An archaeologist from the University of Arizona recently found over two dozen previously unknown Mayan sites all while sitting at his desk. Takeshi Inomata found a free lidar (light detection and ranging) map online and that’s what he used to make the huge discovery.

The lidar technology provides scientists with a way of scanning archaeological sites using airborne lasers. They can even see through dense forests and pick out shapes of old buildings and settlements that once stood at the location.

The free map that Dr. Inomata studied was originally published by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography in 2011 and covered a total of 4,440 square miles in Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico. While the map’s resolution was low, he was still able to find the ruins of 27 previously unknown Maya ceremonial centers. What’s even more incredible is that the ruins were constructed in a way that has never been seen before by archaeologists. Some of the large rectangular platforms that were very low to the ground measured as long as two-thirds of a mile and are believed to be as old as 1000 B.C. to 700 B.C.

Ancient Mayan temple

Dr. Inomata and his wife Daniela Triadan are currently leading excavations at the biggest ceremonial center (they named it Aguada Fenix) that was recently discovered in hopes of learning more about the Mayan culture’s rituals.

In 2005, he and his wife started excavating the ancient city of Ceibal which is located in the Petén rainforest in Guatemala. They uncovered several of the earliest known buildings in the Mayan culture with the ceremonial center being as old as 950 B.C.

“The stuff he is finding is crucial for our understanding of how Maya civilization developed,” stated Arlen Chase who is an archaeologist at Pomona College. For many years, Dr. Inomata has been interested in finding out how the Maya culture began between 1000 B.C. and 400 B.C. and his work is providing important information in figuring that out.

Charles Golden, who is an anthropology professor at Brandeis University, also took a look at some lidar maps and discovered numerous ancient settlements close to the Usumacinta River which borders Mexico and Guatemala.

In other news, a new study suggests that Mayans could have unintentionally caused their own demise by changing the climate. Researchers found evidence in Belize that indicates the Mayans created canals and wetlands to accommodate their rising population, as well as often performing “burn events” while they worked on their farms which created more carbon dioxide and methane in the air that they breathed.

Ancient Mayan temple

In a statement, the study’s lead author Tim Beach said, “We now are beginning to understand the full human imprint of the Anthropocene in tropical forests,” adding, “These large and complex wetland networks may have changed climate long before industrialization and these may be the answer to the long-standing question of how a great rainforest civilization fed itself.”

Takeshi Inomata identified this ancient Maya site, dubbed La Carmelita, using LiDAR maps, seen here in both low and high resolution.

Image courtesy of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía/Nacional Center for Airborne Laser Mapping.

Takeshi Inomata identified this ancient Maya site, dubbed La Carmelita, using LiDAR. But the structures are difficult to see with the naked eye.

Photo by Takeshi Inomata.

According to their study, the Birds of Paradise wetland was “five times larger than previously discovered”. Additionally, they discovered another wetland field in Belize that was even larger. “These perennial wetlands were very attractive during the severe Maya droughts, but the Maya also had to be careful with water quality to maintain productivity and human health,” explained Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach who was the study’s co-author.

The increase in methane in the atmosphere is believed to have happened between 1,800 and 1,000 years ago which coincides with the growing number of Maya wetlands. “Even these small changes may have warmed the planet, which provides a sobering perspective for the order of magnitude greater changes over the last century that are accelerating into the future,” Beach stated. Their research can be read in full here.

How Lasers Are Utterly Transforming Our Understanding of the Ancient Maya, Bringing Their Whole Civilization Back to Light

A LiDAR scan can reveal ancient Maya ruins that might never be found by archaeologists on the ground

Archaeologists announced Sunday that they had discovered the remains of a massive bronze age settlement in northern Israel that could “change forever what we know about emergence of urbanization in entire area.” The site was discovered in Israel’s newest city, Harish, during excavations in preparation for a new highway interchange, which seems to be how about half of all recent history changing discoveries are made.

