation into the unknown. As we stand at the precipice of discovery, we are reminded that the universe is vast, and its secrets are waiting to be uncovered. The skies above are not just a frontier for our explorations but a canvas for the mysteries that dance just out of sight, inviting us to look up and wonder.
Area 51 has ultra-secure 'base within a base' where dazzling secret aircraft are tested, says expert whose home was raided over website revealing 'truth' of Nevada UFO base
By MACKENZIE TATANANNI FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
The owner of a website compiling information about Area 51 believes the military is testing new technology at a covert 'base within a base' in the Nevada desert.
Joerg Arnu has been running dreamlandresort.com since the early days of the Internet. The site was launched in 1999, complete with a forum for equally enthusiastic fans to trade theories about happenings at the Air Force facility.
Some of those who post on the site are former Area 51 staffers - and Arnu's home was recently raided by the Feds, convincing him that at least one user had shared the truth about what happens there.
Area 51 has long been seen as a site where recovered alien technology is tested, with at least one former worker, Bob Lazar, saying they'd seen extraterrestrial aircraft on display.
Skeptics say those incredible claims provide a useful distraction from the very real but extremely-secretive military aircraft that are definitely developed and tested there.
Arnu, a self-branded 'Area 51 research veteran,' is one of roughly 50 people living in Rachel, Nevada, right on the outskirts of the military base.
And with 25 years of research under his belt, Arnu believes the real secrets are now being hidden in a new part of Area 51, which sits north of the existing runways and base buildings.
'They have years and years and decades of experience hiding things,' Arnu told 8 News Now.
Joerg Arnu, the owner of dreamlandresort.com, believes the U.S. military is testing cutting-edge technology out in the Nevada desert
Joerg has been documenting the happenings around Area 51 since 1999 from his home in Rachel, located just on the outskirts of the base
The Air Force facility, located 120 miles outside Las Vegas, has been shrouded in a veil of mystery since its founding nearly seven decades ago
This bizarre-looking early stealth plane, named Tacit Blue, was developed in total secrecy in Area 51 in the early 1980s and only revealed in 1996, years after it had been decommissioned. It serves as a useful example of just how tightly Area 51 bosses keep their secrets to their chests
The United States' new B-21 Stealth Raider was also likely developed at Area 51, and remained completely secret until its unveiling in 2021
'Look at some of the exotic planes, like the Tacit Blue that was developed in total secrecy, was flown in secrecy, then all of a sudden, they put it in a museum and said, "yeah, we had this for a while".'
Arnu was referring to a bizarre duck-bill shaped Northrup jet that was an early stealth prototype, first tested at Area 51 in 1982, decommissioned in 1985 and finally unveiled 11 years later, in 1996.
He said the fact that such a bizarre-looking plane could remain secret for so long gives a hint as to what else is kept far away from the public's eyes at Area 51's ultra-secret enclave.
Area 51, located 120 miles outside Las Vegas, has been shrouded in a veil of secrecy since its founding in 1955, when it was established as part of the Nevada Test and Training Range complex.
Reports of 'unidentified flying objects' soon began to crop up. Those appeared to stem from testing of the U-2 aircraft, which could fly up to 50,000 feet higher than normal airliners at the time.
Since then, Area 51 has continued to serve as the testing ground for other stealth aircrafts like the F-117A, A-12 and Tacit Blue. The military's stunning new B-21 Stealth Raider was also likely developed and tested at Area 51.
The military only acknowledged the base's existence in 2013, when a formerly classified document about the U-2 was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
There were efforts to share more information about the facility before then. In the early 2000s, an Area 51 watchdog named Chuck Clark revealed that the military had placed sensors miles outside the base's boundaries, leading to a raid on his home.
And he wasn't the only one, as Arnu’s properties were swarmed by gun-toting counter-terrorism agents in November 2022.
He was in bed at his home in Rachel when around two dozen agents burst through the door, handcuffed him and led him outside for questioning.
But all the prying came at a price, as Arnu and his girlfriend, Linda Hellow, were targeted in an FBI raid in November 2022
According to a search warrant, Arnu was suspected to be in violation of Title 18 of the United States Code, accused of 'conspiracy' and 'photographing defense installations'
The webmaster believes cutting-edge military technology like drones and unmanned warplanes are being tested at Area 51
'The FBI wants to shut us down with unjustified raids and false accusations. Help us fight for our First Amendment Right!' reads a banner on the website
Over 100 miles away in Las Vegas, girlfriend Linda Hellow was similarly awoken by FBI agents who ordered her to come downstairs at gunpoint.
The agents seized four of Arnu’s computers, several hard drives, phones, cameras and a drone. They also swiped photos of his late parents and records containing personal information.
Arnu was handed a search warrant reviewed by DailyMail.com, which starts on page 40. The document indicates that Arnu violated Title 18 of the United States Code, accusing him of 'conspiracy' and 'photographing defense installations'.
He later learned that the raid was carried out by a joint team from the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, a counter intelligence wing that investigates terrorist groups targeting the Air Force.
Nearly two years later, Arnu is unsure whether he will face jail time. However, the government's case against him - whatever it may be - hasn't stopped him from continuing his mission.
The webmaster said he suspects military technology like drones and unmanned warplanes are being tested at Area 51.
'They are flying drones, obviously,' Arnu said. 'The Russians and Chinese work on stuff to jam our drones, we work on stuff to jam their drones. The next step is how do we make drone communications more secure.'
However, the tests are being conducted under even greater secrecy, at a 'base within a base' that is only visible to those with their own satellite.
Arnu is unsure whether he will face jail time, but the raid did not deter him from continuing to dig into the mystery surrounding Area 51
The 'Area 51 research veteran' suspects drone-jamming technology is being tested out in the desert
He says the experiments are being conducted at a highly secure 'base within in a base' north of Groom Lake that is only visible to those with their own satellite
'They have a whole empty valley just north of Groom Lake, and they have the mountain range where they can pretty much play with anything they want,' Arnu explained.
All this information and more can be found at dreamlandresort.com, which has been running ad-free since March 2019.
A flashy banner on the site encourages people to donate to a GoFundMe, reading, 'Freedom of Speech under attack: The FBI wants to shut us down with unjustified raids and false accusations. Help us fight for our First Amendment Right!'
Arnu doesn't intend to abandon his mission soon, and doesn't believe the shadowy agents testing military tech in the desert plan to stop either.
'It’s booming out there,' Arnu said. 'Area 51 is not going anywhere.'
Area 51 sits within a huge exclusion zone near Rachel. Sensors have been planted in the ground to warn security of any unauthorized visitors and anyone who crosses the perimeter - which sits many miles from the base itself - faces felony charges.
Terrified mum spots 'flying cylinder' UFO from airplane window over huge city
The strange black obelisk-shaped object whizzed past the window causing confusion amongst those who saw it, travelling in the opposite direction to the aeroplane the footage was shot from
By Harry Thompson - News Reporter - James Liddell
Michelle Reyes was recording the stunning view of the city's skyline while soaring over LaGuardia Airport in Queens, when she noticed an unexpected object whizz by. The mum-of-one initially shrugged off the sight, thinking it might have been a bug. However, upon reviewing the video, Michelle didn't find an insect - she claimed to have seen a "flying cylinder", according to NewsNation.
After the unusual sighting, Michelle quickly reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as well as the National UFO Reporting Centre and the Enigma Labs, which collects reports of UFO sightings, to report what she had witnessed.
READ MORE:
"The first thing I did was email the FAA to let them know what I saw," Michelle said. "Maybe it was a safety hazard, but unfortunately I haven't heard back from them, they didn't acknowledge my email."
Michelle even showed the footage to her father, a former US Navy serviceman, and he too was left scratching his head in confusion. Both dismissed thoughts that it might have been a drone because, according to Michelle, it "shouldn't've been that close to the aircraft", reports the Mirror.
The mum was left even more freaked out when she discovered another passenger had also claimed to have seen the UFO-like object. "It's a little nerve-wracking that someone else saw what I saw," she said.
UFO sleuth Ben Hansen weighed in on the show, agreeing that he too thinks the cylindrical object could be legit. "We've found no evidence that she [Reyes] faked this or hoaxed it... It's there. It's very clear, which is unusual," Hansen remarked.
This eerie sighting follows reports from plane enthusiasts who reckon they caught a UFO on film loitering above Air Force One in Los Angeles during President Joe Biden's trip on December 10, 2023. This unidentified object was described as spherical rather than cylindrical and coloured white or silver.
It was allegedly captured on camera multiple times over Los Angeles International Airport and seen by several onlookers, as reported by the Daily Mail. Some are speculating it's extraterrestrials eager for a chinwag with humans, while others reckon it's just a high-flying balloon.
Back in March, the Pentagon declared there was "no evidence" of aliens having a chinwag with Uncle Sam and suggested that supposed sightings were probably military drills. Still, they admitted their findings won't put a lid on the rampant alien chatter.
"The proliferation of television programmes, books, movies, and the vast amount of internet and social media content centred on UAP-related topics most likely has influenced the public conversation on this topic, and reinforced these beliefs within some sections of the population," the report read.
NASA’s New Solar Sail Has Launched and Deployed
Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space. Drawing an analogy to the sail ships of the past, they are one of the most efficient ways of propelling craft in space. On Tuesday a RocketLab Electron rocket launched NASA’s new Advanced Composite Solar Sail System. It aims to test the deployment of large solar sails in low-earth orbit and on Wednesday, NASA confirmed they had successfully deployed a 9 metre sail.
In 1886 the motor car was invented. In 1903 humans made their first powered flight. Just 58 years later, humans made their first trip into space on board a rocket. Rocket technology has changed significantly over the centuries, yes centuries. The development of the rocket started way back in the 13th Century with the Chinese and Mongolians firing rocket propelled arrows at each other. Things moved on somewhat since then and we now have solid and liquid rocket propellant, ion engines and solar sails with more technology in the wings.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rises from its Florida launch pad to send Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus moon lander spaceward.
(NASA via YouTube)
Solar sails are of particular interest because they harness the power of sun, or star light to propel probes across space. The idea isn’t knew though, Johannes Kepler (of planetary motion fame) first suggested that sunlight could be used to push spacecraft in the 17th Century in his works entitled ‘Somnium’. We had to wait until the 20h Century though before Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky outlined the principle of how solar sails might actually work. Carl Sagan and other members of the Planetary Society start to propose missions using solar sails in the 70’s and 80’s but it wasn’t until 2010 that we saw the first practical solar sail vehicle, IKAROS.
The concept of solar sails is quite simple to understand, relying upon the pressure of sunlight. The sails are angled such that photons strike the reflective sail and bounce off it to push the spacecraft forward. It does of course take a lot of photons to accelerate a spacecraft using light but slowly, over time it is a very efficient propulsion system requiring no heavy engines or fuel tanks. This reduction of mass makes it easier for solar sails to be accelerated by sunlight but the sail sizes have been limited by the material and structure of the booms that support them.
NASA have been working on the problem with their Next Generation Solar Sail Boom Technology. Their Advanced Composite Solar Sail System uses a CubeSat built by NanoAvionics to test a new composite boom support structure. It is made from flexible polymer and carbon fibre materials to create a stiffer, lighter alternative to existing support structure designs.
On Wednesday 24 April, NASA confirmed that the CubeSat has reached low-Earth orbit and deployed a 9 metre sail. They are now powering up the probe and establishing ground contract. It took about 25 minutes to deploy the sail which spans 80 square metres. If the conditions are right, it may even be visible from Earth, possibly even rivalling Sirius in brightness.
Source :
Major Marcel’s Secret Diary and the Roswell Enigma
Jesse Marcel
In the vast expanse of the New Mexico desert, under the cloak of a 1947 stormy night, an event unfolded that would etch the name Roswell into the annals of extraterrestrial lore forever. This is not just a tale of unidentified flying objects or mere UFO sightings; it’s the story of Major Jesse Marcel and his secret diary, a narrative that could potentially redefine our understanding of the Roswell Incident.
Major Marcel, an intelligence officer at the Roswell Army Air Field (later renamed Walker Air Force Base), found himself at the heart of a mystery when a mysterious object crashed near the base. Initially reported as a “flying saucer” by the RAAF press officer, the story quickly changed to a mere weather balloon. Yet, the debris Marcel posed with for newspaper photos—a supposed weather balloon—didn’t align with his own account of materials “not of this world.”
Fast forward to decades later, a British investigator, Philip Mantle, and others have brought to light that Marcel might have kept a diary in coded language, detailing his true findings and observations from that fateful day. These revelations were brought into public eye through a History Channel series, “Greatest Mysteries,” featuring Marcel’s diary as a key piece of evidence. This coded journal, now in the possession of Marcel’s grandchildren, allegedly contains unknown clues and observations about the Roswell crash, suggesting that the object had extraterrestrial origins.
The story of Marcel’s secret diary invites us to question the official narratives and explore the possibilities of what truly happened in Roswell. It’s a testament to the enduring human fascination with the unknown and the lengths to which individuals and governments might go to guard their secrets.
For enthusiasts and skeptics alike, the Roswell Incident and Major Marcel’s diary serve as a beacon, guiding us through the murky waters of UFO sightings and alien encounters. As we continue to decode the past and scrutinize the skies, the saga of Roswell reminds us that the search for truth is never straightforward, and the mysteries of the universe are far from being unraveled.
This tale, rooted in the heart of UFO sightings lore, not only captivates but also challenges us to keep questioning, keep looking, and perhaps one day, uncover the truth that lies beyond our Earthly bounds. The story of Major Marcel and his secret diary isn’t just about UFOs; it’s about the pursuit of knowledge and the undeniable human desire to understand the cosmos and our place within it.
As we stand on the brink of new discoveries and cosmic revelations, let the story of Major Marcel’s diary guide us into a future where the unknown becomes known, and the mysteries of yesterday become the truths of today.
This approach, focusing on the enigma of Major Marcel’s secret diary and its implications on our understanding of the Roswell Incident, taps into the public’s perennial fascination with UFO sightings. By weaving together historical accounts, recent revelations, and the unending allure of the unknown, this article aims to capture the imagination of readers and engage those curious about the ever-evolving narrative of unidentified aerial phenomena.
UFO Seen In Video Over New York City’s LaGuardia Airport
KAY SMYTHE - NEWS AND COMMENTARY WRITER
NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield interviewed a woman Wednesday who took a video of a UFO over New York City’s LaGuardia airport.
Michelle Reyes was flying into LaGuardia airport over NYC with her daughter when she saw something outside the window while taking a video on her phone, according to her interview on “Banfield.” Out of seemingly nowhere, a flat-ish cylindrical object bursts through the frame and flies — with seemingly no means of propulsion — through the skies and out over the city.
Reyes didn’t say specifically when she captured the footage. But the timing of it is sort of the smallest issue.
“Whatever it was, it was definitely outside the plane and it was flying on its own and it was really, really fast,” Banfield explained. The exact size of the UFO is unclear, though it looks more than big enough to bust a hole through a plane.
Reyes also noted this significant safety concern and sent the video to the Federal Aviation Administration but apparently never heard back.
While there are a lot of UFO videos that force me into a place of skepticism, this one is really weird. Like, extra weird. Whatever that thing is, it’s moving faster than any drone I’ve ever seen. It sort of looks like a flying robot vacuum cleaner.
Enigma Labs analyzed the footage to confirm its authenticity. The company told NewsNation that they found no evidence of Reyes having faked the footage. Whatever that thing is, it seems that it is really there. And that is kind of freaky.
The FAA did not immediately reply to requests for comment from the Daily Caller.
James Bond, eat your heart out! Futuristic submarine resembles a UFO and can take eight passengers to depths of up to 656ft
James Bond memorably escaped beneath the waves aboard his adapted Lotus Esprit in the 1977 film 'The Spy Who Loved Me'.
But an incredible new submersible shaped like a UFO looks even outside the capabilities of MI6's Q branch.
The Triton 660 AVA has an expansive transparent 'bubble'-like' window that makes passengers feel at one with the ocean's depths.
While diving up to 656 feet (200 metres) below the water's surface, guests can enjoy dinner, share a bottle of champagne or even get married.
However, with an eye-watering purchase price of $6.3 million (£5 million), the 660 AVA doesn't come cheap.
Triton says the sub can be quickly reconfigured between dives, and can offer a variety of dive activities, including dining or cocktail dives, spa treatments, or even subsea gaming experiences
The Triton 660/9 AVA has been launched as the ultimate vessel for deep sea sightseeing according to maker Triton
The sub has been created by Florida-based firm Triton, perhaps best known for making the DSV Limiting Factor, a deep sea submarine that collided with the wreck of RMS Titanic in 2019.
The company says on its website that its new 660 AVA provides 'entertainment-focused underwater experiences'.
The sub can be quickly reconfigured between dives and can offer a variety of dive activities, including dining or cocktail dives, spa treatments, subsea gaming experiences or even weddings.
It describes the sub as 'the world’s most intimate place to tie the knot'.
'Operators can take advantage of this space to provide never-before-possible experiences that will surprise and delight discerning guests, even when not sailing near a prime dive site,' it says.
'These singular, expansive spaces afford you considerable flexibility to curate experiences hitherto unimaginable in a submersible, from cocktails and casinos to weddings and private dining.'
The intimate space comes with comfortable leather seating and even in-built mood lighting and a surround-sound audio system, so guests can enjoy music to match the deep sea.
According to Triton, the sub's expansive window uses a patent-pending mix of acrylics, allowing strong but 'transparent hulls in new and irregular geometries'
It has been specifically designed for the cruise and hospitality sectors, with the ability to dive 656 feet (200 metres) below the surface
The craft has echoes of James Bond’s sea-diving Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me, above, also known as Wet Nellie (pictured)
The sub has a pool and wine cellar
According to Triton, the sub's expansive window uses a patent-pending mix of acrylics, allowing strong but 'transparent hulls in new and irregular geometries'.
'A Triton AVA submersible typically offers two to three times the usable volume of traditional spherical hulls – space that can be used to create amazing experiences,' the firm adds.
Triton 660 AVA also comes with a new and improved controller to operate the sub, called the Hammerhead.
Working in tandem with the cockpit, the Hammerhead allows the submersible to be controlled wirelessly from any seat inside the cabin.
So the pilot could move around the submersible while still operating it, or may even hand control of the submersible to a guest.
If this sounds too similar to the adapted PlayStation controller used to navigate the doomed Titan last June, everything about Triton's new vehicle has been apparently designed with safety in mind.
According to the firm, each 660 AVA submersible comprises of thousands of constituent components, each of which is reviewed and tested to ensure it complies with requirements for certification by a third party.
Florida-based Triton say their craft has been specifically designed for the cruise and hospitality sectors
The Triton DSV Limiting Factor from Florida-based company Triton Submarines, which collided with the starboard hull breach of the Titanic wreck
Patrick Lahey, CEO and co-founder of Triton, said: 'There is a stark difference between the experimental aberration made by OceanGate and the thoughtfully designed and carefully engineered products created by legitimate builders like Triton.
'Fortunately, this message has been conveyed in the media and people now understand this important distinction.
'Certified and accredited subs, like those Triton manufacture have a 40-year track record of perfect safety.
'Certified subs are magical machines that allow people to safely visit and explore a part of our world they simply couldn’t see any other way.'
The privately-owned submersible Titan, created and operated by another US firm called OceanGate, suffered a 'catastrophic implosion' on the way to visit the wreck of RMS Titanic.
The five men on board died instantly, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who had described a deep sea trip aboard Titan as 'safer than crossing the street'.
Titanic director James Cameron, who's renowned for his own deep-sea exploration missions, has said Titan had 'three potential failure points' and indicated that its 'Achilles heel' was the carbon fiber hull.
A luxury 242ft-long yacht has not only been designed to take you on the high seas but also to 'fly' above the water - as long as you have a spare £70 million.
The impressive design concept called the Plectrum was released by the Rome-based Lazzarini Design Studio.
Built out of dry carbon fibres that make it extra light, it uses a foil system so it can rise above the waves and glide along the water at up to 75 knots (86mph).
Italian creators at the Lazzarini Design Studio released images of their latest concept yacht called the Plectrum
(pictured)
At the moment, the yacht remains a concept boat with no set date to arrive on to the market.
'I faced 10ft demon creature aliens in my garden – even the police were nervous'
Angel Kenmore called the police after he and his family came face-to-face with what they described as 10ft tall 'demon creature' aliens in their back garden last year
A teenager who claimed UFOs carrying 10ft "demon creature" aliens landed into his back garden last year has opened up about the "traumatising" experience.
Angel Kenmore, 17, called 911 after coming face-to-face with what he described as "100% non human" beings in Las Vegas, US, on April 30, 2023.
Officers from the Metro Las Vegas Police Department were sent to the scene, and bodycam footage showed a strange bluey-green ball of light zipping through the night's sky that same night. The police received a second call 39 minutes after the first, with another resident claiming there were two unknown beings in his garden.
READ MORE:
Bodycam footage showed a strange bluey-green ball of light zipping through the night's sky
(Image: Inside Edition)
Speaking to NewsNation, Angel has opened up about how he has been plagued with paranoia since the spooky encounter. He also recalled what he saw in more detail.
"We were in the backyard, and then, out of nowhere, we just saw a big light fall down," he said. "[It] basically crashed in the backyard. And a couple of seconds later, I saw the big giant creature in front of me.
"It was moving and breathing. It was p*ssed off, like it wanted to do something looking at me." He described this first being as growling "like a dog".
Angel and his family's account of events hasn't changed since last year, despite people questioning them and accusing them of being hoaxers. He added: "They can think whatever they want. If I was doing it for fame, I would be on YouTube, making videos. I made no money off this. I don't need money. It was a really bad and traumatising experience."
He did share a video following the crash, explaining how the family had seen two beings in the garden. They were described as tall, thin and around 8ft to 10ft tall.
Inside Edition previously revealed how each member of the family drew a picture of what they'd seen. Angel's dad described the beings as "not human" with "green-grey" skin as well as antennas, large eyes and teeth.
The police officers' bodycam footage was also made public. In it, one officer could be heard saying: "I’m so nervous right now, I have butterflies, bro - saw a shooting star and now these people say there’s aliens in their backyard."
Another said: "I’m not going to BS, you guys. One of my partners said they saw something fall out of the sky, too, so that’s why I’m kind of curious." The beings had vanished by the time police arrived.
Ship Leaving Sun, 10X Bigger than Earth! April 15, 2024, UFO Sighting News.
The Enigmatic Encounter: The Stavropol Territory UFO Incident
In the vast expanses of the Russian countryside, nestled within the Stavropol Territory, lies a story that has etched itself into the annals of UFO lore. The summer of 1948 witnessed an event that would challenge the boundaries of belief and skepticism: The Stavropol Territory UFO Incident – an episode involving the abduction of a young boy and a startling message from aliens. This incident not only captivates with its narrative but also poses profound questions about our place in the universe and the existence of extraterrestrial life.
The day began innocuously for three children tending to a herd of cows. Amidst the pastoral serenity, the boy decided to rest, only to be jolted awake by a sharp whistle. What unfolded next was an encounter that defied explanation: a silver object, akin to a colossal inverted plate, landed on three supports. From this otherworldly vessel emerged three tall, slender humanoid beings clad in tight silver suits. Despite the boy’s terror, he found himself paralyzed, unable to resist as he was led into the craft.
Inside, the boy encountered a scene of both wonder and horror. The spacecraft housed other beings – humans and a bear – imprisoned within cages. This bizarre menagerie of Earth’s inhabitants, observed by their alien captors, painted a surreal picture. The narrative took a darker turn as the boy witnessed a fellow human subjected to a ghastly dissection, an act the aliens later described as a study, under the chilling effect of paralysis.
The story reached a critical juncture when the boy and another captive, Alexander, a mining engineer, attempted an escape. Their fleeting taste of freedom led them through the bowels of the ship, past sleeping aliens and into the heart of the spacecraft’s engine room. Yet, their escape was short-lived. Recaptured, they were subjected to a telepathic interrogation, revealing the aliens’ motivation: a concern for humanity’s use of atomic energy and a desperate need for radioactive materials, scarce in their world.
The aliens’ message was clear: humanity’s reckless use of atomic energy not only endangered itself but also attracted the attention of distant civilizations. This encounter, while harrowing for the boy, carried a broader implication for humanity, suggesting a cosmic interconnectivity and the need for stewardship of our planet and its resources.
The boy was returned to Earth, bearing the physical and psychological scars of his ordeal. For years, the memory of the incident eluded him until it was recovered through hypnosis, leaving him in a state of shock and fear. The encounter’s veracity remains a topic of debate, yet it stands as a testament to the enduring human fascination with the unknown and the possibility of life beyond our world.
VIDEOS
David Bowie was right - there are spiders on Mars! European Space Agency's spacecrafts snap mysterious arachnid shapes on the Red Planet
David Bowie famously christened his backing band 'The Spiders from Mars' in the early 1970s.
But the rock legend surely had no idea that this describes a real phenomenon on our neighbouring red planet.
Although not actual spiders, 'araneiforms' are dark cracks in the Martian soil, completely different to anything on Earth.
Clustered around Mars' south pole, they're known as 'spiders from Mars' because they have a distinctive arachnid-like shape.
New images from two European Space Agency probes – the Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter – show the curious formations in incredible detail.
In this new Mars Express image, small, dark features known as 'spiders' can be seen on the surface. These form as carbon dioxide gas warms up in sunlight and breaks through slabs of overlying ice
A slice of the Martian surface is shown here, captured by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. A rounded segment of an eroded crater basin is visible to the right. Note the numerous dark spots with tendrils that are eerily reminiscent of spiders. These are visible in large numbers to the left, and scattered irregularly across the rest of the image
The scientific name for these features – 'araneiforms' – literally means 'shaped like a spider' in Latin.
They form when spring sunshine falls on layers of frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) on the planet's surface.
The sunlight causes CO2 ice at the bottom of the solid layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and bursts upwards through slabs of overlying ice.
The emerging jets of gas, laden with dark dust, shatters through layers of ice up to three feet (one metre) thick before falling back down and settling on the surface.
This creates characteristic 'spider-shaped' dark spots of between 150 feet and 3,000 feet across that can be seen in space probe images.
'The carbon dioxide jet process that forms 'spiders' is a completely un-Earthly phenomenon,' said Dr Meg Schwamb, astronomer at Queen's University Belfast.
'The jet process is linked to the Martian seasons and is returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.'
'By studying these spiders and jets we're learning more about how Mars differs from Earth.'
According to Dr Schwamb, the only other body suspected of having these jets is Neptune's moon Triton, which is known to be geologically active.
David Bowie played with his backing band the Spiders from Mars during the Ziggy Stardust era (1972). The singer recruited the band but named them after a line in his song 'Ziggy Stardust'
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a 'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. This image of the planet was acquired using the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, November 10, 2023
Fresh data from Mars Express reveals identity of mysterious subsurface deposits
Araneiforms were first observed more than 20 years ago, but it was only in 2021 that astronomers proved how exactly they form.
The researchers at Trinity College Dublin recreated the Martian process in the lab by lowering and lifting blocks of frozen CO2 onto beds of gravel.
Experiments showed that the spider patterns are carved by the direct conversion of dry ice from solid to gas, known as 'sublimation'.
Such a process occurs on Mars because the planet has an atmosphere comprised mostly of CO2 – around 95 per cent.
On Earth, meanwhile, only about 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere is CO2; instead the majority is made up of nitrogen (78 per cent) and oxygen (20 per cent).
According to the ESA, araneiforms are especially clustered at the outskirts of a part of Mars nicknamed Inca City.
More formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, Inca City was discovered in 1972 by NASA's Mariner 9 probe – the same year Bowie and the Spiders from Mars released their landmark album.
Mars is shown here in tones of brown and tan. To the left, two key features can be seen - a raised network of linear, grid-like ridges and walls known as Inca City, and a scattering of dark spots that indicate the presence of features known as 'spiders'
David Bowie performs with The Spiders From Mars on the first night of the Ziggy Stardust Tour at Borough Assembly Hall in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire on January 29, 1972. From left, Trevor Bolder, David Bowie, Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey and Mick Ronson
Bowie recruited the band but gave them a new name, taken from a line in his song 'Ziggy Stardust' which features on the album.
As araneiforms were not known about 50 years ago, Bowie actually took inspiration from another source – a UFO sighting in October 1954.
An Italian stadium crowd thought they had witnessed Martian spacecraft that cast off a thin filament material – hypothesised to be webs from migrating spiders.
Meanwhile, title of one of Bowie's most famous hits – 'Life on Mars' from 1971 – was allegedly inspired by intense media coverage of the race to reach the planet between the US and the Soviet Union.
As for whether there's life on Mars, scientists generally think the answer is likely no largely because of its lack of atmosphere and freezing temperatures.
The possibility that there was life on Mars is more promising, as it's thought the planet was once covered with a lush liquid ocean.
UFO or drone? 'Flying cylinder' spotted soaring over New York City's LaGuardia Airport baffles passenger
A woman has claimed that she witnessed a possible UFO while flying in a passenger airplane over New York City.
Michelle Reyes shared the video online, which she capture from the window seat, showing a 'flying cylinder' whizz by as she traveled over LaGuardia Airport.
She told NewsNation that she observed the black object moving at high speeds - much faster than the airplane - and that another passenger had also witnessed it.
A UFO expert analyzed the clip, determining no evidence that the video was fake or a hoax - but some have suggested the object was a drone.
Michelle Reyes spoke NewsMax 's Ashleigh Banfield about the mysterious object she spotted while flying over New York City
'The first thing I did was email the FAA to let them know what I saw,' Reyes told NewsMax's Ashleigh Banfield, noting she has yet to receive a response.
She also sent the footage to Enigma Labs and the National UFO database.
Reyes also shared the clip with her father, a former member of the US Navy, who speculated the object could be a drone - but he said the close proximity to the airplane was very surprising.
Ben Hansen, who hosts Discovery's UFO Witness, appeared on NewsNation to weigh in on what could have been captured in the video.
'I found no evidence that she faked this or hoaxed it,' said Hansen.
'I didn't from the beginning, but we had to run it through the proper data analysis.
She told NewsNation that she observed the black object moving at high speeds - much faster than the airplane - and that another passenger had also witnessed it
'It's there, it's very clear, which is unusual.'
He continued to suggest that the object was not that far from the airplane.
Viewers of the video had suggested it was nothing more than an insect caught on camera, but Hansen noted that the airplane had to be flying at more than 200 miles per hour because it had recently taken off from the airport.
'It passes at a seventh of a second and is present in five frames of the video,' he explained.
Reyes also told NewsNation that another passenger had also noticed the object.
'It's a little nerve-wracking that someone else saw what I saw,' she said.
Reyes had shared the video on her social media last month, but it appeared to have been 'stolen' and reposted by others as if they were her friend.
UFO-spotting Las Vegas teen traumatized by eight-foot-tall 'demon creature' he claims he saw in his backyard
A Las Vegas teenager who claimed to have witnessed an 'eight-foot-tall demon creature with big shiny eyes' in his backyard last year said he was traumatized by the close encounter.
Angel Kenmore, 17, spoke out about the mysterious incident that he says took place on April 30, 2023, offering additional details about the 'giant creature' that he believes may have been a 'demon.'
Kenmore described the experience as 'traumatizing,' and he has since been plagued by paranoia, struggling to make sense of what he saw and constantly replaying the eerie encounter in his mind
'We were in the backyard, and then, out of nowhere, we just saw a big light fall down,' he said in an interview with NewsNation.
'[It] basically crashed in the backyard. And a couple of seconds later, I saw the big giant creature in front of me,' he added.
Angel Kenmore, 17, who claimed to have witnessed an 'eight-foot-tall demon creature with big shiny eyes' in his backyard last year, said he was traumatized
The frightening encounter with the 'non-human being' prompted Kenmore to call 911. Bodycam footage shows a strange blue ball of light flashing across the sky at about 11:50 pm on April 30
The frightening encounter with the 'non-human being' prompted Kenmore to call 911, and officers with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department were dispatched.
Bodycam footage shows a strange blue ball of light flashing across the sky at about 11:50 pm on April 30.
Approximately 39 minutes after the first call, another resident dialed 911, saying that there were two unknown entities in his backyard after he saw an object fall from the sky.
In the latest interview, Kenmore said he remembered the creature was growling in his backyard, 'like a dog.'
'It was moving and breathing. It was pissed off, like it wanted to do something looking at me.' Kenmore said.
At the moment, he felt the supernatural being had control over his body, as he said, 'I couldn't move.'
Despite facing numerous threats and questionings, Kenmore and his family have remained steadfast in their account of the experience from last year.
'They can think whatever they want. If I was doing it for fame, I would be on YouTube, making videos.'
'I made no money off this. I don't need money. It was a really bad and traumatizing experience.'
In a YouTube video posted last year, Kenmore presented details about the alleged 'UFO crash' and the creatures that he called '100 percent not human.'
'I hear something fall from the sky. I turn around. The only thing I see is a big light falling from the sky, and moments later I feel a big impact and a bang,' he said.
In his video, Kenmore also revealed new ring camera footage, allegedly from a neighbors security camera, which clearly shows a bright light with the sound of a massive bang.
Kenmore described the experience as 'traumatizing,' and he has since been plagued by paranoia, struggling to make sense of what he saw and constantly replaying the eerie encounter in his mind
Officers with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department were dispatched to Kenmore's backyard
In a YouTube video posted last year, Kenmore presented details about the alleged ' UFO crash' and the creatures that he called '100 percent not human'
'When that happened, the only thing I can see in the backyard is a tall creature. Probably around eight, ten feet tall. Very thin,' he further added.
'So, I call my dad. He went to backyard, and he saw the same creature I saw. He told me to go inside the house. At this point, we're all freaking out me and my family.'
Kenmore described the figure he supposedly saw as a 'tall, skinny, lengthy creature, and greyish green in color.'
'When I looked at it in the eyes, my body just froze. like the same experience of having sleep paralysis.'
'I'm staring at him and I'm looking at his whole body and he has weird looking feet and a big face and eyes and you could see a big mouth,' he added.
'I could hear his loud deep breathing and I could see his stomach moving. He would just stare at me, seconds later I could start moving again. That's when I called 911,' he said, before playing the previously shared police call.
His video, posted June 8, has already reached nearly a million views and more than 10,000 comments - with many skeptical of his story, while other thanking him for sharing the experience.
The clip, called 'I had aliens in my backyard part 1' is the first video on his YouTube account 'Angle las vegas.'
While he hasn't yet shared a part two, in a short video posted last month, Kenmore said that he would be revealing more about 'the crazy experience' in his backyard.
With two nearby Air Force Bases - Creech and Nellis - there is a theory that a piece of aircraft may be behind the crash.
An 8 News NOW report which originally broke the story, shared the theory but the Air Forces Bases have denied being involved.
The report also mentions a possible equipment malfunction, which the government collects.
Another theory suggests that a meteor may have caused the streak in the night sky, with the American Meteor Society confirming 21 reported sightings of it stretching across California, Nevada, and Utah.
'We're certain it was a meteor because of the duration of the event,' said Robert Lunsford, of the American Meteor Society.
'Most everybody reported it lasted between two and five seconds, and that's much too fast to be a reentering satellite or a rocket,' he added.
Mars Express Spots ‘Spiders’ at Outskirts of Martian ‘Inca City’
ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft have spotted the telltale traces of ‘spiders’ scattered across the southern polar region of Mars.
This image of the Martian Inca City was captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on February 27, 2024.
Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.
“Rather than being actual spiders, the Martian ‘spiders’ form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months,” members of the Mars Express team said.
“The sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice.”
“The gas bursts free in Martian springtime, dragging dark material up to the surface as it goes and shattering layers of ice up to a meter thick.”
“The emerging gas, laden with dark dust, shoots up through cracks in the ice in the form of tall fountains or geysers, before falling back down and settling on the surface.”
This creates dark spots of between 45 m and 1 km (148-3,280 feet) across.
This same process creates characteristic ‘spider-shaped’ patterns etched beneath the ice — and so these dark spots are a telltale sign that spiders may be lurking below.
“The dark spots can be seen all over the Mars Express image. However, most can be seen as small spots in the dark region to the left, which sits just at the outskirts of a part of Mars nicknamed Inca City,” the researchers said.
“The reason for this name is no mystery, with the linear, almost geometric network of ridges being reminiscent of Inca ruins.”
More formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, Inca City was discovered in 1972 by NASA’s Mariner 9 probe.
“We’re still not sure exactly how Inca City formed. It could be that sand dunes have turned to stone over time,” the scientists said.
“Perhaps material such as magma or sand is seeping through fractured sheets of Martian rock. Or, the ridges could be ‘eskers,’ winding structures related to glaciers.”
“The ‘walls’ of Inca City appear to trace part of a large circle, 86 km (53.5 miles) in diameter.”
The researchers suspect that Inca City sits within a large crater that itself formed as a rock from space crashed into the planet’s surface.
“This impact likely caused faults to ripple through the surrounding plain, which were then filled with rising lava and have since worn away over time,” they said.
Did Chris Mellon just confirm U.S. UFO crash retrievals?.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
,Brazil’s Bold Approach to UFO Sightings
In the vast and vibrant landscapes of Brazil, where the lush Amazon meets bustling metropolises, lies a narrative not just of natural wonders but of cosmic intrigue. Over the decades, Brazil has emerged as a fascinating chapter in the global anthology of UFO sightings, distinguishing itself with an official stance that marries curiosity with transparency. This tale is not merely about unidentified flying objects in the conventional sense but a profound journey into how a nation confronts the unknown.
A Night to Remember: The Official Night of the UFOs
The saga of UFOs in Brazil reached its zenith on a memorable night in May 1986, an event that would etch itself into the annals of ufology as “The Official Night of the UFOs.” On this extraordinary evening, the Brazilian Air Force found itself in an unprecedented pursuit of 21 unidentified flying objects. These were not fleeting shadows in the night sky but luminous entities, witnessed by hundreds across four states, their presence affirmed by both eye and radar
The response was swift and decisive. Lieutenant General Octávio Júlio Moreira Lima, then head of the Brazilian Air Force, mobilized five fighter jets in a daring attempt to intercept the mysterious visitors. Despite their efforts, the luminous objects eluded capture, demonstrating maneuvers and speeds beyond human comprehension. This event alone could fuel countless tales, but it was Brazil’s response that truly set it apart.
Transparency and Investigation: A Public Archive
In an era where UFO sightings are often shrouded in secrecy, Brazil took a path less traveled. The nation not only acknowledged these encounters but promised a detailed investigation. This commitment materialized in the form of a comprehensive report, eventually made accessible to all through the National Archives of Brazil. Herein lies the heart of Brazil’s unique approach: transparency. The archives, a repository of over 20,000 pages spanning reports, drawings, and even audio recordings from 1952 to 2016, stand as a testament to Brazil’s open-minded investigation into the 743 incidents recorded by its military.
SIOANI: Systematic Monitoring of the Unexplained
Amidst the backdrop of the Cold War and national curiosity, Brazil established the Unidentified Aerial Object Investigation System (SIOANI), under the leadership of Commander Gilberto Zani de Mello. From 1969 to 1972, this unit embarked on a systematic quest to understand the unexplained. Through interviews, sketches, and bulletins, SIOANI epitomized an organized approach to UFO phenomena, a rare endeavor within the military frameworks of the time.
Cultural Context and Global Recognition
Brazil’s engagement with the unexplained is not merely a governmental or military venture but deeply interwoven with the cultural fabric of the nation. A country where spirituality and the supernatural find a harmonious existence, Brazil’s open-mindedness towards UFOs mirrors its broader acceptance of the unknown and the unexplainable. This cultural backdrop, coupled with official endeavors like SIOANI and the public archives, positions Brazil as a pioneer in the global dialogue on UFOs.
Explore Over 700 UFO Cases Investigated by the Brazilian Air Force in the National Archives, Available Online and In-Person
In recent years, the conversation around UFOs has gained momentum, with entities like NASA adopting methodologies to study unidentified anomalous phenomena. Brazil’s historical and ongoing efforts in this realm, underscored by its policy of transparency, offer valuable insights and set a precedent for global approaches to these mysteries.
Looking Up and Beyond
Brazil’s story in the context of UFO sightings is more than a series of isolated incidents; it’s a narrative about how a nation confronts the unknown with an open heart and mind. The Official Night of the UFOs, the establishment of SIOANI, and the accessibility of comprehensive archives illustrate a journey of curiosity, skepticism, and openness. As the world continues to look up at the skies with wonder and intrigue, Brazil’s bold approach to UFO sightings stands as a beacon of transparency, urging us to explore the unexplained with courage and openness.
De mysterieuze stad die wetenschappers al jaren verbijstert
©Shutterstock
De mysterieuze stad die wetenschappers al jaren verbijstert
In een afgelegen gebied van de westelijke Stille Oceaan ligt een verbluffend en spookachtig onopgelost mysterie: de ruïnes van de oude stad Nan Madol. Gelegen naast de oostelijke oever van het Micronesische eiland Pohnpei, bestaat deze ooit zo grote, prehistorische stad uit bijna 100 geometrisch gevormde kunstmatige stenen eilanden, en het is de enige oude stad die bovenop een koraalrif is gebouwd.
Niemand is zeker van de oorsprong, noch waarom iemand een stad zou willen bouwen op deze desolate plek. Rond de ruïnes hangt een zweem van mysterie, legendes en spookverhalen. Klik verder en ontdek deze vreemde
©Shutterstock
Het Venetië van de Stille Oceaan
De ruïne bestaat uit 92 kunstmatige eilandjes gebouwd bovenop koraalriffen, die verbonden zijn door een netwerk van kanalen, waardoor het de bijnaam 'Venetië van de Stille Oceaan' heeft gekregen.
©Shutterstock
De betekenis van de echte naam
'Nan Madol' betekent 'de ruimte ertussen', wat verwijst naar de kanalen. Echter doet het ook een beroep op de geschiedenis van de stad en de reputatie van het huisvesten van geesten.
©Shutterstock
De hamvraag
Waarom zou iemand een stad bouwen in het midden van de oceaan, zo ver weg van een andere bekende beschaving?
©Shutterstock
Een ding is zeker
Het is een technisch wonder, volledig gebouwd van gigantische basaltplaten in een tijd waarin gereedschappen zoals we die kennen, nog niet bestonden.
©Shutterstock
Indrukwekkende schaal
De massieve basaltmuren zijn naar verluidt op sommige plaatsen 7,6 meter lang en 5 meter dik.
©Shutterstock
Megalithische architectuur
Koolstofdatering geeft aan dat sommige van de structuren ongeveer 900 jaar oud zijn, maar de eilandjes zelf dateren nog verder terug: naar de 8e en 9e eeuw n.Chr.
©Shutterstock
Mensen waren daar al eerder
Bewijs van de vroegste menselijke activiteit dateert volgens Atlas Obscura uit de eerste of tweede eeuw voor Christus. Er is weinig bekend over het oude ras dat het gebied bewoonde.
©Shutterstock
Waar komt al dat basalt vandaan?
De basaltstenen zijn naar verluidt afkomstig van de andere kant van Pohnpei, van een vulkanische plug waar magma was uitgehard in de opening van een actieve vulkaan.
©Shutterstock
Hoe werd het vervoerd?
Moderne archeologen hebben geen idee hoe de massieve stenen van de ene kant van Pohnpei naar de andere zijn verplaatst en vervolgens zo hoog zijn gestapeld, gezien de primitieve technologie die destijds beschikbaar zou zijn geweest.
©Shutterstock
Het wedijvert met het werk van de piramides
De inspanning die nodig was om de megalithische structuren te bouwen, zou die van de Egyptische piramides hebben geëvenaard, aangezien de rotsen een geschat totaal gewicht hadden van 750.000 ton.
©Shutterstock
Theorieën over transport
Experts hebben gesuggereerd dat vlotten kunnen zijn gebruikt om de enorme rotsen naar het rif te transporteren, maar hoe ze oorspronkelijk uit hun verre steengroeven werden getakeld of hoe ze tot die indrukwekkende structuren zijn gemaakt blijft tot op de dag van vandaag onduidelijk
©iStock
De locatie alleen al is verbijsterend
Waarom zou iemand een locatie zo ver van de bewoonde wereld kiezen, ergens op een koraalrif, om al die gigantische rotsen naar toe te slepen?
©Shutterstock
De vreemde eilandjes
De 92 eilandjes lijken erg op elkaar en zijn geometrisch gevormd, maar niemand weet waarom
©Shutterstock
Mythologie komt om de hoek kijken
Mythe vult de kloof, waar de wetenschap geen antwoord op weet. De Pohnpeiaanse legende zegt dat de stad werd gebouwd door twee tovenaarsbroers, Olisihpa en Olosohpa.
©Shutterstock
Een plek voor aanbidding
De broers wilden een plek om een altaar te bouwen zodat ze Nahnisohn Sahpw, de god van de landbouw, konden aanbidden, wat enigszins ironisch is omdat de eilanden niet geschikt zijn voor landbouw.
©Shutterstock
Hoe hebben ze de stenen verplaatst?
De legende zegt dat de broers rituelen uitvoerden en de hulp van een vliegende draak gebruikten om het massieve basalt te vervoeren, om daarmee de eilandjes van Nan Madol te creëren.
©Shutterstock
Natuurlijk waren zij de heersers van de stad
Olosohpa werd uiteindelijk de eerste Saudeleur en markeerde het begin van een dynastie die tot ongeveer 1628 over Nan Madol regeerde.
©Shutterstock
Tovenarij
De meeste inwoners van Pohnpei geloven naar verluidt nog steeds dat de oude stad het werk van tovenarij was, aangezien er geen andere levensvatbare theorie is opgedoken voor hoe mensen 750.000 ton basalt hebben verplaatst.
©Shutterstock
Een heilige plek
Hoe het ook is ontstaan, het wordt erkend als een heilige plaats gesticht door de Saudeleur-dynastie, die ooit werd bevolkt door stamhoofden en priesters, evenals gewone mensen om hen te dienen. Afgebeeld is het graf van de Saudeleur-dynastie.
©Shutterstock
Politieke zetel van macht
De Saudeleur-heersers gaven lokale stamhoofden het mandaat om in Nan Madol te verblijven, zodat ze hun activiteiten konden volgen en de controle konden behouden.
©Shutterstock
Verschillende toepassingen voor de eilandjes
Hoewel de meeste eilandjes woonwijken waren, waren sommige speciaal gewijd aan voedselbereiding, kokosolieproductie of kanobouw.
©iStock
Het had een vrij aanzienlijke populatie
Er wordt geschat dat de bevolking van Nan Madol meer dan 1.000 bedroeg in een tijd dat de hele bevolking van Pohnpei amper 25.000 bereikte.
©iStock
Geen eten of water
De onderworpen inwoners moesten voedsel en water naar de stad brengen, omdat er geen middelen waren om gewassen te verbouwen of zoet water op het rif op te slaan.
©Shutterstock
Een logistiek probleem om te overleven
Dit probleem heeft mogelijk geleid tot het verlaten van deze indrukwekkende stad.
©Shutterstock
Verschillende verhalen over hoe het eindigde
Er zijn veel verhalen over hoe het bewind van Saudeleur eindigde, maar ze schrijven het allemaal toe aan de legendarische krijger Isokelekel in de 15e eeuw, die naar verluidt een nieuw systeem van stamhoofddom implementeerde.
©Shutterstock
Het wordt soms 'de spookstad' genoemd
Het mysterie van de oorsprong en het doel van de oude stad heeft natuurlijk heel wat legendes geïnspireerd over geesten. Sommigen zijn bang om te bezoeken, terwijl anderen juist voor de paranormale ervaring gaan.
©Shutterstock
Geïnspireerde HP Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was een beroemde Amerikaanse schrijver wiens fictieve verzonken stad R'lyeh, te zien in zijn Cthulhu-mythos, blijkbaar was geïnspireerd door Nan Madol.
©Shutterstock
'Roep van Cthulhu'
Zijn korte verhaal vermeldt het echte eiland Pohnpei en gebruikt de mythologie van Nan Madol in zijn beschrijving van 'De nachtmerrieachtige lijkstad van R'lyeh', die 'in onmetelijke eeuwen achter de geschiedenis werd gebouwd'.
©Shutterstock
Het wordt nog maar net als 'beschermd gebied' behandeld
In 2016 werd Nan Madol toegevoegd aan de lijst van UNESCO-werelderfgoederen.
©Shutterstock
Maar het wordt ook bedreigd
De ruïnes worden bedreigd door klimaatverandering, stijgende zeespiegels, oprukkende mangroven en het temperamentvolle weer in de Stille Oceaan, waardoor het ook een plaats krijgt op de Werelderfgoedlijst van bedreigde plekken.
Watch 4 solar flares erupt from the sun at nearly the same time in extremely rare event
Solar flares erupted near-simultaneously from four separate regions of the sun on April 23.
(Image credit: NASA/SDO/AIA)
The quadruple eruption was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
The sun put on quite the show this morning (April 23), blasting out not one, not two, but four solar flares in near-perfect harmony. And NASA's space-based Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) caught it on camera.
Eruptions appeared in four spots on the sun at the same time. NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
Solar flares are explosions from the sun's surface that emit intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation. They occur when magnetic energy builds up in the solar atmosphere and is rapidly released.
The quartet of eruptions came from four regions, three sunspots and one magnetic filament, separated by hundreds of thousands of miles and linked by near-invisible magnetic loops in the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona. These kinds of explosions are called "sympathetic solar flares," according to Spaceweather.com. They consist of pairs of explosions that occur in near unison at different regions on the sun's disk. This morning's event consisted of not a simple pair but a quartet, making it "super-sympathetic", according to Spaceweather.com.
Related:
Sympathetic solar flares are triggered when instabilities rapidly travel from one region to another along the magnetic loops that join them. As such, much of the Earth-facing portion of the sun was involved in this morning's solar symphony.
We will have to wait and see if any of the ejected material from the super-sympathetic eruption will impact Earth, as there is a possibility of an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are huge expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun. When Earth-directed, they can wreak havoc with power grids, telecommunication networks and orbiting satellites and expose astronauts to dangerous doses of radiation.
Conversely, CMEs are a welcomed visitor for skywatchers worldwide as they can trigger impressive aurora displays visible at latitudes beyond their "normal" polar range.
According to Spaceweather.com, multiple CMEs erupted from the sun in the past 24 hours might be heading our way. If just one of them grazes Earth's magnetic field a minor-class G1 geomagnetic storm could be triggered. The most likely impact dates are April 25 and April 26.
The quadruple blast today could be a sign we are nearing solar maximum, the peak of solar activity during the sun's 11-year solar cycle, as sympathetic solar flares are considered to increase with an increase in solar activity. Or perhaps we have already reached solar maximum and are entering the decay phase of the solar cycle, as a 2022 study published in Astrophysics and Space Science suggests that sympathetic solar flares predominantly occur in the decay phase of the solar cycle.
Either way, scientists won't know when solar maximum has occurred until seven months after it's over due to how the maximum is computed.
US Congressman Says Revealing UFO Technology Is a Threat to Energy Sector: It Can Disrupt World Economy
A thought-provoking interview has recently been conducted between Project Unity host Jay Anderson and the U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles. The discussion focused on the implications of complete UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) disclosure. Anderson asked serious questions to Rep. Ogles about UFOs, revealing that the release of extraterrestrial technology could potentially disrupt the world economy and energy sector.
Rep. Andy Ogles spoke about the difficulty in gathering information due to the compartmentalization of special access projects, emphasizing the need for a methodical and persistent approach to uncover the truth. In the interview, he expressed his concern about UAPs operating in both military and commercial airspace, raising questions about the potential national security threats. He said, “I’m not going to assume I know what it may or may not be. What I do know is there’s a national security issue here.”
He considers various possibilities, including the involvement of experimental aircraft, joint ventures, or foreign adversaries. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding predetermined conclusions and encourages an open-minded investigation to determine the true nature of the UAP phenomenon.
When asked about his personal understanding of UAPs, Rep. Ogles talks about the hope that it might be advanced technology possessed by the United States. He says, “My hope would be… some new technology that we possess… puts us that next generation above our adversaries.” However, he acknowledges the mysterious aspects of UAPs, saying they seem to “defy physics.”
Rep. Ogles then considers the energy implications of the advanced propulsion technology displayed by UAPs. He wonders about the amount of energy needed for such rapid movements and how it could impact the energy sector.
He says, “That being said, these UAPs seem to defy physics. They seem to have some sort of propulsion technology that’s unknown to man as we understand it. So, what does that do to the energy sector? If there’s a new way of thinking about the amount of energy it takes to take a craft that’s hovering and suddenly it’s going Mach one in a matter of seconds – the human body can’t sustain that as we understand it, right? So that craft would have to have next-level technology to protect tissue, if you will, or it’s an unmanned type of craft. Again, there are just a lot of questions that have to be probed. But, if there is this propulsion technology out there and this energy capability out there, not only are we in a renaissance when it comes to aircraft, but we’re in a renaissance in terms of propulsion and energy production consumption. So, again, huge implications across the economic scale, both domestically and internationally.”
He mentions his inquiries in committee about the DOE (Department of Energy), suggesting it could be an ideal place to house top-secret technologies. He says, “If you’re going to house a top-secret Next Level technology, what better place to have it and house it than… nuclear facilities.”
“Everybody knows about Area 51. It’s a testing area… You’ve got this super top-secret, super secure facility that, again, would be ideal to have and to house some new technology, emerging technology that we want to fully master for ourselves and quite frankly control. Because again, as you look at that next generation of warfare, it’s not just tanks and planes. It’s drones. It’s unmanned aircraft. It’s economic. There’s a lot that’s about to happen as we go forward as a superpower and our competitive edge on the global stage.”
Later in the interview, Jay Anderson brings up Congressman Burchett’s positive impression of David Grusch’s testimony during classified briefings. Rep. Ogles says that credible sources have vouched for Grusch’s reliability. He suggests believing what Grusch said, thinking about it carefully, and not trying to say it is wrong without some good proof. Ogles says it is important to keep an open mind, focus on getting answers, and not to try finding faults without good reasons.
Rep. Ogles explains that it does not require unanimous congressional support but rather the speaker’s will to initiate action. He emphasizes the bipartisan interest in addressing the issue and expresses the need for a select committee to ensure transparency and accountability in the investigation. He, along with Congressman Burchett, acknowledges the likelihood of a multi-decade cover-up or compartmentalization due to the secretive nature of special access programs (SAPs) and classified information related to national security.
When asked about evidence suggesting reverse engineering or more exotic propositions, Rep. Ogles mentions the classification of such information and the need for careful consideration. He discusses questions about the origin of technology, whether it is our own creation or recovered from elsewhere, and the potential for reverse engineering.
Read also:
Stephen Bassett, the only registered lobbyist of Washington and founder of Paradigm Research Group, shares the same UFO disclosure concerns that will pose serious implications for the world’s economy.
The PRG researchers claim they have known the reasons why the US authorities were hiding information about UFOs. According to them, disclosing UFO data would lead to the collapse of the entire world economy. Bassett added that all so-called “flying saucers” do not use oil, gasoline, gas, or coal. “They have a different energy system. Without a doubt, a much more complex and deep system based on anti-gravity,” he said.
“Some programs have been removed from the jurisdiction of the White House and Congress and are working somewhere very, very deep, in a ‘hidden mode,'” the researcher emphasized. “I assure you, when the head of state finally officially admits this fact and presents evidence, people will start to worry and want to know more.” But even if the economy stops developing in the current way, it will have new opportunities, Bassett believes.
During an interview with uInterview, he said that UFOs are not unidentified flying objects, as the acronym suggests, but rather alternative energy and propulsion devices. The technology behind UFOs was heavily studied by a team headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and by 1954, they had developed what is known as “gravity control” and “zero-point energy.”
[Editor’s note] In January 2015, former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell sent an email to Podesta, asking him to have an urgent meeting to discuss Disclosure and Zero Point Energy (ZPE). He was concerned about the peace in space. Mitchell wrote: “My Catholic colleague Terri Mansfield will be there too, to bring us up to date on the Vatican’s awareness of ETI. Another colleague is working on a new Space Treaty, citing involvement with Russia and China. However, with Russia’s extreme interference in Ukraine, I believe we must pursue another route for peace in space and ZPE on Earth.” (Click here to read the full article)
However, Dr. Greer stated that the secrecy surrounding this technology went off the rails and became deeply entrenched in compartmented intelligence operations, even causing President Eisenhower to become frustrated with being denied information on the projects.
“The problem became to be, and this is what President Eisenhower warned us about, the secrecy became so enmeshed and compartmented in intelligence operations, that even he as president lost control over it,” Dr. Greer said.
He further stated: “One of our military witnesses, he was a young man working at the White House – which I’m looking at from my place here in Washington, he told us, Mr. Lubkin, who is an attorney, said that Eisenhower was very frustrated that he was being denied information on the projects controlling this issue. So the secrecy went off the rails into these unacknowledged special access projects.”
The disclosure of UFOs would mean the end of oil, gas, coal, and public utilities, as the technology would completely transform the world. Those with trillions of dollars invested in these industries would not be enthused about this possibility. This is the reason for the secrecy, and it has been maintained for 70 years, according to Dr. Greer.
Earth's weird 'quasi-moon' Kamo'oalewa is a fragment blasted out of big moon crater
Earth's "quasi-moon" was likely blasted away from the actual moon relatively recently in the solar system's history, a new study suggests.
Kamo'oalewa, a 131- to 328-foot-wide (40 to 100 meters) near-Earth object (NEO), was liberated by an asteroid impact between 1 million and 10 million years ago, a smashup that created the moon's 13.7-mile-wide (22 kilometers) Giordano Bruno crater, according to the research.
Kamo'oalewa, or "469219 Kamoʻoalewa" as it is officially designated, was discovered in 2016 by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakalā, Hawaii, as part of NASA's planetary defense effort to discover space rocks that could possibly hit our planet.
Kamo'oalewa, which means "an oscillating celestial object" in Hawaiian, was later found to orbit the sun in synchronization with Earth and is spinning extremely fast for an asteroid. These puzzling characteristics led scientists to investigate the quasi-moon's origins. In 2021, research revealed that Kamo'oalewa's composition is similar to rocks recovered from the moon, hinting at its lunar origin. The question was, Where exactly on the moon did it come from?
Related:
"Our major findings are that Kamo’oaelewa originated from the moon, and not from the asteroid belt, contrary to the majority of asteroids belonging to the NEO population," Patrick Michel, team member and senior researcher at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France's state research agency, told Space.com.
"Like detectives, we used all known information regarding this Kamo‘oalewa and the lunar surface to derive a scenario for the origin of this object, starting from the impact that produced the Giordano Bruno crater," Michel said.
The team connected Kamo‘oalewa with the Giordano Bruno crater by working like crime scene investigators. They used a computer model to mimic the type of impact that would have produced a space rock like this quasi-moon.
That meant factoring in things like the size and velocity distributions of the resulting ejecta and their dynamical evolution. This reconstruction demonstrated that some ejecta would eventually get into an orbital 1:1 resonance with Earth, with the same dynamical properties as Kamo’oalewa.
"Our results tell us that Kamo’oalewa is very likely to be a fragment from the lunar surface for which we have a direct relation to a known crater if our scenario is correct," Michel said.
"Usually, the best we can do is to determine the source region in the asteroid belt of a NEO, knowing its current orbit. A region is usually very wide in these kinds of estimates, such as the inner or outer asteroid belt," he added. "Here, we identified a very specific body and location where this object comes from, which is very exciting."
Michel explained that Kamo’oalewa’s orbit is not stable, leading the team to link it to a crater that is not too old, possibly with an age between one and 10 million years.
"Then we also needed the crater to be not too large, so that an intact fragment of the size of Kamo’oaelewa can be produced," he continued. "The best candidate was then Giordano Bruno, which matches both constraints."
The team's impact modeling also gave them an idea of the size of the space projectile that would have created the nearly 14-mile-wide lunar crater and its quasi-moon ejecta. They estimated that the asteroid that struck the moon must have had a width of around 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) to carve out the Giordano Bruno crater and liberate Kamo’oalewa.
If an asteroid of such a size were to hit Earth, it would release roughly the same amount of energy as the detonation of a one-million-megaton bomb.
Related:
The findings also have ramifications for our understanding of the NEO population around Earth, implying that a larger proportion of these bodies than suspected could have been created by impacts on the moon or upon other solar system bodies.
"Although the majority of NEOs come from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a small portion can originate from the moon or other locations," Michel said. "When there is something unusual and when a lunar origin seems possible, then we now know that we can check whether a fragment from the moon can lead to the orbit of the considered object and possibly identify the crater where it comes from, closing the loop."
An illustration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test,or DART, as it approaches its target moonlet around the asteroid Didymos. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL)
Michel added that the discovery that Giordano Bruno crater and the NEO Kamo’oalewa are likely linked is a stark reminder that, even in this later, calmer epoch of the solar system's 4.6-billion-year history, impacts by massive space rocks happen.
This stresses the importance of planetary defense projects such as NASA's recent Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which studied the effectiveness of diverting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
"Impacts occur in the inner solar system, but while traces are erased on Earth, they are not erased on the moon. Thus, our natural satellite contains the record of the impact history in Earth’s environment over the last 4 billion years," Michel said. "This is the reason why some of us are highly involved in planetary defense, the NASA DART mission that performed the first asteroid deflection test and the European Space Agency Hera mission, for which I serve as principal investigator, that will measure DART impact outcome in detail."
Michel concedes that the team's results are only provisional. Thus, while they have offered a strong link between Kamo’oalewa and the moon, it will take further investigation of the asteroid to confirm this connection.
"The next most exciting study of Kamo’oalewa will be offered by the Chinese Tiawen-2 mission that should launch in 2025 to sample the surface of the asteroid and return the samples to Earth for laboratory analysis," he said. "This is a very challenging mission, as nobody has ever visited such a small object that rotates over itself in only 28 minutes before.
"The analysis of samples will, for the first time, tell us what [are] the physical and thermodynamical state of a fragment of this size extracted from the lunar surface by an impact, which is something we cannot determine in our impact model."
Can NASA's Mars Sample Return Program Be Saved? Some Experts Think So
The quest continues to bring pristine Mars rocks to Earth.
The Mars Sample Return (MSR), one of NASA’s most critical programs designed to bring pristinely sampled Mars rocks inside 30 titanium tubes to Earth, just hit a major roadblock.
On Monday, NASA announced that the current MSR budget was too expensive, costing somewhere between $8 billion and $11 billion. To avoid budget cuts to other critical programs, like the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Asteroid Surveyor space telescope that could spot a rocky existential threat to our planet, NASA pushed the retrieval back until the 2040s. That’s a decade longer than the space agency’s initial timeline.
But one possible savior could be the private aerospace sector, whose biggest player is SpaceX.
This illustration shows NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which will carry tubes containing Martian rock and soil samples into orbit around Mars.
On our planet, the samples would reveal untold secrets about the big “if” in space science: Are we alone in the universe? Over the last several decades, robotic explorers have gleaned from the reddish landscape that life may have had the right conditions to flourish on the fourth rock from the Sun. Scientists might be able to prove this tantalizing possibility if they can get ahold of these rocks. The Voyager golden records, the myriad of international missions that have orbited Mars, and the host of upcoming missions to the possibly aquatic moons in the outer Solar System, would win an incredible endorsement.
Extending the mission timeline is what makes the most sense to preserve the MSR plan as it currently exists, Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the non-profit The Planetary Society, told The New York Times on Monday.
But NASA leadership does not want to wait until 2040. “That is unacceptable to wait that long. It’s the decade of the 2040s that we are going to be landing astronauts on Mars. It’s also unacceptable at $11 billion,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters at a news conference on Monday.
A concept for multiple robots that would work together to ferry to samples from Mars to Earth.
NASA will ask for proposals from the private sector to find solutions that would offset costs and maintain the project’s integrity. In addition to that, NASA will develop “a revised plan that leverages innovation and proven technology,” according to their published announcement.
NASA has historically leveraged its partnerships with the private sector to save on costs. For its Artemis program, which marks NASA’s first major crewed return to the Moon since Apollo, the agency has already issued contracts for companies to launch instruments for studying the lunar environment in preparation for crews and has selected proposals for crewed Moon rovers.
MSR’s architecture shares some similarities with that of Artemis III, of which SpaceX will play a key role.
NASA is now building upon the success, and resolving issues, from 2022’s Artemis I mission. For Artemis II, four astronauts are currently in training to fly around the Moon and back as early as September 2025. Then on Artemis III, the program scales up in a whole new way.
A mobility prototype for NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission was demonstrated in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on April 11, 2023 in Pasadena, California.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES NEWS/GETTY IMAGES
SpaceX holds the contract to build the Starship human landing system for NASA, which would ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface, and then carry them back up there.
The vehicle will reach the Moon before the four Artemis III astronauts set sail there, according to NASA. Soon after the Orion capsule arrives with the crew, it will rendezvous with the SpaceX lander, and two brave explorers will get onboard to become the first people to descend to and walk on the Moon’s surface since 1972. When the week of the surface expedition ends, Starship would ferry the duo up to meet the orbital Orion capsule, which would then exit the Moon’s environment and fly the crew back to Earth
Artemis III’s sequence resembles, in part, what must happen on Mars Sample Return. Titanium tubes containing the Red Planet samples would be placed on a spacecraft that could launch them into Martian orbit. Here, another spacecraft would jet off to Earth, carrying the samples to their new home.
The Orion spacecraft, with the Moon in the distance.
“The challenges of getting off the surface of the Moon have been demonstrated already through the Apollo missions,” Dianne DeTurris, an aerospace engineer at California Polytechnic State University, tells Inverse in an email. “A vehicle got off the surface with people onboard successfully 6 times. The issues for getting on and off of Mars are similar, but the distance to travel to get there is much greater, and with that, there is a greater signal lag due to the time difference. Can it be done? Yes. Will it be done? Very likely. The technology exists already, it is just about finding a cost-effective way to execute the task.”
In February, Dreier wrote a column for The Planetary Society arguing that Starship likely wouldn’t come to MSR’s rescue. Among several reasons he cited, a November 2023 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office says the Starship human landing system for Artemis III is running into delays.
“NASA remains responsible for its own destiny,” Dreier wrote. For now, MSR and the first modern human landing seem so close — but just out of reach.
Voyager 1 Just Sent Its First Coherent Message Back to NASA In Months
A clever programming fix has cured the spacecraft's electronic aphasia.
After 5 months of electronic aphasia, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft can communicate intelligibly again, thanks to a clever programming fix from its engineers.
The Voyager 1 team received a clear message about the spacecraft’s status on April 20, and they expect to have science data flowing again in the next few weeks. This comes a few months after Voyager program manager Suzanne Dodd said restoring the spacecraft’s ability to talk to its operators on Earth would take a miracle.
“In the last decade, I have learned from Voyager that there is (almost) always a way around a problem, no matter how dire it is,” Voyager mission assurance manager Bruce Waggoner told Inverse in March. “You just have to think ‘outside the box’ when people tell you not to do so.”
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012, and this illustration shows what it might look like out there (although it’s probably a lot darker in reality).
NASA/JPL
Back in November, a passing cosmic ray hit one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, and it “flipped a bit” (or altered a tiny unit of data) in the spacecraft’s Flight Data Subsystem. This unit of data happened to be a key piece of the code that tells Voyager 1 how to package up science and engineering data, including information about its own condition, before sending the message to Earth.
Like the robot version of a person recovering from a stroke, Voyager 1 could receive and understand messages from home, and it could gather data to send back. But when it tried to “speak,” its data came out as a gibberish of random 0s and 1s.
Engineers at NASA realized that to fix the problem, they needed to reprogram Voyager 1 with the correct code. However, there wasn’t enough data storage space on the Flight Data Subsystem computer to hold it all. The programmers had to split the code into sections, which could be tucked into Voyager 1’s computer wherever there was room. Then include instructions about where to find each one.
On April 18, Voyager 1’s team transmitted the new code to the distant spacecraft. Then they waited. It took 22.5 hours for the data, moving at the speed of light, to cross more than 15 billion miles of space to reach Voyager 1, and then it took another 22.5 hours for Voyager 1’s response to cross the vastness of space and reach NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But after a tense 45 hours, on April 20, the team downloaded Voyager 1’s message: a clear, understandable status update declaring that all was well with the intrepid space robot.
The Voyager 1 team will spend the next few weeks reworking the code that packages science data, and they expect Voyager 1 to return to sending back reports from the edge of the Solar System — ones its human operators can actually read.
Meanwhile, Voyager 2, a well-behaved space robot that hasn’t been in the news lately, is still cruising out of the Solar System on its own trajectory. NASA says it hopes to keep both missions gathering data and calling home until around 2035.
Unveiling the Sky: A Closer Look at The UFOs of Soesterberg Documentary
In a world brimming with tales of the unknown, The UFOs of Soesterberg emerges as a beacon of rationality, casting a refreshing light on the enigmatic phenomenon of UFO sightings. Directed by Bram Roza, this documentary delves into a notable event in 1979, where military personnel in the Netherlands reported an unexplained aerial object. Unlike typical sensationalist narratives, Roza’s film stands out for its sober, scientific scrutiny, intertwined with a dash of dry humor, providing a compelling narrative that appeals to skeptics and believers alike.
Roza, with a background in documentary filmmaking, approaches the subject of UFOs with a unique blend of skepticism and open-mindedness. Through The UFOs of Soesterberg, he navigates the fine line between dismissing the unexplained and indulging in fantastical theories. His previous work, including the documentary about the Dutch horror movie The Johnsons, showcases his ability to engage audiences with intriguing subjects, making him a respected figure in the documentary filmmaking community.
What sets this documentary apart is not just its focus on a historical sighting by credible witnesses but also its commitment to demystifying the phenomenon. Roza’s methodical investigation, coupled with his initiative to set up a hotline for UFO sightings, exemplifies a dedication to uncovering the truth behind these mysterious occurrences. The film’s tagline, “Close Encounters of the Dutch Kind,” hints at the numerous sightings in the region, inviting viewers to explore the plausibility of each account.
