Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
18-08-2017
Infinite Solar Power Technology Could Completely Change Our Future
Infinite Solar Power Technology Could Completely Change Our Future
Land Art Generator Initiative
IN BRIEF
According to an energy expert, the proliferation of solar energy is going to allow for cheap and effectively infinite energy, with prices plummeting to as little as a penny per kW.
Solar energy is slowly being integrated into major infrastructure projects, which will only help speed it along the path to energy dominance.
THE SUN GOES UP, AND OIL GOES DOWN
Last 2016, solar power saw a resurgence — from cheaper solar panels to innovative roofing for houses and cars, to solar powered roads, and even to powering an entire island. It seems we have entered a new age in solar energy. Well, it doesn’t end there. In the years to come, we may see the rise of solar power, according to Thierry Lepercq, French energy company Engie SA’s head of research, technology, and innovation.
“The promise of quasi-infinite and free energy is here,” Lepercq declares, in an interview with Bloomberg. His arguments aren’t based on any environmental concern. Rather, he takes the perspective of price.
“Solar, battery storage, electrical and hydrogen vehicles, and connected devices are in a ‘J’ curve,” Lepercq said. “Hydrogen is the missing link in a 100 percent renewable-energy system, but technological bricks already exist.” Lepercq believes that the price of solar power will probably fall below $10 per megawatt-hour (roughly 1¢/kWh) in the world’s sunniest places.
As a consequence of the rise of renewables, oil prices are expected to plummet. “Even if oil demand continues to climb until 2025, its price could drop to $10 if markets anticipate a significant fall in demand,” he said.
“As carmakers offer more electrical vehicles with a range exceeding 500 kilometers, charging stations being progressively deployed and more cities banning gasoline and diesel cars, a shift will progressively take place,” Lepercq added.
Indeed, gone are the days when people viewed renewable energy sources as too expensive. Instead, we are moving away from conventional coal-based sources, which could even be more expensive in the future.
SOLAR POWER SHINES
Lepercq isn’t alone in seeing the price potential of renewables, particularly solar energy. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published a report showing how solar power now costs cheaper than fossil fuels.
[R]enewable energy technology, especially solar and wind, has made exponential gains in efficiency in recent years, enough to achieve economic competitiveness and, in an increasing number of cases, grid parity. For instance, the unsubsidized, levellized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility scale solar photovoltaic, which was highly uncompetitive only five years ago, has declined at a 20% compounded annual rate, making it not only viable but also more attractive than coal in a wide range of countries.
This is all because, as mentioned above, we have seen an increased use of solar energy. Innovations thrived. Nations and private corporations were both in on it, too. We are seeing the construction of large-scale solar energy infrastructure.
Are extraterrestrials watching what’s going on in Washington these days? It would be nice to know that someone or something is and perhaps that’s why some people believe they saw a UFO buzz past the US Capitol Building on a Fox News broadcast. Has this ever happened before? Yes! It turns out this year is the 65th anniversary of the 1952 UFO sighting that has come to be known as the Washington National Airport Sightings, the Invasion of Washington or the Washington Flap. Flap? Sounds like these sightings might be related. Let’s find out.
The 2017 Washington Flap II started on August 14 when a story about college interns on Capitol Hill showed a clip of the US Capitol Building that appeared to include a yellow saucer-shaped UFO flying in front of it. The blurry object appears to be much closer to the camera than to the Capitol, which prompted speculation that it’s a plastic flying disc (you know the brand), a flying creature or a CGI graphic. Are people REALLY tossing discs that close to Capitol security guards these days? And if it’s CGI, it’s pretty poor. Since there were no reports of any unknown aircraft breaching DC airspace on August 14 (Would we really hear about them? Definitely.) and the witness is one of the thousands of anonymous sources in DC, that’s all we have on this sighting. For now, you’ll have listen very hard to hear any flapping.
On the other hand, the flapping in 1952 was loud and clear.
“Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force undergo such a tidal wave of (UFO) reports.”
Aerospace historian for the Smithsonian Institution and UFO skeptic Curtis Peebles sets the stage for the 1952 sightings – yes, there were more than one. At 11:40 p.m. on July 19, 1952, Washington National Airport (now known as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) air traffic controller Edward Nugent saw seven objects on his radar 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of the city and notified his superior, Harry Barnes, who watched them with him. Upon checking, Nugent found that other controllers in the control tower and controllers at nearby Andrews Air Force Base also saw the UFOs, which had increased in number and were traveling randomly across the sky at an estimated 130 miles per hour. The objects vanished when two Air Force jets arrived and returned again after the jets left to refuel.
One week later on July 26, UFOs were spotted by a stewardess and a captain on a flight into Washington National Airport. The strange lights were seen by other pilots in the nearby airspace and an officer at Andrews Air Force Base.
Both incidents made national news and President Harry Truman demanded explanations. In what was called the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II, Air Force Major Generals John Samford and Roger Ramsey said the UFOs were “misidentified aerial phenomena” like stars or meteors and the blips on radar screens were caused by temperature inversions. A 1969 scientific report released by the Air Force concluded that a temperature inversion strong enough to create the radar blips was meteorologically impossible, but the theory has joined swamp gas and weather balloons in the annals of non-alien UFO explanations.
It doesn’t look like the 2017 Washington Invasion was a temperature inversion. Was it a toy disc, a bird or a bug? Possibly. CGI? Maybe. Will it go down in history like the 1952 Flap? Highly unlikely.
And whatever happened to those UFOs seen before and afterthe inauguration? Shouldn’t someone find out why those aliens haven’t done anything for us yet?
Or maybe they have.
18-08-2017 om 00:09
geschreven door peter
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
17-08-2017
Clouds on 'Failed Stars' Resemble Those on Neptune
Clouds on 'Failed Stars' Resemble Those on Neptune
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
Researchers have found Neptune-like bands of clouds circling the surface of a brown dwarf, an object in between the size of a planet and a star.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For the first time, scientists have seen bands of clouds drifting across the skies of failed stars known as brown dwarfs.
This work could help scientists analyze Earth-like planets someday, the new study's researchers said.
In the past 25 years or so, astronomers have confirmed the existence of more than 3,500 exoplanets, or planets outside Earth's solar system. Scientists have also detected numerous so-called brown dwarfs, objects that are about 13 to 90 times the mass of Jupiter — too big to be planets, but not quite big enough to be true stars. Researchers sometimes call brown dwarfs "failed stars," because nuclear fusion never ignited in their cores. [Brown Dwarf Photos: Failed Stars and Stellar Misfits Revealed]
Scientists have previously detected evidence of clouds on exoplanets and brown dwarfs. However, this is the first time that cloud bands have been spotted on one of those objects, study team members said.
Previous work suggested that brown dwarfs have much in common with giant exoplanets in terms of size, temperature and composition. As such, study lead author Daniel Apai, who is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and his colleagues investigated brown dwarfs to learn more about giant exoplanets.
