A commercial airline passenger on a flight from Toronto to Edmonton spotted a strange bright object appearing to be at the same altitude. He took pictures with a Galaxy S8+ cell phone before the object flew off to the east.

Cropped witness photo.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness submitted the UFO report to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) on October 24, 2017, and says the sighting took place on October 19 at around 4pm. The witness says the path of the flight took the aircraft over the U.S. border and he estimates they were over Minnesota when he spotted the object.

Cropped witness photo.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness report reads, verbatim:

I was flying West from Toronto to Edmonton on Oct 19, 2017. We took off from Toronto around 3pm and had been flying for about an hour when I looked out the window and saw this object shining in the distance. 

I took a bunch of pictures with my S8+ a few I zoomed in also. The object then disappeared to the east and that was it. No trails behind it, just gone. 

I checked our flight path and it took us down to the US Canada border so this object would have been over US airspace at 40,000 ft or so. Location Minnesota is an educated estimate of location.

The photos do show a white elongated object in the distance. It is a bit whiter and brighter than the clouds and could be a small cloud or a small bit of contrail from another aircraft. The witness stated that the object was “shining,” indicating it might be a metallic object, and if the object did fly off, that would negate the cloud theory.

Cropped closeup of witness photo.

(Credit: MUFON)

There are five pictures that can be downloaded here: picture 1, picture 2, picture 3, picture 4, picture 5.

The vast majority of UFO sightings turn out to be mundane objects, but once in awhile there are sightings that are much more difficult to explain. MUFON conducts investigations on sightings submitted to their website, and if they share their conclusions, we will let you all know. Meanwhile, others will likely chime in and we will try to keep you up to date with any discoveries. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this sighting in the comments below.

De ‘buitenaardse’ mummies die onlangs in Peru zijn ontdekt, zijn echt. Dat zegt althans een wetenschapper die deel uitmaakt van het onderzoeksteam dat de resten bestudeert.

Dr. Edson Salazar Vivanco heeft gezegd dat het belangrijk is om de 1700 jaar oude mummies uit Nazca te blijven onderzoeken, schrijft de Daily Express.

Hoewel de bizarre mummies door andere wetenschappers zijn bestempeld als nep, zei dr. Vivanco: “Er zijn veel verschillende details die erop wijzen dat de lichamen echt zijn.”

Erg moeilijk

“Het zou erg moeilijk zijn om een schedel met deze eigenschappen na te maken,” voegde hij toe.

Hij zei verder: “We bestuderen momenteel het bewijs. Tot dusver hebben we nog niets gevonden wat erop wijst dat ze nep zijn of dat de lichamen op de één of andere manier zijn gewijzigd.”

“We hebben veel bewijs waaruit kan worden opgemaakt dat dit echt is,” aldus Vivanco.

Unieke biologische entiteit

Er zijn volgens hem een enkele mogelijke verklaringen. “De eerste hypothese is dat dit een unieke biologische entiteit is die hiervoor nog onbekend was,” zei hij. “De tweede hypothese is dat deze lichamen door iemand in elkaar zijn gezet.”

“Mijn persoonlijke mening is dat het echt is, maar dat is mijn persoonlijke mening,” klonk het nog.

Beelden van de mummies uit Nazca in Peru werden in juni door de website Gaia.com gepubliceerd. De site claimt dat de lichamen zijn opgegraven in mysterieuze grotten.

Dr. Vivanco is in onderstaande video vanaf 1:13:08 te zien:

Duitse archeologen hebben in Koerdistan in het noorden van Irak een sensationele vondst gedaan. Er zijn 93 kleitabletten gevonden die dateren van 1250 voor Christus.

Wat er op de kleitabletten staat blijft voor nu een mysterie. De onderzoekers zullen ze moeten ontcijferen, een lastige en tijdrovende taak.

De tabletten zijn gevonden bij de stad Bassetki, die pas in 2013 werd ontdekt door archeologen van de Universiteit van Tübingen.

Weinig bekend

Ondanks de spanningen in de regio konden de wetenschappers ongestoord hun gang gaan. In de afgelopen maanden hebben ze lagen van de nederzetting afgegraven die dateren uit de bronstijd en de Assyrische periode.