The UFOs of Soesterberg refuses to offer easy answers or engage in speculation, treating its subjects—both the witnesses and the skeptics—with dignity and respect. The use of animations and drawings for re-enactments adds a visual richness to the documentary, steering clear of the talking-heads format that plagues many documentaries in this genre.
As the documentary tours the Netherlands, captivating audiences with sold-out screenings, it’s clear that Roza has struck a chord. His work not only provides a “glass of water for sane people” amidst the sea of sensationalism surrounding UFOs but also ignites a conversation about the importance of approaching the unexplained with both curiosity and critical thinking.
In the landscape of UFO-related content, The UFOs of Soesterberg stands as a testament to the power of documentary filmmaking that respects its subjects and its audience. Bram Roza’s work is a crucial addition to the discourse on UFO sightings, offering a balanced perspective that is sorely needed.
VIDEOS
Na reis van 8 miljard jaar bereikte het zonet onze aarde
Een enorme flits van radiogolven werd in 2022 aan de hemel van onze planeet gedetecteerd, en dit na een reis die maar liefst acht miljard jaar duurde. Dat blijkt uit een onlangs gepubliceerd wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Dit fenomeen, door wetenschappers een ‘snelle radio-uitbarsting’ genoemd, werd voor het eerst waargenomen in 2007 en blijft nog steeds grotendeels een mysterie.
Volgens een studie die op 19 oktober in het tijdschrift Science werd gepubliceerd, had geen van de eerder waargenomen ‘snelle radio-uitbarstingen’ (of FRB’s) een zo verre oorsprong of een kracht die vergelijkbaar is met deze die in 2022 werd bestudeerd door het ASKAP-radiotelescoopnetwerk, gevestigd in West Australië.
Ondanks de beperkte duur van slechts minder dan een milliseconde, zou deze explosie van elektromagnetische golven die acht miljard jaar geleden plaatsvond, volgens CNN een hoeveelheid energie hebben vrijgemaakt die equivalent is aan de energie die onze zon over een periode van dertig jaar heeft uitgestraald.
Sinds hun eerste detectie in 2007 zijn er ongeveer duizend FRB’s gesignaleerd, maar de precieze oorsprong van deze signalen blijft vaak onbekend. Voor de FRB die in 2022 werd gedetecteerd, gebruikten wetenschappers de European Very Large Telescope (VLT) vanuit de Atacama-woestijn in Chili. Ze slaagden erin de bron van de emissies te lokaliseren in een groep van twee of drie sterrenstelsels midden in het proces van fusie, interacties en vorming van nieuwe sterren.
Deze ontdekking lijkt de huidige theorieën te bevestigen dat snelle radio-uitbarstingen afkomstig zouden kunnen zijn van magnetars (een zeldzaam type neutronenster) of andere extreem energetische astronomische objecten die het gevolg zijn van exploderende sterren.
FRB's zijn van groot belang voor astronomen omdat hun onderzoek zou kunnen helpen bij het oplossen van andere mysteries van het universum, waaronder die van 'ontbrekende materie'.
Hubble Has Accidentally Discovered Over a Thousand Asteroids
The venerable Hubble Space Telescope is like a gift that keeps on giving. Not only is it still making astronomical discoveries after more than thirty years in operation. It is also making discoveries by accident! Thanks to an international team of citizen scientists, with the help of astronomers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and some machine learning algorithms, a new sample of over one thousand asteroids has been identified in Hubble‘s archival data. The methods used represent a new approach for finding objects in decades-old data that could be applied to other datasets as well.
The research team was led by Pablo García-Martín, a researcher with the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). It included members from the ESA, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, the University of Craiova, the Université Côte d’Azur, and Bastion Technologies. The paper that describes their findings, “Hubble Asteroid Hunter III. Physical properties of newly found asteroids,” recently appeared in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Ask any astronomers and they will tell you that asteroids are material left over from the formation of the Solar System ca. 4.5 billion years ago. These objects come in many shapes in sizes, ranging from peddle-sized rocks to planetoids. Observing these objects is challenging since they are faint and constantly in motion as they orbit the Sun. Because of its rapid geocentric orbit, Hubble can capture wandering asteroids thanks to the distinct curved trails they leave in Hubble exposures. As Hubble orbits Earth, its point of view changes while observing asteroids following their orbits.
Asteroids have also been known to “photobomb” images acquired by Hubble of distant cosmic objects like UGC 12158 (see image above). By knowing Hubble’s position when it took exposures of asteroids and measuring the curvature of the streaks they leave, scientists can determine the asteroids’ distances and estimate the shapes of their orbits. The ability to do this with large samples allows astronomers to test theories about Main Asteroid Belt formation and evolution. As Martin said in a recent ESA Hubble press release:
“We are getting deeper into seeing the smaller population of main-belt asteroids. We were surprised to see such a large number of candidate objects. There was some hint that this population existed, but now we are confirming it with a random asteroid population sample obtained using the whole Hubble archive. This is important for providing insights into the evolutionary models of our Solar System.”
According to one widely accepted model, small asteroids are fragments of larger asteroids that have been colliding and grinding each other down over billions of years. A competing theory states that small bodies formed as they appear today billions of years ago and have not changed much since. However, astronomers can offer no plausible mechanism for why these smaller asteroids would not accumulate more dust from the circumstellar disk surrounding our Sun billions of years ago (from which the planets formed).
In addition, astronomers have known for some time that collisions would have left a certain signature that could be used to test the current Main Belt population. In 2019, astronomers from the European Science and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the European Space Astronomy Center’s Science Data Center (ESDC) came together with the world’s largest and most popular citizen-science platform (Zooniverse) and Google to launch the citizen-science project Hubble Asteroid Hunter (HAH) to identify asteroids in archival Hubble data.
This graph is based on Hubble Space Telescope archival data that were used to identify a largely unseen population of very small asteroids.
Credit: NASA/ESA/P. G. Martín (AUM)/E. Wheatley (STScI)
The HAH team comprised 11,482 citizen-science volunteers who perused 37,000 Hubble images spanning 19 years. After providing nearly two million identifications, the team was given a training set for an automated algorithm to identify asteroids based on machine learning. This yielded 1,701 asteroid trails, with 1,031 corresponding to previously uncatalogued asteroids – about 400 of which were below 1 km (~1090 ft) in size. Said Martin:
“Asteroid positions change with time, and therefore you cannot find them just by entering coordinates, because they might not be there at different times. As astronomers we don’t have time to go looking through all the asteroid images. So we got the idea to collaborate with more than 10,000 citizen-science volunteers to peruse the huge Hubble archives.”
This pioneering approach may be effectively applied to datasets accumulated by other asteroid-hunting observatories, such as NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Once the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has accumulated a large enough dataset, the same method could also be applied to its archival data. As a next step, the HAH project will examine the streaks of previously unknown asteroids to characterize their orbits, rotation periods, and other properties.
Further Reading:
Will We Know if TRAPPIST-1e has Life?
The search for extrasolar planets is currently undergoing a seismic shift. With the deployment of the Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), scientists discovered thousands of exoplanets, most of which were detected and confirmed using indirect methods. But in more recent years, and with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the field has been transitioning toward one of characterization. In this process, scientists rely on emission spectra from exoplanet atmospheres to search for the chemical signatures we associate with life (biosignatures).
However, there’s some controversy regarding the kinds of signatures scientists should look for. Essentially, astrobiology uses life on Earth as a template when searching for indications of extraterrestrial life, much like how exoplanet hunters use Earth as a standard for measuring “habitability.” But as many scientists have pointed out, life on Earth and its natural environment have evolved considerably over time. In a recent paper, an international team demonstrated how astrobiologists could look for life on TRAPPIST-1e based on what existed on Earth billions of years ago.
The team consisted of astronomers and astrobiologists from the Global Systems Institute, and the Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Mathematics and Statistics, and Natural Sciences at the University of Exeter. They were joined by researchers from the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria and the Natural History Museum in London. The paper that describes their findings, “Biosignatures from pre-oxygen photosynthesizing life on TRAPPIST-1e,” will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
The TRAPPIST-1 system has been the focal point of attention ever since astronomers confirmed the presence of three exoplanets in 2016, which grew to seven by the following year. As one of many systems with a low-mass, cooler M-type (red dwarf) parent star, there are unresolved questions about whether any of its planets could be habitable. Much of this concerns the variable and unstable nature of red dwarfs, which are prone to flare activity and may not produce enough of the necessary photons to power photosynthesis.
With so many rocky planets found orbiting red dwarf suns, including the nearest exoplanet to our Solar System (Proxima b), many astronomers feel these systems would be the ideal place to look for extraterrestrial life. At the same time, they’ve also emphasized that these planets would need to have thick atmospheres, intrinsic magnetic fields, sufficient heat transfer mechanisms, or all of the above. Determining if exoplanets have these prerequisites for life is something that the JWST and other next-generation telescopes – like the ESO’s proposed Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) – are expected to enable.
But even with these and other next-generation instruments, there is still the question of what biosignatures we should look for. As noted, our planet, its atmosphere, and all life as we know it have evolved considerably over the past four billion years. During the Archean Eon (ca. 4 to 2.5 billion years ago), Earth’s atmosphere was predominantly composed of carbon dioxide, methane, and volcanic gases, and little more than anaerobic microorganisms existed. Only within the last 1.62 billion years did the first multi-celled life appear and evolve to its present complexity.
Moreover, the number of evolutionary steps (and their potential difficulty) required to get to higher levels of complexity means that many planets may never develop complex life. This is consistent with the Great Filter Hypothesis, which states that while life may be common in the Universe, advanced life may not. As a result, simple microbial biospheres similar to those that existed during the Archean could be the most common. The key, then, is to conduct searches that would isolate biosignatures consistent with primitive life and the conditions that were common to Earth billions of years ago.
This artistic conception illustrates large asteroids penetrating Earth’s oxygen-poor atmosphere.
Credit: SwRI/Dan Durda/Simone Marchi
As Dr. Jake Eager-Nash, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Victoria and the lead author of the study, explained to Universe Today via email:
“I think the Earth’s history provides many examples of what inhabited exoplanets may look like, and it’s important to understand biosignatures in the context of Earth’s history as we have no other examples of what life on other planets would look like. During the Archean, when life is believed to have first emerged, there was a period of up to around a billion years before oxygen-producing photosynthesis evolved and became the dominant primary producer, oxygen concentrations were really low. So if inhabited planets follow a similar trajectory to Earth, they could spend a long time in a period like this without biosignatures of oxygen and ozone, so it’s important to understand what Archean-like biosignatures look like.”
For their study, the team crafted a model that considered Archean-like conditions and how the presence of early life forms would consume some elements while adding others. This yielded a model in which simple bacteria living in oceans consume molecules like hydrogen (H) or carbon monoxide (CO), creating carbohydrates as an energy source and methane (CH4) as waste. They then considered how gases would be exchanged between the ocean and atmosphere, leading to lower concentrations of H and CO and greater concentrations of CH4. Said Eager-Nash:
“Archean-like biosignatures are thought to require the presence of methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor would be required as well as the absence of carbon monoxide. This is because water vapor gives you an indication there is water, while an atmosphere with both methane and carbon monoxide indicates the atmosphere is in disequilibrium, which means that both of these species shouldn’t exist together in the atmosphere as atmospheric chemistry would convert all of the one into the other, unless there is something, like life that maintains this disequilibrium. The absence of carbon monoxide is important as it is thought that life would quickly evolve a way to consume this energy source.”
Artist’s impression of Earth in the early Archean with a purplish hydrosphere and coastal regions. Even in this early period, life flourished and was gaining complexity.
Credit: Oleg Kuznetsov
When the concentration of gases is higher in the atmosphere, the gas will dissolve into the ocean, replenishing the hydrogen and carbon monoxide consumed by the simple life forms. As biologically produced methane levels increase in the ocean, it will be released into the atmosphere, where additional chemistry occurs, and different gases are transported around the planet. From this, the team obtained an overall composition of the atmosphere to predict which biosignatures could be detected.
“What we find is that carbon monoxide is likely to be present in the atmosphere of an Archean-like planet orbiting an M-Dwarf,” said Eager-Nash. “This is because the host star drives chemistry that leads to higher concentrations of carbon monoxide compared to a planet orbiting the Sun, even when you have life-consuming this [compound].”
For years, scientists have considered how a circumsolar habitable zone (CHZ) could be extended to include Earth-like conditions from previous geological periods. Similarly, astrobiologists have been working to cast a wider net on the types of biosignatures associated with more ancient life forms (such as retinal-photosynthetic organisms). In this latest study, Eager-Nash and his colleagues have established a series of biosignatures (water, carbon monoxide, and methane) that could lead to the discovery of life on Archean-era rocky planets orbiting Sun-like and red dwarf suns.
Further Reading:
Purple Bacteria — Not Green Plants — Might Be the Strongest Indication of Life
Astrobiologists continue to work towards determining which biosignatures might be best to look for when searching for life on other worlds. The most common idea has been to search for evidence of plants that use the green pigment chlorophyll, like we have on Earth. However, a new paper suggests that bacteria with purple pigments could flourish under a broader range of environments than their green cousins. That means current and next-generation telescopes should be looking for the emissions of purple lifeforms.
“Purple bacteria can thrive under a wide range of conditions, making it one of the primary contenders for life that could dominate a variety of worlds,” said Lígia Fonseca Coelho, a postdoctoral associate at the Carl Sagan Institute (CSI) and first author of “Purple is the New Green: Biopigments and Spectra of Earth-like Purple Worlds,” published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
Artist’s concept of Earth-like exoplanets, which strikes the careful balance between water and landmass.
Credit: NASA
According to NASA’s Exoplanet Archive, 5612 extrasolar planets have been found so far, as of this writing, and another 10,000 more are considered planetary candidates, but have not yet been confirmed. Of all those, there are just over 30 potentially Earth-like worlds, planets that lie in their stars’ habitable zones where conditions are conducive to the existence of liquid water on surface.
But Earth-like has a broad meaning, ranging from size, mass, composition, and various chemical makeups. While being within a star’s habitable zone certainly means there’s the potential for life, it doesn’t necessarily mean that life could have emerged there, or even if it did, the life on that world might look very different from Earth.
“While oxygenic photosynthesis gives rise to modern green landscapes, bacteriochlorophyll-based anoxygenic phototrophs can also colour their habitats and could dominate a much wider range of environments on Earth-like exoplanets,” Coelho and team wrote in their paper. “While oxygenic photosynthesis gives rise to modern green landscapes, bacteriochlorophyll-based anoxygenic phototrophs can also colour their habitats and could dominate a much wider range of environments on Earth-like exoplanets.”
The researchers characterized the reflectance spectra of a collection of purple sulfur and purple non-sulfur bacteria from a variety of anoxic and oxic environments found here on Earth in a variety of environments, from shallow waters, coasts and marshes to deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Even though these are collectively referred to as “purple” bacteria, they actually include a range of colors from yellow, orange, brown and red due to pigments — such as those that make tomatoes red and carrots orange.
These bacteria thrive on low-energy red or infrared light using simpler photosynthesis systems utilizing forms of chlorophyll that absorb infrared and don’t make oxygen. They are likely to have been prevalent on early Earth before the advent of plant-type photosynthesis, the researchers said, and could be particularly well-suited to planets that circle cooler red dwarf stars – the most common type in our galaxy.
A collection of bacteria samples in the Cornell University Space Sciences Building.
Ryan Young/Cornell University.
That means this type of bacteria might be more prevalent on more and a wider variety of exo-worlds.
On a world where these bacteria might be dominant, it would produce a distinctive “light fingerprint” detectable by future telescopes.
In their paper, Coelho and team presented models for Earth-like planets where purple bacteria might dominate the surface and show the impact of their signatures on the reflectance spectra of terrestrial exoplanets.
“Our research provides a new resource to guide the detection of purple bacteria and improves our chances of detecting life on exoplanets with upcoming telescopes,” the team wrote.
“We need to create a database for signs of life to make sure our telescopes don’t miss life if it happens not to look exactly like what we encounter around us every day,” said co-author Lisa Kaltenegger, CSI director and associate professor of astronomy at Cornell University, in a press release from Cornell.
A ‘World-Changing’ Underwater UFO—Caught on Video—Is a Legit Threat, Says Ex-Navy Officer
This is no joke.
A retired U.S. Navy admiral believes that the government should look to the oceans to help solve a mystery in the skies. Rear Admiral Timohy Gallaudet, former Oceanographer of the U.S. Navy, cited a 2019 sighting by a Navy warship as evidence that the phenomena of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unidentified submersible objects (USOs) are linked.
The sighting, recorded off the coast of San Diego, involved a hovering spherical object that appeared to abruptly enter the water.
Gallaudet made the case for studying underwater UFOs, or what the government calls unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), in a recent paper titled, “Beneath the Surface: We May Learn More about UAP by Looking in the Ocean.” Gallaudet writes that “transmedium” USOs and UAPs, defined as unidentified objects that appear to travel both in the atmosphere and the water, “jeopardize U.S. maritime security.” The retired rear admiral makes the case that the under-surveyed underwater realm is a threat to maritime security—the oceans form the bedrock of international trade and the American economy, and are where the U.S. Navy operates.
The Pentagon Has Broken Its Silence on UFOs
Gallaudet argues that the lack of knowledge about the undersea world poses hazards for submarines such as collisions with other submarines—such as the independent crashes of the submarines USS San Francisco and USS Connecticut, both of which were incidents that resulted in severe damage to the ships and one crew fatality—and undetected underwater seamounts. Further study of this realm, he believes, could shed additional light on these UFO/UAP sightings.
One incident to which Gallaudet points in particular is a July 19, 2019 encounter between the Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Omaha and a so-called transmedium UAP. In the incident, the crew of the Omaha (sailing off the coast of San Diego) used their AN/KAX-2 electro-optical sensor to record a spherical UAP hovering just over the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The AN/KAX-2 is a stabilized sensor turret built for maritime environments that includes a digital video camera, night vision camera, and laser rangefinder.
The video, seen here, is a recording of a screen showing the output of the AN/KAX-2. The video appears to have been taken with the night vision camera, which uses imaging infrared to record objects in darkness. The object seemingly moves, tracked by the sensor operator, and then stops to hover. The object stops and hovers a short distance above the surface of the ocean. At the end, the object disappears, with sailors remarking that it made a splash as it entered the water. Meanwhile, one sailor off camera radios the other ships in the area—the guided missile destroyers Pinckney, Kidd, and Rafael Peralta—asking for a MH-60 helicopter to be launched as soon as possible.
J Allen Hynek: The Man Who Made Us Watch the Skies
The video was leaked to UFO investigator Jeremy Corbell Lockyer, and was later verified as genuine by the Navy. A search of the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (the Pentagon’s web site for releasing official photos and video) shows three of the warships in the encounter—Pinckney, Kidd, and Omaha—in formation in the Eastern Pacific six days later, on July 25.
Gallaudet also references another sighting from 2013, spotted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel. The sighting—which took place near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico—was filmed using a similar imaging infrared camera. The video, shown here, depicts another spherical object appearing to enter the water and then re-emerge without losing any speed. The retired admiral writes, “Over three minutes, the object appears to fly at speeds between 40 and 120 miles per hour, enter and exit the Atlantic Ocean without any significant deceleration, reach a maximum underwater velocity of 95 miles per hour, and at one point split into two parts before entering the water again.”
Other possible evidence cited by the admiral includes an incident in 2022, in which the NOAA underwater exploration ship Okeanos Explorer discovered an unusual series of holes on the North Atlantic seafloor at a depth of 1.6 miles. The centimeter-sized holes were in an unusually straight line and scientists are apparently at a loss to explain their origin.
Ufology: From Fringe Field to Serious Science
Gallaudet entered the U.S. Navy in 1989 after attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Gallaudet, according to his official biography, received “masters and doctoral degrees in oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1991 and 2001 respectively.” He served with a number of naval oceanography and meteorology commands, and was superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory. He assumed command of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command in 2014, and served as Oceanographer of the Navy from 2016 until retirement in 2017.
After his Navy career, Gallaudet served for two years as acting administrator in charge of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, he sits on the advisory board for Americans for Safe Aerospace, which describes itself as a “nonprofit organization dedicated to aerospace safety and national security with a focus on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).” ASA is led by Ryan Graves, a former U.S. naval aviator who reports having his own UAP sighting on active duty in 2014. In a 2023 op-ed published in The Hill, Gallaudet called UAPs the “story of the century,” and clearly did not rule out an extraterrestrial cause for them.
It’s rare for a high-ranking U.S. military officer to directly address UAP issues, even in retirement, and the incidents Gallaudet calls attention to are unusual, to say the least. Barring flat-out hoaxing by military and civilian government personnel, the videos and photographic evidence are not easily explained. Whether this will result in greater research to the same extent as the UFO/UAP issue remains to be seen.
Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.
The Alien Reactor: Insights from Bob Lazar’s Discussion with Joe Rogan
In an eye-opening episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Bob Lazar, a figure notorious for his claims about advanced technology and extraterrestrial elements, delves into the existence of what he describes as an “alien reactor.” His detailed conversation with host Joe Rogan sheds light on the mysterious technology that supposedly defies the fundamental laws of physics as we understand them today.
Bob Lazar, who first came into the public eye in the late 1980s after claiming to have worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology at a site called S-4 (near the infamous Area 51), discusses his experiences with a technology that seems to originate from beyond our world. According to Lazar, the reactor operates on an unknown element, which later discussions in the scientific community would relate to the hypothetical Element 115, ununpentium. This element purportedly enables the reactor to generate power without the byproduct of heat, contradicting the first law of thermodynamics which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that heat is a typical byproduct of energy conversion.
The absence of heat emission from the reactor is a profound anomaly. In traditional physics, any device that utilizes energy—like the simplest electrical device to complex industrial machinery—inevitably produces heat as a form of energy waste. Lazar’s claim that the alien reactor remains at ambient temperature regardless of the power it exerts is particularly fascinating because it suggests a form of energy efficiency completely unknown to current technological capabilities.
During the podcast, Lazar describes how he and his colleagues conducted numerous tests to understand the reactor’s capabilities. From attempting to measure magnetic fields that were non-existent to using infrared cameras that required liquid nitrogen for cooling due to their sensitivity, the tests consistently demonstrated the extraordinary nature of the reactor. Lazar reflects on how these tests not only challenged his understanding of physics but also left him perplexed about the fundamental operating principles of the device.
Lazar also recounted observations of the reactor’s operational tests, including how the craft, powered by the reactor, could lift off the ground silently, only producing a faint corona discharge—a type of electrical discharge—accompanied by a subtle hissing sound that ceased once the craft was airborne. This capability suggests a technology capable of controlled, noiseless flight, which is a stark contrast to conventional propulsion systems that are typically loud and produce significant physical disruptions such as air displacement and heat.
The discussion on Joe Rogan’s podcast not only revisits Lazar’s claims but also reignites interest in the broader implications of such technology. If true, the existence of an alien reactor and the technology surrounding it could revolutionize our understanding of energy, propulsion, and perhaps the very fabric of physical laws. Moreover, it raises questions about the origins of such technology, its custodians, and the purposes for its use, whether past or present.
VIDEO
Bob Lazar’s account, controversial and debated, continues to stir both skepticism and fascination. Whether one views his claims as a peek into covert technological marvels or as fanciful tales, they undeniably enrich the ongoing dialogue between science and the speculative realms of UFOlogy and extraterrestrial technology. As science advances and our capabilities to test and understand unknown materials improve, perhaps the truth behind Lazar’s claims will one day come to light, offering new insights into a universe that remains profoundly mysterious.
Mysterious Aerial Phenomena Over Langley Air Force Base: New Insights from Exclusive Footage
In a recent and unprecedented event, new video footage has surfaced, showing unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) swarming over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. This footage, obtained exclusively by NewsNation, highlights a significant and baffling aerial display that took place in December last year, capturing the attention of military and aviation experts, as well as the public.
The video was introduced to the public on NewsNation’s morning show “Morning in America,” where Ross Coulthart, a special correspondent, discussed its implications. The footage was captured by Jonathan Butner, a local observer, who managed to film what appeared to be multiple drone-like objects hovering over one of the United States’ most critical military installations.
The objects captured in the footage resemble drones but display characteristics that are not typical of conventional drone technology. According to Butner, the objects were approximately the size of a car, lacked visible propulsion systems, and moved with precision over the base. This has led to intense speculation about the technology behind these objects, as well as their origin and purpose.
Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot and the founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace, was also featured in the broadcast. He emphasized the need for a systematic approach to reporting such sightings, especially to understand better and mitigate any potential threats these UAPs might pose to national security.
The incident at Langley has not gone unnoticed by U.S. government officials. It has been the subject of congressional hearings, with questions directed towards military leaders about the security of sensitive airspace and the capabilities in place to monitor and respond to such intrusions. Senator Mark Kelly, in one such hearing, probed the adequacy of current defense measures and the apparent ease with which these UAPs infiltrated a highly secure military zone.
The appearance of UAPs at Langley is part of a larger pattern of similar incidents at key military installations across the United States. The discussion around these events has moved beyond simple curiosity and entered realms of national security, technological assessment, and international relations. The speculation ranges from advanced adversarial surveillance technology to domestic or even unknown entities testing the boundaries of current aerospace capabilities.
As the authorities work to understand the nature and origin of these UAPs, the incident underscores the need for advancements in aerospace monitoring and defense technologies. It also highlights the importance of creating a supportive environment for pilots and military personnel to report their observations without fear of retribution or stigma.
This ongoing situation presents a complex puzzle that combines elements of technology, security, and policy. As more information becomes available, it will be crucial to address these phenomena with a comprehensive strategy that ensures the safety and security of national airspace. The development of such strategies will likely be a topic of robust discussion and action in the coming months, as the U.S. government and military seek to reassure the public and safeguard the nation’s interests.
There is DVD of US Intelligence Members Communicating with Extraterrestrials, Former US Military Claims
Former US intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress during the July 2023 UAP hearing, stating that we have numerous spacecraft of non-human origin. If this is the case, one might wonder if any contact has been established between humans and these extraterrestrial species. There have been persistent rumors suggesting that the US government may have signed treaties with these extraterrestrials and has been engaged in collaborative efforts with them over an extended period.
According to a rather extraordinary claim made by former US government consultant Timothy Good, it is alleged that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had three clandestine meetings with extraterrestrials. Good claimed Eisenhower met aliens at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954. In more recent times, former Israeli Space Head Haim Eshed stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars. Eshed went on to claim the existence of a “Galactic Federation” and implied that then-President Trump was on the brink of making significant revelations in this regard.
During a podcast with former Fox News anchor Clayton Morris on his show Redacted, Joshua Reid, a former United States Navy serviceman with a background in missile weapons defense systems, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. He opened the conversation by referencing his personal experiences in the Navy, specifically during the years 2004 to 2006. Reid’s background made him intimately familiar with topics related to secret space projects, a subject that has piqued his interest for over two and a half decades.
It is worth noting that Joshua Reid’s extensive research in the field of UAPs and classified information has led him to the inner workings of certain government activities. His extensive four-year investigation revealed a disconcerting pattern. It appeared that military technology, particularly in special access programs, was unintentionally making its way to foreign adversaries, including China. This exchange of classified information seemed to involve universities and professors who were receiving grants to reverse engineer technologies from these programs.
The remarkable twist in this story was that Hillary Clinton’s emails were potentially facilitating the sale of this classified information to China and other foreign entities. China would fund universities, enticing professors to divulge information on special access programs. This enabled them to advance their technology rapidly, potentially reaching parity with the United States.
Former Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III, well-versed in these special access programs, played a crucial role in this unfolding drama. He represented David Grusch and became a central figure in the whistleblower saga. According to Reid, multiple whistleblowers were involved, with two possessing firsthand information and tangible evidence. The fear of repercussions led these individuals to testify in front of congressmen, notably, Indiana Congressman André Carson. However, it was not until these whistleblowers presented video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials that congressmen took their claims seriously.
The impact of these videos was profound. Congressmen were visibly shaken, with one trembling and another drinking water profusely. This sudden shift in demeanor signified that the evidence was both extraordinary and unsettling. The whistleblowers were introduced to Inspector General McCullough, who had an extensive background in the very special access programs at the center of the controversy.
“I’ve heard that we can confirm this later, but from what I’m hearing, André Carson is this Congressman that they testified in front of, along with a few others. The Congressman didn’t take these guys seriously, but what ended up happening is they pulled out the evidence, a DVD, and they showed these congressmen video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials. After these videos were shown to congressmen, they were noticeably shaken in fear. One of them was holding a piece of paper and could not stop shaking. Another was drinking water profusely, and this is when they began to take this very, very seriously and introduce these gentlemen to the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, McCullough. Hence, he enters the picture as someone who understands these SAP programs, has been read into these programs from back in the day, and is now representing these gentlemen.”
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He posed the question of where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He asked Reid where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
One of the prominent UFO researchers who has been sharing insider knowledge on UAPs is investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. It is quite uncertain if Coulthart possesses this DVD evidence but he did reveal that there exists a huge UFO in the possession of the United States that cannot be moved, and he knows the location of the craft. Ross mentioned the existence of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth for a long time and the recovery of certain objects, but he could not disclose specific details due to concerns about revealing advanced technologies.
Read also:
In a recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” host Andy engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Ross. The discussion centered around the secrecy surrounding UFO sightings and government knowledge. Ross, who has deep insights into the matter, shared his perspective on why certain details remain undisclosed.
Andy began by addressing a critical question that has been on the minds of many UFO enthusiasts: the location of the mysterious craft. He asked Ross whether he could reveal where the craft was being held.
Ross responded: “Let me tell you, I can’t tell you the country it’s in; it’s not America. But what I can tell you is that the place where it is kept is used for another purpose that is a laudatory purpose that’s as much in your interests in your country in the UK as it is in mine in Australia and as it is in America. The simple reasons are that there are other uses for the place where this object is stored, and we could end up with a storm Area 51-type scenario if you came out and announced it.”
Ross went on to explain the potential consequences of revealing such information, including international incidents and threats to the safety of personnel at the facilities. He also emphasized the importance of protecting sources, drawing on his experience as a journalist dealing with sensitive intelligence.
Interestingly, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the July 2023 Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company, which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology.
According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.
The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.
Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.
Sprague wrote, “Date 4 – May 19, 2022, Biden is now in Alaska and stopped off to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This video is the most incredible of all. Biden meets with three of the Ganzi. Biden puts a small device in his ear and a conversation occurs without sound. The video lasts for nine minutes and then four people enter the area. One of the people is John Podesta. The other three are unknown. The beings leave and the video ends. In September of 2022, Biden names Podesta as the Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. December 14, 2022, America has a breakthrough in fusion. To achieve this scientific feat – a laser is used. This laser has ‘unique’ properties.” (Source)
Sprague’s claims cannot be verified; however, it is certain that there exists an alien craft, and the United States has successfully accessed its interior. Dr. James Lacatski, a retired DIA intelligence officer who established the UFO program that operated from 2008 to 2010, has confirmed this. He stated that the craft possesses a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but lacks conventional features such as an engine, wings, intakes, exhaust, or fuel tanks.
Terry Lovelace Alien Abduction Is Most Convincing UFO Encounter With Biological Evidence
The UFO phenomenon is known for its widespread occurrence and its impact on witnesses from diverse backgrounds. UFO sightings have been reported by individuals in various high-profile positions, and it is their accounts that capture people’s attention. One such noteworthy incident happened with Terry Lovelace whose account grabbed the attention of Lue Elizondo.
Terry Lovelace, a retired assistant attorney general and lawyer, who served as a media and EMT in the United States Air Force from 1973 to 1979, claims that an extraterrestrial craft took him. Lovelace claims to be repeatedly abducted by aliens, fitted with a tracking device and experimented on.
In 1973, Lovelace joined the U.S. Air Force immediately after graduating from high school. He received training as a medic/EMT and was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which was previously called Sedalia Air Force Base. The base served as a B-2 bomber base and missile base and was home to the 351st Strategic Missile Wing, with many Minuteman II nuclear-armed ICBM silos scattered across the rural area.
Lovelace was assigned as a base medic and drove an ambulance during the graveyard shift from 11 PM to 8 AM along with his partner, who he referred to as “Toby.” One night in January 1975, while on their regular shift, they were outside the ambulance stargazing when Toby, an amateur astronomer, pointed out the constellations and planets. Typically, their shifts were uneventful, but that night turned out to be very significant, altering the course of their lives.
Lovelace (now 69) went camping with Toby at Devil’s Den state park in northern Arkansas. While conversing near a crackling fire, they had difficulty hearing each other due to the loud sounds of crickets and tree frogs. Suddenly, an eerie silence enveloped them. “That sounds kind of clichéd – out of a movie – but that is exactly what happened to us,” he said.
As they gazed toward the horizon, three bright UFOs emerged and advanced in their direction. As the lights drew closer, the two partners could see that they were emanating from a black triangular prism as wide as two city blocks.
Alien sketch by Terry Lovelace
Lovelace noticed a blue laser beam rapidly moving across them, possibly scanning their presence. Soon after it stopped, they lost consciousness. Upon awakening, he noticed Toby gazing outside the tent, and spotted a triangle-shaped object hovering above a group of approximately twelve children who were standing in a meadow below them. Lovelace questioned, “Why are these children out here at this time of night?”
“They aren’t little kids. Don’t you remember they took us and they hurt us?” Toby answered.
According to Lovelace, when Toby uttered those words, he experienced a sudden recall of memories of being inside a UFO. In later years, he resorted to hypnosis to recover his missing memories. Through one of these sessions, Lovelace recollected an incident where he had been taken aboard a spacecraft and subjected to medical experimentation by peculiar entities.
Those entities were humanoid forms, but their characteristics were distorted and almost non-human. They communicated with each other through telepathy and seemed to be performing a medical procedure on Lovelace. During his hypnosis sessions, Lovelace experienced flashes of memory where he was on an examination table and screaming, but no sound was coming out of his mouth. He could hear telepathic messages in his head, urging him to stop screaming because they did not intend to harm him and would take him back.
Lovelace said that they had a terrible experience that left their skin red and sore like a bad sunburn all over their body, even the soles of their feet. They had to go to the hospital at the base for two days because they were very dehydrated.
While they were there, they were questioned many times by some men who said they were from the “Office of Special Investigations.” They searched his home and car for a camera that Lovelace said he did not have, but they did not believe him. They also told him not to see his partner Toby again, who was sent to another base. The whole experience made Lovelace have nightmares and affected him mentally for a long time.
Read also:
Terry Lovelace was profoundly disturbed by his encounter and left with numerous unanswered queries. Subsequently, he authored a book titled “Incident at Devils Den: A True Story,” with the intention of uncovering the facts about extraterrestrial abductions and inspiring others to share their experiences.
During a routine X-ray of his leg in 2012, a foreign object was discovered in his leg above the knee. The X-ray revealed an artificial object, about the size of a fingernail, with two wires attached, which the radiologist believed resembled an “RFID compute device.” The radiologist also noticed a collection of foreign objects in his’s calf muscle and was surprised that there was no corresponding scar in the skin. This discovery led Lovelace to recall a traumatic event from 1977 that they had never intended to disclose to anyone.
The most astonishing aspect of this discovery was that there were no signs of incision or surgery on Lovelace’s leg, and the radiologist who detected the object claimed that an absent scar would mean Lovelace was born with this thing in his leg.
On his personal blog, Lovelace writes:
“September of 2017, I was a guest speaker at a UFO event in Houston. It was my first public appearance and opportunity to speak candidly on the topic of alien abduction. This was the time when I decided to write a book. It’s an important topic. We deserve to be informed and not mislead.
I fear we’ve been desensitized about the UFO phenomena by the media especially the motion picture industry. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in November 1977. my experience happened in June that same year. Now, YouTube provides a flood of valid information mixed with confabulation and deception. Know the truth. Alien’s really exist and some live and walk among us without so much as a second look. There are probably many species from different worlds or different dimensions here on Earth today.
Terry Lovelace with former AATIP manager Luis “Lue” Elizondo, late June, 2019.
Credit: Terry Lovelace
Some aliens may actually be our ‘benign space brothers’ as some have claimed. Here to join hands and walk mankind into a new era of peace and higher consciousness. Maybe so, but not the ones we met. The beings we met were monsters. They kidnap people and subject them to terror and brutality in pursuit of their agenda. They are 100% purpose-driven and void of empathy for human or animal suffering. We are their lab rats. Once you’re tagged as their specimen you’re tagged for a lifetime. Like a wild animal on the Serengeti Plane.”
Five years ago, Terry Lovelace published a book that caused significant issues, leading to a year-long harassment incident over his home outside Dallas. Lovelace reports that following the book’s publicity, military aircraft, including two and four-seaters, as well as Airbus 350s with no registered “N” numbers, flew over his house. These aircraft, which were drab-olive in color, were spotted making flyovers at least twice a week, often every day. Lovelace captured many photos of the incidents, including one that appears to show a UFO in the same frame as one of the intruding aircraft.
After publishing a book about his experience, Lovelace received a call from Tom DeLonge, founder of To The Stars Academy, along with General Neil McCasland and Lue Elizondo, who were interested in the X-rays of Lovelace’s leg, which had been injured during the encounter.
Bill Cox writes:
“I can attest to the fact that TTSA was interested in speaking with Terry regarding possible biological effects that he may have suffered,” states former AATIP manager Elizondo in an email. “Biological effects (are) a potential serious aspect of what we studied in AATIP and we now know that certain elements with the U.S. Government are equally concerned as we were. If Terry is suffering any medical consequences as a result of an alleged encounter with a UAP while serving in the military, then he deserves medical care.
“It is my experience that helicopters of unknown utility have been reported by certain individuals. It is not yet known if this is some sort of intentional harassment or simply a matter of being near a congested flight corridor. Obviously, flying a helicopter is expensive and logistically intense if this were some sort of campaign to intimidate individuals on a regular basis. We would need to do additional research to better determine the nature of these incidents,” he added, “before making any sort of proclamation.
“Terry is a good person who is also credible. I believe Terry and others are convinced their experiences are legitimate.”
ISS live stream camera tracks two unknown objects until they lost them
Mysterious Skies: A Close Encounter in Yakutat, Alaska
In the remote coastal village of Yakutat, Alaska, nestled within the enigmatic expanse known as the Alaska Triangle, residents have reported a startling increase in unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings. This area, notorious for its mysterious disappearances totaling over 16,000 since 1988, has long been a focal point for those interested in paranormal phenomena. Recently, several locals have come forward with footage and personal testimonies of an unusual incident involving bizarre aerial maneuvers that challenge conventional explanations.
One of the key witnesses, Nick Pavlik, a commercial driver and fisherman from Yakutat, shared his unnerving experience from a cold morning in December 2019. According to Nick, the peacefulness of the early hours was shattered by an inexplicable sighting. Awakening to the sound of raindrops, he ventured outside to investigate and captured on camera what he describes as sporadic, blinking lights moving erratically above the treeline. The sighting left him with an unsettling feeling, a sentiment echoed by others in the community.
Nick’s girlfriend, Tessa Marie Devereaux, also witnessed the strange phenomena. Stirred from sleep by Nick, Tessa joined him to observe the unsettling spectacle. Her account adds to the eerie nature of the incident, noting that the object seemed to respond with a bright blue flash when she acknowledged its presence. This interactive element of the sighting raises more questions than answers about the intentions and origins of these mysterious visitors.
Cranston Negus, another Yakutat local, corroborated these accounts. Having received a text from Nick about the sighting, Cranston met up to view the footage and later observed the same unusual movements in the sky, describing them as unlike anything he had ever seen. The object’s ability to maneuver at right angles and its sudden flashes of color were particularly baffling.
The sightings in Yakutat do not seem to be isolated incidents. Within days, another local, Quinn Newland, and his mother witnessed a similar phenomenon. While observing the night sky, they noticed what appeared to be a planet moving irregularly, further complicating the community’s attempts to understand these mysterious events.
These continuous and corroborated sightings from multiple angles suggest a pattern that has intrigued both locals and UFO enthusiasts alike. The Yakutat incidents contribute to the larger discussion surrounding UFO sightings globally and underscore the need for further investigation. Whether these are mere atmospheric anomalies, top-secret aircraft tests, or indeed visitations from extraterrestrial beings remains a subject of debate and fascination.
As the residents of Yakutat continue to gaze skyward, their experiences serve as a reminder of the vast unknowns that still exist in our world and beyond. With each new report, the intrigue surrounding the Alaska Triangle deepens, inviting both skepticism and wonder in the quest to unravel the truth behind these celestial mysteries.
What’s the Most Effective Way to Explore our Nearest Stars?
It was 1903 that the Wright brothers made the first successful self-propelled flight. Launching themselves to history, they set the foundations for transatlantic flights, supersonic flight and perhaps even the exploration of the Solar System. Now we are on the precipice of travel among the stars but among the many ideas and theories, what is the ultimate and most effective way to explore our nearest stellar neighbours? After all, there are 10,000 stars within a region of 110 light years from Earth so there are plenty to choose from.
It’s not just the stars that entice us to explore beyond our Solar System. Ever since the first exoplanet discovery in 1992 we have been discovering more and more alien worlds around distant stars. The tally has now reached over 5,500 confirmed exoplanets and they too demand our attention as we reach out among the stars. There have been many ideas and technologies proposed over the past few years but to date, even Proxima Centauri (the nearest star system to our own) remains out of reach.
In his thesis recently published, lead author Johannes Lebert from the Technische Universität München (TUM) attempts to develop a strategy, based on existing interstellar probe concepts and knowledge of nearby star systems. Lebert was driven by the exoplanet discoveries that continue at pace and the development and interest, both commercially and technically in interstellar probes. Not only does he explore the technologies but he also looks at the returns too.
Artist’s illustration of HD 104067 b, which is the outermost exoplanet in the HD 104067 system, and responsible for potentially causing massive tidal energy on the innermost exoplanet candidate, TOI-6713.01.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
In the strategy developed in the thesis he looks at the two main objectives which are duration of the mission and the returns. By returns he refers to the sum of all rewards provided by the stars explored during the mission and of course be largely scientific. He considers a multi vehicle approach using several probes which do not return to Earth and are capable of exploring different stars thereby maximising the mission returns. Finally he explores the routing of such a mission to ensure maximum mission returns. Succinctly he calls this his ‘Bi-objective multi- vehicle open routing problem with profits.’
The thesis concludes with several recommendation. First that the use of efficient routing around the stars, a more limited number of probes can be used, limiting reducing fuel costs. This should be balanced by the mission returns which increase faster should more probes be used to explore the same number of stars simultaneously. This does however increase mission costs due to increase fuel costs. Whichever strategy is used, small-scale remotely operated or autonomous craft are far more suited to the need.
Lebert goes on to explain that higher probe numbers also brings the benefit that probes can be tailored to suit the star systems they are destined to explore. Unlike a smaller number of probes that will have to cater for a greater range of systems. There is a concept known as the ‘derived scaling law’ which articulates that higher probe numbers do inherit a risk of less efficient deployment.
It’s an interesting read that reminds us that, whilst we are developing the probes, and there are quite a number on the drawing board; Breakthrough Starshot, Interstellar Express, Interstellar Probe, Innovative Interstellar Explorer, Tau Mission to name a few, we do need to consider just how we plan, manage and deploy to maximise the scientific gain.
Source :
Juno Reveals a Giant Lava Lake on Io
NASA’s Juno spacecraft came within 1,500 km (930 miles) of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Io in two recent flybys. That’s close enough to reveal new details on the surface of this moon, the most volcanic object in the Solar System. Not only did Juno capture volcanic activity, but scientists were also able to create a visual animation from the data that shows what Io’s 200-km-long lava lake Loki Patera would look like if you could get even closer. There are islands at the center of a magma lake rimmed with hot lava. The lake’s surface is smooth as glass, like obsidian.
“Io is simply littered with volcanoes, and we caught a few of them in action,” said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton during a news conference at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. “There is amazing detail showing these crazy islands embedded in the middle of a potentially magma lake rimmed with hot lava. The specular reflection our instruments recorded of the lake suggests parts of Io’s surface are as smooth as glass, reminiscent of volcanically created obsidian glass on Earth.”
This animation is an artist’s concept of Loki Patera, a lava lake on Jupiter’s moon Io, made using data from the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. With multiple islands in its interior, Loki is a depression filled with magma and rimmed with molten lava. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSSJust imagine if you could stand by the shores of this lake – which would be a stunning view in itself. But then, you could look up and see the giant Jupiter looming in the skies above you.
Juno made the two close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024. Images from Juno’s JunoCam included the first close-up images of the moon’s northern latitudes. Undoubtedly, Io looks like a pizza – which has been the conclusion since our first views of this moon, when Voyager 1 flew through the Jupiter system in March 1979. The mottled and colorful surface comes from the volcanic activity, with hundreds of vents and calderas on the surface that create a variety of features. Volcanic plumes and lava flows across the surface show up in all sorts of colors, from red and yellow to orange and black. Some of the lava “rivers” stretch for hundreds of kilometers.
Io’s sub-Jovian hemisphere is revealed in detail for the first time since Voyager 1 flew through the Jupiter system in March 1979, during the Juno spacecraft’s 58th perijove, or close pass, on February 3, 2024. This image shows Io’s nightside illuminated by sunlight reflected off Jupiter’s cloud tops. Several surface changes are visible include a reshaping of the compound flow field at Kanehekili (center left) and a new lava flow to the east of Kanehekili. This image has a pixel scale of 1.6 km/pixel.
Credit : NASA/SwRI/JPL/MSSS/Jason Perry.
Juno scientists were also able to re-create a spectacular feature on Io, a spired mountain that has been nicknamed “The Steeple.” This feature is between 5 and 7 kilometers (3-4.3 miles) in height. It’s hard to comprehend the type of volcanic activity that could have created such a stunning landform.
Created using data collected by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno during flybys in December 2023 and February 2024, this animation is an artist’s concept of a feature on the Jovian moon Io that the mission science team nicknamed “Steeple Mountain.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSSSpeaking of volcanic activity, two recent papers have come to a jaw-dropping conclusion about Io: this moon has been erupting since the dawn of the Solar System.
All the volcanic on Io is activity is driven by tidal heating. Io is in an orbital resonance with two other large moons of Jupiter, Europa and Ganymede.
“Every time Ganymede orbits Jupiter once, Europa orbits twice, and Io orbits four times,” explained the authors of a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, led by Ery Hughes of GNS Science in New Zealand. “This situation causes tidal heating in Io (like how the Moon causes ocean tides on Earth), which causes the volcanism.”
However, scientists haven’t known how long this resonance has been occurring and whether what we observe today is what has always been happening in the Jupiter system. This is because volcanism renews Io’s surface almost constantly, leaving little trace of the past.
Jupiter’s orbital system with the host planet and orbits to scale.
Image credit: James Tuttle Keane / Keck Institute for Space Studies
The team of scientists, led by Katherine de Kleer at Caltech and Hughes at GNS Science used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile observe the sulphur gases in Io’s atmosphere. The isotopes of sulfur were used as a tracer of tidal heating on Io because sulfur is released through volcanism, processed in the atmosphere, and recycled into the mantle. Additionally, some of the sulfur is lost to space, and because of Jupiter’s magnetosphere, a bunch of charged particles whirling around Jupiter that hit Io’s atmosphere continuously.
It turns out that the sulfur that is lost to space on Io is a little bit isotopically lighter than the sulfur that is recycled back into Io’s interior. Because of this, over time, the sulfur remaining on Io gets isotopically heavier and heavier. How much heavier depends on how long volcanism has been taking place.
What the teams found is that tidal heating on Io has been occurring for billions of years.
“The isotopic composition of Io’s inventory of volatile chemical elements, including sulfur and chlorine, reflects its outgassing and mass loss history, and thus records information about its evolution,” the team wrote in the paper published in Science. “These results indicate that Io has been volcanically active for most (or all) of its history, with potentially higher outgassing and mass-loss rates at earlier times.”
Juno continues to makes its way through the Jupiter system. And during Juno’s most recent flyby of Io, on April 9, the spacecraft came within about 16,500 kilometers (10,250 miles) of the moon’s surface. It will perform its 61st flyby of Jupiter on May 12.
JunoCam is a public camera, where members of the public can choose targets for imaging, as well as process all the data. JunoCam’s raw images are available here for the public to peruse and process into image products. Here you can see the most recent images that have been processed.
Papers:
Further Reading:
Mystery of the 140,000-year-old Baltic Sea Anomaly may have finally been solved amid UFO claims
A mysterious object found on the floor of the Baltic Sea has baffled explorers for years (
The Baltic Sea Anomaly was discovered over a decade ago by divers looking for treasure, but it remained a mystery for years as to why and how it got to the bottom of the ocean
The truth about a strange, unexplained object lying on the floor of the Baltic Sea that prompted UFO claims may have finally been revealed.
The Baltic Sea Anomaly is said to be over 140,000 years old and is thought by some to be formed out of straight and angular pieces of metal. Discovered by divers who were originally searching for a shipwreck, the object has puzzled viewers for years as no one knows for sure what it is or how it got there.
Swedish explorers Peter Lindberg and Denis Asberg were in the northern Baltic Sea as part of the Ocean X team in June 2011, looking for treasure, when their sonar radars detected the 70ft long Millennium Falcon-looking piece in the canyon of an underwater mountain in the Gulf of Bothnia.
Asberg told TV4 in Sweden at the time: “We were really surprised and puzzled. We were thinking what is that we have found here. This is not a wreck. At that time we thought for sure there was a natural explanation.
"We wanted to look into it some more and decided to keep this totally quiet. We contacted geologists, marine biologists and when they said they had never seen anything like this, of course more thoughts were triggered. It could be something really awesome that we’ve found."
Adding to the mystery of the structure, the explorers explained that there appears to be a long "stair-like formations" leading to a dark hole and another unknown object around 200m away.
The enigmatic nature of the discovery prompted wide speculation with some guessing it could be the remains of the lost underwater city of Atlanta, a rouge member of an alien UFO fleet that crashed on the sea bed or some kind of anti-submarine device left over from the Second World War.
Despite its resemblance to a large rock, some scientists have said that it's not made of natural materials and is in fact constructed of metal. Even more mysteriously, electrical and satellite equipment reportedly cuts out when in close proximity to the object, according to Ocean X diver Stefan Hogerborn.
He said: "Anything electric out there, and the satellite phone as well, stopped working when we were above the object, then when we got away about 200 metres, it turned on again.
Sat nearly 300ft below the surface, the Ocean X team continued to explore the object for years after its discovery, including returning to the scene to produce a documentary in 2016 and taking samples from the site with the intention to find out the truth behind it. However, others have attempted to end speculation, claiming it is simply a natural, geological formation.
Volker Brüchert, a Stockholm University geologist, reportedly studied some of the samples collected by the team and said: "What has been generously ignored by the Ocean-X team is that most of the samples they have brought up from the sea bottom are granites and gneisses and sandstones."
He believed there is nothing mysterious about it, saying: "I was surprised when I researched the material I found a great black stone that could be a volcanic rock. My hypothesis is that this object, this structure was formed during the Ice Age many thousands of years ago." Göran Ekberg, a marine archaeologist at Maritime Museum in Stockholm, said: "A natural, geological formation can't be ruled out. I agree the finding looks weird since it's completely circular. But nature has produced stranger things than that."
Research undertaken by the Stockholm University later established that the Baltic Sea anomaly is the remains of a process of glacial movements that took place in that area of the ocean in the Ice Age period and could account for how the object reached its location.
Five UFO abduction cases that could FINALLY be solved - as new study investigates 30-years' worth of evidence
Roughly 100 alien abduction cases spanning over the past 30 years are set to be investigated by scientists with hopes of unraveling the mysterious experiences.
Researchers at Rice University in Texas plan to analyze a trove of archives consisting of thousands of documents in the form of books, journals, photographs, slides, reports, meeting notes and letters.
The cases include the famous story of Betty and Barney Hill, a New Hampshire couple who say they were abducted in 1961 while driving up a mountain.
Other cases include one that inspired a new Netflix show - the Pascagoula abduction.
Roughly 100 alien abductions spanning over the past 30 years are set to be investigated by scientists with hopes of unraveling the mysterious experiences
The 'Archive of the Impossible' at Rice University plays host to material from Jacques Vallee (whose work inspired Steven Spielberg's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind') and author Whitley Streiber, who claimed to have been abducted by aliens in his 1987 book Communion among hundreds of other abduction stories.
1. The Pascagoula abduction
Featured in the new Netflix series 'Files of the Unexplained', the Mississippi abduction of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker occurred happened in 1973.
The two men reported to the sheriff's department that they had been abducted by aliens while fishing - and each appeared with a puncture wound in their arm.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed to have been abducted in 1973
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed to have been abducted in 1973
As UFO's blue lights flashed and it descended closer to the marshland below, three, five-foot grey 'wrinkled-skin creatures' with 'pincer-like' claws (illustrated above) seized the two men — subjecting to them to examination, according to Parker, 'just like any doctor would'
Both men passed polygraph tests when interviewed about their experiences - and it appeared their stories matched.
The two men reported being manipulated by aliens with pincer-like claws and experimented on.
Hickson told The Washington Post, 'I was just getting ready to get some more bait, when I heard a kind of zipping sound. I looked up and saw a blue flashing light. Calvin turned around too.
'We saw a 30-foot-long object with a little dome on top.'
Detectives secretly left a tape recorder running to catch the men out but they did not 'drop the act' once police left the room.
Another witness, Maria Blair, recently gave video testimony that was obtained by DailyMail.com, which appeared to corroborate the men's story.
2. Whitley Strieber
Science fiction and horror writer Whitley Strieber's abduction story in his 1987 non-fiction book Communion has become one of the iconic stories of alien abduction.
The cover image of the book, showing a slender, almond-eyed alien is an iconic image of what UFO fans refer to as 'grey' aliens.
Science fiction and horror writer Whitley Strieber
Christopher Walken in the film Communion, based on Strieber's experience
The alleged abduction happened on Boxing Day in 1986, after Strieber and his wife went to bed after eating Christmas leftovers.
Strieber describes the beings he encountered as 'visitors', but makes no conclusion about their origin.
Strieber wrote, 'In 1985 I had an experience of close encounter that frightened and confused me. I was injured by it but still could not believe that it had been a physical experience. It was just too strange.
'Still, I was very curious and began going out into the woods at night from our little upstate New York cabin to try to somehow re-engage.'
He has since written several books on the subject of alien encounters.
3. Betty and Barney Hill
Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 experience became one of the iconic alien-abduction stories - with the couple encountering a strange light on a road in New Hampshire's White Mountains.
The couple couldn't remember some of the drive, and their watches had stopped working.
Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 experience became one of the iconic alien-abduction stories
Betty and Barney Hill's 1961 experience became one of the iconic alien-abduction stories
Psychiatrist and hypnotist Benjamin Simon helped the couple to remember their experience of being walked into a flying saucer by grey-skinned aliens.
Under hypnosis, they recalled being attached to needles attached with long wires, as aliens took samples of their hair and skin.
The couple's story became a book and a film starring James Earl Jones - and both stuck by their story until their deaths.
4. Travis Walton
The abduction of Travis Walton in 1975 gathered national attention because of the presence of six witnesses - fellow forestry workers.
On November 5, 1975, the 22-year-old UFO enthusiast Walton spotted a light in a forest, and ignored warnings and ran towards it.
The abduction of Travis Walton in 1975 gathered national attention
His experiences formed the basis of a 1993 film
Struck by a blue light, Travis disappeared and the other forestry workers fled the scene.
It was the first UFO abduction to be reported while the victim was still missing.
Seven days later, Walton reappeared - and revealed that he awoke being observed by three small aliens, and then found himself walking along a highway five days later.
He detailed his experiences in a book, which became the 1993 film Fire in the Sky: in 2021, he appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast.
5. Dr Leo Sprinkle
Many UFO abduction experiences are frightening and disturbing - but some who claim to have encountered aliens have a more positive view of their abductee.
Dr Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist at the University of Wyoming, hypnotically regressed alleged abductees in the Sixties, following Betty and Barney Hill's encounter.
Dr Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist at the University of Wyoming, became involved in hypnotically regressing alien abductees
Sprinkle eventually identified as an abductee himself - believing that the aliens are helpful 'cosmic citizens' helping humans to deal with their problems.
Sprinkle went on to hold an annual Rocky Mountain UFO conference on the more positive aspects of UFO encounters before retiring from the university in 1989.
Sprinkle claims that UFO encounters are part of 'cosmic consciousness conditioning', designed to enhance human consciousness.
Nigel Watson, author of Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims, told DailyMail.com, 'I think it is great that they are conducting an intense analysis of the data in these files, and it will be fascinating to see what they do with this material.
'The major problem with alien abductions is that we have to consider how they come about. Such psychological concepts as sleep paralysis, fantasy proneness and false memory syndrome have all been used to 'explain' alien abduction experiences.
'Even the methods by which we use psychology to examine these processes in pursuit of alien abduction investigation can be conditioned by our culture.
'In the USA there has been far more recourse to using polygraph tests and hypnotic regression compared to other countries.'
'Besides looking at those areas of 'normal' psychology and sociology, perhaps this new study project might discover rarer factors involved with the abduction experience.
'Will it even support the popular idea that real extraterrestrial aliens have come here to take and examine humans against their will?'
NASA’s Juno Mission Provides Close-Ups of Intriguing Features on Io
In December 2023 and February 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft made extremely close flybys of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, getting within about 1,500 km (930 miles) of the surface and obtaining the first close-up images of the moon’s northern latitudes. Planetary scientists have now transformed the images collected during the flybys into animations that highlight two of Io’s most dramatic features: a mountain and an almost glass-smooth lake of cooling lava called Loki Patera.
The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft imaged Io, the most geologically active body in our Solar System, on February 3, 2024, from a distance of about 7,904 km (4,911 miles).
Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.
“Io is simply littered with volcanoes, and we caught a few of them in action,” said Juno’s principal investigator Scott Bolton, director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research Institute.
“We also got some great close-ups and other data on a 200-km- (127-mile-) long lava lake called Loki Patera.”
“There is amazing detail showing these crazy islands embedded in the middle of a potentially magma lake rimmed with hot lava.”
“The specular reflection our instruments recorded of the lake suggests parts of Io’s surface are as smooth as glass, reminiscent of volcanically created obsidian glass on Earth.”
Maps generated with data collected by Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument reveal Io not only has a surface that is relatively smooth compared to Jupiter’s other Galilean moons, but also has poles that are colder than middle latitudes.
During Juno’s extended mission, the spacecraft flies closer to the north pole of Jupiter with each pass.
This changing orientation allows the MWR instrument to improve its resolution of Jupiter’s northern polar cyclones.
The data allow multiwavelength comparisons of the poles, revealing that not all polar cyclones are created equal.
“Perhaps most striking example of this disparity can be found with the central cyclone at Jupiter’s north pole,” said Juno’s project scientist Dr. Steve Levin, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It is clearly visible in both infrared and visible light images, but its microwave signature is nowhere near as strong as other nearby storms.”
“This tells us that its subsurface structure must be very different from these other cyclones.”
“The MWR team continues to collect more and better microwave data with every orbit, so we anticipate developing a more detailed 3D map of these intriguing polar storms.”
Open Minds UAP News: John Greenewald of the Black Vault: Important Update on Alleged UFO Whistleblower
Link to Enigma Labs UAPs:
Feedback: openmindsufonews@gmail.com
Subscribe to the Podcast: https://openmindsuapnews.podbean.com/
Links to articles and info discussed:
The Enigma of the Roswell UFO Incident
The Enigma of the Roswell UFO Incident
In the annals of UFO folklore, few events have captured the imagination and stirred controversy as much as the Roswell UFO incident of 1947. This event has become a cornerstone of extraterrestrial conspiracy theories and continues to intrigue both skeptics and believers over seven decades later. The incident unfolded in the quiet desert town of Roswell, New Mexico, where a mysterious object crashed during the summer of 1947, sparking widespread speculation and government scrutiny.
The saga began when a local rancher, Mac Brazel, discovered unfamiliar debris scattered over his property. The materials found were unusual, possessing properties that baffled those who handled them. Reports described them as lightweight yet remarkably resilient, able to return to their original shape after being crumpled. This led to immediate speculation about their otherworldly origins.
The recovery of the debris by the military added layers of mystery to the incident. The Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) issued a press release stating they had recovered a “flying disc,” a statement that was quickly retracted and replaced with a claim that the debris was merely a downed weather balloon—a mundane explanation that did little to quell public curiosity.
Over the years, the U.S. government’s narrative regarding Roswell has shifted multiple times, fueling accusations of a cover-up. Theories have suggested that the debris was part of a secretive military project like Project Mogul, which aimed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Critics argue that the constant changes in the official explanation indicate an attempt to obscure the truth.
Eyewitnesses at the time, including military personnel and local civilians, provided accounts that contradicted the official explanations. Some described seeing metallic beams with hieroglyphic symbols and materials that behaved unlike anything conventional. Reports also surfaced of bodies—presumed to be extraterrestrial beings—being recovered from the crash site. These accounts contributed to the lore surrounding Roswell, suggesting a conspiracy of monumental proportions that involved recovered alien technology and creatures.
The Roswell incident has had a profound impact on popular culture, inspiring movies, books, and television shows. It has become synonymous with government secrecy and the potential for extraterrestrial visitation, keeping the public’s interest alive. The town of Roswell itself has embraced its identity as a UFO phenomenon hotspot, hosting visitors from around the world drawn by the mystery.
Despite numerous investigations and reports, the truth about the Roswell incident remains elusive. Whether it was a secret military project, an extraterrestrial spacecraft, or something entirely different, Roswell continues to be a focal point for those seeking to understand the possibilities of what might lie beyond our world. As new pieces of information slowly emerge, the debate over what really happened in 1947 endures, keeping the Roswell mystery as relevant today as it was over seventy years ago.
Italy UFO Crash Confirmed By Grusch & Elizondo Had Two Giant Alien Bodies
The world has been astounded by the extraordinary revelations of military whistleblower David Grusch, who has made astonishing claims about UFOs. In his compelling testimony, Grusch claims that the United States government has recovered intact and partially intact vehicles of non-human origin. Given his credibility, these assertions mark the most significant and impactful claims made in decades.
In the midst of it, according to the French paper le Parisien, Grusch states that the United States and its allies have been involved in secret programs for almost ninety years and reveals that one of the recovered craft was found in Italy in 1933. This UFO crash incident is said to have happened when Italy was under the rule of Fascist Benito Mussolini.
The claims regarding the UFO coverup originate directly from the documents released from Mussolini’s office. According to these documents, Mussolini went to great lengths to suppress witnesses and classified the unidentified craft as highly confidential. Mussolini prioritized the study of the craft, leading to the formation of a secretive organization comprised of Italy’s most skilled engineers and scientists. This organization was purportedly under the command of Guglielmo Marconi, a renowned engineer and radio inventor.
According to Roberto Pinotti, an Italian journalist, writer, and UFO researcher, the alleged UFO crash occurred in Magenta, Lombardy, Italy on April 11, 1933, fourteen years prior to the famous Roswell UFO incident in New Mexico. The crash involved a flying saucer-like object and triggered an investigation by a secretive wartime intelligence unit known as the “Gabinetto RS/33” (or RS/33 Cabinet), which was authorized by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to study the phenomenon.
Pinotti revealed in his book “UFO Contacts In Italy Volume Two” that the crashed UFO was stored in the hangars of SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate. While Mussolini believed the unconventional flying vehicle to be a secret weapon of France, Britain, or Germany, Sen. Guglielmo Marconi, a head of the Italian Royal Academy of Sciences, purportedly considered it to be of extraterrestrial origin.
Pinotti writes that between 1933 and 1940, there were numerous UFO sightings in Italy. These included an incident where an Italian fighter plane intercepted a UFO between Ravenna and Rome, as well as multiple UFO sighting over Mestre and Venice in August 1936.
Mussolini’s UFO files contain telegrams and reports related to the recovery of the UFO and subsequent investigations. They suggest that a secret commission, established by Mussolini and including Fascist Ministers Italo Balbo and Galeazzo Ciano, was responsible for studying the UFO phenomena in Italy. The files indicate that the commission was headed by Guglielmo Marconi.
Read also:
Pinotti also mentions the existence of drawings and documents authenticated by a forensic consultant, Dr. Antonio Garavaglia. These documents were released to the Italian media, including television n
Journalist Christopher Sharp of Liberation Times did extensive research on the Italy crash and found that alongside the crashed UFO, two human-like bodies were allegedly recovered at the site in Lombardy, Italy, in 1933. The bodies described by Mr. Sharp sparked intrigue and speculation due to their unusual characteristics and alleged extraterrestrial origin. He writes:
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio – 1959
Two bodies allegedly lay on a table. They look like twins. They’re dead and preserved with formaldehyde. The bodies are in bad shape. They look like victims of a bad car accident – but the heads remain intact. But their features trouble a French biologist invited to study the bodies.
Two males, very tall (around 7ft), long blonde hair, very high and spacious foreheads, clear blue eyes that look somewhat Asiatic, small noses, small mouths, small chins, thin lips, very clear pale skin, but no signs of facial hair. Their hands, although slender are human-like, their toes are small and their feet flat.
The story gets weirder. Their skin appears perfectly white but shows no signs of keratin granules, which play an important role in providing natural moisturization for the skin, in addition to UV protection, and water retention.
Startlingly, the biologist discovered that their lymphatic systems were dominant and practically replaced the blood system, providing a high degree of protection from any disease. They were not human, at least as we know it. That’s at least how the story goes.
There are two accounts of these alleged recovered bodies within Wright-Patterson, which inform this story.
The first was from William Brophy, whose father claimed to have seen the bodies when serving as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force (USAF). Brophy claimed that his father told him the story, among those of other UAP encounters whilst serving in the USAF.
The second account is from UAP researcher Leonard Stringfield, who told the story of the French biologist in his 1982 book, named ‘UFO Crash/Retrievals: Amassing the Evidence: Status Report III’.
U.S. officials allegedly confirmed to the French biologist that the bodies were not human and were of extraterrestrial origin. After much hesitancy and many years, the biologist decided to tell his story, and his account was picked up by Stringfield.
The bodies allegedly came from a UAP crash (according to Brophy’s account), which occurred long before Roswell. They were apparently recovered in 1933, in Lombardy, Italy, where a mysterious craft had crashed.
Overall, the accounts surrounding these bodies raise intriguing questions about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and its potential connection to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, making it a subject of interest and speculation among enthusiasts of unidentified aerial phenomena.
Later, the information of the retrieved unknown craft was somehow confided with Pope Pius XII by Mussolini himself as they were in good relations. But after Mussolini became an ally with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, Pope became uneasy about the craft and leaked it to the US from the Vatican. After the war, the craft was allegedly brought to the USA, where it supposedly remains today.
Lue Elizondo, a former government official involved in UFO investigations, mentioned seeing documents from Mussolini’s office that were “compelling” and suggested that pieces of an Italian craft were transported to the USA after World War II. It is speculated that the craft in question was not a typical UAP with advanced technology but rather a vehicle powered by jet engines and rockets, resembling the flying wing designs of the Horten brothers. The purpose of this technology transfer to the Axis powers is unclear but likely for military advantage.
Raymond Szymanski, a retired US Air Force engineer, claimed that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a warehouse of extraterrestrial life and crashed flying saucers. He mentioned the presence of state-of-the-art climate-controlled facilities and underground cryogenic chambers within Hangar 18, also known as “The Blue Room,” where alien debris, technology, weapons, bodies, and captured aliens are allegedly stored. These claims are supported by testimonies from individuals like Clyde Wheeler and a lady from Cincinnati who claimed to have witnessed saucer-shaped craft and handled paperwork related to the autopsy of small alien bodies.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was the location for various government UFO research projects, including Project Sign, Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book. Senator Barry Goldwater once requested access to a secret UFO room at the base but was denied by General Curtis Emerson LeMay, who reacted angrily.
Tucker Carlson says UFOs are piloted by 'spiritual entities' with bases 'under the ocean and the ground'
UFOs and their pilots might not be 'extra-terrestrials' from a distant planet at all, but 'spiritual entities' who have inhabited Earth for as long as humanity itself.
At least, that's the 'supernatural' theory Fox News vet and one-time MSNBC host Tucker Carlson put forward this week on comedian Joe Rogan's podcast
'There's a ton of evidence that they're under the ocean and under the ground,' Carlson told Rogan's listeners during the show's usual, sprawling, three-hour-long chat format, adding: 'They've been here for a long time.'
Carlson's latest comments echo an increasingly common refrain from UFO-curious lawmakers, including Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison and his fellow GOP legislator Tim Burchett, who both compared UFOs to Biblical entities in the past year.
UFOs and their pilots might not be 'extra-terrestrials' from a distant planet at all, but 'spiritual entities' who have inhabited Earth for as long as humanity itself - according to Fox News vet and one-time MSNBC host Tucker Carlson who spoke this week on The Joe Rogan Experience
Above, Rep. Tim Burchett (left) next to fellow 'UAP Caucus' member Rep. Eric Burlison during a press conference held by members of the House Oversight committee ahead of a public UFO hearing last July. Both Congressman have compared UFOs to Biblical entities in the past year
'The first chapter of Ezekiel is pretty clear of a UFO sighting,' Rep. Burchett told reporters in January of 2023, ahead of his push to bring UFO whistleblowers to testify before Congress last summer.
'Whenever I use the term "angels,"' added Rep. Burlison, who has been privy to classified briefings on the UFO phenomena, 'to me, it's synonymous with an extradimensional being.'
Tucker Carlson appeared to earnestly cosign these notions on his April 19 podcast appearance, while pleading ignorance on many unanswered questions surrounding the issue, now more commonly called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena or UAP.
'They're from here and they've been here for thousands of years,' Carlson said, 'whatever they are.'
