The 18 Best Tech Innovations From CES 2024 That Could Reshape Our Future
From AI pocket companions to transparent TVs to flying cars, CES 2024 offered a look into the near future.
It’s a wrap for CES 2024! We told you AI would be the loudest buzzword at the show, finding its way into all kinds of consumer tech, and we were right. AI was everywhere, but the future isn’t only AI.
At Inverse, we obsess over the past, present, and future of technology. The past shows us the progress we’ve made, the present keeps us grounded in reality, and the future opens our eyes to what’s possible.
CES 2024 had plenty of announcements for devices that you’ll be able to buy in the next 12 months, but it was the experimental, ambitious, and far-flung tech innovations that had us at the edge of our seats. The future is exciting only when you have dreamers trying to build it with wild ideas and products, after all. Not all of these 18 CES 2024 tech innovations will stick the landing, but we hope most of them do.
CES 2024 had Qi 2 chargers aplenty, but looking further out, what we really want is for our gadgets to charge wirelessly over the air without contact with a pad. Enter Infinix’s AirCharge, a base that can supply 7.5W of power to devices. Over-the-air charging tech has a long way to go — the AirCharge only works up to a distance of 20cm or about 7.87 inches — but it is double the distance of similar technology from Oppo, according to Engadget. The progress is slow, but we’re making some. Hopefully, air charging will be mainstream by the end of the decade.
Automakers are obsessed with self-driving car tech, but if you think about it, better self-parking features should be the higher priority. Hyundai’s Mobion EV has an “e-Corner System” aka crab-walking tech, which is exactly the kind of feature every car should have. Many cars now have self-parallel-parking or some kind of assistance for backing into a parking space, so why not the ability for the wheels to rotate and shift the car into a cramped space?
Everyone loves a new TV, but one trend that is gaining traction is hiding the black screen in plain sight. Samsung’s Frame TV has done a good job disguising TVs as picture frames. The natural next step might be TVs that fold up and contract into an art piece or media center. C Seed’s N1 does just that, unfolding into a 137-inch 4K TV with micro-LEDs and then compressing into an unassuming metal sculpture.
Still waiting for flying cars? XPeng AeroHT’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) might be the closest thing on the horizon. The flying car is basically a supercar with rotors strapped to the top. Xpeng AeroHT, an eVTOL-focused sibling to Xpeng Motors, says the eVTOL flying car isn’t a concept and is preparing to mass produce it for a launch in 2025, with pre-orders in the fourth quarter of the year. We’ve heard similar promises from other companies, but if the company does pull it off, we’ll finally be able to cross flying cars off our list of sci-fi tech that’s made a reality.
Smartwatches have proven to be an excellent form factor for health and fitness-tracking functionality. However, the next wearable for sensors to call home might be wireless earbuds. Sennheiser's Momentum Sport give us an early look at the near future with real-time body temperature and heart rate monitoring. It also makes us wonder: Can technology miniaturization lead to wireless earbuds, not smartwatches, becoming the more dominant companion to our phones?
Compared to the rest of the innovations in this roundup, Intel’s Thunderbolt 5 is pretty boring. While it won’t garner the same kind of attention as a transparent TV, Thunderbolt 5 will be the backbone that enables next-gen computing. We’re looking at data transfers of 80Gbps and 120Gbps for video output in a USB-C port. The first laptop with Thunderbolt 5 at CES 2024 was Razer’s Blade 18, but expect laptops and desktops to adopt the new protocol fairly soon.
Samsung’s Ballie and LG’s AI Agent personal robots promise to understand our needs using computer vision and AI. Ballie can patrol the home and project videos onto surfaces. The AI Agent can also patrol homes and functions more like an autonomous smart home hub on wheels, capable of doing stuff like switching the lights on and off for you. Amazon’s Astro robot may have fizzled out, but the dream of home robots doing our bidding so we can live more leisurely lives.
VR headsets and smart glasses may displace TVs and monitors one day, but until that happens, gaming companies are going bigger with their physical screens. The biggest one announced at CES 2024 was Acer’s Predator Z57, a 57-inch curved ultra-wide behemoth. With an 8K resolution and 120Hz, the 32:9 aspect ratio monitor shows gamers have a preference for even larger screens. Check back in a few years and 57-inchers will be as commonplace as 27-inch monitors are today.
We don’t see eye to eye with Elon Musk about a great many things, but we do agree on one thing: the future of cars should look like they’re from the future. We’re not saying the Cybertruck’s sharp, brutalist design is not it, but most people would prefer EVs with a curvier body. Something more like the Saloon and Space-Hub concepts that are part of Honda’s Zero Series EVs. From gull-wing doors to spacious cabins with massive glass roofs to infinity head and tail lights, Honda's EV concepts are more like a step into zen retreat than a vehicle to escape the apocalypse.
Sony’s PS5 continues to sell well for a gaming box that you put under your TV, but Valve’s Steam Deck, along with the dozens of Windows-powered handheld PCs released in the last year, strongly favors the hybrid console design that Nintendo popularized with the Switch. MSI’s Claw A1M is a first look at what will surely be a trend of more increasingly powerful Windows handheld PCs; it’s already got the Asus ROG Ally beat in a number of ways. Handheld PCs like the Claw A1M prove you don't need to decide between performance and portability. You can get both in one device.
You can always count on Lenovo to show up at CES with a form factor that, at the very least, has a shock factor. Case in point: the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid. It’s a Windows 11 laptop with a display that snaps off and functions as an Android tablet — two birds with one stone. What we’re saying is that different platforms can play nice, and we want to see more companies making hardware that acknowledges the strengths of each one.
Have you ever looked at a foldable phone and wished that it could fold all the way backward? Samsung's Flex In & Out concept takes the foldable screen of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and pairs it with a hinge that lets you bend it 360 degrees. How practical such a screen and design will be in a commercial device is questionable, but it’s nice to see that Samsung is still working hard to come up with new phone form factors. Somebody has to!
We told you that AI would be the major theme of CES 2024, flowing through everything, even if it might seem unnecessary. So it’s no surprise to see Volkswagen integrating ChatGPT into its IDA voice assistant. Leveraging large language models (LLMs), you'll be able to talk to your car with natural language, like Michael Knight did with his car KITT in Knight Rider, as opposed to commanding a voice assistant like it’s some robot serf. As AI makes its way into every computer we own, we'll look back in the distant future at this integration and chuckle at how tame it was.
In about three weeks, we'll find out whether Apple Vision Pro really is the start of the “spatial computing” era. Even if it isn’t, we feel confident that video glasses such as Xreal’s Air 2 Ultra and Asus’ AirVision M1 that offer multiple high-res virtual screens are here to stay. They’re also more nails in the coffin for physical TV and monitor screens. We’re starting to think physical screens might not have many years left in this world.
If folding TVs don’t become mainstream (the C Seed N1 is $200,000), we could settle for transparent TVs. Both Samsung's Transparent Micro LED TV and LG’s OLED T tout holographic-like visual experiences. The idea is the same as any folding or rollable TV — fully or partially hiding it so your home can look more like photos featured in an interior design magazine. Transparent TVs are still 2D for now, but give them a few years, and maybe they’ll be capable of 3D holograms.
Are these e-bikes or e-motorcycles? Both? Now that the e-bike revolution is well on its way, e-bikes like Segway’s Xyber and Xafari will blur the lines between what requires and doesn't require a motorcycle license. Honestly, we're all for beefier e-bikes with motorcycle-like builds, suspension, speed, and range. We’re also into the Cybertruck-like aesthetic.
Video games have been chasing immersion since Pong, and while the term can mean many things (more realistic graphics, controls, and in-game physics), tactile feedback is one that always comes up. Razer’s Project Esther is a cushion for gaming chairs with 16 “Sensa HD” vibration actuators. The idea is that you can feel the action of a game around your body instead of only on your controller. You can think of Project Esther as a mini version of the 4D movie theater experiences that vibrate your chair. Do we want to feel like we've been shot in the back? Razer thinks so, or its designers have watched Ready Player One too many times.
AI, specifically generative AI through ChatGPT and chatbots and “copilots” that make use of LLMs took the world by storm in 2023. This year, the AI hardware arrives. Leading the pack is Rabbit’s R1, a $199 “pocket companion” designed by Teenage Engineering that doesn't just understand what it “sees” through its rotating camera and “hears” via its two far-field microphones, but can take actions on them on your behalf. Essentially, the R1 will control your apps and services instead of you having to tap and click your way through. Having pre-sold over 30,000 units since its announcement, maybe Rabbit is on to something here; maybe it’s really time we move away from apps and let AI do repetitive computing for us.
This article was originally published on Jan. 15, 2024
Why We Will Never See Another F-22 Raptor
The Soviet Union’s fall and the subsequent end of the Cold War forced a reexamination of spending priorities. No longer were defense projects simply handed a blank check. The F-22's production was eventually halted.
The Americans, feeling pressure from the consistently competent Soviet aerospace designers, Sukhoi and Migoyan, initiated the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in the late 1980s to develop a fighter that would be unmatched. The ATF fighter would become the world’s first fifth-generation fighter, a technological marvel that was nearly a generation ahead of its time: the F-22 Raptor.
Creating the world’s first fifth-generation fighter was neither easy nor cheap. But the Cold War climate inspired heavy defense spending; the primary motivation for the ATF program would be fielding a competitive aircraft, regardless of the costs—which is the attitude that would be needed to craft technologies that the world had never seen before.
The Americans succeeded. The F-22 was remarkable, “a foray into the future where no one had gone before,” wrote engineer and pilot Patrick Bindner. “While it is almost everyday stuff now—it was nothing less than Star-Wars hardware in comparison with existing equipment at both [Lockheed Martin] & the USAF [who] were learning how to do it as they went along that pathway. It was a piece of extreme exotica using cost-is-no-object engineering & materials. It looks like an airplane but it was the very first full-on stealth fighter.”
The F-22 was so far ahead of its time that even today, three decades later, the jet remains unmatched with respect to air superiority.
Yet, despite being so capable, the F-22’s production was halted after less than 200 airframes were built.
The Soviet Union’s fall and the subsequent end of the Cold War forced a reexamination of spending priorities. No longer were defense projects simply handed a blank check. The Air Force entered a period of sequestration. The F-22's production was eventually halted. And soon, the mighty F-22 will be phased out of the Air Force entirely in favor of the sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter.
The NGAD has not been designed yet, so the jet’s production is still years away. But one thing seems sure: the designers won’t have the budget latitudes that the F-22 designers enjoyed; the NGAD program was recently paused over cost concerns. Still, the NGAD is expected to be a remarkable machine—it will have to be if it means to replace the F-22.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
UFO-shaped clouds form over Queensland's Darling Downs as BOM predicts more rainThis shot was taken on the Darling Downs about 5:15 on Thursday morning.
(Supplied: Kylie Craig Menkins)
It looks like a UFO, or an alien ship, but these oddly-shaped clouds snapped by locals west of Brisbane on Thursday morning are an indicator of Queensland's wild weather.
Kylie Craig Menkins photographed the storm cell from Gowrie Junction, near Toowoomba on the Darling Downs, about 5am.
She jokingly captioned it with "aliens come down", but told the ABC the spectacular display made her day.
"It was absolutely beautiful," she said.
The weather phenomenon, pictured here from Yalangur Lilyvale Road, is known as shelf clouds.
(Supplied: Ken Manteit)
Ken Manteit also snapped photos of the other-worldly cloud formation from Yalangur Lilyvale Road looking towards Oakey.
"It was so weird," his wife Roxanne said.
Kevin Humphrey's photos of the storm cell at Glencoe, south-east of Oakey, were posted to social media with the caption "Spaceship at Glencoe".
"I thought it looked a bit UFOish," he said.
This shot from was taken about 5:30am, showing the "UFOish" clouds moving over the Darling Downs.
(Supplied: Kevin Humphrey)
Daniel Hayes from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said a "series of storms" over the Darling Downs on Thursday morning was what caused these "photogenic clouds".
"They can sometimes look quite weird in shape, and definitely look a bit like a UFO or a spaceship," he said.
Mr Hayes said the phenomena — known as arcus or shelf clouds — was a sign to check your weather app for any active warnings.
While the clouds weren't necessarily a cause for concern, "the strength of the gust front is often what brings damaging winds".
"You'll often get that cool breeze come through ahead of a big thunderstorm during these summer periods," Mr Hayes said.
"That's cold air coming down, out of the storm itself, moving ahead of [it]."
The GreenAg Free Range poultry farm captured this shelf cloud forming at Cutella.
(Supplied: Bernie Lomax)
He said other types of clouds, like lenticular clouds, could also present in a unique shape — but this particular formation was generally associated with a thunderstorm.
"Through Queensland, you can get nice big storms [and] well-developed shelf clouds on these," Mr Hayes said.
Mr Hayes said while shelf clouds weren't uncommon, they were much more noticeable in isolated storm cells and areas with vast flat landscapes.
He explained arcus clouds formed along "the leading edge" of a storm, or the cell's "gust front".
He said shelf clouds were triggered when the cool air mixed with the warm, moist atmosphere near the ground and pushed upward.
"The bigger the storm, the more potential mixing there is, and the more potential strength to those downdrafts," Mr Hayes said.
He said the formation did not always need humid conditions, but dew point could indicate "what that available moisture is for storms to tap into".
Mr Hayes said similar weather was expected to continue over the weekend, with an inland trough moving through Queensland.
"We're expecting to see increasing showers and storms through the southern inland and south-east Queensland areas over the next few days," Mr Hayes said.
"There is the potential that we could see some more severe storms in that mix."
Brisbane could see more rain over the weekend.
(ABC News: Chris Gillette)
Damaging winds, large hail, and heavy rainfall were possible, with showers expected on Sunday but easing into next week.
"If [rain] falls very quickly, or we have slow-moving storms, we could have a flash flooding risk [and] some riverine responses," Mr Hayes said.
Meanwhile heatwave conditions were building in Queensland's west, with temperatures expected to push into the 40s over the weekend.
As clouds clear from the coast, the heat will move across into central and eastern Queensland.
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Is There a Fifth Force of Nature?
Could a new, fifth force of nature provide some answers to our biggest questions about dark matter and dark energy? We’re working on it.
The Standard Model is, for all intents and purposes, the supreme accomplishment of modern physics. It describes four forces of nature, a zoo of particles, and how they all interact. It is perhaps the most successful scientific theory of all time.
And it’s fantastically incomplete.
It turns out that the Standard Model is able to account for less than 5% of all the matter and energy in the cosmos. Another 25% or so is Dark Matter, an unknown kind of matter that is for all intents and purposes invisible. The rest is known as Dark Energy, a mysterious entity that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
One of the first things astronomers noticed when they first discovered dark matter and dark energy was their apparent similarity. Why in the world are the two dark components of our universe roughly the same strength? I know, 25% and 70% don’t sound very similar, but when it comes to astronomy – and especially cosmology – they’re basically the exact same number.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that they have about the same strength, and we’re overthinking it.
Or maybe it’s something else. Clever physicists have proposed connections within the “dark sector” of the universe, where dark matter and dark energy talk to each other. This would allow them to follow each other’s evolution, ensuring that they have roughly equal contributions to the energy budget of the universe for long periods of time.
To make them talk to each other, you need a force. But this force can’t be any of the known ones, otherwise dark matter and/or dark energy must also interact with normal matter, and we would have seen more directly evidence of them already.
So it has to be a new force, a fifth force of nature, completely different from electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. While ideas like this remain only in the realm of hypothesis, some of the ideas already have names.
One name is quintessence, the fifth essence of the universe. Another is dark photons, a particle that travels the cosmos like a photon but is, as its name suggests, dark.
To test these ideas we have to turn to the cosmos for answers. If a fifth force exists, it must be very subtle. Stronger manifestations of the fifth force have already been ruled out by observations of galaxy clusters, the expansion of the universe, and even the behaviors of neutron stars. So we have our work cut out for us – it will take a truly massive amount of data to tease out some signal that differs from expectations.
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Roman’s Telescope and Instruments are Joined
Scheduled for launch in 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is slowly being readied for operation. This week, NASA announced that they have started to joined the mission’s telescope, instrument carrier and instruments onto the spacecraft. Having completed the construction, they will now move to the testing phase where the instrument will be subjected to more tests. These will include exposure to electromagnetic radiation expected during launch along with vibration and thermal changes too. If it passes these tests, the new space telescope will be on the home straight.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is often referred to as the Roman Space Telescope. It’s been developed by NASA and was named after former chief astronomer Nance Grace Telescope. It has a mirror 2.4m in diameter so is similar in size to the Hubble Space Telescope but has a wider field of view. On board are instruments that enable it to explore exoplanets and the large scale structure of the universe. It will also investigate the nature of dark energy and try to understand more about the accelerated expansion of the universe through the study of gravitational lenses.
NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is now named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy.
Credits: NASA
It’s fitting that the telescope has been named after Roman who was a leading American astronomer and astrophysicist. She was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope so has often been called the ‘Mother of Hubble.’ She was born on 16 May 1925 and became one of the first female executives of NASA, including a role as Chief of Astronomy.
In a recent press release, NASA confirmed that a team of technicians have successfully integrated the telescope with instrument carrier, known as the Instrument Payload Assembly. Two instruments have been installed, the Coronagraph Instrument which will be used to block starlight to reveal and study exoplanets, the Optical Telescope Assembly and the Wide Field Instrument. The Wide Field Instrument is made up of 18 detectors that will give the telescope images with a field 100 times larger than Hubble’s but with the same resolution. I really can’t wait to see the images it produces. The whole assemble is now safely connected to the spacecraft that will take the observatory into its orbit.
This image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was taken on May 19, 2009 after deployment during Servicing Mission 4.
NASA
Mark Clampin, acting Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said “With this incredible milestone, Roman remains on track for launch and we’re a big step closer to unveiling the comos as never before.”
Launch is a little way off but before then, the instrumentation will under its next testing phase. There has been a significant amount of testing so far but this next test phase is designed to to ensure the individual components operate when integrated. By subjecting it to simulated launch conditions, the tests will check that the vibrations will not cause problems, that the communications equipment won’t create electromagnetic interference and to check, across a range of conditions, that the optics and instrumentation can cope with the predicted thermal variations.
On completion of these tests, which are expected to last a few months, the aperture cover will be added to the outer barrel assembly with the solar panels soon after. Once this has been completed, the structure will be added to the spacecraft during autumn. To date though, all is going well with the testing and all is on track for launch no later than May 2027.
Source :
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Real Alien Footage? James Fox Uncovers Astonishing Evidence from the Varginha UFO Incident
James Fox, a renowned filmmaker and UFO investigator, has spent decades delving into the mysteries surrounding UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters. His work, which includes documentaries like Moment of Contact and The Phenomenon, has consistently pushed the boundaries of what we know—or think we know—about UFOs and non-human intelligence. In one of his most compelling investigations, Fox revealed tantalizing details about the existence of footage capturing what may be a real alien being.
One of the key events discussed by James Fox is the Varginha UFO incident in Brazil, which took place in 1996. According to multiple credible witnesses, a UFO crash occurred near the small town of Varginha. This incident reportedly involved the capture of extraterrestrial beings—one alive and one deceased—by Brazilian authorities, with subsequent involvement by U.S. officials.
Fox’s investigative journey into this case spanned over a decade. He spoke with military personnel, doctors, and local witnesses who had firsthand knowledge of the event. Their testimonies consistently pointed to a disturbing yet fascinating reality: a UFO crash had occurred, and alien beings were encountered and recovered. Among the evidence allegedly collected during this event was a piece of footage that could potentially show a real alien.
During his investigation, Fox learned of a video allegedly showing one of the recovered alien beings. This footage was reportedly recorded at the Humanitas Hospital in Varginha, where medical personnel had a close encounter with the entity. Witnesses, including doctors and nurses, provided compelling accounts of what they saw, describing the creature as having a frail, humanoid appearance, with large eyes and unusual features.
Fox and his team tracked down the source of this footage—a hard drive believed to contain the video. After a long and arduous journey, they obtained the hard drive. However, their excitement was short-lived. Despite extensive efforts to decrypt the drive, the video could not be located. This led Fox to conclude that the footage might still exist but remains inaccessible or deliberately hidden.
Throughout his career, Fox has emphasized the importance of eyewitness testimonies. In the case of the Varginha incident, these accounts have been remarkably consistent. Witnesses who were close to the events described:
These accounts, combined with the elusive nature of the alien footage, suggest that the Varginha case holds secrets yet to be fully uncovered.
Fox’s revelations raise profound questions about government secrecy, the nature of extraterrestrial life, and humanity’s place in the universe. The existence of alien footage, if proven, would mark one of the most significant discoveries in human history. However, its concealment underscores the challenges faced by investigators like Fox.
Despite skepticism and ridicule, Fox remains steadfast in his pursuit of the truth. His dedication to uncovering the Varginha story—and other UFO cases—has inspired a new generation of researchers and enthusiasts to continue the search for answers.
The possibility of footage showing a real alien being is both thrilling and unsettling. James Fox’s work serves as a reminder that the UFO phenomenon is more than just lights in the sky; it encompasses tangible, real-world encounters with potential non-human intelligence. As governments and institutions begin to disclose more about UFOs, the hope remains that one day, the world may finally see the footage Fox and others have long pursued.
Until then, the Varginha case and its mysterious alien footage remain a pivotal chapter in the story of UFOs, urging us to keep asking questions and seeking the truth.
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Watch This Liquid Metal Robot Escape From Jail, Just Like ‘Terminator 2’
A new video shows a human-shaped ‘robot’ escaping from a miniature jail by transforming itself into a liquid metal state and then slipping through the bars, evoking imagery from popular films like Terminator 2.
Eerily, just like the villain from the aforementioned movie, the robot used in the demonstration was also able to coalesce back into its original shape once it was free.
To accomplish a task right out of a science fiction movie, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong had to create an entirely new type of material that includes magnets and metal. Dubbed a “magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transitional machine,” the futuristic material was made by embedding magnetic particles into a base of gallium. The researchers chose gallium due to its low melting point of only 85.6 °F (or 29.8 °C).
You can see a video featuring this fascinating–and unusual–accomplishment below:
Along with this unique heating ability that doesn’t require an outside heating source to change from a solid state to a liquid one, Majidi says the magnetic particles also give the robots the ability to move in response to the magnetic field. This is particularly significant since the primary function of any robot is the ability to move around and perform various functions.
“Giving robots the ability to switch between liquid and solid states endows them with more functionality,” says Chengfeng Pan, an engineer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong who led the study.
To understand the limits of their new shape-shifting liquid metal robot, the researchers put it through a number of tests. This included using magnetic fields to make the robot jump over moats, climb walls, and even split itself into two smaller robots to move other objects around before coalescing back together.
To show how it could help screw together parts in hard-to-reach places, the team melted some of the metal into the threaded screw socket and then allowed it to harden in place. They even used the conductive ability of their liquid metal robot to show how it could perform soldering tasks in extremely tight confines by melting into them and then re-hardening to perform its tasks.
In the case of the video provided by researchers, the ability to change from a solid state to a liquid metal state allows the robot-shaped metal to escape a tiny prison. This is due to what the researchers describe as an “extremely liquid phase.” Other shape-shifting materials typically have a liquid phase that is much more viscous than the newly created material.