The 5,000-year old megalopolis covers 160 acres and is the largest Bronze Age settlement ever discovered in Israel. In addition, the Times of Israel reports that archaeologists found remains of an even earlier, 7,000-year old Chalcolithic settlement beneath the 5,000 year old buildings. That’s a pretty good find.  Dr. Yitzhak Paz, co-director of the excavation, says:

“It is much larger than any known site in the land of Israel — and outside the land of Israel — in the region of Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria.”

Overhead view of the Bronze Age megalopolis discovered in Harish.

(Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority)

The site is filled with artifacts and that tell a story of a bustling Bronze age metropolis. The city was home to at least 6,000 people and traded with cultures all across the Mediterranean, and according to the archaeologists, the city was very carefully and thoughtfully planned. Excavation directors Itai Elad, Yitzhak Paz and Dina Shalem say in an IAA statement:

“This is a huge city – a megalopolis in relation to the Early Bronze Age, where thousands of inhabitants, who made their living from agriculture, lived and traded with different regions and even with different cultures and kingdoms in the area… This is the Early Bronze Age New York of our region; a cosmopolitan and planned city.”

Excavation directors (right to left) Itai Elad, Dr. Dina Shalem, and Dr. Yitzhak Paz, walk in a 5,000-year-old alley at the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish.

(Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Thousands of youth and volunteers participated in the excavation at the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish.

(Yaniv Berman, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Archaeologists found remains of public and private buildings, streets and alleys, and a fortification wall surrounding the site. The site is in a fertile part of Israel and central to many trade routes, making it the perfect place for a large city. Two large cities, in fact. Dina Salem says in a IAA video:

“The excavation at this site revealed two main settlements. The earliest one is about 7,000 years old. It’s a very large agricultural settlement. Two thousand years later, another settlement became one of the first cities known in this area of the world.”

One of the buildings archaeologists discovered at the site is a temple that may shed some light on the spiritual practices of the Canaanites who lived in the city. The temple has a basin in the courtyard that archaeologists assume was used for ritualistic purposes, and a collection of burnt animal bones possibly used for sacrifices were found inside the temple.

Collection of figurines discovered at the ancient settlement.

(Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority)

Also found were tools, a mysterious cylindrical stamp of a man with his hands in the air, and several figurines of people and animals and tools imported from Egypt.

According to Yitzhak Paz, once it is fully researched and investigated, this site will rewrite history. He says:

“The study of this site will change forever what we know about the emergence [and] rise of urbanization in the land of Israel and in the whole region. And it means that what we know now will change what is written today in the traditional books when people read about the archaeology of Israel.”

And as far as the planned highway interchange goes, they decided to just build it higher up as to not destroy the settlement.

George Adamski

It’s worth noting that George Adamski was, in fact, watched closely by several intelligence agencies in 1959 – and, in part, in relation to the matter of Russia and communism. Adamski’s trip to New Zealand took him to Wellington and Auckland. Notably, this lecture-tour was of interest to the world of government, and Adamski’s presentations were clandestinely scrutinized by various government operatives. A Foreign Service Dispatch of February 1959 was sent from the American Embassy in New Zealand to the Department of State in Washington, D.C., that summarized Adamski’s activities in New Zealand. Also forwarded to the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, the report was titled “‘Flying Saucer’ Expert Lecturing In New Zealand” and recorded the following, amusing information:

“Mr. George Adamski, the Californian ‘flying saucer expert’ and author of the book Flying Saucers Have Landed and others, has been visiting New Zealand for the last two weeks. He has given well-attended public lectures in Auckland and Wellington as well as meetings with smaller groups of ‘saucer’ enthusiasts. In Wellington his lecture filled the 2,200 seats in the Town Hall. He was not permitted to charge for admission as the meeting was held on a Sunday night, but a ‘silver coin’ collection was taken up and this would more than recoup his expenses.”