“Onze bevindingen bewijzen dat dit stedelijke centrum in het noorden van Mesopotamië vrijwel continuwerd bewoond van 3000 tot 600 voor Christus,” zei professor Peter Pfälzner.

De onderzoekers hebben op de plek ook voor het eerst voorwerpen opgegraven die dateren uit de periode van de Mittani, een koninkrijk dat vanaf 1500 voor Christus in het noorden van Syrië bestond en waarover nog maar weinig bekend is.

Beschermen

Twee kleitabletten van de Mittani verhalen over handel die inwoners van de stad dreven in het tweede millennium voor Christus.

Zestig van de kleitabletten lagen opgeslagen in een pot van keramiek in een Assyrisch gebouw dat vernietigd was.

“Mogelijk wilde men de informatie in de pot op deze manier beschermen en behouden voor het nageslacht,” legde Pfälzner uit.

Godin

Filosoof dr. Betina Faist heeft één klein fragment van een kleitablet inmiddels ontcijferd. Het gaat over een tempel die gewijd is aan Gula, de godin van de geneeskunst.

Het vertalen van de kleitabletten zal plaatsvinden in Duitsland. Professor Pfälzner hoopt dat de teksten gedetailleerde informatie zullen verschaffen over het noorden van Mesopotamië.

Foto: Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen

In special reports, this week’s files cover: Indonesia Air Marshall We Opened Fire on UFOs, Congressional Candidate Says She’s Been Aboard a Spaceship, Guantanamo Bay  Naval Base Phantoms, Pilots Spot Huge UFO, UFOs Enter the Water or Ground, Alien Messages, and Japan Finds Long, Deep Lava Tunnel on the Moon.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Canada, France, Kazakhstan, Portugal, and England in the United Kingdom.

The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.

C-17 Globemaster

Major George A. Filer III USAF (ret.)

New Jersey State Director

MUFON Eastern Region Director

Www.nationalUFOcenter.com. Now receiving 3 million hits a month

Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.

Special Projects

Indonesia Air Marshall We Opened Fire on UFOs

UFOs sighted in Indonesia are identical with those sighted in  other countries. Sometimes they pose a problem for our air  defense and once we were obliged to open fire on them.  No details were given concerning the engagements.

Air Marshall Roesmin Nurjadin, Commander-in-Chief of the  Indonesian Air Force, in a letter to Yusuke J. Matsumura dated  May 5, 1967, reprinted in Good ibid.   The Indonesian Air Force has 37,850 personnel and equipped with 110 combat aircraft. The inventory includes SU-27and SU-30 as the main fighters (from Russia) supplemented by F-16 Fighting Falcons (from the USA).

Congressional Candidate Says She’s Been Aboard a Spaceship

The Miami Herald asked Rodriguez Aguilera about her experiences Friday. She responded with a statement that waxed astronomical, but sadly failed to mention close encounters of any kind.

“For years people, including Presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone,” she said. “I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.”

                  Rodriguez Aguilera was a Doral councilwoman from 2012-14 and served as the city’s first economic developer. She works as an entrepreneur and has taught leadership seminars at local universities.

Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle.

A congressional candidate from Miami can go one better: Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera says she’s been aboard a spaceship too. But this one was crewed by aliens. As in extraterrestrials.

Three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male — visited her when she was 7 years old and have communicated telepathically with her several times in her life, she says. (Sen. Bill Nelson served as payload officer aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986. All seven people aboard were from Earth. As far as is known.)

Rodriguez Aguilera, 59, a Republican who is running to replace retiring Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, recounted her experience with the ETs during a 2009 television interview.

She described “going up” inside the spaceship — though whether it went into space or just hovered around town was left unclear.

“I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes,” Rodriguez Aguilera said.

In two separate videos posted to YouTube years ago, one by local Spanish-language station America TeVeand another by a political critic with the user name DoralGirl26, Rodriguez Aguilera spoke on television in detail about her extraterrestrial experiences. She said the alien beings reminded her of the famous statue in Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer, with arms outstretched. Among the things she said she found out from the aliens:µ

•  
  • There are 30,000 skulls — “different from humans” — in a cave in the Mediterranean island of Malta.
• The world’s “energy center” is in Africa.
•  
  • The Coral Castle, a limestone tourist attraction South Miami-Dade, is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.
• 
  • “God is a universal energy.”