The fact that many brown dwarfs are located away from stars makes them easier for astronomers to examine than many giant exoplanets, Apai told Space.com. In contrast, giant exoplanets are typically obscured partly by the brightness of their stars, he added.
In the past five years, a number of studies have found that the infrared light from many brown dwarfs could vary in unusual ways over time. However, until now, there was no convincing explanation for this phenomenon.
To help solve this mystery, Apai and his colleagues analyzed data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. They focused on the way the infrared brightness of three brown dwarfs changed over time as the objects completed a total of 192 rotations over the course of 1.5 years.
The observations of these brown dwarfs helped "derive crude maps for how their clouds are distributed and how they evolve," Apai said.
The scientists discovered rotating bands of clouds in the atmospheres of these brown dwarfs that are broadly similar to bands of clouds seen on Neptune. As the bands on the brown dwarfs rotated, slight differences in the speeds of the bands generated a pattern of beats in their infrared light, explaining the mystery regarding their shifting brightness, Apai said.
"This is the first time that the presence of bands is shown in brown dwarfs," Apai said. He added that scientists have not yet reported any evidence for bands of clouds in exoplanets.
Although the researchers looked at only three brown dwarfs, "the fact that all three brown dwarfs behaved the same way suggests that what we see should be a common, perhaps general behavior," Apai said. "What we learn from brown dwarfs should be applicable to the majority of the gas giant exoplanets, too."
In the future, the next major NASA space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will help researchers analyze brown dwarfs and exoplanets in even greater detail, Apai said."The same technique we used for brown dwarfs now could be used to build crude maps of Earth-like planets, once we have the right telescopes, and NASA is exploring some designs that could do that in the future," he added.
The scientists detailed their findings in the Aug. 18 issue of the journal Science.
The Mars Colony of the Future Could Be Powered by This Advanced Microgrid
The Mars Colony of the Future Could Be Powered by This Advanced Microgrid
By Elizabeth Howell, Seeker
Credit: 3quarks
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to put a million people on Mars in the next century. They'll be ferried to the Red Planet on a fleet of spaceships that can each carry 100 or more people, and make their living in an environment bereft of oxygen and full of danger.
While you can't breathe the air on Mars, with some creative thinking you could bring in many of the comforts of home. Mars has great potential for energy generation. While its atmosphere is dusty, the sun's light reaches down to the surface, allowing for solar panels. And the wind that provides the driving force of erosion on Mars could be harnessed for wind farms.
The industrial manufacturing giant Siemens is trying to plan for this reality.
"Mars will be the ultimate microgrid," the company says on its website. "With no centralized power sources, communities will one day rely on decentralized energy systems."
Their first major test case: an indigenous reservation about 5.5 hours north of San Francisco. The Blue Lake Rancheria is home to the Aboriginal Wiyot, encompassing members of the Wiyot, Yurok, Tolowa, and Cherokee tribes. It's a 91-acre area, with 53 members living among coastal mountains and large redwood trees.
While the area is rich in natural resources — unlike Mars — the Wiyot have endured regular interruptions with the Pacific Gas & Electric power grid in recent years. That's where Siemens stepped in.
"They got the idea that they wanted to do something about it, and their No. 1 objective was improve reliability, and… to reduce the carbon footprint," said Clark Wiedetz, director of microgrid and renewable integration at Siemens Energy Management.
The result is a microgrid, completed in April, that is expected to save the community more than $200,000 a year. It includes a 500-kilowatt array of solar panels that were designed and built by REC Solar, a Tesla battery storage system, and contributions from other partners. Siemens maintains the microgrid through a computer-operated management system that decides where best to allocate power resources.
"They have the ability to replace what power they take from the grid, when that makes sense or when it's down," Wiedetz said.
The Siemens system makes decisions about where to put the power, basing its analysis on historical data. If a storm were to knock out the power, for example, the microgrid would predict how much power is needed for the Red Cross shelter on site, and allocate resources accordingly.
"A colony on Mars may one day be powered by the types of on-site systems that are already hard at work on Earth," the company says.
Though a similar system could be the answer to sustaining power on Mars, it's hard to know right now what a Martian equivalent would need.
"We don't know what variables to work in the equation," Wiedetz explained. But he said the microgrid system does have some advantages. One big one is that it doesn't rely on cloud computing, which would likely not be in place on Mars. The Wiyot residents can also take on maintenance themselves, with remote assistance — just as astronauts would be expected to do so in deep space.
The microgrid system is adapted from previous software used for utility companies for energy management. It's a new use for the 20-year-old technology, and Wiedetz said Siemens is looking at other ways to implement it, but they're not yet ready to reveal where they plan to do so.
Tesla, which has positioned itself as a major player in battery development, has worked on other microgrids before. In 2016, the company announced that it and its subsidiary SolarCity helped the entire island of Ta’u in American Samoa. Thanks to a newly installed microgrid with solar panels and Tesla batteries, the island (which used to burn 100,000 gallons of fuel a year) could have full power for three days — even when it's cloudy.
'Explosive Auroras': What Causes These Strobe Light Displays?
'Explosive Auroras': What Causes These Strobe Light Displays?
By Jesse Emspak, Live Science Contributor
High-speed video of the northern lights has revealed why the glorious celestial shows sometimes flicker like strobe lights: It's all about the gases.
A team from the University of Tokyo and Japan's Institute of Polar Research spent three years taking high-speed video of the aurora borealis. They were looking for pictures of "explosive auroras," which flash on and off rather than making the curtain-like shapes that most aurora photographers seek.
What they found was not only the well-known flickering that happens every tenth of a second, but also faster pulses. Some auroras, they found, flickered at 50 to 60 times per second, and some at 80 times per second. [Aurora Photos: See Breathtaking Views of the Northern Lights]
Auroras happen when charged particles from the sun hit Earth's magnetic field at altitudes of a few thousand miles. Those charged particles are driven at high speed along the magnetic field lines and collide with atoms of gas in the far upper atmosphere of Earth, a region called the exosphere. When that collision happens, the oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the air emit light, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. Whereas oxygen gives off a greenish-yellow or red light, nitrogen typically emits a blue light, according to NASA.
The Northern Lights don't always create curtains of color. Sometimes they flash like strobe lights.
Credit: Atiketta Sangasaeng/Shutterstock
By looking at the video footage, the researchers could track the faster pulses of light to see their regular frequency, which suggested the flickering happens because some atoms have what is called a cyclotron frequency, they said. The cyclotron frequency is how often an ion — an atom stripped of one or more electrons — revolves around a magnetic field line in a spiraling motion. In the case of oxygen, the atoms spiral at about 10 times per second. This creates an electromagnetic ion cyclotron, or EMIC wave, which propagates through the gas of charged particles (called a plasma). EMIC waves start high in the atmosphere, from an altitude of about 1,800 miles down to 900 miles (3,000 to 1,500 kilometers). The waves are oscillations in the electrons of the various gas atoms — oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen — which move back and forth near magnetic field lines. (It's like a crowd of people doing the wave in a stadium.)