The document continues in equally amusing fashion: “Adamski’s lectures appear to cover the usual mass of sighting reports, pseudo-scientific arguments in support of his theories and his previously well-publicized ‘contacts’ with saucers and men from Venus. He is repeating his contention that men from other planets are living anonymously on the earth and, according to the press, said in Auckland that there may be as many as 40,000,000 of these in total. He is also making references to security restrictions and saying that the U.S. authorities know a lot more than they will tell.  The report of Adamski’s lecture in Wellington in The Dominion was flanked by an article by Dr. I.L. THOMPSON, Director of the Carter Observatory, vigorously refuting Adamski on a number of scientific points. However, the news report of the lecture called it ‘the best Sunday night’s entertainment Wellington has seen for quite a time.'”

Moving on, there is this from the authorities who had Adamski under surveillance: “Interest in flying saucers in New Zealand seems to be roughly comparable to that in the United States. There is a small but active organization which enthusiasts have supported for some years. This organization publishes a small paper and receives and circulates stories of sightings. At the Adamski lecture in Wellington, approximately 40 members of the ‘Adamski Corresponding Society’ wore blue ribbons and sat in reserved seats in the front row. Press reports suggest that Adamski probably is making no new converts to saucer credence in his current tour. His audiences have given forth with a certain amount of ‘incredulous murmuring’ and are said to be totally unimpressed with his pictures of saucers.”

In late 1959, Adamski was the topic of FBI interest when an American citizen (whose name is deleted from the FBI records) offered an opinion that Adamski was using the UFO controversy as a means to promote communism and the Russian way of life. In a report on the affair, the FBI recorded the following: “[Censored] said that in recent weeks she and her husband had begun to wonder if Adamski is subtly spreading Russian propaganda. She said that, according to Adamski, the ‘space people’ are much better people than those on earth; that they have told him the earth is in extreme danger from nuclear tests and that they must be stopped; that they have found peace under a system in which churches, schools, individual governments, money, and private property were abolished in favor of a central governing council, and nationalism and patriotism have been done away with; that the ‘space people’ want nuclear tests stopped immediately and that never should people on earth fight; if attacked, they should lay down their arms and welcome their attackers.”

“[Censored] said the particular thing that first made her and her husband wonder about Adamski was a letter they received from him dated 10/12/59, in which it was hinted that the Russians receive help in their outer space programs from the ‘space people,’ and that the ‘space people’ will not help any nation unless such nation has peaceful intent. It occurred to them that the desires and recommendations of the ‘space people’ whom Adamski quotes are quite similar to Russia’s approach, particularly as to the ending of nuclear testing, and it was for this reason she decided to call the FBI.”

Finally, there’s more to come on all of this. It’s something that will help to resolve some of the early “Men in Black” encounters in 1950s-era New Zealand. Stay tuned.

One report of a UFO sighting is interesting. A report of a UFO over a refinery is intriguing. Multiple reports of UFOs over the same refinery in a town known for UFO sightings demands attention … and possibly a government or military investigation. Welcome to Ciudad Madero, a Mexican coastal city in southeast Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico where a UFO was seen and recorded by many people, reported by multiple media sites and raised questions about why UFOs seem to be attracted to refineries and mineral mines, especially in Mexico and Central and South America.

“Photographs of an alleged unidentified flying object (UFO) flying over the facilities of the “ Francisco I. Madero ” Refinery in Pemex , in Ciudad Madero , Tamaulipas , have begun to circulate through social networks.

These facts were reported by public transport operators, in addition to the same workers of the parastatal, who recognize that this type of sightings is not something new.”

El Heraldo de Mexico reports that the UFO sighting occurred on October 12 between 6:50 and 7:00 am and was witnessed by numerous workers. Along with photos of the ring of lights above the refinery (see them here), El Heraldo reminds readers of the “urban legend” of an extraterrestrial ship located just offshore of the city that many believe is there to protect it from hurricanes and tropical storms. The El Rrun Rrun blog shows more photos of the sightings and says that the state’s Direccion de Proteccion Civil (Civil Defense) has received over 50 reports of UFOs in Tamaulipas since October 22, 2008.