“What we’re showing are just one-off demonstrations, proofs of concept,” said Majidi.
Of course, the robot from the video wasn’t able to travel back in time or track down a tween-aged John Connor. But given its ability to shape-shift from a solid metal state to a liquid one and then back to a solid, it’s pretty much guaranteed that if the robot could talk, it would say, “I’ll be back!”
Ten Mythical Creatures in Ancient Folklore from Around the World
Mythical creatures, legendary beasts, and supernatural, mystical, and god-like beings have fascinated us since ancient times. They have filled folklore, stories, songs, and works of art. Sometimes living animals or fossils have inspired these mythical creatures. From the powerful dragon to the soaring phoenix, these mythical creatures continue to thrill, terrify, entertain, and inspire us.
Some mythical creatures, such as the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, continue to be spotted and sought out. While the origins of such fabulous creatures are varied, and often disputed, they have played significant roles in human society, serving to stimulate the imagination and desire that is ingrained in human nature to experience more than this physical world. Whether they truly exist in physical form is indeed secondary to their existence in the minds of so many people throughout the world and history.
A Kraken, a giant mythical creature from Scandinavian folklore, attacking a ship.
(Dieter Holstein / Adobe Stock)
According to Scandinavian mythology, the Kraken is a giant mythical sea creature, said to be 1 mile (1.61 km) long, that attacks ships and is so huge that its body could be mistaken for an island. It is first mentioned in the Örvar-Oddr, a 13th century Icelandic saga involving two sea monsters, the Hafgufa (sea mist) and the Lyngbakr (heather-back).
The Hafgufa is supposed to be a reference to the Kraken. The existence of the Kraken was even acknowledged in scientific texts, including the first edition of Systema Naturae [1735], a taxonomic classification of living organisms by the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus. Within this scientific work, Linnaeus classified the Kraken as a cephalopod, designating the scientific name Microcosmus marinus.
Although any mention of Kraken was omitted in later editions of the Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described the mythical creature in his later work, Fauna Suecica [1746], as a “unique monster” that “is said to inhabit the seas of Norway.” Accounts of the Kraken are believed by many historians to have originated from sightings of the giant squid, which can reach a staggering 59 feet (18 meters) in length.
Vikings carrying the head of Grendel, the beast that attacked the feasting hall in Beowulf.
Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem set in Scandinavia and cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature of all time. Dated between the 8th and early 11th century, the epic poem tells the story of Beowulf, a hero who comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, by defeating a beast known as Grendel who had been terrorizing the great mead hall built by Hroðgar and threatening the entire kingdom.
Archaeological research has verified that the great hall commissioned by Hroðgar did indeed exist, and was located in the country’s earliest royal capital, Lejre, 23 miles (37.01 km) west of modern Copenhagen. Whether Grendel (meaning quite literally “the destroyer”) originally existed in some less legendary form – perhaps symbolizing a malevolent spirit responsible for disease and death, or a particularly fierce-looking human enemy – is as yet unknown.
A Kappa water demon as shown in the “Bakemono no e” (meaning “Illustrations of Supernatural Creatures”), a Japanese handscroll depicting mythical creatures from circa 1700.
(Brigham Young University / CC BY-SA 4.0)
In ancient Japanese folklore, the Kappa is a water demon that inhabits rivers and lakes and devours disobedient little children. The Kappa, a word meaning “river child,” is usually depicted with the body of a tortoise, a beak, and the limbs of a frog, and has a hole filled with water on top of his head. While they are primarily water creatures, they are believed to occasionally venture onto land.
According to legend, the head cavity must be kept wet when the Kappa ventures out of the water, or he will lose his powers. The Kappa is one of the most well-known folk legends in Japan and many believe the mythical creature to be real.
In fact, there are signs near some lakes in Japan warning people of their presence. However, others maintain it is much more likely that the legend of the Kappa is connected with sightings of the Japanese Giant Salamander, or hanzaki, which is known to be aggressive and to grab its prey with its powerful jaws.
The legendary Nian, one of the mythical creatures of Chinese folklore.
(Author supplied)
According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called Nian, which had the body of a bull and the head of a lion. It was said to be a ferocious animal that lived in the mountains and hunted for a living. Towards the end of winter when there was nothing to eat, Nian would come on the first day of New Year to the villages to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers - especially children.
To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. The villagers would live in terror over the winter, but over time they learned that the ferocious Nian was afraid of three things: the color red, fire, and noise. So, when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. They also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian.
From then on, Nian never came to the villages again. According to legend, the mythical creature was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk, and Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount. After Nian was captured, there were huge celebrations and the ritual involved in banishing him was repeated the following year. These symbolic rituals were passed down from generation to generation and the custom of celebrating the New Year with firecrackers, noise, and the color red has persisted to this day.
A Naga statue at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Thailand.
(tuayai / Adobe Stock)
The Naga is a legendary aquatic, serpentine creature that resides in oceans, rivers, lakes, or waterfalls. Nagas are said to have black scales and can grow to hundreds of feet in length. Nagas are traditionally worshipped as personifications of water deities and considered bringers of rain and clouds.
Nagas are guardians of temples and holy places. Most Kaliyatran believe that the superior God directs the actions of the Nagas, and these sea serpents are honored with many titles such as the Maharaja Sarpa and the “Naga who is God.” It is commonly believed that Nagas live in underground cities, are capable of speech, and can use their heavenly powers to control weather and assume humanoid form at will.
The female Piasa bird, is one of the mythical creatures of Native American mythology.
The legend of the Piasa bird dates back to long before European explorers came to North America. It has been traced to a band of Illiniwek Indians who lived along the Mississippi in the vicinity north of present-day Alton. This tribe, led by a chief named Owatoga, hunted and fished the valley and the river and lived a contented life until the so-called “great beast” came.
The mythical creature Piasa bird was described by French missionary priest Jacques Marquette in 1673 as follows: “it is as large as a calf, with horns like a roebuck, red eyes, a beard like a tiger and a frightful countenance. The face was something like that of a man, the body covered in scales, and the tail so long that it passed entirely around the body, over the head and between the legs, ending like a fish.”
As with the Illini tribes, there can be found traditions of similar large birds and dragons throughout the world. The Dakota tribe believed that thunder was a monstrous bird flying through the air and claimed that these birds were large enough to carry off human beings.
In the ancient Buddhist caves of India there can be found a number of carved and painted dragons that easily fit with the descriptions of Piasa. Some have questioned whether these mythical creatures could have been an ancient species of bird that actually existed. That so many cultures and groups of people separated by thousands of miles and years have similar tales of immense flying creatures is curious to say the least.
A modern depiction of the Menehune dwarves of Hawaiian mythology.
In Hawaiian mythology, the Menehune are said to be an ancient race of small-stature people who lived in Hawaii before settlers arrived from Polynesia. Many scholars attribute ancient structures found on the Hawaiian Islands to the Menehune. However, others have argued that the legends of the Menehune are a post-European contact mythology and that no such race existed.
The mythology of the Menehune is as old as the beginnings of Polynesian history. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found dams, fish-ponds, roads, and even temples - all said to have been built by the Menehune who were superb craftspeople. Some of these structures still exist and the highly-skilled craftsmanship is evident.
According to legend, each of these mythical creatures was a master of a certain craft and had one special function they accomplished with great precision and expertise. They would set out at dusk to build something in one night, and if this was not achieved, it would be abandoned. To date, no human skeletal remains of a physically small race of people have ever been found on Kaua’I or on any other Hawaiian Islands.
While this does not disprove that a race of small people existed, it does draw the truth behind the legend into question. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence, both archaeological and in the numerous legends passed down over generations, that suggests that there was indeed an ancient race of highly-skilled people who inhabited the Hawaiian islands long before the Polynesians arrived.
Cipactli is one of the mythical creatures from Aztec legends.
The Aztecs of Mexico held the belief that the Earth was created from the destruction of a large sea demon, created by and known to the gods as Cipactli. Cipactli was described in many fashions: a crocodile with toad and fish characteristics, a sea demon, or a monster. Regardless of the description, the Aztecs considered this asexual sea being as the source of the cosmos.
Cipactli’s appetite was insatiable and each joint of the mythical creature bore a mouth. As the gods began the process of creation, they soon realized that their other creations would fall into the void and be devoured by the demon, so they decided to destroy Cipactli. Tezcatlipoca lured the monster in and lost a foot to its insatiable appetite before the gods were able to defeat it.
Cipactli put up a fight, but in the end the gods prevailed. They pulled Cipactli’s body in four directions and freed the universe from it. Then Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl created the heavens and the Earth and everything therein from Cipactli’s body. The creature’s head became the thirteen heavens, its tail the underworld, and its midsection the Earth.
Griffins are ancient mythical creatures with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.
(Declan Hillman / Adobe Stock)
The griffin is a legendary mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the king of the birds, and the lion the ‘king of the beasts’, the griffin was perceived as a powerful and majestic creature.
During the Persian Empire, the griffin was seen as a protector from evil, witchcraft, and slander. While griffins are most common in the art and mythology of ancient Greece, there is evidence of representations of griffins in ancient Persia and ancient Egypt dating back to as early as the 4th millennium BC. On the island of Crete in Greece, archaeologists have uncovered depictions of griffins in frescoes in the Throne Room of the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos dating back to the 15th century BC.
The four mythical creatures of China; the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South.
(Author provided)
In ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky ecliptic was divided into four sections. Each of these sections contained seven mansions, and together they formed the 28 Mansions. The 28 Mansions may be considered to be equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy, although they reflect the movement of the Moon through a sidereal month rather than the Sun in a tropical year.
This enabled the ancient Chinese to mark the traveling positions of the Sun and the Moon, as well as to determine the time and seasons. Each section of the sky is assigned to a mythical creature, collectively known as the Four Symbols. These mythical creatures are the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South. Apart from their astronomical significance, each of the Four Symbols is surrounded by various mythological associations.
By Joanna Gillan
A Stonehenge-Like Monument Has Been Mysteriously Moving for Thousands of Years
Rujm el-Hiri, dubbed the “Stonehenge of the East” with a 492-foot diameter, has baffled experts since it was discovered in 1968.
A new study shows that the tectonic plates near the Sea of Galilee monument have moved every year for over 4,000 years, virtually eliminating the possibility the site was constructed as an astronomical observatory.
Theories over the impetus for the construction have found little in the way of real clues to back them up.
Rujm el-Hiri, an ancient labyrinth-style structure believed to be nearly 5,000 years old, has quite a few nicknames. It’s been called the Stonehenge of the East, the Levantine Stonehenge, and, coolest of all, the Wheel of Ghosts. For all those nicknames, however, there are just as many theories as to why the structure was ever built in the first place.
A new study published in the journal Remote Sensing looks to eliminate one popular idea. Rujm el-Hiri couldn’t have been an astronomical observatory, at least as we view it today. Why? Because the earth beneath it is moving.
Every year, the tectonic plates in the area around Golan Heights shift between 0.3 and 0.6 inches. That means Ruim el-Hiri, located about 10 miles east of the Sea of Galilee, has shifted 131 feet over the past 4,000 years, completely changing the alignment of the stone structure.
“The Rujm el-Hri site has rotated counterclockwise and shifted from its original location by tens of meters,” the authors write. “This means that the current orientation of the radial walls and entrances was not the same as 4000-2000 B.C., and the speculation that they were aligned with celestial bodies of the past are not supported.”
“Therefore,” they add, “Ruim el-Hiri was unlikely an observatory.”
First discovered in 1968, the site has yielded little in the way of clues to its purpose, even as archaeologists have searched the area for key hints. The site features a central stack of stones—dubbed a cairn—ringed by concentric circles of basalt stones and radial walls. With a diameter of 492 feet, the total circumference of the monument site stretches to about 1,640 feet.
Such a large site so intricately designed must have had a distinct—and likely important—purpose, experts believe. In addition to the (probably) untrue astronomical observatory, theories have ranged from a military fort to an an elaborate burial ground for a lauded figure from thousands of years ago.
The recent study notes that the “spatial distribution” in the sizes of the flower-like clusters of fencing, the potential burial ground may connect to other archaeological features suggesting “that they might serve diverse functions.”
“Most archaeological structures in the region were reused long after their original construction,” the study authors write. “This involved adding new features, building walls over older ones, and reshaping the landscape with new objects. Rujm el-Hiri is a prime example of such a complex sequence.”
When a 1998 study tied Rujm el-Hiri’s layout, including everything from entrances to measurements, to the Bronze Age sky, experts latched onto the site as a likely observatory. The new study shatters all that. “The tectonic blocks of northern Isreal have continually moved along an elliptical trajectory in a counterclockwise direction,” the authors write.
Until now, there perhaps hasn’t been a single person to have interacted with the monument in any way that was aware of how much it’s moved since first constructed.
Flying electric vehicle 'straight out of Star Wars' reaches 65mph as it soars higher than the Statue of Liberty
It looks like something straight out of Star Wars.
But this new electric flying vehicle is the latest in a line of aerodynamic EVs set to take over the skies over the next decade.
The stylish $300,000 Manta M4 offers space for one passenger and takes off from land and sea, but can only land in water.
The Manta M4 travels up to 65 miles per hour and weighs as much as a small jet ski.
The vehicle is steered using a joystick, allowing riders to soar up to 500 feet above the ground — about the height of two Statue of Liberty, or half the height of the Empire State Building.
Riders are protected by a glass hood, which will protect against wind speed and keep users safe from the craft's three propellers.
The craft gets 30 minutes of power with an electric battery or three hours using one of its hydrogen fuel cells.
Revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, founder David Simchon told DailyMail.com how his vehicle would surely be the next pleasure craft of the skies.
Only a model of the vehicle was shown, but the company, called SimTechLabs, says the full product will be unveiled at a boat show in Florida next month when it hits the market for the first time.
Pictured above is a model of the Manta M4, which will debut at a boat show in Florida next month
The device uses three propellers to take off from land or water, and can fly at 65mph for up to 30 minutes using its electric battery
Simchon said that users will not need a license due to the craft’s lightweight design that is at under 300lbs, meaning it is considered ultra-light, a point where the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not require users to have a license.
However, owners without a pilot's license will have to follow the FAA's regulations and airspace restrictions.
Manta M4 has a thermal onboard system to detect and warn of birds and other dangers in the air and a system emitting ultrasonic sounds to scare away sharks that may be lurking in the water beneath.
The base features a 360-degree camera, allowing riders to capture breathtaking views of the world below while they fly — or check the water below for any signs of rocks or sharks.
It also features eight ultrasonic sensors, 16 sonar disruptions sensors and four thermal cameras to capture scenes of its surroundings and avoid oncoming obstacles.
In a worst-case scenario of the craft losing power, it has three parachutes that will deploy to ensure a safe landing.
It is the second craft to be launched by SimTech labs after it launched a flying aircraft called the Icarus Project in 2024.
Flying aircraft and taxis — some autonomously operated — are expected to be routinely whizzing around US skies within the next few years, according to the FAA.
And it’s the same in the UK, where the Government says it expects them to be ‘routinely’ in operation by 2028.
Manta M4 has a thermal onboard system to detect and warn of birds and other dangers in the air and a system emitting ultrasonic sounds to scare away sharks that may be lurking in the water beneath
Developer SimTechLabs prices the craft at $300,000 for one. Ten are set to go on sale
The former head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Sergio Cecutta and who resigned in 2023, said at the time that one of his major achievements was fast-tracking progress to get electric airtaxis into the skies.
Another UFO-like craft was also revealed at CES — called the ‘Invo Moon’ — that could carry up to three passengers through US skies.
And Toyota debuted its Joby aircraft which is expected to go on sale later this Year.
RELATED VIDEO
Trapped astronauts show first cracks with haunting plea from International Space Station
The American astronauts who have been stranded in space for seven months have hinted at the toll their unexpected mission is taking.
Butch Wilmore, 62, and Sunita Williams, 59, were heard telling NASA bigwigs 'eventually, we want to go home' during a video call on Wednesday.
The pair first landed at the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5 and they have been stuck there ever since.
Their visit was only supposed to be eight days long. But due to safety concerns, NASA decided to send the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they arrived on back to Earth without anyone inside.
In August 2024, it was decided that the left-behind astronauts would return home on a SpaceX aircraft in 2025.
On Wednesday, Wilmore and Williams joined fellow astronauts Nick Hague, 49, and Don Pettit, 69, at the ISS to share more details about their lives in space.
The astronauts participated in a video call with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
Williams shared how she and Wilmore have been feeling about their shocking circumstances and adapting to their extended space stay.
'Yeah, eventually we want to go home, because we left our families a little while ago, but we have a lot to do while we’re up here,' she revealed.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, Don Pettit and Suni Williams (from left to right) spoke about their experiences in space on Wednesday
Butch Wilmore, 62, and Suni Williams, 59, have been stuck at the ISS since June when their spacecraft had to leave without them
'We’ve got to get all that stuff done before we go home.'
They are expected to return home in early April alongside the rest of Crew-9, which is the ninth crew rotation of the ongoing Expedition 72.
Williams has become the commander of Expedition 72. Wilmore, Pettit and Hague are flight engineers, according to NASA.
Wilmore and Williams did not seem worried about their conditions and debunked rumored safety concerns about a lack of clothes or resources.
When the pair first came to space in June, they were short on clothes because the Starliner needed more room for cargo, so some personal items had to be sacrificed.
Wilmore said: 'It was well known that when we came up here we swapped out a couple of components that we needed on the space station for some of our clothes.
'So we wore [the same] clothes for a while, but that doesn’t bother us, because, you know, clothes fit loosely up here.
The Boeing Starliner that Wilmore and Williams arrived to the ISS was sent back without the crew due to safety concerns
Williams has become the commander of Expedition 72. Wilmore is a flight engineer for the mission
'It’s not like on Earth where you sweat and it gets bad. I mean, they fit loosely, so you can wear things, honestly, for weeks at a time, and it doesn’t bother you at all.'
The astronauts have since been resupplied with clothes brought by Crew-9 in September.
Wilmore and Williams joined Crew-9 when Hague, the crew's commander, and mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived. They cannot leave until Crew-10 arrives in late March.
While reiterating that the astronauts are not in harm's way, Melroy cheekily said: 'So what you’re telling us is you’re not channeling ‘Cast Away,’ and you don’t have a volleyball with a handprint on it that you call Wilson.'
Williams replied: 'No, we’ve got a whole team up here, so we’re not worried about that. And there’s a lot to do as well with the team on the ground.
Williams said they are not 'cast away' in space, but the pair would like to get back to their families as soon as they can
'It’s just a great team, and, no, it doesn’t feel like we’re cast away.
'We had tons of science experiments with SpaceX 31 [a cargo resupply mission]. We’ve got space walks coming up. It was really busy when we were waiting for Nick to get up here.
'And it’s just been a joy to be working up here, particularly with our counterparts on the other end of the space station.'
Williams and Hague are set to go on a spacewalk later this month. A week after that, Wilson and Wilmore may go out for one as well.
According to NASA, the goal of Expedition 72 is to 'explore a variety of space phenomena to benefit humans on and off the Earth including pharmaceutical manufacturing, advanced life support systems, genetic sequencing in microgravity, and more.'
DailyMail.com has reached out to NASA for comment.
Sunken worlds under the Pacific? Scientists are BAFFLED by massive structures found deep beneath the ocean that 'shouldn't exist'
From Atlantis to El Dorado and Avalon, legend tells us that Earth is dotted with lost lands that once met a dramatic downfall.
While these are commonly considered inventive myths, a new study reveals evidence for 'a lost world' beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Structure of the Earth: Crust, Mantle and Core
Scientists at ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found massive structures deep beneath the Pacific waters that 'shouldn't exist'.
This mystery material – which is making seismic waves in the region behave strangely – could be evidence of a lost land from hundreds of millions of years ago.
According to current scientific theories, the anomalous material in the lower mantle, about 600 miles (1,000km) beneath the water, 'should not be found' there.
Described as a 'major mystery', the findings challenge 'our current understanding of how the Earth works', according to researchers.
'Determining Earth's structure is paramount to unravel its interior dynamics,' say the team in their paper, published in Scientific Reports.
'These findings suggest more diverse origins for these anomalies in Earth's lower mantle.'
Using a new model, researchers uncover zones in the Earth's lower mantle where seismic waves travel slower (red) or faster (blue) - and cannot come from subducted plates. The large blue zone in the western Pacific (right above the center of the image) was previously unknown
From Atlantis to El Dorado and Avalon, legend tells us that Earth is dotted with lost lands that once met a dramatic downfall. Pictured, a depiction of Atlantis
Earth is made up of three layers – the crust, the mantle and the core, which was later separated into 'inner' and 'outer'.
The problem is, no-one can see inside the Earth, nor can anyone drill deep enough to take rock samples from the mantle.
Instead, scientists study the speeds of seismic waves – the vibrations caused by earthquakes and explosions – as they travel through the planet's interior.
Seismographic stations record these waves and on the basis of these recordings experts can draw conclusions about the structure and composition of the Earth.
'This is very similar to how doctors use ultrasound to image organs, muscles or veins inside the body without opening it up,' ETH Zurich said.
It's also well known that Earth's lithosphere – its rocky, outermost shell, comprising the upper portion of the mantle and the crust – is formed of around 15 tectonic plates.
Seismic activity can be detected along the tectonic plate's borders, where the plates rub up against each other.
But in the ancient past, large plates have since disappeared into Earth's mantle by means of 'subduction'.
Earth is made up of three layers – the crust, the mantle and the core, which was later separated into 'inner' and 'outer'. A recent study suggested the existence of an 'innermost core' too
The anomalous findings, described as a 'major mystery', challenge 'our current understanding of how the Earth works'. In this image, A and B show the locations of seismic stations along the Pacific. C to F show the seismic wave anomalies in traditional map view and as cross-section
This is the geologic process in which one edge of one plate is forced below the edge of another – and over time an entire plate can be lost.
In the past, seismologists have determined the position of submerged tectonic plates throughout the Earth's mantle, but they've always been under subduction zones.
In the new study, the ETH Zurich and Caltech researchers used a computational technique called 'full-waveform inversion' which constructs a 3D image of the Earth using seismic wave data.
They identified areas below the Pacific that seem like remains of submerged plates, but far away from plate boundaries with no geological evidence of past subduction.
The Pacific is one large plate so it should not have any subduction material under it anyway.
This suggests the anomalies are not lost subducted plates. However, what the material is instead – or what it means for Earth's internal dynamics – is something of an enigma.
'It's like a doctor who has been examining blood circulation with ultrasound for decades and finds arteries exactly where he expects them,' said co-author Professor Andreas Fichtner, seismologist at ETH Zurich.
Seismic activity can be detected along the tectonic plate's borders, where the plates rub up against each other. But in the ancient past, large plates have since disappeared into Earth's mantle by means of 'subduction'
The Pacific is one large plate so it should not have any subduction material under it. Plate boundaries are pictured here in red
'Then if you give him a new, better examination tool, he suddenly sees an artery in the buttock that doesn't really belong there. That's exactly how we feel about the new findings.'
However, the researchers do present a few theories behind the the anomalies, which would need more information from waves – not just their speed – to form any robust conclusions.