The Coral Castle, a limestone tourist attraction South Miami-Dade, is actually an ancient Egyptian pyram “God is a universal energy.”

She also said that the aliens had mentioned Isis, though she didn’t clarify if they meant the terrorist organization or the ancient Egyptian goddess.

UFOs: What does the government know? What are the politics of U.F.O.s? Hillary Clinton said she believed in giving wider access to government records related to U.F.O.s and extraterrestrial life. Listen to what other presidents had to say about aliens and Area 51.

Bettina-Rodriguez-Aguilera

She declared her candidacy in late August and raised about $10,000 during the most recent fundraising quarter, she said — a paltry amount she attributed to halting her campaign during Hurricane Irma.

Rodriguez Aguilera’s daughter is former Republican National Committee Hispanic outreach director Bettina Inclán Agen. Her so -in-law, Jarrod Agen, is Vice President Mike Pence’s deputy chief of staff.

Miami attorney Rick Yabor, a frequent political commentator in Spanish-language media, said Friday that Rodriguez Aguilera’s account could hurt her congressional campaign. Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro and former school board member and Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado, both far better known than Rodriguez Aguilera, are also running in the Republican primary.

“Being a politician, to come out and say that, it’s odd,” Yabor said. “She got into details that are not very mainstream. Someone who’s running for Congress — you’ve got to raise a lot of money. A donor might have second thoughts.

“Miami politics are unusual,” Yabor said. “This one takes it to a new level.”

Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, a former Doral city council member and the city’s first economic director, will run to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Congress in 2018. Rodriguez Aguilera said during a 2008 TV appearance that she has seen aliens extraterrestrials throughout her life. Roberto Koltun:

^{http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article178813586.html}

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Phantoms

 Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, or GTMO, is full of ghost stories. I use to fly into Guantanamo fairly regularly to fly workers to and from Jamaica to work at the base. There are stories of refugees losing their lives crossing the mine fields to flee Cuba and stories of soldiers who never left their posts. I didn’t think much of the tales until I experienced something strange one night. A Marine I spoke to was in the barracks and heard footsteps coming up the metal stairs. He expected to hear his staff sergeant’s vehicle pull up, but there had been no sounds but footsteps and a knock to open the door. When he opened the door nobody was there.

One former Cuban Army Sergeant assured me that UFOs part curly discs were seen frequently flying over Cuba. He was told these were U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and not aliens. He also mentioned that there were frequent sightings of ghosts or spirits. Some are thought to be relatives who had died, and some were considered to aliens from other planets.

On March 29, 2012 former President of Cuba, Fidel Castro issued historical written “Reflections”, Entitled “The need to Enrich our Knowledge.”
The letter discussed several issues related to the dangers for the survival of humankind posed by the current warmongering race that some of the world powers are enforcing. And how the bearers of these actions tend to suffer from characters that lack culture and special knowledge.

Interjected is the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe around us. Castro said: “When Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, “I particularly remember the time when we sat down to dinner with spokesman of the Pope, I said, “I think there is a 99.9 percent chance there is intelligent life on  other planets’. A European article reads, “There could be thousands of millions of planets not much larger than Earth orbiting stars in our galaxy. According to an international team of astronomers,  “The Estimated number of ‘super-Earths”-planets with up to ten times the mass of the Earth is based on discoveries made and then already extrapolated to include the population of so-called’ dwarf stars’ of the Milky Way. “Our new observations show That About 40% of red dwarf stars Have a ‘super-Earth” orbiting in Their Living zone, there may be in which liquid water on the surface of the planet “, said Xabier Bonfills, head of the team of Sciences of the Universe Observatory of Grenoble, France.

“Because network dwarfs are so common, there are 160.000 million of them in the Milky Way, or tens of millions of these planets in our galaxy alone.”