“Since the terrible catastrophe caused by Hurricane Hilda in 1955, Tampico seems to be immune to natural disasters. A popular belief says that about 800 meters deep at Miramar Beach, located in Ciudad Madero, an extraterrestrial base was established that protects the coast. It is not uncommon to hear tampiqueños talk about strange lights coming out of the sea or flying saucers guarding the city. The belief in extraterrestrial beings has taken so much strength that on that coast the Martian Day is celebrated on the last Tuesday of each month. On one of these Tuesdays, the municipality of Ciudad Madero unveiled a monument to aliens which, unfortunately, was the victim of robbery within a few weeks.”

In 2015, Vice.com interviewed three of the many UFO witnesses in Ciudad Madero who believe the “urban legend” and the BBC talked to members of Tampico UFO Scientific Research Association, including Eduardo Anguiano Ortiz, author of “On UFOs, Ghosts and Other Extraordinary Events” who claimed to have talked to over 100 other UFO witnesses and concluded:

“To doubt the existence of UFOs is to have no intelligence.”

Many people like Guillermo H. Sosa Tovar, who shared the images on Facebook, agree. So do local authorities according to the 2015 BBC article.

“The last time a hurricane that was heading towards the Tampico area was diverted was in 2013. That year, local authorities placed the bust of a Martian in Playa Miramar (which was stolen shortly afterwards) and declared that the Martian’s Day would be celebrated on the last Tuesday of October.”

Guillermo H. Sosa Tovar

12 oktober om 13:54 · 

Ovnis en Cd. Madero, Tamaulipas (Fotos tomadas en este frente frio por unas mujeres maderences cercas de la Refinería)

Juzguen ustedes mismos, existe la creencia que hay una base alienígena a unos kilómetros de la Escollera de Playa Miramar

Vertaling bekijken

Ufologists have long speculated that sightings over refineries, mines and volcanoes – all common in Mexico – could be extraterrestrial ships refueling or getting parts. Skeptics point out that gasoline is a poor fuel for long-distance travel and believe Martian Day is just a way to attract tourists to this poor city. (Did they see how well this worked out on Storm Area 51 weekend?)

Which way to Martian Day?

“I have many friends who have told me about ships leaving the sea. Even other fishermen have told me that when they go out at night or at dawn, they see very large, very powerful lights that follow them on their routes. Many serious people they told me about things that happened to them. I think it was a ship, they visit us.”

A fisherman named Guadalupe told Vice.com why he believes. Did these same visitors hover their craft over the Pemex refinery in Ciudad Madero on October 12? There appears to have been no interviews with the workers and no official explanation given, leaving locals to draw their own conclusions.

“To doubt the existence of UFOs is to have no intelligence.”

What do you think they believe?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way right up front – the Violent Blinking Black Holes would make a GREAT name for a metal band.

On the other hand, it doesn’t sound like something you want to find in your galaxy. Guess what, fellow Milky Wayans – a low mass X-ray binary black hole in our home galaxy a mere 10,000 light years away has been discovered sending out intense blinking beams of visible and X-ray light that are described as “violent,” “crackling” and “flaring.” Is this hyperbole or a true description of what black holes are really capable of?

“The HiPERCAM and NICER instruments however let the researchers record ‘movies’ of the changing light from the system at over three hundred frames per second, capturing violent ‘crackling’ and ‘flaring’ of visible and X-ray light.”