They could be ancient, silica-rich material that has been there since the formation of the mantle about four billion years ago.
Alternatively they could be zones where iron-rich rocks accumulate as a consequence of mantle movements over billions of years.
'There is a diverse range of potential explanations for the detection of positive wave speed anomalies in Earth's (lower) mantle other than the presence of subducted slabs,' they conclude in their paper.
'Our research underscores the critical role of full waveform inversion as an indispensable tool in mantle exploration.'
Tectonic plates are composed of Earth's crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle.
Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride.
The Earth has fifteen tectonic plates (pictured) that together have moulded the shape of the landscape we see around us today
Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other.
Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate.
These areas are relatively weak compared to the surrounding plate, and can easily slip and cause an earthquake.
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Moment private jet crew spot stunning spherical UFO in night skies over Florida
A flight attendant caught on camera a mysterious spherical object flying above the plane she was working on, thousands of feet above the Bahamas.
Cassandra Martin, a flight attendant for private air service Surjet, was flying with two pilots in an empty jet on December 23 when Miami air traffic control alerted them to a 'foreign object' as they were flying back to Fort Lauderdale.
The eerie footage showed a rounded blur of white light that faded into a green color, with a circular halo surrounding the object.
'All of a sudden, I heard traffic control say, "We have a foreign object, can you please identify",' Martin said.
'I looked to the left, and pilot saw three objects, I only saw one, and I grabbed my phone, I just pressed it to the window to see if I could get a video of what the object was.'
'I don't know what it was, and it turned slightly green, almost kind of like it had an electric field around it of some sort, and it stayed with us for about 45 minutes and then we didn't see it again, and we were about 43-, 45,000 feet and it was way above us,' she added.
Martin added that the object moved around in zigzag patterns. The height the object and the aircraft were flying at, however, is too high for a drone to operate, NBC 6 reported.
'I think we were astonished, and it was something that you really can't explain but I don't have the qualifications to know what that is,' Martin said, recalling the conversation she had with the pilots on board.
Cassandra Martin, a flight attendant for private air service Surjet, was flying with two pilots in an empty jet on December 23 when air traffic control alerted them to a 'foreign object'
'It had capabilities just to zigzag and change color, so that was a little daunting, to the say the least, but you know, it's also something fascinating that I was able to see and capture with my phone,' Martin said
Defense expert Bryan Bender, who works with a nonprofit advocacy group Americans for Safe Aerospace, said: 'I think the video is compelling, so you know, this video and this testimony rhymes a lot with a number of cases we heard from military pilots going back even 10 or 15 years and that is these orbs.
'In some cases, they called them Tic Tacs, they were more oblong in shape but flying at very high altitudes but also being able to maneuver in ways that don't seem to make a lot of sense to us, at least we know physics.
'And so, the question is, are these foreign adversaries that have made some breakthrough, or is it something else, and of course, that something else could be many things.'
Bender added that the Pentagon had an office to investigate such sightings, and said it is imperative for national security and aviation safety that they find out what these unidentified anomalies are, NBC 6 reported.
'Was it a little bit eerie? Yes, because again, we were pretty high up and whatever we saw was even higher than us,' Martin said. 'It had capabilities just to zigzag and change color, so that was a little daunting, to the say the least, but you know, it's also something fascinating that I was able to see and capture with my phone.'
The sighting comes after a mysterious 'orange UFO orb' was seen flying over military base Fort Campbell along the Tennessee-Kentucky border on New Year's Day.
An anonymous user on Reddit captured footage of a mystifying 'bright orange light' hovering relatively low as it traveled over the military base.
The user, who witnessed the perplexing 'celestial' event alongside their father, who is a seasoned Army veteran, said that they 'couldn't explain' what they were seeing in the skies above.
An anonymous user on Reddit captured footage of a mystifying 'bright orange light' flying relatively low as it traveled over Fort Campbell - a military base along the Tennessee-Kentucky border, on New Year's Day
Around 12:10am on January 1, the user, who was visiting family in a city just outside Nashville, then tried to capture the object 'as quickly as possible,' snapping a near 35-second clip of the glowing orb
'My dad, a former soldier with nearly 30 years of Army experience and extensive knowledge of the aircrafts that fly over his house, said he couldn’t explain what he saw - this was unlike anything he’d encountered before,' the post reads.
Around 12:10am on January 1, the Redditor, who was visiting family in a city just outside Nashville, tried to capture the object 'as quickly as possible,' snapping a near 35-second clip of the glowing orb.
'Just after midnight, my dad was outside watching fireworks when he noticed a bright orange light flying relatively low and maintaining a steady, consistent speed as it traveled from the northwest - where both Fort Campbell and the local airport are located,' the user claimed.
The curious onlookers were mystified at the unidentified flying object as it did not appear to have any additional lights as they suspect most drones do.
'My friend, dad, and I watched the object together and were surprised it had no additional lights, as one might expect on a drone,' the post adds.
'Initially, I thought it might be a hobbyist drone capturing footage of the fireworks for the New Year, but the apparent distance it was flying has made me second-guess that assumption.'
As more sightings are being reported across the country, many to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), they continue to fuel public interest and speculation about the nature of these unidentified aerial phenomena.
Map reveals UK’s five ‘UFO hotspots’ as investigator lifts lid on wildest ‘alien’ encounters – how does your town fare?
A UFO expert has lifted the lid on some of his wildest encounters as we reveal the top five hotspots in the UK.
Nick Pope, who previously ran the British Government’s UFO Project, spoke about his experiences with extraterrestrial life in an exclusive chat with The Sun.
Nick Pope is former head of the MoD's UFO research programme
Credit: Chris Loomis / National Geographic
Nick lifted the lid on some extraterrestrial mysteries
For over two decades, Nick worked as a civilian employee at the MoD, with his most prominent role beginning in the early 1990s, where he ran the department's UFO program.
Nick was at the helm of the project, an initiative that monitored and investigated reports of unidentified flying objects to assess their potential impact on national security and aviation safety.
Although the program was never formally named, it was often referred to as the “UFO desk” or “UFO program” by a number of media outlets.
When looking at the distribution of these sightings across the UK, Nick and his team discovered that the hotspots were not necessarily the rural or remote locations that many assumed.
Nick told The Sun: “It’s interesting because when we mapped out the UFO sightings, they didn’t necessarily occur in remote, rural areas.
“The hotspots were often London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow – all the major cities and urban areas.
"The reason for this is simple - the more people there are in an area, the more likely someone is to spot something unusual in the sky.”
These cities, with their dense populations, provided more potential witnesses.
It meant that if something strange appeared in the sky, the chances of someone witnessing it were far higher.
Nick also notes that other areas, like Warminster have been known for their frequent UFO sightings.
“People used to go up Cradle Hill and Flea Hill in Warminster, and even some 1960s pop songs referenced the place,” he added.
Bonnybridge, in Scotland, saw a huge surge in UFO sightings in the 1990s, to the extent that local councillor Billy Buchanan lobbied the government for an inquiry.
“I ended up drafting the replies to Buchanan’s letters, which were sent to the Ministry of Defence,” Nick recalls.
“He wasn’t very happy with me because the government line was always to play down the significance of UFO sightings.”
Despite the official stance, Nick acknowledges that Bonnybridge was, indeed, a hotspot.
However, Nick also cautions against confirmation bias, adding: “When people go to these hotspots for sky watches, they may already be believers, which can affect how they perceive what they see.
"They may be more likely to misperceive something or to see what they expect to see.”
Another factor is the issue of light pollution in cities, which can obscure the view of the sky.
Despite this, urban areas remained UFO hotspots due to the sheer number of potential witnesses.
Even more intriguing, Nick pointed out, was the fact that UFO sightings seemed to cluster around military bases, particularly air force bases.
While some argue that these sightings are due to secret military aircraft or advanced aerospace technology, the fact remains that military bases are more heavily surveilled, and the likelihood of sightings there is higher.
From Rendlesham Forest to Cosford, Nick has worked on some of the most high-profile cases in UFO history, all while trying to navigate the Ministry’s official stance on the phenomenon.
And according to Nick, the number of UFO sightings reported in the UK was far higher than most people realise with reports representing only the tip of the iceberg.
"We’d get about 200 to 300 reports a year, and at its peak, that number went up to 700 or 800,” he recalls.
“But even that number is misleading because many sightings went unreported due to fear of ridicule or simply not knowing who to contact.”
In reality, Nick believes the actual number of UFO sightings in the UK each year could be in the tens of thousands.
The MoD had a national reporting system for UFO sightings, with people reaching out to local police stations, military bases, and airports.
However, sightings reported to the media or civilian UFO research groups were not always included in the official data.
“If you see something, say something,” Nick advises anyone who observes a UFO.
He recommends capturing the best possible image or video, though with caution regarding the zoom feature on smartphones, which can distort images.
If the sighting occurs in the daytime, it’s vital to include some ground features in the shot.
He added: “If you’re just looking at something against the blank sky, you have no idea how far away it is, how high it is, or how big it is.
"But if you capture hills, trees, rooftops, something like that, we can triangulate. We can make those calculations.”
Calvine UFO Incident updated version with Nick Pope
Among the most compelling pieces of evidence Nick Pope encountered during his time at the MoD was the Calvine Incident.
Nick said: "I think, the best photographic evidence we had came from a case called the Calvine Incident in August of 1990.
"This was just before my posting on the UFO desk, so my predecessor would have handled the investigation, but I certainly got involved in it."
The case involved two hikers in Scotland who captured six crystal-clear photographs of a large, diamond-shaped craft.
Nick, who inherited the investigation, recalls: “These photographs were examined by the UK’s top imagery analysts—Defence Intelligence Staff, Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre.
“We concluded that this was the real deal. This wasn’t a hoax.”
The photos showed an object about 70 to 90 feet in diameter, with no visible means of propulsion, a detail that intrigued Nick and his colleagues.
The absence of conventional aerodynamic features, like wings or rotor blades, made the object even more mysterious.
The incident also featured a military jet circling the UFO, possibly trying to intercept it or gather data.
“This was a genuine mystery on our hands,” he adds, noting that the object in the photographs moved in ways that defied conventional aircraft design.
Nick also highlights the potential connection between the timing of the sighting and the geopolitical events unfolding in August 1990.
Reflecting on the mystery, he said: "The photographs were taken just two days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, a moment that sparked preparations for military action.
“We wondered if this could have been a military prototype or reconnaissance aircraft.
“We asked both our own people and the Americans about this, but the Americans denied it."
Despite the U.S. government’s denials, Nick and his team remained unconvinced. “Sometimes we thought, ‘This is not just next generation; this is something a generation ahead.’ And if that’s the case, where is it now?”
Nick asks. "Where is the Rendlesham UFO? Where is the Cosford UFO now? Ten years later, these should have been unveiled. We should be seeing them at the Farnborough Air Show, but we’re not."
The question of whether UFO sightings could be attributed to advanced human technology is one that constantly resurfaced in Nick’s work.
“At any given time, there will be tech that’s 5, 10, even 15 years ahead of what the public knows,” Nick explains.
He points to historical examples, such as the U-2 spy plane and the SR-71 Blackbird, which were years ahead of their time when they were first introduced.
A key event from Nick’s time at the MoD was the Cosford UFO sighting in March 1993.
He said: "It took place over a series of 6 hours or thereabouts on March 30, the and March 31, 1993. So that was right in the middle of my posting.
"So of course, I led the investigation into this and my case file, which is over a hundred pages of documents."
Over many hours, several witnesses, including police officers and military personnel, saw a large, triangular-shaped craft in the sky.
One of the most detailed reports came from a meteorological officer at RAF Shawbury, who described the object as being the size of a craft somewhere between a C-130 Hercules and a Boeing 747.
It emitted a low-frequency hum, and a beam of light appeared to be scanning the ground below.
“We had dozens of witnesses to the Cosford sighting, including police and military personnel,” Nick says.
“Some people even described the object as being like ‘two Concorde aircraft glued together.’ The most intriguing part of the case was the beam of light that seemed to track back and forth, almost like it was searching for something.”
Nick’s investigation into the sighting led to some theories, including the possibility that the sighting could have been related to the re-entry of a Russian rocket. However, this theory didn’t fully explain all the reports, and Nick wasn’t convinced it was the definitive answer.
Ultimately, Nick and his team were left with more questions than answers, he said: “We couldn’t definitively explain what happened, but there were certain things that gave us pause for thought.
"The speeds and manoeuvres reported by the witnesses were orders of magnitude above anything that we had or anything that we knew our adversaries had.
“I thought, maybe, this really is the real deal. Maybe this is extraterrestrial.
“It wasn’t a firm intelligence assessment, but it was one of the theories we put forward.”
When it comes to how the UK and the US are handling UFO research, Nick is critical of the UK’s lack of progress.
While the US government has made significant strides in acknowledging and investigating UFOs in recent years, the UK has been far slower to act - something Nick believes this is a dangerous oversight.
“In the 1960s, there was talk of a missile gap and a space race. Today, we have what I call a UFO gap,” he argues.
“The US is leading the way, and other countries are falling behind. Something is in our airspace, and we need to figure out what it is. If something can outpace your cutting-edge aerospace technology, it’s a threat, but it could also be an opportunity.”
Pope criticises the UK’s decision to axe its UFO programme in 2009. “I think that was a mistake,” he says.
“It leaves a gap that adversaries could exploit. We’ve seen this in recent incidents, like the Chinese spy balloon saga. If we’re not keeping an eye on UFO sightings, we could miss important intelligence.”
The ‘Night of the UFOs’ is among many famous unexplained encounters with strange objects in the sky that have happened down the years.
Perhaps the most striking was a video known as the 'Tic-Tac' – which showed an unidentified object being pursued by fighter planes.
While flying off the coast of California 2004, two pilots from the USS Nimitz on a routine training mission spotted an object "shaped like a 40ft Tic Tac sweet".
Then in 2005, a veteran pilot of an F/A - 18 fighter aircraft witnessed a raft of strange objects in the sky during a training exercise off the coast of Florida.
The two videos were sensationally released by the Pentagon in 2017.
Tragically the pursuit of UFOs has also claimed lives, notably that of US Air Force Captain Thomas Mantell.
He died after being sent to chase a mysterious object in his fighter aircraft in 1948.
Other encounters with the air force include a claim that UFOs disabled weapons at a nuclear base.
Captain Robert Salas said the bizarre incident unfolded in 1967 while he was the on-duty commander of a secret underground launch control facility at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base.
US forces based in Britain also had an encounter with a strange glowing in the sky in Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk.
Two airmen, Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs, claim they got so close to a triangular craft they actually touched it.
Earlier this year, US military documents were released showing how a warship was shadowed by two "ball of light" UFOs deepening the mystery around the case.
In contrast, the Pentagon has embraced UFO research through its All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which investigates UFOs, particularly military sightings.
While the UK is peripherally involved through intelligence-sharing agreements like the Five Eyes Forum, Nick believes the UK needs to take a more proactive approach.
He claims it is time for the UK to reinstate its UFO desk and begin taking public reports again.
“Something is in our airspace. Whether it’s Russia, China, extraterrestrials, or something else, it’s making us look foolish,” Nick warns.
“We need a proper UFO research program in the UK. We have the resources — radar systems, satellites, and space tracking. What we need is the political will to use them.
“You’re not looking at huge new costs — it’s just a case of using what you have to investigate UFOs properly.”
Reflecting on his own journey, Nick admits that before he began working on the UFO desk, he hadn’t given much thought to UFOs at all.
He was sceptical, and certainly not someone who actively believed in extraterrestrial life.
But his time working in the government’s UFO desk opened his eyes to the possibility that there was something more to these sightings than misidentifications or hoaxes.
“I wasn’t a true believer,” he says, “but now I’m much more open-minded. I don’t rule anything out.”
He notes that there seems to be a consistent pattern that suggests a “core phenomenon” that might be underpinned by advanced intelligence and technology.
The potential knowledge that could be gained from a civilisation far more advanced than ours is something Nick considers too important to ignore.
For the ex-MoD man, even the possibility of such a discovery makes it worth investigating the phenomenon further.
“Sceptics have to be right every day, but believers only need to be right once,” he points out.
"If just one UFO sighting turns out to be genuine, the impact on humanity would be transformative. Whether it’s extraterrestrials, time travellers, or something else entirely, the implications would be profound.
“There’s no part of society that wouldn’t be deeply affected. If extraterrestrial life were confirmed, it would change everything—from politics and religion to science, technology, and philosophy."
He continued: "People will look back on that day as the moment everything changed. Millions of years from now, they’ll say that’s the day it happened.”
Scottish city listed in UK's top 5 UFO hotspots amid reports of 'massive stretches of light'
UFO spotters looking out over the Forth Valley in central Scotland where unexplained sightings are said to be frequent in Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire
(Image: Colin McPherson/Sygma via Getty Images)
Scotland has been treated to a wave of earthly activity recently, from seeing the Northern Lights overhead to feeling earthquakes beneath our feet. Now, there are murmurings of movements from extra-terrestrial life.
Scots have always been partial to a UFO sighting. Just days before Christmas, an orange ball of light in the skies over Alva, Clackmannanshire, was recorded on a database of potential UFO sightings.
The spate of happenings may move people to wonder how Scotland fares against the rest of the UK in terms of spotting glowing teardrops, speedy silver circles, massive stretches of light, or simply bizarre objects in the skies.
According to Slotwise, Glasgow ranks fourth in the UK cities with the most number of UFO sightings. The Dear Green Place notes 51 sightings, only pipped to the post by London, Manchester, and Birmingham, which recorded 280, 88, and 73 reports of phenomena respectively. Maybe aliens are big fans of Glasgow Green or Kelvingrove Park.
One of the most intriguing aspects of UFO sightings is the description of the objects. According to reports, one UFO truther in the West Dunbartonshire town of Dumbarton said they saw a "massive stretch of light going at least 500mph".
The year with the most UFO sightings in the UK was 2009 with 286. In comparison, 2024 was a relatively quiet year, with 89 supposed sightings over the 12 months. Saying that, certain months see a noticeable spike in sightings.
Summer evenings often producing the most reports. With Earth bustling and lively during these months, it might just be the perfect time for intergalactic tourists to pay a visit. Either that or the skies are brighter and it’s easier to see mysteries at twilight.
UFOs seem to come in all shapes and sizes, too, according to the data. The most common thing people see when they believe they spot one is a beam of light. Circles and triangles are the second and third most popular shapes.
| City | Number of UFO Sightings |
|---|---|
| London | 280 |
| Manchester | 88 |
| Birmingham | 73 |
| Glasgow | 51 |
| Liverpool | 48 |
| Bristol | 38 |
| Nottingham | 38 |
| Coventry | 31 |
| Cardiff | 31 |
| Sheffield | 28 |
X-files: Musk blamed for ‘record number of UFO sightings’
ARCHIVE IMAGE - X owner Elon Musk has been blamed for a record number of UFO sightings over Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
(Photo by Paul Morigi/WireImage)
X owner Elon Musk has been blamed for a record number of UFO sightings over Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The Central Research Network for Extraordinary Celestial Phenomena (CENAP) told media on January 7 it had received almost 1,100 reports of unidentified flying objects from the general public last year.
“Usually, we record an average of 600 to 800 reports per year,” the organisation’s director, Hansjürgen Köhler, told Der Spiegel on January 10.
Köhler expressed doubt as to whether any of those reporting to his organisation actually saw alien spacecraft, with the expert instead putting the sightings spike down to tech billionaire Musk’s Starlink satellite service.
The US company had a record year for launches in 2024. Köhler said Starlink satellites were particularly striking just after launch, as they often followed one another in a regular pattern across the sky.
Other sightings, he added, could often be put down to people mistaking planets such as Venus and Jupiter for mysterious craft, as well as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
Reported UFO sightings also ended up being balloons of various kinds, as well as drones, private aircraft, helicopters and sometimes meteors, Köhler added.
CENAP has already received 30 reports of UFOs over territory it covers so far this year.
Italy’s potential use of Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service for strategic communications has raised concerns among opposition figures over a possible risk to national security. https://t.co/Ur2P8rR3OH
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 10, 2025
UFO Fleet Over San Antonio, Texas On Jan 1, 2025, UAP Sighting News.
Fireball-like objects appeared from 0° North and seemed to fly in the southwestern direction in the 200° range. The first one I saw lasted only 17 seconds before vanishing out of nowhere. This one was first seen at 10:40 PM. Ten minutes later, my mom and my neighbor saw three of these fireballs flying in the same direction. Each disappeared at different times, but without a discernible pattern. The first fireball in the fleet disappeared after 1 minute and 26 seconds, the second after 1 minute and 50 seconds, and the third after 2 minutes and 36 seconds. These time frames are based on when I started recording. Another fireball appeared at the same location at 10:54 PM and vanished after 33 seconds. Later, at 11:08 PM, another fireball appeared in the same location and disappeared after a minute. All the fireballs seemed to have appeared at the same location and flown in the same direction at different times. At first, I thought they might be drones, but I’ve never seen drones without flashing red and green lights. These fireballs didn’t flash any lights and maintained their color and brightness until they disappeared out of nowhere. What was particularly strange about the fireballs was their complete silence. Despite their quick speed, they emitted no noise whatsoever. My neighbor filmed the event as well, and this was the first time any of us had seen something like this.
The REAL reason for US drone invasion revealed as Pentagon's 'lack of transparency' fuels speculation
Fears are continuing to grow in America over the mysterious nationwide drone sightings, as security officials are criticised for their 'lack of transparency' on the issue.
Multiple sightings of unmanned drones flying across the sky have been reported in a number of US cities and bases in the last month - including New Jersey, New York and Washington DC.
Their presence has raised both alarm and confusion with few answers forthcoming.
This has led many people to offer numerous suggestions and conspiracy theories online, with some believing they are Government nuclear weapon detector drones or the result of foreign powers spying on the country.
The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, White House and Pentagon released a joint statement on Saturday stating there was no evidence of large-scale or malicious drone activity.
They also dismissed many of the sightings as manned aircraft such as aeroplanes.
But this response was described as 'disturbing' by James Dodd, mayor of the town of Dover, New Jersey.
Meanwhile, Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, took to social media to vent his frustrations with the White House's 'dismissive attitude' to the situation.
Mr Hogan said he had witnessed 'what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky' above his home for about 45 minutes on Thursday night.
Multiple sightings of unmanned drones flying across the sky have been reported in a number of US cities and bases in the last month - including New Jersey, New York and Washington DC. (pictured )
A mysterious 'glowing orb' seen hovering in skies above New Jersey - where most of the drones have been documented
Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, took to social media to vent his frustrations with the White House's 'complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude' to the situation
He said: 'Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security. But the public is growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with the complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government.'
Airing his grievances to the Financial Times, Mr Dodd said: 'We could shoot a missile down 5,000 miles away, but we can't determine where these drones are originating from?'
Dodd said he was left 'frustrated' by the 'scant information on a serious issue', having attended a briefing on the matter hosted by New Jersey state police this week.
The meeting was set up after the authorities in the state were flooded with reports of drones dotting the night sky, sometimes in groups and without any apparent purpose.
A wave of footage has emerged of the drones since they were first spotted last month, with some of the clearest video yet coming this week in New Jersey.