'And it's pretty clear to me that they're "spiritual entities,"' he continued, 'whatever that means.'
The veteran broadcaster explained that by 'supernatural' he meant that the beings were 'above the observable nature' and that they 'don't behave according to the laws of science.'
'With that fact set,' Carlson put it rhetorically, 'what do you conclude?'
Earlier in 2024, Rogan commented on Carlson's growing public interest in UFOs, wondering ahead of Carlson's appearance on his program: 'What does he know?'
But speculation linking UFOs to religious visitations and/or theories about interdimensional beings have been a recurring feature within the discourse on the topic since the early 20th Century.
Above the 16th century painting titled 'The Madonna with Saint Giovannino' believed to be the work of Italian Renaissance artist Domenico Ghirlandaio. Some believe the painting includes a reference to 'ancient' UFOs with a skybound object seen above the Virgin Mary's left shoulder
Above, a closer look at the mysterious glowing aerial object depicted in Ghirlandaio's painting
President Biden signed into law a December 2022 amendment to investigate a UFO case from 1945. The 1945 UFO sighting was dubbed the 'Roswell before Roswell' and involved an 'avocado-shaped' craft that crashed in New Mexico. Jaques Vallée, a former contractor for the government's UFO office, wrote a book about the case and described the August 1945 crash to DailyMail.com. Vallée and his co-author interviewed witnesses who were just young children at the time of the crash, on the edge of the atomic bomb testing site near San Antonio, New Mexico - about 100 miles from the infamous Roswell crash two years later.
The concept gained its highest and arguably most reputable profile with the publication of the book 'Passport to Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers' by the astronomer and Internet pioneer Jacques Vallée in 1969.
Vallée, who later served as the inspiration for François Truffaut's character in Steven Spielberg's UFO blockbuster 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' had spent years pouring over volumes of ancient texts for the groundbreaking tome.
He paired 1180 encounters with 'luminous' flying 'earthenware vessels' reported over Japan, Roman accounts of hovering 'shields' and Native American stories of 'baskets from heaven' to argue a continuity with modern 'flying saucer' cases.
In more recent years, Vallée, now a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and computer scientist, published a study of physical evidence from a UFO crash in a peer-reviewed science journal, Progress in Aerospace Sciences.
As he told Wired, Vallée hopes that research will become 'a template [...] for what serious UFO research could be in the future, if one plays by the rules.'
But similar arguments, linking UFOs to demonic entities or angelic miracles, have also been made in less scholarly form on cable TV shows like 'Ancient Aliens,' and online by conspiracy theorists and evangelical Christians, among others.
The editor for Phenomena Magazine, Brian Allan, to cite one account, spoke to Anglican Pastor Ray Boeche who claims that a faction within the Pentagon deeply believes that UFOs are the product of demonic forces.
'The Defense Intelligence Agency were looking at this demonic element, and they labelled these sorts of aliens as 'non human entities,' Allan said.
'They believed that there was a demonic component to the UFO phenomenon: they are not invading us, it's Biblical.'
Astronomers Discover 454 New Asteroids in Main Belt
A set of 632 main-belt asteroids (178 previously known and 454 unknown objects) has been identified in the archival images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Citizen scientists from around the world contributed to the identification of this asteroid bounty. Professional astronomers combined the volunteers’ efforts with machine learning algorithm to identify the asteroids.
This Hubble image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble’s field-of-view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, what is evidence in the dashed pattern. The asteroid appears as a curved trail due to parallax: because Hubble is not stationary, but orbiting Earth, and this gives the illusion that the faint asteroid is swimming along a curved trajectory. The uncharted asteroid is in inside the asteroid belt in our Solar System, and hence is 10 trillion times closer to Hubble than the background galaxy.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Pablo García Martín, UAM / Joseph DePasquale, STScI / Alex Filippenko, UC Berkeley.
Over 4 billion years ago, the eight major planets around our Sun formed by sweeping up debris from a vast disk of dust and gas surrounding the Sun.
This is common to the planet birthing process, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was the first to optically see similar disks surrounding newborn stars, providing a peek into the Solar System’s formative years.
Now, 4 billon years later, the planet construction yard is still cluttered with leftover debris.
Most of this ancient space rubble — asteroids — can be found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt.
“We are getting deeper into seeing the smaller population of main belt asteroids,” said Dr. Pablo García Martín, an astronomer at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
“We were surprised with seeing such a large number of candidate objects.”
“There was some hint of this population existing, but now we are confirming it with a random asteroid population sample obtained using the whole Hubble archive.”
“This is important for providing insights into the evolutionary models of our Solar System.”
Because of Hubble’s fast orbit around the Earth, it can capture wandering asteroids through their telltale trails in the Hubble exposures.
As viewed from an Earth-based telescope, an asteroid leaves a streak across the picture.
Asteroids ‘photobomb’ Hubble exposures by appearing as unmistakable, curved trails in the photographs.
As Hubble moves around the Earth, it changes its point of view while observing an asteroid, which also moves along its own orbit.
By knowing the position of Hubble during the observation and measuring the curvature of the streaks, scientists can determine the distances to the asteroids and estimate the shapes of their orbits.
The asteroids snagged mostly dwell in the main belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Their brightness is measured by Hubble’s sensitive cameras. And comparing their brightness to their distance allows for a size estimate.
The faintest asteroids in the survey are roughly one forty-millionth the brightness of the faintest star that can be seen by the human eye.
“Asteroid positions change with time, and therefore you cannot find them just by entering coordinates, because at different times, they might not be there,” Dr. Merín said.
“As astronomers we don’t have time to go looking through all the asteroid images.”
“So we got the idea to collaborate with over 10,000 citizen-science volunteers to peruse the huge Hubble archives.”
Microsoft’s New AI Makes Convincing Deepfakes Worryingly Easy
The potential for misuse feels dangerous with VASA-1.
Here’s another terrifying look into the future of AI, courtesy of Microsoft.
Microsoft introduced the VASA-1 research project that can take a single image and an audio clip and transform it into a high-quality video of a talking head that looks eerily similar to the real thing. We have to stress that it’s just a research project at the moment, meaning it’s not readily accessible, but that doesn’t make it any less disconcerting.
There are innocuous examples with VASA-1, like infusing Mona Lisa with Anne Hathaway’s rap skills but we’re more concerned about the likelihood that this will be used to create deepfakes with a more nefarious purpose — think spreading misinformation or carrying out identity theft.
It’s unsettling how easy it is to churn out a video avatar with VASA-1.
MICROSOFT
Microsoft explains that you simply upload an image and an audio recording and VASA-1 spits back out a 512 x 512 resolution video with up to 40 fps and barely any latency. Looking at the demos, VASA-1 does a convincing job syncing the audio to the lip movements and can even deliver emotions and expressions through subtle facial movements with eyebrows and head nods.
To finetune the result, VASA-1 lets you control where the generated avatar is looking, how close the model is, and the emotion you want to convey. You can go with a standard neutral expression or inject some happiness, anger, or surprise into your AI-generated video.
On a more unrealistic note, VASA-1 can also handle source material like paintings or singing audio. As convincing as all of these models are, we can still see slight irregularities like some rippling around the ears or an unnatural warping effect with big head movements.
VASA-1 can even be tweaked to convey certain emotions like happiness, anger, and surprise.
MICROSOFT
As the name hints, VASA-1 is only the first model for Microsoft’s overall VASA framework, meaning this could (or likely will) be improved upon. These initial example videos generated from VASA-1 are only demonstrations of the research project’s capabilities thus far, so again, there aren’t any plans to push this into the public’s hands yet.
“We have no plans to release an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings until we are certain that the technology will be used responsibly and in accordance with proper regulations,” Microsoft noted on its website.
As concerning as this tech is and Microsoft does acknowledge its potential for misuse, the research team argues that there are a lot of upsides here. For example, VASA-1 could be used to ensure everyone gets an equal opportunity at education, assist those with communication issues, or even just offer a friendly face to those who need it. Still, if we were placing bets, I’d lean towards tech of this caliber being used for the wrong purposes.
The Giant Planets Migrated Between 60-100 Million Years After the Solar System Formed
Untangling what happened in our Solar System tens or hundreds of millions of years ago is challenging. Millions of objects of wildly different masses interacted for billions of years, seeking natural stability. But its history—including the migration of the giant planets—explains what we see today in our Solar System and maybe in other, distant solar systems.
New research shows that giant planet migration began shortly after the Solar System formed.
Planetary migration is a well-established idea. The Grand-Tack Hypothesis says that Jupiter formed at 3.5 AU, migrated inward to 1.5 AU, and then back out again to 5.2 AU, where it resides today. Saturn was involved, too. Migration can also explain the Hot Jupiters we see orbiting extremely close to their stars in other solar systems. They couldn’t have formed there, so they must have migrated there. Even rocky planets can migrate early in a solar system’s history.
New research in the journal Science establishes dates for giant planet migration in our Solar System. Its title is “Dating the Solar System’s giant planet orbital instability using enstatite meteorites.” The lead author is Dr. Chrysa Avdellidou from the University of Leicester’s School of Physics and Astronomy.
“The question is, when did it happen?” Dr. Avdellidou asked. “The orbits of these planets destabilised due to some dynamical processes and then took their final positions that we see today. Each timing has a different implication, and it has been a great matter of debate in the community.”
“What we have tried to do with this work is to not only do a pure dynamical study, but combine different types of studies, linking observations, dynamical simulations, and studies of meteorites.”
The meteorites in this study are enstatites or E-type asteroids. E-type asteroids have enstatite (MgSiO3) achondrite surfaces. Achondrite means they lack chondrules, grains of rock that were once molten before being accreted to their parent body. Specifically, this group of meteorites are the low-iron chondrites called ELs.
When giant planets move, everything else responds. Tiny asteroids are insignificant compared to Jupiter’s mass. Scientists think E-type asteroids were dispersed during the gas giants’ outward migration. They may even have been the impactors in the hypothetical Late Heavy Bombardment.
Artist concept of Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment period. Scientists have wondered if E-type asteroids disturbed during giant planet migration could’ve been responsible for the Bombardment, but the authors of this research don’t favour that explanation.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.
Enstatite achondrites that have struck Earth have similar compositions and isotope ratios as Earth. This signals that they formed in the same part of the protoplanetary disk around the young Sun. Previous research by Dr. Avdellidou and others has linked the meteorites to a population of fragments in the asteroid belt named Athor.
This work hinges on linking meteorites to parent asteroids and measuring the isotopic ratios.
“If a meteorite type can be linked to a specific parent asteroid, it provides insight into the asteroid’s composition, time of formation, temperature evolution, and original size,” the authors explain. When it comes to composition, isotopic abundances are particularly important. Different isotopes decay at different rates, so analyzing their ratio tells researchers when each meteorite closed, meaning when it became cool enough that there was no more significant diffusion of isotopes. “Therefore, thermochronometers in meteorites can constrain the epoch at which major collisional events disturbed the cooling curves of the parent asteroid,” the authors explain.
The team’s research shows that Athor is a part of a once much larger parent body that formed closer to the Sun. It also suffered from a collision that reduced its size out of the asteroid belt.
Athor found its way back when the giant planets migrated. Athor was at the mercy of all that shifting mass and underwent its own migration back into the asteroid belt. Analysis of the meteorites showed that this couldn’t have happened earlier than 60 million years ago. Other research into asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit showed it couldn’t have happened later than 100 million years ago. Since the Solar System formed about 4.56 billion years ago, the giant planet migration happened between 4.5 and 4.46 billion years ago.
This schematic from the research shows what the researchers think happened. Red circles are planetesimals (and their fragments) from the terrestrial planet region. The black solid curves roughly denote the boundary of the current asteroid inner main belt. Eccentricity increases from bottom to top.Another important event happened right around the same time. About 4.5 billion years ago, a protoplanet named Theia smashed into Earth, creating the Moon. Could it all be related?
“The formation of the Moon also occurred within the range that we determined for the giant planet instability,” the authors write in their research. “This might be a coincidence, or there might be a causal relationship between the two events.”
“It’s like you have a puzzle, you understand that something should have happened, and you try to put events in the correct order to make the picture that you see today,” Dr. Avdellidou said. “The novelty with the study is that we are not only doing pure dynamical simulations, or only experiments, or only telescopic observations.”
“There were once five inner planets in our Solar System and not four, so that could have implications for other things, like how we form habitable planets. Questions like, when exactly objects came delivering volatile and organics to our planet to Earth and Mars?”
Artist’s impression of the impact that caused the formation of the Moon. Could giant planet migration have caused that impact?
Credit: NASA/GSFC
The Solar System’s history is a convoluted, beautiful puzzle that somehow led to us. Everything had to work out for life to arise on Earth, sustain itself, and evolve for so long. The epic migration of the gas giants must have played a role, and this research brings its role into focus.
Never mind habitability, complex life, and civilization, the migration may have allowed Earth to form in the first place.
“The timing is very important because our Solar System at the beginning was populated by a lot of planetesimals,” said study co-author Marco Delbo, Director of Research at France’s Nice Observatory. “And the instability clears them, so if that happens 10 million years after the beginning of the Solar System, you clear the planetesimals immediately, whereas if you do it after 60 million years you have more time to bring materials to Earth and Mars.
The Mystery of Cosmic Rays Deepens
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles accelerated to extreme velocities approaching the speed of light. It takes an extremely powerful event to send these bits of matter blazing through the Universe. Astronomers theorize that cosmic rays are ejected by supernova explosions that mark the death of supergiant stars. But recent data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope casts doubt on this production method for cosmic rays, and has astronomers digging for an explanation.
It’s not easy to tell where a cosmic ray comes from. Most cosmic rays are hydrogen nuclei, others are protons, or free-flying electrons. These are charged particles, meaning that every time they come across other matter in the Universe with a magnetic field, they change course, causing them to zig-zag through space.
The direction a cosmic ray comes from when it hits Earth, then, is not likely the direction it started in.
But there are ways to indirectly track down their origin. One of the more promising methods is by observing gamma rays (which do travel in straight lines, thankfully).
When cosmic rays bump into other bits of matter, they produce gamma rays. So when a supernova goes off and sends cosmic rays out into the Universe, it should also send a gamma-ray signal letting us know it’s happening.
That’s the theory, anyway.
But the evidence hasn’t matched expectations. Studies of old, distant supernovas show some gamma ray production occurring, but not as much as predicted. Astronomers explained away the missing radiation as a result of the supernovas’ age and distance. But in 2023, the Fermi telescope captured a bright new supernova occurring nearby. Named SN 2023ixf, the supernova went off just 22 million light-years away in a galaxy called Messier 101 (better known as the ‘Pinwheel Galaxy’). And yet again, gamma rays were conspicuously absent.
NASA Goddard.“Astrophysicists previously estimated that supernovae convert about 10% of their total energy into cosmic ray acceleration,” said Guillem Martí-Devesa, University of Trieste. “But we have never observed this process directly. With the new observations of SN 2023ixf, our calculations result in an energy conversion as low as 1% within a few days after the explosion. This doesn’t rule out supernovae as cosmic ray factories, but it does mean we have more to learn about their production.”
So where is all the missing gamma radiation?
It’s possible that interstellar material around the exploding star could have blocked gamma rays from reaching the Fermi telescope. But it might also mean that astronomers need to look for alternative explanations for the production of cosmic rays.
Nobody likes a good mystery better than astronomers, and digging into the missing gamma radiation could eventually tell us a whole lot more about cosmic rays and where they come from.
Astronomers plan to study SN 2023ixf in other wavelengths to improve their models of the event, and will of course keep an eye out for the next big supernova, in an effort to understand what is going on.
The Solar Eclipse Like We’ve Never Seen it Before
You had to be in the right part of North America to get a great view of the recent solar eclipse. But a particular telescope may have had the most unique view of all. Even though that telescope is in Hawaii and only experienced a partial eclipse, its images are interesting.
You had to be in the right part of North America to get a great view of the recent eclipse.
Image Credit: DKIST/NSO/NSF/AURA
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) is at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. With its four-meter mirror, it’s the largest solar telescope in the world. It observes in visible to near-infrared light, and its sole target is the Sun. It can see features on the Sun’s surface as small as 20 km (12 miles.) It began science operations in February 2022, and its primary objective is to study the Sun’s magnetic fields.
This is a collage of solar images captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope. Images include sunspots and quiet regions of the Sun, known as convection cells.
(Credit: NSF/AURA/NSO)
Though seeing conditions weren’t perfect during the eclipse and the eclipse was only partial when viewed from Hawaii, the telescope still gathered enough data to create a movie of the Moon passing in front of the Sun. The bumps on the Moon’s dark edge are lunar mountains.
“The team’s primary mission during Maui’s partial eclipse was to acquire data that allows the characterization of the Inouye’s optical system and instrumentation,” shares National Solar Observatory scientist Dr. Friedrich Woeger.
The Moon plays a critical role in measuring the telescope’s performance. Its edge is well-known and as a dark object in front of the Sun, it acts as a unique tool to measure the Inouye telescope’s performance and to understand the data it collects. Since the telescope has to correct for Earth’s turbulent atmosphere with adaptive optics, the Moon’s known qualities help researchers work with the telescope’s optical elements.
The Daniel Inouye Solar Telescope at the Haleakala Observatory on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
Image Credit: DKIST/NSO
“With the Inouye’s high order adaptive optics system operating, the blurring due to the Earth’s atmosphere was greatly reduced, allowing for extremely high spatial resolution images of the moving lunar edge,” said Woeger. “The appearance of the edge is not straight but serrated because of mountain ranges on the Moon!” This serrated dark edge covers the granular convection pattern that governs the “surface of the Sun.”
The Inouye Solar Telescope studies the Sun’s magnetic fields, which drive space weather. What we see in the video is visually interesting, but there’s a lot of data behind it.
It’ll take several months to analyze all of the data it gathered during the eclipse.
Amazing Amateur Images of April 8th’s Total Solar Eclipse
Did you see it? Last week’s total solar eclipse did not disappoint, as viewers from the Pacific coast of Mexico, across the U.S. from Texas to Maine and through the Canadian Maritime provinces were treated to an unforgettable show. The weather threw us all a curve-ball one week out, as favored sites in Texas and Mexico fought to see the event through broken clouds, while areas along the northeastern track from New Hampshire and Maine onward were actually treated to clear skies.
Many eclipse chasers scrambled to reposition themselves at the last minute as totality approached. In northern Maine, it was amusing to see tiny Houlton, Maine become the epicenter of all things eclipse-based.
We were also treated to some amazing images of the eclipse from Earth and space. NASA also had several efforts underway to chase the eclipse. Even now, we’re still processing the experience. It takes time (and patience!) for astro-photos to make their way through the workflow. Here are some of the best images we’ve seen from the path of totality:
Tony Dunn had an amazing experience, watching the eclipse from Mazatlan, Mexico. “When totality hit, it didn’t look real,” Dunn told Universe Today. “It looked staged, like a movie studio. the lighting is something that can’t be experienced outside a total solar eclipse.”
Totality on April 8th, with prominences.
Credit: Tony Dunn.
Dunn also caught an amazing sight, as the shadow of the Moon moved across the low cloud cover:
Peter Forister caught the eclipse from central Indiana. “It was my second totality (after 2017 in South Carolina), so I knew what was coming,” Forister told Universe Today. “But it was still as incredible and beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen in nature. The Sun and Moon seemed huge in my view—a massive black hole (like someone took a hole punch to the sky) surrounded by white and blue flames streaking out. Plus, there was great visibility of the planets and a few stars. The memory has been playing over and over in my head since it happened—and it’s combined with feelings of awe and wonder at how beautiful our Universe and planet really are. The best kind of memory!”
Totality over Texas.
Credit: Eliot Herman
Like many observers, Eliot Herman battled to see the eclipse through clouds. “As you know, we had really frustrating clouds,” Herman told Universe Today. “I shot a few photos (in) which you can see the eclipse embedded in the clouds and then uncovered to show the best part. For me it almost seemed like a cosmic mocking, showing me what a great eclipse it was, and lifting the veil only at the end of the eclipse to show me what I missed…”
Totality and solar prominences seen through clouds.
Credit: Eliot Herman
Astrophotographer Andrew Symes also had a memorable view from Cornwall, Ontario. “While I’ve seen many beautiful photos and videos from many sources, they don’t match what those us there in person saw with our eyes,” Symes told Universe Today. “The sky around the Sun was not black but a deep, steely blue. The horizon was lighter–similar to what you’d see during a sunset or sunrise–but still very alien.”
“The eclipsed Sun looked, to me, like an incredibly advanced computer animation from the future! The Sun and corona were very crisp, and the Sun looked much larger in the sky than I’d expected. The eclipsed Sun had almost a three-dimensional quality… almost as if it were a dark, round button-like disk surrounded by a bright halo affixed to a deep blue/grey background. It was as if a ‘worm hole’ or black hole had somehow appeared in front of us. I’m sure my jaw dropped as it was truly a moment of utter amazement. I’m smiling as I type it now… and still awestruck as I recall it in my mind!”
An amazing eclipse.
Credit: Andrew Symes.
We were met with success (and clear skies) watching the total solar eclipse with family from our hometown of Mapleton, Maine. We were mostly just visually watching this one, though we did manage to nab a brief video of the experience.
What I was unprepared for was the switch from partial phases to totality. It was abrupt as expected, but there almost seemed to be brief but perceptible pause from day to twilight, as the corona seemed to ‘switch on.’ We all agreed later on that the steely blue sky was not quite night… but not quite twilight, either.
The elusive diamond ring, seen from Wappappello Lake, Missouri on April 8th.
Credit: Chris Becke
When’s the next one? I often wonder how many watchers during a given eclipse were ‘bitten by the bug,’ and looking to chase the next one. Spain is set to see an eclipse a year for the next three years, starting in 2026:
Spain in August… be sure to stay cool and bring sunblock. Don’t miss the next total solar eclipse, and be thankful for our privileged vantage point in time and space.
10 Notable UFO Landing Cases from the Late 20th Century
The late 20th century witnessed a surge in UFO sightings that captivated the public and researchers alike. With reports spanning across the globe, these encounters not only sparked curiosity but also left physical evidence and credible testimonies. This article delves into ten of the most compelling UFO landing cases from this era, exploring the unique circumstances and lasting implications of each.
In the quiet expanses of New Mexico, an unsettling series of animal mutilations coincided with reports of UFO landings. Law enforcement and locals found themselves puzzled by the precise surgical removals on cattle, connected with strange craft observed in the night skies, leaving behind physical traces and a community on edge.
Amidst political turbulence post-Mao, a silent luminous object was witnessed landing on a hilltop in Fujian Province. The incident, involving over 150 soldiers, ended with a high-stakes standoff, the craft emitting disorienting effects on the troops before it ascended swiftly into the night sky.
In the remote town of Viseras, oil field workers encountered a UFO at dawn. The object responded to the workers’ signals using its lights, leaving behind a petrified sand circle and distressed local wildlife, suggesting a possible interest in the area’s natural resources.
The Rendlesham Forest incident, often dubbed “Britain’s Roswell,” involved multiple military personnel from the nearby RAF Bentwaters. Witnesses reported close encounters with a structured craft capable of telepathic communication, leaving lasting health effects on those involved.
In a secretive episode from the Soviet era, a military installation tracked a high-altitude object before witnessing it dispatch a smaller craft that landed. The rapid mobilization of military units and subsequent cover-up attempts highlighted the tense relationship between UFO phenomena and Cold War sensibilities.
Another significant Soviet case involved a radar interference by an unidentified triangular craft that briefly landed, affecting electronic equipment and personnel. The incident left behind no physical evidence but contributed to a pattern of sightings that challenged official dismissals of UFO reports.
High in the Andes, shepherds reported seeing multiple objects, including a larger mother ship, from which beings emerged to collect environmental samples. This case echoed older accounts from the 1950s and suggested a scientific curiosity about Earth’s biosphere.
In the rural outskirts of Santo Angelo, witnesses described encounters on consecutive nights involving different unidentified objects. Each incident resulted in physical traces such as crop circles, with local UFO groups scrambling to document the events.
A farmer in Bloemfontein experienced vehicle failure and temporary paralysis close to a landed UFO, an encounter that paralleled other cases worldwide where proximity to UFOs appeared to influence human physiology and mechanical functionality.
As the millennium closed, villagers in Kampong witnessed an intensely bright light associated with a UFO landing. The next morning, a Y-shaped indentation marked the landing site, adding to the global archive of physical evidence supporting the reality of UFO visitations.
VIDEO:
These cases, diverse in geography and details, share common threads of unexplained phenomena and enduring intrigue. They reflect a global pattern of encounters that continue to challenge conventional understandings of reality and prompt questions about what lies beyond the known frontiers of science and technology. As we look back on these incidents, they encourage a reevaluation of our place in the cosmos and underscore the importance of an open, informed approach to the unknown.
‘Yeah, I Think There’s A Cover Up’: Rep. Tim Burchett Has Hilarious Reaction To Classified UFO Briefing
Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett claimed Wednesday that he believes the federal government is covering up evidence of extraterrestrial life and technologies on Earth.
Burchett was one of a handful of lawmakers invited to a classified briefing on UFOs (known as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” or “UAPs” to some) on Wednesday, after which he immediately told NewsNation “I think there’s a cover up.”
Burchett was asked point-blank if he was “satisfied” with what he heard in the meeting, to which he responded, “No, it’s always compartmentalized, we can’t get into certain things.”
Burchett noted that while he didn’t think he and his colleagues were necessarily being lied to, he feels there’s a lot of “arrogance” from the “so-called intelligence community.” The lawmaker looked tired during the interview, noting that he was “tired” after listening to the “mundane” and “boring” briefing.
“It’s complete disinformation,” he said of what the intelligence community is willing to share.
“There are tens of millions of dollars that we’ve spent investigating these things. We’ve had departments tell us that they have recovery units, but they won’t release full reports. Everything’s covered up,” Bruchett continued.
Burchett also claimed that members of the intelligence community think that the general public doesn’t “deserve” to know what our tax dollars are being spent on within these UFO departments.
“I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with high-ranking officials that have told me that America really can’t handle this stuff. It’s not their position to tell me who or what I can handle. We’re Americans, we ought to be able to take it, give it to us,” Burchett concluded, adding that he plans to keep fighting for transparency.
Steven Spielberg set to direct new UFO movie with Jurassic Park writer... 50 YEARS after iconic Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Steven Spielberg is poised to revisit science fiction, following his success in directing classic films such as Close Encounters, E.T. and War of the Worlds.
The SOscar-winning director is making a 'UFO film based on his own idea,' according to a report from Variety on Wednesday.
He is reportedly teaming up again with screenwriter David Koepp, known for their collaboration on the 1993's Jurassic Park.
Although no title has been confirmed for the upcoming film and details remain limited, the reunion between the writer and director responsible for one of cinema's greatest blockbusters is undoubtedly an exciting prospect.
Notably, Koepp is penning the upcoming installment in the Jurassic World franchise, slated for release next year.
Steven Spielberg is poised to revisit science fiction, following his success in directing classic films such as Close Encounters, E.T. and War of the Worlds; seen in February
The Oscar-winning director is making a ' UFO film based on his own idea,' according to a report from Variety on Wednesday
Recently, Spielberg has shifted his focus away from the dinosaur saga, allowing other directors to helm the latest Jurassic World trilogy.
Instead, the veteran filmmaker delved into The Fabelmans, a personal project drawing from his own youth.
This acclaimed film, centered on a young man's dream of filmmaking, received praise and earned nominations during last year's awards season.
Additionally, Spielberg directed a remake of West Side Story, starring Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort.
The director hasn't tackled a full-fledged UFO film since 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which cemented its status in pop culture as one of the most influential alien stories.
Richard Dreyfuss portrayed Roy Neary, an average blue-collar worker from Indiana whose life takes a dramatic turn after encountering a UFO.
It became a monumental success, both at the box office and among critics.
The film earned nine Academy Award nominations, clinching the Oscar for Best Cinematography and receiving a Special Achievement Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing.
Spielberg followed up with ET, the heartwarming story of a young boy named Elliot who befriends an alien stranded on Earth.
Released in 1982, the film became a cultural phenomenon, grossing over $800 million worldwide and holding the title of the highest-grossing film of all time until 1993.
He is reportedly teaming up again with screenwriter David Koepp, known for their collaboration on the 1993's Jurassic Park
Although no title has been confirmed for the upcoming film and details remain limited, the reunion between the writer and director responsible for one of cinema's greatest blockbusters is undoubtedly an exciting prospect
The director hasn't tackled a full-fledged UFO film since 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which cemented its status in pop culture as one of the most influential alien stories
Spielberg followed up with 1982's ET, the heartwarming story of a young boy named Elliot who befriends an alien stranded on Earth
Then came 2005's War of the World, which followed the harrowing journey of a father, played by Tom Cruise, and his children as they struggle to survive an alien invasion
Its impact extended to the awards circuit, earning nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and winning four Oscars, including Best Original Score and Best Visual Effects.
Then came 2005's War of the World, which followed the harrowing journey of a father, played by Tom Cruise, and his children as they struggle to survive an alien invasion.
The film garnered commercial success, grossing over $600 million worldwide and becoming one of the top-grossing films of the year.
It also earned three Academy Award nominations for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects.
Dit is de meest 'buitenaardse' bestemming op aarde
©Shutterstock
Dit is de meest 'buitenaardse' bestemming op aarde
Ergens in de Indische Oceaan vind je de meest buitenaardse plek op aarde: Socotra. Een eiland dat toebehoort aan Jemen en een ecologisch heiligdom herbergt. De plek is moeilijk te bereiken en er geldt dan ook een negatief reisadvies voor het eiland, gezien de ideologische en religieuze conflicten. Desalniettemin kun je de omgeving vanuit je stoel veilig ontdekken. Klik verder en ga mee op een buitenaardse reis op aarde!
©Shutterstock
Paradijs op aarde
Vier eilanden vormen de Socotra-archipel in de Indische Oceaan.
©Shutterstock
Socotra-archipel
Het ligt ongeveer 380 km uit de kust van Jemen.
©Shutterstock
Ontstaan
Experts schatten dat het eiland 35 miljoen jaar geleden van het continent is gescheiden.
©Shutterstock
Omvang
Het eiland Socotra is 132 km lang en 50 km breed.
©Reuters
Taal
De lokale taal is Socotri, maar het is mogelijk om in het Arabisch te communiceren met een deel van de lokale bevolking.
©Reuters
Betekenis
In het Sanskriet betekent Socotra 'Eiland van Geluk'.
©Shutterstock
Klimaat
Omdat de taal zeer specifiek is, is er geen vertaling voor sommige dier- en plantensoorten.
©Reuters
Mythologie
In de oude Griekse mythologie was de troon van Uranus verborgen in de bergen van Socotra.
©Shutterstock
Mythologie
De Grieken dachten dat het het huis was van heksen en tovenaars.
©Shutterstock
Magische plek
Het is moeilijk om niet onder de indruk te zijn van zoveel natuurlijke schoonheid.
©Reuters
Fauna
Socotra is ook de thuisbasis van vele vogelsoorten die alleen op het eiland te vinden zijn.
©Reuters
Landschap
Veel grotten en bergen vormen de topografie van het eiland.
©Shutterstock
Landschap
Evenals prachtige witte zandstranden.
©Shutterstock
Landschap
Je vindt hagelwitte zandduinen aan de paradijselijke kustlijn
©Shutterstock
Typische boom
De Drakenbloedboom is een exotische boom afkomstig uit de regio.
©Reuters
Typische boom
Het is genoemd naar zijn rode boomsap.
©Shutterstock
Typische boom
De takken zien eruit als paddenstoelen en sommigen zeggen dat ze zelfs lijken op zwevende UFO's.
©Shutterstock
Typische boom
Een andere inheemse boom is de Woestijnroos
©Reuters
Typische boom
De ongebruikelijke vorm lijkt op een olifantenpoot.
©Shutterstock
Ongewone plek
Socotra Island is uniek en bevat veel kenmerken die alleen daar te vinden zijn.
©Shutterstock
Ongewone plek
Het wordt beschouwd als een buitenaards eiland omdat het de thuisbasis is van een breed scala aan fauna en flora.
©Reuters
Ecologisch heiligdom
Ongeveer 75% van het eiland bestaat uit beschermde gebieden.
©Shutterstock
Erfgoed
Socotra werd uitgeroepen tot UNESCO-werelderfgoed.
Zie ook:
Are We Living in an Alien-Controlled Simulation?
Where the lines between science fiction and scientific possibility blur, a fascinating theory has emerged at the crossroads of ufology and existential philosophy. It suggests that our reality, with its vast diversity of world religions and beliefs, might be nothing more than a sophisticated simulation controlled by extraterrestrial beings. This notion, endorsed by leading UFO expert Nick Pope, introduces a captivating explanation for the complex tapestry of human spirituality and the enduring mystery of UFO sightings.
Nick Pope, a former head of the British Government’s UFO project, articulates a compelling narrative that our perceived universe could be a construct—a cosmic game designed by alien intelligences. This simulation theory, as it’s known, posits that the myriad of religious beliefs on Earth might be the result of different programmers (or “designers”) contributing to the simulation’s code. Each designer, with their unique ideologies and potential flaws, crafts a distinct aspect of our world, leading to the rich variety of religious experiences and doctrines witnessed throughout human history.
The implications of this theory are profound, offering a radical perspective on the nature of existence and the origins of religious diversity. It suggests that what we consider as divine intervention or spiritual revelation could be interpreted as glitches or intentional features embedded by our extraterrestrial programmers. This viewpoint not only challenges conventional religious narratives but also invites us to reconsider the authenticity of our experiences and beliefs.
Nick Pope
“God Versus Aliens,” a documentary featuring Pope and other UFO experts, delves deeper into this hypothesis. It explores the potential for life as we know it to be a simulation, controlled and observed by beings far more advanced than ourselves. The film provocatively suggests that the concept of a higher power, central to many religions, might actually refer to an alien race with the technology to fabricate universes.
Such a revelation, if ever confirmed, would undoubtedly send shockwaves through the fabric of society, especially the religious domain. Pope speculates on the varied reactions humanity might face, from the denial of religious leaders to the existential crisis among the faithful. He raises intriguing questions: Was religion a deliberate insertion into the simulation, or did it emerge as a spontaneous byproduct? And how would the discovery of our simulated existence reconcile with the deeply ingrained beliefs held by billions?
The documentary also touches on historical UFO sightings and encounters, framing them as possible interactions with the architects of our simulation. These events, often dismissed or shrouded in secrecy, could be evidence of our creators’ influence or experiments within the simulation.
The theory ventures into speculative territory when considering the role of anomalies within religious texts. Pope humorously notes instances in holy scriptures that seem absurd or out of place, suggesting they could be “Easter eggs” left by the programmers—a concept familiar to anyone who’s played a video game.
While the simulation theory remains a subject of debate and skepticism, it undeniably opens up a Pandora’s box of philosophical and theological inquiries. It forces us to ponder the very foundation of our beliefs, the nature of our universe, and our place within it—whether as autonomous beings or mere characters in an elaborate extraterrestrial orchestration.
As we continue to witness unprecedented UFO sightings and encounters, the quest for understanding our existence and the potential influence of non-human intelligences becomes more pressing. The simulation theory, with its bold assertions and imaginative insights, offers a unique lens through which we might explore these enduring mysteries.
Whether we are living in an alien-controlled simulation or not, the conversation around this theory enriches our pursuit of knowledge, challenging us to question the known and venture into the unknown. It beckons us to look up at the stars, not just in wonder, but in search of answers to the ultimate question: What is reality?
Betty Andreasson’s Multiple UFO Experiences, Underwater Base & Humans In Glass Container
The abduction of Betty Andreasson Luca is considered to be one of the most documented cases in the history of Ufology. The woman from Massachusetts experienced multiple abductions, and her case is widely studied by UFO researchers. It became popular after the publication of the best-selling novel “The Andreasson Affair,” which came out in the late 1970s. She attended many radio shows and TV interviews where she discussed her encounter with grey aliens and even drew sketches of the incident.
Betty Andreasson was born on January 7, 1937, to Waino and Eva Aho. She went to school in Westminster and Gardner MA and had a great interest in art since childhood, which later became her passion. Betty married twice and with her first husband, she gave birth to seven children. She met her second husband Bob Luca in 1977.
Betty Andreasson Luca
According to the official reports, on the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty was at home with her seven children and parents. At around 6:30 p.m., she was busy in the kitchen when the lights in the house started blinking strangely. Soon after it, the kitchen’s window was hit by a reddish light beam, and the whole house went out of electricity. The children got terrified with the scene and Betty tried to calm them down. Her father looked out to find the source of the light and saw five strange-looking humanoid creatures walking right towards the house. Before he could understand the situation, the beings walked inside the house through the door which put the whole family in a state of shock.
Read also:
Betty Andreasson during one of her hypnotic regression sessions
One creature went to Betty’s father while the other four came to her, and one of them started talking with her telepathically. The one who was made telepathic contact with Betty was about 5 feet tall, while others were shorter than him. The description by the witnesses was similar to the modern illustration of grey aliens. They had only slits on their mouth, three fingers in one hand, and wore a blue-colored one-piece suit.
Betty was frightened but at the same time, she felt calm by the friendly nature of the beings. They did not harm any member of the family and even released her daughter from a state of unawareness. Then she was taken outside and boarded on their saucer-shaped craft with a small dome that was standing in the backyard. After that, the ship went up in the air and merged with the mothership where Betty went through medical tests and was under the effects of strange equipment. Later, she was taken to some strange place where she felt much pain which, according to her, was a “spiritual experience.”
UFO sketch by Betty Andreasson
Later that night, Betty returned home at 10:40 p.m. and found her family still in a frozen state, where one of the aliens was watching them in her absence. Then the family was put to bed by the beings and the aliens left. What’s more, she forgot about her abduction until undergoing hypnotherapy in later years.
Betty said in some of her interviews that the creatures were angelic in nature but not biblical. She is a religious person, had only some school education and did not understand much about UFOs. Only after this bizarre experience, she understood that whatever she had experienced that night was much like a UFO abduction
In 1975, Dr. Allen J Hynek posted an ad in the newspaper to learn more about the abduction experiences and asked help from common people. Betty answered his ad by sending a letter, but it was rejected due to its unusual details. It was only in 1977 when her case was deeply investigated by the experts including a solar physicist, an electronics engineer, an aerospace engineer, a telecommunications specialist, and a UFO investigator.
Her case was first investigated by Jules Vaillancourt, a Mutual UFO Network investigator in 1977. He said: “What I found most amazing about Betty was her ability to draw. The detail of the (space) craft and the beings she drew under hypnosis were such that it really made me believe there was something to this.”
He also added that the detective who had given a psychological stress evaluation to Betty and her daughter believed in her story. She even spoke the language of aliens under hypnosis. Her case investigation continued for 12 months where she and her daughter had gone through hypnosis sessions, lie detector tests, and a psychiatric interview. Both mother and daughter passed them with a genuine reaction. Author and UFO researcher Raymond E. Fowler wrote five books on her UFO experiences that include the famous “The Andreasson Affair” series.
During one of her hypnotic regression sessions, she remembered one of the early abductions that occurred to her in childhood. It took place in 1950 when she was taken from her home into a spacecraft as usual. But this time, the craft was flying toward an ocean or sea. She was terrified that the craft would crash into the water. But the ship submerged into the water and entered into a kind of tunnel. Betty could see everything underwater, as the place was filled with light. What she said next under hypnosis is so bizarre that even gave a chill to Fowler.
Betty Andreasson drew what Fowler called Museum of Time
She saw people from all eras, different races, encased in the glass container. Fowler called it “The Museum of Time.” Betty said that people in the container were in old-fashioned clothes, and there were uncountable cubicles with humans inside at that underwater base.
Fowler wrote that when he listened to her one of the regression session recordings, his mind blew up as he found it difficult to believe. “A cold chill coursed through my body when Betty was describing people and animals enclosed in glassy cubicles in an icy cavern.”
Betty Andreasson and her second husband Bob Luca
Betty traveled a lot across the country, attending numerous TV interviews and radio shows and lecturing about her UFO experiences. She and her husband Bob Luca had been unsettled for many years until 1995 when they moved to Virginia. They lived in VA for 5 years and then moved to Florida. Shed died on March 18, 2022.
FORMER NAVAL OFFICER RAISES ALARM ABOUT “WORLD-CHANGING” UNDERWATER UFO CAPTURED ON VIDEO
A report about a strange craft that appeared to defy both aerial and aquatic physics is apparently making a splash among the ex-military set.
Tim Gallaudet, an oceanographer and former Naval rear admiral who served as the author of a March white paper about so-called "unidentified submerged objects" or USOs, told Fox News this week that he considers it both "scientifically valid" and critical to national security to study these phenomena.
Released by the newly-convened Sol Foundation, a think tank dedicated to studying what the military calls "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAPs), the 29-page report centers on a 2019 video taken aboard the Omaha off the coast of San Diego.
The video, which was leaked to filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and verified by the Pentagon as a legit instance of Naval-recorded UAP in 2021, raises more questions than it answers — and in both his interview and the Sol Foundation report, Gallaudet suggests that the strange craft should be treated as a threat.
"Pilots, credible observers, and calibrated military instrumentation have recorded objects accelerating at rates and crossing the air-sea interface in ways not possible for anything made by humans," Gallaudet wrote in the think tank's first report.
While nobody can explain what exactly is going on in the USS Omaha video, the capabilities of the craft it documented could jeopardize American maritime security, Gallaudet told Fox, "which is already weakened by our relative ignorance about the global ocean."
"The fact that unidentified objects with unexplainable characteristics are entering US water space and the [Department of Defense] is not raising a giant red flag is a sign that the government is not sharing all it knows about all-domain anomalous phenomena," the former Naval officer continued, perhaps referencing the Pentagon's UAP-hunting All-domain Anomalous Resolution Office (AARO).
While UFOs generally get most of the attention — be it from the government, academia, or conspiracy theorists — Gallaudet and others consider USOs to be equally threatening as their flying counterparts, if not more so.
Scot Christenson, the director of the US Naval Institute, wrote in a 2022 editorial for Naval History Magazine that although there has to date been "no documented damage to a plane caused by a UFO," mysterious sea creatures and other USOs "have presented the Navy with the greatest hazard."
While there's a wide gap between little green men and the storied krakens of the deep, the military's main priority when it comes to unidentified objects or creatures in the air or in the sea is safety — and if there's video footage out there of "world-changing" crafts, as Gallaudet put it in his report, that's definitely something that's going to concern the Pentagon.
"To meet the security and scientific challenges," he continued in the Sol Foundation report, "transmedium UAP and USOs should be elevated to national ocean research priorities."
More on the unknown:
Purple is the New Green: Purple Bacteria Could Dominate Wide Range of Exoplanetary Environments
With more than 5,500 detected exoplanets, the search for life is entering a new era. Using life on Earth as a guide, astrobiologists from Cornell University and the University of Minnesota looked beyond green landscapes to expand their ability to detect signs of surface life on other worlds. In new research, they characterized the reflectance spectra of a collection of purple sulfur and purple non-sulfur bacteria from a variety of environments.
To expand our baseline for finding life in the cosmos, Coelho et al. have measured the reflectance of purple bacteria that thrive across a range of anoxic and oxic environments.
Image credit: Sci.News.
From house plants and gardens to fields and forests, green is the color we most associate with surface life on Earth, where conditions favored the evolution of organisms that perform oxygen-producing photosynthesis using the green pigment chlorophyll a.
But an Earth-like planet orbiting another star might look very different, potentially covered by bacteria that receive little or no visible light or oxygen, as in some environments on Earth, and instead use invisible infrared radiation to power photosynthesis.
Instead of green, many such bacteria on Earth contain purple pigments, and purple worlds on which they are dominant would produce a distinctive ‘light fingerprint’ detectable by next-generation ground- and space-based telescopes.
“Purple bacteria can thrive under a wide range of conditions, making it one of the primary contenders for life that could dominate a variety of worlds,” said Dr. Lígia Fonseca Coelho, a postdoctoral researcher with the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University.
“We need to create a database for signs of life to make sure our telescopes don’t miss life if it happens not to look exactly like what we encounter around us every day,” added Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University.
For the study, the authors collected and grew samples of more than 20 purple sulfur and purple non-sulfur bacteria that may be found in a variety of environments, from shallow waters, coasts and marshes to deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
What are collectively referred to as purple bacteria actually have a range of colors including yellow, orange, brown and red due to pigments related to those that make tomatoes red and carrots orange.
They thrive on low-energy red or infrared light using simpler photosynthesis systems utilizing forms of chlorophyll that absorb infrared and don’t make oxygen.
They are likely to have been prevalent on early Earth before the advent of plant-type photosynthesis and could be particularly well-suited to planets that circle cooler red dwarf stars — the most common type in our Galaxy.
“They already thrive here in certain niches,” Dr. Coelho said.
“Just imagine if they were not competing with green plants, algae and bacteria: a red sun could give them the most favorable conditions for photosynthesis.”
After measuring the purple bacteria’s biopigments and light fingerprints, the researchers created models of Earth-like planets with varying conditions and cloud cover.
“Across a range of simulated environments, both wet and dry purple bacteria produced intensely colored biosignatures,” Dr. Coelho said.
“If purple bacteria are thriving on the surface of a frozen Earth, an ocean world, a snowball Earth or a modern Earth orbiting a cooler star, we now have the tools to search for them.”
Tardigrades Have Unusual Response to Ionizing Radiation, Study Re
Tardigrades can survive remarkable doses of ionizing radiation, up to about 1,000 times the lethal dose for humans. How they do so is incompletely understood. In a new study, scientists from the University of North Carolina found that a tardigrade species called Hypsibius exemplaris suffers DNA damage upon gamma irradiation, but the damage is repaired. The study shows that this species has a specific and robust response to ionizing radiation: irradiation induces a rapid upregulation of many DNA repair genes.
An artist’s impression of the tardigrade species Hypsibius exemplaris.
First discovered in 1773, tardigrades are a diverse group of microscopic invertebrates famous for their ability to withstand extreme conditions.
Also known as water bears or moss piglets, they can live for up to 60 years, and grow to a maximum size of 0.5 mm, best seen under a microscope.
Tardigrades are able to survive for up to 30 years without food or water, for a few minutes at temperatures as low as minus 272 degrees Celsius (minus 457 degrees Fahrenheit) or as high as 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit), and minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) for decades.
They withstand pressures from virtually 0 atm in space up to 1,200 atm at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
They are also resistant to radiation levels up to 5,000-6,200 Gy.
“What we saw surprised us. The tardigrades are doing something we hadn’t expected,” said Professor Bob Goldstein, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In their research, Professor Goldstein and his colleagues examine how Hypsibius exemplaris tardigrades can survive intense radiation.
They found that the species is not immune to DNA damage — irradiation does damage their DNA — but the tardigrades can repair extensive damage.
They were surprised to find that the tardigrades can increase the volume of production from DNA repair genes.
Unlike humans, they can ramp up the level of DNA repair genes’ products to such an extreme extent that they become some of the most abundant gene products in animals.
“These animals are mounting an incredible response to radiation, and that seems to be a secret to their extreme survival abilities,” said Dr. Courtney Clark-Hachtel, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
“What we are learning about how tardigrades overcome radiation stress can lead to new ideas about how we might try to protect other animals and microorganisms from damaging radiation.”
USO emitting powerful light filmed by research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico
How Did Pluto Get Its Heart? Scientists Suggest an Answer
The most recognizable feature on Pluto is its “heart,” a relatively bright valentine-shaped area known as Tombaugh Regio. How that heart got started is one of the dwarf planet’s deepest mysteries — but now researchers say they’ve come up with the most likely scenario, involving a primordial collision with a planetary body that was a little more than 400 miles wide.
The scientific term for what happened, according to a study published today in Nature Astronomy, is “splat.”
Astronomers from the University of Bern in Switzerland and the University of Arizona looked for computer simulations that produced dynamical results similar to what’s seen in data from NASA’s New Horizons probe. They found a set of simulations that made for a close match, but also ran counter to previous suggestions that Pluto harbors a deep subsurface ocean. They said their scenario doesn’t depend on the existence of a deep ocean — which could lead scientists to rewrite the history of Pluto’s geological evolution.
An artist’s conception shows the presumed collision of a planetary body with Pluto.
(Thibaut Roger/University of Bern)
University of Arizona astronomer Adeene Denton, one of the study’s co-authors, said the formation of the heart “provides a critical window into the earliest periods of Pluto’s history.”
“By expanding our investigation to include more unusual formation scenarios, we’ve learned some totally new possibilities for Pluto’s evolution,” Denton said in a news release. Similar scenarios could apply to other objects in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy worlds on the edge of our solar system.
The study focuses on the western half of the heart, a roughly 1,000-mile-wide, teardrop-shaped region called Sputnik Planitia. That region contains an assortment of ices and is roughly 2.5 miles lower in elevation than the rest of Pluto. It’s clearly the result of a massive impact.
“While the vast majority of Pluto’s surface consists of methane ice and its derivatives, covering a water-ice crust, the Planitia is predominantly filled with nitrogen ice which most likely accumulated quickly after the impact due to the lower altitude,” said study lead author Harry Ballantyne, a research associate at the University of Bern.
The eastern half of the heart is covered by a similar but much thinner layer of nitrogen ice. The origins of that part of Tombaugh Regio are still unclear, but it’s probably related to the processes that shaped Sputnik Planitia.
Ballantyne and his colleagues ran a wide assortment of computer simulations for the ancient impact. Those simulations reflected a range of sizes and compositions for the impacting body, at different velocities and angles of approach. The best fit for Sputnik Planitia’s shape involved a 400-mile-wide object, composed of 15% rock, coming in at an angle of 30 degrees and hitting Pluto at a relatively low velocity.
Based on those parameters, the object would have plowed through Pluto’s surface with a splat. The resulting shape wouldn’t look like your typical impact crater. Instead, it would look like a bright, icy teardrop, with the rocky core of the impacting body ending up at the tail of the teardrop.
“Pluto’s core is so cold that the rocks remained very hard and did not melt despite the heat of the impact, and thanks to the angle of impact and the low velocity, the core of the impactor did not sink into Pluto’s core, but remained intact as a splat on it,” Ballantyne explained.
Previous scenarios for Sputnik Planitia’s origin relied on the presence of a deep ocean beneath Pluto’s surface to explain why the impact region hasn’t drifted toward Pluto’s nearest pole over time. But the researchers behind the newly published study found that the best matches in their simulations called for an ocean measuring no more than 30 miles in depth. “If the influence of ammonia proves negligible, Pluto might not possess a subsurface ocean at all, in accordance with our nominal case,” they wrote.
The researchers say they’ll continue their work to model Pluto’s geological history — and how those models could apply to other Kuiper Belt objects as well.
Meanwhile, the New Horizons spacecraft is continuing its journey through the solar system’s far reaches, nearly nine years after its Pluto flyby. Mission scientists recently reported detecting higher than expected levels of interplanetary dust, which suggests there may be more to the Kuiper Belt than they thought. They’re hoping to identify yet another icy world that the spacecraft can observe up close in the late 2020s or the 2030s.
One-on-One with Nick Pope: Delving into UFO Mysteries and Government Insights
Nick Pope, a former civilian employee for the British Ministry of Defense, is a renowned journalist and UFO investigator whose career has deeply intertwined with the enigmatic world of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Pope’s unique position within the government allowed him to run the UFO program, famously known as the “UFO desk,” from 1991 through to 1994. His work involved assessing the defense, national security, and flight safety implications of UFO sightings—a task that revealed more about the skies than previously understood.
During his tenure, Pope approached the UFO phenomenon with a healthy skepticism. With approximately two to three hundred sighting reports coming annually, 80% of these could be explained as misidentifications of ordinary objects or phenomena. However, a persistent 5% remained categorized as “unknown,” which neither confirmed nor denied extraterrestrial activity. This core of unexplained cases exhibited behaviors and technologies seemingly beyond contemporary aerospace capabilities.
Nick Pope’s journey into the UFO phenomenon was not just a career but a transformational experience. Over the years, as he delved deeper into historical files and new reports, his skepticism transformed into a realization of the phenomenon’s complexity and significance. This shift in perspective was not just personal but reflective of a broader change in societal attitudes towards UFOs.
In his post-MoD life, Pope has continued to be a significant figure in UFO research and advocacy, using his insider knowledge to educate the public and media. His involvement in the subject has grown alongside public interest, especially following major media disclosures like the 2017 New York Times revelations about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and the US Navy’s infrared videos of UFOs.
The landscape of UFO investigation and the public’s perception of it have evolved. What was once fringe has edged into mainstream discussions, driven by government acknowledgments and legislative actions. Hearings and reports from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon, along with active engagement from Congress, signify a shift towards demanding transparency and exploring the implications of UAPs without stigma.
Pope highlights the importance of rebranding ‘UFOs’ to ‘UAPs’, advocating for a more serious and unprejudiced discussion within government circles and the public sphere. His insights suggest that the phenomena might not just be extraterrestrial but could also involve other dimensions, as hinted by modern physics theories like string theory and the experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider.
Through his work and public engagements, Nick Pope continues to foster a nuanced understanding of UAPs, encouraging open-mindedness and scientific inquiry into one of humanity’s most profound mysteries. Whether addressing conferences, participating in documentaries, or appearing in news segments, Pope remains a pivotal figure in bridging the gap between government secrecy and public curiosity, driving the narrative from the shadows of fringe theory into the light of mainstream scientific and cultural discourse.
Underwater UFOs display capability that ‘jeopardizes US maritime security,’ ex-Navy officer says
By Chris Eberhart - Fox NewsAn unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) was filmed from the USS Omaha off the coast of San Diego in July 2019. CREDIT: Jeremy Corbell/WeaponizedPodcast
UFOs that have shown the ability to seamlessly transition from air to sea without a splash or crash debris are an "urgent" national security concern with "world-changing" scientific ramifications, an ex-Navy officer said.
In July 2019, the USS Omaha recorded a UFO – or UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) – that buzzed a Navy fleet off San Diego and disappeared into the ocean without a trace.
The video, first released by Jeremy Corbell and verified by the Pentagon, displays capability that "jeopardizes U.S. maritime security, which is already weakened by our relative ignorance about the global ocean," oceanographer and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet said.
"The fact that unidentified objects with unexplainable characteristics are entering US water space and the DOD is not raising a giant red flag is a sign that the government is not sharing all it knows about all-domain anomalous phenomena," Gallaudet wrote in his March 2024 report.
A recording of a UFO flying by the USS Omaha off the coast of San Diego in July 2019 and then vanishing into the ocean without a splash or crash debris.
(Jeremy Corbell/Weaponized Podcast)
Gallaudet sent the strong warning message in a 29-page report for the Sol Foundation, a think tank focused on researching UAPs and their implications, that was published last month.
He told Fox News Digital that it's "scientifically valid" to explore these unexplained transmedium (between the atmosphere and the ocean) events involving objects displaying abilities that have never been seen before.
"Pilots, credible observers and calibrated military instrumentation have recorded objects accelerating at rates and crossing the air–sea interface in ways not possible for anything made by humans," Gallaudet wrote in his report.
A Fox News Digital-created UFO hotspot map based off information by the Department of Defense.
(Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital based on AARO's Data)
They defy physics while being far superior in terms of engineering and materials needed to create this type of craft that could revolutionize virtually every aspect of human life from air and maritime transportation to energy generation to agriculture, he argues.
"To meet the security and scientific challenges, transmedium UAP and USOs should be elevated to national ocean research priorities," Gallaudet argues.
WATCH JEREMY CORBELL'S VIDEO OF UFO GOING FROM AIR TO SEA
The Department of Defense or NASA still haven't been able to explain the UFO seen in the 2019 video that Corbell, an investigative journalist and leading civilian voice about UFOs, released in 2021.
How the object was able to move that fast and seemingly vanish remains a mystery.
Former Navy pilot Ryan Graves, ex-Navy commander David Fravor and former U.S. intelligence officer David Grusch testify before the House of Representatives subcommittee focused on UFOs.
(House subcommittee on National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs)
The DoD created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) tasked with getting answers, but the AARO's reports have concluded there's no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Experts have criticized the reports as "underwhelming" and directly conflict with former intelligence officer David Grusch's testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee national subcommittee hearing in July 2023.
READ TIM GALLAUDET'S FULL REPORT
Grusch testified that he had knowledge of secret government-run crashed-UFO-retrieval program to reverse-engineer the technology.
He also said the government "absolutely" has UFO tech and "biologics" of "non-human origins" since the 1930s and knows the exact locations where they're being held.
"The underwhelming document, which lacked any NASA data, appeared to be a perfunctory appeasement of congressional concerns regarding UAP," Gallaudet wrote, referring to AARO's most recent report.
Going back to focusing on underwater UFOs, Gallaudet said there's been legislative acknowledgment of their potential existence but "the literature on this subject is sparse and unsystematic."
WATCH HIGHLIGHTS OF DAVID GRUSCH'S CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY
Tim Gallaudet, CEO, Ocean STL Consulting, LLC / Explorer's Cub Fellow / Former Deputy / Acting NOAA Administrator (2017-2021) Former Oceanographer of the Navy (2014-2017).
(Tim Gallaudet/X)
"There are only a handful of books and scattered accounts by largely nonprofessional researchers, in contrast with the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of books published about UAP sightings in the sky," Gallaudet wrote.
He lists a handful of sources that describe "luminous orbs, silver and gray discs, and triangular and cigar-shaped objects with various lighting configuration …. (and) their movement seems to defy known physical laws."
Gallaudet called on the U.S. government, academics, philanthropies and the private sector to invest in in-depth research about undersea UAPs.
"Sometime in the future, the government may start openly researching UAP to a greater degree than the perfunctory categorization effort underway at AARO," he wrote. "When that occurs, subsequent exploration for UAP on and under the sea will have the benefit of making new ocean science discoveries as well.
"Any hunt for USOs or supporting undersea infrastructure will almost certainly identify new marine species, geologic features, and oceanic processes."
Tom DeLonge Claims Secret DoD Document From UFO Program Proves Telekinesis Is Real
Tom DeLonge, the former lead vocalist and guitarist of the popular band Blink-182, has always had a keen interest in UFOs. He has spent many years researching and studying the topic. He has even formed a company, To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (or To The Stars) to investigate and promote research on UFOs and other related phenomena.
DeLonge’s To The Stars is behind publishing the three footages (captured in 2004 and 2015 by the US Navy) that were released in 2017 and 2018. They depict UFOs and include audio recordings of the pilots. These videos gained a lot of attention when they were released.
His interest in UFOs began at a young age. As a child, DeLonge was fascinated by stories of alien encounters and sightings. He used to spend hours reading books and watching documentaries about UFOs, and was particularly interested in the famous Roswell incident of 1947, where a UFO allegedly crashed in New Mexico.
DeLonge’s research led him to conclude that UFOs are real and that they are of extra-terrestrial origin. He believes that there is a wealth of evidence to support this conclusion, including reports of sightings and encounters, as well as physical evidence such as radar tracks and photographs.
During a podcast with Daniel P Carter of BBC Radio 1 Rock, DeLonge disclosed that he has a secret official Pentagon document from a UFO program that shows telekinesis is a real ability. He believes that telekinesis has been proven in the lab and that consciousness precedes matter, and once we discover that, life is going to get very interesting.
Tom DeLonge with Former Pentagon UFO official Luis Elizondo and Former Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon
He suggests that we have the ability to heal ourselves and create new types of Sciences and Engineering tweets. He also believes that telepathy is going to be a part of it, and that they have found an area in the brain that they believe is where telepathy happens. He thinks that once people accept all of the stuff that they have been talking about, it’s going to change the world. Below is the transcript of his conversation with Carter:
“I always tell people there is this really cool document (that I have) that was a part of the UFO program where they were studying a kid in China who can move objects with his mind. He is around 10 years old, so they wanted to figure out how that’s possible, and they recreated it in the lab.
I have the whole Department of Defense document, and it goes through it and says they were able to put a piece of paper in a glass jar, screw the lid on it, and move the paper through the lid and then six feet across the floor, all with their mind. 100 people can do this, only 10 have mastered it, and it was just wild.
So telekinesis has been proven in the lab, but no one knows about it. I’m like, to be able to move things with the force, like in Star Wars, is a big deal. It sounds ridiculous, that’s why, and within the current paradigm, it sounds ridiculous. I’m sure, or you won’t remember, but we had a conversation at the Reading Festival many years ago where I think I probably came across as a total maniac, even to someone as open-minded as yourself. But, I was talking about reading a bunch of different things, which means nothing, but I was looking at different realms of consciousness because that’s the basis of everything I believe.
I believe that consciousness precedes matter and I highly agree with you. Because the current paradigm is that consciousness is a facet that’s created by matter, which is just this weird thing that’s come about because our brains are complicated and that’s nonsense. I think it’s exactly the opposite and once we discover that stuff, life is going to get very interesting.
Once we discover that mind over matter, not the other way around, we will have the ability to heal ourselves, create new types of Sciences and Engineering, and become a civilization where telepathy is a part of it. I believe that’s all going to happen. There is one person, who was up for the Nobel last year, is one of the top geneticists in the world, at one of the Ivy League schools that we are working with, who worked on part of the UFO program at the Pentagon. I was talking to him, and they found an area in the brain that they believe is where telepathy happens, and he believes he can create something to enhance it by a thousand times, like some type of drug that targets that area of the brain.
So, that’s the thing, people do think it’s ridiculous, but not the people who have an open enough mind to research and jump in. These guys are like World leading PhDs, and that’s been the kind of the story of my life, is everything I’ve told, even on Rogan, is not made up, it’s coming from somewhere, and I can’t say where it’s coming from, but at the end of the day, it’s all real. I think it’s going to be a very exciting time once people accept all of the stuff that we’ve been talking about here on this interview, I think it’s going to really change the world.”
Read also:
Moreover, as in the January 2022 Thrasher Magazine issue, DeLonge was asked: “Would you say UFOs are driven by aliens or do you think it’s more like a drone?” He replied: “I think both.” He suggested that it is important to note that while studying UFOs, we must be aware of the fact that they could be remotely controlled and may have occupants. (Source)
“I think the biggest misconception is that they are coming from other planets. Evidence doesn’t really support that. The evidence supports that it’s dimensional and that it’s parallel timelines that exist with frequency. It’s really complicated, different, and interesting. But once you understand that, you have no way out of reexamining the religious world and wondering what the Star of Bethlehem really was,” DeLonge explained.
Further, he was asked if UFOs or aliens are coming from the oceans. He said that while the origin of UFOs is a separate conversation, it is believed that they do exist in our oceans. With the use of sensors placed throughout the ocean to detect submarines and other objects, it has been reported that there have been sightings of unidentified submerged objects (USOs).
In one instance, a helicopter pilot was testing torpedoes, and a navy SEAL was sent down on a wire to retrieve the torpedo. However, as soon as he touched the water, a large craft came underneath him, took the torpedo, and left at the high speed. The navy SEAL was in shock and panicked, requesting to be pulled up immediately. Although there were initial plans to have the witnesses speak on television, they later backed out, and some of them testified to the committee. Nonetheless, similar incidents continue to occur frequently, and it is, indeed, extraordinary.
DeLonge’s views on UFOs have been met with both praise and criticism. Some people believe that his research is valuable and that it is important to investigate and study UFOs in an open and honest manner. Others believe that DeLonge’s opinion is misguided and that there is no evidence to support his conclusions.
Despite the criticism, DeLonge remains committed to his research and wants to continue promoting the truth about UFOs. He believes that UFOs are real and that they are of extra-terrestrial origin, and that the truth about UFOs should be investigated and studied openly and honestly. Through his work To The Stars, DeLonge hopes to bring more attention to the topic of UFOs and to promote research and discussion about this fascinating phenomenon.
Is Dark Matter Real? Inside the Theories That Leave This Mysterious Phenomenon Out
Is there more to the universe than meets the eye, or are the rules different than we thought? (Spoiler alert: it's probably the first one.)
Stars at the outer edges of galaxies whirl around the galactic center far more swiftly than the laws of physics say they should. At even larger scales, galaxy clusters clump together in ways that should only be possible if the galaxies were more massive than they appear. And most of our models of how the Big Bang happened suggest that much more matter should have been created than we see.
Either there’s more to the universe than meets the eye, or the rules of physics work very differently than we think they do. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists (scientists who study the origins and evolution of the universe) today lean toward the first option: dark matter. But a few have devoted their efforts to finding a set of rules that could produce the universe we see, without dark matter.
Inverse spoke with experts in both fields about dark matter, the laws that make our universe work, and the quest to understand everything.
Most of the material in the universe is stuff we can’t see, can’t measure, and barely understand. Cue existential crisis in 3... 2... 1...
VISUAL CAPITALIST/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES
The things we can see in the universe — planets, stars, vast clouds of gas, and galaxies — make up only about 5 percent of what’s out there, according to physicists. Another 70 percent is dark energy, a little-understood force that’s driving the expansion of our universe (we know it’s expanding because astronomers have measured the way light waves from distant stars get stretched out as their sources accelerate away from us), and the remaining 25 percent is stuff called dark matter.
Dark matter doesn’t absorb, emit, or reflect light, and it doesn’t seem to interact with normal matter in most ways; theoretically, you could walk through a wall made of dark matter and never see it or feel it. The only rule of physics that dark matter seems to follow is gravity: It has mass, apparently, and that mass has gravity and forms a vital part of the scaffolding of galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the universe itself at a large scale.
As explanations go, dark matter sounds weird, but it works well. The amount of “extra” matter created in the Big Bang seems to match the amount of unseen mass in the universe. It balances physicists’ equations nicely and explains what we see in the universe around us.
But because dark matter doesn’t interact with light or matter, scientists haven’t yet actually detected it directly; they can only see how its gravity affects the universe around it. That leaves a little sliver of doubt and inspires some physicists and cosmologists to look for other ways to explain those effects.
One of the most popular alternatives to dark matter is called Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND, and it proposes that gravity works a little differently than Isaac Newton first described it. The farther away an object is, the weaker its gravitational pull feels. According to MOND, gravity’s effect weakens slightly less over distance than it does in Newton’s original equations. That, allegedly, explains why galaxies seem to spin fast, as if they have a lot more mass on their outer edges than it appears.
MOND, and other modified ways of describing gravity, “are quite good at describing the properties of galaxies, but usually fail at describing the large-scale structure of the Universe,” astrophysicist Sébastien Comerón tells Inverse. And to replace dark matter, any new model of how the universe works has to explain everything we see, at large scales and small ones.
A recent study, led by cosmologist Rajendra Gupta, tackled that problem. Gupta suggested earlier this year that the universe might be 26.7 billion years old — nearly twice as old as all our evidence so far suggests — and that the laws of physics are much less consistent than we thought.
“I was trying to understand the so-called 'impossible early galaxy' problem,” Gupta tells Inverse. When astronomers peer into the distant, early universe with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they see galaxies that look more massive and more neatly structured than they should; just 1 billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies shouldn’t have had time to pull so much mass together. (The same is true of some of the earliest supermassive black holes in the universe.)
Those precocious early galaxies challenge what we think we know about how supermassive black holes and galaxies form and evolve.
But Gupta tackled the “impossible early galaxies” problem by developing a new model of the universe, which would explain the precocious early galaxies. His model hinges on a century-old theory called tired light, which suggests that light actually loses energy as it travels across space. It also leans on another old theory that suggests the laws that govern how our universe works (like gravity) aren’t so constant after all — they weaken over distance. According to Gupta’s model, those changes add up to differences in how light appears by the time it reaches JWST, making the universe look younger than it is.
Some of the galaxies in this image are among the oldest ever seen by astronomers — and they’re suprisingly massive.
XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
The model suggested another conclusion as well: Dark matter and dark energy don’t exist.
“The model yields matter content just enough for the Universe's ordinary matter; there is no room for dark matter. In fact, there is no dark energy in this model either,” says Gupta. “Accelerated expansion of the Universe, attributed to the dark energy, is due to the weakening of the forces of nature in the new model.”
But there are some problems with the idea, starting with the fact that both “tired light” and the idea of varying physical constants (like gravity) fell out of fashion among scientists a long time ago because they didn’t fit with observations about how the universe behaved.
“I think it is an interesting idea to explain the origin of recently discovered compact bright galaxies at high redshift with just varying two new parameters that determine the property of photons. However, it remains to be seen whether the model can explain the other phenomena,” cosmologist Kaiki Inoue tells Inverse. Those other phenomena include some inconsistences in how the cosmic microwave background looks in different directions, as well as how galaxy clusters and even larger-scale structures form. “So, in my opinion, it is an interesting idea but not a fully developed model,” says Inoue.
NGC 1277, seen here in an image from the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, appears to contain no dark matter. Most galaxies are surrounded by an unseen halo of the mysterious stuff, so NGC 1277 is strange and interesting.
“It is worth doing exploratory work outside the box,” says Comerón. “But the likelihood of this particular avenue being the one that solves the problems in cosmology is rather low in my opinion.”
It’s not clear yet whether modified gravity theories, like MOND, actually fit well with Gupta’s proposed model of the universe, either.
One of the best arguments in favor of dark matter may be its inconsistency. Comerón and his colleagues recently discovered a galaxy that apparently contains no dark matter — which is weird but not unheard of. And if we’re seeing not invisible, undetectable matter, but different laws of physics, those laws should apply to all galaxies in the same way.
“I have sometimes been attracted by the idea of alternative gravities myself, but the discovery of the odd properties of NGC 1277 leaves me little doubt that dark matter exists,” says Comerón. “If dark matter could be explained by a modification of gravities, it would be odd to have gravity modified in all galaxies except in a few. On the other hand, one could conceive mechanisms to remove dark matter from galaxies that have got a peculiar formation or interaction history.”
And that seems to be the consensus among most astrophysicists and cosmologists. So far, no one has figured out how to directly measure dark matter — and until they do, there will always be at least a little room for debate about its existence. But Inoue and his colleagues recently used gravitational lensing to map how dark matter is distributed along one narrow swath of the universe, and others are busily trying to work out exactly what it’s made of and how it behaves.