NICER (NASA)

HiPERCAM and NICER are unintentionally cutesy names for the tools used by John Paice, an artist and graduate student at the University of Southampton and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics in India, to create a realistic movie of MAXI J1820+070, a black hole in the Milky Way with the mass of about seven of our Suns in a small area the size of a large city, eating its companion star with such intensity that the flares rapidly belching out of it are brighter than the star itself, with some that are “the output of a hundred Suns and more being emitted in the blink of an eye!” An obviously excited Paice describes the discovery in a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and summarized in a press release by the Royal Astronomical Society.

“An animation of the black hole system MAXI J1820+070, based upon observed characteristics during a rapid accretion episode in March 2018. Purple denotes X-ray radiation seen by the NICER instrument on the ISS, and the rest of the colours show visible light seen by HiPERCAM in La Palma. The video is shown at roughly 1/10th of the true speed.”

Fortunately for us, John Paice is a unique combination of artist and astronomer, so the real gift he’s given the world is not the study but an animation of MAXI J1820+070’s “rapid accretion episode” (watch the animation here). NICER is the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer on the International Space Station which looks at rotation-resolved spectroscopy of the thermal and non-thermal emissions of neutron stars in the soft (0.2–12 keV) X-ray band. HiPERCAM is the high-speed, multicolour camera, capable of taking more than 1,000 images per second, installed on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. NICER and HiPERCAM produced images at over three hundred frames per second, which Paice “slowed down to 1/10th of actual speed to allow the most rapid flares to be discerned by the human eye” – flares that lasted only a few milliseconds yet were brighter than “the output of a hundred Suns and more.”

But wait … there’s more!

The fastest visible flashes of light occurred a fraction of a second after the X-ray flares, and the rise and fall of intensities alternated between the two. This is an indicator of the presence of distinct plasma caused by electrons being stripped from atoms – a process which occurs deep inside the black hole and is too small to see. Is this a big deal? Dr. Poshak Gandhi of University of Southampton and a co-author of the study thinks so.

The fact that we now see this in three systems strengthens the idea that it is a unifying characteristic of such growing black holes. If true, this must be telling us something fundamental about how plasma flows around black holes operate. Our best ideas invoke a deep connection between inspiralling and outflowing bits of the plasma. But these are extreme physical conditions that we cannot replicate in Earth laboratories, and we don’t understand how nature manages this. Such data will be crucial for homing in on the correct theory.”

OK, it’s a big deal to astronomers and astrophysicists like Gandhi and Paice. It’s also a big deal to the developers of new telescopes and cameras like HiPERCAM and NICER. It should be a big deal to the rest of us because the more we understand about our universe, the better we can comprehend where we came from and where we’re going.

Unfortunately, it may be down the throat of a violent blinking black hole.

Violent Blinking Black Hole would make a great name for a beer too!

One of the more intriguing, but unfortunately lesser known, of the 1950s-era Contactees was Sonja Lyubicin. She was a woman who had a background and a full life filled with mystery, adventure, fun and intrigue. In 1956, she claimed to have been taken on a trip to Saturn by the Space Brothers. To her eternal delight, Lyubicin found that the people of the huge, ringed planet were highly “sexually active” and particularly liked hosting swinging parties. That’s a far and welcome cry from the grim encounters that people report with today’s small, black-eyed “Grey” aliens! Sonja also had a connection to the ultimate Contactee, George Adamski. The whispered word on the galactic grapevine was that during a wild orgy in Australia, Sonja got nailed by none other than the legendary extratererstrial Orthon himself!

A close encounter or several of the sexual kind? To be sure! If we are to take Sonja’s at her word, that is. Lyubicin also claimed deep contacts within the very heart of the U.S. government, even maintaining that she had spent time attending top secret meetings on UFOs at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. How much of Sonja’s story was true is anyone’s guess. It’s notable, though, that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) decided to open a file on her. In part, that dossier provides these words from the ASIO: “A member of the [Queensland Flying Saucer Research] Bureau who was extremely active during the visit of George Adamski was a Sonja Ljubicin [sic], a naturalized Australian of Yugoslav origin, who previously resided at…Ann Street, Valley. This person was carried away to the extent that she believed she had traveled in space craft to other planets. On the 16^th July 1959 she left her employment and traveling on an Australian passport No. K235116 issued on the 29^th June 1959 at Brisbane traveled by Qantas Flight EM. 742 from Sydney on the 21^st July 1959 to the United States of America to join George Adamski.”