Video captured in Somerset County shows three 'mystery drones in the air' as two move extremely close as if they are interacting with each other.
The FBI has received more than 3,000 tips since the first sighting on November 18, with reports of varying levels of credibility cropping up in at least 12 counties throughout New Jersey, as well as eastern Pennsylvania and Orange County, New York.
Swarms of drones have been spotted in the skies of New Jersey for weeks, sparking officials to call for a 'limited state of emergency'
Mysterious drones are terrorizing US cities from coast to coast as the eerie objects have now been spotted in California, Massachusetts, Florida, Wyoming, Maryland, New York and New Jersey. Pictured: A New Jersey resident saw what appears to be multiple drones flying over their Bernardsville home
And the crisis deepened last night, after DC locals claimed to have spotted drones floating in the sky around the US Capitol, as other videos purported to show objects on flight paths heading towards LaGuardia Airport.
Charlie Kirk, 31, a conservative political activist and close confidant of president-elect Trump, took to X on Friday to claim America is 'f****d' as he suggested the recent mass drone sightings are part of Project Blue Beam.
'WE ARE F****D. THE DRONES ARE PROJECT BLUE BEAM,' Kirk posted on X.
'LOOK FOR VIDS OF THEM TRANSFORMING FROM BALLS OF LIGHT TO PLANES WHEN FILMED TO SEE FOR YOURSELF. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT INVESTIGATING. THEY ARE DOING THIS. WHATEVER YOU SEE IN THE COMING DAYS IS NOT GOOD.'
Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory dating to the 1990s that claims global elites, including government and military organizations, are planning to use advanced technology to stage celestial events in order to manipulate the world's population.
The theory has recently found traction again online as commentators such as Kirk claim that the US government could stage an alien invasion as a pretext for imposing authoritarian rule.
The outlandish theory is among many that have been amplified over the last week in the vacuum of information left in the wake of the Biden administration's failure to tell the public where the drones are coming from or who is behind them.
And Donald Trump called for urgent action yesterday, taking to the Truth Social platform to say: 'Mystery drone sightings all over the country. Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge? I don't think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!'
The sightings started mid-November with footage capturing 'car-sized' drones with flashing lights
Charlie Kirk, 31, a close advisor to Donald Trump issued a grave warning to the American public as he claims the countrywide drone sightings may be linked to a spine-chilling conspiracy theory
The lack of clarity on the situation has left critics questioning how such incidents can remain unresolved in an era of advanced surveillance.
'How is it possible that the Pentagon doesn't know? I'm not buying it,' remarked Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, voicing the skepticism felt by many Americans.
Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at conservative think tank the Gatestone Institute and an expert on Chinese affairs, said the drones appeared to be highly sophisticated and are not being controlled by amateurs.
'These activities are too large and well-organized to be the work of hobbyists,' Chang told Fox Business.
'That leaves foreign powers. It could be Iran in connection with China, but clearly, somebody is trying to divert our attention.'
Chang suggested that while the drones themselves are unsettling, he was more troubled by the fact that they could be a distraction for a far greater threat.
'What really worries me is what they might be doing elsewhere. We could very well get hit,' he told Fox.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also slammed the Biden administration's bumbling response to the crisis, telling the White House the bizarre episode 'has gone too far.'
The Biden administration has maintained that the drones are not a public safety risk and pose no threat to the nation's security.
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Pentagon Has Clear Image Of Triangle UFO Rising Out Of Ocean, Elizondo Confirmed
The Pentagon reportedly holds a highly classified photograph of a “Black Triangle” UFO emerging from the ocean, taken by a US Navy pilot flying an F/A-18F Super Hornet. The photo’s existence has not been officially confirmed by the Pentagon, but many people believe that it does exist, as they have been told by government insiders. It is thought to be one of the most compelling UFO sightings ever captured on camera and is considered to be highly classified because it was captured using military equipment onboard the fighter plane.
In 2020, during an interview on Coast to Coast AM radio with investigative journalist George Knapp, former AATIP head Luis Elizondo stated that the current UAP Task Force obtained images of multiple unknown aerial objects, including a clear image of a mysterious triangle emerging from the ocean, recorded by military pilots.
The object was described as a large triangle with “blunted” edges and spherical white “lights” on each corner, and the encounter is said to have occurred off the East Coast of the US. The pilots who encountered the object are believed to have been operating from either the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower or the USS John C. Stennis, both of which are Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarriers, which further deepens the apparent links between UFOs and man’s nuclear capabilities.
Several officials confirmed the photo’s existence, but they did not provide any further details. The report primarily focused on “Unidentified Submersible Phenomena” or unidentified “transmedium” vehicles that can operate both underwater and in the air. The UAP Task Force appears to be concerned that these objects may originate from within the world’s oceans.
Tom Rogan, a national security writer for the Washington Examiner, verified the existence of the photo with his sources. He believes that the photo is “the tip of the iceberg” and that more UAP imagery and data would be leaked in the coming years. Rogan also called on the Pentagon to officially release more material. (Source)
In 2020, The Debrief reported that the Pentagon was investigating the “transmedium” element of the phenomena, which is the apparent ability of some UAPs to transit seamlessly between the air and the ocean.
The idea of “USOs,” or “unidentified submersible objects,” is not exclusive to the current UAP Task Force. In fact, there have been reports of unexplained, very high-speed sonar targets recorded by some of the most sophisticated listening equipment on the planet. A senior member of the intelligence community, whose responsibilities for decades involved underwater surveillance and reconnaissance programs, acknowledged that there are valid claims of extremely fast-moving underwater objects being detected by U.S. military systems.
The UAP Task Force is particularly interested in “transmedium vehicles,” which may seem unusual, but there have been many accounts, some going back centuries, in which people observed unidentifiable craft operating in and out of the water. In public appearances, Marc D’Antonio, an astronomer and chief video/image analyst for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), shared an unusual experience involving the detection of an underwater “Fast Mover,” which occurred while he was sailing as a civilian aboard one of the U.S. Navy’s prized attack submarines.
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Tyler Rogoway, a defense journalist, spoke with several veteran submariners who almost unanimously acknowledged that unexplained, very high-speed sonar targets are indeed recorded by some of the most sophisticated listening equipment on the planet. Although there is skepticism about D’Antonio being granted a civilian ride-along, the Navy vets being interviewed confirmed the validity of such claims. The intelligence official declined to provide further details, citing the high levels of security classification associated with underwater reconnaissance.
Andy McGrillen from UAP Media UK, a team set up to campaign for a more open and serious discussion on UFOs in Britain, told The Sun Online that the triangular object was initially tracked underwater, then emerged, climbing to an altitude of 35-40,000 feet when an aircraft’s onboard systems took a high-fidelity image. He thought that something like this would surely be highly classified given the nature of the equipment taking the picture. However, if it did make its way into the public domain, it could be a key piece of evidence, demonstrating that we are truly in the presence of some other intelligence.
Mystery Wire reported that UFO enthusiast Joe Murgia wrote on his Twitter that Knapp asked Elizondo about an alleged triangle UFO coming out of the water, to which Elizondo responded by saying he was confident the photo exists, and it might even be a still frame from a video. Elizondo and Knapp talked about the need for patience when talking about disclosure and the series of high-level briefings that Elizondo took part in. Elizondo praised Florida Senator Marco Rubio for his willingness to talk about UFOs publicly.
Knapp also asked if the UFO mystery can be solved by just looking at military encounters with UFOs or if we need to expand our horizons and look at other topics like poltergeists and Bigfoot that seem to be connected to close encounter cases. Elizondo said the government programs have limitations, such as an inability to speak with commercial pilots about sightings.
When asked if he would consider ever returning to the government to work on the new Unidentified Aerial Phenomena task force (UAPTF), Elizondo said he would have to clear it with his family first. If he did go back, he would try to run it differently than when he ran the AATIP at the Pentagon. Elizondo said he would push for more openness with the public and work to break down the barriers that stigma about UFOs can cause.
“The problem with it is that the government recognizes it. There are some very authentic UAP images. When people say, “Oh, they’re all grainy and blurry,” no, they’re not. There are some that are really clear and are very authentic because we can look at the date and time stamp and the metadata on the video. We can then correlate that to any other type of assets that may be in the area, and we know where it turns out that we’re picking something up that came across, let’s say, the Pacific Ocean. All of a sudden, someone in San Diego says, “I had this really funny light doing these weird things in the backyard,” and all of a sudden, you realize, “Oh, man, they got it on camera.”
Yeah, there are some very, very compelling ones. There’s one, in particular, I probably can’t talk about it, but there’s one of a triangle, and it’s at night, and it’s not just three points of light. I mean, you can see the skin of the aircraft. You can see a lot, and to the point where some of our folks were like, “Well, should we take it off?” No, don’t take it off the internet. Leave it up. That’s not your video to take down. That’s a private citizen’s. Yes, they got a great video of a UAP. Congratulations. You should probably give them an award. Don’t take the video down”
Elizondo said during an interview with Calling All Beings.
Leaked emails from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, may provide new insight into transmedium UFOs. The emails include a conversation between Podesta and a person named Bob Fish, who claims that the federal government has been collecting data on UFOs since the 1970s, using the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites. (Click here to read the full article)
Fish shared an incident that happened to him in California, where a USAF official who worked on the program told Fish that there were times when they were diverted from these missions to track UFOs off the east coast of Florida. Fish stated that the UAP entered the atmosphere and descended into the Atlantic Ocean, specifically in an area east of Miami, Florida and north of Bermuda.
The US government has knowledge of some UAPs entering Earth’s orbit from deep space and can actively track them via RF signals emanating from these crafts. The officials realized that if this god-like technology were to be obtained and mastered by their adversaries before the United States, it would make democracy vulnerable.
Additionally, for many years, Bob McGwier worked in clandestine intelligence. He disclosed two incidents about underwater UFOs or USOs, that he saw while performing covert operations. This claim was made several months after a video had been made public by the United States military, in which it appeared to show an unidentified flying object moving from the sky into the water in the year 2019. (Click here to read the full article)
It wasn’t until the “Tic Tac” footage came out that he felt he could actually say something about the triangle UFO he witnessed while on the Nimitz
'UFO' appears in the sky just weeks after eagle-eyed Aussies spotted unusual 'spaceship' cloud
Australians have looked at the skies around southeast Queensland with awe after a giant UFO appeared in the sky.
It was, in fact, a storm cell - though images show its uncanny shape that eerily resembles a flying saucer.
'We received several pics of this really cool UFO looking storm this morning. This is a lenticular storm cloud and its not that common to see,' Higgins Storm Chasing wrote to their Facebook page on Thursday morning.
Commenters on the post said the phenomenon was a particularly impressive display from nature and said that 'our sky never fails to be amazing'.
'You can see the ''Beam me up Scotty'' rays,' one said.
'Omg! Thankyou for sharing this storm cell is it so stunning,' said a second.
'Who needs drones and aliens when you can have this in the sky,' added a third.
A hailstorm in southeast Queensland at sunrise on Thursday formed this spectacular cloud formation that some mistook for a 'UFO'
It is actually a lenticular cloud which can often for smooth circular shapes
The spectacular display follows a similar 'spaceship' cloud appearing in Sydney.
The bizarre natural phenomenon formed over the ocean in Cronulla, in Sydney's southern suburbs, with many sharing snaps and videos of the cloud to social media.
But Weatherzone meteorologist Felix Levesque assured Daily Mail Australia the strange cloud was nothing to be worried about.
Some guessed the 'spaceship' was a lenticular cloud, which the forecaster said is formed when moist winds are forced over a barrier, such as a mountain.
'This rising motion over the barrier causes the air to cool and condense into a stationary cloud,' Mr Levesque explained.
'This stationary cloud will have a smooth oval appearance, hence why it's often mistaken as a UFO.'
Mr Levesque said the Cronulla cloud was in fact a roll cloud, a different species to the lenticular cloud which is caused by a similar process.
'Roll clouds form when a cooler, denser airmass pushes under another airmass, causing this rising and 'rolling' motion on the leading edge of the airmass – hence the name,' he continued.
Some said they could see the 'beam me up Scotty' rays, referring to Star Trek
Residents of Cronulla in Sydney's south were shocked by the unusual appearance of a cloud formation that resembled a spaceship in December
'Southerly busters, like on Tuesday, can bring roll clouds, and these can occur about three to five times a year in Sydney.'
'A common location for roll clouds is over the Gulf of Carpentaria – so common it's been given the name 'Morning Glory Cloud'', Mr Levesque said.
CIA Built This Nuclear-Powered ‘Eagle’ Drone: Declassified in 2020, Developed in the ’60s at Area 51
Project Aquiline was one of the most unusual and complex spying projects during the Cold War. The idea was to create 12 bird-shaped drones powered by nuclear energy that could fly for up to a month. These drones were meant to be robotic spy planes and deliver secret items, but the project was never finished.
The CIA wanted Aquiline to be the first uncrewed system for gathering intelligence. Its goal was to gather information in areas where access was restricted secretly. The drone, designed by McDonnell Douglas (a defense company known for fighter jets), was very different from the company’s usual aircraft.
Aquiline was a small drone meant to be kept as close to bird-like size as possible—five feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and a takeoff weight of 83 pounds—under the constraints of the time’s technology. A silent 3.5-horsepower, four-cycle engine would give the drone a speed of 47 to 80 knots and an endurance of 50 hours and 1,200 miles. Aquiline’s maximum altitude was estimated at 20,000 feet. CIA file: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/aquiline
Project Aquiline. CIA
Nuclear power was supposed to make Aquiline fly even farther. The CIA suggested adding a system that would use the heat from decaying radioactive materials like plutonium to create electricity. This system, made for deep space missions, would allow the drone to stay in the air for up to 30 days or travel 36,000 miles.
Aquiline was built to carry cameras and spy equipment. It could take photos from a lower height than the U-2 spy plane and collect electronic signals from radios, radar, and other devices for later study.
The CIA described Aquiline as a “small, bird-like surreptitious vehicle with sufficiently small acoustic, visible, and radar cross-section to permit it to operate in the natural physical signal environment of living birds.” Radars and human sentries at sensitive sites would mistake Aquiline for a bird and pay little attention to it.
Aquiline would be launched, controlled, and brought back by mobile teams on the ground. These teams could operate Aquiline from areas near the Soviet Union or China, like Taiwan, Turkey, Norway, or other places, to make sure the drone could fly over enemy land for a longer time.
The small drone would send its data to a modified DC-6 (later switched to a U-2R spy plane) flying nearby. This way, the drone wouldn’t need to carry its data storage, since storage at the time was bulky and heavy, using punch cards, tape, or large hard drives, which would use up too much weight and power.
The concept of the Aquiline includes bird feathers painted on its wing. The drone would have been a very radioactive bird.
The bird drone was supposed to be developed at Area 51, with various documents listing the personnel requirements and what it would take to regularly fly engineers to and from the mysterious base. The program was top secret, with access doled out on a strictly “need-to-know” basis. The program was so secret that it recommended personnel be recruited two years before the first flight to ensure enough personnel could pass the necessary security checks.
In 1969, the CIA agreed with the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Corporation (MDAC) to start working on technologies for the Aquiline program. In 1970, people were sent to Area 51 to begin flight testing. This testing was planned to end in early 1971 when the contract was finished. It was expected that by then, a functioning Aquiline drone would be ready, and the program would become fully active.
Exact specifications and design details are scarce, but what is known is that Aquiline drones were made to resemble birds and featured a single-tail propeller. Initially, the prototypes were powered by chainsaw motors. In one memo in the CIA’s reading room, the Aquiline drone is referred to as a “high characteristic operating model plane with a lot of expensive gadgetry.”
Sensor systems were embedded in the aircraft’s nose and included optical cameras infrared sensors, and even electronic intelligence packages. The drones were intended to have also been able to drop “black box” sensor systems into hostile territory, as well, so some form of payload-carrying capability must have been included in at least some of the Aquiline designs. Specifically, one of the CIA’s documents states that one of the test drones was designed to carry payloads weighing up to five pounds.
The Aquiline drones were hard to spot during testing, so engineers painted one bright orange to make it easier for a chase plane to see during a test flight. Even with the paint, the chase plane crew still had trouble spotting the drone in the air.
The exact range of the Aquiline drones remains unknown and is redacted in all of the CIA’s declassified documents.
However, one account states that Aquiline was able to fly for 130 miles while obtaining “very high-resolution photography,” while another document states one of the proposed mobile control units would have a range of 1,200 miles. A dedicated satellite was planned to offer a long-distance communications link for Aquiline drones but was never launched.
Aquiline drones had an impressive design, but they had a big problem: they didn’t have landing gear. Instead, they had to land by crashing into nets. This often damaged the drones’ wings and propellers, leading to delays because of constant repairs. Three Aquiline prototypes were destroyed during these landings.
In a personal account hosted on RoadrunnersInternationale.com, a site that preserves “the history of the aviation pioneers and programs that developed the U-2, A-12 ,and YF-12 during the Cold War,” John H. Meierdierck, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, offers a brief recollection of the Aquiline program as he remembered it, writing:
The vehicle was a six-foot-long plane that had a small pusher prop and looked like an Eagle or Buzzard when it was in the air. It was designed to fly at very low levels along communications lines and intercept their messages. It also had a small television in the nose as an aid to navigation and to photograph targets of opportunity. There were several successful flights some crashes [reason unknown] and some lousy landings.
Read also:
It’s unclear why Aquiline was canceled. It was meant to be a very complicated program, dealing with issues like stealth, data transfer, and propulsion in a tiny design. Using a nuclear power source would have made it even more complicated, and the technology of the 1960s might not have been enough to handle it.
Aquiline also depended on a trick, and if the Soviets or Chinese discovered it, their anti-aircraft weapons or MiG jets could have easily shot it down. In the end, Aquiline was just an idea held by a few people in the intelligence community.
If the rumors are to be believed, there’s a chance an example or two of Aquiline still exists among the other strange birds caged up in the darkness at Area 51.
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NASA is Keeping an Eye on InSight from Space
The InSight Lander arrived on Mars in 2018 to study the planet’s interior. Its mission ended prematurely in December 2022 after its solar panels were covered in the planet’s ubiquitous dust. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of InSight recently and will continue to do so as the Martian dust slowly and inexorably reclaims the lander.
NASA and the DLR sent the InSight lander to Mars to study the planet’s interior. Though the lander’s mole instrument wasn’t able to complete its work, the mission is still considered a success. It detected more than 1,000 Marsquakes, which helped scientists understand Mars’ crust, mantle, and core. It also measured the frequency of meteoroid impacts and uncovered some information on the planet’s thermal evolution.
While the mission was pronounced finished in December 2022, mission personnel continued listening for signals from InSight in case the wind cleared dust from its panels. That effort will also soon end.
Now, the 358-kilogram (789 lb) spacecraft sits in its final resting place in Elysium Planitia. Barring some hyper-futuristic, impossible-to-foresee archaeological rescue expedition, the lander will never move. It’s stranded there, waiting to be imaged repeatedly by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and its HiRISE camera.
However, perhaps unexpectedly, InSight still has more to offer. Researchers say that by monitoring the way dust collects on the lander and moves around it, they can learn about Mars’ ubiquitous dust. That will help researchers better understand the planet and prepare more thoroughly for future missions.
“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now.”
Ingrid Daubar, InSight Science Team Member, Brown University
This image was taken shortly before the end of the mission. It shows InSight’s landing spot and its SEIS instrument, covered with its protective windshield. Note the layer of dust accumulating on SEIS’s shield.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL
“Even though we’re no longer hearing from InSight, it’s still teaching us about Mars,” said science team member Ingrid Daubar of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. “By monitoring how much dust collects on the surface — and how much gets vacuumed away by wind and dust devils — we learn more about the wind, dust cycle, and other processes that shape the planet.”
Martian dust is full of iron oxides, which give the planet its red appearance. It’s very fine and can be lifted high into the atmosphere during Mars’ global dust storms. It affects the planet’s weather and climate.
It’s a hazard for landers and rovers. InSight isn’t the only mission to succumb to it. Spirit and Opportunity also struggled with Martian dust before being defeated by it. Landers and rovers need to be protected from it. It can cover solar panels, rendering them ineffective. It can foul unprotected moving parts, contaminate science instruments, and cause problems with electronics and thermal control.
Martian dust is slightly magnetic due to its iron content, making it quite different from Earth dust. Scientists are concerned that its electrostatic properties might make it stick to surfaces and be difficult to remove. It could cling to some components in unanticipated ways.
There are unanswered questions about Mars’ dust. For instance, scientists don’t know exactly how it all formed or when. Are we seeing only ancient dust? Or is some of it newly created? Scientists aren’t certain how it becomes electrically charged during storms, whether it’s toxic and to what degree, or how exactly it’s transported around the planet during storms.
While monitoring InSight from space likely won’t answer all these questions, it can still teach scientists some things. One of the things they can observe is dust devil tracks. Back when the lander was still active, scientists matched MRO images of dust tracks near the lander with its wind data. They found that the whirling wind patterns that produce the dust devils subside in the winter and pick up again in the summer.
InSight is also helping scientists understand how quickly surface craters can be obscured by dust. When the lander touched down in 2018, its retrorockets left marks on the surface akin to craters. By knowing exactly when they were created and watching from orbit as they’re obscured by dust, researchers can learn how quickly impact craters can be erased.
These HiRISE images from MRO show the InSight lander after it landed with obvious rocket blast marks (L). The blast marks are becoming obscured in the image on the right, taken in 2022.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
The people behind missions like InSight put a lot of time and energy into them. They’re not only career-defining; each mission advances our collective understanding of nature, including other planets in our Solar System. InSight ended because of dust, not because we had learned all we could from it. So even though watching it from orbit and learning what they can is somewhat satisfying, it no doubt reminds the mission personnel of what went left undiscovered.
“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now. It was a successful mission that produced lots of great science. Of course, it would have been nice if it kept going forever, but we knew that wouldn’t happen,” Daubar said.
The Milky Way Is On A Terminal Collision Course — Is This New Hubble Image A Preview?
The Milky Way Is On A Terminal Collision Course — Is This New Hubble Image A Preview?
Outer space nonchalantly sheds a “tear” as two galaxies meet their end — but is the distant scene, pictured in a new Hubble Space Telescope image, a finale?
At first glance, the answer must be yes. Some 570 million light-years away from Earth, a face-on galaxy called LEDA 59642 is overlapped by a tilted, mostly side-on galaxy called NGC 6040 that has severely warped on one side and taken on a shape resembling the top of a droplet. The galaxies’ proximity and devolution is a story as old as time: galaxy mergers.
The two bodies — known collectively as Arp 122 — are careening into one another. Their stars, planets, gas, and dust will experience new gravitational forces, according to a statement that NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) published on Friday. “Galactic collisions and mergers are monumentally energetic and dramatic events,” write officials from the two space agencies behind Hubble.
Arp 122, located in the constellation Hercules about 570 million light-years from Earth.
In many ways, the galaxies will unravel: the grand, highly organized spiral structures may go away. They might turn out to be irregular galaxies, looking like round hazy blobs until maybe evolving into something new.
Although this scene in the constellation Hercules is playing out very far away, it’s a preview of what will happen here at home. The Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31), scheduled for 4 billion years from today.