George Martin writes that 2002, the renowned Cuban filmmaker Octavio Cortázar visited Puerto Rico in order to participate in the San Juan Cinemafest and asked to meet with us at our magazine ENIGMAS Goals

. He gave me a copy of the first documentary ever made in Cuba entitled “UFOs in Cuba.”
I said that besides Fidel Castro meeting with the Speaker of the Vatican he had also discussed the issue of extraterrestrial life with Pope John Paul II during his visit to Cuba in 1998. According To  Cortazar, John Paul II asked Castro what he thought about the possibility that man was not alone in the universe, and the Pope said, “The probability of life beyond Earth was a fact and discussed the observations of UFOs.”

As former President Fidel Castro revealed, In His own words, the reality of extraterrestrial life visiting us, of which I saw personally evidence during an historical trip to Russia?

In our view, it would be a great contribution to mankind, Such as would help us to Knowledge to effect change in our collective consciousness, and perhaps, as a result of that, we would deviate from the path of self destruction in which we currently are. Thanks to George Martin 

Pilots Spot Huge UFO

ALDERNEY — Joel de Woolfson of The Guernsey Press and Star reports, “Two experienced airline pilots on separate flights saw something up to a mile wide off the coast of Alderney above the English Channel on April 23, 2007.

Jersey radar equipment did pick up the object, and an air traffic controller said he had received simultaneous reports from the Aurigny and Blue Islands Airline pilots.

 There seems to be a pattern of massive objects reported that are apparently operated by intelligent extraterrestrial (ET) beings. We can assume they are intelligent based on their craft and operations. These huge craft called Motherships are much bigger than any flying machine ever built by man. Frequently they launch smaller generally disc shaped craft estimated to be thirty feet in diameter.

Aurigny’s Airline Captain Ray Bowyer, 50, said, “I saw a massive strange object during a flight from Southampton.”

Abductees report the aliens have very highly developed mental powers, including extra-sensory, thought reading, hypnosis and the ability to use different dimensions. They do not normally use weapons and rely solely on their special powers to take care of themselves. They make contact only with selected people where secrecy can be maintained. In loosely knit societies such as Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, it is very easy with the help of friends to make contact, but more difficult in police and dictator states. Abductees report, aliens take them inside small UFOs and sometimes fly to a huge Mothership in space. Thanks to Guernsey Press and Star

UFOs Enter the Water or Ground

MUFON and the National UFO Reporting Center collect around a thousand UFO reports a month/ The term UFO phenomena actually consists of many credible observations such as of balls of light that can change to different forms; objects that appear and disappear, go through walls, merge and separate; and groups of lights that come together to form humanoid appearing entities. There is even some correlation with, spirits and ghosts. We may be observing a series of different phenomena. Some objects are seen going into water and the ground or flying out the water or ground. This ability provides obvious hiding bases.

Others include objects of incredible space ships great size and speed, poltergeist like activity, large and small UFOs, magnetic and radiation effects, abduction phenomena, thought control, and telepathy, and many more.

While I was in the military intelligence at Military Airlift Command Headquarters my boss Bob Woods was the Base UFO Officer who could launch aircraft to chase UFOs. He frequently had to go to investigate UFO sightings similar to what MUFON investigators do now. He did not like doing the investigations often having to drive long distances to possible sightings. I remember him telling about a sighting in Sothern Missouri where witnesses claimed a disc had knocked down branches in a tree and disrupted the grass in their backyard, so it appeared a craft had actually landed. Bob felt it was not a real UFO because the witnesses were known to be heavy drinkers. I argued that there was some proof and evidence that could be examined in a laboratory. He did not want to waste government money. He seemed to feel the more reality he gave to the phenomena the harder he would be required to work.

The phenomenon often doesn’t fit the profile of pilots and space ships, but of something vastly different from our technology. Such observations suggest that this data also might be investigated using different paradigms than our nuts and bolts ideas of space ships, such as by using quantum mechanical theories, or the idea that the phenomena might not be molecular as we are, or other ideas. The lights and objects can jump from one place to another, dissolve or suddenly come together and appear. I think new ways and different paradigms of science are needed to study it.

Some reports claim the ships particles seem to flock together like birds and form into craft.