The EMIC waves generate waves in the plasma itself, and those waves interact with the charged particles. Those charged particles — mostly free electrons — get to the atmosphere at lower altitudes, about 250 to 60 miles (400 to 100 km) up, hit molecules of gas in the atmosphere and make auroras. Meanwhile, as the wave travels along the magnetic field lines, it stimulates the ions in the plasma to glow at a characteristic frequency. When charged particles, stimulated by the EMIC wave, all move in unison, they emit radiation we can see as a flicker with a "beat" that matches the cyclotron frequency. Carefully examining the flickering can reveal what gases are in the plasma.
"Looking at the flickering in detail thus helps us to diagnose the ambient plasma environment in space," study co-author Ryuho Kataoka of the National Institute of Polar Research told Live Science in an email.
The observations show that there's more to the flickering than oxygen, which has a cyclotron frequency of 10 times per second. The other, faster flickering was likely due to hydrogen. "Hydrogen ions' cyclotron frequency is 16 times faster than oxygen's, while helium ion's cyclotron frequency is four times faster than oxygen's," Kataoka said. "So, if you had 10 hertz oxygen frequency as a base line, then 'hydrogen-band' EMIC waves appear at the frequency range between 40 hertz and 160 hertz." That's right where the faster flickering was.
In the video footage, you can see the characteristic green of oxygen at 60 to 120 miles (100 to 200 km) up. At higher altitudes, oxygen emits in the red wavelength range.
"Astronomical objects with magnetic fields are found throughout the cosmos, with Earth being one of them. On such objects, we observe excitation of plasma waves by accelerating particles, and the interactions between plasma waves and particles, are occurring all over the place," Kataoka said in a statement. "However, Earth is the only place we can observe these phenomena in detail."
Revealed: Why so many people believe in conspiracy theories
Revealed: Why so many people believe in conspiracy theories
Rob Waugh
In America, 65 million people believe that a UFO crashed at Roswell – and another 21 million people believe that the moon landings were faked.
Conspiracy theories became big news last year as ‘fake news’ sites spread misinformation during the election – including conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton.
So what is it that attracts people to insane theories like the idea that the Royal Family are shape-shifting reptiles?
It could be a sense that they are unique – and not part of the herd, according to researchers at Grenoble Alps University.
Irving Newton, Met. Officer at Roswell USAFB, New Mexico, holds debris of supposed Flying Saucer found by rancher Mac Brazel, stated by USAF to be a weather balloon.
Source: AAP
The researchers found that people who agreed with the statement, ‘You’re unique’ more than the statement, ‘We’re all the same,’ were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
The researchers conducted three linked experiments to investigate the belief – and found that people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to think they are ‘special’ and that they possess unique information.
1969 file photo, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, right, trudges across the surface of the moon leaving behind footprints.
Source: AP
The researchers write, ‘we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness.
‘We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories and higher need for uniqueness
‘These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.’
Back on June 4th, 2017 I wrote about the West Virginia county where Cell phones and other electronic appliances give way to a giant telescopic “ear” with which earthlings listen for interstellar messages. Since then I have given much thought to some of the possible implications of Fermi’s Paradox, which that research pointed me toward; an invitation as it seemed to explore some subject matter I would not ordinarily take the chance of boring my readers with. The name of Enrico Fermi, the father of the nuclear age, has been well-known to me ever since I came under the influence of a New Jersey junior high school teacher who was devoted to educating her students on much more than the Math her contract specified.
Fermi, an Italian-born physicist and Nobel laureate who escaped his fascist homeland just in time to head up the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb, had the chance in his short lifetime (he died of stomach cancer at age 53) to think logically of possibilities beyond the earth’s sphere and even the outer reaches of our galaxy. In a discussion with some of the best scientific minds of his day, he discussed what has famously become known as The Fermi Paradox. I note here that there are those who argue that the “question” is not a true “paradox”, and that beyond that, it does not have any support in established science.
Because I am a story-teller and not a papered professor with a scholarly reputation on the line, I feel free to continue anyway.
At the heart of the so-called paradox is the increasingly evident fact that not only are we surrounded in our galaxy by billions of other planetary systems – that is a central star (or two) such as our sun, around which a family of circling and associated planets have organized – but that many of them are similar enough to our own to suggest the possibility of a life-sustaining, earth-like environment. Add to that the likelihood that many of them would be older – perhaps much older – than our planet’s teenage level of maturity.
The big question that possibility poses for an earth-bound thinker boils down to this: If there are other human-like populations in advanced development stages elsewhere who know about us and “our world”, and have the technological prowess to do so, why haven’t they made contact with us?
Setting aside all the cosmic and scientific hypotheses which make Dr. Fermi’s list of 22, I am fascinated most by these two:
1. It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. And . . . 2. It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others.
If either or both of these be true, perhaps potential “visitors” may have destroyed themselves just about the time they might have said “hello” to us; OR perhaps they observed just enough of our earthly doings from a distance to decide they couldn’t afford to get involved with folks who were building big bombs and exhibiting so limited a respect for the doctrine of “loving one’s neighbor”.
[In 1954, I was briefly tasked by the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigation (OSI) to interview citizens reporting UFO sightings near Washington’s Hanford Atomic Works as part of Project Blue Book (UFO investigations 1949-1969). Since “declassified”, I will still only mention that most of my reports came from experienced pilots, control tower operators, aviation professionals and on one occasion a gathering of 50 adult RC (radio control) hobbyists who all saw the same thing. Please don’t ask me what I think of all this; I really don’t know what to say.]
As an octogenarian who reads history, has seen war, watches several hours of TV news every day, and has a large and loving family, I am a worrier. Why then do I work so hard at what I do every day? I still believe that living a good life and loving my neighbors, and doing everything I can to contribute something worthwhile is important. I hope you feel the same. Email Al Cooper at ascooper@infowest.com
Area 51 and the Bermuda Triangle are familiar names around the world, but how about Kecksburg, Uniontown and Keystone State Park?
A new documentary makes the case that southwestern Pennsylvania is among locations with the most instances of paranormal activity in the country.
"Invasion on Chestnut Ridge," from the production company Small Town Monsters, recreates stories told by locals who say they have experienced paranormal activity in and around the small town of Chestnut Ridge, Pa., about an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ALLYSON RUGGIERI: The trailer gives off uneasy vibes as it invites viewers to "uncover the secrets of the Ridge." Can you describe the premise of the movie and what those secrets center on?
SETH BREEDLOVE: Basically, it's about Chestnut Ridge's bizarre history of unusual happenings that have been occurring for over a century. I don't use the word anthology too much, but I think it's kind of like an anthology. It's a series of very unusual stories from the Ridge starting with the Kecksburg UFO crash and ending with a sighting these two guys had in a forest of basically a weird little light that was chasing them around and all stops in between. It's from UFO sightings to sightings of strange, possibly prehistoric birds. Where other films are about a monster, this film is about a place. So the place is actually the monster.