“I would not bet any money against dark matter,” says Comerón.
Creepy Video Shows Humanoid-Shaped UFO Floating Over US Park. What Is It?
Footage shared Sunday on social media appeared to show a bizarre humanoid UFO floating in mid-air somewhere over Sequoia Park in California.
Footage was captured by multiple people and shared by the @528vibes social media channel. It appears to show a humanoid-type glowing white figure standing in place in our skies and doing some weird poses. But unlike any other UFO video shared online, there are multiple reports of the same bizarre being appearing year after year, with no specific explanation as to what it is.
Some people apparently claim these bizarre UFO people are “interdimensional beings” but obviously there’s no proof to this claim in mainstream science, News18 noted.
Others think this is a psychological operations test for the underworld government to trick us into thinking the Second Coming of Christ is upon us, even though there’s no evidence to suggest Jesus ever floated through the air looking like a giant Stay Puft balloon.
The U.S. government and its agencies will never actually admit to us that aliens and UFOs are real — at least not until they figure out how to (a) profit off these beings and (b) use these beings to inflict further control upon us.
Then there’s the potentially obvious answer: These videos are fake. I don’t really care what the answer is, so whatever you think is correct as far as I’m concerned.
The Stephenville Lights: A Riveting Chapter in UFO Sightings
In the quiet town of Stephenville, Texas, renowned as the “milk capital of the world,” an extraordinary event unfolded in January 2008 that would catapult it into the global spotlight for reasons far beyond dairy production. The so-called Stephenville Lights represent one of the most credible and extensively documented UFO sightings in modern history, captivating not just the local community but the world at large.
It all began on an ordinary evening, as Steve Allen and his friends enjoyed a casual gathering by a campfire. What they witnessed next would challenge their understanding of reality. A set of intensely bright lights appeared, approaching at an astonishing speed, their brilliance outshining anything Allen had ever seen. The most astonishing aspect? The complete absence of sound from the approaching marvel, coupled with an inexplicable sense of peace that enveloped Allen as the lights passed by.
This encounter was not isolated. Lee Roy Gaitan, a local constable, reported a similar, mystifying experience, describing a reddish-orange orb that split into a dozen pulsating lights before vanishing at an inconceivable speed. The sightings prompted widespread curiosity and concern, with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) stepping in to investigate, drawing dozens of witnesses forward with tales of the extraordinary.
The intrigue surrounding the Stephenville Lights was not merely anecdotal. Robert Powell, a nanotechnology engineer and UFO investigator, armed with radar data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, lent a scientific backbone to the witness accounts. His analysis revealed unidentified objects moving without transponders, a requirement for all aircraft in controlled airspace, thereby deepening the mystery.
The radar data meticulously corroborated the witnesses’ accounts in terms of location and timing, presenting an irrefutable anomaly that defied conventional explanations. The U.S. military’s eventual admission of conducting fighter jet training exercises in the area failed to satisfy skeptics, with the discrepancies between the military’s operations and the observed phenomena remaining unresolved.
The Stephenville UFO sighting stands as a pivotal moment in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena, bolstering the credibility of UFO sightings with a potent mix of eyewitness testimony and corroborating scientific data. It challenges skeptics and believers alike to consider the limits of our understanding and the possibilities that lie beyond.
This incident serves as a reminder of the vastness of the unknown and the potential for extraordinary events to occur in the most unexpected of places. As we continue to explore the skies above, the Stephenville Lights remind us that some mysteries remain tantalizingly out of reach, inviting us to keep questioning, searching, and wondering about the vast expanse of our universe.
Ex-Israeli Space Head Interview On UAPs: Aliens Exist & Working With US Astronauts On Mars
In December 2020, Haim Eshed, a retired Israeli general and former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s space directorate gained attention for making controversial claims about extraterrestrial life and alleged secret collaborations between humans and aliens. He stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars.
In his claims, Mr. Eshed said ETs exist and monitor our nuclear capabilities. There is a “Galactic Federation,” and the alien species with whom humanity will contact is “Grey.” According to him, Earth is their Petri dish, and they are also trying to understand the whole fabric of the universe. He further stated that some of the smaller UFOs are robots/AI, consciousness is present after death, and humans have anti-gravity technology but it is still classified.
The above-mentioned information was shared by Mr. Eshed in his book “The Universe Beyond the Horizon,” published in November 2020 and discussed in his interview with Israel’s daily newspaper “Yedioth Aharonot.” He had been a director of space programs for the Israel Ministry of Defense for nearly 30 years, is a former chair of the Space Committee of the National Council for Research and Development for the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space, and is a member of the steering committee of Israel Space Agency. He is responsible for the launch of 20 Israeli-made satellites and is widely cited as the father of Israel’s space program. (Source)
Israel’s former space head Haim Eshed
In the book, Eshed makes implausible claims that include stories of how aliens prevented potential nuclear disasters, including an unspecified nuclear incident during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Below is the English translation of his interview titled “The UFOs asked not to advertise that they are here, humanity is not yet ready,” where he also discussed the Skinwalker Ranch and alleged contact between aliens and US presidents.
Until recently, Eshed actually managed to hold back, but then Trump officially established the “Space Force”, and the press was given an announcement that the Pentagon’s Task Force for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” would begin publishing its findings to the public every six months. At the same time, the “Skinwalker” cattle ranch of the American billionaire Robert Bigelow in Utah – a place that was previously suspected to be a favorite destination for extraterrestrials – recorded some things that no amount of popcorn in the world would be enough to watch.
“Unidentified phenomena have now been recorded at this farm,” said Eshed. “A team of scientists from NASA and MIT graduates brought all possible instruments there – cameras, spectrometers, spectrographs, gamma-rays, X-rays, UV, IR, all fields, and they saw things that I was left with my mouth open. I spoke with Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel (currently the chairman of the Space Agency) who was also thrilled.”
What did they see there? “You know the term portal in this context? So you see a UFO appear there – you photograph it in the entire spectrum of the cameras, you see the radiation in all frequencies, it’s raging!”
Could not it be some familiar aircraft? “No! It shows definite signs of UFOs: crazy accelerations, lack of gravity, 90-degree changes of direction at tremendous speeds, shape-shifting. And all the scientists there are in complete shock.”
And what is the UFO doing? “ You see the radiation jump, and you see how a shape-changing body arrives, light comes out of it at a frequency that you cannot see with the naked eye – in fact, you do not see anything when you look normally – but with the cameras, at the high frequencies, you see this body perform” Kill from utilization’ – drawing blood from the cattle on the ground in front of your eyes.”
What exactly did they see? “Something like a cloud like that. Like you draw a ghost for children. It’s like an undefined cloud, amorphous, and the horns come out of it, and you see the cow twitching. And when it’s over, everyone runs to the field to see, and there’s nothing there, no blood – but the cow’s body has a cut which is like with a laser. They removed its organs and pumped the blood! If they had told me that, I would have said: Shit, it’s a show. But professors from MIT and leading researchers have seen and confirmed it, and everyone is shocked. So listen, we have to at least check.”
Why does not Robert Bigelow himself tell about it? “He received huge funding from NASA as part of programs that my friends there only mumble about under their breath, and he made a written commitment that everything goes to the Pentagon and is housed there. It upsets him that the Ministry of Defense is not ready to release anything.”
…American presidents also testified to this. Truman admitted seeing a whole bunch of aliens over Washington. Nixon, who was a friend of comedian Jackie Gleason and knew he was crazy about UFOs, told him, ‘I’m going to make your life’s dream come true,’ and took him to the White Patterson base and showed him alien bodies. Gleason got depressed about it. Eisenhower’s granddaughter testified that her grandfather had signed an agreement with the aliens, that they would have a secret landing base here in Area 51 in Nevada, that they could come in contact with a small number of people, conduct experiments, and that the condition was that they provide us with technologies — for example, anti-gravity.
Read also:
And we received these technologies? Yes. We have anti-gravity and other things. So why are they hiding from us and how can all the governments and armies in the world be able to cooperate in concealment of this magnitude? Not “all the world governments”. There is a group of partners – the Americans, the Russians, the Japanese, the English, and the Chinese – all coordinated at a level that is still not allowed to publish, and those who asked not to publish it are them.
Who are “them”? The Galactic Federation. Is there such a thing? It exists. I wrote about it even though it was perceived as a conspiracy theory, but lately former senior generals are also saying to publish [sic], and Trump was on the verge of finding out, and a few mainstream professors are also saying: guys, tell us. But the aliens in the federation say: wait, let the spirits calm down first, do not publish yet because look what’s happening. You’re still fighting each other, you’ll destroy yourself.
Why not come and talk to us directly? Because it will create panic and collapse humanity. What will happen? The markets will collapse, there will be nothing to eat, people will become cannibals, hospitals will be shut down, all the dark passions will come out, it may be the end – and they are not interested in it. On the contrary, they are constantly keeping track – and there are a lot of reports about it – the nuclear events in the world, they are monitoring all the stations and nuclear weapons bases – I am willing to give you all the things in writing [sic] – and there have been things they have prevented. Know that it is not just luck that the Russians in the Bay of Pigs did not use nuclear weapons against the Americans. Someone neutralized it. Without them I have no doubt that humanity would have already destroyed itself. They want to say to humanity: children, calm down!
Why not make contact when their intentions are peaceful and say so explicitly? The UFOs have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet. There will be a great rampage of everyone, and what the Inquisition did to guys like Galileo and Copernicus will return. They want to make us sane and understand first. In general, what are space and spacecraft – think, in World War I we did not even have planes – and they do not want mass hysteria here, with the best example being what happened in 1938, with Orson Welles’ World of Wars show, and the police collapsed and everything exploded And what they say is: first of all let’s stand, that the stock markets will not fall, that there will be no rampage, that humanity will calm down a little.
Are we in communication with them regarding the date of publication? There is an agreement between the U.S. government and aliens – I can not prove it, I understand it sounds like a conspiracy theory – but the understanding is that the Galactic Federation has nine elements of advanced aliens of various kinds, who signed a contract with us to do experiments here.
What interest do they have in us? There are all kinds of resources here. There is water here in quantities that are not found nowhere else, there is all kinds of vegetation, all kinds of animals, the ocean.
But for an intelligent species more developed than us, how are we useful to them? We are their petri dish. They too are researching and trying to understand the whole fabric of the universe, and they want us as helpers. To date the petri dish has not been stabilized – but it is estimated that we are reaching this stage: religion is accepting their existence – the Vatican has already announced that it wants to baptize them; the UN has appointed an ambassador for foreign affairs (Molan Othman); the corona calmed everything and brought us closer to them.
Come on, in the present age there is no way such a thing would have been kept secret. How many years have they kept a secret that the earth is not the center of the universe? 1,500 years. Or the ‘Manhattan Project’ (US atomic bomb project)? Do you know how many people worked there? 150 thousand people. How many knew what it was? Three. So if you want to keep such a thing a secret, you can. And there is a terrible, obsessive system of silence, of the Americans, who have decided, under the guidance of the aliens, who are not yet publishing. Robert Bigelow also said: I can not publish the films.
How many life forms are there in space? There are thousands of stars with conditions similar enough to ours, and serious scientists have identified and documented dozens of life forms – even though the mainstream does not accept it. The closest to us are what we call the ‘grays’, which are gray creatures with large eyes with them.
Where are they in geographic relation to us? Supposedly some came from the Pleiades, planets that have living conditions we know of – we can not get there, but they can get to us because they are much more advanced.
Where else in the neighborhood is there life? “There is an underground base on Mars. There are their representatives there as well as our American astronauts.” How do we know that? “Do you want articles? There are. But science, so far, doesn’t want to hear.”
What does their craft look like? The big spacecraft is almost the size of a small town. Small spaceships come out of it – most of them robotic, manned by intelligent robots. At first, they will send such robots, primitive to them, or a message we will have to decipher.
To reach us they need to move at least at the speed of light. What is their propulsion method – rocket? Nuclear? No. They have a method of producing a bubble that neutralizes time-space, and the tool does not move – space moves, and this is consistent with general relativity. Take for example an ant that wants to get from one end of a page to the other. Now let’s say I folded the page in half – it moves to its other side in a second. That’s how you fold time-space as well.
What do they use to move time-space? This is a bit of complex physics; motion is based on dark energy – 25 percent of the universe is dark matter – which allows time-space to be distorted and reach other galaxies in no time. You can create a tiny black hole – that, by the way, is what you do with a particle accelerator in Switzerland – that sucks stars out quickly and spits them out. These are technologies that sound like science fiction but we are at the threshold.
And what will happen when they come to us? Humanity will connect to the fabric of the universe, and once we connect, our science will leap in thousands of years, we will be capable of anti-gravity, we will move between star systems, religion will lose the control it has today – aliens do not believe in religion, they believe in deciphering the fabric of the universe, which is not God, it is math.
Tell me, why are they always described as relatively short creatures, with long necks and big heads? This is exactly the way the immediate human imagination will see them. No. They have all kinds of shapes – they are a function of the star around which they cluster, and some of them can shapeshift.
Is it biologically feasible? Yes. Here is an example that you will understand immediately [Eshed points to the heavy wooden table between us]. It’s a table, right? It’s made of atoms. And if the nucleus of the atom is here on the table – do you know where its electron is? Maybe in Rosh Pina, maybe in the middle of nothing. It’s quantum theory; the material is empty.
Even when we die we do not die, because we are made of molecules and atoms, and we move to another energy. You connect back to the cosmic fabric, to the web, to the connection of consciousnesses. You are consciousness.The consciousnesses will not die. Everything you have accumulated is added. It goes to the same network – and everything you have accumulated in your life, the personality, the total of what you have gone through, it accumulates. Stephen Hawking also realized that our consciousness adds to the fabric of the universe. We are building blocks. Stepping stones.
UFO Appeared Underwater Off US Coast, DOD Doesn’t Care, Says Navy Veteran
KAY SMYTHE - NEWS AND COMMENTARY WRITER
A report published in March detailed how UFOs may be just as present under our oceans as they apparently are in our skies and the Department of Defense (DOD) doesn’t seem to care.
The report comes from retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, who developed the data for the Sol Foundation, finding that there are many instances in which UFOs/UAPs seem to travel from the skies into our oceans without any sort of issue. One of the most widely reported of these events was the UFO caught on video dropping into the ocean in 2019. The Pentagon called the object a “transmedium vehicle.”
“The fact that unidentified objects with unexplainable characteristics are entering US water space and the DOD is not raising a giant red flag is a sign that the government is not sharing all it knows about all-domain anomalous phenomena,” Gallaudet wrote in the 29-page report.
The frequency of reports on “transmedia vehicles” moving from air to ocean from credible sources transcends the abilities of “anything made by humans.”
Not only that, but these vehicles seem to defy the laws of physics. And no one from NASA or the DOD has been able to explain it, Fox News argued. The one governmental body publicly investigating this and other evidence of alien technologies, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), said they’ve found absolutely nothing to suggest UFOs are real.
“The underwhelming document, which lacked any NASA data, appeared to be a perfunctory appeasement of congressional concerns regarding UAP,” Gallaudet said of the most recent AARO report.
Since we’ve only explored about 25% of our oceans, there is almost certainly something down there that most of us would consider pretty alien … as if the oceans weren’t scary enough.
The 5 most believable UFO sightings ever reported in North Carolina
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
When you think of the most common places where you might hear a UFO sighting reported, what comes to mind? Area 51? The vast plains of the Midwest? Anywhere with a cornfield?
North Carolina ticks one of those boxes, so perhaps it’s not surprising that our great state lands in the Top 10 states where sightings have been reported, according to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).
As it turns out, the number of sightings reported in any given state corresponds relatively closely to where the state ranks in population. So as the ninth most populous state in the country, it could be expected that North Carolina ranks as No. 10 in sightings. (As the 32nd most populous state, Nevada isn’t in the Top 10 for UFO sightings.)
These sightings get published on the NUFORC’s Data Bank, where they’re indexed based on location, description, and date. In early 2022, WBTW in Wilmington reported that dozens of sightings were logged over just a few months. These reports spanned from two cigar-shaped objects in Edenton to a glowing disc near the Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
But alas, all of these reports are entered anonymously, and as far as we know, none of them are subject to any follow-up investigation. But what about the stories that have names attached, with more details than a brief description in an anonymous database?
We went looking for those, and here are the most credible — or at least most detailed — accounts we could find.
Sev Tok is an author, co-owner of the Spirit Shack in Oriental, and field investigator for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), an international organization that investigates UFO reports around the world.
In her book, “You Have The Right To Talk To Aliens,” Tok told of her own encounter with extraterrestrials, which she says occurred in Arapahoe.
“I came [into] face-to-face contact with these beings, they’re what we call The Greys, the small ones with the big eyes,” Tok told Greenville’s WNCT last summer. “I was paralyzed on this bed and I was lying on my side and I could feel there was something behind me.
“When I moved my head and turned around, there was a Grey standing behind me doing something to my back,” she continued. “Then I turned my head back around and I found myself back in my bedroom.”
Tok said the Greys left two red X marks on her back, pictures of which can be found in her book. She sold copies of the book and hosted UFO Talks to discuss alien encounters in a judgment-free space at her shop, The Spirit Shack, though the business sadly closed in November.
Back in 1975, before the NUFORC Data Bank existed, a string of well-documented sightings sent UFO investigators from around the country flocking to the southeastern NC town of Lumberton.
People reported more than eight sightings in the course of just a few days in the first week of April that year, including two incidents of UFOs being followed by state troopers. News reports from the area allegedly inspired some of the earlier sequences in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The most credible report came from a soybean field off Philadelphus Road just north of the Pembroke town line on the afternoon of April 6, where The Robesonian newspaper reported a total of seven people, most from the Strickland family, saw something land in a field near their home.
It reportedly looked like five large, triangular-shaped metallic objects, with some witnesses claiming they flew in formation while others rerpoted seeing chrome-like attachments connecting them. A young boy “said he saw the object kick up a cloud of dust as high as a house” when it landed in the newly plowed field. The object stayed only a few minutes before lifting off again and disappearing into the sky.
The objects reportedly left circular impressions at the landing sight with a strange blue-gray “ash,” while surrounding plants did not appear harmed or burnt. This and other incidents that week — about 80 witnesses total, 40 of whom were police — led many in the town to believe they were facing an “alien attack,” though sightings dropped off as the month progressed.
In the early morning hours of May 9, 1964, two students at the Asheville School for Boys spotted a silver, saucer-shaped craft with a blue light emanating from its windows hovering over the school’s water tower. A golden disk “moved wildly” atop the craft as it hovered, according to the boys’ matching accounts. Then, suddenly, sparks rained down from the saucer before it took off in the direction of the rising sun at an “amazingly fast speed.”
Declaring themselves to be of “sound mind and body,” the students attested to their encounter the following day in signed statements, their names and signatures later redacted by the bureaucrats charged with declassifying the case files of Project Blue Book, which was released in 2015. Upon the release of the findings, which included illustrations by the boys, Asheville school administration officials told WLOS it was the first time they’d heard of the sightings.
Investigators at the time chalked the boys’ sightings up to the “imagination of the observers” and the “misinterpretation of conventional objects” like aircraft and various stars and planets.
Project Blue Book also included around 700 sightings that not even investigators could explain away, including an occurrence in Salisbury in 1966. On Feb. 2 of that year, shortly after 11 p.m., a woman who remained unnamed in the files reported that she had just gotten into bed when her dog began barking in a panicked manner. When she threw open her curtains, she saw a silver, diamond-shaped object hovering just 300 feet away from her window above a cluster of trees in her neighbor’s backyard.
Though the craft didn’t actually move when she first spotted it, the woman described it as remaining in “a tremendous state of activity,” with a dozen smaller objects “resembling balls” orbiting around the central body, each taking its own path and flashing red, green, and white lights. Small “explosions” emanated from the craft, these also exhibiting fantastic color changes. With pen and paper in hand, the observer sketched as best she could what she saw in the sky.
The craft hovered for three or four minutes before shooting to a new position nearby. “The speed with which it moved was so rapid that I could not begin to estimate it,” said the woman, a trusted teacher in the community who declared that she had been a lifelong skeptic until the incident.
As time passed, the object slowly moved away, though it remained in sight long enough for the woman’s husband to return home from work close to midnight and also view the object. Viewing the flying diamond through binoculars, the man also reported seeing small, colorful explosions and brilliantly flashing lights surrounding the object. The craft remained in view until around 1 a.m., a full hour and a half after it was first sighted. “I do not know what the object was,” the woman confessed, “but I hereby swear that I saw the object as described.”
While a series of lights recorded and reported over the Outer Banks in 2019 can most likely be identified as flares from military jets doing exercises nearby, another video captured over Greensboro earlier that year is not as easily explained.
Photographer Bret Jones, who goes by Space Bret on YouTube, said he went out to try to document the behavior of birds when he spotted a “random flashing” object floating in the sky above. The five-minute video — magnified and slowed down — shows the pill-shaped object soaring through the sky and producing a series of flashes.
“I noticed a strange flashing light in the sky near an airplane. It was moving slowly in the sky, a little slower than the planes flying around,” Jones said on YouTube. “I did not think I captured it at all, because the focus would only hunt and not lock on.”
He later magnified the video by 900x and saw the pill-shaped object, which appeared to emanate flashes from both ends. The video sparked debate online between those who thought it was a large balloon — a theory strengthened by the sudden appearance of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States in 2023 — or a visit from some other far more foreign entity.
Ex-Navy officer says underwater UFO capability 'jeopardizes US maritime security'
Image credit: YouTube screenshot
An ex-Navy officer said UFOs that can move from air to sea without a splash or crash debris represent an "urgent" national security concern that can have "world-changing" consequences, according to Fox News Digital.
Back in July 2019, the USS Omaha reportedly captured video of a UFO that raced past a Navy fleet around San Diego and mysteriously vanished into the ocean without a trace.
The video of the strange incident was first released by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and later confirmed by the Pentagon, according to NBC News. Oceanographer and retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet said the UFO's capability "jeopardizes U.S. maritime security, which is already weakened by our relative ignorance about the global ocean."
"The fact that unidentified objects with unexplainable characteristics are entering U.S. water space and the DOD is not raising a giant red flag is a sign that the government is not sharing all it knows about all-domain anomalous phenomena," Gallaudet wrote in a 2024 report.
Gallaudet wrote a 29-page report about the possibility of underwater UFOs that was published by the Sol Foundation — a think tank specifically focused on UFOs and the possible consequences of their existence.
The former Navy officer told Fox News Digital that it is "scientifically valid" to investigate the mysterious transmedium events that demonstrate capabilities that have never been seen before.
"Pilots, credible observers, and calibrated military instrumentation have recorded objects accelerating at rates and crossing the air-sea interface in ways not possible for anything made by humans," Gallaudet said in his report.
"To meet the security and scientific challenges, transmedium UAP and USOs should be elevated to national ocean research priorities," he continued.
When the 2019 UFO video was first released, the Defense Department quickly confirmed that it was captured by Navy personnel and noted that it would be reviewed by the Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.
NBC News reported at the time that the clip of the UFO was released just a few days before "60 Minutes" aired an interview with two former Navy officers who said they had previously been told to investigate "multiple anomalous aerial vehicles" that reportedly descended 80,000 feet in less than a second. The incident in question took place off San Diego in 2004.
However, the reports have been criticized for producing "underwhelming" evidence and directly contradicting former intelligence officer David Grusch's testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee in 2023.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venus
In August 2021, the ESA/JAXA Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft performed its second flyby of Venus and provided a short-lived observation of its induced magnetosphere. The spacecraft detected cold oxygen and carbon ions at a distance of about six planetary radii in a region of the magnetosphere that has never been explored before.
Schematic view of planetary material escaping through Venus magnetosheath flank; the red line and arrow show the region and direction of observations by BepiColombo when the escaping ions (C+, O+, H+) were observed.
Image credit: Thibaut Roger / Europlanet 2024 RI / Hadid et al.
During its formation, Venus was similar to Earth in many ways, including the existence of substantial amounts of liquid water.
However, Venus eventually evolved in a divergent way, leading to substantial differences between the two planets.
Unlike Earth, Venus is now an extremely dry planet that lacks an intrinsic magnetic field.
The continuous impact of the solar wind on the atmospheres of both planets results in important atmospheric losses.
The atmosphere of Venus, predominantly composed of carbon dioxide with smaller amounts of nitrogen and other minor species, is affected by interactions with the solar wind, leading to important ion outflows.
“This is the first time that positively charged carbon ions have been observed escaping from Venus’ atmosphere,” said Dr. Lina Hadid, a researcher at the Plasma Physics Laboratory and CNRS.
“These are heavy ions that are usually slow moving, so we are still trying to understand the mechanisms that are at play.”
“It may be that an electrostatic ‘wind’ is lifting them away from the planet, or they could be accelerated through centrifugal processes.”
“Unlike Earth, Venus does not generate an intrinsic magnetic field in its core.”
“Nonetheless, a weak, comet-shaped ‘induced magnetosphere’ is created around the planet by the interaction of charged particles emitted by Sun (solar wind) with electrically charged particles in Venus’ upper atmosphere.”
“Draped around the magnetosphere is a region called the ‘magnetosheath’ where the solar wind is slowed and heated.”
On August 10, 2021, BepiColombo passed by Venus to slow down and adjust course towards its final destination of Mercury.
The spacecraft swooped up the long tail of the planet’s magnetosheath and emerged through the nose of the magnetic regions closest to the Sun.
Over a 90-minute period of observations, BepiColombo’s Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA) and the Mercury Ion Analyzer (MIA) measured the number and mass of charged particles it encountered, capturing information about the chemical and physical processes driving atmospheric escape in the flank of the magnetosheath.
“Characterizing the loss of heavy ions and understanding the escape mechanisms at Venus is crucial to understand how the planet’s atmosphere has evolved and how it has lost all its water,” said MSA’s principal investigator Dr. Dominique Delcourt, a researcher at the Plasma Physics Laboratory.
“This result shows the unique results that can come out of measurements made during planetary flybys, where the spacecraft may move through regions generally unreachable by orbiting spacecraft,” said Dr. Nicolas André, a researcher at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie.
Unveiling the Secrets of Roswell: Former Air Force Staff Sgt Reveals a Two-Decade Struggle
In a revelation that might rewrite parts of UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) history, Former Staff Sergeant Mario Woods, a veteran of the US Air Force, shared groundbreaking details on the efforts to penetrate the wreckage of the alleged Roswell spacecraft. During a podcast appearance on “Really with Tom and Dave,” Woods divulged that it took researchers an astonishing 20 years to breach the craft’s hull. This detail not only adds a new layer to the infamous 1947 Roswell incident but also hints at technological advancements that were possibly spurred by the extraterrestrial encounter.
Decades of Determination
According to Woods, the journey to uncovering the secrets held by the Roswell craft was neither quick nor easy. It spanned two decades, a testament to both the resilience and the limitations of human technology faced with potentially alien materials. The former staff sergeant described how the initial inability to penetrate the craft’s exterior led to the eventual development of a new type of cutting tool, which he referred to as a plasma-type cutter. This innovation marks a significant point in the narrative, suggesting that the Roswell incident could have been a catalyst for technological breakthroughs in materials science.
Implications of the Disclosure
The implications of Woods’ statement are manifold. Firstly, it highlights the challenges and complexities involved in dealing with materials that are not of this world. The fact that it took 20 years to make significant inroads into the craft’s structure suggests that the materials used in its construction were far beyond the scope of 1947-era Earth technology. This aligns with other accounts of recovered UAP artifacts exhibiting unusual properties, such as extreme durability and lightweight composition.
Furthermore, the development of a new plasma cutter in response to these challenges speaks volumes about the indirect benefits of engaging with unexplained phenomena. Such advancements may have broader applications, potentially revolutionizing industries and opening new avenues in scientific research.
Credibility and Controversy
While Woods’ account is compelling, it also feeds into the ongoing debate about the credibility of UAP witnesses and the veracity of their accounts. Skeptics might question the authenticity of the claim, pointing to the lack of physical evidence and the highly secretive nature of such military operations. However, for enthusiasts and researchers in the field of UAP studies, testimonies like that of Woods are invaluable. They provide insights into the government’s historical and possibly ongoing interactions with unidentified aerial and possibly extraterrestrial technologies.
VIDEO:
As public interest in UAPs continues to grow, fueled by government acknowledgments and the release of official reports, the story shared by Mario Woods could play a crucial role in upcoming discussions and hearings on the matter. If validated, such firsthand accounts from military personnel could push for more transparent investigations and possibly the declassification of related documents.
In conclusion, the effort to breach the hull of the Roswell craft, as described by Former Staff Sgt. Mario Woods, not only underscores the persistence of human curiosity but also hints at the potential interplay between human and alien technologies. Whether this leads to further disclosures or more in-depth scientific inquiry remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the Roswell incident continues to intrigue and inspire, more than seventy years after it first captured the public’s imagination.
Exploring the Shadows: Unveiling Hidden Government UFO Cover-Ups
In the realm of the unknown, few subjects are as simultaneously captivating and controversial as unidentified flying objects. Over the decades, whispers of government cover-ups and suppressed information have fueled the intrigue surrounding these mysterious sightings. Recent revelations and witness testimonies suggest that the curtain is slowly being lifted on this enigmatic topic, revealing a tapestry of secrets that challenge our understanding of reality.
The story of government involvement with UFOs is not new, yet it remains shrouded in secrecy. From the infamous Roswell incident of 1947 to more contemporary encounters, there is a consistent theme of minimal disclosure and public misdirection. Witnesses, often military personnel or credible civilians, report their experiences only to face ridicule or be silenced by bureaucratic red tape. This pattern suggests a deliberate effort to control the narrative surrounding UFOs, potentially to prevent widespread panic or to withhold technological insights gained from these encounters.
One compelling account comes from a person named Terry, who first encountered a shape-shifting UFO nearly half a century ago. Stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Terry described an enormous black object, devoid of any markings or windows, hovering silently over a missile silo. The object, as reported, seemed to defy the known laws of physics, morphing in shape and disappearing into thin air.
In another case, a pilot recounted a chilling near-miss with a UFO during a routine flight from Fairchild Air Force Base. Describing the object as a “large ball of fire,” the pilot witnessed it perform maneuvers that no known aircraft could execute, including an abrupt ascent that defied gravity. This encounter, like many others, was swiftly followed by an investigation by unnamed intelligence officers, further hinting at the depth of governmental involvement.
Individuals like Ben Hansen and Steve Barone have dedicated themselves to uncovering the truth behind these secretive operations. Hansen, a former federal agent turned paranormal investigator, has brought to light various instances where the government’s explanations regarding UFOs have fallen short. By comparing notes with other UFO researchers and analyzing declassified documents, Hansen offers a more cohesive look into what might truly be happening behind the closed doors of government facilities.
Steve Barone, residing near key military bases, leverages his strategic location to capture footage of unusual aerial phenomena. His recordings of black triangular objects traversing the sky echo the descriptions shared by other witnesses across different timelines, providing visual proof that supports the testimonies of those who claim to have seen similar crafts.
The implications of these hidden cover-ups are profound. By controlling information, the authorities can manipulate public perception, maintaining a status quo while possibly experimenting with or harnessing advanced technologies derived from extraterrestrial sources. As more individuals come forward with their experiences, and as researchers like Hansen and Barone continue to press for transparency, the public’s interest in and understanding of UFOs deepens.
The veil over government UFO secrets is lifting, albeit slowly. With each new leaked document, whistleblower account, or unauthorized sighting, the complex relationship between UFO phenomena and government agencies becomes slightly clearer. While the full scope of what has been hidden may still be out of reach, the persistent efforts of investigators and the growing pool of evidence suggest that the truth—whatever it may be—is still out there, waiting to be fully uncovered.
'Most convincing' UFO case left man looking like a human Connect Four board
'Most convincing' UFO case left man looking like
A bloke was left with severe burns and melted fingertips after allegedly getting too close to a disc-shaped craft in one of Canada's most notorious UFO encounters.
The incident took place in the summer of 1967 when Stefan Michalak, a Polish immigrant living in Canada, visited Falcon Lake in Manitoba. Stefan, an amateur geologist, had previously explored the area in search of gold and quartz.
However, instead of finding precious minerals, Stefan was left both mentally and physically scarred by a reported encounter with a "glowing" UFO. His extraordinary tale was recounted on the It Gets Weird podcast by host Nile.
READ MORE:
Nile detailed how Stefan was investigating the area when a flock of geese started honking nearby. Upon inspecting the commotion, he was suddenly faced with two "cigar-shaped objects" hovering above the ground, which shifted colour from reddish-orange to silver.
One of the objects began to descend, morphing into the circular disc shape typically associated with UFO sightings. Stefan reportedly sat and sketched the craft, with his drawings being published online years later.
Eventually, the geologist decided to approach the spaceship. As he got closer, he began to smell sulphur and exhaust fumes, the air grew warmer, and he heard the sound of whirring motors.
According to Nile, as Stefan neared the craft, he noticed an open door with a bright light at the side, from which muffled voices could be heard. "He couldn't make out any words, or anything, but he heard at least two beings communicating inside," he explained.
"At this point he called out, saying that if they needed any mechanical help, he's willing to help them."
The voices stopped and, donning welding goggles he had brought, Stefan is said to have peered inside the craft, observing flashing buttons and panels blinking – but not witnessing any living creatures, alien or otherwise.
But things began to take a turn for the worse when Stefan attempted to touch the UFO while wearing thick gloves. "As soon as he touches the craft, the fingertips just start to melt, so it's so hot that it literally melts the gloves he's wearing," suggested Nile.
At the same time Stefan observed the spaceship starting to turn, with a panel of holes facing towards him. He continued: "He's hit by this blast of air, that pushes him backwards, and sets his shirt and hat on fire.
"He's stumbling backwards, getting pushed by this wave of air and gas, and trying to take this burning shirt and hat off."
Nile claimed the craft then lifted off and flew away, leaving Stefan disoriented and hurt, saying: "It really feels like this guy was too close to the tailpipe of a UFO and as it took off it just blasted him."
Left on his own Stefan began to feel nauseous and, while vomiting, he stumbled through the forest to find help. He made it back to his motel and with the nearest hospital a fair distance away, Stefan coordinated with his missus to meet back in their hometown of Winnipeg, hopping on a two-hour bus ride to get there.
Stefan was a bit cagey about spilling the beans on what went down, with Nile suggesting: "Not really being sure what he went through, he told his family and the people in the hospital that he was hit by airplane exhaust."
Stefan was treated for some nasty burns that had him looking like a human Connect Four board, matching the pattern of the exhaust vents he claimed to have clocked on the UFO.
For weeks on end he was plagued with symptoms that smack of radiation sickness, think relentless runs and chucking up. Tests by the Canadian National Atomic Research Centre showed he wasn't glowing with radioactivity but was showing signs similar to those zapped by radiation.
"They find out that the burns on his chest do come from gamma rays, which passed through his stomach and basically broke down what was in there," Nile said.
Once he'd bounced back in hospital, Stefan was able to track down and revisit the spot where he'd had his close encounter. The search turned up his charred shirt, a melted glove, and some tools he'd left in haste, along with a circle of scorched earth where the alleged UFO had touched down.
The soil samples and Stefan's recovered clothing were also found to be radioactive, adding to the intrigue.
The case sparked a media frenzy due to the compelling evidence and Stefan's severe injuries. Yet, Nile pointed out that Stefan never chased the limelight over the encounter, sticking to his story consistently until his passing in 1999.
"He never, as far as I can tell, says that there were aliens involved," Nile remarked. "Stefan's story never really changes, over time people try to add things on and tweak it a little bit. He also has to clear up multiple times that he never saw any beings inside the aircraft.
"The fact that he stuck to his story for so long never really changed it, and seemed decently credible is one of the more interesting aspects of this case."
Official sources have yet to confirm Stefan's sighting, but Nile highlighted the Canadian government's vague response keeps the enigma alive. "The official government reports effectively said, 'yeah he came across something; it is not a matter of national security so we are not going to investigate any further'," he said.
Stefan's son Stan Michalak has since penned a book about his father's alleged encounter titled 'When They Appeared: Falcon Lake 1967: The Inside Story of a Close Encounter'.
SpaceX Starship will be 500 feet tall to prepare for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video)
SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20 percent higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.
What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)
"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."
Related:
Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once ayear to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.
SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready — the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights — Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.
However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.
"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.
Related:
Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)
SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)
Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)
Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."
Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.
Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.
Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.
That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said — that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.
CIA Secret Files Show John F. Kennedy Killed 10 days After Demanding UFO Files
Bettmann//Getty Images
A few days before his mysterious death, the 35th US president John F. Kennedy demanded that the CIA provide him with a UFO dossier. From another archival note by John Kennedy, it became known that he wanted to offer the USSR a joint program for space exploration. Almost half a century after the death of John F. Kennedy, sensational details were revealed regarding his latest orders. It turned out that just 10 days before his death, the 35th president of the United States requested top-secret information about flying ships from special services.
According to the Daily Mail, Kennedy sent two requests: one to the CIA, the other one to NASA. The circulars had been useless in the archives of these departments for many years, but in the end, on the request made by author William Lester under the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA had to release the documents to him.
Author William Lester said the CIA released the documents to him under the Freedom of Information Act after he requested while researching for his new book ‘A Celebration of Freedom: JFK and the New Frontier.’
While working on a new book ‘A Celebration of Freedom: JFK and the New Frontier,’ the writer got the opportunity to familiarize himself with the contents of archival materials. Studying those documents, the author came across two sensations at once.
In a letter dated November 12, 1963, to the Director of the CIA, John F. Kennedy demanded a detailed report on the secret materials of the department devoted to UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. In another one, that was addressed to the administration of the National Space Agency (NASA), the president expressed a desire to cooperate with the Soviet Union in the field of space research and even join forces in space exploration.
Of course, there could be no talk of any opening of the Iron Curtain: after the Caribbean crisis, relations between the two nuclear powers became extremely heated. However, according to Lester, the coincidence of the two documents in time is far from accidental. The fact is that flying ships had repeatedly been seen over the territory of the Soviet Union. Kennedy rightly feared that the USSR might regard the appearance of unidentified objects in the sky above its territory as military aggression.
“I think this is one of the reasons why he wanted to get his hands on this information and get it away from the jurisdiction of NASA so he could say to the Soviets,” said Lester.
NBC News wrote:
”The government regularly declassifies documents after a certain amount of time goes by, and then you have to file a request for those documents,” Lester told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site of Space.com. “When I was in the process of filing, those letters had just become declassified and released to the public.” This happened in 2006 or 2007, Lester said. “At the time, I think other people were getting them too.”
The top secret memo hasn’t turned up anywhere else besides Lester’s book, however, and some archivists question its authenticity. A research technician at the JFK Library in Boston, who asked not to be named, was unable to find a carbon copy of it in its presidential archive, which holds copies of all of JFK’s letters.
“We did some research into the presidential papers to try to find any evidence of the Nov. 12, 1963, letter to the director of the CIA, John McCone,” the technician told Life’s Little Mysteries. Despite the fact that JFK kept carbon copies of all his letters, even the classified ones, “in searching through the president’s office files — CIA, NASA and National Security files — we could find no evidence of this memo or anything like it.”
“Something is a little odd about it,” the technician said. “It is sanitized in very odd places: the director’s name, the top heading of the document (which usually distinguishes which agency is generating it) and then the tiny “top secret” print at the top of letter. Top secret items are usually stamped in large dark ink on the letter.“
The publicized documents once again convinced ufologists that the president was killed because of his interest in UFOs. According to paranormal researchers, behind the tragic death of Kennedy were people who were not interested in the head of state who was wildly popular among ordinary Americans, to learn the truth about UFOs.
Supporters of the conspiracy theory in connection with newly discovered circumstances recall other documents: the sensational “burned memo.” In 1999, ufologist Timothy Cooper was given a certain document with charred fields. The papers contained internal correspondence of senior CIA officers. In particular, the director of intelligence services drew the addressee’s attention to the fact that ‘Lancer’(Kennedy’s Secret Service code name) was too actively making inquiries, and his curiosity needed to be stopped.
It was reported that this top-secret file, subject to destruction, was saved from the fire by a CIA officer who served in the department from 1960 to 1974. The authenticity of the document was repeatedly questioned, and its last owner even turned to forensic experts for a professional opinion. However, the examination results have not yet been made public.
UFO investigator Robert Wood said he has tested the paper it was printed on, the ink age, watermarks, font types and other markings. He said: ‘I hired a forensics company to check the age of the ink and check several other things that you can date, using the same techniques you’d use in a court of law.’
ASTRONOMERS DETECT UNUSUAL RADIO SIGNALS FROM NEARBY MAGNETAR THAT ARE ‘BEHAVING IN COMPLEX WAYS’
Astronomers operating the CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in Australia say they have detected unusual radio signals from Earth’s closest magnetar that are “behaving in complex ways.”
A previous dormant star with a powerful magnetic field, XTE J1810-197, is only 8,000 light years away, making it the closest such star to Earth. However, unlike a typical magnetar that emits polarized light, this magnetar appears to be sending out radio waves that are circularly polarized. That means the light appears to spiral as it moves through the universe. Such a discovery was not only unexpected; a press release announcing the discovery said, “It is totally unprecedented.”
”Unlike the radio signals we’ve seen from other magnetars, this one is emitting enormous amounts of rapidly changing circular polarization,” said Dr. Marcus Lower, a postdoctoral fellow at Australia’s national science agency – CSIRO, and the leader of the research effort. “We had never seen anything like this before.”
Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope beneath the Milky Way.
Image Credit: Alex Cherney/CSIRO.
The study’s co-author, University of Sydney’s Dr. Manisha Caleb, agrees, noting that the readings don’t match any previous radio signals coming from magnetars. In fact, they don’t even match theoretical models that try to predict the behavior of various cosmological phenomena.
”The signals emitted from this magnetar imply that interactions at the surface of the star are more complex than previous theoretical explanations,” Caleb explained.
Deepening the mystery behind the unusual radio signals is the fact that simply detecting any type of radio emission from a magnetar is extremely rare. According to the researchers who spotted the signals coming from XTE J1810-197, it is only one of a handful of magnetars astronomers have found that emit radio waves.
Further adding to the mystery is the fact that the signals were first detected back in 2003 before they suddenly went silent. Then, in 2018, astronomers using the University of Manchester’s 76-m Lovell telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory saw that the signals had returned. That data was quickly followed up by Murriyang, the CSIRO instrument that detected these most recent signals.
While there is no immediate explanation for the cause of the unusual radio signals, the researchers say that their complex behavior has led to an equally unusual theory.
“Our results suggest there is a superheated plasma above the magnetar’s magnetic pole, which is acting like a polarising filter,” Dr. Lower said. Still, the researcher admits it is only a theory, and concedes that explaining how exactly the plasma is doing this “is still to be determined.”
Follow-up studies will likely be required to answer the mystery behind the complex and unusual radio waves coming from Earth’s closest magnetar. Fortunately, the researchers note that the 64-meter diameter telescope is equipped with “a cutting-edge ultra-wide bandwidth receiver” that is perfect for the job.
Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope.
Image Credit: CSIRO/Red Empire Media.
“The receiver allows for more precise measurements of celestial objects, especially magnetars,” the researchers explain, “as it is highly sensitive to changes in brightness and polarisation across a broad range of radio frequencies.
While it may be a long time before we know conclusively what is behind the unusual radio signals, the researchers behind this latest discovery, which is published in the journal Nature Astronomy, say that studying magnetars is crucial to understanding a great many mysteries of the universe.
“Studies of magnetars such as these provide insights into a range of extreme and unusual phenomena,” the release explains, “such as plasma dynamics, bursts of X-rays and gamma-rays, and potentially fast radio bursts.”
UFO Insight Weekly Update
UFO Insight Weekly Update
|
THE PENTAGON’S NEW UAP REPORT IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED -PART I
Last month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.
First, who ever heard of a government report being submitted months before it was due? Especially one so rife with embarrassing errors in desperate need of additional fact-checking and revision? Was AARO Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick rushing to get the report out the door before departing, perhaps to ensure that his successor could not revise or reverse some of the report’s conclusions?
Second, this appears to be the first AARO report submitted to Congress that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) did not sign off on. I don’t know why, but Avril Haines and her Office were quite right not to in this case, having spared themselves considerable embarrassment in the process.
Third, this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service. We all make mistakes, but this report is an outlier in terms of inaccuracies and errors. Were I reviewing this as a graduate student’s thesis it would receive a failing grade for failing to understand the assignment, sloppy and inadequate research, and flawed interpretation of the data. Hopefully, long before it was submitted, the author would have consulted his or her professor and received some guidance and course correction to prevent such an unfortunate outcome.
Another irregularity worth noting is the fact that before its release, Department of Defense (DoD) Public Affairs sponsored a closed-door pre-brief on the report’s findings for a select group of press outlets on an invitation-only basis. Outlets like The Debrief, which closely follow the UAP issue, were excluded. Following the report’s release, most of the news agencies that had participated in the pre-brief went on to publish articles that uncritically parroted the report’s findings. Moreover, they seem to have done so without consulting any of the scholars or experts who have studied and written extensively on this topic as would normally be the case in another field.
The Congressional legal mandate, meaning by statutory law, required that this AARO historical report present the detailed history of UAP as recorded in US Government records. However, AARO instead presented a summary history of the records of flawed USG investigations of UAP, rather than what was actually mandated: the history of UAP and “relating to” UAP, meaning the history of UAP sightings and investigations (and to be completed using USG records and other official information).
The law required a “written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena,” and the word “investigations” nowhere appears – the phrase does not say it is to be a historical report solely “relating to” investigations of “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” (NDAA FY2023 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(A), codified statute 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(A), as amended.)
In another breach of the explicit terms of the law, AARO failed to compile, itemize, and report on US intelligence agency abuses on UAP (per 50 U.S.C. § 3373, below). The AARO Historical Report was required to:
“(ii) include a compilation and itemization of the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP], including— …
“(III) any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” [NDAA FY23 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(B); 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(B)]
Contrary to Congressional direction, AARO completely omits entire agencies – NORAD, NSA, DIA (prior to 2009), CBP, etc. – agencies with known investigations or activities relating to UAP, and also omits any discussion of “any efforts to obfuscate, [or]… hide … unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” AARO omits these agencies even when there are unclassified documents available on those agencies’ records and investigations of UAP (for example, see the approximate 100 pages of CBP Customs & Border Protection agency internal memos of Records on UAP, plus 10 videos, released in August, 2023, but unmentioned by AARO; Also see McMillan, Hanks, Plain, “Incursions at the Border,” The Debrief, May 27, 2022).
In the past, extreme and excessive secrecy has been displayed in efforts to “hide … unclassified or classified” UAP-related information, illustrated by the AARO predecessor’s UAP Security Classification Guide, first distributed internally on April 16, 2020 (see graphic below) which is itself heavily redacted, removing most indications of the type of UAP report content requiring classification. This is a binding secrecy regulation – don’t be fooled by the word “guide,” it is absolutely mandatory. The secrecy regulation specifically states that only a general statement of an increase in UAP sightings can be released to the public, and “without [releasing] any further information regarding when [or] where” a UAP “sighting [has] been reported” as that is classified. Additionally, the “times and places” of UAP detections are classified and are required to be “unspecified” and can’t be released; it is not “U” (Unclassified) (p. 6, subparagraphs. 4.1b-c).
The internal Pentagon talking points on the UAP subject are a gag order that specifically forbids DoD officials from even revealing to the media and the public the fact that “virtually everything” about UAP is unreleasable, citing the above UAP Security Classification regulation (produced by AARO’s predecessor, the UAP Task Force). Specifically, it states: “Except for its existence, and the mission/purpose, virtually everything else about the UAPTF [UAP Task Force] is classified, per the signed Security Classification Guide.”
Similar UAP security regulations no doubt are applied throughout the US Government. There is not one single item of government information about a UAP sighting that is not classified according to this secrecy regulation. Why is that? How can the US Government be transparent about UAP sighting incidents if nothing will be released? (See John Greenewald of The Black Vault, in “What’s NOT in AARO’s recent “Historical Record” UAP Report?” from his X/Twitter post on March 31, 2024).
Air Force intelligence agency “efforts to … manipulate public opinion” on UAP since the 1950s are what caused the harsh stigma attached to the entire UFO subject in society. But this powerful anti-UAP stigma is not investigated or historically documented by AARO – or even mentioned – contrary to its legal obligation (more on this below). In addition to the AF-instigated Robertson Panel of 1953, and all that followed after it, there are even admissions by a retired USAF OSI officer of allegedly spying on civilian UFO researchers and spreading disinformation on behalf of the Air Force.
The unclassified version of the historical AARO Report (AAROR) was released on March 8, 2024. But prior to that, AARO quietly released the report 2 days in advance to several friendly media outlets to cultivate favorable media coverage. These outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post, faithfully carried the government’s message forward, apparently without consulting any of the scholars and researchers who could have helped them understand the report’s numerous errors, omissions, and shortcomings to provide a more balanced assessment. More objective reporting would have uncovered numerous major problems and serious errors in the AARO Report.
There are unbelievable statements and insinuations in the AARO report such as the peculiar claim that the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb somehow caused “sightings” and “erroneous UAP reporting” (AAROR pp. 4, 39-40) and did so even after it terminated on December 31, 1946 (a date they omit because it would not explain the sightings that began the modern UAP era in June 1947). That is a bit like saying trailer parks cause tornadoes. Since the Manhattan Project did not launch special aerial vehicles of any kind that could be “misidentified” as UAP, did the Project’s buildings fly up in the air and cause “sightings” and “erroneous UAP reporting”? This incredible claim is not explained by AARO.
Indeed, the truth is precisely the opposite of what AARO suggests. Not only is there no evidence of outside civilians mistaking the Manhattan Project and successor operations for UAP, but we know that personnel working inside the US nuclear weapons program were sighting UAP, reporting them, and thereafter collecting hundreds of their own authentic UAP reports. The senior AFOSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigations) officer responsible for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory compiled a detailed catalog of 209 recent “Unknown Aerial Phenomena” sightings and instrument tracking incidents in the Los Alamos area and surrounding regions (see sample p. 38 below). He sent the catalog with a classified memo to his superior, the agency director in Washington DC, General Joseph P. Carroll, on May 25, 1950, stating that security officials agreed:
“… the frequency of unexplained aerial phenomenon in the New Mexico area was such that an organized plan of reporting these observations should be undertaken…”
Other documents explain this “organized plan” included instrumented UFO / UAP tracking stations and networks that were set up by scientists and security officials in the Los Alamos Lab, Sandia Lab, Kirtland AFB, and Holloman AFB–White Sands areas, and put on base-wide alert, consisting of missile-tracking telescopic cameras, radars, nuclear radiation detectors, radio communication networks, aircraft for interception, etc. Yet, no AARO discussion of this.
“The observers of these phenomena include scientists, Special Agents of the Office of Special Investigations (IG), USAF, airline pilots, military pilots, Los Alamos Security Inspectors, military personnel, and many other persons of various occupations whose reliability is not questioned.”
Many of the UAPs reported by scientists and military personnel were described as either “green fireball phenomena” or flying “disks” (or “variation”). AARO has completely misrepresented the situation: The Manhattan Project and subsequent nuclear weapons activities were not causing spurious UAP sightings by civilians awed by “new technologies” they did not understand – the government scientists and military personnel themselves were actually seeing UAP and recording hundreds of UAP in authentic and well-documented reports.
These sightings officially reported by US Government personnel were consistent with what the external “unknowing” civilians (as AARO calls them) were reporting at the time – sometimes the government personnel and civilians sighted the same UAP at the same time, confirming each other.
Seemingly AARO is confusing secrecy-bred lurid rumors of aliens with a careful sighting of a UAP, up in the air, at an exact date, time, and location, having unexplainable motions and appearance, and backed up with scientifically valuable directional data involving speed, size, altitude, sensor data, radar tracking, etc. Yet AARO suggests that many of these documented sightings are just rumors or mistaken reports based on unwitting civilian observations of “new technologies” in classified US military activities.
AARO claims the first US satellite, Explorer 1 in 1958, and even the Apollo moon landings (pp. 41-42) caused UAP sighting misidentifications and were “formerly classified and sensitive … national security programs” (AAROR, pp. 39-40) – which they were not, and Apollo was just civilian NASA. AARO insinuates that the Apollo missions were “classified and sensitive”, and yet, apart from a limited number of contingency missions later revealed to have had classified components, the vast majority of NASA’s objectives with the missions were fully known to the public, with the moon landing broadcast to the entire planet on live television.
AARO states (pp. 10-11, 36):
“AARO assesses that some portion of [UAP] sightings since the 1940s have represented misidentification of never-before-seen experimental and operational space, rocket, and air systems… From the 1940s to the 1960s especially, the United States witnessed a boom in experimental technologies… Many of these technologies fit the description of a stereotypical Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). It is understandable how observers unfamiliar with these programs could mistake sightings of these new technologies as something extraordinary, even other-worldly.”
“AARO assesses that the incidents of UAP sightings reported to USG organizations … most likely are the result of a range of cultural, political, and technological factors. AARO bases this conclusion on the aggregate findings of all USG investigations to date [and] the misinterpretation of all reported named sensitive programs…”
What “new technology” let alone “many” was ever flown that “fit the description of a stereotypical … UFO” (e.g., a flying saucer)? Yet just before “naming” the Manhattan Project and Apollo as supposed “examples,” AARO reiterates the unsubstantiated point, claiming that many:
“… UAP sightings … were the result of misidentifications … of new technologies that [civilian] observers would have understandably reported as UFOs…. [O]bservers unknowingly … witnessed … and report[ed] as UFOs … classified and sensitive programs that involved … rocket launches … which AARO assess [sic] most likely were the cause of many UAP reports. AARO assesses that this common and understandable occurrence—the misidentification of new technologies for UAP— is present today [and] are reported as UAP.” (AAROR, p. 39)
Subsequently, AARO lists the Apollo program as one of 28 alleged examples (pp. 40, 42).
But no such UAP or “stereotypical UFO” sightings of a “misidentified” Apollo are known or cited by AARO and frankly, it is baffling to suggest anyone on Earth could see the Apollo moon landings with their eyes from 240,000 miles away or Apollo anywhere along the flight trajectory. AARO makes a point of stating that there were in the Apollo program “12 astronauts walking on the moon” without explaining how that is relevant or giving a single UAP sighting they seem to insinuate was caused by that. Are there any actual, serious UAP sightings misidentifying Apollo launches to the moon as UAP?
Did AARO somehow miss half of Blue Book’s files–some 64,000 pages–in its supposedly “thorough”, “complete”, and “accurate” history (AAROR, p. 12)? Did someone lose 64,000 pages of Blue Book UFO files? Did AARO investigate where these apparently missing Blue Book files disappeared or how the accounting error arose if it is just that?
Even aside from missing half of Blue Book’s files, which therefore could not be reviewed for history, AARO’s review of Air Force Blue Book history is so cursory that AARO seems to merely rehash old Blue Book press releases (see AAROR, pp. 18-19).
AARO claims it established 6 Lines of Effort (“LOEs” they call them) to prepare a “complete” and “accurate” history of the UAP “record” of government investigations (just not of UAP sightings as Congress also wanted): (1) open source, (2) classified, (3) personal interviewing, (4) National Archives, (5) private companies, and (6) intelligence/nat sec agencies (AAROR, pp. 22-13).
But obviously, AARO’s Six Lines of Effort were unmindful of 64,000 missing pages of Blue Book UFO files that only they at AARO were missing – while the rest of the world has, and has had, access to the pages through the Fold3 website since 2007 or by going to the microfilms at the National Archives or buying copies (all available since 1976). Additionally, as will be explained further below, AARO seems completely unaware of the existence of numerous important US government UAP investigation programs, activities, sightings, and radar/sensor-tracking incidents.
There is not a single known sighting of a U-2 reconnaissance plane reported as a UAP. Nothing in the Blue Book files, and no one can even cite a date for one such purported U-2 sighted and reported as a UAP, let alone the implausible notion that U-2s accounted for “more than half ” of all UAP reports: Under the U-2 Aquatone “secret project” entry, AARO claims “More than half of the UFO reports investigated in the 1950s and 1960s were assessed to be U.S. reconnaissance flights” and “that UFO reports would spike when the U-2 was in flight” (AAROR, p. 41).
Are we to believe over 5,000 of the 10,000 UFO reports then in Air Force Blue Book files were U-2s? That should be easy to find in the Blue Book files if that was the case. (Were there ever that many U-2s anyway, flying say, daily, instead of just one every few months? U-2 historical flight schedules have been released, nothing supports AARO’s claims.)
If so, they should be able to come up with at least one U-2 “UFO” misidentification out of the purported 5,000+ U-2 “UFO” reports, one sighting by date. The earliest unfounded AF-planted rumor of a U-2 “UFO” can be documented in 1964 (see below) but in all this time since they can’t at least find one U-2 “UFO”? (An undated hearsay claim that U-2s could sometimes be seen at sunset is not a “misidentification” – no one said it was an alien spaceship or UFO or the like – and it is not a UAP report that was made by anybody to any official agency, not even to Project Blue Book which has nothing on file about that.)
In fact, it is on record that Air Force Project Blue Book Chief Capt. (later Lt Col) Hector Quintanilla first planted the whole false notion of a U-2 “UFO” sighting on Blue Book’s chief scientific consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek and his then-grad student assistant Jacques Vallee on January 16, 1964, when he visited Chicago and briefed them (see Vallee’s published diaries for 1957-1969, p. 101). Quintanilla claimed a U-2 was sighted and “It was reported as a UFO” in 1951, purportedly observed as the U-2 was “on its way to the Soviet Union” – when in fact the U-2 had not even been invented yet in 1951 let alone flown yet (invented and designed in 1953, first flown in 1955, none flown to the Soviet Union until 1956, as anyone can look up).
In tracing the origins of this phony story, it was later in 1964 when the Air Force Foreign Technology Division (FTD), which ran Project Blue Book, planted this bogus U-2 spy plane “UFO” nonsense on the CIA (where one CIA reconnaissance official, James Cunningham, admitted FTD/Blue Book was in frequent contact with them). Air Force FTD apparently tried to suggest to the CIA that the secret U-2 flights accounted for many UAP sightings and, because of the need for secrecy, the public could not be told the U-2 explanation. CIA may have run with it because it boosted the importance and prestige of their U-2 in the aftermath of the humiliating CIA Bay of Pigs disaster – and by about this time, the mind-boggling story was embellished that “more than half” of all UAP reports were due to the U-2, not even weather balloons, Venus, or swamp gas, Blue Book’s usual attempted explanations?
(Knowing how Blue Book and its chief operated back then, from civilian researchers combing through 130,000 pages of Blue Book files and studying badly botched cases, it is very possible that on one date Blue Book happened to receive, say, five supposed “UFO” reports of which, say, three they thought might be of a giant Skyhook balloon, possibly from a classified high-altitude reconnaissance project of some sort. Then someone heard this but got their wires crossed and told someone else down the line of the classic hearsay chain that they thought it was three sightings of a reconnaissance spy “project,” maybe “like” a U-2 spy plane, thus confusing balloons with aircraft, and from there the myth was born. Over “half” – or three out of the five “UFO” reports that day – would have been a balloon; maybe a spy balloon, maybe not, involving perhaps nothing more than a sighting of an ordinary large weather or research balloon. But the “half” statistic for one day would be misheard and massively embellished as half of all 10,000 UAP reports for the decade and beyond. This is sheer speculation but based on the very real, typically careless way Blue Book operated. We may never know the full story.)
THE PENTAGON’S NEW UAP REPORT IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED - PART IILast month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.
Air Force Project Blue Book’s dirty little secret was that Insufficient Data often really just meant Insufficient Investigation which, if admitted, of course would reflect badly on Blue Book’s performance. Thus the usual tendency in Blue Book’s self-serving strategy was to blame the witness for any failings in investigating their own sighting – as if the witness is expected to be a top-notch PhD scientist. When the typically non-PhD witness failed to provide unequivocal PhD-level data, Blue Book would often triumphantly dismiss the case and claim it as one of their purported “successes.”
Civilian witnesses rarely even claim what they saw was a “UFO” or use the term “UFO,” much less an “alien spacecraft” (most will not even have heard the new term UAP). Most witnesses simply felt a civic duty to notify authorities about a “light” or “object” that was puzzling to them (as Blue Book consultant Hynek would say). That is the objective scientific approach which witnesses weren’t given credit for – reporting what they saw, not presuming to make PhD-level scientific interpretations or judgments of what it was. Military witnesses especially would grasp that the matter might have possible national security or scientific implications. It was inappropriate for the Air Force to insult the intelligence and goodwill of these citizens by dismissing their reports with improbable explanations that often made the witness look foolish. This high-handed and dismissive approach naturally had the effect of reinforcing the stigma and deterring others from coming forward.
The Air Force’s longtime scientific consultant on UAP, Astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, taught that the “UFO” label not be given to a report until after a scientific investigation determines that it has no conventional IFO (Identified Flying Object) or other explanation. But because there is no recognized term for the initial report, the “UFO” label (and now “UAP”) is applied right at the outset for simplicity, and a seemingly redundant qualifier has to be added for cases that pass the Hynek Scientific UFO Screening process to be a “real” UFO, such as the redundant “Unidentified UFO” (Unidentified Unidentified-Flying-Object) or “UFO Unknown.” The process is not followed logically or consistently and the Hynek Screening is treated almost as an afterthought if at all. These issues are not discussed in the AARO report. Most civilian research groups’ UAP reports appear to be “Insufficient Data” mainly because they do not have the resources to investigate them all and so no Hynek Screening is applied.
AARO’s historical account barely mentions the leading role Dr. Hynek played in researching UAP for the Air Force and attempting to implement a meaningful investigative methodology. In the lone paragraph in the section on “Perceived Deception,” Dr. Hynek is referred to merely as an investigator, not as the Air Force’s chief scientific consultant on UAP. Also, the first sentence of the paragraph only refers to public suspicions of “recovered alien craft” and “extraterrestrial beings,” not the government’s overall handling of the UAP issue. It then merely mentions that the Air Force expected him to serve as a “debunker” in a sentence that also briefly mentions that Captain Ruppelt said he was expected to “explain away every report” and align press stories with the Air Force’s public position. Yet in its discussion of Project Blue Book, AARO simply states that the Air Force “determined” that there was “there was no threat to national security, no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles and “..no evidence submitted to, or discovered by, the USAF that sightings represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of present day scientific knowledge.” These conclusions are boldly stated as though there was nothing irregular or controversial about these conclusions. The same is true of AAROs account of the highly controversial Condon report (further details below).
Among other things, Hynek blew the whistle on the Air Force and its Project Blue Book for the “insufficient data” trick, forthrightly insisting that insufficient data cases, including the sneaky “possible/probable” IFO categories, are neither IFO nor proper UFO cases and must be excluded from statistical scorecards as they are insufficient in data (The Hynek UFO Report, 1977, p. 259). The same principle applies to modern UAP cases (“UAP” merely being the new label for UFO). Among other things, AARO should be required to clarify the distinction between Insufficient Data reports and “Insufficient Investigation” (more on Insufficient Data in sections below).
AARO also doesn’t seem to know about Hynek’s classic subdivision of UFO cases into Close Encounters (of three kinds or more), Daylight Discs, Nocturnal Lights, and Radar-Visual cases. AARO’s “complete” history of UAP investigations by the US government seems incomplete without it. There was even a Spielberg movie involving Hynek’s work, called Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
AARO also makes no mention of probably the greatest scientific investigator of UAP of all time, atmospheric physicist Dr James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona. McDonald’s name, along with Hynek’s, is all over the Blue Book records that AARO brags about “completely” reviewing (though AARO seems to have overlooked half of Blue Book’s records).
The prestigious author and scientist Dr. Jacques Vallee was a colleague of Dr. Hynek’s who lived through this period and could have helped AARO enormously, but he was not contacted. Nor was he contacted for comment by the New York Times, Washington Post, or other outlets after AARO’s historical report was released. AARO also does not seem to follow Dr. Hynek’s and Dr. Vallee’s UAP scientific methodology established in the 1960s.
The allegedly “complete”, “thorough”, and “accurate” AARO historical report (p. 12) wrongly claims there is “about a 40-year gap in UAP investigation programs since the termination of Project BLUE BOOK in 1969 [sic]”– in other words a 40-year alleged “gap” from 1969 to 2009 (p. 10). (Actually, Blue Book terminated in January 1970, not 1969, another historical error by AARO.)
In reality, the only “40-year gap” is in AARO’s failure to record the history, not a 40-year gap in the existence of US Government investigations and reports of UAP from 1969 to 2009. Somehow AARO managed to slip around the 2004 USS Nimitz incidents, and others that are widespread public knowledge and were investigated by the military (hence AARO can’t use the “it’s classified” excuse to withhold).
AARO certainly knows about the 2004 Nimitz UAP incidents, which were the primary events that led to the current sea change in attitude to UFOs and UAP, leading to the establishment of AARO itself. AARO just inexplicably and unbelievably chooses not to mention the Nimitz anywhere in its Historical Report.
There are numerous USG investigations of UAP easily documented in declassified records, and many published during that purported “40-year gap.” These are only a few representative examples – one can hardly match the AARO manpower of 40+ personnel and multi-million-dollar budget to do the research AARO should have done in the first place.
During the Fall 1973 UAP wave, there were several US military investigations of UAP. These included those conducted by the Navy and Coast Guard involving an underwater UFO or USO (Unidentified Submarine or Submerged Object) near the location of the highly publicized alleged UFO abduction case a month earlier at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Coast Guard personnel sighted the underwater UAP and Navy oceanographer Dr. and Lt Cdr (later RADM) Craig Dorman investigated. (UPI dispatch, Nov. 8, 1973, etc.) This is close to an important recent UAP sighting that occurred over the Gulf of Mexico, which came to Congress’ attention only as a result of a “protected disclosure.” Even then, all but one member of Congress visiting the base for the express purpose of a briefing on this case was denied access to the aircraft’s sensor data.
In October-November 1975 there was a wave of Northern Tier UAP incidents at restricted areas of military bases at Loring AFB, Maine, Malmstrom AFB and Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, Minot AFB, North Dakota, etc., which were investigated by the Air Force and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), as documented in declassified and FOIA-released electronic teletype messages (so the “it’s classified” excuse again can’t be used). Entire open-source books have been written about this (e.g., the Fawcett & Greenwood classic, Clear Intent, 1984).
A key intelligence focal point of investigations on the Northern Tier incident messages was the teletype address “AFINZ,” which turned out to be the Aerospace Intelligence Division of the Air Force Intelligence Service at the Pentagon (not Dayton, Ohio, by the way).
Likewise, NORAD Intelligence and NORAD J3 Aerospace Operations Division and predecessors have been involved with directing UAP investigations throughout the years in the alleged “40-year gap” and from before, back to the 1950s-1960s Blue Book years, and right up to the present (see “NORAD” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 801-824).
Also, a former Director of USAF Intelligence informed me that in the 1980’s the Air Force undertook a classified UAP collection program in the vicinity of Area 51 in an attempt to ascertain the origin of UAP violating the famous base’s restricted airspace. How come that program was not uncovered by AARO? How many other secret USAF programs related to UAP were not uncovered? Where are those UAP reports and how many others are there from other locations?
There is also no mention by AARO of the successor to Air Force Project Blue Book’s parent organization FTD (Foreign Technology Division), now called NASIC, National Air & Space Intelligence Center. Since NASIC is the Defense Dept.’s primary and central agency for intelligence on air and space threats, NASIC obviously must be involved with UAP today and its UFO / UAP history should be traceable back to FTD / Blue Book in the 1960s.
But AARO does not breathe a word about either the Foreign Technology Division FTD or NASIC in its “complete” and “thorough” history of UAP investigations (even though AAROR mentions the subject of “foreign technology” and “foreign technological threats”, pp. 15, 27).
In 1976 US-equipped Iranian jets chased UAP over Iran, with one UAP reportedly disabling the onboard radar, avionics, and the air-to-air intercept missile of an F-4. This is a famous case, with declassified official US DIA documentation released (so again the “it’s classified” excuse can’t be used), so it seems incomprehensible that AARO would not know about it.
In fact, AARO seems to be unaware of what it wrote in its own report because the “40-year gap” in government UAP investigations from 1969 to 2009 it claimed on Page 10 seems to be contradicted on Page 30, by AARO’s own admission that a nuclear weapons depot UAP case occurred in 1977 (apparently at Loring AFB, Maine) and obviously would have been investigated, and is currently taken seriously by AARO.
AARO also contradicts itself on the purported “40-year gap” in UAP investigations on Pages 21-22 where it reports that the famous Roswell incident was under various Air Force, GAO, Congressional, White House, and other investigations from 1992 to 2001 right in the middle of the alleged “gap” of 1969-2009.
(The claim on AAROR Page 40 that the Roswell incident, as “assessed” by AARO, was due to crash debris of a lost Project Mogul intelligence balloon appears to be another significant factual error by AARO since the alleged Mogul balloon launch on June 4, 1947, had been canceled according to Mogul project scientist records and the balloon equipment cannibalized for a later launch that never got lost but was followed and recovered.)
In 1980 the USAF nuclear weapons storage depot at RAF Bentwaters, England, was probed by a UAP with laser-like beams according to documents and the deputy base commander Col. Charles Halt, who was a personal eyewitness and led the field investigation team. Entire books have been openly published on the highly publicized so-called Rendlesham Forest case including by Col Halt himself. But AARO seems mystifyingly oblivious to the 1980 incidents, instead pushing its narrative of a purported “40-year gap” in UAP investigations from 1969 to 2009.
AARO tries to dismiss much of the UAP phenomenon with an implausibly expansive secret-project laundry list, including some projects like the Apollo moon landings, which were never secret in the first place.