UFO investigator Hakan Blomqvist, said of Lyubicin that she, “…continued living in California and on July 12, 1979 married William Paul Appleton. She then changed her name to Sonya Appleton. They eventually settled in Honolulu, Hawaii where the marriage ended. Sonya died in Honolulu, just before her 63rd birthday, July 2, 1989.” It should be noted that the primary reason why the ASIO had Lyubicin in their sights – and kept abreast of her activities – was because of her background. Namely, that she was born and, until the age of twenty, lived in Yugoslavia, that in 1946 became the communist Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. While Lyubicin and her family fled Yugoslavia in 1947, there were some agents of the ASIO who pondered on the possibility that she might have had Communist leanings. This was, of course, during the Cold War. It was a period when just about anyone who had what was perceived by old suit-and-tie-wearing geezers in government as an “alternative lifestyle,” might have had a file opened on them.

Whether or not this was a case of the ASIO reaching just a bit too far, we’ll likely never know. But, it’s an undeniable fact that Australian intelligence agents ensured that they knew where and when Sonja went – and why. How deeply, exactly, did the surveillance go? Well, put it like this: we can see from the now-available ASIO material on Sonja that the ASIO knew all about her plans to fly to the United States and hang out with Adamski. They had the names of the relevant airlines. They even knew the flight-numbers and had her Australian passport number on file. Whatever the truth behind Sonja Lyubicin’s controversial claims about flying saucers, they were certainly enough to make the ASIO sit up and take notice. And that’s exactly what its agents did – and for a number of years.

It seems that there are some places in this world that just seem to draw UFOs to them. For reasons not yet understood these locations are positively overflowing with such unexplained phenomena, and in many cases they have gone on to become noted hot spots of UFO sightings. One such area lies in the country of Scotland, and it is an area steeped in tales of UFOs, alien encounters, and high strangeness.

What has come to be known as the “Falkirk Triangle” is an amorphously defined area in central Scotland generally accepted as stretching from the the small, quaint town of Bonnybridge, going off east to Fife, and then spanning back west to Stirling, although the borders are rather malleable and are often also seen as enveloping some of the surrounding towns and villages as well. The area itself is mostly rural farmland, rolling hills, moors, and mining villages, not really much to see typically, but the area is know as an absolute hotbed of UFO activity, and ground zero for this seems to be the little village of Bonnybridge itself, which lies not so far from Edinburgh and is often called “The UFO Capital of Scotland.”

Bonnybridge, Scotland

It certainly earns its nickname, as there are allegedly around 300 UFO reports a year from this one little town, with 1 in 3 town residents claiming to have seen something odd in the sky at one point or other, and this phenomenon can be traced back to at least the 1980s, when some high profile sightings put Bonnybridge on the map. One of the earlier big reports came from a fire crew who were fighting a blaze in 1989 when a red glowing orb of light allegedly flew right up to one of the fire trucks before shooting off into the sky, after which a second UFO, this one an intense white light, came down to float over the nearby Loch Ellrig. The objects were witnessed by numerous people who all described the exact same thing.

A perhaps even more well-known account from the town came in 1992, when local businessman James Walker was driving between Falkirk to Bonnybridge on his way home from work and noticed some strange lights in the sky. Walker stopped his car to watch these enigmatic lights move about in the sky, wondering what they could possibly be. He then continued on his way but the lights then allegedly formed a larger, star-shaped object that descended to ominously hover over the lonely road leading off before him, and he stopped his car to look on in puzzlement. As he sat there wondering what to do, the mysterious object then shot off into the night at exhilarating, amazing speed, remaining completely silent the entire time. This report really seemed to open up the floodgates on UFO sightings in the area, and sighting reports began to pour in at an incredible rate. People began to see UFOs prowling the roads outside of town, buzzing cars, hovering in the skies above, and even one reported as landing on a golf course, and suddenly Bonnybridge was getting a reputation as being a UFO magnet.

Another notable case from here supposedly happened in March of 1992, when the Sloggett family was out on a walk in the early morning hours. As they walked along they noticed some strange lights in a ring formation over the moor not too far away, which was enough to spook them into heading back to their home nearby. They would claim that a bright blue light shaped like a football would then pursue them to block their path, and a craft about the size of a house would land right in front of them, after which a door on the craft slid open and from within issued what sounded like a deep roar or growl. The family ran as fast as they could away from this unearthly sight and when they looked back the lights were gone.

Over the next five years, from 1992 to 1997, there would be hundreds of UFO reports in and around Bonnybridge, and there were numerous videos taken of these objects as evidence, with one resident named Craig Malcolm claiming to have taken over 18 hours of video footage of strange lights in the area. Another piece of strange footage was taken by a Mrs. Bonnetti, who filmed a bizarre black triangle flying above her neighbor’s house. The UFO activity became so intense that Cllr. William Buchanan of Falkirk District Council began writing letters to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defense expressing his concerns and seeking advice about what to do. It is perhaps no surprise that these pleas fell on deaf ears, and Buchanan would lament, “I have tried to get an answer for the people and have been ridiculed for it.” In the meantime, media attention was fully focused on the little town of Bonnybridge, and UFO talk was all the rage. However, the strangeness was not just confined to this one town, but rather seemed to extend to the surrounding areas as well, and this is where the Falkirk Triangle would begin to come into focus, and it seems that the phenomena even predated the Bonnybridge incidents.

One of the most well-documented and strangest UFO cases in Scottish history came from this area even before all of these encounters began in the area of Livingston, West Lothian. In 1979, a forester named Robert Taylor was at a place called Dechmont Woods, near the M8 motorway, when a “flying dome” appeared over the tree line, so close that Taylor would be able to make out that it was made of a metallic black material. He would then allegedly smell a burning odor, after which two smaller objects dropped from the main craft. At this point the two smaller objects fired a pair of metal rods at him, which attached to his hips, after which Taylor was overcome with the unsettling sensation that he was being pulled towards the strange object.

Shortly after this he awoke on the forest floor and the menacing objects were gone. Disoriented and not knowing whether he had dreamed it all or not, he was soon convinced that something was very wrong when he noticed that his clothes were torn and that he was covered with bruises, as if he had been attacked by someone, but he could not remember anything after that pulling sensation he had felt. He would find that his car would not start, and so he was forced to walk all the way back home, where he would tell of what happened and claim that a UFO had attacked him. Police would go to investigate the scene, and although they did not find any further evidence the torn clothes and Taylor’s general standing as an honest person and reliable witness have made sure that his story has been discussed and debated up to this day, with many holding it up as a genuine case of alien abduction, and the West Lothian area has been a hot spot of UFO activity ever since.

One place within the triangle that would prove to be very odd is the motorway called A70 road, which runs a route between Edinburgh and Ayr, passing right through the Falkirk Triangle. In August of 1992, witnesses Garry Wood and Colin Wright were driving along a stretch of A70 through West Lothian when they had a rather bizarre and terrifying experience near the Harperrig reservoir. It started when they experienced 2 hours of missing time which neither of them could account for, leaving them puzzled as to what had happened. They underwent hypnosis, upon which it was revealed that during that 2 hours they had been taken aboard an alien craft and then brought to some sort of underground base lined with people frozen in glass jars, where they were experimented upon and then released. Weird stuff, indeed.

There is also the nearby mining village of Gorebridge, also mostly considered to lie within the confines of the Falkirk Triangle, and possessing its own tales of strangeness. Here there is an old coal mine called the Blinkbonny Mine, from which some strange reports have come in, such as that of two people hunting for Christmas trees who claimed to have been chased by a “luminous, floating, green eye” coming from the mine. Throughout the 1990s there were numerous reports of UFOs plaguing the residents of Gorebridge, most of it centered around that mine, and it was widely featured in the media at the time. The town was also the origin of several compelling pieces of UFO footage, such as three glowing orbs over a field and another buzzing a 737 jet on its way into Edinburgh Airport, the incident apparently reported by the pilots as well.

Another area of the Falkirk Triangle is the town of Grangemouth, just 3 miles east of Falkirk. In 1991 two photographers at the BP chemicals plant in Grangemouth saw flashing lights circling the Kincardine Bridge, which they at first took to be a helicopter. The object drifted over to the nearby Grangemouth Stadium, where it hovered for several minutes before suddenly dropping with astonishing speed to come rushing right over to hover 300 feet above the witnesses, emitting a pulsing hum before shooting off. This was obviously no helicopter. In 1994, there was also an entire team of cleaners at the Grangemouth oil refinery who would report having seen flashing lights cavorting about in the sky above them.

Other areas of the Falkirk Triangle with numerous weird reports of UFO activity are the town of Larbert near Bonnybridge, the Rosslyn Chapel, and a place called “Newton of Falkland,” near Falkland in Fife, from where there was a truly outlandish 1996 report of a field full of ant-like aliens commanded by taller white entities, the whole scene overshadowed by a massive black triangle covered in twinkling lights, apparently some sort of bizarre mass landing. Interestingly, despite all of this alarming UFO activity in and around the Falkirk Triangle, the government has long been rather nonchalant and uninterested about it all, and indeed in 2009 the Ministry of Defence closed its file on UFO investigations altogether, with one briefing prepared for Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth reading:

[The MoD] should seek to reduce very significantly the UFO task which is consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defence output. In more than 50 years no UFO sighting reported to [the MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK [and] there is no defence benefit in [MoD] recording, collating, analysing or investigating UFO sightings. Investigations into UFO sightings, even from more reliable sources, serve no useful purpose and merely divert air defence specialists from their primary tasks. Accordingly, no further investigations should be carried out into UFO reports received from any source.

It seems that whatever is going on in the Falkirk Triangle is either being ignored or covered up by the Ministry, and yet enough sightings and encounters come in from the region that it has continually incited discussion as to why this area should have so much such phenomena gravitate towards it. One idea is that the area, for reasons not full understood, serves as some sort of portal through which these beings and their craft can easily travel through from place to place, perhaps even allowing inter-dimensional interlopers to come through the veil into our reality. It could also be that there is some mystical property to the land itself, steeped in history and legend as it is, full of tales of imps, fairies, and other supernatural entities, making this all perhaps more of a paranormal phenomenon dressed up and morphed by our own modern sensibilities and the popularity of UFOs. Andrew Hennessey of Stargate Edinburgh Tours has mused on this, saying:

Is there some ancient connection between history and mythology, between land use of the Falkirk Triangle to the alien-looking events that are unfolding before our very eyes here today, on the ground, under it and in the skies? Is there some sort of timeless pageant or battle being waged between beings of Light and beings of Darkness within this same mysterious Falkirk Triangle?

Of course there are the more mundane explanations. The area is home to several military bases, as well as two busy airports in Edinburgh and Glasgow, so perhaps it is just misidentified aircraft or even experimental craft being tested by the military. The area also has several large oil and chemical plants, the flames of which could perhaps be at the root of some of the reports. Some have even suggested that it is a trick of atmospheric phenomena combined with traffic on the motorways that meander through or even just hallucinations. None of these really fully explain these reports, though. Whatever the case may be, the Falkirk Triangle has remained an intense center of UFO activity in the UK, and continues to stir debate and the imagination.