RUGGIERI: Is this type of film, one focused on a place rather than a person or monster, something new for your team? How does this differ from your other documentaries?
The production team on location
CREDIT SMALL TOWN MONSTERS
BREEDLOVE: It's funny because our other movies have these very simple premises where, it's basically the entire Small Town Monsters series revolves around unusual creature sightings in rural areas and the affect that can have on a small community. But with "Invasion on Chestnut Ridge" it's very different because there are multiple communities involved, and rather than focused on one small town, it kind of covers this entire range, like 72-mile mountain range. So it's a little bit different from our other films in that way.
RUGGIERI: I noticed you describe this as "the most unusual area this side of the Bermuda Triangle." Can you speak a little bit on that?
BREEDLOVE: It's just that there's something going on there that all this weird, kind of bizarre activity takes place in this one area. There's all these different investigators who spend enough time up there investigating these strange occurrences looking for answers, and have been looking for answers since the '60s and '70s. And there don't seem to be any.
RUGGIERI: What would you say was one of your most favorite or interesting stories or interviews while filming this documentary?
An interviewee on set.
CREDIT SMALL TOWN MONSTERS
BREEDLOVE: We interviewed a guy named Barry. He's the first kind of "UFO abductee" that I've ever spoken to. I've never had a talk with anyone that claimed to have that experience before. It's always been something that's kind of freaked me out, like it's a very unnerving thing to talk to someone who's convinced they've had that incident, that occurrence happen to them. The stuff that had happened to him was pretty crazy, stuff I couldn't explain. I tend to be a little on the skeptical side, and some of the stuff he was saying to me I could not find an explanation for.
RUGGIERI: What do you want viewers to take away from your film? What do you want everyone to know about your experience working on it?
BREEDLOVE: We make movies for everyone. Whether you're a skeptic or ardent believer or whatever, one thing I always want people to take away from our films is the fact that these locations we go to are amazing places and especially in the case of Chestnut Ridge. It's a place that should be explored. You should have your own adventure there. Whether it involves Bigfoot or a UFO, I can't guarantee, but it's a really amazing and beautiful place. People should embrace the history of these rural communities because this is the heartland of America.
"Invasion on Chestnut Ridge" will be available on DVD and Amazon video on Oct. 20.
Alien landt in een park en stapt uit. Lees hier 3 opmerkelijke UFO-verhalen uit Rusland
Alien landt in een park en stapt uit. Lees hier 3 opmerkelijke UFO-verhalen uit Rusland
In Rusland vinden net als in de rest van de wereld onverklaarbare gebeurtenissen plaats. Er zijn genoeg Russen die ervan overtuigd zijn dat aliens bestaan.
Over de hele wereld zijn er mensen die stellen dat geheime diensten veel te verbergen hebben, waaronder informatie over buitenaardse beschavingen. Zo ook in Rusland.
Veel Sovjets meenden dat de KGB, de geheime dienst van de Sovjet-Unie, buitenaardse geheimen achterhield.
In 2005 zei Vladimir Krjoetsjkov, de laatste baas van de KGB, in een interview dat zijn geheime dienst geen bewijs had gevonden voor vliegende schotels of aliens.
Veel Russen geloofden hem niet en denken zeker te weten dat er beschavingen bestaan op andere planeten en dat sommige daarvan de aarde hebben bezocht.
Petrozavodsk
In 1977 gebeurde er iets vreemds in de stad Petrozavodsk. Op een avond in september zagen zo’n 200 inwoners van de autonome deelrepubliek Karelië een mysterieus object dat werd omgeven door wit licht.
Het vreemde object werd ook gemeld in Leningrad (Sint-Petersburg), Helsinki en andere Russische en Finse steden.
In eerste instantie werd verondersteld dat het ging om een satelliet, maar Lev Gindilis van de Academie van Wetenschappen van de Sovjet-Unie concludeerde dat het geen satelliet kon zijn.
Bijna 50 jaar later is nog altijd niet duidelijk wat mensen destijds hebben gezien.
Voronezj
In 1989 werd een uitzonderlijk incident gemeld in de stad Voronezj. Kinderen claimden dat er een schijfvormig ruimteschip in een park was geland en dat er een alien met drie ogen was uitgestapt.
Er waren ook enkele volwassenen die de UFO hadden gezien. De media besteedden veel aandacht aan het incident, dat zelfs het NOS Journaal haalde.
Er werden geen sporen gevonden op de landingsplek. Wel werden er hoge stralingsniveaus gemeten.
Dalnegorsk
In januari 1986 werd in de stad Dalnegorsk een bolvormig object gespot in de lucht. Het crashte op een heuvel, waar lokale ufologen later metalen vonden die niet van nature voorkomen in het gebied.
Het leger ontkende dat een militaire basis in het gebied er iets mee te maken had. Volgens ufologen was er een buitenaards schip of een satelliet neergekomen bij Dalnegorsk.
‘Mijnbouwcomplex’ gespot op de maan. Zijn dit beelden van bouwwerken op het maanoppervlak?
‘Mijnbouwcomplex’ gespot op de maan. Zijn dit beelden van bouwwerken op het maanoppervlak?
Een UFO-jager claimt een mijnbouwcomplex op het oppervlak van de maan te hebben gespot, meldt nieuwszender Fox News.
Streetcap1, die video’s over buitenaards leven en UFO’s op YouTube plaatst, beweert dat een groep objecten op het maanoppervlak een mijnbouwcomplex zou kunnen zijn.
“Zie je die gebouwen?” zegt Streetcap1 in de video, die inmiddels bijna 100.000 keer bekeken is. “Ze bevinden zich in de Tycho-krater op de maan. Dat is best indrukwekkend, niet?”
Bekijk de video hieronder:
Mensen lijken het eens te zijn met de bevindingen van de YouTube-gebruiker. “Mooie vondst,” schreef Thomas Mundt.
Kristin Bacon schreef: “Dit is een fraaie foto. Er is zeker iets aan de hand. Niemand kan zeggen dat het niet op een mijnbouwcomplex lijkt. Ik zou graag eens willen rondkijken op de maan.”
Onverklaarbare objecten
Clint Steel voegde toe: “Ik geloof wel dat er bouwwerken op de maan staan, maar ik denk dat dit gewoon korrelige beelden zijn.”
Streetcap1 plaatst vaker video’s over onverklaarbare objecten op het maanoppervlak.Ook anderen claimen mysterieuze objecten te hebben gevonden op het maanoppervlak, hoewel nooit onomstotelijk is bewezen dat het om gebouwen gaat.
PLANEET NIBIRU NU ZICHTBAAR MET HET BLOTE OOG ( VIDEO )
PLANEET NIBIRU NU ZICHTBAAR MET HET BLOTE OOG ( VIDEO )
Niet alleen vinden er meer en meer vreemde dingen plaats op aarde, maar ook beginnen er nu steeds vaker berichten te komen over mensen die een planeet met het blote oog waarnemen.