As noted above, AARO claims that many “UAP sightings were the result of misidentifications of new technologies that observers would have understandably reported as UFOs. Observers unknowingly witnessed and reported as UFOs classified and sensitive programs that AARO assesses most likely were the cause of many UAP reports” (smoothed quote correcting AARO grammar errors etc.: See AAROR, p. 39).
Then AARO lists the Apollo program as one of 28 alleged examples (pp. 40-45). (See previous comments on Apollo.)
Yet again, AARO fails to cite an example of a single UAP sighting reported by people misidentifying any of these aircraft and drones as UAP. There are surely some valid examples, but to assert that these programs were a primary source of UAP sightings is unwarranted. Civilian UAP sightings come from all areas of the US, rural, suburban, and urban, not just in the vicinity of US military ranges and bases.
The remaining “secret” projects on AARO’s list are too tedious to go over and include the highly publicized – not “classified and sensitive” – Mercury and Gemini programs that put the first US astronauts into space, and like the Apollo moon landings never caused reported UAP sightings of their space capsules.
AARO makes a point of ostentatiously exposing and knocking down easy strawman claims throughout the report, such as going back to the Blue Book era on the sensational alleged “Navy jet” (no one saw this jet) shooting off a one-pound “metal piece” (no such metal) of a UFO (no one saw) over the Washington, DC, area in July 1952. (AAROR, pp. 20, 26; the one-pound magnesium orthosilicate stone actually found was a rare type of aubrite-enstatite magnesium meteorite, although AARO did not do the research to figure that out.)
Another easy strawman that AARO revels in demolishing is the infamous and long discredited “MJ-12” documents evidently hoaxed by Air Force’s own Office of Special Investigations personnel in the 1980s and 1990s (that Air Force role not mentioned by AARO of course) which appears to be an unlawful covert effort to manipulate US citizens and US public opinion.
Without mentioning the MJ-12 reference in the so-called “1961 Special National Intelligence Estimate” (one of several MJ-12 docs), which would have been a clear tipoff, AARO goes through a showy display of ticking off point after point how badly the document was faked:
AARO found that “the document lacked IC [Intelligence Community] tradecraft standards” and had “significant inconsistencies with SNIE’s … of the [1961] time period,” including “incorrect formatting, inconsistent branding, lack of a dissemination block and coordination language, loose narrative style, convoluted logic, imprecise and casual language, and … [strangely] superficial treatment of globally significant [1961] issues” had it really been written in 1961 instead of being faked in the 1990s. (See AAROR, p. 31, plus added MJ-12 hoax background here not mentioned by AARO.) Does this suggest poor USAF OSI tradecraft?
The AAROR’s representation of CIA involvement seems strained and contrived. Because this is one of only two official government conclusions of extraterrestrial origin of UFOs that AARO claims to find (and then dispute and reject), they go to some effort to try to invent something to explain away and wiggle out from CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence director Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell’s obvious and logically deducible extraterrestrial conclusion, given to CIA Director Gen. Walter B. Smith by classified memo on December 2, 1952 (see quote farther down, right out of AAROR, p. 17).
A third governmental extraterrestrial conclusion completely overlooked by AARO – by Air Force Intelligence, namely the intelligent UFO motions study by Major Dewey Fournet and presented to the CIA Robertson Panel – was missed by AARO despite its widespread reporting in declassified CIA documents and published UAP literature (see “Robertson Panel,” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 1015).
AARO can only speculate that it is just “possible” Chadwell meant only “Soviet” (a 6-letter word Chadwell could easily have written if he meant that and easy for Chadwell’s secretary Mary Jane Carder to have typed). But Soviet threats were the CIA’s job to track, so why leave that word out? “Possible” means it does not rise to the level of “probable” or “certain” and therefore the opposite alternative (ET) of the “possible” (Soviet) is what is very probably true.
In other words, even AARO has to tacitly admit that it is likely CIA scientist Chadwell did mean extraterrestrial.
In case there is any doubt, Chadwell and his deputy Ralph Clark both confirmed in published interviews many years ago that they, the CIA OSI, did briefly conclude that UFOs were extraterrestrial but that the Robertson Panel effectively changed Chadwell’s conclusions. They did not know the Air Force planted explained IFO not Best Unexplained UFO cases on the CIA Panel so they naturally would find them explained and thus not even close to being considered extraterrestrial (see Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 1013a.)
As quoted by AARO (p. 17), Dr. Chadwell told the CIA Director he was convinced that “something was going on that must have immediate attention,” and that “sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.” Clearly, these were not classified US aircraft programs.
AARO’s handling of the CIA Special Study Group of (August) 1952 is perhaps the most error-ridden in the entire AARO Report (pp. 16-17), as it appears just about everything is completely wrong, even the dates and the names of CIA personnel and Group members, and omission of bombshell facts. AAROR implies that the Group continued from summer until December 1952 when in fact it was in operation less than one month in order to brief the CIA Director on August 20, 1952.
This was so that the CIA Director in turn could brief the President on UAP on August 22, 1952, a fact of stunning importance. It was the President who ordered the CIA investigation of the Air Force mishandling of UAP in the first place on July 28 after two weekends of worldwide bad publicity showing the Air Force unable to control the skies from invading UAP flying over Washington, DC, Air Force jets unable to stop the UAP — a highly relevant and dramatic fact utterly omitted by AARO. (See “Robertson Panel,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018.)
AARO is wrong not only about the date of the CIA Special Group but even gets the names of all the CIA personnel wrong. Omitting all mention of the President and the CIA Director, AARO insinuates the Group was created solely on the initiative of the CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory Jr. but got the name wrong since in 1952 the DDI was Loftus E. Becker. Contrary to AARO, this Special Group on UAP was not formed and tasked under the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) Physics & Electronics Division but under the OSI Operations Staff. That P&E Division’s USAF Maj. A. Ray Gordon was not the “lead” or any part of the Group.
The Robertson Panel Minutes clearly identify the Group as consisting of “Strong, Eng, Durant” (not Maj. Gordon) two of whom have been interviewed by researchers over the years and who confirmed the obvious facts also found of course in declassified CIA documents AARO missed — the Group was formed within the OSI Operations Staff headed by Brig.Gen. Philip G. Strong, USMCR.
Somehow AARO managed to entirely miss the CIA Special Group’s finding that the Air Force UAP intelligence effort at Project Blue Book was a complete failure. The Group’s expert in the intelligence process, Ransom L. Eng, as part of the Group, personally visited Blue Book and its parent organization ATIC at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio. Eng found that the Air Force’s Project Blue Book UAP effort failed all 4 stages of the intelligence process — Failed at Intelligence Collection, Failed at Analysis, Failed at Production, Failed at Dissemination.
The Special Study Group and Eng told CIA Director Walter B. Smith, Gen., USA, on August 20, 1952, at a CIA-wide briefing, that the “entire Air Force” had a “world-wide reporting system and [jet] interception program” against UAP but which generates a “flood of reports on unidentified flying objects” that comes to an inadequate “small group” with “low level of support … on a minimal basis” of only 5 personnel at Blue Book who clearly could not deal with the huge volume of UAP reports. The UAP reports were made from a 10-question report form that was “inadequate even for the limited case-history approach.” That’s the Intelligence Collection failure.
Then Eng said the all-important Analysis phase was of “extremely limited scope” where the Air Force used a laborious one-by-one “individual case” or “case history” system of handling, using no computer punch cards or “other standard method of processing data” to speed the process of explaining and identifying the Explained (or IFO) cases and the Unexplained cases. But once that was done, Eng pointed out the Air Force did no trend studies, no pattern analysis nor any other of “a number accepted research techniques … in any effort to gain a sound understanding of these phenomena.”
But Eng noted ominously that Blue Book had “laboriously” plotted the Unexplained UAP cases by hand on a map and the “plots show a high incidence of reported [UAP] cases near atomic installations and Strategic Air Command [SAC] bases” but BB tried to downplay it. The Air Force failed to mention to the CIA Group that the new incoming Air Force Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. John Samford himself was shown the Unexplained UAP map in December 1951 displaying UAP concentrated around nuclear bases and SAC bases. Gen. Samford was so disturbed he ordered a major investigation of the mapped UAP nuclear/SAC concentrations using computers at the AF’s Battelle Memorial Institute contractor codenamed Project Stork (which AARO botched as to its name, wrongly calling it “Project BEAR”). Here was a potential national security threat from UAP and the Air Force was misleading the CIA about it.
Eng concluded that the Air Force failed the Analysis phase of the intelligence process by failing to carry out the essential “well planned and properly guided research program” to solve the mystery of what the UAPs were and help prevent any national threat.
Eng and the Special Group thus urged the establishment by the CIA of a major ongoing, permanent scientific UAP research program conducted by MIT at its Project Lincoln radar air defense laboratory, which the CIA continued to work towards — until the AF derailed CIA with the now-infamous Robertson Panel. The AF forced the rush-to-judgment, hurried merely 4-day Panel of scientists on the CIA OSI in the weeks leading up to January 1953, which OSI repeatedly tried to stop, stall, and postpone, but got overruled via AF pressure on the CIA Director. The AF even manipulated the evidence by falsely submitting Explained IFO cases dressed up as Best Unexplained cases so they would fall apart in front of the Panel. None of this salient history was mentioned by AARO (see “Robertson Panel,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018).
THE PENTAGON’S NEW UAP REPORT IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED - PART IIILast month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.
It appears that the latest AARO figures for unexplained UAP cases work out to 62%, as of August 30, 2022, since the current AARO historical report of February 2024 gives no figures.
AARO’s 2022 Annual Report reported 510 total UAP cases, of which 171 of the 366 new post-Task Force cases were “uncharacterized and unattributed” (p. 5). This seems to be a brand new name for “unidentified” (see the UAP Reporting Directive May 2023 para. 3.B.6) though the Annual Report tries to suggest it is a more preliminary “initial” category than either “positively resolved” or “unidentified.” Unfortunately, it does not define these terms in the AARO Report.
However, AARO’s UAP Reporting Directive of May 2023 belies their effort to minimize this new “unattributed” category label, by defining in paragraph 3.B.6 that “UAP ATTRIBUTION is the assessed natural or artificial source of the phenomenon and includes solar, weather, tidal events; US government, scientific, industry, and private activities; and foreign (allied or adversary) government, scientific, industry, and private activities.” That seems to indicate that “attribution” is not some “initial” cursory impression but a thorough “assessment,” hence like the identification process that would lead to “identified” or “unidentified.”
The AARO Annual Report seems to conveniently fail to mention that when these new 171 unidentified UAP reports are added to the previous UAP Task Force’s 143 unidentified, the grand total of 314 unidentified out of 510 represents a formidable 62% unexplained/unidentified.
AARO makes no mention at all of this statistic of 62% unexplained. The reader would be required to know the AARO predecessor’s UAP Task Force stats, add the numbers, and do the calculations of percentage – which almost no one will even realize needs to be done.
AARO admits its January 2023 Annual report (for 2022) had revealed that “some” of the (171) unidentified UAP “demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” (AAROR p. 26, omits the “171” number given in the AARO Jan 2023 report, p. 5, and neither report says how many were “some.”)
This is the core element of any basic definition of a truly Unexplained UFO or UAP: unusual flight characteristics/performance along with unconventional shape (the definition can be traced as far back as Air Force UFO reporting directives in 1948-49). AARO does not single this out for much attention nor give exact statistics.
The 2024 AARO report avoids all mention of its predecessor UAP Task Force’s remarkable pro-UAP statistics of 99.3% Unidentified, including at least 56% involving multiple sensor systems which would eliminate sensor errors and conventional IFO explanations (stats all omitted in AAROR p. 24).
No AARO mention is made of either the 99.3% unidentified or the succeeding 62% unidentified number, the latest exact percentage (by calculation) deducible from exact AARO case numbers (see next section trying to numerically pin down AARO’s subsequent vague “majority” wording). The total caseload percentage of unexplained does not seem to be dropping much further if at all, given that AARO continues in 2023 and 2024 to repeatedly use the same vague “majority” term for the explained case fraction, conveniently without numbers. Presumably, if it had dropped significantly AARO would likely have highlighted this or at least set the record straight.
As mentioned above, AARO’s predecessor UAP Task Force had a total of 143 Unexplained UAP cases as of March 2021. This was more than doubled to a cumulative total of 314 unexplained in the first AARO Annual Report as of August 2022. Now it appears that the number may nearly double again to about 600 unexplained in 2024 (see table below). Unfortunately, due to a lack of clarity or transparency, we are forced to analyze and disentangle AARO’s obfuscated UAP statistics in order to deduce this.
Interestingly, the October 2023 AARO “Consolidated Annual Report” (or “AARO Cons” for short) to Congress on UAP, makes the Blue Book-style prediction that:
“Based on the ability to resolve cases to date, with an increase in the quality of data secured, the unidentified and purported anomalous nature of most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena and significantly reduce the amount of UAP case submissions [i.e., apparently discourage making of UAP reports].”
But each year or so, the total cumulative number of unidentified anomalous UAP reports increased from 143 to 314 to 600. That suggests that each year or so the added new reports with supposedly better “quality of data” were more unexplainable not more resolved with the better data. A later obscure statement in the AARO Cons report admits that AARO has not been able to explain away its UAP case backlog (the excuse being a “lack of data,” but perhaps really a lack of investigation?) hence the new cases with better data are not helping AARO, they’re still highly unexplainable (AARO Cons., Oct. 2023, p. 8).
Once again, history repeats itself. During Project Blue Book the Air Force repeatedly suggested that the primary problem in identifying and explaining UAP was lack of quality data, when often the reverse was true. When Blue Book sorted UAP cases into categories based on the quality of data, its ability to find conventional explanations steadily decreased as the quality of the witnesses and data increased (see table below from data in Blue Book Special Report 14).
Because there is no mention in the 2024 AARO report of even its alleged current 2024 caseload of 1,200 UAP cases – a number shared by AARO Acting Director Tim Phillips with CNN on March 6, 2024 – the next most recent stats with any kind of hint at an explained/unexplained breakdown we can find are in the previous AARO Annual Reports: the October 2023 AARO Report and the belated 2022 Annual UAP Report to Congress of January 2023 (a confusing array of dates and reports).
The January 2023 report gives the breakdown of only the new cases, with the numbers if one adds them up, 195-to-171 explained-to-unexplained or 53-47% (of the new, not of the total caseload), calling it “more than half,” language that subsequent AARO reports have blurred into the more vague single word “majority.” Both the October 2023 and 2024 AARO reports thus have similar language stating that an apparently bare “majority” of the UAP reports were explained, and some of the remaining “anomalous.”
Then the 2024 AARO report in effect adopts the bare “majority” language as the current UAP status, implying a roughly 51-49% type breakdown (possibly even the same 53-47% ratio as the previous new cases, in view of the vagueness). By implication, AARO seems to broadly apply the older reports’ fuzzy breakdown to the final UAP 2024 situational wrap-up in this current 2024 AARO report. AARO thus admits in subdued non-numerical language the surprising fact that nearly half of its UAP caseload is still unexplained today or does not “have an ordinary explanation” – thus seeming to undermine its position. (AAROR pp. 25-26; similar statement in AARO Cons., Oct 2023, p. 8) It would be helpful in the future if AARO would clarify the data and present the actual numbers.
Presumably, the current 2024 numbers are close to this implied 51-49% split of Explained-Unexplained, or AARO would have said differently and given us the exact figures in the AARO report. (The AARO official website does not help, it gives UAP Reporting Trends from cases 1996 to November 20, 2023, including percentages of shapes (“morphology”) of UAP but for some reason gives no numbers of total cases or percentages of cases resolved or explained – much more important numbers insofar as rating AARO’s mission performance and assessing the level of UAP activity being encountered by DoD and the IC.)
In any case, if applied to the current UAP total then there may be close to 600 Unexplained in the 1,200 UAP reports total in March 2024 (and this does not account for AARO sweeping away Insufficient Data cases as if fully explained as Blue Book did in the past, which might push the 600 Unexplained still higher depending on the definition of Insufficient Data being applied consistently). If so, then this represents almost a doubling of the 314 unexplained cases from August 2022 (a figure AARO also omits). And that 314 unexplained was a more-than doubling from the previous 143 unexplained.
If the stats were much better than this from AARO’s viewpoint, they would likely have said so. AARO had plenty of room – and months of time remaining before the report was due to Congress – to provide explicit numbers in its historical report.
Why are we forced to resort to guessing games on nuances of AARO’s language? Why doesn’t AARO release the statistics openly and transparently?
It all adds up to a profound mystery that AARO seems to be deliberately obscuring if not obfuscating.
It appears that AARO has adopted the old Air Force Project Blue Book’s strategy of flooding their case files with Insufficient Data cases wrongly claimed to be explained. But if there are insufficient data to explain a UFO case or cases, then they are by definition unexplained. However, as Hynek taught, these don’t rate as “officially” Unexplained either, because that requires fully Sufficient Data and must go through IFO screening investigation. “Insufficient Data” does not identify an object or its cause, it says there is not enough data to do so. This AARO policy of caseload dilution with Insufficient Data reverses its predecessor UAP Task Force’s smart approach of selecting higher quality “focused” UAP cases with an emphasis on multi-sensor incidents (80 of the initial 144 UAPTF cases or 56%) which yielded only one IFO out of 144.
And unlike Blue Book, AARO does not even bother to give a breakdown of the status of the current 1,200 UAP cases on file that AARO’s new Acting Director Tim Phillips told the media about but strangely are not mentioned in AARO’s Historical Report. Perhaps AARO doesn’t want anyone to focus on numbers – specific numbers involving the alleged “assessed” UAP identifications instead of vague generalities.
Where are the UAP cases with data so that scientists can independently verify AARO’s conclusions, which is the core of the scientific process?
If the government favors transparency as it claims, why is it that not even redacted UAP case files are being released? Why is it that after the Navy Go Fast, FLIR, and Gimbal videos were confirmed to be unclassified other videos of precisely the same kind, obtained over US training ranges, are still being withheld? I know this to be the case because I’ve seen one of the unreleased videos and raised this issue directly with DoD. I initially got a polite reply and an assurance the matter would be reviewed, but months have passed and I’ve heard nothing further. Unsurprisingly, nothing further has occurred. And why is it that Customs and Border Patrol official IR videos can be released without damage to national security, but not similar DoD videos? I’m confident that with over 1,000 new cases there must be others like “Gimbal”, “Flir” and “Go Fast” that have not been released.
AARO appears to be the “New Blue Book,” trying to “get rid” of UAP just like the old Air Force Project Blue Book in its heyday of the 1960s strived to “get rid” of UFOs by every trick in the (blue) book (Hynek UFO Report, ch. 3). In sum, with great irony, AARO seems to repeat some of the same methodological errors and mistakes that undermined the credibility of the historical UAP investigation it is reporting. These appear to include:
It appears that some 60% of Blue Book’s cases were in reality Insufficient Data (not just Blue Book’s understated 20% category labeled “Insufficient Data”) – because there was simply not enough info to go beyond guessing at “possible” or “probable” explanations to achieve certainty. The remaining 40% of Sufficient Data cases broke down into approximately 10%—30%, identified—unidentified. The unidentified were therefore a surprising 70-75% Unexplained Unknowns in the total Sufficient Data cases (30/40 = 75%, all numbers here are rounded).
As indicated above, Blue Book went further and tried to conceal this statistical shell game by carving out a much smaller 20% category they called “Insufficient Data” – a misdirect that obscured the fact that Blue Book did not sufficiently investigate the other 40% of the total cases and that the total Insufficient Data should have been stated as about 60%. These Possible/Probables were treated as fully explained IFOs instead of as Insufficient-Data. (See Hynek UFO Report, 1977, p. 259, etc.)
AARO tries to brush aside sensor tracking of UAP on the flimsy grounds of sensor “aberrations” and “artifacts” (AAROR p. 12; media reports call them “glitches”; previous AARO reports call them sensor “errors”). This is untenable if multiple sensors track the same UAP, like infrared and radar such as in the ATFLIR sensor pod videos by the Navy F/A-18s that most everyone concerned with the UAP issue has seen by now (probably at least 50 million video views to date).
In fact, AARO seems to ignore its own data showing they have reduced the problem of “Ambiguous Sensor Contact” with UAP in its caseload from 23% to 9% from April to November 2023 – it’s on AARO’s website but not mentioned in AARO’s report. (The earlier AARO annual report did show a 5% Ambiguous Sensor Contact figure as of Aug. 2022 based mostly on the Navy UAP Task Force’s work, before the April 2023 worsening increase under AARO to 23%.)
That 9% “Ambiguous Sensor Contact” figure means the other 91% of AARO’s current case files of sensor trackings of UAP are good data and are not “ambiguous.” This would appear to undermine attempts at downplaying or dismissing sensor trackings of UAP as must be due to some sort of speculative sensor “artifacts.” Cases involving multiple sensors can overcome sensor error so that any sensor that has an error is corrected by the other sensors that do not. Sensors operating at different frequencies on different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum will not all be fooled by electronic spoofing at the same time.
AARO withholds its multiple-sensor case numbers – unlike its predecessor UAP Task Force that reported it had 56% of all cases as multiple-sensor cases including two or more sensors tracking the same UAP at the same time by “radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation” (UAPTF June 2021, pp. 3-4). No wonder UAPTF had 99.3% Unexplained cases – good data and no terrestrial explanations.
AARO then complains about the lack of data regarding “speed, altitude, and size of reported UAP” (AAROR, p. 27), even though many of its cases have measurement data from multiple sensors (e.g., radar-infrared-optical F/A-18 cases). The complaint harkens back to Air Force Project Blue Book’s similarly unsupported complaint over the alleged lack of measured “speed, altitude, size” data on UFOs (The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, the ex-Blue Book Chief Ruppelt’s 1956 book, pp. 116-7, 149, 201, 212, 224, etc.). Meanwhile, Blue Book buried any mention of tracking data resident in Blue Book files from missile tracking cameras, radar-visual cases, and from an Army UAP tracking network specially set up around the top secret “Site B” nuclear weapons stockpile depot at Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas (see section, below, with sample chart illustrating some of the Army UAP tracking).
In AARO’s boasted “thorough” and “complete” reporting of past UAP investigations (AAROR p. 12), there is no mention of the existence of the AF’s special AF-Army-Navy/Marine multiple-sensor UFO tracking networks set up at multiple sites in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968-70. Declassified military histories reveal over 500 “UFO” trackings on radar, optical, laser-ranging, nightscope, telescope, and infrared sensor systems, with 99% Unexplained (Declassified military histories: “Sensor Networks to Track UFOs in the Vietnam War,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 1050-1054).
AARO’s highly selective treatment of the Condon Report also from the AF’s UFO contract study at the University of Colorado, managed to studiously avoid the widely reported criticism that the Condon Report’s negative conclusions were contradicted by the embarrassing unmentioned fact that 34% of its own UAP cases remained Unexplained after investigation – as numerous scientists have pointed out in criticism of the Condon Report’s anti-UFO conclusions. (Someone in effect slipped up and put an easy list of the “Sightings, Unexplained” in the back Index of the published Condon Report, in 1969, where about 26 such Unexplained cases are listed, in addition to listing another 4 radar cases, 1 airglow photometer case, 3 numbered cases missed, and an uncertain number–about two–of the 14 unexplained Prairie Network-confirmed cases not overlapping with the preceding, totaling some 36 out of a grand total of about 106, or about 34%. Different tallies of the obfuscated Condon Report case numbers come up with slightly different numbers. See for example: W. Smith, Journal of UFO Studies, CUFOS, 1996). AARO fails to mention that 14 of the Condon study’s Unexplained UFO cases were backed up by photos taken by the astronomical meteor-tracking cameras of the Smithsonian’s Prairie Network system, an unprecedented scientific development.
There is also no mention of Dr. Condon’s obvious, non-scientific bias, which may have been the reason he was selected by the Air Force to chair the eponymous Commission. In late January 1967, while the Condon Committee’s investigation was ongoing, Dr. Condon tipped his hand, telling an audience at a lecture that UFOs are “nonsense” but “I’m not supposed to reach that conclusion for another year.” Once again, serious issues well-known to any UAP researcher are not included in the AARO report.
Likewise, AARO seems unaware of the new Over the Horizon – Forward Scatter (OTH-FS) radars turned over to NORAD for operational duty in March 1968 which immediately began tracking UAP. This was revealed in the House Science & Astronautics UFO Symposium hearings on July 29, 1968, and published, but despite being open source history it never made it into AARO’s “complete” and “thorough” history (“NORAD” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 811b).
No mention is made by AARO that many scientists, including government scientists, astronomers, physicists, and others have personally seen UFOs, some obtaining instrument data and photos. AARO never mentions unclassified instrument tracking of UAP in the Blue Book files and other Air Force declassified records (AARO can’t claim that released sensor data is “classified”).
No mention that 14 Unexplained UFO cases in the hostile Air Force University of Colorado “scientific study of UFOs” were photographed and confirmed by the Smithsonian Prairie Network scientific meteor-tracking cameras (another 6 caught on meteor cameras were IFOs). The Colorado study tried to bury it in its infamous Condon Report, but it’s identifiable if one looks at and studies the summary data table with skewed and misleading definitions.
It appears AARO didn’t look. Another scientist UAP instrument detection by airglow scanning photometer is also an Unexplained UFO in the Condon Report, which concealed the fact that an embarrassing 34% of its cases ended up Unexplained (as mentioned above).
The Air Force set up UAP tracking networks in South Vietnam with multiple sensor systems during the war in 1968-70, as revealed in many declassified military histories (mentioned before). But AARO seems ignorant of it.
Army UAP Tracking Network Record AARO Missed Finding in the Blue Book Files, March 6-8, 1949 (Site B Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas). Later cases included triangulations of speed, size, and altitude data on UAP.
AARO’s two key conclusions, as presented at the top of its report’s Executive Summary, state:
AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.
…
AARO has found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.
(AAROR Exec Summary p. 7, underlining added.)
If there is not a blanket AARO denial saying “no evidence” of extraterrestrial UAP sightings, but only a more limited, qualified denial stating “no empirical evidence” (physical evidence) of reverse-engineering extraterrestrial tech, then what non-empirical evidence does AARO have? Empirical means physical evidence and reality of objects and events, not human records of such, which records are presumably non-empirical evidence.
Is this an innocent ambiguity or an inadvertent admission that AARO has non-empirical evidence, such as documentary records or witness testimony, of reverse-engineering efforts on recovered extraterrestrial technology?
Interestingly, AARO claims to have “conducted approximately 30 interviews” of “approximately 30 people” (pp. 6, 11), and quite specifically “As of September 17, 2023, AARO interviewed approximately 30 individuals” who claimed knowledge of hidden government extraterrestrial technology and evidence (AAROR, p. 28). Don’t they know exactly how many people they interviewed, was it 30 or not?
AARO is quick to stress that “It is important to note that none of the interviewees had firsthand knowledge of these programs” (p. 9).
But this seems to be contradicted later when AARO explains that “Priority is given to those interviewees who claimed first-hand knowledge… Interviewees relaying second or third-hand knowledge are lower in priority, but AARO has and will continue to schedule interviews with them, nonetheless.” (AAROR, p. 28) AARO thus makes it seem they are reluctant to “continue to schedule interviews” with “secondhand or thirdhand” witnesses because they are so occupied with high-priority firsthand witnesses.
AARO also fails to define what evidence is required to establish extraterrestrial intelligence visiting Earth. Would multiple sensors tracking an object from high altitude or space that stops and starts with accelerations of >1000 g’s be at least a starting definition of evidence for non-human or extraterrestrial intelligence? (See Robert Powell/SCU critique of AAROR.) Likewise, AARO complains more broadly that it needs “Sufficient Data” in UAP cases, then never explains exactly what is considered “sufficient” (AARO Cons Report Oct 2023, p. 8).
Does it require direct communication with extraterrestrial intelligence to satisfy AARO’s unstated but seemingly shifting definition of “evidence” (see below)? What if the ETs simply refuse to communicate; do we just pretend to ignore them until they do? Is that a responsible operational defense posture or intelligence collection and analysis policy?
What radio signals have been received from UAP in the reports AARO has collected? AARO’s briefing slides to Congress and on its website state that it has cases of UAP-transmitted radio signals in the 1-3 and 8-12 GHz frequency bands (completely separate and different from UAP radar beams at 1-8 GHz, also listed). This has been briefed to Congress and listed in AARO Reporting Trends slides of “Typically-Reported UAP Characteristics” – but is never mentioned in the AARO Report.
Are these UAP Radio Signals a communication? What analysis of these signals has been undertaken? Has Congress been informed of the findings? The AARO Report also ignores a long history back to 1950 of UAP transmitting radio signals and radar beams and even replying to IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) interrogation signals transmitted to the UAP by ground-based US radar stations (see “UFO IFF” and “NORAD National Alert” articles in Clark’s UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 814-824, 1155-6).
Does extraterrestrial evidence require beyond-terrestrial technological capabilities (the “extra” in “extraterrestrial”)? Does sensor data suffice or must physical samples be obtained? What about AARO’s October 2023 Consolidated Annual UAP Report which mentions “some cases” of UAP with “high-speed travel and unusual maneuverability” (p.2), and “very small percentage” with “high-speed travel and unusual morphologies” (p. 8), none of which are mentioned in AARO’s current historical report (unless it’s in the classified version).
The earlier UAP Task Force reported that 15% of its reports were of “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics” including “demonstrating UAP acceleration or a degree of signature management” (the latter meaning the UAP’s apparent use of electromagnetic signature reduction as a means of “camouflage” for purposes of lowering detectability, effectively a form of stealth) in mid-flight. Taken together, these terms evidently convey, at minimum, the UAP’s ability to “remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion” (UAPTF June 2021, p. 5).
In October 2023 the AARO then-director Sean Kirkpatrick told CNN that about 2% to 4% of his cases were “truly anomalous” – possibly referring to his just-released report’s reference to “unknown morphologies” (meaning “unknown shapes”) and “interesting signatures” not otherwise defined in the report.
These are tantalizing and provocative admissions by AARO and its predecessor, but what do they mean in terms of meeting AARO’s unspoken requirements for “evidence”?
AARO’s report displays a constant shifting of ill-defined goalposts for what it deems to be “evidence,” etc. First, there is plain “evidence” then “empirical evidence,” then there is “convincing evidence” (is “empirical evidence” not quite “convincing”?). AARO refers to “verifiable information” as if to contrast it with “empirical evidence” (AAROR, p. 35) thus raising the question, is “empirical evidence” not empirically “verifiable information” by itself? And AARO speaks of “actionable data” as conveniently undefined and not distinguished from other types of data or “evidence.” And beyond that, there are “actionable, researchable data.”
The common denominator in these shifting vague pseudo-definitions of what is required for UAP evidence is that they seem intended to ensure genuine anomalies are minimized in favor of prosaic explanations, no matter how implausible.
AARO does not even mention the word “stigma” anywhere in this report, except buried in a passing reference to the UAP Task Force helping “destigmatize” reporting of UAP though not the subject of UAP (AAROR, p. 24).
This is despite the historical importance of the “stigma” deliberately attached to the UFO subject by the US government – principally by the Air Force – that is widely cited by the media and witnesses testifying before Congress. The critical importance of stigma and the problems it has created in hampering and crippling UAP research and investigation are undeniable.
As AARO’s predecessor UAP Task Force stated in its “Preliminary Report to Congress” submitted in June of 2021 (p. 4):
“Narratives from aviators in the operational community and analysts from the military and IC describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues…. [T]hese stigmas have … reputational risk [that] may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the [UAP] topic.”
The “stigma” attached to the UFO topic as applied by the government appears to have included abuses that AARO was legally required to investigate in its Historical Report – but did not. Specifically, the Historical Report was required to:
“(ii) include a compilation and itemization of the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP], including— …
“(III) any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” [NDAA FY23 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(B); 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(B)]
As mentioned above, AARO failed to compile, itemize, and report on US intelligence agency abuses of UAP witnesses and others. The one tiny item dismissive of vague public perceptions of the Air Force’s UFO “debunker” abuse (AAROR, p. 38) does not document its long history as was required by law in NDAA FY23 and 50 U.S. Code § 3373 cited above.
AARO made no effort to compile the history of the Intelligence Community’s efforts to “obfuscate” or “hide” UAP information through excessive secrecy, as noted before.
Air Force Intelligence “efforts to … obfuscate [and] manipulate public opinion” on UFOs since the 1950s are primarily what caused the harsh stigma attached to the entire UFO subject in society. But this anti-UFO stigma is not investigated or historically documented by AARO – or even mentioned – contrary to its legal obligation.
This is despite the public admission by former USAF OSI officer Richard Doty that his official assignments included spying on US civilian UAP researchers and breaking into a private home, spreading disinformation about UAP, misinforming two US Senators, and spreading fake UFO documents including some so-called “MJ-12” documents that turned out to be a hoax (Doty radio interview Feb. 27, 2005; see Rojas, “Open Letter,” posting May 6, 2014, OpenMinds). Much more evidence could be cited of similar stigma-inducing covert government actions besides the public debunking and shaming of innocent UAP witnesses and civilian investigators (see “Debunking and Debunkery,” Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 379-400).
The AARO report states that it asked DoD and IC organizations to review their files for any NDAs related to UAP and none were reported (AAROR, pp. 7, 30). Had AARO actually reviewed AFOSI NDAs themselves, rather than delegating the task, they might have reached a different conclusion.
For example, I was informed by a former member of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Investigation Program (AATIP / AAWSAP) that when he requested the opportunity to interview the two F-16 pilots involved in the famous Stephenville, TX, 2008 UAP case, both pilots replied that they could not discuss the matter because they had signed USAF NDAs. It ought to be possible to run this to the ground either by contacting the pilots or searching AFOSI records.
In another instance, a former USAF Air Traffic controller told me she and her colleagues signed OSI NDAs after reporting a black triangular UAP hovering over a nuclear weapons storage facility at Barksdale AFB. Subsequently, AFOSI officers asked them to sign NDAs, explaining that they had seen a highly classified US weapons system they were not cleared for (the secret weapons program ruse again). The witnesses assumed that was a cover story, as they could not imagine a test aircraft being sent to hover over a nuclear weapons storage facility, but they felt compelled to sign the NDAs for fear of retaliation if they did not. This case also suggests that in searching for pertinent USAF NDAs, it may be necessary to review NDAs of the type alleging uncleared military personnel had been exposed to US advanced technology programs outside their clearance level or access authorization and not merely search for some sort of “UAP NDA.”
In the Bentwaters, Rendlesham Forest, UK, case in December 1980-January 1981, there are indications that secondary witnesses and civilian investigators were pressured to sign secrecy agreements (see Col. Charles Halt’s 2016 book, pp, 400, 439).
Why is AARO, a component of the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense (DoD), suddenly changing the rules of the game and importing purely academic, scientific standards for the interpretation of intelligence data? Is it because this allows the government to ignore important and valid but inconvenient information?
AARO claims its “methodology applies both the scientific method and intelligence analysis tradecraft” (AAROR, p. 6). But it seems the scientific methodology is set off against the intelligence methodology to discredit any observation of UAP that exceeds present-day scientific understanding, on the tacit grounds that observations by military personnel on this issue, and seemingly this issue alone, are not credible. Meanwhile, the intelligence tradecraft that would investigate a foreign adversary’s possible futuristic development of science seems to be shunted aside. Thus AARO uses a limited academic form of today’s science to deny as “not credible” the observed and measured UAP performance that may represent an advanced technology, possibly extraterrestrial, although we know 21st century science will inevitably be followed by a 31st century science. Neither the law enforcement nor intelligence communities have the luxury of limiting themselves to dismissing human reporting in favor of purely scientific standards of evidence.
It sometimes feels as though AARO is approaching the old unscientific Air Force Project Blue Book policy, long ago exposed by Blue Book scientific consultant Dr. Hynek, of declaring “It Can’t Be: Therefore it Isn’t” when dealing with tough unexplainable UFO cases (The Hynek UFO Report, 1977, ch. 3).
Hence, AARO’s Dr. Kirkpatrick claims there is no “credible” information of craft demonstrating capabilities that defy our current scientific understanding: “AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics” (DoD News Briefing, Apr. 19, 2023). This, despite the testimony of Navy squadron Cmdr. Dave Fravor and his colleagues were involved in the Nimitz incident, backed by dramatic radar-infrared-electro-optical data recordings. AARO does not even mention the Nimitz case or its investigation anywhere in its “complete”, “thorough”, and “accurate” Historical UAP Report.
Cmdr. Fravor and his wingman and their crew all saw and reported the same wingless white “Tic Tac” shaped craft in conditions of ideal visibility and their accounts of its mind-boggling capabilities were corroborated by radar operators serving on two different platforms
Later that day another F/A-18 witnessed and filmed the UAP, yet it seems as if AARO is denying this undeniable event, suggesting it did not even happen just because it exceeds today’s academic scientific understanding. Multiple accounts by all three pilots and their weapons systems operators, and multiple radar operators and technicians agree that craft they observed demonstrated almost-instantaneous high g acceleration; achieved hypersonic speed without a sonic boom; showed no evidence of friction or plasma or obvious propulsion, despite the extreme velocities it achieved (estimated peak 90,000 mph in 12 miles going from 0 to 90,000 mph to 0, all in 0.78 seconds, at 5,000 g’s acceleration). The estimated 47-foot wingless white “Tic Tac” shaped craft also thus seemed to survive g forces far greater than any aircraft, rocket, or missile of that size built by man. The tough Navy squadron commander of the Black Aces could not find a terrestrial explanation for what he and his colleagues observed and he has made that clear in sworn testimony to Congress. Is this not relevant?
What aspect of this case should be thrown out as “not credible” and why? Why are we even bothering to ask pilots to report UAP if we do not deem them credible? Why is this case not viewed as compelling, albeit not absolutely conclusive, evidence of the presence in Earth’s atmosphere of vehicles that are so far advanced we cannot understand or replicate their performance? What evidence would AARO accept – and is AARO going to employ an unspoken rule of today’s academic science that does not see a science of tomorrow, and therefore arbitrarily says it must not have happened, because we don’t understand what was reported?
Aside from not liking the implications, is there any reason to doubt the fully consistent account of so many accomplished aviators and sailors operating with high-tech sensors? Our military could not function as effectively as it does if its personnel were not competent and reliable. When assessing the UAP issue, senior policymakers deserve candid views of intelligence and military personnel, not views limited by unrealistically high scientific standards imported from Academia. After all, AARO is a joint IC/DoD operation, not a science project.
As documented above, AARO has not complied with statutory orders from Congress for a detailed history of UAP sightings as recorded in USG’s historical records, instead providing a limited history of flawed US Government investigations of UAP.
There was no examination of the impact of “stigma” on the UFO subject, witnesses, and persons interested in it, aggressively implemented by the Air Force and supported by the AF-instigated CIA Robertson Panel, despite the legal requirement for AARO to document the history of intelligence agency manipulation of public opinion and other abuses.
Yet, as AARO itself acknowledged in its first report to Congress the “stigma” surrounding this topic has been a central problem in terms of getting government personnel or scientists to report or study UAP. (AARO Jan. 2023, p. 2) To summarize:
Ant-like alien creature seen in Perseverance Mars rover image.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
Exploring the Unexplained: Top 3 Impossible UFO Cases with Scientist Robert Powell
In the realm of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), few cases have perplexed and intrigued both the public and experts as much as the ones involving seemingly impossible maneuvers and speeds. Scientist Robert Powell, a seasoned researcher with decades of experience in the semiconductor industry and an avid investigator of UFO phenomena, sheds light on three such encounters. These instances not only challenge our understanding of physics but also hint at the existence of technology far beyond our current capabilities.
One of the most compelling cases occurred near Stephenville, Texas, where numerous witnesses, including local law enforcement, reported seeing an unusually large object in the sky. This object displayed extraordinary agility and speed, moving at velocities calculated to be as much as 1,900 miles per hour without any accompanying sonic booms – a feat that remains unexplained by conventional aircraft technology. Radar data corroborated these observations, showing an object executing movements that would require G-forces far beyond the tolerance of human pilots. Powell’s analysis, supported by radar and eyewitness accounts, underscores the case’s strangeness and its challenge to current aerospace technology.
This case involved an unidentified object captured on thermal imaging cameras by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The video footage shows the object traveling at high speed across the screen and even splitting into two separate objects without any noticeable change in velocity or trajectory. Skeptics have proposed theories such as balloons or small unmanned aerial vehicles, but the object’s ability to maintain coherence in high winds and perform maneuvers like splitting in two challenges these explanations. Powell points out the technical limitations of such theories and emphasizes the calculated speeds and behaviors that align more closely with a technologically advanced, unknown aerial vehicle.
Arguably one of the most famous UFO encounters, involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, showcases multiple radar contacts with high-speed aerial objects that defied known aviation technology. Fighter pilots witnessed a “Tic Tac”-shaped object that could hover over the sea and then accelerate to supersonic speeds within seconds, far outpacing the capabilities of the pursuing jets. The encounter was thoroughly documented through both radar data and multiple pilot testimonies. The object’s ability to perform extreme accelerations, estimated to be several thousand G-forces, suggests technology that is not only unknown but far beyond current engineering paradigms.
These cases, thoroughly investigated by experts like Robert Powell, challenge the conventional understanding of what is possible in terms of speed, acceleration, and aerodynamics. Each case offers a glimpse into the potential existence of advanced technology controlled by intelligence beyond human capabilities. While these encounters remain unexplained, they encourage a continued and open-minded investigation into the unknown, pushing the boundaries of current science and technology. Powell’s analysis emphasizes the need for a scientific approach to studying these phenomena, one that could potentially reveal new understandings of physics and technology.
Unexplained anomaly near Antarctica moving North causing 80 foot waves
Unveiling UFO Secrets: Dr. Steven Greer's Perspective
NASA’s Next Solar Sail is About to Go to Space
Everyone knows that solar energy is free and almost limitless here on Earth. The same is true for spacecraft operating in the inner Solar System. But in space, the Sun can do more than provide electrical energy; it also emits an unending stream of solar wind.
Solar sails can harness that wind and provide propulsion for spacecraft. NASA is about to test a new solar sail design that can make solar sails even more effective.
Solar pressure pervades the entire Solar System. It weakens with distance, but it’s present. It affects all spacecraft, including satellites. It affects longer-duration spaceflights dramatically. A spacecraft on a mission to Mars can be forced off course by thousands of kilometres during its voyage by solar pressure. The pressure also affects a spacecraft’s orientation, and they’re designed to deal with it.
Though it’s a hindrance, solar pressure can be used to our advantage.
A few solar sail spacecraft have been launched and tested, beginning with Japan’s Ikaros spacecraft in 2010. Ikaros proved that radiation pressure from the Sun in the form of photons can be used to control a spacecraft. The most recent solar sail spacecraft is the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2, launched in 2019. LightSail 2 was a successful mission that lasted over three years.
The Red Sea and the Nile River, from the LightSail 2 spacecraft. LightSail 2 was a successful demonstration mission that lasted more than two years.
Image Credit: The Planetary Society.
Solar sail spacecraft have some advantages over other spacecraft. Their propulsion systems are extremely lightweight and never run out of fuel. Solar sail spacecraft can perform missions more cheaply than other spacecraft and can last longer, though they have limitations.
The solar sail concept is now proven to work, but the technology needs to advance for it to be truly effective. A critical part of a solar sail spacecraft is its booms. Booms support the sail material; the lighter and stronger they are, the more effective the spacecraft will be. Though solar sails are much lighter than other spacecraft, the weight of the booms is still a hindrance.
“Booms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design – neither of which work well for today’s small spacecraft.”
Keats Wilkie, ACS3 principal investigator, NASA
NASA is about to launch a new solar sail design with a better support structure. Called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), it’s stiffer and lighter than previous boom designs. It’s made of carbon fibre and flexible polymers.
Though solar sails have many advantages, they also have a critical drawback. They’re launched as small packages that must be unfurled before they start working. This operation can be fraught with difficulties and induces stress in the poor ground crew, who have to wait and watch to see if it’s successful.
This image shows the ACS3 being unfurled at NASA’s Langley Research Center. The solar wind is reliable but not very powerful. It requires a large sail area to power a spacecraft effectively. The ACS2 is about 9 meters (30 ft) per side, requiring a strong, lightweight boom system.
Image Credit: NASA
ACS3 will launch with a twelve-unit (12U) CubeSat built by NanoAvionics. The primary goal is to demonstrate boom deployment, but the ACS3 team also hopes the mission will prove that their solar sail spacecraft works.
To change direction, the spacecraft angles its sails. If boom deployment is successful, the ACS3 team hopes to perform some maneuvers with the spacecraft, angling the sails and changing the spacecraft’s orbit. The goal is to build larger sails that can generate more thrust.
“The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered.”
Alan Rhodes, ACS3 lead systems engineer, NASA’s Ames Research Center
The ACS3 boom design is made to overcome a problem with booms: they’re either heavy and slim or light and bulky.
“Booms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design – neither of which work well for today’s small spacecraft,” said NASA’s Keats Wilkie. Wilke is the ACS3 principal investigator at Langley Research Center. “Solar sails need very large, stable, and lightweight booms that can fold down compactly. This sail’s booms are tube-shaped and can be squashed flat and rolled like a tape measure into a small package while offering all the advantages of composite materials, like less bending and flexing during temperature changes.”
ACS3 will launch from Rocket Lab’s launch complex 1 on New Zealand’s north island.
Image Credit: Rocket Lab
ACS3 will be launched on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s launch complex in New Zealand. It’ll head for a Sun-synchronous orbit 1,000 km (600 miles) above Earth. Once it arrives, the spacecraft will unroll its booms and deploy its sail. It’ll take about 25 minutes to deploy the sail, with a photon-gathering area of 80 square meters, or about 860 square feet. That’s much larger than Light Sail 2, which had a sail area of 32 square meters or about 340 square feet.
As it deploys itself, cameras on the spacecraft will watch and monitor the shape and symmetry. The data from the maneuvers will feed into future sail designs.
“Seven meters of the deployable booms can roll up into a shape that fits in your hand,” said Alan Rhodes, the mission’s lead systems engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered.”
ACS3 is part of NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program. The program aims to deploy small missions that demonstrate unique capabilities rapidly. With unique composite and carbon fibre booms, the ACS3 system has the potential to support sails as large as 2,000 square meters, or about 21,500 square feet. That’s about half the area of a soccer field. (Or, as our UK friends mistakenly call it, a football field.)
With large sails, the types of missions they can power change. While solar sails have been small demonstration models so far, the system can potentially power some serious scientific missions.
“The Sun will continue burning for billions of years, so we have a limitless source of propulsion. Instead of launching massive fuel tanks for future missions, we can launch larger sails that use “fuel” already available,” said Rhodes. “We will demonstrate a system that uses this abundant resource to take those next giant steps in exploration and science.”
A solar flare as it appears in extreme ultraviolet light. The Sun is a free source of energy that’s not going away anytime soon, yet it’s also hazardous.
Credit: NASA/SFC/SDO
Solar sail spacecraft don’t have the instantaneous thrust that chemical or electrical propulsion systems do. But the thrust is constant and never really wavers. They can do things other spacecraft struggle to do, such as taking up unique positions that allow them to study the Sun. They can serve as early warning systems for coronal mass ejections and solar storms, which pose hazards.
The new composite booms also have other applications. Since they’re so lightweight, strong, and compact, they could serve as the structural framework for lunar and Mars habitats. They could also be used to support other structures, like communication systems. If the system works, who knows what other applications it may serve?
“This technology sparks the imagination, reimagining the whole idea of sailing and applying it to space travel,” said Rudy Aquilina, project manager of the solar sail mission at NASA Ames. “Demonstrating the abilities of solar sails and lightweight, composite booms is the next step in using this technology to inspire future missions.”
ould Life Exist in Water Droplet Worlds in Venus’ Atmosphere?
It’s a measure of human ingenuity and curiosity that scientists debate the possibility of life on Venus. They established long ago that Venus’ surface is absolutely hostile to life. But didn’t scientists find a biomarker in the planet’s clouds? Could life exist there, never touching the planet’s sweltering surface?
It seems to depend on who you ask.
We’ll start with phosphine.
Phosphine is a biomarker, and in 2020, researchers reported the detection of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere. There should be no phosphine because phosphorous should be oxidized in the planet’s atmosphere. According to the paper, no abiotic source could explain the quantity found, about 20 ppb.
Subsequently, the detection was challenged. When others tried to find it, they couldn’t. Also, the original paper’s authors informed everyone of an error in their data processing that could’ve affected the conclusions. Those authors examined the issue again and mostly stood by their original detection.
At this point, the phosphine issue seems unsettled. But if it is present in Venus’ atmosphere and is biological in nature, where could it be coming from? Venus’s surface is out of the question.
That leaves Venus’ cloud-filled atmosphere as the only abode of life. While the idea might seem ridiculous at first glance, researchers have dug into the idea and generated some interesting results.
In a new paper, researchers examine the idea of microscopic life that lives and reproduces in water droplets in Venus’s clouds. The title is “Necessary Conditions for Earthly Life Floating in the Venusian Atmosphere.” The lead author is Jennifer Abreu from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Lehman College, City University of New York. The paper is currently in pre-print.
Spacecraft have struggled to contend with the harsh conditions on Venus’s surface. The Soviet Venera 13 lander captured this image of the planet’s surface in March of 1982.
NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org
“It has long been known that the surface of Venus is too harsh an environment for life,” the authors write. “Contrariwise, it has long been speculated that the clouds of Venus offer a favourable habitat for life but regulated to be domiciled at an essentially fixed altitude.” So, if life existed in the clouds, it wouldn’t be spread throughout. Only certain altitudes appear to have what’s needed for life to survive.
The type of life the authors envision aligns with other thinking about Venusian atmospheric life. “The archetype living thing <being> the spherical hydrogen gasbag isopycnic organism,” they state. (Isopycnic means constant density; the other terms are self-explanatory.)
Here’s how the authors think it could work.
Venus is shrouded in clouds so thick we can only see the surface with radar. The clouds reach all the way around the globe. The cloud base is about 47 km (29 miles) from the surface, where the temperature is about 100 C (212 F.) At equatorial and mid-latitudes, they extend up to a 74 km (46 miles) altitude, and at the poles, they extend up to about 65 km (40 miles.)
The clouds can be subdivided into three layers based on the size of aerosol particles: the upper layer from
56.5 to 70 km altitude, the middle layer from 50.5 to 56.5 km, and the lower layer from 47.5 to 50.5 km. The smallest droplets can float in all three layers. But the largest droplets, which the authors call type 3 droplets with a radius of 4 µm, are only present in the middle and lower layers.
“It has long been suspected that the cloud decks of Venus offer an aqueous habitat where microorganisms can grow and flourish,” the authors write. Everything life needs is there: “Carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid compounds, and ultraviolet (UV) light could give microbes food and energy.”
Because of temperature, life in Venus’ clouds would be restricted to a specific altitude range. At 50 km, the temperature is between 60 and 90 degrees Celsius (140 and 194 degrees Fahrenheit). The pressure at that altitude is about 1 Earth atmosphere.
This figure from the research shows the temperature and pressure throughout Venus’s atmosphere.
Image Credit: Image Credit: S. Seager et al. 2021. doi:10.1089/ast.2020.2244
There’s a precedent for life existing in the clouds. It happens here on Earth, where scientists have observed bacteria, pollen, and even algae at altitudes as high as 15 km (9.3 miles.) There’s even evidence of bacteria growing in droplets in a super-cooled cloud high in the Alps. The understanding is that these organisms were carried aloft by wind, evaporation, eruptions, or even meteor impacts. But there’s an important difference between Earth’s and Venus’ clouds.
Earth’s clouds are transient. They form and dissolve constantly. But Venus’ clouds are long-lasting. They’re a stable environment compared to Earth’s clouds. In Earth’s clouds, aerosol particles are sustained for only a few days, while in Venus’ clouds, the particles can be sustained for much longer periods of time.
Add it all up, and you get stable cloud environments where aerosol particles can sustain themselves in an environment where energy and nutrients are available. The researchers say that though eventually aerosol particles and the life within them will fall to the surface, they have time to reproduce before that happens.
The idea of a microbial life cycle in Venusian clouds was developed by other researchers in their 2021 paper “The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere.”
There are five steps in Venus’s proposed cloud lifecycle:
In this new work, the researchers focus on time.
“One of the key assumptions of the aerial life cycle put forward in Seager et al. 2021 is the timescale on which droplets would persist in the habitable layer to empower replication,” the authors write. “It is this that we now turn to study.”
This table from the research shows generation times for some common Earth bacteria.
Image Credit: Abreu et al. 2024.
The authors used E. Coli generation times under optimal conditions in their work. In aerobic and nutrient-rich conditions, E. Coli can reproduce in 20 minutes. So, the E. Coli population will double three times in one hour. Bacteria must reproduce faster than they fall to the surface to sustain itself. They need to form a colony.
The researchers calculated that to sustain itself, the time it takes for bacteria to fall from the habitable part of the atmosphere to the inhabitable has to be longer than half an Earth day. As droplet size increases, the droplets would begin to sink. “As the droplet size approaches 100 µm, the droplets would start sinking to the lower haze layers,” they explain. However, their detailed calculations show that reproduction outpaces the fallout rate.
According to the team’s work, a population of bacteria could sustain itself in Venus’ clouds.
There are, obviously, still some questions. How certain are we that nutrients are available? Is there enough energy? Are there updrafts that can loft spores into the right layer of the atmosphere?
But the real big question is how was this all set in motion?
“An optimist might even imagine that the microbial life actually arose in a good-natured surface habitat, perhaps in a primitive ocean, before the planet suffered a runaway greenhouse, and the microbes lofted into the clouds,” the authors write. If that’s the case, this unique situation arose billions of years ago. Is there any other possibility? Could life have originated in the clouds?
Much scientific investigation into Venus, phosphine, clouds, and life relies on scant evidence. Few are willing to go out on a limb and proclaim that Venus can and does support life. We need more evidence.
For that, we have to wait for missions like the Venus Life Finder Mission. It’s a private mission being developed by Rocket Lab and a team from MIT. Who knows what VLF and other missions like DAVINCI and VERITAS will find? Stronger evidence of phosphine? Better data on Venus’ atmospheric layers and the conditions in them?
Life itself?
Artist’s impression of the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus.
Credit: Rocket Lab
id An Ancient Icy Impactor Create the Martian Moons?
The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are oddballs. While other Solar System moons are round, Mars’ moons are misshapen and lumpy like potatoes. They’re more like asteroids or other small bodies than moons.
Because of their odd shapes and unusual compositions, scientists are still puzzling over their origins.
Two main hypotheses attempt to explain Phobos and Deimos. One says they’re captured asteroids, and the other says they are debris from an ancient impactor that collided with Mars. Earth’s moon was likely formed by an ancient collision when a planetesimal slammed into Earth, so there’s precedent for the impact hypothesis. There’s also precedent for the captured object scenario because scientists think some other Solar System moons, like Neptune’s moon Triton, are captured objects.
Phobos and Deimos have lots in common with carbonaceous C-type asteroids. They’re the most plentiful type of asteroid in the Solar System, making up about 75% of the asteroid population. The moons’ compositions and albedos support the captured asteroid theory. But their orbits are circular and close to Mars’ equator. Captured objects should have much more eccentric orbits.
This illustration shows Phobos and Deimos’ orbits along with the orbits of spacecraft at Mars. The moons’ near-circular orbits don’t support the captured asteroid theory.
Image Credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19396.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39982795
The moons are less dense than silicate, the most abundant material in Mars’ crust. That fact works against the impact theory. A powerful impact would’ve blasted material from Mars into space, forming a disk of material rotating around the planet. Phobos and Deimos would’ve formed from that material. If they result from an ancient planetesimal impact, they should contain more Martian silica.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell. The captured asteroid theory can explain the moons’ observed physical characteristics but not their orbits. The impact theory can explain their orbits but not their compositions.
In research presented at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, three researchers proposed a different origin story for Phobos and Deimos. They suggest that an impactor is responsible for creating the moons, but the impactor was icy.
The research is titled “THE ICY ORIGINS OF THE MARTIAN MOONS.” The first author is Courteney Monchinski from the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
If a rocky impactor slammed into Mars, it would’ve created a massive debris disk around the planet. Previous researchers have examined the idea using simulations and found that an impact could’ve created the moons. But the disk created by the impact would’ve been far more massive than Phobos and Deimos combined. The simulations showed that there would’ve been a third, much more massive moon created within Phobos’ orbit that would’ve fallen back down to Mars. But there’s no strong evidence of something that massive striking Mars.
This illustration shows how a giant impact could’ve created Phobos and Deimos. The collision would’ve created a massive debris disk where a third more massive moon formed before falling back to Mars.
Image Credit: Antony Trinh / Royal Observatory of Belgium
Other impact studies used basaltic impactors. But those showed that the temperature in the debris disk would’ve been so high it would’ve melted the disk material and destroyed ancient chondritic materials. Since the pair of moons appear to contain those materials, a basaltic impactor is ruled out.
According to the research presented at the conference, an icy impactor can explain Phobos and Deimos’ origins. There are three reasons for that.
The extra disk mass created by a rocky impactor would not be present. Instead, much of the mass in the impactor would’ve been vapourized on impact and escaped the system rather than persisting in the disk and being taken up by the formation of moons. There would’ve been no large third moon and no need to explain how it fell back to Mars.
The second reason concerns the composition of the moons. With abundant water ice in the collision, the temperature in the debris disk would’ve been lower. That would’ve preserved the carbonaceous materials in Phobos and Deimos today. It also can help explain their density and possible porosity. An icy impactor could’ve also delivered water to Mars, and we know Mars was wetter in its past.
The third reason concerns Deimos’ orbit. It’s not synchronous with Mars, and an icy impactor can explain that. With more water ice in the disk, there would’ve been a viscous interaction between the disk’s dust and vapour that extended the disk, allowing Deimos to occupy its orbit.
The researchers used Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations to test the icy impactor idea. They simulated giant impactors with varying quantities of water ice and watched as disks formed around Mars and moons formed in the disk.
They first found that an impactor with any amount of water ice produced a more massive debris disk. It could be because an impactor containing water ice would be larger, though less massive, than one without any ice. That allowed more material to spray from the planet into the disk. It could also be because the water ice absorbs some of the impact energy when it vapourizes. That would cool the disk temperature, lowering the velocities of particles in the disk and making them less likely to escape.
This figure from the research shows that any amount of ice in an impactor increases the size of the debris disk.
Image Credit: Monchinski et al. 2024. LPSC
Varying the ice content in the impactor also affected the makeup of the disk. Different amounts of ice lead to disks with different amounts of Martian rock and impactor rock in the disk.
This graph from the study shows impactor ice content (x-axis) affects the debris disk composition.
Image Credit: Monchinski et al. 2024. LPSC
The temperature in the disk is a critical part of this. Different amounts of water ice in the impactor change the disk temperature and what types of materials in the disk would melt. Impactors with more than 30% ice create disk temperatures too low to melt silicates. Perhaps more tellingly, impactors with more than 70% ice result in a disk temperature too low to alter or destroy chondritic material, which both Phobos and Deimos are expected to contain.
According to the researchers, an icy impactor can also explain other features. “The existence of water in the impact-generated disk also suggests that water may condense, accounting for the possible water-ice content of the moons,” they write.
Ultimately, the researchers say an icy impactor with 70% to 90% water ice mantles can explain the pair of moons.
“The best case for reproducing the moons’ proposed compositions are the 70% and 90% water-ice mantle impactor cases, as they allow for low disk temperatures and more chances for chondritic materials to survive,” they explain.
Unfortunately, that may not be realistic. “In our current solar system, an object with around 70% or 90% water-ice content is not exactly realistic, as the object with the highest amount of water content in our current solar system, Ganymede, is only about 50% water,” they write.
The ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured this image of Phobos over the Martian landscape in this image taken in November 2010. Irregularly shaped and only 27 km long, Phobos is actually much darker (due to its carbon-rich surface) than is apparent in this contrast-enhanced view.
Image Credit: ESA / DLR / G. neukum
But could things have been different in the past? Samples from asteroid Ryugu suggest that its parent body could’ve been up to 90% water. That number is based on the types of minerals in Ryugu. But unfortunately, scientists don’t now for sure. Ryugu’s parent body could have contained as little as 20% water.
But it’s at least plausible that early in the Solar System’s life, an impactor with 70% water ice could have existed. If so, then the icy impactor scenario could be a robust theory to explain the origins of Phobos and Deimos.
“This impactor would have come from the outer solar system around the time of giant planet instability,” the authors write. During that time, outer Solar System bodies were perturbed and sent flying into the inner Solar System. But in this case, the impact’s timing needs to be constrained by Phobos’ and Deimos’ formation ages.
Scientists need more evidence to deepen their understanding of Mars and its moons. Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will provide that. MMX’s mission is to return a sample of Phobos to Earth. The goal is to determine if it is a captured asteroid or the result of an impact.
Unfortunately, JAXA just delayed MMX’s launch. It was scheduled to launch in September 2024 but has been delayed until 2026. That means we won’t get samples until 2031 instead of 2029.
JAXA has completed successful sample return missions, so they have the expertise to bring a piece of Phobos back to Earth. If scientists can determine how Phobos and Deimos formed, it’ll be part of a much larger, detailed picture of how the Solar System formed.
It’ll be worth it if we have to wait a couple extra years.
Watch a Satellite Reaction Wheel Melt in a Simulated Orbital Re-Entry
Most satellites share the same fate at the end of their lives. Their orbits decay, and eventually, they plunge through the atmosphere toward Earth. Most satellites are destroyed during their rapid descent, but not always
Heavy pieces of the satellite, like reaction wheels, can survive and strike the Earth. Engineers are trying to change that.
Satellite debris can strike Earth and is a potential hazard, though the chances of debris striking anything other than ocean or barren land are low. Expired satellites usually just re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. But there are a lot of satellites, and their number keeps growing.
In February 2024, the ESA’s European Remote Sensing 2 (ERS2) satellite fell to Earth. The ESA tracked the satellite and concluded that it posed no problem. “The odds of a piece of satellite falling on someone’s head is estimated at one in a billion,” ESA space debris system engineer Benjamin Bastida Virgili said.
That would be fine if ERS 2 was an isolated incident. But, according to the ESA, an object about as massive as ERS 2 reenters Earth’s atmosphere every one to two weeks. The statistics may show there’s no threat to people, but statistics are great until you’re one of them.
The ESA’s ERS-2 Earth observation satellite was destroyed when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on February 21st, 2004. Heavy parts of satellites, like reaction wheels, don’t always burn up in the atmosphere and can pose a hazard. ESA engineers are working on reaction wheels that will break into pieces to reduce the hazard.
Image Credit: Fraunhofer FHR
The risk of being struck by chunks of a satellite isn’t zero. In 1997, a piece of mesh from a Delta II rocket struck someone’s shoulder in Oklahoma. It was a light piece of debris, so the person was okay. But it was an instructive event.
The heaviest parts of satellites, like reaction wheels, can be hazardous because they may not be destroyed during re-entry. Reaction wheels provide three-axis control for satellites without the need for rockets. They give satellites fine pointing accuracy and are useful for rotating satellites in very small amounts.
Reaction wheels can be quite massive. The Hubble Space Telescope has four reaction wheels weighing 45 kg (100 lbs) each. Other satellites don’t have such massive wheels, but the Hubble’s hefty wheels indicate the extent of the hazard. ESA engineers are designing reaction wheels that will break up during re-entry to reduce the hazard of one striking Earth.
“… the need is becoming urgent as more and more satellites are placed in space.”
Kobyé Bodjona, Mechanisms Engineer at the ESA
As part of the design process, they’re testing their wheels in a plasma wind tunnel at the University of Stuttgart Institute of Space Systems. The heated plasma in the tunnel moves at several km/sec, mimicking the friction a satellite is exposed to when it plunges through Earth’s atmosphere. The wheel is rotated inside the tunnel as if tumbling through the atmosphere.
At a recent Space Mechanisms Workshop at ESA’s ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands, engineers showed a clip of the blow-torch effect that the atmosphere has on falling debris.
“Space mechanisms cover everything that enables movement aboard a satellite, from deployment devices to reaction wheels,” explains workshop co-organizer Geert Smet.
“But these mechanisms often use materials such as steel or titanium that are more likely to survive reentry into the atmosphere. This is a problem because our current regulations say reentering satellites should present less than one in 10,000 risks of harming people or property on the ground or even one in 100 000 for large satellite constellations. ESA’s Clean Space group is reacting by D4D—devising methods to make total disintegration of a mission more likely, including mechanisms.”
The effort to make satellites disintegrate completely goes back a few years. The ESA program Design for Demise (D4D) is helping satellite manufacturers comply with the Space Debris Mitigation (SDM) requirements. It’s aimed at eliminating debris falling to Earth, removing debris already in orbit, and designing satellites that don’t linger in orbit after their missions have ended.
At the recent workshop, the ESA revealed more of its plans for active debris removal. There’s a push to develop dedicated spacecraft that can attach themselves to derelict satellites and force them into reentry. This will help remove dead satellites from the congested Low Earth Orbit.
“The idea behind this event is to present the mechanisms community with the latest research on space debris to see how they might contribute to the work going on,” said Kobyé Bodjona, Mechanisms Engineer at the ESA. “It’s important because large system integrators—the big companies that lead satellite projects—are going to need systems that are fully compliant with debris mitigation regulations. And the need is becoming urgent as more and more satellites are placed in space.”
Martian Mysteries: Exploring the Phobos Incident, Monoliths, and Ancient Ruins
The intrigue surrounding Mars and its moons has captivated scientists and space enthusiasts for decades. Mars, with its stark, reddish landscape, and its moon Phobos, named after the Greek god of fear, present a fascinating study in celestial phenomena and potential extraterrestrial mysteries.
One of the most intriguing events in the exploration of space is the Phobos incident involving the Soviet Union’s Phobos 2 mission in 1989. This mission was primarily aimed at exploring Mars and its moon but ended in mystery. Phobos 2 operated successfully until it approached Phobos, at which point it suddenly ceased transmission and lost contact with Earth. The last data sent by Phobos 2 included images that showed a strange shadow cast on Phobos’s surface. This led to widespread speculation about the cause, ranging from technical failures to extraterrestrial interference.
Adding to the enigmatic nature of Phobos is the presence of the so-called Phobos Monolith—a large, irregularly shaped object that stands out against the barren, cratered surface of the moon. This monolith, and others like it, have sparked debates about their origin, with some suggesting they might be natural formations, while others speculate about ancient alien technologies.
The presence of the monolith was popularized by American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who mentioned it in the context of human space exploration and the curiosity it generates among the public and scientific community. Its origins, whether natural or artificial, remain a subject of debate and fascination.
The surface of Mars itself offers further mysteries. High-resolution images from various Mars orbiters have revealed formations that resemble structures, such as the infamous “Face on Mars” in the Cydonia region. These images often show what appear to be pyramidal structures and rectilinear shapes that some interpret as remnants of ancient civilizations.
Critics argue that these formations are simply the result of pareidolia—where the human brain interprets random images as significant patterns. However, the consistent flow of new data and images from Mars continues to fuel speculation and theories about past life and civilizations on the red planet.
Some theorists draw parallels between the formations on Mars and ancient Earth structures, such as the pyramids of Egypt. They speculate about a forgotten era of solar system-wide civilization that utilized advanced technology, potentially for energy generation through the manipulation of cosmic forces, such as the hypothetical “zero-point energy.”
These theories extend into broader propositions of an “electric universe” where celestial bodies are interconnected through vast electric currents, influencing the formation and evolution of planets and moons through electrical rather than purely gravitational forces.
The mysteries of Phobos, Mars, and their anomalous features continue to be a significant focus for scientific inquiry. Missions continue to be planned and executed, such as Japan’s upcoming probe to Phobos, aiming to gather more data and, potentially, to bring samples back to Earth. Each mission brings with it the hope of solving some of these persistent mysteries or, at the very least, providing new data to refine our understanding of Mars and its moons.
As we continue to explore these celestial neighbors, the combination of scientific data and imaginative theorization keeps our quest for knowledge about Mars and its features as vibrant and compelling as ever. Whether future missions will confirm or debunk the lingering mysteries of Mars remains one of the most tantalizing questions in space exploration today.
Netflix viewers are hooked on eerie new series which may tell us truth about alien life
Anish Vij
If you love ghost stories, UFO sightings and terrifying disappearances, then this Netflix show is for you.
Currently placed in the 'UK Top 10' is an eight-part docuseries that will make you more aware of events that can't be explained.
Each episode follows the people who lived to tell the tale.
The stories vary from one extreme to another, with 'alien abductions' onto a number of drownings in Georgia, US.
The new Netflix series gives us an insight into the US Government's investigation of more than 650 unidentified objects and lights, along with the regular people who said they witnessed such moments.
Titled Files of the Unexplained, you can take a look at the eerie trailer below:
Viewers were stunned by the tale, as one person tweeted: "Watching Files of the Unexplained on Netflix and they’re on about jellyfish blobs falling out of the sky.. dreams please be kind tonight."
Another added: "This might sound like the plot of a great horror movie, but it has a basis in reality, and that's terrifying."
Other viewers seem to be hooked on the new series, as a third commented: "Now watching: Files of the Unexplained on Netflix .. y’all .. this is wild like wtf really be going on?!"
A fourth penned: "Me, watching a show called Files of the Unexplained, still being surprised when each episode ends with the mystery still being unexplained: (shocked emoji)."
"Highly recommend Files of the Unexplained, new show that came out on Netflix today," a fifth said.
Meanwhile, some weren't so convinced, as one person added: "Files of the Unexplained may be one of the worst shows I’ve watched in a while.
"Do better. There are so many better unexplained things you could make a series from."
A second questioned: "I know a lot of stuff on Netflix is just Netflix good and not actual good but that new show Files of the Unexplained has an episode on the Yuba County Five that will mess with your head. What the hell caused what happened to them?"
