UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Blue dot surrounded by haze near a fuzzy vertical streak with a bright center.

Before. Here’s comet 2I/Borisov – the 2I stands for 2nd interstellar – on November 16, 2019, about 3 weeks before its perihelion, or closest point to the sun. It appears in front of a distant background spiral galaxy (2MASX J10500165-0152029), whose bright central core is smeared because Hubble was tracking the comet. Comet Borisov was approximately 203 million miles (327 million km) from Earth in this exposure. The streak off to the upper right is its tail of ejected dust.

Read more about this image, which is via NASA/ ESA/ D. Jewitt.

Astronomers last week (December 12, 2019) released new Hubble Space Telescope images of 2I/Borisov – the second-known interstellar object – shortly before and shortly after its December 8 perihelion. Those images are historic in and of themselves; we’ve never before witnessed an interstellar object sweeping closest to our sun. 2I/Borisov – discovered on August 30, 2019, by comet hunter Gennady Borisov in Crimea, and now characterized as a comet – was about twice as far as Earth from the sun at its closest, on the inner edge of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. So its December 8 passage nearest our sun wasn’t a close passage for a comet. But – since comets are most active when they sweep closest to a star – astronomers hoped to see 2I/Borisov exhibit an outburst or other activity.

We haven’t heard of any outbursts from 2I/Borisov, but the Hubble observations did yield important science. Astronomer David Jewitt of UCLA led the team that captured the new images. Jewitt said in a statement:

Hubble gives us the best upper limit of the size of comet Borisov’s nucleus [core], which is the really important part of the comet.

Surprisingly, our Hubble images show that its nucleus is more than 15 times smaller than earlier investigations suggested it might be. Our Hubble images show that the radius is smaller than half-a-kilometer [.3 miles].

Knowing the size is potentially useful for beginning to estimate how common such objects might be in the solar system and our galaxy. Borisov is the first known interstellar comet, and we would like to learn how many others there are.

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White dot surrounded by slightly elongated large blue hazy area.

After. Astronomers aimed Hubble toward 2I/Borisov again on December 9, 2019, shortly after its perihelion or closest point to the sun on December 8, 2019. When closest to the sun, a comet receives maximum heating; it tends to be most active. It’s also moving fastest in orbit. 2I/Borisov was barreling along at some 100,000 miles (160,000 km) per hour at perihelion. At its closest to the sun, 2I/Borisov was about twice Earth’s average distance from the sun, near the inner edge of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was 185 million miles (298 million km) from Earth in this photo. Its nucleus or core – made of ices and dust – was still too small to see. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in late December at a distance of 180 million miles (290 million km).

Image via NASA/ ESA/ D. Jewitt (UCLA).

Let’s back up a minute. What is 2I/Borisov? We’ve said it’s the second interstellar visitor and the first known interstellar comet. That is, it’s a comet from another star system. The first interstellar object was spotted by astronomers in Hawaii in late 2017. Earthly astronomers named it 1I/’Oumuamua (“Scout”). The 1I stands for 1st interstellar.

‘Oumuamua was positively identified as coming from beyond our solar system. The shape of its orbit told that story. But it couldn’t be positively identified as a comet, despite the fact that – because they’re only loosely bound to their own stars – comets are the most likely candidates for becoming interstellar objects. ‘Oumuamua, though, was a strange object – long and thin – and didn’t show any signs of outgassing or a tail. It looked in many ways more like an asteroid than a comet.

Plus it had already passed its perihelion when astronomers first spotted it. It was already heading outward, back out of our solar system again.

So seeing the second-known interstellar object – 2I/Borisov – both before and after perihelion was a big plus for astronomers!

And now both 1I/’Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov are heading outward again. By the middle of 2020, 2I/Borisov will have zoomed past Jupiter’s distance of 500 million miles (800 million km) on its way back to interstellar space.

But, never fear – now that they’ve spotted the first two interstellar objects – astronomers expect to find more.

Thin circles (planetary orbits) with long, thin curved line passing near orbit of Mars.

2I/Borisov’s orbit. The “2I” stands for “2nd interstellar.” In other words, this is only the 2nd object from a distant solar system known to have swept past our sun. Its perihelion – or closest point to the sun – is just outside the orbit of Mars.

Image via Wikimedia Commons user Drbogdan/NASA.

Bottom line: Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain images of 2I/Borisov – the second known interstellar object – before and after its December 8, 2019, perihelion, or closest point to the sun.
Via NASA

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There are many strange reports in the world of UFO phenomena, and some of the oddest and most frustrating of all are those times when strange craft have allegedly come down to present possible evidence, only to be swept away into the mists of time to be condemned to a limbo of speculation and debate. One of these was dubbed the “Welsh Roswell,” and the weird saga begins in the Berwyn Mountains of Llandrillo, Merionethshire, Wales. Here is a remote and largely uninhabited land of moors, rugged peaks, and grassy fields, the mountains composed of six separate summits, and in 1974 this expanse of wilderness would be ground zero for one of the most intriguing and debated UFO incidents on record.

At approximately 8:30 PM on the evening of January 23, 1974, people in the quaint villages of Llandderfel and Llandrillo, were startled to hear an enormous boom and to feel the earth shake beneath them, and when looking outside the night sky was filled with a brilliant light that seemed to travel over the mountain peaks. It was terrifying for all who saw and felt it, seeming like the end of the world itself was upon them, and there were soon reports of a large fire burning on the mountainside, which was verified by police officers arriving in the area amid floods of panicked emergency calls. In the aftermath of the terrifying event, many of the witnesses, which included constables, would claim that they had actually seen the object that was responsible, described as a bright light moving towards the west with a tail trailing behind it, and there were even those who claimed that they had seen this light explode to rain burning, smoking debris down from the sky. One witness even called in to say that he had seen where the object had crashed, with a police report released by The Daily Post reading:

Saw bright red light, like coal fire red. Large perfect circle. Like a big bonfire. Could see lights above and to the right and white lights moving to bottom. Light changed colour to yellowish white and back again.

Berwyn Mountains

It was thought at the time that this might perhaps be a plane crash, and the Royal Air Force (RAF) scrambled to get a rescue operation out to the area. Authorities and military personnel would scour the whole area, in the end claiming to have found no evidence whatsoever of any plane wreckage or that anything had crashed at all, but witnesses knew what they had seen. Those who saw the actual incident and the aftermath of it have stood by their stories, and for the most part agree that it was not a normal plane. One local nurse named Ms. Evans would say that she had at first thought that it must have been a plane crash, but changed her mind when she saw something very bizarre on the side of the mountain that night, a light that glowed orange, red and yellow, and she says of what she witnessed:

It couldn’t have got there any other way apart from being flown there, so it had to be a UFO of some sort. I’m talking about something that could only have got there by flying and landing. We just saw this huge ball glowing and pulsating on the mountain. Some lights seemed to be scattered around it and I just wish we’d stayed to see what the end result was – whether it would just disappear or fly away. It was moon-like, but without windows or doors. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. I have no idea what it was.

While it was not disputed that there had been a loud noise, tremors, and something seen in the sky, debate has raged ever since on what it could have been and how much the government really knows. Considering there was no wreckage found according to authorities it can’t have been a plane crash, so what was it? That largely depends on who you ask. There have been plenty of witnesses who have claimed that the military came in under cover of night to load the wreckage of a strange craft into military vehicles and drive it off, and there are even claims of seeing the military removing dead humanoid bodies from the crashed ship. The official version of events blames it all on the unlikely explanation that an earthquake that just happened to hit the region right as a comet was flying overhead, or that it had even been a rare phenomenon known as earthquake lights. However, it does not explain what many of the witnesses saw, such as in Ms. Evans’ report. So what happened here?

The one who has perhaps spent the most time looking into the Berwyn Mountain incident is UFO researcher Russ Kellett, who has been investigating the mysterious events for decades. According to him, it was definitely a UFO, saying, “I am convinced there was more than one UFO involved that night. All the evidence that we have uncovered over the years has consistently pointed that way.” He also says that there is an alien underwater base in the area in the waters between North Wales and Liverpool, and evidence to prove the military was up to something on that day. He points to a military operation alleged to have taken place on the very evening of the incident, which was called “Operation Photoflash.” It supposedly involved aircraft dropping at least 80 bright flashes around the North Wales coastline, and Kellet thinks there was something nefarious afoot. He explained in a statement to The Daily Post:

North Wales is deemed a hotspot for UFOs since the Berwyn Mountains incident. I have been looking very closely over this area, and something is definitely going on. There is no doubt there is an alien base under the sea on the North Wales coastline where they build all their crafts. Why would the military want or need to light up the sea with 80 photoflash bombs if they weren’t looking for submersible objects? I think they knew there was a base under the sea and they did it to light up the area so they knew where to attack so they could pull the saucers out. It just seems like too much of a coincidence that this took place on exactly the same day as the Berwyn Mountains incident. I think by doing that, they kicked off one hell of a UFO incident.

Indeed, a document from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency showing that the Coast Guard was warned by the military warning that the flashes that would be going off seems to prove that there was such an operation, but what it had to do with the Berwyn Incident and whether they were doing it to look for underwater alien bases is completely unknown. Nevertheless, Kellet believes that it had everything to do with the incident, as he says there were numerous battleships and planes involved in the exercise, and that they had actually managed to flush three UFOs out of their lair to shoot one down with fighter aircraft after an intense chase over the mountains. It was this UFO that crashed into the Berwyn Mountains, he says, after which it was whisked away by the military and covered up. He even claims to have a map of where the UFO plummeted into the earth, as well as the flight path of the fighters chasing the mysterious craft. According to Fellet, he acquired the map from some witnesses to the otherworldly event, and he explains of it and how it came to be in his possession thusly:

The five saw a strange object and got out to have a look, but the military were there and told them to leave. They moved to a better position and started to take photos. They were all friends and four were in the military during World War Two. Afterwards they started doing their own research and the map is a result of what they found out and shows the flight paths. When I was giving a talk in Bala to a packed audience around the late 1990s, early 2000s, I was given a package by them after and there were these maps in them which they had drawn up based on what they had found out from their research. It was very strange and I was a little bit spooked. I’ve carried the map around for a long time as part of my research.

We are left to wonder if there is anything to this all, and the mystery of what those witnesses really saw in the skies over Wales on that day has raged on. Was this an airplane, a spaceship from another world, an earthquake and comet, or something else? Do the answers lie out in those remote wilds or were they spirited away by the nefarious government or merely never existed at all? It seems that something happened on that fateful night, but just what that was will probably be debated for some time to come, and the case of the “Welsh Roswell” remains a perplexing unsolved mystery.