Volgens de verwachtingen van een aantal Nibiru experts zal dit tot nu toe "onbekende" hemellichaam tegen het eind van het jaar voor iedereen duidelijk zichtbaar zijn.
Regelmatig krijgen wij opmerkingen van lezers die zeggen: jullie voorspellen dit over die planeet Nibiru en jullie voorspellen dat, maar waar blijft die planeet?
Wij voorspellen niets, wij berichten over dingen die op aarde voor iedereen zijn waar te nemen en we doen verslag van wat mensen die zich in dit onderwerp hebben gespecialiseerd, denken.
En ja, een vreemde planeet in ons zonnestelsel zou een hele logische verklaring zijn voor al de bijzondere dingen die nu om ons heen gebeuren en waar de reguliere wetenschap geen antwoord op heeft.
Voor het welzijn van iedereen, inclusief dat van onszelf, zou het natuurlijk veel beter zijn als blijkt dat iedereen voor wat betreft een onbekende planeet, op een dwaalspoor zit, maar vooralsnog lijkt het er niet op.
Volgens één van die onderzoekers, Nancy Lieder, wordt nu op verschillende plaatsen op aarde de planeet Nibiru met het blote oog waargenomen en ook gefotografeerd.
Zij plaatse de volgende opnames en zegt er categorisch bij dat we hier niet te maken hebben met lensflares. Eén van de redenen daarvoor is dat het object op veel foto’s zich gedeeltelijk achter de wolken bevindt en de tweede is dat mensen dit ook waarnamen met het blote oog.
This phenomena appears on both a camera in Italy and a camera in France, and has been recorded by a camera in Mexico also. Nibiru is visible, naked eye!
Natuurlijk kijkt iedereen uit naar de komende grote zonsverduistering in Amerika en het feit dat er wellicht mensen zijn die met hun camera’s er niet alleen in slagen om de verduisterde zon vast te leggen, maar eventueel ook wat zich in de omgeving bevindt.
Een andere onderzoeker is Marshall Masters, voormalig wetenschapsredacteur bij CNN en door onze columnist Evert Jan Poorterman een zwamneus genoemd, maar die toch vaak met heel interessante dingen komt.
De oorzaak daarvan wordt helemaal duidelijk als je naar het volgende plaatje kijkt.
Dit is één van de hoofdredenen dat mensen op mooie dagen nauwelijks nog iets in de lucht zien en iets dat de komende tijd naar verwachting nog veel heftiger zal worden.
Wat bovendien heel interessant is, is het volgende dat hij schrijft.
Hoeveel mensen kijken niet op naar de hemel en doen de strepen zoals op de afbeelding af als contrails (red.: condensatie sporen)? Het is een feit dat de zogenaamde high-bypass turbofan motoren zoals die tegenwoordig door moderne jet passagiersvliegtuigen worden gebruikt en die iedere dag boven onze hoofden vliegen, alleen in bepaalde gebieden contrails kunnen produceren zoals in de buurt van de evenaar. Conclusie is dan ook dat de ontkenning van chemtrails blijft bestaan door deze onwetendheid; een situatie die bewust in stand word gehouden.
Dit betekent dat ook in ons land er de komende tijd weer volop gaat worden gesproeid om het gebied rondom de zon zoveel mogelijk onzichtbaar te houden.
Zoals te zien op de volgende foto die onlangs door een lezer (dank!) is genomen op de A15. Het bolletje op de foto is een lensflare.
Of zoals de volgende, eveneens gestuurd door een lezer (dank!).
Deze foto is ook bijzonder omdat er op één een paar elementen voorkomen die door mensen vaak worden verward met een planeet.
De ene is een overduidelijke lensflare en de tweede is een halo om de zon, waardoor aan weerszijden zogenaamde bijzonnen ontstaan.
Kringen om de zon zijn echter allerminst zeldzaam, gemiddeld iedere twee of drie dagen is er ergens in ons land wel zo’n kring te zien en elders in de wereld is dat niet anders. Met de regenboog heeft het verschijnsel niets te maken. Een regenboog ontstaat door weerkaatsing van zonlicht in regendruppels, een halo door weerkaatsing in ijs. Naast de kring kunnen allerlei vormen zichtbaar zijn zoals bogen in verschillende richtingen die raken aan de kring, lichtzuilen boven de zon en lichtvlekken aan weerszijden van de zon. Deze meestal prachtig gekleurde vlekken zijn geregeld te zien en worden bijzonnen genoemd. Halo’s hebben een voorspellende betekenis: een kring om zon of maan is vaak een voorbode van een weersverslechtering. Niet voor niets kennen we de oude weerspreuk “Kring om de zon, brengt regen in de ton”.
Of zoals de volgende, genomen door een lezer in Deventer. Wat een prachtige helderblauwe lucht had moeten zijn is verziekt door chemicaliën.
Desondanks begint het erop te lijken dat het de moeite waard wordt om geregeld naar de lucht te kijken.
Voor zover ons bekend, zijn er in Nederland en België nog geen waarnemingen geweest van de planeet Nibiru met het blote oog. Mocht er iemand zijn die dit wel ziet, laat ons zeker weten.
UFO NEWS: 'Perfect 1950s flying saucer' filmed above crop circle
UFO NEWS: 'Perfect 1950s flying saucer' filmed above crop circle
A CROP circle "expert" claims the mysterious corn field formations could be caused by aliens or other paranormal forces after allegedly filming a series of UFOs over the baffling creations.
UFO proof? Pierre Beake claims to have snapped bizarre craft over crop circles.
Pierre Beake insists he captured these pictures of UFOs hovering over or near crop circles.
Mr Beake, who travels from France to the south west of England each year to study the phenomena, also claims to have photographed strange lights and orbs within west country crop formations.
Crop circles - allegedly made by landing UFOs - have been widely considered one of the world's biggest paranormal hoaxes since 1991, when Doug Bower and David Chorley were filmed showing how they made many of the reported corn field patterns discovered across the UK.
The two said they simply used wooden planks and rope to flatten corn in a circular fashion.
The pair started the tomfoolery in the 1970s to tease locals who believed in UFOs.
In the latter half of the 1990s more "circle makers", who tried to out do each other with the most complicated designs, emerged.
Pierre Beake
This UFO is like a 1950s flying saucer, claims Pierre Beake.
But despite the hoaxers outing themselves, Mr Beake refuses to believe they could make the "highly geometric" patterns he has documented.
Mr Beake produced his UFO images at the 27th annual Glastonbury Symposium, an event which started to look at the crop circle subject and now covers other new age issues.
He said: "When you go first into a crop circle you can't explain the feeling. "You feel good, you feel nice."
He produced one image which he said resembled a B-movie flying saucer.
He said: "It looks like a classic 1950s UFO. One researcher said to me it was a parachute, but there is no one underneath."
Mr Beake is convinced something paranormal is behind crop circle formation and that his UFO snaps could be part of the picture.
He says he has also photographed balls of energy and light at crop circles.