"Come with me while we dive into bad conspiracy TV with Files of the Unexplained on Netflix," joked a third.
EXCLUSIVE - New witness of 1973 alien abduction in Mississippi featured in new Netflix doc claims she saw the 5ft creatures with 'pincer-like' claws that performed 'examinations' on two fishermen
A new witness to a bizarre 'alien abduction' in 1973 that is at the center of a new Netflix show has spoken out for the first time.
During a video interview, She recalled seeing five-foot tall aliens emerge from an oval-shaped UFO with flashing blue lights over over the Pascagoula River, scoop up the fisherman and carry them off into the night sky.
When the craft returned, she claimed the beings each man by the arm who were slumped over and unconscious.
Maria Blair has kept what she saw that October a secret for decades due to fears she would be ridiculed - but gave a video testimony in 2023 that has been shared with DailyMail.com.
While the case is decades old, it has been brought back to life in Netflix's top-ranking new docu-series 'Files Of The Unexplained,' sparking new interest into what may have happened on that night in the Mississippi marsh.
Mississippi resident Maria Blair claimed she saw a UFO on the night of October 11 and witnessed the beings load and unload to the two men onto the craft, she said in an October 2023 interview shared with DailyMail.com
Two Mississippi fishermen, Charles Hickson (left, above) and Calvin Parker (right), told local sheriffs, reporters, and even the US Air Force, that they witnessed an oval-shaped craft hovering over the Pascagoula River on the night of October 11th, 1973
As UFO's blue lights flashed and it descended closer to the marshland below, three, five-foot grey 'wrinkled-skin creatures' with 'pincer-like' claws (illustrated above) seized the two men — subjecting to them to examination, according to Parker, 'just like any doctor would'
The first episode of the Netflix series focuses on the experiences of Calvin Parker when he was aged 19, after he maintained that he fought off an 'alien' by '[getting] her round her skinny-a** neck'.
Blair is just now coming forward to tell her part of the story.
'They left twice, when they brought Calvin and Charlie [Hickson] back,' she said, 'when they brought them back from the spaceship.'
'That's when they got back in the craft,' Blair said, 'and it took off — straight up.'
Parker and Charles Hickson made international news following their claims.
As Hickson described the the scene to police in a 1973 video, the UFO flashed its blue lights as it descended into the marsh, revealing three, five-foot gray, 'wrinkled-skin' creatures with 'pincer'-like claws who seized the two men.
Parker then chimed in, saying a large floating eye scanned their frozen bodies for about 30 minutes: 'They gave a thorough, I mean a thorough, examination to me just like any doctor would.'
Blair, who has only spoken about her experience on October 11, explained in her interview that she and her now deceased husband, Jerry, saw the entire thing unfold over the marsh.
Maria Blair and her husband Jerry Blair (above) were newlyweds in 1973. They had only been married for about a year when they say they witnessed the Pascagoula 'alien' abduction from a distance across the river
Blair, who witnessed the events from about 350 to 400 feet away on the opposing side of the Pascagoula River, said that the younger man, Calvin Parker, appeared to be more afraid in the moment. Decades later, Parker and Blair got to meet in person (above)
'I'm watching from my car, and I'm seeing the lights, the blue lights flashing,' said Blair, who was then waiting with her husband for a boat set to take him to an oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico.
'That's when Calvin [Parker] said he'd seen the blue lights.'
Blair estimated she saw the UFO's flashing blue lights for about 35 to 40 minutes in total that night - the same testimony given to police by Parker and Hickson.
'You're surprised when you look in the sky and you see a blue light. It really calls your attention to it,' Hickson told Jackson County Sheriff's in a taped interview the night of the incident.
'It come right down above the bayou,' He said, 'two-three feet above the ground.'
Philip Mantle, along with St. Bonaventure University assistant professor and biologist Irena Scott, spent roughly five years delving back into the 'Pascagoula Alien Abduction' case for their book, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt' (pictured) in 2023
Blair too witnessed that key moment, she said: 'The door opened [...] bright white light come through, very bright [...] and I'm seeing the three 'UFO guys' come out, 'aliens' or whatever they are.'
UFO researchers Philip Mantle and Dr Irene Scott interviewed Blair on two separate occasions, first in 2019 and again four years later - saying she has stuck to her story.
But the Mississippi woman has not shared details with the sheriff department or US military that spoke with the two men decades ago.
Parker and Hickson's story also made international news and both men were featured on TV several times, so it is not clear if Blair may have taken some of the fishermen's details during her recent interviews.
'We were sitting at the dock waiting to go out,' Blair told Mantle. 'She [Maria] said, 'Did you see that?' I said, 'I did hear a big splash.'' I thought it was a blimp or something,' he continued, 'but she said it was something else.'
Dr. Scott, a professor at St. Bonaventure University in Ohio, learned that Blair observed the UFO 'going back and forth across the sky' in a way not possible of an airplane.'
'I told my husband, there's something wrong with that plane,' she continued, 'it's like he doesn't know where he wants to go.'
Blair claimed she had an up-close encounter with one of the beings: 'Something come up out of the water and it was like a person, and I told [Jerry], 'There's somebody out there.''
She was very sure it was not a fish.
Mantle, who published a new book with Dr. Scott on the case last September, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt,' said that he first located the couple via an anonymous comment made by their youngest daughter on a YouTube video.
The Blairs had not sought out fame, money or journalistic attention, said UFO researchers Philip Mantle, who supplied the new on-camera interview to DailyMail.com,
'They didn't step forward, as some people suggest,' Mantle told DailyMail.com.
Files Of The Unexplained explores, in the words of the docu-series' creators, 'eight haunting encounters that may make you start second-guessing everything you have ever known'
'It was just this stray comment on YouTube from their youngest daughter, Tracee.'
The Blair's eldest daughter, Angela Maria, also shared her own memories of the shocking story to Mantle, emphasizing that the tale remained a tightly held bit of family lore for decades.
'My mother has always wondered what happened to those two guys and if they were still in the area,' she wrote to Mantle.
'She's only told my grandparents (who have passed), myself, my sister, and my ex-father-in-law this story, because she was always scared they'd [i.e. the pincer-clawed 'alien' beings] come back for her.'
The Jackson County Sheriff's department and former US Air Force UFO investigator, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, also investigated the abduction case in the mid-1970s.
Photographs of the men's injuries, taken by an engineering professor and UFO enthusiast in 1973, amount to 'physical evidence' debunking the skeptics' claims that this bizarre encounter was all in the two fishermen's heads — at least, according to the UFO researcher who supplied the historic images to DailyMail.com
After interviewing Hickson and Park separately, the sheriffs then strategically left the two together alone in an interrogation room where they were secretly taped - hoping that the two fishermen would privately try to 'get their story straight.'
Instead, the two men could be heard on the secret police tape too busy coping and processing their sheer terror.
'I got to get home and get to bed or get some nerve pills or see the doctor or something,' Parker can be heard saying on the tape. 'I can't stand it. I'm about to go half crazy.'
'I know,' Hickson replied as they tried to settle down. 'You can't believe it. You can't make people believe it.'
Both men later passed polygraph exams.
'We did everything we knew to try to break their stories,' as Jackson County Sheriff's Capt. Glenn Ryder told the Washington Post in 1975.
'If they were lying to me, they should be in Hollywood.'
Calvin Parker had only been 18 or 19 at the time of the alleged abduction at the hands of the three wrinkled, grey beings.
Hickson was then 42; he passed away on September 9th, 2011 at age 80.
Parker passed away last year, August 24, 2023, but not before re-telling his story one last time to the filmmakers behind Netflix's 'Files Of The Unexplained.'
'He was ill at that point,' Mantle told DailyMail.com via phone. 'They were very compassionate and knew of his illness by the time they went to interview him.'
'It wasn't a 'mickey take' or anything like that,' he said, 'although there are a few funny parts, because that's the way it is with stories like this.'
UAP spotted over Portugal
An unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) was captured by an astrophotographer in Gandra, municipality of Esposende, on Sunday, and is being investigated by the Aerospace Phenomena Research Center (CIFA).
By TPN, in News, Portugal, Galactic ·
According to Vítor Moreira, president of CIFA, reported in NM, "The strange flying object was filmed for a minute, always with an indescribable shape, in a completely clear sky, suggesting its evolution over itself, perhaps derived from the atmospheric currents at that time".
CIFA preliminarily assigns two likely explanation scenarios, including the "strong hypothesis that it was a bag pulled by the wind or even a meteorological balloon".
As for the investigation, the centre reports that it is "ongoing", "expecting more details to be provided soon that will help clarify the bizarre occurrence, finding a plausible and rationally justified explanation".
"As soon as the investigations are finalised, we will report the situation of interest", he concluded.
Possible cigar-shaped UFO filmed during solar eclipse over Texas
Roswell Reimagined: Inside the Story of PD’s UFO-Inspired Patches with Ross Coulthart
In an engaging conversation with NewsNation’s Ross Coulthart, Roswell Police Chief Lance Bateman unveiled a new chapter in the city’s storied connection with UFO folklore. This small New Mexico town, synonymous with the 1947 UFO incident, continues to embrace its extraterrestrial heritage, this time through an innovative redesign of the Roswell Police Department’s uniform patches. The design features a flying saucer emitting a beam that forms the letter “R,” encircled by the motto “Protect and serve those that land here,” playfully acknowledging the city’s unique place in UFO culture.
Chief Bateman, who assumed his role in June of the previous year, initiated the patch redesign as part of a broader effort to engage with the community and update the department’s image. The process was democratic and creative, with officers contributing designs and ultimately voting for their favorite. This participatory approach not only fostered a sense of camaraderie within the force but also highlighted Roswell’s embrace of its identity as a hub for UFO enthusiasts and researchers.
Roswell’s connection to UFOs isn’t just a matter of local lore but a significant tourist draw and a point of cultural identity. Chief Bateman notes that the alien theme, while a more recent addition to the city’s identity, has become a crucial part of its allure. The new patches serve not just as a symbol of the police force’s role in the community but also as a nod to the city’s unique history and its open-minded approach to the mysteries of the universe.
The conversation also touched upon the original 1947 incident, which remains shrouded in mystery and speculation. Despite various explanations from the U.S. Air Force over the years, the true nature of what happened near Roswell continues to intrigue both the public and those in law enforcement like Chief Bateman. The police chief’s personal connection to the area, through his father’s military service at Walker Air Force Base, adds another layer to his perspectives on the local lore.
Chief Bateman’s approachable demeanor and open-mindedness about UFOs and the broader questions they pose about life beyond Earth reflect a larger curiosity and sense of wonder that characterizes the Roswell community. The new patches symbolize more than a mere uniform accessory; they represent Roswell’s unique position at the intersection of law enforcement, community identity, and the enduring human fascination with the unknown.
Ross Coulthart’s interview with Chief Bateman not only sheds light on the thought process behind the new patches but also encapsulates the broader implications of Roswell’s association with UFOs. It’s a story of community, identity, and the playful human spirit that dares to imagine what might lie beyond our skies. As Roswell continues to navigate its legacy as the site of one of the most famous UFO incidents in history, its police force’s new patches stand as a testament to the city’s embrace of its past and its openness to the mysteries of the future.
UFOs travelled to Earth 'through extra dimensions experts are trying to unlock'
Harvard professor and astrophysicist Avi Loeb says aliens could have been using the 'curled dimensions' scientists are trying to blast open so they can understand how the universe was created
UFOs may be travelling through the hidden dimensions scientists are trying to expose, a leading astrophysicist has claimed.
Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes aliens are travelling through “curled dimensions” detectable only through the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN’s particle boosting accelerator.
The world’s largest particle collider, the LHC blasts protons travelling almost at the speed of light against other protons to create massive particle, similar to the Big Bang, in efforts to further understand matter and how the universe was created.
READ MORE:
Loeb believes aliens have been using these 'extra spatial dimensions' for billions of years
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
CERN scientists have used the LHC to try to detect six “extra spatial” dimensions, looking for particular particles as evidence that the dimensions exist, reports MailOnline.
In a new documentary, Loeb claimed extraterrestrials may have been developing dimension-hopping technology for billions of years and using theoretical quantum gravity engineering to travel through these hidden dimensions.
Loeb explained: “Quantum mechanics was discovered exactly a century ago. And all the most sophisticated technologies we currently employ, such as the Internet, artificial intelligence, and so forth, rely on our understanding of quantum mechanics.
“But the process of learning is incomplete - there are several major puzzles in modern physics.
“Within the mainstream of theoretical physics for the past decades, the prevailing paradigm is that it is possible to unify quantum mechanics and gravity unless you work with extra-spatial dimensions.
“We see only three of them in our daily life. But the idea is that the others are curled. And we can't really detect them unless we shoot particles that have exceptionally high energies that will probe these tiny scales.
“Of course, if there are extra dimensions, then the reality that we are familiar with extends into them. And then one can imagine life in more than three spatial dimensions. It will be far more diverse and interesting.”
The scientist added by travelling through these extra-spacial dimensions, aliens reduce the risk of collision.
CERN’s LHC was first used in 2008, and is found on the French-Swiss border.
Man who disappeared in 1991 reappeared 30 years later with no memor
Measuring the Atmospheres of Other Worlds to See if There are Enough Nutrients for Life
Life on Earth depends on six critical elements: Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous, and Sulfur. These elements are referred to as CHNOPS, and along with several trace micronutrients and liquid water, they’re what life needs.
Scientists are getting a handle on detecting exoplanets that might be warm enough to have liquid water on their surfaces, habitability’s most basic signal. But now, they’re looking to up their game by finding CHNOPS in exoplanet atmospheres.
We’re only at the beginning of understanding how exoplanets could support life. To grow our understanding, we need to understand the availability of CHNOPS in planetary atmospheres.
A new paper examines the issue. It’s titled “Habitability constraints by nutrient availability in atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.” The lead author is Oliver Herbort from the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna and an ARIEL post-doctoral fellow. The paper has been accepted by the International Journal of Astrobiology.
At our current technological level, we’re just beginning to examine exoplanet atmospheres. The JWST is our main tool for the task, and it’s good at it. But the JWST is busy with other tasks. In 2029, the ESA will launch ARIEL, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large survey. ARIEL will be solely focused on exoplanet atmospheres.
An artist’s impression of the ESA’s Ariel space telescope. During its four-year mission, it’ll examine 1,000 exoplanet atmospheres with the transit method. It’ll study and characterize both the compositions and thermal structures.
Image Credit: ESA
In anticipation of that telescope’s mission, Herbort and his co-researchers are preparing for the results and what they mean for habitability. “The detailed understanding of the planets itself becomes important for interpreting observations, especially for the detection of biosignatures,” they write. In particular, they’re scrutinizing the idea of aerial biospheres. “We aim to understand the presence of these nutrients within atmospheres that show the presence of water cloud condensates, potentially allowing the existence of aerial biospheres.”
Our sister planet Venus has an unsurvivable surface. The extreme heat and pressure make the planet’s surface uninhabitable by any measure we can determine. But some scientists have proposed that life could exist in Venus’ atmosphere, based largely on the detection of phosphine, a possible indicator of life. This is an example of what an aerial biosphere might look like.
This artistic impression depicts Venus. Astronomers at MIT, Cardiff University, and elsewhere may have observed signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus by detecting phosphine. Subsequent research disagreed with this finding, but the issue is ongoing.
Image Credits: ESO (European Space Organization)/M. Kornmesser & NASA/JPL/Caltech
“This concept of aerial biospheres enlarges the possibilities of potential habitability from the presence of liquid water on the surface to all planets with liquid water clouds,” the authors explain.
The authors examined the idea of aerial biospheres and how the detection of CHNOPS plays into them. They introduced the concept of nutrient availability levels in exoplanet atmospheres. In their framework, the presence of water is required regardless of other nutrient availability. “We considered any atmosphere without water condensates as uninhabitable,” they write, a nod to water’s primacy. The researchers assigned different levels of habitability based on the presence and amounts of the CHNOPS nutrients.
This table from the research illustrates the authors’ concept of atmospheric nutrient availability. As the top row shows, without water, no atmosphere is habitable. Different combinations of nutrients have different habitability potential. ‘red’ stands for redox, and ‘ox’ stands for the presence of the oxidized state of CO2, NOx, and SO2.
Image Credit: Herbort et al. 2024.
To explore their framework of nutrient availability, the researchers turned to simulations. The simulated atmospheres held different levels of nutrients, and the researchers applied their concept of nutrient availability. Their results aim to understand not habitability but the chemical potential for habitability. A planet’s atmosphere can be altered drastically by life, and this research aims to understand the atmospheric potential for life.
“Our approach does not directly aim for the understanding of biosignatures and atmospheres of planets, which are inhabited, but for the conditions in which pre-biotic chemistry can occur,” they write. In their work, the minimum atmospheric concentration for a nutrient to be available is 10?9, or one ppb (part per billion.)
“We find that for most atmospheres at ( p gas, T gas) points, where liquid water is stable, CNS-bearing molecules are present at concentrations above 10?9,” they write. They also found that carbon is generally present in every simulated atmosphere and that sulphur availability increases with surface temperature. With lower surface temperatures, nitrogen (N2, NH3) is present in increasing amounts. But with higher surface temperatures, nitrogen can become depleted.
Phosphorus is a different matter. “The limiting element of the CHNOPS elements is phosphorus, which is mostly bound in the planetary crust,” they write. The authors point out that, at past times in Earth’s atmosphere, phosphorus scarcity limited the biosphere.
An aerial biosphere is an interesting idea. But it’s not the main thrust of scientists’ efforts to detect exoplanet atmospheres. Surface life is their holy grail. It should be no surprise that it still comes down to liquid water, all things considered. “Similar to previous work, our models suggest that the limiting factor for habitability at the surface of a planet is the presence of liquid water,” the authors write. In their work, when surface water was available, CNS was available in the lower atmosphere near the surface.
But surface water plays several roles in atmospheric chemistry. It can bond with some nutrients in some circumstances, making them unavailable, and in other circumstances, it can make them available.
“If water is available at the surface, the elements not present in the gas phase are stored in the crust condensates,” the authors write. Chemical weathering can then make them available as nutrients. “This provides a pathway to overcome the lack of atmospheric phosphorus and metals, which are used in enzymes that drive many biological processes.”
Artist’s impression of the surface of a hycean world. Hycean worlds are still hypothetical, with large oceans and thick hydrogen-rich atmospheres that trap heat. It’s unclear if a world with no surface can support life.
Image Credit: University of Cambridge
This complicates matters on worlds covered by oceans. Pre-biotic molecules might not be available if there’s no opportunity for water and rock to interact with the atmosphere. “If indeed it can be shown that life can form in a water ocean without any exposed land, this constraint becomes weaker, and the potential for the surface habitability becomes mainly a question of water stability,” the authors write.
Some of the models are surprising because of atmospheric liquid water. “Many of the models show the presence of a liquid water zone in the atmospheres, which is detached from the surface. These regions could be of interest for the formation of life in forms of aerial biospheres,” Herbort and his colleagues write.
If there’s one thing that research like this shows, planetary atmospheres are extraordinarily complex and can change dramatically over time, sometimes because of life itself. This research makes some sense in trying to understand it all. Emphasizing the complexity is the fact that the researchers didn’t include stellar radiation in their work. Including that would’ve made the effort unwieldy.
The habitability issue is complicated, confounded by our lack of answers to foundational questions. Does a planet’s crust have to be in contact with water and the atmosphere for the CHNOPS nutrients to be available? Earth has a temporary aerial biosphere. Can aerial biospheres be an important part of exoplanet habitability?
But beyond all the simulations and models, as powerful as they are, what scientists need most is more data. When ARIEL launches, scientists will have much more data to work with. Research like this will help scientists understand what ARIEL finds.
Testing a Probe that Could Drill into an Ice World
I remember reading about an audacious mission to endeavour to drill through the surface ice of Europa, drop in a submersible and explore the depths below. Now that concept may be taking a step closer to reality with researchers working on technology to do just that. Worlds like Europa are high on the list for exploration due to their potential to harbour life. If technology like the SLUSH probe (Search for Life Using Submersible Head) work then we are well on the way to realising that dream.
The search for life has always been something to captivate the mind. Think about the diversity of life on Earth and it is easy to see why we typically envisage creatures that rely upon sunlight, food and drink. But on Earth, life has found a way in the most inhospitable of environments, even at the very bottom of the ocean. The Mariana’s Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is tall and anything that lives there has to cope with cold water, crushingly high pressure and no sunlight. Seems quite alien but even here, life thrives such as the deep-sea crustacean Hirondellea Gigas – catchy name.
Location of the Mariana Trench.
Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Kmusser
Europa, one of the moon’s of Jupiter has an ice crust but this covers over a global ocean of liquid water. The conditions deep down in the ocean of Europa might not be so very different from those at the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench so it is here that a glimmer of hope exists to find other life in the Solar System. Should it exist, getting to it is the tricky bit. It’s not just on Europa but Enceladus and even Mars may have water underneath ice shelves. Layers of ice up to a kilometre thick might exist so technology like SLUSH has been developed to overcome.
Natural color image of Europa obtained by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)
The technology is not too new though since melt probes like SLUSH have been tested before. The idea is beautifully simple. The thermo-mechanical probe uses a drilling mechanism to break through the ice and then the heat probe to partially melt the ice chips, forming slush to enable their transportation to behind the probe as it descends.
The probe, which looks rather like a light sabre, is then able to transmit data from the subsurface water back to the lander. A tether system is used for the data transmission using conductive microfilaments and an optical fibre cable. Intriguingly and perhaps even cunningly, should the fibre cable break (which is a possibility due to tidal stresses from the ice) then the microfilaments will work as an antenna. They can then be tuned into by the lander to resume data transmission. The tether is coiled up and housed inside spools which are left behind in the ice as the spool is emptied. I must confess my immediate thought here was ‘litter’! I accept we have to leave probes in order to explore but surely we can do it without leaving litter behind! However there is a reason for this too. As the spools are deployed, they act as receivers and transmitters to allow the radio frequencies to travel through the ice.
The company working on the device is Honeybee Robotics have created prototypes. The first was stand alone, had no data transmission capability and demonstrated the drilling and slushing technology in an ice tower in Honeybee’s walk in freezer. While this was underway, the tether communication technology was being tested too with the first version called the Salmon Probe. This was taken to Devon Island in the Arctic where the unspooling method is being put through its paces. The first attempts back in 2022 saw the probe achieving depths of 1.8m!
A further probe was developed called the Dolphin probe and this was capable of getting to depths of about 100m but sea ice limitations meant it could only get to a depth of 2m! Thus far, all probes have performed well. Honeybee are now working on the Narwhal Probe which will have more measuring equipment on board, a deployable tether and spool and will be far more like the finished product. If all goes to plan it will profile the ice on Devon Island to a depth of 100m. This is still quite short of the kilometre thick ice expected but it is most definitely fantastic progress toward exploring the cold watery depths of alien worlds.
Source :
A Neutron Star Merged with a Surprisingly Light Black Hole
Galactic collisions, meteor impacts and even stellar mergers are not uncommon events. neutron stars colliding with black holes however are a little more rare, in fact, until now, we have never observed one. The fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing detected gravitational waves from a collision between a black hole and neutron star 650 million light years away. The black hole was tiny though with a mass between 2.5 to 4.5 times that of the Sun.
Neutron stars and black holes have something in common; they are both the remains of a massive star that has reached the end of its life. During the main part of a stars life the inward pull of gravity is balanced by the outward push of the thermonuclear pressure that makes the star shine. The thermonuclear pressure overcomes gravity for low mass stars like the Sun but for more massive stars, gravity wins. The core collapses compressing it into either a neutron star or a black hole (depending on the progenitor star mass) and explodes as a supernova – in the blink of an eye.
In May 2023, as a result of the fourth observing session of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory-Virgo Gravitational Wave Interferometer and Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) network, gravitational waves were picked up from a merger event. The signal came from an object 1.2 times the mass of the Sun and another slightly more massive object. Further analysis revealed the likelihood that one was a neutron star and the other a low mass black hole. The latter falls into the so called ‘mass gap’, more massive than the most massive neutron star and less massive than the least massive black hole.
Interactions between objects can generate gravitational waves. Before they were detected back in 2015, stellar mass black holes were typically found through X-ray observations. Neutron stars on the other hand, were usually found with radio observations. Between the two, was the mass gap with objects lacking between three and five solar masses.
It has been the subject of debate among scientists with the odd object found which fell within the gap, fuelling debate about its existence. The gap has generally been considered to separate the neutron stars from the black holes and items in this mass group have been scarce. This gravitational wave discovery suggests maybe objects in this gap are not so rare after-all.
One of the challenges of detecting mass gap objects and mergers between them is the sensitivity of detectors. The LIGO team at the University of British Columbia researchers are working hard to improve the coatings used in mirror production. Enhanced performance on future LIGO detectors will further enhance detection capabilities. It’s not just optical equipment that is being developed, infrastructure changes are also being addressed including data analysis software too. Improving sensitivity in all aspects of the gravity wave network is sure to yield results in future runs. However for now, the rest of the first half of the observing run needs analysing with 80 more candidate signals to study.
Source :
UFO Disclosure: Unveiling the Mysteries with Dr. Steven Greer
In the enigmatic and ever-evolving realm of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), few names are as synonymous with the quest for truth as Dr. Steven Greer. A vanguard in the disclosure movement, Dr. Greer’s work casts a revealing light on the shadowy world of UFO sightings and the complex debate surrounding extraterrestrial life. His endeavors navigate through layers of speculation and government secrecy, aiming to expose a reality that could redefine our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
Central to Dr. Greer’s narrative is the astonishing claim that, as early as 1954, humanity had already achieved “gravity control”—a technological leap that could have revolutionized transportation, rendering conventional highways obsolete. This revelation not only challenges our current understanding of physics but also raises profound questions about the direction of human development. Why, after such a groundbreaking discovery, did society continue to develop along a path dependent on fossil fuels and terrestrial infrastructure? The answer, according to Dr. Greer, lies in the deliberate concealment of these technologies by vested interests.
Dr. Greer argues that the suppression of advanced, non-polluting energy technologies has had far-reaching consequences, from the perpetuation of environmental degradation to the entrenchment of economic disparities. By keeping these innovations hidden, those in power have maintained a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The potential for clean, free energy—drawn from the so-called Zero Point Energy field—promises a future where pollution and poverty are relics of the past. However, the path to such a future is obstructed by the immense influence of the global energy sector and the political and financial might it wields.
Another facet of Dr. Greer’s discourse is the psychological impact of harboring such monumental secrets. He introduces the concept of “disclosure PTSD,” highlighting the toll that managing such knowledge can take on individuals. Furthermore, Dr. Greer delves into the use of staged alien abductions and other forms of psychological manipulation aimed at shaping public perception of extraterrestrial life. According to him, these orchestrated events serve not only to distract but also to sow fear, thereby justifying continued secrecy and the consolidation of power.
Despite the challenges, Dr. Greer remains optimistic about the potential for disclosure to transform society. He envisions a world where humanity is united not only by the shared knowledge of extraterrestrial life but also by the collective benefits of the technologies that have been withheld from us. Such a future would be characterized by environmental sustainability, economic equity, and a profound expansion of human potential.
Dr. Greer’s commitment to uncovering the truth is evidenced by his efforts to brief government officials and share classified information with the public. However, the journey toward full disclosure is fraught with skepticism and disbelief. The challenge lies not only in presenting the evidence but also in overcoming the pervasive influence of those who benefit from maintaining the status quo.
Dr. Steven Greer’s work in the field of UFO disclosure invites us to question the narratives that have been constructed around extraterrestrial life and advanced technologies. By pushing for transparency and challenging the systems of power that thrive on secrecy, Dr. Greer’s endeavors offer a glimpse into a future where humanity embraces its full potential. The truth behind the shadows may hold the key to a new era of human development—one marked by unity, sustainability, and a deeper connection to the cosmos.
Harvard professor claims that UFOs could have travelled to Earth via 'extra dimensions' that CERN scientists are trying to unlock
The US government has yet to unravel the mysterious sightings of UFOs soaring through our skies, but a Harvard professor believes the answer may sit 300 feet below the surface.
Avi Loeb, known for his efforts to prove we are not alone, has claimed that extraterrestrial visitors are travelling through hidden dimensions created by researchers at the CERN particle accelerator are seeking.
The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), blasts particles are nearly the speed of light to recreate conditions of the Big Bang, with hopes of uncovering hidden dimensions that will reveal how our universe formed.
Speaking in a new documentary, Loeb said that alien civilizations may have been developing dimension-hopping technology for billions of years.
The physicist also noted that extraterrestrials are using theoretical quantum gravity engineering to travel through 'curled' dimensions that humans can only detect in particle accelerators such as CERN.
A Harvard scientists has claimed that extraterrestrial visitors are travelling through hidden dimensions created by researchers at the CERN particle accelerator (pictured) are seeking
The Harvard scientist said in the documentary 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' that if alien technology is able to reach our doorstep, we would be awe-struck because it would represent something we don't possess.
'Just like a cave dweller coming to a city like London or Europe, and seeing all the technological gadgets there,' said Loeb.
'There will be a sense of religious awe, and we wouldn't understand it, especially if we are dealing with the effects of quantum gravity that we have any clue about.'
Loeb said that travelling through extra-spatial dimensions would mean the chance of collisions would be 'much smaller.'
It has found the 'God particle', but the Large Hadron Collider could soon detect a 'parallel universe'.
Scientists at CERN have attempted to detect six 'extra spatial' dimensions, and look for particular particles as evidence that such dimensions exist.
The underground LHC is located at the border of France and Switzerland and first went live on September 10, 2008.
In 2012, scientists used it to discover the Higgs boson or God particle, which was a missing piece in the jigsaw for physicists in trying to understand how the universe works.
'Quantum mechanics was discovered exactly a century ago. And all the most sophisticated technologies we currently employ, such as the Internet, artificial intelligence, and so forth, rely on our understanding of quantum mechanics,' Loeb explained.
'But the process of learning is incomplete - there are several major puzzles in modern physics.'
'Within the mainstream of theoretical physics for the past decades, the prevailing paradigm is that it is possible to unify quantum mechanics and gravity unless you work with extra-spatial dimensions.
'We see only three of them in our daily life. But the idea is that the others are curled. And we can't really detect them unless we shoot particles that have exceptionally high energies that will probe these tiny scales.
'Of course, if there are extra dimensions, then the reality that we are familiar with extends into them. And then one can imagine life in more than three spatial dimensions. It will be far more diverse and interesting.'
Last year Loeb set off for Papua New Guinea on a $1.5m ocean expedition to find what he believes might be a piece of alien technology, which crashed into the sea in 2014.
Film-maker and musician Mark Christopher Lee, 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' explores different ways that UFOs and other unexplained phenomena might arrive at our planet
The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), blasts particles are nearly the speed of light to recreate conditions of the Big Bang, with hopes of uncovering hidden dimensions that will reveal how our universe formed
His expedition found metal 'spherules' on the sea bed, which Loeb claims might be 'techno signatures' of an alien civilization.
The Israeli astronomer and his research partner Amir Siraj concluded in 2019 that an object from outside our solar system had hit Earth in 2014.
The Papua New Guinea object travelled towards Earth at more than 30 miles per second, a speed so high it suggests it originated outside our solar system.
Loeb also argues in the film that world governments should divert the $2 trillion a year he claims is spent on military budgets to the search for alien life.
Film-maker and musician Mark Christopher Lee, 'The Paranormal UFO Connection' explores different ways that UFOs and other unexplained phenomena might arrive at our planet.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Lee said: ' I have a science degree so I'm pretty rational. I was really keen to see what Avi's take on this would be. He's one of the few serious scientists in the world taking an interest in this subject.
'Our chat was very enlightening: he does think that advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe may be able to use other spatial dimensions in order to travel easily through the universe.
'Particularly with the advances happening at CERN in regards to proving the existence of other dimensions then it makes logical sense for a far more sophisticated civilization to have developed the technology to utilise these.'
UFO spotted shooting through clouds over Texas during the solar eclipse... do YOU know what it is?
The solar eclipse may have been overshadowed in Texas by a UFO soaring through the skies over Arlington.
Footage captured a darkened sky as the moon traveled in front of the sun, but also featured the shadow of a a long, narrow object shooting through the clouds.
The video has made waves on social media, with some proclaiming it as a close encounter of the third kind or even a dragon.
However, many other users came forward with what could be a more reasonable explanation - it was the shadow of a high-altitude plane.
The solar eclipse may have been overshadowed in Texas by a UFO soaring through the skies over Arlington
Texas was deemed the 'hotspot' on the solar eclipse path of totality that started in The Lone Star State and extended to Maine.
Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Texas because the eclipse was predicted to be visible for three minutes and 51 seconds.
And many of these visitors have shared pictures and footage of the celestial event - with one capturing something that some claimed was out of this world.
The footage shows glowing clouds hanging in a darkened sky when the object appeared to be swimming by.
‘What is that,’ several people can be heard saying, then ‘aliens’ could be heard loudly.
‘Something is flying through the air,’ another spectator can be heard.
The footage shows glowing clouds hanging in a darkened sky when the object appeared to be swimming b
‘What is that,’ several people can be heard saying, then ‘ aliens ’ could be heard loudly. ‘Something is flying through the air,’ another spectator can be heard
But solar eclipse spectators spotted another plane flying across the event in McKinney, which is about 50 miles from Arlington
The surrounding crowd appeared baffled by what they had witnessed - and so did many social media users.
The object appeared to fly back and forth in the area of the sky where the sun and moon had met.
Comments on the video shared on X suspected the object was a helicopter due to how fast it appeared.
‘It’s literally a helicopter shadow coming through the clouds,’ one user posted. ‘Seen this several times with airplanes.’
But an Arizona man who claimed to live near Luke Air Force Base said ‘helicopters don’t move that fast.’
Others suggested that the shadow was from a plane.
‘I thought aircraft shadow when I saw it. Not that it couldn't be a UFO shadow, but probably not anything that fun,’ another user shared.
One X user posted that it was 'clearly a plane,' citing the outline of the engines were visible in the video.
Another shared: 'Shadow on the clouds from an higher altitude airplane. I have seen this many times as an aviation spotter.'
They continued to explain that the shadow disappears when the plane moves into part of the sky without clouds - and that the shadow appeared similar in size to the craft.
One X user noted that the ‘video [was] created for entertainment clicks.’
But solar eclipse spectators spotted another plane flying across the event in McKinney, which is aout 50 miles from Arlington.
Surf board-shaped UFO filmed speeding around the moon by NASA's lunar orbiter
NASA's lunar orbitwas investigating the moon when it captured a surf board-shaped UFO whizz by the surface.
Photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) showed a long, narrow, and apparently flat object in a few shots.
While some had speculated the sighting was nothing more than a digital artifact, others were sure NASA had captured aliens visiting close to our world.
But the American space agency later revealed LRO captured Korea's lunar orbiter, Danuri as it soared just a few miles away.
This image shows Danuri in the white box. The large bowl-shaped crater visible in the upper left is 7.5 miles wide.
Danuri streaked by the LRO, about 3 miles closer to the moon than the NASA spacecraft. Its appearance is due to its speed.
The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, nicknamed Danuri – meaning 'enjoy the moon' – was fired into space atop a Falcon 9 booster.
The LRO has been orbiting Earth's moon and snapping photos since 2009, when it was NASA's first moon mission in a decade.
And it turns out the craft is on a nearly parallel orbit with Danuri, which was launched in 2022 by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
The relative speed of the two objects to one another is a whopping 7,200 miles per hour, so the LRO operations team had to have lightning quick timing to capture it on camera.
In the end, Danuri appeared 10 times longer than it really is, hence its surfboard appearance.
Even though the LRO's camera exposure time was only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri's immense speed meant that it still only showed up as a blur, stretched beyond recognition.
Paul Byrne, a professor of planetary science at Washington University in St Louise, shared a few of LRO's images on X.
'To be clear, the Danuri orbiter is not a weirdly thin load of pixels—it's a fairly normal-looking orbiter,' Byrne posted.
'But the terrific speeds involved mean that it's smeared on the LRO's camera detector.'
Danuri was traveling just five miles below LRO last week when the images were taken.
Over three separate encounters, NASA staff snapped photos of the object, each time yielding a surfboard.
Danuri is actually a typical uncrewed spacecraft shape: a box in the middle with two solar panels on either side.
Both Danuri and the LRO are designed to take photos of the moon, capturing images of regions of the moon that are permanently shadowed.
Danuri snapped this image of the LRO in April 2023 as the Korean spacecraft passed 11 miles above the NASA one.
For their second encounter, the LRO was only about 2.5 miles above Danuri. Once again, though, the photo it captured was stretched out because of their relative speeds.
In the new set of photos, Danuri is all but unrecognizable.
Not only were both spacecrafts traveling at thousands of miles an hour, but they were going in opposite directions from each other - adding to the blur effect.
And while the LRO is set to orbit the moon indefinitely, Danuri's passes are meant to set the stage for an eventual landing mission on the moon's surface.
Meer microplastics op Antarctica dan tot nu toe gedacht
Er bevindt zich meer plastic op Antarctica dan tot nu toe gedacht. Een groot deel van de deeltjes is zo klein dat ze bij eerder onderzoek niet opgemerkt werden, blijkt uit een Zwitsers onderzoek.
Volgens de Universiteit van Bazel werd er bij eerder onderzoek gebruikgemaakt van een net met mazen van ongeveer 300 micrometer klein, ongeveer een derde van een milimeter. De kleinste deeltjes werden zo niet opgevist.
Bij nieuwe staalnames in de Weddelzee, op Antarctica, stelden de onderzoekers vast dat 98,33 procent van de plastic deeltjes kleiner was dan 300 micrometer. Het internationale onderzoeksteam, onder leiding van de Universiteit van Bazel, publiceerde de data in het tijdschrift Science of the Total Environment.
In plaats van een net maakten de wetenschappers gebruik van een waterpomp, waarmee ze zeewater naar een reservoir overpompten. Ze analyseerden het water met infraroodspectroscopie, waarbij stoffen geanalyseerd worden door gebruik te maken van het infrarode deel van het elektromagnetische spectrum. Ze vonden zo deeltjes die tot 11 micrometer klein waren, een fractie van de dikte van een mensenhaar.
"Er is ongerustheid dat die kleinere en vaker voorkomende deeltjes microplastics een groter risico vormen voor waterorganismes", schrijven de auteurs in de studie. Die levende organismes, die aangepast zijn aan extreme levensomstandigheden, zijn bijzonder kwetsbaar voor vervuiling.
Ook is onduidelijk hoe de microplastics tot in de geïsoleerde Weddelzee zijn geraakt, en of ze er ooit nog weg kunnen. Mogelijke bronnen zijn de scheepvaart in de regio, voor toerisme, visvangst of onderzoek, en de wetenschappelijke onderzoekstations. Maar de microplastics kunnen ook vanuit andere regio's op Antarctica belanden via oceaanstromingen.
Clara Leistenschneider, de hoofdauteur van de studie, toont zich optimistisch in het persbericht van de Universiteit van Bazel. Er wordt veel werk verricht om het probleem beter te begrijpen en om ideeën te ontwikkelen om plasticvervuiling te verminderen, zegt ze.
On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky – FULL MOVIE (Alien, UAP Coverups and Bizarre Encounters)
In the realm of the unexplained and the mysterious, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” emerges as a compelling documentary that delves deep into the phenomena of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). This cinematic journey takes viewers on an exploration that transcends mere speculation, offering a nuanced look at decades-long encounters, cover-ups, and the personal accounts of those who have witnessed what lies beyond our understanding.
Set against the backdrop of West Virginia’s enigmatic landscapes, the documentary embarks on retracing steps and expanding insights into the myriad reports of mysterious objects and entities. From the heart of Appalachia, where the skies are a witness to uncharted anomalies, to the historical corridors of sightings that span across the United States, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” seeks answers to questions that have lingered on the fringes of the known world.
The narrative unfolds through the eyes of witnesses who share their encounters with phenomena that defy conventional explanations. From crafts drawing energy from power lines to silent, hovering lights that vanish into thin air, each account adds layers to the complex tapestry of UAP encounters. The documentary doesn’t just stop at sightings; it delves into the personal impact these experiences have on individuals, exploring the profound sense of awe, fear, and curiosity that accompanies each encounter.
Central to the film is the exploration of West Virginia’s peculiar connection to the UFO phenomenon. With its history of sightings, including the iconic Flatwoods Monster case, the state serves as a focal point for investigating a century’s worth of encounters. The documentary skillfully navigates through the labyrinth of local lore, government cover-ups, and the whispers of secret military operations, presenting a picture that is as bewildering as it is fascinating.
Beyond the spectacle of lights in the sky, “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” ventures into the implications of these encounters on human understanding and the pursuit of truth in an age of skepticism. It raises critical questions about the nature of these phenomena, their origins, and their purposes. Are these manifestations extraterrestrial, or do they stem from human military endeavors cloaked in secrecy? Or perhaps, they are manifestations of something even more profound, hinting at realities that exist just beyond the veil of our perception.
In its essence, the documentary is a journey that challenges viewers to look beyond the confines of conventional wisdom and to consider the possibilities that the universe harbors secrets awaiting discovery. “On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky” stands as a testament to human curiosity and the unyielding quest for understanding in a world where the unknown remains just out of reach.
As the documentary concludes, it leaves the audience with more questions than answers, a deliberate choice that echoes the complex nature of the UFO and UAP phenomena. It’s a reminder that, in the pursuit of the unknown, the journey is as significant as the destination. The dark sky of West Virginia and beyond continues to hold secrets, and for those willing to look, the search for answers goes on.
Art Bell: Unveiling the Mystery of Alien and Military Encounters with Jim Sparks
In a remarkable broadcast from February 25, 2007, Art Bell, the late night radio icon known for exploring the unexplained, engaged in a profound conversation with Jim Sparks, a man who claims to have experienced repeated alien abductions and interactions with the military in relation to extraterrestrial beings. This discussion not only captivated the imagination of the audience but also offered a unique insight into the complex relationship between humans, aliens, and military operations surrounding extraterrestrial encounters.
Jim Sparks’ journey into the world of the unknown began in the mid-1980s when he started experiencing what he initially thought were vivid dreams of being escorted from his bed to a mysterious location by unknown entities. These occurrences, which Sparks later recognized as alien abductions, transformed from dream-like visions into conscious encounters, marking the beginning of a series of profound experiences that would change his understanding of reality.
Throughout his numerous abductions, Sparks described being subjected to a variety of procedures, including teaching sessions with aliens who communicated through a unique symbol-based language designed to facilitate telepathic communication. This method, as explained by Sparks, was not only about transferring information but also about shaping human consciousness towards a higher level of understanding and capability.
Art Bell
The complexity of Sparks’ encounters extends beyond interactions with extraterrestrial beings to involve the military. He recounted instances of being taken to underground facilities and witnessing the cooperation between military personnel and aliens. This collaboration hinted at a secretive, possibly global, effort to understand and harness extraterrestrial technology and knowledge, raising questions about the extent and objectives of such initiatives.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Sparks’ narrative is his transformation from a skeptic to a reluctant participant and, eventually, to an advocate for the messages he received from his alien abductors. These messages often centered on environmental concerns, suggesting a deep connection between the extraterrestrials’ interests in Earth and their interventions in human affairs. According to Sparks, these alien beings possess technologies capable of resolving some of the planet’s most pressing issues, such as energy production and environmental degradation, but are hindered by human reluctance and geopolitical complexities.
The dialogue between Art Bell and Jim Sparks opens up a Pandora’s box of questions about the nature of our universe, the existence of other intelligent life forms, and their interactions with humanity. It challenges the conventional understanding of reality and invites us to reconsider our place in the cosmos. Whether one views Sparks’ accounts as factual, speculative, or somewhere in between, the themes of his experiences touch on fundamental human concerns about knowledge, power, and the future of our planet.
In essence, the conversation between Art Bell and Jim Sparks serves as a catalyst for broader discussions about the unknown and the unseen forces that may shape our destiny. It encourages us to ponder the possibilities of what lies beyond the familiar confines of our understanding and to remain open to the mysteries that await unraveling.
Zonsverduistering 2024: de meest spectaculaire foto's
BLUE ENERGY’ HACK DRAMATICALLY INCREASES POWER THAT CAN BE HARVESTED FROM OCEAN WAVES
Scientists have discovered a simple hack in the construction of so-called blue energy generators that dramatically increases the power they collect from the motion of waves.
Previous generations of blue energy generators have suffered from low efficiency, limiting their practical uses. This latest design hack, which simply repositions the electrode in the wave generator, hopes to change that equation, opening up numerous potential applications for this type of kinetic energy generation.
As the world attempts to meet increasing energy demands while also balancing the need for more sustainable power generation options, technologies like solar and wind power that tap into the environment’s natural energy production potential have continued to gain traction. Still, those power harvesting methods have limitations, making them unlikely to completely meet rising demands.
One increasingly popular approach involves collecting energy generated by friction using a technology known as a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). For example, a team of researchers created a prototype ‘rain panel’ equipped with a series of TENGs that collect energy from falling rain. Unfortunately, that invention has yet to make its way to everyday consumers.
Now, scientists say they have taken a 20th-century idea of capturing the energy of ocean waves and added a simple engineering hack that increases their energy output high enough that they could be used for a number of practical power harvesting applications.
Known as a liquid-solid TENG, the tube-shaped device is filled with water and placed on the surface of the ocean. When the waves move, the water inside sloshes back and forth. That motion causes friction on an electrode inside the tube, which in turn creates usable electrical energy that can be collected.
The team proposed improving the device by relocating the TENG from the center of the tube, where it is traditionally placed, to the extreme end. The hope was that the increased kinetic energy from the additional distance traveled by the liquid inside the tube would increase the energy generated by the TENG.
Researchers harvest more energy from waves by moving a liquid-solid nanogenerator’s electrode to the end of the tube where the water crashes.
CREDIT: Adapted from ACS Energy Letters 2024, DOI: 10/1021.acsenergylett.4c00072
To test their hypothesis, Guozhang Dai, Kai Yin, Junliang Yan, and colleagues decided to construct two of their own liquid-solid TENGS. Each was 16 inches in length and then fitted with a copper foil electrode. The first had its electrode placed in the center location like traditional TENGs, while the second had the electrode placed at the end.
Next, the tubes were filled one-quarter of the way with water and then sealed at the ends. To measure their energy output, each TENG had a wire connected to the electrode and then fed to an external circuit.
Each of the two TENGs was placed on a tabletop rocker device that moved back and forth to simulate the motion of ocean waves. During this process, the electrical output of each generator was monitored externally. As hoped, the simple hack resulted in a dramatic increase in power.
As the press release announcing the blue energy generator hack explains, “Compared to the conventional design, the researchers found that the optimized design increased the device’s conversion of mechanical energy to electrical current 2.4 times.”
The paper outlining the blue energy generator’s improvements, which is published in the journal ACS Energy Letters, goes into more detail, explaining that “through the space volume effect, the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, and transfer charge of (TENG) can be improved by 3.5 times, 2.3 times, and 2 times, respectively.”
To further demonstrate the improved output of their ‘hacked’ TENG, the researchers also connected it to a series of 35 LEDs and watched them all flash on and off as the fluid inside the generator sloshed back and forth. The researchers note that this demonstration not only shows its power generation capabilities but also one possible application.
“The (TENG) not only boasts high output performance for harvesting low-frequency and high-entropy motion energy, but its output displacement current can also serve as a compact signal generator for underwater wireless communication.”
The researchers did not provide a timeline or clear path for when we might see these types of improved wave power generators in commercial use. However, they did sound hopeful, noting that “these demonstrations lay the foundation for larger-scale blue-energy harvesting from ocean waves.”
George Adamski Photos & Videos of UFOs are the Best Evidence of ET Contact
George Adamski became famous in the 1950s with startling photos and videos of flying saucer and cigar-shaped spacecraft he began taking in the 1940s, which he claimed were piloted by human-looking extraterrestrial visitors. He learned from face-to-face contact experiences that the extraterrestrials had secretly embedded themselves in human society to help humanity learn about galactic life. Multiple witnesses saw one of Adamski’s face-to-face meetings in 1952 and provided compelling evidence of what had happened.
Captain Glenn Steckling, a retired civilian pilot who flew for 30 years with a major airline, was only 4 years old when his father, Fred, befriended Adamski in 1963 and became a close aide in the latter’s remaining two years of life. During his subsequent experiences with Adamski, and later in his father’s dissemination of Adamski’s material, Glenn Steckling met with several of the extraterrestrials secretly living among us.
In his first Exopolitics Today interview, Glenn Steckling discusses the Adamski case, the incredible photos and videos taken by Adamski, his father’s relationship with Adamski, and his directorship of the George Adamski Foundation after his father’s passing. Steckling asserts that humanity needs to learn to ethically mature and solve its own problems before it can expect human-looking extraterrestrials to fully reveal themselves. He is very skeptical of official disclosure efforts by government entities and of the existence of non-human extraterrestrials that he believes are a product of fear-based disinformation.
Capt Glenn Steckling Website: https://adamskifoundation.com/
Related Interviews/Articles
This US President Cried After He Found Disturbing Alien Information In UFO Briefing
In 1973, before the presidential elections, yet to become President, Jimmy Carter filed a report with the International UFO Bureau claiming he had seen a UFO in October 1969. Along with other witnesses, Carter saw a bright UFO that changed colors and moved towards and away from the Earth before disappearing. He was quite vocal about his beliefs on UFOs and promised to public all available information about UFOs if he became president.
“He described waiting outside for a Lion’s Club Meeting in Leary, Georgia, to begin, at about 7:30 p.m., when he spotted what he called ‘the darndest thing I’ve ever seen’ in the sky.” Along with 10 to 12 other witnesses, Carter observed a bright object in the sky, which was about the size of the moon. (Source)
“We all saw it. And then the light, it got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don’t know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white,” Carter told GQ in 2005. The object reportedly hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon, moved towards and away from the Earth, and eventually disappeared into the distance. Carter’s experience led him to make a vow to never again ridicule individuals who claimed to have seen a UFO.
“One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists,” Carter said.
As for the object that Carter saw, it has since been classified as “a high altitude barium release cloud launched from Eglen AFB,” which sounds legit. However, after winning the presidency, Carter backed away from this promise, citing concerns about national security and defense implications. His experience with a UFO is just one of many reported sightings that have fueled conspiracy about extraterrestrial life and government cover-ups.
Former NASA researcher Ed Harris claimed that serious researchers on the subject believe the story of former President Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified UFO information to be true. According to the story corroborated by multiple witnesses, U.S. presidents are given only a brief overview of the subject by the CIA, and presidential curiosity is not considered a sufficient need to know.
After being repeatedly stonewalled, Carter was given “the talk,” which reportedly left him deeply sobbing and visibly disturbed for weeks. He was told that major religions, including Christianity, were created by extraterrestrials to prevent humans from destroying themselves while they ran experiments on us, and that they made us. Carter, a deeply religious man who had witnessed a UFO with six other people, realized that releasing such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval.
Below you can read Ed Harris’ statement on the subject that he wrote on Quora:
Yes, the incident of Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified information regarding UFO’s is largely believed to be true by the serious researchers on the subject. As a forewarning, the following information is very unsettling and will explain why Carter never “kept his promise” of revealing classified UFO information to the public.
According to the story that was corroborated by more than one witness, U.S. presidents are only given a cursory overview of the subject. Apparently, the CIA runs the program, only provide information to the President on a need to know basis, and do not consider presidential curiosity as sufficient need to know. This was implemented after Kennedy, and all presidents after him have been given only summary briefings (some presidents for unknown reasons were given more than others).
Okay on to your question. President Carter is a deeply religious man who had also witnessed a UFO with 6 other people. Everyone thought that he would be the one to finally release UFO info to the public but as the story goes, he was repeatedly stonewalled. Eventually, the CIA had “the talk” with him, and afterward it was reported that he sunk his head in his hands and not only began to deeply sob, but was visibly disturbed for some weeks afterward.
What was he told and shown?
He was told that the major religions including Christianity were programs created by extraterrestrials to prevent us from destroying ourselves while they ran their experiments on us – and that they made us. At this moment it became clear to Carter that such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval. I should add that I am not only a Christian but a clergyman, so I am in no way attempting to promote atheism here. In fact, how God fits into this might be an interesting separate post. Nevertheless, these are the facts as I know them to be.
Author and world’s leading UFO researcher Richard Dolan also writes about this incident in his book “UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed.” According to his book, there are claims that President Carter was given a UFO briefing at the White House on June 14, 1977, which he was then bound to secrecy about.
Read also:
The briefing was supposedly given by a lone MJ-12 briefing officer and several independent sources. The leaked “Executive Briefing: Project Aquarius” document gives the standard account of multiple retrievals of alien technology. While there is no hard evidence to support the claims of the briefing, a presidential aide, who was “very, very close to Carter,” witnessed President sobbing after a UFO-related briefing in the Oval Office.
Daniel Sheehan, a Harvard-educated Constitutional Trial Lawyer and Appellate Attorney has worked on many high-profile cases in his career. In 1977, he was approached by his friend Marcia Smith, who informed him that President Carter had demanded that the CIA provided classified information about unidentified flying objects to him, but George H. Bush, who was the CIA director at the time, refused to give this information to the president.
Sheehan tried to obtain information on the UFO phenomena and extraterrestrials from the Vatican Library but was unsuccessful. However, with Carter’s help, he managed to get access to the classified portions of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book for a few hours in May 1977, where he claimed to have discovered classified documents and photographs of a crashed UFO being investigated by Air Force personnel.
“There were these photographs of unmistakable — of a UFO sitting on the ground. It had crashed,” Sheehan said. “Apparently, it had hit into this field and had dug up, kind of plowed this kind of trough through this field,” he paused for a second.
“It was wedged into the side of this bank,” he said after taking a deep breath. “There was snow all around the picture. The vehicle was wedged into the side of this mud-like embankment — kind of up at an angle. There was Air Force personnel. As I cranked the little handle and looked at additional photos, these Air Force people were taking pictures.” (Click here to read the full article)
When Mr. Sheehan left the room, the guard asked to see his yellow legal pad and flipped through the pages, missing the alien hieroglyphs Sheehan had copied on the back of the pad. Sheehan offered to share this information with the religious establishment; they told him they were not interested.
Defence drops 10-page UFO dossier
The Department of Defence has released 10 pages of documents about UFOs, in response to a freedom of information request.
The dossier includes 17 Defence communications about UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) created between July and October 2023.
The key message is Defence has no particular interest in the subject. One document clarified Defence stopped actively monitoring for UFOs/UAPs in 1996.
“There was no scientific or other compelling reason to continue to devote resources to the recording and investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena,” it said.
“Defence does not have a policy on the reporting of unidentified aerial phenomena by either members of the public or defence members.
“Defence safety of flight incidents, including those potentially posed by UAPs are handled by the Defence Aviation Authority, with civilian flight incidents the purview of the Civil Aviation Authority.”
Interest in UFOs has seen a surge in legitimacy since the United States Congress made annual national intelligence reports on UAPs mandatory. In the January 2023 report, they said sightings had increased significantly, noting this could be a deliberate campaign to destigmatise the subject.
In its 2021 preliminary report, a spokesperson for the US director of national security wrote while UAPs represented a possible national security threat, there was no compelling evidence to suggest they were extra-terrestrial spacecraft.
However, they noted there were reasons airforce personnel may not report UAPs.
“In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis,” they said.
“Narratives from aviators in the operational community and analysts from the military and IC describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues.
“Although the effects of these stigmas have lessened as senior members of the scientific, policy, military, and intelligence communities engage on the topic seriously in public, reputational risk may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the topic.”
Federal parliament’s leading UFO enthusiast appears to be Peter Whish-Wilson, who has asked Defence questions on the subject on five separate occasions since 2021.
A known enthusiast for the subject, he has been the subject of mockery from Labor senators for taking the subject seriously. In the time since Whish-Wilson’s questions were answered by Defence, one key statement has been found to be a lie.
After repeatedly telling the Greens senator they had not spoken to their United States counterparts about UAPs, Defence admitted it had sent an attache to discuss the matter.
They have categorically refused to discuss the matter further.
READ MORE:
De geheimen rond de Bermudadriehoek
©Shutterstock
De geheimen rond de Bermudadriehoek
De wateren rond Bermuda, dat Brits grondgebied is, hebben van meer dan 1.000 mensen het leven geëist. Veel schepen en vliegtuigen zijn op onverklaarbare wijze verdwenen in het gebied dat ligt tussen Bermuda en Miami. Door veel piloten zijn verhalen verteld over kompassen die niet meer werkten.
Mysterieuze verdwijningen en bizarre verhalen hebben geleid tot talloze complottheorieën en er heerst een akelig gevoel omtrent de Bermudadriehoek. Bekijk deze galerij om enkele van de meest intrigerende onverklaarde mysteries rond het eiland en zijn wateren te ontdekken.
©Getty Images
George Somers
In 1609 ging de Engelse zeeheld George Somers op reis naar de nieuwe Engelse kolonie Jamestown in de Amerikaanse staat Virginia.
©Shutterstock
George Somers
Hij vertrok vanuit Plymouth in Engeland met een vloot van zeven schepen. Zijn vlaggenschip, de Sea Venture, bracht kolonisten, voedsel en goederen met zich mee
©Getty Images
George Somers
De vloot kwam in een zware storm terecht en de schepen werden van elkaar gescheiden. Na een aantal dagen begon de Sea Venture vol met water te lopen en in een poging van wanhoop voer de uitgeputte kapitein het schip naar de riffen van wat Bermuda bleek te zijn.
©Getty Images
George Somers
Gelukkig hebben alle 150 passagiers die aan boord waren het overleefd. Ze verbleven tien maanden op het eiland en stichtten de eerste nederzetting van Bermuda.
©Shutterstock
Georgetown
De nederzetting kreeg de naam Georgetown, vernoemd naar de admiraal George Somers.
©Getty Images
Bermuda
Volgens het toerismebureau Bermuda Attractions liggen er meer dan 300 scheepswrakken op de zeebodem rond het eiland. Waarom er zoveel schepen zijn gezonken in de wateren rond Bermuda blijft een raadsel.
©Getty Images
Flight 19
In 1945 vloog een groep bommenwerpers van de Amerikaanse marine boven Bermuda voor een routinematige trainingsmissie.
©Getty Images
Flight 19
In een groep van vijf vliegtuigen waren er in totaal veertien man aan boord, waaronder de ervaren luitenant Charles C. Taylor. Ze verdwenen allemaal spoorloos. Naar verluidt zei een van de piloten via de radio: "beide kompassen werken niet meer en ik probeer Fort Lauderdale in Florida te vinden."
©Getty Images
Flight 19
Een opsporingsteam doorzocht in vijf dagen ruim 300.000 vierkante kilometer grondgebied. Helaas zijn er nooit overblijfselen van Flight 19 gevonden. Een boot met een zoekteam van dertien mensen verdween ook toen het op zoek was naar de vliegtuigen
©Getty Images
Christoffel Columbus
Toen Christopher Columbus zich tijdens zijn eerste reis door het Caribisch gebied baande, voer hij door de Bermudadriehoek.
©Shutterstock
Christoffel Columbus
Naar verluidt schreef hij in een van zijn memoires dat hij een vuurvlam in de zee zag slaan en dat er een paar dagen later in de verte een vreemd licht verscheen.
©Shutterstock
Christoffel Columbus
Columbus zei ook dat de wijzers van zijn kompas flink begonnen te draaien in het gebied.
©Getty Images
Mary Celeste
Het Amerikaanse handelsschip Mary Celeste vertrok op 5 november 1872 uit New York.
©Getty Images
Mary Celeste
Kapitein Benjamin Spooner Briggs, zijn vrouw, zijn dochtertje en acht extra bemanningsleden waren aan boord van het schip.
©Shutterstock
Mary Celeste
Volgens Bermuda Attractions werd het schip drijvend in de Atlantische Oceaan aangetroffen terwijl er niemand aan boord was. Er bestaan complottheorieën rondom het mysterie van de Mary Celeste die gaan van ontvoeringen tot buitenaardse wezens, natuurrampen en zelfs paranormale activiteiten.
©Getty Images
USS Scorpion
De USS Scorpion was een kernonderzeeër van de Amerikaanse marine. Hij vertrok op 15 februari 1968 uit Norfolk, gelegen in de Amerikaanse staat Virginia, voor een operatie van drie maanden en had een 99-koppige bemanning.
©Getty Images
USS Scorpion
Volgens History Net, een Amerikaanse uitgever van tijdschriften die artikelen publiceren over onderwerpen uit de geschiedenis, werd er een zoekteam ingezet toen de onderzeeër niet terugkeerde naar zijn thuishaven. De 76,5 meter lange onderzeeër verdween spoorloos.
©Getty Images
USS Scorpion
Het wrak van de onderzeeër werd in de Atlantische Oceaan voor de kust van de Azoren gevonden, maar complotdenkers hebben het mysterie van de USS Scorpion in verband gebracht met de Bermudadriehoek.
©Public Domain
Carroll A. Deering
De achterlating van het schip Carroll A. Deering is een van de meest beschreven mysteries van de 20e eeuw.
©Getty Images
Carroll A. Deering
In 1921 voer het schip door de Bermudadriehoek voordat het verlaten werd aangetroffen.
©Getty Images
Carroll A. Deering
Volgens Bermuda Attractions was er een lichtschip in staat om via de radio met de Carroll A. Deering te communiceren. De kapitein van het lichtschip hoorde een bemanningslid zeggen dat ze hun ankers waren kwijtgeraakt en dat dit aan het hoofdkwartier doorgegeven moest worden, maar de Carroll A. Deering stopte niet en voer langs het lichtschip.
©Shutterstock
Complot
Er bestaan verschillende complottheorieën rond mysteries van schepen die in omringende wateren van het eiland verdwijnen.
©Getty Images
USS Cyclops
In 1918 raakte de USS Cyclops, dat meer dan 300 mensen aan boord had, zoek in de Bermudadriehoek.
©Getty Images
US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker
In 1963 kwamen naar verluidt twee KC-135-vliegtuigen van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht met elkaar in botsing en stortten ze neer in de Atlantische Oceaan. Ze werden echter gevonden op twee verschillende locaties die ruim 260 kilometer uit elkaar lagen.
©Getty Images
De Ellen Austin
De Ellen Austin was een schip dat regelmatig tussen Londen en New York door de Bermudadriehoek voer. Tijdens een van haar reizen in 1881 kwam de Ellen Austin een ander schip tegen waarop niemand aan boord was.
©Getty Images
De Ellen Austin
In een poging het verlaten schip te redden stuurde de kapitein van de Ellen Austin enkele van zijn bemanningsleden. Twee dagen lang zeilden de schepen zij aan zij totdat ze door een storm van elkaar werden gescheiden. Het verlaten schip en de nieuwe bemanning zijn nooit gevonden.
©Shutterstock
Niet opgelost en onverklaard
Ondanks dat er ruim duizend mensen om het leven zijn gekomen, blijven de wateren rond Bermuda een van de drukst bevaren plekken ter wereld. Zou dit de illusie kunnen wekken dat er hier meer incidenten plaatsvinden of is er echt iets mysterieus aan de hand?
The Mysterious Night Sky Phenomenon Over Salento, Italy
In the tranquil skies above Salento, Italy, a remarkable event occurred on the evening of January 9th, 2017, that left both locals and experts baffled. Luccio Margiota, an educator from the Music Academy of Salento, captured a perplexing aerial phenomenon that defied conventional explanations. The event added to Italy’s long history of mysterious sightings, intertwining with tales that span from ancient Roman lore to modern encounters.
As dusk fell over Salento, a glowing orb emerged, acting unlike any known aerial object. Witnesses observed it transforming shape, from a spherical form to an elongated, cigar-like figure, and eventually morphing into a circular, donut-like shape. This spectacle was not only about the transformation of shapes but also involved a captivating shift in colors, from a greenish hue back to white, before the object vanished into the night.
Italy’s history is rich with tales of unexplained aerial phenomena, stretching back to Roman times when historians like Livy recorded sightings of phantom ships gleaming in the sky. The Renaissance period and beyond have also documented similar enigmatic occurrences, suggesting a continuity of these mysterious sightings through the ages. In Salento, the recent event mirrors these historical accounts, reinforcing the intrigue and speculation surrounding such phenomena.
The event prompted analyses from various experts in an attempt to uncover a rational explanation. Meteorologists and astronomers were consulted, exploring potential atmospheric conditions or optical illusions that could account for the sighting. While some speculated that atmospheric phenomena like halos or sun dogs, which are caused by light refracting through ice crystals, might explain the sighting, this theory was quickly dismissed. The absence of a visible light source at the center of the phenomenon contradicted the characteristics of known atmospheric optics.
Marc D’Antonio, an astronomer and video effects designer, suggested that the maximum zoom of Margiota’s camera might have exaggerated distortions, potentially leading to misinterpretations of what was observed. He also pointed to possible lens artifacts from moisture or other substances as contributing factors to the unusual visual effects captured on video. However, even with these considerations, the origin of the light and its peculiar behavior remained unexplained.
Despite extensive analysis and speculation, the aerial phenomenon over Salento remains unclassified. The Italian government has not provided an official explanation, leaving the object unidentified and adding to the growing list of mysterious sightings worldwide. This event underscores the ongoing fascination with and debate over unidentified flying objects, challenging our understanding of the known and the unexplored.
As we gaze up at the night sky, events like the Salento sighting remind us of the vastness of the universe and the potential for mysteries that lie beyond our current grasp of science and nature. The pursuit of explanations for such phenomena continues, fueled by curiosity and the unending quest for knowledge.
De grootste mythes over het heelal
©Shutterstock
De grootste mythes over het heelal
Hoewel we meer van het heelal begrijpen dan ooit tevoren, zijn er nog steeds veel misvattingen over de ruimte, die grotendeels te danken zijn aan Hollywood. Sommige van deze misvattingen zijn eigenlijk aannemelijk en hebben velen van ons voor de gek gehouden. Denk je bijvoorbeeld dat Mercurius de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel is omdat hij het dichtst bij onze zon staat? En zuigen zwarte gaten echt materie naar hun kern?
To find out the answers to these questions and more, check out the following gallery on the biggest myths about space. LEES VERDER.
©Shutterstock
De asteroïdengordel is heel gevaarlijk
De asteroïdengordel ligt tussen Mars en Jupiter en bevat meer dan drieduizend kleine planeten en meer dan 750.000 afzonderlijke asteroïden. De grotere asteroïden botsen soms op elkaar, wat de mythe voedt dat het gevaarlijk is voor ruimtevaartuigen om zich er een weg doorheen te banen.
©Shutterstock
De asteroïdengordel is heel gevaarlijk
Er is echter geen gevaar, omdat de afstand tussen asteroïden enorm is. Gemiddeld is er een afstand van ongeveer 970.000 km tussen de asteroïden, wat meer dan twee keer zo groot is als de afstand van de aarde tot de maan.
©Shutterstock
De zon staat in brand
De zon is eigenlijk een gasbol. Het brandt dankzij kernfusie, die in de kern plaatsvindt.
©Shutterstock
De zon staat in brand
Elke seconde zet de zon 700 miljoen ton waterstof om in 695 miljoen ton helium. Er komt dan energie vrij in de vorm van gammastralen, die dan licht worden. De zon zendt dus licht en warmte uit, maar staat niet in brand, omdat er geen zuurstof aan te pas komt.
©Shutterstock
De maan heeft een donkere kant
Terwijl de maan rond de aarde draait, draait hij ook om zijn as, dus we zien altijd dezelfde kant van de maan.
©Shutterstock
De maan heeft een donkere kant
In tegenstelling tot wat vaak wordt gedacht, is de andere kant niet donker. Het krijgt dezelfde hoeveelheid zonlicht als de andere kant.
©Shutterstock
Sterren in constellaties staan dicht bij elkaar
De sterren aan de nachthemel zijn verdeeld over 88 constellaties. Dit zijn herkenbare groeperingen die al duizenden jaren als richtlijn voor boeren en reizigers dienen.
©Shutterstock
Sterren in constellaties staan dicht bij elkaar
Ondanks dat het lijkt alsof de sterren die de constellaties vormen dicht bij elkaar staan, zijn ze vaak tientallen of honderden lichtjaren van elkaar gescheiden.
©Shutterstock
Saturnus is de enige planeet in het zonnestelsel met ringen
Wanneer de meeste mensen aan planeten met ringen denken, is er maar één die in hun gedachten opkomt. De gasreus Saturnus staat bekend om zijn zeven hoofdringen.
©Shutterstock
Saturnus is de enige planeet in het zonnestelsel met ringen
Maar Saturnus is niet de enige. Jupiter, Uranus en Neptunus hebben ook allemaal hun eigen ringen. Niemand wist echter zeker dat ze bestonden totdat het ruimteschip Voyager in de jaren zeventig en tachtig heel dichtbij kwam.
©Shutterstock
Zwarte gaten creëren een vacuüm
Zwarte gaten zijn eigenlijk meer een soort vliegenvangers dan vacuüms. Ze zijn vrij inactief totdat een ster te dichtbij komt. Dan worden ze actief en verscheuren ze lagen gas en versnipperen ze de bestaande atomen.
©Shutterstock
Zwarte gaten creëren een vacuüm
In werkelijkheid lopen objecten die genoeg afstand houden en met een hoge snelheid passeren geen gevaar om in het centrum van een zwart gat gezogen te worden. Als de zon bijvoorbeeld zou worden vervangen door een zwart gat, zou de aarde gewoon blijven draaien.
©Shutterstock
De zon is geel
Eigenlijk is deze gele kleur een illusie. De zon produceert alle golflengtes van zichtbaar licht en daarom is haar echte kleur wit. Maar als het zonlicht door de atmosfeer reist, verandert het van kleur.
©Shutterstock
De zon is geel
De atmosferische gassen van de aarde buigen het licht af door een effect dat Rayleighverstrooiing heet en waardoor de lucht blauw lijkt.