Many high ranking officers do not consider the phenomena a reality and are skeptical because they do not receive clearance to be given information on the actual existence of UFOs. Only four star generals and admirals and their few designated support personnel have clearances to know any detailed information.

Another reason for the skepticism is that government has deliberately creates skepticism. There is some evidence that even in the very earliest reports some form of cover-up may have been active. The government has manipulated the results of scientific studies, such as the one done by Battelle  to show that they found nothing when in fact they did. Additionally, there appears to be craft that are built by the government that have the shape and speed of UFOs.

In other cases it has set up panels that purported to scientifically examine the subject, but instead used them to debunk the phenomena, such as those of Robertson and Condon Panels. Why expend large amounts of money to lie and cover-up the phenomena, if it doesn’t’

Alien Messages

Aliens have messages in various places all over the world in crop circles, monuments, telepathic messages and face to face abductions and contacts. We have been slow to decipher their messages.

Nazca Lines in the remote desert of Peru has a series of drawings that may be an alien message. Many of the Nazca lines can only be seen from the air or even space. The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. The largest figures are up to 370 m (1,200 ft) long. They were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 km (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana, about 400 km (250 mi) south of Lima. Scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BC and 500 AD^[The figures vary in complexity from designs of phytomorphic shapes, such as trees and flowers. The designs are shallow lines made in the ground by removing the reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath.

Borobudur Temple

The world’s largest Buddhist Temple in Magelang, Java, Indonesia called Borobudur appears to be a copy of the design in the Nazca lines some 11,000 miles away.

The temple consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa mound-like or hemispherical structures that resemble disc shaped UFOs.

The monument is a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The pilgrim journey begins at the base of the monument and follows a path around the monument, ascending to the top through three levels symbolic of Buddhist cosmology. The monument guides pilgrims through an extensive system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades. Evidence suggests Borobudur was constructed in the 9th century but many structures are similar to UFOs in appearance. Buddha does grant their request to the teach the doctrine to save the earth. The Blessed One is responsible for setting the wheel of the great law a-rolling and began to preach to the five bhikshus, opening to them also the gate of immortality. When the Blessed One began his teaching, a great rapture occurred in the universe.

The celestial spirits/angels left heaven to listen to the words of the Tathagata, and all creatures on earth crowded around to hear the glad tidings and understood in their own languages. One voice speaks one language, while telepathic thought can be understood by all. Buddha set the wheel of truth in motion by stating: ” The spokes of the wheel are the rules of pure conduct, justice is the uniformity of the spokes length, wisdom is the outside rim, thoughtfulness and modesty are the hub.”  Is it only coincidence that a great religion is based on a wheel shape, freedom from lust and two types of aliens or angels from heaven?  Many of the tops of religious buildings have shapes that resemble flying saucers. The wheel and disc is frequently used in the architecture. Ancient writings are full of information on Vimanas, that appear virtually the same as modern UFOs.

From The Anti-Gravity Handbook    by D. Hatter Chalders   Many researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important  fact. While it assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps  governmental military origin, another possible origin of UFOs is ancient  India and Atlantis. What we know about ancient Indian flying vehicles  comes from ancient Indian sources; written texts that have come down to  us through the centuries. There is no doubt that most of these texts are  authentic; many are the well known ancient Indian Epics themselves, and  there are literally hundreds of them.

Most of them have not even been  translated into English yet from the ancient writing.   The Indian Emperor Ashoka started a “Secret Society of the Nine Unknown Men”: great Indian scientists who were supposed to catalogue the many  sciences. Ashoka kept their work secret because he was afraid that the  advanced science catalogued by these men, culled from ancient Indian  sources, would be used for the evil purpose of war, which Ashoka was  strongly against, having been converted to Buddhism after defeating a rival army in a bloody battle.

Another work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes  how the vehicles were constructed. It is possible that mercury did have  something to do with the propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance  system. Curiously, Soviet scientists have discovered what they call  “age old instruments used in navigating cosmic vehicles” in caves in  Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The “devices” are hemispherical objects  of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone with a drop of mercury inside.  It is evident that ancient Indians flew around in these vehicles, all  over Asia, to Atlantis presumably; and even, apparently, to South America.

Japan Finds Long, Deep Lava Tunnel on the Moon

Entrance to Lava Tunnel

With fewer meteors, lower radiation and better weather, this is a nice place for a colony.

The Japanese SELENE (Kaguya) Lunar Radar Sounder has detected intact lava tubes at Marius Hills on the Moon. Intact lunar lava tubes offer a pristine environment to conduct scientific examination of the Moon’s composition and potentially serve as secure shelters for humans and instruments. We investigated the SELENE Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS) data at locations close to the Marius Hills Hole (MHH), a skylight potentially leading to an intact lava tube, and found a distinctive echo pattern exhibiting a precipitous decrease in echo power, subsequently followed by a large second echo peak that may be evidence for the existence of a lava tube. The search area was further expanded to 13.00–15.005°N, 301.85–304.01°E around the MHH and similar LRS echo patterns were observed at several locations. Most of the locations are in regions of underground mass deficit suggested by GRAIL gravity data analysis. Some of the observed echo patterns are along rille A, where the MHH was discovered.

Lava Tunnel on Earth

Japan’s lunar orbiter has found a long, deep tunnel under the Moon’s surface. There are reports that aliens also use the tunnels.

The find is significant because Earth’s Moon is a nasty place: surface temperatures vary wildly, there’s radiation galore to contend with and Luna’s lack of an atmosphere means the surface is subject to micrometeorite bombardments.

Plans to colonize the satellite have therefore often suggested underground installations, which is a sensible idea but one complicated by the challenge of digging in an environment with all the problems mentioned above.

But an underground Moon base now looks less complicated, as Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) says they have found “a 50-km long intact lava tube underground along a lava flow river ‘rille’ on the Marius Hills of the Moon” Natural caverns occur on the moon in the form of ‘lava tubes’, which are the drained conduits of underground lava rivers. The inside dimensions of these tubes measure tens to hundreds of meters, and their roofs are expected to be thicker than 10 meters. Consequently, lava tube interiors offer an environment that is naturally protected from the hazards of radiation and meteorite impact.

The interiors of lava tubes could protect human explorers from different aspects of the lunar environment, including cosmic rays, meteorite impacts, dust, and the extreme temperature differences between the lunar day and night. Just like caves on the Earth, lunar caves, including lava tubes, have benign temperatures that are constant. These are extremely favorable environmental conditions for human activities and industrial operations.

. The SELENE/Kaguya Terrain Camera team made a fly-over movie of the hole, which is available here. The hole is nearly circular, 65 meters in diameter on the lunar nearside. The hole was estimated to be 80 to 88 meters deep. The area around the hole is covered by a thin (20 to 25 m) lava sheet, which may help protect the lava tube from collapse due to meteorite bombardment.

Aside from its potential as a place for humanity to locate a moon base, JAXA suggests the find is exciting because the tube may offer the chance to find “valuable lunar rock samples that have not been fragmented, or space-weathered, and thus may contain gases (including water) trapped in the past.” The agency also thinks Lunar lava tubes might teach us something about the same features on Mars.

Marius Hills Ruins

JAXA says it’s spotted lots of caves on the moon and possible ruins. The long tube is just one of many candidate caves and holes in the Moon.

The habitat shell would not have to support much of its own weight because it could be supported from the walls and ceilings of the lava tube. Habitats could even be inflatable, similar to Bigalow’s Sundancer space hotel, or supported entirely by air pressure.

Also, current designs for lunar equipment must function properly over a wide range of temperatures. While tools are severely limited and degrade rapidly on the lunar surface, the more benign and constant temperatures inside a lava tube would allow the use of existing tools and commonly used materials. Inside a lava tube all equipment would be well shielded from IR and UV radiation, and heavy machinery could be solidly anchored to firm bedrock—a rarity on the lunar surface. The lava tube could be kept relatively dust-free. Lightweight, highly flexible space suits could be made for crews venturing outside of man-rated habitats but remaining inside the lava tube. Thanks to https://sservi.nasa.gov   Soderman/NLSI Staff
Source: JAXA & Friedrich Horz paper