In one case he said he filmed bizarre solid balls flying around.
Pierre Beake
A perfect circular object filmed over Silbury Hill.
He said: "It was a very strange form and not a plane or helicopter."
But he said it was not seen at the time of the filming, but was physical because the sun could be seen glinting on it.
Another one was filmed at Milk Hill, also Wiltshire.
He said: "I can't explain why that thing is here, it looks more physical than other balls of light."
Scott Brando, who runs debunking website ufoofinterest.org said so-called UFOs such as these were often birds or insects that had flown past and been blurred in the process, giving rise to the indistinguishable shapes.
They are actually referred to as blurbs by sceptical UFO researchers.
UFO flies in front of the Capitol Building in Washington live on Fox News
UFO flies in front of the Capitol Building in Washington live on Fox News
While watching Fox News on August 14, 2017 a resident of Rolling Meadows, IL witnessed and recorded an Unidentified Flying Object that flew in front of the Capitol Building in Washington.
The yellow colored UFO suddenly appears on the left side of the screen, passes at high speed the Capitol Building before it disappears from the screen.
Why was this UFO not detected if you know that the airspace around America’s Capitol is not only one of the most flight restricted areas in the world but also guarded by Norwegian surface-to-air missiles.
After watching the short video I got the feeling that fox news has accidentally broadcast this UFO event. The UFO can be seen at the end of the video.
Interview with Kelly Cahill about her Close Alien Encounter in 1993
Interview with Kelly Cahill about her Close Alien Encounter in 1993
In August 1993, 27-year-old Kelly Cahill, her husband and three children were driving home after a visit to a friend’s house. Their routine journey would soon become a harrowing trip into an unknown world of strange beings that occupied space but were void of color as we know it.
The Dandenong foothills, near Belgrave, Victoria, Australia would have its location forever linked to the sighting of one of the most unusual humanoid creatures in Ufology archives.
Bright UFOs seen and filmed over London, UK 14-Aug-2017
Bright UFOs seen and filmed over London, UK 14-Aug-2017
Here’s one interesting footage of a bright unidentified flying objects hovering near Alexandra Palace in London. This happened on 14th August 2017.
Witness report:
Not planes or stars. Didn’t move in the sky for about 5 mins and stayed directly next to each other. 15 mins later we heard a huge bang that sounded like fireworks, but it was about 10pm in a park with no sign of fireworks / anyone who could cause a bang. Eventually they disappeared
50+ objects over Santa Monica, California 10-Aug-2017
50+ objects over Santa Monica, California 10-Aug-2017
This interesting footage of bright orbs was filmed over Santa Monica, California a few days ago.
Witness report:
Orb like sighting of 50+ objects over Santa Monica CA on 8-10-17.
Disclaimer: I’m not drawing any conclusions as to what these were, I’m open to all possibilities.
Here is an explanation of what we’re looking at because the video really doesn’t do justice to how these things were moving:
These are 7 videos put together that stretch between 7:06pm – 7:22pm on 8/10/17.
I first noticed these things in the sky while walking out to my car around 6:50pm. There were a dozen or so, high up, and looked to be moving like balloons or lanterns. Living close to the beach and the Pier, I see a lot of balloons and lanterns so I’m familiar with them. Anyway, I ignored them at first because I was in a hurry to move my car. By the time I finished (around 7:00) and walked back down the path the numbers of them in the sky increased by another couple dozen – AND there were a number of them quite low to the ground.
At this point I thought: Advertising stunt of some kind (we get those a lot in LA too). It wasn’t until I got back to my door that I saw a whole “fleet” of them coming in on what looked like a flight path (disclosure: we are close-ish to LAX and the Santa Monica Airport and I’m familiar with the flight paths – you’ll see a number of planes in the video). As if they were coming from the upper atmosphere (over the Pacific) and down towards Pico Blvd essentially. At this point I thought “skydivers” or “flares”… and went inside and grabbed my binocs.
When I looked through the binocs (I have two pair, one with a stabilizer one with extra magnification) I expected to see lanterns, flares, balloons, or even drones or skydivers. Instead what I saw were sparkling rings of smoke that had some shape and apparent structure, but they spun like tops in the sky as they moved. They almost had a jellyfish type body that seemed to pulse and was translucent. Once I pulled out the binocs and saw this, four “zoomers” (what I called them) buzzed down from the sky (above the palm tree in the long shots for reference) and skimmed above the roof of the building directly in front of me (only a couple hundred feet in altitude). They were silent, and moved incredibly fast (way too fast, as you’ll see) to be a lantern or balloons – and then they climbed in elevation after buzzing the roof.
I was alone, though my neighbor saw it as well. I should have gotten more people outside to be honest. Mistake on my part. But these clips in the video are broken up because I was going back and forth between filming and watching through the binocs. I stated this in the video, but will say it again, this video does NOT do justice to how many of them there were in the sky. It was a constant flow, on a “flight path” seemingly of these things for 30 minutes or longer. It lasted a long time, and had to be seen by more than me.
I slowed some of the clips down at the end, the one zoomer I got and another slow motion vid of how they move in the sky (you’ll see it tumbling @ the 1:51-1:57 mark).
Time stamps: First thirty seconds are kind of tough, showing the higher altitude ones that had just buzzed me :40 second mark you see some new ones coming in, lower and closer. :55-:57 mark you can kind of see the movement (like balloons) as well as the pulsing. 1:51 – 1:57 mark you will see one moving across the top, spinning, it gives you some of the shape 2:11-2:17 mark you can see more movement (these are new ones, not the same as the ones above) 3:15-3:26 mark good shot of one close, moments after it buzzed the path I was standing on, moves like balloons… but way faster and they’re glowing. 3:33-3:52 mark has another one dipping low, then a zoomer (the only one I got on film, but there were several others) that flew past real fast. This one is slowed down at the end and zoomed in as best I could. *4:35-5:21 mark has three more coming in on the “flight path”. By that I mean, you see how they’re high in altitude and moving lower. That’s how most of them came in, in a straight line from that high altitude and then down where they spread out, then reformed into a line and moved on at a lower altitude. This also includes the description of these things.
Retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire re-examined the Fermi Paradox, and why the universe is silent if there is alien life out there. He believes that it's possible that humanity was the first to have become technologically advanced.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
For retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire, currently a mathematics professor at the University of Arkansas (UARK), humanity is typical. Not exactly in the sense that we’re ordinary; we’re typical in a statistical sense, following a concept in modern cosmology called the principle of mediocrity. This principle suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should consider humanity to be a typical member of a certain reference class.
This was Whitmire’s conclusion, in a study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, when he revisited his thoughts on the Fermi Paradox — that we haven’t encountered alien life, despite the high probability of it existing — and again asked if there’s alien life out there. With all the billions of stars in billions of galaxies, chances are there’s bound to be other intelligent life in the cosmos. So, where are they?