©Shutterstock
De schaduw van de aarde veroorzaakt de maanfasen
Maanfasen zijn eigenlijk het resultaat van de opkomst en ondergang van de zon boven de zichtbare kant van de maan terwijl deze om de aarde draait.
©Shutterstock
De schaduw van de aarde veroorzaakt de maanfasen
Terwijl de maan om de aarde draait, worden verschillende delen ervan verlicht door de zon. Het draait dus allemaal om de positie van de zon, de maan en de aarde.
©Shutterstock
Een lichtjaar is een tijdmaat
Een lichtjaar is eigenlijk een afstandsmaat. NASA omschrijft een lichtjaar als "de totale afstand die een lichtstraal, die in een rechte lijn beweegt, in één jaar aflegt".
©Shutterstock
Een lichtjaar is een tijdmaat
Volgens de relativiteitstheorie van Albert Einstein is een lichtjaar de snelste snelheid in het heelal, met ongeveer 300.000 kilometer per seconde.
©Shutterstock
Sterren twinkelen
Kinderrijmpjes zijn verantwoordelijk voor deze mythe. Het idee dat sterren twinkelen is alleen maar een illusie.
©Shutterstock
Sterren twinkelen
Wanneer licht naar de aarde reist, passeert het gasmoleculen (sterren) waar onze atmosfeer uit bestaat. De sterren wervelen vanwege turbulentie in de atmosfeer. Hierdoor wordt een deel van het licht afgebogen, waardoor het lijkt alsof het licht verschuift en twinkelt.
©Shutterstock
Mercurius is de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel
Veel mensen geloven deze misvatting omdat Mercurius de planeet is die het dichtst bij de zon staat. De afstand tot de zon heeft echter weinig te maken met de gemiddelde temperatuur van een planeet.
©Shutterstock
Mercurius is de heetste planeet in het zonnestelsel
Venus bijvoorbeeld, die bijna twee keer zo ver van de zon staat, heeft een gemiddelde temperatuur van 462ºC. Het verschil is te danken aan de atmosfeer. Op Venus is de atmosfeer dik en bestaat deze voornamelijk uit kooldioxide, waardoor de warmte wordt vastgehouden in een isolerende luchtbel, terwijl Mercurius een hele dunne atmosfeer heeft.
©Shutterstock
Komeetstaarten geven aan welke kant ze opgaan
Kometen zijn in wezen brokken vies ijs die opwarmen wanneer ze de zon naderen. Op dat moment laten ze gas en stof los.
©Shutterstock
Komeetstaarten geven aan welke kant ze opgaan
Op aarde zouden we verwachten dat de staart naar achteren wijst, maar in de ruimte is er geen lucht. Kometen worden gevormd en voortgeblazen door stralingsdruk en zonnewind, dus wijzen ze altijd van de zon af.
©Shutterstock
Zonder ruimtepak exploderen mensen in de ruimte
De menselijke huid is rekbaar genoeg, dus het zal niet tot een explosie komen. Maar na ongeveer 10 seconden blootstelling raken mensen bewusteloos.
©Shutterstock
Zonder ruimtepak exploderen mensen in de ruimte
In 1966 gebeurde dit helaas met een technicus tijdens een NASA-test, nadat bepaalde apparatuur uitviel. Gelukkig was de druk na 30 seconden al hersteld en knapte de technicus weer op.
©Shutterstock
De zon is de enige ster met planeten
Deskundigen geloven dat de meeste sterren in de Melkweg planeten om zich heen hebben. Elke planeet die buiten ons zonnestelsel wordt gevonden, wordt een exoplaneet genoemd en deze beïnvloeden de manier waarop een ster verschijnt.
©Shutterstock
De zon is de enige ster met planeten
Eén manier om exoplaneten te vinden is door op verschillende tijdstippen te zoeken naar een afname van het licht van bepaalde sterren. Dit kan betekenen dat een planeet voor de ster langs beweegt, wat invloed heeft op de manier waarop het licht voor ons verschijnt.
Bronnen:
LOOK AT WHAT NASA’S LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER JUST CAUGHT SPEEDING IN ORBIT AROUND THE MOON
The identity of a speeding object captured in images by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter last month has now been revealed, according to officials with the American space agency.
The unusual-looking, elongated object was spotted by the narrow-angle camera aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as it made its routine pass over the Moon’s surface between March 5 and 6, 2004.
Now, NASA officials have revealed the identity of the strange-looking object and the reason for its curious appearance in the photos the LRO obtained last month.
The object was photographed by the narrow-angle camera aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter last month
(Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University).
In 2022, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) launched its own orbital spacecraft, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), on August 4 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Also known as Danuri, the KPLO represents the first official mission launched by South Korea, which will see the spacecraft in orbit around the Moon for one year.
During its mission, Danuri will be utilizing a suite of scientific instruments built by South Korea, as well as one U.S.-built instrument, to carry out several experiments that will study the lunar environment, as well as help demonstrate a “lunar internet” and identify potential future landing sites.
Operating in almost parallel orbits, last month, the KPLO and LRO passed each other going in opposite directions, allowing the LRO to capture images of the South Korean spacecraft as it whizzed by.
Due to their opposite directional paths and the speed at which each lunar orbiter is traveling in their respective orbits (estimated to be close to 7,200 miles, or 1,500 kilometers, per hour), Danuri appeared elongated, making it look close to ten times its actual size, even despite the short exposure time of just 0.338 milliseconds used by the LRO’s narrow-angle camera.
According to the LRO operations team based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, the high travel velocities between the LRO and Danuri meant that perfect timing was required in order for the NASA team to capture images of the South Korean spacecraft.
The KPLO appears close to ten times its actual size in the images obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in March, 2024
(Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University).
The images obtained by NASA in March aren’t the first time that one of these spacecraft has obtained images of the other. Last April, the KPLO successfully obtained images of the LRO using its ShadowCam, which was provided by NASA for the South Korean orbiter’s mission.
NASA’s LRO, as seen from the KPLO in April 2023
(Credit: NASA/KARI/Arizona State University).
Possessing a conventional box shape with a pair of solar panel wings and a parabolic antenna, Danuri relies on a mono propulsion system that incorporates four 30N thrusters, which help it achieve orbital maneuvers, and an additional four 5N attitude control thrusters.
Although designed to operate for just a year, it is possible that the KPLO, like the LRO, may enter an extended phase, during which it will descend to a lower position in orbit, placing it just 70 km above the lunar surface.
In addition to the LRO and the KPLO, there are at least ten other objects that are currently known to be orbiting the Moon, some of which are now defunct.
You can learn more about the KPLO mission here. Meanwhile, additional details about the LRO’s ongoing collection of imagery and valuable data about the lunar surface can be found on NASA’s official Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter page.
The First Atmospheric Rainbow on an Exoplanet?
When light strikes the atmosphere all sorts of interesting things can happen. Water vapor can split sunlight into a rainbow arc of colors, corpuscular rays can stream through gaps in clouds like the light from heaven, and halos and sundogs can appear due to sunlight reflecting off ice crystals. And then there is the glory effect, which can create a colorful almost saint-like halo around objects.
Like rainbows, glories are seen when facing away from the light source. They are often confused with circular rainbows because of their similarity, but glories are a unique effect. Rainbows are caused by the refraction of light through water droplets, while glories are caused by the wave interference of light. Because of this, a glory is most apparent when the water droplets of a cloud or fog are small and uniform in size. The appearance of a glory gives us information about the atmosphere. We have assumed that some distant exoplanets would experience glories similar to Earth, but now astronomers have found the first evidence of them.
A solar glory seen from an airplane.
Credit: Brocken Inaglory
The observations come from the Characterising ExOplanet Satellite (Cheops) as well as observations from other observatories of an exoplanet known as WASP-76b. It’s not the kind of exoplanet where you’d expect a glory to appear. WASP-76b is not a temperate Earth-like world with a humid atmosphere, but a hellish hot Jupiter with a surface temperature of about 2,500 Kelvin. Because of this, the team wasn’t looking for extraterrestrial glories but rather studying the odd asymmetry of the planet’s atmosphere.
WASP-76b orbits its star at a tenth of the distance of Mercury from the Sun. At such a close distance the world is likely tidally locked, with one side forever boiling under its sun’s heat and the other side always in shadow. No such planet exists in our solar system, so astronomers are eager to study how this would affect the atmosphere of such a world. Previous studies have shown that the atmosphere is not symmetrical. The star-facing side is puffed up by the immense heat, while the atmosphere of the dark side is more dense.
For three years the team observed WASP-76b as it passed in front of and behind its star, capturing data on the intersection between the light and dark side. They found that on the planet’s eastern terminator (the boundary between light and dark sides) there was a surprising increase in light. This extra glow could be caused by a glory effect. It will take more observations to confirm this effect but if verified it will be the first glory observed beyond our solar system. Currently, glories have only been observed on Earth and Venus.
The presence of a glory on WASP-76b would mean that spherical droplets must have been present in the atmosphere for at least three years. This means either they are stable within the atmosphere, or they are constantly replenished. One possibility is that the glory is caused by iron droplets that rain from the sky on the cooler side of the planet. Even if this particular effect is not confirmed, the ability of modern telescopes to capture this data suggests that we will soon be able to study many subtle effects of exoplanet atmospheres.
A glory in Earth's atmosphere photographed by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the ISS in 2018.
(ESA/NASA)
Reference:
The Stellar Demolition Derby in the Centre of the Galaxy
The region near the Milky Way’s centre is dominated by the supermassive black hole that resides there. Sagittarius A*’s overwhelming gravity creates a chaotic region where tightly packed, high-speed stars crash into one another like cars in a demolition derby.
These collisions and glancing blows change the stars forever. Some become strange, stripped-down, low-mass stars, while others gain new life.
The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole (SMBH) is called Sagittarius A* (Sgr. A*). Sgr. A* is about four million times more massive than the Sun. With that much mass, the much smaller stars nearby are easily affected by the black hole’s powerful gravity and are accelerated to rapid velocities.
In the inner 0.1 parsec, or about one-third of a light-year, stars travel thousands of kilometres per second. Outside that region, the pace is much more sedate. Stars beyond 0.1 parsec travel at hundreds of km/s.
But it’s not only the speed that drives the collisions. The region is also tightly packed with stars into what astronomers call a nuclear star cluster (NSC.) The combination of high speed and high stellar density creates a region where stars are bound to collide.
“They whack into each other and keep going.”
Sanaea Rose, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
New research led by Northwestern University simulated stars orbiting Sgr. A* to understand the interactions and collisions and their results. It’s titled “Stellar Collisions in the Galactic Center: Massive Stars, Collision Remnants, and Missing Red Giants.” The lead author is Sanaea C. Rose from UCLA’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. The research was also recently presented at the American Physical Society’s April meeting.
The researchers simulated a population of 1,000 stars embedded in the NSC. The stars ranged from 0.5 to 100 solar masses, but in practice, the upper limit was about 30 solar masses due to the initial mass function. Other characteristics, like orbital eccentricities, were varied to ensure that the sample caught stars at different distances from Sgr. A*. That’s necessary to build a solid understanding of the stellar collisions.
“The region around the central black hole is dense with stars moving at extremely high speeds,” said lead author Rose. “It’s a bit like running through an incredibly crowded subway station in New York City during rush hour. If you aren’t colliding with other people, then you are passing very closely by them. For stars, these near collisions still cause them to interact gravitationally. We wanted to explore what these collisions and interactions mean for the stellar population and characterize their outcomes.”
“Stars, which are under the influence of a supermassive black hole in a very crowded region, are unlike anything we will ever see in our own solar neighbourhood.”
Sanaea Rose, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
The stellar density in the inner 0.1 parsecs is nothing like our Solar System’s neighbourhood. The nearest star to our Sun is the low-mass Proxima Centauri. It’s just over four light-years away. It’s like having no neighbours at all.
But in the NSC, things are way different.
The Milky Way galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole (Sgr A*, shown in the inset on the right) embedded in the Nuclear Star Cluster (NSC) at the center, highlighted and enlarged in the middle panel. The image on the right shows the stellar density in the NSC.
Image Credit: Zhuo Chen
“The closest star to our sun is about four light-years away,” Rose explained. “Within that same distance near the supermassive black hole, there are more than a million stars. It’s an incredibly crowded neighbourhood. On top of that, the supermassive black hole has a really strong gravitational pull. As they orbit the black hole, stars can move at thousands of kilometres per second.”
In a stellar density that high, collisions are inevitable. The rate of collisions is more severe the closer stars are to the SMBH. In their research, Rose and her colleagues simulated the region to determine the collisions’ effect on individual stars and the stellar population.
The simulations showed that head-on collisions are rare. So stars aren’t destroyed. Instead, they’re more like glancing blows, where stars can be stripped of their outer layers before continuing their trajectories.
“They whack into each other and keep going,” Rose said. “They just graze each other as though they are exchanging a very violent high-five. This causes the stars to eject some material and lose their outer layers. Depending on how fast they are moving and how much they overlap when they collide, they might lose quite a bit of their outer layers. These destructive collisions result in a population of strange, stripped down, low-mass stars.”
These stars end up migrating away from the SMBH. The authors say that there is likely a population of these low-mass stars spread throughout the galactic centre (GC.) They also say that the ejected mass from these grazing collisions could produce the gas and dust features other researchers have observed in the GC, like X7, and G objects like G3 and G2.
X7 is an elongated gas and dust structure in the galactic centre. The researchers suggest it could be made of mass stripped from stars during collisions between fast-moving stars near Sgr. A*. G3 and G2 are objects that resemble clouds of gas and dust but also have properties of stellar objects.
Image Credit: Ciurlo et al. 2023.
Outside of the 0.1 parsecs region, the stars are slower. As a result, collisions between stars aren’t as energetic or destructive. Instead of creating a population of stripped-down stars, collisions allow the stars to merge, creating more massive stars. Multiple mergers are possible, creating stars more massive than our Sun.
“A few stars win the collision lottery,” Rose said. “Through collisions and mergers, these stars collect more hydrogen. Although they were formed from an older population, they masquerade as rejuvenated, young-looking stars. They are like zombie stars; they eat their neighbours.”
But after they gain that mass, they hasten their own demise. They become like young, massive stars that consume their fuel quickly.
This artist’s illustration shows a massive star orbiting Sagittarius A*. Post-collision, some stars gain mass and end up shortening their lives.
Image Credit: University of Cologne
“They die very quickly,” Rose said. “Massive stars are sort of like giant, gas-guzzling cars. They start with a lot of hydrogen, but they burn through it very, very fast.”
Another puzzling thing about this inner region is the lack of red giants. “Observations of the GC indicate a deficit of RGs within about 0.3 pc of the SMBH,” the authors write, referencing other research. Their results could explain it. “We consider whether main-sequence stellar collisions may help explain this observational puzzle,” they write. “We find that within ~ 0.01 pc of the SMBH, stellar collisions destroy most low-mass stars before they can evolve off the main sequence. Thus, we expect a lack of RGs in this region.”
The region around the Milky Way’s SMBH is chaotic. Even disregarding the black hole itself and its swirling accretion disk and tortured magnetic fields, the stars that dance to its tune live chaotic lives. The simulations show that most stars in the GC will experience direct collisions with other stars. But their chaotic lives could shed light on how the entire region evolved. And since the region resists astronomers’ attempts to observe it, simulations like this are their next best tool.
“It’s an environment unlike any other,” Rose said. “Stars, which are under the influence of a supermassive black hole in a very crowded region, are unlike anything we will ever see in our own solar neighbourhood. But if we can learn about these stellar populations, then we might be able to learn something new about how the galactic center was assembled. At the very least, it certainly provides a point of contrast for the neighbourhood where we live.”
Note: these results are based on a pair of published papers:
Annunaki: Enigmatic Deities and the Alleged Architects of Humanity
In the rich tapestry of ancient Mesopotamian mythology, few figures are as intriguing and mysterious as the Annunaki. Described as gods descending from the heavens, their lore intertwines with the fabric of human origin and ancient cosmology, presenting a narrative that has captivated scholars, enthusiasts, and theorists alike.
The Annunaki hold a pivotal place in the pantheon of Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian cultures. These deities are often depicted as powerful beings who arrived from a distant planet, Nibiru, sometimes referred to as the 12th planet in our solar system. According to myth, they were in search of resources, specifically gold, to save their home world from an impending catastrophe.
The lore suggests that Earth’s abundant gold reserves caught the Annunaki’s attention, leading to their arrival and subsequent mining operations. However, laboring under the harsh conditions of our planet, they sought to engineer a workforce capable of carrying out the strenuous task of mining. This led to the creation of mankind, as per the narrative, making humans the direct product of Annunaki ingenuity.
The narrative goes further to explain the rapid advancement of human civilization as a direct influence of the Annunaki. They are credited with teaching humans various skills and knowledge, from agriculture to writing, thus catalyzing the growth of civilizations across ancient Mesopotamia, often regarded as the cradle of civilization. This interventionist approach in human evolution paints the Annunaki not only as creators but also as teachers and protectors of mankind.
While the story of the Annunaki offers a fascinating glance into ancient mythologies and the human penchant for storytelling, it is crucial to approach these narratives with a critical mind. Mainstream science and archaeology do not support the existence of Nibiru or the Annunaki’s role in human history as factual. The tales of the Annunaki, much like other mythological narratives, are reflections of our ancestors’ attempts to understand the world around them, using the language of myth to explain natural phenomena and the origins of human society.
The works of authors like Zechariah Sitchin, who popularized the Annunaki in modern times, often involve interpretations of ancient texts that many scholars have contested. It’s important to differentiate between mythological texts and historical evidence when exploring these subjects.
The Annunaki remain a compelling subject within ancient Mesopotamian mythology, embodying the human fascination with creation, gods, and the stars. Their story is a testament to the creativity and depth of ancient civilizations’ mythologies, offering insights into how our ancestors sought to explain their origins and the workings of the cosmos.
As we continue to explore ancient texts and archaeological findings, the line between myth and history offers a rich field for inquiry and understanding. While the Annunaki may not be the architects of humanity as the myths suggest, their stories provide a valuable glimpse into the spiritual and cosmological beliefs of ancient Mesopotamian cultures, reminding us of the complexity and richness of human imagination throughout the ages.
HOLOGRAPHIC BREAKTHROUGH: SCIENTISTS CREATE FULL-COLOR 3D HOLOGRAPHIC DISPLAYS WITH ORDINARY SMARTPHONE SCREEN
(Pixabay)
While conventional approaches to holography involve complex and expensive laser emitters that have limited their practical use, the researchers behind this novel approach say their work could lead to dramatic improvements in holographic displays for virtual reality applications, including gaming, training, and even advanced military applications.
In science fiction, holograms are used for anything from basic communications to advanced military weaponry. In the real world, 3D holographic displays have yet to break through to everyday products and devices. That’s because creating holograms that look real and have significant fidelity requires laser emitters or other advanced pieces of optical equipment. This situation has stymied commercial development, as these components are complex and expensive.
More recently, research scientists were able to create realistic 3D holographic images without lasers by using a white chip-on-board light-emitting diode. Unfortunately, that method required two spatial light modulators to control the wave fronts of the emitted light, adding a prohibitive amount of complexity and cost.
Now, those same scientists say they have created a simpler, more cost-effective way to create realistic-looking 3D holographic displays using only one spatial light modulator and new software algorithms. The result is a simpler and cheaper method for creating holograms that an everyday technology like a smartphone screen can emit.
“Although holography techniques can create a very real-looking 3D representation of objects, traditional approaches aren’t practical because they rely on laser sources,” said research team leader Ryoichi Horisaki from The University of Tokyo in Japan. “Lasers emit coherent light that is easy to control, but they make the system complex, expensive, and potentially harmful to the eyes.”
To conquer this limitation, Horisaki’s team wanted to see if they could use lower-cost technology and the power of advanced computer algorithms to create a 3D holographic display that would rival displays using lasers. The key, they say, is a technology known as computer-generated holography (CGH) paired with a simple component known as a spatial light modulator.
Researchers developed a 3D full-color display method that uses a smartphone screen, rather than a laser, to create holographic images. Shown are their experimental results, in which a continuous transition from the first layer to the second layer is observable.
CREDIT: Ryoichi Horisaki, The University of Tokyo
To demonstrate their potential breakthrough approach, the researchers created a two-layer optical reproduction of a full-color three-dimensional image. The first layer is projected by the spatial light modulator, and the second layer is projected by the screen off of an iPhone 14 smartphone.
Next, the team’s customized algorithms coordinated the display of the two images to create a realistic-looking 3D holographic display that resembled those produced by expensive laser systems.
While the approach seems simple on the surface, the scientists say it is incredibly complex.
“It required carefully modeling the incoherent light propagation process from the screen and then using this information to develop a new algorithm that coordinated the light coming from the device screen with a single spatial light modulator,” they explain.
Fortunately, that work paid off, resulting in a new approach to designing and projecting realistic holographic displays that are significantly simpler and less expensive than the industry standard.
“This work aligns with our laboratory’s focus on computational imaging, a research field dedicated to innovating optical imaging systems by integrating optics with information science,” said Horisaki. “We focus on minimizing optical components and eliminating impractical requirements in conventional optical systems.”
“Holographic displays that use low-coherence light could enable realistic 3D displays while potentially reducing costs and complexity,” added Otoya Shigematsu, the paper’s first author. “Although several groups, including ours, have demonstrated holographic displays using low-coherence light, we took this concept to the extreme by using a smartphone display.”
In their study, which is published in the journal Optical Letters, the scientists behind the new method for generating 3D holographic displays say their current work only created a demonstration of their approach and that more work would be needed to apply it to commercial, military, and industrial applications.
First author Otoya Shigematsu is shown in the laboratory with the optical experiment setup used for the work.
CREDIT: Ryoichi Horisaki, The University of Tokyo.
However, they say the basic science behind the integration of computer algorithms and simple display technologies is a huge step toward dramatic improvements in virtual reality devices like headsets used in virtual gaming environments. In fact, they believe that their method is actually safer than traditional approaches, especially when used in close-up displays like VR headsets.
“We believe that this method could eventually be useful for minimizing the optics, reducing costs, and decreasing the potential harm to eyes in future visual interfaces and 3D display applications,” said Shigematsu. “More specifically, it has the potential to enhance the performance of near-eye displays, such as the ones being used in high-end virtual reality headsets.”
The scientists say they are now working on improving their algorithms to increase the number of layers and, therefore, the digital information they can display. If successful, they say they could create even more complex and realistic 3D holographic displays.
Western US residents report the most UFO sightings — what are they actually seeing?
Those of us in the western U.S. who enjoy vast open spaces may also be more likely to report UFO sightings, a new study suggests.
The study, based on about 98,000 reports over 20 years as cataloged in an open-source, online dataset maintained by the National UFO Research Center (NUFORC), modeled how reported UAP sightings coincide with environmental variables such as light pollution and cloud cover, as well as things like proximity to airports and military installations. The results reveal the majority of reported sightings originate in the western U.S., along with a smaller hotspot in the northeastern U.S.
Related:
"It was completely unexpected," Richard Medina, a geographer at the University of Utah who led the study, told Space.com. "It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."
Pinning down the environmental context of these sightings is important when considering explanations for presumed UAP occurrences; it can also help scientists differentiate between non-results and truly anomalous sightings that may be a legitimate threat, said Medina.
He and his colleagues posit that the large number of sightings in the western U.S. can partly be explained by its wide-open spaces and all-year temperate weather, which draw people outside for recreational activities. "People are out and looking skyward," Medina said in a statement
NASA has a new rover and it is about to go on an interesting mission
©Provided by The Daily Digest
It’s not like any other over before it
NASA is always striving to push the boundaries of space exploration and that has led its engineers to develop a new type of robot rover that could completely change how space exploration missions are undertaken according to the agenc
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The CADRE Rover
The Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration—more commonly known by the acronym CADRE—project has developed a rover that operates without the input of humans with the aim of supporting future exploratory missions.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Smaller than your average rover
NASA’s CADRE rovers are a lot smaller than something like Curiosity of Perseverance, two of the space agency’s more modern rovers exploring the surface of Mars. CADRE’s rovers are only about the size of the average carry-on luggage.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Packed with new technologies
However, engineers have packed the tiny new rover with a lot of technology that will be very useful for mapping the surface of a planet. The rover is equipped with an array of sensors and cameras as well as other advanced technologies.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Fitted with powerful mapping tools
Powered by solar panels and four wheels, the CADRE rover also has been fitted with a powerful ground-penetrating radar that its designers developed so that it could map the lunar surface during the new technology's first mission to the moon.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Three will head to the moon in 2024
A trio of new rovers from NASA will be heading to the moon in 2024 aboard Intuitive Machines’ third lunar lander the IM-3 as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative according to Space.com.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA, Public Domain
Exploring a mysterious region of the moon
NASA is tasking its tiny autonomous rovers with exploring a very mysterious region on the moon known as Reiner Gamma. The area is just one of several fascinating places on the lunar surface that have their own local magnetic field.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA, Public Domain
The Ocean of Storms
Reiner Gamma is located inside an area on the moon’s surface referred to as Oceanus Procellarum, which translates to Ocean of Storms. The region is on the western edge of the moon north of the equator and temperatures are volatile.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The perfect area for robotic exploration
During the middle of the day, surface temperatures in Reiner Gamma can reach as high as 237° Fahrenheit or 114° Celsius, which makes the area perfect for exploration using autonomous robots like the ones developed by the CADRE project.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
A simple mission
The mission NASA’s new robots are being sent on is very simple. The aim is to see how the three rovers interact with each other without direct input from the mission controllers back on Earth according to a press release from the space agency.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Measurements and mapping
The rovers will take measurements from several locations so that NASA can provide the proof of concept. If the mission is successful, it could dramatically transform how NASA explores other planetary and celestial surfaces in the near future.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Exploring without human input
“Our mission is to demonstrate that a network of mobile robots can cooperate to accomplish a task without human intervention – autonomously,” explained Subha Comandur, the CADRE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
They could change space exploration
“It could change how we do exploration in the future,” Comandur continued, adding that the “question for future missions will become: ‘How many rovers do we send, and what will they do together?’” But what do we know about the mission?
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Examining the moon for a full lunar day
The Cadre rovers will explore Reiner Gamma for a full lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days, and will conduct a number of experiments throughout the area that will test the capabilities of the new recovers and how they work together.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Minimal orders will be given
Mission control will send the rovers a broad directive as to what they should do once on the moon. The robots will select a leader and then get to work on reasoning out the best way to complete the tasks that they have been given.
©Provided by The Daily Digestµ
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
One instruction only
“The only instruction is, for example, ‘Go explore this region,’ and the rovers figure out everything else: when they’ll do the driving, what path they’ll take, how they’ll maneuver around local hazards,” said CADRE’s principal investigator Jean-Pierre de la Croix.
©Provided by The Daily Digest
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Will the rovers pass the test?
“You only tell them the high-level goal, and they have to determine how to accomplish it,” Jean-Pierre de la Croix added. It’s a very interesting way to increase our capabilities that could revolutionize the future of space exploration.
NASA's Curiosity Rover Has Just Arrived Where Ancient Water Likely Existed
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover just made it to a channel called Gediz Vallis. This spot is the perfect place for taking a dramatic alien panorama. But, it might also contain hidden clues of ancient water on the Red Planet.
Rocks have long suggested that Mars was wetter and warmer billions of years ago. Current evidence suggests that water on the Red Planet came and went in phases. NASA is searching for hints of a critical turning point: when these phases ended and liquid water permanently disappeared from Mars’s surface and forever transformed the once-wet planet into the barren world of today. Gediz Vallis might contain clues of this point of no return.
As it drives along the serpentine-shaped land feature, the six-wheeled rover will get a novel look at this “Earth-like past,” NASA officials announced on Friday.
Curiosity has now reached Gediz Vallis, the channel that runs through the center of this NASA image, created from orbital data.
Previous satellite data suggested that water flow may have helped form the channel. The debris pile inside the channel also hints that water once ran there. Geological structures within the channel suggest that the region may have dried up only to flood again, which aligns with similar evidence in other areas of Mars that NASA has explored. Scientists currently surmise that Gediz Vallis probably formed after a dry period, preceded by another wet period.
The rover team wants to confirm what carved the bedrock to create Gediz Vallis. “The formation’s sides are steep enough that the team doesn’t think the channel was made by wind. However, debris flows (rapid, wet landslides) or a river carrying rocks and sediment could have had enough energy to chisel into the bedrock,” according to NASA.
Curiosity has been exploring Mars for more than a decade to understand whether inhospitable modern Mars was once hospitable to life.
A New Map Shows the Universe’s Dark Energy May Be Evolving
At the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, an instrument with 5,000 tiny robotic eyes scans the night sky. Every 20 minutes, the instrument and the telescope it’s attached to observe a new set of 5,000 galaxies. The instrument is called DESI—Dark Energy Survey Instrument—and once it’s completed its five-year mission, it’ll create the largest 3D map of the Universe ever created.
But scientists are getting access to DESI’s first data release and it suggests that dark energy may be evolving.
DESI is the most powerful multi-object survey spectrograph in the world, according to their website. It’s gathering the spectra for tens of millions of galaxies and quasars. The goal is a 3D map of the Universe that extends out to 11 billion light-years. That map will help explain how dark energy has driven the Universe’s expansion.
DESI began in 2021 and is a five-year mission. The first year of data has been released, and scientists with the project say that DESI has successfully measured the expansion of the Universe over the last 11 billion years with extreme precision.
“The DESI team has set a new standard for studies of large-scale structure in the Universe.”
Pat McCarthy, NOIRLab Director
DESI collects light from 5,000 objects at once with its 5,000 robotic eyes. It observes a new set of 5,000 objects every 20 minutes, which means it observes 100,000 objects—galaxies and quasars—each night, given the right observing conditions.
This image shows Stu Harris working on assembling the focal plane for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2017 in Berkeley, Calif. Ten petals, each containing 500 robotic positioners that are used to gather light from targeted galaxies, form the complete focal plane. DESI is attached to the 4-meter Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Image Credit: DESI/NSF NOIRlab
DESI’s data creates a map of the large-scale structure of the Universe. The map will help scientists unravel the history of the Universe’s expansion and the role dark energy plays. We don’t know what dark energy is, but we know some force is causing the Universe’s expansion to accelerate.
“The DESI instrument has transformed the Mayall Telescope into the world’s premier cosmic cartography machine,” said Pat McCarthy, Director of NOIRLab, the organization behind DESI. “The DESI team has set a new standard for studies of large-scale structure in the Universe. These first-year data are only the beginning of DESI’s quest to unravel the expansion history of the Universe, and they hint at the extraordinary science to come.”
DESI measures dark energy by relying on baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO.) Baryonic matter is “normal” matter: atoms and everything made of atoms. The acoustic oscillations are density fluctuations in normal matter that date back to the Universe’s beginnings. BAO are the imprint of those fluctuations, or pressure waves, that moved through the Universe when it was all hot, dense plasma.
As the Universe cooled and expanded, the density waves froze their ripples in place, and where density was high, galaxies eventually formed. The ripple pattern of the BAO is visible in the DESI leading image. It shows strands of galaxies, or galaxy filaments, clustered together. They’re separated by voids where density is much lower.
The deeper DESI looks, the fainter the galaxies are. They don’t provide enough light to detect the BAO. That’s where quasars come in. Quasars are extremely bright galaxy cores, and the light from distant quasars creates a shadow of the BAO pattern. As the light travels through space, it interacts with and gets absorbed by clouds of matter. That lets astronomers map dense pockets of matter, but it took over 450,000 quasars. That’s the most quasars ever observed in a survey like this.
Because the BAO pattern is gathered in such detail and across such vast distances, it can act as a cosmic ruler. By combining the measurements of nearby galaxies and distant quasars, astronomers can measure the ripples across different periods of the Universe’s history. That allows them to see how dark energy has stretched the scale over time.
It’s all aimed at understanding the expansion of the Universe.
In the Universe’s first three billion years, radiation dominated it. The Cosmic Microwave Background is evidence of that. For the next several billion years, matter dominated the Universe. It was still expanding, but the expansion was slowing because of the gravitational force from matter. But since then, the expansion has accelerated again, and we give the name dark energy to the force behind that acceleration.
So far, DESI’s data supports cosmologists’ best model of the Universe. But there are some twists.
“We’re incredibly proud of the data, which have produced world-leading cosmology results,” said DESI director and LBNL scientist Michael Levi. “So far, we’re seeing basic agreement with our best model of the Universe, but we’re also seeing some potentially interesting differences that could indicate dark energy is evolving with time.”
Levi is referring to Lambda Cold Dark Matter (Lambda CDM), also known as the standard model of Big Bang Cosmology. Lambda CDM includes cold dark matter—a weakly interacting type of matter—and dark energy. They both shape how the Universe expands but in opposite ways. Dark energy accelerates the expansion, and regular matter and dark matter slow it down. The Universe evolves based on the contributions from all three. The Lambda CDM does a good job of describing what other experiments and observations find. It also assumes that dark energy is constant and spread evenly throughout the Universe.
This data is just the first release, so confirmation of dark energy evolution must wait. By the time DESI has completed its five-year run, it will have mapped over three million quasars and 37 million galaxies. That massive trove of data should help scientists understand if dark energy is changing.
Whatever the eventual answer, the question is vital to understanding the Universe.
“This project is addressing some of the biggest questions in astronomy, like the nature of the mysterious dark energy that drives the expansion of the Universe,” says Chris Davis, NSF program director for NOIRLab. “The exceptional and continuing results yielded by the NSF Mayall telescope with DOE DESI will undoubtedly drive cosmology research for many years to come.”
DESI isn’t the only effort to understand dark energy. The ESA’s Euclid spacecraft is already taking its own measurements to help cosmologists answer their dark energy questions.
In a few years, DESI will have some more powerful allies in the quest to understand dark energy. The Vera Rubin Observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will both contribute to our understanding of the elusive dark energy. They’ll perform surveys of their own, and by combining data from all three, cosmologists are poised to generate some long-sought answers.
But for now, scientists are celebrating DESI’s first data release.
“We are delighted to see cosmology results from DESI’s first year of operations,” said Gina Rameika, associate director for High Energy Physics at the Department of Energy. “DESI continues to amaze us with its stellar performance and how it is shaping our understanding of dark energy in the Universe.”
Want to Start a Farm on Mars? This Rover Will Find Out if it’s Possible
Travelling to Mars has its own challenges. The distance alone makes the journey something of a mission in itself. Arrive though, and the handwork has only just begun. Living and surviving on Mars will be perhaps humans biggest challenge yet. It would be impossible to take everything along with you to survive so instead, it would be imperative to ‘live off the land’ and produce as much locally as possible. A new rover called AgroMars will be equipped with a number of agriculture related experiments to study the make up of the soil to assess its suitability for growing food.
Growing food on Mars poses a number of challenges, chiefly due to the harsh environmental conditions. Not least of which is the low atmospheric pressure, temperature extremes and high radiation levels. To try and address these, new techniques have been developed in the fields of hydroponics and aeroponics. The key to these new techniques involves using nutrient rich solutions instead of soils.
Special structures are build analogous to greenhouses on Earth with artificial lighting, temperature and humidity control. Genetic engineering too has played a part in developing plants that are more hardy and capably of surviving in harsh Martian environments. As we continue to explore the Solar System and in particular Mars, we are going to have to find ways to grow food in alien environments.
Enter AgroMars. A space mission taking a rover to Mars to hunt for, and explore the possibility of establishing agriculture on Mars! The rover will be launched with similar capabilities to the likes of Perseverance or Curiosity. The rover will be launched to Mars by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle operated by Space X but this is some years off yet. The development phase has yet to start. In a paper by lead author M. Duarte dos San- tos the mission has been shaped, reality is a little way off.
On arrival, AgroMars will use an X-ray and infrared spectrometer, high resolution cameras, pH sensors, mass spectrometers and drilling tools to collect and analyse soil samples. The samples will be assessed for mineralogical composition, soil texture, soil pH, presence of organic compounds and water retention capacity.
To be able to assess the Martian soil the rover must possess advanced capabilities for collecting and analysing soil samples, more than before. The data will then be sent on to laboratories on Earth and it is their responsibility to interpret the information. The multitude of groups involved is a wonderful reminder how science transcends geographical borders. Working together will yield far better results and help to advance our knowledge of astrobiology and agriculture on Mars.
This doesn’t come cheap though. The estimated cost of the mission is in the region of $2.7 billion which includes development, launch and exploration for the entire mission.
The total cost of the mission is estimated to be around $2.7 billion, which includes $2.2 billion for the development and launch of the rover and $500 million for its exploitation during the entirety of the mission. Whether it – pardon the pun – gets off the ground is yet to be seen but if we are to explore and even establish a permanent base on Mars then we will have to gain a better understanding of the environment to feed and sustain future explorers.
Source :
The Impact of UFO Encounters on Military Personnel
The Impact of UFO Encounters on Military Personnel
In a groundbreaking disclosure, a former CIA-affiliated doctor has brought to light the alarming consequences of unidentified flying object (UFO) encounters on American military personnel. This revelation, stemming from a Freedom of Information Act request and a series of comprehensive studies, paints a disturbing picture of the hidden casualties and injuries within the military ranks due to these enigmatic phenomena.
Dr. Christopher Green, a neuroimaging specialist with extensive experience within the CIA, has spearheaded research into the interactions between military personnel and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). His work, detailed in the study “Clinical Medical Acute And Subacute Field Effects on Human Dermal And Neurological Tissues,” outlines a range of injuries sustained during encounters classified on the Hynek scale, a system used to categorize UFO sightings.
The scale, which classifies encounters from mere nocturnal lights to close and direct interactions, provides a framework for understanding the varying degrees of contact and their potential impact on human observers. Dr. Green’s research specifically focuses on the latter categories, where physical effects and injuries are reported. These include radiation burns, paralysis, and even brain damage, drawing unsettling parallels to the symptoms of Havana Syndrome, a condition associated with microwave and high-energy weapon exposure among U.S. embassy staff.
This syndrome, believed to be caused by foreign actors using electromagnetic radiation as a weapon, shares similarities with the injuries reported by military personnel exposed to UAPs. However, Dr. Green’s findings suggest these incidents precede the Havana Syndrome cases, indicating a longstanding and unaddressed threat.
The collective research efforts underscore a pressing need for a more profound understanding and investigation of UAPs, not only to unveil their origins and intentions but also to safeguard against their potentially harmful impacts on human health and safety. This call to action is not only a matter of scientific inquiry but a paramount concern for national defense and the welfare of those who serve.
In the face of growing evidence and public interest, it’s imperative that the phenomena associated with UAP encounters are no longer relegated to the fringes of scientific and military investigation. The consequences, as revealed by these studies, warrant a coordinated and comprehensive response to address the risks posed to military personnel and, potentially, the broader public.
As the veil of secrecy begins to lift, the path forward demands collaboration between government agencies, scientific communities, and the defense sector to confront the challenges posed by these unidentified entities. Only through rigorous investigation, transparency, and an unwavering commitment to understanding the unknown can we hope to protect those who risk their lives for national security and potentially uncover the true nature of the enigmatic phenomena known as UFOs.
NASA Announces Starliner’s Next Launch Attempt: May 6
Starliner, the new crewed capsule from Boeing, has been in the works for a long time. Originally unveiled in 2010, the capsule has been under development for the last 14 years, primarily utilizing NASA grants and contracts. However, Boeing itself has taken upwards of 1 billion dollars in hits to earnings as part of the craft’s development. After all that time in the prototype stages, Starliner is finally ready for its first crewed flight – which has now officially been scheduled for May 6th.
The launch will utilize a ULA Atlas V, which was also partly developed by Boeing. Like most Atlas V launches, it will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and take two astronauts – Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore – to the International Space Station.
To make room for the capsule, the crew already stationed on the ISS has to do some additional work, including moving a Dragon capsule out of the docking port on the ISS’s Harmony module to which the Starliner will have to attach. To move the capsule, they will also have to complete some additional “science and cargo logistics,” according to a NASA Press release.
Those logistics seem to be the primary cause of a final five-day delay (from May 1st to 5th) that the Starliner will have to endure. Once at the ISS, Williams and Wilmore will spend a week helping out on the ISS before using the Starliner capsule to return to Earth.
That is assuming all goes well with their flight. Starliner has had at least one spectacular failure as part of its development, though it successfully completed an uncrewed flight in May of 2022. If any astronauts are ready to ride on a new crewed capsule, it’s Williams and Wilmore. Both have been astronauts for over 20 years, and each was a trained Navy Test Pilot before joining NASA.
The capsule they will be using, known as Calypso, has already been to orbit, though not as many times as the astronauts themselves. It was used in the first orbital test flight, and while it didn’t manage to dock up with the ISS, it did land successfully and wouldn’t pose a risk to any astronauts on board.
Video from Boeing showcasing Starliner mounted atop an Atlas V.Upon completing this test flight, NASA hopes to rely on the Starliner to provide regular crewed missions to the ISS. This would be supplemental to the SpaceX Dragon capsule the agency already uses and mark the definitive end to the drought of American crewed spaceflight.
Future missions include a four-person flight planned for 2025, assuming all goes well with this first one. Boeing also has a contract with NASA for five additional flights between 2026 and 2030. But first, if all goes well, on May 6th, after decades of work, the world will hopefully gain another crewed vehicle to help facilitate our path to the stars.
Learn More:
Lead Image:
Perseverance Finds its Dream Rock
If there’s a Holy Grail on Mars, it’s probably a specific type of rock: A rock so important that it holds convincing clues to Mars’ ancient habitability.
Perseverance might have just found it.
If scientists could design the perfect rock for Perseverance to find, it would be one that displayed evidence of ancient water and was the type that preserves ancient organic material. The rover may have found it as it explores the Margin Unit, a geologic region on the inner edge of Jezero Crater’s rim. The Margin Unit was one of the reasons Jezero Crater was selected for Perseverance’s mission.
“To put it simply, this is the kind of rock we had hoped to find when we decided to investigate Jezero Crater.”
Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, Caltech.
The Margin Unit is in a narrow band along the crater’s western rim. Orbital observations showed that it’s one of the most carbonate-rich regions on the planet. “Its presence, along with the adjacent fluvial delta, made Jezero crater the most compelling landing site for the Mars 2020 <Perseverance> mission,” presenters at the 2024 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference wrote.
The Margin Unit lies near the western rim of Jezero Crater. White dots show Perseverance’s stopping points, and the blue line shows the rover’s future route.
Image Credit: R.C. Wiens et al. 2024
The decision to send Perseverance to the Jezero Crater and the Margin Unit seems to be paying off. Bunsen Peak caught scientists’ attention because it stands tall compared to its surroundings. One of the rock’s faces also has an interesting texture. Scientists thought the rock would allow for nice cross-sections, and since it stood vertically, there’d be less dust when working on it. Surface dust is a problem for Perseverance because it can obscure the rock’s chemistry.
The Perseverance team decided to sample it and cache the sample along with the rest of its cores for eventual return to Earth. But first, they scanned the rock’s surface with SuperCam and PIXL, the rover’s spectrometers. Then, they abraded the rock’s surface and scanned it again. The results show that Bunsen Peak is 75% carbonate grains cemented together by nearly pure silica.
“To put it simply, this is the kind of rock we had hoped to find when we decided to investigate Jezero Crater,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “Nearly all the minerals in the rock we just sampled were made in water; on Earth, water-deposited minerals are often good at trapping and preserving ancient organic material and biosignatures. The rock can even tell us about Mars’s climate conditions that were present when it was formed.”
This image shows the bottom of the Bunsen Peak sample core. The sample contains about 75% carbonate minerals cemented by almost pure silica.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here on our planet, carbonate minerals can form directly around microbe cells. Once encapsulated, the cells can quickly become fossils, and are preserved for a long time. This is what happened to stromatolites here on Earth, and they now constitute some of the earliest evidence of life on our planet.
These minerals are a high priority for return to Earth. This sample is number 24, named Comet Geyser, because everything gets a name when you intend to transport it to Earth from another planet.
There’s something specific that makes this sample even more intriguing. They’re microcrystalline rocks, meaning they’re made of crystals so small that only microscopes can see them. On Earth, microcrystalline rocks like Precambrian chert hold fossilized cyanobacteria. Could the same be true of Bunsen Peak?
“The silica and parts of the carbonate appear microcrystalline, which makes them extremely good at trapping and preserving signs of microbial life that might have once lived in this environment,” said Sandra Siljeström, a Perseverance scientist from the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) in Stockholm. “That makes this sample great for biosignature studies if returned to Earth. Additionally, the sample might be one of the older cores collected so far by Perseverance, and that is important because Mars was at its most habitable early in its history.”
Comet Geyser is Perseverance’s third sample from the Margin Unit. There’s still more work to do, but the samples support what scientists thought about Jezero Crater before Perseverance landed there: it was once a paleolake.
“We’re still exploring the margin and gathering data, but results so far may support our hypothesis that the rocks here formed along the shores of an ancient lake,” said Briony Horgan, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University. “The science team is also considering other ideas for the origin of the Margin Unit, as there are other ways to form carbonate and silica. But no matter how this rock formed, it is really exciting to get a sample.”
It wasn’t that long ago that we knew very little about Mars. In the absence of knowledge, imagination took over. American astronomer Percival Lowell wrote three books about canals on Mars, popularizing the idea that intelligent life was extant on Mars and engineering the planet’s surface.
Astronomers didn’t buy the idea, which turned out to be untrue. But now we know that Lowell was at least partially, though inadvertently, correct. There are no canals, but there may have been lakes.
There was no intelligent life, but there may have been simple life in those lakes. Once we get Comet Geyser and the other samples back to Earth, we may find out for sure.
Arrokoth and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Contain Pristine Ices, Study Suggests
A duo of planetary scientists from Brown University and the SETI Institute has found that the Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth, which was the target of the January 1, 2019 flyby by NASA’s New Horizons mission, may have ancient ices stored deep within it from when the object first formed billions of years ago. Using a new model they developed to study how comets evolve, the researchers suggest this feat of perseverance isn’t unique to Arrokoth but that many objects from the Kuiper Belt may also contain the ancient ices they formed with.
This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.
“We’ve shown here in our work, with a rather simple mathematical model, that you can keep these primitive ices locked deep within the interiors of these objects for really long times,” said Dr. Sam Birch, a planetary scientist at Brown University.
“Most of our community had thought that these ices should be long lost, but we think now that may not be the case.”
Until now, planetary scientists had a hard time figuring out what happens to ices on these space rocks over time.
The new study challenges widely used thermal evolutionary models that have failed to account for the longevity of ices that are as temperature sensitive as carbon monoxide.
The model Dr. Birch and SETI Institute researcher Orkan Umurhan created for the study accounts for this change and suggests that the highly volatile ices in these objects stick around much longer than was previously thought.
“We are basically saying that Arrokoth is so super cold that for more ice to sublimate — or go directly from solid to a gas, skipping the liquid phase within it — that the gas it sublimates into first has to have travel outwards through its porous, sponge-like interior,” Dr. Birch said.
“The trick is that to move the gas, you also have to sublimate the ice, so what you get is a domino effect: it gets colder within Arrokoth, less ice sublimates, less gas moves, it gets even colder, and so on.”
“Eventually, everything just effectively shuts off, and you’re left with an object full of gas that is just slowly trickling out.”
The study suggests that Kuiper Belt objects can act as dormant ‘ice bombs,’ preserving volatile gases within their interiors for billions of years until orbital shifts bring them closer to the Sun and the heat makes them unstable.
This new idea could help explain why these icy objects from the Kuiper Belt erupt so violently when they first get closer to the Sun.
All of a sudden, the cold gas inside them rapidly gets pressurized and these objects evolve into comets.
“The key thing is that we corrected a deep error in the physical model people had been assuming for decades for these very cold and old objects,” Dr. Umurhan said.
“This study could be the initial mover for reevaluating the comet interior evolution and activity theory.”
Altogether, the study challenges existing predictions and opens up new avenues for understanding the nature of comets and their origins.
D. Birch and Dr. Umurhan are co-investigators in NASA’s Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR) mission to acquire at least 80 grams of surface material from the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and return it to Earth for analysis.
The results from this study could help guide CAESAR’s exploration and sampling strategies, helping to deepen our understanding of cometary evolution and activity.
“There may well be massive reservoirs of these primitive materials locked away in small bodies all across the outer Solar System — materials that are just waiting to erupt for us to observe them or sit in deep freeze until we can retrieve them and bring them home to Earth,” Dr. Birch said.
Unveiling the Cosmos: Rep. Tim Burchett’s Quest for UFO Answers and Faith
In the vast expanse of the universe, the intersection of faith and the unknown often prompts profound questions. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, is at the forefront of a movement within Congress seeking transparency and answers about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). His unique stance intertwines his Christian faith with a belief in extraterrestrial life, a topic he delves into on an upcoming episode of NewsNation’s “Reality Check” podcast.
Rep. Burchett’s inquiry into UFOs is not just a quest for knowledge but a journey that harmonizes with his spiritual beliefs. The congressman argues that the existence of aliens and their mention in biblical texts do not contradict Christian faith but rather enrich it. According to Burchett, such references expand the understanding of the universe and God’s creation, moving beyond the confines of Earth.
The congressman points to passages in the Bible, like those in the Book of Ezekiel, which he interprets as possible encounters with extraterrestrial beings or spacecraft. He suggests that these descriptions of “wheels within wheels” and “living creatures” could hint at otherworldly visitors. Burchett’s openness to these interpretations challenges conventional readings of the scriptures and invites a broader contemplation of divine creation.
This exploration of the unknown is timely, as public interest in UFOs and what the government may know about them has surged. Burchett’s leadership in calling for more congressional hearings and whistleblower testimonies reflects a growing demand for transparency. These efforts seek to bridge the gap between unexplained aerial phenomena and public understanding, potentially reshaping perceptions of our place in the cosmos.
Moreover, Burchett’s perspective finds resonance beyond political or religious boundaries. The Vatican’s acknowledgment of the possibility of non-human intelligent life exemplifies a wider acceptance of these discussions within religious communities. This openness suggests a readiness to welcome the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence within the framework of faith.
As Rep. Burchett continues to advocate for more investigations and disclosures regarding UFOs, his approach underscores a pivotal moment where faith, politics, and the quest for cosmic truths converge. The congressman’s work not only propels a national conversation about extraterrestrial life but also prompts a reevaluation of humanity’s understanding of the universe through the lens of faith.
In anticipation of new hearings and revelations, the public’s interest remains keenly focused on what the future may hold. Rep. Burchett’s endeavors exemplify a courageous willingness to question, explore, and integrate the unknown with the spiritual, charting a course for a more inclusive and expansive view of the universe and our place within it.
Multiple UFO Sightings Over New York State Leave Witnesses Stumped
BY
ISTOCKPHOTO
A passenger on a commercial flight from from Florida to New York City captured a mysterious metallic-looking UFO through the window of the plane.
“Watch It fly by over the top of the clip first few seconds… video was taken from a friend flying back from Florida to NYC. By far the clearest video I’ve ever seen,” the person who shared the footage on Reddit wrote.
When viewed at normal speed it is somewhat difficult to pick out the UFO in the sky with all of the background noise.
However, when slowed down, the object looks a lot like the classic flying saucer type of UFO.
“Here’s what I know about the footage,” The Hidden Underbelly 2.0 said about the video. “This was captured on March the 25th, 2024 from a flight leaving from Florida to New York City and this was what was caught at the New York City end of the flight.
“Now when we look at this object we can see that it’s tapered in and I don’t see the propellers where we would expect to see.
“If this was a drone and flying this close to a commercial airliner somebody would be in trouble if this was a drone. As for another plane, well, where’s the wings?”
Earlier this month a fleet of UFOs was spotted and recorded in the night sky over Lowville, New York.
According to the eyewitness, “You’ll see in the video, the lights that appeared, and just as they came slowly in the frame, the lights went out I have seen star link and this was not that.
“I have also seen in person military exercises using flares at night and this was also not that.
“I am big into looking at stars and very aware of the world around me and I slammed on my brakes.
“The first time I saw it didn’t get my phone out in time. I waited a minute or two and then it appeared once more and got the video just after it started, I waited around another 10 minutes and did not appear again, it seemed like it lit up pretty much in the same spot as the first time.”
Map Shows UFO Hotspots After Thousands Of Sightings And Reappearance Of Mysterious Monolith
KAY SMYTHE - NEWS AND COMMENTARY WRITER
A map published Monday details the locations of thousands of UFO encounters across the British Isles.
An enormous steel monolith appeared in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, (arguably the greatest town in the world) in March, prompting many locals to suggest the object is some type of alien technology, according to CBS News. In reality, the monoliths are 10- to 12-foot-tall pieces of metal artwork that have shown up in Utah, California, Romania and New Mexico, according to Vox, and now it is hanging out in Wales — a nation known for its ancient cultures that predate what the Romans never did for us.
Even though the monolith is probably just a poorly executed art prank, there are still countless reports across the British Isles of visitors from other worlds. Analysis by InYourArea revealed thousands of UFO sightings and other types of strange phenomena throughout the tiny nation since 2020.
In 2023 there were 395 UFO sightings, according to data collated from the research team at UFO Identified, social media, newspaper reports, 50 Freedom of Information Act requests and reports made directly to the group. This is a 20% drop compared to 2022, when almost 500 reports were made.
In 2021 and 2020, there were 413 and 484 UFO reports respectively. Some of these sightings included the traditional “glowing orbs” we’ve seen in multiple videos shared online. A flying saucer was also spotted over Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
Another report included 15 bright lights being chased through the sky by an Apache helicopter and two fighter jets.
More recent reports suggest that Stansted Airport in London is a “UFO hotspot” as mystery objects seemingly hurl themselves all over the skies above the runways. Pilots for the cheap and unhinged (like me) airline RyanAir said he saw a “black” object about 65 feet from his aircraft in November 2023 as he made his way out of Stansted.
Extraordinary tape of Calvin Parker, who features in Netflix's Files of the Unexplained, reveals man abducted by an 'alien' in Pascagoula fought the creature off by grabbing it 'by her skinny-a** little neck'
A new Netflix series covering an alien abduction that saw a man claim that he strangled a female 'alien' after she poked her finger up his nose has aired on the streaming platform.
Files Of The Unexplained explores 'eight haunting encounters that may make you start second-guessing everything you have ever known.'
The first episode of the series focuses on the experiences of Calvin Parker when he was aged 19, after he maintained that he fought off an 'alien' by '[getting] her round her skinny-a** neck'.
According to Mr Parker, the alleged incident occurred when he was fishing on the banks of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi with his friend Charles Hickson.
The pair claimed that a UFO landed nearby and they were grabbed by strange creatures with lobster-like claws.
Files Of The Unexplained explores 'eight haunting encounters that may make you start second-guessing everything you have ever known.'
Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson claimed they were abducted by aliens while fishing in 1973
After undergoing regressive hypnosis with alien abduction researcher Budd Hopkins, Calvin says he was able to unlock memories of the supposed occurrence.
Recordings obtained by The Sun in 2019 asks him a series of questions about the Pascagoula incident in October 1973.
In the audio clip, Calvin says that he can remember seeing strange orange and blue lights coming towards him before a UFO lands next to his car parked near the pier.
He continued his version of events by saying that four odd-looking creatures 'built like football players' emerged.
Elaborating on the incident, he said that the strange creature stuck her finger in his nose and had 'a bad attitude'.
Calvin adds: 'I've seen her before, I really hate her, I hate her.
'She has something in her hand, she's takes the thing down my nose, around my nose and she's reaching for my lip.
He then alleged that he was undressed by a female alien, and subsequently felt as though he was being injected with a dangerously hot unknown substance, continuing: 'I feel like she changed all my blood out of my veins, I've never felt anything that hot in all my life.'
Calvin then told an astonishing tale of how he was seemingly able to escape from the creature's grasp after she had come back into an unidentified room.
He says: 'She's coming back in the room, the door opens and I can leave. She walked in and I grabbed her.
'I got her round her skinny-a** little neck and I'm choking her right now and she's fixing to go with me.
'And I'm beating her head against this mirror and there's some kind of black stuff coming out. And then through the door the thing that brought me in and I felt a stinging again.'
Calvin finished by his astonishing version of the alleged events by saying that he was released by the creature, leaving him free to return to the pier where he reunites with Charlie, who also publicly claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
Ufologists have long been fascinated by an alleged close encounter on Pascagoula River, Mississippi, in 1973
Mr Hickson died aged 80 in 2011, but maintained that the alien abduction story was true despite heavy scepticism from many quarters.
British UFO investigator Philip Mantle, who has published Calvin's book, Pascagoula - The Closest Encounter - said: 'To my surprise the hypnosis session produced quite a lot of information that had not previously been available.
'Calvin goes on to describe his encounter with a 'female alien' on board the UFO who he believed was going to kill him.
'Calvin at one point attacked this female alien in an attempt to kill her first and allow him to escape. Calvin also claims that this female alien hurt him.
UFOs over Italy and Florida and they want you to believe it's alien
Radioactive Alien Implants in Humans
In the vast and often uncharted territories of UFOlogy and extraterrestrial research, a groundbreaking case emerges that challenges our understanding of the unknown. Among the myriad of stories about encounters with otherworldly beings, one narrative stands out due to its tangible, albeit mysterious, evidence: radioactive implants discovered inside a woman, pointing to a possible extraterrestrial intervention.
The case revolves around an individual who, after experiencing a UFO encounter, was found to have peculiar implants inside her body. These implants are not just unusual in their presence but are distinguished by their radioactive nature. Such a characteristic is not typically associated with earthly materials used in medical implants, suggesting a possible origin that is not of this world.
The implants were described as being of a bio-organic composition, unlike any known substances on Earth. This discovery raises intriguing questions about their purpose and origin. Are these devices a form of biological surveillance? Or could they be tools for monitoring and potentially manipulating their human hosts?
The investigation into these mysterious implants has been spearheaded by experts in the field of alien abductions, who have dedicated decades to unraveling the phenomena of UFO encounters and abductions. One expert, with over 40 years of research under his belt, has accumulated evidence of various alien implants extracted from individuals claiming to have been part of extraterrestrial hybridization programs.
These programs, as alleged by those who have experienced them, involve the collection of human genetic material by alien species. The end goal appears to be the creation of hybrid entities, combining human and extraterrestrial DNA. The implants found in victims are thought to play a crucial role in this grand scheme, serving purposes that range from genetic manipulation to tracking and control of the human subjects.
The existence of radioactive alien implants supports the theory that Earth is the stage for a cosmic agenda, orchestrated by advanced beings from the far reaches of the galaxy. This agenda, as some researchers suggest, could be focused on genetic experiments that blur the lines between species, creating hybrids that serve purposes unknown to us.
Speculations abound regarding the intentions behind these interventions. Some view them as part of a benevolent effort to elevate human consciousness and evolution, integrating humanity into a broader galactic community. Others, however, perceive these actions as malevolent, aimed at controlling or even replacing the human race.
The implications of such discoveries are profound, opening up a Pandora’s box of ethical, philosophical, and existential questions. What does it mean for humanity if we are indeed not alone, and more so, if we are under the surveillance and manipulation of alien species? The evidence of radioactive implants is a piece of the larger puzzle, suggesting that our understanding of the universe and our place within it may be on the cusp of a paradigm shift.
While the evidence of radioactive alien implants offers a tantalizing glimpse into the unknown, it also underscores the need for rigorous scientific investigation and an open-minded approach to the mysteries of the cosmos. As we stand on the brink of potentially groundbreaking discoveries, it is crucial to navigate these uncharted waters with both skepticism and curiosity, ever mindful of the vast, unexplored frontiers that lie beyond our current understanding.
Inside the Secret Pentagon UFO Program
In an era where the unexplained often takes a backseat to the concrete evidence of science, the existence of a secret Pentagon program dedicated to investigating Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) or Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) sounds like the plot of a sci-fi thriller. Yet, it’s not the fabric of fiction but a reality that was once shrouded in the highest levels of secrecy within the U.S. government. This initiative, known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), represents a fascinating chapter in the ongoing quest to understand phenomena that defy conventional explanation.
The AATIP emerged from the shadows into public awareness primarily through a groundbreaking exposé, bringing to light the U.S. Government’s clandestine efforts to study UAPs. This program was not the concoction of conspiracy theorists but a well-funded, serious endeavor backed by the Department of Defense, tasked with the systematic study of unidentified flying objects. The initiative was spearheaded by Luis Elizondo, a career intelligence officer, who led the program until his resignation in 2017. Elizondo’s leadership and subsequent decision to come forward played a pivotal role in unveiling the program’s existence and its findings to the world.
What makes the AATIP notably significant is the high caliber of its investigations and the credibility of the sources involved. Fighter pilots, radar operators, and military personnel provided firsthand accounts of encounters with objects demonstrating capabilities far beyond existing technology. These accounts are not mere anecdotes but are supported by radar data and, in some cases, video footage, adding a compelling layer of veracity to the UFO sightings.
One of the most famous incidents investigated by the AATIP occurred in 2004, involving Navy Commander David Fravor’s encounter with an object described as a “Tic Tac” due to its shape. This object exhibited extraordinary flight characteristics, including instantaneous acceleration and abrupt stops, capabilities that remain unexplained by modern aerodynamics.
VIDEO:
Despite the groundbreaking nature of its investigations, the AATIP faced internal challenges, particularly regarding the dissemination of its findings within the Pentagon and to the public. Elizondo’s frustration with the bureaucratic hurdles and the stigma associated with UAP research led to his resignation. His departure was not an act of defiance but a strategic move to bring the program’s discoveries to the public eye, catalyzing a broader conversation about the phenomenon.
The revelation of the AATIP has significantly impacted the public and scientific discourse surrounding UAPs. No longer relegated to the fringes of serious study, the acknowledgment of these phenomena by the Pentagon has paved the way for a more open and rigorous examination. It raises fundamental questions about our understanding of technology, physics, and perhaps most intriguingly, the possibility of otherworldly visitors.
The AATIP’s legacy is not just in its pursuit of the unknown but in its contribution to destigmatizing the study of UAPs. By bringing the conversation into the mainstream, it challenges us to confront the limits of our knowledge and the vastness of the unknown with an open mind. The program serves as a reminder that the pursuit of understanding is an endless journey, one that requires curiosity, courage, and, above all, an unwavering commitment to the truth.
Waarom de wereld in 2026 zou kunnen vergaan, aldus deze wetenschapper
©Shutterstock
Waarom de wereld in 2026 zou kunnen vergaan, aldus deze wetenschapper
Volgens natuurkundige Heinz von Foerster wordt 2026 een heel slecht jaar voor de mensheid. Terwijl de wereldbevolking blijft toenemen, samen met de voedselonzekerheid, verstedelijking, ontbossing en klimaatverandering, voorspelt Van Foerster dat 2026 het jaar zal zijn waarin deze factoren een kookpunt zullen bereiken. Het interessante is, zoals je in deze galerij zult zien, hoe hij tot die voorspelling kwam, en wat we kunnen doen om dit vreselijke lot te voorkomen.
LEES dus VERDER door deze galerij om te zien wat er kan gebeuren en hoe je mogelijk kunt bijdragen aan het redden van de wereld!
©Shutterstock
Inleiding tot de voorspelling van Heinz von Foerster
Natuurkundige Heinz von Foerster, geboren in 1911, voorspelde dat er in 2026 catastrofale bevolkingsniveaus zouden kunnen optreden, waarbij hij wiskunde gebruikte om een 'Doomsday'-scenario te voorspellen waarin hulpbronnen de menselijke groei niet kunnen ondersteunen.
©Getty Images
Historische perspectieven op bevolkingsgroei
De Engelse econoom Thomas Robert Malthus, geboren in 1766, theoretiseerde dat de bevolkingsgroei altijd groter zal zijn dan de voedselvoorziening. Hij beweerde dat de verbetering van de mensheid onmogelijk is zonder strikte beperkingen op de voortplanting. Technologische vooruitgang op het gebied van landbouw en voedselproductie heeft de situatie sinds Malthus' tijd verbeterd, maar overbevolking is nog steeds een groot probleem.
©Shutterstock
De wiskunde achter de doemdagtheorie van 2026
De voorspelling van Von Foerster is geworteld in complexe vergelijkingen, die voorspellen dat de exponentiële bevolkingsgroei in 2026 een onhoudbaar niveau zal bereiken.
©Getty Images
Technologische vooruitgang in de voedselproductie
Technologische innovatie heeft de voedselproductie aanzienlijk vergroot, waardoor de Malthusiaanse crisis is afgewend, maar ook vragen rijzen over de duurzaamheid op de lange termijn en de impact op het milieu.
©Shutterstock
Het debat over geboortebeperking en bevolkingsbeheer
De theorie van Von Foerster wakkert de discussies over geboortebeperking en ethisch bevolkingsbeheer opnieuw aan als instrumenten om potentiële overbevolkingscrises te voorkomen.
©Getty Images
Het concept van een 'Peoplo-stat'
De 'peoplo-stat' stelt een regelgevend mechanisme voor om de bevolking op een duurzaam niveau te houden, waarbij de nadruk wordt gelegd op proactieve maatregelen boven reactieve oplossingen.
©Getty Images
Ethische overwegingen bij bevolkingscontrole
Bevolkingscontrolemaatregelen, waaronder geboortebeperking, leiden tot ethische debatten, waarbij individuele rechten in evenwicht worden gebracht met collectief welzijn en ecologische duurzaamheid.
©Getty Images
Mondiale implicaties van een ongecontroleerde bevolkingsgroei
Als er geen systemen worden ingevoerd om de rijkdommen en hulpbronnen van de wereld gelijkmatiger te verdelen, zou een ongecontroleerde bevolkingsgroei een risico voor het milieu kunnen vormen en tot nog ernstiger sociaal-economische verschillen kunnen leiden, waardoor een mondiale reactie noodzakelijk is.
©Shutterstock
Scepsis en kritiek op de voorspelling van de dag des oordeels
Critici van Von Foersters voorspelling beweren dat menselijk vernuft en toekomstige technologische vooruitgang de risico's van overbevolking kunnen verkleinen.
©Getty Images
Milieu-impact van overbevolking
Overbevolking versnelt de milieuproblemen, van de vernietiging van habitats tot klimaatverandering, wat de noodzaak van duurzame strategieën voor bevolkings- en hulpbronnenbeheer onderstreept.
©Getty Images
Sociale en economische gevolgen van de bevolkingsgroei
De snelle bevolkingsgroei zet de economieën onder druk en vergroot de sociale ongelijkheid, waardoor beleid nodig is dat een rechtvaardige groei en een verdeling van de hulpbronnen bevordert.
©Getty Images
Technologische oplossingen en duurzame ontwikkeling
Het omarmen van duurzame technologieën is van cruciaal belang om de bevolkingsgroei in evenwicht te brengen met het behoud van het milieu, waardoor de behoefte aan groene innovaties wordt gestimuleerd.
©Getty Images
De rol van internationale samenwerking bij bevolkingscontrole
Mondiale uitdagingen vereisen uniforme antwoorden; internationale samenwerking op het gebied van bevolkingsbeheer kan leiden tot gedeelde oplossingen voor duurzaamheid.
©Getty Images
Culturele houding ten opzichte van gezinsgrootte
Culturele normen hebben een aanzienlijke invloed op beslissingen over gezinsplanning, wat het belang van cultureel gevoelige benaderingen van bevolkingscontrole benadrukt.
©Getty Images
Historische nauwkeurigheid van doemscenario-voorspellingen
Eerdere voorspellingen van bevolkingscrises zijn vaak onjuist gebleken, wat de complexiteit van het voorspellen van de menselijke ontwikkeling en het gebruik van hulpbronnen aantoont.
©Getty Images
De psychologische impact van bevolkingsangst
Bezorgdheid over de bevolkingsgroei kan het maatschappelijk welzijn beïnvloeden, wat de noodzaak van een geïnformeerd discours en proactieve beleidsvorming onderstreept.
©Getty Images
Verstedelijking en de effecten ervan op de bevolkingsdynamiek
De snelle verstedelijkingstrend verandert de bevolkingsverdeling en vereist innovatieve benaderingen van stadsplanning en hulpbronnenbeheer. Dit gebeurt zo snel dat veel gebieden het helemaal niet meer kunnen bijhouden.
©Getty Images
Landbouwinnovaties om de groeiende bevolking te ondersteunen
Vooruitgang in de landbouw, inclusief genetisch gemodificeerde gewassen en duurzame landbouwpraktijken, is van cruciaal belang voor het voeden van de groeiende wereldbevolking.
©Getty Images
De toekomst van voedselzekerheid
Het garanderen van de voedselzekerheid voor een groeiende wereldbevolking vereist innovatieve strategieën die de productie verhogen en de verspilling verminderen.
UFO size of moon seen by Reinhold Messner, famous mountain climber from Italy. 👽👀🛸 1981, Katmandu, Nepal UAP sighting newsBlack UFO over ocean in Tampa, Florida, March 5, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
Pilot Reports UFO Over Canby, Minnesota March 4, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
String of UFOs over Lowville, New York, USA on March 7, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
Scott C. Waring
Glowing UFO Over Phoenix, Arizona on March 10, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
Giant UFO over China on doppler radar weather map, March 29, 2024, UAP sighting news.
Verbijsterende oude uitvindingen die de wetenschap nog steeds niet kan verklaren
©Getty Images
Verbijsterende oude uitvindingen die de wetenschap nog steeds niet kan verklaren
Het is makkelijk om de evolutie van technologie te zien als een lineair proces. Beginnend bij de meest primitieve eenvoudige machines tot de zelfrijdende auto's en kunstmatige intelligentie die we vandaag hebben. Maar dat klopt niet helemaal. Sommige oude culturen slaagden erin om verbijsterend complexe en geavanceerde uitvindingen te ontwikkelen met behulp van technieken en kennis die uit het niets leken te komen. En sommigen daarvan hebben we met onze huidige middelen en kennis nooit weten te repliceren. Voor wetenschappers en historici blijft het dan ook een mysterie hoe ze er vroeger ooit in slaagden tot deze uitvindingen te komen.