But the Milky Way has always been a work in progress. Many galaxies, large and small, have combined to add or subtract to the Milky Way’s starry profile, according to research from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. Astronomers know that the Andromeda galaxy is a patchwork of other galaxies, too.
The mashup will happen slowly. “The process of colliding and merging will not be a quick one either: it might take hundreds of millions of years to unfold. These collisions take so long because of the truly massive distances involved,” agency officials wrote.
What will happen to Arp 122 and to us is uncertain, but one possible outcome is that the ménages will sort themselves into elliptical galaxies. One such object appears in this image, too, at the bottom left corner. It’s NGC 6041, the elliptical galaxy that acts as the center of the galaxy cluster to which Arp 122 belongs.
While Arp 122 reveals a preview of what might become of the Milky Way, it also gifts Earthlings with a dazzling cosmic teardrop to admire.
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Archaeologists find 3MILLION-year-old tools at site dubbed 'the cradle of humankind'
Archaeologists have discovered some of the first-ever tools used on Earth at a site in Africa dubbed 'the cradle of humankind.'
Found in Kenya's Homa Peninsula, this region has produced clues about humanity's early beginnings such as other ancient tools and the remains of 'Lucy' - a pre-human relative that lived more than three million years ago.
The team uncovered three-million-year-old flakes, or small knives, created by hominins, the first pre-human species to walk on two legs, who hammered one stone against another to create sharp edges.
Researchers at the City University of New York said the sharpened rock allowed them to peel and cut fruits and vegetables and slice the flesh of hippos.
The tools are known as the Oldowan tool kit, which previously only spanned from 1.7 million years to 2.9 million years ago.
Lead archaeologist Tom Plummer suggested that the tools found paved the way for everything that followed.
'In terms of technology, I think the Oldowan technology is the most important technological innovation that ever happened in human history,' Plummer told CBS News.
'It allowed hominins to access a whole array of foods that they never had access to before, fueling body and brain size increases.'
Archaeologists have discovered some of the first tools used on Earth. The artifacts are stones that ancient humans sharpened
The new diet would have sparked a 'feedback loop' that led to more sophisticated beings and advanced technologies, Plummer said.
While uncovering the tools was an amazing discovery for Plummer and his team, finding cut marks on nearby animal bones confirmed butchery was done.
The team uncovered ancient hippo bones at the site, which showed that technology existed nearly three million years ago, CBS News reported.
The site is located on the peninsula called Nyanga, which experts said could help frame humans' existence on Earth.
Rick Potts, the director of the Smithsonian's human origins program and the leader of research on the peninsula, said: 'We are the last biped standing, as I call it.
'All of those other ways of life became extinct. And so that gives us a lot to think about, and it draws attention to the fragility of life, even in our own journey through time.'
Scientists have found evidence showing that modern humans appeared in Africa about 300,000 years ago - 600,000 years after hominins went extinct - but they only recently understood that the pre-human group began walking upright at least six million years ago.
'Some of the things that we thought occurred in a very short period of time, within the last one million years, are now stretched out over a six million year period,' Potts said. 'That includes tool making.'
The tools were uncovered Kenya's Homa Peninsula, a region that has produced clues about humanity's early beginnings
Researchers at the City University of New York said the sharpened rock allowed them to peel and cut fruits and vegetables and slice the flesh of hippos
Archaeologists uncovered the remains of 'Lucy' in 1974, celebrating with beer and listening to the Beatles.
And when the song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' the team knew what to name the ancient species that lived 3.2 million years ago.
In 2016, researchers re-examined her bones to learn more about how she died, finding a simple fall out of a tree may have caused her death.
Lead author John Kappelman, a University of Texas professor in anthropology, said: 'It is ironic that the fossil at the center of a debate about the role of arborealism in human evolution likely died from injuries suffered from a fall out of a tree.
Kappelman first studied Lucy during her US museum tour in 2008, when the fossil detoured to the High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility (UTCT).
The facility has a machine designed to scan through materials as solid as a rock and at a higher resolution than medical CT.
For 10 days, Kappelman and geological sciences professor Richard Ketcham scanned all of her 40-percent-complete skeleton to create a digital archive of more than 35,000 CT slices.
Remains of Lucy, an ancient human species that lived more than three million years ago, was also found in the region
Kappelman noticed the end of her right humerus was fractured in a manner not normally seen in fossils, preserving a series of sharp, clean breaks with tiny bone fragments and slivers still in place.
This compressive fracture results when the hand hits the ground during a fall, impacting the elements of the shoulder against one another to create a unique signature on the humerus,' said Kappelman.
He then consulted Dr Stephen Pearce, an orthopedic surgeon at Austin Bone and Joint Clinic, using a modern human-scale, 3D printed model of Lucy.
Pearce confirmed that the injury was consistent with fracture caused by a fall from considerable height when the conscious victim stretched out an arm in an attempt to break the fall.
Kappelman also saw similar, less severe, fractures at the left shoulder and other compressive fractures throughout Lucy's skeleton.
Overall, Lucy suffered a broken ankle, arm, knee, pelvis and at least one fractured rib - suggesting she must have suffered severe internal organ damage.
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See the Northern Lights from ABOVE: NASA astronaut on board the ISS shares mesmerising bird's-eye view video of the aurora
Looking up at the flickering glow of the Northern Lights is one of Earth's most incredible experiences.
But now, a NASA astronaut has revealed what it is like to look down on one of the planet's great natural wonders.
Astronaut Don Pettit has shared his bird's eye view of the Northern Lights from the window of the International Space Station.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Pettit said simply: 'Flying over aurora; intensely green.'
In this mesmerising video, you can see the lower structures of the space station silhouetted against the bright green glow of the aurora.
With the Northern Lights forming between 60 to 186 miles (100 to 300 km) above the ground, the ISS soars above at almost four times this altitude.
On social media, space fans have been blown away to discover that astronauts have this unique perspective.
One amazed commenter wrote: 'Wait wait... auroras are that low?!'
A NASA astronaut has shared his stunning bird's-eye view of the Northern Lights from aboard the International Space Station
On social media, commenters were shocked to learn that astronauts have this unique perspective on one of Earth's natural wonders
Don Pettit, 69, is NASA's oldest astronaut and a member of NASA's Expedition 72 crew which also includes the stranded astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore.
Currently undertaking his third stay aboard the station, Mr Pettit is well known for his orbital photography.
Over more than 300 days in space, Mr Pettit has become regarded as one of NASA's best photographers and has captured many stunning images of the Earth and the Northern Lights.
The Northern and Southern lights are caused when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth's atmosphere.
As these particles arrive, they slam into particles of gas and charge them with enough energy to glow brightly.
These are visible from the ISS because the aurora actually forms in a relatively low part of the atmosphere.
The lowest glowing gases are typically found 80 miles (130 km) above the ground but can dip as low as 60 miles (100 km) in some cases.
Orbiting at 230 to 285 miles (370 to 460 km), the ISS safely passes over the top of the aurora, allowing astronauts on board to look down on the show.
Don Pettit (pictured) is NASA's oldest serving astronaut and widely regarded as one of the space agency's best photographers
Since the ISS orbits at an altitude of 230 to 285 miles (370 to 460 km), it can be almost four times higher than the lowest parts of the Northern Lights
However, in some of the strongest events, even the ISS can be caught up in the aurora with the uppermost parts of the display extending several thousand miles above the Earth.
In Mr Pettit's video, the bright lights of a city appear beneath the intense green glow of excited gases
While hints of blue and pink are caused by nitrogen, this emerald green is the characteristic sign of oxygen molecules charged by particles from the sun.
On social media, commenters flocked to share their amazement with Mr Pettit's stunning images.
One commenter wrote: 'It's like a massive emerald come alive!'
'Not sure how I thought it would look from above but this is incredible,' added another.
While one space fan wrote: 'The amount of electrical flow is astounding.'
Normally, the aurora is only visible at very high latitudes – for example at the poles, Scandinavia or the southern tip of South America.
The ISS' height allows the crew to capture stunning images of the Northern Lights as they pass overhead. Pictured: The aurora seen from the ISS in August, 2024
Commenters on social media were amazed by the view, saying they had no idea that the Northern Lights would look like this from above
One commenter said that the green of the aurora was 'like a massive emerald come alive'
This is because the charged particles which make the atmosphere glow are funnelled towards the poles by the Earth's magnetic fields.
However, when the sun undergoes an event called a 'coronal mass ejection' enormous clouds of charged particles are sent flying towards Earth at around two million miles per hour.
These clouds interact with the Earth's magnetic fields to produce geomagnetic storms which trigger huge auroral displays stretching into the lower latitudes.
Luckily for Mr Pettit, the start of the year has seen a few exceptionally large coronal mass ejections which have made the aurora even brighter than normal.
On January 3 and January 4, the sun was lit up by two X-class solar flares - a class reserved for the most intense kind.
Solar flares are sudden explosions of radiation created by the 'snapping' of tangled magnetic fields in the sun's atmosphere.
Since they are usually followed by coronal mass ejections, these two flares meant stunning auroral displays were soon to follow.
On the day that Mr Pettit posted his video, January 6, there had already been two days of geomagnetic storms according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Mr Pettit's video came after a week of intense Northern Lights due to a series of large solar storms. On January 4, the Northern Lights were forecast to extend as far south as the northern United States
As clouds of charged particles arrived from the sun, they triggered massive outbursts of aurora in the Northern Hemisphere throughout the first week of the year. Pictured: Anchorage, Alaska on New Year's Day
To make things even more exciting, a massive 'coronal hole' formed in the sun's atmosphere – a dark area of cooler plasma.
These holes allow a constant stream of charged particles called 'solar wind' to escape from the sun and bombard Earth.
This meant that even more particles arrived to collide with the Earth's atmosphere leading to even brighter aurora.
Last week, auroras were forecast in the US as far south as Washington, northern Idaho and Montana over the US.
On Monday, NASA recorded the explosion of an extremely strong solar flare rated as a class X1.8.
NASA wrote: 'Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.'
However, no significant disruption is forecast due to this stellar explosion.
The reason that there has been so much activity lately is because the sun is now at its 'solar maximum' – the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle.
The auroral activity was made even stronger by the formation of a coronal hole - a dark, cool region which allows charged particles to escape. On January 3, a large coronal hole (pictured) formed which could have made the Northern Lights even more intense
The Northern Lights have been more active recently because the sun is now at its 'solar maximum'. At this time there are far more sunspots (cool regions associated with solar flares) which leads to an increased level of activity and more intense auroras on Earth
The sun goes through an 11-year cycle in which the number of sunspots (cool regions associated with solar flares) gradually increases.
In October last year, NASA revealed that the sun had reached its solar maximum and could stay at that level for another year.
That means an increased number of sunspots, more solar flares, and even brighter aurora.
While these solar flares can be dangerous to electrical systems on Earth, it also means that there will be plenty more opportunities for NASA's astronauts to bring us some spectacular views of the Northern Lights.
Solar storms, or solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have impacts on Earth:
While these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger of these phenomena because of the relatively low orbit of manned missions.
However, they do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks.
This photo shows the sun's coronal holes in an x-ray image. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections
The damage caused by solar storms
Solar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost.
The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing Earth's magnetic field.
Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies.
When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora.
They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.
A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers.
This could shut off businesses and homes around the world.
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‘The Alien Perspective’ Exclusive Clip: What Happened During The Tic Tac Encounter?
The Alien Perspective offers a bold and groundbreaking take on the UFO and alien phenomenon. This first installment of a two-part movie series takes audiences on a journey unlike any before—exploring the UFO phenomenon not from humanity’s viewpoint, but for the first time, from the perspective of the visitors themselves. Seven years in the making, this unique project features insights from world-renowned scientists outside the UFO field, including NASA directors and esteemed professors from Oxford and more.
These experts delve into the possible motivations and reasons behind extraterrestrial visits to Earth and their interactions with humans. The film not only examines compelling evidence from the most credible UFO cases but also explores how these encounters impact humanity on a deeper level. Whether you’re a believer, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, The Alien Perspective invites you to consider the phenomenon in a whole new light.
In our exclusive clip from the upcoming two-part documentary, Alioto explores the Tic Tac Encounter and interviews two retired Navy officials who were there during the encounter.
Besides the two men featured in our clip, The Alien Perspective also features exclusive interviews with futurist and astrophysicist professor Michio Kaku, actor and UFO Researcher Dave Foley,
Fire In the Sky author Travis Walton, NASA Deputy Scientist of TESS Program Elisa Quintana, and many more.
The first part of The Alien Perspective will be released digitally on January 8, 2025.
Politie onderzoekt mysterieuze drones boven haven in Denemarken
Er zijn vrijdagavond laat verschillende mysterieuze drones gespot rond een haven ten zuiden van Kopenhagen. Een ooggetuige meldde dat hij tot twintig grotere drones had waargenomen rond de jachthaven voor recreatieboten in het kleine stadje Køge, aldus de Deense politie. De man maakte ook videobeelden. Een politiepatrouille zag er vervolgens vier, de laatste omstreeks 1 uur in de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag
Bron: Belga
De politie zegt op dit moment niet te weten waar de drones vandaan komen, wat ze daar deden en wiens eigendom ze zijn. Dat maakt nu voorwerp uit van een onderzoek. Onder meer de Deense geheime dienst PET werd over het incident geïnformeerd.
In de Scandinavische en Baltische staten die grenzen aan de Oostzee is er momenteel verhoogde waakzaamheid wegens mogelijke Russische sabotagedaden. De NAVO kondigde onlangs aan dat ze ter afschrikking haar militaire aanwezigheid in de Oostzee zal vergroten.
De voorbije jaren werden in Scandinavië al eerder drones gesignaleerd boven elektriciteitscentrales of luchthavens, zonder dat steeds duidelijk kon worden vastgesteld wat de bedoeling was of wie er achter zat. Verschillende van dergelijke onbemande vliegtuigen legden in september onder meer het nachtelijke vliegverkeer op de Zweedse luchthaven Stockholm-Arlanda - een van de belangrijkste luchthavens in Scandinavië - kortstondig lam.
De havenstad Køge ligt aan de oostkust van het Deense eiland Seeland, aan de Køge-baai die uitkomt in de Oostzee. Er zijn de jongste tijd verschillende verdachte kabelbreuken in de Oostzee geweest en er wordt momenteel onderzoek gedaan naar mogelijke sabotage door Rusland.
In december waren Amerikanen in de ban van mysterieuze drones die door burgers werden gezien in de staten New Jersey en New York. Ze zouden boven belangrijke infrastructuur zweven, zoals waterreservoirs, elektriciteitsleidingen, treinstations, politiebureaus en militaire installaties. Dat zorgde voor talrijke complottheorieën. Het Witte Huis zei dat er geen reden was tot zorg en dat de dronevluchten “volledig legaal en rechtmatig” waren.
LEES OOK.
Danish Police Investigate Mysterious UAP Sighting
“Drone@ Sighting Over Koege Port Amid Global UAP Surge
Koege, Denmark — Danish police are investigating a report of approximately 20 drones spotted over the Koege Marina, southwest of Copenhagen, on Friday night. The incident, which has sparked widespread curiosity and concern, is part of a growing trend of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings across Europe and the United States, including a recent surge in reports from New Jersey.
The Incident: Drones Over Koege
According to Danish police, the incident began when a witness reported seeing a swarm of 20 drones hovering over the Koege Marina. By the time officers arrived, only four large drones remained visible. Witnesses described the drones as moving in a coordinated manner before disappearing into Koege Bay at high speed.
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said Lars Jensen, a local fisherman who observed the event. “They moved too smoothly, too quietly. And then they were gone.”
Police have launched an investigation to determine the origin and purpose of the drones. No permits had been issued for drone flights in the area at the time, raising questions about who was operating the devices and why. Authorities are also exploring potential links to Russian hybrid warfare tactics, given recent reports of similar incidents in other European countries amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Global Context: A Surge in UAP Sightings
The Koege incident is not an isolated event. In recent months, sightings of drones, orbs, and other UAPs have surged worldwide, prompting investigations and speculation.
Theories and Investigations
The surge in UAP sightings has sparked a range of theories and investigations:
Local Impact: New Jersey’s UAP Hotspot
While the Koege incident has captured international attention, New Jersey has emerged as a hotspot for UAP activity. In recent months, the state has seen a surge in sightings, with residents reporting everything from drones to pulsating orbs.
Government Response: Calls for Transparency
The surge in UAP sightings has prompted calls for transparency from governments worldwide. In November 2024, the U.S. Congress held hearings on UAPs, but officials provided few answers. Similarly, European governments have been tight-lipped about the recent drone sightings, fueling speculation and concern.
“We need to know what’s going on,” said Sarah Thompson, a high school teacher in Newton, New Jersey. “If these objects are a threat, we deserve to know.”
Conclusion: A Mystery Unfolding
The Koege drone sighting is just one piece of a larger puzzle—a global mystery that continues to unfold. Whether the objects are drones, extraterrestrial craft, or something else entirely, one thing is clear: the sky is no longer the limit.
As investigations continue, the world waits for answers.
References and Further Reading:
Unexpected Mechanism Explains Formation of Pluto-Charon System
Planetary scientists at the University of Arizona say they have discovered an entirely new type of cosmic collision.
Pluto and Charon are the largest binary system in the known population of trans-Neptunian objects in the outer Solar System. Their shared external orbital axis suggests a linked evolutionary history and collisional origin. Their radii, 1,200 km and 600 km, respectively, and Charon’s wide circular orbit of about 16 Pluto radii require a formation mechanism that places a large mass fraction into orbit, with sufficient angular momentum to drive tidal orbital expansion. Denton et al. numerically modeled the collisional capture of Charon by Pluto using simulations that include material strength.
Image credit: Denton et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01612-0.
For decades, planetary researchers have theorized that Pluto’s unusually large moon Charon formed through a process similar to Earth’s Moon — a massive collision followed by the stretching and deformation of fluid-like bodies.
This model worked well for the Earth-Moon system, where the intense heat and larger masses involved meant the colliding bodies behaved more like fluids.
However, when applied to the smaller, colder Pluto-Charon system, this approach overlooked a crucial factor: the structural integrity of rock and ice.
“Pluto and Charon are different — they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice,” said Dr. Adeene Denton, a postdoctoral researcher with the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.
“When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected.”
Using advanced impact simulations, the authors found that instead of stretching during the collision, Pluto and the proto-Charon temporarily stuck together, rotating as a single snowman-shaped object before separating into the binary system we observe today.
A binary system occurs when two celestial bodies orbit around a common center of mass.
“Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge’,” Dr. Denton said.
“What we’ve discovered is something entirely different — a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”
“The compelling thing about this study is that the model parameters that work to capture Charon, end up putting it in the right orbit. You get two things right for the price of one,” said Professor Erik Asphaug, also from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.
The study also suggests that both Pluto and Charon remained intact during their collision, preserving much of their original composition.
This challenges previous models that suggested extensive deformation and mixing during the impact.
Additionally, the collision process, including tidal friction as the bodies separated, deposited considerable internal heat into both bodies, which may provide a mechanism for Pluto to develop a subsurface ocean without requiring formation in the more radioactive very early Solar System — a timing constraint that has troubled planetary scientists.
“Charon is captured relatively intact in our scenario, retaining its core and most of its mantle, which implies that Charon could be as ancient as Pluto,” the researchers said.
Drone Fleet On Live Cam Over Ocean Off New Jersey, Dec 7, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Dec 7, 2025
Here's How Pluto and Charon Became a Bizarre Double Planet
On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons probe made history by accomplishing the first flyby of Pluto and its largest satellite, Charon. The stunning images this mission took of these icy worlds have helped scientists address some of the key questions about Pluto and its massive moon, which have been shrouded in mystery for decades (owing to their great distance from Earth). One of the biggest mysteries that scientists have contemplated since Charon was first discovered in 1978 is how it came together with Pluto in the first place.
For decades, astronomers suspected that Pluto and Charon formed through a process similar to Earth and the Moon. This theory, known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis, states that roughly 4.5 billion years ago, primordial Earth was struck by a Mars-sized body named Theia. In a new study, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona challenged this assumption and offered an alternate theory known as “kiss and capture.” Their findings could help scientists better understand how planetary bodies in the outer Solar System form and evolve.
The study was led by Adeene Denton, a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). She was joined by Erik Asphaug, a Planetary Science Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) at the University of Arizona; Robert Melikyan, an LPL Graduate Student, and Alexandre Emsenhuber, a Postdoctoral Researcher from the Space Research and Planetary Science (SRPS) at the University of Bern. The paper that describes their findings, “Capture of an Ancient Charon around Pluto,” was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Previously, scientists believed that Pluto and Charon formed from a massive collision, similar to the Giant Impact Hypothesis. According to this theory, a Mars-sized planet named Theia collided with a primordial Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This impact turned both bodies into molten debris that eventually coalesced to form the Earth and Moon, eventually settling into the Earth-Moon system. According to the team’s study, this theory does not fit when it comes to Pluto and Charon because it fails to take into account the structural strength of cold, icy worlds.
Using the University of Arizona’s high-performance computing cluster, the team conducted advanced impact simulations. This showed that when Pluto and a proto-Charon collided, they became temporarily stuck together and formed a single snowman-shaped object – not unlike Arrokoth, the first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that New Horizons surveyed on December 31st, 2018. Over time, they separated to become the binary system we observe there today. Said Denton in a U of A News story:
“Pluto and Charon are different – they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice. When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected. Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge.’ What we’ve discovered is something entirely different – a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly, and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”
Their results also suggest that Pluto and Charon remained largely intact during their collision and retained much of their original composition. This challenges previous models that suggest that colliding bodies will exchange material during the impact. This is based on studies of the Apollo moonrocks, which indicated that the Earth and Moon are similar in composition, a finding that led scientists to conclude that the Earth-Moon system formed together. What’s more, their research offers a potential explanation for how Pluto may have developed an internal ocean.
The collision process, they state, combined with the tidal friction caused by the separation of Pluto and Charon, would have caused considerable internal heating for both bodies. This could have provided the necessary mechanism for creating a subsurface ocean, contrary to a previous theory where scientists have argued that Pluto formed during the very early Solar System when there were far more radioactive elements. However, scientists have expressed doubts about this theory because of the timing constraints it imposes.
Denton and her colleagues are now planning follow-up studies to explore several related questions about this system of icy bodies. This includes how tidal forces influenced Pluto and Charon’s early evolution when they were much closer together, how this formation scenario aligns with Pluto’s current geological features, and whether similar processes could explain the formation of other binary systems. Said Denton:
“We’re particularly interested in understanding how this initial configuration affects Pluto’s geological evolution. The heat from the impact and subsequent tidal forces could have played a crucial role in shaping the features we see on Pluto’s surface today.”
Further Reading:
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The Lunar Surface Remelted, Obscuring an Easy Answer to its True Age
How old is the Moon? Astronaut-gathered samples from the lunar surface put its age at about 4.35 billion years. However, other evidence suggests it’s much older, around 4.53 billion years old. A team of scientists published a recent paper that suggests the Moon’s surface age was “reset” in a melting event.
The generally accepted theory about the Moon’s formation goes like this: about 4.5 billion years ago and about 200 million years after the solar system began to form, something happened. A single Mars-sized object named Theia (or possibly a series of objects) collided with or was somehow captured by infant Earth. That tumultuous crash sent a lot of molten rock and debris into space. Eventually, most of it coalesced to form the infant Moon, which settled into orbit around Earth. Debris from the inner solar system bombarded the pair for millions of years thereafter.
Fast-forward to the present day, where we can study rocks collected from the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. Scientists analyzed those samples and found them to be about 4.35 billion years old. That suggests the Moon is NOT 4.53 billion years old. Which is true? It turns out there’s strong evidence for an older Moon. It exists in some zircon minerals on the lunar surface. They’re at least 4.51 billion years old. thermal models and simulations also suggest a lunar age somewhere between 4.43 and 4.53 billion years. So, why are lunar surface rocks almost 200 million years younger?
As it turns out, both numbers could be true. The Moon could have formed very early, but it experienced something that changed its geological clock. According to UC Santa Cruz professor Francis Nimmo and a team of researchers, the Moon likely did form 4.51 million years ago in that catastrophic collision with baby Earth. But, 180 million years later, it may have experienced a “remelting”. That reset the ages of lunar rocks to around 4.35 billion years. That’s why the surface samples collected by the Apollo astronauts show a younger age.
Sample collection on the lunar surface. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. is shown collecting samples with the Lunar Roving Vehicle in the left background.
Image: NASA
“We predict that there shouldn’t be any lunar rocks that are older than 4.35 billion years because they should have experienced the same resetting,” said Nimmo. “Because this heating event was global, you shouldn’t find rocks anywhere on the Moon that are significantly older than that.”
Nimmo and his colleagues suggest that a global remelt of lunar rocks could account for the existence of younger surface rocks. The Apollo rocks suggest something happened, and the return of rocks from China’s Chang’e 6 mission could offer more evidence for that theory. For their paper, the authors used modeling to show that the Moon may have experienced sufficient tidal heating to cause this remelting approximately 4.35 billion years ago, which could “reset” the apparent formation age of these lunar samples.
Chang’e-6 lander on the lunar surface, as seen by a mini-rover nearby.
(Credit: CLEP / CNSA)
What could cause a global melting strong enough to reset the age of the Moon’s rocks? Nimmo suggest that the Moon experienced tidal heating due to the evolution of its orbit around Earth. This happened because the Moon was closer to Earth, and the orbit was pretty unstable during certain epochs. Thanks to the immense tidal pull from Earth, the Moon could have been heated, which led to the alteration of its geology and the “age reset” of its rocks.
It turns out that the Moon isn’t the only place in the solar system where this could happen. The volcanic moon Io in orbit around Jupiter experiences the same type of tidal attraction as it orbits. That helps explain Io’s extensive volcanic activity and surface “paving” by the frequent eruptions from its volcanic features. It also explains why we don’t see widespread craters on Io.
If the same thing happened to the infant Moon after its original formation, cooldown, and subsequent bombardment, we wouldn’t see any of its original craters. They’d have been covered by subsequent eruption and melting when the Moon’s orbit was stabilizing.
The formation and evolution of the solar system and its many different bodies is still a hot area of study. Among other things, scientists want to understand the timing of events that shaped solar system objects. For that, they need a better understanding of the geology of each object. More data leads to better models of every aspect of solar system formation—from the first “push” in the protosolar nebula to such events as collisions, tidal heating, orbital dynamics, and surface evolution of different worlds. That’s where planetary science missions come in handy. They provide “in situ” data about each world (or object, in the case of asteroids, moons, comets, and rings), and they fill in gaps in the history of each place.
“As more data becomes available—particularly from ongoing and future lunar missions—the understanding of the Moon’s past will continue to evolve,” Nimmo said. “We hope that our findings will spark further discussion and exploration, ultimately leading to a clearer picture of the Moon’s place in the broader history of our solar system.”
NASA Lays Out Two New Options for Mars Sample Return
Months after deciding that its previous plan for bringing samples back from Mars wasn’t going to work, NASA says it’s working out the details for two new sample return scenarios, with the aim of bringing 30 titanium tubes filled with Martian rocks and soil back to Earth in the 2030s.
One scenario calls for using a beefed-up version of NASA’s sky crane to drop the required hardware onto the Red Planet’s surface, while the other would use heavy-lift commercial capabilities provided by the likes of SpaceX or Blue Origin.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the space agency plans to flesh out the engineering details for each option over the course of the next year and make its choice in 2026. But that all depends on what Congress and President-elect Donald Trump’s administration want to do.
Nelson noted that China is planning to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2028.
“I don’t think we want the only sample return coming back on the Chinese spacecraft, and that’s just simply a grab-and-go kind of mission, whereas ours has been a very methodical process. … I think that the administration will certainly conclude that they want to proceed, so what we wanted to do was to give them the best possible options so that they can go from here,” he told reporters.
For years, NASA has been working on a plan that started out with the collection and caching of samples by the Perseverance rover in Mars’ Jezero Crater, which is considered prime territory for harboring potential evidence of ancient life. Those samples would have been gathered up and brought to a sample retrieval platform, where they would have been sent into Martian orbit on a rocket known as the Mars Ascent Vehicle. The samples would be transferred to a Mars orbiter built by the European Space Agency. That orbiter would then deliver the samples back to Earth for laboratory study.
It was a complex plan, and last year, NASA determined that the operation would have taken until 2040 to get the samples back, with a price tag of $11 billion. “That was just simply unacceptable,” Nelson said.
NASA asked its experts as well as commercial space ventures to come up with ideas for lowering the cost and speeding up the schedule, which resulted in the two options presented today.
The sky crane option would build upon the technology that used a rocket-powered, free-flying platform to lower NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to the Martian surface. “You’re looking at cost in the range of $6.6 billion to $7.7 billion,” Nelson said.
The estimated price tag for the commercial heavy-lift option is in the range of $5.8 billion to $7.1 billion. “You all know that SpaceX and Blue Origin have already been ones that have expressed an interest, but it could be others as well, and a team is evaluating and researching all industry capability to include the schedule and the budget to determine the best strategy going forward,” Nelson said.
Both options would use many of the same elements proposed under the previous plan, but would trim costs by using a smaller Mars Ascent Vehicle as well as a simpler design for the sample retrieval platform, powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator rather than solar panels. The samples would be brought back from Mars and sent down to Earth by ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter. NASA said ESA is currently evaluating the options proposed by NASA.
The newly proposed schedule could lead to launches in the 2030-31 time frame, and delivery of the samples by as early as 2035. “But it could go out to 2039,” Nelson said. “Now, a good reason for why it could get extended out is if the Congress and the new administration do not respond.”
Nelson said Congress would have to commit at least $300 million during the current fiscal year to keep the Mars sample return campaign on track. “If they want to get this thing back on a direct return earlier, they’re going to have to put more money into it, even more than $300 million in fiscal year ’25, and that would be the case every year going forward,” he said.
Trump has been bullish on Mars exploration, in part due to the influence of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. So bullish, in fact, that Trump wants to have astronauts on the Red Planet by 2028, potentially forcing another overhaul of the Mars sample return campaign.
“We will reach Mars before the end of my term,” Trump said during a campaign rally last October. “Elon promised me he was going to do that. … He told me that we’re going to win, and he’s going to reach Mars by the end of our term, which is a big thing. Before China, before anybody.”
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The robotic arm on NASA’s Perseverance rover reached out to examine rocks in an area on Mars nicknamed the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough” area in this image captured on July 10, 2021 (the 138th sol, or Martian day, of its mission).
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Roswell Incident: The UFO Mystery That Shaped History
The Roswell Incident of 1947 remains one of the most enduring mysteries of modern history, capturing imaginations and fueling debates about extraterrestrial life and government secrecy. This enigmatic event, often regarded as the birthplace of UFO folklore, is rooted in an unusual discovery made in the summer of 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico.
In July 1947, rancher Mac Brazel stumbled upon peculiar debris scattered across his field. The material appeared lightweight, resilient, and unrecognizable. Unsure of what he had found, Brazel reported his discovery to Sheriff George Wilcox, who, in turn, involved the local military base. This seemingly mundane incident quickly spiraled into a headline-grabbing event when the U.S. Army Air Forces issued a press release claiming they had recovered a “flying disk.”
Frank Joyce, a local radio reporter, broadcast the story, which sparked a global frenzy. However, within hours, the military retracted their statement, attributing the debris to a weather balloon. For decades, this official explanation remained unchallenged, and the Roswell story faded into relative obscurity.
The Roswell Incident resurfaced in the late 1970s when retired Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer who initially handled the debris, publicly claimed that what he recovered was not from Earth. Marcel described materials that were lightweight yet indestructible and included strange “memory metal” that returned to its original shape when folded. He also reported finding beams with hieroglyphic-like symbols. Marcel’s testimony reignited curiosity and skepticism, leading to a surge of UFO-related investigations.
UFO researchers Stanton Friedman and others uncovered over 60 witnesses connected to the Roswell event. These accounts painted a picture of a crashed alien spacecraft, extraterrestrial bodies, and a meticulous military cover-up. The growing body of anecdotal evidence fueled public belief in the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation.
Roswell’s legend was amplified by the cultural backdrop of the mid-20th century. The Cold War era, with its heightened mistrust of government and fear of nuclear annihilation, created fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Hollywood’s science fiction boom, featuring flying saucers and alien invasions, further entrenched the imagery of UFOs in the public consciousness.
The Roswell narrative also borrowed elements from earlier hoaxes, such as the Aztec UFO crash story described in Frank Scully’s 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. While the Aztec story was debunked, it shared remarkable similarities with Roswell’s tale, including descriptions of alien bodies and indestructible materials.
In the 1990s, researchers unearthed a plausible earthly explanation for the Roswell debris. Project Mogul, a top-secret U.S. military initiative, used large balloons equipped with radar reflectors to detect Soviet nuclear tests. These balloons, made from materials resembling tinfoil and balsa wood, closely matched the descriptions given by witnesses. The hieroglyph-like symbols reported by Jesse Marcel Jr. were later attributed to decorative patterns on tape used in constructing the radar reflectors.
While Project Mogul offers a rational explanation for the Roswell debris, it fails to satisfy UFO enthusiasts who believe the military orchestrated a cover-up to conceal evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Despite scientific explanations, Roswell continues to captivate millions. Annual UFO festivals in Roswell draw enthusiasts, while polls show that a significant portion of the public believes aliens have visited Earth. The persistence of the Roswell legend underscores humanity’s curiosity about the unknown and a deep-seated distrust of authority.
Was Roswell the site of an alien crash, or was it merely a misunderstood military project? The lack of definitive evidence leaves the story open to interpretation. For believers, Roswell is proof that “we are not alone.” For skeptics, it’s a cautionary tale of how myths can grow from small, misunderstood events.
The Roswell Incident represents more than a historical mystery—it’s a cultural phenomenon that speaks to our collective fascination with life beyond Earth. Whether it was a spaceship or a secret balloon project, the event at Roswell continues to inspire debate, research, and wonder. In the absence of concrete answers, the Roswell mystery remains an enduring testament to the human imagination and the search for truth.
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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.
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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
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.
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Unknown Object Punched “Softball Sized Hole” in Aircraft, Prompting Emergency Landing and FAA Investigation
(Credit: Instagram/OnlyInDade)
Few details have emerged about an incident that prompted the emergency landing of an Atlas Air flight at Miami International Airport late Thursday evening, following the release of a preliminary assessment by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials.
According to information released by the FAA, the aircraft, Atlas Air Flight 95, experienced failure of its second engine shortly after departure during an evening flight on January 18, 2024.
The engine failure prompted an emergency landing, and the aircraft safely landed at Miami International at around 10:30 p.m. local time.
The aircraft, a Boeing 747, had been traveling to Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, Puerto Rico, at the time of the incident.
“Mayday, mayday, 1095 heavy. Uh, engine fire, request access back to the airport,” the pilot could be heard saying in FAA audio that surfaced following the incident.
“No, we’ll go ahead and land,” the pilot then says. “We have five souls onboard.”
According to an FAA preliminary report, “post flight inspection revealed a softball size hole above #2 engine,” although no additional details were released at that time. It remains unclear whether the hole resulted from an impact with an airborne object or if the damage was caused by other circumstances yet to be determined.
Ground-based observers were able to see the aircraft as flames billowed from its second engine, with videos surfacing online that captured the alarming scene as the blazing aircraft passed overhead.
(Credit: Instagram/OnlyInDade)
“Oh my God, it’s on fire,” a woman is heard saying in one video of the incident, which appeared on the Instagram community channel Only in Dade (onlyindade).
The woman can be heard calling to her mother, wondering aloud if the plane would be attempting to make an emergency landing.
The FAA identifies three categories of emergency landings, which include forced landings, where an aircraft must land immediately after its ability to fly has been impacted because of factors that include engine failure, as with the January 18 incident.
Additional categories include precautionary landings, which result from circumstances where further flight is inadvisable, and ditching, which occurs when a forced or precautionary landing must occur on water.
According to FAA guidelines, air traffic controllers are required to prioritize and give way to any aircraft that declares a need for an emergency landing.
As of Friday afternoon, the FAA had not revealed any additional details about what circumstances might have led to the hole discovered above the aircraft’s second engine on Thursday night.
The agency said in a statement that it plans to conduct further investigations into the possible cause of the damage that caused the aircraft’s emergency landing.
James Webb Space Telescope Has Helped Solve a Mystery That Left Astronomers Baffled For Years
( NASA/ESA/CEERS Survey)
One of astronomy’s most perplexing mysteries has been resolved, according to scientists involved with new findings made possible by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
According to new findings, tiny faint objects have been located surrounding galaxies that, in the past, have displayed anomalous emissions of hydrogen, a discovery made possible by Webb’s powerful NIRCam instrument.
Astronomers have long wondered why light from hydrogen atoms can be detected, given that they should be blocked from view by gas formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang.
The new findings reveal mergers between galaxies as the likely source of these mysterious hydrogen emissions.
When astronomers view extremely distant galaxies, they appear as they would have looked long ago due to the time it takes the light they produce to travel across space. Hence, observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope are not only revealing the most distant regions of the universe in unprecedented detail, but also how they looked in much earlier times.
However, these galaxies are very faint, and hence powerful telescopes are required to make the observations, a task that Webb is well equipped to accomplish.
Very active star formation occurred within the universe’s earliest galaxies, giving rise to their other name: stellar nurseries. These regions of space produced a specific variety of light emitted from hydrogen known as Lyman-α emission.
Essentially, Lyman-α emission is produced by hydrogen atoms when an electron falls from a higher energy level to the lowest one it can be in, which can be likened to the electron’s home base. This light has a very specific color spectra that can only be discerned with the help of special instruments, which can be likened to being a “fingerprint” for this kind of activity.
NIRCam image of the Lyman-α emitting galaxy EGSY8p7
(Credit: NASA/ESA/Ceers survey)
Long ago, these stellar nurseries were enveloped in large amounts of neutral hydrogen gas, and the even the spaces between galaxies once contained far more gas than what is observed today. Light emissions produced by hydrogen are easily absorbed by this gas, causing astronomers to predict that the Lyman-α emission that populated these regions of the early Universe, despite their abundance, would effectively remain invisible to astronomers today.
Yet, mysteriously, some early hydrogen emissions have been successfully observed by astronomers, a phenomenon that has until recently remained unexplained. But how could hydrogen that should have been scattered throughout the universe by now, if not absorbed altogether, still be visible today?
University of Cambridge astronomer Callum Witten, who specializes in the study of galaxies and active galactic nuclei, calls this question “one of the most puzzling issues” astronomers have faced in trying to resolve this cosmic mystery.
“Many hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this ‘inexplicable’ emission,” Witten, the principal investigator on a new study that explores this phenomenon, said in a recent statement.
However, thanks to the power and precision of the James Webb Space Telescope, new insights appear to have shed light on this longstanding mystery.
With help from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Witten and his colleagues were able to observe much smaller and dimmer galaxies clustered around the brighter ones from which mysterious hydrogen emissions were previously noted. However, these lesser galaxies are not static, but instead appear to be dynamically interacting and combining.
“Where Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies,” said Sergio Martin-Alvarez, a team member from Stanford University involved with the study, who adds that Webb’s latest revelations have “had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies.”
NIRCam image depicting Lyman-α emitting galaxy EGSY8p7 in the CEERS survey field
(Credit: NASA/ESA/CEERS survey).
Using state-of-the-art simulations, the team then explored the physics behind what they observed, learning that the fast accumulation of stellar mass that results from galaxy mergers had likely driven the strong hydrogen emissions being observed. Based on the new observations, this appeared to have occurred through channels that had been cleared of neutral gasses that had originally been prevalent.
The team believes that the merging of these smaller, previously unobserved galaxies is very likely to be the solution to the lasting riddle of inexplicable early hydrogen emissions, and now aims to follow up their recent observations by looking at galaxies in other stages of merging, which they believe will not only help them to better understand how hydrogen emission is ejected, but also to reveal new clues to the evolution of galaxies.
The team’s research was the subject of a new paper, “Deciphering Lyman-α emission deep into the epoch of reionization, that was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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 71) 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.
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.
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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.
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 aircraf
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.”
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Disturbing new details show how CIA drugged and tortured Americans in secret mind control program MKUltra
Newly declassified bombshell records of an infamous CIA mind control program, MKUltra, reveal how Americans were drugged and tortured more than 60 years ago.
The collection of more than 1,200 pages detail how the CIA used induced sleep, electroshocks and 'psychic driving' on drugged subjects who were psychologically tortured for weeks or months to reprogram their minds.
The subjects included criminals, mental patients and drug addicts, but also Army soldiers and average citizens who were given drugs without their knowledge.
A total of 144 projects were conducted from 1953 to 1964, aimed at developing procedures and drugs that could be used during interrogations, weakening individuals and forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
The newly declassified pages detail how the CIA used methods such as induced sleep, electroshocks, and 'psychic driving,' under which drugged subjects were psychologically tortured for weeks or months to reprogram their minds.
While it has long been said that subjects only included prisoners, mental patients and drug addicts, one report showed that some CIA and Army officials and 'subjects in normal life settings' were 'unwittingly' given LSD over the decade-long experiment.
In a newly unsealed document from 1956, researchers were developing 'an anti-interrogation drug' by testing 'materials capable of producing alterations in the human central nervous system which are reflected as alterations in human behavior.'
A memo about a classified meeting showed that the CIA contemplated the possibility of testing on foreign nationals,' but decided that 'unwitting testing on American citizens must be continued' instead.
The CIA was testing drugs and other techniques on American citizens during the 1950s and 60s to develops new interrogation processes such as mind control
Gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, a former organized crime boss, was used as a test subject in 1957 while an inmate at the Atlanta penitentiary. He explained he was one of eight convicts in a panic and paranoid state while in MKUltra
Gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, a former organized crime boss, was used as a test subject in 1957 while an inmate at the Atlanta penitentiary.
He explained he was one of eight convicts in a panic and paranoid state while in MKUltra.
'Total loss of appetite. Hallucinating. The room would change shape. Hours of paranoia and feeling violent,' Bulger penned.
'We experienced horrible periods of living nightmares and even blood coming out of the walls. Guys turning to skeletons in front of me. I saw a camera change into the head of a dog. I felt like I was going insane.'
The National Security Archive (NSA) said in a statement: 'The CIA conducted terrifying experiments using drugs, hypnosis, isolation, sensory deprivation, and other extreme techniques on human subjects, often US citizens, who frequently had no idea what was being done to them or that they were part of a CIA test.
'These records also shed light on an especially dark period in the history of the behavioral sciences in which some of the top physicians in the field conducted research and experiments usually associated with the Nazi doctors who were tried at Nuremberg.'
A total of 20 documents with more than 1,200 pages were declassified on December 23, published by the NSA and ProQuest.
'Despite the Agency's efforts to erase this hidden history, the documents that survived this purge and that have been gathered together here present a compelling and unsettling narrative of the CIA's decades-long effort to discover and test ways to erase and reprogram the human mind,' shared NSA.
Former US Deputy Director of the CIA Allen Dulles ordered the agency to develop mind-controlling drugs to be used against the Soviets during the Cold War.
The CIA was testing drugs and other techniques on American citizens during the 1950s and 60s to develops new interrogation processes such as mind control. Former US Deputy Director of the CIA Allen Dulles (pictured) ordered the agency to develop mind-controlling drugs
'We in the West, are somewhat handicapped in brain warfare,' he said.
A memorandum dated November 15, 1954 details how the CIA's Technical Services Section (TSS) requested funding for a project at Georgetown University Hospital that would provide cover for research under the agency's 'biological and chemical warfare program.'
Using a philanthropic organization as a 'cut-out,' the CIA partially funded 'a new research wing' of the hospital (the Gorman Annex) and used part of it to conduct 'Agency-sponsored research in these sensitive fields.'
MKULTRA, the memo states, provided research and development funding 'for highly sensitive projects in certain fields, including covert biological, chemical and radiological warfare' but did not specifically authorize funds to establish cover for these programs.
The program, which ran from 1953 to 1973, performed 144 projects aimed at developing procedures and drugs that could be used during interrogations,weakening individuals and forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture
In 1955, the secret program listed 17 'materials and methods' that the division was working on, including substances that 'promote illogical thinking, would help individuals to endure 'privation, torture and coercion during interrogation' and attempts at 'brain-washing.'
The list also featured substances that would 'produce physical disablement, including paralysis, and others that alter personality structure' or that 'produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down.'
A 'knockout pill' was also to be developed, which would be used in 'surreptitious druggings and to produce amnesia, among other things.'
Another declassified document dated June 7, 1956, discusses an MKUltra subproject to be led by Carl Pfeiffer of Emory University who was known to conduct experiments on prisoners.
Pfeiffer was approved to develop 'an anti-interrogation drug' and 'tests in human volunteers.'
The objectives included administering 'large doses of LSD-25 in normal human volunteers.'
In 1955, the secret program listed 17 'materials and methods' that the division was working on, including substances that 'promote illogical thinking, would help individuals to endure 'privation, torture and coercion during interrogation' and attempts at 'brain-washing'
The list also featured substances that would 'produce physical disablement, including paralysis, and others that alter personality structure' or that 'produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down'
The document does not specify the amount given, but taking large doses of the drug can induce terrifying hallucinations.
Another point was 'to evaluate the threshold dose levels in humans of a particular natural product to be supplied by [deleted].'
The supplier's name was redacted from the report, but pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly developed a process to streamline the manufacture of LSD in late 1954.
'[The] CIA had [LSD] in abundance thanks to Eli Lilly, which had developed the capacity to produce the drug in 'tonnage quantities' and had agreed to become the agency's supplier,' according to NSA.
The documents also show that the CIA established safehouses in 1956, which were run by narcotics agent George White 'for conducting experiments involving the covert administration of physiologically active materials to unwitting subjects.'
Sidney Gottlieb, a chemist and spymaster who headed the CIA in the 50s and 60s, admitted in the report that activities were 'highly unorthodox nature.'
Because of that 'it [was] 'impossible to require that they provide a receipt for these payments of that they indicate the precise manner in which the funds were spent,' he wrote.
One of the last documents of the program, published in 1963, revealed researchers involved with MKUltra used radiation, electro-shock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology, graphology, harassment [sic] substances, and paramilitary devices and materials' during the secret initiative.
It focused on drug experiments conducted at CIA safehouses, using suspect criminals as test subjects, but also 'unwitting subjects drawn from all walks of life.'
'It was noted earlier that the capabilities of MKUltra substances to produce disabling or discrediting effects or to increase the effectiveness of interrogation of hostile subjects cannot be established solely through testing on volunteer populations,' it reads.
As of 1960, however, the CIA was unable to develop a knockout pill, truth serum, aphrodisiac or recruitment pill.
Also during that time, the report noted that 25 of the 144 projects 'remained in existence at present' - 1960.
While most of the documents were destroyed in 1973, the US Church Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church opened an investigation into MKUltra in 1975.
'The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are as important as ends,' Frank's 1977 report stated.
'Crises make it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free. But each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong, our inner strength, the strength which makes us free, is lessened.'
That report found that there were at least six subprojects that involved testing on unwitting subjects and other projects researcher 'drugs, toxins and biologicals in human tissue.'
The then-director of the CIA, Adam Stansfield Turner spoke during the investigation, saying the MKUltra's activities were more than 12 years old following the investigation.
'They in no way represent the current activities or policies of the Central Intelligence Agency,' he added.
The investigation brought MKUltra to light, sparking public outcry and widespread criticism of the CIA's unethical practices.
That led to the establishment of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which provided ongoing oversight of intelligence agencies.
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Urgent warning to seafood lovers as scientists discover dangerous microplastics in six popular species - with prawns the worst offenders
Next time you chomp down on your favourite seafood, it may not just be the shell that gives it an unexpected crunch.
A concerning new study reveals the presence of microplastics in six species of fish and seafood which are commonly consumed by humans.
Microplastics – plastic fragments less than 5 mm in diameter, invisible to the naked eye – have been linked with toxic impacts on the body, such as cancer.
In all, microplastics were found in 99 per cent of samples, in their gut or even in their tissue – but none more so than the pink shrimp.
Scientists warn that the foreign fragments travel 'from the ocean to our kitchen table' before being consumed by humans in restaurants and homes.
'It's very concerning that microfibers appear to move from the gut into other tissues such as muscle,' said Professor Susanne Brander, an ecotoxicologist at Oregon State University.
'This has wide implications for other organisms, potentially including humans too.'
Pink shrimp, which filter-feed right below the surface of the water, had the highest concentrations of particles in their edible tissues, the study found
The researchers found human-made particles in the edible tissue of six species - (clockwise from top left) Chinook salmon, lingcod, black rockfish, pink shrimp, Pacific herring and Pacific lamprey
For the study, six fish were caught by a fishing vessel in Oregon waters or bought from a supermarket or seafood vendor.
In all, the researchers sampled 182 individual fish of the six species – pink shrimp, pacific herring, pacific lamprey, black rockfish, lingcod and chinook salmon.
The six species are that are 'economically or culturally important' in Oregon but don't necessarily represent global eating habits.
Lab dissection and microscopic analysis revealed 1,806 suspected particles across the vast majority of individual samples – 180 of 182, or 98.9 per cent.
The fish contained a wide range of anthropogenic particles (APs), a broad category of materials produced or modified by humans.
Microplastics – plastic fragments less than 5 mm in diameter, invisible to the naked eye – come under the category of APs.
The study found 1,806 suspected particles across 180 of 182 individual samples – mostly fibres but also fragments and films.
According to the researchers, the smaller marine species tend to contain a higher quantity of particles in them, but the reason for this exactly is unclear.
Pink shrimp, which filter-feed right below the surface of the water, had the highest concentrations of anthropogenic particles (APs) in their edible tissues (R = retail, V = vessel). Chinook salmon had the lowest concentrations. AP concentrations were also fairly low in black rockfish and lingcod
Pacific lamprey (pictured) are a culturally important food source for indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest
Black rockfish (pictured) are harvested in Oregon, California, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, and the Pacific
'Other studies have found high concentrations of plastics in the area in which zooplankton accumulate,' said said study author Professor Elise Granek at Portland State University.
'These anthropogenic particles may resemble zooplankton and thus be taken up by animals that feed on zooplankton.'
Despite the findings, the researchers are not advising people to stay away from seafood.
Microplastics are ubiquitous, having already been found in bottled water, beer, honey, beef, chicken, veggie burgers and tofu.
Therefore, omitting seafood from your diet is unlikely to stop your consumption of microplastics.
'If we are disposing of and utilizing products that release microplastics, those microplastics make their way into the environment, and are taken up by things we eat,' Professor Granek said.
'What we put out into the environment ends up back on our plates.'
The Chinook salmon (pictured) is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon. It is eaten by people as well as wildlife such as orcas and sea lions
Lingcod (pictured) is a relatively large species of ground fish with habitats in the Pacific Ocean, according to Wild Alaskan Company
There are around 200 different species of herring although it's just three that are usually caught for food - Atlantic, Pacific (pictured) and Araucanian
Microplastics - plastic particles less than 5 millimetres in diameter - can come from larger plastic products that have broken down, textile fibres, cigarette filters or even beauty products (file photo)
Other fish are also likely to contain microplastics too, but the study focused on six species that are commonly consumed in Oregon.
It's not the first time microplastics have been found in seafood, or even food in general for that matter.
A 2020 study discovered microplastics inside every single sample of seafood bought at a market – squid, prawns, oysters, crabs and sardines.
The following year, an Australian scientist demonstrated on TikTok how there's microplastics in store-bought fish fingers.
Studies have reported the presence of microplastics in several foods, including salt, seafood, sugar, beer, bottled water, honey and milk.
The human health risks of ingesting microplastics and other APs are understudied, but have been linked to cancer, DNA damage and cellular damage.
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7,000-year-old alien-like figurine from Kuwait a 'total surprise' to archaeologists
Alien-like clay sculpture dating back 7,000 years offers clues into cultural exchange between Stone Age civilizations.
Archaeologists in Kuwait have discovered a 7,000-year-old clay figurine that looks eerily similar to a modern-day depiction of an alien.
But while this figurine may look more supernatural than human, its style was common in ancient Mesopotamia, although it's the first of its kind ever to be found in Kuwait or the Arabian Gulf.
The small, finely crafted head, with slanted eyes, a flat nose and an elongated skull, was found during excavations this year at Bahra 1, a prehistoric site in northern Kuwait where a joint Kuwaiti-Polish team has been excavating since 2009. Bahra 1 was one of the Arabian Peninsula's oldest settlements, with occupation lasting from around 5500 to 4900 B.C.
During this time, Bahra 1 was settled by the Ubaid, a culture that originated in Mesopotamia and is known for its distinctive pottery, including its alien-like figurines. The Ubaid intertwined with Neolithic, or New Stone Age societies in the Arabian Gulf in the sixth millennium B.C. and turned the area into a sort of ancient melting pot, said Agnieszka Szymczak, an expedition leader at Bahra 1 in charge of the small finds at the site, like the newly discovered figurine.
The collision of these peoples and their cultures resulted in a "prehistoric crossroads of cultural exchange," Szymczak, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, told Live Science in an email. Part of this exchange included art, like the recently unearthed figurine.
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"[The] discovery of the figurine was a total surprise for the whole team, as it was the first such find not just among the over 1.5k [1,500] small finds excavated from the Bahra 1 site but also from the Arabian Gulf region," Szymczak said. Moreover, it's made of Mesopotamian clay, not like the "Coarse Red Ware" ceramics local to the Arabian Gulf, meaning the Ubaids were actively importing their homegrown traditions into the region.
Ubaid figurines are sometimes called "lizard-headed," "bird-like," or "ophidian" meaning "snake-like," according to University of Chicago publications. The newfound figurine is likely "imbued with symbolic meaning," Szymczak said, even though the figurine was discovered in a "mundane activity area," not in a special or symbolic place — like the graves they've been found in throughout Mesopotamia.
Aurelie Daems, a Near Eastern archaeologist at Ghent University in Belgium who has written book chapters on Ubaid ophidian figurines but was not involved in the current study, praised the find at Bahra 1 as having the "potential to clarify research questions related to ritual and social practices" of the Ubaid, as well as the relationships between the prehistoric Gulf region and Mesopotamia.
Various theories have attempted to explain the unusual facial features of these figurines. One idea suggests the sculptures show artificial cranial deformation, otherwise known as "head-shaping," a practice followed in Ubaid society, and evidenced in skeletal remains excavated in Mesopotamia. Achieved by wrapping bandages around an infant's malleable skull, head-shaping could have been utilized by the Ubaids as a symbol of identity, such as class, culture or belonging to a special group within their settlement. The Ubaid may have picked up this practice in what is now Iran in the eighth and seventh millennia B.C., and head-shaping hit its peak in Ubaid society during the fifth millennium B.C.
Excavation at the Bahra 1 site in Kuwait
© Adam Oleksiak/CAŚ UW / SWNS
Excavations at the site are ongoing, as are studies on the clay figurine head found this year.
January 2025 MUFON Monthly Sighting Statistics!
January 2025 MUFON Monthly Sighting Statistics!
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Ancient Egypt’s UFO Mysteries: Ross Coulthart’s Reality Check Investigation
Ross Coulthart, an investigative journalist known for his work on mysterious phenomena, embarked on a fascinating journey through Egypt’s ancient ruins in NewsNation’s Reality Check series. Alongside his friend, lawyer, and researcher JP Hague, Coulthart explored the enduring enigmas of Egypt’s ancient landmarks, raising intriguing questions about advanced technologies, human consciousness, and potential links to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
Coulthart and Hague’s expedition took them to Egypt’s most iconic landmarks, including the Great Pyramid of Giza, where they examined evidence of precise engineering that seems beyond the capabilities of the ancient dynastic Egyptians. They marveled at the pyramid’s alignment with astronomical and mathematical constants, such as the speed of light and the precession of the equinoxes, suggesting an advanced understanding of geometry and the cosmos.
JP Hague highlighted the extraordinary level of precision in the pyramid’s construction. For instance, the perfectly level granite slabs beneath the Great Pyramid continue to defy conventional explanations. He theorized that whoever built these structures had access to knowledge and technology far superior to what was thought to exist during that era.
In Aswan, Coulthart and Hague visited the site of the unfinished Obelisk, an enormous block of red granite carved directly into bedrock. The tool marks on the granite resembled smooth, scooped shapes, leading Hague to speculate on the use of advanced sonic or acoustic tools capable of vibrating stone into dust. These theories challenge the mainstream view that such objects were fashioned using primitive stone tools.
The logistical challenge of moving and erecting such colossal objects further deepens the mystery. Hague suggested that ancient Egyptians might have employed levitation technologies, as hinted at in depictions on temple walls, such as those in the Temple of Edfu.
The exploration also delved into ancient Egyptian art. Coulthart and Hague examined carvings at the Temple of Abydos, where some hieroglyphs resemble modern machinery, including what looks like a helicopter, submarine, and disc-like objects. While conventional Egyptologists attribute these images to overlapping carvings (a process called palimpsest), the resemblance to modern technology fuels speculation about clairvoyance or knowledge of advanced technologies in ancient times.
Moreover, at Edfu Temple, they encountered depictions of temples seemingly being levitated by tall, humanoid figures wielding rods. These images suggest energy-based technologies that might have played a role in constructing Egypt’s monumental structures.
JP Hague shared his personal experiences with UAPs and their possible links to human consciousness, proposing that these phenomena might transcend local time and space. He theorized that ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, might have had interactions with non-human intelligences (NHIs) that informed their technological and spiritual advancements.
Hague’s perspective aligns with the esoteric belief that ancient Egyptians encoded knowledge about the cosmos, human consciousness, and energy manipulation in their art and architecture. The Eye of Horus, for instance, bears a striking resemblance to the human pineal gland, often considered the seat of consciousness and intuition.
The mysteries of ancient Egypt are not just academic. Rediscovering lost technologies and spiritual integration could revolutionize modern society. According to Hague, the Egyptians achieved a remarkable unity between science, spirituality, and practical life, offering a model for harmonious coexistence with nature and the cosmos.
By revisiting these ancient enigmas, Coulthart and Hague argue, humanity might unlock a deeper understanding of consciousness, energy, and the universe. Their journey highlights the importance of keeping an open mind, bridging the gap between science and the mystical, and embracing the possibility of unknown dimensions of human knowledge.
Ross Coulthart’s exploration of Egypt in Reality Check shines a spotlight on the profound mysteries of ancient civilizations. From the precision of the Great Pyramid to the enigmatic depictions of advanced machines and levitation, these puzzles challenge conventional narratives. Whether through lost knowledge, alien intervention, or untapped human potential, ancient Egypt continues to inspire curiosity and wonder, offering tantalizing clues to humanity’s past and future.
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10 OF THE COOLEST HIGH-TECH FEATURES EVER UTILIZED BY FIGHTER JETS
10 OF THE COOLEST HIGH-TECH FEATURES EVER UTILIZED BY FIGHTER JETS
BY DANIEL FEININGER
Don Farrall/Getty Images
Humans have always looked skyward in envy of birds, bees, and anything else that can take flight. Soaring up above the Earth has long been a task that occupied human minds, from the ancient Greek tale of Icarus launching himself into the winds (and then falling back down) to Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century flying machine designs.
When the Wright brothers managed to lift off the ground over a century ago, they ignited an impassioned sprint toward increasingly substantive innovations and technologies in aerospace. Exponential growth in the realm of aerial flight would eventually transform every aspect of the human experience. From shipping goods and delivering mail to launching a truly global tourism industry, human flight connects the world in ways that people just a few generations ago may have never thought possible.
Flight also changed the landscape of warfare. Observational spy balloons and aerial signaling have been used throughout human history. They formed a core intelligence gathering function in the American Civil War, but would soon be replaced by later airplane propulsion breakthroughs. The first fighter jet to participate in aerial combat was the German Messerschmitt Me 262, which attacked a British reconnaissance plane over Munich in 1944. The aircraft wasn't as impactful as the Germans would have hoped, but the gauntlet was laid down -- jet engines were here to stay and tertiary systems quickly made them even more powerful weapons of war.
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The first airplanes to take to the skies features straight wing geometry. The Wright brothers' fliers utilized fixed, rectangular wing designs that straddled the aircraft in a perpendicular fashion, connecting the wing on either side in the center. Wing design has changed a lot in the years since, however.
Many airplanes today feature a sweepback to their wings, from passenger airliners to fighter jets. They are consistently featured in fighters, however, because the design provides solid crossover between speed and maneuverability. A swept design is crucial for reducing aerodynamic drag, allowing an aircraft to travel faster and more efficiently when it crosses speed thresholds like the sound barrier. Its design was the result of decades of wind tunnel testing and at least partially inspired by the way birds and bats tuck back their wings while in flight to increase speed.
Most fighter jets today utilize wing geometry that sees them extend out (and back) at an angle rather than straight to achieve this improved efficiency. However, not all jets deliver this form factor. Some feature forward sweep in their wings, and others offer variable shape. The Mirage G was one of the first fighter jet to allow for adjustments while in flight, just like the creatures of the sky that we were emulating.
The process of in-air refueling has been around for a very long time -- almost as long as manned flight itself, actually. The first instance of in-air refueling took place in 1923, but it has come a long way in the century since its introduction. The first flights to test this method of prolonging time in the air were essentially test runs to explore how this process could work. They utilized a hose to transfer gasoline from one aircraft to another. In August of 1923, two pilots broke a variety of records with an endurance flight lasting 37 hours and 15 minutes, featuring 16 successful refueling operations mid-flight.
Today, the task of refueling while airborne is a commonplace feat of jet propulsion. Dedicated refueling vessels are a staple of the military's aerial fleet, with icons such as the S-3B Viking, originally designed to hunt Soviet submarines, serving for many years in this role. Whether taking off from land or sea-based carriers, extending the range of a fighter jet to expand its capacity to support ground forces or perhaps even engage in multiple dogfights over contested landscapes is a critical capability among modern fighter jets.
The ability to take off from a standstill remains one of the coolest technologies ever imbued in a non-helicopter craft. After all, the Harrier jet is an icon for one reason -- its ability to hover in place and perform Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) operations. Popularized perhaps most vividly in pop culture as a feature of the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "True Lies," the Harrier is a feat of tremendous engineering.
The wing design of a normal aircraft is carefully crafted to ensure a gliding effect of air traveling above and below its curvature, creating lift in the process. So an airplane that isn't cutting through the air should be one that plummets back down to Earth. This isn't so for the Harrier, however, as it features nozzled engines that can produce vertical lift themselves, rather than relying on air speed to generate it. The result is an aircraft that can perform the same feats of flight that are otherwise reserved for the mighty helicopter.
Other aircraft like the OV-10 Bronco provided American forces with a reconnaissance plane that could take off on exceedingly short runways (STOL) -- including dirt paths and other non-standard surfaces during the Vietnam War. The Soviet Antonov AN-2 biplane is another tool that delivered similar Short Takeoff and Landing chops for use as an agricultural services aircraft.
The aircraft catapult is another tool that has essentially been around since the dawn of human flight. The Wright brothers utilized launch equipment to get their aircraft off the ground and later flight capable vehicles would also rely on this assistance measure to support take off, too. However, the aircraft catapult gained new significance when the world went to war for a second time.
A naval variant of the British Spitfire fighter planes -- known as Seafires -- were outfitted with tailhooks to operate from sea-based positions and engage enemy planes over Malta, Italy, and North Africa. Launching aircraft from aquatic positions wasn't particularly difficult given the existing catapult technology, but landing on them has always proved a greater challenge. The use of tailhooks in coordination with catapult systems delivered much-needed consistency.
Today, this pair of systems has become the primary means of enabling ocean takeoffs that rely on a return to this mobile, sea-based landing strip. The tailhook and aircraft catapult allow fighter jets to operate from virtually anywhere in the world and reduce range requirements down to fractions of what they might be otherwise. This means that fighter jets can stay in the air longer in support of whatever mission they are tasked with because their takeoff and landing site is located within the theater of battle as well.
Understanding the battlefield has been critical for as long as humans have gone to war with one another. Intelligence gathering operations have become increasingly sophisticated through the years, and nowhere is this more apparent than in aerial combat.
Fighter jets engage their enemies in a unique snippet of our three dimensional plane. Height is a critical resource in ground combat, sure, but it gains new meaning when translated onto the skies. Fighter jets require an array of situational awareness tools that help them defend against incoming attacks -– which sometimes originate from beyond their sight horizon or a thousand feet above their heads -– and acquire targets, across land, sea, and air.
The F-4 Phantom II is an excellent example of technically adept flying machine technology. The Phantom, first built in 1958, allowed its pilots to identify and target enemy aircraft from beyond its pilot's line of sight. Radar and missile upgrades helped the aircraft's crew deliver lethal force from a distance that wasn't immediately defensible. The fighter jet was credited with downing over 100 MiG fighters during the Vietnam War, and later variants helped suppress Iraqi opposition during the Gulf War.
The modern F-35 Lightning II operates with some of the most advanced targeting systems ever conceived. It features a helmet mounted display that brings all the information a pilot needs right into their field of vision, no matter where they're looking. The Electro-Optical Targeting System delivers air-to-air threat detection over tremendous range and helps to home in on precise ground targeting needs. The fighter jet also engages in seamless data sharing with other friendlies in the sky, allowing for heightened team cohesion.
Any good fighter jet will need to be outfitted with an array of offensive weapons. From machine gun installations to nuclear-capable payloads, fighter jets have supported all manner of extreme weapons systems through the years.
One of the first fighter planes to lean full force into tremendous offensive load was the P-47 Thunderbolt. Although not a jet aircraft, this early workhorse exhibited immense capability when it came to downing enemy fighters over Europe and the Pacific. The P-47 carried eight .50 caliber machine guns and could also haul along 2,500 pounds of bombing munitions, packing a huge punch in both dogfighting and ground bombardment scenarios.
The trend of stacking as much firepower as possible into the armaments of a fighter jet has continued in the years since World War II concluded. The Thunderbolt's modern equivalent is the F-15EX Eagle II, sometimes called the Air Force's Missile Truck. It may just be the most heavily armed fighter to ever take to the skies. Taking its frame from the F-15, formerly a pure aerial fighter platform, the F-15EX Eagle II now offers 23 total weapon stations, a significant boost over its previous iteration's 17.
Fast means lethal, and aircraft have been chasing improvements in speed for as long as humans have been flying. There are numerous hurdles to navigate when seeking to create additional speed in the air, however. For one thing, fighter jets have become capable of moving at speeds that surpass standard human piloting capabilities. A phenomenon known as gravity-induced loss of consciousness takes place at a variety of different thresholds depending on who the operator is.
The average person may experience a blackout when moving at about 5Gs, while trained pilots (augmented with specialized equipment) can extend this range up to about 9Gs, given the right circumstances. Time at extreme speed and particularly the pace of acceleration also play a role in impairment and total blackout. Naturally, a pilot that loses consciousness is one threatened with the loss of their aircraft, and worse. Flight support systems like autopilot tools, onboard oxygen, and other technologies help pilots maintain control of the aircraft even when the physical toll becomes extreme.
The other barrier to intense speed is one that affects even everyday drivers on their local roadways -- fuel economy. Afterburners, in particular, are a tool that can increase speed tremendously, but they burn fuel at a much faster rate as well. Engaging afterburners also ramps up the heat production of a fighter jet, making it more susceptible to enemy detection. However, technology such as Supercruise in the F-22 Raptor allows a pilot to ramp up speed without relying on afterburners, eliminating this detection issue and improving fuel usage.
Countermeasures are perhaps some of the lowest technically demanding features of a fighter jet. Even so, the use of low-tech defensive tools like chaff and flares can create a resoundingly spectacular display. Perhaps one of the most arresting visuals in the prequel "Star Wars" movies is seen during a space battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the menacing Jango Fett set in an asteroid field over the brilliant orange of Geonosis. The encounter features prominent usage of countermeasures by Obi Wan as he struggles to defend against the bounty hunter's missile attack.
In real aerial combat, the same discharge of physical countermeasures to scramble missiles and frazzle radar tracking tools can be seen today. Modern countermeasures not only feature a physical shielding options, but also come in the form of infrared defensive weapons and electronic countermeasures that can scramble an aggressor's capability to target or attack a jet. These IR countermeasures target the heat of a missile in flight, and then blast it with an infrared beam to incapacitate its tracking function. This makes the tool reusable and far less reliant on timing, luck, and slick maneuvering.
Flying a fighter jet isn't like piloting a regular aircraft. These aircraft are controlled by immensely sensitive flight tools and have features that simply don't factor into the build of something like a passenger or cargo jet. Thrust vectoring, for instance, isn't required of a larger, transportation-focused jet engine, but make for a tremendously improved fighter jet.
Thrust vectoring allows for nuanced control of the engine exhaust direction, helping a pilot launch themselves into turns and other maneuvers with greater agility. This makes a fighter jet swifter in the turn and can help edge a battle in their favor. Thrust vectoring isn't a feature confined to the military realm, but it's far less common through sheer necessity in civilian aircraft.
Certain variants of the Russian MiG-29 feature thrust vectoring, making them just one of a few aircraft in the world that can perform a full Pugachev's Cobra maneuver, which requires a sudden shift in thrust direction to maintain flight. A Pugachev's Cobra involves violently pulling up on the nose of the aircraft to essentially stall it at a fully vertical orientation, with the angle of attack reaching an astounding 120 degrees. This rapidly halts the jet's forward speed before the pilot sinks the nose back down to its previous positioning.
The result is a capacity to let an enemy fighter completely pass the jet by, placing the MiG in prime attacking position behind its adversary. Thrust vectoring and other maneuverability features of the MiG-29 are responsible for the aircraft's ability to perform this astounding feat.
Stealth technologies are a core component in any fighter jet's ability to perform its duties. Part of the design specifics of a modern fighter involve hiding the vessel as much as possible. This includes shielding its aerial signature from radar systems on the ground, as well as making the aircraft harder to see in the air both visually and by the onboard identification systems of other planes.
Stealth inclusions come in a wide range of variations, but many are focused on unique skins for aircraft, as well as the angular shape of the vessel itself. Modern design language has sought to minimize flat surfaces and rounded edges. These features are easier to hit with sensor equipment, with the resulting ping bouncing more or less straight back to the receiver. Angular faces scatter the radar signal, making it harder to identify an aircraft in the first place, and equally difficult to actually find one that's been noticed.
Aircraft like the F-117 Nighthawk relied on aggressive angles to mitigate detection while the F-35 has been spotted in shiny outer colorations to achieve its stealth capabilities.
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Scientists reveal all the evidence Adam and Eve really DID exist
It's a story that almost any Christian would be instantly familiar with.
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on Earth.
Said to be made out of dust and to have lived in the Garden of Eden, the two figures are central to the belief that everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors.
While this might seem far-fetched, there is now a growing body of evidence which suggests that at least some parts of the story could be true.
Archaeologists have found surprising signs that Eden was not only a real place but could have been the birthplace of civilisation as we know it.
Likewise, biologists have shown that all humans alive today really do share a single common ancestor.
However, making the Bible fit with modern science requires throwing out a lot of the traditional story.
That could mean saying goodbye to the notion that God created Adam and Eve, or even questioning whether our biblical ancestors were Homo Sapiens.
While it might seem far-fetched, scientists now say there could be some elements of truth to the story of Adam and Eve. Pictured: Adam and Eve as painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1528
In the Bible, Adam and Eve live in a place called the Garden of Eden, a beautiful land of plenty and abundance.
Interestingly, the Bible also provides a relatively precise description of where this mystical garden is located.
In Genesis, the Bible states that a river flows through Eden and divides into four branches: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
Of these, the Tigris and the Euphrates are well known and still flow through modern-day Iraq.
However, the Gihon and the Pishon are far more obscure and their locations, if they still exist, are unknown.
This has led to a plethora of suggestions as to where the Garden of Eden might have really been, ranging from Iran and Mongolia to Jackson County Missouri.
However, the most promising theory is that the Garden of Eden is located in an area called Mesopotamia.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden which is described as being between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This would make the region of Mesopotamia a likely contender for its location
The Garden of Eden is referred to as being East of Israel where Jesus lived. This suggests that the Garden of Eden could have been located somewhere around modern-day Iraq
Literally meaning 'between rivers' in Ancient Greek, this region sits between the Tigris and Euphrates and straddles what is now eastern Syria, northwestern Turkey, and most of Iraq.
Professor Eric Cline, a classical and biblical archaeologist from George Washington University, argues that this theory matches the scriptural and archaeological evidence.
Writing in his book 'From Eden to Exile', Professor Cline says: 'This makes some sense from a textual point of view, because not only does the biblical account say that the garden lay "in the east", meaning to the east of Israel, but it also mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in connection with the Garden of Eden.'
Additionally, this region is widely believed to be the place where the first plants and animals were domesticated between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago in the so-called Neolithic revolution.
Dubbed the 'Fertile Crescent', the nutrient-rich sediments of the two rivers allowed for the first grains to be deliberately planted and harvested by humans.
This development led to the earliest transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural lifestyles and precipitated the birth of the first permanent human settlements.
Professor Cline adds: 'This area may have also become somewhat of an agricultural paradise for the local residents following the invention of irrigation during the fourth millennium BC.'
Further strengthening this case, there are some striking parallels between the biblical account of creation and the most ancient myths from the region.
Iraq sits in the fertile crescent, an area of land which was home to the first human civilisations including the Sumerians who built great palaces like the one at Girsu (pictured) at least 4,500 years ago
The ancient Sumerians also shared myths which bear a strong resemblance to the Christian creation myths. Archaeologists even discovered a seal (pictured) which appears to show a man and woman sitting by a tree in a garden. Some experts think the story of Eden could have been passed down from these first civilisations to the Israelites by the second century BC
Most notably the ancient Sumerians, considered to be the first human civilisation, recorded a myth called Enuma Elish, meaning 'When on High'.
This story records the creation of heaven and Earth from a primal, chaotic body of water in a very similar fashion to that described in Genesis.
According to some archaeologists, the best way to explain this similarity is that the Sumerian myth was handed down through the years all the way to the Israelites in the second century BC.
If that is true, then it is plausible that the biblical story of Adam and Eve captures an ancient story about the origin of civilisation which took place somewhere around modern-day Iran.
It might come as a surprise to learn that scientists really do believe that all living humans are descended from a single woman.
The so-called 'Mitochondrial Eve' is the common female ancestor to which the DNA of all modern human beings can be traced.
This common ancestor exists because, no matter how big your initial population is, the chances are that most female lineages will eventually come to an end.
Since most genetic lineages will come to an end over time, if you go back far enough there will be a single individual whose DNA is shared by every living person. Scientists call these individuals the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam based on the type of genetic information passed on by mothers and fathers (stock image)
While Mitochondrial Eve was not the first human, every other female lineage eventually died off and failed to pass on their mitochondrial DNA - a type of genetic material passed from mothers to their children.
Likewise, by applying the same logic scientists have determined that there must also be a 'Y-chromosome Adam' from which the male Y-chromosome in every living human originates.
Since DNA gathers mutations at a steady rate, scientists can use this 'genetic clock' to figure out how long ago everyone had the same DNA.
In 1987, geneticists looked at the mitochondrial DNA of 147 people from around the world.
By comparing the differences in their DNA, the researchers could work out how many mutations must have occurred since their most recent common ancestor.
Dividing that number by the rate of mutation shows that Mitochondrial Eve probably lived in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
Likewise, a study conducted in 2013 with 1,200 men from Sardinia also showed that Y-chromosome Adam would have lived around 180,000–200,000 years ago.
Of course, no scientists actually believe that humans descended from a single pair of humans.
This Adam and Eve would have been just one of the many humans living on Earth at the time.
Our two most recent common ancestors likely lived hundreds if not thousands of years apart and almost certainly never met - let alone had children together.
Their unique status as humanity's common ancestors is merely a product of statistics rather than any divine intervention.
However, some scientists believe that there is a way of making science fit with a biblical account of Adam and Eve.
Dr Joshua Swamidass, a biologist from Washington University, has argued that there is no reason to believe that humanity does not descend from a single couple.
As the case of the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam shows, there is no scientific barrier to humans having a common ancestor even if the population never reduced to a single couple.
In an article, published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Dr Swamidass writes: 'Many individuals are each individually ancestors of “all the living”.
Scientists argue that there is nothing about the theory of human evolution which prevents a pair of ancient humans from being the common ancestors of all living humans. However, Homo Sapiens are not the only human species and are known to have interbred with Neanderthals (pictured) which makes this theory more complicated
'All humans alive descend from each of these universal ancestors. The same can be said for all alive in AD 1, or all alive when recorded history begins.
'Two of them could be a particular couple, named Adam and Eve in scripture, from whom we all descend.'
It is important to note that Dr Swamidass is not offering a positive case for the existence of Adam and Eve.
Rather, he is merely showing that there is nothing in our understanding of evolutionary biology that prohibits the existence of an Adam and Eve couple.
Yet, as Dr Swamidass notes, there is still the problem that Homo Sapiens were not the first humans on Earth.
Based on the idea that Adam and Eve should be the literal ancestors of every human who has ever lived, some scholars have looked even further into the past.
Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, argues that Adam and Eve must have been the first people to truly be human.
Using criteria including the capacity for abstract thought, depth of planning, technological innovation, and the use of symbols, he argues that the first true humans emerged much earlier than homo sapiens.
Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, claims that Adam must have been a member of the first human species if he is to be the common ancestor for all humans. He therefore concludes that Adam was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis (pictured) and lived between 750,000 and one million years ago
In an article published in First Things, Professor Craig writes: 'Adam and Eve may plausibly be identified as belonging to the last common ancestor of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, usually denominated Homo heidelbergensis.
'Adam plausibly lived sometime between around 1 million years ago to 750,000 years ago, a conclusion consistent with the evidence of population genetics.'
Although there is nothing impossible about this claim, it doesn't put forward much positive evidence.
Even if Homo Heidelbergensis is the first human and humans could have descended from a single pair, there is still no reason to believe that this pair were the only humans on Earth.
Additionally, if Adam were a Homo Heidelbergensis then he wouldn't have lived in the proposed location for the Garden of Eden in Iraq.
Likewise, admitting that Adam and Eve weren't even Homo Sapiens is likely to rattle a few more conservative Christian thinkers.
Additionally, some scientists have criticised the idea that 'humanness' is a binary characteristic with a simple starting point.
However, it is still a striking fact that there is nothing in our current theories of human evolution that strictly prohibits the existence of an original Adam and Eve couple in at least some sense.
In the first century after Christ, Britain had its own gods: Pagan gods of the Earth, and Roman gods of the sky. But soon after, Christianity came to the British Isles.
While people tend to associate the arrival of Christianity in Britain with the mission of St Augustine, who was dispatched to England by the Pope to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings, in 597AD, Christianity arrived long before then in the 1st century AD.
It started when Roman artisans and traders who arrived in Britain began spreading the story of Jesus along with stories of their Pagan gods.
Marble head representing Emperor Constantine the Great, at the Capitoline Museums
At the time, Christianity was one cult among many, but unlike roman cults, Christianity required exclusive fidelity from its followers.
This led to Roman authorities persecuting Christian, who were then forced to meet and worship in secret.
But Roman Emperor Constantine saw appeal in a single religion with a single God, and he saw that Christianity could be used to unite his Empire.
From 313 AD onwards, Christian worship was permitted within the Roman Empire.
During the 4th Century, British Christianity became more visible but it had not yet become widespread. Pagan beliefs were still common and Christianity was a minority faith.
It looked as if Paganism might pervade over Christianity when, after the departure of the Romans, new invaders arrived: Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
Yet Christianity survived on the Western edges of Britain. Missionary activity continued in Wales and Ireland, and in Western Scotland Saint Columba helped to bring a distinctly Irish brand of Christianity to mainland Britain.
It can also be argued that it was St Augustine's famous mission in 597 AD from the Pope in Rome to King Aethelbert of Kent that definitively set up the future of Christianity in Britain, creating an alliance between Christianity and royals.
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UFO-like electric flying vehicle which gives passengers 360 degree views could be the next Uber
Shaped like a flying saucer, it looks more like a UFO than your next Uber.
But this sci-fi style vehicle is in fact the latest in line of electric aircraft set to take to the skies over the next decade.
The fully autonomous ‘Invo Moon’ offers up to three passengers a 360-degree panorama above and below as it travels at speeds of up to 250mph.
Crucially, it has been designed to be near silent, using a flight system hidden inside its shell rather than relying on noisy exposed propellers like many of its competitors.
The £280,000 aircraft - which is the same size and weight of a small family car - will be able to move in any direction, similar to a handheld drone.
Inventor Leo Kayali, a former Tesla engineer, told the Daily Mail the design was inspired by the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci over five centuries ago.
The aim is to have it certified by the US aviation authority by 2027 and to launch in ‘all major cities including London’ by the end of the decade.
He said future owners could even have it running as an Uber while they weren’t using it and ‘make money while sitting at home’.
UFO-like electric flying vehicle that could be your next Uber, based on Da Vinci drawings from the 1480s
The fully autonomous ‘Invo Moon’ offers up to three passengers a 360-degree panorama above and below as it travels at speeds of up to 250mph
The government last year announced it expected flying taxis to be ‘routinely’ whizzing around British skies by 2028 - and potentially operating without a pilot by 2030.
Ministers set out ambitious plans to overhaul current regulations and infrastructure, with the technology expected to boost the UK by £45bn by the end of the decade.
The Invo Moon - which is 16ft in diameter and weighs 2,500lb and - can be pre-ordered for £2,000 and will ultimately cost around £280,000 on delivery.
However Mr Kayali believes the vehicles - which he said should be cheap to build when mass produced - could be sold for under £50,000 in the future.
While most electric flying vehicles rely on exposed propellors, the Invo Moon keeps everything within the aluminium frame.
The vehicle uses a complex new aerodynamic design in which a dozen motors, all containing spinning spheres, are positioned in a circle around the side of the vehicle.
Using these motors in groups of four at a time, it can move in any direction 360 degrees, meaning it has no front or back. To land, it extends three retractable legs.
Mr Kayali said this means there is very little vibration, so the machine will emit no more than 45 decibels as it travels - about as noisy as the patter of light rain.
The £280,000 aircraft - which is the same size and weight of a small family car - will be able to move in any direction. Pictured: Cover of the 1956 Sci-Fi movie, Earth vs the Flying Saucers
Inventor Leo Kayali, a former Tesla engineer, told the Daily Mail the design was inspired by the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci over five centuries ago
Most other eVTOLs run at about 85 decibels, equivalent to the sound of a blender, and also create a lot of unnecessary excess wind, he said.
Inside the cabin, there are three rotating and fully reclinable heated seats which offer views out the top and the bottom through the plexiglass windows.
The “luxury” vehicle will also feature mood lighting, an ice machine, and smart TVs.
It has a range up to 300 miles, and takes no more than 30 minutes to charge from 20 per cent to 80 per cent, Mr Kayali claims.
While the design might seem futuristic, it is in fact based on concepts first invented by Da Vinci in the 1480s.
The exterior is inspired by the Italian artist’s ‘Armoured Car’ drawings, while the internal flying mechanism is a new interpretation of his ‘aerial screw’ design, considered a precursor of the helicopter.
The driving itself is autonomous and has been designed to follow a three-lane system similar to a motorway - but rising vertically.
The speed limit increases as each level goes up - from 100mph to 250mph - and it can only land once it is back in the slowest lane.
Scientists are baffled after discovering a unique asteroid-comet hybrid that's like NOTHING seen before
In the dark depths of the solar system, astronomers have discovered a truly baffling object.
Named 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide (200km) asteroid-comet hybrid is a type of body known as a Centaur, named after the mythical creature that is half-horse and half-man.
Centaurs are solar system bodies found between Jupiter and Neptune that move and behave like asteroids but produce glowing tails of gas and dust like comets.
Now, astronomers from the University of Central Florida have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to show that Chiron is 'like nothing' they've seen before.
By analysing near-infrared images, the researchers have carefully reconstructed the chemical makeup of this interplanetary chimaera.
They found that Chiron's surface contains a cocktail of chemicals from a time predating the formation of the solar system including CO2, methane, and frozen water.
Co-author Dr Charles Schambeau says: 'These results are like nothing we've seen before.
'These detections enhance our understanding of Chiron's interior composition and how that material produces the unique behaviours as we observe Chiron.'
Scientists have uncovered the baffling secrets of the comet-asteroid hybrid Chiron, a 'Centaur' body which is now travelling through the region of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Pictured: An artist's impression of Chiron
When Chiron was discovered in 1977, it was the first of a new group of solar system bodies which astronomers dubbed Centaurs.
Astronomers believe that Centaurs were formed in the very earliest days of the solar system and have remained relatively unchanged since then.
Hidden in the frozen expanses of the Trans-Neptunian region, meaning outside the orbit of Neptune, their immense distance from the sun makes Centaurs frozen time capsules of information about the solar system's formation.
But even among that growing body of mysterious objects, Chiron stuck out as exceptionally unusual.
Dr Schambeau says: 'It's an oddball when compared to the majority of other Centaurs.
'It has periods where it behaves like a comet, it has rings of material around it, and potentially a debris field of small dust or rocky material orbiting around it.'
Yet what most interested astronomers is the tail of dust and gas that Chiron produces as it is warmed by the sun.
Most objects from the depths of space are either too cold or don't have the ice needed to create a tail.
Centaurs are a type of body which are typically found between Jupiter and Neptune and behave like comets but produce tails of gas and dust like comets. Chiron (pictured) is a particularly strange Centaur because it has a ring of dust like Saturn. Pictured: Artists' impression of Chiron and its rings
Comets, on the other hand, do produce tails known as a coma but only when they get much closer to the sun.
That means that the coma is disturbed by interactions with the radiation from the sun and is so thick that astronomers can't see through it to the comet beneath.
Lead researcher Dr Noemi Pinilla-Alonso says: 'What is unique about Chiron is that we can observe both the surface, where most of the ices can be found, and the coma, where we see gases that are originating from the surface or just below it.
'Discovering which gases are part of the coma and their different relationships with the ices on the surface helps us learn the physical and chemical properties, such as the thickness and the porosity of the ice layer, its composition, and how irradiation is affecting it.'
Using the JWST, the researchers looked at the near-infrared radiation coming from the coma surrounding Chiron.
Since certain chemicals absorb or re-emit energy at specific frequencies, researchers can look at the dips and spikes in the spectrum to see which are present.
This spectrum revealed that Chiron contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane which were part of the cloud of materials which existed before the solar system formed.
Other chemicals like propane and ethane were likely formed later as the chemicals oxidised, the same chemical process that turns iron into rust.
By analysing the light coming from Chiron (illustrated), the scientists were able to work out that it contained water ice, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetylene, carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, and propane. Some of these compounds were formed from the cloud of materials which predated the solar system
Dr Pinilla-Alonso says: 'Based on our new JWST data, I'm not so sure we have a standard centaur.
'Every active centaur that we are observing with JWST shows some peculiarity. But they cannot be all outliers. There must be something that explains why they appear to all behave differently or something that is common between them all that we cannot yet see.'
In the future, the researchers plan to follow up with Chiron using the FWS to learn more about the layers of ice and rock that make up this strange body.
Those observations could help researchers learn what it is that all centaurs have in common and just why Chiron appears to behave so strangely.
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Understanding UFOs: What has to happen in 2025 to move the UAP story forward?
It seems fair to say that this year has arguably been a page-turner in defining and refining interest in Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), a new term — rightly or wrongly — for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), those unknown events or craft seen in our skies.
There have been back-to-back open Congressional hearings and several classified gatherings in hush-hush, closed-door sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) settings. "Whistleblowers" toot tales of retrieved objects and super-secret reverse engineering efforts to look under the hood of recovered vessels. Even claims of non-human "biologics" being pulled out of the wreckage of crashed craft.
No single explanation addresses the majority of UAP reports, points out the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the U.S. Government lead for diving in and deciphering the nature of now joined at the hip and lip lingo, UAP/UFOs. So what should happen in 2025 to move the UAP/UFO story forward? Are we at a dead-end? Conversely, is the coming year one of "full disclosure?"
Perhaps humanity is going to be on the receiving end of a shocking revelation that we are accompanied minors in a grown-up universe of intelligent civilizations?
Whatever the case, adult supervision seems advisable. On that pursuit, Space.com asked several leading UFO/UAP experts to look ahead into 2025.
A number of civilian institutions are making promising progress said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, based in Chicago, Illinois.
What Rodeghier personally hopes to see in 2025 is continued progress with these groups, and others, new people entering the field with expertise and energy, and more development of the academic/professional UFO community.
"All of that will move the story forward, though at a sedate pace," Rodeghier said. To truly make a significant difference — barring some amazing case, or "disclosure" with a capital D, or a detection by SETI researchers of an alien signal — he would like to see:
"I'm not that hopeful, even given good intentions, that more Congressional hearings will be much help, without new whistleblowers with firsthand testimony," continued Rodeghier. "Otherwise, I want Congress to make certain that AARO has the resources required and to conduct thorough oversight of AARO's work," he said.
Next year will see more congressional hearings, possibly additional legislation, and holding the DoD's AARO office publicly accountable, observes Jeff Gould who runs the UAP News Center, an informative website that finds and links to UFO daily news.
"Congress has clearly been deeply interested in the issue in the past three years. I anticipate that they will continue to pursue the UAP topic," said Gould. He expects more former government officials coming forward to speak on the topic.
Gould said the scientific community will advance in two ways.
"There will be increased willingness by the larger scientific community to broach the topic," and anticipates more papers of greater depth going forward. This year, he said, academic papers included a civilian astronomer's guide to UAP research, the commissioning of an all-sky infrared camera array for detection of airborne objects, as well as detecting extraterrestrial life with astophotonics.
Additionally, there are research organizations focused on UAP that will continue to deliver relevant research, Gould said, including Harvard's Galileo Project, Stanford University's Sol Foundation that's a think tank undertaking cutting-edge inquiry into all aspects of UAP, as well as The SETI Institute.
"The wild card is the Trump administration," Gould said. "They seem to have a bias towards declassification. Will they declassify UAP related documents? We'll see," he concluded.
In 2025, science needs to get serious about studying UAP, "or we will be stuck at a dead end of the conspiratorial-driven mythos," said Alejandro Rojas, a consultant for Enigma Labs that labels itself as the "#1 destination for UFO sighting alerts."
The newly found credibility of the topic, said Rojas, "has highlighted a blind spot the Pentagon had toward detecting low-tech small craft flying within secured airspace on land and sea."
While concerning, that's a very terrestrial and human problem, Rojas added.
"Regarding the anomalous side of the issue, public interest is centered on unsubstantiated claims of government conspiracies regarding aliens and Roswell [New Mexico]. To some, UFO disclosure only means 'tell me what I already know, aliens are here and the government interacts with them.' Opportunists, many of them longtime proponents of alien conspiracies, tell the public what they want to hear sans evidence," said Rojas.
The outcome is that this creates a lot of distrust and foments a hostile attitude towards scientists and those trying to research the topic methodically, Rojas said.
"I think that we will never know what is truly going on until we make a space where we can publicly and transparently engage in and encourage hard data collection from sensor systems and careful scientific analysis of that data," Rojas advised.
Delving into the topic for 18 years, Robert Powell, executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) explains that he's confident about one fact. "The UFO/UAP subject is not hindered by our calendar and will continue to move forward well past the year 2025," he said.
In the coming year, Powell spelled out SCU's agenda, promoting three areas:
"It matters not whether one believes that UAP are controlled by an advanced intelligence," Powell said. "The more exoplanets we discover, the more we know that someday the time will come when we will make first contact with another intelligence."
Powell said there's need to start now to establish clear definitions of near-Earth technosignatures, communication protocols, and the responsible and ethical sharing of knowledge gained from such contact.
"Furthermore, we must consider who should represent humanity in such a momentous event," Powell observed. "Should it be a nation-state's military organization or an entity that speaks for all of humanity? This is a critical question with far-reaching implications for the future of our species," he said.
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