“I used to tell my students that by statistics, we have to be the dumbest guys in the galaxy,” Whitmire said in a UARK press release. “After all, we have only been technological for about 100 years, while other civilizations could be more technologically advanced than us by millions or billions of years.”
But Whitmire changed his mind on this concept based on two observations: Firstly, that humanity was the first technologically advanced civilization that evolved on Earth, and we’re currently in our early technological development. (“Technological,” here, is to be understood as biological species that developed electronic devices and are capable of significantly changing the planet.)
On the surface, this may seem like an obvious observation. However, based on the Earth’s habitable time span — from around 50 billion years ago, and for an estimated billion years in the future — it would have been possible for other technological civilizations to precede us on this planet. The thing is, there’s no geologic record that shows someone else came before us. “We’d leave a heck of a fingerprint if we disappeared overnight,” Whitmire said.
ANYBODY OUT THERE?
But what about life outside of the Earth? Following the same principle of mediocrity, technological civilizations that lasts millions of years or longer are atypical, Whitmire says. If one considers a bell curve of all supposedly extant technological civilizations in the universe, humanity would fall in the middle 95 percent.
If that is the case, the lack of communication from similar civilizations around us does not bode well. Whitmire explains the silence of the cosmos as a product of how typical technological civilizations work: They usually go extinct after attaining technological knowledge. This is the same explanation held by other scientists, and one even suggests that we should look for traces of alien technology instead of alien life.
The “Great Filter” hypothesis is another possible explanation. It suggests that before any life in the universe becomes technological or before technological life goes beyond the bounds of its own planet, it had to overcome some extremely difficult evolutionary threshold. Some even think that climate change is humanity’s great filter.
For resident “Science Guy” Bill Nye, the Fermi Paradox should push humanity to explore further. The reason why we haven’t found intelligent extraterrestrial life or even simple alien life is because we haven’t been looking hard enough. There’s still a big chance that they’re somewhere out there.
Yet these theories assume that we’re not a typical representative of life in the cosmos. “If we’re not typical then my initial observation would be correct,” Whitmire said. “We would be the dumbest guys in the galaxy by the numbers.
In America, 65 million people believe that a UFO crashed at Roswell – and another 21 million people believe that the moon landings were faked.
Conspiracy theories became big news last year as ‘fake news’sites spread misinformation during the election – including conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton.
So what is it that attracts people to insane theories like the idea that the Royal Family are shape-shifting reptiles?
It could be a sense that they are unique – and not part of the herd, according to researchers at Grenoble Alps University.
The researchers found that people who agreed with the statement, ‘You’re unique’ more than the statement, ‘We’re all the same,’ were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
The researchers conducted three linked experiments to investigate the belief – and found that people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to think they are ‘special’ and that they possess unique information.
The researchers write, ‘we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness.
‘We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories and higher need for uniqueness
‘These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.’
Was the Wow! signal evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? Forty years later, the debate continues: Edd Wheeler (Opinion)
Was the Wow! signal evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? Forty years later, the debate continues: Edd Wheeler (Opinion)
A 1983 file photo of Ohio State University's "Big Ear" radio telescope where, 40 years ago this week, scientists searching for signs of intelligent life in outer space detected the still-debated Wow! signal. A recent assessment attributed the signal to hydrogen clouds from two comets but Edd Wheeler writes in the op-ed below that Jerry Ehman, the astronomer who famously named the moment with his "Wow!" notation on the printout, is not ruling anything out. (Plain Dealer Historical Photograph collection, File, 1983)
Edd Wheeler is a former federal administrative law judge with an interest in astrophysics. (Courtesy of Edd Wheeler)
TUCKER, Georgia -- The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was first conceived almost 60 years ago by the late Carl Sagan. In 1974 it took institutional form at the University of California, Berkeley. Today, its modern computers monitor 100 million frequency channels for potential signals from space.
However, lack of a credible finding of putative aliens has resulted in detractors calling SETI the Great Martian Chase.
SETI's most noted reception occurred 40 years ago this week, and was registered by three scientists, with shoestring budget and staff, using a primitive IBM computer having only 64,000 bytes of memory.
The "Big Ear" telescope at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory that operated from 1973 to 1997 was SETI's longest and most famous operation. Though small by later standards, it was then one of the world's foremost radio telescopes, a curved reflector 70 feet high and 420 feet long on its aluminum plane.
Just after 11 p.m. on Aug. 15, 1977, it recorded a type of transmission not encountered previously or since.
While Big Ear was monitoring the 1420-megahertz frequency, one reserved for scientific use in belief that potential extraterrestrial intelligence might broadcast on the frequency for neutral hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, signals were received from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
They were recorded at 12-second intervals of ten seconds for reception followed by two seconds of data processing by the computer. The transmission produced data that followed the observatory's antenna pattern more than 99 percent accurately.
Upon seeing the computer readout, astronomer Jerry Ehman simply penned "Wow!" on it, thus famously naming the transmission. He soon ruled out possible sources like ground emission, aircraft, satellites, and space debris.
Ehman believes the average signal strength was constant throughout the unprecedented length of 72 seconds and that the six intervals were only timed recordings caused by the design of equipment and antenna pattern.
There was little doubt by all on-scene scientists that they had accurately recorded an artificial transmission, one caused by something other than natural phenomena such as pulsars.
Ehman initially was cautious about conclusions on the source. But in his 20th anniversary report on the "Wow!" signal, he wrote that "Big Ear" data were reliable and, lacking evidence to the contrary, that the source was probably extraterrestrial intelligence. Although he now thinks the matter an "open question," he continues as before to believe that the signal is "a tantalizing candidate" as ETI, which he reiterates as "certainly a possibility."
Fellow scientist Robert Dixon confidently stated that the source was from "beyond the moon." He wrote in 1985 that, for SETI's first decade and among its 30,000 "detections," the Wow! signal was clearly "most prominent."
The late Dr. John Kraus, as quoted in a 2012 book on the topic by Robert H. Gray, ventured that it might have been an ETI "signal" but that this was speculative.
In 2016, scientists at the Center of Planetary Science, a small group near Tampa promoting astronomy, suggested the Wow! signal likely was not an artificial transmission but a natural phenomenon caused by radiation from massive hydrogen clouds surrounding two remote comets discovered in 2006 and 2008.
As evidence, they presented a recorded radio signal emitted by a comet at 1420.25 megahertz, very close to the frequency of natural hydrogen monitored for many years by "Big Ear."
It is uncertain whether this finding solidly refutes the Wow! transmission as a possible ETI signal.
An inherent problem is that humans may not be "wired" to recognize a real interstellar "signal."
Britain's Astronomer Royal Martin Rees is chairman of the Breakthrough Initiatives, a ten-year, $100 million search for extraterrestrial intelligence, intended to answer Stephen Hawking's query, "if we are alone in the dark."
Rees emphasizes that putative aliens likely possess intelligence fundamentally different from ours, and thus "may package reality" and convey it in ways not understandable. He seeks a "manifestly artificial" signal.
However, if certainty is the gauge, how can signal receipt be manifestly established if the source has different intelligence and expression than ours?
The Wow! signal was not manifestly from ETI, yet it seemed credibly outside the solar system. Some question whether intelligence, as we know it, exists beyond Earth.
At the 40th anniversary of the Wow! signal, it is time to acknowledge that, in a galaxy of 400 billion stars and a universe of more than 500 billion galaxies, we may not comprehend the possible qualities of intelligence in other worlds, but by probability it is incomprehensible that extraterrestrial intelligence does not exist.
The Breakthrough Initiatives will formulate a compact yet substantive interstellar signal about humans, our values and achievements.
An equal concern has gone unmentioned. What if Earth was identified as a living world long before man's appearance, and what should be our concern if distant observers have intelligently and correctly concluded that we have produced the likes of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, and Newton, along with Tamerlane, Stalin, and Hitler, and with an identifiable practice of superpredation? What then might a potential signal from afar look like?
Wow! indeed.
Edd Wheeler, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a veteran of the Vietnam War, is a former federal administrative law judge whose articles on the Wow! signal and Breakthrough Initiatives have appeared in the "Journal of the British Interplanetary Society."
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The pulsar maps on the Voyager probes pinpoint our location in the galaxy—even as some experts debate the pros and cons of signalling ET.
Forty years ago, we sent a map to Earth sailing deep into the cosmos. Copies of this map are etched into each of the twin Voyager spacecraft, which launched in the late 1970s and are now the farthest spacecraft from home. One of the probes has already slipped into interstellar space, and the other is skirting the fringes of our sun’s immediate neighbourhood. If it’s ever intercepted and decoded by extraterrestrials, the map will not only reveal where to find our watery little world, but also when the space probe that delivered it to alien hands left home. “We needed to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was travelling,” says my dad, Frank Drake, who designed the map. The Voyager version of route-finding pins the sun onto our galaxy using 14 pulsars, which are the rapidly spinning corpses of exploded stars. It’s a cipher unlike anything made before, the kind of object that drives entire fictional quests—and that is currently spurring arguments over the intelligence of broadcasting our existence to civilisations with possibly nefarious proclivities. “Back when Drake did the pulsar map, and Carl Sagan and the whole team did the Voyager record, there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence,” says York University’s Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist who studies the ethics of sending messages to extraterrestrials. “Now, however, as you know, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening.”
STELLAR MAP MAKING Drake’s cosmic directions to Earth are stamped onto the cover of the Voyager Golden Record, two of which have been ferrying the sights and sounds of planet Earth across the interstellar sea since 1977. But unlike the record, which grew into its final form during one short summer, the map took shape years earlier, in late 1969. Back then, my dad and Carl Sagan were designing a message to put on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, which would be flung from the solar system after an encounter with Jupiter. One of the components he and Sagan wanted to include was a map that pointed to Earth in both space and time. The question was, how do you create such a map in units that an extraterrestrial might understand? Earth-years would be perfectly meaningless, because they are derived from our planet’s particular path around the sun. And there’s also the question of coordinates--in space, no one can find you using up, down, east, or west. Even the stars themselves are constantly shifting on astronomical time scales. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning” doesn’t quite work if the map is found a billion years from now and the star in question—say, Betelgeuse—has long since exploded and died.
THE MAGIC ABOUT PULSARS To my dad, the answer was obvious: pulsars. Discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, these dense husks of expired stars were perfect blazes in both space and time. For starters, pulsars are incredibly long-lived, staying active for tens of millions to multiple billions of years. Also, each pulsar is unique. Many spin faster than anything on Earth, sometimes thousands of times each second, and they emit pulses of electromagnetic radiation like lighthouses. By timing those pulses, astronomers can determine a pulsar’s spin rate to a ridiculous degree of accuracy, and no two are alike. But pulsars do slow down, sometimes by a mere but measurable billionths of a second a year. By calculating the difference between a pulsar’s spin rate when the map is found versus the spin period inscribed on the map, an intelligent being could figure out how long it had been since the map was made. “There was a magic about pulsars … no other things in the sky had such labels on them,” Drake says. “Each one had its own distinct pulsing frequency, so it could be identified by anybody, including other creatures after a long period of time and far, far away.”
Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, as seen here in a picture taken at Cape Canaveral in Florida. About two weeks later, NASA launched Voyager 1.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, JPL-CALTECH
He reasoned that if those beings had figured out what pulsars were, they surely knew where the whirling, dead stars resided in the galaxy. Using the map, they could then follow the trail back to the sun. After a roughly three-minute discussion with Sagan, the decision was made. Drake drew the map using 14 known pulsars (today, that original pencil-drawn pulsar map is casually tucked into an old produce box at home). The length of the lines connecting each pulsar to a central point—the sun—indicates how far they are from home. Along those distance markers, he inscribed the pulsars’ spin rates out to 12 digits in binary code, so any curious aliens would know which pulsars he’d chosen as anchors. Successfully decoding the map would unambiguously pinpoint the sun’s position and the timeframe of the spacecraft’s launch. Today, that makes some scientists and philosophers very nervous.
DANGEROUS BEACON? When the Voyager spacecraft launched, astronomers had no evidence that other planets even existed outside our solar system, much less worlds capable of hosting alien life. Now, thanks to missions like NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler endeavor, we know that planets are common in the galaxy, and that a sizable percentage of those worlds could be like Earth. The revelation has spawned efforts to send directed radio messages toward promising stars sytems. In the wake of these discoveries, a debate has emerged over the ethics of intentionally announcing our presence to the stars. Some think the endeavour is foolish and dangerous, given how little we know about what might be out there. Others would rather prioritise listening to the stars over talking to them. For the Voyager spacecraft, the truth is already out there, as the maps they carry hurtle deeper into the void.
An illustration of one of the Voyager probes traveling in space.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA
“In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly,” Drake says. “Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.” So what are the chances of the map actually reaching extraterrestrial shores aboard the Voyagers? “Very small,” Drake says. “The thing is going something like 10 kilometres per second, at which speed it takes—for the typical separation of stars—about half a million years to go from one star to another. And of course, it’s not aimed at any star, it’s just going where it’s going.” If an extraterrestrial civilisation has sufficiently powerful radars, it might be able to detect the Voyager spacecraft from afar. But that’s still unlikely, Drake says, which means the Voyagers’ sights, sounds, and maps to planet Earth may forever sail silently through the cosmos. The reality is that humans have been passively announcing our presence to the cosmos for nearly a century via radar, radio, and TV transmissions. And with the rise of private space enterprises, who knows what new message to the stars might end up making its way into space? Denning urges everyone to act thoughtfully and consider the pros and cons of intentionally hailing aliens. “We're all on this Earth together,” she says.
STORY PRODUCED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH HHMI TANGLED BANK STUDIOS. Header: The cover of the Voyager Golden Record. The starburst pattern seen in the upper right is the pulsar map to Earth. PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
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