Gefascineerd? LEES verder en ontdek enkele onverklaarbare uitvinden uit de geschiedenis.
©Public Domain
Grieks vuur
Tijdens de zevende eeuw werd het Byzantijnse rijk aangevallen door indringers uit het oosten van de Middellandse Zee. Gelukkig hadden ze een geheim wapen, bekend als Grieks vuur, dat vanaf Byzantijnse schepen op vijandelijke schepen werd gespoten. Dit werd gedaan met een apparaat dat nooit is nagemaakt, maar in de oude literatuur een 'sifon' wordt genoemd.
©Public Domain
Grieks vuur
Het meest verbijsterende aspect is dat Grieks vuur kan blijven branden, zelfs op water. Wetenschappers weten nog steeds niet waar het van gemaakt is. Na de val van het Byzantijnse rijk verdween het oude vuurwapen om nooit meer te worden gebruikt.
©Public Domain
Damascus-staal
Tijdens de kruistochten verschenen er rapporten die een superieur staal uit de Levant documenteerden dat ongelooflijk scherp en flexibel was en maar onbreekbaar scheen te zijn.
©Getty Images
Damascus-staal
Het werd ooit beschreven als een legering die 'door een zwevende zakdoek kon snijden, 90 graden kon buigen en terug kon buigen zonder schade op te lopen.' Tot op de dag van vandaag heeft niemand het originele recept kunnen repliceren.
©Getty Images
Antikythera mechanisme
In 1901 werd een vreemd mechanisch apparaat gevonden op de bodem van de Middellandse Zee. Dit item staat nu bekend als het Antikythera-mechanisme en dateert uit het Griekenland van de tweede eeuw.
©Getty Images
Antikythera mechanisme
Hoewel wordt aangenomen dat het een soort astronomisch rekenapparaat is, weet niemand wie het heeft gebouwd of hoe ze het hebben gebouwd, aangezien technologie van een vergelijkbare complexiteit bijna duizend jaar niet meer is gezien.
©Getty Images
De eerste seismoscoop
De seismoscoop van Zhang Heng werd rond 132 in China gemaakt. Men denkt dat het de eerste machine in zijn soort was en aardbevingen met een verrassende nauwkeurigheid kon detecteren. De gebruikte technologie was zijn tijd ver vooruit en historici weten nog steeds niet hoe deze sprong mogelijk was.
©Getty Images
De eerste seismoscoop
Elke draak vertegenwoordigt een hoofdkompasrichting, en een bal zou uit een van de monden van de draak in de mond van de bijbehorende kikker vallen, wat aangeeft in welke richting de seismische activiteit plaatsvond.
©Getty Images
De ijzeren pilaar van Delhi
In Delhi, India, staat een massieve ijzeren pilaar van 7,21 meter hoog. Hij staat er al sinds de vierde eeuw. Wat deze specifieke pilaar interessant maakt, is dat hij volledig vrij is van roest, zelfs na meer dan een millennium blootgesteld te zijn aan de natuurlijke elementen.
©Getty Images
De ijzeren pilaar van Delhi
Tot op de dag van vandaag staan wetenschappers versteld van de onberispelijke staat van de ijzeren pilaar. Sommigen geloven dat het gebrek aan roest te wijten is aan het droge klimaat van Delhi, terwijl anderen denken dat het komt door de unieke minerale samenstelling van het ijzer dat voor de constructie is gebruikt.
©Public Domain
De aeolipil
Hoewel het tijdperk van stoom pas in 1776 door Thomas Newcomen en zijn stoommachine werd afgetrapt, vond een oude Griekse uitvinder met de naam Reiger Alexandrinus zijn eigen pneumatische stoommachine uit in de eerste eeuw n.Chr.
©Getty Images
De aeolipil
De technologie was baanbrekend, maar werd zwaar ondergewaardeerd en werd destijds niet praktisch gebruikt. Deze eerste stoommachine was erg zwak en produceerde slechts een minimale hoeveelheid koppel. Desalniettemin was het toch bijzonder!
©Getty Images
Het Voynich-manuscript
Het Voynich-manuscript is een van de meest mysterieuze boeken in de geschiedenis en heeft sinds de ontdekking in 1912 zelfs de beste cryptologen in de ban gedaan. Het dateert uit de 15e eeuw, maar dat is dan ook alles wat zeker is over het boek.
©Getty Images
Het Voynich-manuscript
Hoewel niemand het met zekerheid kan zeggen, geloven de meeste experts dat het manuscript tijdens de Renaissance in Italië is ontstaan. Het is geschreven in een taal waarvan is bewezen dat het onmogelijk te decoderen is, en het staat vol met schijnbaar wetenschappelijke tekeningen van flora waarvan niet bekend is dat ze in de natuurlijke wereld voorkomen.
©Getty Images
De Indiase vliegmachines
Er zijn een aantal meldingen van vliegmachines die dateren van lang voor de historische succesvolle vlucht van de gebroeders Wright. Misschien is de oudste die tot nu toe is gevonden de 'Rukma Vimana', een oude Vedische tekst die teruggaat tot 400 v.Chr. in India.
©Public Domain
De Indiase vliegmachines
De Rukma Vimana, toegeschreven aan Maharshi Bhardwaj (foto), bevat schetsen van deze vliegmachines, evenals gedetailleerde instructies over hoe ermee te vliegen en zelfs hoe ze in tijden van nood op zonne-energie kunnen worden overgeschakeld.
©Public Domain
De Lycurgus-beker
De Lycurgus-beker zou in de vierde eeuw zijn gemaakt, ergens in het Romeinse rijk. Toen de beker naar het British Museum of London werd gebracht, waren de curatoren daar verbaasd over het vermogen om van kleur en transparantie te veranderen, afhankelijk van uit welke richting het licht erop viel.
©Public Domain
De Lycurgus-beker
Wanneer het van voren wordt verlicht, is de beker donkerrood van kleur, maar wanneer het van de achterkant wordt verlicht, gloeit het groen. Onderzoekers hebben sindsdien geconcludeerd dat het is gemaakt met behulp van een primitieve vorm van nanotechnologie, maar hoe de oude Romeinen deze technologie hebben ontwikkeld, blijft een mysterie.
©Getty Images
Oude atoomoorlogvoering
De Mahabharata wordt beschouwd als een niet-fictief verslag van een lange en oude oorlog tussen twee Indiase stamfamilies. Sommige momenten van geweld en verwoesting in het boek lijken griezelig veel op de nasleep van een atoomexplosie, waarbij miljoenen levens worden geëist binnen enkele dagen na het gebruik van wapens. Die wapens werden in het oorspronkelijke Sanskriet 'astra' worden genoemd, oftewel 'lanceerders'.
©Getty Images
Oude atoomoorlogvoering
Dit lijkt natuurlijk onmogelijk, maar toen er studies werden gedaan in de regio van India waar deze veldslagen plaatsvonden, vonden ze een onverklaarbaar hoog aantal kankers en geboorteafwijkingen onder de oude bewoners. Noch wetenschappers noch historici hebben enig licht kunnen werpen op dit mysterie.
©Public Domain
Dokter Sushruta
Sushruta was een Indiase arts uit de negende eeuw die regelmatig operaties en medische prestaties uitvoerde die in zijn tijd waarschijnlijk wonderen leken. Veel van deze prestaties zijn vastgelegd in zijn boek Sushruta Samhita.
©Public Domain
Dokter Sushruta
Sushruta documenteert hoe hij operaties uitvoert die zelfs volgens de huidige normen moeilijk zijn, waaronder succesvolle cataractverwijderingen, neusreconstructie en schijnbaar zelfs succesvolle prothetische operaties.
©Getty Images
Het hypogeum van Hal Saflieni
Onder het eiland Malta ligt een uitgestrekte ondergrondse necropolis die bekend staat als het Hypogeum van Hal Saflieni. Oorspronkelijk ontdekt in 1902, geloven experts dat het rond 2500 v.Chr. uit kalksteen is gehouwen.
©Getty Images
Het hypogeum van Hal Saflieni
Een bepaalde kamer, nu bekend als de orakelkamer, verbijstert wetenschappers tot op de dag van vandaag. Elk geluid dat in deze kamer wordt gemaakt, wordt bijna 100 keer versterkt. Een verbluffend staaltje oude akoestiek. Wetenschappers weten niet zeker of dit opzettelijk is gedaan vanwege onverklaarbare geavanceerde technieken, of gewoon toeval was.
©Getty Images
Romeins beton
Beton staat al lang bekend als een van de eenvoudigste en meest betrouwbare bouwmaterialen die we hebben. Hoewel je redelijkerwijs zou kunnen aannemen dat het proces van het mengen van beton in de loop van de tijd alleen maar is verbeterd, blijkt dat de oude Romeinen veel betere betonmakers waren dan wij.
©Getty Images
Romeins beton
Sommige Romeinse betonconstructies hebben meer dan 2000 jaar standgehouden, soms zelfs onder water. Hoewel wetenschappers de samenstelling van het oude beton nauwkeurig hebben bestudeerd en sporen hebben gevonden van vulkanische as en het mineraal leuciet, waarvan ze vermoeden dat het de geheime ingrediënten zijn, zijn ze er nog steeds niet in geslaagd het materiaal te recreëren.
©Getty Images
Zonnestenen van de Vikingen
Oud-Noorse verhalen vertellen over een magische steen die onmisbaar was voor Vikingen die de verraderlijke zeeën overstaken. Van deze steen werd gezegd dat hij met onverklaarbare nauwkeurigheid de positie van de zon aanduidde, zelfs als het bewolkt was.
©Getty Images
Zonnestenen van de Vikingen
Wetenschappers geloven tegenwoordig dat deze stenen brokken IJslandse spar of calciet zijn, waarvan bekend is dat ze polariserende effecten hebben. Maar experts hebben het proces van het gebruik van deze stenen om de zon te lokaliseren niet kunnen repliceren.
©Getty Images
Ulfberht-zwaarden
Net als bij de Damascus-zwaarden uit het Midden-Oosten, zijn onderzoekers stomverbaasd als het gaat om de samenstelling van de oude Ulfberht-zwaarden van Noord-Europa. Deze zwaarden werden veel gebruikt tijdens het Vikingtijdperk en waren gemaakt van staal dat zo sterk en zo puur is dat het niet lijkt te passen bij de smelt- en metallurgietechnieken waarvan bekend is dat ze destijds werden gebruikt.
©Getty Images
Ulfberht-zwaarden
Een specifiek Ulfberht-zwaard (niet afgebeeld), ontdekt in 2014, was gegraveerd met Arabische letters, waardoor sommigen geloofden dat de vroege handel tussen de twee culturen het mogelijk maakte dat sommige van de Damascus-technieken door de Noord-Europeanen werden overgenomen.
©Getty Images
Romeinse dodecaëder
Een van de meest blijvende mysteries van het oude Europa is die van de Romeinse dodecaëder. Ze zijn overal in Europa ontdekt, variëren in grootte en dateren allemaal uit de tweede tot de vierde eeuw na Christus.
©Getty Images
Romeinse dodecaëder
Hoewel hun complexe vormen en onheilspellende knoppen die aan elk punt uitsteken, lijken aan te geven dat ze een functie moeten hebben gehad, is nooit ontdekt waar ze voor werden gebruikt. Sommige deskundigen zijn van mening dat binnen de wetenschap wordt gezocht naar betekenis, terwijl die niet bestaat. Ze denken dat het simpelweg speelgoed was voor Romeinse kinderen.
Bronnen:
“Everything’s a Conspiracy”: Chris Carter on the Legacy of The X-Files
The creator of the seminal sci-fi series has officially parted ways with his claim to fame and returned to his original passion: art.
There’s a reason why The X-Files never continued beyond its 2016 revival. Long-term fans didn’t take well to the reboot of the ‘90s classic, but producers at Fox knew what they had. The X-Files in its prime was the rare left-of-field procedural, one that would go on to inspire everything from Supernatural and True Detective to Breaking Bad and Homeland. It would also make the studio exorbitantly rich, so Fox was prepared to greenlight the series for another season, ratings be damned. It was Chris Carter, the creator and longtime steward of The X-Files, who put his foot down.
“I needed some time off,” Carter tells Inverse. “I wanted to go surfing.”
Carter’s been a surfer much longer than he’s been in television. Apart from writing, Carter is also a multimedia artist, creating pottery, prints, and photo collages that stand almost in defiance to his legacy with The X-Files.
Chief among his works, which he recently exhibited at Legacy West Media in Los Angeles, is a piece called “My Crowning Achievement.” Its design doesn’t feature Fox Mulder or Dana Scully, the FBI agents he helped bring to life in The X-Files, but a gold leaf-dusted motif of Hello Kitty. The true purpose of this artwork remains a mystery, and the same could be said for the bulk of the work in the Chris Carter Collection.
Carter’s flagship piece, the cheekily-named “My Crowning Achievement.”
“Every piece in here is personal,” Carter says. “Showing them to people, it’s exposing yourself a little bit.” That’s why Carter never outright explains the story behind any one composition. He’d rather let it speak for itself — or rather, field guesses from his audience. “Everyone is always like, What’s ‘My Crowning Achievement’? And why are there Hello Kittys on it? I’ll tell you that it all works for me in my mind.”
At 67, Carter has more than earned the right to a little introspection. The X-Files was an improbable phenomenon, one enjoyed by millions all over the world — but it was also a piece of Carter’s soul. For over 30 years he’s shared it with the world, and its legacy has followed him everywhere, even bleeding into some of his art.
Standing amongst his personal, once-private projects, you get the sense that Carter has well and truly moved on from The X-Files. The show, of course, is never far from his mind — and he’s happy to share anecdotes about his tenure. With its 30th anniversary finally in the rear view, however, Carter seems ready to move into the next chapter. Even if it doesn’t make sense to Hollywood, there’s likely no better time to forge ahead.
Carter had to fight hard for the core cast of The X-Files. “They didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the show,” he admits of Fox.
ANGELA WEISS/GETTY IMAGES ENTERTAINMENT/GETTY IMAGES
It’s a sunny, windy day in Downtown LA — perfect surf weather — when Carter and I meet at Legacy West. His exhibition concluded the night before, and the bulk of his pieces are about to be scattered to the winds. Though I’ve caught the tail end of the showcase, select prints are available to purchase through the gallery’s website.
By all accounts, the show was a success, but Carter is still surprised by its reception. “I hope it’s a hit,” he says quietly. “And I hope I get to make more art. That’s really what I do.”
Carter majored in art at California State University, Long Beach, and put himself through school making pottery. Being a craftsman, he says, is not unlike the act of making a TV show. “You’re doing the same thing every day, the same 10 things every day. You’re coming up with an idea. You’re plotting the idea that you just came up with. You’re writing the idea you just plotted.” And on and on, from pre-production to post and editing to special effects.
“You’re doing all those things every day,” Carter says, a real fire in his eyes. “Every day. The clock is ticking and the pressure is on.”
From the outside looking in, it sounds like hell. But Carter was clearly forged in that fire, and though he’s content without it, he does seem to miss it on occasion.
“My wife and I, we were just on the road driving for nine hours,” Carter says. “She says, ‘Don't you get tired of this?’ I said, ‘No, I love the intensity of it. It reminds me of producing television.’”
The Chris Carter Collection featured a few pieces of memorabilia from The X-Files.
There aren’t many reminders of The X-Files in his exhibition, but there were a few small tokens for fans of the series. In one corner of the studio, almost as a consolation prize, rests a case full of coveted memorabilia: an alien prop mask, a director’s slate from the revival, and the original casting sheet from the ‘90s.
The latter comes complete with Carter’s handwritten notes from auditions. Alongside David Duchovny’s name, who auditioned against hundreds for the role of Mulder: a simple “Yes.” Carter had similar feelings for Gillian Anderson, who went on to play Scully, but casting the actor wouldn’t be so easy.
“For Gillian I wrote ‘Test,’ which means I wanted to take her before the studio and the network,” Carter says.
“They didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the show.”
Fox famously wanted a bombshell type for Scully, ideally someone like Pamela Anderson. “Where’s the sex appeal?” Carter recalls executives saying. “Even though Gillian's beautiful, she wasn't their idea of sexy. First, because they didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the show. And she was an unknown, so that never helps.”
Duchovny, too, was a relative unknown, which made both castings more of a gamble than most realize now. But as the story goes, Carter fought hard for the actors, Fox conceded, and the rest is history.
“Ancient history,” Carter says wryly.
Carter has officially moved on from The X-Files: “I’m looking forward to seeing what somebody else does with it.”
FOX/FOX IMAGE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
With or without Carter, The X-Files is too big a property to abandon outright. Fox is still keen to continue the series by any means necessary — but with Carter focusing on other projects, the studio has put its faith in a new director.
The fate of The X-Files now rests in the hands of Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler. Carter isn’t involved in any capacity, but he’s content to cheer from the sidelines. “It’s interesting, people say, ‘Aren't you possessive of it?’ And I say, ‘No, I’m looking forward to seeing what somebody else does with it,’” Carter says.
The pair had “a really nice conversation” when Coogler first pitched the reboot to Fox: “I just asked him what his ideas were, and he told me, and I said, ‘Those sound like good ideas.’”
So the blessing is secured, but that’s really only half the battle as far as Carter’s concerned. “No matter what, he's got a hard job,” he says. “Casting is a hard job. Mounting it is a hard job. All the problems that I dealt with are going to be his problems.
The world of The X-Files is getting a diverse reboot from Black Panther’s Ryan Coogler.
GARETH CATTERMOLE/GETTY IMAGES ENTERTAINMENT/GETTY IMAGES
Equally tricky will be tackling new ideas of “conspiracy” in such a cynical, post-modern age. The term doesn’t mean the same thing as it did when Carter first built a show around it — now, it’s taken on a more dangerous connotation. The X-Files effectively predicted QAnon, #PizzaGate, and anti-vax conspiracies. Those fringe superstitions have since been co-opted by a vocal, and dangerous, minority.
“Everything's a conspiracy,” Carter sighs. “No one knows what the truth is. It’s completely subjective and relative now.”
He’s thinking specifically of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, who became the subject of endless conspiracy theories after a prolonged public absence. Just hours before Carter and I met at Legacy West, Princess Kate broke her silence by sharing a cancer diagnosis. The dubious online reaction to that very personal news has been weighing heavily with Carter.
“No one knows what the truth is. It’s completely subjective and relative now.”
“Can you imagine, first of all, being sick — but then everyone’s got a take on it? The most private thing becomes the most public thing, and then the most misunderstood thing.”
It’s hard not to think about The X-Files, and the skepticism it might have encouraged, in the face of all that. “You do a show like this, [and] there’s media done on you and it’s like, what does that spawn? What does that produce? What is the result of that thing? It’s not always good.”
To paraphrase the series’ most iconic adage, the truth is still out there, but what does the search for that look like in an era of such harsh political divides, perpetual surveillance, and a rampant distrust in our government? Carter isn’t entirely sure, but he trusts Coogler to figure it out.
Carter is developing a new project with his wife, but it won’t be another sci-fi series.
DREW BLY 'POCKETS'/SHUTTERSTOCK
Nowadays, Carter prefers to speak through his art, a pursuit that’s evident from his politically-charged “Hate Plates.” He remains coy as ever as he shows me a large ceramic plate, one of a series inspired by dinner conversations about a public figure who shan’t be named. Labels like “orange,” “petulant,” “vain” and “friendless” trace a hypnotic sphere around the dish.
The work speaks for itself, and it’s probably the most overt of Carter’s art on display. Most are clever, ironic plays on words superimposed over excerpts from novels and faded scripts. There’s also a UFO triptych consisting of three black-and-white photos that could have been taken either underwater or among the stars.
“I walk outside every night and stare up at the sky,” Carter says, offering a partial explanation. He does it to ground himself and regain some of that childlike wonder that gets “beaten out of” us all. “Just walking outside at night, it's the simplest thing to do,” he says wistfully.
Carter’s multimedia collage, “Xanax.”
“Manic,” the companion piece to “Xanax.”
Carter strikes you as a filmmaker with a deep love of nature — even when it’s not convenient.
He directs us to two towering collages of photographs, positioned back-to-back instead of side-to-side. Each features hundreds of images of the same tree, potentially taken over years.
“I lived in a house for a decade, and this was my view for that decade,” he explains. “I’ll call it a perfect ocean view, except for that tree.” The tree stood on the boundary between his property and his neighbor’s, and she refused to cut it down. Carter exhumed his frustration by photographing it daily. Now those photographs live on in “Xanax,” a straightforward side-by-side collage, and “Manic,” which ups the saturation of each image to lend a psychotropic, Andy Warhol feel.
“You’ve gotta be ready for anything.”
There’s no denying the sense of humor in any of Carter’s pieces. His work is the real deal, and he’s clearly well-suited to it. That said, he’s not giving up on television, even if he’s left The X-Files behind. He's currently developing a project with his wife, one decidedly outside of the genre he’s best known for. He’ll also coach film students through TV production on occasion.
“Right now, I’m going to talk to a class of college students about producing the show,” Carter says just before we part ways. “And everybody asks, ‘What’s it like? Can you give us any hints?’”
He recounts another story about a bleary-eyed commute, this time as he’s driving from his home in Santa Barbara to work in Hollywood. “I was still half-asleep, but I see something up ahead on the freeway.” It was a pig — “a giant sow” — creeping from the median to the shoulder. He called 911 to alert them about this massive pig, of course, but they already knew. “Now I’ll say to my students: ‘Whatever you do, be ready for the pig on the freeway. You’ve gotta be ready for anything.’”
Meteorites: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
Universe Today has explored the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, and cosmochemistry, and how this myriad of intricately linked scientific disciplines can assist us in better understanding our place in the cosmos and searching for life beyond Earth. Here, we will discuss the incredible research field of meteorites and how they help researchers better understand the history of both our solar system and the cosmos, including the benefits and challenges, finding life beyond Earth, and potential routes for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying meteorites. So, why is it so important to study meteorites?
Dr. Alex Ruzicka, who is a Professor in the Department of Geology at Portland State University, tells Universe Today, “They provide our best information about how the solar system formed and evolved. This includes planet formation. We also obtain information on astrophysics (stellar processes) through studies of pre-solar grains.”
There is often confusion regarding the differences between an asteroid, meteor, and meteorite, so it’s important to explain their respective differences to help better understand why scientists study meteorites and how they study them. An asteroid is a physical, orbiting planetary body that is primarily comprised of rock, but can sometimes be comprised of additional water ice, with most asteroids orbiting in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and the remaining orbiting as Trojan Asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter or in the Kuiper Belt with Pluto. A meteor is the visual phenomena that an asteroid produces as it burns up in a planet’s atmosphere, often seen as varying colors from the minerals within the asteroid when heated up. The pieces of the asteroid that survive the fiery entry and hit the ground are called meteorites, which scientists’ study to try and learn about the larger asteroid body it came from, and where that asteroid could have come from, as well. But what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying meteorites?
Dr. Ruzicka tells Universe Today, “Benefits: scientific knowledge, information on potential resources (e.g., metals, water) for humans to utilize, information on how to link meteorites and asteroids, which can provide information on space collision hazards for Earth. Challenges: compared to Earth rocks, we lack field evidence for their source bodies and parent bodies (how they relate to other rocks), we have to factor in the element of time that is longer for space rocks than for Earth rocks, and sometimes we are dealing with formation environments completely unlikely what we have on Earth. So, the challenges are big and many.”
According to NASA, more than 50,000 meteorites have been retrieved from all over the world, ranging from the deserts of Africa to the snowy plains of Antarctica. In terms of their origins, it is estimated that 99.8 percent of these meteorites have come from asteroids, with 0.1 percent coming from the Moon and 0.1 percent coming from Mars. The reason why we’ve found meteorites from the Moon and Mars is due to pieces of these planetary bodies being catapulted off their surfaces (or sub-surfaces) after experiencing large impacts of their own, and these pieces then travel through the Solar System for thousands, if not millions, of years before being caught in Earth’s gravity and the rest is history. Therefore, with meteorites originating from multiple locations throughout the Solar System, what can meteorites teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
Morgan Nunn Martinez, who was a PhD student at UC San Diego, and Dr. Alex Meshik seen photographing and measuring a meteorite specimen in Antarctica’s Miller Range during the 2013-2014 Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program field season.
(Credit: NASA/JSC/ANSMET)
“That the ingredients for making life formed in space and were delivered to Earth,” Dr. Ruzicka tells Universe Today. “We know organic molecules formed in gas clouds, were incorporated in our solar system, and processed in asteroidal and cometary bodies under higher temperatures in the presence of water. These were then delivered to Earth which wouldn’t have been very hospitable in early times due to sterilizing impacts. We also know that there must have been a lot of planetary rock swapping early when impact rates were high. Life itself may have been transplanted to Earth from Mars.”
As it turns out, one of the most fascinating meteorites ever recovered did come from Mars, which was identified as ALH84001, as it was found in Allan Hills of Antarctica on December 27, 1984, during the 1984-85 field season where researchers from all over the world gather in Antarctica to search for meteorites using snowmobiles. Despite being collected in 1984, it wasn’t until 1996 that a team of scientists discovered what initially appeared to be evidence of microscopic bacteria fossils within the 1.93-kilogram (4.25-pound) meteorite.
ALH84001, which is one of the most famous meteorites ever recovered, helped catapult the field of astrobiology to new heights when scientists uncovered what initially appeared to be microscopic bacteria fossils within this meteorite, though those findings remain inconclusive to this day.
(Credit: NASA)
This immediately made headlines across the globe, resulting in countless non-scientific claims that these microfossils were clear evidence of life on Mars. However, both the researchers of the initial study and the scientific community were quick to point out the unlikelihood that these features resulted from life based on other observations made about ALH84001. For example, while ALH84001 is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, which is when Mars is hypothesized to have possessed liquid water on its surface, radiometric dating techniques revealed that ALH84001 was catapulted off Mars approximately 17 million years ago and landed on Earth approximately 13,000 years ago.
Microscopic image of ALH84001, which initially made headlines for potentially possessing microscopic bacteria fossils, though these finding remain inconclusive to this day.
(Credit: NASA)
To this day, there has been no clear evidence that ALH84001 ever contained traces of life. Despite this, ALH84001 has nonetheless helped launch the field of astrobiology into new heights, with present-day scientists claiming this one meteorite was the reason they pursued their career path to find life beyond Earth. But what have been the most exciting aspects about meteorites that Dr. Ruzicka has studied throughout his career?
Dr. Ruzicka tells Universe Today, “A lot is interesting, what’s most exciting? That’s hard to say. I get satisfaction from taking clues left by the rocks to figure out or constrain the processes that formed them. I am engaged in a meteoritic version of CSI, we can call it MSI (for meteoritic scene investigation).”
Like many scientific fields, this “meteoritic version of CSI” requires individuals from a myriad of backgrounds and disciplines, including geology, physics, geochemistry, cosmochemistry, mineralogy, and artificial intelligence, just to name a few, with the aforementioned radiometric dating frequently used to estimate the ages of meteorites by measuring the radioactive isotopes within the sample. It is through this constant collaboration and innovation that scientists continue to unlock the secrets of meteorites with the goal of understanding their origins and compositions, along with how our Solar System, and life on Earth (and possibly elsewhere), came to be. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Ruzicka offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying meteorites?
Dr. Ruzicka tells Universe Today, “Work hard and pursue your dreams. Find a rigorous program of study because it will come in handy.”
While meteorites are space rocks that crash land on Earth after traveling through the heavens for millions, and possibly billions, of years, these incredible geologic specimens are slowly helping scientists’ piece together the origins of the Solar System and beyond, and even how life might have come to be on our small, blue world, and possibly elsewhere. With a myriad of tools and instruments at their disposal, scientists from all over the world will continue to study meteorites in hopes of answering the universe’s toughest questions.
Dr. Ruzicka concludes by telling Universe Today, “Rocks from space are the best kinds of rocks to study. Way more cool than most rocks on Earth because they are in some ways more puzzling.”
How will meteorites help us better understand our place in the cosmos in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
China's Relay Satellite is in Lunar Orbit
On March 20th, China’s Queqiao-2 (“Magpie Bridge-2”) satellite launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Site LC-2 on the island of Hainan (in southern China) atop a Long March-8 Y3 carrier rocket. This mission is the second in a series of communications relay and radio astronomy satellites designed to support the fourth phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (Chang’e). On March 24th, after 119 hours in transit, the satellite reached the Moon and began a perilune braking maneuver at a distance of 440 km (~270 mi) from the lunar surface.
The maneuver lasted 19 minutes, after which the satellite entered lunar orbit, where it will soon relay communications from missions on the far side of the Moon around the South Pole region. This includes the Chang’e-4 lander and rover and will extend to the Chang’e-6 sample-return mission, which is scheduled to launch in May. It will also assist Chang’e-7 and -8 (scheduled for 2026 and 2028, respectively), consisting of an orbiter, rover, and lander mission, and a platform that will test technologies necessary for the construction of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
A perilune braking maneuver is vital to establishing a lunar orbit and consists of a thruster firing as the spacecraft approaches the Moon. This reduces the spacecraft’s relative velocity to less than the lunar escape velocity (2.38 km/s; 1.74 mps) so that it can be captured by the Moon’s gravity. Two experimental satellites that will test navigation and communication technology (Tiandu-1 and -2), which accompanied the Queqiao-2 satellite to the Moon, also performed a perilune braking maneuver and entered lunar orbit on Monday.
These two satellites will remain in formation in an elliptical lunar orbit and will conduct communication and navigation tests, including laser ranging with the Moon and microwave ranging between satellites. According to the CNSA, Queqiao-2 will enter a 24-hour elliptical orbit around the Moon at a distance of 200 km (125 mi) at its closest point (perigee) and 100,000 km (62,000 mi) at its farthest point (apogee). Mission controllers will further alter Queqiao-2’s orbit and inclination to bring it into a “200 by 16,000-km, highly-elliptical ‘frozen’ orbit.”
Within this highly stable orbit, Queqiao-2 will have a direct line of sight with ground stations on Earth and the far side of the Moon and will conduct communication tests with Chang’e-4 and Chang’e-6 using its 4.2-m (13.8-ft) parabolic antenna. The mission could also support other countries in their lunar exploration efforts, many of whom are also interested in scouting the Moon’s far side and southern polar region. The satellite also carries scientific instruments, including extreme ultraviolet cameras, array-neutral atom imagers, and lunar orbit Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) test subsystems.
According to state-owned media company CCTV, the CNSA chose the Queqiao-2 satellite’s present orbit for a multitude of reasons:
“Experts told me that this is an ideal location on the Moon to observe the separation of the Queqiao-2 star arrow, and it also has a deep connection with China’s lunar exploration project. This is the Moon’s rich maria region… Fifteen years ago, on March 1, 2009, it was here that the Chang’e-1 probe of China’s lunar exploration project completed a controlled collision with the Moon… The location of the Sea of Abundance on the moon is also very eye-catching. The next time the moon is full, you look up at the moon and find this dark black patch in the southeast of the moon. This is the Sea of Abundance!”
Visualization of the ILRS from the CNSA Guide to Partnership (June 2021).
Credit: CNSA
The satellite will support China’s upcoming Chang’e-6 mission, China’s second attempt to return lunar samples to Earth. Mission controllers will adjust its orbit into a 12-hour period to support the Chang’e-7 and -8 missions. These missions aim to map the terrain and scout resources (particularly water ice) around the South Pole-Aitken Basin. These missions will ultimately support the creation of the ILRS, a joint project between CNSA and Roscomos to create a lunar base that will enable research and development on the Moon.
This program is intended to rival NASA’s Artemis Program, which will send astronauts on a circumlunar flight next year – the Artemis II mission. The program will culminate in 2026 with the first crewed mission to the lunar surface (Artemis III) in over 50 years. NASA also plans to deploy the core elements of the Lunar Gateway next year, an orbital habitat that will facilitate the deployment of the Artemis Base Camp. Along with its international and commercial partners, these elements will support the creation of “a sustained program of lunar exploration and development.”
Further Reading:
Extremophiles: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
Universe Today has conducted some incredible examinations regarding a plethora of scientific fields, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, and radio astronomy, and how these disciplines can help scientists and the public gain greater insight into searching for life beyond Earth. Here, we will discuss the immersive field of extremophiles with Dr. Ivan Paulino-Lima, who is a Senior Research Investigator at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and the Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer for Infinite Elements Inc., including why scientists study extremophiles, the benefits and challenges, finding life beyond Earth, and proposed routes for upcoming students. So, why is it so important to study extremophiles?
“The study of extremophiles represents the edge of the human knowledge in terms of the environmental limits where life forms can live, withstand, or preserve their integrity and living potential,” Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “For example, the exploration of the hot springs at Yellowstone led to the discovery of the Taq DNA polymerase from Thermus aquaticus, which was subsequently used to develop the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. Just like the thermophiles, represented by organisms that thrive in hot temperatures, a growing diversity of microorganisms and ecosystems have been found in cold temperatures, extremes of pH, pressure, salinity, radiation, desiccation, and toxic substances.”
The study of extremophiles can be summed up as “life in extreme environments”, or environments that are inhospitable for most of life on Earth, including humans, plants, and animals. Extremophiles have been found to not only survive, but thrive, in the unlikeliest of environments on Earth, including hydrothermal vents, alkaline lakes, acid mine drainage, cosmic rays, sunlight, Mariana Trench, dry environments such as the McMurdo Dry Valley and Atacama Desert, gold mines, and even underneath ice shelves in Antarctica.
Along with the environments noted by Dr. Paulino-Lima, other types of extremophiles include those that can survive without oxygen, high amounts of carbon dioxide, dissolved heavy metals, and sulfur. Therefore, with their wide array of locations, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying extremophiles?
“The study of extremophiles is often challenging because of their very nature that defies our traditional concepts,” Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “Some anaerobic microorganisms are extremely sensitive to oxygen and require anaerobic chambers and special techniques for their cultivation and routine maintenance. In terms of benefits, some types of extremophiles are very resistant to desiccation and can be preserved in a dry state for many years. Similarly, thermophiles can be preserved at room temperature for a long time since their normal metabolic activity happens at a much higher temperature.”
Finding life in such extreme environments on Earth has helped change the conversation regarding where scientists might find life beyond Earth, including Venus, Mars, Europa, Titan, Enceladus, and even exoplanets. Of these worlds, Europa and Enceladus have gained a lot of attention over the last few decades due to the existence of internal liquid water oceans within these small moons. It is currently hypothesized that hydrothermal vents could exist at the bottoms of these oceans, potentially providing nutrients for life, just like here on Earth. Currently, the NASA Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to be launched to Europa this October and arrive at Jupiter in 2030, with the goal of ascertaining the habitability potential for Europa and its internal ocean. Therefore, what can extremophiles teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
“The study of extremophiles allows us to establish empirical and theoretical limits to life on Earth, Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “With these limits, we can narrow down the search for life beyond Earth and constrain the habitats that Earth-like life could currently inhabit or could have inhabited at some point in the past. During our search for extraterrestrial life, it is very possible that we will come across even more exotic possibilities, known collectively as ‘alternative biochemistries’. For example, a different type of metabolism for carbon-based life has been proposed for Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. However, these possibilities remain theoretical or speculative, and have yet to be demonstrated in a laboratory. The search for life beyond Earth is necessarily guided by established knowledge, but with an open mind. Extremophiles represent the state of the art in terms of our established knowledge for the limits of Earth-like life.”
Aside from their astrobiological implications, extremophiles also present opportunities for use in a myriad of industries, including biotechnology, medical science, food processing, and clothing. For biotechnology, extremophiles that live in extreme heat, cold, salinity, and methane can be used for copying DNA, biofuel production, and biomining. For medical science, extremophiles that live in extreme dryness, radiation, acid, and vacuum can be used for DNA transfer, which is a crucial practice in repairing DNA damage resulting from a myriad of reasons. Therefore, with their myriad of astrobiological and industrial applications, what are some of the most exciting aspects about extremophiles that Dr. Paulino-Lima has studied during his career?
“One of the most exciting aspects of extremophiles that I have studied in my career is the fact that they can withstand the ultimate frontier of tolerance – outer space,” Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “This includes vacuum, extremes of temperature, blasts of radiation coming from the solar wind, cosmic rays, supernovas, all of that combined, and for an extended period. To me it is impossible to be aware of these facts and not to ask whether we are alone in the universe. The detection of a single spore anywhere in the solar system that excludes an Earth origin, or the detection of biosignatures from exoplanets, or even elaborate radio signals with sophisticated patterns coming from other solar systems, will take us to a new era of self-awareness and exploration, which will have a profound impact on the culture and future of our society.”
One of the most well-known extremophiles are tardigrades, also known as water bears, which are known for their extreme resilience in almost any environment, including outer space. These microscopic creatures can suspend their metabolism when under extreme environmental stressors, only to later reanimate without detrimental health effects. They have been observed to survive under any type of conditions, including starvation, freezing, boiling, extreme heat, and vacuum.
Image of a tardigrade, which is a microscopic species and one of the most well-known extremophiles, having been observed to survive some of the most extreme environments, including outer space.
(Credit: Katexic Publications, unaltered, CC2.0)
Along with the myriad of extremophile types and the locations where they are found, studying extremophiles are equally accomplished by a myriad of scientific disciplines, including microbiologists and astrobiologists, who conduct field studies and collect samples to be examined and analyzed back in homebase laboratories. Through this, scientists learn the complex processes that enable extremophiles to survive in such harsh environments, all the way down to the organisms’ genetic material. Along with laboratory experiments and tests, scientists who study extremophiles collaborate with other disciplines, including organic geochemistry, biochemistry, geology, and stratigraphy, just to name a few. Therefore, what advice does Dr. Paulino-Lima have for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying extremophiles?
“Our society is based on all kinds of information,” Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “The trick is to select what can be turned into knowledge, what can lead to a path. Be wise to separate knowledge from mere information. Attend conferences, organize meetings, organize your time, and make connections. The best opportunities may be the ones you are not thinking of or have never imagined. My career would never be the same without all the answers and feedback that turned into the stepstones of my professional development. I would never have known if I had not asked. I will be forever grateful to everyone who played a role and helped shape my trajectory.”
As noted, the study of extremophiles comes from collaboration with other researchers and scientific disciplines. For example, Dr. Paulino-Lima and a member of his PhD committee, Dr. Lynn Rothschild (who was previously one of his primary publication references), have worked together on a myriad of projects at NASA Ames Research Center, including a satellite with biological experiments and a database designed to conduct a method to remotely identify extraterrestrial life. Additionally, he has worked with Dr. Jesica Urbina, who is currently the CEO at Infinite Elements Inc., on an innovative research project, as well.
The study of extremophiles is a multidisciplinary and collaborative effort, encompassing field work and laboratory experiments in hopes of further identifying where and how we can find life, both on Earth and beyond. It is through these efforts that scientists work to answer some of the most difficult questions throughout human history, including how did we get here and are we alone? As the study of extremophiles continues to grow and evolve with new methods and discoveries, the number of individuals involved in this incredible and unique field of study will undoubtedly grow and evolve along with it.
“Many people may feel discouraged to pursue a career in biological sciences because they feel unattracted by the tedious routine of laboratory experiments,” Dr. Paulino-Lima tells Universe Today. “I imagine this is especially true for the study of extremophiles. However, this is only one aspect of the scientific method. A large part comes from reading and staying up to date with the newest developments in a particular field. In a time where all biological information is digitized, the development of coding skills is fundamental for everyone who wants to study extremophiles from a bioinformatics perspective. For those who have an entrepreneur spirit, this is a vast area filled with exciting opportunities. Let your knowledge guide your imagination towards a better and more sustainable future.”
How will extremophiles help us better understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
The Stephenville Sighting: Unveiling the Texas UFO Phenomenon
In the early dusk of January 8, 2008, the small town of Stephenville, Texas, became the epicenter of one of the most compelling UFO sightings in modern American history. This event not only captivated the local community but also garnered international attention, challenging the skepticism surrounding unidentified flying objects and urging a reevaluation of our skies’ mysteries.
As the sun set over Stephenville, a group of friends gathered to enjoy the evening’s tranquility, unaware that their night would turn into an unparalleled experience. It started with a call to Steve Allen, a local pilot, from his friend, inviting him over for a casual outdoor gathering. The serenity of the evening was abruptly disrupted when Allen, stepping out of his vehicle, noticed a series of bright lights hurtling toward them at an unprecedented speed. The object, described as having lights as blinding as magnesium flares, was moving at a velocity beyond any known aircraft in the vicinity. To the witnesses’ astonishment, the object was pursued by two F-16 jets, a detail that lent a chilling realism to the encounter.
The event swiftly transcended the boundaries of a mere anecdotal encounter, as numerous residents across Stephenville reported witnessing the same or similar anomalies. The local reporter, Angela Joyner, took it upon herself to chronicle these sightings, embarking on a journalistic journey that would later consume her life. Joyner’s investigation revealed a pattern of credibility among the witnesses, ranging from business owners to law enforcement officers, all adamant about what they had seen yet unable to explain it.
Initially, military officials denied any aircraft, specifically F-16s, were in the area at the time of the sightings. However, this statement was later retracted, with officials conceding that military jets were indeed present, albeit on unrelated training missions. This admission did little to clarify the nature of the sighting and instead fueled further speculation and demands for transparency.
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a civilian organization dedicated to the study of UFO phenomena, took a keen interest in the Stephenville sighting. Their investigation was comprehensive, involving interviews with witnesses and an analysis of radar data, which intriguingly revealed unidentified objects moving at speeds and with capabilities unattribated to conventional technology. This analysis suggested the presence of an object or objects that defied easy explanation, either hovering motionless or accelerating beyond the known capabilities of human-engineered aircraft.
The Stephenville UFO sighting remains a pivotal moment in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). It challenges the stigmas associated with UFO sightings and calls into question the adequacy of our understanding of the phenomena. The incident underscores the necessity for a more open, scientific investigation into UAPs, free from the constraints of skepticism and government secrecy.
VIDEO:
The events of that evening in Stephenville have not only left an indelible mark on the witnesses and the town but have also reignited a global conversation about our place in the universe and the possibility of life beyond Earth. It is a reminder that, sometimes, the truth is not only out there but is also more complex and astonishing than we could have ever imagined.
Why do people believe in aliens and UFOs? We asked a psychologist his views on the paranormal
Iain Todd
Yet the notion that there could be life beyond Earth is not so hard to believe.
Astronomers estimate there are 100 - 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and exoplanet researchers calculate there is at least one planet orbiting every star we see in the night sky.
This makes the chances of alien life existing elsewhere in the Universe seem very likely.
But what about ufology, flying saucers and alien abductions? What makes people believe in UFOs and other unexplained phenomena?
Psychologist Chris French's latest book is called The Science of Weird S*t and explores these very questions.
We got the chance to speak to Chris about his research into strange phenomena to get a psychologist's view on what makes people believe in UFOs and alien contact.
I suppose I'd have to go back to my childhood, into early adulthood. I believed in a lot of paranormal stuff.
I was always fascinated by it as a kid and even as a teenager, even when I went to university and did my first psychology degree.
My PhD was not on any of the weird stuff at all. It was all about differences between the cerebral hemispheres and using EEG. It was all very scientific.
And somebody recommended a particular book that I thought I'd like.
It was Parapsychology: Science or Magic? by a guy called James Alcock, a Canadian social psychologist.
It was the first sceptical treatment of any of this stuff that I'd ever come across, and it opened my eyes to this whole new way of thinking about things.
I started at Goldsmiths in 1985 and by that point I counted myself as being a card-carrying skeptic.
I did a couple of lectures on one of the courses on parapsychology from a skeptical perspective, and the students seemed to enjoy it, whether they were believers or skeptics.
It's one of those topics that people get engaged with. And then about 10 years later, I realised I could put on a whole course on this stuff.
So I had a course originally called, I think it was Psychology, Parapsychology, and Pseudoscience, and was occasionally just doing little studies here and there, but still carrying on with the more 'respectable' research.
It was made very clear to me that my interest in the weird stuff was tolerated, but not encouraged!
It got to a point where I thought, well, that's the stuff that really interests me.
There are very good arguments for taking it seriously, because most people statistically believe in at least one paranormal concept.
And a lot of people claim they've had direct experience with the paranormal. So there's something from a psychological point of view that needs to be explained there.
And it can tell us a lot about how the mind works.
So in the end, I ditched all the other stuff and devoted myself entirely to the weird stuff.
Zener cards can be used to test phenomena such as telepathy.
Credit: Aida Servi / Getty Images
When I first discovered the joys of scepticism, I became what I would now see as a fairly extreme sceptic.
I held a lot of views like all kinds of paranormal belief are a bad thing to have, that all people who claim to have psychic powers are either crazy or deliberate frauds, that all parapsychology experiments were flawed, that parapsychologists didn't know how to do science.
I don't believe any of those things anymore.
The the deeper I've got into it, the more I've modified and come back towards the central ground.
Paranormal beliefs can be dangerous insofar as it depends on people's reasons for believing this stuff.
If it's because they lack critical thinking skills, then that opens the door to a lot of other kinds of beliefs that can be potentially dangerous.
For one thing, I'm a sceptic when it comes to complementary and alternative medicine.
And I think that people who practice that, even if they're totally 100% sincere, can sometimes do damage because people might fail to get treated for conditions if they're encouraged to abandon conventional medicine.
That's dangerous. And there are all kinds of other examples you can think of.
People are more likely to be ripped off by con artists pretending to be psychics.
But again, I don't think that most people who claim psychic powers are deliberate con artists, but some of them are.
So there's all kinds of potential dangers there.
On the other hand, there are psychological benefits from believing in the paranormal.
People do take psychological comfort from those kind of beliefs, particularly at times of stress and crisis and so on.
So I think we need to separate the questions of whether or not these paranormal claims are ever true - other things that defy explanation in terms of conventional scientific concepts - from the questions about whether paranormal beliefs and paranormal practices are actually dangerous.
Sometimes they can be, most of the time they probably aren't.
The feeling that you've had a paranormal experience could be similar to getting engrossed in a TV programme.
Credit: Mikael Vaisanen / Getty Images
There are lots of different factors that come into play.
Personality is one of them, and there are certain personality dimensions that pretty reliably correlate with paranormal belief.
Things like fantasy proneness, a personality dimension called absorption, the kind of tendency that you might have if you're watching a film or reading a book to get totally engrossed in it.
Those things are involved in being very creative and having a good imagination.
Those kind of people are more likely to believe in the paranormal and they're more likely to report paranormal experiences.
But it's not a perfect correlation: far from it.
You might lack all of those quite desirable qualities and still believe in the paranormal, or you might have all of them and not believe in the paranormal.
But if you compare in groups, believers with sceptics, yes, you would find personality variables that correlate with it. But there are all kinds of other factors as well.
Personal experience is an obvious one. There are lots of reasons why people might have genuinely weird experiences that maybe initially they can't explain.
One of the things we're really interested in is the phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
If you have an episode of sleep paralysis, which can involve hallucinations and things like that, if you can't think of any other explanation, well maybe ghosts or aliens seem to be the most logical explanation for it.
It might be that you've been brought up in a family where everybody's a strong believer, and most of us tend to adopt the kind of beliefs of our parents to some extent.
All kinds of factors come into play.
Are you a creative, imaginative person? You may be more likely to have a paranomal 'experience'.
Credit: We Are / Getty Images
Most of the research we did was focused on seeing if we could come up with non paranormal explanations for ostensibly paranormal experiences, and also looking at the factors that correlate with paranormal belief and so on.
And wherever possible, seeing if we could actually put those kinds of skeptical explanations to the experimental tests, the kinds of things that were raised as possible alternative explanations, be it hallucinatory experiences, false memories, reasoning errors or others.
Could we actually produce empirical evidence to support those kinds of explanations?
Most of what we did was in that strand.
But for me, a very important part of skepticism is to always be open to the possibility that you might be wrong.
New evidence might come along that makes you change your mind.
So there was a lesser strand of research where we would directly test paranormal claims.
And in those cases, for those kinds of studies, the way that you test it depends very much on what the claim is.
You design the test around the claim and you make sure that the claimant is happy with the way you intend to test it.
We would go to the lengths of getting them to sign something in advance to say "this is a fair test of my claim" and then when we tested them and they failed the test, they'd decide that it wasn't actually a fair test after all.
That just happened again and again and again, but I think it was also important to show that there is a degree of open mindedness there.
I'm putting my skepticism on the line and putting it to the test, and we'll just see what the data comes out as.
Ever seen something strange in the sky and didn't know what it was? You're not alone.
Credit: David Wall / Getty Images
It varies from survey to survey, but you will typically find about a third of people say they believe that aliens have visited the Earth.
And again it varies, but certainly 10%, 15% say they have actually seen a UFO.
Now that raises the question: "what do you mean by UFO?"
Do you literally mean an unidentified object in the sky? Well, fine, I don't have a problem with that.
We can all look up into the sky and not know what we're looking at.
But of course, it's kind of quite interesting that we automatically these days equate UFO with ET, and that's a huge inferential leap.
When you look back historically, 1947 was a golden year. That was the year that the phrase 'flying saucer' entered the English language.
It was the year of the Roswell UFO incident.
And there was a series of what they called UFO flaps at the time, where lots of people were reporting seeing things up in the sky.
But the surveys that were carried out, when they were asking the general public what they thought this phenomenon was, often didn't even include ET as an option.
It wasn't part of consciousness then: it was things like Soviet military technology, a meteorological phenomenon, a celestial phenomenon, whatever else it may be.
And yet now, it would be the automatic go-to explanation for many people.
If they see a light up in the sky and they don't know what it is, it's an ET, it's an alien.
Well of course that's a huge inferential leap.
And ufologists themselves acknowledge that well over 95% of sightings have a mundane explanation.
If you put the time in, you can figure out, well, it was in that part of the sky and it was at that time we know there was a meteorite, or there was a satellite re entry, it's on a flight path for aeroplanes, et cetera.
It's that very small percentage that don't have an obvious explanation that gets people very excited.
But why should we assume we'll be able to come up with a definitive explanation for all possible sightings?
Police can't solve all crimes that they investigate. Sometimes the evidence just isn't good enough for us to be able to decide what it was.
A Geminid meteor photographed by Gaurav Singh, Panuke Lake, Nova Scotia, Canada, 14 December 2023
Well, I think that's right. Certainly that's why, as a kid and as a teenager, I was into the paranormal.
It wasn't particularly of any great personal experiences I'd had. It's just that it's exciting. It's fun.
And again, people sometimes say, well how arrogant to assume we're the only intelligent species in the universe.
We're not saying that. If I had to bet, on the basis of Drake's equation, yeah, I put my money on there being intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.
It's a very big place! I'm just not convinced that it's been visiting Earth on a regular basis.
Things from a psychological point of view get really interesting when you go beyond just the sightings, but onto alien abduction claims.
I've met, spoken to a lot of alien abductees, people who in my opinion sincerely believe they have had contact with aliens.
And there's only two possibilities: either they really have, or they haven't and there's something really interesting going on from a psychological point of view.
My favoured explanation tends to be in terms of false memories. But I'm open to the possibility I might be wrong.
It'd be really, really exciting if we do ever make direct contact, but I'm not convinced that we have yet.
Concluding there must be life beyond Earth isn't too much of a stretch. What what about alien beings having visited Earth?
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
I'm sure if you were talking to somebody on the other side of the argument here now, they'd be saying, oh, but there are cases where the phenomenon has been witnessed by other people.
And again, you have to look at each case on its individual merits.
Even in those cases where it's claimed there were multiple witnesses, there are often reasons to be rather dubious about the claim that's being made.
By and large, a lot of cases occur when people report they were in bed, and suddenly they felt paralysed, they couldn't move, they felt a strong presence.
And often they don't actually directly see any aliens during this experience.
If they've had that kind of experience, I would put it down to sleep paralysis, which we know all about and there's medical and scientific literature on.
But if they come across some article by a ufologist saying, "if you've ever had this experience, you've been abducted by aliens, and they have wiped your memory for the rest of the experience."
Then they might go to see a hypnotherapist for hypnotic regression under the mistaken belief that going through that will help them to recover hidden or repressed memories.
It doesn't. It just provides the perfect context for the creation of false memories. So you end up with these apparent memories in your head that feel very real.
Even with those multiple witness cases, you have to look at each one individually.
But when you get cases like that, one of the phenomena that's relevant here is something called memory conformity.
And that's a situation where if a group of people all witness something unexpected and unusual, then before there's any kind of formal interview of them, they're likely to discuss it together.
And sometimes you get situations where one person's account can influence another person's memory.
We've done studies on this, not in the context of UFOs particularly, but in the context of spoon bending, where if you suggest to somebody that a spoon is bending right before their very eyes when nobody's even touching it, some people will kind of be affected by that suggestion.
The chances are that, when you get those multiple witness cases in a UFO context, there was something up in the sky.
So, yes, they did all see something, whether it was a metallic craft with little windows and aliens beaming, smiling back at them, or whether it was actually Chinese lanterns or a weather balloon or whatever else it may be.
There are many things that could be mistaken for a UFO.
People can influence each other in those kind of contexts.
So you have to look at each case individually. But then after having done that, you then have to stand back and say well, okay, overall do I think any of these cases are likely to be genuine ET contact?
I wouldn't claim that I can explain away every single case you could put before me, I wouldn't do that.
But given that we know people sometimes make mistakes, we know people sometimes just make stuff up, then on balance I'm going to need stronger evidence.
Another point in this context is the fact there are so many CCTV cameras, particularly in this country, and everybody carries a good quality camera around with them in their pocket these days.
Why aren't there loads of really high quality videos showing UFOs hovering over cities from different angles?
It just doesn't happen. It tends to be the same blurry, not-quite-sure-what-it-is photos.
So there's the potential there to prove that, yes, these things really are flying around up there.
So far the evidence, I'd say, is far from convincing.
If a group of people all see the same unknown object in the night sky, chances are they will influence each other's testimony.
Credit: AerialPerspective Images/Getty Images
Not necessarily. When I've got my scientist hat on, if you ask me for my view on a particular topic, I'll give you my honest opinion and my reasons for believing what I believe.
I'm not necessarily out to convince you that you're wrong and I'm right.
And that applies even more in other paranormal contexts.
Anything that relates to, say, life after death. If you've got a situation where somebody is taking great comfort from feeling the spirit of a dearly departed loved one is still around and they're getting comfort from that, I wouldn't want to take that away from them. Why would I?
As far as I'm concerned, anybody can believe anything they like as long as it doesn't have negative impact on other people.
If you then ask for my opinion on what they're talking about, well I'll give it to you, because that's what science is all about.
Science is all about what's true, not necessarily what makes us feel good.
Whether or not we believe UFOs are visiting Earth, science will continue to look for life elsewhere in the Universe.
Credit: SETI Institute
To my way of thinking, yes, because I have kind of considerable respect for the laws of physics and the idea there's life out there that might conceivably make contact with Earth.
There'd be all kinds of problems to surmount, vast distances for example, but you can imagine a scenario with suspended animation or advanced technology of some sort.
It doesn't actually require us to say the laws of physics as we currently understand them are completely wrong.
They may be incomplete, but I don't think they're wrong.
But other kinds of concepts within the paranormal would require a complete turning upside down of our current scientific view in major aspects.
As Carl Sagan was very fond of saying, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The evidence has to be so much stronger for those kind of paranormal claims, for us to take them seriously, because we've got a vast amount of evidence that generally supports the conventional scientific worldview.
There are a lot of topics that I either barely touch on or even don't touch on at all in the book.
One possibility I've been thinking about is that of false memories.
Looking at false memories as they relate to things like alien abduction claims and past life memory claims and so on, has implications for legal cases in the real world.
Another possibility for a follow up would be a look at false memory from different angles, as it relates to the weird stuff, as it relates to real life legal cases and just what it tells us about the way memory works in general.
It's a fascinating topic. So that's another idea I'm toying with, but I haven't decided yet. I'll see how well this book does first.
Journalist Claims UFOs & Aliens Are Linked With Afterlife & NDEs, Which Exist In Another Dimension
In recent years, the discussion surrounding UAPs has gained new momentum due to groundbreaking revelations and insights from researchers like Leslie Kean. She says that there is a bundle of evidence that posits that the UFO phenomena are linked with an “Alternate dimension.” She believes UFOs could be connected to “the afterlife” and “near-death experiences” and could come from another “dimension.”
Leslie Kean, a respected journalist known for her extensive research on UFOs, has shed light on the multifaceted nature of these encounters in a podcast with Chris Letho. According to Leslie, there are two distinct aspects of the UFO phenomenon. The first one is the physical aspect, involving UFOs being detected on radar and approached by the military in a traditional, empirical manner. However, Kean also highlights the second, more enigmatic layer of UFO experiences.
Leslie told Lehto that she is increasingly sure there is a connection between the supernatural, near-death experiences, and unexplained sightings. She said, “Certainly, the more paranormal elements of the UFO phenomenon seem to have some relationship to what people describe in near-death experiences and other types of activities that take place in terms of just consciousness-related anomalous experiences that people have, which are very varied. There just is some kind of crossover air, and I don’t know what it is. I mean, there is the whole component of UFOs, which is just purely physical.”
Leslie speculates that there might be a connection between UFOs and some form of alternate dimension that exists beyond the boundaries of our five senses. This dimension, she suggests, may overlap with our own, providing a possible explanation for the mysterious and often inexplicable aspects of UFO phenomena.
The connection between the paranormal and UFOs takes us to Skinwalker Ranch. In 2007, James Lacatski, a scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) became interested in Skinwalker Ranch. His visit to the ranch led him to believe in the existence of paranormal phenomena, including UFOs, ghosts, and monsters. He shared his experience with Nevada Senator Harry Reid, leading to the creation of AAWSAP, a program aimed at studying aerospace technology trends.
In 2017, Leslie pitched a story to the New York Times about a Pentagon UFO program called “AATIP,” without mentioning AAWSAP or its paranormal investigations. This led to public interest in UFOs, but according to former AAWSAP contractor Colm Kelleher, the true story was largely hidden.
Despite the controversy and skepticism surrounding AAWSAP/AATIP, some former members continued to pursue their interest in UFOs and the paranormal. Some even briefed Congress on UFO-related matters, causing a stir among elected officials and the media. Jay Stratton, an AAWSAP/Skinwalker Ranch alum, provided UFO information to a Pentagon press office and headed a Pentagon UFO Task Force during the Trump administration. (Source)
However, it is suggested that the task force was more focused on unconventional UFOs than addressing other national security concerns. Some former DOD officials criticized Stratton’s leadership, alleging that he was preoccupied with paranormal stories related to Skinwalker Ranch.
Dailystar writes, “Leslie says it’s a shame that the entire area of the paranormal got a bad reputation because so many fraudsters got involved in it. And similarly, the number of hoax UFO sightings has led to scientists not taking reports as seriously as they should. She say more investigation of both phenomena is needed to understand exactly what’s going on. She added that there are major UFO reports such as the sighting in Stephenville, Texas, in 2008 that urgently need to be re-examined.”
Leslie says that at the moment, UFO research is being taken more seriously than it has been in decades, but scientific inquiry into life after death is being almost ignored. “I think people should know that the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness studies [BICS], which was founded by Robert Bigelow, is doing investigations into all of these questions,” she said.
The institute launched an essay competition for the best accounts of near-death experiences. “Robert Bigelow was offering huge cash prizes for the winners of this contest, so there was a lot of motivation and there were some amazing essays that were submitted which provided fascinating evidence,” she said.
The ranch gained notoriety in the 1990s when it was purchased by Mr. Bigelow, who funded a number of studies of the phenomena reported at the ranch. However, the specifics of what has been reported at the ranch and the credibility of those reports have been the subject of much debate and skepticism. Some people believe that the ranch is a hotspot for extraterrestrial activity, while others claim that the reports of strange occurrences at the ranch are the result of hoaxes or misidentifications of natural phenomena
In an interview with award-winning journalist George Knapp, Mr. Bigelow shared his personal experiences and losses that prompted his interest in life after death, as well as UFOs. He talked about possible links between consciousness research and UFOs. He also talked about the risks of trying to establish communications with the unknown.
“That’s been mainly what I’ve been doing except for the skinwalker ranch thing for 20 years as the space world has been huge in my life to pursue the legitimate parochial kind of you know using fire engines rockets to get you there. We didn’t expect anything like this to happen and so there this is different. This is the holy grail and is different than the second holy grail. If the second one is ‘Beings’ (E.T.), then the first one: Is there any part of your consciousness that survives your bodily death? That’s a big deal. That’s a huge story. That’s gigantic.”
“Be a little careful about what you wish for. So on the face of it, communication sounds great and that by the way has been tried forever ever since the oracle of Delphi. I mean you can go back thousands of years and that’s been attempted. So It’s not now you know the last 100 years through electronics and using some kind of electrical apparatus to try to have some kind of communications. And you know communication can be at all different kinds of levels. There might be communication that just causes you an awareness.”
Mr. Bigelow’s investigative team, headed by Colm Kelleher, the institute’s scientific administrator and biochemist, documented their own paranormal events, according to a 2005 book “Hunt for the Skinwalker,” by Dr. Kelleher and Mr. Knapp.
Mr. Bigelow said he saw “interdimensional” forces at play through portals at certain paranormal hot spots like Skinwalker. But he also said he had frequently visited the ranch without experiencing the kind of chilling events others reported, as if some intelligence were selecting the people to act upon. “I slept like a log every single night,” he said. And no human was physically harmed, but he said he and other visitors often carried strange things home, like a sulfurous stink in a certain part of his house. His wife felt the presence of a faceless creature pressing down on her side of bed.
Read also:
Brandon Fugal, the current owner of Skinwalker Ranch says one of the most unexpected intersections of UFO phenomena and religious belief comes from Mormon theology. Mormonism teaches that the universe is inhabited by countless worlds and dimensions, a concept referred to as “worlds without number.” This belief is rooted in the idea that there is a divine plan for existence, and the universe is teeming with diverse life forms. (Source)
Within the framework of Mormonism, the notion of multiple dimensions of reality separated by a spiritual fabric known as “the veil” is essential. In these dimensions, there are worlds populated by people who are aliens to Earth. Travel between these dimensions is considered possible through the power of God or, interestingly, through the power of Satan.
One notable figure who recognized the potential connection between Mormon beliefs and UFO phenomena was the late U.S. Senator Harry Reid. When asked about reconciling his Mormon faith with his interest in the paranormal, Reid emphasized that Mormonism’s teachings align with the idea of otherworldly existence. He believed that there is ample evidence to suggest that there are indeed other dimensions and realms of reality, paralleling the quest to understand UFOs and the unexplained phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch.
David Grusch, a popular UFO whistleblower claimed that in 1945, the United States intercepted a mysterious craft that was initially recovered by Mussolini’s forces in Italy back in 1933. As evidence of this extraordinary event, Grusch presented a handwritten Italian memo containing small drawings at the bottom. What made this revelation even more intriguing was the implication of the Vatican’s involvement, suggesting the religious institution was not only aware of the existence of NHI but also actively participated in suppressing this information. (Click here to read the full article)
Grusch made significant assertions regarding the NHI, stating that these entities might be extraterrestrial or interdimensional, or possibly both. Astronomer and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée states that UFOs and related events of a paranormal nature involve visitations from other “realities” or “dimensions.” The idea proposes that these alternate realities exist separately yet parallel to our own. In 1975 book “The Edge of Reality,” Vallée and Hynek considered the possibility of what they call “interlocking universes.”
U.S. ARMY MOVES CLOSER TO UNLEASHING ‘DARK EAGLE’ LONG-RANGE HYPERSONIC WEAPON IN MAJOR TEST WITH U.S. NAVY
The U.S. Navy is reportedly preparing to test a hypersonic weapon as part of a joint developmental program with the U.S. Army, which aims to unleash the military’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) capabilities.
“The Army is working closely with the Navy in the development of the LRHW,” according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. “LRHW is comprised of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), and the Navy 34.5-inch booster.”
The forthcoming test will involve the C-HGB, which relies on the Navy’s booster rocket motor to propel the weapon to hypersonic speeds. Once the rocket is ejected, the C-HGB can glide at speeds of Mach 5 or greater. The missile is designed to be highly maneuverable, which helps ensure it remains difficult to detect and intercept before reaching its destination.
The news of the forthcoming test follows plans the Navy revealed late last year to upgrade several of its warships with a series of 87-inch missile tubes, each capable of housing three C-HGB hypersonic missiles, for a total of 12 per ship. The missile tubes will replace the twin 155 mm Advanced Gun Systems that are currently equipped for each of the Navy vessels.
The C-HGB is the outgrowth of technologies that are more than a decade in the making, originally part of the Alternate Re-Entry System developed by the Army and designed by Sandia National Laboratories in the early 2010s.
Production of the C-HGB for the Army and the Navy has been underway for several years in cooperation with Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos, who was contracted to develop the prototypes. Dynetics’ development of the C-HGB prototypes marks the first time that a domestic private sector entity has been tasked with building hypersonic weapons.
“The LRHW system provides the Army a strategic attack weapon system to defeat Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities, suppress adversary long-range fires, and engage other high payoff/time critical targets,” the recent CRS report read.
Earlier this week at the recent Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch told Defense News that the test would not involve the Army’s ground support equipment but would instead be “a stool launch” that would provide the military “another look at the missile.”
Known as Dark Eagle, the Army says its LRHW will be capable of reaching targets within a range of 1,725 miles and reportedly traveling at speeds exceeding 3,800 miles per hour.
After being fired from the Army’s portable ground-based launch units, Dark Eagle can climb high into Earth’s atmosphere, where it remains beyond the reach of air and missile defense systems until it nears its target.
Following the Navy’s initial C-HGB test this spring, the Army plans to conduct a test later this summer from its ground-based truck-launched system, with weapon system integration performed by Lockheed Martin. The Army has organized the LRHW launch systems into batteries consisting of four Transporter Erector Launchers, which are fitted to modified M870A4 trailers.
The U.S. Army’s ground-based truck-launched system, which it will use to launch its Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon
(Credit: US Army/ Spc. Chandler Coats).
“The M870A4 SEMITRAILER is a 40-ton payload, mechanical folding gooseneck, level-deck trailer with rear ramps capable of handling payloads on primary, secondary, and trail profile roads,” states an unclassified 2019 U.S. Army Budget Line Item Justification. Although originally designed for the transport of large construction equipment, the modified trailers are equipped to house the Army’s Transporter Erector Launchers.
Each trailer features two AUR+Cs with a single Battery Operations Center (BOC) for command and control and a BOC support vehicle. According to the December CRS report, the first battery of eight LRHW missiles is to be operated by a Strategic Long-Range Fires battalion under the 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
In the future, additional LRHW batteries will be assigned to other Strategic Long-Range Fires battalions within the Army’s 1st Multi Domain Task Force (MDTF).
Presently, the U.S. is racing against similar hypersonic developments being undertaken by Russia and China, who have been actively testing similar weapons capabilities for years.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that the U.S. Air Force conducted a test with a prototype hypersonic missile in the Marshall Islands. Formally known as the AGM-183, the missile is an air-launched rapid response weapon (ARRW), a type of hypersonic air-to-ground missile that was the result of a $480 million contract granted to Lockheed Martin in 2018.
Although initial tests began in June 2019, the program was officially canceled last spring following a series of setbacks. However, additional testing that was initially undisclosed to the public continued, and late last year, the first official launch of a full prototype operational AGM-183 occurred at a test range off the Southern California coast.
The initial delivery of prototype launch systems hardware arrived at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, last October
(Credit: U.S. Army/Spc. Karleshia Gater).
Last year, the Army and the Navy were met with setbacks of their own, which resulted in the postponement of tests originally scheduled for last March, as well as subsequent Navy and Army tests planned for October and November.
Despite last year’s test cancellations, Lt. Gen. Rasch said that if the Navy’s tests this spring meet their anticipated objectives, the Army will proceed with assembling its own capabilities, which he says are “ready to go” and in varying stages of completion.
Following the Army’s tests later this year, the new LRHW systems will be delivered to the initial Strategic Long-Range Fires battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and thereafter to additional units as they become equipped with the required ground-based launch systems.
What Is The Viral Jellyfish UAP? The UFO Video And The Internet's Weird Reaction Explained
The past year has been a wild one for the UFO and alien community. Hearings about supposed UAP evidence have found their way into mainstream news, and it seems people are talking more and more about the UFO phenomenon.
Now, there's a new viral video going around that supposedly shows a UFO. But no one has any good guesses as to what it actually is, whether it's "alien" or not, because it's just that weird. Here's everything you should know about the so-called "Jellyfish UAP."
The "Jellyfish UAP" video supposedly was shot by a PTDS surveillance balloon at a military base in Iraq in 2018. The video focuses on an unusual object as it moves across the landscape for about two minutes. The UFO is clearer at first, but the visual looks like a bizarre clump of snakes, leaving lots of people confused. The object was most widely compared to a jellyfish.
PlayWhile a lot of alleged UFO videos make the rounds online, often being dubbed hoaxes or appearing only in niche UFO-obsessed forums, the main reason this one hit the mainstream and became popular is due to the sheer weirdness of it. No one knows what it is, even big believers in UFO phenomena. Naturally, the internet came up with a lot of jokes about the jellyfish UAP discourse.
Naturally, these UAP videos are subjected to lots of scrutiny and discourse online. But this one's special. In this case, it doesn't really matter if you care about UFOs, or if you believe aliens are real and have been visiting Earth. The jellyfish UAP is gaining tons of attention online, and not just for conspiracy theorists or alien fans.
For the most part, it's people trying to picture exactly what the UAP looks like up close, or what it could be. Then, people redraw it, with varying degrees of detail or humor. There are the typical alien interpretations:
And then, because the other half of the internet would never take something like this too seriously, there are the more … creative interpretations or some good old-fashioned memes:
